The Key West Stories

The Key West stories were written while under the influence of the Conch Republic. Its one of my very favorite places to write. There is something in the air of Key West or maybe in the mojitos that summons the muse. Memories come insistently flooding back and demand to be turned into stories.

They are not all set in Key West. Three describe events at Lake Vincente Guerrero in Mexico. One is the tale of a fishing trip to Cabo San Lucas. What they all have in common is the wonderful joy that I feel when in the Conch Republic the zest and sense of adventure the friendships and the shared adventures the experience of living life directly and intimately.

Runs in the Family is a semi-true story about murders in Key West. It was summer in Key West. I was hiding from the mid-day heat at Captain Tony's on Greene Street. The shrimper came in around two-thirty. He told me a story about the death of his mate that I found hard to believe - until Tony told me what really happened. The names have been changed but this really happened mostly as I tell it.

In the Shadow tells a true tale of death and mayhem in Mexico. It was just before the arrival of my friends. They had signed on to one of the many fishing trips that I organized to Lake Vincente Guerrero. What was supposed to be a relaxing preparation for their arrival, turned out to be a dangerous couple of days with risks everywhere. Now that all involved, except me, have passed, I can tell it mostly as it happened.

The Nickel Fish is set in Cabo San Lucas. Its a true tale involving a 585-pound blue marlin and an orphanage. It was my first nickel fish one over five hundred pounds. That alone would have made for a story. But what happened afterwards was both truly heartwarming and funny.

Of Coots, the Guns of Navarone and Jackson Mississippi is about bass fishing on Lake Vincente Guerrero in Mexico. It explains why I avoided visiting a town in Mississippi for more than a decade.

The Outboard Repairman takes us back to Lake Vincente Guerrero. It involves a guide, an amazing day of fishing, a daughter of the Mercury Cougar, a shotgun and snakes, a client stranded at night on an island in the middle of a ninety-four-thousand-acre lake, and the tragic conversion of one of the best fishermen I have ever had the discomforting pleasure to meet into an outboard repairman. All true, I swear.

I hope you enjoy the tales as much as I have enjoyed living and writing about them.

Dettagli