Of course, I still wasn’t sure how I felt about being a father because it was something I never considered or saw in my future. In high school and college I would occasionally hear friends discuss getting married and having kids and building big families to share holidays and shit with and I really couldn’t relate. And though I was exposed to some of those things by way of the Holst clan, the Rockwellian thing—the house with the white, fucking, picket fence—never resonated with me. But my new and immense responsibility did.
The morning after I allowed my mother to rape and pillage some more of my father’s memory, Andrea and I got in the car and headed out east to the Montauk Yacht Club. Without traffic it was about a two-and-a-half hour ride from Stamford, and we made it there by mid-afternoon and quickly settled into a new routine.
Both of us worked six evenings a week at the Club’s most exclusive eatery and would earn around $400 a night, though sometimes even more. But in order to maximize my earning potential I decided to spend three afternoons a week working lunches at Gosman’s Dock as well, which was part of a family-owned, mini-complex of mostly seasonal restaurants and businesses. As a result, I was working about 70 hours a week which served a variety purposes.
Obviously, I needed to make money and between both jobs I was clearing almost $3000 a week which was critically important because regardless of where I was emotionally, I was financially unprepared for fatherhood. I not only needed to put something aside for the costs associated with raising a child, but I needed reliable transportation. And certainly, I also needed to have as little free time on my hands as possible and avoid the temptation of taking the bus into Manhattan to score.
Unfortunately, at 7 a.m., on each of my 16 days off over the course of four months, I’d be en route to Manhattan on a bus I boarded by deceiving myself with either a craving for St. Marks Pizza or a desire to visit a friend—neither of which did I have any real intention of satisfying. And invariably, as the Hampton Jitney headed west on the Long Island Expressway and the skyline rose up in the distance, a smile would gradually creep across my face and I would consciously come to terms with why I was really going into the city. Then of course, the self-deception would be followed-up with a good helping of self-serving logic and the rationalization that I couldn’t develop an addiction with such intermittent abuse and besides—I’d soon be heading back to Florida, anyway. At that point the excitement that always preceded a trip to the dealer would overcome me and I just didn’t care anymore. I would savor every aspect of the score—getting off the bus and onto the subway, retaining the procurement services of a liaison with a familiar face and then getting high in the bathroom of my favorite Polish diner. Sixteen times the routine went unchanged and ended at Central Park in a nodding reverie where I accepted the fact that the mere notion of the city was a trigger and I could obviously never live there again.
Right after Labor Day Andrea headed to Boston where her kids had spent most of the summer, and on September 30th I departed Montauk after purchasing an old Isuzu Trooper from the bartender at Gosman’s Dock. I might have stayed a little longer because there was still some money to be made during the early part of October, but a friend of mine was able to arrange an interview for a copywriting position that was scheduled for the following week at a company in Cape Coral.
The return trip to Florida was uneventful, until the morning of October 1st when a broken fuel pump left me and my Isuzu Trooper stranded on the side of I-95 in South Carolina. Thankfully, however, southern hospitality came rolling by in a tow truck and I was delivered to a mechanic who had me back on the road that afternoon for only $400, which included the tow and repair—as well as a gaping hole in the fuel tank that he was kind enough to install for nothing. Fortunately, it only took about 20 minutes and a little bit of daydreaming at the pump for me to discover his shoddy workmanship as I filled-up a quarter of the tank and most of the street with $200 worth of Super Unleaded.
I arrived in Florida early the next morning and later that afternoon crossed over the Midpoint Bridge and into the Cape. At Del Prado Boulevard I made a left turn and eventually stopped at a red light and beneath a banner that spanned the width of the road and read, “Cape Coral, It’s Just Paradise.”
I checked into a room at a rundown resident motel that reminded me of tawdry dwellings from the past. Fortunately, however, it was less than a mile from the Willie Whitman Wealth Center, which was where my interview would be held the following week and where I would be hired on the spot as a professional business writer for ten dollars-an-hour.
21
On November 27th Savannah was born in the early evening. The following week, I suppose as something of a symbolic gesture, I completely shaved my head and then climbed into my bright red Trooper for what would be the first of many, six-hour, 300-mile, round-trip treks across the state of Florida. The 150-mile jaunt on State Road 80 from Cape Coral on the west coast to Jupiter on the east coast was a moving, socio-economic and ecological commentary on a culture and quality of life that seemed to flourish at the sides but not so much in between: Beach houses, condos, boathouses, gators—ranch houses, farmhouses, lake houses, gators—prison, poverty, sugarcane, gators—sugarcane, poverty, prison, gators—lake houses, farmhouses, beach houses, gators and then back again approximately 300 times during a five-year period and NOTHING ever changed.
Of course, the first trip was most memorable as I met Savannah for the first time, and when I arrived at the condo of Amy’s new stepmother I nervously walked by the crib without looking in as if that might’ve been somebody else’s newborn baby within it. Each week I would make the same visit and watch Savannah grow in little spurts that I regretted missing. And as the months passed and the visits mounted I occasionally noticed her looking at me as if we shared some sort of unbelievable secret that no one else knew—and I’m still waiting for her to tell me what it is.
Indeed, I knew right from the very beginning that Savannah was a miracle. Not only did she manage to be conceived through a loveless relationship, but she danced through a genetic minefield and came out on top with my brains and her mother’s disposition—which is a good thing else she would’ve been an irascible, unpleasant and unpopular little girl...with no one to do her fucking homework for her.
Meanwhile, my new job at the Whitman Wealth Center left a bit to be desired, beyond the ten dollar-an-hour wage which was initially eight dollars-an-hour until I put my foot down. But most problematic was the fact that I was expected to write persuasive copy to help sell products and services I didn’t believe in, and even though I despised the work and was being paid like a slave I was terribly good at it. In fact, I was so good that after my very first month I was given a pat on the back and a promise of more lucrative opportunities in the future. Unfortunately, I knew there wouldn’t be much of a future for me at the Whitman Wealth Center because the only one getting wealthy was Willie Whitman.
Although the Wealth Center billed itself as a real estate education company, it was essentially a seminar-marketing firm with a variety of self-help products and services supposedly intended to help people improve their lives while striking it rich in the real estate business. However, I soon realized the company over-promoted its success stories while downplaying more typical results in a clever way that left little doubt to what appeared to be the effectiveness of its services. Ultimately, however, it was evident that the brilliance of the Wealth Center’s marketing department could never be matched by its line of products, many of which provided consumers with little more than empty promises and pie in the sky. Nonetheless, I was resigned to remain at Whitman for a year or so in order to gain some experience, and in the meantime accepted a part time position as a staff writer for Route 41, which at the time was the largest regional music and entertainment publication in Southwest Florida. And though the $50 I was paid for each story helped supplement the incredibly paltry wages I was earning at Whitman, it was the unusual assignments I was given that provided real solace and relief
by allowing me to flex my creative muscles. As a result I covered events ranging from rock concerts and celebrity boxing matches—to clothing drives sponsored by nudist colonies and loved every minute of it as my editor expected me to editorialize to my heart’s content.
Although I wasn’t sure working at Whitman was any more fulfilling than working at Wendy’s, with the creative outlet provided by Route 41 I was content enough, and with the exception of a joint before and after work I was completely drug free. And though there was this unrelenting need to be—well not necessarily high, but at least altered—there was really no specific craving for dope, whereas I knew for certain had I been within 200 miles of New York that wouldn’t have been the case. Of course, I had yet to even see heroin, much less be offered any since fleeing New York, but thanks to the fact that I was 2000 miles away from the city and had no history of doing dope in Florida, there were none of the usual triggers, enticements or routines that would typically fuel my addictive behavior: The subway lines that lead directly to the dealer’s doorstep, the street corners where the deals went down and the same old junkies lingered, the sidewalks I wandered aimlessly while listening to music and being out of my fucking skull were ghosts of the past. None of those things were present in Florida and I finally realized how important it was for me to escape New York and not make the same old mistake in a brand new place. But again—I was still smoking weed. Not a huge amount, mind you, but enough to keep my brain preoccupied. Enough to provide a calming effect. Enough not to slit my fucking wrists while crafting the dry, misleading and manipulative copy I was paid so poorly to write. And though for whatever reason marijuana had lost that unique, borderline, hallucinogenic effect I experienced primarily in college, it was absolutely imperative that I have my morning and evening tokes, fend off depression and fill that void which I obviously created by abusing my brain chemistry to begin with. Unfortunately, however, what was done was done and though it wasn’t like I’d lose my shit and go off the deep end if there wasn’t anything to smoke, I’d obviously cleared a space in my head that needed to be filled with something and again, every day I didn’t do dope was a good day…and we do the best we can.
22
Young, single, mothers in financial hardship are—along with sandy white beaches, Burrowing Owls and the Everglades—an abundant natural resource in Southwest Florida. Consequently, it wasn’t long before a damsel in distress made me a proposition:
“You wanna get out of that shithole you’re living in and rent a room from me?” Kristen asked one afternoon when I bumped into her at Publix while she was shopping to feed a hungry brood. “My asshole roommate got busted driving drunk with a suspended license in Tampa last week and I don’t think he’s gonna be back for a while. Besides, the busy season’s here and since you’re suddenly a 9 to 5 yuppie I might occasionally need some help watching the kids while I’m working nights at the restaurant.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Why not?” she asked in somewhat of an insulted way. “Or do you take a liking to disgusting fucking motels full of drug addict losers and fucking degenerates?”
“Like a fucking fish takes to fucking water.”
“That’s ridiculous, Craig—and that’s about the last place you need to be right now,” said Kristen who was well aware of my past indiscretions. I’d recently begun disclosing some of my past issues with certain people because it was simply impossible to develop any genuine relationships without being truthful about where I’d been and what I’d been up to over the past decade. Of course, in Small Town America that disclosure certainly had its disadvantages, but I thought it was time to stop living a lie. The drug use, arrests, warrants, failures and the enormous waste of time had such a profound impact it was impossible to gloss over and still remain even remotely genuine.
“Alright,” I said. “We’ll do that then…but just for the sake of your brats.”
So in February I moved in with Kristen while continuing to churn-out misleading marketing collateral for the Whitman Wealth Center and it was beginning to weigh heavy on me. So many Whitman “students,” as they were referred to, were really just lower and middle income earners interested in becoming homeowners—not millionaire real estate moguls. Still, each week scores of hopeful future homeowners hailing from all over the country would be met at the airport and then delivered to the Wealth Center for a three-day workshop at a cost of $1,595, and from my office window I would watch them step off the bus and file into the building with bright smiles and big plans for the future.
These days, due to the horrific fate that awaits the vast majority of homeless and of course, abused companion animals—I seldom find myself sympathetic when it comes to the plight of human beings; however, as far as Whitman students were concerned there were so many times I just wanted to run out of the office and give those idiots a good kick in the ass and suggest they seek a refund and a more conventional path to owning a home. And certainly, this was really just the tip of the iceberg because at the conclusion of the workshop “instructors” would immediately begin hawking additional programs in asset protection and property management to a room full of people with no assets to protect or property to manage.
By the end of the month I received a call at Kristen’s from Marlon, who was somehow able to track me down and get my number from the Wealth Center. He was planning to visit his old girlfriend in Sarasota on the following Saturday and wanted to meet for lunch in Fort Myers beforehand. Although we’d spoken a few times since sharing that bus ride to sobriety I hadn’t seen him in over two years and was excited to hang out and catch up.
“By the way,” he asked before disengaging. “Who the fuck is Willie Whitman?”
“A snake oil salesman.”
“What does he sell?”
“False hope.”
“What specifically?” Marlon pressed.
“NOTHING specifically,” I told him. “It’s all a bunch of self-help nonsense. Some bullshit training courses—a lot of books. A lot of nothing.”
“Sounds fascinating, I can’t wait to hear the details.”
“THERE ARE NO DETAILS.”
With that we ended the call but had agreed to meet next week before he headed to Sarasota. In the meantime, however, Amy had been living at her stepmother’s condo and I’d been calling there in an attempt to convince her to let me have Savannah for a week or so. The weekly roundtrip voyage to Jupiter was losing its luster, as I would spend six hours driving just to spend three or four hours with Savannah and hoped my new living arrangement would enable me to work during the day while Kristen babysat, and then spend time with my daughter in the evenings and over the weekend. Unfortunately, Amy would dismiss my request by insisting she was still too young, and then try to impress me with details about her newest boyfriend.
“But in a couple of weeks I’ll take a ride out there with her to see what you’re living in,” she said before terminating the call as she seemed to doubt my ability to provide Savannah with a safe or decent place to visit.
On Saturday Marlon arrived in Fort Myers and I was twenty minutes late meeting him at a café in Downtown Fort Myers.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he asked me the moment I walked into the establishment. “I was about to give up on you.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I was stuck with Willie Whitman.”
“On Saturday?”
“He was suddenly inspired and couldn’t wait to share the stupid details.”
“Another self-help deal?” my buddy asked.
“Of course.”
“What’s it called?”
“Why do you care?”
“I wanna know what not to buy.”
“It’s called Cash Flow Generator—if you can believe it,” I told him.
“Wow, Craig! A Willie Whitman Cash Flow Generator sounds like something people might really be interested in,” he said—with unbridled, unadulterated and unrelenting sarcasm.
“It may be a cash flow ge
nerator for Willie Whitman—I’m not so sure about anyone else. But enough about my miserable life, what’s going on in your miserable life?”
“I’m working with Immigration and Naturalization in Miami,” he said.
“Doing what?”
“Ah, you know—helping out with interviews mostly, some investigations here and there.”
“I bet you’ve got a nose for sniffing out the coke smugglers.”
“No, that’s a customs thing. I mostly investigate potentially fraudulent marriages. You know, weeding out anyone trying to marry their way into the country,” Marlon explained.
“So, no coke then?”
“No coke. But what about you, smack-head?”
“Clean as a whistle. Except when I’m smoking weed.”
“How often do you smoke?”
“As often as I can.”
“That doesn’t sound like such a good idea. Sounds like maybe you’re just substituting one drug for another.”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
“Well, I suppose it’s better than shooting dope.”
“It’s nowhere near better.”
23
In April, Amy finally agreed to bring Savannah to the Cape for a visit. Before she arrived, however, I spent three hours cleaning and baby-proofing an apartment that was littered with toys, coloring books and magic markers left behind by Kristen’s five-year-old twins, Jeremy and Zach. Indeed, I could leave nothing to chance as earlier that morning I could tell by the tone of Amy’s voice she’d be looking to find fault with something.
Needle Too: Junkies in Paradise Page 12
