Two Plus Two Newer Archives - Fear and Loathing in Immokalee (Seminole casino trip report)

Last night, at around 2:30 in the morning, I figured I would head on out to the Seminole Casino on Immokalee (known around here simply as Immokalee). After all, the bad beat jackpot is now over $200,000 and the game is so soft it's like an ATM, definitely worth the 40 minute drive.

I arrived and bought in for the max. There were three tables going at this point, and the fish were out in force. After about an hour, the other two tables broke and we had a full table- 10 handed at 4:30 in the morning. Truly, I was playing with the cream of the degenerate poker playing crop.

The man to my right was playing breakeven poker, joking the whole time about how his wife was going to kill him for staying out all night. However, he wasn't who was the real character at the table...

The man to my left was a total burnout, a leftover living wreckage from the drug culture of the 60's and 70's. He sported an ancient jacket, complete with patches and covered in filth. His unwashed, greasy, grey and white hair drooped down over his ears, a bandana holding it back from his eyes, and his beard was a perfect continuation of this. A perfect caricature of an acid freak, his beady little blue eyes lent testament to the fact that he was as high as a kite, and he reeked of booze and cheap cigarettes on top of that.

In the span of three hands, I'd become his best friend, at which point he decided to tell me a little history about himself. He regaled me with the stories of him playing in casinos all over the country: his score of $11,000 in blackjack in Detroit, his epic straight flush playing no limit in Vegas, and even a screw-around home game in L.A. that he made a couple grand on.

However, what surprised me most, was that he was actually good at poker, and knew exactly what he was doing. Unfortunately, the cards were against him, as he lost Ace Ace back to back.

This set off something within him, and he decided to tell me some more of his dark story. He had won a lawsuit against the Ft. Myers police department for tasering him, which caused him to start vomiting blood (as a result of god only knows what poisons he had in his system), and refusing him medical care at the scene. The payoff was a whopping $100,000, which makes less sense than the rest of his stories when he tells me he's a vagrant without an address.

He also has two other pending lawsuits totalling $500,000 which he did not detail any further. This year, he's planning to travel to Vegas, L.A., San Diego, and Hawaii, because he "knows people there" who'll let him stay for free.

Did I mention he's also a bounty hunter? He claimed a $10,000 for collaring a murderer, and another grand for apprehending a rapist.

Why is he travelling to L.A.? Because he has a score to settle. He's looking to find a guy and kill him for transgressions against him, and "knows where he is goddamit!" The guy should be pretty easy to find in a city of millions of people. After all, he's a world-class bounty hunter.

He grew great weed in Michigan, using "hydrophonics", which gives me a visual of a room like a rainforest which pumps Hendrix over loud speakers 24 hours a day. Not to be confused with hydroponics of course.

His story comes to an end when he tells me his other reason for going to Hawaii- his "friends" out there have a multitude of Venus-like daughters around my age, who are begging for him to have sex with them in an orgy of drugs and alcohol.

I figure he's the most credible person I've ever come across in my life, and we, as Americans, should strive for this degree of honesty never before witnessed.

I grew hungry at around 6 A.M., and decided to rack up my chips, finishing the short session up $116. Somewhere out there, a "marked man" in L.A. is unaware that an insane, drug-addicted vagabond has his number.