The Hardening of Sandpiper Lane

Arthur Vance likes to argue that the true test of a man’s character in Southwest Florida is not how he handles a tax audit, but how he addresses his shutters. From his second-floor terrace on Sandpiper Lane, a manicured canal-side cul-de-sac in Naples, Vance has watched three generations of neighborhood associations debate the aesthetic merits of polycarbonate panels versus traditional Bahama louvers. The current board, led by a retired actuary from Fort Wayne, has decreed that all protective barriers must be neutral beige, a shade Vance describes as "liquid oatmeal." In his eighty-fourth year, Vance has little patience for municipal color theory. He stands on his balcony with a cordless drill, listening to the dry rattle of palm fronds in the salt wind, preparing his fortress.

The house, a coral-stone pseudo-villa built during the real estate boom of the mid-nineties, has acquired the weathered, stubborn look of its owner. It is fortified with impact-resistant glass, reinforced tie-downs, and a generator that runs on propane and sheer obstinacy. Still, Vance prefers the physical act of boarding up, a chore he views as a secular liturgy. His neighbors, most of whom flee north to Michigan at the first whisper of a tropical depression, rely on property management firms to wrap their villas in protective fabric. To Vance, these swaddled mansions resemble giant, expensive patio cushions left out in the rain. He prefers the solid clink of steel fasteners and the satisfying, claustrophobic darkness that descends when the last shutter is secured.

Inside the darkened living room, the air feels heavy with the scent of pine cleaner and battery acid. Vance sits in a leather recliner, a glass of dark rum in hand, watching local meteorologists trace red cones of uncertainty across the television screen. The broadcast has the hushed, urgent tone of a golf tournament being played during a war. Outside, the sky has turned a strange, bruised violet, and the yachts docked along the canal nudge their pilings with a low, rhythmic creaking. For Vance, this is the sweetest hour of the season, a brief reprieve from the tyrannical neatness of Naples. In the coming gloom, there are no lawnmowers, no HOA violations, only the ancient, indifferent wind rising from the Gulf.