Stiltsville: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

said.
    “Get in the boat,” said Dennis.
    Marse looked away, toward Miami, then ahead at the stilt house, blue with evening. When finally she swam to the boat, her stroke had returned and her breathing was even. She sat at the prow without drying herself off, and Kyle sat beside her. They passed a beer back and forth and I watched them from the stern, holding my towel with both arms around my chest, clutching the solid, loyal edges of myself.
    D ennis’s father, Grady, had built his family’s stilt house in 1945, when Dennis was just two years old. The idea came from a local fisherman named “Crawfish” Eddie Walker, who constructed a shack in shallow water in Biscayne Bay and became legendary for the fresh chowder he sold to passing boaters. Grady had friends who followed Eddie’s lead. By the time Grady secured the funds and manpower to build his own shack, several more had sprouted, including a men’s club called the Quarterdeck. By 1960, Stiltsville comprised twenty-seven shacks, but then the Quarterdeck burned in a fire and hurricane Donna leveled all but six of the other buildings. Many of the squatters, including Grady, rebuilt, and the new houses were cottage-style, larger and sturdier, designed to withstand all but the most devastating squall. Then in 1965, responding to complaints from Key Biscayne residents who claimed that Stiltsville ruined their ocean view, the state of Florida issued private leases for plots of submerged land. After hurricane Betsy hit that year, fourteen houses were left standing, and the state stopped issuing new leases and banned commercial ventures altogether. Grady was, by this point, Stiltsville’s semi-official mayor—he kept the paperwork up-to-date and mediated grievances between stilt house owners and the state, or between owners and each other.
    Dennis was twenty-six years old when I met him, same as me. He’d lived in Miami all his life, as I’d lived in the Atlanta area all of mine. After graduating from college, he’d worked for a sailing company that hauled tourists on sunset cruises. He’d lived briefly with a girl named Peggy on a yawl moored at Dinner Key marina, but she’d grown weary of the waterlogged life and moved to Boca Raton to become a travel agent. He’d missed her for a long time. He’d quit his job and spent six months in Spain with his high school friend Paul, touring and living on fried fish from street vendors. Then he’d returned to Miami to attend law school, and moved into a small apartment on Miami Beach. He liked school but wasn’t crazy about the prospect of being a lawyer; he hoped an affection for law would come with the diploma. He knew Marse was after him and he liked her and considered having sex with her, but the thought of what would happen afterward made him feel unkind. He spent at least one weekend a month alone at the stilt house. On land, he studied in diners and took long drives at night, often ending up in the lounge of the Key Largo airport, where they served the best conch fritters in the state. Sometimes he thought about buying a house in Coconut Grove or Coral Gables—he couldn’t imagine living anywhere except South Florida—but he made no promises to himself. He liked his small beachfront apartment. He kept his bicycle unchained on the balcony and walked barefoot to the corner store. Once a week, he paid an upstairs neighbor five dollars to give him an hour-long Spanish lesson.
    That night at the stilt house, Kyle and I set the table for dinner while Marse changed clothes and Dennis used the boat radio to check the weather. The boats rocked against the dock; the blue-black water heaved beneath the house. The lobsters’ tails ticked against the steel insides of the giant cooking pot, slowing from desperate to resigned. I could taste and feel salt on my lips and skin. When we were finished, Kyle stared out the kitchen window toward land, where lights along the shoreline flashed like sequins.
    “I’ll be sorry to