You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The Key West Wild Chickens.
They fly and flap. They are fowl and yes, foul!
Key West is a lot of things. Sea and sky and rainbows after dark thunder boomers. It’s also a haven for chickens.
Why Chickens? Because they are God’s creatures and Key West is all about harmonic resonance in a universal equilibrium.
I don’t know what that means, but in Key West, it makes sense.
It’s a Wednesday around 11 am. The air is hot and thick like Fidel Castro’s beard. As it blows in off the Caribbean, I can hear it whispering the dreams of lost Cuban boat people.
It has just finished raining for the 3rd time today. The heat vapor rising from the rain swollen street is visible to the naked eye.
I’m riding my beach cruiser with a big 42 drawn on the black seat.
The rented bike has a thick wire basket and nobby tires that are worn on one side. Every rotation of the rusty chain creates a popping sound. Somewhere inside this rusted mechanism, steel is rubbing on steel. I don’t care. It’s not my bike. I like the rhythm of the popping sound. It provides me a beat as I pedal from the Atlantic side of the key to the Gulf side of the key.
I’m riding along the sidewalk down Duvall Street. Residents call this the longest street in the world because it connects two major oceans.
Duvall Street is the cardiac heart beat of this rum flavored municipality. In some ways it feels like Bourbon Street with less urine.
When I mention this to a cab driver who has been here 18 years, he sparkles. The man with the thinning hair line and pony tail was born and raised somewhere North of the Mason Dixon Line. He is a carpet bagger who has made this tropical local home for 3 decades now. He informs me that I am right. “We’re known as the Little Easy,” he says.
Duvall Street is a shiny trinket. It constantly cranks out tropical energy that lures you in. As I ride down the street, I hear the acoustic guitar riffs of country music and Bob Marley. I see the neon blink of lights, wrapping a palm tree. It looks a tropical Christmas transforming a beer soaked patio into a four top with attitude. I smell Cuban sandwiches simmering on a grill somewhere around the corner. There’s a woman in a small hut selling cigars. “No Cubans. Only Dominicans.”
Duval Street is a colorized crossword puzzle of experiences where the clues and the answers seem to change block to block.
I pass by a T Shirt shop. There is one on every corner. I have no need for more T shirts in my life, yet here on Duvall Street, I am suddenly filled with the thought that I don’t have enough.
I walk in a store. It is floor to ceiling with lime green and hot pink apparel. Do I really need a shirt with the F word all over the front?
As I walk through the aisle, I’m hypnotized by irradiated posters depicting Donald Trump. His Hair is Big Bird Yellow. His Lips full and Pouty like Paris Hilton. His Tie a cherry red. The Slogan: WE SHALL OVER-COMB. Beside it, another Trump shirt where he is ripping open his suit and beneath it a giant Superman S.
Then I see the funniest shirt ever. It is black with white letters. It simply says: F*** You You F***ing F***!
I feel the urge to buy one of these for the kids.
I laugh out loud. I’d be arrested wearing that expletive filled shirt in Nashville.
A myriad of people are out on this sultry, steamy afternoon. The sidewalks are filled with inebriated characters from a Where’s Waldo poster. I hear dialects from all over the globe.
I see a heavy set couple smoking furiously, leaning on the entrance to Sloppy Joes. Europeans love their cigarettes. I pass by on my bike, wind and sun blasting my Wayfarers.
I hear something that sounds like German, harsh and throat clearing syllable forming.
I expect the fat couple to inhale what’s left of their cigarettes and spit it out into the street.
Achtung Baby!
Just then a chicken turns the corner. Yes a chicken. A wild, feral chicken. It is accompanied by a Rooster and 3 baby chicks. Bicycles stop for the chickens, Cars swerve for the chickens. Ordinances are proclaimed for the Chickens.
The Key West Chickens. They have been here for generations and they are everywhere.
The chickens are protected, revered, respected.
Cock-a-doodle doo.
A bar tender will tell me that the chickens are protected birds. Once upon a time cock fighting was prevalent on the island. Then it was outlawed and to compensate for decades of atrocious animal cruelty, civic leaders created a law protecting the birds.
Now there are roosters crowing at all hours of the day. The chickens walk by me at the pool. They are more arrogant than the New Jersey woman who tried to steal my lounge chair. The chickens cross the street. They are dumber than a Kansas tourist a box of rocks, or a Corona Light can.
They cross the street answering the age old question; Why did the chicken cross the street?
I now know the answer is to get to the post office. They are in the gutter, on the sidewalk, even in a tree at the Key West Post Office. Maybe they like the federally protected zip code oriented ambience of this specific location.
All I know is the Wild Chickens of Key West are prevalent and proud. They are like pigeons in New York City, only much bigger.
Watching the chickens dart across Duval Street, and a bare chested man on a scooter have to slam on his brakes to avoid running over a family of fowl, I am reminded of the age old classic saying by world philosopher Rodney King. “Can’t we all just get along?”
That’s right Key West Chickens.
Can’t we all just get along.
I don’t even know what that means.
Life’s Crazy™