via a comment from ghostsniper

Everyone’s got an old bar-greasy spoon in their background somewhere don’t they? Mine was named “Pete’s Hangover” and it was right on 41 in south Fort Myers, FL.

It was an especially low point in my life, got laid off and had a problem getting employment. I worked for Wicks Component Manuf as a draftsman designing roof truss plans and wall panel plans. Then, POOF, gone. I thought everything was going good, moved into a brand new furnished duplex that no one had lived in before and was just settled in when the rug got yanked. I didn’t do anything wrong, the problem was further up the ladder. 70 people got laid off and I was one of them.

Pete’s was up the road a piece and I had been in there a time or 2 but it was a “biker bar” in the truest sense and I hadn’t frequented it before. But no, times were tuff, money short, prospects vacant, so I started hanging there. Even did a little drink slinging for coin and guzz. I even snagged a few “gurlfrenz” while slinging there. That only went on for a couple months and nothing bad came from it. I was working day labor joints during the days I could get picked up and the rest of the time I was scanning the paper and running down leads, mostly to no avail.

The unemployment started in June and ended in Jan when I finally landed permanent employment working as an architectural designer at what was then the best place I ever worked. I had been working there for a month, making decent money, climbing up out of the hole, then BLAM!, I got slammed into the shitcan, HARD!

At least hard for me. This was an environ I was unfamiliar with and didn’t like. I had an old shitty ride, an ocean liner, a 74 Mercury Montego. During my unemployment phase, when coin was non existent, I didn’t pay for the insurance, and that caused the registration to be null and void which caused my license to be suspended. jeez….could it be any worse?

Yes. Much worse. I pulled out from Canal St onto 41 headed south to my crib and no one had notified me that that was now a non legal move. Didn’t used to be. No left hand turn from Canal onto 41. Well, as luck would have it, Johnny Law was watching. woo-woo-woo-woo When he ran my plate he found out everything and I went to the shitcan. No if ands or buts.

The city jail was unbelievably rancid. Built a hundred years before, never cleaned, no air condition, and criminal negro’s as far as the eye could see. jeeziss I spent 1 night/day there then went to the big house in the county, a newer, nicer place with AC and some elbow room. The worst part was shear boredom. Had 4 cellmates, all white doods about my age, for various silly offenses.

The judge had given me 5 days because I had no money to pay the fines. 3 days in and my brand new boss showed up with a checkbook and in an hour he had sprung me. A friend had seen my ride parked in the lot of a beauty parlor (where I pulled in when the cop pulled me over) and thought it was sitting there because I went to jail. He contacted my boss to find out where I was. Instantly the boss said “Liz (his secretary), grab the checkbook and come on, Ghost is in jail.”

Couple weeks later I went into Pete’s Hangover but it was changed, er, I was changed. I was movin’ on up, as they say. The grungyness was manifold and this was no longer comfortable. I never went into Pete’s again after that and life went on.

Just looked Pete’s up on the map and it’s been cleaned up a little and is now one of them rent-a-furniture places. One of these days I’m gonna write book. Maybe it’ll have better spelling and grammer, but prolly not.

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