She gets it

Diane Roberts, who does NPR com- mentary among other gigs, wrote a great piece on our rock for the Washington Post the other day. A few excerpts:

. . . Key West is famous for its exotic creatures: skinks, conchs, feral chickens, feral poets, parrotheads, drag queens, pirates manquees. . . .

Hurricane season -- which officially ends Nov. 30 -- may seem a strange time to visit this comma of an island parked in a notoriously stormy stretch of water, but airfares and hotel rooms are cheap. Headwaiters who wouldn't give you the time of day in January and February are delighted to seat you at their best tables. True, there's a late-October bacchanal of rum-drinking, feather-wearing and body painting known as Fantasy Fest, and the Disney cruise ship still docks near Mallory Square, blasting the island with "When You Wish Upon a Star," making me wish I had a bazooka. . . .

"It's not about what happens on Duval Street," says Lorian Hemingway, granddaughter of Pauline and Ernest. "Key West has a magic that goes beyond anything. It's tied in to all that's taken place here. Look in the alleys, the corners, the little streets. Go when no one else is there."

And if a hurricane comes calling, do what the natives do: Buy a six-pack and sit tight. The chunk of coral that is Key West has been there for 10 million years. . . .

I'm somewhere on Olivia Street, trying to find the gate to the Key West Cemetery. I made it here from Caroline Street, where Robert Frost used to spend his winters in a cottage parked in back of a foam-green Conch mansion built in 1834, but I'm not quite sure how. The Old Town is theoretically laid out on a grid, but Key West geometry tends toward the surreal: Streets found on no map appear; other streets disappear into the sea.

Not that I mind being a little lost. Great swags of purple, peach and magenta bougainvillea hang on fences, and white houses with porches like fancy crocheting line the road. The poinciana trees are in hot-red bloom, and gem-colored lizards dart across the sidewalk.

Finally, I see the main gate at Margaret Street and Passover Lane and walk into a silent garden of stone crosses, obelisks, urns, lilies and lambs presiding over echoes of long lives, tragic accidents, dreadful diseases, crimes of passion, military adventures and eternal love. . . .

There are large plots ornately fenced or supervised by big-haired angels and aboveground tombs that look like miniature Gothic churches, Roman temples or art deco hotels. . . . Then there's local hypochondriac Pearl Roberts (no relation, thank you), whose 1979 marker reads: "I Told You I Was Sick."

The sea breeze has died down. The copper sailor statue at the U.S.S. Maine monument is so shiny it looks like he's sweating as he presides over the graves of Spanish-American War veterans. . . .

I decide to go walking in Old Town. It has rained. At this time of year, storms rush in from the sea, soaking the island, then skedaddle back out again, leaving the pavement steaming. The resulting flora are monumental. It's as if you find yourself on a planet where ordinary houseplants -- your ficus and your philodendron, your fern and your hibiscus -- have ingested some fierce horticultural steroids making them grow as tall as telephone poles. The banyan tree up the road at the old lighthouse could have its own Zip code.

I wander around Bahama Village, marveling at the political posters up on everybody's fences: Key West is voting for city commissioners, utilities board members, school board members and, of course, King of Fantasy Fest. Somebody named "J-Ho" is campaigning hard. . . .

About now I'm regretting having quit the air conditioning. It's not just hot, it's thick: air like wet velvet. To be in Key West in hurricane season is to become one with your sweat. . . .

Late at night at the Green Parrot, an island bar where people have been known to play pool naked, where right now Abdul Mateen, backed by the Key West Reggae Ambassadors, is singing Bob Marley's "Get Up, Stand Up," it's hard to believe that Key West will ever become "normal." . . .