The Tour

…Over the last three decades no city has done crime as well as Miami. Since the 1970s the city has virtually made an art of murder…The Hatian who was knitted to death in a Hialeah factory. The father who murdered his comatose daughter in her hospital bed. The naked man who threw his girlfriend’s severed head at a young cop—who threw it back…Killings in one particular nightclub became such a regular fixture that staff just dumped the bodies out in the parking lot with the trash…Bodies were stacked so high at the city’s Jackson Memorial Hospital morgue that the authorities had to rent a refrigerated trailer from Burger King to cope with the overflow.

--TimeOut, Miami

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It had been raining since daybreak. A soft, wispy sprinkle falling on Miami. But ‘raining’ is incorrect. Water was not falling from the sky; it simply formed in the air. You walked into it, through it. It didn’t stop all day and it never really started. Wet is always in the air in Miami.

I had just gotten off at Government Center Station and descended from the platform, scanning the row of courthouses as I made my way to the stairs—Miami-Dade County Courthouse, Lawson E. Thomas Courthouse Center, National Courthouse. A young, rather slight mounty instructed me to catch the next Omni Loop car and then take the S, C or K bus across the MacArthur Causeway. I was going to South Beach.

The weather was holding steady. I hadn’t gotten out of my apartment building’s overhang before I fished my anorak from my bag and pulled it on. I still had it on.

In the car, a cluster of black men huddled on the seats in the rear, near where I stood, and a few people stood or sat at the front. At the next stop, I looked up from my tour book to see two thin, middle-aged women enter the car. I had dressed in cutoffs and a lightweight brown button-up that morning, Reef sandals on my feet. The sandals were enough to give me away as an outsider—Rainbow flip-flops are a sacrament to the Miami faith—and the bright orange anorak was an alarm bell—no serious Miami resident ever wears a coat, or probably even owns one.

The women had tried harder than me, but still failed. Tourists, probably Eastern European, I thought. It was confirmed a moment later as I spotted a guidebook: same size and thickness as mine (are they all standardized?), different publisher.

“Where are you headed?” I asked, waving my book as an affirmation of my good intentions.

“Oh, we are just taking the tour,” one answered, quickly looking away.

I hadn’t thought of it that way. The MetroMover was a trip from one place to the next, the view incidental, but, as they pointed out, well worth the ride in itself. We were sliding now past the brand-new American Airlines Arena, a spiffed up version—more glass, no stains, sharper angles—of the Miami Arena, which rested behind us.

In any case, I’d scared the women away. After a few of men from the back of the car left at the next stop, they scurried over and snagged some empty seats. But as the car lurched into motion, they sprinted back to their position in the middle of the car, across from me. Jumpy, I thought.

I looked out towards the ocean, checking out Bicentennial Park, then turned the opposite direction to see empty lots and roofs covered in water. As I scanned back, I glanced to the rear of the car, where the conversation had risen in volume. An overweight young man, his features gathered together on the bottom half of his round face, listened with a bent brow to the man across from him. On the carpeted bench to their right was a gun.

Two men, engaged in conversation, with gun; two Eastern Europeans, looking skittish; one California kid, wondering… what? I wasn’t scared; it was all too absurd, everyone was too calm. This can’t be a dangerous situation. I didn’t want out of the train, I wanted to be able to hear what they were saying. What do you talk about when you have a gun sitting next to you on a public train?

The next stop came and no one got off. I stole another glance at the gun. I did not want to appear too interested.

“Oh, you’ve got a gun? Fancy that! What model is it? Oh yea, I had that one but I traded it in last year. Want to see mine? It’s right here in my bag, next to my iPod…”

The Eastern Europeans appeared calm, even disapproving. They whispered in low tones to each other. Couldn’t hear them either. Likely they were composing a lecture on gun control laws for the benefit of our friend down the car.

“Oh my god he’s got a gun,” the older man growled to his companion. He was leaning forward in his seat, strong, his words hissing out a clenched jaw. “Plow, plow, plow, plow,” he purred. The words emerged solo from their conversation; nothing before or after was intelligible.

My stop came and I got off, almost regretful. The Eastern Europeans were sticking it out. Their tour hadn’t finished yet.