When Old Is Never New In Key West — William Williamson

When Old Is Never New In Key West is a tragic but endearing story of Josey Roberts. An old man in his twilight years who lived his whole life in Key West but never once found paradise on the island. Born in 1929, at the earliest age, Josey could remember, he knew he was an ugly child. Not just plain ugly but freakishly ugly. He remembered strangers coming to the house on Duval Street to look at him when he was younger. Strange faces hovering over him, standing with his mother, staring at the aberration in the crib.

He remembered his mother taking him to doctors so they could examine him. Their fingers turning and twisting his face in different directions then the whispering discussions they had with her that he could not understand but he did not have to understand to know they were talking about how he looked. Even before Josey could talk, before he ever said the word, Mama, he knew something was very wrong with him.

During Josey's adolescence in the Depression era thirties and war torn forties, it was just his face that caused the cruel taunts from his schoolmates and others who saw him. Feeling ridiculed and ostracized he roamed the derelict Key West streets and docks alone. His physical deformities would not come until he was sixteen years old after suffering a horrible deep-sea diving accident while serving in the Navy. Now, in his decrepit senior years, with his broken, deformed body complementing the face that was a picture of Neanderthal primate ugliness in his youth, Josey realized, after being discharged from the Navy and returning home to Key West fifty years ago, the monster, fishing the Bight for subsistence at night with a hand line was complete.