Apparition

The Key West noonday sun showed no favor, beating relentlessly on stilled palm fronds, new cement mausoleums and ancient tombstones. I was slowly walking the cemetery, taking some black and white photos during the 8th day of a long awaited motorcycle trip from New York. I was composing in the viewfinder when I looked up from the camera and saw, through shimmering heat, at the intersection of two cemetery roads, a thin old man on a bicycle. I couldn’t see his face because he wore a straw hat, large sunglasses and a grizzled beard. As I began to meander in his direction, he quickly pedaled off down a side road. Rose and I agreed that he was a ghost-like apparition.

We continued through the graveyard, and I probably shot another half dozen photos before the bicycle rider reappeared at another sun-baked crossroad. He was looking away as I neared, still astride the bike. When I came into the area of the crossroad he turned to me and asked, “Do you know who’s in charge here?” I must admit I was taken somewhat aback by the question, but admitted to him that I didn’t know. He turned away from me again. “Hot one today,” I said. We talked briefly then about bad weather and floods on the mainland. Then he told me I should wear a hat because; “...they keep cutting away pieces of my scalp from skin cancer. I’ve been living in the tropics for 25 years,” he said. And then he turned away again, looking off down the hot white, gravel cemetery road. Conversation, I knew, was over. “Have a good day,” I said, and he muttered something about Jesus, as Rose and I slowly walked on.

We were leaving, and almost to the cemetery gate, still pondering his apparition-like presence, when Rose’s cell phone rang, the first incoming call of the trip. Roger, our friend from New York was calling to tell us that Jeff, another friend, was in the hospital. Apparently, Jeff had been sucker punched by a pair of local boys, who then stomped on his leg, causing multiple fractures, while he was down on the floor. When Roger tried to help, they hit him too, and broke his nose. After giving us the news, Roger asked Rose where in Key West we were, and she told him we were in the cemetery. “Oh, he said, “that’s too bad.”