My brother, Wyman, and I have what I like to consider a complicated relationship; complicated by the small happenstance that we have virtually nothing in common (not even mothers). Indeed, I often posit that the only way for us to be any more different would be for one of us to be blue. All that aside, we do have some things in common; the most blatant of which would be the ability to drive each other to the brink of irritation-fueled insanity. Nonetheless, we are brothers, and so the getting on each others nerves and bringing out the worst in each other is perfectly normal. I mean, haven't any of you ever loved some one so much you'd just like to beat the living hell out of them? (Hands down, Ike Turner)
When I was in Iraq, in one of my weaker moments, I told Wyman that we were going on a vacation when I came back. It was one of those things you do in a war zone: making plans for a future that at the time seems more conjectural than inevitable. Time dragged so slow that I didn't realize that it catches up in one hell of a hurry. And so, after cavorting around Peru, lounging around the mountains, bumming around the Inner Banks, shooting down to Savannah, making a brief appearance in Beaufort, going to a funeral in Columbia, and taking an adolescent cousin on a 3500 mile road trip, I found that there almost wasn't time for a trip with Wyman this summer, particularly since I'm preparing to begin my walk next month.
So, the Carpenter boys were going on a road trip. The adventure was only moderately delayed by a few days of Wyman getting ready and my thirty minutes of cleaning out the car and putting my one bag of clothes in the trunk. We also were delayed a day to wait for our fellow traveler, the inestimable cousin Elizabeth, who'd forgiven me for (moderately, mind you) beating a semblance of sense into her boy. With all of that accomplished we crammed ourselves in the car and headed South.
The plan, if it can be called such a thing, was to go to the Florida Keys. The Florida Keys in August. Brilliant, I know, but I figured that it sure wasn't going to be any hotter than SC, of which one enlightened soul once said, "In the summer, the only thing separating South Carolina and Hell is a screen door."
The first day was nothing to write home about, so I didn't. We drove a long damn way and ended up just north of Boca Raton. At a cheesy restaurant we ate deep fried alligator tails, which thus tasted like everything else that is deep fried, with the exception that they were chewy.
The next day we drove through Miami, taking the time to drive down the A1A Beach Front Avenue of Vanilla Ice fame (for you ancients, V.I. was an horrific one-hit-wonder in '91 with his masterpiece, "Ice, Ice, Baby!"). South Beach, just like everywhere you expect to see scantily clad, hard-bodied babes, was really filled with plump women (that's being kind) shoe-horned into string bikinis fooling themselves that a location could somehow make being fifty pounds overweight in a thong not only acceptable but attractive.
We slid into Key Largo ("Key Largo, Montego, baby why don't we go…"- Beach Boys) just around sunset and found a cheapo motel. After watching the remnants of the sun's daily death and sipping on ludicrously expensive, but ludicrously smooth, rum we'd bought in Miami, we headed off to get something to eat, and, to be frank, to get trashed. I am happy to report that we accomplished both objectives with startling celerity as we merely went to a dive bar 200 yards from the motel.
I'm not quite able to say what went on at the dive bar since a) for the first time since my 21 st birthday I can't remember portions of the night and b) what I've been told I don't want to remember and particularly don't want to pass on. Nonetheless, I can relay that the night finished with me being hoisted back to the motel and then spending some quality face-to-bowl time before I stayed down for the night.
The next day, Sunday, I can quite honestly say was the worst hangover I've had in memory. Maybe there were worse before, but I've thankfully forgotten them. It was just horrible. Hung over and in a diner for breakfast seemed like a good idea at the time. Then the sunlight from car windshields, smell of pig-flesh cooking, everyone talking with bullhorns thing kinda got to me and I went to worship the porcelain god again.
Finally, after a visit to the Dolphin Research Center (their dolphins were "Flipper") we made it to Key West and I collapsed in the room while Elizabeth and Wyman went traipsing (ie. Boozing) along the famed Duval Street. Eventually, I woke up and, after they called to tell me where they were, made my way to meet them.
Key West, we had been told, is big with gays. I mean, BIG. As I already find that I've a bit of a problem being hit on by gay men, I did my best to just walk (not sashay) down the street and not look anyone in the eye. Some things just aren't fair though. I mean, how the hell are you not supposed to look when there's a 6'7" drag queen with hoo-hoos the size of basketballs talking to a six foot drag queen with arms like Lou Ferigno (TV's Hulk)? I thought I hadn't been spotted gawking, but apparently my jaw scraping the ground as I walked by was a big clue that I wasn't a local. The giant exclaimed as I went by, "Those are fifteens, aren't they?" Startled, I mumbled, "sure" and skidaddled. I didn't, and still don't, want to know how the hell he/she/it could nail my shoe size on the stroll.
Other than that, Key West was mostly just eating food, drinking moderately, and sleeping in. Until last night, that is. Apparently, I'm an idiot (I know that's been apparent to y'all for the duration of knowing me). I told myself that I wasn't going to go hard at it again, and I moderately believed myself since it had taken two days for me to consider putting more than a beer down my gullet, but as it was our last night, Elizabeth said she was buying. In halves, I'm Irish and French and quarters I'm English and German too. I'm damn near designed to have a drink, and I'm definitely designed to if it's free to do so. Thus, I got a bit inebriated. Fortunately, I can remember my exploits and I'm proud of them.
Once I'd been properly fueled, I hit the dance floor with Elizabeth. Dancing to rock and roll is, or should be, impossible, but we were cutting a rug to the band's cover of Van Halen's "Jump". Somehow, I decided that since no one else was out there with us, other than a monumentally goofy dude on the fringe of the dance floor, that it was time to pull out the cartwheels. So I did. Lord knows I try to be bashful (stop snickering), but I have to say, that to that point, that was obviously the coolest thing anyone in that bar had ever seen. I mean, I didn't even fling a flip-flop. I was SO the party star. As the song finished, I attempted to one-up myself and flung myself on the ground to do "the worm."
Ow! Doing a face-plant on a tile dance floor hurts. I caught myself, so it wasn't a proper face-plant, but I jammed the bejesus out of both of my wrists (I knew that if I could feel pain in that state, I was in trouble) and just laid there stunned for a split second. Then I just had an epileptic seizure. Well, I'm sure that's what it looked like at least since I quickly discovered that the worm is damn hard to pull off. I took a second to readjust, flopped on the ground like a fish out of water, dusted myself off, and booked it back to our table. Elizabeth and I sat down for a second or two with Wyman, downed another drink, and then hit the floor again. I tell you, SO the party star.
Then it happened. My moment had arrived. The second I heard the drummer tapping on the symbols and the lead singer mumble, "Yo VIP! Let's kick it!", I told Elizabeth to stay put and I booked out to the empty dance floor. In the annals of history, there are few performances that can hold a candle to my lip-synching, highly choreographed rendition of "Ice, Ice, Baby!" To say that people were stunned that the drunk dude with the filthy shirt and swollen wrists could rock that hard is an understatement. I tore the roof off that mutha solo for most of the song, but then a freaky red-head came out to share the magic and I rocked her world too. I waddled off the floor at the end of the song to cat-calls from the women and nods of silent approbation from the men.
The two couples at the table next to us offered to buy me whatever the hell I wanted, but I couldn't, in good conscience, lead the ladies along like that, as they were obviously anxious to ditch the schmoes they were with. I smiled at them (making them swoon in the process…thank you Vanilla Ice), told them, "my job here is done," and walked out with my right arm triumphantly in the air, my index finger thrust out to let every one know that I was, indeed, a bad mamma-jamma.
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