The Way to Walker’s Island
You could find a 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 had to happen until he finally understood that none but his own choices had ever haunted him, and the only one who had ever betrayed him was he himself.
You could find a way to Walker’s Island.
Or you can let the story take you there.
