You think I'm a compulsive liar
 but in 1956 my grandfather,
 Bigdaddy, hears the famous story
 from a bartender
 in Key West.

 

 BigDaddy keeps feeding nickels
 into his tip jar
 and the guy keeps talking.
 Hemingway's sister, Ursula,
 walks into Hem's den
 in Key West one night.
 She's stumbling like one shoe
 is missing its heel.
 Maybe it's the vodka
 from Stevens' cocktail party
 where she's just come from.
 Hem notices her sniveling
 like she's been holed up
 all evening with 
 a romance novel.
 What gives,
 hon?

 

 Maybe she never liked Stevens.
 Maybe Stevens criticized
 a poem of hers.  "Your rhythm's like a one
 legged bum running the hurdles..."
 Who knows?  But she blurts
 to Hem, Stevens says there
 are cats who can scratch
 out better prose
 than you
 can. 

 

 Maybe someone slipped some gin
 into Hem's bottle
 of water.  He storms off
 towards Stevens' house.
 Stevens is in the doorway
 waving g'night to his
 cocktail guests,
 the story goes.
 Our guy was there, bartending,
 handing out bloody
 martinis.
 Hem
 
 leans into Stevens' face
 the way any drunk leans
 into a bartender's and slurs
 What'd ya mean I've had
 too much to drink?
 
 Stevens is blinking at Hem
 as if staring  into a fogbank of lights.
 As if a stranger
 had walked up to him
 demanding payment for an old debt. 

 What'd ya mean
 I can't write?  Hem yells
 and jumps

 

 Old Man Stevens
 as if he were a big dog
 jumping a stranger
 who'd crossed its property.
 Hem's fists pound
 on Steven's face
 as if tenderizing
 a slab of old
 beef.

 

 Our bartender, now
 turned historian, is there
 at the doorway.  He watches
 Hem stumble away
 towards his dressing room,
 a boxer in his prime
 who's taken down his challenger,
 an insurance exec
 who's twenty years
 older,

 

 and Stevens is lying twisted
 on the path like a child's bike

 a car has just backed over.
 Stevens has a broken
 jaw.  Hem's got a hell
 of a right punch
 and our bartender
 twenty years later
 has a full tip
 jar.  That's
 the facts.
 I swear
 it.