My Last Day at Cheeca

                                              David Schneider

 

                                This is my version of the local Florida Keys iconic saga that is

                                                       Cheeca Lodge and Spa. Most of the names have been changed.

                                                       It’s probably too long, and I am sure that folks will differ on the facts.

                                                       They can write their own story.

 

 

    The boss sneered, then paused while trying to pry a seed or some chew or some damn thing out of his back tooth with his tongue. Then he thrust his finger in my direction.

    “Yeeouu sir,” he hissed, “will nat be walcom bak hea’ t’morrow.”

    He turned to our group’s foreman, the one that took over after our original foreman kept falling asleep.

    “Geeaat his t-shirt an’ san hiam ouat. He shan’t be com’n bak t’morrow.”

   Shan’t?! Is that any way for an uneducated redneck from the gates of hell to communicate?

    In any event, I was done. Five years of working at a place I loved and thought of as my own had come to an end. I walked through the gaggle of workers, past Chris and Bruce and Fanel and the rest of the guys from Cheeca that had been forced to join this rag-tag band of gypsies.

    I handed my t shirt to my skin-headed foreman from Aberdeen Texas. He shrugged, gave me a puzzled look, then shook my hand. He was already in the shit for letting us quit 5 minutes early. It had been a 9 hour, 55 minute day.

   Absolutely numb, I walked the final steps to Cheeca’s employee parking lot and reflected on the last 72 hours.

 

    The End started on New Year’s Eve 2008-2009. Cindy and I had walked from The Island Grill to Hog Heaven in order to enjoy the fireworks. Earlier, Billy Davidson and Paul Case, co-chairs of the local music scene, had interrupted their set at Island Grill to implore patrons not to drive home impaired, but to use the free cab rides set up by Jack, the Grill’s manager. As they did, several sirens could be heard whizzing past on US1.

   “Don’t end up like that,” joked Billy. We all laughed.

   Little did I know that those sirens were fire trucks and rescue vehicles heading to Cheeca Lodge to fight a four alarm fire, one which would perhaps burn my bridges forever.

 

    It had not been a good year for me at Cheeca.     First, ownership changed. The managing partner, a most shrewd hotelier it seemed at the time, had bought out his co-owners and brought in his nephew to run the place. Sounds like a nightmare already, right?

    First thing to go was overtime. Fair enough, it was off-season, and I had seen plenty of summer seasons come and go. Then came a mandated lunch break off the clock and a normal two-week 80 hour pay period became a mandated maximum 75.

    Next on the block was the 401k plan. Then paid time off and family leave, known as PTO days, was slashed in half and the entire H.R. department was shown the door.

    Over the next few weeks, layoffs and firings made the place feel like the OK Coral, except here Wyatt Earp came to work in a Bentley.

  All this would be fine, I thought: the owners are obviously free to run their business the way they want and live the lifestyle they choose.

   On the other hand, my beloved Cheeca was indeed hurting. The owners had just suffered a multi- million dollar judgment in a breech of contract lawsuit concerning the lodge, we were facing a huge assessment for the new sewer system, and the tourism market was a diseased snail. 

    What bothered me most was the remodeling amidst all this. Everyday, trucks would bring new furniture, new carpet, shiny new fixtures. Every week the owner’s helicopter would arrive with crisp rolled up plans and blueprints.

    That was fair enough, too, as the grand old resort needed a face lift and maybe a tummy-tuck, but it seemed to me ill-timed and done on the backs of good people, some that had given their lives to this place. I understood, however, that payroll in a place like this can become bloated and is often the first bit of necessary fat-cutting to be done.

    The last straw occurred in two parts but close together. One day I got up the nerve to ask the new General Manager/new part-owner/nephew why the 401k had been discontinued. I understood the company match going away, but they wanted to nix the whole retirement program.

   “IRS’s fault,” he said, looking me squarely in   the eye. “They say we have to have 100 percent enrollment.”

   “Funny,” I replied. “The last two firms I worked for, twelve and seven years respectively, both had qualified plans. One company was very large. They had nowhere near 100 per cent enrollment.”

    He just shrugged and walked away. Later I asked the controller about it.

    “That was an unfortunate misstatement,” was all she said before going back to the paperwork on her desk.

    Cutting back business expenses is something I understand. Passing the buck and lying to an effected employee’s face about it is something I do not.

    The next day had started with the GM/ owner/ nephew coming out to the courtyard to smoke his morning cigarette and, to my utter amazement, to spit twice into the potted Date Palms. He then complained to everyone within earshot how financially broke the place was.

   While listening, I looked around. Out in the hotel’s grand circular driveway sat his Uncle’s Bentley and two trucks- one delivering new kitchen equipment and the other, mahogany executive desk sets (although to be fair, these were for the lobby, not his private office).

   “Did you hear Dom was fired yesterday?” I heard somebody ask. 

    “No. Shit.” I responded.

     Let me tell you a quick story about Dom.

 

    Dom had worked at Cheeca for many years. When I came to work there, he ran the Security Department. He had worked maintenance for many years before that. He knew where all the bodies were buried. He had spent the last few years between hours at Cheeca caring for his wife, who was loosing a battle with cancer and working part time doing odd jobs at his rented condo to make ends meet.

    During Hurricane Wilma, Dom had given me some extra hours working the graveyard security shift while the place was shut down due to the evacuation.

   About three in the morning, before the storm hit, I was alone, out on the south beach in a company golf cart making my rounds. I had stopped to marvel at the beauty of the place and the eerie silence before the storm, when I became aware of a muted, distant alarm going off in the main lodge.

   By the time I got there, Dom was at the fire control panel, cell phone in his ear, dealing with a false alarm. He had been wakened in bed by management through an automatic pager and had come in to the property before I even knew what was happening.

   Later, after Dom’s wife had finally succumbed to her cancer, I saw him stumbling around the property one afternoon. I had heard that the night before he needed help getting his golf cart out of a “jam” on property. I went to the old General Manager, who had worked at Cheeca for many years in many capacities.

   “Drew,” I said in a low voice. “I think Dom might be in trouble.”

    “Yeah,” came the response, “the medication I think, but he won’t stop working. The girls in HR are trying to help. I’ll send them over again.” That’s the way things were done at Cheeca.

    Now Drew was gone, HR was gone, and Dom was gone.

    These were the people let go so the concierge could have a new desk.

    While I was getting more and more depressed at these developments, I did have one thing to look forward to, to hope for.

    I am a singer, and I had put myself through college many years ago by entertaining. I was able, with the help of the best manager at Cheeca, who was also my biggest supporter at the time, to get some part time work entertaining at the beach bar deck. I had worked for her at Camp Cheeca when I started with the company and we had worked well together. She worked her way up to Food and Beverage Director, and I moved up to Number Three Baggage Pusher. 

    The gig helped replace the reduced bell stand income, and made me feel I could do more for the resort than just schlep bags around and park cars.

   On Halloween night, I was playing my usual three sets- just me, my voice, and acoustic guitar, and I noticed Nephew sitting at the bar with his remodeling contractor and a few friends. They were getting increasingly boisterous. The hostess came up to me.

    “It’s Halloween. Let’s hear Thriller!”

    “Thriller? You mean Michael Jackson’s Thriller? The dance tune with the twenty piece band, overproduced into a 50 million dollar video with an army of dancers and background singers? Michael Jackson? THAT THRILLER?”

   “Yeah, you know, Thriller.”

   “I’ll see what I can do.”

    The hostess walked back to the bar.

   The next day, Nephew’s remodeling contractor, the guy that’s supposed to swing a hammer for a living, came up to me.

   “Man, you’re killing me.”

   “I beg your pardon?”

   “You were killing us last night with the sad songs.”

   “You mean like the Eagles’ Already Gone and Desperado?”

    “Yeah, like that.”

    “Those tunes got the biggest applause of the night. I had an old Eagles fan sitting at the front table. I got a twenty dollar tip for doing those.”

    “Well from now on, we want no sad songs- just up tempo.”

   Already Gone isn’t up tempo? I guess Nephew and the remodeler were now programming the resort’s entertainment and music.

    That was my last night playing at Cheeca Lodge and Spa.

 

   Fast forward now to New Years Eve. Cindy and I had just gotten a drink at Hog Heaven and had walked out to the dock. The Regs were cranking it out. I saw a fellow Cheeca employee there who informed me that Cheeca was burning, and motioned south. Sure enough, you could see the orange glow. It seems the fire started from a spark which ignited the fancy new six figure thatched roof covering the beach bar and deck, which had been installed a couple years earlier.

   “I’ve got to get over there.” I said.

   “Can’t do it.” he replied, drink in hand. “Fire Department won’t let you in.”

   I sat stunned for a moment.

  “I gotta try,” I told Cindy, and we ran out of  Hog Heaven. On the way to the car, Cindy wisely stopped a cop and he told her it would be impossible, and illegal, to get in to the property.

      I was pissed, thinking of my boss Joey, the Bell Captain, and the rest of the crew trying to get everyone out and yes, I have to admit, having all the excitement and fun. To me, emergencies, medical calls and the like were always the most fulfilling times at Cheeca- that was when you truly felt needed and helpful in people’s lives. It was as close as I ever got to feeling like a “professional” there.

   The next morning, amid a smoldering, still- active fire scene, I showed up for my scheduled shift. I was immediately told to go home, but I, like most employees who had shown up were able to pitch in, and it was a most rewarding day.

    As you would expect, it was pure pandemonium, with everyone wanting answers and no one having them. The Food and beverage director was already there. She was doing a good job trying to keep a lid on everything. The owners were in Mexico fishing.

    It’s on days like these, of course, that the cream rises to the top, and I was determined to work, even after being told to go home. I, along with other line staff, spent the day answering  questions, soothing raw nerves and helping to facilitate new arrangements for our displaced guests.

      After a while, I found that one of the most helpful and effective things I could do was drive around the resort in a golf cart with a walkie-talkie in my ear. The radio wasn’t even on; no one was monitoring the channel that morning, but I found that our guests, wandering around wondering what to do, wanted to see someone from Cheeca out on the property looking like they had a clue. The stopped me in droves:

     “You must know what’s going on,” they would say, and I would lie, doing my best, directing them to the Green Turtle Inn, which was nice enough to offer our guests coffee and complimentary pastries while we decided what in the hell to do next.

      Later, after the all clear to go in to the building came (employees only), I helped collect the scattered, soggy, sometimes valuable or priceless personal effects of guests evacuated during the fire. I paused for an extra moment while cleaning out room 403, as it held a special meaning for me.

     Outside, we hugged guests while they cried. We listened while they vented. That night I went home feeling exhausted but exhilarated. The firefighters had done a tremendous job, and I wondered what it must be like to serve in such company.

    Our staff had also done an outstanding job and I was proud of them and I was proud of Cheeca.

    The next morning I was told I wasn’t needed again. Salaried managers only. Then that night Joey called to say that the owners had met with the insurance reps and all employees who could work were welcome to come clean up and rebuild.

   Joey bought his bell stand crew breakfast the next morning and then we headed to Cheeca.

   “Where are you going?” said the Manager of the Maintenance Department as we walked into the courtyard.

   “We’re here to work,” said Joey.

   “Not these guys- salaried only” said the manager.

   “Look,” said Joey, his Jersey temper rising, “The owners promised us work. My guys got up this morning and came here to work, and they WILL work.”

   “All right,” came the reply, “they can go work for the cleanup contractor.”

    I looked to my left and saw a group of contract laborers milling around. They all had black t shirts on with the contractor’s name in big white letters. By the time I looked back, Joey and a couple others were heading inside to join Cheeca management, going up to the rooms to continue recovering guests’ sensitive, cherished belongings. I would join the contractor and start ripping up the place.

 

 

 

   The Boss, as I’ll call him, ran the operation, a catastrophic cleanup contracting company out of Dallas. He had no teeth as I recall. Ok, maybe a couple. He spoke in a thick southern drawl;

   “Okayyyy, yeu gaays- feerrm up with Darryl, heea. He’s yeur foman.”

   Darryl was sleeping next to the gift shop. He’d had a long night, driving from Bumpfort or Crapville or wherever the hell he had come from.

   “Naaow, ay wont yeuu to give your names to Darryl so he can rat them deown. As of naaow, ya’ll are our employees. Yeuu do NOT work for Chica anymo. The next thang aaay wont yeuu ti do is unload that truuk.” The boss pointed at a tractor trailer with the company’s logo on it.

   Since Darryl was asleep, most of the guys, all better workers than me (and half my age), started to head for the truck. Of course, the lift gate wouldn’t work and the truck was loaded with heavy equipment- industrial driers and the like. My buddy Chris got up on the truck and started moving equipment.

   Chris had worked with me at the Bell Stand and was an all around good guy, a no complaint, do your job type from Jamaica. He acted like an adult, was a single father, like I am, and I considered him a friend. I was always happy to work Chris’ shifts.

   “Wait a minute, Chris,” I said. I turned to Darryl, still dozing in his foreman’s chair by the gift shop, then turned to the BOSS.

   “Sir, your foreman is asleep. He has not taken our names yet. No one knows we work for you. You have just told us we no longer work for Cheeca. If Chris falls off that truck, or slips a disk, he is out of luck.” Actually I used a different term, one that rhymes with “luck” which I hoped would make my point. It certainly did.

   “Someone haaand this gentl’man a penc’l and paypa.”

   I took all our names and phone numbers down, and headed the paper “As of this time and date we are employees of ABC company.”

    I gave the slip of paper back to the BOSS.

   “Naaow git at it,” he grunted and walked away.

 

   After unloading the truck, we commenced dragging all that beautiful new lobby furniture, now water damaged and stinking, aside, and began pulling up the carpeting. The carpet in the newly remodeled areas was easy, but then came the Bougainvillea Ballroom and meeting rooms.

     The carpet there had been laid down some time ago, and whoever did it used carpet glue. A lot of it. It took me three hours with a hand scraper to strip 30 square feet of floor space. Likewise the rest of the guys.

    I took a break at one point to go grab some latex gloves and dust masks from some Cheeca managers who were sorting personal effects next door. None were given to us from the contractor.

I brought enough back for everyone in the group.

    On the way back I stopped off for a bathroom break at the employee rest room, which was off the cafeteria and lit by a lantern, since there was no power in the main lodge. The plumbing still worked, though.

   Lunch hour came at noon and most of the guys filed out, walking off property to their lunch pails or a hamburger down the block at Burger King. I decided to stay behind. I wanted to talk to Joey and I was interested by what was happening around me at the lodge. I sat in the courtyard, had my say with Joey and was back at my assigned spot with my scraper at 12:50pm.

   I heard a moan, and looked over to see foreman Darryl stirring in his chair.

    “What time is it?” he croaked.

    “You’ve got ten minutes. Go back to sleep.”

    “argghh…”

   At one o clock the rest of the guys started marching in. Chris was in front and gave me a peculiar look as he picked up his scraper.

   “Haaaay, where were yeuuu?” Boss was staring at me from the door.

    “I was right here. I’ve been here for the last ten minutes.”

   “Yeuuu missed lineup. Evry lunch hour we lan up to make shur no one is takin’ off.”

    “I’m sorry. Nobody told me that.”

    “Whale, you shouda bin out thar with the rest of the fellas.”

   “Ok…”

 

    The rest of the afternoon went splendidly, until I once again needed to use the rest room.

I told Chris I would be right back, and headed for the employee bath room. A minute later, while sitting on the thrown, my cell phone rang.

    “Hey mon, they’re looking for you,” I heard Chris say- at great risk, because I am sure we were not supposed to be talking on cell phones at the time.

    “Tell them I’m on the cra-” but by that time Chris had put the cell phone back in his pocket. I hung up and hurried out of the bathroom.

    BOSS was there with two foremen and his security man.

    “Whaaat the heeaal you doin’ son?”

    “I was on the cra- I was using the restroom.”

    “You did’n tell no one did you?”

    “No, I’m used to going on my own.”

    “That’s not even the terlet we use- we use the portopotties out on th’ beach.”

    “I’m sorry. Nobody informed me. This is the bathroom I’ve been told to use for the past six years so I used it.”

    “It dont eeeven werk!!”

    “I’ve used it three times today and it flushed every time!!!”

    Three strikes.

     I was out, but I didn’t know it yet.

    About the same time I was getting balled out for relieving myself, Darryl was getting a break so he could go sleep someplace else. A new guy replaced him. A good ol’ boy that I liked immediately. He actually smiled and spoke to you like a human being. Several times that afternoon he half- complimented me on my persistence with the carpet glue.

   “Boy-” he told me (I was twice his age), “You may not work fast, but you work long!” So went the rest of the afternoon.

   At five minutes to six, after nearly ten hours of work, the new foreman called a halt. So did the others. Once again, there was no direction or information forthcoming, so we all started heading out.

    “WEEEET JUST A GAULDANG MINUTT!”

    BOSS came storming up from the parking lot.

    “Yeeuuu ar on maaa diam ‘til SIX! Naaaooow lan up!!”

    First, Boss lit into the foremen for letting us go five minutes early.

    Then he fired my ass.

 

    It would have been six years next August that I worked for Cheeca Lodge and Spa. I came to the Keys twenty years ago and fell in love with the place immediately. I remember taking my ex-wife and young daughter there to look at the place after arriving in town and spending the day. During later years, Cheeca became a refuge where I would take a good book and sit out on the long pier for hours. I had always hoped to work there.

    I have friends and locals who worked at Cheeca twenty and thirty years ago that tell me what a gathering place for locals it was - what a family affair it used to be.

    I’ve heard stories of hurricane parties and holiday gatherings at the old owner’s residence- of personal visits from the old owner’s family during times of sickness or distress.

   During my tenure at Cheeca, I have met sports heroes, movie stars, supermodels, congressmen, senators, even a United States President.

    I remember being awestruck while one Cheeca guest reluctantly recounted how he participated in the D-Day landings at Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, and liberation of the death camps at Dachau. My generation had watched the greatest generation on HBO, but before me stood one of the real Band of Brothers. Goosebumps.

    My biggest thrill of all was meeting the late great Curt Gowdy. I would always pause while passing through Cheeca’s lounge named after him and gaze at the photos of luminaries and big fish and good times. Curt Gowdy seemed to embody the gentleman sportsman, a model I will never have the money or demeanor to attain.

    The Gowdys came to Cheeca for years and donated many hours to causes such as the charity fishing tournaments that Cheeca sponsored. To me, the Curt Gowdy Lounge had always been the heart and soul of the place.

    On his last trip to Cheeca before he died, while he signed a copy of The Redbone Journal for me, I told Mr. Gowdy about all the winter Sundays that Dad and I would lie on the couch in our living room and watch The American Sportsman.

    “When Dad and I weren’t hunting or fishing, we were watching you hunting and fishing.” I told him.

    “We’ll, I appreciate you watching,” he said, as he must have countless times to countless others.

     Then the inevitable “are you a Red Sox fan?”

     After Mr. Gowdy’s death, his family continued to visit. A couple months ago, I checked Mrs. Gowdy and her daughter out of room 403 in the main lodge. As we walked down to her waiting Jaguar, I told Mrs. Gowdy that she would always be family at Cheeca. She was near tears and told me how much she missed her husband.

    Last month, right before the fire, the Curt Gowdy Lounge had been torn down and renovated to make room for a sleek new sushi bar. 

   I thought about that as I got in my car and went home to tell my family about my last day at Cheeca.

January 6, 2009 

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