Purple Golf Cart: The Misadventures of a Lesbian Grandma (16 page)

That day was truly glorious as we cruised and swam and enjoyed the warmth of the clear water and the blue Florida sky with the white puff clouds. By late in the day we could see Big Pine Key and knew that we had only 30 miles to go to Key West. We docked at a fish camp and had dinner in their marina. There were folks, fishermen, divers, some touristy campers, but mostly old salts who just wanted to chat with the two bikini-clad women who had arrived on a 43’ houseboat. We swapped stories with them, enjoying their tales of adventures on the high seas, as if Florida actually had high seas anywhere!

The next morning we set off toward Big Pine Key. The Corps of Engineers charted the ICW all the way to Key West but, for some unknown reason, they stopped digging the ditch at Big Pine. We had a choice: run the risk of cruising in extremely shallow waters to the north, behind the islands that lay in front of us, or take what I thought would be the better route, under the bridge at Big Pine and out into the Atlantic Ocean. My pontoon houseboat was definitely not built for ocean travel but the water was very calm due to the reef out to the southeast of us, as long as we stayed close to land. I chose the ocean route. The only real concern was the rocks in the water, but they were large and visible. There was no wind and the water was glassy so maneuvering between the rocks wasn’t much of a problem. We made it to Stock Island Marina around noon without issue.

I had made permanent docking arrangements at the Harbor Lights Motel and Marina in Key West before we ever left Jacksonville, so I knew where we were going. Stock Island is the island adjacent to our destination. We docked there, hopped on the motor scooters we kept on the boat, and rode over to the Harbor Lights Motel in Garrison Bight, next to U.S. 1, the main road in and out of Key West.

We finalized the arrangements to dock at Harbor Lights, looked around to make sure we knew where we were going, then went back to the
Curious Wine
on Stock Island. Stock Island is surrounded in myth about its purpose and use in the early days of Key West. Supposedly, it was the island on which the residents of Key West kept their large work animals. To me, back then, Stock Island looked like Key West-adjacent slums, with dirty marinas and rowdy bars. Today, though, Stock Island is a rather upscale place to dock and to live.

We cranked the engine of the
Curious Wine
and headed out towards the southern-most part of Key West, past Smathers Beach and Flagler’s Casa Marina Hotel to Zachary Taylor State Park where we would make the big right turn towards Truman Annex, Mallory Dock, then Key West Harbor. What I didn’t know was that at the turn, the place where Florida Bay meets the Atlantic—the Southwest Channel it’s called—is almost always very rough with significant wave action. The
Curious Wine
was not built for rough water nor for waves of any height.

I could see the rough water ahead but I had no choice. I could either go forward and into Key West or turn around and go back to Jacksonville. We chose to tough it out, donned our life jackets, and moved forward. The first wave hit us broadside. The boat rocked hard to the right. I straightened her up as quickly as I could, getting us perpendicular to the crests so that the waves would hit us from the rear. The waves were so large that as the boat was lifted, the engine propeller came out of the water, spinning way too fast in thin air. That’s bad for the engine. I decided that the only chance we had to keep the boat in a forward-moving direction was to pretend we were surfing. I watched the waves and gunned the engine as soon as the propeller was back in the water, before the face of the next wave hit us. We gained enough speed to get up on the wave and literally ride it into the calmer waters in front of Truman Annex. Thank God I was a surfer as a kid!

As the water quickly calmed, we regained composure and moved forward, past Mallory Dock, past Key West Harbor, and past Trumbo Point and the Coast Guard station. We made the right turn at the Coast Guard Station into Fleming Channel. Garrison Bight was on our right. As we entered Garrison Bight, we could see the Harbor Lights Motel just ahead. For me, this was the great escape from the real-life pain of the loss of my children to a make-believe fantasy where life is perfect—and happy, happy, happy.

19. Life as a Conch

Residents of the Keys are known as Conchs. In 1982 the citizens of the Keys declared themselves a country, the Conch Republic. They attempted to secede from the Union in protest of a pot-related
U.S. Border Patrol
roadblock and checkpoint near Key Largo. The roadblock apparently inhibited tourism tremendously as well as inconvenienced the residents of the Keys. I couldn’t wait to become one of them!

Living in Key West was great fun most of the time and terribly challenging some of the time. It was very expensive to live there even in the mid-1980s. Many folks worked two or three jobs. I was no exception. I had my regular job with the International Rehabilitation Associates. I also delivered pizzas in the evening on my motor scooter, did some housekeeping at the Harbor Lights Motel where I was docked, and I hosted a bed and breakfast on my boat.

With three bedrooms on the
Curious Wine
, there was room for several guests. I served fresh baked goods from the local bakery each morning along with coffee and juice, then shuttled my guests in my 15-foot motorized dinghy out to the Waxing Moon, a 30-foot catamaran, where Captain Kathy took women out on all-day sails and dolphin watches. I went back to the
Curious Wine
, did my work for IRA, retrieved my guests late in the afternoon, then went to my second job as a pizza delivery person on my motor scooter. It was what I needed to do to make ends meet. I was an extraordinarily busy dyke-about-town, and I loved it! I also thoroughly enjoyed meeting women from all over the world.

Lobster season is at the end of July each year, during late summer when few folks visit Key West for anything other than tasty crustaceans. I often worked as a dock hand for guests at the Harbor Lights Motel who came to Key West to catch lobsters. They trailered their fishing boats behind their trucks to the Harbor Lights then docked them at our little marina. At the end of each day they returned with their boats nearly overflowing with snapping lobsters. I helped them unload their catch and got paid in lobsters. My pal the Key Lime Pie Man brought his daily leftovers to us each evening and I brought home pizza “mistakes.” We ate well! Frankly, between the lobsters, the key lime pies, the pizza “mistakes,” and the margaritas, I gained twenty pounds in Key West!

One day Miley and I were fishing in our dinghy just off the west side of Fleming Key. Fleming Key is across the narrow channel from the Coast Guard station at Trumbo Point. High cement walls surround the Point because the Coast Guard base sits up on a land-fill. We noticed a storm brewing to the west, not unusual for the Keys, so we started back to Garrison Bight, traveling slowly next to the wall of the Coast Guard base. At the same time, a large fishing vessel came zooming through that narrow waterway, sending its wake into the cement wall, which came back at us. The wake from the big boat itself made a direct hit on the dinghy, pushing the front of the it downward into the water while the wake off the cement wall lifted the rear of the dinghy up in the air. The dinghy rolled over on an angle, landing upside-down in the water. Miley and our fishing gear were thrown out of the boat. I stayed with the dinghy, rolling with it as it overturned, ending up on the flipped-over bottom, the 15-horsepower engine sitting upside-down under warm salt water.

I was wearing a two-piece bathing suit so I had lots of exposed skin, much of which was slashed and bleeding from head to toe from the sharp barnacles that covered the bottom of the dinghy. Because the accident occurred near the Coast Guard Base—and perhaps because of our skimpy bathing suits—the Coast Guard guys got to us quickly in their rescue boat. They scooped Miley up out of the water then pulled my bloody self off of the dinghy and onto their vessel. They were able to right the dinghy with ropes and tow it back with us to the
Curious Wine
. Our fishing gear was lost.

Barnacles, I learned the hard way, have bacteria in them. The only thing that kills barnacle bacteria is ammonia. Yikes! Once back on the
Curious Wine
, Miley got the ammonia bottle. It took four Coasties to hold me down while Miley poured the ammonia all over me. I screamed! It hurt like hell! But it worked. I healed quickly and was bacteria-free. The dinghy engine, though, was toast. Nothing destroys an engine like salt water

Because of the beating the
Curious Wine
took from those big waves when we arrived in Key West, the center pontoon on which the engine was attached began to dislodge. I had the engine removed so the pontoon could be repaired. Captain Kathy of the Waxing Moon knew how to do boat work, and the man on the boat next to me at Harbor Lights was a retired engineer. The three of us designed how the repair would take place. We maneuvered underneath the pontooned
Curious Wine
in my inflatable dinghy and made the repair. Good as new. The engine was reattached.

~~~~~

My IRA clients in Key West were as colorful as the flowers that bloomed all over the island. Perhaps the most entrepreneurial was Jose who had sustained an injury at a local grocery store where he was a produce worker. He had injured his back somehow and now had a ten-pound lift restriction. He wanted to continue receiving workers’ compensation while establishing a “business” selling stolen jewelry out of suitcases he carried to street corners. Irrespectful of the illegality of it all, the thing that really screwed him was that each suitcase weighed about 25 pounds. He was videotaped, busted, and arrested.

Miley’s mom was released from prison again. She drove down to Key West to visit, attempting to regale us with stories of her prison adventures. We weren’t interested. We learned from her previous incarceration that any positive attention she received about her prison life served only to encourage it. I think she actually liked being in prison. It was a safe place for her. She was a social misfit who couldn’t stop embezzling, and, in fact, was back in prison shortly after her visit with us. But she took Fluffy with her, for which we were grateful. He was a cute pup but he was just too much for Farley, and for us.

~~~~~~

In the mid 1980s, the “in” thing to do among the few lesbians who lived in Key West was to shave one’s head, so I did. I buzzed my head. It was awful! I looked like my brother when he was 12! It was cute on him, not so much on me.

I was surprised that there wasn’t much of a women’s community in Key West. There was only one lesbian guest house, Ellie’s Nest, and it left much to be desired compared to the many quaint and beautiful gay men’s guesthouses. The men’s places were tropically sublime and stylish. Ellie’s Nest was a three-bedroom cement block box with—as the rumor goes—hidden cameras in each room. Nothing charming about it at all. There was one small lesbian bar in town, hidden away on Appleruth Street. There were very few reasons for lesbians to come to Key West; it was entirely a gay male mecca. A small lesbian artists and writers colony was up on Sugarloaf Key but those women rarely came the 25 miles or so into Key West.

Miley and I were from Jacksonville which had a vibrant lesbian community, focused primarily around a monthly pot-luck gathering that exists to this day. With the help of my friend Helen Schwartz who owned the Spindrift Motel in Key West and her then-partner Charlotte, we hosted a women’s pot luck on my boat in September of 1986. Helen and Charlotte knew all the lesbians in the lower Keys and invited them. Even the Sugarloaf women joined us. We had a large crowd with tropical foods and a lively discussion of how we might get women to come to Key West. We decided that there needed to be an annual women’s event, held during the off-season so that it would be affordable. The result was the birth of the now-popular WomenFest Week in Key West that takes place every September.

~~~~~~

International Rehabilitation Associates promoted me to regional supervisor so I was transferred to the Miami office. It was time to leave my beloved Key West. One thing was for sure: we were NOT going to go out of Key West the same way we came in! I refused to attempt those waves again. I got maps and charts and talked with some of the folks who knew the waters behind the Keys, the waters that were charted by the Corps of Engineers but never dug. I discovered that at high tide, the water was deeper than the 18” it took to keep the
Curious Wine
afloat so we figured out the best time to leave Key West based on the tides. As high tide approached, we bid Garrison Bight and Key West adieu.

The backwaters were more beautiful and pristine than I could possibly imagine. There were stands of red mangroves everywhere, destined to become new islands in some future century. The water was so clear that anything swimming or growing was easily visible, and the sky was that breathtaking Florida blue, reflected in the turquoise liquid all around us. We did run aground a few times, but it was easy to push back with the pole and go a different way.

There was one big unexpected problem, though, in going this route. Mosquitoes! The size of horses! In all my years of living in South Florida, I’d never seen such large hungry mosquitoes before! We kept ourselves covered from head to toe in Skin-So-Soft, that oily Avon product known for being an excellent bug repellent. Even Farley the cat was doused in the stuff. I swear, the mosquitoes could have flown away with him!

We spent the first night anchored out in the water, thankfully not needing to dinghy the dog to an island to pee. We no longer had the dog nor the dinghy so it worked out well. The second night was spent at a dock in Old Jewfish Creek in Key Largo. We woke up the next morning, had breakfast in the restaurant adjacent to the dock, then attempted to resume our trip to Miami. There was a slight problem, however, with the Old Jewfish Creek drawbridge on U.S. 1. I still didn’t have a radio nor a horn (I should have bought a horn in Key West!), so we had no way to notify the bridge-tender to open the drawbridge for us. The
Curious Wine
was too tall to make it safely under the bridge due to the high tide. I re-docked the boat and Miley hopped off. She walked up the hill to the bridge-tender shack and knocked on the window. The old man who was supposed to be tending the bridge was asleep. He apologized profusely, embarrassed about getting caught sleeping on the job. As he started the mechanism that lifted the bridge, Miley ran back to the
Curious Wine
and hopped aboard. We were on our way once more, through Card Sound and up into Biscayne Bay.