The building was clean and bright and new inside, the wood floor smooth and shiny, and yellow was the theme. The owners and employees of the new fitness center wore yellow t-shirts, the walls were painted bright yellow and the paper napkins and plates were yellow as well, in case we missed the point. Key West's new gym and massage center is all yellow, bright and sunny and new. For those of us invited to inspect the new place, there was an abundance of food and alcohol, the fitness theme notwithstanding, because in Key West free booze guarantees a good turnout, no matter what. We mingled, sipped soda and scarfed sushi.
David Horan was mingling with the best of them and bumped into me. We met a while back in his offices on Whitehead Street as I was exploring business options for my sailboat, and he is a well known Admiralty lawyer in Key West. He's rich as Croesus too as he was a major side kick in the crew that discovered the Atosha galleon loaded down with hundreds of millions in gold and silver. It turns out he's a tad bit deaf, which is awkward in a noisy gathering.
"Fitch?" he asked me quizzically. "Why do I plan to get fitch?" He started a conversation with me with that wary look a man gets when he knows you from somewhere but can't quite place where. I had asked innocently if he planned on getting fit. He does not carry himself like a man who indulges in rigorous exercise.
"Oh," he roared over the background chatter, as the penny dropped. "Fit?" he looked at me as though I were mad. "I'm here for the booze," he announced. "It's free." Obvious ain't it? Like I said everyone in Key West will show up to anything if there's free Bud Light no matter how unlikely the event may seem. Later I saw him tentatively prancing on one of those treadmills where you walk up and down on the spot. His wife stood to one side looking bored, as though tending a wayward infant.
We got back on the Bonneville and rumbled off to take a tour of the south side of the Island en route to the next Big Event of a culture packed weekend. Never mind the gathering of women Thursday for Comedy Night at the Red Barn Theater, or the Christmas parade Saturday down Truman and Duval, the kiddies Fantasy Fest with all bodies thoroughly covered and Tootsie rolls flung instead of beads; Friday Night was Nutcracker Night.
Ugh! I hate cultural pastiches and I wouldn't be seen dead at a Christmas performance of the Nutcracker any place. I'm sick of Tchaikovsky's divine music ending up as elevator dreck in department stores, I hate toy soldiers and crap performances oooh'ed and aaaah'ed at by doting parents. So imagine my surprise when I found myself actually looking forward to three hours of treacle and saccharine at the Tennessee Williams Theater at the Junior College, a palace renovated recently in green and blue.
It was a night to revel in the pleasure of living in Key West, of being local. I care not a lot that I have the determination required to live here, nor that my wife's arthritis makes living this far south pretty much a requirement, I enjoy living in a small town with large world attitude. And when I get to see something like the submarine Nutcracker Joyce Stahl put on for Key West I hug myself in pleasure that I get to be one of the chosen few that calls this place home. The Nutcracker we few, we happy few got to see was a divinely inspired Key West creation. The first act was set in the back of the Mayor of Key West's Conch cottage, a garden filled with palm trees luxuriating under a dark tropic sky, aquamarine waters shining through the foliage. The mangroves that descended as Clara slumbered represented true understanding of the vegetation one comes to love when one lives surrounded by water.
The dance especially in the second act looked superb to my untutored eye, and when I spoke of it the next night at the Christmas parade a professional former dancer assured me they were world class performers leading the troupe. We were treated to a submarine garden of brain and elk horn corals, the hull of the Atosha (copyrighted to read "Atoshu") spilling jewels with Clara and Drosselmayer's nephew observing the proceedings from a diving bell suspended over the stage.
My wife and I had reserved seats at the front of the mezzanine far enough to enjoy the superb costumes as they were meant to be seen but close enough that we could enjoy the expressions on the little chickens faces as they did battle with the toy sailors marching 'neath the Flag of the Conch Republic.
Our seating also allowed us to observe the passage of patrons eagerly seeking a refreshing glass of wine to bring back to their seats after the intermission. My neighbor, a text messaging moron during the first act brought back two glasses to restore her for the second act. In passing I saw my former employer wandering by with three glasses, which I was glad to see he distributed to his two friends. On the way he nodded vaguely at me, a la Horan, and I was glad to see he, like me, never forgets a face even if he can't quite place it's provenance...
Alcohol and Art in Key West, when combined are quite enough to lead to blissful oblivion. In my case, however, I shan't soon forget our evening of ballet, a performance that took me out of myself so far that I forgot completely I was even watching the long despised Nutcracker. Even when the cracked hull of the Atoshu hove into view shimmering amid the corals on the ocean floor at Tennessee Williams. This wasn't the Nutcracker, this was Key West.
