If you come into East Point from the east,
from Carrabelle, you see a lot of seafood houses. A lot of bags of Apalachicola oysters
are shipped from seafood houses in East Point, and a lot of shucked oysters are shucked
there.
There used to be an oyster bar on a lagoon there, inside the breakwater,
where you could buy oysters-on-the-half-shell and eat them on the deck, overlooking
the water, but the last time I stopped there it had been replaced by an expensive
restaurant with Cinzano awnings on the deck and food--blackened tilapia--that was
big on presentation. And the oysters were from Louisiana, because taking oysters
out of Apalachicola Bay was restricted, owing to an algae bloom.
Old Folks
remembered stopping there when he moved from Delray Beach to Panama City, in 1988.
No, make that Thanksgiving, 1987.
It was cold.
The heater in Old
Folks's Datsun B210 with 120,000 miles on it had started leaking, so he stubbed it
off, and had no heater.
He wore an L. L. Bean wool-lined "Baxter State"
parka and had a lap robe over his knees.
He had on a cashmere scarf and a
Greek fisherman cap with a Sony Walkman headset over the cap, like a nigger airplane
pilot.
The car had no radio.
* * *
The oysters were fat and salty.
He'd been living in South Florida
for ten years and was oyster-deprived.
* * *
Ed Harris was playing Senator Glenn in The Right Stuff, on HBO. Now
he's playing in Empire Falls, on HBO.
Brenda still calls him Senator
Glenn.
Old Folks thought of him crashing a bicycle with beer in the basket
at The Springs, in Pollock. The beers exploding.