Disaster at Port St. Lucie

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The title of this might be overstating it a little. But I was 18, young, and not ready for all the various weird things that can happen while traveling. This was one of my first trips without my family, and I was not prepared for what was about to happen.

As long-time readers know, I was expelled from a southern, private Christian college in 2006. The next December, I visited one of my friends who had graduated. It was a Christmas present from my parents, who thought it would be a cool winter getaway. Fun in Florida in December. I contacted my friend Kenji to schedule the trip. He had moved to Port St. Lucie after graduating. Kenji and I met when I was briefly a student in Florida. He was an education student from Japan. He and I became fast friends because I had a car. Not only that, but he never got to go off campus for the previous 3 years.

Kenji was an interesting fellow. He taught me how to shop a proper Asian grocery. My other roommates were Malaysian. I was the only American. He was my crash course into college life. He got me to buy a water filter to make the desalinated water taste better. He seemed excited to see me and said I could stay with him and his roommates at their house near the Christian school where they all worked. It seemed like the trip was set and would be fun. I was off to Florida.

Arriving

Kenji picked me up from the airport in Orlando. The moment I stepped off the plane I could smell that unique “Florida smell” the combination of plants, humidity, and the cooking for a variety of cultures. While not quite the cornucopia of Miami and with a better floor plan, Orlando is the first port of call for everything Disney. So most people were getting ready for a Disney adventure. My plan was different. Kenji drove for 2 hours to pick me up, for which I was grateful.

I cooked on the first night and made a massive feast for Kenji and his roommates. They ate well, but were pretty horrified at all the food I used. I refilled their fridge from the local Publix. I slept soundly the first night. Kenji and his friends all had to work the next day, so I was on my own. Fortunately, Kenji left me the car. I decided to explore the local area.

Cruising around Port St. Lucie was fun. The beach wasn’t really an option what with the terrible rain. Like much of Florida, the juxtaposition of wealth and poverty was on display; complete with terrible humidity. On one side of the road you could see cinderblock apartment buildings with old cars and folks standing outside smoking cigarettes. Turn another corner, and you could cruise through the downtown area with its neat little library, 1930s buildings, and a row of expensive cars for the professionals who worked in nearby offices.

When Kenji was off and the sun was out, we did go to the beach. I got to hang out with nice Jewish people from New York fishing on a pier hoping for a fish, but spending more time talking about life and their families than doing any real fishing. I think the fishing was more of a social thing.

And It Was Going So Well Too…

The trip began to take a turn on my second outing to the town while Kenji was working. The whole thing fell apart when my friend decided to go down to Miami and sell concessions for extra money. This took him out of town, and I was on my own. There isn’t much to do in the immediate area, but I decided driving around was better than sitting in my room. However, I was also having another problem: I was running out of money. This would be a fatal problem almost immediately.

I pulled into a Steak and Shake for lunch, thinking that I had enough money to get something to eat before I drove back to my friend’s house. However, when the bill came, my card was declined. I offered to write a check I knew wouldn’t be any good for a few days. When the server disappeared; I walked out on the bill; a classic dine and dash. My plot was nearly foiled when my friend’s aging Saturn wouldn’t start. The ignition was finicky, and it took some convincing to get it to turn around. The car finally started just in time as the server was walking out to the parking lot to find me. I drove out of there like a bat out of hell. Of course, in typical Florida style, it was raining. I never revealed to Kenji what I had done.

When I returned to my friend’s house, Kenji announced that he had to leave town for a few days. I told him I didn’t have money for a hotel or anything. He offered to put me up somewhere. There was also something with his teaching schedule that basically made me an inconvenience. He found a hotel, and we boomed back to Orlando. I ended up with two days before my flight to kill. Kenji booked me into a hotel on his credit in Orlando, near the airport. I didn’t understand what kind of hotel he had found. It was cheap, and that was the point. It also allowed me to get to the airport fairly easily.

Kenji and I had talked about my sexuality as such. When I first told him, a year earlier, that I was getting bounced out for confessing my homosexual feelings, he didn’t understand why it mattered. But this was an evangelical college. Anything outside of heterosexual attractive and sex within marriage was strictly verboten. For some reason, Kenji picked this afternoon to probe further into my sexuality and what all I had been up to. I told him about my new college experience and the new people I had met. I told him that I was fairly open about my sexuality and people didn’t really mind as much. This was in stark contrast to the evangelical world I grew up in.

He didn’t seem to really accept me or my new life. When I told him the whole story of how I got expelled (another story for another day) he hung his head. He asked me if I was still watching gay porn. I told him I was. He insisted that I delete my gay porn stash in the hopes that I would move on from the idea. He had no understanding about my burgeoning sexuality. I didn’t understand why the same man who didn’t think my gay feelings were that bad was attacking me. It was important to him that I purge my life of sinful homosexuality, and so that was the end of my small, personal stash of hot guys. This was tragic in 2007, digital smut was not as easily acquired as it is now.

Kenji left shortly thereafter, satisfied that he set me on the straight and narrow. I thanked him for the good times and the motel room. As far as I can remember, that might have been the last time we spoke. It was the last time I saw him in person. In an age before Facebook, this was the end of our friendship. I might have texted him when I got back to Colorado, but I don’t remember. I doubt it. I was sitting near the bed, dejected and feeling poorly about everything. I still felt the sting of being called out for being a deviant and pervert. It seemed like I had magically lost all the self-acceptance I had developed over the past year. I felt like there was something wrong with me. Perhaps there was, at least in his world, there was something flawed about me. I was still confused. I had a girlfriend that summer. I hadn’t been with a man in a while by that time. It seemed like I was broken. However, this was when my adventure got even weirder.

Flophouse Orlando

Florida is a funny state. It’s a state of wide roads. It’s nearly always hot. It rains almost every day at 2 p.m. It’s cloudy in the morning from the marine layer. Orlando has some military presence. Disney is well out of town. What’s left in Orlando proper is fast food, check cashing places, cheap apartments, and little else. Like most of Florida, wealth and poverty commingle in the same spaces. Everything has something green growing on it and there’s always that self-same smell.

There I was, staying into a cheap flop house motel in Orlando with 20 TV channels and no porn. I’m notoriously absent-minded when it comes to keys and locking things. I was even worse back then. Per usual, I forgot my room key inside the room. I’m pretty certain this was just a simple Econo Lodge, and I could not read the room. I walked down to the front desk to ask for another key. But the person at the front desk seemed to get furious at me. I didn’t think my request was unreasonable, but I didn’t understand what was going on around me. The scantily clad woman walking around outside meant nothing to me. The cars coming and going at all hours didn’t mean anything to me either. I explained that I had just absentmindedly left my room key in my room, and I just needed to be let in or given another key. The front desk man, sensing my lack of insight, leaned forward and explained to me that the motel was inhabited by some prostitutes and others and his advice to me was pretty simple, “Just stay in your room until your flight.” I mostly followed his advice. There was some fast food down the road. I left my room carefully. I kept my head down. I made sure to have my room key. I kept to myself. I kept an eye outside and began to see what he meant. Women were coming and going. Men of various descriptions were coming and going. It was obvious that if you wanted drugs, sex, and a good time, this was the place. When it was time to catch my flight, I called a taxi, and he drove me to the airport for a flat fee. I was happy to get out of there and fly home.

Soon I was back in Colorado with a rather entertaining story to tell. My Dad, being ex-navy, had spent plenty of time in Orlando. He knew right where I ended up. He felt bad about it but we both admitted that it was a pretty funny situation. This funny situation is now offered here for you to read and chuckle along with as well. I was 18, had very little clue about the world, and was basically shoved into the deep end of things.