Ch. 16. Florida escapades.

SLAM…. clank, clank, clank….. The steel door of an old elevator shut and we were going up. I had already been finger printed, had my mug shot taken, handed over my belt and watch and was now being escorted to a prison block. There were maybe ten prison cells on both sides of the hallway. “Hey, you are cute, I like you” someone yelled at me from his cell. Further down two men from opposite cells were yelling and spitting at each other. In the next cell a big, naked black man was standing, arms spread out, holding cell bars, silent, looking at them…. HOLY SHIT!

My escort opened another steel door and I walked in. It was a big cell with maybe twenty tiered beds. There were ten men inside but nobody paid any attention to me. I sat on one bed. It had a thin, waxed mattress stained with sweat. Light was coming in through glass brick windows. It was hot inside; a couple of ceiling fans hardly moved the air. I was looking around, not knowing what to do.

“First time eh? What did you do?” the man lying on the bed above me asked. I started to tell him what had happened to me. “No money, no place to stay, prowling on the beach at night. You were a vagrant. They don’t fool around with vagrants here.”

“But I didn’t do anything” I argued.

“What you mean didn’t do anything? You slept on the beach. It’s against the law here. On Monday we all go to see the judge. If you are lucky, he will let you go. Or he will fine you or maybe lock you up for a couple of days. You are not in Europe anymore man, this is the United States of America and we do things different.”  

There was no clock in the room and I completely lost track of time. Only meal times and light or darkness in the windows indicated the part of the day. It was very disorienting. Throughout the night more people were brought to the cell in various physical and mental conditions. Eventually I met other cellmates and they started to call me “Frenchie” because of my accent.

After one meal a guard announced: “Anybody wants to give blood? You get Kentucky Fried Chicken and ten bucks”. Twelve of us volunteered. We were given a cursory examination, two were rejected and the rest of us lined up at one cell that was set up for the blood donation. I wonder to this day what the blood was intended for.

By Monday morning the holding cell was almost full. We were marched into a court room. It was a fast trial (if you can call it a trial). The judge interrogated each inmate (he already knew a few by name) and passed his verdict. Many had their charges dismissed. My turn came and the policeman read the charges. “You are from Canada, why were you charged with vagrancy?” asked the judge. I started to explain to him what had happened. “Charge dismissed” he interrupted me. “Take him to the bank so he can cash the traveler’s cheques.” he ordered the policeman.

I had had enough of Miami Beach, it was time to go. There was another place that was stuck in my mind,  Daytona Beach. The bus arrived there early in the morning and I started to walk towards the beach. I only walked a couple of blocks when I saw a police cruiser coming towards me. When the cop saw me he slowed down and kept looking at me, turning his head after passing me. Five minutes later another cruiser came and the performance was repeated. This time I looked into cop’s eyes and made a face. When I came to the street corner, the cop was waiting for me with lights flashing. He was a young cop, fresh on the job and he tried to be strict. After I showed him my German passport he became friendly. He told me that he was recently discharged from the army and had been posted for a year in Germany. I told him about my stay in the US Army and we both agreed that German beer is much better than the weak American brew. As he was going back to his cruiser I asked him why he stopped me. He smiled. “We are looking for a car thief and his description matches yours. You better get to the beach fast or you could be arrested again”.

Daytona Beach was full of university students. Big waves were breaking close to the beach and many swimmers were body surfing on them. It seemed to be more fun than just swimming so I tried it. It was exciting until a big wave came roaring in and broke over my head. I was picked up, flipped over and  smashed, head first, into the sandy bottom. It felt like I had hit a brick wall. My neck cracked, I didn’t know where up or down was. Finally I staggered towards the shore. My face was covered with blood and I could twist my nose sideways. I was done with body surfing. Nearby, there was a motel with a sign “Rent by day or week” so I checked in. I was shocked when I saw my face in the mirror. One side was scraped, my nose was broken, my top teeth were loose and they had cut through my lower lip. The next two days were quiet, I read and watched television.        

Then it was time to go home. First I took a bus to Cape Canaveral, went to the Kennedy Space Centre museum and saw the huge Saturn rocket being prepared for a flight to the moon. In Baltimore I picked up my duffle back and was on my way back to Owen Sound. My Florida escapades were over. Back at work I handed fifty dollars to Nick who quickly spread the story about my trip to Florida across the plant.

However my state of affairs soon got better. I bought a new car, a Rambler American. The price of $2100 now seems almost ridiculous. I paid cash after Nick bigheartedly lent me $150. My fortune improved even more after Margo broke up with her boyfriend and we started to date. Suddenly I had a cute seventeen year- old girlfriend, still in high school.

In the fall I took night school classes, mainly to improve my English. I started with English and history and later added calculus and physics to keep me busy through the winter. My schoolmates were mainly high school drop outs that needed diploma for their resumes. The math teacher promised us that if we had good attendance we would pass all our courses and I finished mine with A’s. Little did I known how these Mickey Mouse courses would soon change my life.    

In the meantime, big changes were happening in my old country of Czechoslovakia. Under the new President Dubček censorship of press and television was abolished, travelling restrictions were eased and people were enjoying the freedom of the “Prague Spring”. Mother kept mailing me newspaper clipping and asking me to think about my life and my climbing buddies were sending me postcards from the Swiss Alps. I was wavering. My heart was telling me to go home; my head was cautioning me that I had started a new life and not to wreck it. The “Prague Spring” lasted only until the Fall when the country was invaded by the Russian Army. Thousands of my countrymen fled, many of them immigrating to Canada.

Ten of them arrived in Owen Sound where they were received with open arms. I was delighted to be able to speak Czech again and to exchange the latest gossip about my country. However our camaraderie soon cooled down, they were acting strange…

One girl got a job at Edwards, a factory that made fire alarm systems. I went to see her after her first day at work. “The work is easy but women there look like hookers, they all shave their armpits.”  she said scornfully. It was a culture shock for her,  in Czechoslovakia and many other European countries at that time only hookers shaved their armpits. When I saw her again three days later, her armpits were shaved. “Have you changed your profession? Are you working as a hooker?” I kidded her. “They all looked at me like I was some Gypsy from Romania.” she snapped.

One day I was invited to a Czech cook-out. Three guys living near the dam went fishing and caught a couple of big carp. They were going to have a party and the main menu would be carp. “They don’t eat carp here, they fish for salmon or trout” I told them.

In my country carp was good eating fish and they had a standard answer to anything concerning local problems: “People here are stupid. What kind of town is it if you can’t even buy beer?” The cook-out was a disaster. The carp was not edible, it tasted of mud. They started to drink, and soon were arguing, yelling and bad mouthing everything local. I got away very quick. It dawned on me how much I had changed in the two years since I had come to Canada. These people were strangers to me.

Working with me in the office with me was Dave, a second year University of Waterloo student on his work term. One day I asked him how difficult it was to study at the university. “The first two terms were easy and I had a lot of fun going to parties. Why don’t you try to go to university? You can apply for admission as an adult student. Here you are in a dead end job at PPG” he told me.  I couldn’t agree more about the dead end job.

Dave got me the application form for admission to the University of Waterloo and helped me to complete it. A couple of months went by without any reply. “Phone them and ask what is going on.” Dave urged me.  I disliked using the phone; sometimes I misunderstood what the person on the other side was talking about.  I decided to take a day off and go to the university to talk 
somebody in person.

New car and new girlfriend