Gretchen...

She danced my world into being

shiva, black and gold

hollywood sign and phone booth

as backdrops

and a mercedes

the same colors as she

our eyes met for a millenia

and she danced

i did not desire the burden

of kingship

though the scars she left decreed

blood and flowers

come down to touch

a young warriors golden age

we need not your salvation

your guilt

we have goddess shrines

peacocks, pyramids

and courtyard dancing

girls of gods

dancing in courtyards ancient

and beads



she danced my world into being

shiva, black and gold

one face, quarter face

lower leg and beeswax

her drum beats my existence

beats against ignorance

melting my wax

the way it has always been done



she fills me with molten tradition

beats me into form

pray and consecrate

shiva, black and gold

in the shadow of a phonebooth

hollywood sign and mercedes

the same colors as she

i am hers...

Empty

Songs dreamt in streets embrace

Lying in beds of dirty leavings

And comings

And empty bottles of wine

Empty as heads

Empty as pockets

Empty as these pages

After midnight bottles of wine

Night screaming in sheets embrace

Lying in beds of dirty whores

And Coltrane

And crackheads

And empty bottles of wine.

Empty as plates

Empty as promises

Empty as these pages

After midnight bottles of wine

Sarai's Scent

I carried her wet from the shower

As the second tower

Collapsed upon itself

We did not have the television on

A lifetime later

I collapsed

Destroyed

When the dust finally settled

There was nothing but destruction

And screams and accusations

of Conspiracy

Some things just happen

For reasons of their own

The way she licked her own skin

Was reason enough

The curve of her

The sweat of her

The smell of her

The essential wrong of her

The arch of her back as the first tower was hit

The curve of her

The tan on her

The taste of her

The unadulterated desire in her

Was reason enough

To commit indifferent treason

For at least one morning

Clint Bullard!

I was born with country and western music in my blood. That’s all we ever listened to in my house growing up. At the age of five, I asked my mother if we could buy a radio that played rock and roll. I did not know that all radios would play rock and roll if you just turned the dial to the correct frequency and it never occurred to my mother that there was anything but country on her radio.
Mom ended up buying a honky-tonk in West Tennessee just a few miles from where Buford Pusser of “Walking Tall” fame was run off the road and killed back in 1970. The place was called the “Pub and Cue” and was a dirty roadhouse that served bootleg whiskey out the back and pickled pig’s feet at the bar. The jukebox was full of country twang, the floor covered in sawdust, spilled beer and blood.
So when my editor suggested that I interview a real country singer, I was happier than a hippie in a bag full of tie die. Until I found out he was from Texas.
Texas has never been known for producing quality country and western music. I mean, really, who have they got? Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys? C’mon! Waylon and Willie? That’s the best you’ve got? Lyle Lovett? David Allen Coe?? The Dixie Chicks?? Lightning Hopkins? Stevie Ray??
So you will understand when I say that I was a little disheartened by this turn of events.
Clint Bullard is from Waco, TX and like a lot of country musicians, Clint began singing in church. He graduated from Baylor University, a Christian college. He is hard working and intelligent. He worked for two years on the production staff of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” and was a good friend of Jack Palance. As hard as I dig, I cannot find any scandal in his past. No stints in rehab. He doesn’t do drugs. Happily married to his lovely wife, Tricia, whom he claims he has never cheated on. He doesn’t drink to excess. I know, I tried to get him drunk. I have found out that alcohol is an unbeatable truth serum and I wanted to get at the skeletons hiding in Mr. Bullard’s closet. There weren’t any. No time stuck in prison, no dirty bar brawls, no drunken lawnmower rides through Nashville, nothing.
Lifestyle-wise, Clint Bullard is kind of boring.
Musically speaking, He is not.
Before I met Clint for drinks at Cowboy Bill’s Reloaded, I bought his CD and watched his videos posted on YouTube. I must say I was pleasantly surprised. His music has a jouncy rhythm and a trop-rock delivery that I am not sure was intentional. There are a lot of copycat artists out there but I have the feeling that Clint is just being Clint. He has an adept and easy-going story-telling style both on and off the stage. He carries a wicked sense of humor as casually as he does his guitar. Nothing seems forced with him. He is a genuinely nice guy.
I also found out that not only has Clint shared the stage with some of Nashville’s finest but has co-written with the likes of Highway 101, Tracy Byrd, Brooks and Dunn, and Linda Davis.
I love his songwriting and his delivery on originals such as “Give Me a Bar to Steer By”, a great trop-rock song that deserves more recognition and “Dom Perignon and Left-Over Chicken” has been stuck in my head for a week now. Thanks, Clint…
Key West has some of the finest musicians in the world playing in intimate venues for our enjoyment every day of the year. However, the distinct lack of good old down-home country music and I am positive that I will get many letters disputing this fact, is depressing to say the least. What is a redneck to do with his evenings?
I have a suggestion.
If you find yourself with a hankering in your redneck bone for quality country and western twang, delivered with a mellow energy and a mischievous grin, head on down to the Galleon Resort Tiki Bar and catch one of Clint’s shows. I promise you will have a great time listening to a REAL country and western musician.
He may be from Texas, but we won’t hold that against him.

Raven's Song

Some things just are Key West to me. A rooster perched atop an illegally parked cop car, a drunken drag queen grabbing my junk just because she thinks I am cute, conch fritters, tattooed waitresses, and of course, Raven Cooper.
When the Lovely and I escaped to the Keys almost a decade ago, on a lark, with ten dollars in our pocket, we immediately did two things; spent the ten on Coronas at Capt. Tony’s and heard Raven sing at Sunset Pier. She was doing “Me and Bobby McGee” in a growling whiskey voice so alive that I had to keep staring to make sure that I wasn’t back at the Fillmore in ’69. We were broke, homeless, and completely happy. Our love was so new that it squeaked. Before long, it was working three jobs, paying twelve hundred dollar rents, and accepting responsibilities that we promised each other would never be heaped upon us again.
I told Raven it was our honeymoon, which was almost true, and she gave us her CD as a gift. We carried that disc with us for almost two years and ten thousand miles across this country until The Lovely threw it at me one night somewhere in Wyoming. It was destroyed. I probably deserved it.
I have kept up with Raven’s career over the years and have always wondered why she is not rich and famous by now. No Grammys, no recording contracts. She has an incredible voice and a smoldering stage presence. She sings in six different languages. She is beautiful and funny and can play one mean guitar when provoked. Her ability to take a fantastic song such as Annie Lennox’s “Why” and create something even more powerful is amazing but it is her talent turning a unique rhythmic phrase in original songs such as “It’s a Holdup” that really catch my attention as a writer. I had even heard rumors of her almost going to American Idol and was confused why that never happened.
Every great song has a back story. Raven’s song is no exception. A redneck Mexican/German from Little Rock earning her blues on the streets of Memphis, adding spice to the musical gumbo of New Orleans, blowing the roof off of Montana and every other roadhouse, dive and juke joint along the way. From firsthand experience, the lonely road takes its toll. Bad romances, drugs, alcohol, all fuzzily framed by amusing memories and scars you don’t remember receiving. Or giving. As I sit down with Raven at the Schooner Wharf and listen to her gritty unapologetic truth, I realize how easy it would be to dismiss it all as just another rock and roll cliché’, which it is, reminiscent of early Janis Joplin, almost. It is also the life song of a very talented underappreciated chanteuse. She tells the worst of it with an ambivalent smile and mischievous laughter that says she has taken her punches, swung a few of her own, and surprising even her, has come out of it a better person.
She gives most of the credit to her partner, David. David has become a lot of things to Raven; her manager, father of her child, her videographer, her roadie. If you ask her, however, she will tell you that he is her everything. The love of her life and the guy who helped her kick the drugs by keeping away the bad influences and holding her hand when she didn’t want it held. The respect they share for each other is obvious.
It would be easy to sit here and rehash all the same fluff about Raven Cooper; where and when she plays, her favorite songs to perform, why she moved here, all that crap. I could even go into the reason why she didn’t even go to the American Idol audition. That is not what this story is about. This began as a story of why Raven Cooper epitomizes everything Key West to me. I haven’t merely been rambling.
Her dusky voice reminds me of new loves and sunsets. The days when broke was acceptable and adventure was the raison d’être. Raven also reminds me that, like the rest of us Key West folk, although we are sometimes bruised and misguided and wildly intoxicated; we can always come back home, gather up old friends and make beautiful music together.

Caliente' Part 2

Mondo was a midget. Three feet tall with little pudgy hands and a waddle in his walk. It is not politically correct to call someone a midget but Mondo didn't care. He was Mondo and Mondo was a midget and that was that. No matter what he was or what you called him, Mondo's mind was sharp and full of ideas. Big ideas. Granted, most of his ideas were violent, twisted and perverse, but they were big ideas.
Mondo had a girl, Caliente'. Blond haired, white skin, normal sized. She had a big ass, which Mondo liked, and a small brain, which Mondo liked even more. It made her easier to manipulate. She was also of violent temperment, black hearted and her perversions knew no end.
He knew she had other men and on the surface he didn't care. She was a black hearted whore and you can't turn a whore into a housewife, his father had told him once. Besides, she always made sure they were gone and their stink was washed from her pale skin before Mondo was due over. Once, Mondo met a guy coming down the sidewalk near Caliente's place and he knew, somehow, that the punk had just been with her. He considered stabbing the man in his balls as he went by but let the moment pass. It was a beautiful night and Mondo was wearing a new suit.
Mondo always came over at night, never when it rained, and only when he needed to work out some tension. Beating a dirty whore while he fucked her was his favorite way and beating a dirty whore who enjoyed violent fucking was even better. Less to explain to the pigs later. This was one of those nights.
The sex was done and good. He had whipped her back bloody with the leather belt she favored while he thrusted his above average cock in her ass. It was done and she was wrapped in a silk kimono on the couch while Mondo paced the hardwood floor, smoking. Mondo was still naked, waddling back and forth, spent member swinging between his bowed legs. The sight might have been comical in any other scenario, had Mondo not been so dangerous. Mondo had a large presence.
She knew better than to speak at these moments. Mondo would pace and smoke and then rant. She would not interrupt him again. Not after the last time. She had asked what she felt was a benign and innocent question but he had leapt on her like a spider monkey and bashed her blond head with the half empty bottle of Cutty Sark he always nursed after sex. Then, with her head still pouring blood, he demanded that she walk to the liquor store on the corner to buy more. She paid for the booze with her own money.
No, she would not interrupt him again.

She instead sat quietly and waited for the post coital storm to pass and wondered what she had wondered a hundred times before. Why smoking weed never seemed to calm him down. It always mellowed her but not Mondo. She always attributed to the massive amount of crystal meth and Scotch that he ingested. Midgets were not supposed to do drugs much, something to do with their metabolism but Mondo didn't care about that either.

"We all gotta die of something, bitch." Mondo would rap, usually puncuated by a huge gulp of Cutty. "The whole world is turning to shit anyway and I am sick of walking in it. When you are this low to the ground, the stink is unbearable."

Mondo crushed the giant blunt he was smoking and disappeared into the bedroom. She finally exhaled when she heard him pulling on his clothes. She quickly chopped out a few lines of the high powered speed on the glass top of the coffee table and snorted up two of them. Mondo emerged a few seconds later wearing the same clothes he had worn in a few hours earlier. Small black tshirt, small black jeans, and small black cowboy boots with engraved silver toetips. Mondo leaned over the table and did two huge lines of his own.
"Get your shit together. It's time to go."
A few short minutes later, she also steps from the bedroom fully dressed, also in black. Mondo is snorting more dope. He doesn't offer her any.
"How many times I gotta tell you to not smoke those things around me?"
She was holding a clove cigarette.
"Makes you smell like a Pakistani faggot. Put it out."
Obediently, she crushes it out on top of his half smoked blunt in the ashtray.
"You got the shit?"
"Of course, baby." she says quietly, patting the oversized purse in the chair next to her.
"Let's go then."
Two minutes later they are pulling onto the highway, cold blood pumping through their veins.

The vice cop that Caliente' had once been married to was asleep on the couch when the front door flew open. Trying, groggily, to scramble to his gun lying on the floor nearby, he felt heard the muffled thump before he felt the searing burn in his knee sitting him fast back down. The next thump sent his Glock flying across the room and varnished wood splinters into his face. Trying to blink away the wooden shrapnel, the wounded cop finally focused on the surrealism of the situation. A tiny man in black and what looked like a stringy version of his ex wife with a gun standing in his den, his sanctuary. The gun was equipped with what looked like a homemade silencer. It was, in fact, a small tomato juice can filled with steel wool and duct taped to the barrel. The steel wool was smoldering.
"You always let your whores do your killing?"

"No, man...just the initial pain is hers. I'll be doing all the killing here tonight."
Wincing now that that the real pain had begun the assault, "Why?"
"Because she likes guns and I promised her she could shoot a little dick cop today."
"Fair enough, but I meant, why me?"
"Where is the money?"
"Oh, that..."
"Yeah..that."
"Closet. In a shoe box."
A creak of a bedroom door, a moment, a muttered curse, and Mondo was back. Mondo put a fat hand on the back of the sofa and leapt over in one easy movement, landing right behind the bleeding dirty cop. He pulled a large folding blade from his back pocket and neatly sliced off the man's right ear before he could turn around and see it coming.
"You should have told me it was on the top shelf."
Screaming, the decorated policeman who had been skimming the takes of several drug dealers for years, never anticipated the tempered steel as it was driven into his throat from behind.
"Could have saved us some time. Go get our money, girl."
"This thing is getting hot, baby." Caliente' says as she walks past and tosses the silenced pistol onto the leather couch as she does, where it immediatly begin singing a dark spot. Mondo pours the remainder of the cop's warm beer on the piece and sofa.
From the other room, "Mondo, baby? You are not going to believe this!"

Caliente'

Once upon a bottle of wine, there was a man, and there was a woman, and they did things to each other that no one but them cares about in a place which no longer exists.

She remembers that his hands were rough and he smoked. He remember that she smelled like pecan pie with vanilla ice cream. There was no logical reason why she should and there has never been another woman since but the scent remains all things feminine in his mind.

They both recall the dust that coated everything, forming mud in the moisture of two for the first time, rivulets of black sweat, hand prints and furrows. The attic was delicious with sin that steamy afternoon and from that blessed union of filthy love, came truth.

Well, truth and Caliente'

She called herself Caliente’, though Shannon was her name. She smoked roll-ur-owns and drank a lot of vodka. If she liked you she would let you touch her. She smelled of oranges. She had collection of vinyl classic jazz and always won at Scrabble. She spoke with bohemian inflection. Born in Sedona and raised by new age crystal healing wiccan priestesses. She never met her father who allegedly disappeared on a mountaintop while on a spirit quest.
“Oh, horseshit, Momma,” was her contemplated reply to that story so many years ago. Of course she was correct. Truth was, her father disappeared after catching his wife in bed with another woman. So when Momma and “Aunt” Diana tried to shovel that horseshit in her lap that particular Sunday breakfast, she already had an idea. She was only six then.

She stood in my doorway, a horrifying visage of death and violence. The blood, dried and caked and flaking on her slender hands was enough to send chills up my spine. However it was the gore around her grimace stretched mouth that gave birth to the survivalist need to run screaming into the night. Chunks of something better left inside the human body coated the hair on the right side of her head. Excuses built inside my mouth along with involuntary bile and I kept my mouth shut to keep them both in.
“Help me” she whispered before rushing into my apartment. I could argue and did later, that I really had no choice in the matter. I have never been afraid of much that this brutal world has strewn on the dirty sidewalk at my feet but I was suddenly terrified of this tiny woman covered with the remains of…someone else. Did they say no to her? I didn’t want to know.
I caught my breath and closed the door after first glancing toward the parking lot out front. If she had been followed, her shadow was hiding for now. After deadbolting the door, I leaned my forehead against the frame and listened to her cleaning herself in my kitchen sink. I prayed she took extra care with her face.
What did she do?
I turned and there she stood, very near. Too near for my terror to be comfortable with. Barely five feet tall, dishwater blonde, slim and wet from the scrubbing. I felt my bowels loosen as she fixed me with her impossibly emerald eyes. I found the door with my backside to try to increase the distance.
“I killed the bitch and ate his heart, Sonny. Does that answer your questions?”
I nodded, mouth agape, and slid down to the floor. I couldn’t look at her. I squeezed my eyes shut against the horror movie onslaught of the possibilities of what she was saying and where I might fit into this. She squatted in front of me, still holding the towel with pink stains on it. She was wearing a short skirt. I absently snuck a peak between her thighs and realized that her face and hands were not the only place that she had smeared this other person's blood. It was then that my bladder gave up the fight. I immediately shut my eyes again, losing my tenuous grip on reality.
She slapped me hard enough to rock my head against the hard wood of the door.
“Snap back, you pussy. It’s done and I can’t take it back. I don’t want to and now you are going to help me or I will bash your fuckin’ head in, too.” With that she reached around and pulled the bloody claw hammer from the back of her denim skirt and began tapping me on the forehead softly with the wooden handle...



There were a dozen reasons I should have seen through her bullshit. More still were the reasons that I couldn’t. None of them were good. The least rational but most persistent was I just didn’t have the strength not to believe in happily ever after. It wasn’t my fault. Ancestral preconditioning, I suppose. We, as a cultural glob, are taught, nay…indoctrinated to believe in 30 minute resolutions and the inevitable rightness built into the Universe’s hard drive. Everything WILL be alright, we preach to ourselves in song, motion pictures, and prose. We, as a cultural amoeba, HAVE to buy that old saw. We haven’t a choice. To not love the illusion is to accept a central flaw in the program.
Happiness is NOT guaranteed. Joy is NOT included in the package that we bought. She WILL break your heart, she WILL steal your future, and she WILL try to kill you with your own gun.
Ain’t life grand?
Everything is fine now. She has been dealt with and the day has been won. It’s just that, well, I kind of miss her. She was good for me, I think. Made me stronger, braver. Taller somehow. I walked with more swagger, like my cock was bigger, or my clothes fit better. It felt as if life suddenly had a Tarantino soundtrack. A smoldering shoot me or fuck me Latin vibe. I was a bad ass. I bought cowboy boots. Actually, she bought them, with a stolen credit card. I picked them out. Sharkskin. Black. The toughest motherfuckers around. Completely ruined at an Allman Brothers concert less than a year later. She made me feel like Waylon Jennings. There were a dozen reasons that I should have seen through her bullshit. That fact that I was a large part of her bullshit had escaped me until just now.
I find myself out of cigarettes. She always used to keep me in cigarettes. Cigarettes and weed. This new girl is ok but forgetful. She always forgets my smokes. An ass like a cheerleader but unless it involves a blowjob, has no idea how to keep a man happy. She tries, God help her, but she is dumb. Caliente' knew I needed my smokes to stay normal. She bought them by the carton. This chick goes to the store and comes back with two packs. Every day. Two fucking packs. It is redundant. A deep seated need to be seen is what that is. No one enjoys going to the convenience store EVERY day. Now that I think of it like that, it’s probably best to keep an eye on her. She might be pathological.
Caliente' left her cop husband for me the very day we met. I often wonder what she said to him. We met through friends earlier that morning, made love all afternoon, and by evening she had broken into my home, with groceries and her assorted belongings, and had cooked me a comfortable dinner of chicken fried steak and gravy. She stayed for a long time. She never really left. Real love is like the herpes. I never met the man but feel a certain empathy now that the dance is over. I often wonder what she said to him. What condition she left him in. Did she bother to tell him or did she just empty his accounts and disappear? Was he crying and screaming? Did she laugh at his tears and call him a pussy? Was he even breathing?
I wanted the dark side. I wanted the perversion, the grit, the raw. She delivered with aces. I wanted Mexican midget naked knife fights. She found a way to include pharmaceuticals, baby oil, and fire.

Sometimes the best part of a thing is the very end of it. Not when she walks out the door for the last time, not when you first receive the pink slip from the crappy job you have held for 9 years, not the moment a loved one dies, not when the bottle is empty. No, not then. Later. Much later. When you come to realize that you were just obsessing over the girl in the elevator, erect, for ten minutes and SHE never crossed your mind, when you get a better gig as a freelance writer, when you can finally breathe without worrying about death, when you wake up for the first time in years without a hangover. When you can finally admit to yourself that you are better off without them. And they are much better off without you. When you can finally accept the finality of it all. Only then is the beauty of the moment revealed.
In the Grand Scheme of Things, I barely knew her. She was a Stranger who found a way in for a minute. We all create our own little dramas, scenarios in which we play A-List celebrities in a B-Movie world we didn’t write. Damn our agent! Our fantasies have us believing that we are Soulmates, bound to each other for all of time. And then some. I call bullshit...



TBC...

Walking back home. Part 3

Nothing lasts forever...


Not even this walk.


I end my ruminations at Snowdown Methodist Church. I walk around back to where both of my Grandfathers,George and Carl; my Great Grandmother,Carrie; and more family and friends than I care to mention are buried. My mother and I both have a plot there. I am supposed to be buried right next to George although I have no intentions on a dirt burial. I will either crawl off into the mountains to die, renewing my covenant with the Earth and returning to my rightful place on the food chain; or I will have a flaming burial at sea. A good old Viking funeral and debauched party with friends to send my mortal remains to Davy Jones and my spirit free to go wherever spirits go when they are no longer inhibited by the desperation of flesh.


I view most of our death rituals as primitive at best. Morbid at their worst. The viewing of the body at the funeral home is a horrible ordeal involving the most sickening of floral stenches, dressing up in uncomfortable clothes, and commiserating with people you haven't seen in 20 years, for reasons you can't remember. I swear before all that is Holy and Bacon-flavored, if any of you subject my cast-off meatbag to any such indignity, I will come back from the Great Purple Wherever and plug up your toilets with feminine hygiene products and peanut butter.


Dirt burial is another such example. What a waste of quality real estate are cemetaries. Just think of all the land we could spread out on were we to just use the dead as fertilizer. Run them through a log chipper! Feed the fish! Replentish the oceans! Have greener grass! The meat is not the man, I always say. Put up a website with tombstones and dedication pages where people can go grieve for loved ones, play their favorite music, watch home movies, and even leave virtual flowers on the virtual grave. Stop using up good dirt for the dead. Let the living enjoy it! But then again, I feel the exact same way about golf courses and their patrons...including the log chipper part.

My Grandfather gave all this land to the church back in the way back and that field on the other side of this fence was where I shot my first quail. And kissed my first girl, somewhere other than the lips. I drove a car through this field one night, high on something illicit and probably not very good for me, doing doughnuts in the sagegrass and listening to AC/DC "Back in Black" cranked up to an earth-shattering 11.
I used to lie on my back and listen to God speak to me in pine needle whispers. I dug for treasure here and vented my teenaged angst throwing rocks at the moon.

A cursory glance at the old home place tells me that my walk here is over. There is nothing left to see. The property has long ago been sold to strangers and the untamed wilderness, streams, and adventure of my youth is gone. Houses dot the red clay earth where I played with cars and army men built forts and bridges to enemy territories. Muscadines vines and my Grandpa's barn have lost the battle with Roundup herbacide and neatly trimmed lawns covered in children's toys and other people's cars.

That window over there is the Sunday school classroom where I always had more questions than answers.I would sometimes just stare out the window while the well meaning teacher would drone on about Samson and the Three Wise Men bieng firemen and watch the ladies, those who could cook AND those who could not, setting up the "Dinner on the Ground". It was never actually on the ground though. It was always up on long concrete tables, which still stand today. Many a banana pudding were sacrificed to the Lord right on that concrete slab.

I call for a ride and head back to Mom's where I watch a little of her favorite Tv shows, eat what passes for Key lime pie in this part of the world and play with her ugly-as-sin chihuahua. I think about old lovers, my walk, and the Most Important Thing.

The rest of my vacation was spent in a whirlwind of early morning Tennessee River boat rides, BBQ, my kids, Jessi and Jonathan and Grandbaby, Bailey. I also played catch-up with old friends, watched soap operas, smoked "recently" illegal substances(more on that later), and ate more pie. It was a very nice trip home. One of the first in years when everyone I saw was happy to see me and I was happy to see them.

By the time I loaded my trusty backpack onto the Greyhound, smoked my last cigarette for a few hundred miles, and found a seat that did NOT smell like pee, I was ready to go HOME. When the bus pulled away from Tupelo, I found my heart beating faster. I am always happiest when moving forward.

Key West is home now. But that is not the Most Important Thing. I contemplate this all the way back to the islands. What is the Most Important Thing missing from my life? I have a wonderful life. My best friend is my wife, no major drama at hand, the kids are doing fine, even the dog is healthy, if ugly as ever. I contemplate innocence and roots and family and every other thing that could possibly be wrong with a man's life and cannot come up with a damned thing missing from my existence here. Everything is good.

So why this feeling that something is still out there, something familiar, something unknown, something new, something ancient? Something that I am running toward as well as away from? A Most Important Thing, I am sure, but can't quite lay my hands upon. Are we destined to always search for the next brightening horizon, the next lonely highway, the next stretch of blue ocean? I think we are. Only some of us are more attuned to the call than others. It is as much a curse as it is a blessing.

The bus lets me out at the airport and I inhale Key West in all it's glory. The fetid mangrove and salt smell is intoxicating after the foul stench of The Great Unwashed passing themselves off as fellow travellers on the bus. Diseased plebians, the whole coughing, crying, farting, snoring lot of them. I light my first cigarette in a few hundred miles, throw my backpack where it belongs and start walking back home...

Walking back home. Part 2

I walk all over Key West.

There is something magical about walking the streets in Old Town early in the morning, just as the sky is breaking open with the first rays of day. After the last bar closes, during the Morning Glories, and before the scooters. Every flower blossom worth a damn is wide awake and everyone else is asleep. Everyone but Sandy's on White. My feet find themselves wandering toward a cafe con leche and toasted, buttered Cuban bread.

It offers the senses a dance in which one must participate.

The waterfront at midnight. The pirate sway of drunkeness as I try to navigate the boardwalk after several whiskey(American spelling) and cokes. The inevitable walk back from Stock Island from either the hospital or the jail. I used to walk all the way from the dinghy dock to the laundromat, Sam and Moon as well, with my laundry bag on top of my head like some sort of sweating, swearing, olive-drab hat the size of a manatee. Sometimes I just walk out to White Street Pier and stare at the water and the people and their dogs and their kids and I think about things better left unthunk. Old regrets and moments when you wish you had been a better person, a better friend, a better father, a better...anything. That kind of walk is required penance periodically as long as you can remember, as in all of life, to not take yourself too seriously. Guilt is mankind's most useless emotion. It changes nothing.


This walk was different. This was home, for home's sake. I just wanted to feel it under my feet, to let the musk of cedar and magnolia and BJ's BBQ permeate my skin, to recall something lost, a Most Important Thing, and hold it. To hear Grampa Daniel's voice once again, telling me that I could always come home when all I wanted to do was leave. I still crave fresh homegrown tomatoes and will bite into them like an apple because that is the way Grampa taught me to do it when I was 8 years old. I wanted to drink from the spring behind the thicket with the mason jar hanging from a stick. But I have that. Or have had. I can hold that in my Inner. What I came here for has been missing for as long as I could remember but at the time I really couldn't have told you what it was.

I wanted to flake away the bark of a pine tree until my hands were sticky with resin. I wanted to get red clay on my best shirt. I wanted to hunt for arrowheads in Altha Wingo's woods across the the road because for some reason I never could find any on my side. I wanted to go fishing with Trip, a plastic bucket of nervous minnows and a cane pole. I wanted to sleep in the barn. I wanted to go to Snowdown Church and try to sing bass during "Standing on the Promises" like I did when I was a kid and sat on the back row. My Grampa sat on the front row and cried everytime we sang "How Great Thou Art". The difference 30 years can make.

I have hitchhiked across this beautiful and savage country several times. I have been told that I have a bit of a rogue-ish look about me so when I hitchhiked in the late Eighties, I got to walk a lot. I walked out into the Mojave for a week once. I lumbered into the Tetons several times. I have stood on a corner in Windslow, AZ. The Lovely Sam and I walked to Billy the Kid's gravesite. He really is buried with Charlie Bowdre. It really does say "Pals" on the headstone. We have also walked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, to the top of Bell Rock in Sedona, the giant redwood forest of northern California, and the streets of San Francisco. We have walked hundreds of miles in North Carolina together and slept under the stars for so many nights in a row that a Wal-Mart became an alien concept. I walked down Hollywood Boulevard and stood next to the casting of John Waynes boots. Marilyn Monroe has bigger hands than his feet. Or maybe I am getting Norma Jean's cement prints confused with a drag queen in Nashville who sings "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" in perfect breathless fashion?

What happened here? Where did the dirt roads go? Where went hunting snakes and curing the hides on the clothesline with Mom's salt? Where is Claude Curtis' burger joint? How come no one "liberates" the special mushrooms from The Field anymore? What happened to the damned water in Mineral Springs Park? What happened to Rhonda's pool and Eastside Superette? Who filled in the chalk mines? And for Dungeons and Dragon's sake, will someone please tell me what happened to good old boy sheriffs like Amos Bates? I understand you guys don't even see yours much. Sometime after 8 years old and sometime before I decided to blow my life up the last time, I was happy here. When did it again become somewhere else to walk away from?

I keep on walking hoping some semblance of truth comes from this trip. I feel as if something has been unresolved and unravelled for a long time now. Something to do with this place and why I chose the End of the Road for a home this last several years. I need to hold it in my hand. That Most Important Thing. Hold it and treasure it this time.

Nothing lasts forever...

To be continued.

Walking back home. Part 1

I am never quite prepared for the shock of leaving our self contained universe here in the Keys.

The outside world, on the way down, fades into the rearview and seemingly ceases to be. At times the transition is so profound that it feels as if there should be some sort of ceremony involved. It is not like arriving anywhere else in the world. It's not like riding the Greyhound toward somewhere like Flagstaff. Sure, you are going somewhere but driving down US 1 South, out of Miami and toward Havana, you have the distinct feeling that you are going somewhere IMPORTANT.

On the way up, however, the city of Miami looms ominiously and beyond her neon indifference, the rest of the world. There should be a shrine in Key Largo for travellers forced to return to the mainland. They could pull over and ask the gods to protect them against the Evil Forces of Reality and 9 to 5, to keep a little coconut in our soul and some jerk spice close to the stove.

I had been promising my mother that I would return to my Mississippi home town for a visit for some extended time. It worked out to where my chronically unfortunate pockets happened to be flush near my Mom's birthday,the birth of my beautiful grandchild, Bailey, and the afterglow of finally paying off the Rusted Root. I decided to make the Mississippi Pilgrimage.

The Lovely Sam dropped me off at the airport bus station and sped away, spraying gravel and squealing tires, yelling something that sounded like "FINALLY!" I think she meant that she could finally cry her lonely cries for her absent love. Poor girl, what would she do without me for 2 weeks? I am her reason for living, after all...

I was raped for a ticket aboard the USS WHYDIDNTIFLY, a stately aluminum tube chock full of Swine Flu goodness, owned and operated by the New World Order Prison System. One driver was so militant and overbearing, especially about the behavioural speeches he would give at every stop, he made me want to break my nearly 60 day streak of sobriety just to break his rule about not drinking on the bus.

There are many signs, if a person is observant, of the inevitable decay of Western Civilization. None are more frightening as the Atlanta Greyhound terminal. There are so many crack dealers, crackheads, crackwhores, hustlers, pimps, and my favorites, smelly bums, that you can't move inside the terminal itself. And those are just the passengers! I was offered oxycontins 3 times by fellow passengers on just one 400 mile stretch of road! I won't say whether I bought any of them but I will say that if I did, it was strictly in the name of investigative journalism.

Less than 24 hours into this thing and I already miss the Root and conch ceviche. But wait, here comes Muscle Shoals, Alabama and I know I am close to home. A few more hills and I am in Tupelo, Mississippi, birthplace of The Big E. Elvis. Thank you, thank you very much...also superb hickory smoke pit BBQ and

My mother and my children live about 50 miles outside of Tupelo and by the time I arrived, I was starving! I spent the next 2 days raiding the refrigerator and playing catch up with Mom. And then I went for a walk.

The first person I ran into was an old flame of mine. Back in high school, I was a fool for this girl but she was always too good for me and I was a little too wild for her. She was the girl you wish you had lost your virginity to, instead of the girl at Pickwick with the mustache and the huge areolas. After all these years she is still just as beautiful as she always was. She comments on my walking and the fact that I always did when I was younger and we laugh about old things that no one remembers but us.

I still love to walk. There is something about the connection of my feet against the earth that seals the covenant between Myself and the Other. I walk everywhere. I don't care much for the word "hike", though. I'm all for hiking as an activity just don't care for the word "hiking" It sounds too butch, too strenuous. I am a Walker and an Explorer Afoot. A Meanderer, a Stroller even. What I do, what I have always done, is more of a leisurely larrumphing about, Baloo-style, exascerbated by my tendency to go barefoot or if I have to wear shoes at all, flipflops. I love the feel of Mother Earth beneath the soles of my feet. My spirit clambors for dewy grass and black tilled dirt, a salty beach, a canyon floor, or a long deserted stretch of highway. I walked completely across the fine and beautiful (psychotically hot and invasively dusty) New Mexico just to prove to myself that I could and that it would be worth it. I could and it was.

I have done my fair share of the Appalachian Trail, the Oregon Trail, the old Natchez Trace and most of Route 66 all the way to Flagstaff. I almost froze to death on the top of a mountain in Alamagordo once, whacked out of my skull on a handful of peyote and a case of japanese beer, until I was rescued by a beautiful mute Native girl in a white Caddy, who took pity on the lost and hopelessly demented.

I used to walk this town. I knew every trail and shortcut, every possible route to get anywhere. I would walk to school. I walked the woods. I would beat down my own paths through untamed brush and when I couldn't, learned to be flexible enough to accept the fact that you sometimes have to go back a little in order to go farther forward. I walked with my Grandpa Daniel through town where he would show me off to all his friends down at Jaybird Park where all the farmers smoked Swisher Sweets and told the same old lies to the same old men trying not too hard to sell vegetables.

I would walk past the antebellum mansion on Eastport St. and wonder about the rumors of the tunnel that alledgedly ran from the old Brinkley place to somewhere underneath the high school. Sometimes I would walk out to Leadbetter's Fish Market and stare at them cutting and filetting catfish. I once saw a river cat that laid across two large washtubs full of ice with plenty of fish to hang over each end. Not everyone can say that.

I even used to walk at night. Snowdown Cemetery and the woods behind our house were my favorite haunts. The etherealness of full moon through forest. Cicadas and tiny green tree frogs pulsating along red clay memories. I walked all the way to the Margerum Ghost Town once and arrived well after dark. I spent the night there and walked back the next day.

I walk all over Key West...



To be continued...

Mama, I'm coming home...

I am well aware that I live on a tropical island. I am reminded of this every morning as I step out onto the deck of the Rusted Root, butt naked, Cuban coffee and cigarette in hand, and gaze at the multi hued sunrise. I am also well aware that I live in Key West, Florida. I am reminded of this every morning when my neighbor, Gay Steve, whistles and catcalls at me but is discreet enough to wait until I am dressed to come over with the daily dose of Kahlua and vodka.

I am also well aware that thousands of tourists scrape and save for sometimes years before they can afford to spend two weeks down here, pissing away many, many dollars all in the name of recreation and vacation. Key West is one of the major tourist destinations in this country and if you haven't been here, well, it's kind of like Vegas, you need to visit at least once. So to say that I need a vacation from Key West is kinda like saying I need a vacation from bacon and cigarettes. It is nearly blasphemous. What kind of dumbass leaves Paradise? And more importantly...where the hell do you go?

I am going home.

Home...Home where the pot dealers and meth cooks run rampant. Home where the banana pudding and real pit BBQ flows like rum does here. Home to a dry county and NO social diversity. (Where I come from, diversity means that your neighbor is a Methodist) Home where they still take great pride in voting for Bush and Walmart is a social meeting place. Home where Momma still makes the BEST bisquits you have ever eaten and the sheriff is as corrupt as a Nigerian money making opportunity.

I miss Key West already.

My momma is sick, my daughter just made me a new grandfather, and I need a break from the insanity of this rock. I am taking a vacation from a permanent vacation. I will go and visit E., the biggest pot grower in West Tennessee and my best friend for 20 years. I will visit S. and F. who just came to KW to visit me and are now back home in rehab(Just Kidding, Guys). I will visit the Mom and eat real PORK for the first time in years.

I miss the island already and haven't even gotten on the plane. I will miss the Cafe Con Leche that I drink every morning. I will miss the bouganvillias that are blooming in reds, oranges, and pinks all over the place. I will miss the sunsets and the sunrises(Yes, we have those here, too). I will miss all you freaking weirdos, drag queens, artists, writers, and drunks. I am going home.

Of course, I will be back in a couple of weeks. I just need a break. I just need to go somewhere that can remind me of how oppressed the rest of the country really is, so that I can more fully appreciate the One Human Family, social diversity, and natural beauty of this place that I choose to call home.

Yes, I am going home. But home is where you feel the most comfortable, right? So I suppose I am leaving home to go home. And I will love them both for what they are.

Toearitaville...

“Blew out my flip flop…stepped on a broken beer bottle, cut my vein and had to cruise back to the emergency room where there’s Vicodin in the blender and soon it will render me numb, so I can stumble on home…”

Ok, that was a horrible rendition of that timeless classic. Just be happy I didn’t sing it out loud. My singing sounds like two cats fighting in a bag of broken glass. So instead of screeching, I just choose to write down the words. It is less painful and it doesn’t interrupt the CD of Carole King that I am listening to.

There are occasionally times when even me, Consummate Adventurer and Genius Vagabond, does something so stupid and clumsy that you have to laugh. I had one of those days recently. Even while the emergency room doctor, Serge the Gay Butcher, was sewing my big toe back on, I was laughing my drunken ass off.

I had recently accompanied the Lovely Sam to a fundraising concert for the Boys and Girls Club hosted by TGIFridays, Howard Livingstone and his Mile Marker 24 Band. We wanted to see Howard again but we were also there to show support for the Club where our son, Moon, is a member. He is a good boy and helps with the smaller kids. I suppose, living with me, he is used to immaturity. The organization is fantastic and we try to show our support whenever possible. Besides, it was Howard Livingstone! Also, my completely clueless nemesis, Bill Hoebee, was in attendance.

When I say that Bill is clueless, I only mean that he is clueless that he is my Nemesis. I am constantly observing Mr. KeysTV for any signs that his excessive imbibing in all things adult and liquid, is taking its toll on his mind or body. At no time do I entertain the notion of unseating the undisputed king of Keys nightlife, he is an institution and a drunken hero to many on this rock. But Bill, if he ever falls out and his liver takes a vacation from what is left of his booze ravaged body, will have to name a successor. I am jockeying for position as we speak. I am watching you, Bill Hoebee…and I am coming for the throne!

Anyway, Lovely Sam and I grabbed a couple of burgers and a few beers and sat down to enjoy the concert. You would have to be dead not to. Howard and the boys always put on a great feel-good show. I personally rank country island music this way: Jimmy Buffett, Kenny Chesney, and Howard Livingstone. He sang all the favorites and during the break came over to our table and said hello. Of course, Bill Hoebee was already there, cocktail in hand, showing off his supernatural ability to drink and never age. Bastard! (Just kidding, Bill!)

Again, I digress. After the concert was over, Sam and I disposed of our trash properly and headed to my dinghy that I had parked in the mangroves behind TGIFridays for quick access. I had only had a few beers so I did not think my rowing would be too impaired. I had no idea that just getting into the boat was going to be the problem. Tide had receded until the bow of the boat was stuck on the edge of a mangrove root, unbeknownst to me, so when I stepped into the boat, the whole damn thing tilted to the starboard.

I knew immediately that I was going to fall somewhere, into the boat or into the water, so I chose the lesser of the two evils and just stepped into the water. I do not know how long that broken Miller bottle had lain in wait for a victim, but it found one that evening. It sliced cleanly the bottom of my foot, through tendon and vein and all the way to the bone! By the time I climbed out of the water, over the mangrove roots and onto the parking lot, I was literally spraying blood across the pavement. The gusher was disturbing me. There was so much fresh red liquid ME squirting out it was hypnotizing.

On your next visit to Key West, don’t let anyone tell you how bad the hospital is here. Let me do it…(just kidding.) The EMTs showed up so fast, I didn’t even have time to pass out from loss of blood and I was in the emergency room before Howard and the Boys were finished with their second encore. Serge the Gay Butcher had me sewed up, ten stitches, and laughing my butt off in less than an hour! I am not joking! He made me feel good about being such a dumbass by telling stories of other dumbass locals and tourists mutilating themselves in the name of debauchery. The one about the hairy fat KISS guy and the bottle of Everclear was so damn funny I almost tore my stitches open! Thanks Doc!

So, there I was. Prescriptions wadded in hand. Foot in bandage and boot. Missing my other flip-flop. One cigarette. No matches. Parked across from me, in the bike rack, was my ugly green bicycle. Grateful, I climbed aboard and headed to the dock where The Lovely was, of course, waiting for me. She had been sitting there since she dropped off the bike, trying to compose herself before I arrived. She had been laughing since I stepped on the bottle. I then realized that she hadn’t been at the hospital, at all! She had been sitting here all that time trying to gather enough composure not to laugh at me! Unsuccessfully, I might add.

Giggling, she hands me my missing flip flop. It is cut nearly in half! We both start laughing then. She asks me if I wanted to go dancing, hands me a cold beer and my cracked wooden paddle and says, “Row, ya crybaby. It’s time to go home.”

Fly Like an...Archeologist?

My son, Moon, turned 13 last Saturday. It is a pretty big deal around our house. Transitioning from a boy into a young man is a major milestone, not only for our household, but also in many cultures around the world. Bar Mitvahs, ritual scarring and other painful rites of passage are big affairs that sometimes take weeks to prepare and complete.

After whatever ordeal is inflicted upon the boy, whether it is walking on hot coals, genital piercing, or having his cheeks pinched 100 times by Jewish grandmothers, the young man walks (or waddles) away from the ceremony feeling accomplished, changed, and somewhat wiser.

I had big plans for the boy's 13th. The lovely Sam and I (OK, Sam) made reservations to take Moon on a 2 hour Barefoot Billy Jetski Tour around the island. Howard Livingston and the Mile Marker 24 Band was holding a fundraising concert at TGI Fridays for the Boys and Girls Club (Moon is a Junior Staff Member) later in the evening. That still left half of the day for fun and exciting activities. Since the lovely and prudent Sam informed me that under NO circumstances was I to tattoo, scar, burn, or even frighten the boy, my choices became extremely limited. So when I saw the sign on Roosevelt (Thank You VFW!!!), I knew that the heavens had opened up and dropped the Rite Of Passage solution in my lap.

I was taking the boy flying.

The EAA Young Eagles program was launched in 1992 and has provided over 1.5 million free flights to young people aged 8 to 17. They are a nonprofit organization where pilots volunteer their time and their planes to try to inspire young folks to explore the world of flight.

The Young Eagles Rally was bieng held on the morning of Moon's birthday at the Key West Airport. In a small hangar near the biplane terminal the EAA had set up 3 tables. One was for registration, one was for information on how to become a pilot, and the other, my favorite, was for hot dogs and hamburgers.

There was a small seaplane parked outside where a very informative and patient Mark Hightower was sharing his love for flying with the dozens of kids who had shown up early, leading 2 or 3 at a time through a tour of the cockpit. I think he showed Moon every knob, bell, whistle and button on the tiny plane.

I don't know who was more nervous when the plane, a Piper, took off from the runway, we parents or Moon, who had never been on a plane. Twenty minutes, 3 hot dogs, and a half a pack of smokes later, the boy was back, grinning as if he had just eaten 6 pounds of candy corn.

"OHMYGODMOMYOUWILLNEVERBELIEVEITDOLPHINSANDTURQUOISEANDGREENANDDADWEFLEWRIGHTOVEROURBOATANDITWASSOOOOCOOLTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!!!!!"

He was almost jumping up and down but bieng 13, was way too cool for that. In public anyway.

When they gave Moon his verytotallyawesome Certificate of Flight, which declares that he is now a Young Eagle and that his name is now permantly entered into the Worlds Largest Logbook in the EAA Airventure Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, I read the signatures at the bottom and could not help but smile.

Not only did the pilot sign the verytotallyawesome certificate but so did the Chairman of the Young Eagles. Only the Greatest Action Hero of ALL TIME, Harrison Ford! Indiana FREAKIN Jones is the Chairman of the EAA Young Eagles! Turns out he is an avid and active member of the Experimental Aircraft Association but also frequently flies the Young Eagles himself.

Can you imagine? Bieng 13 years old and you and Indiana Jones in a small plane flying over some tropical island in search of Mel Fisher's Gold of the Haunted Ruins of Old Fort Zack?

The look on my son's face said that it did not matter who the pilot was, he had found Aztec Gold and the Lost City of Myparentsaresocool in the last twenty minutes.

I suppose, begrudgingly, that not all rites of passage have to involve pain, scarification, and anguish.

A few things that all good rites of passage have in common though. They are death defying, life affirming, and inspire you to new heights and new ways of thinking. I think Sam and I did alright by the the boy.

I still wish she would have let me make him eat a bug or something...

Hope This Helps.

Hope This Helps


M. Stan Yow

5/28/2010

 
Fat Bob reclined against the green façade of Fast Buck Freddy’s and yawned, his mouth a quagmire of broken, missing and dirty teeth and halitosis. The rotten yellow stench of what he drank last night accentuating the tang of urine and rotten garbage that always seemed to hang over him like a ragged backpack.

He blinked his puffy eyes, looked around and let his mind remind him of where he was. Key West, of course. The end of the road. Bob had been waking in various locations in Key West for over nine years now. Sometimes it just took a minute to remember.

His first home when he arrived was a flattened cardboard box under a singlewide trailer parked behind the VFW that he shared with Scruffy and Preacher Steve. Scruffy was ok but the Preacher got on his nerves, bumming smokes, drinking malt liquor and then telling Fat Bob what an asshole everyone was.

Fat Bob had been on the road for a decade, at last count. He hitched his way to Key West because he was sick of freezing his ass in Oregon and the End of the Road sounded fitting against the backdrop of his mood. The Southernmost Point. You can only go so far down without learning to swim.
Amen.
He did not want to be homeless anymore. He wanted a job; he wanted to get his teeth fixed, to get his shit together. He didn’t even remember when it happened. All he knew anymore was that it had to do with his son. Robert Jr. was killed by his own mother, Fat Bob’s wife, over crack and whose turn it was at the pipe. Bob wasn’t there when it happened. He was five miles away getting arrested for attempting to score more dope. He always blamed himself for what happened even though he knows better. Some things are just going to happen. Some things are inevitable. Death, taxes, and crack cocaine.

Amen.

Things are looking much better now; Fat Bob will tell anyone who will listen. He has been off the pipe for three years one month and thirteen days. He will tell you that he went insane with the death of his son but he is getting better, better still if he could kick the booze.

Have you got a dollar for a vet?

Bob loves waking up on this side of the street with the early morning sun warming his wizened face. He loves the daily birth of Duval Street. The sleepy hose washing of the sidewalks. Last night’s revelry sprayed into the street and beyond. Power walkers and daydreamers. Bleary eyed tourists stumbling from overpriced and no doubt posh digs as hungover as Bob yet somehow more respectable, trying to squeeze every moment from too short vacations. Bicycles roll past quietly and Bob can smell coffee brewing. The air is scented with flowers.

You spare some change for a cup of coffee?

Thank you, brother. Enjoy your vacation.

Bob rolled a cigarette from salvaged butts with nicotine stained fingers so gnarled and scarred they resembled losers in an industrial accident and watched as the couple struggled with an oversized suitcase and three duct taped cardboard boxes on a dolly. The suitcase was as dirty and ragged as Bob felt this morning. It had no wheels. Newbies, thought Bob as they trudged past. He considered asking them for some change but they looked damned near as poor as himself and he just let them pass. How sad, he thinks, so desperate to escape whatever life they were living that all they brought with them was busted luggage and cardboard boxes. He gave them a week. Fat Bob pops the rollie in his mouth and lights it from a pack of matches. In a few moments, he forgets about the harried couple, stands up, brushes the seat of his filthy jeans and begins his search for today’s first beer.


Donna and Danny Skinner are late. They hurry down Duval Street without even glancing at the tourist shops with their kitschy merchandise such as fart themed t-shirts and pink flamingo martini glasses. The Skinners have an appointment. Danny shifts the dolly to his other shoulder as they step around a particularly odoriferous homeless guy rolling what looked like a joint on the sidewalk. Both of them had heard about the homeless problem in America but it was never much of a problem in most of rural Tennessee so a certain lack of sensitivity had to be expected, Donna Skinner supposed. Her and Danny had both been raised poor but not destitute and it was always taken for granted that people had to work for anything they had. Although they had never had much, they were both hard working Christian folks and had saved everything they could. Taking handouts was an alien concept. They had no children.

Although they never considered themselves in that way (they were both good Baptists for the most part.), they were a bit more intelligent than most of their neighbors back home. Instead of investing their hard earned money in Elvis figurines and Dale Earnhart commemorative plates they instead bought old comic books. Danny had been collecting since he was eight years old when his father bought him a Detective Comics issue with Batman in it. Danny still had that one, in near mint condition, wrapped in plastic, in one of the boxes he was pushing down the street.

Sometime in junior year, in their first year of dating, Donna caught the bug. For his high school graduation, one year earlier than hers, Donna presented Danny with one of the holy grails of comic collectors everywhere. Amazing Fantasy number 15, the first appearance of Spiderman. She had found it along with hundreds of others in mint condition in the attic of an ancient widow’s home. The venerated widow, although disapproving of the young lady’s interest in such a frivolous and boyish hobby, let Donna have the entire collection that had been her husband’s passing fancy during his college years.

The comic books were the reason for this trip to Key West. Combining business with the first vacation they had taken since the day they were married, they were meeting a private collector from Miami this morning at the La Concha Hotel in hopes of selling the entire collection. It would make them rich. Not Bill Gates rich but a couple of million to poor country folk was enough to stagger their limited imaginings. Donna held the door while Danny wrestled the boxes into the lobby. She was a good wife. Danny was so proud of her. He wanted to hug her but there was no time. They had an appointment on the third floor and they were late.


Timmy Gomez loved his job most days. Today was not one those days. He had only two tables to wait here on the rooftop of the La Concha but both were proving to be world class pains in his Jersey born ass. First were the Hungry Laughers. Although very nice people, polite and cheerful, the shabbily dressed duo were running him ragged. It was as if they had never eaten before. Timmy supposed that by now they had consumed about most of the items on the extended menu. There was food everywhere. On their table, on the two tables next to them, on the floor, everywhere. Conch fritters, mahi-mahi, coconut shrimp, cheeseburgers, and fries, lots of fries. Also, bottles of wine and imported beer, sweet tea, a couple of mai tais half finished and milk. Timmy wondered if they would ever leave. Extra napkins, cocktail sauce, a new fork when the Missus dropped hers. He had been up all night at his second job as a bar back in Sloppy Joes and was already exhausted and these people were killing him. Timmy knew that if they could even pay the tab that they would leave him a tiny tip, if any at all.

They did not look like big tippers.

The other table was, by far, the all time highest ranking member of Timmy Gomez’s Pain In The Ass Club. A gaudily dressed overweight boor who behaved as if Timmy was his personal servant and was such an obvious racist that Timmy wondered how the pig would look with a fork sticking out of the top of his toupeed head.

“Hey Chico, how bout some more hooch over here!”

“Hey Chico, who do I have to fuck to get a little service over here?”

“Hey Chico, go see if the mezicans in the kitchen fell asleep, or what?”

The drunker he became, the worse it was. Timmy could not wait for his shift to be over. One more shift at Sloppy Joes and he was the proud recipient of two whole days off. The first time in almost a year.

Although born in New Jersey to a British mother and a half Puerto Rican father, Timmy did look Hispanic. His boss, Angelina had encouraged him to affect a Spanish accent.

“Tourists tip better if they think you are Cuban, Timmy. A taste of the exotic and all that.”

Timmy hated stooping to that stereotype and actually had to practice his accent. There was no trace of it in his natural speech. Although he hated doing it, his tips had increased when the service he provided was Spanish flavored. This guy wasn’t worth it and halfway through the meal Timmy dropped the accent altogether. The jackass didn’t even notice and just kept up the “Chico” bit right up to the moment he walked out the door.

When Timmy checked the table, the guy had left only a few coins. Two dimes, six pennies and a nickel. One of the pennies was flawed with a double imprint of Honest Abe. The loudmouth racist even left ruined coinage. Bastard. The coin was old, 1908, probably made before there were standards set in place to make all money alike. Whatever. At least he was gone.

Timmy shoved the coins in his pocket and turned just in time to see the laughing couple get up from their table and head in his direction.

“Thank you for your patience with us, Timmy. It was a fabulous dinner. We left you a little something with the check. Hope it helps.”

Timmy imagined it would be very little indeed but said instead, “Thank you guys. You were no trouble at all. Enjoy your stay in Key West.”

“Oh, we will, Timmy. We most definitely will.” Holding hands and laughing, the hungry couple left Timmy on the rooftop with the demolished table.

With a heavy sigh, Timmy Gomez picked the leather pay envelope from the scattered remains and opened it. It took his mind a few moments to register what he was seeing. In addition to the outrageous tab that the couple had amassed, there were ten crisp 100 dollar bills along with a note, “Hope this helps.”, written on the tab itself.


Fat Bob had moved his bulk of stench down to within falling distance of the Margaritaville Café and was well into his third can of Steel Reserve. Business had not been good today. It was nearing sunset and he didn’t even have a tidy buzz yet. Bob had the brown paper bag to his lips when the smiling young man stepped around him. He didn’t have a chance to ask for spare change but a strange thing happened. The smiling Hispanic boy stopped, rummaged in his pockets, pulled out a twenty and some spare change and dropped the money into Bob’s upturned hat.

“Hope this helps.” He said and walked on down Duval with a bounce in his step.

Things are looking up, thought Bob as he gathered the change. He stopped and studied the penny with the curious double imprint. Bob’s mind flickered on something remembered from childhood.

Amen

He smiled brightly for the first time in years, slipped the penny into his filthy shirt pocket, stood up straight and walked on down Duval Street with a slight bounce of his own.

The End

Dawn...a poem

I wouldn't normally do this. However, since the poem was written in Key West about a writer in Key West(me), I thought it might be used as an intermission between columns. Don't worry, I will be back to my debauched ways just as soon as I finish this bottle of Conch Republic rum...

the wind blows cool blues across his skin. the man is sitting awash
in blue neon night. the tiki bar is a nice place to write
but right now, he concerns himself with two cigarettes
and the construction of a huge white russian.
the bartender is an imaginary former miss texas
in orange hot pants named
dawn
born with the tattoo
IM NOT YOUR FUCKING BABY
emblazoned in confederate font across the small
of her back
the man had decided he would giver a go
if she were real, that is....
he sits awash in blue neon as the wind blows
cool black night blues across his skin
his head abuzz with vodka
delbert mclinton
and the argument with sam
he was too controlling she cried
which was probably true so here he sits
controlling nothing
but his own level of intoxication
zen-like in his ability to just sit
and let the world do its thing around him
he bathes in blues buzzing
with dawn pretending to mix white russians
controlling nothing and writing the same
just letting the world do its thing
and writing no stories
about nobody people
in nowhere towns
doing nothing
and wishing the blues werent so real tonight
basking awash in blue neon night blues he curses
no one
smoking with no one
but the white russian
controlling nothing but the nowhere
people he creates and even then
they are obstinate at best
he wishes he were stronger
he wishes the drink was stronger
he wishes the words were stronger
and that dawn was real.

Off the Meds...

The chances of the seeing some pretty strange things in life are great, if you just pay attention. However, the chances are exponentially increased if you happen to reside in the Florida Keys. The Keys seem to be a magnet for bizarre behaviour. Bieng a professional rubber tramp and sailor, I know wierd on a first name basis and Key West is just strange enough to hold my attention. There are not too many places in the world that drag queens race rolling beds down the main drag while a fat man in a loincloth and viking horns blows in a conch shell and yells, "It's Thorsday!" on a bicyle covered in Hawaiian leis. It is an interesting town to say the least. So when I heard the story of a man stealing a jetski and heading out on the open ocean because, he claimed, the C.I.A. was after him, I knew I had to write about it.

If I must tell the truth, my original intentions were to scribble down a tongue-in-cheek article dealing with crazy Conchs with waay too many Mojitos under their tin foil hats. It would have been very funny. I know, I wrote it. I cracked up at my own jokes. I have a wicked and irreverent sense of humor. It dealt with the influx of psychedelic mushrooms in Key West lately and the fact that Derek King could not possibly have found proper mental counselling because all of the professionals were at the Conch Republic Seafood Co. for happy hour. It was hilarious.

After investigating the tale further(primarily to avoid a libel suit), I cannot do that. More tragic than comical, this is the kind of story that you sometimes, as a writer, shy away from. The witnesses are vague, the family is distraught, and no matter what you ask, it is way too personal. I knew I had to persue this but was apprehensive right from the beginning.

On Monday, April 12th 2010, Derek King, a 36 year old man showed up at Island Watersports near the Westin Resort dressed in black, and stole a jetski from his employers. Claiming to be in fear of his life from the Central Intelligence Agency, who had been surveilling him for years and had already tried to kill him once, he jumped on the blue jetski at approximately 7 pm and was seen again by a sailboat 10 miles out at around 7:25. Derek King has not been seen since. The unsinkable jetski has never been recovered. The Coast Guard conducted numerous searches as did the family, who rented their own private planes for the rescue attempt. 2500 miles of ocean were searched as were the outlying islands. No sign of Derek was ever found and the search was called off Saturday the 17th.

My first response when I read the report in the Citizen was that this brother got ahold of some bad dope. Right? If you were not thinking the same thing, something is wrong with you. The next thought was that maybe the C.I.A. really was after him. I love a good conspiracy, myself. The old adage, "Just because you are paranoid, doesn't mean They aren't out to get you..." holds a lot of water within some of the circles that I run in and I suppose it stuck with me. It doesn't help that a drinking buddy of mine happens to be a full-fledged agent with Spooks, Inc. They are here and they are watching you Key Westers. Make no mistake about it. However, he will not answer my calls of late. Something to do with leaving him on Christmas Tree Island, passed out with no ride back because his big ass was too heavy to carry. So, prepared with questions regarding prior military experience, drug abuse, mental illness, and just plain criminal activity, I made my first calls to my sources at the police station. I was told, regretfully, that since it was still an open criminal investigation, no questions would be answered that day. I can respect that. Next was to the Coast Guard who would not speak to me at all. Thanks, guys.

Garry, the supervisor at Island Watersports, was more receptive to my queries. I learned about who Derek was as a person. The other employees also tried to help me fill in the blanks. They knew him. At least as much as a co-worker can know someone, I suppose. Nice guy, funny, liked to race motorcycles and was very good at one time, always wore black to work, no military experience but brother was a Search and Rescue pilot. Father in South Carolina. Mother formerly of Key West relocated to Port St. Lucie. Some phone numbers and general details concerning the search. Very helpful people at Island Watersports and I am indebted. My questions were answered, clearly and concisely, with no hint of hesitation. That is until I asked if Derek had ever displayed any bizarre behaviour before the jetski incedent. Any cigarette break conspiracy theories? No sooner than the question is asked, heads drop and there is a long pause with a slight nod from Garry Jaworski, Derek's boss. He confesses that one afternoon, Derek had asked Garry to help him find and remove the Government tracking device that the C.I.A. had planted in his vehicle. Also, Derek had once claimed that the C.I.A. had pumped propane gas into his shop in South Carolina in an attempt to kill him for something he had seen on the Internet that he wasn't supposed to have seen. I leave more confused than when I arrived.

First of all, where did Derek think he was going? He was seen for the last time 10 miles southwest of Key West on a recreational vehicle that has a range of 80-90 miles on a full tank of gas. If he really was running from the superspies, where was he going to go out there? The last I checked, the only things out there are tiny outlying islands and the Dry Tortugas, neither will sustain a man for very long. The rangers at Fort Jefferson would have him arrested as soon as the search was announced. Right? So where was he going?

I have known a few paranoiacs and schizophrenics in my day. I am proud to call many of them "friend". I know from crazy, ok? One of my ex-wives was crazier than a shithouse rat. Off-kilter they may be, my friends, but stupid they are not. Driving a jetski out into the middle of the ocean with no water, no food, no charts, for pete sake, is stupid. You are either genuinely terrified of someone on shore, completely ignorant of how little the Earth really thinks of you, or a common thief with an overactive imagination. I was determined to find out which one Derek King was.

My next call was to Gordon King, Derek's father. Gordon's distinguished British? accent sounds tired and melancholy. He confirms what has already been told to me by the co-workers and the newspapers. He is very pleasant but concerned that I make sure the article is as accurate as possible. I imagine had he been more familiar with my work, he probably would have hung up the phone. Again I say, my original intention was to make fun of Derek and the C.I.A. in the same article. Sidesplitting stuff, I tell you. Gordon expressed to me that yes, Derek had had a history of bi-polar and paranioac behaviour but had been off his meds for well over a year. He had been doing fine for all that time. No problems. Yes, Mom lived in Port St. Lucie but had been a long time resident of Key West. No, he did not use drugs. Yes, he had claimed that people were after him and he left South Carolina for that reason but that was a long time ago.

The most intriguing answer was given when I asked Mr. King if he thought his son was still alive. "I hope so. We are holding out hope for that. Especially after the phone call." What phone call, I ask. Alledgedly, Derek called the Commander of the American Legion and asked him if he still needed his car detailed. Huh? When was this? The next day after Derek's disappearance, Tuesday the 13th, Gordon tells me. They were going to be searching the phone records to verify. Ok, what the hell is going on here?

Secondly, even the thought of running a jetski aground, say...in the Marquesas, and dragging the 800 pound behemoth for enough inland to bury it or cover it sufficiently to disguise it from search planes, would take more than one person and even then it is improbable. Even if Derek decided the best place to hide would be on one of the outlying islands, where would he get fresh water? Someone with a shallow draft boat or another jetski would have to be bringing supplies to him or else even if Derek made it to an island out there, he was certainly doomed from the start. Unless, of course, he had planned this ahead of time and knew someone with a boat to meet him offshore and lend escape. Stranger things have happened here and stranger still are right around the corner, I am sure.

My last call went to Miller, Derek's best friend and according to Gordon King, a really good guy. Miller is a commercial flats fisherman here in the Florida Keys. We talk for a while about Derek as a person and he confirms what everyone has already said. Kind, intelligent, good sense of humor, superb jetski mechanic, drank a little beer, no dope, didn't kick dogs or women, all the usual. This is a guy you want to go drinking with, he picks up the tab and is still sober enough to drive you home. A normal joe, a working stiff with a weakness for things that go fast. Except for the fact that he claimed he could not touch a computer because They tracked him that way. Except for the fact that he was delusionally paranoid and chronically avoiding the medications that would possibly have saved his life, he was just like the guy sitting next to you at the coffee shop. Or the one in the mirror...

Where is Derek King? I don't know. I wish I did. I want to drink with this guy. If I were to find him, it would probably make my career as an investigative journalist, at least until I screwed it up with my own breed of crazy. I wish I knew. Not as much as his family and friends, I am positive but I feel for this guy. I am not real crazy about what our country has become since even before the JFK assassination, Watergate, and Bill getting his willie wet and I, like everyone else wonders what They are up to and I am scared sometimes. Derek King, I believe, was scared. Scared of the beasty evils in his fuddled mind. Scared of the same crap we all are, that They have too much control, know too much. Scared that we have no control over our own lives anymore. Scared of nothing and everything at the same time. Just scared. I can respect that.

I admit that I began this column with full intentions of poking irreverent fun at an unfunny situation but I just can't. I want to, I really do. It is a habit of mine to retreat into comedy when I am upset, hurt, nervous, or disturbed. I tried but the only punchline I can come up with is this...

If you have any information as to Derek King's whereabouts, please call 305-896-1306 and ask for me. I want to buy this guy a beer. He needs one.

Ulan Ude?

As I sit and ponder my existence over a lukewarm plastic cup of beer, I am caught off guard by a city name on the signpost at Key West Bight. You know the one, don't you? The tall sign near Turtle Kralls that displays the distance to various cities around the world. It is a Key West landmark begging to be photographed and is several hundered times a day, I am sure. There is a city, apparently, named Ulan Ude, somewhere on this lovely blue marble that we call Earth. It dawns on me that I have no idea where this place is. Thailand? New Zealand? Russia?

Professional vagabond that I am, It disturbs me that there is somewhere I have never been, but it disturbs me even more to realize that I don't even know where in the hell it is. I have roamed the face of our planet for well over 40 years and like to consider myself quite the drunken prophet of the road. You need directions? How many different ways would you like to get to your destination? I am a walking road atlas so you understand when I say that Ulan Ude bothered me and would until I could get home to my trusty internet and do some research.

Contemplating the subject as only a man well into a six-pack can, I wonder how many of us really know where we are? I mean, sure, we are in Key West but where is that? End of the road?
Paradise? The Rock? We call our little island home so many things, do we ever really stop and think of what it really is? My friend, Stoner Steve, tells me that I am overthinking the whole thing and I should go ahead and buy the next round. Just enjoy Paradise for what it is, he says. Don't think about it too much, you will ruin it. Seems awfully tenious for Paradise, I say.

Is Key West the utopia that we always claim to the tourists? In some ways, I suppose it is. Plenty of sunshine, tons of activities to keep us busy, beaches, beautiful people, music flowing from every doorway, and permission to drink all you care to. However, 5 AM garbage trucks, vomiting tourists, lack of parking, overpriced mediocre bar food, roosters announcing their manhood during a Saturday morning hangover, corrupt politicos, crack fiends in Bahama Village, half-naked Czech girls who won't speak to me, and rampant smelly homelessness all make a strong argument that Key West is only a rehashed microcosm of the rest of the world. Add hurricane season, outrageous rents, and the prick on Caroline Street that stole my $600 Conch Cruiser weeks after I purchased it and the end of the road looks like any other pretentious ass of a town.

Stoner Steve and White Feather decide that I am thinking too slow and decide to pool up for another six pack. Fine with me, writing always makes me thirsty. I must be related, at least in spirit, to Papa Hemingway in that respect. As I am standing in line at Mustapha's (For some reason, I end up getting talked into buying.), I see it. I see all around me what makes this island so special. I am in line behind an unattractive transvestite in a spandex exercise outfit. She is buying a bottle of cheap red wine, a bag of Skittles, and a pork filled frozen burrito. Mustapha, one of the nicest men on this island, is a Muslim. The guy in line behind me is obviously Cuban. Outside on the sidewalk, I can see a homeless guy giving an elderly couple directions to, presumably, Duval Street. My neighbor, a stunning artist who likes to ride her bicycle naked around our neighborhood at 3 in the morning, comes in the store and hugs me hello. It is a sunny day.

We are truly one human family. It is not just a cliched bumper sticker. We are family here and just like any other family, we may not like it when Uncle Kenny shows up drunk for Thanksgiving or when Cuzzin Trevor rams his bicycle into your car, or your sister-in-law defrauds half of your island in the name of progress, but we are still family. That, to me anyway, is what makes this rock magical. It may not be perfect, it may not even be Paradise, but at least it is not Ulan Ude.

By the way, Ulan Ude is in Russia. Brrrr.