Chapter 9 6:25PM
Reid wheeled around, joining teeming tourists zombie’ng down Duval.  He wanted to get back to the Macaw, just wasn’t sure how he wanted to go about it.  Across the street, Duval east sated itself with clothing stores and food delectable kiosks, including the local entry into the “why” category of gastronomical delights – chocolate-covered Key Lime Pie on a stick.
People walked around trying their best not to let Key Lime slip and slide down on their shirt, pants and shoes. Reid knew it all too well as sticky evidence pocked his soles.  Sitting down on the curb, Reid placed his feet in stagnant rainwater.  He was sure there was something in the water bacterially non-beneficial, but took the risk.  Washing was a better alternative than leaving layers of skin on the sidewalk while picking up errant key lime goo with every other step.
The east side had more sexual energy for the un-tethered, sexual debauchery for those tethered.  Breaking up the monotony of food-clothes-food-clothes-food-clothes sparkled a rhinestone in the dark – the drag queen theatre.  An open bar section devoted to karaoke-crooning queens catering to the curious, the place was dedicated to various renditions of stereotypical Streisand and Midler tunes for the middle class. Reid could see enough from a distance.  Curiosity was not his strongest asset. A solo adventure to a foreign place was one thing.  Taking everything on after his one bold step was not his cup of tequila.
Reid rose up, hands using his shorts as a towel.  He went back across the street again, narrowly running into a bicycle rickshaw running an overweight east coast couple sporting matching retro deep pacific blue Dr. J jerseys.  The thought of weaving his way through the soccer fans in the Tiki Lounge and taking the back way to the Macaw made him woozy.  Not ready to face the alley, Reid astaire’d a quick hitch step to avoid a stroller, pulling a fast 90 proceeding north, the traditional street route.
His gut, more often right than wrong, felt south would be better, but the only way he had gone to this point was from the north.  His head ruled.  Reid checked the next street.  Lit up like New Orleans during Mardi Gras, he trekked up the hill towards Whitehead. A cat sprang out from behind a garbage barge, eerie but not scary enough for Reid to lose bodily fluids.

God, I must be getting sober, he thought.

Another feline sprinted out from under an old yellow-vinyl, metal-legged kitchen chair only Carol Brady would love.  Reid saw another and another and another.

Jesus, what animal horror movie did I unwittingly enter?

After scanning ahead for any objects he may not want to step on, Reid glanced up.  More cats.  Over a dozen gargoyled on a wall – overstuffed Garfields.  He stopped on the sidewalk right at the entrance of an alley to rub his back.
Shit. The spot.
His scratched-up aching back informed him the spot was not the Fountain of Youth.  Still, Reid felt like Ponce DeLeon, looking for something he could not find.  The fat furry beasts brought it all back, making him grin. Tripping over leather made him Cheshire. Timberlands neatly stacked next to the garbage barge.
Steadying himself, Reid put left in front of right, re-cranking it up again. The black cat.  The slinking rubber leaving fur all over the champ’s calves.  El gato diablo followed Reid, walking on pads tender-tough atop the wall with the silence of an Aztec warrior.  Reid stopped.  The cat stopped.  Challenged to a stare-off, Reid set his gaze into the slit neon green pea orbs.  Black cat the victor, Reid closed his eyes, cleared his head with a vigorous shake, and steadied himself for Round 2.
Humidity, successful oozing alcohol out his pores, evidently left some circulating. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.  Six digits on paws.  Reid closed his eyes again, quickly opened them, rapidly re-focusing on the black cat’s front paws.  1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.  Reid was not near curb-hugging drunk, so six toes counted twice spoke phenomena, not pandemonia. Reid was convinced his mind was no more than a few sweat drops from total sobriety.  Sobrietal remedy forthcoming, but not until Reid absorbed his curiosity.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Arms crossed in front of his chest, he stood admiring the cat as the cat did what cats do best, admire itself.  Black cat’s green orbs widened as if to tell Reid the show was over.  Remedy time was on him, and Reid was pretty sure the Macaw was north, but everything worth anything was north.  Reid cursed himself at his lack of confidence in current geographical ability.
He walked north down Whitehead.  The cats’ curiosity claimed him.  Why was this house surrounded by a brick wall such a focal point of feline attention? Hoping for a Bewitch twitch to turn pussy into champ was no use. Reid, never a big believer in Ouija board magic, sowed his seeds of doubt. Despite being on an oversized sand bar surrounded by mysticism, mirth and magic, Reid took the role of Non-believer in a séance who fucks up the whole thing.
Toaster-popped out of his mind, the thought left too many crumbs. The cat. The wall. The garbage. The Timberlands. Everything reminded him of the champ. Laughter, however brief, bounced off the wall, scuttling into the street.  A plaque. The letters, brailled, eyes too absently semi-sobrious for full focus, read “Former Home of Ernest Hemingway.”
Reid put his hands on top of the wall.  Popping Pogo, he checked out the grounds.  It was nearly dark, but he got partial glances of this haven for cats, oasis for tourists.  Small water dishes filled to the brim courtesy of the downpour dotted lush landscaping, allowing no cat to ever be too far way from fresh water.  An oasis washed ashore a sandbar teeming with tach. A manse obscured by T-shirt shops, eateries and wanton hedonism once held a man of all men – writer, hunter, life of the party, Plymouth of the low-esteem. Poetic as the grounds, solid as the wall, sharp as the black cat’s claws as it gripped the tepid red brick and flung itself back onto the top after missing on his great leap from the sidewalk.
In spite of the drowning, Hemingway House was dripping.  Debauchery. Crudeness.  Despite starting a slide off self-made haze, Reid still excused any current feelings on the alcohol.  Alcohol was always tonic truth serum.  If one is depressed before, they’ll cry.  Happy?  Happier.  Angry?  Stay away.  Period. Reid, flushed with euphoric emptiness, faced the wall. Short term all great to remember, long term better to forget.  A simple thought too complicated to follow.
Cannonballed out of daydreaming, Reid’s ears were assaulted.

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