KEY WEST

I should warn you right now, this is a sort of corny story. It’s about my first visit to Key West, and there’s sex and drugs and stuff, so if you’re offended, take a hike. So we drove all day, Walt and I, in my 1972 Super Beatle. Straight down that sticky black road, two lanes for hundreds of miles, surrounded by nothing but water. It could make you a little sick if you didn’t watch yourself.

It was all just so damned beautiful, you know? We’d make it a ways, and then Walt would want to stop to look at some flock of birds, or a picturesque swamp or something. He would read little entries from the tourist guidebook each time we went a few more miles, strangely eager for information about paradise. He also got pretty chatty after a joint or two, you know what I mean, and we had some great weed in those days, Florida was flooded with the shit.

Then I’d need to pee, and hell, who cared if the other mad tourists in their Lincolns and Caddies saw us wangling our weenies without the cover of trees. Hell, I thought, maybe a cute one would stop. When the sun was overhead the heat in the VW was impossible, so we hit a greasy spoon in a wide place called a key and ate a fried seafood pattie on a bun and thought it was all so romantic because a pelican flew by the window before we could pay our check. Ah, youth!

By late afternoon, with the hazy hot December sun racing us to the horizon, I put my foot down, literally and figuratively, and the little car puttered to a grand finale with gas to spare. We pulled to the side with a dozen other tourist cars and had a fat fellow with a gaudy shirt take a picture of the two of us under the big sign that spanned the road, “Welcome to Key West.” The sun was definitely in the West, about to be swallowed somewhere behind the low buildings and the ratty palm trees.

“Which way to the pier?” I asked the guy with the gaudy shirt, and he told me, all very polite, don’t you know. He didn’t seem to mind that my hair hung down to the middle of my back and I wore only cutoffs and a puka necklace. I flashed him the peace sign and we got back in the little Beetle.

Thanks to Walt’s exhaustive reading of the guidebook entries, we had already filled our heads with every fact and myth about Key West, the land at the end of the road where misfits flourished and Hemingway wrote in between drinks. Ninety miles from Cuba, home to a naval base, quaint little shops, and at this moment, stay with me, the legendary stroll down the little town’s pier at sundown.

Soon, were surrounded by something other than water for the first time in hours. The island was bigger than it had a right to be, and depressingly middle class, at least at first. Jesus, between the naval base and the Sears store, the subdivisions and the mall, we could have been anywhere in Florida. For this I’m on vacation? Puleeze, I thought. Plus, it wasn’t even beautiful anymore. The edge of the road was scrubby, with white dirt that looked like somebody had crumbled pie dough and laid it along our path. The palms were stuck in the sand like parsley garnish on a plate of chopped liver, right? And the houses had those hideous white rock yards that sparkled, like the ceiling of all those tract homes.

Then, almost suddenly, the road narrowed and we entered a canopy of dense green. There were little houses, shockingly white in the deepening shadows, each sporting more outrageous curliques of fancy, wild Victorian frou-frou, hung improbably along the rooflines and entryways. Of course, our guidebook had told us that Key West was built by New England sailors in the 19th century, but still, wouldn’t you be a little knocked out to see a Massachusetts town being strangled by a rainforest? Especially if you were as stoned as we were.

The traffic began to clog, making it pretty damn hard to make any time. We only had a few more blocks to go, so we found a place to dump the car in front of a little store selling Po-Boys and Cuban beans at one counter and half-pints of booze at another. We bought two cokes and a bottle of Jack Daniels and the old lady behind the counter gave us some cups filled with ice.

We walked hand in hand towards the sun, swigging and laughing, filled with the tingle of who knows what’s coming, fully out of the day-to-day, even other people’s day-to-day like our parents. Both Walt and I had parents with houses in different ugly Florida subdivisions. This is where old Jews and Wops come to die, evidently, only his daddy was a Baptist preacher, which is maybe why he liked me to spank him.

He let go of my hand and ran, splashing a little of the drink along the way. The dense green had given way to a parking lot and that kind of nautical industrial stuff that has to go along with places where boats are tied up, know what I mean? Off to the right was a long two-story motel that made an L in order to contain the little harbor. And off to the left, almost suddenly leaping into our glowing faces, was a long, very long pier that stretched out into the water, hundreds, no thousands of worn planks holding up almost that many people.

Swarms of people, strollers being pushed by Norman Rockwell couples, multigenerational families of unknown ethnic origins rattling wildly to each other as if nobody else were there. Couples of all ages, mostly half-naked, just in from the beach, hanging on each other in poses that would put museums to shame, get my drift? But mostly it was a crowd of freaks. Long haired, body-painted, tie-dyed stoned-out polymorphously perverse over the top, fucking hippie kind of freaks. I mean, it was like every Be-in since the summer of love had sent a delegation.

Half of them were performing. Guitarists strumming vigorously to the sky, eyes closed in a private trance, peaking from time to time to see if some fool had tossed a quarter into the open guitar case. Jugglers and unicyclists and those irritating mime people, wacko’s dressed up in Renaissance costumes despite the fucking heat. I mean it, is this an acid trip or what?

And then, there were the queers… pairs of hippie boys like us, some just starting their beards with goofy haircuts abandoned in eager anticipation of long hair to come. Bell bottoms and uniforms, elaborate drag queens and greased up muscle boys. Tough looking girls escorting their girlfriends, all pretty with pony tails and pastel capri pants. A hot little hippie boy whose eyes never left the sweat-beaded chest of a shirtless sailor in tight bell bottoms, strolling arm in arm without a care in the world. Every combination and variation, which you must know in 1973 was really something to see.

The smell of good weed was everywhere, and we lit a joint too, as we made our way as close to the end of the pier as we could. A lovely tan boy in a Blue Speedo and flip flops stood next to me, golden curls cascading onto his shoulders. Paging Michelangelo, you know what I mean? I offered him the joint and he took it between his teeth backwards like —- a shotgun —- and I put my lips onto the end of the joint as be blew, and he blew my mind, and I looked into his eyes as the general cacophony, the cloud of noise and snatches of music congealed into a giant roar.

I smiled at the boy and turned to my left, just in time to see the gleaming Gulf of Mexico swallow the last little taste of the big orange sun. I pulled Walt into my arms and together we kissed the golden haired boy, surrounded by noise and the possibilities of paradise.

How’s that for a corny ending, I warned you.