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Dolphin Key

Tom Doherty Associates

"Do I get to swim with the dolphins today?" Zachary Haas asked, his bright blue eyes shining with excitement as he looked up from his wheelchair at Mike Fontana.

Mike crouched down even with Zach. "Absolutely."

The boy's wheelchair was parked at the edge of the dolphin pen forged out of the waters around Key Biscayne. Humidity soaked the air and sunshine sparkled off the ripples made by the swiftly moving dolphins, their slick torsos shimmering when they surfaced to breathe.

"Got to feed them first, though," Zach said, and lowered himself out of his wheelchair. A form of meningitis had taken all four of the boy's limbs, leaving stumps where his arms and legs should have been.

Still in a crouch, Mike eased a bucket of fish over Zach's shoulder. The boy crimped his neck to hold tight to the handle and started forward onto a dock left over from the years when Dolphin Key had been a marina. A lagoon now rested where Key Biscayne residents had once stored their boats in private slips before Hurricane Andrew had struck the island in 1992. Fences extending all the way to the bottom rose three feet out of the water, joining a trio of man-made jetties in isolating the pair of dolphin pens. Three lime-colored buildings with peeling paint stood fifty yards from the grassy shoreline, up a slight natural hillside.

"I hope he's hungry," Zach said, propelling himself along on his stumps as Mike kept pace with him.

They reached the end of the dock and Mike lowered Zach to the floating platform where Dolphin Key's head trainer, Gus Anton, was waiting. The boy angled his entire body to the right to ease the bucket off his shoulder onto the wet wood. An intern named Martha Wallick sat down on the dock behind them, notebook in hand, and Mike nodded to Gus, who leaned over and clicked his fingers in the water to call the dolphin over.

Directly across the lagoon, two more morning sessions atop identical platforms had just gotten underway as well, the scene looking very much the same. Trainer, therapist, and dolphin joined in the common goal of helping the child who sat amidst them. The goal might have been the same, but the cases never were. Autism on Platform 1, word and speech recognition on Platform 2, and Zach here on 3.

"Good girl, George," Mike said, as Gus tossed a small herring to the dolphin who had just popped her head above the surface. Then, to Zach, "Your turn."

Zach anchored a pair of tongs between his neck and shoulder and leaned over toward the wet platform surface. Keeping his head cocked to control them, he lowered the tongs into the bucket and snagged a capelin that he promptly lowered over the water. George opened her mouth gratefully and Zach eased up the pressure on the tongs enough to release the fish straight in.

"Bull's-eye!" Mike complimented, and Gus Anton signaled George to spin in the air directly before the boy.

Zach was already stabbing the tongs into the bucket for another fish. He pulled out a squid this time and dropped it tentacles first toward George's mouth. He missed but the dolphin gobbled it from the surface, and Gus signaled George to wave her flipper as she backpedaled in the water.

Zach shifted his shoulders together as if he were clapping, giggling with appreciation. The tongs slipped to the platform in the process, but he quickly retrieved them and plunged them back into the bucket.

"He likes herring best," the boy said, after George swallowed a second and a third he'd plucked out nimbly.

"She," Mike corrected. "Want to throw her a ball next?"

Zach looked at the dolphin, then nodded.

Mike reached behind him and grabbed a light rubber ball out of a milk crate that had been waiting for him on the platform. He pushed backward to widen the distance from Zach and then tossed the ball lightly forward. The boy leaned over and trapped it between his neck and jaw, then twisted his entire body to the right. The ball sailed sideways, hitting the water a foot in front of George.

"Hey," Mike said, beaming, "got it the first time today. Now let's see how you catch."

Before them, George retrieved the ball and tossed it back with a flip of her nose. The ball landed just short of Zach and plopped onto the platform with a small splash. The boy leaned over and squeezed it between his head and shoulder.

"Girls can't throw," he said.

"Not as good as you."

"Can we swim now?"

"You're the boss."

Mike slipped gently into the lagoon first and then eased Zach in after him. He made sure the boy's yellow life belt was tight and then cradled Zach in against his chest before paddling away from the platform.

"What should we try first?" Mike asked.

"Foot push!"

"You got it," Mike said and leaned back. On the platform Gus fed George a fish and gave her the proper hand signal.

In the next instant, Mike felt the dolphin's powerful nose jam up against his foot and begin to push. Immediately he was being propelled backward through the water, Zach squealing with delight in his arms.

George circled them back to the platform where Gus was ready with another snack.

"How about a ball push next?" Mike suggested.

"Good idea!"

"So let's go for it."

"Here it comes," said Martha, the intern, from the platform.

She put her notebook down and tossed the rubber ball out into the water. Mike gave Zach enough slack to crimp his body over and capture it, just as he had on the platform. The boy maneuvered the ball against his chest, and George approached from the front, her nose riding over the water enough to lodge against the ball. Again she pushed her passengers in a circle that ended back at the platform in cadence with a soft chorus of whistle blows from Gus.

"I want to get in the water with George," Zach said, as the dolphin rose eagerly before Gus for another fish.

"You are."

"I mean swim in the water with her. For real. On my own. Like other kids."

Mike looked up at Gus, who was glaring at the birds that had gathered atop the railing behind them, waiting to steal whatever fish eluded George. Mike heard him mutter something in German under his breath.

"How about next time?" Mike asked Zach.

"You promise?"

"So long as you're patient with me."

Back on shore, Mike found Jacardi Benoit standing under a shaded canopy just past the dock.

"I thought we could have lunch today, mombo," Jacardi said, his crossed arms looking like black bands of iron coiled over his chest.

Mike grabbed a towel from the picnic table and draped it around his wet shoulders. "How about take-out from the Oasis?"

Jacardi wrinkled his nose. "That Cuban stuff'll burn a hole in your stomach so big you won't need the one in your ass anymore, mahn."

"You get what you pay for."

"Could that be some degree of fiscal responsibility I just heard?"

"No, just bad taste in food. A problem I've got."

Jacardi frowned. "One of many, mombo: I had another look at your books."

"You do that for all your clinical psychology students?"

"Only the ones that got no sense about their money."

Jacardi Benoit had come with his parents from Haiti to Florida in a sailboat before the practice became commonplace. His mother was a voodoo princess who painted his forehead with chicken blood every night to chase away the evil spirits she was afraid might follow the family to their new land. Jacardi had learned to speak English and gone on to graduate from high school and then college. His mother credited the chicken blood, and Jacardi, who was every bit as tall as Mike but with muscles that looked sculpted of clay, didn't argue. Later he had become a clinical psychology professor at a local community college, where he met Mike for the first time in class.

Jacardi took off his fisherman's cap and mopped the black dome of his head, which was shiny with sweat. "I think maybe you need to come with me to the old gris-gris ladies so they can make a spell, mombo."

"You talking voodoo or accounting?" Mike asked. "Mombo" meant voodoo prince, which Jacardi started calling him after witnessing the kinds of things that went on at Dolphin Key, pretending to credit the results to magic rather than motivation.

"Somebody out there must be sticking pins in a Mike Fontana doll to put you in the mess you're in," said the big Haitian.

"I've got a lousy financial advisor, that's all. Made a string of bad investments."

"What investments, mombo? You sold everything you ever had to keep this place going, including your house. What's your little one think of that?"

"Joe likes it here just fine."

"Doesn't miss having a real roof over his head, does he? Likes living in a shack?"

Jacardi gazed skeptically toward the ramshackle trio of buildings that rimmed the area above the shoreline. Their clapboard roofs and shingled sides were bleached by the salt and the sun. Inside was the center's equipment, office, and, as of late, home for Mike and his son. A home dwarfed by the endless rows of high-rise condominums that continued to sprout up along Key Biscayne's shoreline. Dolphin Key was located in Bill Baggs State Park, a half mile past the last of the high-rises, around a bend that provided the feeling of a cove and offered a clear view of the Cape Florida Lighthouse.

Mike slapped Jacardi on a shoulder that felt like stripped steel. "That's why I eat Cuban sandwiches at places like the Oasis, big man," he said and headed toward the middle structure.

Jacardi followed him up a wheelchair ramp into the building, where Mike wiped his feet off on a green mat soaking in a tub of fresh water. "This ain't funny, mombo. I've been through the figures and they don't lie. You got to come up with a better way of doing business. You don't charge enough for your sessions, and you give too many scholarhips. You got to become more like the centers in Key Largo. Think about it, mahn."

"I have."

"How many trainers you got on full-time?"

"Five."

"What about therapists?"

"Four right now, including me."

"I don't include you."

"Look, Dolphin Key isn't like the centers in Key Largo, big man."

"No, they're trying to stay in business. You're barely clearing enough money to feed these creatures of yours. You gonna go hungry, while they're still stuffing their noses." Jacardi held Mike's stare for a moment. "Listen to me. These people who don't pay, they taking slots away from people who can."

"And what happens to the ones who can't?"

"I don't know. Maybe they buy a dog instead. I'm not trying to save them, mombo. I'm trying to save you."

"I'll figure something out."

"Maybe I already have."

Mike tensed, knew what was coming next. "You've been talking to Gus again."

"Told me he doesn't like those birds that've been hanging around. Told me he was going to shoot them."

"Gus tends to exaggerate."

"Know what else he told me? He got this public swim thing all figured out. Therapy sessions in the morning, then the swims in the afternoon. A hundred twenty-five dollars per person and maybe forty, fifty people per day. Do the math."

"You shouldn't be listening to Gus."

"Without him, you wouldn't have this place, mahn, and two of the dolphins are his. I figure that gives him a right to express his opinion. You don't listen and maybe he shoots you instead of the birds that get him so upset."

"And what gives you the right to express your opinion?"

"I got a lot invested in you, too. Time instead of money. I don't want to see it go to waste."

"It's not."

"I know you're not listening. But there's something else I've got to say you need to listen to ..."

"It'll have to wait," Mike said and started on again, his feet squishing against the indoor-outdoor carpet.

"But, mombo ..." Jacardi stopped and snickered.

"Something wrong?"

"That awful fish smell."

"It doesn't bother you when you're eating them."

"That's because I don't have to see the creatures before they're thrown in the pot."

Mike walked ahead of Jacardi into a kitchen area complete with a trio of refrigerators and dual chrome sinks. There was lots of shelving and counter space as well, much of it filled with buckets and pails of all sizes and compositions. Magic marker boards lined the walls, one board for each of the six dolphins, carefully detailing exactly what each ate every single day.

"Hi, Jilly," Mike greeted a little girl standing between a pair of interns near the window. The interns, mostly marine biology students, rotated on a semester basis and were invaluable at Dolphin Key. Mike hesitated to consider how he might otherwise pay for the same services that were good only for class credits and a Dolphin Key T-shirt now.

The seven-year-old girl turned and squirmed shyly.

Mike crouched down in front of her as Jacardi hovered back near the doorway. "You ready to feed the dolphins, buddy? You ready to feed Paul?"

She nodded.

"Okay, let's get Paul's food. Do you remember where it is?"

Jilly hesitated, then nodded before starting off toward the refrigerators.

"She has Williams syndrome," Mike told Jacardi.

"Which means?"

"She has trouble sequencing thoughts, and recalling anything poses a tremendous challenge."

"Why doesn't she have any of the physical abnormalities usually associated with Down's?"

"Because Williams doesn't genetically alter the appearance."

Jacardi nodded from the doorway, impressed. "Looks like I taught you pretty well, mombo."

Jilly stopped in front of the refrigerators.

"We're going to feed Paul today," Mike reminded, kneeling alongside her. "Which refrigerator is Paul's food in?"

Jilly's face tightened in concentration. She squirmed slightly again before moving to the first refrigerator and tugging it open. Inside was a metal bucket of food complete with a name tag taped upon it: PAUL.

"Very good, Jilly!" Mike said and squeezed the little girl's shoulders tenderly. "Now, get Paul's —"

He didn't have to complete the sentence; Jilly had already reached in and grasped the bucket with both hands.

"What do we do next, Jilly?" he asked instead.

The girl's answer was to lug the bucket toward the sink and lower it to the ground. Mike dragged a stool over for her to climb up onto.

"That's right! We've got to wash Paul's fish before we can feed him."

"I really got to talk to you about something else important, mombo," Jacardi said from the doorway as Mike lifted the bucket of fish to the counter and then helped Jilly onto the stool. Before he was ready, she had grabbed a squid from the bucket.

"What's that?" Mike asked her.

She didn't reply, holding the squid out toward the faucet instead.

Mike cupped his hand around hers, as he turned on the water. "Check the temperature. Make sure it's right."

Jilly ran her palm under the water and, satisfied, started the squid toward the faucet.

"What's it called?" Mike asked her again as the water ran over it. "It's a squid, isn't it? It's a squid."

"Squid!" Jilly repeated.

Mike took it from her grasp, so she could reach into the bucket for something else, emerging with a pair of herring this time.

"How many fish?" he asked her.

Jilly was already washing them.

"How many fish, Jilly?" Mike repeated. He touched one of the herring and then the other. "One, two ... Now, how many fish, Jilly?"

She continued the washing, not seeming to follow. Then, suddenly, she turned toward him.

"Two!"

"That's right! Very good!"

Jacardi shook his head from the doorway. "You the one needs to learn how to count, mombo."

Before Mike could respond, his son, Joe, came dashing into the kitchen. The sleeves of his wet suit dangled by his knees and his sneakers squeaked as he ran, his long hair flying in all directions.

"Crandon Park Beach, Dad!" the boy said. "We got one beached!"

Mike signaled the interns to take his place at the sink with Jilly and turned back toward Jacardi Benoit. "I'll meet you at the truck."

"Me, mahn?"

"There someone else standing there?"

"Why I got to help you save another of these creatures?"

"Because Joe can't drive the truck and I can't spare anyone at the center," Mike said, drawing even with Jacardi. "You coming?"

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Excerpted from Dolphin Key by Jon Land. Copyright © 1999 Jon Land. Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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