1
On the afternoon of September 20th, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Shores, Florida. The hitchhiker, who reminded Figgo of Danny DeVito, asked for a lift to the interstate. Figgo agreed to take him there after finishing an errand.
The distance to the highway wasn’t far, and the hitchhiker would have walked if not for the pounding thunder and wild lightning. As a boy he had witnessed a neighbor’s gelded llama struck to the ground by a bolt that lit up the small Wisconsin pasture like Lambeau Field. The llama had survived the shock, but from then on yipped day and night like an addled collie. The hitchhiker shared this anecdote with Dale Figgo, who agreed that lightning was a thing to be avoided.
Soon they entered a manicured subdivision called Sanctuary Falls, where Figgo eased his Dodge Ram 1500 quad cab to the curb and told the hitchhiker what was about to happen. The hitchhiker placed his backpack on the floorboard and pivoted warily toward the back seat, where he saw an assault rifle, a can of bear spray, a sex doll made to look like the lower torso of a woman, and a pile of clear Ziploc bags. Each bag contained a handful of what appeared to be beach sand and a garishly printed flyer. Reading upside down, the hitchhiker saw that one of the words was “JEWISH.” Figgo began sorting and stacking the bags on the console.
“I’ll drive,” he said. “You throw.”
“Do what?”
“The sand is for weight. Also, so the baggies won’t blow away.”
The hitchhiker said, “I’m pretty sure ‘Holocaust’ isn’t spelled with a
k.”
“And I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell you to proof-teach my business.”
Slowly Figgo began driving up and down the tidy streets, the hitchhiker reluctantly lobbing the slur-filled Ziplocs onto driveways of multimillion-dollar properties lush with bougainvilleas, black olive trees, and hybrid palms.
When the hitchhiker noticed a shamrock painted on one of the mailboxes, he asked Figgo if they were in the right neighborhood.
“Never question the mission,” Figgo said.
“What mission exactly?”
“Community outreach, dumbass. To enlight the motherfuckin’ citizenry!”
“ ‘Enlight’?” the hitchhiker said. “For real?”
Figgo reached across and popped him in the jaw.
“What the hell?” cried the hitchhiker, rubbing his chin. It was the first time he’d been slugged by a driver. Propositioned? Sure. Robbed? Too many times to count.
But never once punched—and he’d thumbed his way from coast to coast.
Figgo said, “You want a ride to 95 or not?”
The rain was falling harder, the thunder more ominous.
“Why’d you hit me? For Christ’s sake, I’m old enough to be your dad.”
“Just keepin’ it real,” said Figgo, grinning. “That’s what I do. My top forte, you might say.”
What’s wrong with this fuckwhistle? wondered the hitchhiker.
After all the bagged tracts were distributed, Figgo made a phone call to somebody named Jonas and reported that the run had been completed without incident.
But then, as Figgo was navigating an exit from Sanctuary Falls, a gangly, middle-aged blond man stepped into the road. He wore orange Crocs and a terrycloth robe, and he was clutching one of Figgo’s baggies. Heatedly he waved both arms, signaling for the pickup truck to halt. The hitchhiker perceived that this particular citizen was rejecting Figgo’s version of enlightenment.
As soon as Figgo hit the brakes, the man in the robe lurched closer. Figgo grabbed the can of bear spray from the back seat.
“Aw, don’t,” the hitchhiker said.
“Self-defense. You’re my fuckin’ witness.”
“Seriously, the dude’s wearin’ a damn robe.”
“So did Mike Tyson!”
Figgo rolled down his window. The man in the street was cursing in a wheezy, irate voice. He called Figgo a lowlife racist and scumbag Nazi. Then he reared back and hurled the plastic bag, which, because of the sand, made a
thwap when it bounced off Figgo’s forehead.
“Game on!” Figgo crowed, aiming the nozzle of the bear spray at the maniac.
But when he pulled the trigger, nothing happened, not even a squirt. The hitchhiker reached over and snatched away the can.
“It’s empty, bro,” he said.
“Viva,” Figgo muttered. “That stupid bitch.”
The angry homeowner was now endeavoring to spit, through a slanting sheet of rain, at Figgo’s prized Ram. When Figgo stomped on the accelerator, the man tried to jump out of the way but ended up splayed across the hood of the quad cab—robe unhitched, Crocs airborne, the back of his skull spidering the windshield.
“Stop the truck!” the hitchhiker shouted.
“No way.” Figgo sped up and began to weave erratically.
“You killed him, man!”
“He ain’t dead. He’s hangin’ on like a damn gecko.”
Figgo made a screeching swerve and the pedestrian slid off the hood, landing in a heap on a bike path. Figgo sped away, nervously checking the rearview.
“How come that asshole got so pissed?” he muttered when they were back on A1A. “He sure didn’t look Jewish. Do they even make blond Jews?”
“Let me out,” the hitchhiker pleaded.
“See what he did to my truck?”
It wouldn’t have been necessary for Figgo to hit-and-run the man if only the bear spray had worked. The container was empty because Figgo’s tenant, a woman named Viva Morales, had in a moment of panic mistaken it for Raid and blasted the blinding contents at a cockroach, rendering the townhouse apartment she and Figgo shared uninhabitable for thirty-six hours. Thrifty by nature, Figgo had saved the bear spray can, trusting it was good for another shot or two.
“That shit ain’t cheap,” he groused to the hitchhiker.
“Seriously, I’ll get out now.”
“Chill, brah. That old geezer’s fine,” Figgo said.
“You need to call 911.”
“No way. He flipped me the finger when we took off.”
The hitchhiker, who had observed no such gesture from the man crumpled on the bike path, fell silent. Soon the fleeing pickup truck got stuck in traffic, inching through the downpour.
“So, where you headed for?” Figgo asked.
“Austin, Texas.” The hitchhiker gathered his backpack onto his lap, prepping for departure.
“What’s the woke situation down in Austin? I heard it was bad.”
“Austin’s cool,” the hitchhiker answered. “Great music.”
“But mostly country, right?”
“All kinds of music.”
“That rap shit, too?”
“Hip-hop, sure.”
“See, that’s what I’m gettin’ at. The rotten lib-tards, that’s the whole crust of the problem.”
“Ah.” The hitchhiker stole another worried glance at the big gun on the back seat.
“Sorry about the punch in the face,” Figgo said.
“Yeah, I’m not sure why you did that.”
“Wanna make some money?”
“Thanks, but I’m set,” the hitchhiker said.
Traffic had come to a stop. The hitchhiker figured there was an accident somewhere up ahead.
Figgo said, “It’s easy work. I’ll pay ya fifty bucks cash.”
“To do what?”
“Stuff more baggies. I got the carpy tuna bad, so I could use some help.” Figgo extended one hand for inspection. It appeared totally functional.
“Plus there’s some people you should meet,” Figgo went on. “Good dudes. Colleagues of mine.”
He pronounced it “collig-yoos.”
“We’re workin’ up somethin’ so freaking big it’ll blow your mind. You can crash at my place, downstairs on the sleeper sofa.”
“Sweet,” said the hitchhiker, a millisecond before he flung open the door, rolled out of the truck, and ran.
The flight to Orlando was packed. Twilly Spree felt lucky to score an aisle seat. The man and woman sharing the row told him they were going to Disney World for their honeymoon. At first Twilly thought they were joking, the Magic Kingdom being as romantic as a food court. But it turned out the young couple wasn’t kidding. Twilly felt bound to warn them that they were doomed to return to Disney every time their family expanded, the woman seeming to absorb this forecast with less cheer than her husband. They were a gregarious duo, however, with numerous questions about Florida in general. Was it safe? What about the alligators? When’s the next space launch? Where’s the best place to swim with a manatee?
His patience soon sapped, Twilly faked an asthmatic episode and turned away to drag on a realistic-looking inhaler. It was a prop he carried at all times in public. Across the aisle sat an attractive woman in her early forties, auburn hair pinned up. She was wearing tortoiseshell glasses and reading a
New Yorker magazine, which made Twilly self-conscious about the
USA Today on his lap. Seeing no wedding band on the woman’s ring finger, he uncharacteristically made a stab at conversation.
“Do you live in Orlando?” he asked, pocketing the mock inhaler.
“Hush,” she said firmly but gently, as if speaking to a child in church. She didn’t look up from the article she was reading.
Twilly wondered if she’d purchased the magazine on the trip or brought it from home. In any case, her surgical concentration on the contents was alluring.
He folded his newspaper into the seat pocket and opened a book on his iPad. It was a biography of a poet he’d never heard of, a supposedly volcanic talent who remained obscure and unappreciated until his tragic death at age thirty-two. Twilly assumed that the misunderstood soul had taken his own life, but it turned out that he’d perished in an electric skateboard accident after partying all night with Lululemon models. Death by suicide would have been a cliché, his biographer wrote solemnly in the foreword, and the rebellious young poet was a sworn enemy of clichés. Evidently, skating into the path of a Coors truck on the Pacific Coast Highway had certified the stature of his untamed genius. Twilly deleted the remainder of the book, having no idea how it had gotten downloaded in the first place. Perhaps the prankster had been Janine, back in happier times.
The flight got bumpy, and the honeymooners clutched each other’s hands. Twilly waited for the auburn-haired woman across the aisle to put down the magazine, which the plane’s bouncing would have made impossible to read. After a time she gave up trying, took off her glasses, and closed her eyes.
“You okay?” Twilly asked.
“What?”
“I’ve got a Valium if you need it.”
“Behave,” the woman said, still with her eyes shut.
The pilots were weaving around one of those towering mid-Florida thunderstorms. Twilly could see deep purple clouds through the aircraft’s windows on one side, bright and deceiving sunshine through the other.
“I think we’re in a holding pattern,” he said to the woman.
“The plane, you mean.”
“Yes. Of course.”
A few minutes later, the woman said, “So, I actually have your book.”
“Wow, which one?”
“
How to Let Happiness Find You.”
“And?”
“Did nothing for me,” the woman said. “Completely useless.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Are you working on a new one?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Good,” the woman said, putting her glasses back on.
Twilly had never written a book, and had never heard of the one she was complaining about. Still, he was intrigued that she thought she recognized him from a photograph on a jacket flap—and without seeming to even glance in his direction.
“I’m not qualified to do a self-help guide,” he said.
“No kidding.”
“Do you want your money back?”
The woman sighed and said no. He liked her attitude. She wasn’t going to smile, no matter what.
“Was that albuterol?” she asked.
“Sorry, what?”
“Your inhaler.”
“Oh. Right,” Twilly said, patting his pocket. “For my asthma.”
“I had a husband who used that stuff. Kept him up all night.”
“That’s when I do my best writing.”
“Maybe switch to cocaine,” the woman said.
The plane found smooth air again, on final approach, and the young newlyweds sitting beside Twilly began reciting one of the lesser-known Psalms. He was impressed by the couple’s courage to pray out loud in front of Florida-bound strangers. After the landing, he allowed the devout duo to file out ahead of him and—not wishing to further annoy the cool, pretty woman across the aisle—remained in his seat until all the passengers had debarked.
Right away Twilly noticed that the woman had left her
New Yorker behind, so he put it in his backpack before leaving the plane. On the Uber ride from the airport he took out the magazine and smiled when he saw an address label on a bottom corner of the cover; she wasn’t just a casual reader, she was a
subscriber.
Copyright © 2025 by Carl Hiaasen. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
