Non-fiction, circa 300 pages with photos.
Yeeeeeehaw, y'all!
One tries to imagine a story more quintessentially Florida “…deputies raid nudist camp in search of marijuana.” That was the Orlando Sentinel’s take on what happened Aug. 10, in Osceola County.
This bare line, begging the question, were deputies more offended by the former or the latter hedonistic activity? One imagines the beefy deputies slathered in sweat, encondomed in Kevlar and green polyester knit, dying in the 95 degree swelt, chasing after those fleeing nudists high on the Devil’s lettuce. We picture the guilty hopping like spring bucks into the sawgrass, giggling with their naughty-parts flapping in the breeze, getting that last toke in before they are tackled to the ground.
Nice going Orlando Sentinel! Can you imagine their newsroom this morning? Can you hear the gleeful comments, and the back-slapping? Can you see the newsroom smiles? There’s nothing more sinister than a newsroom smile.
This would all be perfectly excellent good fun – and perhaps it still is – were it not for what was found inside a secret closet belonging to someone in the mix of this story; some shadow figure who is now in jail without bond. Guns, sniper rifles, home-made bombs, a mortar launcher, a Mac 11 machine pistol!
As you read, you get the gist of the story. The cops stop a young couple for possession of cannabis, who both immediately flip on their alleged supplier.
They tip cops off to the presence of a grow house inside a trailer, inside the nudist colony. (Live in that millisecond as the cops ponder whether or not to enter the nudist colony in search of dope. Sublime tragic-comedy, isn’t it?)When the cops go to break down the doors of that alleged grow house, they find evidence of some sort of cultivation, all the gear, but no pot plants.
They search the home of the alleged culprit and find a stash of dangerous weapons inside the “secret closet.”
Crafty reporter to have gotten this nod to the big-screen by his editor; again our hats are off to him. But is the accused a gun dealer, or does he have ties to gangs, and or even, heaven forbid, domestic terror?
And what of the arrest? Will any of it stick in court? Does the word of someone who is admittedly high on marijuana constitute probable cause to go breaking down any doors in the dawn hours
What a mess.
Will we hear more on this? Will the reporter actually follow up? Likely as not, hell no. No, the reporter has done his job. He's informed us a little bit and he's out of it. He's on to the next bit of news which will form more of that joyous tableaux we like to point a stick at and call "Floriduh!"
Which, on two levels, is where I come in. Especially if someone finds the sense to fund this book!
See? The problem, and the opportunity to organized crime, is only growing, and will continue to do so. By this time next year the phenom of the grow house will be a monster spread out all over the country.
Agent: Get in on the ground floor of this story now! If this is your first time to this blogsite, read the proposal!Email me back with your thoughts, hopes and dreams for this book!
Kearns is the author of Where Hell Freezes Over (Thomas Dunne Books, 2005)
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