Key West, Fla. – I saw him on the same bar stool he left 70 years ago. I recognized him immediately. The gray, scraggly beard. The fisherman’s cap. The book outline in his pocket. (Or was that an alimony check?) Yep, it was Ernest Hemingway, all right.
I had come to Key West before the start of the college football season and found its most famous resident, who wrote 90 percent of his work while living here from 1931 to 1940, sitting in his old haunt. The bar’s name had changed. So had the town.
Maybe that’s why Ernest had this sullen, brooding look on his face when I approached him. He looked as if he was going to hit me.
Me: So what are you doing here?
Hemingway: I saw my old friend Truman Capote at the Literary Heaven Bar & Grill and he said I’d turn over in my grave if I saw what had happened to our old stomping grounds here in Key West. I looked down. I saw. I turned over. I turned over so many times I wound up here. Where is here?
Me: You’re at Capt. Tony’s. Don’t you remember? This used to be Sloppy Joe’s, your old watering hole. You helped ol’ Joe Russell move this entire bar 50 feet to the other corner in ’37. How do you like what the owner here did with this space? Did any of those brassieres hanging from the roof belong to one of your four wives?
Hemingway: No. My wives had class. So did the old place. But this place still doesn’t have food. I need food. I like food. Food is good. I’m going down to the new Sloppy Joe’s for lunch.
Me: Don’t bother. I just had the Sloppy Joe sandwich at Sloppy Joe’s. It tasted like the same Sloppy Joes I made out of a can in college. Except this didn’t taste nearly as good because I’m reasonably sober. Also, I had the good sense to serve a burger bun with ground beef, tomato sauce, onions and peppers on a plate and not wax paper. Back then I also didn’t have to listen to some slacker dude butchering golden oldies on stage. At least he wasn’t swinging around an obscene T-shirt like the singer did the night before. Did you see the T-shirt shop that specializes in flatulence jokes? At least they can’t be guilty of plagiarizing you.
Hemingway: This is sad. So sad. I tried to find my one favorite restaurant in town. Pepe’s is now Rick’s. Rick’s is a guitar bar. It’s across Duval Street from a drag club. I thought it was a shop selling fishing lines until I saw two guys with better legs than any of my wives. Is Rick a woman? Was Pepe? I am confused. Confusion is bad.
Me: In the ’50s, Pepe’s moved down near the waterfront. You should go. It’s the one place in town that has the old Key West feel to it. I walked past leather-skinned old islanders talking on doorstops. The local bar is lined with round white, lobster trap floaters. Pepe’s looks like a little white seafood shack from the outside. The whole area smells like fresh fish and salt water, not spilt beer and cheap perfume.
Hemingway: Oh, did you have the mondongo – the tripe soup? Pepe’s used to have it for 55 cents. Pie was 15, coffee a nickel.
Me: Nope. Sorry. I tried tripe in Rome. It’s why the Roman Empire fell. No, I had six Louisiana oysters on the half shell for a buck each, red clam chowder and dolphin with basil, jack cheese and celery. Cost me $54.14.
Hemingway: $@%$#&!!! My bar tab in ’35 wasn’t that high!
Me: Key West restaurants are expensive now. You didn’t even eat out that much when you lived here, right? I toured your old home on Whitehead Street, and the guide said you and Pauline entertained dinner guests six nights a week. Did you really invite two people each and not tell the other whom you invited?
Hemingway: True. It made for some interesting dinner conversations. But I ate out occasionally. My friends and I would go to Charles Thompson’s Fleming Street House. Phoebe served the best raw conch salad. Laced it with onions. She chased it with a slice of fresh key lime pie. Key lime pie is good. Good is good. But do you know what’s at the Fleming Street House now? Huh? A yoga studio. What the $@#$@# is yoga?
Me: Don’t feel too bad. Before that it was a gay bookstore.
Hemingway: $@$#@%*#$!!!
Me: It’s true. Your “Men Without Women” was a big seller.
Hemingway: Oh, what has happened to the Key West I knew so well? I’m leaving. I’m going back to Cuba. I hear it hasn’t changed.
Me: No, it hasn’t. Well, it was great meeting you. And here, let me buy you a souvenir to take back to heaven. What size do you wear?
Staff writer John Henderson covers sports and writes about the food he eats on the road. He can be reached at 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
