I can still remember the humidity and the aroma of jet fuel on American Eagle flight #4943, as the hatch of the small propeller plane was opened. My leather seat was worn from years of use, and the tiny plastic window on my left was sporting a web of cracks, making it difficult to make out the shape of an even tinier plane next to us. I had arrived in Key West, otherwise known as the Conch Republic, landing on the rock of petrified coral that would become my home.
While most people drive the incredibly scenic US #1 to its terminus, it’s common knowledge that flying from Miami International gets you there much faster. While waiting for my connection, I found myself pacing through the airport’s lower level which seemed almost a “remote” terminal, where only smaller commuter planes operate. At every turn, you’d hear another version of Bahamian, Caribbean, or some unrecognizable “patois.” I was five goats short of feeling like Anderson Cooper, and a dozen chickens away from a slew of McNugget Happy Meals. Regardless, my excitement was raging with cell phone glued to my right ear, talking to mom in Massachusetts. For weeks before my move from L.A., she was on speed dial, probably because she was envisioning herself in my shoes and was proud that I was about to live my dream. While looking for a seat where I could charge my dying phone, I noticed a man with a well dressed woman looking very Palm Beach circa 1988. He was so familiar … “where had I seen him before?”
When he put on his glasses I immediately recognized him as former Key West Mayor Jimmy Weekley. He’d been interviewed on a Key West documentary I’d watched in California at least four or five times that year. In my momentary frenzy though I could not seem to remember his name, so I paced around for awhile and then, perhaps as a result of a recent article I’d read, it finally came to me wrongly as “McPherson.” I conjured up the nerve to simply put it out there.
“Uh, excuse me…I’m sorry.” I diplomatically put out my hand to shake his. “Aren’t you Mayor McPherson?” I asked timidly. Keep in mind I had my cell phone curled in my left hand with my mom still holding.
“Um, no. I’m Jimmy Weekely, I used to be the mayor of Key West” he responded. What a bomb to drop. Little did I know that Weekley had recently lost his mayoral role to McPherson in the last election. Open mouth, insert foot. I’m still embarrassed today that I made my presence known to Mr. Weekely by accidentally calling him by his opponent’s name. I tried nervously to rebound from this Freudian slip.
“Jeez, I’m so sorry! My name is Jeff, Jeff Smead. I thought I recognized you from a documentary I have on DVD. I’m an enormous fan of yours.” Hopefully, he’d react to blatant ego stroking. “Wow!” he responded. “You mean the City of Colors DVD. It’s nice to meet you Jeff.”
From that moment on, Jimmy Weekley, and his endearing wife Susan, would be at the top of my proverbial “list.” I had been waiting for years to fulfill a dream of moving to Key West, and here I was, bachelor’s degree in hand, with an offer of a mayoral escort to my new island home. You would think I had just met the Dali Lama or Lady Gaga. From then on I hung on every word they said, as they took me under their wing and welcomed me to the community. We shared stories of our roots, how we found Key West, how I got my job (which would start the next day) bartending at Bourbon St. Pub, and how I’d found a craigslist-ed apartment on William Street. Life was going good.
I boarded the airplane with the excitement of a child who was finally tall enough to ride the roller coaster, and the raw emotional energy that made me feel like I could have flown the plane myself. For the next 46 minutes, I stared at the outline of the Keys mid-air, and a montage of my life flashed before me to a soundtrack that made my arrival an ecstatic experience. Not 10 seconds on the ground, I got down on all fours, and kissed the billion degree tarmac.
After politely refusing the presidential style motorcade to my new home from the Weekely’s, I stood at the curb of the airport wearing my new Miami airport sunglasses and observed the beautiful light reflecting on the Atlantic Ocean. Smokers were huddled by the exit, and an army of fisherman, otherwise known as Key West cab drivers, awaited my signal. When they didn’t get one, I sensed I was pissing off the locals. A chubby female crossing guard eyed me with a snaggle-toothed grin and said “What hotel you stayin’ at?” My head instantly swelled and I answered “I live here.” I can’t impress enough how satisfying those words were to speak. I’d said them in my head for so long, now they were true and I needed a bugle. At that moment, however, if I had a tail I would have been wagging it. Ms. Snaggle-Tooth stared at me as if I was a Chinese food buffet or something, more or less sizing me and my supposed residency up. That was Key West lesson #1, which would soon become my “Indian Tribe” theory. I was joining the Key West tribe of locals and my Indian name was not about to be something manly like “Running Bull.” I was more along the lines of “Walks with Swish.”
I was waiting for my friend Debbie, a “second mom” to me during the summers I worked at the Boy Scout camp on Summerland Key. She was our bus driver for day trips to Key West. She had agreed to escort me to my new house but little did I know she’d actually be driving the scout bus. After 10 minutes of baking in July heat that could fry an egg, my big yellow chariot rounded the bend and there was Debbie, her strong hands gripping a steering wheel the size of a barrel. This was just like my parents when they picked me up in junior high in their 15 passenger van (aka the “Gospel Bus”). My usual reaction: hide head until boarding, slouch in seat, and do not make eye contact.
Debbie proudly stopped in the “No Parking” zone, flung open the accordion door, and jumped out to bear hug me. While mid-embrace Snaggle-Tooth glared, her flabby arms sagging beyond her control. She opened her gaping mouth wider and yelled, “Ma’am! You can’t park there! You know better than that!” Debbie, a cross between a nurturing maternal guardian and Robocop, was not amused. She howled back militantly, “What? Are you gonna’ try to tow my school bus?” Carelessly lighting a cigarette, Snaggle-Tooth bellowed back, “Ma’am I’m not playing!’ You need to move that bus right now!”
My instinct was to grab my bags and run, but Debbie couldn’t let old Sniggle-Tooth get away with this without chopping her off at the knees. “Listen honeybun, I’ve been here for 15 seconds greeting my passenger- you can just sit tight and let me hug him while you stand over there and grow tumors.” Whoa! I hurled my bags on the bus and quickly followed them right to the first seat. Debbie was fast behind me after she’d gotten the last word, slammed the door closed, and threw the bus into lunge. We passed Snaggle-Tooth as she sucked in her first breath of smoke, and Debbie politely “flipped the bird” to her as we drove out. Everyone has a friend like Debbie; the kind of person you love, but sometimes their behavior makes you wish you had a spare burka.
Key West became my reality that day and my induction started well before I left Miami. That crazy day of mistaken mayoral identity, that montage of emotional excitement, and that ridiculous introduction to the locals, would soon become my favorite memory of one of the best days of my life.