Florida

Florida becomes the last landscape of Roy Laferty and Theodore Daniels’s shared life on the road. Its Gulf coast offers Theodore the water he longs for, while its inland groves provide temporary shelter and work; in one of those groves, Theodore dies, and Roy sees a possible end to their flight.

Coastal Florida

On a public beach at the north end of St. Petersburg, a little south of Tampa, Roy carries Theodore from his wheelchair to the water. Their stay on the coast is not entirely free: they recall having spent three days in jail after police arrested them for vagrancy while they were preaching on a street corner. The memory connects Florida’s open spaces to the precariousness of life without money or a fixed address.

The coast nevertheless holds a particular attraction for Theodore. The two men steal food and wine, and Theodore remembers their earlier confinement as a break from the demands of the road. Later, when work or hunger makes it necessary to leave the water, the coast remains a point of return in their plans.

Inland camps and precarious work

When the law becomes too difficult or food too scarce, they head inland so Roy can find work. During his shifts picking fruit, Theodore waits in a grove or beneath bushes. His health and ability to play music deteriorate, but the men preserve a small evening routine: Roy returns from work, and they try to practice for a hoped-for return to preaching. Their Florida camps are makeshift, yet they become familiar places within a life otherwise spent moving on.

After picking oranges for three weeks, Roy collects thirteen dollars for a day’s work and buys food, cigarettes, and wine. He and Theodore have saved nearly a hundred dollars over the preceding month. They plan to buy decent clothes and preach again, and Roy expects Theodore will be glad when they can return to the ocean. The plan gives their time inland a practical purpose, even as Theodore’s physical decline makes the future increasingly uncertain.

Theodore’s death and Roy’s decision

Roy returns to their campsite beneath a small stand of magnolia trees and finds Theodore dead beside his wheelchair and guitar. He struggles to get him back into the chair, then starts toward the highway but stops after only a short distance, concerned that the authorities will ask questions. The grove, where the pair had camped and waited out their days, has become the place where their journey together ends.

Roy stays beside Theodore and prays for his soul, reflecting that someone might do the same for him when his own time comes. As evening falls, the prospect of no longer running becomes tangible: Roy considers going home and turning himself in, hoping for another chance to see Lenora Laferty. Florida thus marks both a death and a change in direction. The place where Roy loses his companion is also where he begins to imagine leaving the fugitive life behind.