I was a regular, and he had witnessed my powerful little-boy charm on women many, many times. The Bahamian bartender gave me a wink and a smile. Mermaids were strictly a foreign phenomenon.īeing a gentleman, I restrained myself from telling this aggressively drunk woman that her breasts were blocking not only my view of this very important show but my air passages as well. For some reason, possibly due to the Gulf Stream or immigration, mermaids did not exist back in my hometown of Miami. She was my fantasy come true - a sleek woman in a tight flesh-colored bathing suit, wearing very red lipstick, who did artistic somersaults and blew bubbles at you through the window. For hours I would watch would-be Esther Williams types engage in aesthetic swimming routines or drunken couples attempting to make love in the shallow end of the pool completely unaware that some of us had a front-row seat.Īt the moment, the hotel's live mermaid was doing her aquatic show while sucking on an air hose. I was at my favorite bar, the kind that was very popular in the 1950s throughout the Caribbean: below ground with a big picture window looking directly into the front of the pool. Mom always insisted that if I were going to sit at the bar and drink that I at least be well dressed.

Dressed in my blue blazer, bow tie, khaki shorts, and freshly shined Buster Browns, I was, at six years old, an irresistible magnet for drunken middle-aged women looking for love. As she exhaled, her ample sunburnt breasts, spilling out of her black fishnet one-piece, bobbed up and down against my face. 'My, aren't you a cutie!' She leaned closer to me and took a drag off her cigarette.

Walking Through Walls by Philip Smith