Haulover Beach
We pulled into Fort Lauderdale at 10:00. We had bloody marys and eggs at 11:00. I convinced her to drive to Haulover at noon. By 12:15 we were lost, and we hadn’t even made it out of town.
“Saks Fifth Avenue?”
“We’re in a mall parking… Lemme get the map.”
Haulover beach sits at the northern tip of Miami, hidden behind outcroppings of trees, motels and adjacent high rises guarding it from a street view. Like all nude beaches, there are no signs guiding you to it, no markings on the map, no easy way for a concierge to explain its whereabouts. It’s a dirty secret, for dirty people – sex junkies, New Agers and queers… the twisted flip side of the Puritan ethic of sex as a guilty pleasure, its instrumentality best shrouded. For the determined pervert tourist, the most ambitious variety of gawker who’d usually walk South Beach staring at topless Latin club girls in dental floss g-strings, but was now looking for full frontal, legs spread in the sand action, it’s difficult. For a directionally challenged, mildly buzzed fool driving from Fort Lauderdale looking for a cheap thrill with his reluctant girlfriend, it’s next to impossible.
“I’ll just ask for directions.” I pulled up next to the police cruiser and waved my hands at the officer. He turned from talking on his cell phone and pointed forward, directing me to keep moving, never even opening his window. “Rude fuckers… suppose I had an emergency?” I pulled up next to a white Cadillac STS. The lipsticked skeleton inside resembled Senor Wences’ fist puppet in a dyed red wig. She stared at me, slack jawed, frozen in horror, as though I were babbling about anal rape and picking my teeth with a switchblade. “Senility. We’re in South Florida. They come here to die… slowly.” To the average geriatric widow, I probably looked menacing… surf shorts, a t-shirt, five day old beard, wraparound sunglasses and the pensive half grin/half frown of a man trying to get action shots of his increasingly bored and soon to be agitated girlfriend’s tits and ass rolling around in the sand. A full blooded deviant… She probably figured us junkies from the North. We’d tie her up with rusty wire, throw her in the trunk and drive around town listening to Negro music, hopped up on pep pills and fortified wine, fucking in the backseat and littering the ashtray with “reefers.”
“Lets just go home… It’s too cold for the beach anyway.”
“No, no… We’ve come this far…”
“We’ve been doing a loop around a mall for ten minutes.” Lisa spread the map across her lap.
The first cruiser came from the left, passing me, swerving into my lane in front of my car then slowing down. The second appeared in my rear view mirror moments later. “Son of a bitch. I must’ve run a stop sign.” The sirens started. The cruiser in front of me stopped. I pulled to the shoulder, grabbed the map and opened the door. “That’s the same cocksucker I just asked for directions. If he’d given me them, I wouldn’t have run the stop sign, or whatever it was I did.” Lisa rubbed her forehead with her thumb and index finger. I jumped out and slammed the door.
“Stop! Stop right there!” The fucker drew on me… Nuts.
Looking down the barrel of a gun should scare your bladder dry, but for reasons I can’t explain, it’s actually calming, comforting. There’s no decision staring into a pistol. You do what you’re told – nothing more, nothing less. The only thought in my mind was whether I should drop the map, which I decided against, thinking it could freak the cop out and cause him to plug me in the leg. I could see this wasn’t the average peace officer – this guy enjoyed it. He was fidgety and loud, not in a nervous sense, but in that annoying, overly-engaged manner – the grating chronic excitability of a new employee trying to make an unforgettable first impression, or the over-caffeinated hyperactive sort who never stops moving or talking long enough to consider all the reasons he ought to be apathetic. You don’t jerk suddenly in the sites of a man recalling Officer Farva from Super Troopers, no matter how thin the resemblance… Maybe an idiot, maybe a hardass pro… Either way, he was a live wire – busting anyone for anything. Turning on the siren and racing up the shoulder to respond to a rear end collision still excited this cat.

I was standing with my hands on the car, getting the standard frisk, admiring the Altima’s construction, the perfect Japanese hinging, seamlessly grafting the roof to the body, when the Canine Unit van pulled up. I’d never carry dope on a plane, but then, I never clean out my duffel bag, either. It’s carrying hotel shampoos and shreds of receipts from trips taken before the Trade Centers fell. This wasn’t how the week would go down. I wasn’t spending my vacation in a Florida police station because some mongoloid German Shepherd foamed rabid over the scent of old seeds and stems lingering in a filthy pleather bag I stole from my old man’s golf locker in 1999… because I had the bad luck to rent a car with stolen fucking plates…
“Never, ever approach a police officer on a stop. Hundreds of officers have died in routine pullovers. We take it very seriously.” The bark was classic “Full Metal Jacket” drill sergeant, but smoother. He was no Farva. He wanted to be a hardass, but a cool hardass. The cuffs were cold.
“I know. I’m a lawyer. It’s just… this is a rental car.”
“The plate’s listed as belonging to a stolen car.” The cop spat numbers into his walkie talkie.
“Just call the rental car company. The papers are in the door… Lisa, get him the papers.”
“How are you, miss?” The cop spoke to Lisa as though he were serving her breakfast.
“Hi, here they are.”
“Thank you.”
“Are the cuffs necessary? I mean, look at me.”
“Sir, this vehicle is listed as stolen.” The cops from the police van and the car in front of us began chit chatting with Lisa (who was never cuffed).¹ “Where are you from?” “Where were you going?” “It’s usually not this cold here.” “It’s supposed to be so much nicer tomorrow.” “You should go shopping instead… The Saks store is really nice… My wife loves this mall.”
The lead cop stood in front of me, pressed against the trunk of the Altima as though I were a cartel mule, stung driving a car full of cash and semi-automatic rifles…
“What kind of lawyer are you?”
“Business disputes.”
“Really? What kind?”
“Deals gone sideways, partnership dust-ups, frauds… boring shit.”
“I’m in real estate. And stocks.” At that time, in South Florida, unless you were drooling in adult diapers and rambling about Pearl Harbor, you were in real estate.
“Cool.”
“What do you think I’m worth?” If there was a worse question under those circumstances, I couldn’t imagine it. “I don’t know… a million dollars?”
“Three. Three million. I do this because I like it. I pull these guys over in their Ferraris and Lamborghinis and they’re all arrogant and treat me like some peon. I can buy and sell most of them. Three. I have a Carrera myself. I could retire tomorrow.”
“Why don’t you?”
“I like this. I do all my trading from the car.”
“Any tips?”
“My broker gave me some solid biotechs.”
“Broker… What about insider info, the good stuff?”
He just kept blathering, which I expected. I knew his kind well. The only difference between this cop and half the people I have to listen to every day is the type of handcuffs keeping me in their audience…
Law’s one of the few gigs where people release their salaries to the press, and push the appearance all of its practitioners are wealthy. The trade rags fixate on “PPP” (Profits Per Partner), and everybody in Philly’s in the race to see whose can get closest to that rarified seven figure air. The pretext is that boasting how much cash you’re making attracts high end clients and the brightest lawyers. I always assumed the last thing a person I’m soaking wants to hear is how much of a soaking he’s getting. I’d always heard a smart salesman doesn’t park his $80,000.00 hunk of German metal in plain view of his mark… That’s inviting a hardball price negotiation. So why would grown men measure their firms’ salaries against each other? People I know who manage hedge funds, run corporations or have scads of inherited cash don’t run around bleating about how much they make. You wouldn’t announce your bonus to friends, or publish a raise in the paper. So why do firms publish those numbers?
For the same reason this cop was telling me about his Porsche…
“A friend of mine modified the car for me. I can take half those fucking Ferraris off the line.”
“Speed kills.”
“We don’t pull our own kind over.” He flashed his badge. “My Get out of jail card…”
“That won’t save your ass when the tail gets away from you while you’re doing triple digits. Lose the wind current pushing the backfin down and those little skateboards slide all over the road.” He cracked the gum between his tongue and palate. “Oh yeh?”
“I hit that draft once at 120… years ago. You shit your pants is what happens there.” I didn’t mention the when, where or why of that experience. The tone of my voice conveyed it all. You never lose a memory like that – paralyzed in the passenger seat, in the upswing of a blazing kind bud buzz, humming along on a rural highway through the woods… The needle ticks into triple digits and you reach for the seatbelt. “Kid yourself,” your buddy Paul screams into the wind. You stare at the bastard. How many Dos Equis has he had? A hill approaches and over it you go… a smooth left with a slight berm… the creaky old 911 holds tight, on rails… around, around, around the turn, then suddenly – The Truck, 100 yards ahead. It’s too late when you see it… you’re already in the draft. The ass slides sideways… an inch, a foot, a lane? Whatever… You can feel the Gs whipping you off the road, over an embankment, through a barbed wire fence into a monstrous oak. Spwhack – you’re the meat of an exploding bullet of plasma, bone, flesh and German shrapnel. Then, just as suddenly, the wheels catch. Paul drops it a gear. “I never eased off… You gotta drive straight through those or you’re fucked!” The dope and adrenaline have your brain boiling. You stare at the seatbelt buckle in your white-knuckle grip. “Yeh. Of course… straight through.” I didn’t explain that back story to the cop; he didn’t seem one for nuance.
To Be Continued…
———–
¹ An oversight on the part of police. Hands cuffed behind the back push the torso out – perfect rack presentation.

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