by Terry Fallis
I hadn’t really been trying to be funny at all.
I’d never been to Key West. Coming in for a landing, you get a clear sense of how lopsided and overpowering the ocean-to-land ratio is. I found it somewhat disquieting. It really doesn’t matter where you are in Key West, the ocean isn’t far away. The sea is always just outside your window, down the street, across the road, sometimes beneath you. It lent the city a vague sense of fragility that settled over me as well.
I checked us into the Westin Key West Resort and Marina at the confluence of Front and Whitehead streets. Though Hat fought it, I insisted on paying for the taxi, the rooms, and our quick dinner in the hotel restaurant. As far as I could tell, Hat’s only income came from his part-time gig as an audio-dish aimer at the New York Jets games. It hardly seemed fair that he should pay so I could try to evict a long-dead writer from my psyche. Although it was only about 7:30 p.m. in Key West, my body was still in Paris, in the middle of the night. Hat reluctantly allowed me to go to bed so I might be reasonable company the following day. We agreed to meet in the restaurant at eight the next morning for breakfast.
Just as I was about to crawl under the covers, something slid under my door. I picked it up, turned it over, and looked at the itinerary Hat had developed, printed, and laminated. All that was missing was a magnet so I could hang it on the fridge. Okay, the fridge was missing, too. Here was Hat’s plan for the next day:
9:00–10:30 a.m. Visit the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum on Whitehead Street.
11:00–4:00 p.m. Walk to the docks for our afternoon of marlin fishing. (I hope they will be biting!)
4:30–6:00 p.m. Free time for naps and/or shopping.
6:00–6:15 p.m. Walk from hotel to Sloppy Joe’s Bar on Duval Street.
6:15–Closing time Dinner and related festivities at Sloppy Joe’s Bar.
I felt a rush of warmth for Hat flow through me as I pictured him crouching outside in the corridor, trying to slip the schedule under my door without making a sound. The itinerary actually was laminated. I could take it home and use it as a placemat. He would have had to go to a Staples or a print shop to have it plasticized. Now that’s commitment. I was touched.
As expected, I awoke early, still on Paris time, but did not even reach for my laptop. I just lay there and watched the sunrise through the picture window. Hat was waiting in the restaurant. We both did the breakfast buffet to save time. We were walking along Whitehead Street by 8:30 or so. It was only a few blocks to the Hemingway House. Hat went straight to the ticket booth. We could see the young woman inside but she was busy working on her computer. Hat knocked on the glass partition.
“Good morning. We are very eager to tour Mr. Hemingway’s home. Might we have two tickets, please?”
“I’m sorry but we’re not open …” Hat, who was instantly livid, interrupted her.
“Not open? This is an outrage! Your website says you are open 365 days a year, yet you are closed today? I will not stand for it!”
“Hat?” I said.
“We must get inside the home. My friend’s very sanity hangs by a thread and depends on it.”
“Hat!”
“He is a writer and that wily son-of-a-gun, Ernest Hemingway, is preventing my friend from finding the words to tell his important story.”
“Hat, please!” I finally got his attention by gently touching his shoulder. Believe me, in his current state, anything more aggressive than a shoulder tap might result in a full-on fistfight.
“What is it, Hem? I’m trying to get us into the house.”
“Hat, I don’t think she was done. Ask her again and let her finish her answer.”
Hat looked back at the irate ticket seller.
“Sir, if you’d just let me continue, I think you’ll be satisfied. As I was saying, we aren’t open until 9:00 a.m., which is in approximately four minutes. I’ll give you your tickets now, but you’ll have to wait until the doors open at 9:00 before you can come in.”
“I am so sorry. I am so stupid. I completely thought you were saying that the museum was not open today. Please accept my apologies for my most offensive behaviour. I’m well aware that my fuse is very short indeed, and I’m working diligently to lengthen it. Here, please enjoy this butterscotch as a symbol of my regret.”
She took the candy.
“Thanks,” she said before sliding two tickets our way.
Five minutes later, we were safely in the home where Hemingway lived and wrote for nine years of his life. We had the place to ourselves at that hour. We took our time exploring each room, leaving Hemingway’s writing studio on the second floor until the end. Even though I was far from a Hemingway fan, it felt quite special to be within the very walls where he penned nearly three-quarters of his literary output. I was only slightly uncomfortable with the many cats roaming freely about the house and property. Many of them were an anomalous breed of six-toed felines, directly descended from Hemingway’s own cat. Because cats aren’t dogs, I could tolerate them, though I didn’t rub their bellies or engage them in conversation.
I stood alone in Hemingway’s writing studio while Hat stood guard at the door. A velvet cordon roped off the writing table Hemingway is said to have used. There were bookcases, a mint green lounge chair, and trophies from his African safaris and Caribbean fishing trips hanging on the walls. It’s hard to describe the feeling of being in the room where he had written. He was nearby. I was sure I could feel him. Then, though it was not allowed, I sat down in his chair and placed my fingers on the very typewriter keys he had depressed and released to record his simple, austere prose. I pushed the keys of his Royal portable typewriter and watched the metal arms bearing their letters swing into the centre to meet the page. Whatever you might think of Hemingway’s works, for the serious writer, visiting his home can be a powerful, even a pseudo-religious experience. I suppose there are many Meccas for aspiring writers. Surely Hemingway’s home is one of them.
I sat in his chair and thought for about half an hour as Hat respectfully patrolled the hallway outside. Eventually, I heard footsteps on the staircase as a few other early-bird tourists arrived. I rose and stepped back over onto the right side of the cordon. We departed a few minutes later. Hat left me in silence as we walked down toward the marina a short distance away.
I’m not a big fishing fan. But you can’t trail around in Hemingway’s wake without taking a shot at deep-sea fishing. Hemingway was close to obsessed with fishing. For days on end, he and his Key West cronies would ply the Caribbean waters in search of tuna and marlin. They often found both.
The boat Hat had chartered and that I gladly paid for was known simply as Papa, one of Hemingway’s more enduring nicknames. I hadn’t spent much time on the water, beyond a few excursions on the Finger Lakes of Upstate New York. I had only a literary understanding of seasickness gleaned from countless novels of the sea I’d read over the years. Regrettably, I can now claim first-hand experience and contend that the writers I read grossly understated the mariner’s malady.
A steady six-foot swell kept the boat and my breakfast in constant motion. I’m pleased to report that I did not throw up, though I spent the last two hours of our voyage wishing I would. Hat was utterly unaffected by the incessant rocking and hooked three fish, though he was only able to land one of them, a midsized marlin. When it was hoisted aboard, it flapped about the boat for a time before it was stowed on ice below. Our captain fed me Dramamine like they were M&Ms, but my nausea was not to be quelled. Finally, I saw the marina in the distance. Hat reeled in his line for the last time and stowed the rod. The captain hit the throttle and we made a beeline for the dock. When we landed, I made a beeline for the bathroom.
“I’m so sorry you were not feeling yourself during the fishing,” Hat said. “You missed a wonderful lunch. If Hemingway himself had been with us, he would have taken one look at you and written The Green Man and the Sea.”
“Were you working on that line all afternoon?” I asked.
; “Yes. As a matter of fact, I was. I’m quite pleased with it, though I hope you have not taken it personally.”
We were sitting in the famous Sloppy Joe’s Bar, where Hemingway spent parts of almost every day he lived in Key West. It had taken me a few blocks of walking and weaving before I eventually found my land legs again. We decided to dispense with the scheduled naptime and move directly to the drinking. By the time we’d reached the bar, I was starting to feel a little more like myself. I began by drinking straight Coke, but then switched to Papa Dobles, a potent concoction of rum, lime juice, grapefruit juice, and grenadine. I can’t really tell you what they tasted like. I think my taste buds were anaesthetized after downing my first mouthful. Hat was at the bar, talking to some locals and passing out candies. Other patrons in the joint were just passing out.
“So tell me the tale of the butterscotch candies,” I said when Hat rejoined me at our table. “Surely there’s a story there somewhere.”
“Well, it doesn’t yet have a happy ending, but I’m convinced it someday will,” Hat began. “Shortly after I joined Con Ed and was responsible for the electrical side of the steam-driven cogeneration project, I was harassed and bullied because of my skin colour and my faint accent. You know it’s very easy for stupid people to parody the Indian accent. They can’t do Australian, or South African, or Dutch very well, but for some linguistic quirk, Americans find it reasonably easy to imitate an Indian accent. Well, this fellow, who worked in maintenance, was always on my case. He just never let up. He would offer all his co-workers these butterscotch candies, right in front of me, but would never give me one. The whole situation might have been avoided had he just offered me a butterscotch. As time passed, he then started imitating my accent, badly. He somehow learned that I was Hindu, perhaps because I had mentioned it, and that seemed to push him over the edge. He was relentless in his verbal attacks.”
“It sounds like this was going on a long time,” I said.
“Oh yes, he started up in the morning and then carried on right through the day until I lost my temper, as you know I can do, and put an end to it, once and for all.”
“Wait a sec. How long did this abuse continue? Weeks? Months? Years?” I asked.
“Hem, I already told you. He started in on me in the morning and continued right through lunch and late into the shift. It was my first day on the job. At about 3:30 in the afternoon I gave him a little bop to the nose.”
“Well, a ‘little bop’ doesn’t seem so bad,” I replied.
“In truth, it was quite a significant bop, I have to say.”
“I see. Was he hurt?” I asked.
“Oh no. Not badly. Though for a while his nose did consume far more facial real estate than it had originally. And he did have to breathe through his mouth for about six or perhaps seven months until the surgeries were completed.”
“You’re not serious. Surgeries? Plural?”
“Well, yes, four would definitely fall into the ‘plural’ category.”
“No shit. You’re kidding,” I said. “Were you fired?”
“Oh, yes, directly, on the spot. Charged, too. But they dropped the case after a while. I don’t think they wanted it to look like it was racism.”
“I see. But it was racism, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, I think most assuredly it was racism in the mind and heart of my tormentor. They just didn’t want it to look like it was racism. I have long since forgiven the gentleman, and I send him a bag of those butterscotch candies he likes, every month.”
“Has he forgiven you for breaking his nose?”
“As I say, I have forgiven him. And he is back breathing through his nostrils as if nothing had happened, even though his nose still looks very much like something happened. Maybe even something significant.”
“Well, it sounds like he had it coming.”
“Perhaps. He was quite a mean man, but even he did not deserve to have his nose rearranged, moved to a slightly different location, and then reassembled approximately in its original position. No, he did not earn that. I pray for him every day. I have forgiven him. I do not yet know whether I can ever forgive myself.”
Hat paused to eat a pretzel or two from the bowl on our table and take a swig of his fruit punch. Hat did not drink alcohol.
“The company also promoted him as part of the agreement to drop the case against me. He has definitely risen higher than his intellect, capabilities, and acute xenophobia might normally permit. But I’m happy for him.”
“But you’ve never been able to get another engineering job since, right?”
“Technically, that is true,” Hat replied. “My microscopically short temper has branded me as what is known in the HR world as a ‘troublemaker.’ My reputation seems to precede me. I am an honest man. So I tend to have some difficulty when the prospective employer asks why I left my previous job. But I work hard, do my best, and persevere. That is how this country has been built. I now think of it as my country, too. So on weekends I put my engineering degree to good use by aiming an audio dish at the line of scrimmage. I love the Jets. I may sound bitter, though I hope I don’t. For I am not unhappy. There is really no place I would rather be.”
“Your equanimity about it all is inspiring,” I said and meant it.
“Why, thank you. Now can you please remind me of the meaning of this word, equa … minity?”
“Equanimity. It kind of means you never seem to lose heart when things aren’t going as well as you’d like them to.”
“I try to focus my efforts on those things over which I have some power, if you understand my point. Things I can actually change by my own actions. I try very hard to remember that it is not useful, in any way, to lament what I cannot control or influence. And most important of all is to have and show a positive spirit. Without that, I think I would be lost.”
It may have been the multiple Papa Dobles I’d somehow downed, but Hat’s words were making sense to me with crystal clarity. While we’d been talking, the place had filled to the gunwhales with tourists and all manner of Key West partiers. Alcohol seemed to be the glue that bound us all together, except Hat. The bartenders and waiters were slinging drinks as if the return of Prohibition were imminent. I knew my head would be pounding on the plane the next day. But at that moment, I could no longer feel my head, or any other part of my body, so I dismissed the thought.
At the table next to ours, a big man who bore a striking resemblance to Hemingway himself swayed to his feet and hoisted his nearly empty glass above his head. It looked as if keeping his balance for too long might be a challenge. So he barrelled ahead, his friend steadying him with a grip on his belt. He started by burping as many of Hemingway’s titles as he could in one foul breath. And then he turned serious, quieting the group with an open palm.
“Friends and fans of Papa. Here at the famous Shloppy Joe’s, Hemingway’s favourite watering hole, I raishe my glassh in honour of the greatesht proshe stylisht in the hishtory of literal … literatch … littrach … books!”
All six men at the table lurched to their feet, or in one case toppled to the floor, drank what was left in their very large glasses, and then crashed their asses back down. Most of them even landed in their chairs.
“Bullshit, hogwash, and hyperbole!” someone shouted nearby. “Hemingway’s writing sucks! It’s like he only knows about twenty-five different words but refuses to use all of them. It’s more basic than my First Grade reader. His writing is so boring, I can barely read it. Nobel Shmobel.”
Hat looked at me with a very strange expression on his face. I leaned in to confer with him. I was quite surprised to learn that the thoughts running through my head had in fact run straight out of my mouth at taxi-hailing volume. The big guy at the next table struggled back to his feet and had his hands on my lapels before I could bolt from the room. And don’t think I didn’t try to bolt from the room.
“Now just a minute, sir, violence cannot solve this dilemma. This will not end well,” implo
red Hat. “Let us discuss this like civilized gentlemen.”
The big guy let go with one hand so he could rear back and launch a right cross in the general vicinity of my face. In a spasm of bravery, I closed my eyes. I heard the punch land, but didn’t feel it. I opened one eye in time to see Hat’s fist connect with the big guy’s mouth a second time.
It occurred to me at that moment that I’d never actually been in a barroom brawl. There were six of them against the two of us. Well, I guess there were really only five left after a crazed Hat dropped the first guy. Hat bobbed and weaved, trying to slip the punches that flew his way while delivering a few of his own in between. He was quite good at it. I, on the other hand, opted for the berserker-windmill-flailing technique, which I may very well have invented that night. I now understand why no one had ever employed it before. I quickly learned that it’s a very short trip from flailing to failing. Not recommended.
I took one roundhouse punch directly to my left ear. I’m not sure my ear was the target, but I turned my face away at the last second and apparently offered up my ear. I felt another hard shot strike my ribs. That really hurt and knocked the wind out of me. Finally, for good measure, I stopped a blow with my forehead that I think was intended for my nose. I somehow dipped my head a bit at the just right moment and saved my schnoz. It didn’t hurt that much, at least not until I regained consciousness a few moments later. My assailant was on his knees, moaning and pressing his injured hand against his soft, overhanging belly. I think it was broken, his hand, I mean. He was not happy about it.
When the far too tardy bouncers finally waded into the melee, three of the six Hemingway acolytes were on the floor holding various parts of their anatomy. One other had passed out, and the final two were pummelling me, though I was getting in a few shots myself. In no time the police were there. Hat and I, and at least three of our adversaries, were cuffed and led to cruisers. I was bleeding from my nose and a small cut in my eyebrow. Hat looked unscathed.
