Love Me Tender

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It’s a funny thing—I can think all right, but I can’t think about the future. Tomorrow doesn’t seem to exist for me any more. There’s only today, and this drowsy, dreamy acceptance.

Most of the time it’s cool here in the shack, the mosquito screens are holding together fairly well, and the bed is a whole lot better than some of the flea pits I’ve been in lately.

And she waits on me hand and foot. Couldn’t be more attentive. Brings me food and drink—all I can stomach—and cleans me up afterwards. Even when I wake up during the night I can see her standing at the door of the room, always watching, always waiting.

But what’s she waiting for? That’s what I ask myself every so often, and when I do…

The swamp buggy had started off life as an ordinary Volkswagen, a beetle convertible, but somebody had extended the axles and fitted pudgy aircraft tyres which spread the vehicle’s weight sufficiently to keep it from sinking in mud. Snow chains had been wrapped around the tyres to provide traction. The buggy was noisy, ungainly and uncomfortable, but it was able to negotiate the narrow tracks that ran through the Everglades, and Joe Massick felt it had been well worth the trouble he had taken to steal it.

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