Chuck Bamata: The true story

Chuck was living in a pretty cool, one bedroom apartment that he got for $160 a month. It was just off Las Olas Boulevard in the Victoria Park section of Fort Lauderdale. The year was 1974, and it was in an old one-story complex that had probably been built in the early forties, ancient for South Florida standards. But even in the 70’s, $160 was a good price, and for a starving artist, it was perfect. It was a five minute drive, ten minute bike ride, and thirty to forty minute walk to the Art Institute, and Spring Break USA. The apartment was practical and extremely well located for a motivated-to-party twenty-one year old, liberal art student.

Follow up:

Chuck went out almost every night while he lived there. If it wasn’t to a bar, it was to a party, if it wasn’t to a party, he was on the Strip, hanging out and hitting on the college chicks, reaping the benefits of being exposed to the girls of Spring Break gone wild.

One Saturday night, Chuck was on the Strip at the Ocean Mist. The Ocean Mist was just north of Las Olas Boulevard, facing the water of the Atlantic, right on A-1-A. It was a rock and roll fight bar, with live music, and a large extra- twitchy staff of muscle-bound bouncers who carried baseball bats. On a side note, Chuck worked as a bartender there one year, and every time a scuffle broke out, the bouncers would converge, and all the bartenders would “hop” over the bar to get in on the fight. Troublemakers were shot out onto the sidewalk, riding on the front of a wave of bat swinging, punch throwing staff.

But that night at the Mist, was way before then, and Chuck was just hanging out, when he got “acquainted" with a good looking, intelligent speaking little brunette named Sherry, and they hit it off. They sat at the bar, and talked at scream level for hours, over the decibels of the local rock band. Little by little they sat closer and closer together, until by the time the place closed at two a.m., Sherry was sitting right against Chuck’s crotch. Out the door, and across the street onto the beach, after a moonlight walk along the ocean, he and Sherry went to Chuck’s place in her car. She left at about four.

The next morning, Chuck woke up to loud knocking at his front door. Delirious and naked, he stumbled out of bed as the knocking continued in short bursts. Chuck grabbed a beat-up, holey and tattered, faded green bath towel, and wrapped it around his waist. One more burst of fresh knocking hit the hollow wooden door, just as he reached for the doorknob.

When he pushed open the door, the sudden switch from the subdued, darkness of the shaded apartment, to the intensely bright Florida morning sun blinded him. Like Dracula at sunrise, Chuck shaded his eyes with both arms, and tried to focus on who in the hell was making all that racket at the ungodly hour of nine a.m. on a Sunday morning.

It was Sherry. Her shoulder-length hair was still slightly wet, and she looked fresh and smelled great, looking as hot as he’d remembered from the blur of the night before. She was standing there on the cracked concrete stoop, looking delectable, with a bag of Mr. Donut, just staring at Chuck, but not at his face, much lower.

“Nice hole.”

“Huh?” Chuck was still groggy, though his body was waking up fast.

With a mischievous grin on her face, she pointed down, “Nice hole you got there.”

Chuck looked down, and there poking his head out of a terry cotton miniature window, as if straining to see the light of day, Dicky was helping Chuck greet their guest at the door. He had worked his way out of the hole, and reached out into freedom, as if trying to get a full-body tan. Sherry came forward with a giggle, and shook hands with Dicky pushing him back through the hole. Then suddenly, she pulled off the towel, and pushed the naked Chuck backwards through the doorway and into the dark apartment. With one hand, she pulled the door closed behind them, shutting off all the blinding sun, and finally, Chuck could focus, and see just what he had in front of him. Chuck reacted as expected. The donuts would have to wait.