Florida Timetable

A boatload of small dogfish was at the dock; onlookers clustered, fascinated by the eyes which strongly resemble human.  It was hot, and the fishermen moved quickly to unload the catch which may have been destined for fish and chips, pet food, fertilizer, or shark oil.  The species has since been placed on the Vulnerable list, the numbers in the North Atlantic have been depleted radically.  They looked like babies, young sharks netted before adulthood, but that was purely sentiment on my part for their full size is no more than 2 1/2 to 5 feet.  We were in Key West, bohemian and roughened by sun and salt spray.

A grocery provided bread and bologna, mustard; we took the Fiat 128, parked it under a palm tree and went to a white, coarse-sanded beach with towels and plastic ware.  I was brown already from months spent in St. Pete, but the brightness of the solar glare was more intense than on any other Floridian day.  It speared into the Gulf waters, illuminating colored ideas of sponges and odd, round corals; the broken waves of light shimmered and shadowed things I had only seen in books, or not at all.  Life, salt water life was detonating at the edge of civilization; can you imagine what was beyond this first twenty feet of ocean?

A smarter man had found a raft with a clear bottom to view the seascape, as there certainly was no walking about to be done without shredding yourself into strips for the fish to tease; the corals were sharp, the spiny animals were sharp, the barracuda that hovered were toothed and as goggle eyed as   dinosaurs fed dope.  Did not look like there was anyone home in there, the vacant yet frantic stare was only a split second evaluation of my edibility compounded by memory loss.  They checked me over at least four times before remembering that oh yeah, this food smells like Bullfrog tropic tanning oil.

After, we walked around Mallory Square and hung about watching the street players until time for sundown, which was like going to a really cool outdoor church.  People clapped, raised their arms, then dissolved as quietly as the descending sun into the various bars for more party time.  We were on the way back north, and so found ourselves traveling from the furthest point of the Keys all the way up to New York State in a little over 32 hours.  It was March; I had cut offs and a tank top in the Keys, a sweat shirt in Georgia, then long jeans and more layers in the Carolinas.  We were freezing as we rumbled into Pennsylvania snow and finally culminated the event in snowdrifts as high as the car, which valiantly motored through every state until dying in the driveway of destination.

After a few days of respite, repairs, and visiting relatives, the car was loaded and turned west to Chicago.  I think I was in shock, from the change in weather to the mindset that here we go again, following nothing.

Florida was odd in the beauty of the coastline contrasted with the empty strip malls of the interior, or the corner stands of boiled peanuts and oranges amid derelict areas of a hardbitten economy.   St. Pete at the time had none of the new projects that have since been built, such as the Salvador Dali Museum.  When walking to the grocery, cars of a venerable age would weave across lanes, the only clue that there was a driver would be a pair of hands gripping the steering wheel at ten and two o'clock, and a fedora type hat in between.  It was odd enough to see cars from the fifties and sixties in excellent shape, but to not view a complete driver was alarming.  I would trot down a side street instead of the main road, to avoid any curb-jumping nonsense.

It was a total experience which taught me much about the natural world, with imaginary forms seen only in dreams made real, in colors and mass, of shells and hibiscus, of dolphins and jellyfish and thunderstorms hard and fast almost daily, with the sun out and drying with such diligence that the puddles would be over, gone in fifteen minutes.   Just enough time for a lizard to get a drink.

Ah, now.  Imagine that Key West may be the very place that the Sandman carries his sand from, to sprinkle it in the eyes of dreamers.  Weave your thoughts above the banyan trees filled with green parrots, through corals whose fingers hide rainbowed fish.  See if there's a girl on the beach, looking towards the open sea, shells strung about her neck, listening to the song of the gods.

Sleep and let go, ebb and neap.  Good night.