Four Days with Hemingway's Ghost (2 page)

“Oh yeah,” I said next, “if I am in some kind of a coma, I’m sure you’re just a figment of my supposed out-to-lunch subconscious.  But you say no.  You say you’re running errands for God!  Come on now, you just said ‘son of a bitch.’  If there is such a place as heaven, I seriously doubt they’d send an angel or whatever who talks like that.”

“
Pffffff
,” Ernest exhaled through tight lips then laughed, “Hah, hah, hah, hah!  Lighten up, my friend.  Up in the clouds they’re not nearly as uptight as everybody down here thinks.”

As much as I wanted to believe this was not happening, I was beginning to.  And what Papa Hemingway said next clinched the deal. 

“Okay, Jack, I just happen to know that you’ve done a considerable amount of reading about me.  So let me ask you a few questions.  I think the answers you give me just might make you a believer.  Is that okay with you?”

With a tone a bit more sarcastic than I meant it to be, I said, “Sure.  Go for it.  Fire away.”

“What is today?” he asked.

“Saturday, July second.  That’s why it’s so crowded down here.  Everybody’s down for the fourth of July weekend.”

“Bingo!  Exactly!  It’s July second.  What year?”

“Two-thousand-eleven,” I said, now feeling like he was toying with me.

“Two-thousand-eleven, that’s right. 
July second, two-thousand-eleven.
  Now, subtract fifty years from today’s date.  What do you come up with?”

“July second, nineteen-
sixt
. . . .”  I froze right there, before finishing the year.  “
Ohhh
shit!  I don’t believe it.”

“Yes, go on Jack, finish the date.”

I was stunned, and for a moment just stared at Ernest Hemingway.  I really had to work hard to get the words from my mind to my tongue, but I managed.

“July second, nineteen-sixty-one.
  That was fifty years ago to the day.  That was the day that you . . . well, you killed yourself, in Ketchum, Idaho!”

Biting his lower lip now, he slowly nodded his head as his face took on a melancholic look.  I could tell his thoughts had returned to a different time and place.  Probably to the hallway where he’d pulled his last trigger.  I watched as his eyes glazed over. 

But then he caught himself.  Regrouping quickly, he deep-sixed the pensive look, cleared his throat twice then said, “That’s right.  Today is the fiftieth anniversary of my death.  And since
you’re
here in Key West, in your present condition, He thought I’d be the best man for the job.  Think about it, Jack.  I’ve been a person of interest to you for quite some time, and today is my fiftieth, so He figured what the heck, why not combine a little holiday with good old Hem’s work assignment.”

“Son-of-a-gun,” I said slowly, “Mister Hemingway,
it is
you!
”

“
Ahhh
, forget the mister stuff, Jack,” he said waving me off.  “Just call me Ernest, Papa, EH, anything you like except asshole.” 

He chuckled then and patted my back.  “Come on now.  Let’s walk. Let’s head down to Josie’s place for a couple of cold ones.  I’ll fill you in on more of the details when we get there.”

So I went with Ernest Miller Hemingway.  I was flabbergasted.  Here I was, side by side, walking up Whitehead Street with the man who single-handedly revolutionized all of modern literature.

Chapter 3

As we hoofed it toward his favorite watering hole, Ernest made no attempt to hide his disdain for what had become of the island he’d called home for ten years.  All the way up Whitehead, he registered complaints such as, “What the hell has time done to this place?  Look at the way they’ve prettied up all these houses.  They’ve lost all their charm.  And all these people.  Shit, I thought it was crowded when I left for Cuba in ’39.  You can hardly make your way down this sidewalk anymore.  And these cars . . . look at them!  They’re everywhere!” 

But those reactions were mild.  After we turned right onto Caroline and came up to busy Duval Street, he really lost it.

“
Ohhhh
, good mother of mercy, I can’t believe my eyes!  Would you look at this circus?”

“Yeah, I’ll bet it has changed plenty since the 1930’s, hasn’t it?”

“Changed?  It’s a completely different place!  Looks like a damn carnival.  Quick, look over there, across the street—those two guys are holding hands.  And get a load of all these other people.  Wow.  I used to think New York was crowded when I’d go to see Max Perkins at Scribner’s.  Hah!”

For the next minute or so Ernest said nothing.  We just stood there, on the corner of Caroline and Duval as he took it all in.  The expression on his old face was like that of a little boy who’d suddenly had his Christmas gifts snatched from beneath a tree. 

“Back in the day,” he said, “they didn’t have all these funky shops either.  This place looks like a miniature Shanghai, China.”

“Hey, man, look to your left.” I said trying to bring him back.  “Check out the shirts on that man and woman coming towards us.”

“Where?
  There must be a thousand tourists out here.”

“Right here, Ernest.” I said, swaying my eyes and throwing my head to the side.  “See the couple stepping off the sidewalk—the guy with the blue tee shirt and the lady with the red tank top?”

“Well I’ll be” he said, finally spotting them in the wave of humanity coming at us.  “They have pictures of
me
on their shirts. Hey . . . what does that say above them?”

“Sloppy
Joe’s
.”

“Son of a gun.
  Looks like Josie and I have left our marks here.  Wait till I tell him.”

“He’s up there too?”

“Yes he is.  Neither of us went straight up after we died, but we both made it eventually.  Come on.  Let’s go to the bar.”

“Do
you remember which way it is?”

“Do I remember which way it is?  You want a slap in the back of the head, Jacky boy?  Do you know how many times I’ve hiked up here?  Hell, back in the day I could have found my way to Josie’s place with my eyes closed. As a matter of fact, I can’t count the times I made it home when I
was
half blind.  Come on.  Let’s go.  I’m getting thirsty.”

With Ernest leading the way, we slithered and side-stepped through the onslaught of pedestrians for one more block.  As we did, Ernest told me that the bricks in the wall around his house had once made up the surface of the very street we were skirting.  I already knew it from my reading.  His right-hand man, Toby Bruce, had gathered the bricks when work crews were
tearing up Duval Street back in the thirties.  I also knew that Ernest had the wall built to keep nosy tourists from gawking at his place.

“Let’s sit in the back . . . at that small table,” Ernest said after we pushed through the swinging doors at Sloppy
Joe’s
.  “You don’t want to be at the bar, mumbling to me, with everybody watching,”

As soon as we sat down, a tall, bar-weary waitress came to our table and asked me what I wanted to drink.  The name tag pinned to her floral blouse said “Desiree.”  Probably in her early forties, she seemed a bit old to be a Desiree. 

“I’ll have a Corona and a Papa
Dobles
.” I told her.

Widening her eyes a bit she said, “Guess you’re trying to make up for some lost time, eh?”

I said, “Something like that,” and before she headed back to the bar, she winked at me as if she and I shared some kind of secret.  It seemed odd, but I blew it off. 

Out on the dance floor, a dozen loose spirits were working it out to Jimmy Buffett’s “Son of a Son of a Sailor.”  The band was set up on a small platform, and right behind it there was a wide banner.  It read “Sloppy
Joe’s
,” and there was a picture of Ernest’s face on it that seemed to jump right out at the crowd.  And that wasn’t the only place we saw his bearded face.  Everywhere we looked it was emblazoned on mugs, cups, shirts and sun visors.  It was even on all the menus.   

After quietly taking it all in, Ernest pointed to the wall alongside us and said, “See that sailfish hanging there?”

“Yup, I see it,” I said at the exact moment our drink-toting waitress emerged from the crowd. 

Snagged!
I thought. 
She caught me.  She thinks I’m talking to myself
.

I felt like a little boy who’d been caught with his finger up his nose. 

“Are you
sure
you’re up to these?” she asked in a dubious tone that also had a hint of playfulness in it.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.  Just thinking out loud is all.  Been working a bit too hard lately . . . if you know what I mean.”

She gave a been-there-done-that look, put the drinks down, and then went back to work.

“Alright, Mister Hemingway,” I said, as he enjoyed a belly-bouncing laugh, “Real, real funny isn’t it?”

“I told you to be careful.”

After looking both ways, making sure nobody was looking this time, I said “Yeah, you did.”

He took a swallow of his Papa
Dobles
, put the glass down then leaned forward.  He looked at me for a moment.  Then he said, “Jack, we’ve had a few laughs, and that’s good for both of us, but now we have to get down to business.  The reason I’m here is no laughing matter.  I hate to say it, but right now, as we speak, you, my friend, are in a dire situation.”

Slam!  I wasn’t ready for this.  Suddenly I felt as if the bar’s ceiling had turned black and caved in on top of me.  Our carefree good time had been smothered.  No longer could I hear the music or any of the excited chatter around me.  It was as if I
were
lying beneath the ceiling’s dark rubble and could only see Ernest’s face.  I wanted out of there.  I wanted to be back out in the sunshine with all the other tourists. 

“Come on, Ernest,” I said, “what in the hell are you talking about . . . a dire situation?”

He raised his white brows now, dug his eyes deeper into mine and slowly said, “I am going to ask you a few questions now.  At first they might sound ridiculous.  But the answers you give are going to help you understand exactly what’s going on.   Are you ready?”

I looked at him for a moment.  I studied the dead-serious expression on his face.  Somehow, the scar on his forehead now seemed menacing.  In a voice far less cordial than it had been, I said, “Yeah, go ahead.  Ask me your questions.”

“You know your name because He has allowed you to retain that much.  You know who I am and certain other things.  But answer me this, where do you live?”

“Come on now, what do you mean where do I live?  Give me a break, Ernest.  I live in . . . in
. . . give me a minute.  I’m just having a brain cramp.”

“Are you married, Jack?  If you are, what is your wife’s name?  Have you got any children?  Where are you going to sleep tonight?”

Both my arms went limp at my sides.  My knees started bouncing up and down, fast, like high-speed pistons.  I cleared my throat and tried to speak but couldn’t. Nothing would come out. 

“I hate doing this to you, Jack, but you have to know what’s going on.  You don’t know that you’ve been in an accident, do you?”

“No . . . I don’t!  For God’s sake, Ernest, what is it?  What’s going on?”

“How you did it doesn’t matter right now, but as we speak your body is lying in a coma, in a West Palm Beach hospital.  Your skull was badly fractured.  There are several tubes and a heart monitor hooked up to you.  A respirator is helping you breathe.”

“This whole thing is nuts.  I must be dreaming.  Tell me I’m dreaming.”

“I can’t, because you’re not dreaming.  You have been allotted four days with me.  The information that I bring back to Him, after those four days, will determine whether you come out of that coma or . . . or you expire.  The man upstairs seems to feel that your life hasn’t been going in the right direction.  He said he’s given you a talent that you haven’t put to good use.”

“Wait a minute,” I said waving one of those sweaty palms at him now.  “Hold on.  Just wait a minute here.  Are you trying to tell me that the supposed all-loving God up there is going to end me just because He thinks I haven’t met my
potential
?  Uh, uh!  I don’t buy that for a minute.  What is God, some kind of a production freak?  He’s going to end my life, because I haven’t lived up to my fullest potential?  Sorry, I don’t believe it.”

“No, Jack, you have it all wrong.  He’s going out of his way for you.  He’s considering giving you a second chance.  I don’t know; maybe he thinks you’re a really nice guy.  Maybe he likes your wife an awful lot.  You do have a wife by the way, no kids, but you have a wife.  And she’s at your bedside as we speak.”

I took a long draw from my Corona and finished it off.  Then I caught the waitress’s eye and held up the bottle.  She nodded, and I looked back at Ernest.  “I should tell her to bring back an entire tray of those Papa
Dobles
you like so much.”