Like a sword with its hilt exposed and blade in the earth, I found a rusty machete. Inspired by the flower-scented day I decided I should try horticulture. I marched around my garden cutting everything unattractive. To tidy up some ragged browning tips I chopped at a plant taller than myself with impossibly long leaves like gigantic rabbit ears. Horribly, the stumps proceeded to leak sticky beads of milk with a garish stink like molten rubber. I had hurt the thing. I felt awful and I began to apologize, but I did not know how to convey my sentiments. Should I hug it?

I continued hacking away at some seemingly loose palm tree bits but they were more robust than they appeared and the blade ricocheted on each slice and I pictured losing an eye, or fingers. When the machete came close to cutting off one entire arm I lanced it back at the leaf strewn ground.

To remove myself from danger I pitched into the hammock.

I have seen cats cutting through the back yard. Singly they stride, favoring particular routes. A calico male insists on spraying a low shrub, which does indeed sport a lustrous patina I had previously put down to good health. To be neighborly I nightly placed a heaped plate. Every morning the dish was spotless. This continued until I discovered the plate rimmed with small brown snails, their slimy bodies like squishy tongues suctioning away. I’m told gargantuan toads are often found face down in the cat food.

One night I saw a black cat sitting stiffly in a patch of shade. Unseen, through a window, I stared. I made out the strip of white chest and one white paw. Gradually I realized the cat had no face. Where its face should be instead there was nothing, only shadows. Squinting, I stared harder and all outlines dispersed. I blinked and the cat vanished, dissolved into varying depths of darkness, fuzzy blackness filling the space between giant green leaves with serrated edges. The white chest turned into the edge of a flagstone, the white paw a leaf.

Another night a pair of raccoons trotted across the top of the back fence. These tropical raccoons are smaller than their northern brethren. One sprung to the ground in a graceful leap and attacked my yoga mat. With his jaws he ripped free a mouthful. And then the little furry beast shook his wrinkling snout, and spat out the unappetizing fragments before scrabbling up a tree trunk and racing away to rejoin his comrade. A corner of the mat is forever gone, tiny teeth marks outline the crime scene and I no longer leave the mat out at night.

Easing off the hammock I went indoors for a glass of water, and on my way I checked up on the slasher-victim fern. The globules of oleaginous cream were caking; hopefully I have not murdered flora, or poisoned fauna, nor perturbed the ghost cats.

February in the tropics and it is balmy. The nightly party that is downtown Key West is swept clean early everyday. Streets freshly watered, like hair slicked for chapel, and all visible trace of the night before is erased. But nothing can contain the smells rising like an insistent mist, mingling with the warming day. Other than a longhaired skateboarder lashed to a galloping multicolored dog, Duval Street was deserted when I went for coffee.

At the corner of Caroline Street I saw them. She was folded on the handlebars of his bicycle, she faced him, unsmiling. His arms were stiff arcs enveloping her as he steered the black cruiser. He was moving fast, and beaming, and she looked utterly relaxed, with an eery unnatural calm. He zipped from sidewalk to street, slinking around clumps of awakening pedestrians gathering out front of cafes sipping from lidded paper cups. Quite out of place in the steamy Keys he wore a dark wool suit, riding with his knees out wide, his black lace-up shoes like arrows on the pedals. She was in a dress of gray netting, spiky and see-through, her skin was pale, her eyes languorous, long kinky fair hair framed a serene face. She was a mermaid caught in her fisherman’s net. She was glorious, yet oddly glum, meanwhile her beau grinned. Their faces were close. They were not talking. Occasionally his head jutted forward and he kissed her. Their private world drew stares, and he nimbly maneuvered, at quite a clip, passing by bemused onlookers craning to take in the engrossed twosome. They might have been pedaling to their own wedding, as likely as being on their way home from a long night. There was something about their intensity, the cliche tableau. And then Elvis rode past on his scooter, today in his cherry red and sequin jumpsuit with lapels like fins. Tourists held up flashing cell phones, and the bicyclists were forgotten.

I would have clean forgotten about them too, but later that day I saw him again, riding his same black bicycle down Duval Street, now abuzz with cars cruising, and taxicabs. He no longer wore the dark wool suit but it was unmistakably him, for one thing he had on those shiny black leather lace ups, city shoes, memorable footwear in a beach town. He looked ecstatic, just as earlier when I had espied him, and sure enough he was not alone. Filling in the space between himself and the handlebars was a person. A female. Sort of folded, same as before. Yet something was different. I tried to get a decent glimpse without being too obvious. People thronged and I could only catch snippets. Something, however, was off. Gradually I realized she was not the same girl. This one a brunette. They kissed like lovers, until she caught me gaping, slack-jawed. The last thing I saw before reluctantly turning away was the picture of her joyous face.

I won’t tell.

They were a wretched sight, mother and son, hunkered on yellow plastic chairs at the police station. They sat at the lip of their seats, suggesting free will, meanwhile they huddled, stiff and frightened looking. The way they positioned their limbs obscured the handcuffs and lengths of chain tethering them to one another and the metal desk. The young man fussed with the locks, worming a toothpick into the hole, while mom blew him a kiss and winked.
For decades these low-rent schemers had mustered a living from genteel crime. Mom would conceptualize and son would implement, tipping cars off cliffs, staging robberies, faking injuries. Only one time did things get out of hand when setting a house ablaze they accidentally charred half the neighbor’s. “Hey!” the mom assured, “No one got hurt.”
The dad had fled long ago, his car crammed with everything they had ever owned, never to be seen again. The son, from an early age devised a mode of his own. While craven, he was a nimble-fingered thief and instinctively he knew this was a talent he ought to develop. In candy stores he cleared whole shelves, stuffing his pockets before moseying off. Eventually the mother discovered her son’s penchant, finding him and his pilfered candy in the basement.
“What’s this?” she said, hands on hips, as her son cowered and immediately confessed. “Who is my good boy!” she exclaimed, and gave her child a smothering hug.
Entwined as they were by their proclivities, they teamed up. When the schemes worked they took their winnings and shoved them into burlap sacks and buried the loot in a bog.
“Crime does pay!” the mother extolled.
Their favorite activity was acquiring. They exhausted themselves with purchasing. They were gluttons and they gorged, wiping the sweat from their brows with soggy paper money. It was a while before they noticed the karmic strings attached. For one thing, the money had to be stashed in a filthy freezing cold hole. Getting at it was trying.
Time passed and they got sloppy, no longer bothering to look around and check who might observe them pulling bags from out the arsehole of a field in the middle of effing nowhere.
Mom was returning to the car, the fourth such trip that morning, dragging the dirty bag of cash, letting it jounce off slimy clods. Bills fluttered loose, gone on a gust.
“Mom! The bag!”
“What?”
“The bag! It’s spilling!”
The sack had split its seams. Tattered white fringe bust in all directions, while bills swirled, twirling on the cold metallic breeze.
It was bad luck a trooper was passing by. Of course he saw enough to warrant a look-see.
Mother and son were transported to county jail where they sat in the yellow plastic chairs, whispering, and fussing with the locks of their restraints.

Last night I went for my customary midnight stroll down Duval Street, and what did I behold but an impromptu music video organically sprung from out the sidewalk in front of a grocery store slash liquor store slash rolling papers and cigarettes and all type of soft vices kind of store. Like most establishments on Duval Street the store opens directly onto the sidewalk, like an arcade. This store regularly plays techno music extremely loudly. Along came a gang of youths, none older than teenagers, a couple under the age of ten and quite tiny, well they all began to dance. They were brimming with energy and smiling and pounding out these fast impressive moves to the heartbeat challenging music with its whizzing siren overtones. All of them were jumping and shimmying and clapping with their knees so they looked like gyroscopes. They were rather fantastic and many of us passerby stopped to watch, clogging the curb. Ambling down the sidewalk from the other side of the street was another group of youths. The newcomers paused and observed the dancing gang, a few were boys still in their teens wearing the shortest of possible red micro shorts with legs so long they seemed to begin under their arms, like flamingos. One flamingo pulled up his shirt and, exposing a torso hard like a two-by-four, rolled the hem into his teeth. Then he said something to his crew and they crossed the street. The dancers saw them coming and ramped up the speed of their gyrations. The flamingos bound and fell right into an energetic dance of their own. One guy put his hands behind his head, elbows out, and began descending slowly on powerful legs meanwhile motoring his behind so fast it was a blur. Another of the incredibly long legged flamingoes ripped off his hoody and tossed it to the ground and leapt into the splits, falling fast and expertly and gracefully to the cement sidewalk, where he pulsed with pneumatic speed, and then he grabbed himself between the legs, collecting his spilling self, and rolled and tucked, and all the time laughing delightfully. The store’s cashiers were also swaying and moving their hips to the music, and clapping their hands above their heads, encouraging the dance-off.

The song ended and the dancers bounced in place, and slapped each other’s hands, and backs, and then began to disperse, melding into the thick flow of nocturnal revelers.

And I continued on with my stroll.

I want to die! Can you hear me? I have to tell you what happened to me, before I commit suicide.

Joe Boy thought it would be hilarious to send me his collection of dirty old porn videos. I spread them all over my bed to take a look. It was that porn from the 70s, those cheap looking videos of men with pimples and hair. You know, they were very hairy back then. They were just shocking. And I’m thinking what am I going to do with all of this? I don’t want to watch it. I don’t even get horny. Those days are over. Don’t get me wrong, if my lover ever gets out of jail, well oo la la! Otherwise I am a solitary man. And I don’t care. I have my movies, my soufflés and my cat. Isn’t that right Mr Fat? Silly fat cat!

Do you know we had a snow storm? This morning my car wouldn’t start so I phoned the specialists to come take it away on a flatbed truck. You know how it is with German engineering, I can’t simply hand it over to just anyone, I have to get the most expensive most experienced people around. It’s going to cost a fortune. I’ll have to beg mummy to help with the bill. Ok, so my doorbell is broken and I had to leave the front door open, you know, because I might not hear the mechanics, and they will just leave and they will never come back today. You have to remember I’m in the boonies.

So the front door was open and in flew this adorable tiny owlet, practically right into my arms. Then it went crashing against the ceiling and then up to the second floor, and it was bumping into everything and crying. Oh, I felt so bad for the little guy. Poor creature! I know how to handle birds because I’m a trained expert, I’m certified, but he was just a baby and I don’t have owlet formula on hand so I called the lupine man, I mean the avian man, the bird guy, whatever, anyway I got a hold of him and he said he’d be right over.

Picture this, the car guys are hoisting the Benz, and the bird guy and I are on the landing, sort of outside my bedroom, when, oh my God, who would have thought ninety-four year old Mrs Richardson would climb the stairs in the first place?

And I couldn’t even throw myself on the bed to cover up the videos because I was holding the owlet!

Mrs Baldwin said she wanted something for the church jumble.

And everyone was staring at the porn! And it’s not even my taste!

Oh my God! I want to die! I’m so humiliated! I don’t know what to do with myself. I need a drink! I’m going to drink cognac and watch my favorite movies and then I’ll kill myself.

For anybody interested Evan and Elle did not perish in the automobile accident. While their van was demolished to fragments, they walked away unmarked, physically.
As for psychologically, they were enhanced, if anything they marveled at life all the more. The experience had filled them with renewed verve, for a bit. They were somewhere in northern Florida and it took Evan and Elle a few days to sort themselves out, putting up at a worn motel while shopping for a car.
Soon they were on the road again, now kitted out in an old tub of a station wagon, chocolate brown. The only thing evidently wrong was a tricky light bulb in the dash, and it was priced to sell.
They were headed for Key West, “Because it’s wonderful and life is short,” as Evan said.
Elle, in the front passenger seat, made a game of lowering the visor, sliding wide a cover which in turn switched on a light over an embedded mirror. Elle tugged on her lower lip, and jutted her jaw. Evan thought this made her look like a fish.
“What are you doing?” Evan asked, less patiently each time.
“I’m looking for gold, my darling,” Elle responded, staring at the watery pink reflection of her gaping mouth in the mirror. Her critical eye zeroed in on the seemingly trillions of lines around her lips and her thoughts soured.
Late in the day and the chocolate brown tub motored south of Miami. Here the daylight waned and stars flickered on. A smile of a half moon leered in the darkening royal blue sky. The highway narrowed and road signs abandoned all pretense of prim civility and blazed colorfully lit billboards of pirates and naked ladies and lots and lots of liquor stores.
“Sips?” Elle whispered, in her infantilized way.
Instead, Evan sunk his foot on the accelerator; half convinced that if they could just reach their destination everything would be ok. He tried to distract his wife with anecdotes, junk he had memorized earlier that day, back at the rank motel. This worked for a few miles.
“I need vino!” Elle implored suddenly, starting to cry softly.
With a couple of hours yet to go Evan felt outgunned and he pulled into the welcoming bosom of a 24 hour drive-thru alcohol warehouse.
When he rejoined the highway Evan was concerned to notice the dashboard lights were dimming. He was having a hard time making out the controls.
But with the glow of Key West visible he decided to go for it. After the best of a bottle of merlot Elle was defanged and the couple merrily accompanied the Rolling Stones on the radio, singing heartily, “I can’t get no…”
From nowhere came a truck, smashing into the station wagon…

The day began with an iguana falling out of a tree. That’s how they get around. They simply permit themselves to sag from a high perch. The bright green rubbery beast landed heavily on the hammock, gripping at the rope contraption with his too long clattering claws. He saw me, a beat behind my following his antics. He froze and anticipated his certain doom. Technically he was dead. He was mine. Except I had no intentions whatsoever on murder. I merely observed. He took his time before eventually hauling himself over one side. He lunged onto a leaf the size of a suitcase and from there he slithered into the thick shrubbery that marks the edge of the garden. I got the feeling the iguana had taken this hammock route before and I determined to cast an eye about next time I settled in for a kip.

To offset total sloth I went for a bike ride. With the sun in my eyes at an intersection I slowly put together the pixels of the busy image ahead. A rumbling gathering of mopeds, each ridden by someone bronzed, toned, in little more than shorts and sunglasses. I stepped down from my bicycle, and leaned against it. I had reggae on the headphones and it was wonderful to watch this spontaneous parade, ebullient as butterflies. And as they passed they tipped their heads, a nod, each with a smile, and to each I nodded in return. By the time the last moped chuffed away I was outright grinning.

Later, near the beach, lights blazed. By the water’s edge, in between some palms, a man was detonating fireworks. I perched on a lava boulder, and inhaled warm briny air entwined with sulphur. Silver flares emitted slivers in a bristly shower, first shooting straight up, noisy as a train’s whistle, level with the top curving fronds of the trees and there the rockets exploded with their final burst, silvery fire shaking free in all directions.

Circling homeward I gazed upon a couple of lovers strolling arm-in-arm. She was cherubic and alluring with a baby-girl pouting mouth and long russet curls. In blue jeans shorts and cowboy boots she was adorable. Her fellow was loping alongside her and they were deep in conversation, with their heads lowered, in their own world, as they made their way beneath the shade of trees. Shaggy hair obscured his face but I thought I recognized him. I think he’s a Serb, he pedals a pedicab. I realized I’ve never seen him ambulatory. His walk is particular, somehow fluid, rolling smooth as hydraulics. They turned at the corner, dragging a shadow. Suddenly, like a shotgun blast I recalled what the bartender told me about the werewolves, and how at most you could expect to see a tail vanishing around a corner. Should I warn the lass? More likely she was long ago bitten and is beyond salvation. Lucky lady.

Happy New Year!

Along with most everyone in Key West, late in the afternoon, I watch the sunset. Dazzled by the beauty I chase a primitive urge to honor the event. The gold disc that is the sun hits the horizon and throws down what looks like a glistening path of mercury spilling on the ocean surface, scattering right to my feet. After the daylight fades and the temperature drops and commingles with hints of jasmine, I push off, counting on the wellspring of belief that after the darkness and the frights of the night there will once again be a new strong life-giving sun. Walking from the beach, saying goodbye to the day as much as hello to the night and the popping stars, I remember noticing the claw-tipped paw prints of dogs in the sand.
In some Slavic countries Christmas is called Bozhich, which means little god. While clearly this cleaves to the Christian concept of Christmas, the name is likely of pagan origin. The myth revolved around worship of the birth of a young, new god of the sun replacing the old, weakened solar deity on the night of December 21st, the winter solstice, the longest night of the year.
Like members of a cult we revere light, endowing it with supernatural hope. We perform rituals of light-worship for the new day, New Year, new life. Firecrackers for every day of the week. Forms of encouragement to help endure the dark, as we lumber toward the nourishing brightness.
A bartender with a twisted hemp ponytail told me he believes he has witnessed the local Serbian population, “Very late at night,” he said, taking a long pull on his filterless cigarette, “They turn into werewolves.”
“They transmogrify!” He said, and whistled out blue smoke. “Watch out!” He said. ”You’ll only catch a glimpse! Like the end of a tail going around a corner!” I almost believed him. And then he said, “With my own two eyes, like, I’ve seen them, heard them, in the woods, carrying on.”
Around this time of year the Keys are washed by cataclysmic storms, noisy and powerful and short, almost frightening although soon supplanted with a dripping sticky musk air, aromatic as a bakery. But last night, amid the thunder and lightning, I distinctly heard howling, and I shivered.
We distort shapes from shadows and hear our name in the wind. In the murk we are inclined to see what is not. And in the shade we double up any illumination, using bounce, like a face lit by a candle flame.
While writing can often feel like grappling in the dark my motivation is the radiant bounce reflecting from the satisfaction of the reader and thereby brightening the life of the writer.
Bounce, in this case, is thank you. Thank you for making the writing so very enjoyable. The pleasure is entirely due to you reading it. Thank you for your time.
I wish all of you the merriest of partying, pagan or otherwise.

When the Arab lady walked onto the plane I was not the only one to notice.
In a long blue dress with a blue sheer wrap that went over her head she was hard to miss.
Another Arab, a man, strode onto the plane. He was unsmiling, with dark hollowed out eyes, and stiff black hair. A hush descended when yet another swarthy man, younger, entered the cabin.
I was buckling my seatbelt but I kept one eye cocked. Husband, wife and son, I hoped, rather than suicide squad.
When the lady in blue and the two men started down the aisle passengers all around noticeably swiveled, audible as wind riffling autumn leaves, as most of us couldn’t help ourselves from staring at the profiled personages.
The plane took off and our fate was sealed. Screens descended from the ceiling and a movie flicked on, distracting and lulling us. Until, that is, the pilot crackled through the speakers.
“Howdy folks, can I have your attention please, nothing to be concerned about, we’re gonna make an unscheduled stop. Gonna let some folks off.”
The aircraft dipped and swooped to the right, tracking west. Faces swished around, eyes darting as we caught each others worried looks. No doubt about it I felt the thrum of panic.
Flight crew emerged, ostentatiously calm. “Everything’s fine,” they murmured, patting headrests as they passed, “Nothing to worry about.” This had the exact opposite effect with everyone suddenly twitching.
The captain was back at the i

ntercom, “Sorry about this, the new plan is we’re going back to the original plan, we’re heading for our original destination. Sorry for any confusion. When we land I’m going to ask you all to remain seated until the police have removed someone. Thank you for your cooperation.”
The movie was all but forgotten now passengers were whispering loudly, practically hissing. Many of us were flashing knowing looks in the direction of the Arabs. I could barely see them but they looked guilty to me, they were staring at the floor and keeping quiet.
Until the landing gears were engaged, the wings flicking their little extra flaps, the flight crew strapped into their jump seats, the atmosphere was charged.
“Folks, please remain seated,” the captain oozed over the PA, as the plane bumped and noisily slowed down the runway.
The cabin door opened and we all craned. Chilly air scented with gasoline preceded a team of gun-toting uniformed police hustling aboard.
“Are you the lady who was causing trouble?” The lead policeman said. Except, oddly, he was not addressing the blue-frocked Arab lady. He was speaking to a diminutive caucasian female.
“I don’t care,” the girl said, and began to sob. After some back and forth the police were escorting the tiny, sobbing figure away.
Befuddled relief permeated as we learned she had, allegedly, picked a fight with a passenger in first class.
I forgot about the Arabs in the commotion to exit.

Hello, can you hear me? Listen, Michelle called this morning, she wants me to send money.
All I want to do is stuff my face with cake.
Who does that girl think she is? Getting pregnant and expecting the rest of us to look after her.
I am going to the bakery. I’m going to get in my car and drive one hundred and twenty miles, that’s sixty miles each way.
Today she tells me she wants me to be the Godfather. Like that’s some prize. I don’t want to know her baby. I don’t want to bond with it.
You know what I want to do? I want to go to the bakery. Listen, when I go I stand around saying I’ve got five people coming for dinner, so I’ll need six of those and six of these, and I really believe they are listening to my lies!
Michelle was crying. She said he beat her up. What does she expect? He’s a thug, he’s a loser. He’s poor. She said she left him and she wants to come live with me! What am I supposed to tell her? What am I supposed to do? How is it my responsibility? If I were a

female I would not be getting knocked up by anyone poor. No how!
All I want to do is eat cake.
She said he stole her jewelry. She has nothing. He even took her clothes. She said she’s in rags. Can you imagine.
By the way, after the bakery I make another stop. KFC. For a bucket, and dippin’ sauce. Yum-Eee.
Michelle needs to go ask one of her wealthy relatives. I can’t help her. I can’t have a baby in my house. Next thing the impregnator will track her down and move in here, and kill me, and kill my cat.
I shan’t take her call when she phones.
My routine is first I go to the bakery. Next I get me my KFC and dippin’ sauce. Next I go to the car wash. And in the car wash, when the car is all soaped up and sudsy, and no one can see me, and I’m finally all alone, I devour it all. I stuff the food into my face in an orgy of out of control piggery. I feast switching from sweet to savory; I jam it all into my fat face.
I feel so guilty.
I’m going to the bakery. I’ll call you later.