Kaplowitz Media. Special Feature | Book Excerpt II
Which book? The book of Phil Zanghi III, of course. We've been teasing this, no? Yes. For some time now (on Kaplowitz Radio.) & below is an[other]* all-time tease. There is no official release date for the book (or an official title) but we do hope to present it in early 2021.
Simply, it's a collection of tales as told to me by Phil, regarding his life in tobacco & beyond.
Jalapa 1997
The cigar boom is in full swing. I'm living in downtown Jalapa on a corner. In front of me is a church. Diagonal is a city park. To my left is the largest tobacco co-operative in the area, their main offices. Again, I'm in the center of all this. On the other corner was a nice enough hacienda, three bedrooms upstairs, nothing fancy but really nice. A study downstairs, and a dedicated entry in front. Guy was a doctor from Miami. Very Spanish architecture, grey. Gated up like crazy.
Anyways, we're moving tobacco transplants from Jalapa in floating trays, planting them in Jamastra -- trying to make hybrid plants. Me, Gabriel, and the rest of us are getting this all together. I need to hang back until the coming Monday to handle payroll. I had one-hundred large in cash money, an uzi, three grenades, a Glock. One afternoon, I see Gabe off with the transplants and I head back to my house.
What I didn't know was that at that very moment someone in the co-op gets a hold of a Cigar Aficionado issue, sees that the sticks they're making for 10 cents an hour are going for like eight bucks per in the US. He asks for a 10 cent an hour raise. Union beefing starts. Guy decides to take the beef to the main site in Managua. On his way there, he hits a roadblock. They already radioed ahead to stop him. He tries for the getaway. Runs someone over in the process. They drag him from his car and fucking behead him. Right in the street. Behead him.
It's war. Jalapa is closed off. Martial law lockdown. All roads are blocked. I still have no clue, it's a Friday evening and I'm getting ready to pour a little something, smoke a little something. I do just that, then head to bed. I wake up in the middle of the night because the fan is off. The water's off. I decide to wait it out, still not knowing shit about what's going on. Then comes dawn, maybe six AM... all of a sudden, a little shitbox truck drives through town with a Blues Brothers speaker on top of it blaring in Spanish "We did not want to take this position. "YOU FORCED US INTO THIS POSITION." Insane rhetoric. "WE WILL BURN IT ALL TO THE FUCKING GROUND"
I step outside to see what's up and right next to me is a little store, a guy named Nino ran it, he'd give me ice cream when I'd buy whatever. He's waiting for me. Tells me to go back into the house. He follows me in.
He says, "It's fucked here. Can you get out?"
"I dunno, I have a four-wheeler."
"You're stuck. Lockdown here. You need anything, call me and I'll bring it."
"Serious?"
"Dead serious."
He tells me about what's going on. They're beheading people, they're going crazy. Nino is a knock on the wall away. It goes on two weeks total. He tells everyone I'm gone. No lights no water. I'm bathing at night in the rain and eating MREs during the day. Waiting. I stayed dressed the whole time, boots laid open to jam my feet into at night. Glock ready and always on me. All my cash on me too. People knew I was set to pay the payroll on Monday, I guess they assumed I never got it and fled. After a week, I'm going nuts. I gun up and ride my horse to the phone patch.
Gabriel answers the phone on me in Honduras, says "What the fuck?" I say "You, what the fuck, you left me!" Apparently, just when Gabriel got across the border is when the shit hit the fan, we were cut off. Then we're cut off again. CLICK. Line goes dead. I look at the phone patch lady, she throws her hands up, shrugs. I guess I'm in it to win it now, I say to myself. They clamped down more, another seven days. Two weeks. Then they settle for 7.5 cents more an hour. All that. It's a punchline to a bad joke. Little did I know, I was protected all along. I didn't find out till later, but they loved me. All I did was pay a little better, give Christmas presents, and some rice and beans here and there. Sometimes cheese.
7.5 cents an hour. Man.
The cigar boom is in full swing. I'm living in downtown Jalapa on a corner. In front of me is a church. Diagonal is a city park. To my left is the largest tobacco co-operative in the area, their main offices. Again, I'm in the center of all this. On the other corner was a nice enough hacienda, three bedrooms upstairs, nothing fancy but really nice. A study downstairs, and a dedicated entry in front. Guy was a doctor from Miami. Very Spanish architecture, grey. Gated up like crazy.
Anyways, we're moving tobacco transplants from Jalapa in floating trays, planting them in Jamastra -- trying to make hybrid plants. Me, Gabriel, and the rest of us are getting this all together. I need to hang back until the coming Monday to handle payroll. I had one-hundred large in cash money, an uzi, three grenades, a Glock. One afternoon, I see Gabe off with the transplants and I head back to my house.
What I didn't know was that at that very moment someone in the co-op gets a hold of a Cigar Aficionado issue, sees that the sticks they're making for 10 cents an hour are going for like eight bucks per in the US. He asks for a 10 cent an hour raise. Union beefing starts. Guy decides to take the beef to the main site in Managua. On his way there, he hits a roadblock. They already radioed ahead to stop him. He tries for the getaway. Runs someone over in the process. They drag him from his car and fucking behead him. Right in the street. Behead him.
It's war. Jalapa is closed off. Martial law lockdown. All roads are blocked. I still have no clue, it's a Friday evening and I'm getting ready to pour a little something, smoke a little something. I do just that, then head to bed. I wake up in the middle of the night because the fan is off. The water's off. I decide to wait it out, still not knowing shit about what's going on. Then comes dawn, maybe six AM... all of a sudden, a little shitbox truck drives through town with a Blues Brothers speaker on top of it blaring in Spanish "We did not want to take this position. "YOU FORCED US INTO THIS POSITION." Insane rhetoric. "WE WILL BURN IT ALL TO THE FUCKING GROUND"
I step outside to see what's up and right next to me is a little store, a guy named Nino ran it, he'd give me ice cream when I'd buy whatever. He's waiting for me. Tells me to go back into the house. He follows me in.
He says, "It's fucked here. Can you get out?"
"I dunno, I have a four-wheeler."
"You're stuck. Lockdown here. You need anything, call me and I'll bring it."
"Serious?"
"Dead serious."
He tells me about what's going on. They're beheading people, they're going crazy. Nino is a knock on the wall away. It goes on two weeks total. He tells everyone I'm gone. No lights no water. I'm bathing at night in the rain and eating MREs during the day. Waiting. I stayed dressed the whole time, boots laid open to jam my feet into at night. Glock ready and always on me. All my cash on me too. People knew I was set to pay the payroll on Monday, I guess they assumed I never got it and fled. After a week, I'm going nuts. I gun up and ride my horse to the phone patch.
Gabriel answers the phone on me in Honduras, says "What the fuck?" I say "You, what the fuck, you left me!" Apparently, just when Gabriel got across the border is when the shit hit the fan, we were cut off. Then we're cut off again. CLICK. Line goes dead. I look at the phone patch lady, she throws her hands up, shrugs. I guess I'm in it to win it now, I say to myself. They clamped down more, another seven days. Two weeks. Then they settle for 7.5 cents more an hour. All that. It's a punchline to a bad joke. Little did I know, I was protected all along. I didn't find out till later, but they loved me. All I did was pay a little better, give Christmas presents, and some rice and beans here and there. Sometimes cheese.
7.5 cents an hour. Man.