Becoming A Son Read online

  For Will

  INTRODUCTION

  Like a diamond, there are so many facets to one man’s life. I have found myself in a time where all I can think is to write about my ride, my journey, or at least some part of it, the stories that might help someone else. It’s always good to learn from another man’s mistakes. And I have made quite a few mistakes. Maybe someone out there can learn from mine and not make the same ones.

  This whole adventure called life that we go on is one long lesson. The ups downs and sideways are what defines us, and shapes us into who we become. Maybe not exactly who we want to be, but this comes with time and practice.

  I never held back. I did whatever I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it. Chased my dreams no matter how far away or crazy. And lucky for me they were better than I even imagined when I got there. Most of the time anyway.

  Life is what we choose to make it. How we roll with the punches is how well we will be able to take the beating life can bring. And life can really be a beating.

  A book is something that takes people where they have never been. No one knows what I’ve been through, or the things I have seen other people go through, or the things I imagine people go through.

  You learn from making mistakes. Smart people learn from watching other people make mistakes and not making the same ones. I have made so many mistakes because I was never afraid to try anything. And if some other human being can learn from my mistakes, maybe find the strength to keep on keeping on, or to find a better way, then putting myself out there, writing all the dirt and the glory, the ups and downs, taking my two fingers and typing out my journey is worth it. Even if it only helps just one person.

  PROLOGUE

  Miami….late 70’s

  “Gotta find someone to ride on the boat for one night, pick up some weed, for ten thousand dollars.” Gary said.

  “Look no further.” I said. “I’m your man.”

  “Steve will never let you go, you know that.” Gary was Steve’s older brother. Gary was my best friend. We all grew up together, surfing, training Karate, smoking weed.

  “Why not?”

  “Cause he loves you. Anything can happen out there on the ocean. You could easily get killed or drown. Someone could try to rob you for the weed, there’s Pirates out there. Or you could get busted and locked up for a century.”

  “My dad is the best attorney in town, if I get in trouble, he will get me out of it. I’m going.” I grew up watching my Dad get everyone out of trouble. It was the hey day of drug trafficking in Miami and business was good.

  It took me about an hour to convince Gary to take me over to Steve’s house, then it took us both about three hours to convince Steve to let me go. Steve was always the big brother I looked up to. I had no idea how much Steve loved me till he was dropping me off three days later to go out on the open ocean in a boat and bring back five thousand pounds of weed. I got in the back of the truck with another kid who was about 16 years old also, named Harold and two older guys, Frank and Doug. I introduced myself. Steve walked up to the Driver’s window and looked Frank in the eye.

  “If anything happens to him don’t come back here.” Frank didn’t like this. Steve was a second degree black belt and no joke.

  “Fuck that Steve. He can stay here. Anything can happen out there, you know that.”

  “He’s going. I’m just telling you to watch out for him, that’s it.” Frank nods ok and we pull out of the driveway. As soon as we get off the street Frank turns around and looks at me.

  “You don’t stick your head up, you hear me?”

  “Quit tripping, I’m not. I’ll be fine.” I had no doubt at all that I would be fine. In fact better than fine, I’m sixteen years old and I’m about to make ten thousand dollars. The excitement was overwhelming. I couldn’t see past that.

  We got to the dock and started loading the boat. These guys had done this a lot, so they knew enough to bring a lot of food, in case we get stranded out there or something.

  The boat was amazing. A 40’ foot Cigarette with four Evinrude engines and Loran radar painted gray to make it hard to see. It was state of the art for that time. Not even the Coast Guard had boats this good yet, not until they started confiscating them from the smugglers.

  I was loading the groceries on to the boat and there were other crews with other speedboats loading up their boats up and down the docks. Everyone was happy, it was about six p.m. and the sun was going down. A really friendly Cuban guy came down the dock and stopped to talk to Frank. They talked for a minute, Frank shook his head no and the guy walked away. Frank watched him walk away then walked over to me.

  “See that guy?” I looked over to the guy who was alone loading his boat. It wasn’t as good as ours, no radar, not the best motors.

  “Yeah I see him. Kinda shitty boat.” I said. Frank treated me good, everyone did, it was a big operation, I was the youngest guy there which is kind of a special place to be.

  “He just offered us a job. He needs help picking up a boatload of Coke. We could make almost a million dollars tonight. Three times what we will make on the weed. I turned it down. You know why?” I thought about it and shook my head no.

  “Because that one boat load of coke is going to touch ten thousand lives. At least one thousand of them will go down the drain. That’s nothing we want on our heads. Weed is the healing of the nation don’t you forget that.”

  We looked back at the Cuban guy who was now pulling out of the dock.

  “Wow, no radar, no crew. He ‘s just gonna pull up to the intersection and say, ‘well I hope the cop aint there now,’ and then floor it.” Frank said in amazement.

  “We don’t worry about shit like that. We got three boats each with two men in them each, going up and down the coast from Miami to Ft. Lauderdale watching the Coast guard Boat and Helicopter.” Doug said to me as he walked past with a load of groceries.

  Frank picked up the handset of the CB radio and handed it to me. “You know how to use this?”

  “Yeah, I had one I was a kid.”

  “Good, you are the radio man. It’s on channel 19 now cause its Seven PM, that’s military time. You count the hours until twentyfour. Starting now, then you turn it backwards every hour. The guys in the houses and on the boats are all listening. You got it?”

  “Yeah, I got it.” Frank smiled and went to the console and started the boat. Harold and Doug finished loading the food and got on the boat. I undid the lines and jumped on the boat and we backed out of the stall and headed out to the inter coastal towards Haulover cut, which is the beach I grew up surfing at, and the place where boats go out to sea. It was an eerie cool feeling as we pulled out of the cut with the sun going down to the blackness of the ocean.

  We rode for about an hour till we got to a buoy, where two more boats were waiting. All the captains knew each other. These guys didn’t have a care in the world. I sat in the back smoking joint after joint, not because I was nervous, but more cause I loved to smoke and was excited as a ten year old kid on Saturday morning. All I could think about was the money I was going to make. There was no worry about impending danger at all, getting killed or arrested, none of that, only excitement.

  After a while we untied the boats and headed out to the blackness of the sea. In about twenty minutes we came up on a Columbian freighter. All three boats tied up and we loaded bails as fast and as quietly as we could. They all fit inside the hull and we took off towards Miami.

  We got to the beach I grew up surfing at and I picked up the Handset and clicked it twice before I spoke into it.

  “This is Spike, I’m two mile from the exit, hows it look? Over.” They used to call me Spike back in the day, and for no good reason, kind of like the big dog in that cartoon.

&
nbsp; “All clear, come on and bring it.” Frank looked at me and I gave him a thumb’s up.

  “All clear.” Frank said, as he pushed the accelerator down and we pulled into the cut at about fifty. As we passed the two little fishing boats I saw Gary stand up and hold his arm up. He was smiling ear to ear. It was quiet about 3:30 am. One boat pulled in front of us and another boat pulled in behind us and guided us to the house.

  We pulled in the channel and slowed the boat down to be quiet and not cause a wake. We were in a super rich neighborhood with all the houses on the water, with boats in their docks. We docked the boat behind one house and went inside. There were five guys inside all dressed in black. I knew two of them from the beach. Everyone was high fiving and hugging me. Everyone was making money now. We waited a little bit to make sure none of the neighbors called the cops, then we went out there and in a single file line and unloaded the boat. The house had plastic on all the carpets, which now was loaded to the ceiling with 50 pound bails of weed. Frank looked at me.

  “You and Harold are going to take the boat back to the dock and clean it out, there is a dust buster on board. Throw the dust buster away when you are done. I will be there in about an hour.”

  Me and Harold took off and went out the back door. It was still pretty dark out. We took the boat to the dock and cleaned up all the weed that had fallen from the bails. We waited about an hour after that for Frank to show up. He walked down the dock got on the boat and looked all around the boat like an inspection.

  “Good job. Where’s the dust buster?”

  “Threw it overboard.” I said.

  Frank handed us each a brown paper bag we looked in them immediately. Inside the bag were stacks of twenties.

  “There’s seven grand each. I will get you the other three in a couple of days. We go again next week.” Frank got out of the boat and walked away. Me and Harold looked at each other, then looked in the bags again.

  “What you gonna do?” Harold asked me.

  “Buy anything I want.” I said with a smile.

  I left the boat and got in my truck with the bag of cash next to me. At the first red light I opened it to look in again. It was more money than I had ever seen before. I was so excited and happy to have it. I had no idea the misery it was going to bring me.

  1

  “Tie them on tighter or they will never stay.” Pauly said“I know what I’m doing.” I was attaching playing cards to my frame with clothes pins so they made noise, when they hit the spokes of my bicycle wheel. Thats what we thought a motorcycle would sound like.

  When you are ten years old the only thing you want is to grow up, get a motorcycle and ride around. At least that’s what me and my friends wanted. We all dreamed about having motorcycles. Pauly, Johnny, Louie, Herman, Danny, Alex and me. That was my crew when I was a kid. My Pals, and they meant everything to me. Your PAL is the epitome of friendship, of Brotherhood. You would never let your Pal down. These guys were my first Pals.

  Alex always had his big ass pit bull, Mako with him. Mako was huge and looked menacing but was a real sweetheart. Vince had a real big Pit Bull named Sebastian, who could swim to the bottom of the pool and pick up a quarter. Both these pit bulls were huge and really loving, which is cool. Bunch of kids with these big pits to protect them. Kind of Like Our Gang.

  We all lived within a few blocks of each other, went to school together and basically did everything together. We started out by putting clothespins on our bikes, and riding around together. It was about 1972. Love-ins, gangs and drugs were just starting to come to the forefront of society, at least for us. We rode around in a group everywhere we went. We built forts in vacant lots, which were our clubhouses. We went from there to stealing the old folks three wheeled bicycles, and from there to stealing mopeds, switching the parts in somebody’s garage, then riding around in a pack.

  “It’s ready, let’s go.” I made the final adjustments on my cards and got on my bike.

  “You guys equipped?” Pauly asked us. We all dug into our pockets and pulled out rocks and held them out. We were too young to get a knife so we carried rocks. In case we ran into other crews from around the neighborhood.

  We took off and rode around the neighborhood causing mischief, knocking over garbage cans, ringing doorbells and running away, we did what ten year old kids do, raise hell.

  We took off down the block riding our bicycles as fast as we could. The faster we went the louder the playing cards made in our spokes. We sounded like a swarm of bees coming down the road. I’m sure we looked like terror, seven kids riding as fast as we can with this big dog running behind us.

  We rode across this golf course that was across the tracks and got chased out by the groundskeeper. We rode up to the mall and went flying through the parking structure till we were tired. We stopped at the highway over pass and Pauly and Johnny pulled out cigarettes and lit them up. Pauly held out the pack.

  “Anybody want one? Don’t be scared, twenty to a pack, enough for all of us.”

  “No way, my dad would beat the tar out of me.” I said. Herman and Danny took one each and lit them up. We kicked back under the over pass while they smoked. Alex and me went right to adjusting the cards on our spokes.

  “ You ready?” Pauly said as he stomped his butt out. “Race you home.” We all jumped on our bikes and took off. We rode fast as hell through the parking lot making people jump out of our way. We pulled up to the fence of the golf course and stopped.

  “You think he’s around?” Pauly asked us all.

  “Only one way to find out.” I said as I took off. I wanted to win. I always wanted to win. Second place didn’t interest me at all. We went flying through the golf course and within twenty feet the grounds keeper came after us in his golf cart. He was in the main golf cart, which was bigger than the rest, and slower. He almost caught us but we ditched through a big hole in the fence and he is not allowed off the grounds. We all stopped and turned to look at him. He got out of his cart at the fence and was mad dogging us.

  “ONE DAY I’M GONNA CATCH YOU KIDS AND WHIP YOUR ASS.” He screamed at us. We gave him the finger and took off. This was the home stretch and we were all neck and neck riding as fast as we could. We turned the corner by the school and in the middle of the street was Lester, Bruce and Tommy Walker. We all slowed down to a stop. Three brothers, that lived at the end of the block. They were a couple grades ahead of us and spent most of their time shoplifting, smoking cigarettes and destroying whatever forts we built.

  “Well, well, well, look who it is.” Lester said. “Pauly and his crew. What you up to Pauly? Where you guys going in such a rush?” Lester said as he walked over and grabbed Pauly’s handlebars so he couldn’t go anywhere. Bruce grabbed mine and Tommy grabbed Alex’s. Mako started growling.

  “Better control that dog. If he bites me my mom will make sure he goes to the pound.” Lester said.

  “Better let go then. Who knows what he might do. He has a mind of his own.”

  “And what if we don’t let go? You guys gotta pay a toll.” We all looked at each other.

  “We got your toll right here.” We reached in our pockets and pulled out our rocks and threw them at them. They all let go and blocked the incoming assault. Once our rocks had been thrown we were unarmed.

  “GET ‘EM!” Lester screamed and it became a battle royal. It was the three of them against the seven of us. They were bigger and older so the odds were fair. We took a pretty good ass whipping and gave one too. Some parents came out and broke it up. We all got on our bikes and rode away as fast as we could. That battle with the Walkers raged on for years.

  I put my bike in the garage and walked into the house.

  “Go wash up for supper. Your father will be home any minute.” As I passed her she grabbed me and took a better look.

  “What happened?” She said as she looked at me up and down, I was a mess.

  “Nothing.” I went in and washed up.

  2

  “You are no
t from me.” My dad said to me. We were sitting in the living room of the house we lived in. My parents had a restaurant when I was a kid. My dad’s parents had restaurants when he was a kid and he went into that business. The restaurant business is a tough one. My dad would leave in the dark and come home in the dark. After ten years he decided he wanted to do something else so he went back to school then to Law school and became a criminal attorney. Miami was becoming the biggest hub for the drug trade at that time so there was always work for my dad. He was a great litigator. My mom was the art teacher when I grew up, and both my parents were all about being smart, using your head.

  “What do you mean I am not from you?” I asked him.

  “Your mother and I can not have babies. We adopted you.” “What does that mean?” I was about nine or ten years old. I think it was very cool of him to explain this to me at the first point of my life that he felt I could understand this concept.

  “It means we got you and your sister from mothers that was not ready to have a babies.”

  “So she gave me away?”

  “Yes, but not because she didn’t love you. She gave you away because she loved you so much she felt that we could give you a better life than she could. I am sure it was a very hard thing to do.” I thought about this for a moment. “You don’t exactly look like your Mother and I, and you are going to hear this from other people as you grow up, I just wanted you to hear it from me first. Do you understand?” I nodded my head yes.

  “ Are you ever going to give me away?” My dad smiled a smile of relief. I am certain this conversation was harder for him than me.

  “Never.”

  “Can I go outside and play now?”

  “Of course.”

  I remember walking outside thinking about how special I was. I am sure other people would get this news and feel inferior. I just didn’t, on the contrary I felt nothing but special. It wasn’t until many years later I found out my ethnicity and about my natural parents through non-identifying information from a Florida adoption agency. My entire life people would ask me what is my background and the only answer I gave was, that I don’t know, I am adopted. And I was very OK with that.