Ignorance is not always bliss. Sometimes it’s pretty awkward. We went to Key West yesterday afternoon not really being aware that there was something called Fantasy Week going on. We are now aware. It’s a week much like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Needless to say, my opinion of Key West is prejudiced by our efforts to shepherd a seven-year-old down Duval Street to check out a lame monument marking the Southernmost Point in the Continental USA, to eat, and then leave, all without a major loss of innocence. It was a pyrrhic victory.
First there are the shops selling “fantasy costumes” (or lack thereof). For those, you just point to a stray rooster on the other side of the street. Then there are the folks walking along already in their costumes. For that, Danine just held Elise’s head and torqued it in the opposite direction. Unfortunately it was the woman walking by while we ate dinner whose primary form of covering was paint that caught us off our guard. This led to a careful conversation about modesty and choices and so on. As I reflect on how we stumbled into this parentally sticky situation and our desperate attempts to get out of it, I have to laugh, but it’s one of those tired chuckling laughs that gradually trail off and end with, “Whew” or “Uughh.”
This was my second time in Key West (though the first was 10 years ago). The whole partying, free-wheeling scene calls to mind someone who’s trying a little too hard. All of the ranging up and down the streets with beers and beads in hand, yipping and hooting, strikes me as forced, like an act of rebellion. Like adolescence. All ages are represented. However, the middle-agers seem to predominate. They look very tan and very tired and, well, wan. Like they’ve been trying for years to capture or recapture something long gone, whether it was high school fun or freedom from mom and dad or stickin’ it to the Man. Something.
I’d call the character of the place, both the people and the town itself, exuberant squallor. That sounds worse than I mean it. Don’t get me wrong, a solid fifteen percent of Key West is absolutely gorgeous: immaculate historic homes with lush tropical gardens — I love the absurd contrast of pumpkins beside palm trees. The squallor is really just a kind cheekiness and unkemptness — that free-wheeling attitude. At one time this may have been genuine, but now it feels a hair superficial. A little too Jimmy Buffet.
I noted many stickers and signs stating in one form or another that this was a place where all are welcome, where anything goes, where everybody gets along. I also noted a few very friendly folks — like the proprietor of the panini place and the guy walking his dog who gave us directions — amidst many more who blazed past you on the street, ignored you even while almost bumping into you, and wouldn’t give the scruffy guy on the corner, who asked earnestly for it over and over, a light. Just like any other city if you ask me.
The southernmost tourists in the continental US of A!
