Layne spent the afternoon with a circle of friends discussing a book. Layne the nomad participates online usually of course but was pleased to be able to reunite with her friends for an afternoon. I saw her off in the passenger seat of Carol’s car leaving Rusty and I alone, parked and plugged in secure in an absent friend’s front yard.
Soon enough I got a text. Stuck in traffic, cyclist killed at the triangle. “The Triangle” is the name given to the intersection at the entrance to Key West where US 1 enters the city and splits into a north or south direction. I took Rusty for a neighborhood walk already determined to take a day off driving.
A sunny November morning in Key West with higher levels of humidity than I would like, but pleasant nonetheless. Rusty mooched slowly along sticking to the shade perhaps because he is older and more sensitive to heat or because he has learned to enjoy the cooler air he has found on our travels and no longer funds sunbathing as pleasant as he used to when we lived here.
I passed a man polishing his big black SUV so I said good morning as you do in Key West. It’s easy to identify the incomers in this town who bring their habits from Up North; they are the ones who avoid eye contact when you pass them in the street. Ray paused in his polishing and started a conversation.
He slipped easily into politics and I started to back away fearing the modern descent into separate camps but he fell instead into the “pox on both your houses” camp. I just listened. But then the conversation got interesting. He and his wife retired from government jobs in New York and they decided to load their Lincoln with what they needed and no more. They sold their home and travel the country renting as they go. I was astonished, we had something in common. We discussed destinations. St Augustine is looking good to him, a destination I enthusiastically endorsed. Rusty got up and stretched. We set off for hone around the corner. More apparently retired people riding for the beach:
It probably didn’t go well for them. The rain started suddenly and came down hard for a while. Rusty doesn’t like the hammering of water drops on the tin roof of GANNET2 so he left his bed and laid down next to me in my driver’s seat swiveled around to act like my Lazy Boy at my desk.
Layne texted me about the second road traffic accident they were stuck in further up Stock Island. A scooter rider had been killed by a car not a mile from the spot where a cyclist died a few minutes previously. She saw the rider cartwheel and die on the road and she was reminded once again of my own near death drama. I was largely oblivious as the rain soon stopped and I got comfortable with my Kindle.
I am reading “Berlin Diary” by William Shirer as a primer for election season and spent a happy couple of hours delving into the arcane eyewitness story of the start of a cataclysm without the benefit of hindsight. When published the author had no idea how his story would end.
Locked away in Paula and Ivan’s garden, with inches to spare i had an afternoon to myself and my thoughts. Rusty snoozed among the banana leaves until we were interrupted by the start of the game and much hooten’ n’ hollerin’ from next door as the Astros won the World Series.
Layne on Sugarloaf Key couldn’t get back as Highway One was closed southbound. Rusty had no idea what was happening and was reluctant to go for a walk lest he missed her return. I, who had always been at the mercy of road blocks in my tightly scheduled work life found myself idling the afternoon away with not a card in the world.
After all these years I found the formula for thriving in the Keys. Sit tight, do nothing, don’t move and it will all pass. Instead of struggling as the first CBS correspondent in Berlin William Shirer might have benefited from the sane advice.
