We stopped at a street vendor and shared an ice cream, and he told Cleopatra he would try to get by the boat tomorrow morning before the team left for Santiago. He gave her a ball from the game and wrote something on it for her to keep. She put it in her pocket. Then the best pitcher in Cuban baseball (and 15 million Cuban fans would argue he was the best in the world) got on his bike and pedaled home.
It was just around midnight when we arrived in Cojimar. Our cab made the turn around the statue of Ernest Hemingway at the end of the road and stopped at the stairs leading down to the dock. There, under a Cuban moon, the satellite phone rang. Cleopatra handed it to me.
“It’s in Miami!” Willie’s echoing voice yelled out from the phone.
“No, we are in Havana,” I said.
“Not you! It’s in Miami. The bulb! The soul of the light! It’s in a junkyard on the Miami River.”
Well, you can imagine what kind of commotion that caused as we rode back to the ship. Cleopatra wanted to leave immediately, but we had to wait until morning to clear customs. We called Willie Singer back, and he told her the story three more times until she was finally able to believe that the object of her quest was sitting up the Miami River about a mile from the Highbourne Shipping Company dock.
Willie Singer had managed to track down his long-lost relative, Captain Stanley Singer, in Holland, Michigan. He indeed had a paper trail of clippings and shipping receipts for the lens. It had made its way to Australia, where it had been sold to a developer in Cuba in 1957. It seems the bull’s-eye had been shipped to Havana back in the days of gambling, and it had been bought to be used as a prop in a casino. Then Fidel Castro came along, and somehow the lens was smuggled out of the country. It wound up in a warehouse in Nassau and had finally been bought by a marine junk dealer in Miami, who had written to Captain Stanley Singer for information about the light.
Willie had called the junkyard in Miami, and the original owner had died, but his son knew exactly where the lens was stored. Willie didn’t even try to bargain with the junk dealer, just asked the price, wired the money, and told the man someone would pick it up. Talk about the season to be jolly. Two days after the call, the Lucretia sailed under the Christmas decorations on the Brickell Causeway and up to the Highbourne docks, where we were met by Diver in a U-Haul truck. He had flown in ahead of us. Cleopatra, Diver, and I headed up River Road to the junkyard. I was listening to directions from Cleopatra and keeping my eyes peeled as Diver wound through trailer courts, boatyards, and shotgun houses that made up the backwater world of the Miami River.
“Stop!” Cleopatra suddenly screamed from the passenger seat.
Diver slammed on the brakes, and I nearly launched through the windshield. I expected to see a body rolling across the hood or hear the howl of a wounded potcake dog under the wheel of the truck. My heart was pounding.
“Look,” Cleopatra said in a whisper. Her lucid green eyes were wide open, and her lower jaw had dropped. There, in the corner of a junkyard, camouflaged by a collection of lobster traps, cable drums, cargo containers, and rusted cruise-ship lifeboats, was a light tower.
“It’s got to be a prop,” I said, “for a movie or a theme park or something.” But Cleopatra knew better. She was 101 years old and had been on the trail of the soul of the light for the last decade of her life.
“No,” Cleopatra said, shaking her head. “It’s real.”
“I would call dat a helluva Christmas ornament,” Diver said.
“And I know just the tree to top it with,” Cleopatra said.
A decade of searching had ironically brought Cleopatra right to her own backyard. It took the rest of the day to carefully transport the lens from the junkyard to the hold of the Lucretia, but we did it. As we all just stood around the lens staring at it, with a collective sense of disbelief that we had actually found it, Cleopatra said, “I think we were meant to bring in the new millennium with this light.” Our job was obviously far from over.
Cleopatra’s desire to bring in the New Year with the soul of the light gave us less than three weeks to get it done. Needless to say, we were busy little beavers. Solomon knew more about lighthouses than just about anybody alive. He quickly did an inventory of the parts we had and the other things we needed to make the light work. Before we set sail, I called Sammy Raye and Captain Kirk with the news and gave them our “shopping list.” They immediately got to work.
While we rode an uncharacteristic southwest wind to Cayo Loco, Sammy Raye and Kirk had spread the word throughout the world of lighthouse freaks. They had located a petroleum burner, hand pumps, piping fittings, and pressure tanks. Sammy Raye commandeered a young engineer from MIT, who designed and manufactured the missing hardware out of titanium. We now had a space-age lighthouse on our hands.
Drawing upon his childhood memories, Solomon sewed the mantle material into “big socks” like the ones he had helped his mother make.
Upon our arrival at Cayo Loco, Cleopatra learned that the tug pulling the crane she had contracted had broken down and was stuck in Georgetown. It did not faze her. She and Solomon quickly came up with an ingenious rig that used the masts and rigging of the Lucretia to hoist the seven-hundred-pound light from the deck of the ship to the light tower.
Finally, barrels of mercury that Sammy Raye had ordered from West Palm Beach arrived on a chartered supply boat.
We celebrated Christmas quickly under a palm tree near the dock that the kids had decorated, and then on Boxing Day, we exchanged presents and had a wonderful lunch on the beach, but then it was back to work. Progress was rapidly being made. The various rooms and passageways of the giant steel tower were filled with an array of pipes, lines, and tanks that supported the soon-to-be-illuminated bull’s-eye lens above. Sammy Raye added his own personal touch by bringing in a paint contractor to re-create the original paint job on the tower. Cleopatra granted him permission to also spray one of the storage rooms bright pink. Problems presented themselves, and problems were quickly solved. Somewhere in the middle of all this wild activity, on a perfectly clear day, the sound of large airplane engines buzzed in the distance. Out of the sky descended a large silver flying boat.
“Come in, Cowboy,” the voice on the radio crackled.
Willie Singer had finally arrived at Cayo Loco. He was not alone. Off the plane stepped a wild-looking man in Navy dress whites and a perfectly groomed, middle-aged man in a tropical tan suit. I didn’t need a passenger manifest to know I was looking at Waltham and Philippe Parfait. Of course Cleopatra and Willie hit it right off when she told him about meeting Lindbergh and Juan Trippe in Trinidad one carnival, and Parfait was his usual charming self, but there was no time to socialize. Even my promise to finally bring Willie bonefishing had to be put on hold. Willie and Waltham and even Parfait joined in the workforce. Only on the morning of New Year’s Eve, when the final touches of red paint were dabbed on the huge rings that candy-striped the light tower, did we stop. With work pronounced finished by Solomon and Diver, Willie loaded us all up in the Pearl, and Cleopatra got to see Cayo Loco from the air, which had her talking a blue streak.
And so it was that shortly before midnight on the last day of the twentieth century, on a salty piece of land south of the Crooked Island Passage, a bucket brigade of lighthouse nuts with flashlights strapped to their heads wound themselves around the freshly varnished steps of the Cayo Loco Light like a string of Christmas-tree lights. Ix-Nay, Willie, Captain Kirk, Solomon, and Diver, the crew of the Lucretia, local villagers, Sammy Raye, Waltham, Parfait, and I passed jugs of fossil fuel up the stairs to fill the tanks for the first time in nearly fifty years.
Cleopatra Highbourne followed us up along with friends and crew. Everyone crowded into the light room, out on the catwalk, and down the ladder to witness this moment, when the sun slowly dipped below the western horizon.
“Ready, Captain?” Solomon asked.
Cleopatra let out a big sigh, and it was the first time I had ever seen her the slightest bit nervous
. “Aye-aye,” she answered.
With that, Solomon gave the signal to start pumping kerosene. He then dropped the sun curtain from around the bull’s-eye lens, and a shower of tiny rainbows caused by the reflection of the setting sun on the glass prisms lit up the lighthouse walls like a kaleidoscope.
Solomon leaned over the huge tub of mercury in which the bull’s-eye floated. He inched the light left and right with the tip of his index finger.
“Standing by, Captain,” he said. This meant that all that was left was for Cleopatra to strike a match and light the mantles. Solomon handed her a long-stem wooden match and a flint striker.
“I feel as if I am about to light the biggest goddamn firecracker in the world,” Cleopatra said as she struck the match and moved her aging hand toward the mantles.
There was a small pop as the kerosene ignited. The little blue flame transformed into a piercing white glow that was instantly magnified by the beautiful lens.
Solomon released the lock on the winding clock. The cables tightened and groaned as the seven-hundred-pound counterweights began their descent through the light tower, and the light beam shot from the lens out over the open ocean like a meteor streaking across the sky. The soul of the light was sending out its signal, and the Cayo Loco Light was back in business.
The realization that we had pulled off something close to a miracle seemed to temper our emotions, and there was not the usual jubilation of an island party to ring in the New Year, not to mention the new century. We just sat on the beach and built a fire, and Willie strummed his guitar while Diver and Ix-Nay joined in on congas. It was the perfect background music to watch the smooth sweep of the five swords of light cut constantly through the darkness.
“Electricity cannot hold a candle to it,” Cleopatra said.
Through the night, we took turns climbing the tower every two hours to wind up the lens clock until the first signs of the new day arrived from the east.
On the last trip up to the light tower, Cleopatra came with me. She extinguished the light, and I pulled the lens curtains back around the bull’s-eye to keep the sun away. We put the light to bed.
We walked out onto the catwalk and surveyed the scene below us. The panorama of salt, sea, sand, and sky had in effect been our own little planet, which had once again discovered its sun.
It was apparent that the New Year would be ushered in with a perfect tropical day of clear skies and gentle breezes. Below us, the Lucretia sat at anchor amid a fleet of boats that included the Caribbean Soul, an array of smack boats and skiffs, Sammy Raye’s pink plane, and Willie Singer’s Flying Pearl. The dock was deserted except for a few pelicans perched on the pilings, preparing to make their breakfast dives into the schools of pilchers moving along the shore. Cleopatra stood there, surveying things. Then she said, “I was just thinking back to that afternoon when I saw you on the beach for the first time in Tulum. Do you remember?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Do you remember what you said to me that made the difference between me having a polite conversation with what appeared to be a gringo beach bum and inviting you aboard for dinner?”
I had a clear memory of that conversation. It had changed my life forever. “I asked what you were looking for,” I said.
“Did you ever think we wouldn’t find it?”
“Not really,” I answered.
As we talked, a tiny hummingbird banked around the corner of the rail. It rapidly changed directions like a ricocheting bullet, and then it slammed on its air brakes and hovered in place, its small wings a blur of motion not more than two feet from our heads.
“I’ll be damned,” Cleopatra said. “It’s a ruby-throated hummingbird. What are you doing way out here?” she asked the little bird.
With that, the tiny bird accelerated at a right angle and flew through the open hatch into the light room. Discovering that it was trapped behind glass, the little bird began to panic.
I rushed inside and approached the bird, hoping I could gently trap it and take it back outside. Then the most amazing thing happened. It flew directly for me and landed on my arm. It sat there as I walked back outside.
“You know, those little fellas fly all the way from Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia across the Gulf to winter in your old neck of the woods. It is way off course,” said Cleopatra.
The hummingbird on my arm sat as still as a piece of Chinese porcelain, and I could see its small, intense eyes were locked on mine. “I can identify with that feeling,” I said.
“So can I.” And as suddenly as the hummingbird had buzzed into our life, it buzzed out, circling the light tower as if it were collecting its bearings. Then it picked up a heading that we both recognized to be the course to its winter nesting grounds somewhere in Central America.
“He should see the lights of Havana by sunset, and after that, he will steer by the stars,” she said as I imagined such a small but determined creature winging its way over the expanse of the Caribbean Sea, following the only course it knew.
“I wonder if he knows his final destination,” I said.
“Few of us do,” Cleopatra replied. “Few of us do.”
39
Catching the Tail of the Comet
I had done what I had come to do. The Cayo Loco Light and light keeper’s quarters were back to their original—if not better—condition.
Now that it was once again in service, the light had to be tended. To my pleasant surprise, Ix-Nay asked to stay on for a year and join Diver as a light tender. They would train a couple of the local boys who had expressed interest in helping them. Mr. Twain had also become an islander. Since his arrival on Cayo Loco, he had defied the odds of horse aging and looked better at twenty-three than he did at ten. I have heard of some quarter horses living to forty, and that looked to be where he was headed. He seemed to know the island even better than I did. Speaking of me, I was looking like the odd man out. Though I would always have my little cabin and my horse to come back to, I was beginning to feel the urge to move along again. I was not alone.
A week after the light had been rebirthed, all of our friends and guests had left, and Cayo Loco went back to being a quiet place. The light ran as smoothly as a Swiss watch, and my captain gave orders to sail. Cleopatra and I watched the beam disappear in the wake of the Lucretia as we headed for the Old Bahamas Channel. I was returning to Key West.
I was a bit confused at her insistence that we sail to Key West so soon because I thought that we had rebuilt Cayo Loco as her place to retire and watch the light. She said nothing to Solomon or me about the trip other than that she had some things to do.
When we arrived, we anchored off Christmas Tree Island and rowed to the old Singleton Shrimp Company docks, in the heart of town. From there, we walked through the crowds that now made Lower Duval Street seem like a mall, but a few blocks away, old Key West could still be found.
We were met at a dock by an old Cuban man who stood about four feet five inches in a red guayabera shirt and a weathered panama hat. He looked to be damn near as old as Cleopatra. She introduced him as Lupe Cadiz and told me that he was the caretaker for her property.
We climbed into an old wood-paneled station wagon that looked as if it had just come from an antique show.
“I don’t get back here much anymore,” she said.
“When was the last time you were here?” I asked.
“Nineteen eighty-eight,” she told me, as if it had been last week.
We drove the few blocks down Simonton Street, where the laid-back aura of Key West revealed itself by the number of odd characters who made their way down the street on bicycle and on foot. I was taking in the scenery, looking at a row of restored old captain’s mansions that lined Southard Street, when Lupe hung a right into a tiny alley named Spoonbill Lane. It was barely wide enough for the car. The street came to a dead end at what appeared to be a small rain forest. Then I saw the rectangular shape of a widow’s walk perched above the thick hedge of bamboo and bougain
villea.
“Welcome to Highbourne Hill,” Cleopatra said as Lupe got out of the car and swung open a hidden iron gate.
We had only driven a couple of yards down the conch-shell-lined driveway when a house came into view that made the other mansions seem like minor-league architecture.
The house appeared to be ancient, but like the Lucretia, it was perfectly intact. It was obviously designed to combat the heat, salt, and sun, as it was protected by a canopy of palms and banyan trees. It sat behind a massive manicured lawn of Saint Augustine grass. A pathway of slab coral stones led to the expansive front porch, where two giant ship’s anchors were partially sunken into the ground. The house itself looked as if it had been freshly painted yesterday.
Both levels were wrapped with porches and carved railings that were accentuated by a pair of large green pineapples at each corner of the house. Dark green Bahamian top-hung shutters lined the front of the house on both stories, and a squadron of ceiling fans stabbed at the still air.
“This is what I wanted to show you. This is the house I grew up in,” Cleopatra told me. “This is as close to a real home as I ever had, Tully. I am going to stay here a few weeks and gather up the things I want to take back to Cayo Loco, and I would like you to help me.”
That was her first mention of going back to Cayo Loco. Of course I agreed.
Over the next few weeks, I took up residence in the garden cottage near the rear of the property under a sprawling mahogany tree. It was certainly a different introduction to the island than the one I’d had when I came here as a deckhand on a shrimp boat. I liked this version better.
Lupe, his wife, Carmen, and I helped Cleopatra catalog a collection of keepsakes, photos, clippings, letters, and small treasures about her family and her travels. Mostly we boxed them up and hauled them over to the Key West library, where they were added to the archives of the Highbourne family.