Katie Jo was shocked. After less than a year of marriage her husband was leaving her.
“I feel like I’ve ruined my life,” he had declared, flinging items into suitcases, “I feel like I settled. We have nothing in common!”

In retrospect it was obvious there had been signs of fracture, but Katie Jo had noticed none. She thought they were blissfully happy. Now alone, the shock morphed into catatonic depression and pals became concerned.

One friend intervened and suggested she attend an Alcoholic’s Anonymous meeting, “it’s a great place to meet new people,” the friend counseled, “everybody there is wounded, like you, they’ll be sympathetic.”

“But I don’t drink!” Katie Jo replied, and then tears welled and she exploded sobbing, “that was one of his complaints. He said I’m no fun because I don’t drink.”
“No one will know,” the friend urged, “besides, you don’t have to speak at the meeting.”

On automatic Katie Jo looked up information for the nearest meeting, it was ‘women only’ and she decided that sounded like a good idea. After showering and dressing there was a half hour to fill and Katie Jo began anxiously to pace around. On a whim she checked the fridge, sure enough there remained some beers, “if I’m going to hang out with alcoholics I might as well be crocked,” she snickered.

Due to zero tolerance for stimulants and after almost the entire bottle of beer Katie Jo was rollicking drunk. With a thick head and slowed motions she descended the steps to the street. The sluggish sensation was not unappealing, and when she stumbled down a step and fell clutching at the banister it was not frightening, instead she was laughing and spittle flecked her cheek.

The meeting was in the basement of a church. A deep wide room with an oval wood table and chairs all around, already filled with an earnest looking congregation. Faces turned to look at her as she took a seat, smiles, discreet nods.

Around the table they went introducing themselves and their predicament. One woman claimed she was, “a slave to Chardonnay.” Another said that at her worst with cocaine addiction she had moved in with her dealer. Then it was Katie Jo’s turn. “Hello,” this came out phlegmy and garbled, so she cleared her throat and recommenced, “I’m Katie Jo and I would like to become an alcoholic.”

All faces were now fixed on her, none of them smiling. The group leader, a portly lady with short grey hair and round glasses shoved her chair back from the table and stood up, “welcome Katie Jo, are you trying to be funny?”

“My huthband left me,” Katie Jo barged on, emboldened, and only slurring slightly, “He thaid I am no fun because I don’t drink. I figured I’d athk the professionals for tipth.”

Everyone stared at her, their mouths set rigidly. One lady, hugely fat in an orange dress, said, “Have you considered gambling?”

…walking home thursday night a man appeared from nowhere & asked me if i know how to salsa, i said, sorry mate i don’t even eat tomatoes. anyway, i went with him to a club and it was salsa night. have you ever learned these steps? i had no idea how many rules there are, its really intricate stuff. now im hooked…on the dancing…

“Now I’ve got you,” Darren told his wife as they left the church. He felt a huge relief that the wedding was behind them.

It was a breezy summer day in the desert. The young couple, both dressed in white, were walking out of the cool adobe building with a cross on its domed roof. They had invited no guests, only a taxi to take them to the campsite. Darren’s idea.

Kristen beamed a giddy smile. She stared lovingly at her husband as they stepped outside into a glaring sun. Inwardly she felt panic. They had been married less than five minutes and the seed of doubt was abloom. She caught the train of her dress in the taxicab door and like an SOS a lacy white scrap flapped as they drove to the camp grounds.

Later, after they had too much to drink, she begged him to explain his comment. They sat cross-legged on a down-filled mattress under a canvas tent. Darren had thought of everything, including an ice-bucket filled with beer.
“Don’t get wobbly,” Darren commanded, and brandished his beer bottle at her. “Drink to that!”
“Promise not to become normal? Drink to that too!”
“Promise not to get fat?” he slurred. The surprise in her brown eyes emboldened him and it was a lucky thing he soon fell back onto the pillows and passed out.

In the year of their courtship they had never fought.

The first day of their honeymoon they hiked through a wild canyon. Darren was passionate about taking photographs and gobs of time was relegated to this hobby. Hours sometimes passed while he set up his shots. Kristen used this down-time for daydreaming. One day, long after the dissolution of this first marriage, Kristen would become a writer.

Twenty-four hours since the nuptials they were tramping single file down a crumbly path of dust that hugged the side of the cliff. The scenery was a wide open canyon of orange and pink stripy rock. The sun was searing and the air smelled of twice-baked heat. There were no hand rails, just a sharp drop off to cacti and jagged rock, a death trap should a person fall.

Darren snapped pictures. He told Kristen where to stand, how to pose. Next she took the camera from him and began to direct. There was a ledge made from a smooth flat boulder.
“Go stand on that rock,” Kristen whispered, immediately nervous.
Darren made his way out onto the boulder. Wind blew his thin hair.
Through the viewfinder Kristen saw her future.
“Go out a little further,” Kristen coaxed, the camera concealing her face. She felt the flutter of guilt.
Carefully Darren inched to the edge and tiny pebbles began noisily trickling over the sides. Possibilities were swirling in Kristen’s mind. She was thinking that while there was sympathy for the widow there was none for the divorcee.

They stared at each other, as if for the first time. Panting almost.

Near a picnic table four girls slept on the beach. Humps of hips and elbows slashed across faces blocking out the late afternoon sun. They were Zebra-striped with their bands of colors from their bathing suits.

A couple blocks away a squabbling couple exited a squat bungalow. They bustled into a maroon minivan.

“Victor!” Kay was sobbing, “I can't take it!”

“Please calm down.” Victor said, buckling himself in with the seatbelt, sitting as close to the door as possible. “You shouldn't drive when you're upset. Let me drive?”

“I'm always upset!” Kay said, and shoved a pair of sunglasses onto her swollen tear-stained face. She rolled down her window, took exaggerated gasps of air.

The maroon van bounced and the shocks screeched before vanishing around a corner.

The sun was transmuting to the fattened glows of a sunset. A cell phone blared from a bag beside one of the slumbering girls, the shrill sound infiltrating her dreams. In seismic waves the girls shook awake, shuddering and stretching, still laying on the sandy ground and pulling their arms straight and tight over their heads.

“Victor! Are you listening?” Kay was driving fast. “How many times do I have to tell you? I need affection. I need romance. I need you to take me dancing.”

“That's nice,” said Victor, distractedly, the edges of his mouth turned down. He was resignedly staring straight out in front. His wife's barrage was muted to

fuzz inside his head.

Discordant as unfurling petals the girls sat up, they were blinking and yawning. One of the girls wore no top. She

was wearing nothing but a white bikini bottom. Suddenly dominating the scenery were her firm high breasts, grapefruit-sized gravity-defying conicals with small brown nipples. She stood up and flung out her arms, her hands in fists. Then lifting them in wide arcs and making points of her fingertips. She shook out her tangled blonde hair and the rubbery breasts moved. She arched her back. She knew she was awesome, and she was enjoying every moment of it.

“You never listen to me!” Kay exploded, and steered the minivan into the parking lot up to the picnic table where they liked to sit. Victor had a perfect clear view of the magnificent breasts on the young woman now slowly lowering her arms, all of her moving just enough so that the breasts wobbled.

“Wow!” said Victor, before he could stop himself.

Kay's attention was engrossed with stepping on the brakes and sliding the gears into park but the tone of her husband's voice caught her in the solar plexus.

“What…?” Kay said, and plucked off her sunglasses, glanced quickly at him. Following his cemented gaze she turned her head and examined the scene of the four girls standing just beyond the picnic table. Gradually the details of the half naked girl registered and Kay began to frown.

For the first time in a long time Victor smiled.

Key West, Saturday, Midnight. The main street was predictably clogged with revelers.

My attention was splintered by the multitude of merry distractions and I almost tripped over a month old chicken. It darted from the sidewalk to the gutter, frenzied, squeaking and lost. Its feathers were tones of grey and muddy browns. With rapid steps it zigzagged, bleating and panicked. I considered repatriating it but I could not see its flock. I pictured picking it up, and then, well exactly, and then what? I shook off the guilt and walked away.

From an alley came kids screaming and leaping, each equipped with laser swords and walkie-talkies. They barreled by in a cloud of noise and vanished around a corner.

A thin, long-haired man with a top hat played a guitar and sucked on a harmonica attached to a neck brace.

A suntanned man was using his cell phone to photograph a girl. Sh

e stood on the hood of a parked car and pulled up her mini-skirt, revealingly, “this is for you” she was saying to him before falling over backwards, to the ground.

Music thumped from everywhere, people strolled about carrying beer in clear plastic beakers.

Standing frozen and alone, on a wood crate, at a busy intersection, a green sequin Elvis impersonator, a study in calm amidst the chaos.

A lithe female in spandex and super-high-heeled shoes swished by, her muscular

rump high and solid, her torso tiny, all of her unreal looking.

It got late, maybe three in the morning and the streets were sticky with spilled beer. Herds of young men stumbled with arms around each others necks, sweating alcohol. Couples argued sloppily in doorways.

Close to home I saw the little chicken. It lay across the roots of a tree, on its side, crumpled sort of, panting. Not the fittest.

I wandered back toward the new digs. Down along the main street spilling with people visiting the many bars, sucked in by the sounds of music. In a bar played a band, a father and his two sons, him on electric guitar, the older boy with a sleepy eye strumming a silver tape-patched banjo, and the other, lupine, dominating a double bass taller than himself. There was something in the scruffiness of their hair, the blandness of their not-new clothes that suggested swamps. Each had their ey

es on the others hands. Their comfortable trinity hinted

at the hours they have rehearsed, honing that groove. They were performing Eric Clapton's 'Lay Down Sally' and they infused it with Bayou and fast-paced precision jamming. They were meshing. The three of them, with their serious far-away countenances, they were coasting as one. Their music was gorgeous and I could not walk away. First leaning against a tree and staring through the open doorway, then stepping inside.

From the porch of my new home in a rickety chair I look upon an enchanted view. A garden of rubbery plants and palm trees swaying in a flower scented breeze. The swimming pool is surrounded with white marble, and behind it a path of coral leads to a short wall, the beach and the ocean. Slim speedy geckos zip around the swimming pool. A female rushes about in a feverish way, and then she stops and slyly looks behind. A beat later the male peeks from the jungle foliage where he flares an impressive blood red wattle. She makes as if to flee and he chases her like crazy and leaps upon her and pins her for quite some time.

On the swath of blue and green ocean people aboard all manner of conveyances stir up wakes. Men and their dogs slosh through ankle deep sand banks. Paddle boarders punt, spooning along. Military fighter jets clatter through the sky far ahead of the noise they create. Prop planes pass pulling banners with the paid-for-message of the day. Staring at the ocean I saw dark shapes pushing through the surface, creating whitewater splashes, before melting tracelessly away. Most likely most of these were optical illusions. I contemplated swimming and I shuddered.

Close to midnight I went out and walked the main drag -a flash-point for all things entertainment. Drunk girls danced by themselves in the street, undulating with their arms in the air, sometimes singing, eyes closed. Cigar smoke insinuated from

a couple, arm in arm. Him in pin stripes and her in wild west brothel get-up with enormous breasts surging from a frilly edged shirt. As they passed the woman raised a half smoked cigar to her mouth, and puffed like a coal train.

Was nearly knocked down by a wobbly passerby, instead we went for drinks, where I met his friends. Lots of laughs.

Suddenly it was four in the morning and I had to force myself to leave. Night and day the heat here is steamy. I was sticky and wanted to go for a swim. When I got home I disrobed and stepped into the cool pool. Moon light brightened the night. I dunked all of me going under several times and then emerged and bobbed with only my snout out. And then I heard a tremendous rustling. The underbrush crackled and I froze.

Shockingly, into the light strode a fat-bellied long-clawed lime-green iguana. He was maybe three feet from flicking tongue to the tip of his black ringed tail. As quietly as possible I pushed to the deep end. The lizard stopped and scanned for dangers. From the moonlight I could see his slimy eyeballs swiveling around. With exaggerated movements he neared the shallow end. I held my breath. The little dragon eased his torso over the side and planted his front feet on the top step. He dipped his face and sipped a large gulp, then tipped back his horned head, allowing the drink down. Then he hoisted himself out and slowly dragged himself back into the jungle.

For ages now I have wanted to learn Serbian. Strike that, I have wanted to speak Serbian. The 'learning' part has been the obstacle. I intend to visit the country but first I want to learn the lingo. I had hoped something easy would present itself, perhaps I might meet a Serb who could teach me. But instead I was moving, packing up and relocating. One of the last things I did before departing the East End was to download a Serbian tutorial. I have looked at it exactly zero times. For one thing, I need to be settled, I need a home.

I have been in Key West six weeks and I've switched hotels six times, because, well, because I am a fussy bitch. One room too tiny, next too hot, and onward following the Princess and the Pea legacy. Daily I searched the newspapers and Craigslist and plodded around searching for 'for rent' signs on houses. One morning, shunting from one rat-bag hotel to the next I saw a 'for rent' sign hanging outside what had once been a Victorian gingerbread, now reduced to a paint-flaking sagging disaster, encircled with a chain link fence. I really didn't want to stop but I didn't like to risk kicking opportunity in the teeth and incurring seven years of bad luck or whatever the penalty. So I parked in front of a distracted rooster plucking at the dust in the road. I phoned the number on the sign and spoke

with a man named Andy. “I own the house but I live in Massachusetts.” Andy said. “But there's like a hundred kids in there. Just go knock at the door.”

I wanted to hang up on Andy and flee but then a fetching young man was padlocking a bicycle to the chain link fence. He was tall, dark and handsome and I watched his cute ass enter the building.

“It's a bunch of Serbians I've got renting that place,” Andy said.
“Did you say Serbs?” I asked, suddenly paying attention.
“Yup! Serbians!” And he snorted.

Phone still pressed against my head in a couple of strides I was knocking at the front door where a panel was missing. The door wobbled open and another, younger, man stood in the hallway. He was in shorts and his hair was tousled and dirty blonde and he was luscious. He wore no shirt and his smooth tanned torso softened my mood. I hung up the telephone on Andy.

Marko gave me the tour of the gutted wreckage and I pretended to be interested. When I got to the living room, where a dozen wilting bodies sprawled, I had to ask, “You're all Serbian?”
Listlessly they nodded.
“My mother is Princess of Serbia.” I declared.
They eyed me, skeptically.

Before leaving I had enlisted the services of beautiful young Marko. He

definitely looks like he could take the sting out of studying, especially if I can convince him to keep his shirt off.

ACCORDING TO THE TUTORIAL  I downloaded, here’s how to learn a foreign language:

a) Learn how to say “hi”and “goodbye”

b) Learn how to say “what?”

c) Don’t be afraid of looking ridiculous

'Twas my second day on the loose and when I crossed from Georgia into Florida my old pal Beaux telephoned. He too was in Florida. It was so unlikely

that we would both be in the same place at the same time we felt obliged to take advantage. Mid afternoon I parked in Palm Beach and met up with Beaux and his youngest son Max downing sandwiches and fries at Greene's Pharmacy.

They recounted how, “Right in front of Mummy's house!” they had caught a shark line casting from the beach. “We stuck poles in the sand and right away we saw fins!” One pole bent from strain and Beaux reeled a medium sized Spinner shark onto the sand where it went mad. In the chaos one of them suggested, “grab it by the tail!” And just as someone did lunge the shark was thrashing back into the surf, where it vanished, dragging the fishing pole away forever.

Leaving Greene's Pharmacy Beaux asked, “What kind of car you driving?”
Sensing a trap I settled for vague, “Grey,” I replied.
“Can I drive?” He asked, utterly rhetorically.

Transpired Beaux had scheduled a 3 hour round trip inland to visit Belle, retired housekeeper who'd worked for the family since before he was born. On the way Max bleated about how he was, “gonna burst!” I winced when Beaux handed back an empty bottle which Max did his best to fill and I tried not to picture the inevitable spillage. The pee w

as pungent and I opened my window. We found Belle in her wheelchair by a window. “I was your favorite, right?” Beaux asked, and introduced Max for the first time. Belle smiled and half mumbled stories. She will turn 103 this June. Max cried when he said goodbye.

Finally we were in the ocean, body surfing on the mild froth. I was loving the warm water. Until something touched my leg. “Shark” I screamed and shot to shore, heartbeat thwacking. Beaux departed, to catch a flight and I stayed at his mother's for dinner. This necessitated a change into my single ladylike dress. After the plates were cleared we played a word game with tiles and lots of rules which were vigorously argued over. Beginner's luck but I won all the games. This went over like a ton of bricks.

I stayed the night in a friend's handsome home on the Intracoastal. Comfortable and spotlessly clean it was nothing like the motel from the night before. Bonding with the luxury, coffee in hand, I stepped onto a balcony and gagged. I snapped, “How did Palm Beach make me her bitch?” I retrieved my car from the depths of a basement garage of cement and dirty air. Last thing I did before I hit the highway was toss out the bottle of piss. Like a taunting reminder the spilled pee reacted with the elements and crystalized, covering the backseat floor mat with silvery flakes, like insect's wings.