Delray Beach, America’s Rehab Capital
It is impossible to grow up in America without repeated exposure to cripplingly addictive drugs
The Florida Shuffle ain’t what it used to be
Do you have a lighter?
Florida looked as you imagine. A seagull jerked its reptilian eyes around an axis of scrawny neck: noon, ten o’clock, three o’clock, noon. It squeaked and whined to the air, which was 75 degrees Fahrenheit; and to the water, which was a charming turquoise; and to the sky, which of course was azure; and to the trees, which, naturally, were palms with trembling fronds; and to the girls, who lay on their stomachs in, indeed, bikinis, reading thin paperbacks; and to the man, whose hair was the white of retirement age. The man sat in a blue polyester folding chair, a few yards from the girls. He faced not the ocean but down the endless beach to the south, where the sun lay. The sun made the man’s fat silver wristwatch and gold baptism chain glitter, and it made knives dance on his sunglasses, and it deepened the caramel of his skin. “Ladies,” he called over, his voice tight and gritty with a lilt from Queens, or perhaps Long Island. “Do you mind if I play my radio? I won’t make it loud.” …
