There’s a guy slouched over the hostel bar in the corner. Damien. He’s from Ireland, and, suitably, he has a balding head of red hair. His gaze slowly lifts from the small Coke he just ordered at the bar to the large flat-screen television hanging on the wall, and then eventually back again. He’s wearing blue jeans and a smart white and blue striped long-sleeve shirt. It’s scraggily tucked in, not in a hasty fashion, rather in one of disinterest. The shirt is stained and wrinkled; it has a resigned look about it.
He’s been staying here for two and a half weeks. Which is probably the reason he only bothered to get out of bed at 2PM today. “Starting Tuesday,” he tells me, “I’m going to look for an apartment. I hope to find a lady, settle down, and then start working.” But he says it with this unconvincing, lost look in his eyes, which struggle to fix onto anything for more than a few seconds. “So far though,” he continued, “I haven’t had any action.” I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant by action. “So…” he paused. “It’s not going so well.”
He seems anything but ambitious, but he tries hard to assure me otherwise. “I want to visit New York, Orlando, California…” But his exploring is not off to a great start – he’s yet to venture outside of the clutches of South Beach. “The climate,” he tells me. “That’s the only reason why I’m here.”
Damien tells me he runs a website. But getting anything more than a sentence out of him is difficult. It’s a news site he tells me. It’s called Whatsthecraic. Apparently, according to Urban Dictionary, “Craic” is an Irish word for fun and enjoyment. The site is effectively a template based blog; and his latest story is about the Australian bush fires – which happened more than three months ago.
***
Last night we were on the way for a couple of drinks when Damien shuffled out of the Ocean View Drive shadows. He mumbled something into his chin, and motioned towards a small pile of business cards he held firmly with both hands. “Trying to make a little cash,” he said, hesitantly holding out one of the cards in my direction. “It’s for a strip club. If you call them now, they’ll come pick you up in a limo. It’s only twenty-bucks for a dance. If…If you decide to go, please tell them you got the card from me.”
***
Slouched over the hostel bar in the corner is Damien. It’s Tuesday now, my last night in Miami. He grasps a green cup with both hands watching muted commercials on the television, and as he takes his last sip he slowly slithers off the black leather bar stool, leaving the green cup sitting at the bar, and disappears back into the sanctuary of his dorm.
