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DECÒ

J.J. Colagrande

Jitney Books

Decò by J.J. Colagrande

Published by Jitney Books

publisher’s written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Front cover design by Marlene Lopez

Front cover art by MarcPaperScissor

Jitney books logo by Ahol Sniffs Glue

Jitney Books is a Miami-based micro-publishing company focused on producing

original titles by Miami-based authors writing about Miami in Miami with the

intention of this material being produced into film or plays by Miami-based

filmmakers or playwrights. All cover art will feature Miami-based artists.

The characters in this book are purely fictional. Any similarities between those

portrayed and real individuals, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All intellectual property rights remain with the artists and authors.

Please contact publisher for media, acquisition and collaboration inquiries:

[email protected]

#MADEINDADE

#MIAMIFULLTIME

For the County of Dade

DECÒ

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1— Chichi and the Stupendously Luxurious .................................. 1

CHAPTER 2—Wyn-or-lose-wood, Moustache Rides and DuPont .................. 4

CHAPTER 3— The Earl Society and a Critical Mass ......................................... 9

CHAPTER 4— The Sad Tale of the Queen of Allapattah ................................ 14

CHAPTER 5— Decò’s Rejection and an Immaculate Conception .................. 19

CHAPTER 6— Lazaro and the Grape-Ape-Donkey Donk, bro ...................... 22

CHAPTER 7 – Chichi’s Disgustingly Tragic Story ........................................... 26

CHAPTER 8—Utterly True Secrets of the Champagne Room ........................ 30

CHAPTER 9— Experience de Ultra ................................................................... 34

CHAPTER 10— 3, 2, 1, Blast-off . . . .................................................................... 37

CHAPTER 11—A Man goes off on a Quest ....................................................... 40

CHAPTER 12— Occupy Miami, 99% Fat-Free and Mambo ........................... 43

CHAPTER 13— Exile On Main Street ................................................................ 47

CHAPTER 14— Coconut Grove and the Stick of Shame ................................. 50

CHAPTER 15— A Few Lychees, Two Bananas and Rice Pudding ................ 54

CHAPTER 16— Portrait of a Young Migrant on an Organic Farm ................ 59

CHAPTER 17— A Vengeful and Empty Journey South .................................. 63

CHAPTER 18— Mile Marker Zero ..................................................................... 69

CHAPTER 19— Life at Mile Marker Zero ......................................................... 73

CHAPTER 20— Decò’s Self-Imposed Exile ....................................................... 77

CHAPTER 21—Pythons, a Tropical Storm and Pirates ................................... 79

CHAPTER 22— Trump Garble ........................................................................... 83

CHAPTER 23— Mambo Strut ............................................................................ .86

CHAPTER 24— A Tropical Depression ............................................................. 88

CHAPTER 25— A Mellow Night on the Town………………………………..92

CHAPTER 26— A Benevolent Man’s Heartbreaking Tale…………………...97

CHAPTER 27— Back To Work…………………………………………………101

CHAPTER 28— Decò Finds His Groove………………………………………106

CHAPTER 29— Chichi and the Oxycontin Trail……………………………..110

CHAPTER 30— Working Hard………………………………………………...115

DECÒ

But we must work hard

CHAPTER 1— Chichi and the Stupendously Luxurious

In a condo off West Ave., in the County of Miami-Dade, lived

Decò, a young homegrown writer with an intense work ethic and—what

was rumored by many, including and mainly himself—authentic talent.

A twenty-five-year-old millennial, Decò already held a Master

of Fine Arts in Poetry, a M.A. in Screenwriting, a PhD in Fiction, as well

as a B.S. in Bullshitting, and a M.B.A. in Business Administration, the

latter from an earlier era in his life, a period he refers to as naïve years.

The humble Decò only felt pride in three things, besides his

talent and obvious budding success in Miami; these were his ultra-

modern four-bedroom ninety-eighth floor South Beach condo at The

Stupendously Luxurious, a high rise on West Ave; his brand new

convertible sports car; and of course, his super-hot model girlfriend,

Chichi [shee-shee]. Four years earlier, Decò purchased the half-a-

million-dollar condo purely on speculation, with little money down. The

condo, with 125 floors, was super casual and suited his simple needs,

although strangely no neighbors existed and most of the condo appeared

dark at night. The deal closed solely off a strong credit rating he’d rather

justly achieved while in graduate school, a time when he sustained

himself strictly off student loans. These loans, in combination with an

equity line of credit on the condo, ultimately culminated in a total debt

slightly under a measly four-hundred-thousand dollars. But a little debt

did not bother Decò, on the contrary, his literary and skillful prowess,

and super-human intense work ethic, as it was so often proclaimed

(mainly and exclusively by himself) would surely land him heaps of

money and fame, especially in Miami. In a city rich with swagger, it was

only a matter of time before Decò would earn the riches and fame that so

deservedly come attached to an intense work ethic and talent in Miami.

Decò leased the brand new convertible sports car with the same

hard-earned and justly received credit score of a young twenty-

something in graduate school. The customized vehicle was unique to the

market. It represented the first electric-hybrid-turbo-boosted-convertible.

It had the groundbreaking ability to reach zero to sixty in three seconds

while squeezing eighty-two miles out of a gallon. Plus, the car had an

extremely obnoxious GPS system, voiced by Gilbert Gottfried, the parrot

from Aladdin. Reducing carbon emissions, as well as eliminating

dependence on foreign oil were issues more important to the writer’s

super-hot model girlfriend, who often chewed his ear off about

maintaining a minimal eco-footprint. But Decò liked speed. “Let’s go,”

was indeed his catchphrase. He enjoyed zipping around the narrow and

winding streets of South Beach, with Chichi [shee-shee] in shotgun. He

didn’t care where they went as long as they moved with tenacity. They

often drove the lengthy two blocks from the condo to the culinary Mecca

of Whole Foods where they’d peruse the aisles filling their cart with

delectable organic cuisine. Chichi had a special diet, recommended and

also prescribed by her casting agent and personal bestie at Wilhelmina,

mixing qualities of spicy veganism, raw food and Kentucky bluegrass.

Chichi [shee-shee] was the apple of Decò’s eye. At the tender age

of twenty, the luscious super-model had already graced the cover of

numerous magazines, particularly in Latin American markets. Her

Mestizo ethnicity (Irish, Kenyan, Filipino, Portuguese, and Australian

Shepherd, the dog) as well as her tall, fit body absolutely turned heads

everywhere they went. In his car, with Chichi [shee-shee], Decò loved

roaring off the beach, across the Bay, zooming in and out of lanes,

driving like a homicidal maniac into Downtown, passing half-built

condos, moving like the wind in a hurricane, to hit up their fancy athletic

club on Brickell Avenue. They both engaged in strenuous workout

routines incorporating a healthy balance of Zumba, Pilates, Kickboxing,

Yoga, Cross Fit, P90X and Power Chess. Chichi [shee-shee] hailed from

Corsica and spoke with a light French accent. The young maiden had an

impeccable eye for fashion and with pleasure Decò drove her to all of the

many malls in the County of Dade, constantly zigging and zagging

through traffic like a homicidal maniac. That is when he wasn’t busy and

hard at work being hard at work and busy. For a Miami-minute (sixteen

months), the young couple were the toast of the town. They were A-

listed at every major art gallery opening, magazine sponsored fashion

show, corporate-organized charity gala; they were regulars at all the

hotel bars and clubs along the Drives and Avenues of South Beach. They

were on display at Art Basel and ventured on the town nightly—

networking, mingling, complimentary drinks in hand, lost in the glitter

and swag; of course this lavishness occurred only when Decò wasn’t

engaged in his constant engagement of being a creative influencer.

Then, in a fit of dramatic and pathetic irony, in a scene Decò

could not have written with all of his formal education, the walls came-a-

tumbling down upon the publication of The Panama Papers. Without a

shell company to hide under, apparently, the young professional was not

aware of his adjustable rate mortgage which suddenly popped from 3.2

percent to 17.9 percent. It caused an increase in his mortgage payments

of almost five thousand dollars per month. Soon Decò was unable to pay

the bills and his beloved electric-hybrid-turbo-boosted-obnoxious-

convertible became possessed. Without an eco-friendly car Chichi [shee-

shee] found minimal use for Decò; he could no longer drive her to the

many malls in the County of Dade. The dog in her bit the hand which

could no longer feed. His penthouse condo at The Stupendously

Luxurious, although already mostly abandoned and dark at night, fell

into foreclosure, and his super-hot model girlfriend found a new man to

drive her around, zigging and zagging. The experience was so

humiliating Decò had to move to the neighboring village of Wynwood.

CHAPTER 2— Wyn-or-lose-wood, Moustache Rides and DuPont

Living in Wynwood was not easy for Decò. He resided on the

ground floor for the first time since living in Miami, renting a small

studio space in the back of an art gallery (The Montenegro-Duran-

Rodriguez-De-la-Garcia-Suarez-Rosenberg Collection). Gone were basic

condo amenities that were supposed to come with the city, such as

central air-conditioning, flat screen televisions, doormen, a concierge, in-

house restaurants, jacuzzis, and of course an elevated view of the ocean.

In its place were cockroaches, homeless men of destitution, Kendall kids,

diseased chickens, stray dogs, tourists and worst of all, the neighborhood

was over-run by a type of cretin Decò had only heard about but never

encountered in the safety net of his high-rise condo: hipsters.

Hipsters loomed everywhere. They invaded Wynwood, pushing

the most destitute and handicapped homeless person even further west

into the city’s dark and lonely streets. These skinny barbarians raided the

neighborhood on bicycles, twirling long moustaches. They wore jeans so

short their genitals were known to flap in the wind; in addition, their

flannel shirts sometimes doubled as picnic blankets in public spaces such

as the Wynwood Walls. These hipsters opened location after location of

hipster haven; galleries and studios and working lofts and hair salons

and co-operatives and faux-universities and coffee shops and

independent movie houses where they all drank craft beer and plotted

how they alone would define the current Zeitgeist of all that which is art,

film, music, theater and literature too. These hipsters came in the form of

painters, visual artists, poets, filmmakers, comedians, record shop

owners, musicians and seamstresses. They were so hip they weren’t even

there anymore. They left. Gentrified. Yet the hipsters were still mean.

They rejected Decò’s attempts at introduction with a haughty Hmph! and

a sharp roll of the eye and worst of all always a twirl of their moustaches.

Decò did not understand why the hipsters should reject him. Did

he not work hard? Did he not know a thing or two about the affairs of art

and culture? Was it because he came from the Beach? Was it because he

looked different and shaved and wore nice designer clothes? Did they

blame him for Zika? Climate change? Bad Bunny? Even the hipsters in

the very gallery he lived behind, The Montenegro-Duran-Rodriguez-De-

la-Garcia-Suarez-Rosenberg Collection, had no love for Decò, and it

depressed him. Decò would often sit in a chair, under a banyan tree, and

stare into the tropical night. From a distance he could see his old condo

with so many units dark against the moonlit heat lightning sky. He

sometimes stared so hard he tried to imagine his exact unit and past life.

He missed Chichi [shee-shee] and his wonderful car and the zigging and

zagging. He would’ve composed a novel or perhaps even a poem about

the whole affair, but instead at night he took to smoking cigarettes and

drinking mojitos. If it weren’t for his mentor DuPont, who knows?

***

DuPont was a writing professor and one of the hardest working

men Decò knew. The earnest DuPont was not only a working novelist

but one of the best-read scholars and academics of his time. DuPont

composed novels, short stories, screenplays and countless texts while

simultaneously judging Fiction contests, conducting numerous writing

workshops, reviewing the latest publications, and overseeing the theses

of several graduate advisees. DuPont was of French-Canadian descent,

originally hailing from Massachusetts - - he was considered one of the

best Southern writers of his generation. Fortunately for Decò, DuPont

took a liking to the young writer – perhaps DuPont empathized with

Decò’s $400,000 student loan debt and felt a moral obligation to keep in

touch; nonetheless, DuPont’s work ethic and accessibility were assets

Decò admired and depended on -- and he often texted DuPont, for

advice. As busy as ever, DuPont never ignored his young protégé.

When Decò complained about losing his South Beach life,

DuPont responded: The end of one chapter leads to the start of another.

Filled with self-loathing, Decò hopelessly wondered what came next.

DuPont tried to comfort him: A writer embarks on every task knowing

not what to do. Character is destiny. After every text DuPont concluded

with the same epilogue, without fail: Work hard.

***

DuPont was always too busy working to tell young Decò any of

this in person, but if needed, the role model resided only a text or e-mail

away. And DuPont’s guidance did indeed cheer Decò up, for Decò

intuited things would eventually improve, and they did, when least

expected. It was at this time someone at The Montenegro-Duran-

Rodriguez-De-la-Garcia-Suarez-Rosenberg Collection learned of Decò’s

Master of Fine Arts in Poetry, and with the craft particularly in vogue,

they no longer blamed him for Zika and instantaneously Decò was

welcomed with open arms by the legion of hipsters in Wynwood.

“Welcome to Wynwood,” said one hipster.

“Things are changing,” said another.

He was then bombarded with healthy advice and thoughtful

requests. “Beware of The Walls and the Swarm.”

“Huh?” said Decò.

“Come to Little River.”

“No let’s go to Las Rosas.”

“Show me your testicles.”

“Wait, what?” asked Decò.

“Let’s dance!”

“Read us a poem, Decò.”

“Climate change melts plastic people.”

“Huh?” said Decò.

“There are five craft breweries here.”

“And an Ahol trap boutique.”

“Sound cool? You’re cool, right?”

“Yeah,” responded Decò, smiling. “Cool.”

CHAPTER 3— The Earl Society and a Critical Mass

It wasn’t long before Decò took on the lifestyle of the hipsters.

He soon drank craft beer instead of mojitos. He traded his designer

clothes at the local clothing exchange and his wardrobe transformed into

something tighter and more plaid. There was money left and with it

Decò bought a fixed gear bicycle. He even grew a little moustache.

Being accepted into the neighborhood was merited. Everyone

agreed with his fundamental maxim of working hard. It was absolutely

essential to work hard. Oh, yes—we all work hard, they proclaimed as

they danced the night away at flash house parties, baked cupcakes to sell

at special gatherings thrown in abandoned warehouses, cooked and ate

delectable French cuisine at special Motown brunches held in coffee

shops, occupied dirty stairwells to read each other’s poetry, while

constantly Snapping and Tweeting about the whole thing, of course.

Decò worked so hard in Wynwood he was soon noticed by the

hippest of all hipsters; those who knew the secrets of the philanthropic

foundation, The Earl Society. These wise, hip men, all with multiple

degrees in numerous disciplines, absolutely loved Decò’s work ethic and

ethos. They applauded his desire and noticed his talent. With welcomed

arms, they schooled him on the ancient and super-secret art of grant

writing and schmoozing. The path towards the Holy Grail was revealed

to Deco: an Earl Society grant. With an Earl Society grant, the hard-

working Decò could earn the much deserved philanthropic help needed

to work as hard as he needed to work. Decò was thrilled with the news

and quickly hired someone to write the grant proposal, since he was

absolutely too busy implementing the schmoozing part of the plan.

An Earl Society grant could not come at a more opportunistic

time since his student loan payments could no longer be placed on

deferment, and with every week, the eminent threat of payment loomed.

Rather than think about such a banal concept, Decò rode bike. It

was the time when many from Wynwood ventured Downtown to

partake in a one-hundred percent spontaneous community bike ride that

occurred the last Friday of every month at seven o’clock sharp. The ride,

a disorganized yet orderly statement promoting the sustainability of

biking over oil consuming, greenhouse gas producing, road-hogging

cars, figured to be a hoot! What a great time to schmooze, thought

Decò—and also to demonstrate to the community the peaceful and

subdued nature of biking. Decò romantically let himself fancy that

perhaps his dear Chichi [shee-shee] would be in attendance, if she was

not too busy shopping at one of the many County of Dade malls.

The bike gathering turned out to be a little happening of only

about six-thousand people. Of course the event adhered to its clock-work

consistent spontaneity. Therefore it warranted no need for police

permission or escort. Beforehand, Decò tried to schmooze but the task

turned difficult as all the hipsters were glued to their smartphones,

simultaneously updating IG and Facebook statuses by checking in at the

spontaneously organized event, while including a message along the

lines of ‘get off your computer, technology sucks, ride bike now.’

Over a huge roar from the spontaneously gathered crowd the

cyclists began the sunset bike jaunt through the eagerly awaiting Miami

streets. What a gathering, so sustainable and just—there were bikers of

every ethnicity, gender (there are more genders than one may imagine in

the County of Dade), age, and socio-economic background. They calmly

moved through the city in an organized and peaceful manner, blowing

through every red light and stop sign and intersection they encountered,

taking up only a forty-two block stretch of busy rush-hour roads, kindly

corking automobiles filled with exhausted corporate-sponsored regular

old family men and women trying to get home from a long week of

work. The peaceful and subdued bikers clogged the traffic for only fifty-

four minutes per city block, using gentle and basically superfluous

phrases of compassion: “Fucking wait, goddamn it. I said wait!” “Can’t

you see we’re coming through you gas guzzling swine!!” and “What are

you going to do? Huh? Hit us? What? Do something. Go ahead!!” and

with compassion they banged on the front of cars, often denting the

hoods of these foolish motorists trying to get home from work.

What philistine corporate shills!!

Decò loved the gathering. The sea of flannel and denim seemed

filled with opportunity to practice the art of schmooze and with every

hard-working pedal he knew with conviction that his eco-footprint was

shrinking. As the critical bike mass moved along the narrow and ill-lit

streets, Decò thought of how he could write a screenplay about the

event, or maybe even a short story, or in the least an ode, of which

everyone in Wynwood would adore while sipping a craft beer.

They soon moved through parts of town Decò had never seen,

neighborhoods filled with such poverty and destitution Decò wondered

where he was. These massive housing projects, deplorable and

overcrowded, did not exist in South Beach or Wynwood. It confused him

to see such miserable and poor conditions in the County of Dade. Yet the

people, whilst some threw rocks at the bikers and yelled the street name

of their hood with pride and dignity, others welcomed and cheered the

critical mass bike movement along as if it were an organized marathon.

Again, young and hard-at-work Decò was filled with bursting

and brilliant ideas of creativity, of sharing with the world through the

arts all the inequality, social injustice and obvious laziness that existed in

America. He would parallel the work ethic he knew so well with the

obvious laziness of a character lost in poverty. He, and only himself,

could reflect through the lens of art all that can be achieved in America, a

dream not as dead as it appeared. What an idea! Then, while deep in

thought, Decò rather absentmindedly clipped wheels with a biker and

fell. Luckily it was only Decò who fell, rather than a domino of bikes, but

it all happened extremely fast. Cries of “heads up” and “rider down,

rider down” filled the night air as Decò flew over his handlebars and

landed on the rough pothole filled pavement. He remembered little as he

was run over by countless compassionate bikers, none of whom decided

to stop. Decò blacked out about three minutes into the fifty-two minutes

of being plummeted by every conscientious bike rider in the city. When

he awoke, his bike was gone, as well as his cellphone and wallet; in fact,

someone was removing his shoes and flannel shirt. Decò heard one thing

before being kicked in the head, back into unconsciousness.

“Welcome to Allapattah, meng!”

CHAPTER 4— The Sad Tale of the Queen of Allapattah

Lying in a pool of his own blood, shirtless and alone, achy and

sweaty, Decò obviously did not feel so hot. He could barely move. In his

mouth he felt a few of his teeth missing and it wouldn’t be surprising to

learn if he broke a bone or two. He had his thoughts and for the first time

in a long time, they did not feel very useful. He couldn’t go to the

hospital because he didn’t have health insurance. Writing a story would

be no help. He couldn’t even text DuPont for advice because someone

stole his smartphone. Eventually a group of children wandered up. They

circled him like an order of cubs, but with curiosity, even compassion.

Decò tried to talk, but since half of his teeth had been knocked out, and

his tongue was swollen, the phonetics sounded warbled, as if an egg laid

lodged deep in his throat. The group of children, six of them, varying in

ages, tried to listen to Decò, but since they could not understand warble,

they decided amongst themselves to take pity on the fallen biker. They

picked him up, without saying a word. Like a medic to a wounded

soldier—they gently transported him past the iron gates of a housing

compound, into an apartment on the ground level of a dilapidated quad.

The four-plex looked like an old yellow castle, classical Miami

architecture, from the 30’s—a blended Spanish and Mediterranean,

antiquated and falling apart, yet completely textured and quaint. Into

apartment 3A they carried him; Deco immediately met a wafting scent of

Cuban food—some perpetual, stale odor of ropa vieja and arroz con

frijoles—mixed with the fried fragrance of vegetable oil and perhaps a

pickle—the strange aromatic funk occupied his pores and stayed there.

The six kids carrying Decò gently placed him on the living room

floor, atop of an old and battered Victorian carpet. There was an old

abuela sitting on the couch watching a television program on Univision

broadcast in Spanish—the show featured Walter Mercado, a flamboyant

androgynous psychic who wore costumes from an era long expired. The

psychic spoke with zeal and compassion of mystical and secret

astrological truths only he knew as he burned a magical sage plant. The

abuela watched the show blind to Decò. Her jaw slowly moved up and

down as if she chewed on sugar-free gum, except there was nothing in

her mouth. After a few minutes, a young lady entered the room.

“Ayyyyy,” she said. “Estas comiendo mierda!”

The eldest of the cubs explained the scenario to the young lady.

And with the humblest compassion and sincerity, this Spanish vixen

welcomed Decò into her home and introduced herself as the Queen of

Allapattah. She explained that she was in fact the mother of all six of the

kids, and that was her grandmother on the couch, and her mother also

lived in the house, but stood in the kitchen cooking, which is where she

usually stayed. Although Decò could not speak he did not believe how

beautiful this young girl was, with her long black hair so slicked back in

place. And her eyebrows so perfectly pruned, with such wonderfully

large hoop earrings dangling from her ear almost to the shoulder. How

could this young girl have so many children? Decò wanted to ask, and

he tried to talk, but the Queen of Allapattah could tell he labored in his

vocal capabilities and she promised that he could recuperate with them

in their humble abode. The Queen of Allapattah said she would take care

of him and feed him ropa vieja and arroz con frijoles until he felt better.

Decò mimed for a pen and paper and once obliged he asked in beautiful

penmanship: How could you have so many children? You are a kid!

And the Queen of Allapattah laughed. “My story is an

interesting one. I shall share it with u. It really starts with my dear

mother. My sweet mami came to this country from Cuba on a raft with

her lover and several of her brothers and sisters. My mother was

pregnant with me. They all spent weeks at sea floating in shark infested

waters and the boat capsized on many occasions. She lost her lover, my

papi—to the fierce and unkind sea—as well as many of her brothers and

sisters. A huge storm took everyone else, except my dear mother."

Almost on cue, the Queen of Allapattah's mother (who looked like her

sister, with slicked back hair and big hoop earrings, and couldn't have

been a day over thirty) came into the room from the kitchen. She carried

a plate of food for Decò (ropa vieja and arroz con frijoles) and her silent

presence distracted the Queen of Allapattah from telling her story. The

Queen of Allapattah then began to speak in Cuban Spanish at a rate so

fast it mesmerized Decò, for it was so quick and nuanced it sounded like

the equivalent of an oratory automatic machine gun. "Mami dejame

tranquila, tu no vez que estoy hablando!! Que tengo que hacer para tener un

poco de privacidad!!" Decò had no idea what she said but he did

understand the word mother, and since the Queen of Allapattah's mom

so quickly exited the room, he figured she said something extremely

complimentary, probably thanking her for the culinary delight, more

than likely embarrassing the slightly older woman. "Ayyyyyy, it was

truly a miracle I was born. My destiny must have been in the hands of

God. Yet when we arrived things were not easy. My mother had to work

three jobs to support us—she was an assistant at an elderly hospice, a

housekeeper, and sometimes a whore. And we were alone. She could not

bear any children after me, and she never loved another man after the

loss of my papi. We stayed with my cousin's grandmother's

grandmother, who was like my grandmother, and almost a saint, god

bless her soul." The Queen of Allapattah pointed to the elderly lady on

the couch who laughed at the flamboyant astrologer on the television.

"Abuela, puedes bajar el volumen del televisor porfavor!! No puedo ni pensar!!

Por el amor de dios!!" The Queen again belted out a bunch of Cuban

Spanish so fast Decò could hardly believe the speed of which she could

speak. "Ayyyyyy," she resumed. "What was I saying? My story? Oh,

yeah, whatever-r-r- I started working when I was nine years old. I sew

for my cousin's mother's sister, who is a seamstress, and a good one. I

still work for her but it is harder with the boys. I had Oscar when I was

thirteen, he is nine years old now. Such a blessing from God. And then

came Adalberto, who is eight, and my twins Armando and Camacho,

who are seven, and--hold on a second, Camacho, bajate del sofa!! Deja a tu

abuela tranquila!! Vete ayudar a tu hermanito con su tarea!! Maldita sea, no me

hagas preguntarte denuevo--Ayyyyyy, so when Domingo and little Lucas

were blessed into my life it became a little harder for me to work, but a

twenty-three-year-old woman can't just sit still, so of course I work when

I can. Plus I have six different baby daddies and four of them are beneath

me and I don't care who dey think they is just cause dey my baby

daddies don’t mean anything I mean whatever it don't even matter

because I don't need no need no lazy ass dudes aiiight, all I need are my

baby munchkins." The six kids ran around the house, playing some sort

of tag game. "So-o-o-o- like if u need to stay here that's okay with me.

You're kind of cute, even missing teeth I can see your potential swagger,

and you have such a nice mustache. At first I thought you were plastic

and just melted on the street cuz you know, like, climate change. L-i-i-i-

ke, you know, I learned stuff at Miami Dade boo, feel me-e-e-e. But I see

you, you’re real." Then the Queen's cellphone rang. She looked at the

phone and issued a cranky face; her eyebrows jumped up to her hairline

and her big hoop earrings shook. "Ayyyyy, it's one of my baby daddies."

She answered the phone and fired off a few lines of Spanish so fast her

tongue did amazing linguistic somersaults. "Vete para la pinga, a mi no me

importa quien tu crees que eres!! Tu no vales mi tiempo!! Vete a singar,

maricon!!" She hung up the phone and turned her attention to Decò. "So-

o-o-o- what-do-u-say??" Decò thought: I will stay here and help this

woman for she is truly hard working! I will learn from her, create ideas

for numerous stories, and I must heal as well. Decò smiled, with missing

teeth, and nodded. He mumbled, “I will stay with you.”

CHAPTER 5— Decò’s Rejection and an Immaculate Conception

Decò stayed with the Queen of Allapattah for some time. Her

mother nursed him back to health, slowly, feeding him plenty of ropa

vieja and arroz con frijoles, and her grandmother three times a day would

light candles and burn copious amounts of sage and frankincense in his

area. The Queen of Allapattah provided him ample time to rest and he

soon began to heal. Once able to speak, he did not want to be a burden,

so he shared his ridiculously talented and extremely pragmatic skills of

creative writing amongst all six children in the house and even the

Queen herself, who soon took to writing prose consisting of amazing

dialogue, if Decò didn’t say so himself. Decò even borrowed the Queen’s

phone to touch base with his mentor DuPont. He shared his adventures

and countless ideas of stories he’d surely compose. The response came

quickly: An idea for a story is not a story. Work hard.

Decò felt he would soon head back to Wynwood; he thought he

may be missed by many who frequented The Montenegro-Duran-

Rodriguez-De-la-Garcia-Suarez-Rosenberg Collection. He also longed for

his studio. He truly needed to focus and crank out his greatest debut

screenplay so he could return to the Beach, reclaim his wonderful car

and reconcile with Chi-Chi [shee-shee]. It was high time. However, at

exactly this moment, Decò received devastating news, arriving via e-

mail. The Earl Society issued a negative response to his grant application.

Dear Applicant,

We regret to inform you that although you indeed have a wonderful

mustache and sufficiently know of the art of schmoozing, according to the Earl

Society's completely subjective and biased standards, your mustache is not big

enough to twirl adequately, nor is your schmoozing connected to anyone of the

Earl’s Society’s interests.

Sincerely,

Hmph!

This news did not land with grace or precision upon the runway

of Decò’s heart; in fact, on the contrary, it sent the young artist into a

miserable and anxious depression. The first thing he did was shave his

mustache. Stupid hipsters, he cried. Then he wailed upon the skinny

shoulders of the Queen of Allapattah, whose hoop earrings bounced off

Decò’s ears like rings around a bottle cap at the County of Dade Fair.

“What am I to do without that grant? How will I have time to complete

my masterpieces? My student loans are currently due. I must now get a

real job to begin paying them off. Oh, what a miserable world!!”

“Ayyyyy,” said the Queen of Allapattah. “Relax, papi. If it is a

job you need, I can call my cousin Lazaro. He is a hard working meng.

And a reliable bro. Indeed my primo Lazaro will find you work.”

“You would do that for me?”

“Of course. Literally.”

“Thank you, my Queen.”

“Besides, the father of my baby must have a job!!”

“What do you mean?”

“I-I-I-I-I-I’m pregnant with your child.”

“That’s not possible!! We’ve never been intimate.”

“It is possible, the time u touched me, just now, with your head

on my shoulder. I’m a fertile woman and it does not take much for me to

conceive. You shall father my child! And I shall get u a job with my

cousin Lazaro to support me and my children, this shall be done!”

“A-y-y-y-y-y-y,” Decò said, clutching his head.

CHAPTER 6— Lazaro and the Grape-Ape-Donkey Donk, bro

When the Queen of Allapattah told her cousin Lazaro to find

Decò a job Lazaro reacted by simply saying: ‘bro.’ In fact Lazaro used the

word ‘bro’ more than anyone in the history of the English language. It

would be prudent to say that the word ‘bro’ was a mere colloquial term

for the larger word ‘brother.’ Both of which would be considered nouns

by most linguists, even those of the urban sort. Still, Lazaro had his own

language. He uttered ‘bro’ frequently as a dangling modifier. ‘Bro, don’t

worry, I will put you to work, bro.” He used it as a coordinating

conjunction, often ineffectively and as a bizarre and awkward transition

in run-on sentences. “You are like family bro there is so much for me to

teach you bro y para mi prima of course bro I’ll do it bro, bro.” Lazaro

even used it as a stand-alone idiom which conveyed not only the utmost

importance, but also the complete opposite, a total laissez faire,

depending on the context of the situation, and also an intonation of

voice. The idiom often depended on how long Lazaro dragged out the

‘o’. A simple ‘bro’ for example, often meant “leave it alone” while a

longer ‘bro-o-o-o-o,’ meant holy-crap-can-you-believe-that. It took Decò

a few weeks to adjust to the speech. “Bro, we need to do something

about your missing teeth bro you need to get a grill I got a good bro he

will get you a tough grill so when you come to work with me you won’t

look like some dumb bro with no street sense bro-o-o-o-o.” Decò indeed

possessed a scholastic aptitude in cahoots with a linguistic fortitude so it

did not take him long to decipher the ‘bro’ code.

Lazaro turned out to be a heck-of-a-jolly-fellow. A large man,

with a healthy Spanish girth and beard, he agreed to tutor Decò both in

business and a certain code. The tutelage began with a gift, a set of

platinum teeth, removable, referred to as a grill. “Bro wear this grill, bro

–it’s made of platinum and it will cover up those missing teeth bro.”

“I cannot take your grill, Lazaro.”

“Bro I don’t need it anymore I have a new one bro mines old

school like to the Mayans old school bro it has pieces of real Mayan jade

drilled into that shit bro-o-o.” Lazaro smiled and Decò took the gift and

put it in his mouth and smiled back: two bros with grills beginning a

new entrepreneurship together, the logistics of which Decò could not

quite figure out, although it appeared to have something to do with

distribution, according to Lazaro, who was very careful and patient with

Decò, and considered him an apprentice. The apprenticeship consisted of

two gentlemen driving around the County of Dade in Lazaro’s hi-rise

car, a 1986 Ford Crown Victoria, with 24 inch oversized wheels, custom

chrome rims, an amplified sound system, with modified suspension,

painted grape purple, to which Lazaro passionately referred to as his

‘Grape-Ape-donkey donk bro.’ The car was once a police vehicle, a fact

Lazaro seemed to think gave him extra liberty when it came to adhering

to the city’s traffic laws. For example, at a light, green always meant go;

yellow, ninety-five percent of the time meant accelerate and go; and

indeed red, usually meant go, with no one around and if it were after

midnight. Over time Decò learned to love Lazaro’s Grape-Ape-donkey

donk, although it was the complete opposite of his old beloved sports /

hybrid car, and he secretly vowed to one day reclaim what was

rightfully his, he would just have to earn it the old fashioned way,

through Coke distribution. And that’s what they attempted to do. Work

with Lazaro turned grueling, to some extent. Their routine extremely

laborious; they would drive the Grape-Ape to the Port of Miami, all the

way to the end, beyond the large cruise ships, to where the exporting /

importing containers lay. Lazaro would then meet up with an associate

who loaded the trunk of their car with cases of soda pop. The cans of

soda were clearly labeled Coke, Diet Coke, Cherry Coke, and Coke Zero.

Then they would drive around Miami, to an assortment of

neighborhoods, and Lazaro, whom did not adhere to any form of

unnecessary exercise, would have Decò walk out of the car, carrying a

case of the Coke. The product was distributed to an assortment of

characters ranging in all spectrums of the socio-political-economic scale.

These Coke associates would in turn hand over a bag (duffle, brown

paper, athletic, backpack, satchels, ect) and Decò would then return to

the car and hand the bag to Lazaro. On a given day they dropped a case

of Coke to about three different associates in one neighborhood. They

usually stuck to the north side of town in areas like Liberty City,

Brownsville, Gladeview, West Little River, Opa Locka and of course

Allapattah. And after a long hard day of work, of driving in the Grape-

Ape-donkey donk, of listening to music infused with copious quantities

of {{{BASS}}}, of carrying a case of Coke to three different associates, of

going out to lunch and dinner, usually at a strip club, of counting large

amounts of money, only then Decò would return home to Allapattah,

exhausted, to the sanctimonious abode of the Queen, who’s belly grew

by the day. Their Coke distribution partnership went on for a long time

and apparently grew as a lucrative business because over time Decò’s

pockets ballooned with hard earned American money. Of course he gave

some of the hard earned cash to the Queen of Allapattah, the mother of

his unborn child, to help with expenses around the house, and with the

rearing of her six other kids, but he also spent money on himself, buying

all new clothes, and hats (he had snapbacks representing every sporting

team in the country), sneakers, (he had over 100 pairs of Air Jordans) and

he fixed his teeth, although he still wore his grill as often as he could,

and he saved money, and for the first time began to pay off his student

loans. Months previous, he called the landlord of the studio behind The

Montenegro-Duran-Rodriguez-De-la-Garcia-Suarez-Rosenberg

Collection and told him to sublet the studio, as is. He had no inclination

of returning to Wynwood, nor of writing his dear friend DuPont, always

reliably busy somewhere near a computer. Decò barely even thought of

writing—he was working incredibly hard in his new life and had hardly

time for anything else. It wasn’t until a bizarre occurrence that a real

sense of nostalgia for his old life returned. It happened when Lazaro and

Decò innocently lunched at a Downtown strip club named after the

number Eleven. They were enjoying a much needed break from the

torrent of their arduous labor when the deejay nonchalantly announced

to the stage a certain Chichi [shee-shee] whose stripper name was Mia.

CHAPTER 7— Chichi’s Disgustingly Tragic Story

Decò sat in the chair and watched Mia or Chichi [shee-shee] strut

the catwalk. Her hips swayed to base-heavy dubstep. Decò’s grilled-out

jaw totally dropped for she looked every bit as beautiful as the last time

he’d seen her. He also felt utter shock to see Chichi dancing the lunch

shift at a strip club. How on a green earth could this have happened?

Lazaro, in the meantime, also felt aroused with the exotic dancer.

He stepped up to the stage and made it rain—no, pour—on the stripper,

flicking dollar bills fast and precise like a Blackjack dealer at the Hard

Rock. Chichi [shee-shee] or Mia left the money on the floor, too proud to

pick it up. She had someone do those remedial tasks, usually the deejay.

Lazaro walked back to his partner.

“Yo, bro. Like Mia in the M.I.A, bro. I used to have a dog name

Mia, a pitbull, bro. But this bro ain’t no dog, bro. Want a lap dance?”

“My bro, that’s my ex-bae and boo, bro.”

“B-r-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o—”

***

Chichi [shee-shee] walked over and began a seductive Salome-

esque performance for the two hard working gentlemen in for lunch at

the club named after a number. Naked down to her sling back Dino

stilettos, she gyrated, nonchalantly, slowly titillating her perky titillating

devices. Lazaro looked long and hard at Decò, who wondered if she

truly did not recognize him. Decò said nothing and watched her dance

over a dubstep mix by Drake. Chichi [shee-shee] walked over to the kind

Lazaro, who gave her a hundred dollars to dance with his friend, and

then he immediately walked off to the bar. Chichi [shee-shee] then

turned towards Decò and began to get closer, straddling one of her long

buttery legs around his thighs. There was a dull, dark, hollow emptiness

in her eyes that he did not recognize. “What? You don’t know me now?”

After a long gaze, her listless eyes slowly came to life.

“Woof, woof,” she said. “Ugh, my name is Mia, k?”

“Chichi—it’s me, Decò,” he said. “Anybody home?”

“Decò? Oh my gawd. I did not recognize you.”

“I am the same.”

“Ugh—you look like a thug.”

“And you are a stripper.”

“What is it that you do now?”

“I work hard. We distribute Coke. It is very lucrative.”

“Have you even thought of your Chichi?”

“I have thought of you plenty, my darling. I lost your number.

New phone. Who dis? Besides, you tore my heart in two when you left

so abruptly. You were mean to your Decò. I was forced to move off the

beach to a distant and strange land where I’ve been very busy learning

the art of schmoozing and also how to grow a proper moustache. I’ve

also been extremely hectic in the accumulation of many ideas into which

I will write countless novels and screenplays. I’d be doing such actions

right now if not for a bizarre accident on a bicycle, which led me to my

current job with my bro Lazaro who has been a very good bro and

mentor. Although I am very much still in love with you my Chichi, I am

also currently with Lazaro’s cousin, The Queen, who is also with my

child. Life in the 3-0-5- has become a little complicated, I am afraid.”

“Ugh--life is so-o-o-o complicated, Decò.”

“Please, I must know why you are a stripper?”

“Fine. Chichi will speak. The story is an unjust tale. It began on

my twenty-second birthday when the agency Wilhelmina rather

abruptly terminated my modeling contract. Ugh-h—there existed a

clause, in the fine print, immediately calling for the dismissal of a model

the second they were no longer twenty-one. Without suitable

representation, Chichi immediately lost all of the oversea runway gigs,

commercial and film work, plus all of the corporate print work. The

invitations to the hottest affairs stopped and I was left to scrounge for

work wherever. I modeled at pop-up fashion shows in the most suspect

of beach neighborhoods, Decò—like above 71st street—u-g-h-h—and at

independent salons owned by fierce feminists with wild and loose fitting

clothes; I modeled lingerie at Irish bars and even sold cigarettes at clubs

where we were once waited on hand over foot; g-r-r-r-r—Chichi also

posed for cheap ads running in alternative newspapers and even partook

in photo shoots for aspiring photographers who were merely looking to

build up their portfolio. They put me on Instagram, Decò. Ugh, imagine

your Chichi an Instagram model. Ugh. They could not even afford to

pay, but only in trade, specifically the pharmaceuticals Xanax and

Kolonopin, to which I now absolutely need to deal with this newfound

and heinous anxiety. Of course Chichi could no longer hit the shops she

loved so much; in fact, I have been forced to shop, ugh-h, at outlet malls

and stores like Ross and Marshalls, and dare it bear repeating, a thrift

shop in Hialeah. I briefly thought about getting an education, going to

college, perhaps learning a trade like Nursing or even becoming a

teacher, but without the type of money to attend a decent school like the

University of Miami, what was the point? The only option was to enroll

at Miami-Dade College and the mere thought of that sent me to apply at

this club. Chichi had no intention of accepting the position, but the final

straw occurred when it was no longer affordable to shop at Whole

Foods. Grocery shopping became a nightmare. Ugh. I was forced to

patronize Publix. Now, with the help of Xanax, and the countless

cocktails people buy me, I can perform this extremely hard work, believe

me. And now you know half the story. But now I will reveal what your

Chichi does in the back rooms; the secret rooms they call Champagne.”

CHAPTER 8— Utterly True Secrets of the Champagne Room

“Every once in a while during the course of a hard working

tedious six-hour shift I am invited by the most slicked back Brickell

lawyers, City Commissioners, police captains, Downtown club owners

and even judges into the rear room of this dreadful disease infected

house of ill repute. In the back room of which they call Champagne,

these legal cockroaches force Chichi to sign a waiver or NDA swearing

to the utmost and extreme secrecy. Since you are merely a writer, a man

of ideas and not action—I see no reason why I cannot share these with

you for I am sure they are safe. These legalese monsters gossip of plans

to develop abandoned land into parking lots they label inner city parks.

They complain of landscaping and plot of making cement fall from the

sky. They plot and speculate about speculation and land plots. Real-

estate and real-estate. These shills share stories about basketball players

who cheat on their wives. They decide what club owners to give liquor

licenses to, and whom to shake down for sound ordinance violations and

underage drinking raids. They talk incessantly about gambling and

stealing from Asian investors. Ugh-h—what they do to Chichi in the

Champagne room. What tremendous labor! They make me strip down to

my stiletto heels, like I am now for you, and they force Chichi to get on

her hands and knees, and then, ugh-h, it’s almost too much to recant—

they use my back and silky skin to sniff multi-colored powdered drugs. I

am told not to move nor talk, unless spoken to, and for all of two hours I

remain absolutely calm, an inanimate table, not even present, which is

made somewhat tolerable by the six-Xanax bars I consume before my

shift, yet still it is the most tedious and back-breaking work I’ve ever

endured, sweet Decò. I assure you, despite the eight hundred dollars

they pay me—no one should have to work as hard as this. But alas, I no

longer shop at Publix. I can again afford Whole Foods. Ugh, how I long

for the innocent days we spent together, love.”

“That is quite a story of debauchery. If I didn’t have to repay my

student loans, and support a pending child, I would surely steal you

away from this world of unbearable grueling labor, my sweet Chichi.”

“Oh, Decò.” Chichi placed her paw on his cheek and licked him.

At that moment Lazaro returned to the VIP area and grabbed the

arm of Decò. He seemed tense and extremely rushed. He pointed to two

policemen by the front door, talking to a large and gentle giant of a

bouncer. Lazaro also identified a plains clothes police man near the bar.

“Bro you see that bro in the corner by the bar I know that bro is a

fed come on bro we have to leave now. Is there a back door? No, better

yet we better split up bro there is no time I will head for the donk. Meet

me back at my cousin’s house every bro for himself bro.”

“Huh?”

“Let’s go, bro.”

“Why?”

“Do you have any idea how much Coke we have?”

“What’s wrong with distributing Coke?”

“Comiendo mierda—bro, let’s go.”

Lazaro made a move for a side exit door and ran towards his car.

Rather dumbfounded, Decò and Chichi peered out of a window inside

the club, following the large Lazaro as he moved quicker than a Florida

panther. He didn’t make it to the car. He was vigorously assaulted by

what appeared to be a Swat Team of police officers. They came out of

nowhere, a crew of urban ninjas, jumping on the rotund Lazaro. They

proceeded to assault Lazaro with the worst type of brutality imaginable,

tickling him in spots he thought no one knew. Is tickling torture? Indeed.

“I should probably go,” said Decò.

“I know a way.”

Chichi grabbed Decò by the arm and nudged him towards the

Champagne room. They moved quickly through the parlor, barely

noticing three slicked back Brickell lawyers sniffing multi-colored

powders off the back of a Russian model on her hands and knees. Decò

and Chichi headed towards the rear of the dimly lit Champagne room,

opening a door with a placard that read: ‘Office.’ Inside, everything

appeared to resemble the normal confines of a club office. Small in space,

cluttered with paper, a steel safe, and cameras showing various corners

of the club, which seemed crawling with policemen, apparently looking

for Lazaro’s accomplices. On the wall lay a bookshelf cluttered with

trade publications and glossy magazines. There were a few hardcover

editions, one of which was entitled Ethics and Morality in Business. Chichi

pulled the book, triggering the secret opening of a sliding compartment

in the wall behind the cluttered desk. “A panic room?” asked Decò.

“No, a tunnel.”

“A tunnel?”

“Ugh-h—in the 1920’s there was a tunnel built downtown by a

handful of bootleggers. It connects a few of the clubs. Quickly, you must

go, Decò. Follow the tunnel to safety. You must go now, Decò.”

He looked confused. He didn’t want to leave her.

“Will you come with me?”

“I can’t, Decò. I’ll cover for you.”

“Fine. Then take this.”

He emptied his pockets and handed her his money.

“Woof,” she barked, taking the currency offered. “We’ll meet

again, my love,” she said, gently licking him on the lips. She proceeded

to gently push Decò backwards into the dark and barren tunnel.

“Chichi, one more thing before I go.”

“Yes?”

“You don’t need pharmaceuticals.”

“Ugh-h-h—just go.”

And the beautiful ex-model, wearing only stilettos, roughly

forced Decò into the tunnel. He watched her listless face as she closed the

hidden door just as the police entered the office. Decò had no idea what

happened, but he did the only thing he could. He ran into the darkness.

CHAPTER 9— Experience de Ultra

Decò followed the poorly lit tunnel, moving like a burrowing

owl on instinct alone. He walked blindly for what must have been at

least two city blocks before he heard a distant sound from above.

Intuitively, he headed towards the noise, which began to clearly resonate

uhhntz, uhhntz, uhhntz. The repetitive bass began to get louder as Decò

moved. Eventually it became so overbearing Decò knew he landed

directly under the mothership of the sound’s origin. He could even see a

ladder on the tunnel’s aging limestone walls. Climbing the steps

revealed a hatch, relatively easy to open. Upon entering, Decò crawled

into a ventilation system, which eventually dropped him into a

bathroom stall. The bass boomed louder than ever uhhntz, uhhntz, uhhntz,

uhhntz, uhhntz. Decò casually walked out of the stall and made contact

with the bathroom attendant, a middle-aged man of Haitian origin. The

valet had a gigantic cheek-to-cheek smile on his face, like a young Eddie

Murphy. He offered soap for Decò to wash his dirty hands. Decò smiled

in appreciation, his gangsta grill glistening. After cleaning his hands,

dusting off his clothes, spraying on cologne, and grabbing a stick of gum,

Decò remembered he didn’t have any money to give the attendant.

He turned to the smiling man.

“I’ll get you next time.”

“Suh mah di,” said the attendant.

“Excellent, and a n’ap boule to you, sir.”

Decò exited the bathroom into what must have been the biggest

club in the world, easily larger than any comparable venue located in the

hottest nightlife districts of Europe, South America, or even New

Zealand. The size of four football fields, the factory warehouse ‘Space’

was not only filled with the most cutting-edge sound and light systems,

but also packed to capacity with people. There seemed in effect a global

gathering of dancing souls, moving to the rhythms booming out of the

speakers, bouncing and nodding and weaving through a conglomerate

of strobe lights, green-lasers and electric-ultraviolet grids of streaming

and beaming light, uhhntz, uhhntz, and all of this on a weekday

afternoon. Where on Earth did all of these people come from? Decò

instantly was swept into the wave of decadence, the rumbling on the

floor forced him to move his feet and dance like he never danced before.

Occasionally an obnoxiously loud siren filled the warehouse along with

high pitched whistles, as if there was a football game and the ref called

an Illegal Motion penalty on a dancer uhhntz, uhhntz, the rhythm

eventually returned and the dance-off kept going, like a crew marshaled

by the Energizer Bunny, a furry whom Decò could’ve sworn literally

danced by. A motley cast of the most colorful characters existed in this

phenomenon. Despite the heat generated by the dancing, many patrons

were covered in furry leggings. Weird furries were also there. They

looked like a crossbreed between Care Bears and Fraggles. Many heads

wore some form of sunglasses, despite being inside, in combination with

an assortment of backpacks, usually reflecting the latest in Japanese

Manga. Some of these dancing ninjas wore face masks, as if the Bird Flu

or Zika mosquitos buzzed nearby, but the air seemed to smell like not

only sweat, but menthol, from Vicks Vapor Rub or Ben Gay. Color

exploded everywhere, in fashion; in yarn threaded hair; all over an

assortment of day-glow bracelets and necklaces, not to mention glow

sticks that constantly flew across the room like the rocket’s red glare.

There was one girl named Molly who must’ve been the party’s

organizer, for she seemed extremely popular. People continuously came

up to Decò asking either if he’d seen Molly, or if he wanted to party with

her. There was no clock in this monstrosity, nor did anyone’s watches

seem to work. Phones were without signal inside the uhhntz vortex.

There was nothing left to do but dance. And drink plenty of water.

Everyone had a water bottle, or an extreme water backpack with a straw.

Someone thoughtfully gave Decò a “vitamin” they said came from

Molly. It had the effect of making all the colors and sounds in the big

gigantic venue much more vivid. It also kept Decò dancing, pretty much

the whole way through, until the club eventually closed down and

everyone had to vacate, only forty-eight hours later.

CHAPTER 10— 3, 2, 1, Blast-off . . .

Once the club ended, Decò found himself in the streets. There

were no policemen, no remnants of what happened to Lazaro, only a

handful of questions that needed answers. His first instinct was to head

back to the strip club named after a number to look for Chichi [shee-

shee] to ask if there was any collateral residual after what so bizarrely

transpired. That question would remain a mystery for Chichi no longer

worked at the club, and there was no contact info available. Left

confused, without money, and tired from dancing, Decò walked back to

Allapattah, alone. If not for the detour, Decò would have gone home

immediately. Although the club served as a distraction, it also facilitated

a necessary escape path for the apparent fugitive. Unfortunately, the

Queen of Allapattah did not see it as so. As soon as he opened the door.

“Where were u?”

“Hey, bae. Where’s Laz?”

“Ayyyyyy,” said The Queen. “Hueles a mierda! Where were u?”

“Something’s different here.”

The house still smelled like ropa viejo, arroz con frijoles, vegetable

oil and fried pickle. There was still an old lady on the couch watching a

television show on Univision starring the flamboyant astrologer Walter

Mercado. Except, instead of six children running around the house in a

frenzy, there seemed an extra baby in the air.

“Where were u, Decò?”

“Why are there seven kids instead of six?”

The Queen of Allapattah’s temper was geared to blast off, as if

she embodied Camp Canaveral. Her body language implied such an

attitude, as her eyebrows raised all the way to her hairline. The Queen’s

ponytail tightened and her oversize hoop earrings moved not even a

centimeter. She yelled something extremely fast in Spanish. "Vete a jugar

afuera. No estoy jugando contigo!! Decò assumed The Queen asked the

children to go outside and play, which is what they did. “This is the last

time, don’t play with me, flaco, where the fuck have u been, Decò?”

“I was at the club—”

Before he had time to explain the strange set of circumstances

that befell Lazaro and also him in the middle of their hard working day,

she began to yell in both English and Spanish. He could not understand

the Spanish, but certain phrases seemed to repeat themselves: maricon,

pendejo, usted es un joto, besa mi culo. In English, The Queen pledged

independence and self-reliance. She elucidated, quite eloquently, how

she didn’t need no man, let alone some lazy hijo de puta gringo. Before he

could legitimately make his case, for Decò had no intention of lying, she

attacked with more insults and abuse. She jumped on him and slapped,

pulled, ripped and scratched until Decò ran into the bedroom.

“Where’s all my stuff?”

“Me cago en tu madre, she cried. “Everything is gone. All your

sneakers, hats and clothes. Burned and buried. And I found your stack of

cash, so forget your savings, Decò. I want u out. I was good and for no

reason u shit on me, cocksucker!! I don’t need no baby daddy like u.”

“I was away two days, bro.”

Decò grabbed his phone to show her the date.

“How could you have had the baby?” he asked.

She grabbed his phone and threw it into the wall.

It splattered into pieces.

“Just go. Go, Decò.” The Queen pushed him out of the room,

towards the front door. Her mother ventured out of the kitchen with a

plate of ropa vieja and arroz con frijoles and stood idly by, next to the

grandmother on the couch. Both women watched as The Queen literally

swept Decò out of the front door, as if he were a pile of unwanted dirt.

“Vete pa’ carajo. And don’t u dare come back!”

CHAPTER 11— A Man goes off on a Quest

Left with only the clothes on his back, one snapback hat, a single

pair of Jordans, a silver chain and the grill on his teeth, Decò wandered

the streets of Allapattah alone and confused. Banned from The Queen’s

dominion, he now questioned the legitimacy of her pregnancy and

premature birth. There was no way he could be the baby’s daddy, no

matter how easy The Queen conceived. He wondered what happened to

Lazaro, who was his partner and associate—therefore Decò was now

also without employment. He no longer had a residence (the studio in

Wynwood behind the The Montenegro-Duran-Rodriguez-De-la-Garcia-

Suarez-Rosenberg Collection had long been sublet). Besides, he had no

money. He could no longer afford a place to live or eat, and he would

also have to defer payment on his student debt. Decò made his way to an

Allapattah pawn shop and was able to sell his chain, grill, and Jordans

for a couple of hundred dollars. It seemed paltry compared to what he

had saved, but at least he would not starve. Next door to the pawn shop

there was a Payless shoe store. The attendant commented on Decò’s

snapback hat, and they actually traded the hat and Decò’s baggy shirt

and pants for a pair of shoes, a plain white-t, and some linen khaki’s.

Walking around the neighborhood without his gear, it became apparent

very quickly he no longer belonged.

Decò hopped on a bus, not even knowing his destination. Where

could he go? What could he do? Whom could he call? He was extremely

tired for he had not slept in days, yet for the first time in a while, he felt

quasi-liberated. Decò had no idea what came next. He felt like the

protagonist in a story. Some forgotten passions stirred; dormant

inspiration found a kindling. He could return to writing. What other

option did he have? He thought of his writing mentor DuPont. What

would DuPont do in this situation? Without a phone, Decò thought the

next best thing would be to find a computer and e-mail the elder sage to

ask for advice. The bus was heading downtown so Decò decided to hit

the Government Center library to jump on a free access computer.

Decò wrote DuPont a nice letter, catching him up on affairs,

explaining he’d been too busy to communicate with anyone because of

his demanding and hectic schedule. He explained the circumstances of

his current situation, the destitution and also his readiness to write.

Within a minute, the ever available DuPont fired back:

Writing is exploration. Start with nothing, learn as you go.

Decò was scared. He was not acclimated to having nothing and

felt slightly vulnerable. On the contrary, Decò was used to the comforts

of life and feared moving forward without a safety net or outline. He

responded, lamenting misguided mistakes, while fearing future ones.

Follow your mistakes.

The advice came quickly. But it made sense. Were they even

mistakes? Or opportunities and second chances? He never expected to

see Chichi again, and when he did, although she broke his heart when

she’d left the first time, he didn’t feel resentful. Her leaving was the best

thing for him, at that time—just like The Queen of Allapattah giving him

the boot, taking his savings, and keeping him from a baby that in

accordance to all laws of physics could not even be his. Should he judge

them or harbor ill will? He asked DuPont for his thoughts on betrayal.

Betrayal is a major theme in everyone’s life.

DuPont spoke truth. Decò needed to remember that his life

unraveled as a story of redemption and forgiveness, not revenge and

abandonment. If he surrendered to love, abandoned his fears, and cut-

through the redundancy of his negative patterns, he could prevail.

Decò was ready for a quest, not knowing exactly where it would

take him, and that felt fine. In the County of Dade there exist many

adventures. They wait for whoever has the nerve to walk out the front

door. The young writer thanked DuPont for the pep talk and promised

to keep in touch. DuPont’s predictable response landed in Decò’s Inbox

remarkably two seconds before he’d sent the message: Work hard!

***

It was definitely time to work hard—right after a nap. Decò was

exhausted after the three-day dance-a-thon and exile from the Queen’s

kingdom. Decò left the Government Center library and chose a grassy

park behind the building. He lay on a bench and slept for what must

have been a long time. When he woke the surrounding area was

occupied by a city of tents, protest signs, a make-shift kitchen, library,

and dogs. A group of one hundred people sat in a circle a little way off.

“Mic check!” someone yelled.

CHAPTER 12— Occupy Miami, 99% Fat-Free and Mambo

“MIC CHECK!” the occupiers yelled.

A beautiful young lady stood. She had blond hair and piercing

blue eyes. She looked around the circle with an air of seriousness.

“I propose,” she said.

“I PROPOSE,” the crowd repeated her words.

“A plan of action…”

“A PLAN OF ACTION…”

“Let’s walk to Bayside…”

“LET’S WALK TO BAYSIDE…”

“And look for dolphins…”

“AND LOOK FOR DOLPHINS.”

The one hundred people on the ground raised their arms to the

sky and began to shake and wiggle their hands and fingers, as if in touch

with the Lord, or at least a really good impromptu jam—they had jazz

hands. Then the crowd, made up of grey headed revolutionaries,

students of the arts and sciences, bespectacled hipsters, long-haired

hippies, veterans of foreign wars, yuppie libertarians, gypsy anarchists,

teamsters, a few vagrants and vagabonds, a couple of three-card-monte

cardsharps, a tarot card reader, a counterfeiter, a diseased yoga

instructor, a fraudulent priest, peddlers of empanadas, a music

promoter, a few local bloggers, a poet, a record store owner, a sports

bookmaker, a concierge, a City Councilman, a few alms-seekers, and a

reggae band, all stood with the blond girl and proceeded to walk away

from the Government Center towards the bay to look for dolphins

because they had all concluded dolphins lives mattered.

“WE ARE THE NINETY-NINE PERCENT!! FEEL THE BERN!!”

Decò didn’t know if he should run as fast as he could, or join

what must have been some sort of circus that had rolled into Miami,

perhaps this was the latest Cirque production. He felt shocked, appalled,

enthralled and definitely ninety-nine percent curious.

Just then a young man walked towards Decò, apparently

heading for a tent. “Excuse me,” Decò asked. “What’s happening here?”

“Some Dolphin’s Lives Matter thing!”

“Miami has beautiful dolphins.”

“They do. But we need a real plan of action.”

“Who are we?”

“We are those who have been fucked by the rich capitalistic

corporate pigs like Trump who place profit over people, who infuse the

political system with dirty money ensuring our leaders are manipulated

by lobbyists while our civil liberties and first amendment rights are

drowned out! We are those who have lost jobs to outsourcing! We are

those who’ve fought in foreign wars and worked hard to protect, honor,

and serve this country and its God-given freedoms and constitution!

These people yell ‘feel the Bern.’ But what they really feel is gonorrhea.”

“You are well-spoken!! I agree. I work very, very, very hard

pursuing fame and fortune in the Unites States of America. It is not fair

other people should simply be given these things. What is your name?”

“My name is Mambo. I’m a veteran of three tours of duty in

Afghanistan. I’ve just returned after five years and I no longer recognize

this land I once called home. Overseas I worked my ass off from the

crack of dawn until the stroke of midnight. We moved, hustled, scouted,

crawled, chased, and hid from al-Qaida in the rugged hills of the North,

rucking almost seventy pounds on our backs, in addition to weapons.

During the day the desert reached an unbearable 120 degrees and my

balls would sweat and chafe so hard it felt like a snake lived in my

shorts. Then at night those same balls would freeze their asses off. I have

been cornered in a cave by snipers for three days. I’ve seen my friends

shot to death right in front of my eyes. I have killed, with my bare hands

I’ve killed and bleep you dickhead if you think it doesn’t keep me up

every night of my life. Now I’ve returned to what? My friends from high

school have morphed into pot smoking, coke sniffing frat-boy lawyers

and there isn’t even any decent work for me in the city I love to hate.”

As Mambo told his story, the other occupiers had returned from

looking for dolphins. They sat back down in a horde at the same well-lit

spot about twenty yards away from the campsite in the park. The same

beautiful blond girl stood up and prepared to speak her mind!

“I propose…”

“I PROPOSE…”

“We should order…”

“WE SHOULD ORDER…”

“Fat-free pizza…”

“FAT-FREE PIZZA…”

“With extra veggies…”

“WITH EXTRA VEGGIES.”

“Fuckin’ a,” said Mambo.

The horde raised jazz hands into the sky.

“FEEL THE BERN!!” they yelled until eventually the pizza came

and everyone festively ate. Considering Decò had no job or place to stay,

when the war veteran offered him a place to crash in his tent, Decò

warmly accepted the hospitality. After dinner, the night continued into

the wee hours as the reggae band, sports bookmaker, poet and three-

card monte cardsharps entertained the valiant protestors.

CHAPTER 13— Exile On Main Street

Decò quickly found a home in the Occupy Miami movement.

The camaraderie in the camp city was fueled with gleeful spirits, if not

downright giddy ones. He particularly enjoyed the arts and crafts hours,

where they spent time finger painting cardboard signs of protest. Other

highlights of the day in camp city included the eight am yoga vinyasa

flow class, taught by the diseased yoga instructor Jaya; an anti-tea party

with local teamsters at four pm; the daily tarot card reading at six; as

well as some community education classes, including Counterfeiting for

Dummies, How-to-Operate-a-Record-Store-without-an-Earl-Society-

Grant, and Making Empanadas from the Scratch Academy.

Mambo often claimed the movement was unfocused. He

preached pro-activity, militancy and structure. Decò disagreed. He

found the movement active. Most of the day the occupiers walked

around, petitioning signatures for a motley of social issues including the

criminalization of extra spicy hot sauce, the legalization of the Bros-

before-hoes Charter, the abolishment of the Florida Marlins Home Run

celebration, the discontinuation of No Late Fees from Redbox videos,

and of course, the legalization of recreational marijuana.

Decò felt both inspired and also extremely busy. Especially since

once a week they would actually march into the financial district, picket

outside banks, block the streets, and even dance Bollywood style in

unrehearsed flash mobs. But it was Mambo who felt discontent. And he

would keep Decò up at night, in the tent, disgruntled, talking about how

the movement lacked substantive direction and clarity. Mambo didn’t

agree with the movement. It was like a hot air balloon, something with

potential to rise on its own, but ultimately just filled with gas.

“Sorry, that’s me,” said Decò. “Too many empanadas.”

Decò and Mambo formed an intimacy in that tent at night. Their

friendship grew exponentially in a way in which only a relationship

between two men, one schooled in the fine arts, the other an ex-soldier

and military man, could. They explored each other while Decò

attentively listened to Mambo’s tall tales of savagery that he carried with

him from the hills of Afghanistan. And Decò would issue his new friend

a hug, for it was indeed obvious that Mambo suffered in his seriousness.

Yet Decò slowly began to appreciate Mambo’s point of view, for when

juxtaposed against the harsh and bitter work of warfare, what they were

doing could seem rather trite and obsolete. So, when Mambo decided to

speak up at the daily council meeting, the dainty Decò stood by his side.

“I propose,” said Mambo.

“I PROPOSE,” the horde repeated.

“We spend our time…”

“WE SPEND OUR TIME…”

“Looking for jobs.”

“LOOKING FOR JOBS.”

The horde of occupiers did not throw up jazz hands in approval;

on the contrary, the signal for disapproval, a closed fisted side-to-side

jerking mimicry of male masturbation filled the air, otherwise known as

the “air dick,” as well as a series of boos and hisses. In fact, the horde

adopted the mentality of a mob and literally chased Decò and Mambo

out of the camp, not giving them time to break down their tent nor

retrieve any belongings. In a wall of arm-to-arm solidarity, the occupiers

forced Decò and Mambo to run down the street aimlessly, never turning.

“FEEL THE BERN,” they yelled in the direction of the Brickell

Bridge, chasing Mambo and Decò. And the last thing they heard was a

distant and fading chant of climate change melts plastic people, feel the Bern,

feel the Bern, climate change melts plastic people, feel the Bern, feel the Bern,

climate change melts plastic people, climate change melts… till it faded away.

CHAPTER 14— Coconut Grove and the Stick of Shame

Mambo and Decò ran all the way to Coconut Grove, trotting

over the Brickell Bridge, through the financial district, under the ghost

condos, into the flooded streets, dodging falling cement from half-

completed real estate projects and construction cranes. They booked

across the entrance to the Rickenbacker Causeway, down South Bay

Shore Drive, passing Vizcaya, the Miami Science Museum, and Mercy

hospital, through the narrow tree-shadowed roads, along the banks of

Kennedy Park, into the old and cherished Grove. Mambo, it turned out,

was not homeless; on the contrary, he lived in a charming little studio off

Mary Street and Tigertail Ave. They enjoyed a long refreshing shower

and afterwards popped open a bottle of Chardonnay. While relaxing

over a spread of brie, red seedless grapes and fire-roasted tomato

Triscuits, they watched an episode of Project Runway and idly chatted.

“I should get ready for work,” said Mambo.

“You have a job?”

“I’m a bartender at the comedy club.”

“You work in comedy?”

“Fuckin’ a, where do you think I get my cynicism?”

“Sounds like a fun place to work.”

“That’s a joke.”

“Mambo, can you get me a job?”

“Decò, you are too educated. What could you do?”

“I need a job. I have little money and my student loans are

dangerously close to defaulting again. You have been very kind to me,

but I need to stand on my own two feet. I will become a waiter at the

comedy club and study the comics. Perhaps it will enhance my writing.”

And so it began that Decò became a waiter at a comedy club in

the Grove. Unfortunately, he may have been the worst waiter in the

history of the service industry. He constantly mixed up orders, always

pressed the wrong buttons on the Aloha computer system, and drove

every line-cook and back-of-the-house employee crazy. He never double-

checked tables to make sure they had everything they needed, and god

forbid when someone asked him for an extra condiment, Decò

unconsciously made the sourest stank-face and mumbled do you know

how far the kitchen is from this station? For the life of him Decò could not

recall what tables were which. They forced him to run food but he either

dropped the plates on the ground, or delivered the order to the wrong

table. Customers constantly complained. The comics on stage often

mocked his bumbling ways. He felt like a penguin in the faux tuxedo

they made him wear and the white suspenders didn’t help his self-

esteem. If it weren’t for the gratuity added to the check, Decò wouldn’t

have made a dime. The pace of the job was too fast, all of his tables were

sat at once, and it quickly placed the rookie waiter in-the-weeds.

Sometimes he would hide in the walk-in cooler, eating a slice of

cheesecake, crying, afraid to return back on the floor. Late at night, at

home, he complained to Mambo, who quite honestly felt little sympathy

or understanding at Decò’s incompetence, especially since he went out-

on-a-limb to get him the gig. Decò felt as if he could indeed understand

Mambo’s war experiences, for working at the comedy club surely

mirrored the condition of war. Decò’s unhappiness at work began to put

a strain on their relationship. And the comedians didn’t make the job any

more bearable. Decò could not learn much from the comics, for he was

too busy to dissect their performances, and after work they turned out to

be incredibly insulated. Decò never saw a comic laughing offstage; in

fact, if Decò said something side-splittingly hilarious, the comic wouldn’t

smile or chuckle, but merely say with a deadpan face, that’s funny. The

showroom often filled with hearty guffaws from the audience, but

without the context of the joke, to Decò these laughs seemed hollow and

outright scary as they boomed from the crowd. The audience at the club

appeared vulgar, capricious and overindulgent. Decò’s production

devolved to a point where management gave him smaller and smaller

stations, until finally he had a one table section, a two-top, near the

kitchen, and that was too much for Decò. Everyone in the back-of-the-

house cursed Decò’s name when he appeared, except for one kind man,

the dishwasher, a Haitian gentleman named Jacques. Jacques sported a

welcoming and familiar cheek-to-cheek smile, sort of like a young Eddie

Murphy. When Decò pre-bussed his one table, which was hardly ever,

and sauntered into the back carrying plates towards the dishwasher,

he’d look at the kind man and smile.“Hello, my friend.”

“Suh ma deh,” Jacques said.

“And a n’ap boule to you, my friend.”

The waiter’s sales continued to drop. Many nights, in the count-

out room, he’d face fierce criticism by the management for having sales

that didn’t top fifty dollars. They were terribly mean people, these

managers. When a server’s sales dipped below fifty, they’d face two

stern rings from the stick of shame, a long antiquated vaudevillian

shepherd’s hook, sometimes used during particularly awful open

microphone performances. When Decò complained to Mambo, again

there was no sympathy. “Fuckin a’,” he said, “watch what happens

when your sales go under twenty dollars.” Rumors of a dungeon existed

in the low-ceilinged comedy club, but alas, the day never happened

because management went all Donald Trump and fired Decò’s poor ass.

They used the stick of shame, hooking him off the floor during a Doug

Stanhope set, dragging him by his wrung neck until he fell roughly onto

the front promenade, under the lit-up marquee, unemployed.

CHAPTER 15— A Few Lychees, Two Bananas and Rice Pudding

Getting fired from the comedy club did not prove amusing. Left

without employment, Decò felt useless, unwanted and depressed. Plus, a

lingering financial crisis loomed. The remaining balance on his student

loans needed yet another period of deferment. Decò tried to write on

Mambo’s computer, but the white screen did not transform itself into a

great American novel. One can only look at a blinking curser for so long.

He even texted DuPont looking for inspiration; Decò explained to his

mentor how he felt too rejected to compose.

A writer’s life is filled with rejection

The text did not elevate his mood for Decò did not feel up to

rejection, in any form, not with his feelings clouded in a shroud of

depression. Even the Florida weather personified his mood: gray,

thundering and heavy in humidity. Decò’s thoughts wandered all over

the place, from his old life on South Beach with Chichi [shee-shee], to the

misadventures he’d experienced since departing. His behavior felt

erratic, to say the least. Since the termination, Decò slept in. He watched

eighties pornography and Fox News, confusing the two at times. To

make matters worse, his relationship with Mambo acquired more strain.

Mambo felt embarrassed for bringing Decò into his place of

employment. The shame quickly turned into anger at the home front.

He berated Decò as a good for nothing loafer.

“Fuckin a’,” Mambo said. “How could you be so useless?”

This critique did not sit well with Decò, who would normally

respond and retaliate with just how hard he worked, but that defense

did not appear warranted, especially compared to Mambo, who truly

worked hard as a servant to his country and also as a barkeep. One day

Decò took it upon himself to vacate the premises of his close friend and

confidant and prove to the world that he was indeed a hard worker—so

he left the cute condo on Mary Street the same way he entered, with

simply the clothes on his back. He walked around the Grove. As fate

would have it, the day of the week landed on Saturday and there was an

organic farmer’s market down Grand Avenue. Although Decò did not

have a lot of money, he imagined that a new beginning should be

celebrated with a healthy meal so he made his way to the tents of the

farmer’s market. Under the organic tabernacle, it was unbelievably

crowded. People mingled amongst boxes of healthy vegetables and

fruits. A bed served up rice, corn, and avocado salads, all loaded in raw

vegan dressings, herbs and spices. Decò almost felt like he was at Whole

Foods, but even this felt fresher, particularly since he was in the ghetto

outside of the Grove. The plain-clothed Decò picked up a few lychees,

two bananas, coconut water, raw nori crackers, and a little organic rice

pudding, all unmarked and priced. After waiting online forever a cashier

with nappy dirty dreads politely handled the goods and pronounced a

hefty verdict of a measly $87 for the organic products. Decò could not

afford such brutality. He hemmed and hawed just long enough until a

beautiful yet very spaced-out cashier turned around after compressing

two shots of wheatgrass. Decò recognized her immediately.

“Chichi!!”

She looked at him. Slowly her eyes closed and opened.

“Oh,” she said, barely audible. “Hey-y-yyyyy you.”

“What are you doing here, Chichi?”

“You know this guy?” the cashier asked.

“Yes,” said Chichi. “We were lovers.”

“Oh, in that case, I’ll give him the lover’s discount.”

“The lover’s discount?” said Decò.

“Our food does love you back,” the cashier said. “Four-dollars.”

Decò was then able to afford the vegan meal with the discount.

He asked Chichi if she could share some time and space with him on one

of the picnic benches to the side of the tents. She agreed and they

ventured to the rear grounds under the shade of a mahogany tree. Chichi

still looked amazingly beautiful, keeping all of the characteristics of her

super-hot-model days, minus a taste of elegance regarding her fashion

sense, plus a newfound listlessness in body language. Her clothes

seemed basic and she was obviously stoned on copious drugs of various

compounds. “Chichi, what happened to your clothes and your energy?”

“Ugh, everything’s fine. I work here. It’s tiring. It’s always tiring,

Decò. I’m dating the owner of the farm. His food is very good and

organic. We all live in Homestead. It’s nice. I get what I need. Can I have

a sip of coconut water?” Chichi dug into her pocket and retrieved two

small white pills. She washed them down with a swig of coconut water.

“I returned for you at the strip club.”

“Ugh, no I left that hell, Decò—it was totally beneath me. I am

still to this day haunted by the atrocities occurring in that back room.”

Chichi spoke very slowly, almost with a drawl. Her eyes fluttered and

she appeared as if about to nod out. “Luckily, I turned to psychotherapy

to help me heal. The doctors keep me suitably medicated with

benzodiazepines, barbiturates, and now since the accident I have all

these wonderful advanced pain doctors who supply me with opiate

analgesics. You see, I had a pretty big fall at the club—Ugh-h-h—just

plum walked right off the elevated stage, twisted my ankle horribly and

even broke my favorite stilettos. G-r-r-r, so, you know, that was all for

Chichi and dancing. But the advanced pain clinics have been incredibly

generous in their understanding of my suffering—they supply me many

pain pills, and the psychiatrists and other doctors too. Chichi is good.”

Her head dropped down like an anchor falling through shallow waters

to a reef. Then she popped back up, as if it were as casual as tanning

naked in Sunny Isles. “Although, going to see all of these doctors is a

tedious job in its own right. You of all people understand how busy

things can get, sweet Decò. Granted I had to sell most of my belongings

and practically my whole wardrobe, but what do all of those material

things matter? Can you tell me? Chichi still looks beautiful, despite what

the modeling agency says. Anyway, the most important thing in my life,

besides from my medicine, is food. Chichi needs her food and luckily I

hooked up with the farm or I’d probably be shopping at Publix ugh--to

think—but at least I can eat good organically raw and delicious food.”

“Chichi, fate has let our paths cross again. I am just starting a

whole new adventure. Perhaps now is the perfect time for us to rekindle

a love that I know exists between us. It must surely be written.”

“Are you rich and famous?”

“No, Chichi,” said Decò, bowing his head. “I am not.”

“My boyfriend is rich. And his eco-footprint is minimal.”

“My eco-footprint is also minimal.”

“I’m sorry, Decò. You cannot keep me fed with raw vegan food.

I can see it in your clothes. You are still too poor. You couldn’t even

afford a few lychees and coconut water. I’m sorry.”

“No one could afford this farmer’s food.”

“I’m sorry.”

As if she was as a robot and somebody pressed a deactivate

button behind her ears, the beautiful Chichi nodded out, falling face first

into Decò’s bowl of organic rice pudding which he never even got to eat.

CHAPTER 16— Portrait of a Young Migrant on an Organic Farm

Seeing Chichi [shee-shee] profoundly affected Decò. He felt

determined to win her back, and at the same time lift her spirits from the

pharmaceutical dependency she had fallen into. Poor Chichi!

This was not the same girl he loved and admired, back in those

glorious South Beach days, with his precious sports car and penthouse

condo in the Stupendously Luxurious.

He would prove to Chichi and even Mambo that he could work

hard. But this time he wasn’t going to let Chichi get too far away. He

needed to keep an eye on her, to make sure she was safe and sound. He

didn’t trust the farmer’s eco-footprint. One could tell by the size of the

tent and the prices that there was more to the farmer’s footprint than met

the eye. Decò arranged it upon himself to head to Homestead, directly to

where the farmer had an enormous compound filled with a slew of

employees. Decò negotiated employment with the farmer.

Decò wore the flimsiest tattered clothes. He grew a moustache

along the lines of how he learned from his days in Wynwood, but not

one of class and elegance, as to the Earl Society’s standards, but a

moustache of rugged masculinity. He did not mention to the farmer any

of the numerous degrees he possessed, nor a desire to perform any labor

beyond anything remedial. Indeed, there was work on the farm. In fact,

plenty of jobs existed in Homestead, more-so than in Miami, but

apparently the work was beneath that of most Americans, who were

beyond anything remedial. So it came into fruition that Decò would

work in the farmer’s fields, with the migrants, and stay also in their

abode, which was close enough to the compound so Decò could keep an

eye on his beloved Chichi. The days soon turned into weeks and months

of fourteen-hour work shifts. He awoke with the dawn and labored until

the sun set, working in the fields harvesting an assortment of the

farmer’s crops including: avocados, coconuts, strawberries, starfruit,

collards, arugula, aloe, beets, lemongrass, mangos, mamay, kale,

longans, eggfruit, passion fruit, radishes, okra, lychees, tomatoes,

peppers, potatoes, sugarcane, sprouts galore and a sea of other seeds,

herbs and spices. The work was laborious and consisted of much hoeing,

chopping, collecting, gathering, re-planting, picking and carrying heavy

loads in grueling and humid climates. As back-breaking and tedious as it

felt to poor Decò, there was also a sense of peace and tranquility on the

farm. The other workers, all undocumented immigrants, were very

respectful and grateful for the work, which paid barely five dollars an

hour. Most of the men did their duty without complaint, gossip, or

conjecture; on the contrary, they worked in an accepting silence, which

allowed for the days to peacefully melt away. Furthermore, all of the

working men were related, either through marriage or blood. A family of

cousins and brothers and sons picked the farmer’s wares, and their

women—sisters, cousins, aunts and daughters—cooked the raw goods in

kitchens on the farm compound. In these culinary laboratories, the

women, who also worked for a pittance of the minimum wage, baked,

mixed, and assembled the most delectable dry fruits, candied nuts,

chickpea carrot croquettes, flax seed and nori crackers, muesli,

sauerkrauts, pickles, pates, salsas, hummus, dressings, dips, sauces and

pesto’s—all with the most natural of ingredients and scrumptious

names. Every week the delectables shipped around the city to all of the

high-end healthy eateries, including Whole Foods, and also to the

Saturday market in the Grove. The price of the food was in sharp

contrast to the salaries of the workers, but the work force never

complained. In fact, since everyone was a family, the expenses seemed to

work out exceedingly well. Every family member pooled their five dollar

an hour pittance of a salary together, and for a family of twelve, that

meant sixty dollars an hour of untaxed hard earned labor. Multiplied by

twelve hour shifts, the undocumented workers collectively earned $720 a

day for their efforts. It was more than enough to pay for the six-bedroom

house up the road from the farm, which included three Mercedes in the

driveway and a swimming pool in the backyard. They carpooled and

babysat and shared all the expenses. Food was never a problem for the

farmer allowed his workers to feed themselves off his land, and for the

most part, everyone co-existed without any major problems, or at least a

lot better than they would in their respective homelands. Decò was taken

into the migrant’s home as if he was an adopted brother. He stayed quiet

and contemplative and no one bothered him. He took to reading late at

night and slept peacefully, biding his time, knowing his true love slept

nearby. When Decò first arrived to life on the farm, after work he crept

up to the farmer’s personal home and peeped into the living room to

keep an eye on his beloved Chichi [shee-shee]. Although she seemed

frozen at times, sitting on the floor in a meditative zone, vacant but

home, she always had a plate of yummy raw vegan food nearby that she

would lick at, in between nodding in and out of meditations. The farmer

appeared nice. He certainly didn’t abuse, neglect or even disrespect

Chichi. Maybe he enabled her a little, but the gossip coming out of the

kitchen seemed to indicate the farmer liked his girlfriend’s beautiful and

also very-very-vacant. Those nights were hard for Decò, peeping outside

the window, exhausted and dirtied from an honest day’s work, alone

under the monstrous country sky filled with expansive stars, some

shooting, others simply luminous. Yes, it was beautiful and peaceful, but

also extremely lonely, for his love sat right there, within yards, addicted

and slightly clueless. Decò made wish after wish and held onto a dream

that included his old girlfriend and a lifestyle in Miami they both

deserved and earned. He knew he’d work very hard to prove to her his

worth. He would take her away from the farmer and her dependency on

these pharmaceutical drugs, but alas, the effort turned out moot, for one

autumn day the word conclusively reached the workers in the field. The

farmer’s girlfriend, the vacant one, had died of a drug overdose.

CHAPTER 17— A Vengeful and Empty Journey South

The news of Chichi’s [shee-shee] death hit Decò like a Category 4

Hurricane, knocking him sideways, leaving him devastated and

shattered into a million little palm fronds. He no longer could work a

single day in the fields without sobbing constantly, breaking even the

hearts of his brethren migrant workers. He needed refuge. Decò had

heard of a secret castle nearby, built from coral, constructed off the labor

of a broken hearted man—and to this tower Decò would sneak to late at

night, climbing into a two-storied tiny bedroom lair. He would sit on the

ground of this cryptic fortress and wail and moan so loud that nearby

alligators, possums, lizards, panthers, deer, and iguanas would look to

the moon and feel sorrow at their own condition of being alive.

It became apparent that Decò could no longer work on the farm.

He was the first one to admit this to his adopted migrant family. During

a lull in dinner, a sixteen-course organic feast, Decò announced (in

Spanish) that he was to depart the farm in the morning, never to return.

One-after-one, all of the migrants (none of whom spoke English)

approached him with warm gentle hugs. The eldest of the clan, also the

treasurer in the family, supplied Decò with a satchel filled with cash, his

earnings since he began working on the farm. It amounted to a modest

three thousand dollars; it was nowhere near enough to start a life in the

County of Dade, but it would help him survive for a little. Not that

money mattered. Money was not the answer nor did work mean a thing.

What was life if you didn’t have your health; and beautiful Chichi, once

a cover girl representing all that was healthy and beautiful; poor, poor

Chichi no longer even existed.

In between his stormy grief he also felt showers of anger. He

definitely blamed the farmer for enabling Chichi’s vacancy and Decò

vowed revenge. The plan hatched in the middle-of-the-night, the day

prior to his departure. With vats of chemicals and pesticides, under a full

and bright Homestead moon, the devastated Decò sprayed all of the

farmer’s crops. The job took the whole night and by the morning the

farmer’s crops were no longer organic. He wrote a letter-to-the-editor of

the Miami Herald, the first thing he’d written since who knows. Decò

claimed the Farmer’s market did not have organic products. As he

caught a ride to town to drop the letter off at post, he knew it would hurt

the farmer’s business, or in-the-least taint his eco-footprint.

If Decò thought it would hurt his migrant family, he wouldn’t

have done it. Even though Decò was completely blinded by sorrow, he

still had the foresight to realize there’s always work for migrants because

Americans are too lazy to work hard for anything, even in a Florida

economy with a double digit unemployment rate. Besides, his actions

would only mean more work for the migrants, who would have to grow

new crops to save the farmer’s reputation. Maybe they could even

leverage their position in order to get more money for themselves. He

ran the idea by the family’s elder, showing him the pesticides and

pointing to the crops. The subtext was clear. The elder migrant was not

very fond of the farmer (for he knew how exploited they were in

comparison to legal workers) and he had no qualms with the plan. The

migrants understood the meaning of a free market system and knew the

situation would work itself out.

Away from the farm for good, Decò found himself brunching at

the Cracker Barrel in Florida City. In between bites of his Old Timer’s

Breakfast, he had a decision to make. He walked to the Greyhound bus

terminal. Often at these rare crossroads the fingers of personal destiny

arise to conduct one’s grand symphony. Decò didn’t want to head back

towards the city for the idea of crossing through Kendall gave him the

chills. Instead, he started walking, through Florida City, to Mile Marker

126 and the start of the 18-mile stretch. Accustomed to long days in the

sun, he walked obliviously, passing the correctional institution at Mile

Marker 123 (he wondered if Lazaro sat inside those lonely muggy cells, a

victim of his own free market system -- or maybe there were hundreds of

psychologically distraught immigrant children, separated from their

families by Trump pirates). Decò crossed the Monroe County line at Mile

Marker 112 and stopped to rest. He felt captivated by an Osprey’s nest.

A sea-hawk looked strong and patient as it sat in its den waiting for

prey. After a few moments, the bird stretched its expansive wings,

narrowed its brown button eyes, and with great expectation leapt from

its perch. The beastly osprey handled the hard curves and wind currents,

swooping and diving into the sea to emerge with a flopping fish quickly

silenced and deadened by its sharp talons. Decò imagined the fish to be

Chichi, lifeless, lowly prey to the hawks of this temporal earth. He

blamed himself of course. How could he not save her? He’d watched her

through the farmer’s window countless times and never once showed his

face? How pathetic. What was he waiting for? Life is not filled with as

many opportunities as one thinks. Did he believe merely keeping an eye

on her was enough? How naïve to think chances are continuously given

to you just because you exist. It doesn’t work that way. Life is too fragile.

The day turned dusk and the fading twilight glistened purple

and orange across the gentle ripples of Biscayne Bay. Decò was indeed

lost and knew not what direction to head. He followed the Mile Markers

as they continued to drop lower, stopping next at Mile Marker 103, John

Pennekamp National Park. Exhausted, he took a breather on a barstool at

some touristy seafood shack near Pennekamp. Decò sipped whisky and

watched a Marlins game on ESPN until he felt like puking. He tried his

best to ignore the chatter of tourists who rambled on about the Jesus

Statue. You have to see the Jesus Statue, they said. It’s so beautiful. The

Jesus Statue one snorkels to in the sea. It’s a miracle of pure peace. Decò

eventually left the bar, puked, snuck into the park grounds, for it was

dark, and he slept till dawn in a mosquito infested mangrove, only to

awake and embark on a morning expedition to the Jesus Statue. Why did

he want to see the Jesus Statue? He had little to lose on his quest for

peace except for a few dollars and the annoyance of sitting on a pontoon

boat with a battalion of tourists as a drunken captain navigated the

choppy bay. Still, snorkeling at the religious statue proved neither

enlightening nor fun, for the statue appeared murky, rusted, and old

beyond its years. And the seas were so littered with jellyfish and plastic

the scene looked more like Davy Jones’s locker rather than anything

resembling peace and love. Jesus could not help Decò for it appeared as

if Jesus hardly existed, at least in these Gulfstream waters that day.

Back on the road, Decò rented a scooter to continue his journey

south. Moving considerably faster than foot the mile markers sped by:

Mile Marker 98, the Landings of Largo, Mile Marker 91, Tavernier, Mile

Marker 82, Islamorada and a shot of whisky at the Tiki Bar, Mile Marker

70, Fiesta Key, Mile Marker 59, Marathon, Mile Marker 40, the Seven

Mile Bridge. For a few minutes on the Seven Mile Bridge, Decò felt close

to the peace of mind he desired. There were moments of an absolute

surrender to nature. Surrounded by a panoramic seascape and a piercing

skyline sliced in cumuli, the wind currents massaged his skin and blew

his locks into a frazzled chaotic freedom. Decò wanted to escape the

stresses and unheralded expectations of this world and fly his scooter

right off the bridge. He’d soar through the air like an osprey and land in

the sea, with the face of Chichi waiting for him at the bottom. Not one to

act upon such unreason, he continued, trying to hold onto the tickling

peace. When the Seven Mile Bridge ended, Decò found himself back on

land. The closest he could come to recapturing the sublime freedom he

felt on the bridge was at a biker bar in Big Island Key. He drank so much

whisky he fought a biker and wound up a bloody pulp. Someone even

robbed his rented scooter. Continuing on foot, Decò followed the Mile

Markers determined to reach the end of the road. During a long and

tiring trek he passed Mile Marker 24, Summerland Key, Mile Marker 18

Sugarloaf Key, Mile Marker 11, to the Shark Channel Bridge, down to

Mile Marker 6, the Boca Chica Bridge and the Cow Key Channel Bridge.

An assortment of bridges and interconnected archipelagos ushered the

exhausted and scabby Decò to a tropical island like no other in the

world. It was small, yet filled with a diversity of strange people, unique

businesses, retail strips and restaurants. The atmosphere seemed relaxed

yet also busy. Decò could feel in the humidity of the air both a level of

brevity and levity, a vibe of seriousness and playfulness. There appeared

a perfect mixture of commerce, craftsmanship and definitely leisure.

What a recipe! Decò, now on a rented bicycle, curiously followed the

mile markers to the end of the long road and collapsed at Mile Marker 0.

CHAPTER 18— Mile Marker Zero

Mile Marker 0 definitely resembled a land of the lost. The

architecture popped right out of some gothic Southern fairy-tale, gone-

with-the-hurricane-winds. Now there stood three-story wooden-framed

structures elevated on foundation piers, with covered verandas and

balconies and wild slutty paint jobs—in the backyards of which three-

legged cats chased around oversized iguanas for fun. And above the

ground, in a sky congested with soaring pelicans and exotic parakeets

and parrots, distant parasailers filled out the horizon as a cool breeze

continuously rustled the strangest of Locust-berry, Wild Dilly, and Royal

Poinciana trees. It must’ve been eighty-eight degrees, yet it felt mild and

comfortable because the wind was constant, yet never overwhelming.

Decò walked one end of the island to the other, from coast to coast, in

minutes. The island was so small, the side and back roads so narrow, yet

the place did not have a sense of congestion. Although there were a lot of

people, no one looked stressed and time felt suspended. In the middle of

the afternoon, Decò felt inclined to have a beer. He popped into one of

the many bars on every corner. For the first time in a while, he felt as if

he might be all right. “You new in town?” asked a local.

“Yes, my name is Decò.”

“No need for names. We’re all locals.”

“I’m from Miami.”

“You’re in Mile Marker Zero now.”

“Ok, then. Can I buy you a drink, local?”

“Only if I can buy you two in return. It is our custom.”

Decò and the local enjoyed three drinks in pleasant conversation,

mainly of sports and outdoor recreation, but also of politics, art and

women. The local explained that at Mile Marker Zero it was also their

custom while drinking to speak of only sports, women, art and politics.

And it was custom to drink regularly . . . but all conversations regarding

women, politics, sports and art were without bias or prejudice, for all

women were beautiful, all art redeemable, all sports teams have their

time to shine and there was a place for all politics. No one was better

than anyone else. And therefore, while enjoying a drinking binge,

arguments never ensued. “Where are you staying, local?”

“I have no plans. A hotel maybe?” said Decò.

“Nonsense, you are a local now. You will stay with me. It is our

custom.” The local explained that all locals were obligated to share their

living space with other locals, if necessary. That was the custom of Mile

Marker Zero. “Come, local. It is sunset. We must go outside. It is also

custom to go outside and celebrate the end of the day with a party.”

The two locals headed outside towards a pier. At this location,

the whole island’s populace migrated for what appeared to be a daily

forty-five-minute rum infused celebration of the day’s end. The sky

transformed into a picturesque kaleidoscope of purples, oranges and

blue hues, slowly getting darker as the sun gently descended below the

cusp of the Western horizon.

“This is so beautiful,” said Decò.

“It is like the palette of Picasso,” said the local.

“It’s different than Miami. I haven’t seen one fuckboy.”

“We do not have fuckboys at Mile Marker Zero. No one to

impress here. No need to be obnoxious. Muscles and cars are not as

important as the arts or recreational sports. People here do not own a

Scarface poster or fight over the best Whey protein on the market. They

don’t wear wife beaters with crucifix chains, or even ‘like’ their own

Facebook statuses. You will not encounter sunglasses worn at night or

hear Bad Bunny playing on speakers. No, there are no fuckboys here.”

“I haven’t seen any hipsters, either.”

“Ha, you’re funny, local. There are no hipsters. At Mile Marker

Zero, there’s no sense of irony or sarcasm. Everyone constantly speaks

the truth and no one pretends to be cool. There’s also a ban on skinny

jeans, tight shirts, and oversized eyewear. Furthermore, no one under

thirty is even permitted to buy clothes from a thrift shop, or even grow a

moustache. All craft beers have also been banned from the island. There

are no indie clubs or vegans. We’re skeptical of anyone from Portland or

Austin. And our government blocked the use of Tumblr from all IP

addresses within twenty miles of our Mile Marker 0 border.”

Decò and the local spent the rest of the night bar hopping and

dancing to a mixture of pleasant and unobtrusive music. They spoke to

many women, none of whom were rude. The local explained that

women at Mile Marker Zero were not pretentious, spoiled or even

assuming because they were treated by the men of the island with the

utmost respect and dignity. Women were also friendly to each other so

there existed no sense of competition. Women often traded shoes,

makeup tips and even boyfriends. It was plain to Decò’s road weary eyes

that he had found paradise and after a night of passionate and safe sex

with two local women, he knew it would be hard for him to ever leave.

In the morning it only got better. The local took Decò and the women

who had slept over out on a boat. The local explained that every local

had access to the sea. And it was custom to take women from the

previous night out on the boat, after a hearty, greasy breakfast and two

Bloody Mary cocktails. They spent the morning fishing, snorkeling,

wakeboarding, tanning, and sipping beers while diapering—a local

custom where you wear the life jacket like a diaper and jump in the sea,

floating as if sitting comfy, always with a beer in hand.

“It’s heavenly,” said Decò. “If only there was work.”

“There is plenty of work. What do you do?”

“I write.”

“Ha, you will like what I have to say.”

CHAPTER 19— Life at Mile Marker Zero

“The economy of Mile Marker Zero is amazingly simple,” the

local explained. “Everyone works. Due to our customs of drinking at

bars, celebrating the sunset, dancing all night, and carousing with

women, perhaps it appears no one works, but the truth is hard, stress-

free work spins the spoke in the wheel of our existence. Yes, we have

customs dealing with recreation and libation, but it is also mandated that

every local must work according to the discipline they feel most

comfortable, albeit connected to sports, politics, entertainment or art.

“Most sportsmen have jobs that involve seamanship. These

mariners captain or mate a vessel, either for the pleasure of tourists who

enjoy snorkeling, parasailing, cruising, diving and deep sea fishing, or

for businesses associated with fishing. However, at Mile Marker Zero,

the construction of property is also considered a sport. Construction,

whether designed and zoned for residential or commercial properties, is

filled with healthy competition and strict timetables, thus we have many

laborers ensuring every project is completed on deadline.

“Our politicians make sure all customs, parades, deadlines and

rules of Mile Marker Zero are strictly enforced yet constantly evolving.

Things are not set in stone on the island; on the contrary, they're set in

coral with little rocky gaps designed for fillings. Furthermore, politicians

are elected and completely free of corruption. Here, politicians include

but are not limited to lawyers, police and firefighters, teachers,

journalists, all government administrators, and all in applied sciences,

health, business and retail sectors. We’ve learned at Mile Marker Zero

that every occupation has its own politics, so if we highlight the political

nature by making the positions public based on elections, most problems

in the system will eventually and inevitably fix themselves.

“We also elect entertainers, screening out the good from the bad,

whether they are a bum off the street panhandling, or a cabaret singer on

a piano in a bar, everyone’s elected with a role they must play. And we

all make money off each other and tourists who come through.

“Every other local at Mile Marker Zero is an artist. You see, we

take special care of our artists. Besides sportsmen, they represent the

only non-elected officials; artists decide for themselves to take the leap

into artistry. We ask nothing of them but to contribute to the stress free

climate we’ve created. We even set up colonies to protect our artists.

Then, a democratically elected sector of retailers and liaisons put their art

to use. We also have a special network of conferences that attract people

from other Mile Markers. We all work hard! And let me tell you my local

friend, no artistic profession is more respected here than writing.

Today’s your lucky day, local. I know of a compound where you can live

and write for free, and I’ll also find you work at a conference.”

And so it came into fruition—Decò found part-time employment

at a writer’s conference hosted tri-annually by the Tourism Board of Mile

Marker Zero and sponsored by its politicians. The job consisted of being

a liaison between the people interested in attending the sold-out event

and also coordinating the logistics involved with bringing faculty in

from all over the world. The gig combined event planning with elements

of schmoozing, a craft he remembered from his Earl Society days in

Wynwood and now honed to perfection at Mile Marker Zero. Decò

arranged tours of the island, wrote press releases, and conducted

interviews; he composed course descriptions and conference

itineraries—it was cake. His degrees served him handily. It was honest

work for Decò, plus the job included a residency at a local writer’s

compound where a handful of other talented scribes spent their time

writing the days away. The best part of the job was that whenever you

wanted to write, the conference allowed its employees a hiatus to the

compound to create. Workers were allowed to drop everything, go

home, and write for as long as they needed. It was a clause included in

the conference contract, implemented by the politicians of Mile Marker

Zero, ensuring all writers and artists would have plenty of time to

compose, edit, and workshop their material. It was heaven. Decò for the

first time in his life found himself writing at almost a breakneck pace. Of

course he still celebrated every sunset and danced away most nights,

often mixing the evenings with the most respectfully luscious women, to

which they always went out on the water in the mornings, yet despite

these guilty pleasures a tremendous amount of work was always

completed, day after day, week after week. There seemed enough time to

accomplish all that which needed completion, both professionally and

creatively, and still there was time for recreation. Decò referred to life at

Mile Marker Zero as paradise. He stayed a long time. And he loved

every sunset he saw, every conversation about art and politics and

sports, every beer he drank, every dance he shared, every wake he

cruised on a boat, and every word he composed; in fact, his output in

composition during his time at Mile Marker Zero was staggering. It was

as if the young writer had achieved a level of unearthly productivity. In

his time at Mile Marker Zero, Decò completed three coming-of-age

novels, seven noir short-stories, four screenplays, and a chapbook of

poems about sunsets. All the writers who shared the compound with

Decò were amazed at not only his work ethic, but of the quality of

craftsmanship. Mile Marker Zero turned Decò into the most prolific

writer on the island. And with all the support in the world, all the peace

and sanctity needed to execute on the highest level, all the recreation and

stimulating conversation needed to counter the tumultuous deluges of

artistic expression; with all of this at Mile Marker Zero there was still

something missing, something not there, and it drove Decò to a state of

anxiousness. He was a Miami boy. 305 till he died. He belonged in the

County of Dade; that is where his riches and fame were destined. And

that would indeed be his redemption: riches and fame. He needed piles

of money and A-list celebrity above all. The strain of that desire ran

through his DNA. There was nothing he could do. The work he

completed was better than gold. So despite having everything there

came a morning when he didn’t want to drink any more Bloody Mary

cocktails. He decided unequivocally to leave at once for the County of

Dade, carrying with him only the masterpieces he’d created.

CHAPTER 20— Decò’s Self-Imposed Exile

It came as a huge surprise to locals that their most prolific writer

would leave. It was the job of the politicians to sweep non-locals away,

but Decò had been received so warmly, he fit right in; it came as a shock

since no local had ever left. However, nowhere in the bylaws of such a

free and creative society did it prohibit someone from departing. The

decision was ultimately up to Decò, who could not be persuaded to stay,

no matter how many women he danced with, or beers he drank over

conversations of sports and art. However, a few rules existed for writers

leaving Mile Marker Zero—the first prohibited anything created on the

island to be backed up online, including e-mail, or uploading to a file

sharing program. Mile Marker Zero strictly believed that technology was

vulnerable, and therefore outlawed a dependence upon it. A writer

could use a smartstick, but only 80kb of material could be stored, or

approximately twenty pages of material, or one story. Technology and

paradise were like oil and water. Basically, if a writer wanted to leave,

they had to take their work in its raw format. In addition, if a writer left

they had to immediately forfeit their local status forever. An exile may be

welcomed back for a conference, but only if the invitation was based on

their individual merits without a connection to the island. This rule

drafted by the politicians ensured its locals to have as limited a

connection to the outside world as possible. If everyone knew exactly

how conducive the island was to the arts, the place would truly become

inundated with hipsters and fuckboys. The condition was not a problem

to Decò, who began to frequent the printing shop to print out hard

copies of his novels, short stories, screenplays, and chapbook, all of

which were at least Pulitzer Prize quality, and the screenplays sure to

capture the eye of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The second condition of leaving was more romantic. If a local

wanted to depart, they were permitted to do so only by sea. No

motorcycle, car, bus, or plane could transport a local away. This clause,

although antiquated and due for an adjustment in the forever evolving

bylaws of the island, was put in place so the exiting local would never

forget the spirit of Mile Marker Zero, instilled with the salty fingers of

the sea. This provision did not bother Decò for he was determined to

head back to Miami, so much he decided to trek by his favorite mode of

sea transport, the paddleboard. Decò did not live on the island long

enough to have a boat, but for a long time he had a paddleboard and felt

confident he could maneuver the board like the back of his hand.

So came the morning after a sunset party and a night of dancing

that all of the locals on the island ventured to see Decò off on his journey.

They thought he was insane to leave, but who were they to judge. They

grouped together near the pier, with a Bloody Mary in hand, and waved

to the writer on a paddleboard. He carried only a backpack filled with

some survival gear and the most precious manuscripts ever composed

throughout the hallowed eons of human civilization.

CHAPTER 21—Pythons, a Tropical Storm and Pirates

Like a Venetian gondolier, Decò maneuvered through the

Florida Gulf Stream. A cross-breed of kayaker and surfer, the paddle-

boarder began his long arduous journey north navigating around a

tropical archipelago. Driven by a lust to return home, he felt like Ulysses

in the Iliad and paddled twelve-plus hours per day, camping at night in

high-tech mosquito proof hammock tents that he hung from mangrove

trees. One dark evening, on an otherwise glorious South Florida night,

while camping in a hammock, Decò heard a freakishly loud hissing

sound near his grove. Using a flashlight, he quickly saw the beady eyes

and slithering tongue of an enormous Burmese python. The invasive

reptile had escaped south from the Everglades where it had been

breeding and preying on native wildlife, even alligators. This python

was particularly perturbed for all of his python friends and family had

been killed by the fearless Zoo Miami ecologist Ron Magill. The Burmese

python must have been sixteen feet long if it wasn’t a foot and it loomed

directly in front of Decò, like a creature spawned from a nightmare of

Neptune himself. Seeking revenge on human flesh, the reptile must have

weighed 90-pounds, as if he just ate a deer, yet it hissed with hunger as

Decò hung like meat in a locker from a mangrove hammock. Decò felt

fear, of course—he was a poet—the dandy knew not what to do. He

attempted to ‘shoo’ the Burmese python away with his nearby paddle

but that only seemed to stir the anger of the vicious reptile. Decò’s

paddle would not be enough. He needed something big, like fire—and

he needed it fast. As the python moved closer, Decò, in a state of despair

and necessity, went into his backpack and grabbed some paper. He

rolled and bound a few of the noir short stories, as well as two

screenplays and a coming-of-age-novel, quickly converting them into

torches. His masterpieces burned in the humid swampy grove but they

kept the python at bay, yet only for a short period for dry paper hardly

qualified as a blowlamp. Quickly, Decò gathered his belongings,

abandoned the hammock, and made his way towards the paddleboard,

throwing burning paper at the reptile when necessary. He burned

enough of his manuscripts to get to the paddleboard and escape whilst

throwing the masterpieces into the shallow waters, casting a wall of fire

that deterred the monstrous snake. Decò paddled fast, without looking

back. After one hour of not hearing a hiss, he felt safe enough to take a

break. Of course he cried at the loss of his work, for there were no

backups, floppy disks, or cloud files. What a merciless god!! They were

gone, forever, now ashy debris littered in a murky blackwater sound. But

at least he still had half of his materials, and more importantly, his life,

for what was fame and fortune if you were not alive to enjoy it.

Begrudgingly, Decò continued his journey north away from the

County of Monroe, towards the County of Dade. But pretty soon the

conditions of the sea became less-than-ideal with a pre-dominant south

by southwest wind. Then a thunderous afternoon storm caused a wild

and rough chop in the water. Paddle-boarding is no easy task; one uses

their entire body to balance, steer, and propel the board, and after a

while of navigating the calamitous and rain soaked water, eventually

Decò collapsed of pure exhaustion. He lay on the shores of an empty

island in the Gulfstream, every bone of his body aching, every tendon in

his fingers blistered, every pore of his skin sunburned. He rested in the

rain, willing and prepared to die of exhaustion. If not for the few

manuscripts he had left in his bag, it felt like he had nothing to live for.

And then, things turned even worse for Decò when he noticed a slight

rip outside of his bag. Oh, no. The bag had torn and caused a leak during

the huge tumultuous rainstorm. Half of his remaining manuscripts were

completely wet and mushy. The paper was beyond legible; the ink of the

masterpieces literally dripped onto Decò’s clothes and skin. He wore his

work like an ugly tattoo and screamed in agony. After wailing for hours,

the storm eventually subsided and Decò consoled himself in the fact that

he still had one short story, a screenplay, and a coming-of-age novel.

Gone forever was his chapbook of poems about sunsets, three

screenplays, and two novels, but at least he was not empty ended. After

drying out, he placed the surviving materials in the backpack, and then

continued his northward journey on the paddleboard.

Decò was inching closer to the County of Dade for he had passed

the reefs of Key Largo. He paddled in the shallow waters of the long

stretch of mangrove towards Florida City. He wanted nothing more than

to conclude his journey, for he ached in every imaginable way. As if he

hadn’t been through enough, Decò would have even more reasons for

cursing the day he decided to leave Mile Marker Zero. Within a few

miles of his destination, the poor destitute soul was confronted by a

speedboat of American dissident Trump pirates, an evolving sect of the

Occupy movement Decò abandoned. Confused after Trump won, the

pirates moved to the swamp in hopes of finding bountiful employment

in the draining of all aforementioned swamps. The Trump pirates

recognized Decò as a traitor to the draining of the American swamp so

they shot him with a tranquilizer gun, destroyed the paddleboard, took

him hostage, tossed the backpack in the sea, bludgeoned him with clubs,

and carried him to a mangrove in the County of Dade, finally tying his

unconscious body to a tree to contemplate the traitor’s demise.

CHAPTER 22— Trump Garble

The American dissident Donald Trump pirates were not a well-

adjusted bunch. They had anarchistic tendencies in combination with

mediocre social skills. Despite a longing for acceptance, they never quite

found a home, whether in the Occupy movement or the Tea Party. And

when it became evident their candidate actually won the presidency, it

was natural for them to let themselves go, so-to-speak. For example, they

had extremely bad breath, despite otherwise excellent hygiene, and they

had horrible communication abilities. They spoke a language impossible

to connect to, let alone understand. When Decò awoke, too beaten and

battered to talk, he listened to the Trump garble. They spoke in a

smorgasbord of mixed messages, running around the pirate camp

strung-out. They all wore red MAGA hats and for some reason sweaters

even though they were platooned in the humid groves of Florida.

“He’s tired,” said one Trump pirate, poking Decò with a bamboo

rod. “We should re-store some free-market into his energy. He’s

obviously over-regulated. Let’s form a Congress to repeal all federal

regulations impeding the development of his energy sources.”

“Here, here!!” they yelled. “Fake-news!! Fake news!!”

“Hush your jibber-gabber!” said another Trump dissident, a

pretty blond, recovering, Fox News host. “We must secure our borders.”

She pointed to the outskirts of the hideaway camp. “It makes no sense to

energize this traitor here with our borders open for more traitors.”

“No. The biggest threat to our privacy is government. Let’s limit

this traitor’s ability to collect and store data regarding our personal

decisions and exercise our 2nd Amendment rights!” A neo-pirate cocked a

Glock-nine-millimeter recoil-operated semi-automatic pistol and fired off

three shots that whizzed by Decò, causing him to moan heavier.

“Fake news, fake news!!” they all yelled.

“Yo blame it on the media,” said Daddy Yankee, who somehow

appeared with a microphone in hand despite no electricity in camp.

“They’ll yell racist, we’ll yell socialist. Racist. Socialist. Racist. Socialist.”

“He’s a young man,” said a rusty older Trump pirate, who may

have been Donald Trump incognito. “What’s his skin color. It’s hard to

tell but he looks white. Is he Nordic? Cuz if he’s white we own him as

much as the federal government owns him. Yet here we are acting like

lobbyists and bureaucrats pretending to know what’s good for him. This

kid. He’s gonna be fantastic. He’s gonna be huge. Believe me.”

Another Trump neo-pirate in a sweater and MAGA hat whipped

out a huge bag of white powder. If it wasn’t three pounds of cocaine it

was an ounce; it was definitely the largest amount of powder Decò’s sore

and bludgeoned eyes could ever even conceive of fitting into one bag.

“Fake news!! Fake news!!” they all yelled.

Tied to a tree in the mangrove swamps outside Florida City,

Decò felt this was the end. He didn’t speak the language of these surly

revolutionaries; he couldn’t even understand what they said, yet bullets

were whizzing by his head. He felt for sure he’d be killed, and quite

honestly, what did he have to live for? He was already broken and

bruised and battered; all the hard copy manuscripts he created at Mile

Marker Zero were destroyed forever; his beloved Chichi died an

innocent victim of the County of Dade’s obsession with pharmaceuticals;

he had no job in sight and his student loans were beyond due.

What was there to live for? And then...

“Fuckin’ a, I have a better idea!! We’re going to let this kid free,”

said a voice from the bushes. Decò’s old friend Mambo emerged carrying

two M-16 machine guns, with a necklace of bullets and grenades across

his chest. He had enough artillery to blow up the camp. What a sight for

truly sore eyes. Mambo. And he seemed to speak the language of these

strangers. “Let’s act like true libertarians and mind our own business

here,” said Mambo, firing his machine gun into the night. “Fuckin’ a. I’m

a vet and take it from me—we’re definitely wasting all of our resources

overseas. And we want out of war. Feel the Bern!” Mambo strategically

tossed a grenade in an area of mangrove that caused the neo-pirates to

scatter. The diversion gave Mambo enough time to untie Decò, whom

passed out during the commotion. Mambo threw his old friend over his

shoulders, securing his buddy with one hand firmly attached to Decò’s

buttocks. Mambo’s other hand fired off a barrage of bullets killing

numerous Trump pirates in mass and allowing them to escape the scene.

CHAPTER 23—Mambo Strut

When Decò regained consciousness he found himself in Coconut

Grove sitting at a bar with Mambo. A margarita rested before him. In the

street, an unusual parade proceeded past them as a sea of people

wearing red shirts with the phrase “8 Billion” fought tooth and nail over

a variety of props representing the planet’s resources. The

overpopulation protestors were followed by a contingent of women in

Victorian garb who appeared advocates of sailing. These randoms were

displaced by a humongous manatee carrying a sign that read Get off my

back—and that spectacle succeeded by a group with their asses and faces

implanted with fix-a-flat! “Huh?” said Decò, scratching his head.

“Fuckin’ a, look whose alive?” said Mambo.

“Where are we? What happened?”

“Drink your margarita, buddy. I’ll explain,” said Mambo. While

a group of Miami Beach party cops walked by in the parade, Mambo

patiently explained to Decò the events which transpired. “You’re lucky, I

heard about those Trump pirates and for a while had interest in

attending one of their meetings, with who knows, maybe the slight

chance of joining their cause. After falling out of Occupy, I’ve been a

little disillusioned with life here in the good ol U.S.A. You know, I mean,

these elections never change anything and old Mambo’s been thinking

about becoming an ex-pat.” Meanwhile, in the parade, a former County

Commissioner walked by, dressed as the good witch of the east, for she

was never arrested or recalled during her tenure in the County of Dade.

“You’re lucky, gringo. You never had to fight in a war. I’ve lost my soul

in deserts I should’ve never been in. At least your old buddy Mambo

was in the right place at the right time to rescue your ass. You’ve been

passed out. After escaping the pirates I dragged you here for a drink. It’s

a nice day out. Let’s enjoy it. Let’s feel the Bern of the sunshine.”

“Mambo, it’s good to see you. I’m glad you are no longer mad.

I’m also saddened by your restlessness. I am not in the best place either. I

too have lost much. Listen. I must tell you about this oasis. The heaven

I’m returning from is ten times better than any expatriate colony

imaginable. Perhaps it holds the key to unlocking your melancholy.”

Decò told his old friend about Mile Marker Zero. He spoke in

detail of its customs, politicians, artisans, and open lifestyle. He rambled

on about sunsets, cocktails, and water-sports. He described in detail the

epic landscapes. He painted with passion a picture so beautiful that

immediately Mambo felt determined to go at once. In fact, Mambo even

agreed to pay Decò a small penance to housesit his condo in the Grove.

It would also allow Decò to rest from his injuries.

“After these margaritas,” said Mambo. The two old friends

finished their margaritas as the procession of strange costumed folk

continued. A dozen people passed by dressed up like the late Steve Jobs

in jeans and a black t-shirt; they held signs like: “Ipassed,” “Isweat,” and

“Itouch”—the latter sign attached with a picture of Jerry Sandusky.

“Mambo, what is this parade?”

“What parade? This is a normal day in the Grove.”

CHAPTER 24—A Tropical Depression

Decò spent time healing in Coconut Grove, house-sitting for

Mambo. To describe this period of his life as stagnant would be an

understatement. It was downright depressing. For starters, he began to

watch cable news in full twenty-four hour cycles. He sat glued to

MSNBC, CNN, and even Fox News. He deconstructed the talking points

of each of the biased pundits like a game of virtual tennis. Point, counter-

point. On Blitzer, on Matthews, on Shephard and Williams. Forty, love.

King and Gergen. Deuce. Advantage Hannity. He studied the nuanced

personalities of the broadcast journalists as if they were characters in

some tragic commentary he could only think about lampooning, if only

he had the will to write. The moral and economic decay of Western

Civilization was on public trial, and the more Decò laid witness to the

court, the less due diligence he experienced in the broadcast. It sent Decò

into an existential crisis, even more-so because he couldn’t write. Write?

How on earth could he ever re-create his lost work? Psychologists speak

of a void a writer experiences after creative writing. A piece of the writer

gets lost forever. It takes time to come back to reality. Decò’s void felt

ten-fold considering he created so much, and then lost it all, on top of

which he was beaten to a pulp physically. He decided not to work but to

seek help from the government. In addition to the small amount of

money Mambo gave him to house sit, Decò applied for and received

food stamps, Medicaid, and Unemployment, from his brief stint at the

comedy club. He spent these alms on scotch and beer. What he did not

attempt to do during this dark, healing period was to write. Did he have

writer’s block? Or, did he lose the will to create altogether? He didn’t

know the answer. For the first time in a long period, he thought of his

old mentor DuPont. The great DuPont would know the answer. He was

a teacher’s teacher, a friend, and even though it had been many moons

since Decò called, he knew the talented writer would be available

without any qualms. True friends are not needed every day, but they can

always be counted on in times of crisis. Although it had been a while,

Decò sent DuPont a message outlining his dilemma. DuPont answered

within thirty seconds. There’s no such thing as writer’s block.

DuPont didn’t care where Decò had been, or what ill

circumstances befell him. As much as DuPont empathized, it didn’t

compute with his bottom line, which was a writer writes, period.

The world and everyone in it, including those who love and

support you the most, will always get in the way of your writing,

whether they mean to or not. That’s a fact. Work hard.

Decò was aware of the irony; he understood DuPont himself

currently sat alone in a room, working like a slave to his whitespaces.

DuPont’s advice indeed came at the sacrifice of his personal time, i.e.

Decò as well as the rest of the world were very much in DuPont’s way.

No one cares if you ever write again.

The words felt harsh but they rung from the bell of truth.

Fittingly, Decò poured scotch down his hatch, but he also felt gratitude

for the bluntness. DuPont didn’t represent the chippiest chap on the

block. He was a writer. No one said the writer’s life was easy. The

writer’s life consists of complete and utter solitude, mixed in with an

endless act of revision, rejection, competition, criticism, and the wackiest

business on the planet, publishing. Of course a writer-in-court

occasionally plays the game with a ball constructed from pure cynicism.

It took Decò two weeks of watching the news non-stop while

drinking scotch and beer to even remember he actually had one short

story remaining from what he created at Mile Marker Zero. The horrible

Burmese python, the wicked seas of the Gulf Stream and the coked out

Trump pirates destroyed most of his grand opuses, but there was indeed

one short story that remained, one sordid noir mystery that he had

uploaded on a smartstick, and without expectation, in a drunken stupor,

Decò sent the story off to a few reputable magazines in New York.

While Decò healed from his wounds, his spirits continued to

turn darker. He carried on watching the news until he’d literally puke

during Tucker Carlson, at which point he’d venture into the streets,

ending up at one of the many strip clubs in the County of Dade.

Pussy and ass didn’t quite cheer him up, but the dark and seedy

climate proved conducive, albeit cliché, to his mood.

He stumbled through his life like this and one afternoon wound

up at the very strip club his ex-girlfriend once worked at. He sat near the

main stage, the empty beers on the table keeping him better company

than the strippers whom occasionally gave him a lap dance. Decò’s

thoughts drifted to his old life with Chichi, oh, how long ago it seemed.

During this moment of cheerlessness, an old friend appeared at

the table. “Br-o-o-o-o-o,” said Lazaro. “What are you doing here, bro?”

CHAPTER 25— A Mellow Night on the Town

“Oh my gawd,” said Decò, standing up. He gave his old friend a

humongous hug. Lazaro appeared the same with that big old Miami

Cuban beard, but he looked much stronger. At least thirty pounds of his

healthy girth must’ve been converted into muscle. And his smile,

although authentic and wide, was missing the Mayan grill. “What a

wicked world, my friend. What goes around comes around. This is the

location where I last saw you being tickled by a swat team.”

“Bro, you don’t even know what happened to me, bro. Those

ticklers were indeed los federales and they tortured me with their tickling

tactics. From this club, they took me into custody, throwing me into a

dark and mirrored room where they proclaimed at once our Coke

distribution business a terrorist funding organization. Immediately all of

my rights were stripped. I had no opportunity to call a lawyer, or even

defend myself. They put me in a room with a television and an Xbox, but

the tv had no cable, and the Xbox was not even a 360—can you fucking

believe that, bro? Three times a day they came into the room, tickling me

for hours at a time, asking me all sorts of illicit questions, like what I

thought about Simon Cowell leaving American Idol and why was Kim

Kardashian such a slut? Through intense tickling sessions they wanted to

know exactly how come Barack Obama gave so many speeches. Like

how the fuck am I supposed to know the answers to rhetorical

questions—so I did what anyone would do under such circumstances, I

laughed my fucking ass off, bro. They continued to tickle me. They

wanted names. They wanted the secret ingredient in Coke. They tried to

get me to snitch but I did not. I was raised by my family to do three

things, never hit a girl, never snitch, and if offered, always accept and

finish the ropa vieja and arroz con frijoles. After a few weeks of not

succumbing to their tickling tactics, they sent me to the Krome detention

center for deportation. They declared me an uncultured menace and

were going to send me to France for some reason. But, with bureaucracy,

I sat in that detention center for a long time. I lost weight without any

ropas vieja and arroz con frijoles. They let me read, but only the news. They

allowed me on the computer, but not on Instagram or Twitter. It was

torture and they knew it. They wanted me to succumb to their

depressing tactics, but I never budged bro. I didn’t tell them the secret to

Coke and after a while they realized their whole operation was a big

misunderstanding, advocates of Pepsi had confessed to setting me up. It

was Pepsi, Co. all along, bro. The feds let me out and since then I’ve

stayed away from the Coke distribution business altogether. You are

lucky you escaped. I thought I’d never see you again. I drive a truck

now, an 18-wheeler. It’s hard work. But I’m happy. I pick up cargo from

the port of Miami and I transport the goods all around the country. I’m

on the road three hundred days a year, bro, moving across this

dilapidated landscape like the wind. I drive eighty hours per week. I

don’t ask questions and my motto is work hard, play hard, bro.”

“Wow. That is a crazy story, Laz.”

“Br-o-o-o-o,” he said.

“How’s your cousin?”

“What else. She’s pregnant. What of you? You look sad, bro.”

“A lot has happened to me since our paths have crossed.” Decò

began to catch up with Lazaro, sharing misadventures and anecdotes.

They spoke for a while, over beers and neat glasses of Johnny Walker

Black, occasionally getting a lap dance from a lonely stripper.

“Bro, I’ll tell you what. You sound like you could use a

trustworthy friend who knows how to have a good time. I have a couple

of days off before I have to leave again. Let’s keep this party going.”

“Okay, but only for a little while. I want to watch the news.”

Decò and Lazaro left the strip club and (for old time’s sake)

cruised around the city in the donky donk, which was more of a donk

these days. The 1986 Ford Crown Victoria was no longer painted grape

purple, but white. It wasn’t quite the hi-rise, with only 20 inch wheels—

the rims were still chrome and the sound system still boomed, although

the {{bass}} definitely lost a decibel or two. It appeared throughout the

years gone by that Lazaro indeed learned how to keep a lower profile.

However, his lifestyle was more rambunctious than ever,

perhaps representative of his work hard, play hard attitude. After the

strip club, the old friends shot up I95 to catch the last few horse races at

Gulfstream Park. The race track was filled with the most bizarre cast-of-

characters imaginable, riding the gamut of socio-economics, cultural

ethnicities, and size—jockeys and grooms are indeed so tiny. Decò took

it all in and saw the potential for a story, but rather than feed his muse,

they hit the cantina, and down-the-hatch-they-come, it’s Johnny Walker

Black in front followed by a Pint of Cider close in second. Lazaro put

Decò in action and before the races ended, Decò hit a superfecta, walking

away from the ponies much the better, spiritually as well as financially.

After the horse track, the two of them jetted downtown and consumed a

healthy hearty meal. Then on to some early evening debauchery at a

South Beach pool hall, after which they occupied the Fontainebleau,

ordering two bottles of scotch, which came with a few dancing girls,

(club policy). They soon had an entourage and in the middle of the night

headed over to the Hard Rock Casino to continue the party at the tables

and slots. They rented a suite at the hotel and they all partied and fucked

like bandits till noon the next day. After checking out of the Hard Rock,

they journeyed back to South Beach with a packed cooler of beer and

they rented a few chairs with umbrellas under the beautiful and bright

Miami sun. They had a radio and danced and drank and swam and

laughed the day away till the sun set. Lazaro dropped the girls off at

some hotel, and the two boys went out for dinner in Brickell and then

trekked over to the American Airlines arena to catch a Heat game. They

scored nice tickets off Stub Hub, winding up in an executive box where

the beer and Johnny Walker flowed like Butler feeding Adebayo an ally-

ooop on a fast break. After the game the boys hit up a club in the Design

District to catch some live music, and after another bottle of Scotch, and a

new round of dancing girls that apparently came with the bottle, they

had another entourage and this time they all bounced around the after-

hours clubs of downtown, eventually winding up back on the sand at six

in the morning to watch the sunrise with a bottle of champagne. After a

catnap with the girls, they hit up a mimosa fueled brunch at the Delano,

plotting the next move, which steered them to renting a bunch of wave

runners in Key Biscayne. They spent the day frolicking on the water,

splashing over wakes and speeding past yachts and dolphins. The day

quickly flew by and after a large dinner out on Key Biscayne, Lazaro

looked at his watch and realized he finally had to go.

“Bro, time flies. I have to go to work.”

“Then go to work you swine—”

“Next time we’ll really get into something crazy, bro. Do you

want a ride home?”

“No, no, no,” said Decò. “I will keep this going.”

“Awesome seeing you. Keep your head up. I must go to work.”

“Go, go,” said Decò, giving his friend a hug. “Love you, bro.”

“Love you too, bro.”

As Lazaro left to go to work, Decò ordered another round of

drinks. There were two girls and him, and they kept the party going,

heading back to South Beach, where they rented a room at the Shelburne

and spent the rest of the night in the karaoke bar downstairs. After a

ridiculously late night and a crazy threesome, the girls went their own

way in the morning, and Decò, void of his gambling winnings, figured

he might as well head back to the Grove to watch the news.

He hailed a cab.

“Coconut Grove,” he said, leaning back and closing his eyes.

“Suh mah di,” said the driver.

CHAPTER 26 — A Benevolent Man’s Heartbreaking Tale

“Can we go to the Grove, please?”

“Suh mah di, Decò,” the driver repeated.

“I’m sorry. Do I know you?”

Decò noticed the driver’s badge posted on the dashboard. The

picture looked like that of a familiar man, with a cheek-to-cheek smile,

one resembling a young Eddie Murphy. “Jacques? As in old Jacques?”

“That is indeed my name.”

“Jacques from the comedy club?”

“Yes. I am one and the same.”

Jacques maneuvered the taxi off South Beach, passing one-

hundred thousand dollar cars and cheap scooters. On the sidewalk

groups of tourists walked along carrying shopping bags from the retail

chains on Collins; they moved right past (occasionally literally over) a

slew of homeless drunks lying on the floor. They stopped at a traffic light

where a model crossed the street, followed by an elderly lady holding

the hands of two young children. “Are you okay, Jacques?”

“You think I am okay?”

“You seem happy to me. You’re always smiling.”

“My smile is a nervous condition. I’m learning to control it.”

“Still employed at the comedy club?”

“Yes. I still work at the comedy club. About thirty hours per

week, I wash filthy and greasy dishes. Bin after bin they come and I

spray them with water and insert them into the steaming hot machine. I

burn my hands, stacking and organizing the clean dishes, and break my

back carrying them to the cooks and expeditors behind the line. Then

once back at the dishwashing station, racks upon racks of glasses

emptied of alcohol await me to be run through the machine.”

“But that is your job, Jacques.”

“Suh mah di, Decò.”

“I’m thinking your words mean something different than I’d

originally thought,” said Decò. He rolled down a window for some fresh

Miami air. “Jacques, if you don’t like washing dishes, get another job.”

“Do you think I drive a taxi cab for fun, my friend? Do you have

any idea how frustrating it is navigating this city? I often wonder if the

roads in Miami truly lead to perdition. I ask my God every day what I

did to deserve this path—” Jacques reached out and fingered some

rosaries hanging from the rearview mirror. “People are filled with a

blind contempt, especially on these highways.” They were driving off

the beach, heading downtown. A sports car carrying a preppy Caucasian

and a pretty young girl zoomed in-and-out between cars, forcing Jacques

to jam on the breaks to narrowly avoid clipping them. “I do this for

forty-five hours a week. And some nights when my shift is over I then go

to my third job as a bathroom attendant at the nightclub, where I look at

these pretty young boys sniffing unsacred and wasteful things up their

noses. And as if I can absolve them of their sins, I offer them water to

wash away their filth, cologne to cover up their stink, and chewing gum

to sugar coat their poisonous breath. And then on some days, if God

gives me the energy, and if I’m needed, I pick up shifts at my fourth job,

as a janitor at an office complex, where I spend my weary minutes and

hours mopping the floors of those who came before me, or emptying the

trash of the board rooms and executive offices. The secrets that lay in the

trash of our neighbors should be seen not by me but only by an almighty

creator for He is the only one who could truly forgive and absolve these

people of their obvious gluttony and sins.”

“Wow, four jobs,” said Decò.

“Yes, I work four jobs.”

“You work hard. You must really like money.”

“Suh mah di, man. Money? My pockets are filled with lint. Under

my roof, I have a wife and six children to support, as well as my mother.

Under my roof, also stay my brothers and sisters, and my wife’s brothers

and sisters, as well as their children, if there are any to stay.”

“But Jacques,” said Decò, “you were not born here.”

“So?”

“So what do you expect?”

Jacques turned around with a heck-of-a-scathing-look. His

eyebrows turned inward on the brow, highlighting an intensity in his

black on black pupils and corneas. It instantly caused Decò to regret his

words. “I hail from a land where the words poverty and destitution are

too kind to even begin to describe our plight. This land is not on the

other side of the planet. No—my country is less than 700 miles away

100

from here, the same feeble distance it takes to drive from Miami to

Atlanta. In my land one tragedy after another has befallen upon us. If not

the recent earthquake that killed my father and many of me and my

wife’s brothers and sisters and also their children—then only the year

before it was the hurricane that wiped away my restaurant business in

its entirety the same way a busboy wipes away a table. And believe me

the year before things weren’t all that spectacular. Listen. I came here for

a chance to survive, just a chance, for me and my family. Let the Lord

serve as my witness, I truly don’t expect much, and I don’t mind

working exceptionally hard, I really don’t. The only thing I desire is for

people to earn what they receive; to reap what they sow. I fear that is too

much to ask for in this glossy city they named Miami.”

Jacques turned silent the rest of the drive. Decò felt awkwardly

speechless. When they arrived in Coconut Grove, Jacques stopped the

cab near Cocowalk. The meter read $24.50. Decò dug into his pockets

and had one fifty-dollar bill remaining from his gambling winnings.

“Keep the change, Jacques.”

“There is no change, Decò.”

101

CHAPTER 27— Back to Work

Back at Mambo’s house in the Grove, Decò slept for about forty-

two hours before quickly falling back into his monotonous routine of

watching the news, drinking scotch and beer, and wandering late at

night amongst the seedier corners and blocks in the County of Dade. But

without question, this lifestyle sickened him, and the news drove him

batty and to the edge of despair. Decò placed himself on the list for the

Pity Party—plus one. And in the silent and loneliest hours before each

dawn, he “checked-in” at his private pity party. Once there it was the

silly, smiling image of the good and hard-working Jacques that deejayed

the set. There was a man who worked his ass off, out of necessity, and

survival, not for himself, but for his loved ones; a man who did the jobs

no one else wanted to do in society; a human being who had nothing and

wanted only what he deserved, a chance to rise up from destitution in

the United States of America through hard work. Decò paced a long time

about his room, remembering how many times he saw Jacques with that

stupid Eddie Murphy smile; then his visions extended into memories of

his hard working brothers and sisters on the farms of Homestead, who

worked their asses off for peanuts yet knew how to share. Who was

Decò to expect anything from life? Just because he was born into this

country and had multiple degrees from graduate school did not entitle

him to success. It helped, sure. As did the networking. But at the end of

102

the day what did it matter if you knew people and had special VIP

contacts and rubbed elbows with old trust-funded money? And how

freaking pitiful that he should give up all hope just because he lost a few

manuscripts—what he accomplished at Mile Marker Zero could be

replicated—he just had to work his ass off—not sit around sponging off

the government, getting drunk. Decò could not sleep at night and was

filled with self-loathing. A lingering guilt of self-entitlement hung

around his neck like a noose and he choked and hung himself night after

night. He sat up in bed, nervous, or paced around the condo like a

constipated dog. Decò was sick of the news, sick of drinking, sick of

receiving help from the government and feeling like the world owed

him. If the world owed anybody—it was Jacques—who’d be the first to

say the world moved too fast to calculate debt; the world was too fragile

to keep accurate tabs on all its cracks and injustices.

Decò decided to change his ways. And it began with work.

Good, old-fashioned, honest to god, back-breaking, nose to the

grindstone, work. He started by taking himself off all forms of social

welfare, whether food stamps or unemployment, he did not want a free

hand-out. Then, one early evening he walked over to his former job at

the comedy club, ignoring the stares from the wait staff, and dodging the

manager’s long antiquated vaudevillian shepherd’s hook stick of shame.

He ventured into the back and approached the dishwashing station.

Jacques stared at him with a silly cheek-to-cheek smile.

“Suh mah di, Decò.”

“Jacques, can you get me a job driving a taxi?”

103

“You crazy, man.”

“Please.”

He looked Decò up and down, and then stared into his eyes.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

***

Driving a cab for a living in any city is not easy work, especially

with Uber and Lyft eating away at fares. But driving in the 305? The

County of Dade is arguably the worst place to navigate in the entire

universe, including undeveloped, impoverished and unpaved areas. The

pace of the commute is schizophrenic—hurried by young, flashy,

fuckboys, South Beach and showy in nature; compounded by speedy

tourists in rentals run into the ground; confused by elderly Mr. Magoo

snow birds whom barely see above the steering wheel; mashed up by the

multi-cultural differences, i.e., slow Caribbean and Latinos plus maniacal

Northerners spells dysfunction. The driving process is then diluted into

gridlock due to a lack of a functional public transit system; then stifled

by the sun and humidity; then detoured by the endless construction; and

finally steamed into a raging madness never before seen by a Western

society. That’s not to mention the price of gas, or the countless accidents

caused by turning to look at how beautiful everyone looks. Shit. Driving

in the County of Dade could hardly be described as a pleasant

experience—even the Dalai Llama would agree to its arduous test of

one’s peaceful nature. Decò was not above the fray and felt all the

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obvious agony of driving for a living; he remembered his days riding

bike and wished the sustainability of a bicycle could supplant the

logistical necessity of driving; he cursed and raged and complained with

the best of them; after all, his job was not only to navigate the madness,

but to milk it for a living; and as frustrating it turned, the idea of

quitting, although entertained, never evolved into fruition. On the

contrary, he worked double-shifts, sometimes clocking sixteen hour-days

like they were a trip to Disneyland. And in time, although he sometimes

lost his temper—he learned not to complain, or at least not to voice it to

anyone who cared enough to listen. He liked working long days. For

starters, the money he earned helped him (rather quickly) rent his own

apartment—a modest one-bedroom in a neighborhood on the cusp of

Little Haiti, a colorful yet poor part of town that felt honest and tested by

time. Decò felt proud of the fact that he had his own space, no offense to

Mambo, to whom he felt gratitude, but it meant something to have a

humble place he could call his own. To keep him company, he adopted a

straggly and small mutt from the pound, a tiny enough animal whom

could spend the day inside, using mats to defecate, but after a grueling

day of work, Deco took the dog for a long and peaceful walk around the

neighborhood. He also stopped drinking scotch and beer and he quit

watching the news altogether. Instead, Decò read a book, and learned

how to speak Spanish, with his dog always nearby his feet, until reading

quickly sent his exhausted body into a deep sleep. Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

Reading was a treasure Decò somehow abandoned. Reading was

the reason he wanted to write in the first place. He quickly fell back in

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love with reading. In fact, he carried a book with him everywhere and

read throughout the long days in the cab. He stole time, whether waiting

in a queue at the airport, or for directions from dispatch, or for a

drawbridge, or a really long traffic light. It didn’t take Decò long to

memorize with precision the laws of timing when it came to every

intersection in the county and he took advantage of this observational

asset. Reading totally calmed him; it saved him, in some ways, from the

stress of the occupation, and for that relief, he felt content driving—and

continued to work hard. This is how the weeks rolled by—but he always

gave himself Sunday’s off—it was his due. And every single Sunday, he

stopped by the home of Jacques, who also lived in the neighborhood,

and also rested on Sunday, and Decò brought over food and Jacques’s

family cooked and they all shared in a delectable and honest meal.

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CHAPTER 28— Decò Finds His Groove

That summer the forces of Decò’s nature merged to form a

tempest; first, he received some positive news—the forgotten story he

submitted by e-mail months ago in a drunken stupor, the tale woven in

the paradise he exiled himself from, the suspenseful noir short story, the

lone survivor of his opuses, was accepted for publication by a small yet

reputable national literary magazine. More so, the sordid noir tale

quickly found itself nominated for an Edgar Award, for distinguished

work in the mystery genre. The news, a sampling of acceptance,

immediately triggered in Decò a confidence long dormant. The timing

coincided with his renaissance for reading and his re-infatuation with

literature, and like a perfect storm, so powerful and omnipotent, the urge

or need to compose and revise filled Decò from head-to-toe. With

confidence, Decò could write again, and that’s what he did. But this time,

rather than drop everything to immerse himself in the craft, he found a

way to compose within the parameters of his current paradigm. He

continued to drive the cab, often for sixteen-plus hours a day, and every

second he had to spare he dedicated to composition. He carried with him

always a notebook, large or small, and a fountain pen of black ink. He

wrote during those private moments when he used to read. He listened

to the world with a writer’s ears, innocently eavesdropping on

conversations, whether at a diner, or to those in the back of his cab.

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Everything became a narrative. Everyone a character with a role. Every

place a location for a potential scene. And he found time to get it down.

He remembered DuPont who said an idea for a story is not a story and he

again understood what he had somehow forgotten: There were no

excuses. He thought about texting DuPont but knew better than to

bother the old scribe whom was surely busy somewhere; instead, Decò

rolled up his sleeves and executed. And this time there was no stopping

him. He worked on short stories, novellas, a novel, a screenplay. He

revised, chopped, re-wrote, and edited until reading his own words

made him sick to his stomach, at which point he switched gears, stepped

back, gave the particular project some space, and he turned to another

project, or to the even more time consuming part of publishing,

marketing. He spent hours upon days and weeks sending out hundreds

of query letters to thousands of literary rags trying to find a home for

some story. The same process consumed him when it came to finding a

literary agent or a publisher, which seemed the hardest thing to do in the

world cold-queried and without a referral. Yet he persevered. Even as

the rejection letters piled up, he felt not deterred. A baseball player with

three thousand hits makes the hall-of-fame, the same with a trainer or

jockey at the racetrack; when Deco hit his three thousandth rejection

letter, he paused, alone, to celebrate the accomplishment. Of course it

hurt, but it meant he was a writer! Decò went so far as to make collages

of the rejection letters. He hung them on the wall of his apartment and

with the scraps he littered the mats of his dog—whom pissed on the

rejection as if it were a doggie fire hydrant.

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Decò did all of this within the context of driving the taxi. None

of it happened over night, but there was no timetable, all that mattered

was the work, all of it—not just the writing, but the driving—he had to

keep driving—moving—that’s what it all boiled down to: movement.

Many times, while on South Beach, he drove past his old

apartment, or picked someone up or dropped them off at the

Stupendously Luxurious, people whom were very similar to him, once

upon a time, people lost in the glitter and douche and swag, and never

did Decò judge them, nor possess even a morsel of sentimentality for the

lifestyle he once lived—who had the time?

Many times, the cab took him through the hip streets of

Wynwood, where art tickled the taints of the city’s intelligentsia; in fact,

indeed many members of The Earl Society themselves hopped into his

run-down cab, twirling moustaches, whether during Second Saturdays,

or a flash warehouse party, or some coffee shop happening, and on

occasion they recognized him, knew of his nomination for an Edgar

Award, lauded the ‘artistic’ authenticity of his ‘job’ as a chauffeur, and

even encouraged him to re-apply for a grant, wink-wink—if you catch

my drift, they twirled. “Suh mah di,” Decò replied, with a wide smile.

He didn’t need or want help. He was fine. It didn’t even matter

if he succeeded, although it went without question that he would fail

until he did succeed, if that’s what it took. He simply wanted to be left

alone, to execute his tasks, to move forward, to simply do his job.

Many times, the cab took him to Allapattah, where the rough

streets reminded him of the hustle and grind and the long ago days of

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distributing Coke with Lazaro—to whom he continued to stay in touch

with. Lazaro worked harder than Decò, driving his truck all around the

country, and when in town, every once in a while, Decò would spend a

day or two with his old buddy, blowing off steam at a bar or gambling

facility, but the occasions were far and few between.

Many, many, many times the cab took him to the airport—

without question his most popular (and lucrative) destination, and also a

favorite because he could steal time to write or read while waiting in

queue for the next fare—but no airport run turned out as crazy as what

befell him one Spring day when he least expected it. His eyes were glued

to a book as a random customer, without any luggage, hopped into the

back of his cab. “Where to?” he asked.

“Decò?”

The light French accent sounded familiar. He peered into the

rearview mirror - - and there she was, a ghost from the past, he

immediately recognized her eyes, it was indeed Chichi [shee-shee].

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CHAPTER 29— Chichi and the OxyContin Trail

Decò hardly recognized her, but it was Chichi. She looked

different, older for sure, not as glamorous, tired (more than jet-lagged),

and most surprisingly, a little plump. Definitely not fat, but plump. She

still had her looks—Chichi was far from a dog (sans the Australian

Shepherd in her blood)—but it didn’t take the most observant person to

notice the difference in her demeanor. She definitely looked weathered,

worn-out, like she’d traveled around a really long block—yet to Decò she

still appeared beautiful and more importantly, she was erected in

colorful flesh, alive. “Chichi—I thought you were dead!!”

“Not quite.”

They exited the cab. In the duration and tender pressure of the

embrace, time fluctuated slightly and their hearts skipped a beat,

nothing had changed—there was still love there.

“Why are you driving a taxi—”

“—how are you alive?”

They laughed at the awkwardness.

“Please, sit up front. I will drive you where you want to go.”

Chichi hopped in, and just like the old days, Decò once again

prepared to chauffer her. “My love,” she began. “I don’t have anywhere

to go, but please—just drive. I just want to move—ugh—your Chichi is

very confused—please tell me why you thought I was dead.”

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Decò drove out of the airport and began to recant the story of

following her to Homestead; of working on the farmer’s land with the

migrant workers; living with them for many seasons; of spying on her

every night with loving and protective eyes but a fearful heart; of

wanting to prove to her that he indeed could work hard, and deemed

worthy of her grace, and that the farmer was indeed a phony; of hearing

that she overdosed; of what he did in retaliation to the farmer’s crops.

Chichi laughed.

“I will tell you everything that has happened to your Chichi.

Since those dark days on the farm in Homestead, I have come a long

way. I am currently returning from Istanbul, Turkey, of all the places in

the world, and—ugh—I feel so—tired, my dear Decò. You are right—I

should have died many times and indeed I feel extremely lucky to even

be alive. The organic farm, oh, how long ago it seems—ugh—I hardly

remember the experience but the gossips in the kitchen chattered

correctly, I did overdose on a pharmaceutical cocktail, I believe of

benzos—but Chichi did not die, on the contrary, the farmer brought me

to Jackson Memorial. After which he had me Baker Acted like a crazy

loon until he knew what to do with me. The farmer, whom I now

recognize as a phony peddler of goods, like many bogus relic-sellers in

the County of Dade, he sold an idea, a concept, a picture perfect model

of health—his organics—and he wanted a picture perfect model of

health to add to his picture perfect portrait, it didn’t matter if the picture

perfect model was kept diluted, albeit willingly. Once I overdosed it

tainted his picture and he sold me—like he sold quinoa—he pawned his

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model off to drug traffickers, ugh—and crazy Chichi didn’t even care as

long as she could get her vitamins. The traffickers, they were these

radical pioneers of the OxyContin trail—drugstore cowboys to a tee—we

hit up every pain pill clinic advertised in the Backpage of the Miami New

Times. We bounced to all fifty pill mills in a group of four, collecting

from each a hefty prescription of hundreds of eighty milligram roxies,

enough to floor a thoroughbred horse. The pill mills filled the scripts

onsite and then we headed north on the expressway and stayed at

apartments or safe house in cities all across the southeast and Midwest;

we lived in places like Atlanta, Pensacola, Nashville, Little Rock, Kansas

City—you name it. They sold their wares to pill heads like candied

sweets, and people gobbled them up from city to city. Easy money. I just

came along for the ride, numb and blind—ugh—a slave to the codeine.”

She scratched herself behind the ears. “And then, and then, when we

were all out of candy we came back to the County of Dade to get more. I

don’t even remember how many times, how many hotels, how many

strange fucks, or diseased sicknesses, or careless incarcerations, or stints

in rehab—once an explorer of the OxyContin trail it was so easy to get

lost, my Decò—and that’s what your Chichi did—and on that trail I also

lost all remnants of my innocence, dignity, integrity, pride, will and

beauty. What I did know—and this is probably what kept me from

dying—was that I had to hop off the trail—abandon ship—somehow run

as far away from these traffickers before it was too late—and I did. But

my dismal tale only begins with the trail—being in association with such

vagabonds only leads one to even seedier and darker elements of

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society—and only through these channels was I able to encounter the

pimps and purveyors of the sex trafficking market. And so it appears,

due to the current dismal economic and gridlocked political state of

America, there exists a newly minted market for mail-order brides,

basically sex-slaves—ugh!—And not to be imported into America, but

exported to foreign lands!! This new black market I saw as a last chance

to escape what I knew was killing me—so, I took it. What was Chichi to

do? Drop dead on pharmaceuticals? Work a remedial job? Eat at Price

Choice? Of course I ran away. They sent me to Turkey—it appears the

Turks have an infinity for ex-American models, particularly of my

ethnicity. Woof. They paid me well enough and I served them like doing

time in a prison cell. The experience—albeit one I shall force myself to

forget, let alone recapitulate to you right now, did allow me to kick my

dependency on those vitamins. Also, in some ways being a mail-order

bride house-trained my inner beast—and now I’ve returned to Miami,

like many whom roam only to eventually return home. And of all the

people to run into upon my arrival. It surely must be fated, my old lover.

Tell me, Decò—why are you driving a taxi?”

“I’m just working hard.”

“Are you still on the beach?”

“No, I live in Little Haiti.”

“How queer.”

“No, I like it—it’s colorful.”

“Are you writing?”

“Of course.”

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“Going out?”

“Not really.”

“Eating organic?”

“Sometimes.”

“Ugh, well, at least you have a job.”

“I’ve been working hard.”

“Decò—do you think Chichi can stay with you for a while?”

They waited at a traffic light. He looked at her. He grabbed her

hand and held it to his face. The traffic light turned green. Decò drove

for fifty yards and turned into his apartment complex. He’d been

heading to his apartment the whole time. “Of course you can, my love.”

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CHAPTER 30— Working Hard

Reuniting with Chichi [shee-shee] proved delightful. Embers of

love soon reignited between them. Like the Earth revolves around the

sun, their relationship had seasoned. No longer did they race to fancy

athletic clubs to engage in strenuous workouts. Instead, maybe they

occasionally played a game of tennis in Morningside Park. Both indeed

also found fitness at the free community yoga practice in Downtown.

They laughed because community yoga and tennis would have once

been absurd, cheap, and beneath them, but now it felt apropos,

pragmatic and even casual. Simply put, things changed. Long nights on

the town, magazine sponsored fashion shows, and VIP bottle service

became replaced with trips to the dog park, maybe an afternoon on the

beach, but mostly a quiet night at home reading. Whatever happened to

Chichi in Turkey tempered her attitude. She matured, and with Decò’s

approval, decided to pursue a degree in Nursing from Miami-Dade

College’s Medical Campus. She volunteered at rehab shelters, attended

NA meetings regularly as a sponsor, and spearheaded petition

campaigns to break-up the pharmaceutical pill mills throughout the

County of Dade. She even started shopping at Publix. Frankly, the

couple appeared too busy to care about anything other than the endless

tasks that needed execution; they took life in stride, even when Chichi

became pregnant. As things rolled on, Decò fell into his own routine.

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It revolved around the craft of writing, which he adored. He felt

weary of referring to the craft as an art, although he did indeed cherish

the techniques of narrative. Instead, he simply saw the craft as work—

hard, laborious, non-stop work that took its toll—often leaving him

bleary-eyed and exhausted, cracked and emptied like an egg. But he

didn’t stop writing or submitting, applying and querying. Eventually his

stock paid dividends. It started with a steady trickle of acceptance letters

from a wide range of literary and commercial magazines and quickly

streamed into the acquisition of a literary agent, resulting in the sale of a

novel to a corporate publisher and the optioning of a screenplay to a

Hollywood producer. Within one month of each other, the movie was

green-lit, he had his first baby with Chichi, and his debut novel was

published. The birth of a book is very much like the birth of a baby and

Decò celebrated both with his friends.

At a reading and shower thrown at his humble apartment, his

friends came through with their family members and plenty of libations;

Mambo came up from the Grove with a new boyfriend he met at Mile

Marker Zero—he mellowed considerably after returning from paradise.

“Fuckin’ a,” he said to Decò. “I’m grateful you told an old

veteran like me about Mile Marker Zero—there were many vets down

there and they taught me peace of mind doesn’t exist in a political

system or politician, but in a sunset and a Bloody Mary. I feel so free.

Now that I’m out in the open I can live; you gotta live your life, Decò.”

“That sounds great.”

“Fuckin’ a, it does.”

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“But remember, we must also work hard.”

Lazaro now lived back in Miami and came by the party with a

bottle of Johnny Walker Blue to celebrate the occasion. He was doing

better than ever—in fact he owned his own supply and distribution

company, complete with a fleet of trucks, and a staff of a dozen. His

number one client was the farm in Homestead, which evolved into a co-

op after some legal trouble due to the scandalous Miami Herald editorial

revealing that many of the farmer’s crops were not actually organic. The

farmer was on the brink of bankruptcy and of all the people in the world

the migrant workers on his land stepped in with their substantial life

savings to save the business, but only on the condition that he

transformed the business model of the farm into a cooperative. As a

result, the prices of the goods dropped considerably and they were able

to build the business, spreading their goods all over the country, with

the help of Lazaro’s trucking and distribution.

“Woof,” said Chichi.

“Bro,” said Lazaro.

“What?”

“Exactly,” said Lazaro.

For a while, Decò continued to drive the taxi. The County of

Dade was just as stressful as ever, but the regiment of work satiated his

desire to keep moving. He felt comfortable and never complained. If he

had free time, he wrote, or he spent it with Chichi, whose belly again

grew with each passing moon. He never missed a Sunday at Jacques’s

and always enjoyed that day for the other six were filled with nothing

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but work. They enjoyed playing bocce ball while the sun set to the west.

They didn’t speak much, but Jacques still smiled and grew fond of the

relationship. “You look like Eddie Murphy with that smile on your face.”

“Suh ma deh, Decò. Eddie Murphy is not smiling on the inside.”

Jacques no longer drove the taxi cab nor did he work four jobs,

for very wisely he had invested in real estate in Little Haiti and due to

the inevitable gentrification of most of Miami, he made a small profit and

morphed professionally into a real estate agent and also a speculator.

Decò did not need to drive the cab anymore, but he continued.

His first novel and the optioned screenplay earned him cash money, in

the low-six figures, but he used it to pay off his student loans, in their

entirety, accumulated interest and all. All the money he made from

driving his taxi like a maniac he had been saving also to buy property,

and he soon did. Decò always imagined himself moving back to the

beach, but when the time came to pull the trigger, with Chichi pregnant

again, living in a beach condo seemed annoying, pointless and even

obsolete. Instead, he purchased in cash a nice cottage style house which

had been in foreclosure. It was as quaint as a holiday, perfect for his dog,

and conveniently located in the tree lined grove of El Portal. Soon their

second baby came and the celebration that ensued once again brought all

his friends together. This was their life. It certainly never evolved into

anything easier, yet the experience as a whole felt light. Chichi had

another baby, they adopted yet another dog. Stride for stride, they

executed all tasks. After Decò wrote another novel that sold well, he

surrendered his driving duties and focused more on writing full-time as

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well as parenting. Later that year his novel became a finalist for a very

prestigious award. Whilst sitting in his chambers composing another

book, his silent phone illuminated with an incoming text from DuPont.

Working hard?

Decò picked up the phone to text.

It is what it is.

Almost immediately a response shot back.

Challenge those ‘to be’ verbs, Decò.

Decò laughed at his old mentor’s playful critique:

LMAO! DuPont: truly and forever an editor.

As Decò wondered exactly why his old mentor contacted him, a

text message arrived answering that very question. Like a good writer

DuPont responded to reader’s questions with impeccable timing.

I’m judging this contest and I came across your book…

Figurative caterpillars transformed into literal butterflies

immediately inside Decò’s stomach. He thought he understood the

subtext of the message latent in those three elliptical dots . . . fill in the

blank _________ I can’t say it, Decò - - but if you read between the lines

perhaps you’ll catch the drift, eh? Wow. Winning the prize would

provide the icing on the proverbial cake of Decò’s literary career. He’d

obtain a respectable level of Teflon in circles of criticism; it’d lead to

residencies at places like Mile Marker Zero and beyond; simply put it

represented an amazing opportunity. Then the butterflies died. Did he

want to achieve this success partially due to an inside advantage? Wait a

minute. When on earth did anyone in the arts have a conscience? It

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doesn’t matter how you get it. Was not the world based slightly upon

whom you knew? That’s the way life worked! Any member of the Earl

Society would say it in a heartbeat. It’s who you know—and how you

twirl that moustache. Ugh. It almost made sense to Decò, but not quite.

…my next book will be better

DuPont hoped Decò would feel that way and Decò now knew it.

The true subtext of the mentor’s ellipse . . . implied for Decò to keep

going, to justly earn all successes on his own.

It will be as long as you work hard, son.

Decò had crossed the final bridge of his apprenticeship.

But we must work hard!

Decò eventually achieved the magnificent splendor of life and

completed every aspiration, albeit literary, fiscal, or personal. He earned

accolades enough to keep the surname of his kindred relevant for

generations. Decò loved his wife, children, pets and friends. He lived for

his neighborhood and cottage style house. He even re-acquired his old

vehicle, the sports-car-electric-hybrid, but a newer model, with the GPS

voiced by Tom Brady—he bought it with cash. And the days continued,

with Decò working harder than ever in the County of Dade.

THE END

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About the Author

J.J. Colagrande is the author of Headz, a novel and Reduce Heat Continue To

Boil. He lives in Miami and works as a Professor at Miami Dade College.

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