Free Four Days with Hemingway's Ghost by Tom Winton Page B

worthwhile, you must live inside your book the entire time you work on it.  You must take it to sleep with you.  It needs to be on your mind when you go to breakfast, lunch, dinner, and to the market.  The best ideas will come when you least expect them.  And they will be short-lived.  Write them down immediately.  They are always fleeting and usually irretrievable.  They will abandon you as quickly as they appear.  You do not want to squander those golden revelations.”
    All in all, our talk lasted about ten minutes, about as long as it took Scott to polish off the Gin Rickey he was working on.  But before he went for a refill, I picked up a few more invaluable writing tips.  I also learned something else.  F. Scott Key Fitzgerald was named after a famous song writer.  His second cousin thrice removed was Francis Scott Key, the lawyer and poet who wrote the lyrics to The Star Spangled Banner . 
    Though Scott had spoken in a stilted manner, I liked him.  And it was easy to see that his thoughts were every bit as stilted as his words.  I knew, had I the opportunity to spend more time with him, I could have learned an awfully lot from this man.
    A short time later, Ernest deserted me when poet Wallace Stevens stepped into the house.  Since I’d read somewhere they’d once had a nasty fistfight, I watched their reunion very closely.  I feared it might put an end to the festivities, but it didn’t.  They shared a rousing hello, spoke calmly for a few minutes, and then went their own ways.
    I didn’t have the opportunity to meet Pauline or Martha because they disappeared somewhat early.  However, I did get to meet Hadley and Mary, the first and the last of Ernest’s wives.  Both were very friendly and interesting ladies.
    But, odd as it may sound, the person who fascinated me most was someone I’d never heard of nor read about.  Henry “Prof” Tobias was one of Ernest’s more obscure Key West pals.  About Ernest’s age but in much better shape, he was almost as tall as Big Skinner but wiry.  When Ernest called me over to introduce us, I immediately thought that here is a man who’s been around.  Dressed in blue jeans, a white tee, and work boots, he looked like the type of guy who not only could handle himself through any kind of tough situation but had.
    “Prof” Tobias in no way looked like a professor.  He had a strong chin and a lean-but-sturdy neck.  His short, parted hair had kept its brown color except for a bit of white infiltrating his sideburns and temples.  There were no scars on his face, but it was still a face that told you its owner had no room for nonsense.  His eyes, always the most revealing feature, were intelligent but at the same time wary.  And there were good reasons for that.  There were also good reasons for Prof’s four aliases.
    Because his mysterious mortal life was over, he didn’t mind Ernest telling me about it.  He even stopped him a few times and interjected a few details himself.
    Right after the one-hundred-and-sixty mile per hour winds of The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 had subsided, Ernest trekked up the Keys to survey the damage.  He saw the worst of it when he arrived at Matecumbe Key, eighty miles north of Key West.  Seventeen feet of water had washed over the small island, killing two-hundred-and-sixty-five men who’d been laying tracks for a new railroad.  Those down-and-out veterans, who’d been working for The Public Works for Veterans Program, lost their lives when the ocean washed over the small island. 
    “It was a horrific scene,” Ernest said.  “There were bodies strewn all over the place.  We located sixty-nine, and Prof, here, almost became number seventy.  Many of the dead were entangled in the mangrove trees that lined the shoreline.  The men were gray and limp as old dishtowels.  Their bones were broken, and, by the time we arrived, flies were all over their bodies.”
    “Yes, and I was out cold,” Prof said.
    “We