The World of Christina Oxenberg – Welcome to the Woolgathering…

I bicycled against the wind, pedaling slowly to the end of a pier of flagstone.
I passed a small boy on roller blades, maybe ten years old, he was wispy as a stalk with a thatch of yellow hair shading a serious face. With a hand against a rock wall he shoved off, skating straight and steady. All was fine until one wheel snagged and he lurched and came apart. His legs whirled, boots jackknifing, desperately he had his arms spinning. I held my breath. It was going to hurt to land on that unforgiving flagstone. All of the little boy juddered and it looked like for sure he was going down when a whisker away from impact he softened into a noodle, righting himself back and up, balancing himself. I never saw him blink.
Sun dappled behind fast moving clouds while all along the beach people had stopped in knots to watch a determined beginner on a kite-board. Frequently there are kite-boarders flipping on the waves and bounding in the air, spraying water like diamond beads against azure skies, but I have never seen a novice, never witnessed the humbling struggle. He appeared young but his body was soft, with meringue-white skin and narrow arms suggesting a life spent thus far mostly indoors, today he was standing in the ocean up to his pasty waist. He was focused on a flap of fabric in the sky, and wrangling with the cords connecting him to the kite jerking in and out of currents. He stood wrestling with his rigging with his instructor nearby, dressed in half a wetsuit, relaxed against the heaving waves and calling out encouraging plays.
Seagulls and pelicans swooned around the kite-boarder and his bobbing instructor, occasionally hurtling fast like arrows, spearing the surface, plucking at the silver fish that move around in balloons of metallic shimmer, sometimes leaping as one out of the water, through the air, creating ridiculously pretty tiny blizzards.
Someone was grilling and the tantalizing smell of roasting meat traveled like a salesman in the breeze.
Suddenly the sky darkened with whipped up clouds and noisy winds scattering dry leaves, and I was surrounded by skateboarders and bicyclists and mopeds. Wind spun sand squalls. Groggy-eyed sunbathers made for their cars, laden and shuffling on slippery flip-flops. A man was running in a strange scuttling way, with his back hunched. Then I saw in his arms lay a sleeping child and he carried her with one hand holding her head.
And the rain came down, gigantic drops crash landed noisily. The raindrops were warm like bath water and they felt wonderful.

At 2am I was walking down one end of Duval Street, heading for my car, headed home. I walked accompanied by the usual night-symphony of revelers raving and ambulance sirens and rooster calls, when I heard a ruckus.
A group of three crocked spring-breakers were stopped and gesticulating and cursing loudly at a doorway. I posted up by a wall, and observed. The trio caterwauled until finally out of steam they staggered off. From the entranceway emanated peeling guffaws. Gingerly I approached to investigate, and in the doorway I found two men on the front stoop of a small hotel. One guy, salt & pepper beard and beetroot skin, was seated protectively in front of a box of beer, he was chortling, and pointing at his friend. His friend was reclining flat on his back with his legs out stiffly in front like he was levitating. He had his hands folded over his orange teeshirt and he was spluttering, maybe even choking a bit, wheezing and rocking with laughter. When he sat up I saw his red face was streaming with tears. It was a face stuck all over with joy. Pure and infectious, and I asked if I might sit with them.
Al and Nick are a couple of Maryland lads in town for Nick’s 40th birthday. They traveled with their spouses and their motorbikes. Their last night in paradise, with the wives tucked in bed upstairs at the hotel, the men rigged a game with a toy fishing pole, a yellow plastic thing they bought for three dollars at the corner drug store.
Nick sported a crew cut and flame tattoos on his forearms, “They match my bike,” he explained, “I was having a midlife crisis.” Nick let out his line and sent his buddy Al to place the lure on the sidewalk, a dollar stuck with quarters, as sinkers.
The passing drunks were pitiably hilarious as they lunged at the money. Nick skillfully wound the reel, hauling in the bill as the sot snatched, with face contorting from confusion as the dollar flittered from a grasp. After each catch Nick slumped exploding with giggles. Al too, eyes closed, cracking up. Their elation transformed them and I saw them as carefree kids, before the pile up of life. Both Nick and Al were slung with shiny green party-beads. Nick’s game was luminously innocent, yet temporarily triumphing in this prurient town.
Eyes bugged as the dollar flew away. The bewilderment they expressed was priceless. Impaired minds followed the skittering bill before registering us, and our hysterical faces, momentarily sobering them, like a slap. “Fuckers!” decried an intoxicated girl, her high heels dangling from one hand. Later she returned and said, “I called you ‘fuckers’. I’m sorry.”
We watched a montage of stumblebum fishing all set to the melodic cacophonic track of our cruel laughter. At daybreak they packed up their equipment and we split the memories.

In the name of journalism I went to the strip clubs.
I went accompanied by my pal Turtle, a local. At one end of Duval Street we swept aside a curtain and entered a low-ceilinged room with a bar running one length and several bodies deep with men dressed in plaid shorts and tank tops and flip-flops, and women wearing nothing at all except for magnificent high heels.
I followed Turtle to the groin of the building, to a cave of a room with dark walls and the center dominated by a platform jutting like a tongue. On this tongue, like so many piercings, were silvery poles and around these poles swung some lithe females. They were naked, except for regulation eight inch Lucite shoes. Turtle blew kisses to the dancers. They smiled and approached.
“They love me here,” Turtle declared. My guide knew a notable amount for his tender twenty-something years.
The dancers were young, their bodies gorgeous. Pubic hair was meticulous as bonsai gardens. Breasts were everywhere. The sport with breasts is for a patron to place his face between a pair. The girl will then press her breasts, pinning the face into a mammary sandwich. Turtle repeated this process many times. Once with tits so wide the dancer could scarcely make them meet. Another pair of knockers, attached to a damsel with a velvet choker and gold glitter sprinkled on her pale skin, Turtle claimed, “They have to be fake! It was like I was being punched!”
I declined a turn.
The next establishment was up a rickety flight and inside a clammy low-lit cavern. Here nude girls danced on a stage that snaked all throughout the room. In no club did I witness any stripping, unless you count the stepping out of a thong. Mostly male patrons were seated at eye-level to the stage, their heads tilted, focused on the dazzling flesh. One dancer squatted in front of a customer, firm breasts within milking distance. Despite the gunmetal glint in her eyes she was fearsomely feminine. Her customer was porcine and grinning fiendishly. His three buddies sat tight, in an excited huddle. She plucked off the guy’s glasses and brazenly polished them on her clamshell. Next, she wafted the glasses under the guy’s nose. The guy spat up his drink and whooped, his buddies roared. They all tucked paper money into her garter.
My chair was sticky.
A blonde vision swished into view, and Turtle groaned. He nodded at the divinity and she smiled and shimmied over. She crouched down so her pearl farm was in my grille, and said, “Where are you from?”
I blushed when, handing her money, our fingers touched.
She spun away and into Turtle’s sights. Gracefully she fell into a backbend, suggesting the entrance to a tunnel of love.
Turtle stared, entranced.
“My greatest fear,” he said, “is she is going to fart in my face.”
Gold glitter shimmered on his cheeks.

My landlady scheduled a visit. After four months we had never met in person. Chillingly, her child got muddled into our plan. I decided on opening with something terrorizing so as to keep the brat at bay. I had a presentiment of horrendous damage. But I had a list of things that needed attention.

First thing the kid did was crawl into my hammock, half slipping and grappling, like a drunken bug in a web. Thankfully her mother admonished her, “No, peanut!” and yanked her to terra firma.

I presented the list. My landlady is a stunning blonde with periwinkle eyes and there’s nothing she cannot fix. We went to some monolithic hardware store that she was intimately familiar with. The kid sat cross-legged in the wheelie cart. The other shoppers were predominantly men, quietly grazing in their zoned out way, until she swished by and they could not help themselves but crane.

Back at the ranch mama moved rocks and corral boulders and was up to her elbows in mosquito swamp effortlessly fixing fountain pumps and replacing rubber hoses and plastic parts. In high heels and a long dress she installed screen doors and fixed air conditioners and rewired a fan. I was in love.

Meanwhile the kid and I began to play. Despite her pink dress and ribbons she was a tomboy. Soon, mud was churned and clung in her hair and smudged on her face. I decided I liked her. Being half feral myself I was moved by the urge to share my toys. I scooped the tiny girl into my arms and placed her gently on the hammock. Before I lay the child down, I whispered, “If you need to move around you have to move very slowly. Ok?” She assured me she understood the drill.

I promptly forgot about her and got busy marveling at mom’s dexterity. I was petitioning her, asking if she could maybe stay and look after me, when suddenly we heard piercing shrieking.

We turned to see the hammock flipping, and the child flying at the ground with her mouth wide with terror. She was grabbing at the warping canvas, except it was flapping, and she could gain no purchase. The inevitable crash was made worse when her delicate face smashed directly against the wood supports. The only thing louder than the noise of impact was the screaming.

I had to cover my ears.

The mother cradled her child, muffling the pitiful howls, absorbing the pain. Patting fast-rolling tears on the traumatized baby-face.

Thank heavens no skin was punctured, no blood was shed. Really, it was nothing more than a protruding tomato-red welt on her forehead. A disfiguring bump that we all pretended was not nearly as bad as it looked. Surely it would go down?

The weeping dwindled to moans.
“Mom, can I have an ice cream as big as the world?”
“Yes, peanut.”

I suppose they won’t be visiting again anytime soon.

Ophelia was titillated about the gig, almost as much for the chance to get out of town. “I need me a good time,” she said to herself as she packed her favorite ruby red dress.

Meanwhile, Isaac and his father were sailing in the Gulf of Mexico. As was their habit, weather permitting, they blew fare-thee-well kisses to long-suffering Mom and the Outer Banks of North Carolina and sailed south.

Late Saturday afternoon Ophelia convened with her band mates at the luggage carousel in the Key West airport. First thing she said was she was off to get her hair and nails done. She sent the band ahead to set up at the saloon. Toto, her faithful drummer, loves Ophelia dearly, but he is the first to admit, “Ophelia can be quite the diva!”

Isaac and his father whiled the day snorkeling, spearing fish and trapping lobsters. On one dive, Isaac reached the reef and gradually focused his eyes to see an almighty dorsal fin. “First thing I did was freak out,” Isaac shook his head at the memory. “I pissed my pants and that made me freak out even more coz I heard somewhere sharks like the smell of piss! I was out of the water and in the boat before I figured it was probably a nurse shark.”

Between sets Toto stole some calm in an alley, lounging against a wall, his sneakers gluing to the beer-sticky street, he sucked his cigarette. “Ophelia calls me and she’s like, “We got a gig!”” Toto laughed, checking over his shoulder he added, “What a diva! We never even rehearsed! She’s like, “Just play!” We are making all sorts of mistakes!”

Isaac and his father anchored near the main marina and grilled their catch, and invited neighboring seafarers. An odd-job assortment joined, trading in alcohol for the wondrous feast. Afterward Isaac excused himself. “Dang!” he thought, stumbling toward town, “I gotta do the Duval crawl at least once.” As was his way, when he was soused, when he came upon a good-looking lady he would glide up and murmur, “You are so sexy!” Generally the female reacted by going rigid and bolting. “I’m straight coz that’s my test!” he explains, “If she can’t handle that, she can’t handle me.”

Inside the club the air was dense with sweat, liquor and smoke, and Ophelia was singing her heart out, beguiling the audience with her smile, lassoing them with her voice. The crowd was dancing and melting sweating.

Isaac paused in the entranceway. Instantly he was rapt by the passionate blues, and his blurred vision crystallized at the sight of sumptuous Ophelia and her ruby red dress. He waited until he caught her attention, then he mouthed, “You are so sexy!”

Ophelia never missed a beat while she sang and swayed and stared at the sassy young man. With eyelashes the breadth of butterfly wings, she winked at him.

Like a sword with its hilt exposed and blade in the earth, I found a rusty machete. Inspired by the flower-scented day I decided I should try horticulture. I marched around my garden cutting everything unattractive. To tidy up some ragged browning tips I chopped at a plant taller than myself with impossibly long leaves like gigantic rabbit ears. Horribly, the stumps proceeded to leak sticky beads of milk with a garish stink like molten rubber. I had hurt the thing. I felt awful and I began to apologize, but I did not know how to convey my sentiments. Should I hug it?

I continued hacking away at some seemingly loose palm tree bits but they were more robust than they appeared and the blade ricocheted on each slice and I pictured losing an eye, or fingers. When the machete came close to cutting off one entire arm I lanced it back at the leaf strewn ground.

To remove myself from danger I pitched into the hammock.

I have seen cats cutting through the back yard. Singly they stride, favoring particular routes. A calico male insists on spraying a low shrub, which does indeed sport a lustrous patina I had previously put down to good health. To be neighborly I nightly placed a heaped plate. Every morning the dish was spotless. This continued until I discovered the plate rimmed with small brown snails, their slimy bodies like squishy tongues suctioning away. I’m told gargantuan toads are often found face down in the cat food.

One night I saw a black cat sitting stiffly in a patch of shade. Unseen, through a window, I stared. I made out the strip of white chest and one white paw. Gradually I realized the cat had no face. Where its face should be instead there was nothing, only shadows. Squinting, I stared harder and all outlines dispersed. I blinked and the cat vanished, dissolved into varying depths of darkness, fuzzy blackness filling the space between giant green leaves with serrated edges. The white chest turned into the edge of a flagstone, the white paw a leaf.

Another night a pair of raccoons trotted across the top of the back fence. These tropical raccoons are smaller than their northern brethren. One sprung to the ground in a graceful leap and attacked my yoga mat. With his jaws he ripped free a mouthful. And then the little furry beast shook his wrinkling snout, and spat out the unappetizing fragments before scrabbling up a tree trunk and racing away to rejoin his comrade. A corner of the mat is forever gone, tiny teeth marks outline the crime scene and I no longer leave the mat out at night.

Easing off the hammock I went indoors for a glass of water, and on my way I checked up on the slasher-victim fern. The globules of oleaginous cream were caking; hopefully I have not murdered flora, or poisoned fauna, nor perturbed the ghost cats.

Nighttime, in her tropical garden. They lay in the hammock, the curve of the woven canvas eased them toward each other, encouraging an inclination to nestle, their faces close together inspired a sense of familiarity, of tenderness, and then they were kissing.

…For sure this time she’ll let me…

…I wonder if he gives head…

…I’m sure she can tell from my kiss that I am a sexual superhero…

…Why does his tongue feel like a rolled newspaper jamming down my throat? Jesus! I must not gag. And she pulled away.

“Your eyes are gorgeous. Do you know that?” he smiled, speaking excitedly.

What garbage! “Thank you!”

“I’m not bullshitting you,” he said. “I promise you one thing, I will never lie to you.”

“Really!” she said, pushing off from him. “I lie pretty much all the time.”

They had been here once before. He said he just wanted to have some fun. She said she was still deciding. His lips were wide and slightly flat, as if sculpted from wet clay. The blackness of the night shadowed his cheekbones, accentuating his exotic looks. She liked him, she thought.

…I must trap her attention. I’ll talk about her eyes, that usually works. “Your eyes…” he began, but she interrupted him, “Shut up, please,” she said.

He laughed and leaned across, and kissed her, purposefully sucking her lip.

…Why is he trying to remove my lip? She yanked away. She did not touch the wounded lip which felt like it has been partially twisted off, like a bottle cap.

…Check me out! I’m getting hard! He stuck one leg out straight, and rearranged his pants.

…I don’t think I like him…

He noticed her face went slack, her gaze glazed, and he knew she was questioning everything, the way women do. This happened last time. It was tempting to push, sometimes that was the way to go. Women never knew what they wanted. That is the man’s job, he thought. But he knew not to frighten her, women being notoriously skittish.

Sure enough she had drifted with her thoughts long gone and carrying her away to Sandro. Where is Sandro? Probably at work. She wished she could go stalk his employment, just to watch him.

He saw she was lost in thought, he watched her unseeing eyes. He must snap her back to focus, he was experienced enough to know women make up their minds in precarious ways, easily shunted by a wrong word, a graceless move.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked with modulated, practiced concern, and with his fingertips he caught her jaw, pulled her face his way. “You can tell me anything. Even lies! I want you to be comfortable with me.”

She looked at him, as if startled by his voice. Their faces inches apart. Oh, you! she thought, You’re still here! Where is Sandro? “Sorry! I’m thinking about work. I have a big day tomorrow.”

February in the tropics and it is balmy. The nightly party that is downtown Key West is swept clean early everyday. Streets freshly watered, like hair slicked for chapel, and all visible trace of the night before is erased. But nothing can contain the smells rising like an insistent mist, mingling with the warming day. Other than a longhaired skateboarder lashed to a galloping multicolored dog, Duval Street was deserted when I went for coffee.

At the corner of Caroline Street I saw them. She was folded on the handlebars of his bicycle, she faced him, unsmiling. His arms were stiff arcs enveloping her as he steered the black cruiser. He was moving fast, and beaming, and she looked utterly relaxed, with an eery unnatural calm. He zipped from sidewalk to street, slinking around clumps of awakening pedestrians gathering out front of cafes sipping from lidded paper cups. Quite out of place in the steamy Keys he wore a dark wool suit, riding with his knees out wide, his black lace-up shoes like arrows on the pedals. She was in a dress of gray netting, spiky and see-through, her skin was pale, her eyes languorous, long kinky fair hair framed a serene face. She was a mermaid caught in her fisherman’s net. She was glorious, yet oddly glum, meanwhile her beau grinned. Their faces were close. They were not talking. Occasionally his head jutted forward and he kissed her. Their private world drew stares, and he nimbly maneuvered, at quite a clip, passing by bemused onlookers craning to take in the engrossed twosome. They might have been pedaling to their own wedding, as likely as being on their way home from a long night. There was something about their intensity, the cliche tableau. And then Elvis rode past on his scooter, today in his cherry red and sequin jumpsuit with lapels like fins. Tourists held up flashing cell phones, and the bicyclists were forgotten.

I would have clean forgotten about them too, but later that day I saw him again, riding his same black bicycle down Duval Street, now abuzz with cars cruising, and taxicabs. He no longer wore the dark wool suit but it was unmistakably him, for one thing he had on those shiny black leather lace ups, city shoes, memorable footwear in a beach town. He looked ecstatic, just as earlier when I had espied him, and sure enough he was not alone. Filling in the space between himself and the handlebars was a person. A female. Sort of folded, same as before. Yet something was different. I tried to get a decent glimpse without being too obvious. People thronged and I could only catch snippets. Something, however, was off. Gradually I realized she was not the same girl. This one a brunette. They kissed like lovers, until she caught me gaping, slack-jawed. The last thing I saw before reluctantly turning away was the picture of her joyous face.

I won’t tell.

They were a wretched sight, mother and son, hunkered on yellow plastic chairs at the police station. They sat at the lip of their seats, suggesting free will, meanwhile they huddled, stiff and frightened looking. The way they positioned their limbs obscured the handcuffs and lengths of chain tethering them to one another and the metal desk. The young man fussed with the locks, worming a toothpick into the hole, while mom blew him a kiss and winked.
For decades these low-rent schemers had mustered a living from genteel crime. Mom would conceptualize and son would implement, tipping cars off cliffs, staging robberies, faking injuries. Only one time did things get out of hand when setting a house ablaze they accidentally charred half the neighbor’s. “Hey!” the mom assured, “No one got hurt.”
The dad had fled long ago, his car crammed with everything they had ever owned, never to be seen again. The son, from an early age devised a mode of his own. While craven, he was a nimble-fingered thief and instinctively he knew this was a talent he ought to develop. In candy stores he cleared whole shelves, stuffing his pockets before moseying off. Eventually the mother discovered her son’s penchant, finding him and his pilfered candy in the basement.
“What’s this?” she said, hands on hips, as her son cowered and immediately confessed. “Who is my good boy!” she exclaimed, and gave her child a smothering hug.
Entwined as they were by their proclivities, they teamed up. When the schemes worked they took their winnings and shoved them into burlap sacks and buried the loot in a bog.
“Crime does pay!” the mother extolled.
Their favorite activity was acquiring. They exhausted themselves with purchasing. They were gluttons and they gorged, wiping the sweat from their brows with soggy paper money. It was a while before they noticed the karmic strings attached. For one thing, the money had to be stashed in a filthy freezing cold hole. Getting at it was trying.
Time passed and they got sloppy, no longer bothering to look around and check who might observe them pulling bags from out the arsehole of a field in the middle of effing nowhere.
Mom was returning to the car, the fourth such trip that morning, dragging the dirty bag of cash, letting it jounce off slimy clods. Bills fluttered loose, gone on a gust.
“Mom! The bag!”
“What?”
“The bag! It’s spilling!”
The sack had split its seams. Tattered white fringe bust in all directions, while bills swirled, twirling on the cold metallic breeze.
It was bad luck a trooper was passing by. Of course he saw enough to warrant a look-see.
Mother and son were transported to county jail where they sat in the yellow plastic chairs, whispering, and fussing with the locks of their restraints.

Last night I went for my customary midnight stroll down Duval Street, and what did I behold but an impromptu music video organically sprung from out the sidewalk in front of a grocery store slash liquor store slash rolling papers and cigarettes and all type of soft vices kind of store. Like most establishments on Duval Street the store opens directly onto the sidewalk, like an arcade. This store regularly plays techno music extremely loudly. Along came a gang of youths, none older than teenagers, a couple under the age of ten and quite tiny, well they all began to dance. They were brimming with energy and smiling and pounding out these fast impressive moves to the heartbeat challenging music with its whizzing siren overtones. All of them were jumping and shimmying and clapping with their knees so they looked like gyroscopes. They were rather fantastic and many of us passerby stopped to watch, clogging the curb. Ambling down the sidewalk from the other side of the street was another group of youths. The newcomers paused and observed the dancing gang, a few were boys still in their teens wearing the shortest of possible red micro shorts with legs so long they seemed to begin under their arms, like flamingos. One flamingo pulled up his shirt and, exposing a torso hard like a two-by-four, rolled the hem into his teeth. Then he said something to his crew and they crossed the street. The dancers saw them coming and ramped up the speed of their gyrations. The flamingos bound and fell right into an energetic dance of their own. One guy put his hands behind his head, elbows out, and began descending slowly on powerful legs meanwhile motoring his behind so fast it was a blur. Another of the incredibly long legged flamingoes ripped off his hoody and tossed it to the ground and leapt into the splits, falling fast and expertly and gracefully to the cement sidewalk, where he pulsed with pneumatic speed, and then he grabbed himself between the legs, collecting his spilling self, and rolled and tucked, and all the time laughing delightfully. The store’s cashiers were also swaying and moving their hips to the music, and clapping their hands above their heads, encouraging the dance-off.

The song ended and the dancers bounced in place, and slapped each other’s hands, and backs, and then began to disperse, melding into the thick flow of nocturnal revelers.

And I continued on with my stroll.