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Which Way to Lime Key? Trinidad Joe
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“Hey
buddy, do you know how to get to Lime Key?” I asked a sailor at
Schooner Wharf Bar.
“Never heard of it,” mumbled the fellow. So I asked a woman passing by.
“I know where Looe Key is,” she answered.
“No, not Looe
Key. I’m trying to find Lime Key—the place where the best
Key limes grow.
“Ain’t no such place,” announced the bartender.
“Sure there is,” ventured a
newly arrived stranger. Lime Cay is off the coast of
Jamaica.”
“No, no, no,” I
protested. I went there, but that’s not the
one. Uncle Frankie told me it isn’t far from
here. He called Key West ‘The Land of the Setting
Sun’. I know that in order to find Lime Key, I have to sail
somewhere beyond Boca Chica. I just don’t know which way or
how far.
* * * *
I can still hear Uncle
Frankie saying: “Alex, my boy, I used to sail there and pick bushels of
Key limes. They were the best kind for making my specialty
drinks. I didn’t use anything else to make my ‘Caribbean
Sunrise’, ‘California Sunset’, and ‘Pirate’s Sweat’.
Some of the characters I met
here used to tease me about it. The main one was Cayo
Jack. He was one of the last wreckers to work these
waters. Another was a Hemingway chap called Big
Ernie. He had a sidekick who called himself Cap’n
Tony. I wonder whatever became of him. He
predicted that he would become the mayor of Key West and have about
thirteen children. What an imagination!
The four of us were closer
that the Three Musketeers. I would make my drinks for us,
but I wouldn’t tell them my recipes. It didn’t matter how
much they begged or bribed. They only knew that I used Key
limes and lots of rum. I also added a whole bunch of other
stuff in combinations that would baffle a chemist. There was
a dash of this, a pinch of that, and a few drops from assorted bottles
without labels. None of this was written down, but the
drinks were perfect every time.
I was good at arm wrestling,
too. In fact, that’s how I gave Big Ernie the name
‘Papa’. I’d just challenged anybody in Sloppy’s (Sloppy
Joe’s Bar, that is) when Ernie walked in with a gal called Wild
Willy. She accepted my challenge, sat down, and rolled up
her left sleeve, which exposed the tattoo of a heart with the word
‘Papa’.
Willy grabbed my hand as I shouted, “I ain’t no lefty!”
Ernie quickly said, “1, 2, 3, GO!” Before I could react, it was over.
I told her, “You and your
‘Papa’ are too much for me.” And that’s how Ernie got the
name.
“I’ll give you a rematch,”
she offered, “if you’ll give me the recipe to one of your drinks.”
She was practicing her
negotiating skills, which she perfected years later as a county
commissioner. I figured that the masters-of-mischief—Jack
and Tony—had given her the idea. So I guess I will have to
live with the unavenged loss.
I didn’t grieve too long
because it was time to go to New Orleans for Mardi
Gras. What a party! The five of us, including
Wild Willy, had a
blast. Food! Music! Drinks! Food-Music-Drinks!! More
FoodMusicDrinks!!! Oh yeah, we saw a few floats, too.
On the way home to Key West,
Cayo Jack and Cap’n Tony got into an argument over which was the better
summertime drink, iced tea or lemonade.
“Don’t you two start that
same argument again,” Hemingway commanded. And that was the
end of that. That is, until I joined in.
“Neither one is as good as my
Key lime punch. They don’t have the same zing.”
“Well, Professor Frankie,”
said Jack sarcastically, “just what is this thing you call ‘zing’?”
“If I ever let you taste it, you’ll know it.”
“I know,” said Wild Willy,
“that I like your ‘Caribbean Sunrise’ and ‘California Sunset’, but you
can keep your other drink. I don’t want any ‘Pirate’s
Sweat’. What a horrible name!”
“All I know,” added Tony, “is
that I would like you to make some more of your creations as soon as we
get back.”
Well, I made them wait a few
days before inviting them over to try some new variations. I
started mixing several concoctions. Jack and Tony were the
happy guinea pigs.
Ernie said, “You are just a pair of pigs.”
Since he was laughing when he
said it, Tony started laughing, too. But Jack gave him a
look that could have killed a horse.
By this time, either the
drinks started tasting better or they started tasting less.
Anyhow, I grew tired of mixing different combinations. The
counter looked like a mad scientist’s lab. I have no idea
which one was the best. I never remembered to ask and they
never volunteered the information. They didn’t volunteer to
clean up either. They all came up with weak excuses about
why they had to leave right away.
A few days later, I decided
to play a trick on Tony. I said, “Bet you didn’t know that
Key limes are an aphrodisiac.”
“Frankie, you Floribbeans make up the weirdest stuff.”
“What did you call
me?” I didn’t know if I’d just been insulted or complimented.
Tony said it again slower and
clearer. I’ve been called many things before, but never
that. I liked the sound of it. Sensing that I was
still puzzled, he told me what it meant.
“Folks from the Caribbean who are in Florida are Floribbeans.”
“Tony, that sounds like something you made up.”
Later, I heard him asking
Jack about the Key limes. He didn’t ask Big Ernie because
the three of us were all off-islanders. Cayo Jack was the
only native Conch. I winked at Jack and he told Tony that I
was right.
We got a good laugh from this
because Tony went on a Key lime-eating craze. He had a
ritual where he had to have something made from them every
day. He preferred having one of my drinks, but I didn’t feel
like making them all the time. So, whenever I refused, he
would just suck on a lime instead. For years, he always had
at least one in his pocket.
* * * *
Well, the people in the bar
didn’t believe anything Uncle Frankie told me about old Key
West. I’ll just have to find Cap’n Tony and ask
him. I hope he remembers the way to Lime Key.
I heard he became mayor and had 13 kids. Wow, the limes really worked.
The End? |
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Date Submitted:
2001-03-07 00:00:00 |
Copyright Information:
Copyright © Trinidad Joe, 2001 |
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