"Intuition"

As I walked the area around the beach, land crabs scattered like cockroaches, and the place stunk of decaying vegetation and “low-tide”. Iguanas were everywhere. Bums were everywhere, on the beaches and in the bushes. Thank God, I was leaving in a few weeks! But somewhere along the course of the weekend, Julie had decided that she was going to go back to Michigan for living needs. Little did I know that she was now seeking a job in the Keys, and had plans of relocating the household to the area.

Julie made it sound like she was just going back for my tools and such, so that we could both make some money. Since I hadn’t brought anything with me, and Andy seemed to have a lot more in mind for me to do. Julie didn’t share her true plans with me in these regards. What I tried to tell her was that it wasn’t a good idea to go back, that we were going to be going home in a few weeks but all she did was conference with Andy, reassuring me that there was nothing to worry about, even though I explained how I felt like I was in danger- that I could feel something wasn’t right about all of this, that I was just there to get the money and we would be gone. 
There was something I just couldn’t put my finger on that wasn’t right. What I needed was for her to be here if something happened. It was hard to find a secluded place to do it privately but when I did, I pleaded with her, begging her to listen to me, that I could feel something bad was about to happen but I didn’t know what it was, explaining that I sensed it deep in the pit of my soul. She said I was going to be fine, and off she went the following morning. 

The next day we left from the job in Key West. When we arrived back at the house, Andy decided we were going fishing. It wasn’t a choice for me to go along because he needed me to help man the boat. As we loaded it with gear I pointed out that the water line on the canal was ten inches lower than it had been, as indicated by the wetness on the coral. Though I am a novice when it comes to the ocean, it sure looked to me like the tide was out, which meant we couldn’t get out of the canal, past the coral flats that separated us from the ocean. 
Andy rudely said that we were fine, and that I didn’t know what I was talking about. Well, maybe I didn’t but it was a big boat with a draft that barely passed through the flats when tide was in. We only had one route to take that was marked by flags that were not very easily seen. Even though I knew it was a mistake, I got on the boat and he raced to get us to open water. 
As we raced across the reef, we kicked up a hell of a cloud of muck, leaving a grey and yellowish trail ten feet wide and spreading as we sped along.

Thoughts of the last time we had been out, and how I was working the bow, keeping at the ready for anchor duty, were running through my head. A sense of pride filled me as I held me eyes steady on the horizon that day, letting my knees bend in response to the waves moving the boat as it rose and fell beneath me. When I weighed anchor, at his command to move to a different spot, the turnbuckle had worked itself loose by the boat tugging in the rough waves. The pin had backed itself out completely, so we lost the anchor. It surprised me when I pulled only a line out of the water. I instantly sensed that there must be some kind of nautical folklore about it- perhaps an Omen or a superstition regarding some kind of doom. It was shameful of me to not have inspected the fastenings but then again, it was HIS boat, he should have said to do it. HE was the Captain, and I was in his care. That’s all there is to it. Filled with pride for having adapting to being on a boat in the ocean, I never revealed my thoughts or my willingness to foolishly accept responsibility for Andy’s boat and anchor.

We ended up cutting the fishing short because we were taking on water, as indicated by the lights on the dash that said the bilge pumps were not shutting off. We raced back to the house.

The next day, we awoke to find the boat sunk where she slept. Seawater was two feet over the water line, which meant that the bilge pump couldn’t keep up with the leaking. The battery had become shorted out when the water reached the terminals. The entire Pentax Diesel engine was under water- under SALTWATER. Andy became agitated and in a panic, while scratching a hole in his thick skull as he tried to awaken what was left of his brain in order to come up with an idea. 
So badly, I wanted to say that I tried telling him not to take it out when we did but I kept quiet as his rat ran on the wheel in his head, chasing cheese it would never get. We unloaded the boat in a mad scramble.

After the boat was emptied, I asked him if we could use the boat winches mounted on the seawall where she was tied up. They looked like they were used for lifting boats out of the water, to me. They were rated for fifteen tons each according to the stamped information on them but, of course, one didn’t work. The winch at the stern did work, which I explained is where all the weight is at, and most likely, the leak. He said that wasn’t what they were for, and that I didn’t know what I was talking about. His genius idea was that he was going to run to Home Depot-a two hour round trip, to buy treated lumber, so WE could build a dry dock to put it on, while making the repairs.

After remaining quiet and near biting my tongue clean off, I asked him, “How would we get the boat on it, if we could possibly build such a thing?” A long back and forth argument ensued, trying to get him to listen to me. We had the crane system, the winches or one at least. All we needed to do was attach it to the stern, take the weight off so it would stay afloat, letting the water run back out of the leak to sea level- at least. Then He could get under it to inspect the hole and possibly repair it, with some type of marine product for underwater emergency repairs, long enough to get her to a place where it could be tended to properly by a competent marine mechanic. He kept dismissing me- even though I was a highly skilled carpenter with a builder’s license, and all the expertise to help solve the problem at hand. Andy insisted that I was to bow to his supreme knowledge- even though he knew that I knew he could barley sling paint, let alone walk and chew gum at the same time.

What was going on in his head? I can only intuitively speculate. He must have started feeling a range of worries and emotions that were a result of his own insecurities. Everything came to a head while on our way to Marathon to get supplies for building a failure.   

Despite my assistance, he insisted on building this, so-called “Dry-Dock”. God only knows what he thought he was going to build. Every time he asked me something, my explanation or idea only conveyed to him that he was clueless, to which he’d say that I didn’t know what I was talking about.

Finally, it sinks in that Andy and I are not, nor had we ever been, friends. He had been jealous of Danny and I since we met him in 2000. He had ruined expensive equipment at Prospect Studio, bringing Cocaine, Heroine and dirty skanks with him. Andy had stolen from us, and ripped us off for over fourteen hundred dollars when we worked for him on a Crystal Springs project in Grand Rapids. 
What was I thinking? Here I was, over twenty five hundred miles from home, trying to salvage my reputation with the court, win my kids love and admiration back, while trying to piece my life back together- all while working for someone who has never treated me right or even deserved any of my time. Holy crap! Had I made a mistake or what? Even though I am realizing I am being abused, it doesn’t really sink in until my cell phone rang.

Andy happened to pull into a Tom Thumb convenience store, so he could buy a pack of Camels and some Sparks, when Julie called me. Andy then say’s, “You better not be talking to your ol’ lady when I get back”. As he gets these words across my ears, I see a claw hammer on the floor between the seats in my peripheral vision. Instantly, I saw myself bury the claws into the right side of his skull, ripping a large piece of bone from it, killing him. I imagined how I would spend my life in prison for losing control of myself, which frightened the hell out of me. Andy wasn’t worth that. What Julie and I said to each other, exactly, I cannot recall but as soon as he was out of the van and into the store, I jumped from the van and dashed across the highway to a marina Tiki-bar.

Coincidence or irony, I am not sure, but I immediately called my friend Dennis Smith who explained that he was in the Keys working with a roofing crew. I quickly explained that my distress was presently in the Keys, where it looked as though I might be stranded. Quickly, I became pleasantly astonished that my very good friend was also in the keys. And he was not just in the keys but right across the street from where I had ran to hide! How could it be that so many people that I knew, were here?

Dennis was staying in a beach house with the crew, right next to the store- a lifesaver. I explained the whole story to him while calming down at the beach house, telling him how Andy and I had hit a dead end, and that I was alone here because Julie went back to G.R. for a few days, to get some things from the house. As the day slipped away through time, I was observing these people he knew and worked with; so-called “friends” of his. They turned out to be a bunch of addicts- all smoking crack. Hoping for advice or a solution, I turned up empty handed. I had him take me back to Andy’s the next day, dropping me off on Big Pine Key to walk back from the highway, giving me a little more time to think about what to do.

Sure enough, shit was hitting the fan all the way around. Andy accused me of trying to kick the door in on their house, taking a crap in the yard, stealing from him, and if that wasn’t enough, he also claimed that his mom saw me in the nude- groping myself on the couch, AND that I tried to get in her pants! A barrage of insults came at me- all were absolutely absurd. He was clearly in a drug-induced state of delusion and paranoia. Little did I know, what drugs or how bad. All I knew was that he had instructed me that he was kicking me out. He ordered me to gather my belongings and put them in the van. While I did this, I said I would get a room for Julie and I at a hotel when she got back. That wasn’t accepted. He was making me leave right away, telling me that Julie could stay there with him and his mom. He told me that I’d probably have to get a room at the Heartbreak Hotel in Key West, which revealed his plans of running off with Julie, being the prize that she was. Otherwise why would he mention that place, specifically? There was not much I could do but just go along with the situation for the moment. Fighting for my right to stay there and wait would have only ended up with the police being called, and me being removed from the property.

Andy intended to drop me off in Key West, where I knew I would be able to seek refuge with Sean, so I didn’t worry a great deal. Everything would get fixed when Julie got back. When I asked him about money, he gave me a small amount, saying that he would have a check in a day or so, and that I could come by the job to get it.

Along the way toward Key West, he stopped at a few different places with a claim he that was trying to get a place for me to stay but I doubt that was the truth. I am fairly certain that he was fishing different holes of crack. He was most likely bragging about firing another employee or trying to scoring dope or both. OR maybe he was conspiring with others to try to destroy me while I was there stranded, to look for me on the streets. I wouldn't know because I was instructed it stay in the van. Everywhere we went there were no positive developments for me. When I asked for Sean’s number, Andy told me that wasn’t going to happen. Whether it was that I couldn’t stay because he figured Sean wouldn’t let me or that I couldn’t stay because he wouldn’t let me, is up for a debate- but when he got out of the van one last time, I gleaned the number from his phone and called Sean as soon as I set off on foot from where we ended up, which was at the painting project. The van he had parked there with tools and gear in it came in handy, leaving my belongings, which included a ten pound bag of chicken leg quarters that spoiled and smelled up the place up really well, giving Andy something genuine to bitch about. I chuckled as I shut the door to the tool van.

In the meantime, Andy got on the phone with Julie, telling her his version of what went wrong: that I had wrecked his boat, wreaked havoc on the house, assaulted his mother, and made a mess of his van. He explained that he had given me my money but that I must have “blown” it, which insinuated that I spent the money on drugs- a crack spree. This only added weight to his con-job on her, which was certainly the plan all along. That is, if they didn’t work this whole thing out together- playing the situation out by ear but that may be giving them more credit than either of them deserve.

Of course, Sean took me in without a hesitation. It was a long confusing walk to Sean’s place, since I had no clue where I was or which way I was going but for a general direction- East. When I finally got to the apartment complex, it was around one in the afternoon. The sun had long since heated the whole island up to a steam, while my reality was turning into a genuine White Squall.

Sean was living with a woman named Desiree and her five-year old son. She worked on the Naval base, as a gunner’s mate or something, at the gun range. She got a cut-rate deal on the apartment because she was working on the military base. Sean was working nights, drumming in a band that had a gig playing at a place called The Island Dogs. The tourist season hadn’t really begun yet, so they weren’t playing but for a couple nights a week.

Municipal workers, and inmates from the local jail, were busy cleaning up the island before any real money showed up, hiding the reality with fresh sand and glitz, while filling up the jail with everyone they could sweep up off of the streets. 

Keeping the jails full meant having plenty of laborers to help clean the place up routinely. They were working all over the Keys, dressing up everything they could as they tried to conceal the massive amounts of storm damage, and even more degradation.

There were rotting whale carcasses that were washed up onto the sandbars, a Casino barge washed up on the coral flats, boats destroyed, half sunk, and washed up in the Mangroves, empty plastic bottles and Styrofoam in the waterways and bushes everywhere. There were homeless people with tents, and homeless people without tents. There were homeless people in the Mangroves, and homeless people living under the viaducts and overpasses. There were homeless people walking around and riding bikes. They hung out in any shade they could find, where they tried to hide the visuals cues that gave them away. They stopped you everywhere you went, asking for lose change or a cigarette. Key West looked very much like a scene out of the movie, Slum-Dog Millionaire, only no public shit shack perched over top of a large pool of raw sewage.

My mother tried to warn me but I never listened, and of all the times I never did, this was the one time that she was actually right. Feeling like Gilligan, I found myself in a modern day shipwreck without a Ginger or a MaryAnn but most of all, without a Professor. Severe Depression set in quickly.

The shock of my realizations had me locked inside Sean and Desiree’s apartment but I knew I needed to find a job to escape, and to accomplish my mission. The local newspaper appeared to have jobs but what I found out was that those jobs were bait, fishing for Social Security numbers.

You see you don’t have to pay taxes and other employee expenses on the money you pay to someone who only makes five hundred dollars for the year. What these places do is pin an amount under five hundred bucks on every social security number they get, and they get those numbers by advertising for help wanted in their failing establishments. You never get the job. They get your information and use it to show where the money is going.

Anyway, the day I got up the nerve to go around to apply at these places, Sean say’s that he would let me use his moped to job-hunt with but he left it at The Island Dogs the night before because he had been drinking, causing him to take a cab home. It was decided that I take the bus to the area that I needed to be in, and that I would pick up his moped to ride back when I was done. His car was at the apartment complex but was not legal, so if I can get his moped it would save him from a cab fare later. It’s a plan he agreed with, so I set off to find work.

Julie finally calls me back, agreeing to meet up with me at the moped location, announcing our break-up, which really upsets me that she makes this decision after I told her that something bad was going to happen. Just like that, she is living in the Keys with Andy. She turned around, saying she would drop my things off at Sean’s. It didn’t seem like I could have been anymore flabbergasted but there I was, definitely, and royally, screwed. “Wow, how am I going to do this?” I thought. “She’s breaking up with me for ANDY?” Things just kept getting worse and worse and it would be quite a while before I could appreciate the true blessing of our separation.

As I walked to the moped, there was an argument that turned into a fight between some low looking people who were sucking down Hurricane Lager on the edge of the lot. I was splattered with warm beer as a can flew past my head. “Great!”, I yelled. “I am job hunting, you assholes!” 

Riding back to Sean’s on his moped, as planned, but I having no idea where I was or how to get where I needed to be, caused me to call Sean to explain where I was at, so that he could guide me a little bit. It was my first day venturing out on “Coquina Rock”, as I heard it called. My ignorance of where I was going took me through some pretty rough looking neighborhoods but I found my way to a main road, stopping for smokes when I finally recognized where I was at from my earlier trips with Andy. When I got inside the store, I realized that I didn’t have my wallet in my pocket, causing me to have a huge panic. Frontal lobe syndrome strikes me again! Forgetting I had stuck it in the compartment under the seat, for fear I could lose it, I instantly felt I had lost it along the way. I went out and jumped on the moped to try to backtrack, hoping to find it before someone else did, which was highly unlikely in a land full of vultures.

No sooner than I got the moped turned around and moving again, I found myself immediately surrounded by police cruisers. They commented, saying that I had run a red light. There was clearly no red light in the area to run, and I tried to argue that point but was ignored. The five officers stood around me, taking turns asking me if I had any drugs or weapons. They were under the impression that I had drugs in my possession because of my long hair, bandana, and the fact that they had never before seen me in Key West. Repeatedly bombarded with interrogations, and having searched the moped and myself multiple times, they found nothing that they were looking for. The officer that wrote me a ticket was the female officer but then they all wrote me a ticket, all but one of them. One for the fictitious red light, one for no license, one for no moped registration, and one for driving under the influence. There was no Breathalyzer, no sobriety test, no evidence gathered- nothing but the claims they made against me. They arrested me and impounded the moped. My first day venturing out of the house on my own had come to this. “Welcome to Key West, Zach. Enjoy your stay”.