His habit was between $80.00 - $120.00 every day. In the pouring rain. In damning heat. In a hurricane. Every single day of every single year. He stood about Five foot eight inches tall and had long stringy dirty blond hair, an untrimmed beard, piercing blue eyes, very bad teeth, and was skinny as a rail. Dirt seemed to accumulate on him. He washed every day, as we all did in the public showers on the beach, but because he spent so much time laying on the sidewalk he never seemed to look clean except if he was just walking out from under the shower. He came from North Carolina originally. He had a wife there and some kids. Something bad happened. He never really would say what it was but he left North Carolina any way. No reason to kick if you had nothing to go back to seemed to be his reason for staying where he was.
We met on a day when I was feeling hungry. The day was on and off again rainy and playing guitar while it was wet didn't work so well for me. On a wet day I was lucky to make two dollars. Even though it was wet his business seemed to still have some potential. In Miami Beach, near where the giant sand castle was, several street level businesses existed. Day and night the sand castle had a team that monitored the collection of donations. On rotating scheduled shifts someone would sit there in a chair and offer to take pictures for the tourists and most importantly keep and eye on the tip jar which was kept on a chain. Along the wall on both sides of the sand castle drug dealers would sell cocaine or marijuana during the late night hours. During the day and into the night weavers of palm leaves weaved and would sell palm flowers and hats.
Jeff was one of these weavers. Because his habit was so strong, his production skills were top notch. Developed out of a need to feed the monkey. Even so, he lacked in sales and marketing skills and therefore often had product backed up that would go bad and spoil before it could be sold. A strong market existed for him but because he was usually on the nod quite a bit of business would just walk away and the competition was very fierce especially on the weekends. Sometimes while he was on his nod the competition would steal from him. They would walk off with palm leaves that took a couple hours to gather or steal finished product off of his mat. We became a strong team and business improved dramatically.
Our main competition was English Pete and two or three others who would come and go. English Pete was also a heroin addict and for some reason he seemed to get arrested every other day. We always made more money when he was gone. Pete was a very intelligent guy. Someone who seemed like he had graduated with A levels in England and he traveled with a beautiful young girl also lost to heroin. Pete didn't make her that way. She only stayed around him for companionship. Her boyfriend was being held in key west for heroin. Pete was a polite guy but was also a cagey thief. Pete would often fall asleep while standing up in the process of weaving. He sometimes would stand without moving for over an hour.
I asked Jeff to show me how to weave. He didn't want to do that. "Yer jes gonna be compy tishin fer me." At the time English Pete had a drunk wondering around in front of him asking the tourists to buy a flower. Pete would give him a flower sometimes just to get rid of him. The two dollars a flower would bring was enough for a can of Malt liquor. Jeff, tried to do this a few times but said that the drunks would always just walk off with the flowers and never come back.
I offered to sell for Jeff and he could teach me to weave and we could split the profits. As I was clean cut for a guy living on the sand and didn't drink or do heroin, it worked out well. I simply offered flowers to everyone who walked by. We would make about $150.00 to $200.00 on a good day and my cut was always on the short side. I didn't really care as I also would play guitar. The routine was make money with palm flowers than go play guitar while Jeff made the trip to Miami to buy Heroin. He always made this trip alone. Jeff made two trips a day. On the way back he would gather palm leaves or we would go together to gather. Occasionally he would get beat up. Once he got arrested. Nothing deterred him from making the trip. He wouldn't spend a dime of his money for anything but heroin. Even though he had $100.00 in his pocket he would scavenge half eaten pizza slices from outside tables, or buy $1.00 potato balls. All the money went into a vein.
Jeff would go into the late night long after I had called it quits for the day. At 3AM he would still be on Washington Avenue nodded out with his tip jar in front of him full of money. While I would go off to sleep somewhere alone like on the sand, a life guard tower, or behind Lincoln Road, Jeff would just lay down anywhere he was. I always new him as honest in his dealings with me. It was always an unstated assumption that we didn't have a fifty fifty spit but I understood. Eventually I got a job and didn't see Jeff around to much. Once I thought about loading a bunch of money on him to see if he would go back to North Carolina to clean up. When I approached he was nodded out so I just threw some money in his tip jar. I never saw him after that.
This content is owned by Ron Andrew O'Daniels
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