Cast Off

John Woodrow Cox: MADEIRA BEACH — She cracks open the first can of Busch at 6:22 a.m. "Ching ching," she says, holding it up to her roommate. "To a good day, a good trip." She has endured five days on land and off the water. Too long. She needs to go. The sun has just risen as she climbs onto her purple Schwinn Ranger and rides south. Down Gulf Boulevard, down to the docks. "Hey, baby," she hoots at a friend. He hollers back. Here, everyone knows "Hollywood" Kim Imhoff. Here, she doesn't walk, she struts. Kim can fish and fight and spit as well as any man on any boat, and she knows it and so do they. Kim is 44, a sinewy 145 pounds of bones and bungee cords wrapped in a hide of sun-broiled leather. Not long ago, two drug addicts attacked her outside a gas station. They knocked out her two front teeth with a brick. No big deal, she says. They didn't get her $13. In a brawl last year, she hit a woman in the head with a purple, battery-operated dildo. Kim went to jail but won the fight.