FREE ESSAY ON HEMMINGWAY IN A DREAM-HALLUCINATION

HEMMINGWAY IN A DREAM-HALLUCINATION

Jeff Darmo
English 135
Wrestling with Hemmingway in a Dream-Hallucination
I sat outside of the Hogsbreath Saloon with my chin in my hand and a newspaper with a
headline about Ernest Hemmingway's life being celebrated this coming week in Key West. It
was a hot afternoon and I was groggy after being drunk the night before and I wanted to
be in my bed, but the little room that my friends and I rented was like an oven in the
afternoon tropical heat. I was in Florida on vacation with three of my high school
friends and we were supposed to leave Florida for New Jersey the week before, but we got
tropical fever and stayed in Key West for a few more nights. I was trying to write a
piece for a publication called the Rutgers Ruminations on request of my friend turned
publisher who wanted an article on the "literariness" of Key West. The project finally
led me to a blue bench outside of "Hemmingway's Favorite Watering Hole". 
I wish that I remembered how it happened, how I dozed off under the sky in front of that
bar with my face in the two-page spread recapitulating Hemmingway's stay in Key West. I
don't remember if it was from the dehydration caused by the alcohol in my system or just
the plain heat, but I fell fast asleep on a bench outside the Hogsbreath Saloon in Key
West, Florida.
"That's where he drinks. Yup, that's it - his barstool and all. He just sits there alone
all afternoon and drinks Black-label and writes in those three-penny notebooks he has
there. Never smokes though. Constantly boasts about how much he drinks and how many women
he has been with" 
"Who are you?" I asked. He didn't answer the question, but he pointed toward the door of
the bar.
"Get out of here! I am triple the man you are and can drink whiskey long past the time
you hit the floor. You heard me pantywaist, get the hell out of here! Out of the bar!" A
barrel-chested Hemmingway bellowed out of the dark doorway. Then he retreated back into
the shady confines of the saloon. 
The air was silent and sad, almost painful. I watched intently. Moving from the bench to
the door of the dusky bar I caught a sight of Hemmingway huge upon his barstool. He was
muttering something underneath his breath when he slammed the glass down on the bar and
yelled something at the waitress.
The man who pointed Hemmingway out followed me from the bench to the doorway and
whispered, "Yup that is Ernest Hemmingway. The great writer. Great bullfighter. The best
fisherman. Winner of the Pulitzer, a legend for all time."
Right then a woman approached Hemmingway and he turned and hit her in a drunken swing of
his burly arm.
The man continued, "He gets drunk. Forgets what he is doing, but he doesn't mean anything
by it. He's a great writer."
I thought that he looked pathetic and drunk. He looked like a balloon from all the
alcohol and he sweated profusely through his shirt. He was alone in the bar. He stumbled
off of his stool at the corner of the bar and fell over trying to hit a man passing to
the restroom. His pen left his hand and slid across the dusty wood floor of the bar.
A gentle rain like a sea breeze woke me from my dream and I got up off of the bench and
headed to the saloon door. To get my reality straight I checked the corner of the bar. He
wasn't there and I headed back to my room to meet my friends and put my pen away for a
little while.