Free The Last American Martyr by Tom Winton Page A

temperatures in the low eighties. The sidewalks along Duval Street’s bars, shops, and restaurants were as cluttered as Madison Avenue’s during rush-hour. Tourists with bouncing belly-bags and flowery tropical shirts bustled along like a herd of disoriented Guernsey’s. Mixed with them was your typical Key West cast—hucksters, hard-lucksters, dream chasers, law breakers, gays, pirates, fisherman, and sixties throwbacks.
    By the time Francis Drake slowed down to let me out in front of Sloppy Joe’s Bar, I was seriously questioning my decision to go there. I knew there’d be a lot of people around and figured I could handle it. But thinking about a place and being there are two different things. Since arriving in Florida I’d been camping in obscure parks; in places like Lake City, Cedar Key, Homosassa, and Belle Glade. Obviously the “Southernmost City” wasn’t the best place for me to come out of hiding, but I was there, and I sure could use a cold beer.
    I got out of the cab and quickly reintroduced my cap’s bill to the top of my sunglasses. Head down, finger-combing the gray hair that now hid part of my ears, I zigged and zagged through the onslaught of humanity in front of Sloppy Joe’s, then turned down the Greene Street side of the building. The place was jam-packed. Loud music from the open-air bar blared out onto the streets, drowning out all the raucous conversations inside. I kicked heels down the sidewalk, gladly leaving Duval Street’s carnival-like atmosphere behind. I was a block away before the lyrics of Buffett’s “Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw” faded into background music. At that point my other senses kicked back in, and I was able to smell the creamy, fruity scent of all the front-yard gardenias and jasmine.
    It felt so good stretching my legs after the long drive down from Jupiter that I didn’t mind delaying that first cold beer. I made a left onto Whitehead Street and walked part of the way to Ernest Hemingway’s house. Strolling alongside tight rows of the very same Conch houses that “Papa” himself had passed eighty years earlier was a nostalgic trip down history lane. This was the same route the twentieth-century’s most influential author stumbled along so many times after his legendary drinking bouts. As I made my way up the narrow sidewalk, past the tiny front yards with all their palm trees and flowery tropical flora, it seemed ludicrous that I had been awarded the same prize for excellence as the man who single-handily revolutionized American literature. The way I saw it, I had about as much relevance in the literary world as a comma did in one of his novels.
    A few blocks before Hem’s house, I came upon a corner bar called Casablanca West. It, too, was of the open-air variety; and despite a smattering of towering bamboo shoots around the outside, I could plainly see all the customers inside. The place looked like an oasis to me, but still, I stepped tentatively under its thatched roof. With only a few empty stools here and there, I opted for one of two at the far right of the crowded M-shaped bar.
    There was a cypress-planked wall behind me, and I liked it that way. Bob Seger’s “Beautiful Loser” played on the Wurlitzer, as a row of beam-mounted ceiling fans rotated ever so lazily. When a frazzled blonde barmaid, wearing a tank top and too many tattoos, approached me, I sprung for a Corona light.
    Alternating hits from a cigarette with sips of cold beer, I surveyed the chattering crowd for a few minutes. A hand-painted wooden sign behind the bar said, “NO SHOES, NO SHIRT, NO PROBLEM!” I blended in fine with my denim shorts and tee shirt, yet still felt uncomfortably conspicuous.
    Turning my attention outside the bar, I saw a strange character chaining a bicycle to one of the bamboo shoots. Warm as it was, the slight man was actually dressed in a green army field jacket, black jeans, and high black boots. Though the stringy, oily hair brushing his