A Key West Tale
Over winter break senior year in high school my two best friends and I found ourselves together in the Keys. One of my friends spent his winters there, and us two visited with our parents. One day we decided to borrow a car and make the trip to Key West. As was our practice we picked up a 12 pack of Michelob around 10AM and headed south. I was driving my Dad's diesel VW Rabbit and was able to toss three consecutive beer bottles over the top of the car hitting passing road signs at 60 mph! I was truly in the zone that day.
Upon arriving at KW we poked around the shops, had t-shirts made and drank more beer at Sloppy Joe's (heady stuff for 17 year old kids). While shopping at some of the vintage and eclectic boutiques it began to dawn on us that the clothing seemed to lack gender. Is this a women's store or a men's? Both or neither? We also started to notice men on the street that seemed a little different in a way we could not quite put our finger on.
One of our stated goals for the trip was to score some weed. We reasoned that it would certainly be killer stuff given the location of the buy. We eventually ran into a crusty character that was willing to help us. You know the guy; skinny, dirty jeans and a tee shirt, scruffy blond/gray beard, crumpled ball cap, sandals. He gave us walking direction to our "meet" and we headed off, both nervous and excited about our clandestine undertaking in this tropical backwater.
After walking several blocks and making a few turns we found ourselves in a large courtyard straight from a movie set; old crumbling stone walls and benches, tall grass, vines covering everything and a huge tropical tree dominating and enclosing the cloister. Our man showed up directly and offered up a sample of his wares. I don't remember being particularly impressed with the visual or olfactory appeal of his herb but we were determined buyers without another option. A deal was struck and he promptly exited the courtyard.
We proceeded to smoke a goodly amount of our new Key West Weed and were a little perplexed by the occasional sparks that it produces from my buddy's African Iron Wood bowl. We nodded our heads and rocked back and forth approvingly proclaiming the weed "OK" through long smoky exhales. The truth was that it was a pulverized bag of unidentifiable crap that barely gave us a buzz and was certainly cut with a variety of dried vegetation and possibly gun powder or crumbled sparklers.
Oh well, live and learn. Like Fat Freddy Freak we got ripped off on the weed, but the experience was worth the price of admission.
