April 26, 1981 - Key West - Journal Entry

FOTO - Capucine and Hiram Keller in Fellini - Satyricon (1969)

Last night in Key West. Hiram and I go to the Monster, a notorious gay disco celebrating the Sexual Revolution. We drink to excess, dance, huff poppers with abandon. I strip to my undies to Sly's TAKE ME HIGHER. No one asks me to go to the toilet. Their radar tells them I'm off-limits, but they relentlessly hit on Hiram. He was the lead in Fellini's SATYRICON. The handsomest man I have ever met.. A movie star after all and a friend who shares all the drugs with me.

We go back to his place. The Bertonis are gone. I shall be gone tomorrow.

Tina, his wife, asks if we had fun.

"Too much," Hiram is a good mood. We both are. They are headed to Hollywood to audition for COUNTRYMAN and I'm going back to New York. I am leaving the same way I came. Hitchhiking.

I shall miss Key West.

The tropical flowers, the pastel colors of buildings, the scent of night jasmine, the pelicans skating on a breeze above the most aqua of waters, the waywardness of a dead-end town like Provincetown or Fire Island.

I've cured myself of my bad habits for now. All my heartaches are gone. I'm ready for more and MORE remain back north.

I will wait for answers.

Below is a postcard of Key West.

An aerial shot.

I would never see that.

I didn't go up in a balloon or fly by seaplane to Dry Tortugas. I will take a bus north to Miami. I saw plenty of subchasers arrive at the Naval Base at sunset. Protecting us some the Cubans and their Black & White TV shows. I really enjoyed to coral isle surrounded by the Gulf Stream. My psyche feels its embrace.

I heard an old-timer say that Key West gets erased every once in a while like the Hurricane of 1935. Everything blown into the sea and they start anew. From scratch. None of the houses have basement only crawl spaces. If you hide something in the Keys, it has to be in the attic. There is only coral stone below. Ah, Key West.

April 27, 1981 - NYC - Key West - NYC - Journal

April 27, 1981 - NYC - Key West - NYC - Journal

Leave the Mudd Club
Bag in hand
A cab ride
To the Holland Tunnel
A warming from a Transit Cop
I ignore him
A ride into Jersey
To the Vince Lombardi rest stop on I-95
Another ride from a trucker
To another truck stop___
Snow___
A ride to a shitty exit.
A ride to a shittier exit The snow turns to rain___
I shelter beneath an overpass
Cold and wet
Jets overhead
I am close to the Philly airport.
I hail a taxi
The driver takes me to the terminal
I
Cold and wet
Buy a one-way ticket
Air Florida
Plan on hitchhike back to New York___
A two-hour plane ride to Miami
Outside
Sunny
I still wet
Not cold___
A bus to the edge of Miami.
A bus to Florida City.
A ride to Key Largo
Another to Marathon
The last to Key West___
Not wet
Only a little damp
A walk to Hilton Haven road
Friends waiting
One week in Key West
Pina Coladas
Weed
Drinking on Duvall Street
Swimming in shallow water
Watching the sunsets
A subchaser descending from the sky
Warm so warm___
Seven days later
Hitchhike to Miami.
Catch a stand-by flight to JFK.
A limo bus to 59th and 3rd
A taxi to the Mudd Club.
A walk home
I crash into my bed

Drunk and tanned
Dreaming on Key West
I will always___
Oh so warm
In my East Village bed___

I think this was during the Mariel Boat Lift and the nearest navy base was visibly packed with ships and boasts piled on top of each other. Sitting at the beach at the eastern end of Duvall a derelict boat hoved into sight and rammed into the beach. A hundred-plus refugee jumped ship and ran into the scenery. The only sign of them after a minute the boat.

Key West 1981

A few palm trees in sight Wavering in the Key West light. High noon on Key West Even in the shade The blinding brightness All horizons so close Key West.

No sailor fears the edge of the world I know no fear I stand on Key West. 95 miles from Cuba.

Swim out South from Straw Hat Beach A hundred yards. Still no fear Stop swimming My feet rest on sand. The sea chest-deep

My tread careful Not to awaken sea monsters Nor tread on a dead fish Nor the drowned bodies of coke pirates Nor sea monsters Are they there? Lurking beneath the waves Asleep beneath a azure sea.

America’s Godzilla A hundred feet of fire breathing monster. Waiting Awakening Burn Miami to ashes. Spare Key West The queers, The conchs, The snowbirds, Fishermen, Tourists, Drunks at Sloppy Joe's Bar and me. Saved from death From a monsters.

We are safe From Strange monsters at the end of US1. Forever asleep.

April 24, 1981 - Key West - Journal Entry

Only another three days in Key west. My strength has returned, mostly because I haven't been drinking so heavily and stopped snorting cocaine. Drink and coke were my basic diet while I was working at the Jefferson Theater. Right now I'm sitting on the end of a wharf, watching the sun set into the Gulf Stream . It's flattening as it approaches the horizon. A hippie's flute floats over the distance from Mallory's Pier, where everyone comes to watching the demise of the day's sun like they were extra's in a Thomas McGuane novel.

I shouldn't be so dismissive of the hoi polloi. I am no one and recognize that I am no one.We are all no one's together. The breeze is unbelievably balmy. Wispy clouds are polished silver by the dying rays. Night is coming fast. I am alone. Behind me the stars are popping from the gathering black. I wait for all light to cease, then I go into town.

Last night I ran into Tina and Hiram at the supermarket. I was with Giuliana and Alice. I didn't recognize the star of Fellini's SATYRICON. He looked excessively healthy. He had stopped doing blow. Tina is excessively pregnant. We were mutually surprised to see each other, since we hadn't seen each other since September, when they were living in 256 East 10th Street. One floor above me. They had left to act on a film in Jamaica.

"We were talking about you the other day." The movie star pointed to his wife.

"I was telling how we broke into your apartment with me squeezing under the window gate. I couldn't do that now," she said patting her belly. "Hiram and I are having a baby."

"So I see." I introduced them to Alice and her mother. Guiliana was star struck as would have been any Italian who had met a Fellini star. Alice just thought he was handsome, which was the truth. one of the most handsome men I had ever seen. "How was Jamaica?"

"A war broke out after Seavey won. Manley's gunman from Frenchtown refused to accept the results. "But why don't you come over and we'll talk later."

I went off with my friends to Hilton Haven road. I read a book and planned on meeting Hiram tomorrow. Gianca and I watched TV. He lies on the couch and I rest on the floor with a pillow under my head. Comfortable and sleep came faster than a tropical sunset.

Softer than soft A Key West breeze Carrying the breath of the sea Through the palms To a milk box On which I sit Watching Apollo finish his day's race With the Sun A peace, a crazy peace, touches my soul Creating a Satori state My senses cocaine dead rise from the grave The clouds catch fire Dusk shadows stretch down Duvall From the East Dusk turning to night On the Gulf Stream Soon it will be night.

April 22, 1981 - KEY WEST - JOURNAL ENTRY

Life goes on endelesly on the Key West. I spend my day sunning on the small beach at the end of Duvall Street, ignoring snowbirds' racist conversations and strangers' nasty gossip about distant friends and family. It's the end of Spring Break, so thankfully there are less of them. The color of the Gulfstream cures the senses.

I worry about what I'm going to do upon my return to Manhattan.

No job, no woman, but a million future friends and I'll wander from bar to bar freeloaading vodka and telling everyone that the Jefferson will reopen, although I sincerely doubt it.

Damn, I wish the hick in front of me lathering suntan loition on his tattooed flesh would shut his hole and also that I was deaf, but then I couldn't hear the gentle waves lapping at the beach.

"...you know what I mean, Linda?" he says for the hundredth time.

"Sorry, Billy, but sex is no longer the main drive in my life. If I want to get off, I get myself off. I found masturbation late in life. If I had known about it earlier, I might still be a virgin," said his blonde bikinied companion. The skinny teenager's conversation was why I didn't move down the beach.

"I discover jerking off at 12," the oaf started, until I saw my moment in interject myseslf into their life and interjected, "Hell , it's better than sex and there's no men mess."

"That's right. Only sweet pussy juice." She laughed and the hick scowled at me, asking, "You want to repeat that?"

"I'm not a tape recorder. You heard it the first time," I realized he hadn't understood my words. Dumb as a fence post. Me too, because Linda was so cute. Slightly anorexic, but like Twiggy in a good way, not that I had ever seen a photo of Twiggy in a bikini or in person. I rapped on about being a poet and a drifter and a doper."

Key West used to be home to pirates and smugglers, I don't see any around here."

"There are plenty of smugglers smuggling people and drugs, but they had a big bust here and now everyone is hiding until the DEA go someplace else."

Fuck them and all the Feds," said Billy and I agreed with both of them. This island should have been unindated with cocaine and reefer.

"We're from here and we don't know where to cope," she smiled at me and I thought she might be Peggy Lipton stand-in from THE MOD SQUAD and Billy her Pete. Narcs came in all shapes and colors.

"Probably for the best, becaue i came here to clean up. No drugs, just the sun and the sea." I picked up my things and moved down the beach. Paranoia is a terrible thing to waste.

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

APRIL 19, 1981 - KEY WEST - JOURNAL ENTRY

It's Easter and I search the streets of Key West for a kindred lost soul. The Bertonis have gone on a snorkeling trip to celebrate the Nailed God's rising from the dead. Giuiliana suggested this was a family outing and I stayed ashore.. I see no one like me. Only soulless tourists. I go into the Sands and have a Daiquiri. Double strength and it's not even noon. After another I show up to an early gay tea dance and grind against hard bodied queers and do poppers. I am a sinner on Easter holiday in the Keys. Fucked up into the bright sunlight without sunglasses. I buy a cheap pair for $5 and stager into Sloppy Joes. Another legendary Daiquiri. I wander over to the fenced Naval base. Mariel boats are piled on each other like the dead. The well-dressed Navy family walks in a row. I was once one of them.

I drink more at the tea dance and resist being queer.

It's easy after a few lines of blow.

It's getting late.

I crossed the bridge over the Garrison Bight and watch the sunset away from the conch madness.

Everything is so flat in Key West.

Flat island, flat streets, flat Gulfstream.

I am so fucked.

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.

APRIL 15, 1981 - HITCHING TO FLORIDA - JOURNAL ENTRY

I walked our of the Mudd Club at dawn. The gray skies promised snow. I had my bag in hand. I headed to the Holland Tunnel and stuck out my thumb. I was hitchhiking to Florida to meet my friends, the Bertonis, in Key West. The first ride took me to Philadelphia. I wasn't on I-95, but a side highway. It was snowing. A wet hard snow. My feet were wet in an instant. The slushy fall wet my clothing. I had not been expecting this. I was fucked. The sky was dropped down lower.

Planes were taking off to the west from Philly's airport. I had enough of hitchhiking and hailed a passing taxi. The driver took me to the airport, complaining about the weather. I bought a one-way ticket to Miami, which was taking off in fifteen minutes. I ran through the provincial airport and made the flight. It was full of young Spring Break revelers.

I had a trio of seats to myself.

Feeling like a wet dog left outside for bad behavior I ate the offered breakfast of processed eggs and ersatz sausage, washed down by bitter OJ. I crashed across the seat, shivering in my damp jeans and leather jacket and stayed asleep till the pilot announced our landing at Miami International.

Without any package to claim I deboarded the Whisper Jet into the air-conditioned terminal. I bought cheap sunglasses and a Florida map to plot my route to the Keys, then exited into the bright sunlight. I hadn't been in Miami since 1975 and was struck on how the sun-bleached flatness extended from was so flat from the parking lot to the horizon. I jumped on a southbound city bus, instead of hitchhiking since Florida cops had it out for any nails sticking out of the conforming public. They made NYPD seem like hippies. The bus traveled through Coral Gables, Coconut Grove and the outer Cuban barrios and black slums.

By the time the bus reached the end of its route, I was the only Caucasian on it and I felt good about being away from my race.

I began to hitchhike on US 1. The interstate was forbidden to me. B+Cuban and Black construction workers drove down the four-laner below Homestead to Florida City. US 1 was surrounded by the Everglades. A Cuban emigre gave me a ride to Islamorada, where I caught a bus to Key West. The old highway ended at Duvall street. It was 10PM on Duvall Street. The twenty-hour trip was no odyssey. I called the Bertonis. They weren't far away. I was in Key West and I was dry and warm. I walked to their rented house, happy to be away from the last lash of winter.

ps the man in the snowy photo is the poet WH Auden. I think.

Black and White TV From Havana

Key West marks the southern terminus of US 1.

In 1980 I spend several weeks there and stayed in a small hotel off Duval Street. TV reception for the Miami stations was weak, however the signals from Havana came in crisp and clear. Most of the programming served Socialism in Spanish, however one station broadcasted sports, especially winter baseball and boxing.

Americans didn't watch Cuban TV.

We were at war with Fidel Castro.

One night I was sitting in Sloppy Joe's Bar and the bartender turned on the Cuban station. The drinkers hooted at his selection. The gnarled barman lifted a thick hand and said, "Teofilo Stevenson is fighting tonight. Three rounds against a Russian."

"An amateur bout." A tourist mumbled from his stool.

"Teofilo is only an amateur, because he refused to sell-out. The mob promotors offered him $5 million to fight Ali. Teofilo said, "What is one million dollars compared to the love of eight million Cubans?"

"Especially those hot Havana chicas." An old fisherman reminisced about the lost paradise ninety miles to the south. "There was no place like Havana."

"Or Cuba." The bartender turned up the TV. "Now watch some real fighting."

Teofilo won the heavyweight match and I returned to my hotel, wondering how to get to Havana from Key West.

There were no ships.

Cuba was not a destination on the airport departure board.

Teofilo Stevenson amassed a record of 302 wins versus 22 losses.

When he departed the world on 11 June 2012 at the age of 60, according to Wikipedia the Cuban state media stated that "the Cuban sporting family was moved today by the passing of one of the greatest of all time."

"Veridad."

In living color or black and white.

To watch his knockouts, please go to this URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAFvQUyA470

National Hate Florida Day

Icy rain in New York.

12 inches of snow predicted for Boston.

The northern tier of the USA is gripped by winter.

Only one state in the Lower 48 offers any relief.

Florida.

Wish I was there.

Key West.

Nowhere warmer than the end of US 1.