NativeTongue

Every evening at nine sharp, visitors to the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills gathered on both sides of Kingsbury Lane, the park's main thoroughfare, to buy overpriced junk food and await the rollicking pageant that was the climax of the day's festivities. All the characters in the Kingdom were expected to participate, from the gunslingers to the porpoise trainers to the elves. Sometimes a real marching band would accompany the procession, but in the slow months of summer the music was usually ca

For the feel-good purposes of the Amazing Kingdom's nightly pageant, the sordid history of Florida was compressed into a series of amiable and bloodless encounters. Floats celebrated such fabricated milestones as the first beachfront Thanksgiving, when friendly settlers and gentle Tequesta Indians shared wild turkey and fresh coconut milk under the palms. It was a testament to Charles Chelsea's imagination (and mortal fear of Kingsbury) that even the most shameful episodes were reinterpreted with a positive commercial spin. A float titled "Migrants on a Mission" depicted a dozen cheery, healthful farm workers singing Jamaican folk songs and swinging their machetes in a precisely choreographed break-dance through the cane fields. Tourists loved it. So did the Okeechobee Sugar Federation, which had bankrolled the production in order to improve its image.

One of the highlights of the pageant was the arrival of "the legendary Seminole maiden" known as Princess Golden Sun. No such woman and no such lore ever existed; Charles Chelsea had invented her basically as an excuse to show tits and ass, and pass it off as ethnic culture. Traditional Seminole garb was deemed too dowdy for the parade, so Princess Golden Sun appeared in a micro-bikini made of simulated deerskin. The authentic Green Corn Dance, a sacred Seminole rite, was politely discarded as too solemn and repetitious; instead Golden Sun danced the lambada, a pelvic-intensive Latin step. Surrounded by ersatz Indian warriors wearing bright Brazilian slingshots, the princess proclaimed in song and mime her passionate love for the famous Seminole chieftain Osceola. At the news of his death, she broke into tears and vowed to haunt the Everglades forever in search of his spirit. The peak of the drama, and the parade, was the moment when Golden Sun mounted a wild panther (in this case, a heavily drugged African lioness) and disappeared from sight in a rising fog of dry ice.

It was the role most coveted among the female actors employed at the Amazing Kingdom, and for six months it had belonged to A

On the night of July 25, however, A

So tonight she'd splurged on a bottle of Mondavi.

"To the late Robbie Raccoon," Carrie said, raising her glass.

"No one did him better," said Joe Winder.

He put on a tape of Dire Straits and they both agreed that it sounded pretty darn good, even with only one speaker. The wine was tolerable, as well.

Carrie said, "I told them I want a new costume."

"Something in beads and grass would be authentic."

"Also, no lip-synching," she said. "I don't care if the music's ca

"What about the lion?" Joe Winder asked.

"They swear she's harmless."

"Tranked out of her mind is more like it. I'd be concerned, if I were you."

"If she didn't maul A

A police siren penetrated the aluminum husk of the trailer; Joe Winder could hear it even over the guitar music and the tubercular groan of the ancient air conditioner. Parting the drapes, he watched one Metro squad car, and then another, enter the trailer park at high speed. Throwing dust, they sped past the turnoff to Carrie's place.

"Another domestic," Winder surmised.

"We average about four a week." Carrie refilled the wineglasses. "People who take love too damn seriously."

"Which reminds me." He opened his wallet and removed twelve dollars and placed it on a wicker table. "I was a very bad boy. I called her three times."

"You shmuck."

The Nina Situation. Every time he picked up the phone, it added four bucks to Carrie Lanier's bill. Worse, Nina pretended not to recognize his voice – stuck to the script to the bitter end, no matter how much he pleaded for her to shut up and listen.

"It is pathetic," Winder conceded.

"No other word for it."

"Haven't you ever been like this?" Obsessed is what he meant.

"Nope." Carrie shrugged. "I've got to be honest."

"So what's the matter with me?"

"You're just having a bad week."

She went to the bedroom and changed to a lavender nightshirt that came down to the knees – actually, a good four inches above the knees. Her hair was pulled back in a loose, sandy-colored ponytail.