He lived a peaceful life in a fresh Spanish colonial style home with floor to ceiling French shuttered windows set in a lush tropical paradise. He had a soft green moss lawn enclosed by thick hedges of tall palm trees, yellow hibiscus, and huge ferns. Around his private jungle yard was a new red brick wall smothered in purple Bougainvillea blooms. In the back yard was a sparkling blue swimming pool.

He had a small loft studio on the second floor. He often stayed at home with his many cats who lounged in the shade away from the hot summer sun on the studio balcony overlooking the shimmering pool. Every day when he felt the urge, he'd walk the narrow brick road about a mile long to the other end of town.

He was a member of the Key West Gang. A club where the biggest fish du' jour stories were served. He had a top-of-the-line fishing yacht and had no fear of landing thousand-pound marlins, but obliged others listening to their little fish tales.

He was admired for his good looks, his charisma, his guts, and incredible zest and spirit for living free. Even though he suffered great injuries and was in great pain most of his life, he was eagerly still alive.

He could make you feel, smell, taste, see, and loudly hear everything he did and saw in life, but only through the words and actions of others. His own words and feelings never really came from him at all.

He had many women all around the world who loved him madly, but his heart was always somewhere far away.

Yet there came a day when he moved far away from his home in paradise.

He awoke one summer morning and without thinking twice whether to have or have not, sat down on the staircase and put a shotgun shell in his head.

For in was the end, as his story was told, it was always He, for whom the bell tolled.