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This is the same tale as the original version, only this one was done using a technique I learned in a writing class -- called freewriting.

A thick atmosphere, the sound of palm fronds against tin rooftops, sweet perfumed air, gun shots in the middle of the night, and voluminous drugs, blackouts, remorse, despair, and uncontrollable laughter. Key West in the 80s, my Key West.

A night to remember, if only I could. Beginning at Delmonico's and ending at the baths, filled with too many holes blank spots challenges to my mind after all these years.

I was standing in the bar, I think, the memory so unclear, and I was vaguely aware that Billy had left to score drugs at Sloppy Joe’s. Momentarily, it seems, but he may have been gone an hour or more, Billy returned with a baggy full of Quaaludes, methaqualone, animal tranquilizers, sedative hypnotics, downers, the drug that spells r-e-l-I-e-f. The pill's powdery forms nestled in the bag, like dead swans, a heap of promises and guaranteed forgetfulness.

The entire evening is Jell-O is maple syrup is standing in putty is thick air of the tropics is sweety sweat sweet booze flowery smells is people staring is where am I thank God I’m alive is not a worry in the world.

We poured ourselves around the barroom, two sharks in dark waters, our eyes no doubt glowing with the hunger of Wes Craven characters, children of the Damned, the hunger, trouble looking for a place to roost. Billy with his Black Irish good looks and troublesome drinking problem; myself with my new found perm and shaggy boyish all American looks, Billy undersized and a runt, me nothing more than a slip of a kid with a 28-inch waist and six feet of winsome wish-I-were-model scrawniness.

I am still aware of believing that men were watching me, always watching me wanting me being willing to sell their souls for me. I am aware still that Billy was a scoundrel and was perpetually fight-seeking, enjoying the thrill of it all, of the hunt chase kill.

Through the cracks in my memories of that night, I recall watching the playwright, Tennessee Williams, bent over a pool table. Near by a gaggle of male hustlers were eyeing him and checking out his wallet pocket. I was in awe of this man but I don’t have any real sense of why, perhaps simply because he was an AUTHOR and I wanted to be one. Or because I was an ACTOR and he spun words into plays. These many years later I cannot subscribe any real meaning to any of these hours at Delmonico’s that night, or tell you who I was then (or am now) or why I was doing drooling so over Mr. Tennessee Williams.

Almost like magic, I was suddenly seated in the back garden with my lover and Williams and the actor Michael Greer. If time could slur, this time would, for the only unforgettable thing about it all was that it happened; but what it WAS will forever remain a mystery to me – for all the players are dead, except for Billy, and who that I know talks to Billy anymore?

I am sliding into the booth next to Tennessee Williams, in awe because I should be in awe, and he is eyeing my lover with some suspicion because Billy is being mean to me. Billy was always mean to me in public; I think he got off on being mean to me when others watched. For my own part, I let him be a dickweed, never challenging him, only being the suffering spouse, the angel fallen down, the victim boy.

And I am spewing inanities forth about how wonderful Mr. Williams is this and how fabulous his plays are that; I am gushing and shaking my chemical burnt blonde locks and breathing my alcoholic saturated breath at the man. And he is cackling laughter at me and watching me with a sparkling set of eyes. Then he is putting his arm around on me and insisting that I call him “Tom.”

There it is; and - sadly - very little more. I could expound upon my night with the Great American Playwright, I will no doubt remember more things and be able to piece together a reasonably cogent story. But for now, the last thing I recall is waking up stone drunk in a bathhouse, naked as a jay bird, alone at the side of a swimming pool. The sun was coming up and the sounds of odd birds were filtering through my cracked and aching consciousness.

Today, right now, I remember nothing more. It was just another sultry night that had come and gone in my life, that particular evening in Key West during the 80s. One more event to tack on to a life which, in retrospect, held its most meaning in its chains of meaninglessness. And today, which holds all its meaning in trying to remember and unravel the mysteries that were yesterday.

-- 30 --

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Copyright © 1999 by Michael Walker

Michael Walker is a freelance writer in Washington, DC.  He is also the founder and proprietor of DREAMWalker Group.