Sunshine State

In the beginning, there was nothing.

Wilderness.

Worse than wilderness.

Endless raw acreage, a land infested with crocodiles--

Alligators. Alligators, crocodiles.

If you're talking about retirement bungalows,

that's not a selling point.

- Mosquitoes that would strip you to the bone. - It's swampland.

Swamplands they were asking ten cents an acre for.

This was worse. The old name means, in Seminole, "You shouldn't go there."

But we bought it.

We bought it 'cause we knew. You weren't selling land.

I mean, what's land? A patch of dirt? A tree?

Who cares? Farmers care.

Farmers.

Farmers are for TV ads.

People with tractors, amber waves of grain.

They shoot it all in Canada.

I'm talking about certified public accountants from Toledo...

with a fixed pension and a little nest egg...

who don't want to spend their golden years trekking through slush.

Dreams are what you sell. A concept.

You sell sunshine. You sell orange groves.

You sell gentle breezes wafting through the palm trees.

There were palm trees? In the brochures there were palm trees.

- Stately ones. - And when they came down and saw it?

As long as the dredge stayed three lots ahead of the buyers, we were in like Flynn.

This was the end of the earth.

This was a land populated by white people who ate catfish.

And almost overnight,

out of the muck and the mangroves,

we created this.

- Golf courses. - Nature on a leash.

Ahoy there. It's that time of year again.

Delrona Beach Chamber of Commerce...

invites you to join us for the annual Buccaneer Days festivities.

Attend our inaugural gala tonight at the Plantation Island Marina.

Live music and plenty of booty for the little ones.

Maps for the Buccaneer Days Treasure Hunt...

can be obtained at the Delrona Beach Mall,

Captain Andy's Seafood Shack, Island Drugs--

You sure this place is okay? What do you mean?

Black people go in here? If they're desperate to pee they do.

- Stay here if you want. - But your mother's is--

- I need to go before we get there, Reggie. - Hey. Relax.

Krissy, you want to take the register? I got to get back to the motel.

Your husband called. Ex.

He says he needs to see you. Next time he calls,

tell him to take a long walk off a short pier.

- You folks want smoking or nonsmoking? - Could I use your bathroom?

- Yeah, it's straight back to the right. - Thank you.

Buzzards.

Excuse me.

Hi there. You been helped yet?

No. My wife's just using the facilities.

Need a room? Pardon?

You been gawkin' at the motel.

We have a few vacancies, but it's gonna fill up with this Buccaneer business.

No, I was just looking the property over here.

Oh, the property. Yeah, the whole strip here, actually.

If you're from the county, we had our sign moved back.

No, uh-- No, no, I was just trying to imagine...

what the place would look like without, uh, any buildings.

Kind of mentally undressing it. Hmm. Well, you could say that.

You work for that plantation outfit?

Actually, yes. I'm supervising the expansion over--

They don't have enough of this coast already?

This is just a feasibility study, a "what-if" kind of a thing.

What if I told you my Daddy wouldn't sell to Plantation Estates...

if they had his nuts in a trash compactor?

I'd be happy to pass that on to Acquisitions. I'm Jack Meadows.

You're a developer. Just a landscape architect.

I help them decide what they want, push some dirt around.

Mm-hmm.

They wanted my opinion on the whole shoreline here, actually.

So, how's it look?

- What? - Without anything on it.

Looks terrific.

H.Q. says that's where we establish our beachhead.

Then spread out and take the rest of it.

The other side has this end of the island locked up,

and they're infiltrating into Lincoln Beach here.

We're not opposing?

Zoned residential, hostile native population.

It's a minefield. Whereas right here is the soft underbelly of the island.

A key property.

Point of weakest defense.

You make the frontal assault, and I go behind the lines.

Somebody on the inside?

Working on it.

Shit. Shock and outrage...

this morning, as Delrona Beach residents...

woke to discover a senseless act of vandalism.

The Freebooter, long the centerpiece in Delrona Beach's...

annual Buccaneer Days Parade, was burnt beyond repair last night--

This is a disaster.

Local police officials--

It's always the lead float in the parade.

Same kid set another fire a couple years back--

an abandoned crab shack on Lincoln Beach.

This is so not in the spirit of the celebration.

Where you want me to haul it?

...replica of a 19th-century pirate vessel.

Hello!

Hello?

- Dr. Lloyd. - Good morning, Mrs. Pierce.

- Sorry to bother you. - Oh, you're always welcome.

I'm trying to round up some folks for this county commission meeting tonight.

I know it's very short notice, but--

I'd like to help, but I've been feeling poorly.

Oh, my. Would you look at that?

It's that boy poor Miss Stokes took in.

He's in trouble again? First,

her girl went wild and run off to God knows where...

and now this.

- Some people. - What I'm worried about is them...

sneaking through this public domain business without us making a showing.

Now, if we could field just even a dozen residents, we could--

I thought all that was settled when they took the cemetery.

I'm afraid it won't stop there.

Now who's this comin' to call?

Seems kind of deserted.

Yeah, well, you know, more people come on the weekends.

Do I look okay? Relax.

This is gonna be fine.

You don't know her.

Hi.

Is, uh, Mrs. Stokes here?

I have no idea.

Mm.

Well, well. Desiree.

Never thought I'd live to see you back here.

Hello, Mama.

My Lord.

You did get a handsome one, didn't you?

Good luck movin' this shit.

It's like three inches of soil. Then it's solid limestone.

More work, more pay. Hey. What do you think you're doin'?

They wanted this one saved.

Oh, is that right?

What do you think, Chief? That thing gonna make it?

Mr. Meadows say it's a part of his design concept.

Chief's concept of design is he gets up on his machine,

and everything that ain't flat gets that way, fast.

Plantation already sold this lot with a tree on it,

and when they pack your cracker asses back to Georgia,

there better goddamn still be one.

Used to be this was all Exley family. Sea-isle cotton.

Hasn't nothing been planted here in a hundred years.

We want to satisfy our homeowners' desire for privacy...

with the convenience, uh,

and the socializing opportunity provided by the village concept.

It doesn't look like much now,

but when Jack here gets finished--

- What goes here? - That's our main drainage basin.

It's a lake. A lake?

It will go down fourteen feet at its deepest,

and what we dig out will form a hill over here.

- With one of our deluxe homes on top of it. - "Deluxe"?

With all the maximum amenities.

You have a river view, the lake. Elevation.

Damn! These bugs gonna be here too?

Anesthesiologist.

It's a specialty.

If there's a surgical procedure,

I'm the one who renders the patient unconscious.

You knock people out with gas.

That's pretty much it.

I'd be afraid not to wake up.

A lot of people feel that way.

- Reggie's the head of his department. - Is that right?

And at such a prestigious hospital.

I'll have to tell that to Dr. Lloyd.

Dr. Lloyd still comin' down?

He lives here now.

- His Etta Mae passed some years ago. - Oh.

You wouldn't have heard that, would you?

- She doesn't write, she doesn't call. - Mama.

Girl caught the first thing smoking and never looked back.

I took the bus, Mama, not the train.

It's an expression.

Terrell, go run this gravy through the microwave again. It's gone cold.

And who is that?

Your cousin, Sidney Wilkins's son.

Sidney that married Athena Hines?

Well, why isn't he with them?

She doesn't write, she doesn't call.

I'm surprised she even let on she'd got married.

Her own mother doesn't get invited to the wedding.

It was a civil service, Mama. It wasn't in church.

- But it's legal. - It's legal, it's official, all that.

Don't worry. Something they do up there.

- What is it? - Um, Boston.

Somehow I've never been north of Washington, D.C.

You'll just have to come visit us.

When Terrell's out of school, maybe we'll do that.

How 'bout that, Terrell?

You like to see Boston?

The proposed boundary for Delrona Beach...

will incorporate this area in yellow, with the inclusion of Lincoln Beach...