Notes from Darkest Florida, or “My Life Among the Swamp Savages”

Now, I’m certainly not the first to notice the phenomena, I’m sure, but it does bear repeating: Florida is a human zoo. Them what can’t make it elsewhere in the Upper 49 find their way to Florida.  Yes, just as sludge settles to the bottom of a car’s oil pan, so too does homo sapien sludge sink to the bottom of America’s oil pan, Florida. 

For whatever reason—be it drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, or maybe even drugs--better to be an addicted loser and warm rather than be an addicted loser and cold, or so the line of reasoning must run.  Only this hypothesis explains why Florida has so many drug-addicted criminals and uni-browed knuckle-draggers that nobody else wants.  

Take Greg Bruni, for example.  Down the bay the other day, down the bay Ft. Myers way, 21-year-old Greg went balls-to-the-walls nutz when he stumbled upon some really amazing dope.  Shedding the fussy fetters of civilization--his clothes--this Tarzan wanna-be ran crazy mad through one of those ever-so-staid-and-near-dead retirement communities that are so numerous around these parts.  Scaling a drain pipe up to the roof of one house, Greg began to jump about wildly on the fire-hot shingles screaming like a naked head-hunter doing a New Guinea fertility dance.

Down below, under the roof in question, the startled home owner and his wife who had been cleaning their carpet ran out to see who or what was being butchered over head.  Imagine their reaction when they looked up and saw a stark naked man leaping off the roof right at them.  Landing hard on the home-owner, Bruni dashed straight into the home itself, followed closely by the arm-waving husband and his screaming wife.  Once inside, our wild Ape Man ripped the enormous big screen TV (6’ tall) off the wall and broke it to bits.  Spotting the carpet shampooer, the maniac emptied the contents all over the place then commenced eating the filth.

By this time, the terrified wife had returned from the bedroom with a pistol and began blazing away at the intruder.  Far from being worried by all the shooting and attention he was receiving, Greg must have become, in fact, aroused.  Grabbing his Johnson, Greg began furiously flogging his log until he had spread a million potential little Gregs all over the once-clean rug.  Finished, this flipped-out fiend then ran into another room and began throwing articles of clothing every which way.  Bruni then raced about the home defecating on the floor; here a defecate, there a defecate, everywhere a defecate; like an animal marking its territory. 

By this time, the homeowner--no doubt thinking that the world as he knew it was coming to an end—finally located his shotgun.  With his wife, Annie Oakley, running around waving the six-shooter, the husband could not get a clean shot at the naked defecator.  Before he could unload on the wretch—who continued to do some unloading himself on the rugs, in the hallways, on the furniture--the cops came and quickly gave Greg’s naked butt some angry volts of vengeance.

Greg Bruni was charged with two counts of criminal mischief, battery, burglary, trespassing, resisting arrest, indecent exposure, failure to handle his dope in a mature manner, speaking in tongues, jerkin’ his gherkin in public, and second degree shittin’ without a license.

I have seen a picture of this mad dog miscreant.  Honestly, Greg looks a bit like Wally Cleaver of Beave It To Leaver fame.  I suppose when he isn’t druggin’, runnin’, jumpin’, screamin’, yellin', nudin’, jackin’, and spummin’ on the rug, Greg’s probably a pretty decent guy.  Of course, I could say the same thing about a lot of people.

Whatever, just another sunny day in South Florida—yawn--reminds me of “just another moony night” in South Florida recently. 

Just across moonlight bay from this island I call home, over at an Englewood pub, a bunch of biker booze bags were holding high carnival the other night by loudly celebrating one thing or another--perhaps they were boisterous because of a new break-through in genetic research, perhaps they were rowdy because of some great  advance in rocket science, or perhaps they were throwing down because Nate “Hammerhead” Sharkey was recently paroled and released from prison. Whatever the cause, after several hours of such high-minded revelry one of their number drunkenly announced that he was “so outta here.” Now, since this individual, aptly named Bryan “Boozin” Boozan, was in no condition to stand upright and blink at the same time, much less drive a big Harley on dark streets, the idiot’s pals snatched his keys and refused to give ‘em up. In theory, right move; in practice, wrong reaction.

For some reason, the subject of this well-intended altruism took umbrage not with his friends, but with the poor pub which had served him only too well. In a wild rage, the blotto biker unleashed a one-man demolition derby upon the contents of the establishment. Chairs, tables and pool cues were broken against the bar and reduced to match sticks; beer bottles, glass mugs and pool balls were hurled into mirrors, windows and whisky bottles. When the brave bar maid unwisely tried to micro-manage the situation, she was smote by a flying beer bottle for her efforts. By the time the blue lights finally arrived, Boozan the Barbarian had pretty much destroyed the saloon single-handedly.

Somehow in the pandemonium, Boozan managed to recover his keys and made a wobbly getaway. When the cops ran him down after a one-mile chase they found our drunken jack hole arguing with some poor rudder in a driveway. Nearby lay the wrecked motorcycle. Boozed-up Boozan (sorry, just couldn’t resist one more) was cuffed, charged with a year’s worth of offenses and carted off to the county hots ‘n cots.

As for the good Samaritans?  Well, so much for trying to help a friend!  A demolished biker bar, an injured biker bar bar maid, a biker’s bike now a hunka-junk, and a jugged biker buddy with a laundry list of woes— could it have been any worse had they just let the damn fool leave? 

Drunk?  Check!  Stupid?  Check!  Loser?  Check!  Criminal? (if he wasn’t before he sure is now) Check!  Bryan Boozan has got it all.

For retarded accounts like the above, one need not stalk all over Florida—one need look no further than their own home town.  Thus, let’s linger longer in little Englewood. 

Paul Peter Roskowski was pretty po’ed at his neighbor’s Jack Russell (nervous little dog now in vogue), or so it would seem.  Perplexingly, just exactly why the 76-year-old crank was irate is not known.  Since the little dog was kept inside the lanai (screened porch) I surmise the poor porch pooch was bored as hell and, since a canine can’t read a book, play video games, surf porn, or watch the tube, this little mutt exercised one of the few freedoms left to him, viz., he barked.  Perhaps he barked at anything and everything--barked at the mailman, barked at teens on skateboards, barked at silly-looking power-walking fat women who waddled by, barked at grumpy old Paul Peter every time he came outside to water his palms . . . bark, bark, bark.

Whatever, one day pissed-off Pete snapped.  Picking up a brick, walking over to his neighbor’s lanai, entering said neighbor's lanai, the furious fossil flattened the dog’s skull as flat as . . . as flat as . . . as flat as a “nigger baby’s head under a saw log,” as they once so indelicately used to say.

Poor man.  Roskowski was charged with whatever these courts charge someone with who murders animals—a dollar and a day--then admonished by His Honor to go and sin no more.  Must admit, I dislike barking dogs too.  But hey, perhaps Paul Peter as well as the owner of the dog should have been forced to stand in their respective lanais 24/7 for a month or more until they too howled at the moon and began to bark at fat women waddling and mailmen mailing.  You got a problem with that?

At nearby Punta Gorda, another local loony-toon, one Greg Boyd, had had it with the heat and stress and the Celtics losing in four during the NBA playoffs and . . . and local teens who tore up the street in their cars and called him names.

“I’ll blow your mother fuckin’ heads off!” yelled the temples-throbbing eye-twitching paranoiac as the kids supposedly sped by.

Finally, when the teens raced by again, Mad Dog Boyd reached for his sub machine gun.  Since he could not locate the gat, he grabbed a machete instead, then tracked down the kids at the local high school parking lot.

“I’ll cut your mother fuckin’ heads off!” the wild-eyed nut sack threatened the trembling, terrified, and by now totally traumatized teens. 

Blow off?  Cut off?  Hack off?  Burn off?  Dissolve off?  Pinch off?  Chew off?  Had this gone on much longer no telling how many more ways Greg was going to detach the teens’ mother fuckin’ heads from their mother fuckin’ bodies.  But alas, all good things must come to an end.   

After cops arrived at the school they conferred for some time among themselves before it was agreed that Boyd needed a few minutes of remedial tasing, just to calm him down a bit.  And, after that amusing little electric chicken-dance on the asphalt in which half the school rushed out to see, Greg became much more “compliant” (which is to say, after that amusing little electric chicken-dance on the asphalt in which half the school rushed out to see, Greg became much more nearly dead). Boyd was thereupon escorted without further incident to an air conditioned 6 by 9 where his murderous mania might mellow out somewhat.

It’s tough enough when our home-grown idiots, like the two Gregs and Bryan above act up, but when the other half of the population (illegal aliens) get involved it becomes absurd.  . . . Just across the bay from Punta, over Port Charlotte way, Rodolfo Alberto Burbano Lopez-Gonzalez Montez-Sanchez Jimenez-Martinez Rodrigu. . . ?!?!. . . Hmmmmm.. . . Just across the bay Rudy was having trouble with his septic tank.  Since poor Rudy lacked the pesos to call in the pros, he decided to just pump his waste straight into the storm drain just like he did back in whatever rat hole country he came from.  Nice.  Fortunately, an alert neighbor saw this and reported it, but. . . .  Imagine what Florida would be like if we all tried to save a few bucks by doing what Rudy tried to do.  Guess the Sunshine State would smell a bit like Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, or whatever shit hole nation Rudy comes from.  Moral: You can take Third Worlders outta the Third World, but ya can’t take the Third World outta Third Worlders.

And speaking of “When Third Worlds Collide. . . .“

Forty-four-year-old illegal, Adon Newsome, was biking from somewhere in Bradenton to somewhere in Bradenton waaaay early dark thirty one Sunday morn.  Adon was crossing over the Manatee River on the Desoto Bridge.  At the same time, thirty-five-year-old illegal, Gustavo Ramirez Benetez Domingo Rodrigu . . . Hmmmm. . . . At the same time, Gus was driving his car from somewhere in Bradenton to somewhere in Bradenton.  Gus was also crossing over the Manatee River on the Desoto Bridge.  Seems Gus did not see Adon or perhaps Adon did not see Gus.  Maybe neither saw neither.  Whatever, never bring a bike to a car fight.  Adon was launched from his bike like a cruise missile and sent headlong right into the black river below.

Gus continued across the river and when he found a translator he reported the incident to the local hospital located just off the bridge.  But Lord!  Bad enough to be smote by a two-ton chunk of metal and momentum and knocked senseless into a wide river.  Being hit by a car, falling fifty feet, and drowning may have been the least of Adon’s problems, however, for there are more things in that river that can kill a person than you can shake a snake at.  In the final analysis, even a hospital a few hundred yards away meant nothing.  Clearly, Adon Newsome’s stay on earth was over . . . emphatically over.

Although Adon’s quest for the American Dream was cut all too short, poor fellow, there was nothing short about the Jamaican’s rap sheet.  Thus, even though the ten or twelve other illegal aliens who composed his family nosily wailed as the cameras rolled, local cops were happy to clear the books on yet another poor “migrant” searching for a better life.
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Under the “Florida--Who could make this crap up?” category. . . .Up at Tampa the other day, a mentally disabled man at a care center was accused of filching money from staff members. In an attempt to make the crazy fellow talk, as well as to inflict some good old-time medieval punishment on him, a young staff member staked out the culprit on an ant hill. Actually, the victim was forced to merely stand on an ant hill. Now, take it from me, being forced to endure repeated fire ant stings would be more than sufficient for most folks to quickly lose their minds. Fortunately, since the victim had no mind to lose in the first place he was no worse for wear and is now safely back to his old ways, stealing the staff’s money. When one witness stepped up and corroborated the above story to police, he too was threatened by the accused with the dreaded fire ant torture. That’s quite a “care” center they've got up there in Tampa.

At times it seems that we effin’ Floridators can’t get any more bloodier, any more stupider, any more crazier.  Some murderous moran--yes, I know it’s spelled wrong but this is just a murderous moran sorta story—some murderous moran across Charlotte Harbor from us decided he’d had enough and he weren’t agonna take nuttin’ from nobody no mo.  Ken Baily Roop (uh, oh . . . Lee Harvey Oswald . . . John Wilkes Booth . . . John Wayne Gacy . . . there’s one of those murderous middle names again) Ken` decided that he was the law west of Fort Myers and today this pistol-packin’ paranoid was down as down can be on trespassers (yesterday it was pelicans pooping on his boat). 

Seems when our Wyatt Roop returned home from the gun range, he spotted a strange truck in his driveway and a strange man nearby walking strangely.  When the strange stranger replied that he was selling steaks and lobsters door-to-door, Ken thought to himself, “Yeah, right . . . likely story . . . If I’ve heard that ‘steak and lobster’ routine once I’ve heard it a thousand times . . . you’re going down, bucko!”  Roop pulled out his pistol and shot the dude in the belly.  Seeing that the trespassing liar was still alive, our Dirty Harry ushered the victim right off this spinning blue ball with a bullet to the brain, “for effect.”

When a neighbor rushed over to see what all the hub-bub was about, he was startled to hear Roop yelling, “I’ll kill everybody and shoot everybody.”  This neighbor, a former fireman, described Ken as dirty and disheveled and as mad as a rabid Rottweiler.

“When he came out of the garage, he looked totally deranged to me,” the neighbor remarked. “He looked like he was off the deep end.”

Asked by the arresting cop why he killed the man, Roop said that he had posted his property against trespassing, and added, “I am not going to give him the chance to do something to me. I was in fear.” 

Guess Ken was “in fear” of being brained by a frozen steak for, fact is, implausible as it may have sounded, the deceased was indeed trying to hustle lobsters and steaks door-to-door.  Suppose I will file this minor affair under “Another Way a Suck Economy Can Kill You Stiff” since my “America Gone Stark Raving Mad” file is full.