You Never Know What You'll See in Key West - A True Story

Two of the things I love about Key West are our wonderful weather and that life here never is predictable. Take for example an incident that occurred a few years back when I was riding my bike to the old Club Body Tech on upper Duval Street. It was riding west in the 800 block of Washington Street around 6:00 AM. I remember it was still pitch black outside. Just after I passed the El Patio Motel I saw a young man in his early twenties walking down the middle of the street. There was nothing special about that, per se. This part of the Casa Marina Area does not have sidewalks. Many people walk in the street. But this guy was different. You see he was totally nude. He walked to my left. I looked back. Yep, he was buck naked. No doubt about it. I thought to myself that's too odd even for Key West. I circled the block and found a public phone at the youth hostel on South Street where I called the police. The operator asked me to describe the naked man. How was I supposed to answer that?

I got back on my bike and headed over to the corner of Reynolds and Washington Street which was the area where the nude dude should have reached by that point. I saw a young woman at the bus stop and asked if she had seen the nude man. She said she had. She said he disappeared behind some apartments on Washington Street.  I looked back and saw no sign of the guy. The young lady asked me to wait with her until her bus came.  I told her I had called the police and agreed to wait.

About 5 to 10 minutes elapsed before the police finally arrived. The nude man had totally vanished by this point. I flagged the cop's attention  He got out of his car and started to approach me. I started to describe what  I had seen earlier. Then I noticed the unclad lad emerge from between two apartment buildings. As I write this I just recalled the guy was then carrying a baseball bat. He did not have the bat the first time I saw him.  The cop saw him and walked toward him with his flashlight drawn and said "What in the hell do you think you're doing?" He put the guy in his patrol car and took him to the pokey. Later that day I looked at the Monroe County Sheriff's office website. The naked bat boy was being held on a mental health hold.

 You never know what you will see in Key West. That's just part of the fun about living in Paradise.

If you are thinking of buying a place in Key West please consider working with me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642, email: kw1101v@aol.com.  I am a buyers agent and a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties Key West.