Stereorob

as a very longtime LS400 driver, ive had my fair share of odd times behind the wheel of these cars over the years. ive covered some stories already, but a few were not so good. one being absolutely terrible. yes these cars are some of the most reliable cars on the road, ever made, until they arent. if you are in a bad place and they turn on you, it can be serious trouble if you are financially vulnerable. here is one of those stories, and it goes way way deeper then an expensive repair that in the end, would make most people sick if they ever saw one again, only made my bond to these cars even deeper..

the time is summer 2008. i was 23 almost 24, had a **** poor job living in blind poverty. sometimes i didnt have lights, sometimes no water, and sometimes even had to go to bed hungry or steal to survive. truly a miserable time in my life that i wouldn't wish on well, anyone.

this was in the middle of the worst recessions in history. a recession that turned into a depression depending on where you were in life. i came from a good background. my family was successful, i grew up in a very affluent neighborhood, went to the best private schools, and was absolutely spoiled rotten. i had a trust fund, daddys money, nice cars, and was a stereotypical rich douche bag brat. the kind that everybody hates. yeah, i really did think my **** didnt stink, that i was better then others, and thought the poor were weak and pathetic. well, i also partied in excess, wasnt serious with my life, picked up a nasty drug habit and landed in jail. i didnt go to college even though i had everything set to be able to do so. instead, i chose to act like a jackass, party, do drugs, and chase skirts, which was BY FAR the worst decision of my life.

after getting into trouble, and so many stints in rehab, my folks finally had enough and cut me loose. gone were the credit cards, the trust fund was revoked, and i was in southern Palm Beach County 250 miles from home, completely left to fend for myself for the first time, ever.
now, looking back at that time, what i went through, and where i am today, honestly it was the best thing that ever could have happened to me and im glad it did. it made me a humble, kind, and empathetic person that i didnt think i ever would have been. 2005 to 2009 were the absolutley hardest years of my life. my "grapes of wrath" period, as i call it. i lived with the poor, worked with the poor, and suffered with the poor, as i was one of them, and was for a long time.

fast forward back to 2008. i was then 3 years in to my poor time. by then the only nice thing i really had left from my rich kid life was my 1990 LS400, which i had 7 years at that point, battered bruised and clapped into submission from street racing, dents from countless fender benders, and it was then, 3 different colors from 2 bad accidents leaving me to go to junkyards and buy body panels cheap from other cars. didnt have the money to paint it, infact i didnt have the money to even maintain it by then. no oil changes, no fixing the badly leaking radiator that made the car overheat every 30 mins or so, having to pull over, letting it cool off, and pouring multiple milk jugs of water down into it so i could keep going. it was burning oil, leaking every fluid it had, brakes worn down to the studs, and tires tread less showing steel bands. somehow, with 392,000 miles, she kept chugging away, never failed to start, and always got me where i needed to go even after so much relentless abuse. only thing that went was the AC a year earlier.

here i was, 23, able bodied, but unemployed. it was the middle of the recession and well, there was simply no work at all in my area. i mean NOTHING. the labor pools were not even hiring. times were bad. REAL bad. well, in the summer of 2008, after years of living in hell, my folks decided i had suffered enough and told me i could come home and they would help me get on my feet. as ive mentioned in previous threads, my family was a hardcore Benz and BMW almost cult like about them. they hated my Ls400 so much that when i got it at 17, (with my own money, i was offered a new 3 series and turned it down), they wouldn't even let me park it in front of the house, cause they were embarrassed by it and didn't want people to see such a "fake" car in front of the house.

the condition of me coming home, was to dump the LS400. hell they hated the car when it was nice, 7 years later in that condition? heh. no way.
i was so attached to that damn car and had been through so much crazy stuff with it, i wouldn't part with it no matter what anybody said. but my family loved me so much and missed me, so they finally accepted it and told me to come home anyway. ill never forget those ominous words from my dad, coming over my wore out cracked and taped together motorazor flip phone... "if you REALLY insist on bringing that piece of crap home, fine. but if it breaks down in Indian river county, you are on your own" -i really should have listened, because well, it didnt even make it out of palm beach county, and the next few months were some of the hardest in my life.

for several years, working a minimum wage job on and off, my whole life consisted of a 3 mile range radius. i didnt go on any highway for well over a year and only took backstreets as i had no insurance, a suspended licence from not having insurance my tag was bad. drove that way 2 years, and it was horrible. lucky me i only got nailed once, and managed to talk my way out of it. aside from quick runs to the beach a mile down the road (usually just took a bicycle), and to whatever job i had at the time, i simply stayed the hell off the street. ill never forget the day i finally decided to cut my losses, take my dads offer to get the hell out of there, and run back to Orlando, (my hometown), with my tail between my legs.

it was March 14th, 2008.

March 15th 2008, i picked up the phone, i called my dad, and told him i was ready. he sent me $50 western union so i could put a full tank of gas in the car, enough to hopefully get me home. i packed my things, loaded everything into my tired old ucf10, along with my big old tom cat, oreo, and a canal turtle i had turned into a pet named pickles. i rumbled into the gas station, and started filling. it was about 94 degrees and with the long hot trip i had ahead of me, i grabbed 2 vitamin waters and a pack of camel menthol. i stood in front of that old tired car full of my stuff, with rags as cloths and holes in my shoes, and said a prayer that it would get me home in one piece. nervously, i turn onto southern blvd and make a bee line down hwy 98 inland, hoping to make it to Belle Glade before i had to pull over so the car could cool down. luckily, i made it in once piece and managed to pull into an abandoned gas station just as the needle shot into the red. whew! grabbed my milk jugs, propped the hood up, and filled the radiator. the drive from west palm to Belle Glade was a little unnerving, as the car had a pretty healthy shimmy, the tires were totally balled, and if i got a flat id be in serious trouble, as the car had aftermarket rims with studs that had warped and twisted screws i couldnt get off if i wanted to, but i said another prayer, filled the water jugs, and kept driving. once i hit hwy 98, i felt relief as it would have turned into 441 eventually, which passes right next to my neighborhood in Orlando. however, this was short lived. about 10 miles outside of belle glade i was feeling a bit too confident and set the cruise control for 80 mph. BIG MISTAKE. im flying down 98, windows down, cat asleep on the floor pan, listening to the hum of 3/6 mafia, when BAM! the radiator decided to quit leaking. instead, it exploded. i panicked and immediately pulled off on the sholder of the road and put on my hazards. temp gauge shot up high as it could go immediately, and as im sitting there absolutley freaking out, i feel the back of the car sink. -i ran over a sharp rock, which killed the back tire. i grabbed my phone and tried to call my dad, but i was just remote enough to not have cell service. flipped open my motorazor only to see *searching for service.....*

we live in a amazing and very fortunate time. before the advent of smartphones and 4G service, it was still easy to not be able to communicate with someone in an emergency. it was a different story a decade ago. there i was, in the middle of nowhere, with a crippled car, no phone, and not a pot to **** in. i couldnt drive because it would overheat and blow the engine (which how i managed to overheat it as bad as i did and not kill it i still dont know) and i couldnt change the tire as i didnt have a spare, and the rims were absolutely FUSED to the car. i was flat out, downright, absolutely screwed. not too far ahead of me on the road, was an overgrown foundation of what used to be something, and a bunch of tall bushes. the car was totally illegal and i had no license, so if a good-guy cop stopped to see what was wrong, i would have ended up in the palm beach county jail, so i reluctantly started up the car, overheating, bogging down, and crawled it into the lot behind the trees. rear tire falling off the damaged rim. it was 3pm in the afternoon, 95 degrees, and absolutely nothing i could do to fix the situation at hand but call my dad, which i couldnt, so that ment a 10 mile walk down hwy 98, back into town. i put the windows just about 3/4 of the way up and tilted the sunroof so my cat wouldn't die of heatstroke, gave him some water from the radiator milk jugs, locked up the car and started walking.

man was i a sorry sight. wearing ragged out cloths, drenched in sweat, tired, and relativity upset, walking back to town. once in awhile a car would pass by, id give the ole hitch hiker thumb, and nobody stopped. then again who the hell would? i wouldn't have. about 3 miles down the road, a rusty old chevy truck with migrant farm workers drove by. to this day i dont know why they stopped for me, but they did. as they would end up changing my entire outlook of life.

Hobycat

Stereorob,
Super nice, keep it going, looking forward to part #2. I'm 55 & still learning. Your stories are enjoyable and encouraging to young and old.

Stereorob

ill get to part 2 soon. hopefully now. im at work and its been crazy all day. not much time. started this thread at 8am. just posted it like a half hour ago. working on part 2 now..

Stereorob

the old chevy truck stopped. i cannot even tell you the amount of relief i had when i saw those reverse lights come on. the bed of the truck im pretty sure was home brew. the truck looked to be a late 1980s-ish chevy 2500 if i remember right. it smelled, it was loud, was very rusty and pretty clapped out. in the truck was 7 guys, 5 in the bed, 2 up front. passenger says to me in broken english, "my friend, you need ride?" hell yes i did! and thank god for them! he asked me where i was going and i said belle glade, he said he wasnt going quite that far, but he could get me half way there, as he was close to his "drop-off point" and didnt have time or the gas to make it. i was perfectly okay with that. i climbed into the back of the truck and down the road we went. nobody in the bed spoke english which was a little awkward, but they all had smiles on their faces. a few miles up the road, they dropped me off, wished me best of luck, and departed. i walked another several miles and by the time i was getting to the outskirts of town, it was getting dark, and my phone which had been searching for service, was only at 3% when it was finally able to get a connection. when it did it went crazy with texts and voicemails as the drive to Orlando only should have taken me a few hours, yet there i was in belle glade, at almost 9pm. because of this, my phone was overloaded and died pretty much immediately. so much for calling my dad.

Belle Glade is a rough area. its a small town that sits on the shore of Lake Okeechobee, on the far west side of palm beach county.
its mostly made up of migrant farm workers, and very poor african-americans. there is ALOT of poverty in belle glade. its isolated away from major highways and pretty remote in general. its a very impoverished town of dilapidated shacks and dirt roads. im walking down a commercial section and i see a Texaco station. i walk up and ask if i could charge my phone. (the motorazor was already pretty ancient even in those days and didn't have much of a battery life on it, so i had to keep a charger with me at pretty much all times. there was a utility outlet around the side of the building. i plugged in my phone, waited 10 minutes till it had enough juice to pop on, screen flicker for a second and say "hello moto" . again, a barrage of messages start coming in, so many that it locked up and crashed the phone. after re-starting it i went to immediately call my dad but he beat me to the punch. the phone starts to vibrate and i see his number calling. man what a relief! but it was short lived sadly. of course like any parent does, he asks with worry in his voice, where i was, if i was okay, etc. and then i say to him, "remember that whole breaking down in Indian river county thing...." he immediately starts cracking up. "NO WAY BUD!" he says. "ok, lets get you home bud. get to the greyhound station and ill wire you the money for a ticket" um... my car.. "WHAT IS IT WITH YOU AND THAT STUPID PIECE OF **** BROKE DOWN CAR!!!??" "ITS DONE, YOU USED IT UP. GET YOUR BAGS, PULL THE DAMN TAG OFF IT AND GET YOUR *** TO THE BUS STATION!!" i was just about to throw my hands up, raise the white flag, abandoned my car and just leave it. however, i also had my animals. if i let my turtle go he would be fine. he was in a canal when i got him, and he would be fine if i put him back in one. my big tom cat however, wouldn't last an hour in the glades. i had him for years. he was smart, loyal, and would follow me to the end of the earth. there was just no way i could leave him behind. i explained this to my dad. he was absolutely infuriated. "FINE. YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN SO FIGURE IT OUT!!!" THE BUS TICKET WILL BE WAITING" *call ending tone.

i had absolutely NO IDEA what i had just done to myself over a damn cat and a wore out car, and the horror and suffering i would endure in the weeks to come. alone, stranded in the glades.

Stereorob

after leaving the gas station, walking back out down to hwy 98, the night felt ominous. it was crystal clear outside and one of the brightest fullest moons ive ever seen. there wasnt much street lighting and i swear it felt like i was on another planet or something. walking through the slums, saw a fight break out watching a guy get jumped by 4 others. heard gunshots popping off in the distance. i got to the outskirts of town and two stray dogs started following me. they never got close enough to really tell what they were, but they seemed like rottweilers. the 10 mile hike back down hwy 98 seemed like it took forever, walking down the desolate road, not a single car passed me, i didnt even see headlights. i went over a small bridge and i could hear what sounded like about 15 gators croaking. not fun. by the time i finally got back to the car, i was hungry, thirsty, sweating like hell and absolutely exhausted. turns out i had i had left my windows down just enough to let my cat be able to escape. he actually came running out to the road at me mowing. i think he thought i abandoned him!

my pets i had in the car.. my cat, Oreo was a scruffy tuxedo type. he was missing a few teeth and chunks of his ears from fighting so much, and he absolutely huge. big as a small dog. have you ever watched one of those prison shows where inmates are given cats? they are always huge, and fat. Oreo was a big as they were. he was an old cat, already grown and older when i got him, or shall i say he got me. i lived in a dilapidated doublewide trailer for awhile that a distant relative owned and died in. nobody really wanted to deal with it so it was passed on to me. it had been closed up for a few years when i got it. it was very very rundown, roof leaked terribly, it was full of mildew and was collapsing into the ground, and had no AC or heat. awful place, but i made the best of it and i have to say as bad off as i was, it was one of the best times of my life. well, Oreo kinda came with the place. when i walked in the front door for the first time, he was sleeping on a couch in the living room. -there was a hole in the floor he came in and out of, and had been living there for god knows how long. he didnt even flinch when he saw me. just lifted up his head when i walked in and then went back to sleep. he was absolutely fearless, overly social, vocal, and loved people. he also always knew where home was. no matter where i moved, he knew how to get home.

i unlock the door, pull the squeaky handle, and plop down in the seat absolutely exhausted. Oreo jumped up on the roof of the car through the sunroof. -i think he thought he was guarding the car or me or something. there was one thing we both knew. i came to the horrific reality that my old broke down Ls400 that i pushed back into the bog off Hwy 98, had became my home unless i abandoned my pets, and my car. i absolutely loved that car but i knew it was pretty much finished. i just didn't want to accept it, but i had my cat that i couldn't let the glades take.

i fell asleep that night was so tired i ended up sleeping for 13 hours. i woke up to getting absolutely drenched in a ferocious afternoon thunderstorm. i had left the sunroof open and the windows halfway down when i went to sleep. well that was a mistake, as my entire interior and myself was absolutely soaked by the rain. i woke up FAST and closed everything up. unfortunately, i had left my motorcar phone in the ashtray -always kept it there. hell up till smartphones got too big i kept my phones in the ashtray. unfortunatly, so much rain had come into the car, that it filled the ashtray half way up with water and well, my phone drowned. now i was REALLY screwed. ten miles from anything, dead soaking wet car, no phone, and no food, which by the time that evening came around, i was absolutley starving. so was Oreo. i really didnt know what i was going to do, other then walk all the way back into Belle Glade again, and try panhandling, or just try to steal some food from that shell station i charged my phone at the night before. i got my shoes on, and started making the long walk back to town again. what i hadnt noticed was about 2 miles back, there was an orange grove, that also had a few mango as well as Loquat trees. -not only eatable, but also sustaining! i quickly crossed the road and darted into the grove. took my shirt off, tied it up at one end, and used it as a sack for food. i started filling it with as much as i could. it was about half way full when i suddenly hear "HEY!! HEY YOU!! WHAT THE **** DO YOU THINK YOUR DOING" turns out the guy had a shotgun, and he pointed it right at me. BOOM! the son of a ***** started shooting at me!! ive never ran so fast in my damn life, carrying my makeshift sack full of fruit out of there, dodging shotgun bullets. -what i had failed to see when i darted into the grove, was the big warning sign saying "property under surveillance, trespassers will be shot" -the guy was willing to shoot at people picking a few mangoes and oranges? WTF! well, i made it back to the car. i got my my mother****in food.

Stereorob

i peeled the oranges and mangos. gave a bit of it to Oreo but he wasn't very interested. jumped out of the car, and in about 15 mins came back with a mouse. sat on the hood with it and ate the whole damn thing. bones tail and all. one thing about Oreo is that he could always fend for himself. he didnt really eat much cat food and mostly ate birds, lizards, mice or whatever moving critter he could catch and eat. he was always like that. turtle on the other hand, needed to eat. didnt really know what to do so i threw a loquat into his little cage, and he ate it. he ended up eating alot of loquats over the next week and it must be okay for him, cause i still have him to this day, and still feed him loquats once in awhile. ate, and went back to sleep. that night the mosquitos were bad due to the rain we had that day. they absolutley swarmed my car and had to nuke the car with axe body spray to kill them. unfortunately, that didnt really help things because it made them twice as worse. i woke up early on day 3 as i didnt get a whole lot of sleep the night before and realized i needed to come up with a plan. i knew i couldn't just live in a broke down car in the glades forever nor did i want to, but didnt really have many other options. plus, i was running out of water and fast. only thing around me was a small canal across the street that ran along the road full of stinkwater so that wasnt an option, so i needed to figure out how to get something to drink. since oreo could obviously fend for himself just fine, the car was hidden from the road and there wouldn't be anyone walking that desolate stretch of road for any logical reason, i started the car, let the battery charge just long enough before the car blew itself up from overheating, rolled all the windows down along with the sunroof, left, and started walking back towards town. then it dawned on me.. -i was unemployed, really no place to be, no deadlines, and as bad off as i was, i had never been more free in my entire life!! i also couldnt have found a better place to get stranded as there was stuff to eat all over the place, long as i was able to grow ***** big enough to dart back into the groves and get oranges, which i ended up doing a few more times. anyway as i was walking down the road i came across that old brown truck again with the same guys in it, this time on the side of the road with the hood up. turns out their radiator blew a hose and they were trying to fix it. we saw each other. at this point i was starting to look like a zombie. "Hi Friend!" the Mexican guy says to me again in broken english. the other guy standing with him was a tubby old redneck looking dude named Larry, wearing suspenders and a straw hat, and was smoking a cigarette!!. a sweet, delicious cigarette, something i had ran out of two days earlier. we started talking, and i asked, well, more like begged in desperation for one. "only dun got 2 mo left" larry says, "but ill gib ya one". it was a cheap 305 non menthol, something that i wouldn't even touch in the normal world, but holy crap it tasted so damn good after not having one for so long. we got to talking. the two guys asked me who i was, where i was from, and "what in the damn pit of hell" was i doing out there anyway. i explained my situation about me traveling from west palm to Orlando, moving away for a better life, then my car breaking down and getting stranded. made the mistake of disclosing to him that it was a Lexus, which sadly, made them immediately think i was some arrogant brat, but realized when they saw the condition my car was in, and how rough i was along with all of my stuff, realized i wasn't. Larry says, "way you speak boy, i know you dun came from money, so you jus dum or sumthin?" "you need to take yo pappys bus ticket, go on and get the hell out of this here wasteland". started talking more with Larry and the Mexican guy, whos name was 'Tee" still not sure what his real name was, and then larry asked me, "well boy, you want work?" that was the best thing i had heard in almost a week!! "hell yeah" i exclaimed. "well boy, it aint easy, it dont pay much, but itll feed yeh, and work long enough, u make enough money to fix that fancy car you dun got, if you make it long enough" i accepted immediately! i told him where my car was and where i had been camping out. "Ok, that aint the best place to be stayin. meet us at the road at 4:30 tomorrow morning, and well pick you up, do a good enough job and bossman might let you keep your fancy car on the farm till you can fix and get on your way, if you make it. take it easy and get to sleep early cause you gonna need it!!! with a firm handshake, they went down the road as Tee fixed the radiator hose, and i went back to my car.

Stereorob

i went to sleep as soon as the sun went down. by that evening the car had mostly dried out and the mosquitoes although bad, had died down from the monstrous swarming beast they were the night before, so i rolled up my windows but left the sunroof tilted just so it didnt get too stuffy.
im naturally a heavy sleeper, and was concerned that i wouldnt wake up in time when i finally did fall asleep. Oreo was outside, sitting on the roof, eating a snake this time and i could hear it slithering as he chewed it up, along with his claws scratching up there, but he was smart and again, he could hold his own, and knew he was at home. luckily, i had a really old wind up westclox baby ben alarm clock in a suitcase in the trunk i had picked up at a garage sale a few years earlier that was too cool to abandon at the last place i stayed before this disaster. i had never used it and really didnt think it would work, but i grabbed it out of the trunk, and started winding it. shook it back and forth a few times, and click..click..click.. -it worked. well, it did for about 30 seconds and quit again on me. damn! i thought. here i am having to try to depend on a 70 year old alarm clock that probably doesn't work, to wake me up at the butt booty *** crack of dawn, to get what would probably be my one and only damn shot at getting the hell out of there in a few weeks if all went to plan. i shook the clock, and it started ticking again. i started furiously winding and winding and winding it trying to keep it going. click..click..click..click..click.. die. at this point i was just pissed, i yelled at , rolled down the window and threw it out into the bushes. about 15 seconds later, DING DING DING DING DING!!!! oh ****!!! its working!! i guess my angry throw i gave it, knocked whatever was inside it loose enough to start working. i ran out of the car, grabbed it out of the bushes all dented with a shattered crystal, wiped the dirt off of it, fixed the time -luckily the dash clock on my car was still going at the moment, and set the alarm for 4am. somehow, someway, the clock made it through the night, and managed to go off at 4:10, which was close enough! i threw a shirt on, grabbed my shoes and locked up the car. the sun still wouldn't be up for well over an hour and i was kinda tired still, i was leaning back against the front quarter panel of my Lexus, and i could feel myself starting to nod out, so i jumped up, ate an orange which helped a bit, and just walked out to the road. i stood there for what seemed like an eternity, but eventually i saw headlights in the distance and the distant clunky rumble of the old brown chevy truck. it was very foggy that morning which made a lot of the ambient noise absolutely silent and thats probably what made me want to fall asleep. theres Larry & Tee, Larry says, C'mon Boy i aint got all day, get yer *** in the truck. i hop in the back with 3 non english speaking farm workers, different then the ones before. they were all very friendly though and tried to introduce themselves. Larry yells through the open slider in the back of the truck cab, "boy i dun didnt think you'd be even showin glad to have ya on board, i hope u ready to work, cause we got lots of it!!"

we were heading the other direction this time, north on Hwy 98 towards Canal Point, or what i thought was. well, we got to canal point and i saw a few small shops as well as a subway. "man, what id give for a footlong Italian about now" i thought to myself. well i must have been thinking out loud and larry turns his head and says, "boy whens the last time you ate real food? "going on almost a week" i say. larry replies "cause bossman feeds us, we got breakfast at the farm for all of ya!" man this gig kept sounding better and better!! food, work, cash to get my car fixed and get the hell out of there! i was thrilled! well, shortly after turning off Hwy 98 onto Conners Highway, the truck quickly turned down a desolate dirt road in the dark. seems like we drove through the cane fields for at least a mile before coming to an electronic gate, however, it was concerning, as it had inverted barbed wire on top of it, but wasn't thinking much of it at the time. -inverted barbed wire is meant to keep people IN, not out.

CUCUY

very interesting read.......

Stereorob

the gate opened. the sun was just starting to peek out and we continued to drive for what felt like several miles. wherever this place was, it was REALLY deep in the glades. once in awhile i could see a gator on the side of the dirt road, which turned into a very narrow path almost too small for the truck to get through, Tee was speaking to the other workers in Spanish and i couldnt understand what they were talking about, but they were all smiling. then we hit some kind of dense jungle with lots of banyan trees. "watch yer head now boy" Larry said as the truck passed under a HUGE palm tree that had crashed over but still had enough room for the truck to drive under it. then several minutes later, we came to another fence with more wire and a clearing right behind it i asked Larry, "whats the wire for?" "keeps the cows in boy" he says. i was thinking farm animals.. right? well, that sounds normal, however i didn't see any cows anywhere. what i did see was what looked like a HUGE farm compound, it had citrus groves, sugarcane fields, what looked like a large barn with lights on, 3 grain silos, 2 weather vanes, and what appeared to be several large industrial generators. the dirt path then turned into gravel, lined with about a dozen or so banyan trees on each side. behind the banyan trees i could make out what looked like a fairly large, old 2 story farmhouse with a tin roof and a large front porch wrapping across the length of the house. i could also see what looked possibly like a pool next to it, however, we could all hear several very big very nasty dogs barking back behind one of the trees and a man with a raspy southern accent yelling something at them that was undecipherable. then i smelled it. bacon wafting through the banyan trees coming out of a small pavilion and man did it ever smell so good! truck stops, Larry hops out and slams the door with a metallic squeaky clunk, and and opens the rear wood hatch on the back of the truck, "C'mon boys, lets get you some grub before your day, cause u goin need it" inside the open but screened in pavilion, was a long table with food on it. walking the path from the truck to the pavilion a few mosquitoes landed on me and one was buzzing around my ear. once inside, we were greeted by another man, this one named paul. an older guy in a dirty wife beater shirt and ripped jeans, cooking the food. Larry says to Paul "feed em good P" Larry says to me, "we got grits, bacon, sausage, biscuts, eggs, and orange juice boy, eat as much as you can cause its all you get today" "bossman will be here shortly", Tee, speaking to the migrants, i assume was saying the same thing. everyone was in good spirits, happy, enjoying breakfast watching the sun come up. one of the other men sitting next to me at the table that had been in the back of the truck on the ride over with us, turns to me and says in a very very thick accent, "work very hard but good" "no look at man in hat" then starts eating again, acting like i wasnt even sitting there. while we were all eating, more men came in, also farm workers and sat down to eat with us till there was 40 or so with us. everyone was talking fairly loudly, but i could have swore i heard what sounded like a scream between all the chatter. about ten mins later, i see larry walking out of the pavilion, speaking to another man wearing all black, including a hat, sunglasses holding a shotgun. i couldnt see his face because it was still very early morning and the sun hadn't lit everything up enough yet. i couldn't make out what they were saying but it wasn't much for very long, however Larry DID point me out to the man and i could see him turn his head to look at me, back at Larry, nod, and walk away..

Stereorob

about ten mins later, Larry comes back into the pavilion, and pounds on the tin door loudly and says "VAMANOS" everyone gets up and shuffles outside. Tee and Paul start handing out large burlap sacks to everyone. we were told today we would be picking oranges. "thats it" i thought? "picking oranges thats all i gotta do today??" well, seemed fair enough, soon, a large very beat down school bus with the top cut off and huge cages shows up, engine rattling and diesel smoke belching out of the tail pipe. we were instructed to sit in the cages. all 40 of us climb into the bus, and out into the grove we went. we were dropped off at a central location in what appeared to be an orange grove that must have been 1000 acres. the bus stops, we get out, Paul sits behind the wheel and lights up a cigarette. "damn how good a cigarette after a meal like that would be" i thought. i asked paul if i could bum one. he looks at his pack which had 15 or so in it, looks at me, and says with a grin, "heres 5, this should get you through the day" "oh man thank you so much!" i say. paul looks back, chuckles, and says "sure thing you just better do a good job today or ill shoot ya right between the eyes with this here gun", nodding at the revolver strapped to his belt. "get to work now son ya hear?" gave a slightly nervous chuckle, hopped off the bus, lit up the cigarette and started picking oranges. this gig was getting better and better i thought. well, the rest of the day was pretty uneventful, we all just picked oranges, some of the men were singing something as they worked but not sure what it was, however, by the time noon came rolling around, i was drenched in sweat, getting tired, hungry and thirsty. i expected they would call for a break, and Paul did, but only about ten minutes for us to all sit down. man it was rough. turns out i had been on my feet since 6am and didnt even realize it, as i didnt have a watch or any other way to tell what time it was besides the position of the sun. picking oranges didnt seem like it would be that big of a deal, however carrying 60 lb sacks of them and dumping them into the cages over and over all day. really took its toll, seriously. at 5pm, paul again said "VAMANOS", and the bus drove off.

what??

well, the work was finished for the day, but we all had to walk back to the pavilion instead of riding back in the old bus. it was still a hot dusty day and the dirt path through the grove seemed to go on forever. by the time we got back to the pavilion, Paul, Larry, & Tee were all standing there. there was 3 trails to go down. "you, go this way", "you, go that way". you, come with us" they would say to us all. the men walking to the left did not have the good spirits as the rest, and the few being told to come with them had terror in their eyes.

the man in black with the hat and sunglasses appears again in the backround, this time instead of a gun, he is carrying a bullwhip. Larry goes and speaks with the man in black, points at me, they both turn and look. man in black nods, and larry comes back to the crowd. Tee then leads the men selected to go with him back down a trail with the man in black. then paul comes out with a box of $50 bills and gives them all to the 8 of the crowd i came with for the days work. less, then minimum wage, but it was off the books, and everyone had something to go home with, during a time while the country was crippled with a recession and jobs were non-existant, it was money. then, myself, Larry and the 7 other migrant workers get back on the truck, and leave the compound. it was absolutley blazing sticky hot in the sun riding back up Conners Highway. at the corner of 98 and Conners was a small Circle K convenient store, which Larry stopped at, turned around to the back of the truck, and said "last stop before home" i hopped out of the truck, went inside and got the biggest, coldest Gatorade i could find, 2 Jamaican Patty's, and a pack of Camel Menthol, which i had been absolutely craving for close to a week by that point. the cashier, a chunky but cute woman in her 20s, with black glasses and a nose piercing named Jen looks at me and says "youre working at Brazwell's farm??" well, that was a new one. i said, "yeah, i am, for the moment till i can get out of here" "whats your name" she said, i look at her and say "Rob" "where you from ..Rob" she asks "orlando" i say. just then i hear the horn of Larrys truck and i hear him yelling "C'MON BOY IMMA LEAVE YOASS HERE" "bye Jen" 'Bye Rob, she says.

i climbed back up on the truck, Larry says "dadgummit boy dont you be talking to people too much round these here parts" i ask why, and he proceeded to tell me to just keep my goddamn mouth shut and dont answer too many questions, as the folks i was working with were not documented. "loud and clear"i say. larry drives me to my car back in the bog off Hwy 98, and says, "Boy, what's your name again?" "Rob" i say, Larry says, "i spoke to Bossman. you dun did a fine job on this here day, but i need you at the road at 4 AM instead of 4:30 tomorrow" whys that Larry? i asked "well boy, imma pick yo fancy car up an bring it to the farm, this aint no place for a workin man to sleep in his car, especially when he dont got no business drivin right now anyway" 'wait, how'd you-" "Look here, i told you dont ask questions boy! just be out here at the road at 4, with your car. you can keep it on the farm and work with us till you can be on your way"

Larry drove off into the night. Oreo of course immediately runs up to me mowing at me. i sat on the trunk of my old LS400, ate my Jamaican patties in the moonlight, gave oreo a piece, smoked a few camels, and went to sleep. that was the first time since this whole ordeal started, that i finally felt like i was going to be okay. a huge weight felt like it was lifted off my chest. as the sun set and the moon came out, i fell asleep in peace.

Superfast1

Rob- A lot of people take things for granted in life. What you've gone through in life I'm sure has made you appreciate life even more. You're a good storyteller. Your life's story is well written & I enjoy reading it. Best of luck to you & your love ones.

Stereorob

the next morning i woke up to the old alarm clock at 3:45 AM. after only a day into this, i had already settled into a routine of sorts. well, kind of a hybrid of my Old routine vs the world i was living in now.
when i woke up in the morning, when i had a normal roof over my head and a job to go to, it wake up, get a glass of coke to wake me up instead of coffee because coffee actually makes me tired for some-odd reason, head out to the front porch, click the radio on and listen to a few mins of the local news, smoke 2 cigarettes, then go take a ****, shave, shower, get dressed, skip breakfast as i wasnt much of a breakfast person back then, stop at the corner store for a can of Arizona energy tea and a pack of smokes, and arrive at work. this was my morning, in that order, every single day, for years. suddenly, my normal morning routine was totally thrown off into the chaos that my life had erupted into so quickly. for the last week i had been homeless living in a broke down car with a cat, a turtle, with absolutley no food or water or any other way of communication aside from walking ten miles to a toxic waste town, in the middle of the everglades. my morning routine now consisted of taking dumps in bushes, wiping my *** with old socks, and running through groves stealing fruit, getting shot at by local hillbillies. fun times, really!
well with the prospect of this new temporary job, and heading home to orlando, things were really looking up. well, sure enough, here comes 4AM, and here comes Paul with a beat up old cherry-picker style towtruck. "lets go boy!" says larry oh, you might need something else to wear instead sides them shorts. yer workin' cane today" cane? yep. picking sugarcane. its funny, sugarcane looks short and small when driving across a large swath of it via the highway at 85 mph. "ok great" i say to larry. he looks at me with a not-so-nice grin and and a really-not-nice chuckle. paul didnt really say much but chuckle slightly as well. since the back tire was blown on my Ls400, i had to start it up, and turn it around so he could hook it up from the back. it was right about then that Oreo popped up from the backseat of the car and paul said, "whats with the cat?" i told paul that i had him for ten years and that he had traveled with me everywhere. "cat stays with the car" he says.. -didnt realize what that ment exactly at the time but i was just glad to get the hell off the side of the road. larry says, "after breakfast, well discuss the terms and conditions of your time with us before you cane" "ok" i said.

well, when we got back down on the dirt road where that palm tree was where we had to duck, we realized sadly the car wasnt going to make it past the palm tree without getting clobbered by it. "watch your head" Paul says. -crunch. the top of the trunk deck lid had a nice big dent on it, cracking off the gold Lexus emblem and totally shattering the rear left tail light housing. "oops" says Larry. the back end of my car was already pretty bad. both tail lights were already cracked with red tape over them, and trunk as well as the bumper already had a big gash in them as well, and before i could even say anything larry says, "boy just dont worry about it for now trust me and keep your mouth shutcha hear." instead of going down the gravel road to the compound, we took a dirt road that led to the back of the barn/type building next to the pavilion, it was there i discovered where my car was going to be kept for longer then i realized. there behing the barn, behind a fence, was about 20 different cars or so, sitting in the weeds. some later model stuff as well as a few that had looked like they had been there a very long time. a few notable mentions were a brown 2 gen toyota Cressida, looked like it was already pretty clapped when it got there, wearing a hendry county plate that went bad in 1999, a 450 SEL mercedes with a dade county plate from 1988, several dodge neons, a chevy caprice, 2 minivans, a few SUVs but three cars in the field with grass slowly swallowing them seemed like they shouldnt have been there, like the 2002ish BMW 745Li with a palm beach plate that had only expired 2 years before, a 2006 Mercedes CLS55 that had a plate that had only expired in 2007, a year before, and the 2005 Toyota Sequoia Limited that the plates were still good on! i already knew something wasnt right about this place, but this was starting to get downright creepy. there was mildew and weeds almost has high as all of these cars were. -what would compel someone to just leave what was then still a modern expensive high end mercedes just sitting to rot in the bog behind a barn in the glades? my mind started to race.. what if they were killing people and taking their cars or something creepy from some scary movie about satanic cannibalistic cults or. "here your keys boy, car safe here, we got tools round yonder in the barn, you can wrench on er after u work, time for breakfast" "Larry, really, thank you for helping me" "go eat now boy ya here! wont be none left and you aint gunna like Canin' on an empty belly boy" i put the windows halfway down on my car so oreo could do his thing, and dropped a loquat into the turtle tank.

Stereorob

honestly the whole thing was really weird. theres way more to the story but its taking me a long time to write it all. im doing this in between down time at work. idk if i need to keep going. probably too much for one thread. yes ive been through a hell of alot and i swear there are some things that i really could write a book about

Stereorob

Larry & Paul went to the pavilion to start cooking breakfast for everyone. i was there early so i got to see exactly how it was done. turns out they actually slaughtered the pigs themselves. christ no wonder why the bacon was so good. was about as fresh as it could've been. i went to go lean against a post and light up a cigarette while they cooked breakfast. Larry yells, "boy, get yer *** in hea and give us ah hand now" i start to put the smoke out but he said i could keep smoking just come in. cool. well, not so cool. i get in side and Larry says, "member da otha day wen dun gave u them smokes?" gimme 5 of em" -goddamnit i thought. i only had ten to begin with, but he did give me 5 the other day and i didn't know how often id be able to leave the compound to get more of them, and the walk to Jen at Circle K seemed real REAL far, so i didnt hesitate to give him the 5 smokes as im sure id be bumming more of them from him. cooks me a plate of bacon & eggs and serves me first before everyone else got there slaps the steel plate on the big creaky wood table everyone sits at and sits down with me. "boy, tell us, (him and paul) more about yourself. we dont get many of your kind round these parts as workers" i proceeded to tell him about my old life, where i was from, my family back in orlando and where i was going. "yo pappy got dat kinda munny and you here wit us?" paul turns to me from the cooking pit, and says "somthing aint right with you son, whats your real story and what you really here for". told him i was broke, homeless, and simply headed home for a better life when my damn car decided it wanted to stay in south Florida with a chuckle. "mmhmm" paul says and turns back to the cooking pit. larry looks across the table from me and says "ok boy i told you terms and conditions and this is what it be" "okay i say" "i know you is in a bind and that why we help you, sides its nice to see more white round here stead of all these wetbacks." Larry says "mmhmm" Paul says from the cooking pit. WOW racist much? i thought to myself. then again, Larry was pretty stereotypical hillbilly white trash. about 60ish years old, balled real heavyset, always wore dirty old overalls with a straw hat and had one of the deepest southern draws ive ever heard in my life. didn't matter who you were, unless you were part of the clan at the farm, you were simply referred to as "boy". didn't matter what color or ethnicity you were. everyone i had met so far that was staff on the farm aside from Tee, who was Mexican and did most of the talking to the migrant workers. then he disclosed some stuff to me. "boy, im thinkin you runnin from the law, which is alright, most of em are or they aint even sposed to be here anyway, well here on Brazwells Farm, i is the law. think a me as da sheriff, Paul as a dep-you-tee, and bossman, Mr Brazwell as judge, jury and executioner. this is a mighty big piece o land we got heah, so dont be dumb and do sumthin stupid".... -what was he getting at?? i was thinking as i chewed a piece of crispy bacon. "so here the deal, since you stayin wit us now for some time, you get 20 dollahs a day which dont seem like much i know, but we feed ya, cloth ya, give you a roof over yo head along with some otha thing as well." "you safe here boy, aint nobody gun fin you way out in these hear parts so you aint gotta worry bout nothin." "stay long as you want, and we'll kinda wanna keep ya on board with us here after ur car fixed if you do enough. hell, might even kick you a few bucks more". "Larry i appreciate the kind gesture but.." Larry slams his had now on the table "BUT WHAT BOY? YOU AINT GUNNA FIND **** OUT HERE ELSE" "THERE AINT NO BUTS!!" -at this point i knew i was stuck, and some of the things he said honestly sounded like underhanded threats and warnings so i just went along with it. "True true" i say. "well, i appreciate the breakfast and you folks taking me in, and i dont really have anything going on right now for myself either, however, i would like to call my family as they haven't heard anything from me in awhile and probably worried." Larry agrees. "we aint got no cell service out in these parts, after your days work, youll get your phone call boy"

Stereorob

a few minutes later Tee shows up with the truck full of migrant workers and everyone else shuffles in for breakfast. "Boy, come with me" Larry says. "you workin Cane today so i suggest you wear sumthin mo then them N***** shorts and shirt. you got any jeans?" i felt myself getting insanely angry. theirs a lot of things in this world i can handle but blatant racism is something that absolutely infuriates me and it was REAL hard for me not to say something, but this was obviously NOT the time to express that and what a piece of trash i thought he was. "yeah, in my trunk, ill grab my bags" i said. "Ill show you your quarters"

down the center path, behind the barn and pavilion was a large unpainted wood structure that had a steeply pitched roof with a long overhang. it had walls up to about 4 feet then open screen at the top. there was steps up to a dark green screen door. inside was a large dorm with about 50 bunk beds, and 2 large industrial style fans. each bunk had a small storage space for personal belongings. honestly it looked like something you'd see on an old prison farm, and truth be told this place wasn't too far from that the more and more i saw of it. there was no running water or sanitary system of any kind. "boy, this one yours" Larry said. "it close to the window so it wont be as hot as the others" -turns out the top bunks near the windows were a real premium "you lucky we like you boy, otherwise you'd be out back in the pit, fighting for it" i thought he was joking at the time, but the stuff he was telling me i was kinda starting to believe. i put my suitcase, an old Samsonite model from the 1940s and clicked it open. "well dad gum boy i aint seen a suitcase like that since my mamas house" Larry says. "yeah, i kinda like old stuff" i say. he chuckled slightly. "follow me" Larry says. out behind the dorm was a pond, but seemed fairly clean without much plant life around it. "this is where bathe, wash er cloths, or whatever else u do in water, just watch out for the moccasins and gators, out 'yonder is the latrine" -an outhouse with 6 seats, that stunk so bad i could faintly smell the stench of excrement wafting across the foggy pond. it wasnt even hot out yet. it was 6:15 am, the sun was just starting to peak over the trees, so i couldnt imagine the foulness of that place at 4 in the afternoon. again, i hear a very distant but absolutely blood curdling scream i gasped. "whos that is someone in trouble?!" "nuthin, nuthin but the wind boy" as he smiles showing a missing front tooth and most others black. -my blood runs cold. i go in the dorm, throw on some jeans and a long sleeve shirt. "VAMONOS" I hear Tee echo in the background. "thats your cue, boy" Larry said. "Make me proud today"