Old Town
moved on...
1975. My junior prom has just let out and I'm driving Nina Carew* from the high school over to the submarine pens to watch "the races". Key West was one place in the world a boy could actually say he was going sub watching and not be too far off. On the west side of the island, WW2 concrete sub pens still exist. It's locked up today but when I was a kid you could get your car in there and have a fabulous view of the waterfront with no other houses around. About the only place in KW you could get somewhat away from it all.
I was driving my first car; an English Sprite which is a copy of the MG Midget. Mine was a "65" that had no roof and a starter that never worked when you really needed it. I used to park the Sprite on whatever little rise I could find and get it rolling, then hop over the side, mash in the clutch, find first and let it out. Started nicely like this. I could even do this rolling in reverse.
As I had no rag top for the Sprite, I'd drilled a series of large 1.5" holes in the floorboards and up near the wheel wells where your feet are. This allowed the rain to drain through and gave fair air flow around your legs in the really steamy times. Call it hillbilly air-conditioning that acted like scuppers when needed. I loved my Sprite.
Nina liked my car too. She was very tall and had flaming red hair down to her waste. At speed her hair would flow straight back in the slip stream, ends snapping in the breeze. She was a sight.
So we're flying along Whitehead Street and approaching Ernest Hemingway's old island home when three cats shoot out from the front gate and make a dash for the other side of the street. (You can see Ernie's front gate in this recent photo. Looked no different in 1975.) It's dark but I can see the cats and it's going to be a close thing so I get on the binders. Car starts to crab sideways so I let off. At 30 mph I run the trailing cat over with my front right tire. A big thump, a wailing Nina and then this loud whirring sound followed by a spray of water all over Nina and me. We pull over.
This is when Nina starts screaming in Spanish at me as she looks down on her lavender dress. We're still in poor lighting but you could tell that water had not sprayed on us. Nina was covered in cat blood and internal matter. The damn cat had taken the ride under my front right and stayed aboard for a nearly full rotation. On the trip down this cat caught between the tire and the fender liner along with suspension members. The very dead animal was then burned and shredded by the spinning tire sending much of the debris up through my ingenious water draining system - those stupid holes I'd put in the floorboards and foot well sides.
I was sprayed with a mist of blood but Nina looked like she'd slaughtered a hog. We're on the side of the road, I'm scrunched down looking at the remains jammed up under the fender. Nina's calmed down a little bit, she's not screaming but she's still swearing at me in the ugliest Cuban Spanish you can imagine. I ask her to pop the trunk - I need the jack. She says a few more bad words and storms off. Kid only lived about 3 blocks from the scene of the crime.
So I jack up the Sprite and take off the front tire, scrape the rest of Hemingway's cat out of the wheel well. Put everything back together and prepare to go find Nina when the question of what to do with the dearly departed occurs to me. It's dark, I'm sweaty and covered in gore. My hands are filthy and I've torn my rented pants that go with my rented blood-spattered tux. It's also after midnight. I must have looked like a well-dressed axe murderer.
Now I can't leave the cat there. Didn't seem right. So I gather up the big parts and wrap them in a deflated plastic float I've got in the car's trunk. Like something out of a mob movie. Now I head back on Whitehead with no good idea but to stash this thing somewhere. I roll back past the Hemingway house. Keep going but then have a pang of nostalgia for the cat and his other living cat pals. I turn around.
It's still very dark. Tropical dark. Dark like you don't get up north. Lights were still out on many streets in response to the earlier oil embargo. Whitehead Street is a tomb. Black and quiet. I roll to a stop under a Banyan tree a few car lengths up from the front gate. Get out. Get the cat parts. Cat-foot it over to the iron gate and toss the whole mess over the gate.
Now you're probably wondering why the heck do such a thing? As I reflect while typing this I have no answer. I would not do such a thing today. But at the time it seemed the thing to do. Return the body. It's the least I could do.
Next morning it makes the news as another example of some ingrate lunatic abusing animals. Hemingway cats being targeted. This is island personal. Hemingway's cats under attack. All over the news.
About noontime Nina calls me. I'd been afraid to call her. She asks me how I am and how's the car. I tell her the car is okay and I plan to give it a good bath. Don't you worry, Nina, I'll clean that thing good.
She says Good in return. Everything's good. Long silence on the phone. Finally Nina says there's a nutcase loose on the island killing cats and tossing the parts around like a ghoul. I acted astonished. Ask her if they had any idea who it could be. More silence. Must have been a full minute of listening to each other breathing.
Nina came back with how she soaked her dress last night on returning home. It's wet but her parents know nothing. Not a thing. I tell her this is probably a good thing. Then I ask her if she'd like to get together later that night. Maybe go see sunset at Mallory. She agreed and then I asked her what time I should pick her up.
"We'll walk", she said. And never once did she ever mention the Hemingway cat again. Not even a whisper.
Old Town
*Nina Carew is not her real name. This woman still lives in KW and I still see her often. She's been married and divorced twice. She's raised three children. We've remained friends over the years and have never had a bad day together but for the night of the Hemingway cat.
I was driving my first car; an English Sprite which is a copy of the MG Midget. Mine was a "65" that had no roof and a starter that never worked when you really needed it. I used to park the Sprite on whatever little rise I could find and get it rolling, then hop over the side, mash in the clutch, find first and let it out. Started nicely like this. I could even do this rolling in reverse.
As I had no rag top for the Sprite, I'd drilled a series of large 1.5" holes in the floorboards and up near the wheel wells where your feet are. This allowed the rain to drain through and gave fair air flow around your legs in the really steamy times. Call it hillbilly air-conditioning that acted like scuppers when needed. I loved my Sprite.
Nina liked my car too. She was very tall and had flaming red hair down to her waste. At speed her hair would flow straight back in the slip stream, ends snapping in the breeze. She was a sight.
So we're flying along Whitehead Street and approaching Ernest Hemingway's old island home when three cats shoot out from the front gate and make a dash for the other side of the street. (You can see Ernie's front gate in this recent photo. Looked no different in 1975.) It's dark but I can see the cats and it's going to be a close thing so I get on the binders. Car starts to crab sideways so I let off. At 30 mph I run the trailing cat over with my front right tire. A big thump, a wailing Nina and then this loud whirring sound followed by a spray of water all over Nina and me. We pull over.
This is when Nina starts screaming in Spanish at me as she looks down on her lavender dress. We're still in poor lighting but you could tell that water had not sprayed on us. Nina was covered in cat blood and internal matter. The damn cat had taken the ride under my front right and stayed aboard for a nearly full rotation. On the trip down this cat caught between the tire and the fender liner along with suspension members. The very dead animal was then burned and shredded by the spinning tire sending much of the debris up through my ingenious water draining system - those stupid holes I'd put in the floorboards and foot well sides.
I was sprayed with a mist of blood but Nina looked like she'd slaughtered a hog. We're on the side of the road, I'm scrunched down looking at the remains jammed up under the fender. Nina's calmed down a little bit, she's not screaming but she's still swearing at me in the ugliest Cuban Spanish you can imagine. I ask her to pop the trunk - I need the jack. She says a few more bad words and storms off. Kid only lived about 3 blocks from the scene of the crime.
So I jack up the Sprite and take off the front tire, scrape the rest of Hemingway's cat out of the wheel well. Put everything back together and prepare to go find Nina when the question of what to do with the dearly departed occurs to me. It's dark, I'm sweaty and covered in gore. My hands are filthy and I've torn my rented pants that go with my rented blood-spattered tux. It's also after midnight. I must have looked like a well-dressed axe murderer.
Now I can't leave the cat there. Didn't seem right. So I gather up the big parts and wrap them in a deflated plastic float I've got in the car's trunk. Like something out of a mob movie. Now I head back on Whitehead with no good idea but to stash this thing somewhere. I roll back past the Hemingway house. Keep going but then have a pang of nostalgia for the cat and his other living cat pals. I turn around.
It's still very dark. Tropical dark. Dark like you don't get up north. Lights were still out on many streets in response to the earlier oil embargo. Whitehead Street is a tomb. Black and quiet. I roll to a stop under a Banyan tree a few car lengths up from the front gate. Get out. Get the cat parts. Cat-foot it over to the iron gate and toss the whole mess over the gate.
Now you're probably wondering why the heck do such a thing? As I reflect while typing this I have no answer. I would not do such a thing today. But at the time it seemed the thing to do. Return the body. It's the least I could do.
Next morning it makes the news as another example of some ingrate lunatic abusing animals. Hemingway cats being targeted. This is island personal. Hemingway's cats under attack. All over the news.
About noontime Nina calls me. I'd been afraid to call her. She asks me how I am and how's the car. I tell her the car is okay and I plan to give it a good bath. Don't you worry, Nina, I'll clean that thing good.
She says Good in return. Everything's good. Long silence on the phone. Finally Nina says there's a nutcase loose on the island killing cats and tossing the parts around like a ghoul. I acted astonished. Ask her if they had any idea who it could be. More silence. Must have been a full minute of listening to each other breathing.
Nina came back with how she soaked her dress last night on returning home. It's wet but her parents know nothing. Not a thing. I tell her this is probably a good thing. Then I ask her if she'd like to get together later that night. Maybe go see sunset at Mallory. She agreed and then I asked her what time I should pick her up.
"We'll walk", she said. And never once did she ever mention the Hemingway cat again. Not even a whisper.
Old Town
*Nina Carew is not her real name. This woman still lives in KW and I still see her often. She's been married and divorced twice. She's raised three children. We've remained friends over the years and have never had a bad day together but for the night of the Hemingway cat.
Great story Old Town.... good laugh. RickO
