The Way to Walker’s Island
You could find your own way to Walker’s Island.
You could drift back to the years between the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, to a Florida few people ever experienced and no one living remembers, and you could hold those years in your heart for decades. You could get one of those folded road maps sold at convenience stores and truck stops, lay it out on the hood of your pickup, and put your finger on the spot where Osceola, Polk, and Okeechobee counties meet. You could push those lines out a little bit, get a sense of where Harris County lies, a dreamscape born of language and imagination.
You’d find Walker’s Island beneath your fingertip. There’s a cypress tree between Black Hammock and the lake, and a grave beside the tree. You’d hear the voice of the man in the grave, trying to get Raymond’s attention, trying to make him listen. Raymond will not, maybe cannot listen. But you’d want him to. So you’d walk with him until he has to. You’d let happen whatever has to happen to make him understand that none but his own choices have ever haunted him, and there is no escaping the consequences of every one of them.
You could find your own way to Walker’s Island.
Or you could let a story take you there.
