key west - part five

i know ernest  hemingway was an impossible pain in the ass...at least later in life...but he was a hell of a writer.  when we had the house in key west there were two things we wanted to do - ride the conch train [because someone told us we had to...at least once] and go to  the hemingway house [because i fancied myself a writer - though not in hemingway's league].

the conch train ride was a real trip...five cars dragged by a thinly disguised jeep through a driving rain storm.  we sat in the middle car, the only two people on a tour which would normally accomodate thirty or so.  tourists silly enough to be out on the street stared at we two idiots, soaked, and feigning interest in the equally stunned driver's mechanical iterations of shotgun houses and audubon birds.  the absolute high point of the morning was the drive by the key west cemetery wherein resides a corpse whose headstone reads "i told you i was sick."

the hemingway house was a bore once one got by the little gable overlooking the pool where he did most of his writing.  the garden was populated by six toed cats - supposedly descended from the ones ernest favored and the front room was filled with paperback copies of his novels.  the absolute high point of our visit, however, was when i snuck into the roped off dining room and sat in the great man's chair at the head of the table - just imagine, my ass perched - only momentarily - where his ass had been throughout many a drunken evening.