by Dave Barry
The highlight of Captain Tony’s life—again, according to him—was in 1989 when, after multiple tries, he got elected mayor of Key West. He won by thirty-two votes and served one two-year term. As it happened, I interviewed him while he was mayor, for a story I was writing for The Miami Herald.
The story involved large colonies of monkeys that were being bred for medical research on two uninhabited mangrove-fringed islands about twenty-five miles from Key West. By 1990, when I wrote about them, the monkey islands had become controversial. Environmentalists were upset about what the monkeys were doing to the mangroves, and animal-rights activists were upset about what researchers were doing to the monkeys. The anti-monkey forces also raised the issue of what would happen if the monkeys—maybe by riding driftwood during a storm—somehow escaped from the islands and got loose in the Keys. As one of the Monroe County commissioners put it at the time, “If you have a hurricane, you’re going to blow those monkeys all over the Keys.”
For my story, I talked the research people into giving me a tour of the monkey islands, which was fascinating. If you want to see high-tension drama, watch 2,200 screeching, teeth-baring monkeys work out exactly who is going to get how much of the daily allotment of Purina Monkey Chow. It is a process that makes the U.S. Congress look like a calm and thoughtful deliberative body.
I did most of my research for the monkey story in Key West. Among other things, I rented a monkey costume and wore it around to various tourist sites in an effort to determine what impact the presence of monkeys would have on Key West. The answer was: Basically, zero impact. In a town where it is not uncommon to see people walking around naked, nobody’s going to get excited about a guy in a monkey suit.
By far the highlight of my research was my interview with Mayor Tarracino. I thought I had an appointment, but when I went to City Hall, there was no one around the mayor’s office and the mayor’s door was closed. Just when I was about to knock, the door opened and there was Tony. His office was dark and he was blinking like a man who just woke up.
“Hey!” he said, turning on the lights and inviting me into his office.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m Dave Barry, with The Miami Herald, and . . .”
“Hell yes!” said the mayor. “I know! Dick Barry! Sure!”
“Dave Barry,” I said.
“Dave Barry!” he said. “Sure! What the fuck can I do for you?”
So I asked him about the monkey menace, and here, as best as I was able to write it down, was his response, which came out in what sounded like one long sentence:
“Way, way back, Tennessee Williams and I were very close friends. Very close. He was going to Russia, and he asked me to take care of his two monkeys, which were named Creature and Lioness, only because Tennessee was gay, Creature was the female and Lioness was the male. I was supposed to have them for six months, but I had them for years. We kept them in a cage in the bar. They were lovers, but he could never bang her—I guess you can’t put this in the newspaper, but I’ll tell you anyway—he could never bang her unless I got her excited. I’d make these noises like this (the mayor makes monkey noises) and she’d go crazy. She loved it. So one day, Creature, which is the female, died, and Lioness, it was so pathetic, just wouldn’t let go of her for days, but we finally got her out of there and buried her, it was a nice ceremony, and Tennessee really felt bad. But we had Lioness for many years. He loved marijuana. That monkey was always high. But one day we came in and he was just lying on his shelf there, and we knew it was all over. Am I talking too fast? And so we buried him, it was beautiful, with a little cross. Tennessee called up—I can’t tell you how close he was to them, they always knew when he walked in—and I said, ‘Tennessee, he didn’t suffer.’ But talking about monkeys, they’re the most human things in the world, once you get to know them. I’d LOVE to have monkeys in Key West. Key West is an outdoor insane asylum anyway. We just never put up the walls.”
That remains my favorite journalism interview of my entire career. Now more than ever, this nation needs men like Captain Tony in leadership roles.
George and I enjoy some cold refreshing beers at Captain Tony’s while listening to the entertainment, which consists—prepare to be surprised—of a guitar-playing singer who sounds like Jimmy Buffett. He is singing “American Pie” and the tourists are singing right along.
From Captain Tony’s, George and I head across Duval to Sloppy Joe’s, which is one of the biggest and most popular bars in Key West. There’s a big tourist crowd on hand, drinking beer and listening to the entertainment, which consists of—and this may be the secret to Sloppy Joe’s success—two guitar-playing guys who sound like Jimmy Buffett.
We listen for a few minutes, then leave. We pause outside the Lazy Gecko bar, where beer-drinking tourists are listening to the sounds of a barbershop quartet.
No, seriously, they’re listening to a guitar player who sounds like Jimmy Buffett. We decide to head back across Duval. George opens the door to the Red Garter Saloon and goes in, with me following. It does not occur to me—remember, we have been consuming beers—to wonder why this particular bar, unlike the others, has its door closed.
It’s darker inside the Red Garter, as there are no windows. Immediately I notice three unusual things:
Although there is music playing, it does not sound like Jimmy Buffett.
There are naked women in here.
THERE ARE WOMEN IN HERE WHO ARE NAKED.
It turns out that George, as my local guide, has decided my Key West research expedition needs to include at least one strip club. The Red Garter is one of a half-dozen such clubs in the city.
In case you’re wondering how the local political establishment feels about a strip club operating in the middle of the main tourist area, here’s a fact you may find helpful: The owner of the Red Garter is Mick Rossi, who is a Key West city commissioner. Rossi also owns a bar next to the Red Garter called Rick’s, where, in 2014, Rossi got into a fight with a tourist over a barstool.
According to the Miami Herald account of the fight, the tourist asked a woman at the bar if he could take the stool next to her so an older man in the tourist’s party could sit on it. According to the tourist, the woman—who turned out to be Rossi’s wife—said it was OK. But when the tourist started to move the stool, a gray-haired man—who turned out to be Rossi—started yelling at him and shoving him. The tourist shoved the man back, and next thing he knew he was on the floor, being held down by a Rick’s employee and another man, who turned out to be the manager of the waste management company contracted by the city to handle Key West’s garbage. According to the police report, Rossi stated that there was “no way anyone was going to take his wife’s stool.”
You have to admire a man who defends his wife’s stool.
In the end, everybody decided it was just a misunderstanding and no charges were pressed. My point is, the Key West political establishment is not the kind of political establishment to get its thong in a knot over a strip club.
But getting back to the naked women:
I’m uncomfortable in the Red Garter. I don’t frequent strip clubs.
Now, you’re probably saying: “Suuure you don’t! Also, you never inhaled!”
No, I definitely inhaled. There was a stretch in the sixties, roughly 1966 through 1969, when I never exhaled. But on those extremely rare occasions when I have found myself, always for solid journalism reasons, in strip clubs, I have been very uncomfortable. So here in the Red Garter I’m trying to look cool, or at least keep my lower jaw from touching my kneecaps, but I am nervous. George starts walking through the club, and, not wanting to be left alone, I follow. We pass a very fit naked woman on a stage, leaning over and talking with a man. She looks up and sees George. She smiles brightly and waves. He waves back.
“Who’s that?” I ask George.
“My tenant,” says George. “She’s a nice kid.”
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The woman resumes talking with the man and we resume walking, toward what George says is the rear exit of the Red Garter. Suddenly our path is blocked by a woman. She is not naked, but she is wearing a very revealing outfit, which reveals that any given one of her breasts would be visible from the International Space Station. She informs us that we can’t get out by the back way.
“But you could have a nice lap dance back there,” she says.
George and I—both of whom are, for the record, happily married to beautiful sexy women who may very well read this book—politely decline and turn back around. As we pass George’s tenant, she again smiles and waves, the friendly way you might wave at a neighbor you see in the supermarket, except, as I believe I have noted, she is naked.
We exit the Red Garter into the afternoon glare and cross back over Duval to a bar called Irish Kevin’s, where we drink cold refreshing Irish beers and listen for a while to the guitar player, who is not Irish and who, in fact, sounds like Jimmy Buffett. From there we proceed to the Smokin’ Tuna Saloon, which, at the moment, has no musical entertainment but does have a signature drink called the Smokin’ Woo Woo. We decide to stick with beer.
We then proceed up Duval to the Bull and Whistle, which has bars on the first and second floors. George informs me that we’re going to a third bar, on the rooftop, called the Garden of Eden. This time I know what we’re getting into: The Garden of Eden, as the sign outside clearly states, is a clothing-optional bar.
We climb the stairs, and just before the door to the rooftop we encounter a less-inviting sign informing us, among other things, that we cannot use our cell phones or have sex on the premises, and that if we try to capture or send images, the Garden of Eden reserves the right to destroy our devices.
We open the door and enter and instantly my eyeballs are struck with great violence by the sight of two people who are extremely naked, but not in a good way. These are two men in their fifties or sixties, lying on lounge chairs positioned so that they face the bar entrance. These are not fit individuals. These are two saggy old exhibitionists, and they are lying with their legs spread apart. I will not go into detail about the vista they are presenting except to say that if you were to capture this image, the Garden of Eden would not have to destroy your device because it would spontaneously explode.
Averting my eyes, I head for the bar, where a group of men are clustered around a topless, tattooed middle-aged woman. She appears to be with one of the men—he has his arm around her shoulders—but she’s chatting jovially with the others. They are discussing her tattoos, which are conveniently located in her bosom region, so they’re basically just sitting around ogling her, which of course is why she’s there.
I purchase two cold refreshing beers. George makes the observation—we’ve all made it—that so often the people who want you to see them naked are not the people that you want to see naked. We decide to move down one flight of stairs and finish our beers in the bar directly below, which is not clothing-optional. We sit on the balcony overlooking Duval, watching the passing parade. A herd of Harley riders the size of full-grown manatees rumbles past, tailpipes blatting.
A few seats down from us on the balcony is a guy drinking a cocktail. After a couple of minutes, a middle-aged couple—the man in shorts and a T-shirt; the woman in a sundress—sits down next to him. The woman asks the cocktail-drinking man if he will take their picture. He says sure, and she hands him a phone. The couple faces the man, which means they are also facing George and me. The woman is sitting on a stool and the man is standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders. They are both smiling for the photo. As the cocktail-drinking man holds up the phone to take the picture, the woman opens her legs wide. I have an excellent view, and can state for a fact that the woman is not wearing any underwear, nor is she a big believer in intimate personal grooming.
The man takes the photo. The couple thanks him and leaves.
“Did you see that?” I ask George.
“See what?” he says. He missed it. I ask the cocktail-drinking man if he saw it. He says he didn’t; he was concentrating on pressing the right part of the camera screen. So I’m the only one who saw it. But I definitely saw it. I wonder if this was a spur-of-the-moment decision by the woman, inspired by Key West, or something the couple does everywhere, to create a special photo souvenir. (“And here we are at the Grand Canyon!”)
George and I finish our beers and retrieve our bicycles, which, miraculously, we are still able to ride. We pedal to the Green Parrot Bar (“A Sunny Place for Shady People”). We’re off Duval now; the crowd is more local, and, at the moment, there is no Buffett-like singer. We enjoy a couple of cold refreshing beers and pedal onward to the 801 Bourbon Bar, which has a cabaret show upstairs in the evening but is pretty quiet at the moment. We order a couple of cold refreshing beers. George asks the bartender about the show; the bartender gives him a postcard with more information and photos of the dancers.
“They’re gorgeous,” says George.
“They’re all guys,” says the bartender.
“I know,” says George. “Amazing.”
I assume it goes without saying that Key West has a major drag scene.
We get back onto our bicycles and pedal onward. This time our destination is not a bar: It is the old Key West fire station, which is now a fire-department museum. We’re here to pay homage to a near-mythical Key West figure, a man who ranks right up there in island lore with Captain Tony. I refer to the city’s legendary former fire chief, Bum Farto.
Yes: Bum Farto.
Joseph “Bum” Farto was born in Key West on July 3, 1919.37 He was named fire chief in 1964. He wore rose-tinted glasses and his license plate said EL JEFE. In the 1970s, when there was a lot of drug-dealing going on in Key West, Bum got involved, sometimes selling drugs from the fire station. He was arrested in 1975, as part of an investigation called Operation Conch, and in 1976 he was convicted of selling marijuana and cocaine. The mayor at the time, Charles “Sonny” McCoy, said: “This is a very sad day for Key West. It was disappointing to hear these things were actually being done on city property.”
(That quote reminds me of Captain Renault’s line in Casablanca: “I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”)
Three days after his conviction, Bum told his wife he had a meeting in Miami. Then he disappeared. For good. He has not been seen since. For a while, T-shirts that said WHERE IS BUM FARTO? were hot sellers in Key West, but those are scarce now. There’s one on display in the firehouse museum, along with Bum’s desk and some of his possessions. So the spirit of Bum lives on.
George and I spend a few minutes at the firehouse, burping reflectively, then pedal on back to George’s house. We change into warmer clothing—the sun’s going down—and prepare ourselves for the evening ahead with some cold refreshing beer.
We set out again, heading back to Duval. We stop briefly outside the Aqua Nightclub, where George takes my picture with one of the drag performers, who is outside drumming up business and who could play offensive tackle for the Kansas City Chiefs.
We pedal back to lower Duval. We eat at a Thai restaurant that has a sign asking us to please not feed the chickens. There are wild chickens roaming everywhere in Key West; you hear roosters crowing all the time. Some people find the chickens charming, others think they’re a noisy nuisance, even a health menace. The attitude of the chickens is Hey, we’re here. What are you gonna do about it? The answer, this being Key West, is: Nothing.
We leave the restaurant and pause outside Sloppy Joe’s, where two guys who sound like Jimmy Buffett—they could be the same two as before, or different ones, there is no way to tell—are leading the tourist crowd in a sing-along. The crowd’s part of the song is to yell “FUCK YOU!” The crowd yells this happily.
From there, we head back over to the Hog’s Breath, where the entertainment is now a guitar-playing guy and
a woman singer who sounds nothing at all like Jimmy Buffett. I am tempted to summon the authorities, but I’m pretty sure that Key West has no authorities.
We proceed to Durty Harry’s, a bar that’s part of the entertainment complex owned by the city commissioner who got into a fight with a tourist while defending his wife’s stool. Spring Break is under way and the complex is packed with college students. We pay a $5 cover charge and go inside. We drink a couple of cold refreshing beers and listen to the musical entertainment, which is a rock band, the Durtbags, who also sound nothing like Jimmy Buffett. We are the oldest people in there by at least 150 years.
After a while we return to our bikes and pedal over once again to the Green Parrot, which is also packed. The musical entertainment is Cold Hard Cash, a Johnny Cash tribute band. We have now gone to three non-Buffett bars in a row. It’s as if the whole world is spinning out of control.
We have what will turn out to be our final cold refreshing beers of the night, then get back on our bikes and wobble home, passing carousing clots of tourists, transvestites, Harley dudes, college students, etc. Also the occasional chicken. It has been a long day, but, at the same time, it has been spectacularly unproductive. A perfect Key West day. I am asleep within seconds.
I awaken the next morning to the sound of roosters crowing and tiny men using jackhammers to break out from inside my skull. George and I need to get back to Miami; we have obligations, and we need to arrange for liver transplants. But before we leave Key West, in the interest of journalism balance, I want to interview one of George’s tenants. No, not the woman from the Red Garter. You wish. This tenant is Ed Krane and he’s running for mayor.