'This is my first time," Kim Allen says outside the Kerry campaign's headquarters in Tampa. The realtor, who has taken this Friday off to volunteer for a campaign she sees as vital, has never been involved in politics before. She doesn't know exactly what she is going to do — but she wants to do something."We have to win this thing," Allen says, and turns politely to the side as she blows up a balloon — her first gift to the campaign.
Allen is one of eight volunteers whom Janee Murphy, chairperson of the Hillsborough Democratic Executive Committee, has delegated to take early voters to the polls in one of the vehicles the campaign calls, somewhat painfully, "KerryVans." (KerryVans, caravans … get it?)
Allen's KerryVan is a white Honda CRV with Texas plates. Its owner, an energetic retired trial lawyer from Austin named Jo Wilson, drove down the night before.
"We were going to go to New Mexico," Wilson says, "but Florida's where it's at."
At 11:30 a.m., with the car covered in streamers and balloons, the two women set off to pick up their first voter. Wilson clips a pair of shades over her glasses and tilts down the brim of her cowboy hat. Allen's amber sunglasses blend into her dark orange hair, much as the blue Kerry/Edwards pin on her chest matches her jean shirt.
They're ready.
After a block, only one of the balloons is still attached to the car. But neither woman seems to notice. They are too caught up in cross-cultural exchange.
"Y'all know what a blue northern is?" Wilson asks.
Allen does not. She moved to Tampa from Baltimore 32 years ago, and has never heard about the cold fronts that creep into the Texas panhandle — or this particular name for them.
"Blue northerns," she repeats, trying in vain to mimic Wilson's Texas accent, landing extra hard on the "r" in "nor."
Then it's Allen's turn to smile. Crossing the Hillsborough River, the normally landlocked Wilson is overwhelmed. "Water, water everywhere," she says.
Seven-year-old Francisco Gener waits on the front stoop of his house on Columbus Drive near the river. His sister, Leidi, stands behind him in a small purple shirt, her belly sticking out and her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She'll turn 3 next week.
A few days before, the Kerry campaign called Francisco's mother, 29-year-old Victoria Perez, to see if she wanted a ride to the polls, and the kids are coming along.
As Allen approaches the house, Perez scoops up her daughter and starts toward the car. Franciso tags along behind. Perez's mother, Beatrice Aragon, needs help walking because of a partial hip replacement three years before. She waits for Allen by the door.
Leaning hard on Allen, Aragon slowly makes it to the KerryVan.
On the short ride to the main branch of the Tampa Public Library, the talk is of the presidential race.
A few generic Bush jokes get tossed out. Aragon promises her driver that she'll vote for Kerry. "We're not gonna tell you who to vote for now," says Wilson, "but we're not gonna stop you either."
Perez, with Leidi sitting on her lap, says she's voting for Kerry because the funding for her Title 20, a child-support supplement, was cut. "I couldn't send them to day care anymore," she says, patting her coughing daughter on the back. "That's why I started working nights."
At the library, Aragaon and Perez head to the right, into the voting room. Allen and Wilson take the kids to the children's section.
Francisco peels through book after book, making up the stories as he aimlessly flips through the pages. Most involve both flamingoes and trucks. His sister sits on the floor, Allen more engaged with the pop-up book they're reading than she is.
After about 20 minutes, Aragon and Perez emerge from the booths. Aragon says she had some trouble reading the small type, and that she knew nothing about the amendments.
Driving back, Perez asks if she has to do anything else.
"Nope," comes the reply from the front of the car, "you're done."
Allen and Wilson drop the family off, say thank you, and head back to campaign headquarters.
It's been an hour and 15 minutes, and they've been responsible for two votes.
Was it worth it?
She pushes her cowboy hat back; her bangs are matted against her forehead.
"Was it worth it? Of course," she says, grabbing a Power Bar from the trunk of her recently christened KerryVan. "We should all take two people to the polls."
She heads in for her next address.
They put their cash on the table and pleaded. "Hard eight." "C'mon, ace." And then the cheers and high fives erupted from across the room so loudly that no matter where you were on the casino floor you felt that drop in your chest — you'd missed your chance. Men in Bermuda shorts waited two and three deep behind the $5 blackjack tables, quietly hoping for someone to lose the $40 they had put down just minutes before. The slots rang with a dull hum. The Ocean Jewel was finally alive.The floating gambling oasis had waited for its maiden voyage since June. It took months to get the ship, besieged by security concerns and a battery of hurricanes, actually out of the port. It took two and a half hours to get the estimated 1,100 passengers out past the imaginary line in the waters to that blessed place where the ocean is nobody's and anything goes.
All that waiting, it would turn out, was only a dry run.
Door-to-door the trip should have taken eight hours. Two to reach international waters from the Port of St. Petersburg, four to gamble, two to get back. Piling onto the ship before the 5 p.m. departure, most passengers were excited. Some had dressed up for the occasion — long dangling earrings, freshly pressed tuxedoes.
An elderly man with light purple aviators sat smoking in the corner of the Black Pearl, the sports lounge on the sixth deck. "I'm a gambler," said Irving Noutch of St. Petersburg. "I've been excited for it. They've been advertising for months and months."
With the actual gambling still two hours away, the Pearl — which still sports the reflecting gold poles and pink circular booths from its days as a shipboard disco — was something of a hot spot.
Nicola Taylor Brown and her sister, Norma, were in town from London, spending the last night of their vacation on the Ocean Jewel. Sitting in the back of the bar, Nicola already had the new John Grisham book out on the table in front of her. She was dubious of the eight-hour cruise.
"Once you're on, you can't get off," said Norma.
The investors of Titan Cruise Lines had waited longer than anyone for this first night. Their venture started more than two years ago and after all of the setbacks this summer, they were excited just to be moving.
John Manner, a major investor in the operation and a member of the company's board of directors, could hardly contain himself as he sat perched on the edge of his chair telling reporters all that he and his partners had planned.
Gambling on the Jewel wouldn't always require an eight-hour commitment. Within the next 10 days, high-speed shuttle boats would take customers out to the ship, which would be parked in international waters. The emblem would be painted on the smokestacks. The deck would be redone.
"We won't see anything for a year [or] a year and a half," Manner said of the return on his investment. "We have to continue to improve our product."
Paul Barbour, the company's chief financial officer, agreed. Dressed in a tuxedo, Barbour said he was eager for the ship to get the "wow effect."
Four-plus hours of gambling later, the croupiers packed the chips away and the ship headed back to shore. A massive line formed in front of the cashier. Those who didn't have any chips to cash in roamed around the ship, looking for somewhere to sit down.
Back in the Black Pearl, Nicola Taylor Brown was in the same spot, her glasses on and her book in hand. Her sister, Norma, slept next to her, using a coat for a blanket. People had found places to sleep throughout the boat, lying mouth agape on slot machines and curled up in corners next to ATMs.
Speaking softly, Brown said she expected better. The food was bad, she said, and the trip was just too long.
Herb Lande, another member of the Titan board of directors, sat alone in the restaurant.
"It's been a great night," he said.
But Lande's hopes for the ship's maiden voyage were about to sink.
At first it seemed like another opening-night glitch, nothing worse than the burst pipe in the bathroom or the crash that downed some ATMs earlier in the evening. But after a half an hour attempting to dock, it was clear that the boat was going nowhere fast.
The ship had taken a bad angle into the dock and now, even though just a few feet from the dock, it couldn't land. High winds prevented the ship from maneuvering. A tugboat was needed. The closest one was in Tampa — almost two hours away.
A group of people clustered by the exit started to complain. They had been gathered there for nearly two and a half hours, and the air conditioning had faded long ago. It was hot. They were tired. And they wanted off.
"This thing sucks. It really sucks," said Pat Militello, a retired nurse from St. Petersburg.
Other passengers echoed Militello. Some tried to find the humor in the situation.
"The only good thing about the Seminole casino is you know you're getting fucked and you can leave when it's done," one man said.
"If you always wanted to live in a boat," said W.C. Henderson, "now you got the chance."
Near the roulette table, Matt Seward rubbed a wet cloth over the back of Eugene Finch's steaming neck. Finch, Seward's uncle, had recently had surgery and was struggling to outlast the heat — and the wait. Mocking the company's gift of $10 for use on the ship's slots, Seward asked, "What is 10 bucks gonna do for someone who has a stroke and dies?"
Others, like Deborah Wells, a diabetic, complained that they were going to miss their medication.
Passengers lay around the ship like fallen soldiers in a Civil War re-enactment, ravaged by a 13-hour stint of drinking and gambling. Some employees, having been on their feet for most of the day, continued to hand out water and snacks. Others joined the sleeping soldiers on the battlefield.
Even Howard Steffes Jr., Titan's CEO, seemed exhausted. "It was an inconvenience," he said, clearly relieved after hearing that the tugboat was just minutes away. "It is what it is, and it was a great night."
As people exited, passenger Mike Gaskins looked on and said he didn't blame Steffes, or the boat's pilot. "Things happen every day," he said. "And this is one of those things."
At least one passenger wasn't nearly as forgiving. Due to get on a plane to go back to London in just a few hours, Nicola Taylor Brown had only one word for her last night in America.
"Bollocks."
This article appears in Oct 27 – Nov 1, 2004.