Key West Light - April 1981

Palms wavering in the Key West light. High noon I hide in the shade My eyes blinded by brightness Maybe it's the light Making the horizon so close As if it were the edge of the world Sailors fear the edge of the world I have no fear I stand on land. Key West. I swim out a hundred yards. No fear The water is only chest-deep My feet rest on sand. Key West of the past I will not awaken any sea monster Nor tread on a dead fish I am scared of sea monsters Lurking under the waves They could be America's Godzilla Waiting awakening to burn Miami to ashes. One must be scared of sleeping monsters Monsters in strange waters at the end of US1.

April 23, 2023 - Key West - Journal Entry

The Bertonis are leaving on Monday and all the flights to New York City are book into the next week. There is always the possibility of a stand-by seat, but the flight is too expensie. School Break prices, so it appears that I will be stuck in Key West $80 in my pocket. Hitchhiking from here through the Deep South is daunting.

Several Hours later.

Giancarlo owed me $100 and bought me a $139 airline ticket. Guiliana, his wife, is pissed at the both of us. I'm a freeloader and the NYU's chief anesthesiologist is a fool to have friends like me.

"Gianca, you earn the money, you should be able to control it," I said brusquely and stormed out of the bungalow, thinking I needed to find a cheap hotel room. Giancarlo followed me and we entered Sloppy Joe's. It was only 10 in the morning, but this was vacation time.

"Sorry about that, but she's angry with my helping James White and Anya," Gianca said after ordering too daiquiris. Pina Coladas are too sweet for this time in the morning.

"How is Anya?" The dominatrix/muse had incurable cancer.

"Stable, but you you pay me that $39 in front of Guiliana. She's angry, because I used the MasterCard without telling her. Women aren't as stupid as we are."

"We are really stupid, I'm sorry." I had taken advantage of Gianca's friendship. I should have taken care of my own downed my Daiquiri and ordered another. It was 10:16. We talked about Hockey. The Boston Bruins had been eliminated by the North Stars in the opening round and the NY Rangers were 3-1 up on the St. Louis Blue. "They're almost good enough to win the Stanley Cup."

"Scatzo, don't say that," Gianca shivered on the stool. He was equally as superstitious as were all fans of a game played on ice. We left after a third Daiquiri.

"One more thing, best you stay away for a while. Guiliana is on her period. If you ever get married, I'll give lessons on how to be diplomatic with women, which is mostly keeping your mouth shut and taking the abuse." "Thanks for the advice." I had lived with two women, but that isn't like marrying one." "You think I'll ever get married?"

"I don't see any threats of that in your future."

"No there doesn't." Lisa and Anne were out of my life.

"I stayed away until well past dark."

"Grazi."

Gianca went back to the bungalow and I walked down to Garrison Bight. A cheap motel leaned into a decrepit marina with a views on a Burger King and US-1. The clerk said the rooms were $20 a night. I chiseled him down to $15.

"I come back tomorrow."

He shrugged his indifference He had heard thousands of down-and-outers say the same words. I was no different.

Last week there was a power outage and the only lights on in Key West were this Burger King shimmering on a black asphalt. The only other lights were the stars, the moon and the distant planet Jupiter

DIRTY LOVE BOAT - KEY WEST - APRIL 18, 1982 - Journal Entry

The dirty love boat beached at Duvall Street's eastern end. All its voyages everywhere The Final stop. Key West. Castro refugees fled Havana Keeping boats afloat with prayers, curses And a lot of bailing.

Not one didn't abandon ship Once the dirty love boat stuck sand Not one them are here now And where are these pilgrims?

Not here. Key West The southern terminus of US 1 Two thousand miles south of Ft. Kent Just ninety miles north of Havana.

The Mariel Boatlift ended in the autumn. There never is an autumn in Key West. The refugees came by the thousands. Their abandoned boats are piled Atop other boats in the Navy Yard.

The hippies, homos, and tourists ignore the newcomers. They were transported by immigration to parts unknown Free at last To be detained in Arkansas. Deep inside the Land of the Free.

Key West is a hole in time. The town exists in many decades. I wander the flowered streets Flowing through times beyond my senses. Glad to be away from Manhattan And the cold.

My only conversation are with bartenders. They have had enough of tourists I stand at the end of Duvall Street I sit on the stern of the love dirt boat The wooden wreck smells of hope. I gaze beyond the bikinied teenagers On the beach To the oil tankers on the Gulfstream I stay to myself Stranger to all the strangers Ever watchful for an opening.

April 17, 1981 - Key West - Journal Entry

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.