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It was noon…

Key West is a rum-covered island that breaks the surface of the Caribbean 150 miles east-southeast of Miami and 90 miles north of Cuba, and is said to be the southernmost city in the United States. A dank street near its leeward beach is called by the Cubans “Calle de los Muchachos,” Boys’ Street. Close to its dead end is a sun-bleached and tattered essay that was never turned in to Dr. Margaret Hatcher’s Creative Writing class, a class that was held over a thousand miles away in a temporary building in an arts magnet school in 1981. No one has explained who was working on a homework assignment at that latitude.

It was noon.
So this is how it is, I thought; this is how it always happens in the noon.
Obscenity your noon.
It is written somewhere on every man's body that there are five things that make a man happy.
There is food and there is drink.
There is work and there is friendship and then there is love.
I thought I had it all on this holiday in Key West until I looked across the bedroom at the girl with the long black hair.
Written on her naked body was but a single question – “Papa, did you bring the Hard Stuff?”
“What do you want to drink,” I asked the girl.
Nada,” was her reply.
With my last 50 piasters I purchased some true and honest nada; I took a long, slow pull from the bottle.
It was good.
It burned my mouth and felt good and warm and right, going down my aesophagus and into my stomach.
From there part of it became my blood, and the rest of it went to my kidneys and my bladder, and was good.
I remembered then when I last saw dos Passos who was still a damn fine writer, before he faced the bull that is white paper with no words on it for the last time.
It was in Key West and we looked out the windows at the Cayo Hueso and drank nada in the noon.
It was noon and had been noon for some time.
“Will you ruin me?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she said, "but in the good way that a woman ruins a man.” Saying this she squeezed my hand.
“Yes,” I said, and poured two fingers into her glass. And there we sat, sipping our nada and not speaking, and I knew that I still had plenty of time to figure out what she meant by that.

the bull that is white paper with no words on it
the bull that is white paper with no words on it
Papa, did you bring the Hard Stuff?
Papa, did you bring the Hard Stuff?
The good way that a woman ruins a man.
The good way that a woman ruins a man.
'we sat, sipping our nada and not speaking'
“…we sat, sipping our nada and not speaking…”