I'd been heading south on I-75 for almost two hours when I lifted onto the shallow arch of the Peace Bridge and was now flying over the Caloosahatchee River.  Fort Myers, Florida.  Dead ahead.

As pretty of an evening as you could ask for.  The downtown buildings spread out fresh and bright as children's toys,  bunched and stacked in neat geometric shapes along it's banks.  All shaded in sherbet.  A few taller one's, the new condominiums,  poked up at the far edges dripping witha modern sheen of bluish-green window glass and  glistening like Popsicles.  Artificial color and flavor added.  My timing had been good.  At least thirty minutes left to get some pictures before dark.

I surveyed the tropical sprawl below.

Lining the river's banks,  down in the Good Neighborhoods,  old money homes blended into their sea shell driveways and deep greening of strangler fig - small and elegant as old fashioned ideas.  Next to them, mixing in like ice cubes with wine,  every so often a blazing white home shined with new money.

Bursting at their lot lines, these Miami styled MacMansions ranged from Mock Mediterranean to Stucco Rococo and squatted among the neighbors fat and uncomfortable looking.  Like loud, ravenous guests who never left when the block party was over.

The chic and the tasteful and the obnoxious;  all marching together, side-by-side, down the river to the sea.

It was quite a sight. I don't know why, but suddenly it was hard imagining that people still lived in houses like those.  Stupid I know, but Americans staffing gardeners, and window washers, maids, cooks, carpet cleaners, tile scrubbers, nanny's and all the other undocumented assistants to a well managed life seems a long time past.  It was all so 2006.

Florida real estate was now on life support and the plug's dangling like a noose,  barely connected to the wall. This was ground zero. The fastest growing unemployment rates and foreclosures in the country. But there they were, keeping it all running,   jamming and jiggling at the power socket with the last kitchen fork in the drawer.

But somewhere down there, inside the sprawling terra cotta roofed carcasses with candy marble flooring and Brazilian cherry staircases,  there's unopened stacks of mail waiting like the good china you look at, but never use.  Property tax, hurricane insurance, sub-prime mortgage payments …. notices from the Mercedes lenders, Nieman Marcus and Bloomingdale's. Growing like a silent cancer on their fresh granite counter tops and designer  glass-top dining room tables.

America had cashed it's check. The short run is over.  The long run hasn't even begun.

Maybe there's even be a few bodies down there too.  Unlucky Gatsby's floating face down in the cool marine of their swimming pools,  immersed in inescapable debt yet elegantly surrounded by Spanish tile circling waterline.  Was it really only a few very short years ago,  Mr. Him and Mrs. Her had been luxuriously arguing about tile colors  of the tile scheme over cocktails and the sea wall?  Cobalt blue or Navajo Rust?

Then, in a day, Gatsby's green light just quit blinking.

I grabbed the first downtown exit and hooked my old Pathfinder back under the bridge toward the center of town.

 * 

A few hours earlier I had been doing some serious Sunday loafing.  The day was Florida winter cool.   I managed a half-heated work-out,  a short sauna and then a steamy gym shower that out-lasted the time on my tread mill - significantly. By my calculation, it would only take a couple of Lite Beers and a sedentary stint with the Sunday Times to balance out the calorie burn.

I ended up at a little outdoor tiki-bar just off highway 41 dangling my legs in the sun from a stool.

Behind the bar,  just above the Tropic Whirl-n-Whip Daiquiri Dispenser and a decaying souvenir alligator skull being used as a cup dispenser,   a tiny plastic TV box was flashing away with the local news.  I couldn't make out much though. The tinny sound was cutting in and out and jerking with mysterious non-sequitur like a Rotarian with a bad PA system.  Just glancing up there seriously twisted at my brain.

But,  except for a very pale and corpulent couple at the other end of the bar endlessly fascinated by the way that little paper umbrella opens and closes and munching fruit from the bartender's garnish tray when he wasn't looking;  or my 12 year old bartender himself  sucking on Red Bull and texting furiously.....as if he were  relaying coordinates for an emergency space shuttle landing...... my entertainment options were limited.

At the top of the hour, the local news was buzzing about the President's visit to Fort Myers. The screen flashed that 1500 free tickets were being handed out at 9:00 am. Monday morning. First come first serve. The lead in was a grainy shot of a lonesome looking guy in a beat-up ball cap who was already lined up. First in line at 9:30 am.. He was going to have his fleeting brush with greatness even if he had to wait twenty-four mind numbing hours to get it.

Then following a commercial,  a story about how to cut costs by brown bagging it at work- and by some national footage describing how a guy in Illinois just died from eating a peanut butter sandwich.  

I wondered if the lonesome guy had brought food. How much? Did he pack his own lunch? I imagined him with a lunch pail and a thermos of coffee, his wife kissing him good-by as he went off to stand in line,  to wait patiently for the American Dream.

Maybe it was the two-beer buzz or fatal ennui, I don't know. Maybe it was the the same reason most of these sorts of things tend to happen:  I just couldn't think of a good reason not to go down there. No, I don't mean stand in the mosh pit all night for a couple of tickets to see Barack Obama. But why not get out of town,  see something different? Besides, Obama's town hall meeting was probably like almost any live event,  from the NFL game to NASCAR?:  The folks who watch it on TV catch all the good stuff anyway.  Right?

No, I'd just grab my camera,  snap an few pictures and make it a round trip.  Maybe post a couple of shots on Open Salon.  Who knows?  Should be a pretty sunset tonight. 

The local station played a canned clip of Obama wagging his finger, then another cut-a-way again to the lonesome guy down in Fort Meyers getting comfortable on ragged piece of cardboard and leaning back on a metal crowd barrier.  He already looked desperate, restless and bored. Twenty-one more hours buddy.

My plastic beer cup was empty. The bartender stood a few feet away trying to shake some life back into his dying cell phone. Odd confusion creased his mouth. I could tell the caffeine from the Red Bull was working his spine. Every few shakes he'd stop and cock his head, squinting an eye into the screen. That sort of primitive look robin's give worms popping up from your lawn after a rain. I left some money on the bar and moved slowly away without being noticed.

Two hours later I was crossing the Caloosahatchee River.

*

I hadn't bothered to pay much attention to  where the Obama event was actually being held,  so after twisting off the freeway into downtown I pulled into Quick Stop.  Ask a few questions.

The gas mart was quiet and had a cold, run down feel. The price sign was missing the two plastic numbers just after the 2. Somebody couldn't make up their mind. But gas was climbing.

There was dark veneer of oily road grime that coated the entire parking lot,  it traveled up and over the sidewalk, and then into the store swabbing the linoleum with swirling patterns of filth. Stepping inside,  I wiped something I'd contracted from the door handle onto a stack free real estate mags.   

Unidentifiable smells.

Even considering the fully perforated Goth girl working behind the counter,  and the two rednecks skimming the monster truck magazines while balancing Busch 12 packs on their shoudlers,   it was hard not to think of Tijuana.  This was the Sun Coast?  The dream of every Parrot Head in Cinci and Dayton? I could use something cold.  But I decided to wait.

After the sun damaged woman in front of me had purchased three packs of Basic Menthol and zippered them her pink nylon fanny pack, I asked the femme Goth where Obama would be. She knew. 

“At that Bay Shore place. Right over there,” she pointed to an imaginary place apparently just beyond my left shoulder, “downtown, just a few blocks away. Are you going?”

I told her no. Just running around.

“Pretty big deal for Fort Meyers,” she unexpectedly offered. “You know, they say there hasn't been a President down here like in ninety years.” The quote sounded like local TV reporting.

“Really.” An odd, but interesting fact I supposed.

“Oh yeah, not since Eisenhower,” she said.

“Eisenhower, eh? Ninety years?”

She listened to my voice incredulously tail off and paused. Then her face rekindled and set firm. “Oh yeah, at least.”

I thanked her and tried not touch anything on my way out.

*

I moved my truck through the streets  in the general direction of the girl's pointing finger.  In a couple short blocks I realized in fact the Bay Shore Convention Center really had been just over my shoulder.  And as advertised,  it was right on the bay shore. Just a green space and an access road removed from the wide copper colored river estuary.  Even with a few city cops milling around and blocking the street nearest the entrance, I easily found a spot right next door in a lot. 

I recognized the roped off ticket entrance from the TV news, and right where he promised he'd be, the lonesome guy was stood adjusting his cardboard. A few more souls had moved in behind him setting up lawn chairs and air mattresses. Looked like maybe forty or fifty at most. Passing onlookers curiously watched and shook their heads.  I snapped a couple quick shots of nothing at all.  

A beautiful scarlet sun was settling into the gulf. I grabbed my camera, locked up my truck, and wandered the waterfront.

The evening lived up to expectations. I't wasn't a wasted trip afterall.  After using up most of the available shooting light, I decided to explore the downtown, maybe grab a drink and gab with one of the colorful locals, then head home.

 Downtown Fort Myers.  Nice.  Great old building's and some newer Florida Mordern.  Obviously a major renovation had taken place. Fresh cobblestone, new and tightly stretched awnings everywhere.  The entire main street had been nicely painted with a fleshy toned palette and bold colored trim. There was even a newly constructed barber pole hanging against a nostalgic backdrop of resurfaced red brick. I took a few shots of light filtering through the potted foxtail palm decorating the streets.

But there was something odd. Even more striking, now that I noticed: I was virtually alone. Not a car moving or a bus, not a single person to pass on the sidewalk. Occasionally I'd see a distant body scamper in the distance,  or a few passive faces staring out onto the street from inside the scattering of empty street side restaurants.

A perfectly clean Hummer turned at the corner and disappeared. A tall man with brief case passed me staring willfully ahead and ducked into a parking garage.  

The air temperature had continued to fall with the sun. The spaces where I walked among the shadows that slanted off the silent buildings became colder and darker.  I didn't know what a town on the eave of the biggest event since.......well, since Eisenhower's famous appearance ninety years ago was supposed to look like, but this wasn't how I imagined it.

I  snapped a few more shots and headed in the direction of my car near the entrance to the convention center.

*

 The line of people had barely grown,  just a few more struggling for some comfortable concrete between the metal barriers.  I have to admit: I thought about it.  Why not?  Maybe it was the chance of a lifetime. But the practical issues outweighed any serious thoughts of planting my ass on the concrete and spending the night.  Most of the people already in line were buffeted with full survival gear.  The smart one's anyway.  Sleeping bags, coolers, chairs, card playing tables and all the rest. I had on a pair of cargo shorts and a golf shirt.  I wasn't geared for this kind of work.

And Florida was getting its share of cold. Only a couple of days earlier freezing records had been set in the area. This would be the last blast of the year, but that didn't make the damp night air any less frigid.  No thanks. I'd already seen enough of Fort Meyers 2009 edition, time to saddle up.

....it was tempting..... in a totally unrealistic way.

But nope, in two hours I'd be home comfortably watching the whole parade of human madness on the tube.  Adios.

*

The car key snapped off in the door lock with the delicate pop of a wish-bone. WHAT? I looked down at the other half in my hand unable to focus my eyes.  I bit my lip.  I knew what I'd done.  Dumb and  dazed I  just stared at the blurry stub of metal on my ring.

NO!

As those first seconds slowed in time, and the sour deepened in my guts, I just kept staring at the broken key. My mind wouldn't accept the image.....it kept trying to restore it by recalling a previous picture of a whole key. Disaster was visiting me in Fort Meyers.

This is my one and only key.

* 

Look, no excuses, but I'm a bachelor. I carry around one set of keys. End of story. Don't go there.

I looked around the strangely deserted town.  Only a tiny sharp crease of sunlight banded the tallest buildings now.  At the far end of the lot two homeless guys were sharing a paper bag.  A soft chill forming on my neck.  I turned up my collar.

My sickness continued to deepen.

It now a little after six. There wasn't a locksmith available even if I could afford to call one. You see, through a previous experience too embarrassing to go into here, I knew exactly what, and how much, it would take to break into my car, disassemble the door panel, remove the power door lock, and fashion a custom key. My truck was too old by a year, no key codes were obtainable.

In this, there were no short cuts.  I was looking at 250 bucks. Minimum.  I listened to a seagull cry out from the waterfront. Yeah buddy, me too.

I looked back down at my problem.  Because I hadn't pushed the key far enough into the lock,  and I'd twisted with a pulling motion, it didn't bury in the there. I was able to pinch out the remaining half. Now I had in my palm two disfigured pieces and I decided to do the only thing that made sense to me. I'd jam the first half back into the lock and then with the other half try to twist the locked door open.

It worked.  I was in.  But the small half was now lost forever. I was out of options.

(Briefly I'd considered breaking a window and trying the same approach with the ignition. But had that not worked, I'd have two repair bills and still be stuck in Fort Meyers.)

The naked truth of the matter is that, things being the way they are, I was like a lot of people. I hadn't budgeted 250 plus dollars, plus overnight motel bill, plus meals, plus plus plus, to spend on a key I should have had duplicated for three bucks.  Pretzel logic I know, but my days of spending money I didn't have, as a first option anyway, are over. Especially on tragedies as needless as this.

Or maybe I didn't decide at all.

Maybe a hedge fund manger in the Cayman's decided.  Maybe Bernie Madhoff, maybe Alan Greenspan.  Maybe George fucking Bush.  He was the decider after all.  But who ever did,  they spent a good long time doing it and their descision is final.   The world they decide to make is becoming  a very scary place lately.  I'm not worried too much about Osama,  I'm more worried about paying rent.  

If things got really bad, would I survive?  Something tells me a little car trouble might be like looking back to the good ole days.  

 Am I suddenly practicing a run through for Survivor: The Real Deal?  

I covered my options.  I'm a resourceful guy with some free time. Certainly no where to go.  Start cracking.

* 

Hmmm....I wonder how much  a guy could get for a couple of Obama tickets in the morning?

* 

I rummaged around in my truck for supplies.  In my golf bag I had a set of rain gear and in the back seat I had an old leather car coat. Retractable pen, notebook, golf towel, baseball cap,  and a stashed away empty day pack.

Three oranges and two grapefruit I'd picked-up at a stand on the way down. Toothbrush in my gym bag with a pair of clean socks. But the footwear was problematic.  I'd been rolling around town in a pair of Teva sandals and already I could feel the tips of my toes growing cold.  It would be a very long night.

I guess I didn't have much choice.

I laced on my saddle-buck golf shoes, hoisted my total available  net worth onto my shoulder and wandered away from the parking lot like a hobo trying to play through.

 I wondered if lonesome guy had any extra cardboard laying around? 

* 

NEXT, PART TWO:  

IT GET'S COLD WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN