The Island Builders
La Florida 1516
The words you now read were written by a dead man. I do not suppose that is of any comfort.
My name is Armando Calditchi, though by birth I am a Spaniard. Without a doubt, my name will be left out of the history books. This does not matter. Most men’s lives are no grander than a word, or a mere letter, even a period, the punctuation of death. But I found a greater treasure than any of the other explorers. I discovered something in La Florida. A way to live forever.
The Timucan wise men say all men seek the fountain of eternal youth for the same reasons: Man is mortal; God is dubious; Life is short.
I entered this world in a shack outside Valladolid, in the province of the same name, nary a hundred miles from Palencia, where Juan Ponce de León plopped out of his mother’s ugly crevice. King Fernando and Queen Isabel were married in Valladolid. Columbus, a man I would travel to the end of the known world with and come to love dearly, died there, in 1506.
I was born in 1476–not that it matters. My life would surely have been a mere smudge on the scroll of history had I not, at fourteen, fought in the conquest of Granada alongside Columbus and that villain de León, who left me marooned in this godforsaken island. In Granada I met my angelic infidel Catalina. There, I took my first life, sword in hand, the glory of country swelling in my heart. Oh sweet war! Boys scarcely older than I dressed the black earth with blood to purge the Moslems, and finally we forced a surrender. At first, in the treaty that followed, the Moors could remain in the city so long as they declared loyalty to our esteemed King and Queen. But there are no idealists in war, only pragmatists and illusionists. My countrymen might have seen the Jews as a cancer, but the Moslems were the plague. Of course, if you are a student of history like me, you no doubt learned that soon those Moslems who would not convert were deported to Africa or rounded up and sent to secret prisons or murdered. I suppose that those who fight and die for the glory of God do not readily hand out consolation prizes to the conquered. I will admit, the outcome of this treaty did not displease me, as I was a devout Catholic. We are a peaceful people. We spill blood but mop up with a rosary. We pray for the souls of those we have butchered. We love all of God’s creatures. We ask only that those who are not be relegated to the dungeons and alleyways that befit stray dogs.
Such is the black death of my gallows humor. Forgive me, Catalina, but travel takes from a man more than time.
Finally rid of the Moors, the Jews expelled, Lady Spain become whole again, and would send Columbus and the conquistadors to drape the rest of the undiscovered world in our flag of dual red crossed stripes lined with barb. And that, I believe, is where we went wrong. One man alone cannot fight a country that desires, above all else, wealth. It happened to Columbus, to De León, and now, to me.
Under the employ of Juan Ponce de Leon, that pockmarked charlatan, I would go to La Florida in search of the fabled fountain. Then de León tossed me to the savages. He broke my dreams like a fat woman would a moldy board. He left me marooned with nothing more than a dagger, some parchment (on which I now write), a quill, and a crusty biscuit. Fellow students of history, you might know him as Señor Juan Ponce de León, famed explorer, founder of La Florida, discoverer of the Fountain of Youth, but I will always know him as La Puta Fortunada, and by God’s ankle he was indeed a lucky whore.
And of course, my life has only gone astray because of a woman. Oh Catalina, I tried to bring it back for you. But this was a cup I alone could not carry.
In my final days, I will set the record straight. Ponce de León did not discover the springs. It was I, Armando Calditchi! I was starving, and delirious, and oddly aroused when I emerged from the frothy afternoon tide and climbed the dunes of a fair beach and stumbled, half-drunk, out into a dark forest of hunching elms. There I found the path, as the Timucan wise men had foretold. After urinating in the bushes nearby the pool, I jumped in, broke my leg, and have been waiting in the forest ever since. The Timuca believe I am a ghost. On occasion, they come, munching their burnt brown hard breads. They do not believe that ghosts are in need of sustenance. At the crest of death, and all I desire is a Sevillian orange-marmalade cookie. That and to gut De León like a pig.
Where am I? Somewhere off the north east coast of the island La Florida. Truly, I cannot say. All I know is that my leg is mossy and the infection is spreading to my groin. So even if I survive, it will be only for my words, for the completion of my history, the grand period. And De León, that evil, brave, arrogant, inspiring miserable, cheating, lying, beautiful bearded bastard, never came.
Most men’s lives do not run on parallel tracks. If they did, we should always have peace. Sadly, one need only unfold a map of the world and spit at random to find a parcel of war-torn land, for man is always at war with himself. Even if the fountain of youth is discovered, we will persist to fight for and die, muddying its majestic waters. Perhaps there is some small hope of being rescued, but I am no longer a hopeful man. The last thing Columbus ever said to me was, “Dear boy, I pity you dreamers. This fair land was meant to lie beyond war. Now we have led the Devil himself to the gates of Heaven.”
Dear reader, if you discover my body, please take my left hand out of my trousers. There is a reason the crew used to call me “El Zurdo.”
Now look behind you.
