That's So Florida, Part 1
One thing I had realized over the course of the few weeks I had spent in the 9-5 world was that it was never a place for me. Being at a given place at a given time was never my forte, and I always wanted the opportunity to grow. I never wanted a financial ceiling in my line of work, just as in poker, I wanted my work to pay off as a result of my success. I have great respect for those who pursue those lines of work, but for me, I was willing to take the gamble of financial insecurity for the freedom of getting to do what I love. The hard question was "what did I love?". For the past three years, poker had taken a front seat in my life. Every day I would either play poker, watch poker, talk poker, or read about it. The world of plants I had almost left behind, minus some brokering deals that came by that were too good to pass up. Was I supposed to go back to this life? Or was there some way I could mix both poker and plants in a way that optimized my dreams and was profitable as well. I found when you don't keep your focus on any one line of work, it is easy to fail at everything in competitive environments.
A couple other things were precipitating me questioning the future. Nicole had made it very clear she was not interested in living in my area, and had gone to great lengths to come and stay when she was free from any parental obligations. We had been together for a year now, and her family, ex-husband, and her daughter were all out of favors to offer. The last thing I wanted to do was keep her from her daughter, so I was going to have to come up with a plan. Poker was not paying the bills anymore - driving to Hard Rock, playing in Tim's game, and dealing occasionally, though fun, was just a slow death, watching my bank account slowly dip lower and lower. I decided to make an extended stay to Cape Coral where she lived. Known better as "The Cape", it was a now massive suburb that was one of the fastest growing cities in the nation. I had personally seen this on my travels down here, watching the grids of streets pop up with new construction, and the city filled from South to North with others from all over the Eastern US. It was also a haven for many Latinos that were tired of the busy, stressful, and expensive life in Miami, and chose to move here so they could buy a house for half the price. The Cape was not a shady city - it had very little violent crime, was clean, and had the largest system of canals of any city in the world. The downsides were it had a very small sense of community due to most of the population having lived here for less than 10 years, and there was no real city center. It was a better place to grow plants, as Pine Island about 10 miles away was one of the largest agricultural areas on the West Coast of Florida that had a mild climate that rarely got to freezing. The 45 miles that separated my condo from this area was small but crucial in the growing world, it is sort of a demarcation line between the subtropics and the tropics in Florida. and happened to get a call from Tom, the brother in law of one of my plant clients about 40 miles away. This was the same client that had brought me down to the area when I had first met Nicole, so I figured it was only fitting that I come back and see what he had to offer. A retired schoolteacher, he was his brother in law's little ***** when he came down to work at the island. I was never sure why he did it, it was backbreaking work for someone half his age, but he must have hated being in Michigan all the time.
The trip from Sarasota to Cape Coral was one of both what old and new Florida had to offer. Heading from South Sarasota, you pass old neighborhoods and beachy motels that were so old they had come back into style, and were now swanky little hideouts by the intercoastal. Heading south into Venice, you find an older, smaller version of Sarasota with a lot less pretentiousness and the average age hovering around 70. Route 41 heads away from the beach here and has to cut inward, away from the Cape Haze peninsula. This is where old Florida says goodbye and new Florida shows its ugly head. Strip malls, chain stores and restaurants, and obnoxious signs greet you as you enter North Port, a bedroom community built on swampland with no redeeming value. Port Charlotte is the same way, and once you cross the Peace River, you get into Punta Gorda. Punta Gorda is a town that is trying its best to resist everything terrible about the explosive population growth in Florida. With cobblestone one way streets, the best Irish bar the world has ever seen, and old Key West style houses, this small town stands out on the journey, but developers have started coming knocking on the door like an ambulance chasing lawyer, just looking for a little piece of the untouched pie. This is where the area where I call "home" ended. Once you left the edge of down and headed South once again, you hit a world of failed developments, some half done, some abandoned. The land is low and undesirable from a historical standpoint, but modern technology has given it the illusion of livability. It is in this place where my client decided to build a massive house on the water, technically an island but just a short bridge brought you to the mainland. I pulled into the island I met with Tom, and as usual I was offered plants for my consultation. Tom is a great guy, but his brother in law who was worth well into the nine figure range was so cheap he would forget to pay any of his invoices. Tom knew this, so he always let me have a car full of stuff when I was done telling them to do the same stuff I have told them ten times before. We were at the nursery on the island and I noticed all of the dwarf coconut palms were dropping seed. Usually a coconut isn't worth a whole lot, maybe a dollar apiece, but the dwarfs were kind of a big deal. Dwarfs were very desirable because they would fruit at a height were one could pick them off the tree, and would not drop coconuts from heights that would give someone brain damage or dent their car. They sold for 10 bucks each, and these were germinated, making them worth double, some floating around in the water nearby. Tom had no problem with me taking them, they were hard to mow around and there was really no way to dispose of them, so he helped me stuff my SUV with these things. I even took the rowboat out and plucked all the ones from the water like a fisherman picking up buoys. I could barely close the hatch, there had to be almost one hundred in there.
"So you still playing poker?" Tom asked with that mid-western grin like I was always up to no good.
"It's going, just one of those times where you need a little break from the game." Tom was very easy to talk with, and was a borderline degenerate blackjack player himself. He would always complain about losing all the money he made working down here, telling me the games were rigged at Hard Rock in Immokalee, anything to justify his losses. What he didn't seem to understand was that it WAS rigged, but I just nodded my head when he told me blackjack bad beat stories. After an hour or so I took my SUV full of coconuts and headed south to Pine Island. I made a phone call to a fruit grower and asked him if he wanted the sprouted coconuts. A grower of all fruits, coconuts were not an exception as they were harvested for all types of uses from food to soil to making those fruity cups you drink pina coladas out of. He wanted them all and said we could figure out a price. Usually that's nurseryman's language for "I'm going to lowball you and you're going to take it because I'll be here with cash", but I was ready to grow these on myself. I headed over there, a 20 minute drive back in time to the 80s, which is what Pine Island was known best for - being a little bit country and a little bit backwards. On the way to Pine Island was a very cool town known at Matlacha, a fishing village on a small island with mobile homes and small shops. It looked identical to any smaller island in the keys, except it was much easier to get to, and the tourists were not clogging up the roadways most of the year. You know you have reached Pine Island once you hit large parcels of land with run down buildings or houses on them. Pine Island was one of those few rural areas that you couldn't wander at night because it actually had a terrible crime rate considering it was only home to 4500 people. Meth, painkillers, and the finest trailer trash drunks cruised the roads and the DUI rate had to be one of the highest per capita in all of Florida. One guy even ran a business of building and fixing bicycles that had been converted to motorbikes by adding a chainsaw motor to the drive wheel - it was $400 for the conversion, or $200 if you brought your own motor. These bikes were all over the island, not because it was cool, but it was the only option for most people without licenses to get to work. In the center of the island was the 4-way, and since the island is shaped like Manhattan, there was really just a North and South route. Heading North would take you to Bokeelia, a slightly ritzy boating area at the top of the island after you passed the countless trailer parks. Heading South brought you to Saint James City, which had a nice view of Sanibel from the southern tip, but was known for its strong biker gang presence. In the middle lay everything in between - more trailer parks, some snowbirds, but it was mostly agricultural land that was best known for field growing palms and mangoes. I headed North a few miles to the fruit farm and pulled into the parking lot.
After waiting a few minutes for Steve to make an appearance, I asked the Mexican lady who ran the fruit stand where he was. She told me 30 minutes in Spanish and I thought I might go explore the island a little bit. When I had pulled into the farm, I had noticed a farm across the street that had unusual palms out front so I figured I would stop in. Pulling across the street and down the quarter mile driveway, I could tell that someone with money owned this farm. It was well kept, well weeded, and everything just looked nicely grown. As I pulled in the turn off area for customers a tall old man came out and introduced himself as Richard. We talked about palms for a bit, and I mentioned the ones out front, asking if he bought them at my friend's place on the East Coast. He was surprised and asked me how I knew these things, and I explained my history in the plant world. He also saw my license plate and understood I was a little bit of a plant nerd. I told him I had to go, but he seemed eager to make me an offer to grow plants on his property. After googling my name and telling me he had heard of me through other growers on the island, we managed to iron out a deal on getting me nursery space within 30 minutes. It was going to cost me around $3k, but it was a good investment for years to come.
Heading back to the fruit stand I met up with Steve, and explained when the hatch opened, coconuts would be flying out. He had two Mexicans sitting there ready to hold them up, but it was a complete failure and they spilled all over the ground. The good news was Steve had a high demand for dwarf coconuts and I was expecting five dollars each but he offered ten, and after counting out 113 coconuts, $1130 was sent my way. I just thought about how this was the equivalent of a great 2/5 session and even a decent 5/5 PLO one. I thought about driving back up to see Tom and telling him lets go to Immokalee and degening some blackjack with him, but then I thought about the CSM machines at the $15 tables and that Nicole was waiting for me at her house. I headed back East and entered the abyss that was Cape Coral. I drove through the grids of streets and made my way to the middle of the city where both she and her mother lived on the same street. I had been here about six months ago but hadn't really been here for more than a couple days. It was six times the size of my condo, had a lawn and was prime for palm plantings, which was actually an important in my decision making as a place to live. I had lived for 12 years in Sarasota County and one year in Miami, and moving again was just not appealing - I was tired of moving around like a vagrant. Even though I had driven down, done a consult, delivered coconuts, and driven here, it was only noon, and as soon as I got in the door, I had gotten a text from Tim that there was a game tonight. I had forgotten he was trying to run on Tuesdays again and asked him if he wanted a player or dealer. He was eager for the game to run well and offered to let me deal as long as I played with tips. That was fine with me, and I didn't think twice about the fact I was 50 miles away until afterward. If I didn't take the offer, I would likely lose any dealing options in the future. I had to keep this option on the table, and after telling Nicole about this, she wasn't too pleased. She told me she would be cool with it if I discussed living here with her mother. Nicole and her mother had a very complicated agreement with this house that was sort of a "buy it through your inheritance from your sister and your mother" mortgage that didn't make any sense, but I knew I wasn't getting any equity from it, I just needed to know how much. It was so Florida - complicate an otherwise simple matter so no one knows how badly they are getting screwed, and negotiate terms on the fly, as well as make them variable. Their subjective terms didn't agree with my objective logic, and I told them straight up that I would pay the same that I did for my condo, which I thought was fair. No hidden fees, no variable terms, just concrete numbers. I helped them with some math to determine that my number was on average going to be the same as their variable rates. It was actually a good deal, and her mother was actually fairly nice, understanding that I had open use of the land and could do what I wanted plant wise around the house. I had officially made an unofficial deal with Nicole's mother to move down here - it made me anxious, but I didn't feel I was going to let her down even if I disappeared and she never saw me again. One of the first things she asked was "Do you have somewhere to go if this doesn't work out?", so she obviously had a positive outlook on the matter.
After holding their hand through that negotiation, I felt accomplished for the day, and I still had a night of poker to enjoy. The day wouldn't be complete without some Pollo Tropical and passing out for a few hours before the game. Nicole was already upset that I was leaving for the evening after just getting there, but a game was a game and I was going with or without her blessing. I shot back up north to make it there by 6:30pm, I had to drive 95 percent of the way back that I came just this morning to deal and play here, a little ridiculous, but money was money. I probably had $50 just in travel costs, but unless you are a professional you just don't care about that ****, you want to have a good time and make a little money. As I turned off 41 and headed towards the water, I felt in the zone, ready to deal a whole night, and probably a little too euphoric on Lortab to realize that I couldn't. One of the easiest ways I could tell whether a game would be good is looking at the cars parked and seeing who was there. Nazi's Grand Marquis was there, he was always early, but three cars I would never think I would see again in the area were also sitting in the driveway, parked so neatly next to one another like close buddies. The first was Josh's 20 year old white Honda Accord, he had owed Tim around a thousand bucks after the whole set deck fiasco. The second was a black, 2014 Ford F350 diesel with $25-30k worth of mods, who could be only one person but Tampa John. The last time he made an appearance here Tim had shown his ninja skills and chased him away with a katana sword. The third car I was never expecting to see again under any circumstances - a 2005 dark blue Chevy Trailblazer with a shot suspension. It was none other than Mike himself, I even had to get out and check the plate and the interior for empty blue L&M cigarette packs in the front seat. I got back in my car and just sat there listening to 92.9 Bob FM, a classic radio station that played 70s and 80s rock, it was probably the original rock station for Fort Myers and Naples. On the radio was "Second Chance" by .38 Special. I was going through the lyrics and all I could picture was everyone inside having a nice bro hug and making nice nice until one of them decide to **** the other and it all fell to pieces. I was finally ready to walk in and not beat Mike down and listen to what he had to say, and see how the night unfolded. I know that this was the night I wasn't going to take **** from anyone considering who had decided to make an appearance.
This was so Florida.
To be continued.
