Four Days with Hemingway's Ghost Read online

  Four Days with Hemingway’s Ghost

  By

  Tom Winton

  Copyright © 2012 by Tom Winton

  All rights reserved.

  www.TomWintonAuthor.com

  Four Days with Hemingway’s Ghost is a fictional work. Other than the well-known people, locations, and events all the names, characters, events and locations are from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locations or living persons, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Tom Winton.

  ALSO BY TOM WINTON

  Beyond Nostalgia

  The Last American Martyr

  The Voice of Willie Morgan and Two Other Short Stories

  Chapter 1

  Other than my wife, I hadn’t told a soul about it. I was afraid to. Nobody wants to be labeled a kook. Nobody likes being stared at from the corners of dubious eyes. But now, after all I’ve been through, I couldn’t care less what people think. For reasons I will explain later, I am now sure that in July of last year, I spent four days with Ernest Hemingway.

  Granted, Papa had been dead for five decades. I realize that. But a force far stronger than any of us mortals know did bring us together. Odd as it sounds, I’m as sure I was with him as I am that your eyes are narrowing as you read these words. Bear with me. If you will hear my story, I think you, too, will believe it.

  To begin with, I haven’t always been a Hemingway aficionado. Sure, I did read The Old Man and the Sea when I was eleven years old. But after that, like most young men on the lower half of the social ladder, the closest thing to literature I ever read was the sports pages. That was about it, that and an occasional peek at Playboy Magazine.

  But then a funny thing happened when I was in my early thirties. I started making trips to the local library. And soon after that there was always a stack of books alongside my recliner. Since I, like Hemingway, had a great love for sport fishing and certainly didn’t mind knocking back a few brews from time to time, I started taking a keen interest in the man and his work.

  The more I read about him, the more I realized he and I weren’t all that dissimilar. Oh, I never had the kind of money he did or a boat as fine as the Pilar. I never traveled the world or earned fame the way he did. But deep inside, I believed that along with our common interests, we had also thought along similar lines. Considering that our births were seventy years apart, and so were our worlds, I thought that our many likenesses were quite odd. I suspected that Hemingway, just like I do, would have had a serious problem living in this maddening twenty-first century world.

  But despite all we had in common, I always doubted that, had I ever met the man, I would have actually liked him. I wanted to believe I would, but after reading so much about his overblown macho attitude, I didn’t think so. In the farthest stretches of my wildest dreams, I could never have imagined that I’d someday find out.

  Last July, I had to be airlifted from my home to a hospital in West Palm Beach after a highly-unlikely accident. I had just bought a utility trailer for my lawn care business and backed it into my driveway. The trailer was fully enclosed with a metal roof and sides. After lowering the tailgate, I set up a makeshift ramp using two wooden boards. I then cranked up my rider mower and tried to drive it up the incline. But it was steeper than I’d realized. After two failed attempts to get the mower’s front wheels over the very top of the ramp and into the level bed of the trailer, I had to throw it into reverse and back the powerful machine down again. Going backwards on such a sharp angle was quite precarious. My better judgment kept giving me hell—telling me I shouldn’t be doing this; I should drive over to Home Depot and buy two longer boards. But I didn’t listen. It was a Saturday afternoon, and because we’d had a lot of rain all week, there were still three lawns I simply had to get done.

  On my third attempt, I revved the mower up really high and sped up the ramp. Scary as it was, all went well until the front wheels finally did clear the top of the ramp. Just as that happened, I realized my head was about to slam into the leading edge of the roof.

  It all happened so fast. Reflexively I jerked my head to the right, but that didn’t help. Fast as I’d been driving the mower, it kept right on going, all the way into the trailer. It’s amazing my neck didn’t snap. Instead, with my head lodged against the roof and the mower continuing forward, I was literally pulled out of the seat—by my head.

  And that wasn’t the end of it. After the mower passed beneath my legs, there was nowhere to go but down. Back first, I fell between the two boards onto the concrete driveway. As the back of my head slammed onto the driveway, I heard a sickening thud like a gourd smashing against a wall. Then the lights went out. Everything went black. I didn’t even hear Blanche’s screams when she came out of the house to see what had happened.

  I went into a deep coma and remained there for four days. No matter what the doctors tried, they couldn’t get me to respond. My eyes wouldn’t open. I did not respond to questions. I didn’t flinch, grimace, or react in any way when they administered pain tests. I don’t recall any of it. The only thing I do remember is spending those four days with Ernest Hemingway.

  Right after I’d lost consciousness, a speck of white light appeared in the center of all the blackness. The glow spread quickly, and soon everything was bright and sunny. I was walking through a neighborhood of old but well-maintained homes. Some were small, some were larger, but they all were a mix of Bahamian and New England architecture. I was across the street from the houses, on a sidewalk infested with camera-toting tourists in gaudy tropical shirts. Right alongside me there was a long brick wall.

  As if I were doing some funky, clumsy dance, I dodged and side-stepped one person after the next. I’d never seen so many belly-bags in my life and could not fathom how anybody could wear such a silly-looking contraption. But the strange thing was, as ridiculous as these people seemed, they were all giving me funny looks.

  It was very warm, but the afternoon breeze blowing in from the ocean made it almost comfortable. Riding in on the wind was an exotic mix of aromas. As if returning from a long voyage, the soul-healing smell of tropical seawater was greeted and kissed by the perfume scent of jasmine and frangipani. Most every yard in the neighborhood was aglow with colorful flowers—red, white, yellow, pink, lavender, and multiple pastels. And the green fronds of towering palm trees rattled in the wind like frantic castanets.

  With a dull ache in both the front and back of my head, I stepped to the right edge of the sidewalk, rose to my toes, and peeked over that privacy wall. Putting my hands on the top layer of bricks, I looked through the shade of the dense tropical flora. There was a mini-estate there. For the second time in my life, I admired the stately home with its airy, wrap-around porches on both floors. I imagined Ernest Hemingway, decades earlier, standing on the second floor portico looking out to the nearby lighthouse. Then I shifted my eyes to the right of the house, toward the shimmering aquamarine waters of the swimming pool. That’s when I noticed somebody standing beside me.

  The guy was right smack next to me, as if he were my date. I was just about to tell him to give me a little breathing room, but I didn’t. He beat me to the punch. He spoke first.

  “I hate that goddamned pool! Twenty-thousand dollars she pissed away on it. Can you imagine? That’s two-and-a-half times what her uncle paid for the whole damn place—house and property.”

  Oh, wonderful! I’m thinking by now, Here we go! I’ve got myself one of those burnt out Hemingway wannabes here.

  I was going to walk away without even ack
nowledging the guy, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to take just one look at this clown first.

  Peering from the corners of my eyes, I slowly turned my head. The first thing I noticed was that he was about my height—nothing unusual about that. But when his face came into full view I jumped as if I’d been goosed by a highly-charged, electrified thumb.

  Jerking my chin in and my head back in one lightning-quick motion, my eyebrows sprung to my hairline. My eyes froze open—almost as wide as my mouth did. I shook my head—hard, as if listening for loose screws. Then I said, “My good God! It is you! Now I know I’m losing it!

  Chapter 2

  Ernest Hemingway was dressed just like you’d expect him to be. His powder blue Guaynabo shirt had long sleeves, and a knotted rope held up his khaki Bermuda shorts. Above worn leather sandals, his calves were still impressive, but that was where any similarities to the robust, macho Ernest Hemingway of myth and legends ended.

  Just like his thick wide beard, the hair on his head was all white. It was combed down and to the side to cover his receded hairline. On the left side of his forehead, the scar he’d received many years earlier from a fallen Paris skylight was still plenty visible. It was the size of a healthy garden slug, and it protruded like a nasty, pink blister.

  Bulging from his waist, was the same paunch he’d had throughout the second half of his life, but his once powerful shoulders and chest were somewhat shrunken. His face was old and craggy. There were liver spots beneath his sideburns and pre-cancerous pink blotches on his ruddy cheeks and forehead. But his eyes were different. They were the same dark brown they’d always been, but now, unlike after his late-life electro-shock treatments, they looked well-rested and raring to go.

  “Yes, it’s me,” he said, eyeballing some of the tourists now. “But you’d better not let them see you talking to me. Look to the side or something. They can’t see me, only you can. They’ll think you’re some kind of a nut job, Jack.”

  Jack! I thought. He called me Jack! No, he must have been using the name as a figure of speech.

  “Surprised that I know your name, huh?” he said now. “Well don’t be. I’ve been sent here for a reason . . . Jack Phelan. I’m not down here for a holiday. Well, let me correct that, I am here on a holiday but it’s a working holiday.”

  “A working holiday? What are you talking about?”

  “You’re in a coma, Jack. As we speak, you’re actually lying in a coma. I’ve been sent here to help determine if you should come out of it or . . . or, if you should pass on and enter the hereafter. Don’t get me wrong, I won’t be making that decision. I’m just here to gather information and relay it back to the true decision maker.”

  “Come on. This is ludicrous. I’m not in any coma. I’ve got to be dreaming. This can’t be happening.”

  “Oh but it is happening, my friend. I’ll explain more to you later.” Ernest said as he turned his head and his attention to a giant banyan tree in his front yard. “Son of a bitch, that thing must be sixty feet tall now. It wasn’t six when we planted it.”

  Though we had been standing in its shade, and the breeze was blowing even harder now, I could feel myself beginning to perspire. The wall had been a bit cool to the touch when I first put my palms on it, but now I could feel them perspiring.

  “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 pl
ace 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,”