Repaying her father, Key West, September 1993

“Daddy’s home, to stay.”
-The Stray Cats, “Daddy’s home.”

I went to smoke, and at the shop, everyone smoked out front. I could look down the sidewalk and see that all the employees of the various shops were also outside, smoking. September is a slow month on the island. There were no tourists to attend to, so no one did too much but smoke.

Some of them would stand in the doorway, others talked amongst themselves, and others sat near the street on the big plant boxes. I would sit inside the shop to escape the heat sometimes, but mostly I liked being outside. Key West was very new and I wasn’t oriented to the day to day yet. So nothing at all was still new and exciting to me.

I noticed the girl coming towards me. She walked slowly, her feet crossing over the other without being pigeon-toed, each step dreamily slow. She had short hair and glasses and a tee shirt and shorts. I smoked by the door this day, the music from inside loud enough to be overwhelming as she approached. I exhaled smoke as she asked me something lost in a laugh, consumed by the music.

“I’m sorry, what?” I said, thinking she would repeat her question. She looked at me for two beats, and with her right hand, tried to slap me in the testicles. She was quick, like a fast-pitch softball pitcher. But my reflexes were faster, and my move to deflect prevented serious harm.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I said, shocked at the surreal, sudden provocation. I took a step back and she giggled. She turned to the right and kept walking. I was unsure of a course of action, as the situation was so unexpected. So I stood in the doorway, watching her move slowly down Duval. Two shops down, she succeeded in her actions because the man she hit hadn’t been paying attention to what had happened to me just 30 seconds before.

He was as shocked as I was, and she kept walking dreamily on, thinking, I assume, of her father.