Travels with Matthew

As I promised myself I would, I awoke before dawn yesterday and hustled by myself down to the pier. I joined a woman who looked a bit like Kathy Bates and four Chinese already anticipating the sun. Two of the Chinese were bundled up as if expecting a typhoon, though the air was warm and humid. All of us were quiet, expectant, respectful of each other’s impending moment. Until a group of about twenty more Americans arrived. Then the place was filled with a nonstop cacophony. Blah blah blah. “Say ‘cheese'” followed by a toddler’s “cheeeeeese.” “Oh come to grandma,” and on and on. So much for a zen moment. Sometimes I think that if people could step outside themselves for just five minutes they would be appalled. Still, I was happy to be there at least to practice a bit more with my camera. I’m going to have to learn more about metering, as these shots reveal. They look more like sunset than sunrise to me.

If I thought anything about the sunrise that might qualify as sublime, it was the almost visceral reminder that we live on an island in a vast sea orbiting a violent ball of gas millions of miles away and that we depend so totally on that violent star not only for life but for beauty. I walked home to the cadence of such thoughts.

The house was quiet for a short time after I returned. Dan had been up to get his requisite coffee but had gone back to his room to watch television or to nap or to read. Foxy was up shortly, though, and he and I decided to go to Banana Cafe for breakfast. (I adore their logo!) Everyone else stayed in bed, so we ventured out on our own. Foxy and I had a nice, long conversation of the kind that I find most . It wasn’t exactly a “hearts laid bare” kind of talk, but it was intimate and serious and true and honest. A conversation between real friends. The omelet was quite good, too.

We followed up our breakfast with a swing back to the condo to retrieve Dan and then a visit to Key West Island Books. We arrived early, so a Starbucks was in order while we waited for the ten o’clock opening time. Once we got into the store, Dan lasted about twenty minutes, The store’s history section was smaller than he had hoped, and it tended to focus on presidential history and World War II—subjects dear to the locals who have shared the island with the military for all of their lives but either old news to Dan or of little interest. Matt survived a little longer, but he, too, eventually petered out. His interest—the arctic—was represented by four books, but he he did enjoy seeing what else the store had to offer. I got through about half of the alphabet in the fiction section—choosing five books along the way—before Matt was ready to go.

• Mr. Potter by Jamaica Kincaid
• House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
• The Healer by Ahron Appelfeld
• To My Children’s Children by Sindiwe Magona
• The Life and Times of a Teaboy by Michael Collins

Matt and I took the long way back to the condo to find everyone awake. Having decided that they would take a trolley tour of the island, Dan and Alex slipped out just around lunchtime. I’m not a big fan of trolley tours—Mark has cajoled me into one or two—so while Mark hung back to read a book, I joined Foxy and Rob on a visit to a vintage poster shop. Matt visited the shop the last time he was in Key West and has regretted ever since not buying posters to hang in his kitchen. (He didn’t buy anything again this time either because he realized he hadn’t measured his wall space. I think he’s planning to visit the store website when he gets home once he knows what size posters will fit.) I had bypassed the store on several occasions thinking, “Posters. Bah. I want real art, not prints.” What I didn’t realize, though, is that the store sells vintage original—not the clatrap I think of when someone says “poster.” These are true works of art. Many are originals silk screened or printed by hand, and some are more than one hundred years old and very rare. Everything the store sells is a quality piece mounted on linen to preserve it. Among the rarest is a century-old French poster retailing for $3400. I’m pleased Foxy convinced me to stop in with him and Rob. Otherwise, I would have missed seeing some really beautiful work.

We had decided that we were going to take a ghost tour that began at eight, so I kind of cracked the whip about getting to dinner early for once. Sarabeth’s was our choice, but the restaurant didn’t open for dinner until six. I got us there at quarter of and joined the line for tables. As I’ve said before, Key West is not my favorite place for food, and Sarabeth’s didn’t disappoint. Everyone else, though, really enjoyed dinner, so it was a good choice.

We made it to the ghost tour ticket counter a few minutes before eight only to find that the eight o’clock tour had been canceled in favor of the tour at nine. That gave us an extra hour to wander around and brought me a couple disparaging stares for all my trouble motivating everyone to dinner.

I won’t recount all the silliness of the tour, but it was interesting enough. Our guide, Jay, was entertaining. I’m pretty sure he was a Dungeons and Dragons geek in high school but had found a way to make his goth personality pay. He told us stories about a possessed doll, a violent and sadistic ship captain who tried to buy his way into heaven by building a church, a preacher who burned his wife and her lover alive in his church—along with 18 children and a bible school teacher, and a German doctor who married a corpse and lived with her—as husband and wife—for nearly twenty years. Creepy, and possibly highly exaggerated, but an interesting way to spend an evening.

Because the tour went until eleven, I never did get my second slice of key lime pie, That’s okay, though. Five of us spent the rest of the night at a bar chatting and meeting new people, and that’s always the best thing to do in Key West, anyway.

Today while Boston and the northeast are getting slammed by a major winter storm that is shutting down airports, Dan, Alex, Mark, and I are on our way back to St. Petersburg. Foxy and Rob are on their way to Columbus via Orlando. The sun is shining. The sky is blue. The air is salty and pleasant. We’ll spend tonight in St. Petersburg and then head back to reality in Ohio tomorrow morning. Sigh. Until next time.

I’ve never watched the sun rise. I have only rarely found myself in places with an unobstructed view to the horizon, and when I have, I’ve been too young to appreciate it or too tired to bother beating the sun up from sleep. On this trip, we are staying fairly close to the water, and I’ve been waking up before dawn pretty much every day, so yesterday I thought I’d take my camera down to the pier. It didn’t work out. As usual, Dan and I were up first, and I wanted company more than shots of the sunrise, so instead, I waited for him to have his coffee, and then we both walked over and took some early morning shots.

It’s funny how the character of people—by people, I mean the overall zeitgeist, not individuals—changes through the day. As we walk along Duval Street every afternoon and evening, the general mood is one of hurry. One gets the sense that others are in the way, and if they’d just move a little faster or get over to the right. Little eye contact is made, and never is a kind greeting offered unless it’s by a vendor with art or t-shirts or novelties to sell. In the morning, though, before much of the island is in motion, people are kind. They say good morning to each other. They look in each other’s eyes and smile.

Matt, Mark, and I went for breakfast at Pepe’s yesterday. Mark and I have been to Pepe’s a couple times for dinner, but I didn’t know it was open for breakfast. Matt is a wealth of knowledge! Pepe’s is the oldest eatery on Key West and has been serving for more than 100 years. Being down near the docks, it’s a bit salty, but the staff is friendly and the food it good. I ordered “shit on a shingle,” which I haven’t head for years and which I’ve never seen on a restaurant menu before. (The menu listed “creamed chipped beef on toast,” but my receipt said “SOS.”)

On the way back, we stopped at two home furnishing stores. Fast Buck’s at Home is what might best be described as “high Miami condo style”—expensive, but very interesting and unique pieces such as a silver punch bowl held aloft by an octopus base. Key Accents is more “modern beach” with lots of little tchotchkes in blues and greens. We have been looking for a small lamp to sit at the foot of our stairs and found just the thing in the beachy shop. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to take a photo, though. Sorry.

We wended our way back to the condo and hung out for a bit. Matt and Rob decided to go to the beach, Mark and Dan relaxed here, and Alex and I went back to the home shops so he could give them a good going over. He and I took our time walking back, shopping all along the way. After we got back, I realized that my early rising was taking its toll. I took a nap only to awake to Mark calling my name. He had been out on the deck when he heard a rustling above his head. The rustling was followed by the drop of a lot of leaves and debris and then by the drop of a thirty-inch long iguana that scurried back to the tree and back up into the canopy. I couldn’t get a good photo, but here’s what I did get.

We pretty much hung out here for the rest of the day. Several of the boys have taken to playing hearts, and I read the news while they got in a few games before dinner. We headed off to a Key West institution, Ricky’s Blue Heaven, for a late dinner. Matt and I both crashed as soon as we got home, but everyone else played cards until midnight.

I think I’ll try harder to catch sunrise tomorrow, and I definitely want to stop at one of my favorite bookstores, Key West Island Books. And there’s the ghost tour to do. I need two more days!

Tuesday morning was not unlike Monday morning in the condo. Dan up first, Matthew second, and so on. Rob was the last to rise, and he only got up when, at almost noon, we told him that the maid had arrived. It’s a lazy vacation here for many of us!

Camille’s again for breakfast, then somewhat aimless wandering. Alex did find Scott Gruppe and bought a painting from him, and later in the day, Matt bought a piece we’d seen in a gallery a day or two before. Here are some photos from along the way.

We had a very pleasant lunch (only dessert for me!) at Kelly’s Caribbean Bar and Grille and then wandered over into the Truman Annex, a private condo development named for Harry Truman, who spent a fair bit of his presidency vacationing here.

Our only real goal yesterday was to tour the Little White House. We had a genial and knowledgeable guide who made, perhaps, too many jokes at the expense of the “youngsters.” Rob was certainly the youngest in the room, but Alex and I probably took the silver and bronze. Let’s just say that the tour didn’t move too quickly. I couldn’t take photos in the house, but I can best describe it as quintessential fifties, but not the good kind. Far from mid-century modern, it was more like early Archie Bunker.

After our tour, we wandered over to the dock area to look for restaurants. More key lime pie sampling.

Foxy had in mind a place that we might eat, but when we saw it, we decided it might be more of a lunch option than a good dinner place. It was a little too salty for us. We popped into a couple more galleries, and I think today we’re going to go back over to that area to look in a modern furniture store.

Five of us had dinner at La-Te-Da, which though a little slow, was quite good as well as reasonably priced for a nice restaurant on Duval Street. Afterward, we came back to the condo. Dan had called it a night early, and I was soon in following him, but Mark, Foxy, Rob, and Alex stayed up playing Hearts until midnight. After Alex wiped the table with them, Mark turned in while Alex and Rob stayed up a while to chat, and Foxy dashed off to the bar to see who was out and about. With any luck, they rental agency will fix our pool heater today; I might actually get in the water once it warms back up.

By the way, I thought I’d try using “large” images on this post versus the “medium” setting I had been using. I may have to go back to medium; these look a little too big.

Our first full day in Key West. The morning began cool, but by 10, it was hot enough for shorts. As I expected, Dan was the first up, but he was so quiet that I was unaware that he’d already been downstairs for a cup of coffee and returned to his room. I got up a little after 7, the second to rise. I expected Foxy (Matt) to be up before me since his job requires him to rise at 3 or 4 every day, but he didn’t join the growing throng until a half hour after I. Each of the three of us made individual trips to the CVS across the street this morning. None knew the others needed anything, or one trip would have been sufficient.

Mark got up about 20 minutes after Foxy, and by about 9:45, the four Musketeers had “showered, shit, and shaved” as the saying goes, and were off to breakfast. Alex and Rob—the night owls—stayed behind in a perhaps futile attempt to reset their circadian rhythms. Monday’s breakfast was at Camille’s, the Key West version of a greasy spoon, I guess. Pancakes, eggs Bene, waffles, hash, and all the wonderful breakfast foods that I love.

After breakfast, we came back to the condo and waited for Rob and Alex to wipe the sleep from their eyes. Alex, who couldn’t sleep, made brownies during the night. Yum! I had two.

When the boys were ready, we broke into pairs. Alex and Dan went to get coffee for Alex and do some strolling; Rob and Matt rented bikes—Foxy wanted to polish up his now rusty memory of his favorite haunts on the island and give Rob an overview of the island; and Mark and I just wandered, first to the beach, then through the quasi residential district on Whitehead Street. These guys were hanging out at the beach.

We re-located one of our favorite restaurants in Key West, Blue Heaven, and stumbled across a street artist named Scott Gruppe. I loved his work and bought a small painting for twenty-two bucks! You can see his style on his Facebook page. I about half expected to buy art here in Key West—it’s something Mark and I really like to do on vacations—but the budget is a bit tight, so it was a real treat for me to find something I more than like for such a good price.

Alex so liked the painting that he wants to go on a quest today to find Scott again and perhaps buy one himself. Scott was set up outside the Hemingway House, which all six of us visited later in the day, but not before Mark and I had some key lime pie!

Tom Glass will cover his eyes if he were to read this, but I found Hemingway House, though lovely with spacious rooms and a breezy demeanor, less interesting than the grounds. I took photos of a lot of the flowers and the cats. (And I must say that I’m really pleased with my new camera!)

We wandered down to Mallory Square to have a snack and just see a bit of the chaos that happens there around sunset. A German cruise ship was just departing, a juggler was balancing on some pipes throwing scimitars and playing the harmonica, a preacher was busily enticing souls to salvation, and a guy from the state fish and wildlife agency was trying to capture this fellow to remove a fish hook from his beak.

Walking home, we stopped at a sculpture garden that Mark remembered but that I had forgotten about. The busts memorialize important people in Key West’s history, and I couldn’t resist taking some pictures.

We ate dinner at the Old Town Mexican Restaurant, which is a nice, unfussy (read “plastic tables”) joint with decent food that has been on Duval for as long as I’ve been coming to Key West. Five of us went to a local watering hole after dinner—Dan peeled off—and killed the rest of the evening just drinking and chatting and having nice time.

And now we are six. Alex, Dan, Mark, and I arrived in Key West around 5:00 yesterday afternoon without killing each other, so that’s a plus. We checked in at the rental office and made our way a block or so to what has turned out to be a surprisingly lovely condo. The first floor consists of a living room, small dining area, kitchen—all open concept—and a powder room. A small private deck with a small heated pool sits off the kitchen.

The second floor is pretty much just the master bedroom with an en suite bathroom and access to two private decks. The third floor is a bath room and two bedrooms, one of which is ours. It’s just the right size with just the right amount of furniture. The condo is part of a dense community. The homes that surround ours are only six to eight feet away, so ours is in shadow almost all day. This makes it easier to sleep, but it also makes it hard to get up in the morning. Not such a bad thing, though.

We ate at Mangia Mangia last night. Everyone loves the food at Mangia Mangia, but I do have to say that Key West, in general, is not my favorite city for restaurants. I come here for the company, first and foremost, and for the sun and breeze and peace.

Dan and I returned to the condo after dinner. We were both just tired after a long day of travel. The other four boys went out for a drink. I read a little more of my book, then turned in.

Mark and I went to see Life of Pi a week ago, and I was reminded how much I enjoy shipwreck stories. (I continue to think that I must have drowned in a shipwreck in a previous life.) Moby Dick and is among my favorite novels, and I loved The Old Man and the Sea and The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor. Seeing Life of Pi prompted me to troll my library for some sea stories I had not yet read; I found there a book of three Conrad novellas that are all about the sea, so I’m working my way through them. The first one, which I’m still on, is called Typhoon and is the fictionalized account of a late-nineteenth-century event in which a steamship off the coast of China sails into a typhoon with more than 200 aboard.

Dan, Matt, and I are all up now, and each of us has made a separate trip to the nearby CVS to pick up things we forgot to bring. It’s like a parade. Mark seems to be stirring, so when he comes down, I think the four of us will head off to breakfast. Alex and Rob both work nights, so they won’t be up for a couple hours yet and won’t miss us.

Dan says he turned in shortly after I did.

We’re on our way to revisit a favorite haunt, but this time with virgins.

Several months back, our friends in St. Petersburg invited us to join them and two other friends for a few days in Key West. They’d never been to the island, but we had been singing its praises for a long time. Of course, we couldn’t pass up a chance to visit one of our favorite vacation destinations or to see Dan and Alex, so we signed on immediately. When their other friends dropped out, we did some asking around among our friends in Columbus and happily were able to recruit Matt and Rob to join in the fun. While Matt has been to Key West many times, Rob, like Dan and Alex, is a Key West virgin.

Yesterday, we flew down to St. Petersburg to spend the night with Dan and Alex. They’re house looks lovely, of course. Alex is so handy. I’m quite jealous of his ability to build simple furniture, make lamps, sew cushions, and make all manner of domestic improvements.

For dinner, the four of us joined Mark’s old best friend, Dean, and Dean’s wife, Diane, for dinner at Cassis in downtown St. Petersburg. We sat out side even though it was a bit chilly (thanks for that, Dan!) and had a really pleasant evening filled with good conversation and good food. Too much food, but good food. We also stumbled upon a shop called Agora that was filled with imports from Japan. We bought some small, well priced dishes and trays for the house along with a few unique Christmas presents.

When we got back to the house, I was too exhausted to do my blog entry, so I’m typing now while we drive from St. Petersburg to Key West—about 8 hours. I’m kind of anxious to cross the Everglades. It would be inaccurate to say I’m fascinated by them, but I have been curious about them since I was a boy. In my mind, they’re one of empty areas on the map that Conrad talks about at the beginning of The Heard of Darkness.

I’m going to try to add a photo from the Everglades when we get there. I’m excited to say, though, that after being in the Dominican Republic without a real camera, I bought a new DSLR last week to replace the one that was stolen from my garage last October. I should be able to put up some really nice shots from this trip.

(Turns out, from the highway the Everglades look a lot like this.