The Bertonis’ rental house in Key West is cool. I have my own bedroom and Guiliana and here daughter cook our meals. Giancarlo, the NYU’s head anesthesiologist, chills at the beach reading and smoking weed we buy off the street. It’s nothing special, but he likes it that way. I devote my early afternoons to drinking at the Green Parrot and Sloppy Joe’s before the tourists flood the legendary bar.
After three days I come to a series of conclusions; firstly this end of the road island is filled with hippies drawn to the myth of an end of the road town closer to Cuba than America. Key West has clean air, a metaphysical sea, a welcoming air of transiency, but the long hairs are stuck in 1968-1972 wit the Summer of Love locked in their hearts. There is no punk music on the juke box, plus these hippies are aging as badly as their ragged clothing like they had just been released from Drug rehab in Kansas to recover their battered senses. I wish them luck.
Secondly the women are unattractive. Locals, transients, and tourists.
The gay community are as time -locked into the haydays of the Haight. None of them seem aware of the killer stalking their clan. having seen James Spicer died of an unknown disease in 1978, I filly aware of the future and am scared for my brothers. This will be bad, but why not dance before Sodom burns.
Next A-15s and Phantom Jets rip off the Naval Air Base tarmac to patrol the DMZ straits separating the USA from Communist Cuba. The Cold War full-tilt. Strangely for such a heavy military presence there are no whores walking Duvall Street.
I’ve drunk at all of Duvall Street’s bars and dives. Hemingway’s fishing locals work his myth to the bone without a single customer smelling of fish stink, although tens of boats set out every morning with sports fishermen searching a fighting sailfish on the reel. I don’t talk with anyone, but the bartender and that’s usually just to order a drink.
I came here for relaxation. Swim in the sea, watch the sunset, get drunk, and be with the Bertonis. I sleep like the dead and my body is recovering from the excesses of the Jefferson Theater. No cocaine for a week now.
The only beautiful females are Midwest high school teenagers on holiday with their obese parents. Happy now unaware of their fate.
The police presence is heavy. They regard every tourist as a potential criminal ready to be hauled into the justice process. NO TRESPASSING and NO HITCHHIKING signs are everywhere. I obey them, but if some hick local seeks trouble, I will help him find it. Damned the jails.
Lastly there are hardly any beaches here. The locals tell the tourists of sharks. I haven’t seen a single dorsal fin, but the hotel at the end of Duvall Street barracudas rule the flood-lit water at night. Strangely there are no tales of ‘cudas attacks from these vicious sea creatures.
