Wednesday, May 5, 2010 - "The first Heron's Roost was out there,
back...
"The first Heron's Roost was out there,
back when the world was young and flappers said
poop-oopie-doop
I thought of Mary Ire, not just tiddly or squiffy
but downright drunk, saying Just the one house,
sitting up there and looking like something you'd
see on the Gracious Homes Tour in Charleston or
Mobile
"What happened to it?" I asked
"So far as I know, nothing but time and decay," he
said"When John Eastlake gave up on recovering
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the bodies of his twins, he gave up on Duma Key,
tooHe paid off most of the help, packed his
traps, took the three daughters who remained to
him, got in his Rolls-Royce - he really had one -
and drove awayScott Fitzgerald never
wrote, that's what Chris Shannington saidTold me
Eastlake was never at peace until Elizabeth
brought him back here
"Do you think that's something Shannington
actually knows, or just a story he's submariner rolex gotten used
to hearing himself tell?"
"Qui?n sabe?" Wireman saidHe stopped again and
waved toward the southern end of Duma Key"No
overgrowth back thenYou could see the original
house from the mainland and vice-versaAnd so far
as I know, amigo, the house is still there
Whatever's left of it He
reached the kitchen door and looked at me,
unsmiling"That would be something to paint,
wouldn't it? A ghost-ship on dry land
viii
655
He took me into the library with the suit of armor
in the corner and the museum-quality weapons on
the wallThere, on the table next to the
telephone, was a folder marked JOHN
EASTLAKE/HERON'S ROOSTIHe opened it and removed
a photograph showing a house that bore an
unmistakable similarity to the one we were in -
the similarity, say, of first cousinsYet there
was one basic difference between the two, and the
similarities - the same pink and black chanel purse basic footprint for both
houses, I thought, and the same roof of bright
orange Spanish tile - only underlined it
The current Palacio hid from the world behind a
high wall broken by only a single gate - there
wasn't even a tradesman's entranceIt had a
beautiful interior courtyard which few people
other than Wireman, Annmarie, the pool girl, and
the twice-weekly gardener ever saw; it was like
the body of a beautiful woman hidden under a
shapeless piece of clothing
The first Heron's Roost was very differentLike
Elizabeth's mansion in China Town, it featured
half a dozen pillars and a broad, welcoming
verandaIt had a wide drive sweeping boldly up to
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it, splitting what looked like two acres of lawn
Not a gravel drive, either, as Mary Ire had told
me, but rosy crushed shellsThe original had
invited the world inIts successor - El Palacio -
told the world to louis vuitton wallets stay the hell outIlse had seen
that at once, and so had I, but that day we had
been looking from the roadSince then my view had
changed, and with good reason: I had gotten used
to seeing it from the beachTo coming upon it
from its unarmored side
The first Heron's Roost had also been higher,
three stories in front and four in back, so - if
it really did stand on a rise, as Mary had said -
people on the top floor would have had a
breathtaking three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view
of the Gulf, the mainland, Casey Key, and Don
Pedro IslandBut the lawn looked
strangely ragged - unkempt - and there were holes
in the line of ornamental palms dancing like hula
girls on either side of the houseI looked closer
and saw that some of the upper windows had been
boarded upThe roofline had a strangely
unbalanced look, tooIt took a second to realize
whyThere was a chimney omega replica watches at the east endThere
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should have been another at the west end, but
there wasn't
"Was this taken after they left?" I asked"According to Shannington, it
was snapped in March of 1927, before the little
girls drowned, when everyone was still happy and
wellThat isn't dilapidation you see, it's stormdamage
"Which is what?"
"Hurricane season officially starts June fifteenth
down here and lasts about five monthsOut-ofseason
storms with torrential rains and high
windsas far as the old-timers are concerned,
they're all AliceAs in Hurricane AliceIt's
kind of a joke
"You're making that upEsther - the big one in '26 - missed Duma
completely, but the Alice in March of '27 hit it
pretty much dead-onThen it blew inland and
drowned in the GladesIt did the damage you see
in this picture - not much, really; blew down some
palms, knocked out some glass, tore up the tiffany's necklace la
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