I'm Back (Maybe) And an Experiment
Sun Grifters Chronicles: The Key West Crooner
A month and a half ago, I “went dark.” I basically had too much to do, and I had to trim some stuff for a while. It happens.
Well, I’m back…but not necessarily on the rigorous schedule I was on before. (Every Monday at 10 am, Eastern.)
I’m trying something new and different with some of my writing. I’ll explain it in more detail as I flesh out the experiment. However, in broad strokes, I’m using Substack (here) and REAM (there) to create an ongoing saga about a bunch of people in Key West.
I’m calling it loosely, at least for the moment: The Sun Grifters Chronicles. My first group of stories is called The Key West Crooner.
You know, you can talk about stuff or just do it.
Here’s the first of the Sun Grifters Chronicles.
Sun Grifters’ Last Call
By two in the morning, Sun Grifters’ bar in Key West belonged to the few (or perhaps the many) who hadn’t found a reason to go home.
The bar had three open walls, the kitchen and the bar itself taking up the fourth side. Trade winds drifted lazily through the Grifter’s three open sides, stirring cocktail napkins and carrying scents of salt water, grilled grouper, sunscreen, and spilled beer. Beyond the railing, masts rocked gently in the marina. Through the sea of masts, red and green navigation lights blinked in the darkness like permanently lost snowbirds.
Keith McGuire finished the last verse of Changes in Platitudes, Changes in Altitudes, his trop roc pastiche of the famous Jimmy Buffett song, and let the final chord hang in the humid air.
A few people applauded. Then one woman whistled and yelled, “Play another one!”
“Absolutely not,” Keith smiled and said into the microphone.
That got a laugh.
A group of duffers at the bar laughed the hardest. They’d been occupying the same six stools since before sunset. Their expensive fishing shirts had logos on the sleeves and enough pockets to survive a small war. Three looked pleasantly drunk. Two were working on it. The sixth must have been the designated duffer.
“You’re getting lazy, Keith,” one of the more drunk guys called out.
“I’ve been accused of worse,” Keith shot back. He considered saying that the stool the guy sat on wasn’t rated for over 400 pounds, but he resisted the urge.
“Yeah, like singing,” the drunk slurred in a sloppy retort.
That got another laugh from everyone except the drunk.
Keith shook his head and smiled. All in a night’s work. Beats the heck out of arresting bad guys and getting shot at.
“Tip your waitresses, boys and girls! Tip the bartenders. And especially, tip the musicians,” Keith announced to the slowly thinning crowd. Keith never kept the tip money. He gave it straight to Taylor and Kent behind him. Taylor on bass and Kent, also called Superman for obvious reasons, on the drums.
“Not if they’re lazy,” the drunk duffers finally said.
“Especially if they’re lazy. Encourages improvement!”
More laughter.
Keith set the guitar on its stand and looked around the room.
Two women who had been eyeing Keith all night, near the far railing on the dock side of the bar, opposite the band, appeared to be having the best night of their vacation. Which was good, because when they walked in four hours earlier, they looked exhausted and irritated with each other. Now they were laughing at something one of them said five minutes ago, but which had apparently been so funny, it had taken on a life of its own…or maybe they were that drunk.
A young charter captain stood over by the bar and argued amiably with one of the bartenders about baseball. What he didn’t know was that Mandy, the bartender, could have cared less about baseball. She just liked him, although he was too thick to see it. Keith chuckled at that.
One of the duffers placed two hundreds in the tip jar perched precariously on one of the amps. “Good stuff, Keith. And don’t mind Dillon. He can’t help it!”
“Great thing about Key West is that nobody cares, and nobody’s going to remember tomorrow anyway,” Taylor and Kent said in unison.
On the opposite side of the bar from Keith, a retired accountant from Ohio was explaining something the amazingly bored-looking young woman he was with probably hadn’t asked him about.
Keith put his hands on his hips. He’d only been down here for two years, but closing time at the Sun Grifter always got to him. She looked her best at closing time.
The intercom crackled, and every head turned toward the bar.
Elie Gill’s voice rolled through the speakers. She was the bar’s owner, head bartender, chief bottle washer, and even part-time stand-in janitor. “Ahoy, degenerates!”
A cheer rose from the room.
“Last call!”
More cheering, some booing.
Then, as if responding to a church bell, everyone launched into a Sun Grifter tradition.
To the tune of Margaritaville, voices of the few left rose from every corner.
“Last call again for alcohol…“
Keith joined in.
The duffers sang loudly and badly.
The women by the railing got the words wrong.
Nobody cared.
“It’s time for Sun Grifter’s to close…“
A few people raised their glasses.
“Some people say that I drink too much…“
The entire room shouted the last line.
“BUT I KNOW… IT’S MY OWN DAMN FAULT!“
Laughter erupted.
The charter captain banged on the bar.
Mandy, the bartender, looked horrified.
The retired accountant from Ohio took a bow and looked very pleased with himself. Oh, that’s going to work, Keith thought.
Elie rolled her eyes as she always did and killed the microphone. “Go home, people. If you don’t have a home to go to, then just go sleep it off on the dock. Sunup tomorrow at five forty-five!”
Nobody moved.
Keith wasn’t surprised.
Closing time in Key West was more of a philosophical suggestion.
He unplugged his guitar and began coiling the cables.
More people drifted over to say goodbye.
A couple from Kansas thanked him for the music.
One of the duffers claimed he’d finally figured out how to play guitar, air strumming his exercise ball-sized stomach to make the point.
“You don’t own a guitar,” one of the group said to him.
“Technicality!”
“Someday you’re going to open for Jimmy Buffett, himself,” someone from the back yelled at Keith.
“Not if I can help it,” Keith yelled back.
Eventually the conversations began thinning out.
Stools emptied.
Tabs got settled.
The women near the railing wandered off into the night still laughing.
The duffers finally got to their feet. One slapped Keith on the shoulder.
“Tomorrow?”
“Eight o’clock.”
“Morning?”
“Key West eight.”
The man nodded knowingly.
Which meant somewhere between eight and ten-thirty.
The last of them shuffled toward the exit.
The Grifter grew quieter.
Elie emerged from behind the bar, carrying a stack of receipts. She looked pleased with the night’s takings. “Good crowd!”
“Nobody threw up.”
“A victory.”
“By Grifter standards, a major one.” Elie smiled. Then, casually: “You talked to Stace lately?”
Keith finished wrapping a cable.
“No.”
“How long?”
“Not since that last little spat. Couple months.”
Elie studied him. “That’s a long time.”
“She’s nineteen.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Keith sighed. “It’s called deflection.”
For a moment, neither said anything.
The kitchen door swung open.
Eduardo stepped through, carrying a tray of glasses.
Behind him, visible through the narrow passageway, stood one of the locals, Bill the Fisherman. Bill wore sandals, faded shorts, and a fishing shirt older than some governments. He handed Eduardo something.
Eduardo handed Bill an envelope.
The exchange took three seconds.
Then Bill disappeared.
Keith watched.
“What’s he selling now?” Elie asked.
“Fish.”
“Actual fish?”
“Usually.”
She laughed.
Keith didn’t.
Bill’s only enemy was himself.
“What?”
Elie asked.
“Nothing.”
“That’s your detective face.”
“I don’t have a detective face.”
“You absolutely have a detective face.”
Keith looked toward the kitchen again.
Eduardo had vanished.
Bill was gone.
Something about the exchange felt off.
Elie set down the receipts. “You walking home?”
“Thought I might.”
“If you see Bill, tell him he still owes me forty dollars.”
“He says you owe him sixty.”
“He’s a liar.”
“Probably.”
The last customers finally drifted out.
Silence settled over the Grifter.
Elie stepped closer and kissed Keith lightly on the cheek. The kind of goodbye they’d exchanged a thousand times, entirely without complications.
“See you tomorrow.”
“Long as I don’t see you first.”
Elie headed toward the office.
Keith picked up his guitar in its case and walked outside. The night closed in around him like a dream.
The marina lights reflected across the black water. Palm fronds rustled softly overhead. Somewhere, a radio on a boat played distant country music. Farther away, somebody laughed.
Keith started down the dock. Ahead of him, he saw Bill the Fisherman waiting beneath a light pole.
Keith smiled. No rest for the wicked…or even the weary.
Couple of things.
I’m putting all of the Sun Grifters’ stories under it’s own heading on the menu. So, to be clear, go here: leecolewrites.substack.com, and then you’ll see the menu under my name at the top. As soon as I publish what you’re looking at, I’ll go over there and create a menu item for it.
All of the Sun Grifters’ stories will go there in order of creation, which is also the preferred order of creation.
If you want to get notified when there’s a new story, then please consider subscribing.
REAM
These stories, in order, are being also published on a reading platform called REAM. If you would like to read these there, then here’s the link to that: https://reamstories.com/lcrichards/public . That’s my author page. Scroll down slightly, and you’ll see where this particular series of stories is: The Key West Crooner.
Note: I realize that might be unclear, Sun Grifters’ Chronicles and The Key West Crooner. Look, I’m being creative. Creativity is specifically chaos turned into order. You’ve got some of the chaos part here. LOL!
Subscribe to my Substack!
I have new articles, essays, and short stories coming out every now and then in a completely unpredictable, possibly random schedule. (Just being honest.) If you want to get notified of my new stories and other items, consider subscribing.
Would you like one of my mystery books for free? Click here!
All I need is your email, so I know where to send the book. No tricks, just a great book to read!