Days giving way to nights. Late afternoons were hot, too hot for anything but getting wet. The tradition of Sunset began at the dock on the western end of Simonton Street where locals gathered to drink and swim. Guitars and flutes and drums and harmonicas, people shedding their clothes to swim and then to dance. They seemed a tribe to me, participating in some secret ancient ritual, the smoking and drinking and chanting and nudity swelling to some obscure sensation of life for me. There I stood among the naked revelers, a neophyte, a chrysalis emerging.
No wonder it has such a following!
ReplyDeleteThat photo looks like a cover from an album my older brothers might have owned in the 70's. One that I, being the much younger, nosy sister, would pilfer back to my room while they were out. Me,
ReplyDeletestaring at all the details and wondering (and making stories in my head) about what the photo meant to the music on the album.
I digress....
So we rented a house on Marathon that I found in the back of a scuba diving magazine. Owned by some foreign guy we just sent money orders to. It was unbelievable --- all white, leather furniture, modern, glass walls and porno bedrooms and bathrooms. It was on the lagoon surrounded by mangroves. At night the whole house turned a sherbet pink with the sunset.
It was dirt cheap to rent and we felt like rock stars and groupies living there -- even though we were mostly broke and mostly had to fish for dinner or eat at the Cuban place that often had palmetto bugs the size of Georgia climbing on the walls. Mmmmm that black bean soup though. Robin hated it. When we had money we'd go to this dive in the woods and eat piles of shrimp steamed in beer.
I'd hitchhike to Bahia Honda if everyone else was going diving and I was feeling water logged . Too much diving was going on. It was like the drug of choice. 3 dives a day. Sharks, electric eels, barracuda. It was so god damned quiet and wet down there. Sometimes I just wanted hot sand on my skin. I'd go prone without a towel or blanket in the sand. God, I love that. I still do it in summer here. Some freak rolling in the sand. I loved being alone there. I've always needed to be alone. Robin wouldn't do that though, she always needed a towel or her chair. She couldn't handle the sand. So freaking neat she was. I drove her crazy.
One night we bought "french ticklers" out of some dispenser in a bathroom in a filthy bar we were in -- that night or early morning Glen knocked on the bedroom door and said he had to go to the hospital cause he thinks he fucked the tickler too far up inside her or something. I slept late and missed most of the drama upon their return that morning. I think she just needed to take a good shit. Well that's what I said when I woke up. She was pissed at me for days.
We'd go down to Key West when we could afford gas but it was all Margaritaville at that time. And the guys had their dive boat connection up in Marathon. But I loved the French guy with the performing cats that jumped through fire hoops on Mallory Dock.
We had Glen's parents old station wagon. It had those old wood panels on the side and it was so unchic. We loved it. Cruising around town.
In late May, Glen & Robin had to go back up to the Cape for a wedding. We drove them up to Miami and they got on a plane.
Two weeks later the phone rang in Marathon about 4:30 in the morning. I picked it up and it was Glen. He sounded all messed up.
"Robin's dead," he said, "and so is Doug and Doug's daughter Rebecca." Robin was leaving Glen for Doug, a really nice guy she had met at work and about 15 years older than us. A divorced father of two kids. She had been out with him a few times before we left for the Keys.
One night, when we had too much to drink and were sitting out on the dock, fishing, she told me that she really "felt something right" about Doug.
We drove back to Massachusetts. Crispy provided me with plenty of valium for the long ride. It was really fucking cold when we got to the Cape. I hated it.
I haven't been back but really would like to drive those bridges again.
Sorry, you made me spill.
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI am trying hard to find photographs for my posts, but it is difficult. I have been reduced to these.
Your story is much better than mine. Thanks for writing it here. We remember in places, not time.
I am glad to hear from you.
Nikon,
ReplyDeleteYes, it was wildly different than the rest of America. Now condos sit on that piece of land.