American Tropic - By Thomas Sanchez Page 0,2

is a man wearing a sun-faded seersucker suit that hangs loosely on his angular frame. His sleep-deprived reddened eyes stare intensely at the console’s flickering red and green lights. The lines etched deeply into the man’s face convey a hard life lived. He agitatedly fingers the bearded stubble of his unshaven chin, then clamps on a pair of battered earphones over the unruly hair of his head. He pulls in close to the metal stub of a microphone on the table before him. His lips loosen with a quiver as if about to deliver a kiss to an unseen lover. His melodious voice suddenly cracks open the morning silence with a basso swagger.

“Rise and shine, all of you in the Florida Keys about to lose your paradise. Rub the stars out of your eyes and take your brains out of your shoes. Today’s temps are soaring up to ninety-nine degrees, too hot to wear your own sweat, let alone your lover’s sweat. This is Noah Sax, your very own Truth Dog, broadcasting from international waters over Conch Pirate Radio offshore from Key West. Key West, Cayo Hueso, Island of Bones—that was the name the early Spanish explorers gave the place when they found it littered with nothing but the bleached remains of the hounded, deserted, and luckless. The Spaniards beat it. Key West, America’s southernmost continental point, where the Overseas Highway ends after hopping across bridges linking forty-three islands on its one-hundred-thirty-mile run down from Miami. Key West, last American island, end of the road at the famous sign, MILE MARKER ZERO. As the poet once wrote, nowhere to go from mile zero except to swim with the sharks and barracuda. Which is where I am, floating with the sharks and barracuda far out at sea, where the feds can’t stop my pirate radio beaming the truth across the open ocean.

“Nowhere does the bell of accountability ring out so loudly as here in the Florida Keys. This fragile ecosystem is dotted with coral-and-mangrove-entwined islands guarded by the third-largest coral reef in the world and the only living coral reef in North America. The fragrant salty air that you breathe here so freely must be defended at all costs, before these islands are covered over in the oil-pollution slime that greases the implacable wheel of man-made environmental destruction. Don’t fool with Mother Nature or Mother Nature will fool with you!”

Noah’s words stop. He grabs a rum bottle from next to his microphone and takes a swig. He swipes the liquid from his lips and continues.

“I’m out here on the open sea in the sun, unlike Internet bloggers hunkered down in solitary dark holes. My old-school live radio is stand-up accountability. I’m the only eco-shock jock broadcasting at sea, letting you, my irreverent audience, roar your disgust against the destruction of the environment. Your words are bullets, so aim straight. Call Noah now, punch me with the power of your pain and pissed-off kisses. If you’re a cynic, comic, or crusader, join the chorus of the committed. Dial Five-Five-C-O-N-C-H. Act out, act up, but act. I’m here for you. I’m a lightning rod, shoot me your lightning. Rock the world with thunder. Show me your rage!”

Noah clutches the microphone in his trembling hand and holds it close to his mouth. He leans back in his chair, takes a deep breath, and switches to a mellow tone.

“While you’re getting ready to put your sweet lips to the phone, let me serve you a hot cup of morning amore, get you in the mood with a beat brewed by our Cuban neighbors just ninety miles across the ocean.”

Noah punches one of the buttons on the broadcast console, starting a CD player wired to a pair of battered wooden speakers. A full-orchestra salsa beat from the speakers fills the pilothouse with an insistent throb. Noah closes his eyes and sways to the seductive rhythm. He gets up from his chair. His arms reach out to an invisible partner, and he dances in a hip-strutting glide around the pilothouse.

Outside Noah’s anchored trawler, the sound of salsa cuts sharp as a musical knife across the ocean’s surface. With nothing to stop it, the music can be heard in the far distance to where a raft drifts. The raft is constructed from scraps of wood crudely lashed with fraying rope. Its sail is a patchwork of fabric stitched together. The ragged sail flaps forlornly in the slight breeze from a broken wood mast. Strewn across the raft are