that
.”
“Why? What’s wrong with it?”
“Honestly? It looks like Hawaiian camouflage.”
Jones frowned, trying to think of a retort. “Yeah, well . . .”
“Well, what?”
“Maybe I’m looking to get
leid
.”
Payne laughed. It wasn’t a bad comeback for a Sunday morning. “I’ll meet you in the lobby.”
TEN
minutes later the duo was walking along Bayshore Drive. The temperature was in the mid-seventies with low humidity. Gentle waves lapped against the stone wall that lined the harbor while palm trees swayed in the breeze. Payne wore a golf shirt and shorts, an outfit considered dressy in Florida, where many people wore T-shirts or no shirts at all.
As they turned onto Second Avenue NE toward the St. Petersburg Pier, Payne and Jones spotted a parked trolley-bus called the Looper. It was light blue and filled with tourists who were taking pictures of a tiny brick building with a red-tiled roof. A senior citizen tour guide, wearing a beige Panama hat and speaking with a Southern drawl, explained the building’s significance over the trolley’s loudspeaker system. They stopped to listen to his tale.
“You are looking at the fanciest public restroom in America, affectionately known as Little St. Mary’s. Built in 1927 by Henry Taylor, it is a scaled-down replica of St. Mary Our Lady of Grace, the gorgeous church he built on Fourth Street that we’ll be seeing soon. Both buildings are typical of the Romanesque Revival style, featuring several colors of brick, arched windows, and topped with a copper cupola. This one’s approximately twenty feet high and fifty feet wide.”
Cameras clicked as the tour guide continued.
“As the legend goes, the local diocese offered Taylor a large sum of money to build the octagonal church that he finished in 1925. However, for reasons unknown, they chose not to pay him the full amount. Realizing that he couldn’t win a fight with the church, he opted to get revenge instead. At that time the city was taking bids to build a comfort station, a fancy term for bathroom, somewhere near the waterfront. Taylor made a ridiculously low bid, guaranteeing that he would get the project. From there, he used leftover materials from the church site and built the replica that you see before you, filling it with toilets instead of pews.”
The tour guide smiled. “It was his way of saying that the Catholic Church was full of crap!”
Everyone laughed, including Payne and Jones, as the Looper pulled away from the curb and turned toward the Vinoy. Meanwhile the duo remained, marveling at the stone-carved columns and the elaborate tiled roof of Little St. Mary’s.
“Remind me to go in there later,” Jones said. “And I mean that literally.”