A rumbling pack of Harleys blasted through the narrow main street of Key West, turning heads and giving scooter renters a complex. A few blocks away, tourists were taking pictures of a big, red and black concrete cone. A small plaque on a low sea wall commemorated "the brave pursuers of freedom." Another said it's 90 miles to Cuba.
I was already sunburnt when I told the big mulatto at the visitor's center of our first night in the Keys. She said she'd toured with the Grateful Dead for two years and had slept in some compromising positions too. She said there were four camping spots left in Key West. The man next to me got a motel room for \$170.
At Boyd's Campground, Henry and I split the \$44 fee and set up on Plot 98A. I drank our last beer while a tanned Californian threw up his green Kelty next to us. His girlfriend had left him in Arizona, and he hitched the rest of the way to Florida to work on a fishing boat in Key Largo. A strong wind blew the palms and ficus trees, and more Harleys came to life: Kapow pow pow.
Key West is a small town, a coral reef with not many free daytime parking places. In the old district, a man taking money at a parking lot gave us the "musicians' discount" after seeing the guitar case in the backseat of my silver Civic. He told us the cops didn't bother writing tickets at night.
I had to pull up my faded pair of blue jeans every few yards as we walked by old Colonial homes with hurricane shutters. Tranquil music was coming from Willie T's, so we sat down for a bite to eat. It has a two-layer deck with a small stage around a thousand-year-old tree adorned with white lights. Onstage was a white-haired man--possibly on morphine--singing a song he said would be on Jimmy Buffet's next album.
Our waitress was an Australian brunette with perfect legs. A gay couple sat down beside us and were quiet while we ate our pasta. The meals were around \$11 each, and I've had better for less.
On the street, college girls with tans sauntered about, untouchable. We were outcasts, sunburnt, and needful of rest. We went back to the campground, where a crowd of campers had gathered by an RV, listening to a man play polka on his accordion. But that's not what kept me up. Trying to sleep with a sunburn on hard ground is a close tie with being wet and cold in the mud.
The next morning, I bought a toothbrush at the front office. Brushing after three days made me feel new, until I saw the lime-green hocker in the sink.
Boyd's does have a pretty good setup though. There are two pink shower houses that were reasonably clean. The TV by the arcade games was tuned to the Weather Channel. It would rain in a few days; a cold front was moving east.
From the Beginning
We'd debated for a week on where to go. West sounded good, but it was late March so it was still too cold to camp in the mountains or the high desert. South Florida had a ring to it. I thought a fishing trip and the beach would do me good after such a poor year of work with the state's newspaper. Relive a Hemingway tale and see the fabled South Beach. It was a selfish decision. South Florida is all a bunch of hype, friends.
But in the spirit of Mr. Quixote, I set out on my journey, sans the cardboard helmet, muse, and false knighthood. I'm just an out-of-work journalist with a Japanese car, and I didn't even care about being chivalrous. I just wanted to escape. I just wanted to drive to the bottom of America, and see what happened along the way.
Henry L. Bardamen went with me. He plays the guitar, and he's not far from being a squire. Slightly more than a gentleman, at least. Henry lives on Tanzania time, so he was a couple of hours late getting to the launch pad. I sort of expected it and didn't care too much. He threw in the guitar case and a gray, wool poncho that Clint Eastwood might've worn, if it hadn't been for the blue duckies.
We left south Arkansas around 4 p.m. on Monday, crossing the Old River at 5:27. The welcome sign says "Positively only Mississippi spoken here." Henry said, "Welcome to the M-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I-hump back-hump back-I state."
At a roadside produce stand somewhere outside of Mobile, I bought three oranges, a cantaloupe and a honeydew melon for \$2.19. We got gas next door for about $1.40 a gallon. That was the most I'd ever paid for gas, but considering that Europeans pay much more, and when you compare it to, say cough syrup per gallon, it's still not that outrageous. It'd damn well better go down soon, though.
My taillights slipped into darkness and before long we were in Mobile. The radio went to static as we raced through the tunnel under the bay. We didn't get to hear Dylan's "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again." That's one of the pitfalls of being a slave to a radio; being shackled to it with no alternative other than to turn it off and listen to the wind, or the sound of oncoming cars, or the horrendous hum of a big rig's tires passing you on the interstate.
"I picked up this old hitchhiker one time when I was delivering the Hamburg papers," I said. "He had a cardboard sign strapped to his back that said 'Alabama' and he was wearing this huge-ass ten-gallon hat. He said he got it at a flea market in Texas for a couple dollars, a couple days before, and he had been walking for three weeks, from California, getting caught up in a hell of a rain there in central Texas, and having one time resorted to eating some peanuts that had fallen all over the side of the road. He said the road was his home, and he couldn't think of anywhere else he'd rather be. He was in his mid-50s and wore glasses, and had gone through a pair of shoes since Arizona. He kept himself clean cut...Wore military clothing with white shoes. Said he had been a security guard in Alabama for a while and showed me his badge. He never married. He asked me when I was born, and then he went into a bunch of horoscope stuff about Pisces. He told all the people who picked him up about their horoscopes...And then he told me of the women that had picked him up and how they had offered to let him stay with them. He said they were usually big women, and that if he was to ever settle down with a woman it would definitely be a big woman, because he said they can cook, and they won't leave you because they're more loyal, in general. His name is Nathan, and he said 'Thanks a million' when I dropped him off on Hwy 82 outside of Portland. I saw him about a month later, limping back West on the same stretch of road with a sign saying 'Texas.' I picked him up and he recognized me. 'Oh, thanks a million,' he said.' 'Why you limpin', Nathan?' I asked. He said, 'I got gout.'"
"Isn't that a metabolic disease marked by painful inflammation of the joints?" Henry asked.
"Yep. Exactly."
"So what did you do with him?"
"I dropped him off at the Citgo where he wanted to be. He had a friend in Crosset he said he was going to stay with."
"Remember when Reece hitchhiked to Arkadelphia for the hell of it?"
"Yeah. Somebody picked him up and took him right there with no problem. That's pretty adventurous. I haven't done it. You?"
"Nah."
"You ever took a bus somewhere?"
"Yeah. Took one down to Baton Rouge once. This guy pissed on himself...That is the worst godawful smell ever. I just had to hold my breath, It stunk up the whole bus."
"Damn...I bet. That's gotta be bad. I've heard riding buses were bad."
By 11 p.m. we were at Blackwater River State Park, trying to find a place to camp. It all looked very familiar, like the woods around El Dorado: sandy soil and tall pines. I drove slowly behind the ranger's house. Before long I came to a dead end and ran out of ideas.
Henry suggested we just got to the beach. Thirty minutes later, we were in Fort Walton. We didn't try to pick up any strippers from Sammy's, but enjoyed the nude gymnastics nonetheless.
I wasn't sure if we were breaking the law, but it was 3 a.m. and there weren't any security guards. Finding a piece of beach to crash on is relatively easy in Fort Walton. I highly recommend it.
At 8 p.m., the sun thawed me out of my sleeping bag to the sound of waves and chatting sea birds. I sat cross-legged while watching dolphins eat breakfast. It took longer for Henry to wake, so I called in the birds. Their ruby-red mouths squawked about his head, begging for the pieces of bread. With great precision, they caught every one.
We rolled up the bags and cruised to Destin, where we ate brunch under a canopied picnic bench. Three teenaged girls shed to bikinis were at the table next to us. They didn't want any of my cantaloupe.
Traffic was getting bad. Panama City would be only worse with Spring Break traffic, so I chose to get on I-10 as fast as possible. To do that from Destin, I had to take US 331. We should've gone to Panama City.
"Did that sign say 'Toll Road'?" I asked.
"I think so."
"Damn. It's too late to turn around on this bridge."
I messed up and took the SunPass Lane. I was behind a Suburban and didn't see it until it was too late. Henry said he warned me. I did, however, catch the sign saying that photos would be taken of those who didn't have a Sun Pass, and I would be fined \$100 if the toll wasn't paid. I turned around to go back and pay the toll troll. "I just went through the Sunshine pass lane by accident."
The troll was bald-headed and wore a clean white shirt. "OK, but you have to pay me \$2 now to go back and then come through again."
I wanted to put it in reverse and scram, but a car pulled up behind me, blocking me in.
"Sorry," the toll troll said. "You'll have to pay or I'll have to write you a ticket."
"All right, here's your got'dog two dollars."
The gate went up. After a half mile, I did a U-turn. "I can't believe this shit. They're going to make me pay \$2 to get back across." I pulled up the booth and turned down the radio. Kid Rock was singing "Only God Knows Why." "Yeah. I just went through the SunPass Lane, and I came back to pay my toll.The gentleman on the other side there said I had to pay to go through each time."
"That's right," said the second toll troll. "You have to pay each time you go through."
"But I just did! Can't I just go through now since I already paid."
"Sorry. If you can't pay, I'll have to give you a ticket."
"Fine. Here's your friggin two dollars."
Later on I would grow to respect Florida's Interstate toll system. They're smooth, but US 331 wasn't an interstate; it was a road to the interstate. I hit the steering wheel a couple of times.
"Chill, man," Henry said. "It's only two dollars."
An old man filling tanks at a gas station in Freeport asked where we were headed. "Ah, you guys better watch out down there," he said. "They shoot tourists, ya know."
"OK," I said. "Thanks for the tip."
He said it was a thousand miles from the border of Florida and Georgia to Key West. That's a long stretch, I thought, and considered backing out. I considered just going to Daytona instead, but, "No," I thought. This is a mission. I must get to Key West. I must get that part of the map conquered. I filled up my 10-gallon tank, paid \$12.50, and headed north for I-10.
We were on our way to Tallahassee. I thought I'd save some distance by cutting through the armpit of Florida, getting on I-75 outside of Tampa/St. Petersburg. I still adhere to the notion that it's good to get off of the interstate to see the country, but this wasn't the best place to do it. There are too many stop lights and not really anything worth stopping for, other than possibly the Forest Capitol State Museum, south of Perry.
So on we went, through the lowlands of Lafayette and Dixie counties, where pines mingle with palms. Henry read Alan W. Watts' The Wisdom of Insecurity in gold Elvis sunglasses. I asked him what it was about.
"It's about Ouroboros...The serpent that eats its own tail."
"Very inte'rest'ing," I said, like the professor in Clue. "A snake eating its own tail. Sounds like suicide."
"It's not so much about suicide. It's about the law of reversed effect. Watts says in the preface that he's always been fascinated with this 'backwards law,' and says, 'Whosoever would save his soul, shall lose it.' And it's an 'exploration of this law in relation to man's quest for psychological security, and to his efforts to find spiritual and intellectual certainty in religion and philosophy."
"Sounds like something Hemingway should've read. He blew his head off, ya know."
"Yep. I couldn't ever kill myself, but I can see why some people would want to. Did I ever tell you that one of my roommate's boyfriend shot himself in the head when he was 16, and now he's blind?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Yep. He did it. Went all the way...That takes a lot of guts, if you asked me. It's stupid guts, but you gotta respect the ability."
"Yeah."
"What was I sayin'? Oh, yeah. I can see how some people want to kill themselves because they are convinced it's their only way out. Like those Indians up in Canada. They're so wacked out on Lysol and paint and whatnot, they're all depressed and kill themselves. It's some crazy shit."
"You ever see that movie Gummo?"
"Na'uh."
"It's about these crazy kids in southern Ohio. You gotta see it to know what I'm talking about. It's a like a documentary, and they go around interviewing these weird kids. One of the first scenes is this kid in pink rabbit ears on a bridge kicking stuff and spitting on cars. And it just gets worse...The main characters are these two teenagers who kill cats. This one girl they interviewed, an albino, talks about how much she loves Patrick Swayze. She says, 'I'd pay money to touch him.'"
Henry started laughing.
We got off I-10 in Tallahassee and took State Hwy 19-27. I didn't see the capitol, but did skim the edge of the Florida State campus. I always get them confused with the University of Florida Gators at Gainesville. Moss hangs in the old oak trees in Tallahassee. Al Gore was there that day to seek support for the Democratic nomination.
Around 5 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, my eyelids grew heavy. Henry snored in gold Elvis sunglasses. Fate, if there is such a thing, picked a spooky spot to rest. It was near Deadman Bay. A big, dead oak tree drooped over the short, dead-end gravel road. Henry laid out in the afternoon sun, neverminding a dead, white puppy in the grass. I was tired, but couldn't sleep, so I just rested my eyes with the radio off.
Henry is nocturnal, so he took over and drove to Tampa. Tall, dark-green palms and hibiscus waved in the moonlight. I heard three John Anderson songs; one of which was "Seminole Wind." Ironically, being a slave to the radio is liberating in a sense. It could be argued, of course...Not being able to listen to whatever you want, when you want to.
We zoomed east across the Everglades under patches of orange light from the tall streetlamps. Billy Ocean sang "Caribbean Queen."
"Is that how they say it, or is that just the way he says it?" Henry asked, questioning the forced pronunication of Caribbean. "Sounds more like 'Caribou Queen.'" Evidently, Florida's radio stations carry an affinity for Billy Ocean, and we couldn't find any reason to disagree.
We slipped into Miami a little after midnight Eastern time. If it hadn't been for Miami Vice or Scarface, this place would have no charm. Now I just think of Elian; thus, the power of the media.
"You ever hear of the Yahudi Brothers?" I asked.
"No."
"They're the Jewish media moguls. I'm not sure if they own the Miami Herald. I doubt it, with all the Colombian and Jamaican Mafia down here. They're a pretty smart bunch of folks, those Yahudi Brothers. Gotta be suspicious of them a little bit, though."
There was a Dade County cop about every two miles. I got the feeling that Miami could whip up as much violence as any hurricane, but this night it was quiet. The INS was still negotiating.
Crossing out of Dade County into the Keys, there's a procession of big, one-word signs saying, "Patience"..."Pays"..."Passing"..."Lane"..."One"..."Mile." It was 1 a.m. It was very dark and dreamlike.
"The thing about dreams is...You never know if they're real or not until you wake up," I said. "Like the other day I had this dream I could play the guitar. But when I woke up, I couldn't. It wasn't like those running dreams, where you can't really run good because your legs are...Lethargic or something. There's some term for the part of your brain that keeps you from acting out your dreams. Have you ever sleepwalked?"
"No."
"Me neither."
"You ever have a flying dream?"
"Couple times."
"Me too. Dreamed I flew at treetop level most of the time, but got up into the clouds a couple times. I've heard that it makes a difference at what level you fly. Did you fly high or low?"
"It was about treetop level."
"Have you ever had one of those dreams where you killed somebody?"
"Nah, I don't think so."
"I had one where I had an MP-5 or some kind of machine gun. It was dark; I was dressed in black and these cops in black cars were after me. Then I woke up with the feeling that I was going to jail. That's a bad feeling."
"Did you see any blood?"
"Can't remember. It was years ago. I remember a girl being with me though. Like we were some kind of modern Bonnie and Clyde. Hey, did you know Bonnie Parker was only 4'10", 85 pounds, and Clyde Barrow was 5'7", 127 pounds. Clyde was a long-distance truck driver. Read in this book...Great Plains by Ian Frazier...about how Clyde drove a thousand miles to a cigarette factory in North Carolina for a pack of smokes. Then he just drove on back to Texas. It also said Clyde had a tattoo of "Grace" on his right arm, and Bonnie had a tattoo of two hearts with an arrow through it on the inside of her right thigh. 'Bonnie' was in one heart and 'Roy' was in the other. They kept a white rabbit with them on their travels, and Clyde brought along his saxophone. My roommate said Bonnie was a great-aunt of hers."
"Wow."
"I know."
We rolled into Key Largo around 2 a.m. It was d-e-a-d. Not even a street lamp was on, and the place just didn't seem as happy as I thought it would be. I pulled into a motel to look for a patch of beach to rest on, like we did in Fort Walton. Nothing but fence, rocks and boats. I began to regret ever driving down.
We came to a stop on a barricaded road next to a marina. With all the junk in the back (ice chest, guitar, sleeping bags, duffel bags), we couldn't recline the seats. I walked past the barricade, searching for soft ground with a flashlight. There wasn't any. I propped my head against the window with my pillow, and thought about the chain around the convenience store in Tavernier.
Jay Stoh and his wife, Amy, had swung through Little Rock a little less than a month before on their move from L.A. to the Keys. He wrote down where he would be staying - 32 Harbour House, Ocean Reef. The house belonged to Amy's father. Ocean Reef wasn't on my map, but it's about 11 miles north of Key Largo. A man in Tavernier directed me. Someone later said George Bush goes fishing there.
On the news they talked about raising the mandatory insurance coverage for bikers from \$10,000 to $100,000. Twelve were killed that year at Daytona's Bike Week.
I pulled up to Ocean Reef's white stucco guard shack around 10 a.m. I told the guard that I needed to go to 32 Harbour House, but he couldn't give me clearance without verification from Jay.
I didn't realize that Ocean Reef was a private community until then, so I parked beside the guard shack and walked inside. It was the morning rush hour. The phone was ringing off the hook and about 50 cars passed through in 10 minutes. Mr. Stroh wasn't home, so I got coffee and left.
Third day: I still hadn't brushed my teeth. Oranges and regular flossing did the job.
The water at Ocean Reef looked amazing. It was pure turquoise. I wanted to touch it, sink myself into it, but didn't. We were on a mission, with no time to fool around.
We skipped the "Treasure Village," "Theater of the Sea," "The Dolphin Research Center," and Anne's Beach, heading straight for Bahia Honda State Park. It was voted best beach in 1992 and costs \$5 to enter. It's a nice place for snorklers and movie makers, of which we were neither. We were a couple of idiots. We didn't put on sunblock.
I finally eased into the coral reef's clear waters. It was good to be in the ocean; the wind blew constantly, making it easier to underestimate the Caribbean sun.
A group of biology students from the University of Minnesota, St. Cloud, were digging through the seaweed on the shore. I did the same, but didn't find anything worth mentioning. I laid down in the sun and rolled over on my stomach. Someone had left behind a pair of tortoise-shell Oakley sunglasses. I cleaned them off, but I don't see well without a prescription, so I gave them to Henry.
The sun was blistering. Several Germans sprawled in the shade, trading turns on a bicycle. Snorkelers bobbed in the calm waves; people were having a picnic under the old Flagler Bridge. Sections of the bridge were knocked out south of Bahia Honda. I think it was used in the Tom Arnold movie, True Lies. I told Henry he might want to sit in the shade before he got cancer, but he decided to sleep instead.
I must say something about Elian Gonzales now.
It would be another month or so before the INS reunited him with his father, but he'd already become synonymous with a long, sensationalized debate. The story was monumental. It had it all: escape, tragedy, dolphins, international custody laws, Disney World. He'd become a billboard for clothing companies and a cell-phone user. Overnight, Elian was a TV star and everybody adored him. The Miami relatives argued that he would get a better education in America. This I doubt. Castro runs a strict education program.
It would have been different if both parents were dead.
But I didn't go to Florida because of Elian. I wanted to go fishing, catch some mahi mahi%2
