I limped out here back to the breathable shore and I'm further east than I have ever stayed before. I thought I would pass a fortnight in Manhattan and then continue my journey to Key West. Except I got crumpled from the city sojourn and instead of south I drove as far east as is possible and took a room in Montauk, the very last village on the south fork of Long Island. For one thing I keenly needed a nap and my instincts took me home. Home in the loosest sense.

I am in a room across the street from the beach and from my porch I can see a slab of the ocean. In between the motels there is a gap and I have a peepshow view of the water with its dark spume flecked waves heaving up to shore. Occasionally the vista is enlivened by a passing pickup truck rattling with fishing poles and coolers. Other than my cigarette smoke the air is salty and sweet smelling and the overall effect is invigorating. Exactly the palliative I sought.

From the briefest of glimpses it appears Montauk has a cosmos of its own whirling along, contrariwise to the rest. While the fancy Hamptons to the west are economically beset here there exists a bustling community. Main Street thrums. The born and bred Montaukers are friendly and possibly all related. In the supermarket the large boned locals continually called out hello to each other using first names. Most startling of all was the launderette where I automatically sought out the Latina, who turned out to be a patron (I groveled apologies), meanwhile the owners were a mother, son and daughter team, sporting an increasingly familiar look of stringy blonde hair and easy smiles and knock-knees.

When I went to pay my bill and extend my stay I found the motel manager seated in a sagging folding chair, his feet up on a splintering desk and chomping on a large muffin. Atop a hay bale of lank hair he wore a cap with The End stitched across the front. He asked me if I ever get bored, “I see you spend a lot of time by yourself,” he said, and rubbed crumbs from a landslide of stubbled chins.

As congenial as the denizens are I get the feeling they are as pleased to see a tourist come to their town as they are to see one leave.

“Hardly!” I laughed and I could only shrug and smile and scoot back to the sanctity of my quarters from where I can listen to the waves crushing the beach and the screeching bickering gulls. Unlike the nearby cacophonous metropolis here there are few sounds beyond the surf and the seagulls. Except for at night when a whipped up breeze bashes at the windows, pushes on the front door as if it had an invitation. After two weeks in Manhattan I would rather a visit from a gust of wind. And now a long nap, and then it will be time to go.

A couple of years ago I stayed in this motel in the village of Southampton and here I am again. I recognize the receptionist which is a trifle shocking since in the interim I feel I have lived several life spans. I will spend one night here and hit the highway in the morrow for a spate in Manhattan in the guest room of a pal. Then onward, destination tbd.

Moving again. A rented storage space is crammed full, my car is laden, and I am on my way. The only difference with this move is that while I knew that I was leaving Southampton and I even knew specifically when I was to depart, I have yet to figure out where I'm headed.

Friends keep asking me where I’m going, which is annoying, since I have no clue, and frankly I don’t see why they need to know unless they plan on sending cards or gifts, which I might add they never do. So why do they pester? Why do they gotta know? Much more worthwhile would be if one of them could tell me where I’m going, unless it is to hell, in which case they can keep the news to themselves.

Here are some of my choices: (comparable cost-wise)
Airy bungalow in Key West
Hovel in Brooklyn

Hmmmmm, hovel in Brooklyn is really popping out, luridly. Every time I imagine life in a grotty urban apartment I flashback and shudder. In between the occasional loaned lavish spread I have stumbled into some unutterable hovels. Places to lie on the floor in a stupor of disbelief. One time I got myself in the crosshairs of Karma and through the friend of a friend I rented a studio in Greenwich Village for five hundred bucks a month. It was so cheap I felt compelled to take it. Not only was I robbed by the neighbors from downstairs I was also flooded from upstairs which resulted in a mushroom crop sprouting right out of the trammeled leopard carpet. The experience was so dispiriting I booked a one way ticket to Belize and traipsed around Central America. The further south I explored the more I fixated on visiting the Galapagos, and I almost did, except I ran out of money in Guayaquil, Ecuador. But that is entirely another story.

Which reminds me why I am carpetbagging. It is time for an adventure, plus my lease was up. My vague plans are all the more resolute with the backdrop of current events, it is all the more most definitely time for an unalloyed lark.

At least I hope so, I’m really not sure. Knowing the unplumbable depths of my perversions I won’t be too surprised if I never cross the State line and instead plant my flag in an outer borough.

I stormed into the bank, on a mission. I am moving and I have very little time to squander. With me I had my tiny green paper envelope which contained the special key for the lock box. I accosted the first bank  employee I came across. A female, young, unfriendly. She was useless. Couldn't get anything to work right.
I grumbled about incompetence.
A man came along and tried to intervene. He

fumbled and dropped the keys.
I had some scathing utterances for him too.
I was bristlingly out of patience.
Then they were telling me the envelopes for their bank keys are red, not green.
I was in the wrong bank.
They united in a front

and crossed their arms, smirks spreading.
I mumbled an apology and swallowed down hard on some humble pie. The walk to the front door felt like a million miles.

Some time ago in a faraway place there lived a long-forgotten cabaret singer named Fay. Once famous for her vibrato and her beauty Fay dwelled in increasing obscurity. According to legend the interior of her home was said to have every inch of wall hung with framed photographs of herself, in her prime. Many of the pictures were autographed by her, and even dated.

On occasion Fay ventured off to mill amongst the common folks, driven by the hopeless desire to be recognized. There had been a time when paparazzi had mobbed her (after her publicist had clued them in on her coordinates), had blinded her with flashbulbs. But that time was stretching into a mythical past. Stretched like her bespoke face and her narrow-lipped phony smile.

One afternoon Fay went for a walk. She had abused the morning bossing her retinue as they gussied and primped her ready for a close-up. Off she sauntered, tripping down the cobblestones that meandered toward the village. When she passed a person she would swish her head, and float her long red hair around her mean face. She would slyly look from the corner of her eye (which, after so many face-lifts, made her black eyes cross), hoping vainly to catch a

glimmer of recognition.

Repeatedly there was no hint of acknowledgment, and she was ever more crushed. Where had her fans gone? She mused bleakly. Suddenly, while she was deep in thought, she was almost topple

d by the gregariousness of a huge brown dog. Furious that the folds of her pretty dress might have been splattered by the heedless hound she swatted at the dog. But the dog was enormous, more like a pony, and her feeble protestations were as inconsequential as a gnat.

While she flailed the dog bounded excitedly rising up and planting muddy paws on her chest.

“Stop it!” Fay cried. “Don’t you know who I am?”

But the dog misinterpreted her remonstrations and instead found her distress encouraging and he bounced higher and more excitedly.

From nowhere there appeared two young girls slung with cameras. They stopped and observed the scene for a moment and then they approached.

“Photograph? Please?” They said, in broken English.

Fay instantly pulled herself together. The ecstasy she felt spreading from deep within manifest into a widening smirk as she hastily smoothed her dress and fixed her russet hair.

“Of course!” She said, addressing the girls. Her heart swelled with confidence, with certainty.

And so the girls began to snap away, taking shot after shot. It took a moment before Fay realized that the girls were photographing the dog.

Fay stared in disbelief. She took a step backward, and then another, almost as if she were testing the improbability of the scenario.

The shock was so devastating Fay dashed back to her home and she was never seen again.

There once lived a curmudgeonly troll. The troll was not entirely bad tempered, for example, he responded well to direct sunshine, to the scent of honeysuckle on a warm breeze, or brewing coffee or frying bacon. But this troll was easily irritated and with a stripe of malevolence he could be a bit lethal. Mostly he kept to himself, and it was better for all that way.

On sunny days the troll

enjoyed a stroll. Up hillocks and down dells he ambled distractedly through wild flower prairies. One dawn, interrupting his musings, speeding along came a frog. Green with brown spots, the frog hopped into view, noisily sucking up and spraying dew with the pads of his spindly toes.

The frog came bounding at the troll, startling him.

Blighted uneducated tadpole! The troll fumed, and like a spark on gasoline he was engulfed, inflamed with spite and he very deliberately stuck out a leg barring the path of the approaching frog. I’ll school you frog, he grumbled and he made as if to trip up the frog and then at the very last moment, as the frog was right up on him, he withdrew his leg.

For his part the frog saw the troll stick his leg out across the path, and being agile he made to adjust for the obstruction. As the frog and the troll passed each other their eyes locked. The troll blazed with self righteousness and the frog was shocked but focused on correcting his course. Confounded by thi

s deliberate wickedness he wished he could stop and demand an explanation; but he was late as it was. Except then he was over-correcting, his speed overpowering his thrust so that the amphibian, usually so nimble, began to spin out. Shocked and angered, the frog could not believe this was happening to him.

From the troll’s peripheral vision he thought he saw the frog was wildly out of control, thought he heard the sounds of a sod-spitting skid. The troll hurried away and refused to permit himself to look back. He was feeling twinges of dread as he acknowledged the frog was, potentially, hurt. There were no grounds to believe the worst, he reasoned as he made wide strides to distance himself from the scene. Dumb frog might have merely spun around and found himself turned right side up and bounded out of harm’s way, the troll muttered aloud, as guiltily, nervously he scarpered.

His thoughts were consumed with the fate of the frog. He wanted very much to go back and spy on whatever had happened, if anything. But he was afraid and cravenly he locked himself up inside his tree house, turned the lights off and hid.

It would be a long time before the troll could so much as think about the episode without conflagrations of remorse. Adding to his manifesto of homegrown dogma he etched a commandment that he would never again play a game of chicken, because even when you won you lost.

Outside a store in midtown I was patting myself with brisk efficiency yet I could not locate my eyeglasses. Amidst a surge of humankind I stood stock still and frowned as I tried hard

to recall where the heck I might have placed the specs. Adrift in contemplation it was a jolt to hear my name.

I knew the voice and it snared my attention. I swiveled and there stood Patrick, a pal of many years. Enthusiastically we embraced.

“Long time! You look fantastic!” Patrick said.

“You look terrific!” I said.

Excitedly we chatted, shared laughs. Laughing to the extent where we both heaved back and then forward at the same time, braying. This being New York City no one so much as glanced ou

r way.

“Can you tell me what time it is?” Patrick said and crumpled his shirt cuff to reveal a watch. “I don’t have my glasses with me and I can’t see a thing.”

“Same!” I said and brandished my own timepiece. “Mine is strictly decorative. My eyesight is so awful I can’t even see the hands. Plus, I’ve lost my glasses. I’m totally blind at the moment.”

“Who cares about blindness? So long as we look great!” Patrick laughed. We hugged.

I smiled after him as he melted into the fray and then I whipped around only to be confronted by my reflection in the store window. Least I thought it was me. Once again I was frisking myself in pursuit of the missing eyeglasses.

Leo and I got into an argument the morning he left for the motorbike competition. It was the last time, as far as I was concerned. I planned on breaking it off with him when he got back.

Right away I felt a massive relief. I was turning over that leaf after weeks of dithering. I could hardly wait to launch the new phase.

And then I received a phone call.

A man I did not know was shrieking and frantic, “You need to get over to Dover Hospital.” The man was screaming in a blur of static. I did not need it explained that this could only be about Leo.

I was not impressed. I sighed audibly and mumbled, “He better be half dead.” I hung up on him.

Driving the forty minutes to Dover Hospital I fumed and pictured Leo in a wheelchair doing wheelies up and down some ward corridor, driving everyone nuts and me having to waste time on a twisted ankle or some such nonsense.

I was feeling wholly uncharitable.

I was doubly annoyed becaus

e I was unsure if this turn of events would interfere with my decision to dump him. And triply annoyed with having to waste more time on him with this ridiculous trip to the hospital. As I drove I murmured, “He better be dying.”

Glowering at everyone and swaggering with chilly disdain I badgered nurses until they escorted me to Leo. I was led into a huge room filled with cots, and him on one, propped up with pillows and smiling cheerily at me. I was ready to strangle him when I saw the demolished foot.

The sight stopped me short, like a hand to my chest. His left leg was out from the sheet, and the end of it, where the foot was supposed to be, was what looked like a heap of raw hamburger meat with a huge French Fry sticking out of the middle of it. When it became clear that the raw hamburger meat was what was left of his flesh and the French Fry was a bone, I pitched forward and vomited like I was going for the gold, and then I fainted.

There was one night I went to a reggae concert on the beach, and in the crowd there was a girl dancing with a hula hoop. She was young, with long untidy hair and a long tight dress and no shoes. She had a way of snaking the hula up above her head, and with her arms stretched she made a tunnel of its descent; she undulated, dancing inside the hoop for maybe a second, then, with well practiced hips she caught the blue O and flicked fast side to side, her hard bottom working the toy into a ribbon. Just before the thing reached the ground she kicked it with her heel and had it back in play. She was desperately sexy.

Her companion, male, rangy and blond, in knee length shorts and a lot of tattoos, lounged on the sandy dirt leaning on his elbows with his legs out in front of him daintily crossed at the ankle. His attention seemed entirely rapt upon the reggae band. And to be fair they were good.

I figured this couple must have been together a very long time for him to no longer be mesmerized by his girl’s screaming sensuality. Or he was not her boyfriend and, instead, of another persuasion entirely. The only thing I knew for certain was, whoever he was, he could not keep up with her. Few could. No matter, she was a pleasure to behold.

It was a Wednesday evening, a few weeks ago, and I was glumly hibernating in the barren drifts of the East End.

I had been craving change. For one thing, ever since the New Year, I was determined to crack my habit of television-time and it was going to need to be something beyond the glory of shoveling snow.

January was surging unstoppably to the midway-mark; that awful moment in man-made time where bright possibilities have begun to dim and taunt.

On the TV a cheery male apologetically announced an advancing blizzard, and for the millionth time I fired up a travel website. Except that this occasion was different, it was for real and I bought myself a ticket to Florida. The flight departed in the middle of the following afternoon, but I was ready. After weeks of waffling, my rolling carry-on bag (with coffee-brown Zebra motif) was long since packed.

Less than 24 hours later and I was in a rented vanilla Mini Cooper. Something Calypso was coming out of the radio and I was driving southbound from Fort Lauderdale. Feeling tiny surrounded by a hundred lanes of juggernauts I was glad to leave the slipknot of Miami and its congestion. An hour or so and the road slimmed to two lanes and bridges connecting ever smaller islands.

And ultimately to Key West, where the highway ends in the thronging narrow streets filled with shops and tourists strolling slowly touching and fooling with the colorful knickknacks.

I took a room with a porch in the old town. Warm rain with hints of jasmine, and mango trees and palm trees and strolling cats, and roving roosters with their long lazy calls. Everyone here is from elsewhere, and the first question asked is, “How long are you staying?” And when I reply that I traveled here on a one-way ticket, people smile knowingly and mutter, “That’s what happened to me years ago.”

A pal points out I am following in the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway. Short of producing masterpieces and blasting myself in the head, things might look that way. I’ll have to research it but my guess is Papa H did not shoot himself here in the magnificent Keys. This place is too giddily magical to be a tip off for self-destruction. Ergo the only mistake of Papa H was to leave.

A local bookstore told me to eff off when I asked after the chances of putting my books on their shelves. Their criterion was that I was not a local, “You gotta be born here, live here or write about here.”

In that instant a decision was forged, “It so happens,” I informed, “I am your newest author in residence. I just moved here.”

There are flimsier reasons for relocating a couple thousand miles, but since I’ve been here I’ve forgotten all about television and returned my attention to my true love of reading, everything from Hemingway, to McGuane, to Hiaasen in situ; life doesn’t get much better than that.

In a bar, while picking from several plates of ocean dwelling foodstuffs, it was impossible not to notice a couple of hardened

drinkers dawdling nearby, eyeballing the grub like pelicans. Next upping the nudge to comments, such as, “In my opinion, this place

serves the best conch fritters on the whole island.” Followed by, “you gonna eat all that?” and, since of course I was not going to eat all that, I invited the pirate sots to help themselves. They bayed in consternation and then plunged upon the fritters.