"When the Moon's in the Sky"

Skip ahead. At some point, all things turn, I guess. That has been my experience, at least. But what can you do?

John's boat repair business was booming. He had part of a boatyard on the island and was still flying all over the Caribbean to repair and deliver boats. He was a licensed captain and a hell of a carpenter. Not bad for a fellow with a graduate degree. But the girl who looked like Connie Stevens was cursed. Whatever led her to dancing in go-go bars was still haunting her. She stayed drunk and began crying a lot. I saw her only a few times a year, so the changes were more apparent to me than to the others, perhaps. But something had gone sour in Paradise.

John decided to run for Mayor of Key West, and it looked like he might have a shot. He was well-known and well-liked and Key West was renowned for electing criminals. One New Year's Eve, I sat with a gang of high society criminals in Logan's Lobster House situated between the police chief and the fire chief. The waiters were tipped with lines of cocaine run across the table tops. I would have to research this to get it exactly right, but both of them disappeared in the next year, one absconding with money and the other with large caches of confiscated drugs. John looked like an angel comparatively.

But way leads to way and working hard in the sun is only one way to get money. The other is to sail down to Jamaica and load your boat with marijuana. And that's what John decided to do.

Trouble was, the Mariel boat lift had begun while John was on the water and he was boarded by the Coast Guard. They were looking for Cubans. Not that they found any, but there was all that other stuff to contend with.

This happened at a bad time in judicial history, too, for the courts had entered their Zero Tolerance phase. John hired an attorney who put the trial off over and over again for years.

In the meantime, Connie Stevens had shipped back home to Pennsylvania where she underwent some rehabilitation. It was not easy to rehab in Key West back then.

Finally, John made a deal with the courts. He was broke both financially and emotionally. He was going to do a year in Club Fed, and after his release, he could not return to Key West. I went to a topless bar with him a little before he was to report to prison. I guess he was reliving good times. We went to the bar where he had first met his girl. It was a dolorous evening. I am still haunted by his mournful rendition of "That's Amore" as we walked down the street, sung in a minor key.

And then he was gone. When he got out of prison a few months later, he moved to Florida's west coast where he started his boat repair business again. I don't know how that worked out, but I heard that Connie Stevens joined him there.

I guess everything has a happy ending.