Like the recurring characters in Cheers, I show up most afternoons at what the quaint call “a local watering hole.”  Chico Feo, my bar of choice, is one part Cannery Row, one part Key West tourist mecca, one part – as far as the cooks and bartenders go – extended family.  

I enjoy watching people interact, hearing the latest gossip, and, if the opportunity arises, engaging tourists with meaningful conversations. After all, I suspect my obituary will mention that among other things I was a fiction writer, and as I often inform total strangers, I’m constantly gathering “data” about this and that, which I might use in creating a character. It’s a way to justify my personal questions about their lives.  To me, constructing characters that readers care about is the most gratifying aspect of fiction-writing.

Unfortunately, today I happened to sit next to a borderline asshole. He was in his late 20s sporting muscles, tattoos, and the ubiquitous baseball cap worn backyards.  On the plus side, he might end up in one of my stories and receive the karmic comeuppance he deserves. 

Solle, perhaps the most effective bartender I’ve encountered in a drinking career that spans over a half a century, asked me how my book promo TV interview went, and the aforementioned borderline asshole said, “I saw it!”

I informed the borderline asshole that his having seen it was impossible in the current space/time continuum because the interview hadn’t aired yet.  Then he said, “I saw you at the studio.”  It occurred to me that he might be a camera person, so I asked him if he worked for FOX 24, and he said, laughing, “No, I’m just fucking with you.”

I was not amused.

He and his friend started talking about how great it must be to live on Folly, and I agreed it was, that I was very fortunate.  They live in West Ashley, and I said that was a convenient place to live because it’s near everything – the airport, downtown Charleston, Folly itself.

A few minutes later, the borderline asshole asked me what the book was about, so I clicked off some sound bites from the interview.  “It’s a memoir,” I said, “but it’s as much about the South as it is about me – antebellum plantations, shotgun shacks, Pentecostal churches, juke joints.  It’s a collection of short stories, essays, and poems, each of which can stand alone and be enjoyed separately, but if you read it cover to cover you get a history of the South from segregation through the civil rights movement and the cultural revolution of the 60s.”

“Wow, you must be a racist,” he said.

“What!!!??? Why do you say that?”

“If you’re not a racist, then why aren’t you?”

“Why not, because I grew up with Black people. I like most of them I’ve met.”

“I’m a racist,” he said.

No doubt I was scowling, because he immediately said, “Ha, ha, I’m not really a racist. I’m just fucking with you.”

Dark clouds were scudding overhead, so I decided it was time to walk home, which takes me past a melancholy memorial marking the spot where someone named Phillip died in a traffic accident.  For some reason – maybe because before I left the bartender Katarina clasped her hands in mock prayer asking the skies not to rain – my inner poetic jukebox cued a line from one of Shakespeare’s sonnets: “And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries” and then a line from A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream followed: “Chanting faint hymns to a cold fruitless moon.” And finally, a line from a Grass Roots song that I don’t even like: “Sha la la la la la live for today.”

I took a right on Erie, and as coincidence would have it, I encountered an interracial couple pushing a baby stroller. They were taking up the entire right hand lane, so I suggested they walk on the left so they could see the traffic coming.  The red-haired woman and her husband smiled. She said, “Thanks, but we’re staying right here” and disappeared into the yard of a rental.

So much for my mansplaining.

I decided to cross over to Hudson using a tree embowered beach access path and spotted through the tree tunnel a couple weaving past on skateboards.  Once I hit 5th Street, I bumped into my neighbor Lance.  I asked him about his outfit, a white fringed patch-bedecked vest over a red tee shirt emblazoned with a skull, and he explained the various patches and emblems.

As I said good-bye, he said, “I love you, man,” which was a nice way to end my excursion.  

Fa la la la la, live for today.