A spooky emptiness lay over the rubble and deserted pavement like pervasive evil, like the waiting for something that might never arrive, but if it did you’d regret it forever. Out of sight, far away, someone rode a two-stroke dirt bike. The staccato engine would fade, become loud, then drop away, become loud again. I wondered if the rider was testing plowed-over tabletops and gnarly berms, the canted valleys of the garbage dump, flying wheelies above coiled chain-link fence, performing spin-turns on trash dunes, bottoming out in the pallets. Free to ride. We all find freedom in different ways. My search took me beyond piles of dead Australian pines, rusted-out refrigerator compressors, truck wheels and loose tires where the pavement curves to Robbie’s Marina. I found broken, rusty bikes and a dingy pair of metal-wheeled roller skates. Rear-window louvers from an old Camaro. The tramp had moved his lean-to away from the road, deeper into the mangrove hammock. A tropical hobo’s version of a little grass shack.
