American Tropics: A Story for the Generation

By Rock Holliwood

American Tropics is a story of one mans journey from LA toMiamitoKey Westto LA and then to theHawaiian Islandsto visit the most tropical parts ofAmerica. The protagonist, who is a member of Generation X, tells the story about his adventures and the characters that he meets along the way. The book is a journey; reading it you will go on a journey in your imagination to the most southern extremes of theUnited States: to the continental south point close to the Hemingway House inKey West,Florida, and to the south point of theHawaiian Islands.

It will take you to celebrate the exuberance and joy of being a member of Generation X while traveling through the most tropical parts of the great experiment in freedom and wealth: America. It is a story of beauty, joy and exhilaration, where the author takes the advice of Thomas Jefferson and travels to the most tropical parts of the states to experience Life,Libertyand the Pursuit of Happiness.

American Tropics is the story of one mans generational dream and a call to every member of the generation to take up arms against a sea of dreariness, to have more fun, pursuing happiness in the American Tropics. It is a story for a generation that dislikes its name: Generation X, and a call to this 13th generation of theUnited States to wake up to the immense beauty of modern life and to pick up from where the Summer of Love generation left off. The book is a generational dream from a Generation X author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781481702836

Rock Holliwood

Rock Holliwood is the Pen Name of Writer & Artist Robert O'Brien. Robert was born in Walton-Le-Dale, near Preston, Lancashire, England. His Father was from Dublin, Ireland and his Mother was from Lancashire, England, but his Mother's Father was from Tipperary, Ireland. Therefore, Robert is an Englishman of three quarters Irish descent. He has lived in England, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. For the past twenty years he has lived in the Los Angeles area of Southern California, USA.

Book preview

American

Tropics:

A story for the generation born 1961-1981

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Rock Holliwood

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© 2012 by Rock Holliwood. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/13/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-0208-1 (sc)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This book is dedicated to the 13th Generation of the United States of America, those born between the years of 1961 and 1981, and to America: the great experiment in freedom and equality, birthplace of the ‘pursuit of happiness’ societal philosophy. I was dreaming of a happier generation, a generation that would pick up from where the summer of love generation had left off, and this book is the story of that generational dream.

Rock Holliwood,

May 25, 2004,

Beach Avenue,

Marina Del Rey, California.

CONTENTS

BOOK ONE

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

BOOK TWO

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation. WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness- . . .

First and second paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence of the 13 United States of America by Thomas Jefferson (aged 33).

July 4th, 1776.

Book One

Miami & Key West

1

In the summer I took a trip to Key West, Florida and the Hawaiian Islands. The start of the trip took place on the plane that flew me from Los Angeles to Miami via Charlotte on the 4th of July. I was planning on staying the night at a hotel in South Beach and then renting a car to drive down to Key West the following day. The airhostesses on the flight that first day were not very good looking. They were okay, but nothing to write home about. There’s a pretty lady I know named Bridget who used to be an airhostess. I asked her to go dancing with me a few weeks ago and after I gave her my telephone number I asked her if she would call me and she said ‘maybe.’ I haven’t heard from her yet so I guess I am not her type.

At one point the lady next to me who was in the window seat went to the bathroom and I had a chance to open the blinds that she had kept closed for the entire flight up until that point. You could see America down below. You couldn’t make out any buildings; you could just see the green of planet earth 28,000 feet below you. It was bright and sunny and there was an angelic, heavenly cloud pattern going on in the sky. I was surprised at how big the wings of the plane were. It was a 757 and had only one aisle but it had long grey wings that reached out into the empty space above the continent.

Auspiciously, the journey to Key West was starting on America’s birthday, on the day that Thomas Jefferson and his friends declared their independence from England all those years ago. It all made sense to me, in a big way. I had also declared my independence from England several years ago when I left there permanently in January of 1990. I was happy to be in the states and loved living in Los Angeles area. I had set myself free from the monarchy in the same way that Thomas and his buddies had done, and I had been blessed with the ‘Common Sense’ to leave England and emigrate to the United States. I was also in The Pursuit of Happiness and my pursuit had led me to think of and create the American Tropics Tour that took place that summer. I was making this tropical journey because Natasha had declared her independence from me and our 7 year relationship.

The lady next to me was reading Edward Albee’s Seascape which was a play in two acts. I wasn’t familiar with the play so I did not know how the content of the book fit into the story of the American Tropics tour. Earlier in the flight she had been reading a play by Tennessee Williams, which I knew did fit in well with the story of the tour, because as we all know Mr. Williams spent quite a bit of time in Key West himself.

The lady was an actress and she was probably studying the plays to perform them. She was quite good looking, but she wasn’t a knockout. She lived in Hollywood, which was good, and quite close to where I lived in LA, but she mentioned she was married during one of the first conversations that we had, so I let go of the thought of chatting her up, even though she had nice eyelashes and smelled nice too.

After she came back from the bathroom, she left the blinds open and I could look out and see the view as we came into Charlotte. The area surrounding the airport looked green and rural. When we touched down I let everyone go ahead of me and I was the last one to get off. When I got to the end of the walkway the humidity hit me and made me think about how humid the experience of the American Tropics would be that summer. I walked through the terminal on my way to the connecting flight that would take me to Miami and I was impressed with how many good-looking women I saw in the airport in Charlotte. There were also a lot of bars; I must have passed by 3 or 4 on my way to the departure gate.

Charlotte seemed a lot different from LA and had a different energy. Los Angeles had an exciting palm tree laden reality filled with golden west coast sunlight that I loved and I knew that I would be glad to get back to Marina Del Rey when my tour of the American Tropics was over. I carried on walking through the airport and then plugged in my laptop and recharged it until it was time to board the plane that would take me to Miami, a seaside city waiting like a female lover thirsty for one’s masculinity beneath the sultry skies of Southern Florida.

After I sat down in my seat I put on my personal headphones and listened to a compilation of the music from the James Bond movies. Shirley Bassey sang the title track from Goldfinger as the plane took off, flying up into the afternoon sky. As we started to gain altitude the next song began: Carly Simon singing Nobody Does It Better. From Russia with Love, was next and I thought about the end of that movie where James and the lead female actress hug and kiss in the gondola scene shot in the city of Venice. I wondered at the splendor of the song from You Only Live Twice after that and reflected on how great the James Bond soundtracks were. The string arrangements took you away to a different place. The Shirley Bassey tune from Moonraker that followed after that had a soft, romantic energy about it, with once again the signature strings and atmospheric mood that most of the James Bond title tracks had. That song always reminded me of Elektra, as the singer asked where their lover had gone to.

The last two tracks on the CD were the tunes from Diamonds are Forever, also sung by Shirley Bassey, and the instrumental 007 which you often heard towards the end of the Bond movies when James was starting to progress along the trail to the bad guys. It had the splendor and coolness of James himself and had the energy of the English secret agent saving the world and making everyone in England incredibly proud at the same time.

The flight progressed and I naturally spent some time observing the pretty girls on board. There were several pretty women on the flight that afternoon. There was one middle-aged woman that I had actually noticed earlier in the terminal. She had big voluptuous breasts and a curvaceous behind. She was probably in her early forties. She was one of those women that must have been an absolute bombshell when she was younger. She was very ‘doable’ even now. During the flight she passed me twice on her way to the bathroom and she made me drool with desire both times she walked by.

Directly across from me there was a young girl with long blonde hair and a nice chest. She was reading a book by Margaret Atwood, a book of short stories named: Women Dancing. As I glanced over to her she was on the short story in the book that was titled: Rape fantasies. She had a small nose pierce on her right nostril and a tight green top on that showed the world what a nice chest she had.

The journey from Charlotte to Miami did not take long and after a while the captain was asking us to fasten our seats and I gazed out the window as we floated into Miami International. My first impression of Miami from the air was that it was flat, with lots of high-rise buildings and lots of ocean and bay water surrounding everything. As we got closer to the earth I could see that it was actually raining. This was pretty amazing to me, because living in LA you just didn’t see much rain. We cruised down to planet earth as the captain said Welcome to Miami and every one started to get off. I sauntered leisurely off the plane and walked downstairs to pick up my baggage.

After I picked up my red bag I turned around to notice several rental car companies with their bored looking reps waiting to deal with the next asshole customer, which is the way they probably looked at the folks that walked up to their counter inquiring about rental cars. I asked around and checked out their prices but I ended up just taking a shuttle to South Beach. It was a blue van and when I stepped inside there were three other young people sat inside the darkened interior of the van waiting to meet me.

There was one man and two women. The man was named Tony and he was a cinematographer who had just flown in from some work he had been doing in San Francisco. He lived in Miami and he and a lady named Sharonda from New York started chatting about the movie industry. Besides Tony and Sharonda there was a young girl from Houston named Ann, who was in Miami for some college get together. I think that Ann kind of liked me and she and I talked as Tony and Sharonda hit it off and ended up exchanging business cards. I was checking out Miami as everyone talked. It was tropical all right. It looked very lush and green, with palm trees everywhere and lots of pastel colored buildings. It was all surrounded by water, everywhere you looked: water and boats and ships.

We made our way past the tolls and bridges and ended up dropping Tony off first. He lived in a high rise that faced the water as all the buildings there seemed to do. Sharonda and he said goodbye to each other and then we dropped Sharonda off next. I was amazed to see that a lot of the traffic lights in Miami were placed horizontally instead of vertically, which was the only way that I had ever seen them. I mentioned this to the driver and he said this was a technique that they used in this part of the US on account of all the hurricanes that blasted through from time to time.

After we dropped off Sharonda, Ann and I started to talk more.

So, you are here for a big get together, eh?

Yes, there’s a big reunion with a group of the people that I went to college with, how about you? she asked me.

I’ve taken a month off work to visit Florida and Hawaii, and to write about my adventures and the people that I meet, along the way. I’ll be here in Miami tonight and then I’m going to rent a car and drive down the keys to Key West. I’ll be there for a while and then drive back up, fly back to LA, and then fly to Honolulu, and I’ll be in Hawaii for about two weeks and then back home to LA.

Wow that sounds like an interesting trip.

Yea, I hope it will be. I’m making a tour of the American tropics, ‘pursuing happiness’ in my own way, I said to her.

Yes, I’m doing the same thing, she told me, I am really glad to be here in Miami today, and I feel I’m very lucky to be here in the American tropics sat with you in this blue van, gliding luxuriously through the sleek, balmy streets of tropically exuberant South Beach!

I know exactly what you mean. In my opinion life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all!

Yes, she told me emphatically, when you really take a look at the immense possibilities for health and happiness in this country it is simply amazing. In fact, just think about how lucky we both are to find ourselves on the edge of an immense precipice of fun and thrills at the start of another glorious American summer.

I couldn’t agree with you more! I told her.

As we pulled up across from the Hotel in the heart of South Beach she told me her email address. I told her that I would email her and that we would keep in touch. I paid the driver and then looked around…

The light was incredible. Everywhere you looked: soft, gentle, pastel shades, from the buildings and from the high tropical sky. The neon of Miami Beach was colorful and bright in the early evening dusk. The sun was descending in the west covered in wet, moody clouds. The streets were alive with bustle and hustle and attitude. It was a really happening place that took your breath away.

I walked across the street, through the soft Caribbean air to the check out counter of the hotel. The lady that checked me in was from Brazil and after signing a few papers she led me to my room, which was actually in a different building about three hundred yards down the street. We walked along, past open-air restaurants and cafes where beautiful people sat eating, drinking and talking. Now don’t forget, this was the evening of the 4th of July and the already happening city was about to burst into even wilder life, as the independence day celebrations were just about to begin.

We made our way to the building and she let me into the entrance and told me I was in room 525, which was upstairs. I thanked her and said goodbye and then made my way up the tiled steps. I used a white plastic card to open the door and was amazed to see that I actually seemed to have snagged the best room in the entire building. It had a big balcony that looked out across the wild skyline of South Beach. The architecture was colorful and cosmopolitan.

The walls were painted pink, and the carpet was a bluish green color. There were three windows that all looked out onto the balcony. The bathroom was good looking with pink tiles and looked both exotic and erotic. I hung out in the room until the sounds of fireworks erupting in the city night drew me outside. As I was walking out two young girls were walking into the building and I caught the sound of an English accent and I asked them if they were from England. They were, and they told me that they were at the end of the first week of their three-week holiday. We chatted for a few short moments and then I hit the streets.

There was an intense feeling in the air. I am sure that it was a mixture of the excitement that I felt within myself caused from my recent arrival in the tropical city, and the fact that the city was about to celebrate Independence Day South Beach style. When I got to the corner I asked a young man which way the beach was and he replied with a distinct English accent that it was just a couple of blocks away. I walked along, marveling at the intensity and passion and Caribbean flavor of the place and I had to pinch myself to remind myself that I was still in America.

I made my way to the beach as the sounds of fireworks exploding filled the night. The experience I had reminded me of the scene in the Leonardo Dicaprio film, The Beach, when Richard and his French companions first make their way to the beach. Everyone around me seemed to be headed to the sand at the same time. I walked quickly, eager to not miss out on the firework display, through the luxuriant night, as the light display filled the black night city sky over the ocean side of Miami Beach. The display was awesome… every conceivable color of bright light filling the sky; a huge display that seemed to go on forever.

I walked across the soft sand and took my shoes off and stepped into the Atlantic Ocean. The water was warm, soft and soothing. The bright light of the firework display based to the south lit up the dark ocean water, turning it blue, green, red, white, pink, yellow… every color imaginable as I gazed in wild eyed wonder at the ocean city scene.

Everywhere you looked that night there was one beautiful woman after another strolling by in the beach night. The girls completely took your breath away; they were to die for. There were blondes, brunettes, black haired girls… think of a display of the prettiest girls on the planet… That was the sexy scene that was manifesting itself before my eyes that Independence Day night.

Besides the firework displays all over the city there were lots of wannabe pyromaniacs starting their own fireworks on the beach and that seemed to be a very dangerous idea to me. The ones that they were starting up were flying all over the place and paled in comparison to the displays that the city was presenting to everyone based a few miles to the south.

I wandered to a large stage area in the distance. As I got nearer I saw that it was the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir doing a patriotic show that had a large gathering of people that seemed to be pretty bored with their performance. There were a lot of young people there and how many young people do you know that really like classical music?

Along the way back to the Hotel I struck up a conversation with a semi good-looking girl that turned out to be yet another Brit on holiday. She was named Tracy, and was from London. We chatted for a while and then went our separate ways. I would probably never see her again… oh well… such is the life of the global wanderer.

Looking inland I noticed that I had seen the scene I was admiring before. There was a collection of neon lit, art deco buildings below the dusk city sky. I had actually seen a photo of them on the internet and had used the photo as a background on my desktop at home for about a week during the time that I had been planning out the American Tropics trip. It was a stunning vision of architectural brilliance and the whole scene blew my mind… totally… beauty beyond words… a wild tropical neon playground… I wanted to fall down and kiss the American earth filled with gratitude and thanks. Thanks to the beauty of America and the colorful vision of the American Tropics in mid summer. There was no more inspiring site for the human being that I was: a young man looking for a new love at the start of a 12,000 mile journey deep into the ‘heart of light’ of another glorious American Tropics summer.

I walked slowly through the thick white sands as one gorgeous lady after another strolled past me. The streets were humming and moving in the night. I walked back to my room and took a shower and changed my clothes. I then walked, dressed in tropical shorts and a white cotton vest, to the Local Coffee Bar next to the beach. There was a long line of people, mostly pretty girls dressed in skimpy summer clothing. I took time to admire one gorgeous young girl who must have been eighteen or nineteen with a fantastic cleavage that made my mouth water. No, I mean literally, I was practically drooling as I gazed at her open breast line and my mind thought that these Miami sweethearts were even hotter than the girls on the west coast.

I got a cold blended mocha espresso coffee and then walked back to my room in the 4th of July evening and did some writing, catching up on the unfolding story of the Tropics Tour. I had not eaten much all day, just the lousy omelet they served on the plane from LA to Charlotte, so I hit the wild, liberated streets and wandered around looking for something to eat. I walked down the block and sauntered around in the deep black ocean night. If I told you that the streets were alive that would qualify as the biggest understatement of my life so far.

The streets were teeming, electric. The soft purple and violet neon lights shone out into the depths of the summer night and the beautiful people of the evening walked around like liberated individuals bent on ‘pursuing happiness’ as quickly and intensely as they could. I have to tell you again about the women. They were from another planet. I had never seen so many well built, sensual goddesses in my entire life. They walked around throwing out their vibrant sexuality into the avenues and beach boulevards of the night. Their beauty was breathtaking and without any doubt completely beyond words.

Legs were seen to be smooth, tanned and perfectly shaped. Butts were sexy beyond belief and erotic, flashing passionately into the blackness of evening. Faces were made up with elegant cosmetics that accentuated the women’s beauty and deepened further their physical brilliance. Clothing was seen to be fashionable and tight fitting, as each woman sought to dress to impress and accentuate and reveal her physical attractiveness. Hair was long and prettily made up enveloped in an erotic feminine scent. Eyes glistened brightly in the warm night. Eyelashes fluttered clothed in black mascara. Breasts and cleavage dominated the streets, filling every heterosexual man with longing and desire. The Caribbean and Latin influence was seen everywhere. It was hedonistic chaos in those streets that mid summer evening: energy, excitement and passion beyond description.

I eventually settled for a couple of slices of pizza and sat down on a wooden stool inside a pizza place to nourish my wired, tired soul. The joint was playing rock and roll music loud and the heat of the pizza ovens made the inside of the place too warm. I moved and bobbed to the music, tapping my feet on the floor. Young Americans wandered in and out and ordered slices and drinks. The music played full blast and those in the mood danced and shouted their approvals into the warm air of the eating establishment. On the road outside the eatery, flashy American cars and taxis glided up and down the warm, gray tarmac. Bright silver chrome rims reflected the colorful night; traffic lights moved from red to green and back again as hundreds of residents and tourists merged with each other, all looking for sex, happiness and bliss in the tropic night.

It was Thomas Jefferson’s Pursuit of Happiness 2002 style. From 1776 to 2002, the expression and manifestation of pleasure may have been different, but the pursuit was still the same road of desire, thirst and hunger. The United States had changed a lot over those 226 years. If Thomas were to come back to life to walk those luxuriant streets with me that evening he would not have recognized his fellow countrymen and women. Thomas was resting in his grave at Monticello in Virginia several miles to the north, while the beach night groaned its song of sexual desire and craving.

I finished the pizza and continued to wander through the city. More women flashed by taking my attention and breath away. I gazed at their scantily clothed bodies savoring their sexuality, completely blown away by their intense vibe and passionate energy. They made your head spin around to take a second look when they glided by you. Their sexual brilliance lit up the streets with the natural electricity of human sensuality.

After walking along Ocean Avenue to the beach, I passed two young men and a young woman leaning up against the ocean wall. I stopped and sat down close to them. I wanted to hear the language and subject matter of their conversation. I could tell by their exuberance and excitement as they quickly exchanged ideas and concepts that they were well worth listening to.

Here we are at the start of another summer as our countries’ night sky is filled with the colorful remembrance of our successful quest to find independence and freedom from England and the old rigid monarchy. It just doesn’t get any better than this folks, does it, one of the men said.

No this is the bomb, man, it really is. How lucky we are to be here by the warm ocean at the edge of the American tropics, and here in the US, the land of endless possibility. Pursuing happiness is what it’s all about in my opinion and I agree with good old Tom J and what he said all those years ago.

At this point I watched the young lady give her opinion saying, Everyone who has the eyes to see us can see that we live our lives as passionately and as intensely as possible. In fact that is the trademark of our generation because we say ‘yes!’ to life in all of its wonder and happiness, in all of its grief and sadness. We live every day as if it were the last day that we have to live on planet earth, with joy, energy, passion, exhilaration and exuberance. In fact, in my opinion, becoming an authentic member of our generation is really all about accepting the ‘invitation to exhilaration,’ that is the central theme of our young societal philosophy. The young people of our generation have to be ready to face the ‘great challenge,’ that is inherent in our fresh new philosophy and to see the world with fresh young eyes without ready made beliefs and opinions that have been passed down by the generations of the past, and to savor the brilliance and beauty of planet earth and to try and do everything that we can to preserve this garden paradise for future generations! That, my friends, is what I think this great mysterious life of ours is all about!

I did not talk with these young romantic aesthetes as I leaned up against the wall that night, a stone’s throw away from the soothing waters of the Atlantic Ocean. I just wanted to experience them, and listen to their words of wisdom and insight as they looked for the deeper meaning behind the young lives that they all led. They were all inspired and uplifted and moved their arms and hands back and forth quickly with intensity and passion and I could see the fire of the generation in their eyes, as well as the reflection of the city night that surrounded and enveloped them with tenderness and warmth on all sides.

I would have to say that the people of the generation that I was a part of and experienced so acutely in the warm streets and boulevards of America that summer, all understood everything together and I believe that we all looked at life in the United States in the same way. Indeed, we all held the truths that were self evident, that we were all created equally and we were all ‘big believers’ in Life, Liberty and of course, the all important ‘Pursuit Of Happiness.’ That was the reason it was enough for me to sit there and listen to my fellow comrades that night and not need to be involved in their conversation. The members of the generation understood everything without having to say anything to one another. It was a kind of automatic telepathy that we all tapped into without really being aware of or giving a name to what we were experiencing. We were, after all, on the journey of modern life together and that night we were celebrating our freedom from England, our independence from sadness and frustration, and the beginning of the sunny road that we all walked along ‘pursuing happiness’ in the summer of that year.

I didn’t feel like walking across the sand so I just washed myself off at one of the beach showers and then wandered back to the room I had at the Hotel. Before I tried to sleep I went out on the balcony to admire the view. The neon lights of the city glowed and glittered in the art deco district. There was a new crescent moon above the skyline. I guess that meant that I would be watching that moon grown in whiteness and brightness over the next week that I was to spend down in Key West. It all seemed like it was going to be an awesome trip. I was ready to move on from the busy city to experience the slower pace of life in the Keys, so I crashed to prepare myself for the following day’s journey.

2

I tried to sleep, with no success. My biological clock was all screwed up on account of the time change, the three hour time difference between LA and Miami. It was that, but it was also on account of the triple espresso I had downed from the Local Coffee Bar. I was still wired to the max, wide awake.

The room had one of those big ceiling fans that spin around in warm parts of the country to cool the poor folks suffering from the heat and I ended up watching that thing whirl around and around. It all reminded me of the beginning of the movie Apocalypse Now. Do you remember the beginning of the film where Martin Sheen is in the hotel room in Saigon waiting for his big mission to go and kill Colonel Kurtz? The movie had an awesome monologue that Martin Sheen’s character read out throughout the film. Martin’s character, Captain Willard, talks about how much his time in Vietnam had screwed him up and that when he went home he didn’t say a word to his wife until he told her yes to the question of them getting divorced. I felt like him in a way. Natasha and I weren’t divorced yet but we would be soon, as soon as I could get my ass around the corner to the Divorce office close to where I lived to start the process. That is another thing you should know about me, I’m a big procrastinator. I guess you could say I am kind of lazy. I have a tendency to put off any thing I don’t really feel like doing until I absolutely have to do it.

Well there I was, lying down in that big empty bed thinking about Natasha. A few tears came to my eyes when I thought about what a wonderful person she had been, and about the ways that I had hurt her without really meaning to. I suppose the good part was that she seemed to be quite happy now. She had a new lover, and I guess that made me happy too. That was all I really wanted for her. I just wanted her to be happy, now that she was; I suppose I should be happy for her too.

I turned to look to my left, which was the side of the bed that I had always seen her on during our seven years together. I was pretty sad and lonely. I wondered what she was up to that 4th of July night. Here I was on the other side of the country and Natasha didn’t even know that I was out here. We didn’t talk much now, just occasionally, nothing on a regular basis. When I spoke to her on the phone I got really emotional and upset.

The windows of the hotel room were cool; arched shaped, tall and high. They went all the way from the floor up towards the ceiling, more than six feet high. The blinds were closed, but there was still some street lights shining through. Outside from time to time you could hear some young drunks walking and shouting, making their way down the street.

The windows started to get lighter around 7am. I opened the door and went out on the balcony to see what was going on. The streets were completely deserted; I suppose that everyone was still in bed at home trying to recover from their 4th of July evening hangovers. The sun was bright and warm, giving light and life to the seaside city. There was a potted palm tree out there on the balcony and the summer sun was behind its tropical leaves. It was an awesome scene. All the buildings you could see around were all painted in pastel colors. South Beach really was a good looking place.

After enjoying the view I tried to get some more rest until around 9:30am or 10am and then took a shower and shaved and then sat down to do some writing. I wrote until after 11am, writing as intensely and passionately as I possibly could, trying to make the story of the American tropics tour as cool possible, and then started to get myself ready for the car rental process, checking out of the hotel and making my way down to Key West.

I was amazed to see how high the sun was in the sky. It really looked like a big yellow spotlight in the middle of the blue heavens. I had never seen the sun so high in the sky before in my entire life. I thought to myself that I must have seen a sun like that before when I lived in Hawaii in the winter of 1990, because Honolulu is even closer to the equator than Miami is. Then I realized that I had been in Hawaii in the winter, so I had probably never seen a sun so high before. I grew up in a country far away from the equator, so most of my adult life I have gotten a big kick out of the fact that I have left a country where the weather is miserable and dull. I love bright lights and color, this is probably why I love the art of the impressionists and post impressionists so much.

This was the essence of the American Tropics tour for me: I was visiting the most tropical parts of the United States, my adopted home and my sun filled salvation and refuge from an alternative life in North West England, where the sun spent little time sharing it’s warmth and its profound ability to make life worth living. In LA, of course, the sun was available everyday and this was the reason that I had settled in Southern California, of all the places that I could have settled down in America, the great experiment in freedom and wealth.

The tour for me was a celebration of light, joy, optimism and an exclamation expressing my happiness and gratitude at living in a country that had good weather, a country that had areas that were deeply tropical, where one could travel to in the hopes of shaking off the memories and difficulties of one’s first marriage. I wanted to see the southern most points of the United States and I was prepared to travel 12,000 miles and step on and off one plane after another to accomplish my goal. I was prepared to rent one rental car after another and drive any number of miles to see the brilliance and inspiration that a tour of tropical America could provide to my 33 year old body and mind. I was like a literary bird flying south to search for a gentler climate. I was a young writer on my way to search for the literary inspiration that a visit to Key West, the home of the writer Ernest Hemingway, could provide me. I was looking for inspiration and a chance to write about the members of the generation that I saw around me everywhere I went that tropical summer. I was declaring my independence from negativity and self doubt and coming home to a new life in America, a life that I had the chance to create, in a country that allowed me to create and pursue my own path to happiness and success.

I walked in front of the building after I left and was right when I had concluded that I had managed to get the best room in the entire building. It was an old art deco hotel building of a pastel blue color. I made a point to remember the number of the room I was in so that if I ever got into a relationship in the future I could bring the lady out to South Beach sometime and have my way with her in that cool room with its queen size bed.

I wandered along the street and checked out of the hotel. Elis, the blonde haired lady from Brazil helped me and then she called a company that they worked with that had rental cars. After a while on the phone the best thing she could find at an economical price was a Dodge Stratus. I told her I would try and find a car someplace else because I didn’t want to drive down to Key West in a Dodge. Somehow, the thought of making that drive down the Florida Keys that summer in a Dodge just didn’t fit in with the image I had in my mind of the trip. I shook Elis’s hand and thanked her and then walked out to the hotel’s arched shaped entrance and looked around in the bright afternoon.

To the right stood a young man cleaning the windows of the store that he worked at. I struck up a conversation with him and he told me that a few blocks down the street there was an area where there was a small cluster of rental car companies. He said it was at 20th and Collins. During the course of the conversation I found out that he was from Argentina and we talked about soccer. All about Argentina’s poor performance in the world cup that had taken place just a few weeks ago. We spoke about Bautista’s sadness and the great players that his country had produced over the years. Maradonna, Mario Kempes…

I went walking through the South Beach afternoon. It was a brilliant sunny day in early July. Making my way to Collins I asked a man on the corner where the rental car offices were and he said there was one even closer than 20th and Collins. He was right, just a few yards along Collins there was a rental car office in front of the warm, light gray tarmac of Collins Avenue in the intense sunlight. I went in there and found that the best they could offer was a Dodge Intrepid, but that there was a $250 deposit they would charge on my credit card, besides the cost of renting the car. That was not what I was looking for so I started walking down Collins for more car rental offices.

I walked along the street, eight or nine, long, gorgeous blocks. When I say gorgeous I am not trying to be sarcastic, by the way. They were gorgeous. Bright pastel colors; lazy, elegant palm trees that seemed to radiate with their own interior light. This was a place where planet earth manifested itself in all of its profound glory. Small parks had green grass, verdant and alive in the southern Florida summer. There were huge pastel colored condominium buildings, twenty or thirty stories high that stood tall over the glorious blue brilliance of the Atlantic Ocean. The palm trees were filled with coconuts and the afternoon breeze whispered a gentle song within my lonesome ears.

I walked on; sweat streaming down my face, and falling into the dark lenses of my Ray Ban sunglasses. I came across a couple of friendly ladies from New York and asked them if there were rental car companies further down the street and they reassured me that they had just passed them. One of the ladies really impressed me. She reminded me of how much I loved and admired the American people for all of their warmth and hospitality.

The first place I found was a joke. They had a $50 fee for dropping the car off in Key West, and they were asking $60 for a Ford Escort. After hearing about their $50 fee I came to the conclusion that a place like that was not looking for a customer, they were looking for a victim. I mean, none of the other companies I had checked out were charging a fee to drop off the rental in Key West. As if I was going to glide down the Keys in an Escort anyway…

Across the street were two rental car companies together. The first one was a small place that had no offices in Key West for me to drop the car off at, but the pleasant American man directed me next door to another office, where I ended up renting a cream colored Buick Century with a light tan interior. I would have gone for a convertible if they had one, but all they had was the Buick and a Pontiac Bonneville that was grey with a dark grey interior. I used to own a Bonneville, actually. It was grey too. It had been a good car, but who really wants to own a grey car. I mean grey isn’t exactly a cheerful color now is it. So that was the car I used to drive down the Florida Keys that summer. I figured if it was good enough for Tiger Woods, it was good enough for me.

3

After doing all the paperwork I hit the road and drove down Collins Street. There was only one bad thing about the Century and that was that it did not have a CD player. Before I got it the guy at the counter had told me that it did have a CD player, but when I got in it there was none to be seen. Oh, well, I was just glad to be on the road at last. I checked out all the stations on the FM dial. At one point I listened to some Latin music and glanced around checking out the ladies walking along Collins. They were beautiful, alright. I had never seen so many pretty women in one place before as I did that summer in South Beach. Everywhere you looked they appeared, and they just seemed to have an exotic, passionate vibe about them. I lived in LA, close to the ocean, near Venice Beach, and the women there were mind blowing as well, but here in Miami they were different somehow and had a powerful sensuality about them. I love women. When Natasha and I broke up I spent lots of time on the internet trying to find a new lady. I met lots of girls, more than 30, but I never found a really hot one. Most of them were overweight.

It was a sensuous drive along the vibrant early afternoon streets of South Beach. On 5th Street I turned right, and then drove west to Macarthur Causeway, which was a remarkable road that went across the bright blue bay which glistened in the afternoon light. I could see Tony’s building to the right and realized that I was driving back the same way that the blue shuttle had brought me the day before. I wondered what Tony was up to today. I figured he was probably resting after his flight from San Francisco and admiring the view from his place over the waters of the bay.

The cars around me were casting no shadows. I figured that was on account of the fact that the sun was so high up in the sky. That was awesome to see, and I got a big kick out of being that far south in the American Tropics, as I drove along, digging everything in sight. I made my way along and then to the left I saw a big cruise ship. I don’t remember which one it was, but it looked magnificent that afternoon. It was huge and white and I don’t think there were many people on board. I could recognize the area that I was passing through from the movie that Eddie Murphy starred in with Jeff Goldblum. It was the same area that they used to shot the scene where Eddie is at the side of the road when Jeff and his lady drive by. I forgot the name of that movie, but I recognized that this was the area where that scene was shot. After passing the incredibly beautiful ship I saw another one further down the harbor, but I couldn’t recognize what company it was.

When I started to get close to the airport I noticed a big gray cloud up ahead. It was a big ominous cloud. I guess that depending on your opinion, the moody, tropical skies of Miami were either a blessing or a burden. For me, just a visitor to the area they were neither. I was just there to write the story of the American Tropics tour. After all, I didn’t live in Miami, and I doubted that I ever would, it was just too humid for me.

To give you an idea of just how moody the weather was in Miami that summer I would like to remind you that just a few moments ago I was telling you about how the cars were casting no shadows in the bright, blissful afternoon light and now a few seconds later I am telling you about a huge dark gray cloud that developed when I got close to Miami International. That was how it was in the continental US tropics that whole summer while I was there. One moment sunny and clear, the next moment a huge thunder shower was breaking down from the sky and dumping a boat load of water down on planet earth. It was all new to me, and I got a big bang out of seeing all this for the first time.

As I turned off onto highway 836 the rain started to fall. When I say it started to fall I really mean it. I couldn’t see a damn thing when I was turning off and was afraid I’d get into an accident. I turned the windshield wipers on full blast and prayed I’d make the turn okay. I was fine and slowed down to lessen the chances of some sad event taking place early on in the Tour, which would blow my attempts to make it all seem like a lot of fun. The last thing I needed was a car accident in a rental car. I glided along and made my way along 836 in the smooth, powerful Buick.

After maybe 10 minutes of intense rain, the sky cleared up again and the Floridian sun came shinning down again. I made my way along 836 and then flashed along connecting with 826 south. This took me to Highway One, which was the highway that connected all the Keys together and would take me to my final destination of Key West, a town that waited for my arrival 150 miles south west from where I now drove as the rain had cleaned everything and the sun lit up the adventurous journey that I was in the midst of.

As I was gliding along I was surprised to see a drive through coffee shop and a drive through pharmacy. The thought that went through my head when I saw those businesses was the well known phrase you heard in the states all the time: Only in America. I guess only in America you could see people driving through businesses that gave them their much needed coffee and medicine, without requiring them to step out of their luxuriant American automobiles.

All the way along the Floridian road I had been flipping through the radio stations and I had quickly come to the conclusion that one of the best stations for me was going to be the classic rock station in Miami on the FM dial. A great tune from Billy Joel came on the radio as I was going along highway one north of Homestead. Leave a tender moment alone played and I had a good time enjoying that tune as I flashed along headed toward the Keys. There were some good disco tunes on the radio too and I listened to those as I came into Homestead passing a big fighter jet propped up like a statue by the side of the highway. I was playing the music so loud inside the car that it made the mirrors on either side of the Buick vibrate and rattle with the loudness of the tunes.

I was hungry and thirsty at that point, but I didn’t want to stop just yet. I kept on going as highway one became more and more rural and the marshlands started to appear all around me. The colors of the vegetation were different than I had ever seen before. They had a greenish purple shade that glowed beneath the blue sky that was tall and high. I passed a sign that told one that so far this year there had been 11 fatalities on highway one, and then green signs that were spaced out that asked you to drive with patience and wait for the passing areas coming up ahead.

I motored on, driving the smooth Buick along at a nice even pace. I seemed to glide over the road I was so excited and inspired by the incredible terrain, and along I went flashing through Key Largo, feeling so happy and joyous I had to hold hard onto the steering wheel for fear of floating up into the blue American skies, I was so stoked.

I had thought that Key Largo would be different than it turned out to be. Before the trip I had imagined that Key Largo would have been surrounded by the light blue tropical waters of the Keys, but when you drove along the highway you were really surrounded by trees and seafood restaurants and boating stores. I guess I had a different image in my mind of Key Largo