Four Rednecks, the Bank Robber, his Prosecuting Attorney, and the Missing Englishman

In the last un-thrilling installment of my series, “A Cure for Insomnia” I was dribbling on about holidaying in Nicaragua, dancing the Gay Gordons at a Scottish wedding and chatting with my chum Jimmy, from the Manatee County Jail in Bradenton, Florida. He who had recently robbed the bank, you might recall. There was also a minor motorcycle incident that saw me needing to live with Mrs. B (Mother) in my home town of Paignton, South Devon.

Well, some weeks after the incident the trauma was finally beginning to subside as she started sleeping through the night while weening herself off the tranquilizers. Of course she was still reliving it at every opportunity, phone call or visitor, but at least the nights were calm.

As the minor character in this horrendous drama, the fact that my bones were mending and my dependence on narcotics was waning, apart from when Wibbly came to visit, and I was beginning to get my strength back was all positive. Walks around the garden were extending to the end of the drive, the end of the road and even down to the local chippie (fish and chip shop in English). My thoughts began now to focus on Florida, specifically the sun, beaches and girls in bikinis. Not that there’s anything wrong with living with your mother in freezing, cold, damp weather with seven hours of murky daylight.

Another chance meeting with Furryballs (he of the Yamaha RD400/Honda XL185 deal in a previous installment) yielded some painting work on his grandmother’s house. Standing two stories up on a ladder, a pot of oil-based paint in one hand, the other jammed in my jacket to keep my ribs in place while enjoying the freezing cold, was about as lovely as it gets. Deftly balancing the paint pot, while holding on with my knees, I was able to get some of the paint onto the gutters. Suffice it to say the next couple of weeks were quite the bed of roses. That’s actually a lie, but being British it doesn’t seem right to complain.

So with a bit of dole money coming in (unemployment benefits in English) and a daily ration of a few quid from Furry, it didn’t take long until I had about three hundred pounds saved up. The idea of a job in the sunshine with Jimmy somehow overrode the temptation to continue my painting career and off I went. Well, not before I had parked and winterized my Laverda 1200, the one bike I hadn’t managed to crash or blow up, said a tearful goodbye to Mother (another lie) and packed my red spotted handkerchief.

Well, backpack really, but it doesn’t sound as romantic.

The crashed CBX had already gone back to Dickie, so with absolutely no pomp or ceremony, I walked out of Laura Grove, hitchhiked to London and bought a one-way ticket to New York, some cheap discount Trailways bus coupons and a bottle of Johnny Walker Red my traveling companions. Landing in the Big Apple with $100 in my pocket, I had no idea I wouldn’t go home for more than four years as I boarded the bus for Florida.

Looking back, I don’t remember the flight, but I do remember a few things from the 36-hour bus ride. A group of black guys at the back of the bus helped me with the whisky, and while I couldn’t understand a word they were saying, nor vice versa, we got on famously and the journey went well. There was a minor interruption when some guy got arrested in Virginia but nothing much else of note.

I hated to say goodbye to that gorgeous Laverda as I left for Florida. Someday,…

I made it to Bradenton, connected with Jimmy’s brother Bill, and moved into his single-wide trailer in the thriving metropolis of Ruskin at the Tampa South RV park. It was time to get to work, and with Bill and Jimmy doing block and concrete work for GZ Irvin, a family outfit out of Arkansas, it made sense to join the company owned by Garrel Zene, Gary Zane, Harmon Dean and Myrtle Levine. Now for any of you thinking this might be a porky pie (lie in English) just stop for a moment and ponder how could an Englishman make that up?

Billy had an old 1970s Ford truck, manual with “three on the tree” if my American vernacular is correct, that ran most days so off to work we went. Somehow Jimmy showed up from jail everyday and we carried block, bent rebar and pulled concrete. After too many weeks not lifting anything heavier than the biscuit tin and a cup of tea recovering from the crash, my hands were as soft as a baby’s bottom so those first weeks were rough. Soon the cuts started to callous over though and I developed some muscles on my pipe cleaner arms. Then I picked up a weekend job selling crap for a Canadian carnie called Hal Brown at a local flea market. Handcuffs, flick knifes, sunglasses and moldy t-shirts mostly. Hal lived in a neighboring trailer so I could ride to work with him when he wasn’t having his car repossessed. Helen the park manager had one tooth, which fascinated me, and I lived in the tiny living room on an equally undersized couch.

All my clothes were in my rucksack under the table, and I basically worked seven days a week saving every penny I could.

At night out under the palm trees, listening to the cicadas and other night creatures, I dreamed of overlanding to Brazil. And then an interesting thing happened. Over a casual conversation with Jimmy I learned his motive for getting me back to Florida. He was working with the prosecuting agent, Lt. Herbert Van Fleet, to prove he had been coerced by his girlfriend Julie, who was the girl inside the bank who didn’t hit the alarm and brought out all the money in the previous installment. Jimmy figured I could help his claim until I pointed out there was still a missing getaway driver (his brother-in-law Crazy Laughing Dave Wainright) that Jimmy hadn’t given up. With Van Fleet finally tracing the Yamaha XS400 back to Jimmy’s duplex where we lived, it was a pretty good assumption the neighbors would have mentioned the Englishman who disappeared the same time as Jimmy. So, Lt. Herbert Van Fleet was probably looking for said missing Englishman.

Then Jimmy mentioned another very minor detail that one could have easily overlooked had they not being paying attention. Our whole crew was heading to work on a private house build in Palmetto for a gentleman called- Lt. Herbert Van Fleet. As the news sank in that I would now be building the house of the prosecuting agent who was probably looking for me in the bank robbery case as the getaway driver, my mind went into overdrive.

By this time Garrel, the older brother, had taking a shining to me: A gnarly old Vietnam Veteran Marine, who barked orders through his thick beard and mustache from under a baseball cap so you could barely see his face. Garrel drove around with a silver long barrel .357 magnum on the seat and his cocker spaniel. He had taken to calling me “Ing lish,” but by now quite often had me riding around in the truck with him so I felt confident I could explain the situation. I waited for the after-work beer and raw oyster session they seemed to like, and asked that no one spoke to me if Van Fleet showed up. After the roars of laughter and some shit talking, everyone agreed and nothing more was said.

Then it happened.

A 1984 Lincoln Continental with blacked out windows rolled slowly to a halt. The door opened and out stepped Van Fleet. In my mind it felt like a movie, almost as if it was going in slow motion. The dark suit, the high white shirt collars, the way he put his Ray Ban sunglasses on. I’ve got the whole scene a little jumbled over the decades with the Pink Floyd “Wish You Were Here” album cover, and a certain American detective with a pockmarked face from the tele back at that time.  I’ll never forget him patting Jimmy’s belly though and saying “We’ll get that off you once we get you inside.” I had moved as far away as possible to the back of the building site and was carrying block for one of the lads. Thankfully he paid me not one bit of attention as he talked with Garrel and Gary. And then the Lincoln was gone. I had been fifteen feet away from the guy who was looking for me and he had absolutely no idea how close he was.

The following months trundled on. I met a girl, moved in with her and finally got to sleep in a bed. Jimmy got sentenced to a year in a minimum-security prison across the road from Ted Bundy (remember him?) and Karen and I quit our jobs, packed our bags and hitchhiked to Cape Canaveral. We went to stay with Crazy Laughing Dave and Jimmy’s sister Debbie while we looked for a boat south to crew.

Little did we know Dave had an old Honda 550 on the porch for sale and it would alter the course of our lives…

Neale

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