The Smiling Shrine of Sarasota Bay

The Smiling Shrine of Sarasota Bay



By



Sunny Bu



October 28th, 2013



















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The Smiling Shrine of Sarasota Bay



    If a front page picture in the news means someone’s larger than life, Brandi is famous.  But Brandi’s dead and she’s not on a front page newspaper and probably never was.  Her face is in the shadows of a foot diameter oak tree which overhangs the rock barriers along Sarasota Bay, Florida.  What lies there is a memorial plaque of her and a picture of her hugging the very same tree with a sensationally splashing smile, some real and fake flowers, wind chimes and red and gold ribbons.  The wind blows the chimes and ribbons now like her spirit which takes off sylph-like among the surrounding sail boats into the Gulf of Mexico.

    The Smiling Shrine of Sarasota Bay, it’s called and the thumping feet of walkers and joggers and hikers can’t solemnize the memorial she represents compared to our lives because her shrine’s unknown.  The shrine means nothing since Brandi’s not famous nor renown historically nor even storied among the sailors.  Her smile is desecrated daily with the huffs and the humps and phews of stomping feet yet none stops and notices what Brandi saw.

    Out there, somewhere between the Gulf of Mexico and the horizon, the vision of Brandi’s life prolongs.  Through sunrises and sunsets and storms and seasons, Brandi’s face is smiling.  Her tree holds hopefully, too, just as hopefully to the edge of life and humanity as Brandi does in the picture.  So it is with Dean The Can-Man who often must



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supine on a long green bench not far from her memorial and thinks This is my resting place, too.

    It’s his resting place from the day to day exigencies of collecting cans from the trash all night and the extraneous endeavors of existence.  A loaf of bread is his meal this crisp autumn morning and perhaps a package of instant cocoa and coffee where full and flinging off his boots he reclines just like Brandi despite the huffs and humps and phews of passersbye who trample the sacred spot both share.

    “Are you awake?” a voice whispers to Dean as his body reposes on the bench.

    “Sleeping” Dean rejoins.

    “Remember me?” the voice pines.  “I’m Brandi?.

    “Brandi!”  Dean exhales and on he dreams as he smiles and nods off to sleep thinking “Just like my ex”.

    But so does Hound Dog Hank.  Hound Dog Hank’s there now walking his dog and he, too, can’t but help stop and pat his hound’s head to squeeze in a look at the base of the shadowy oak to espy the sensational smile on Brandi’s face.  He peeks every morning wondering why she’s smiling with or without a thought that death overshadows her life like the gnarled oak tree now.  Yet he wonders, did she, or didn’t she, know?

    Nonetheless, he doesn’t know why she’s smiling but other than to smile and smiles back as he moves on with his



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day thinking “Just like my daughter, whom I love and cherish”.

    Whereas the City Park’s workers must face her expression everyday as does Ben the Matador from Mexico who’s exhilarated at the thought he’s entitled to guard and clean and inspect the area surrounding the shrine because he knows with his espousal of duties toward his family there’s no deterring him from catching any mischief makers or miscreants molesting the religious icon of such a holy Santa Maria shrine as Brandi’s.  His stout body poised on his riding mower bulldozes the half mile sward of property as he gently cuts swaths along the esplanade like a hippo its terrain and in passing thinks “It’s an honor to be here”.

    So does the English man think that it’s an honor to be here coming daily down from his fifteenth floor condo along Bayfront Drive where he surveys the shrine and the Bay.  He stops now to inspect this bit of American reverence toward their dead, his tweed tipped and his red cardigan vest swathing his chest each sauntering step he makes around Ben the Matador and Hound Dog Hank and Dean The Can-Man.  He muses now as he ponders the sinewy arms of Brandi strapped to the oak tree thinking “An American Tragedy” as a novelist once wrote, “Lost to the violence and evil machinations of these brutes” and tips his tweed to her shrine as he saunters closer.  “Jolly, just jolly, love” he sighs and vouchsafes to protect her and others like her from such dastardly deeds even if it takes political posturing of a picture such as this memorial no one

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knows or takes notice of or solemnizes with respect.

    And so it goes from day to day despite the dangers of what’s in the distance and the nemesis of the Gulf: Hurricanes.  A gale-force storm explodes one summer and launches it blows and slashing winds and cutting rain viciously at the Bay and the Shrine while Dean the Can-Man can no longer supine on his bench and Hound Dog Hang walk his dog and Ben the Matador swath the grass and the English Man saunter in his cardigan vest when it dawns on each one that nothing is there to protect the sylph shrine of Brandi.  No iron fence nor grave stone nor monument of angels can protect her picture and flowers and wind chimes and ribbons.  Nor can any stake fortify the tipping oak Brandi clings to in hope and this against the storm’s waves that claw it with spray and scratches it with shells and carves grooves in its roots at the base of the shadowy tree until SMASH! and SPLASH! into the bay the memorial and the picture and the flowers and the chimes and the ribbons wash away in one final submerging storm surge.  The sweepings of civilization are all that are left.

    The next day each follows his routine as regularly as the walkers and the joggers and the hikers minus the peeks and the glances and the uneasiness that something’s missing:  The Smiling Shrine of Sarasota Bay.  As it turns out the memorial plaque is gone and the picture blew away just like the sylph Brodi was because neither Dean The Can-Man nor the others knew that a loved one snatched her



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photo right before disaster struck and stowed it gently in a box and took it home.  Or so it was thought, as each eyed the other and Dean peeked at Hound Dog Hank with one eye open and Hound Dog Hank squinted at Ben the Matador as he pet his dog and Ben the Matador wheeled in swaths hawk-like around the English Man whose face was solemn and sedate.

    Hence Ben the Matador planted a sapling oak and Hound Dog Hank planted some flowers and Dean the Can-Man hung some aluminum chimes and the English Man placed another plaque ‘In Memory of Brandi’ along with a more glorious, sensationally splashing and smiling picture of a ten year old girl hugging a plastic duck as she’s sitting on Siesta Key Beach.

    “My ex’s kid” Dean thinks and dreams and Hound Dog Hank pats his dog’s head thinking “Just like my little girl” and Ben the Matador places an angel thinking “This little girl needs protection just like my family” as the English Man saunters softly to the shrine feeling his job’s done as he wipes his tears and returns home to the photo of Brandi placed securely on his condo’s living room mantel with the front page picture in the news of the little girl and heading: “Millionaire’s Daughter Abducted and Slain”.