Smugglers Tour of Hollywood #7

When the wise guys offered to hasten the movie undertaking by sending me to the undertaker’s, I promised Robert Sabbag that, when I ended up in jail, he could write the book about my own misadventures along the marijuana trail. As I explained to Bob, even though all of the other people I knew in “the business” (the weed business) thought they were both invisible and invincible, I knew otherwise. I knew, even at that early date in the 1970’s that, in the end, I would pay the piper. Forgive the pun, please.

So, without rehashing the life I led between 1972 and 1981, let’s just say that as Casey Stengel suggested, when he answered the question “What do you do when you come to a fork in the road?”, I “picked it up.” No point in debating the wisdom exercised at that moment long ago, but eventually the fork I took landed me in Federal custody.

It happened this way. In 1983, I had gone on the run and assumed a succession of identities, all of whom were represented by genuine American passports with my picture on them. This course of action seemed prudent after I received a call from the US Attorney notifying me that I was the target of a Federal Grand Jury and offering me a deal in exchange for my full cooperation. Hey, Shane didn’t turn on his friends, neither would I. By 1990 I was Kevin Thomas Berrell and the General Manager of the Phillip Morris agency for the Caribbean, living and headquartered in St. Maarten, in the Netherlands Antilles. I was visiting the island of Antigua on business and waiting in the airport bar for a flight back to St. Maarten. Things were different then. So different that the bar was actually open to the taxi way that was used for boarding aircraft and you could drink your fill and walk directly to the stairs leading into your plane. Eat your heart out Osama!

Anyway, I was downing the Jose Cuervo generic for Dramamine and chatting up the bar when I struck up a conversation with a fellow American, who introduced himself as an off duty Coast Guardsman on vacation. We bought each other drinks and I told him that I was in favor of interdicting hard drugs, but that he and his fellow Coasties should let the weed loads through. He gave me what I later realized was a reassessing look and asked me what I did for a living. I promptly handed over my Phillip Morris agency card bearing the name Kevin T. Berrell and bade him adieu as they called my flight at that very moment. It turned out that he and his partner were in charge of the Caribbean anti-drug taskforce for the DEA and he eventually ran my identity through the US State Department’s Passport Fraud division on a hunch.

As he later explained, the truly tragic part of the whole story was the reaction of the real Kevin Berrell’s parents, living in Inglewood, New Jersey, when they were told that their son was alive and well, living in the Caribbean. Evidently quite a shock when you buried your nine year old son many years before in the local cemetery. To this day that is one of my major regrets. It never occurred to me that my using a dead boy’s identity would bring grief to his parents. Now that I have children of my own, I can only imagine. We not only weave tangled webs, we hurt people when we deceive others and ourselves into believing that any deception for any reason is acceptable.

Anyway, this DEA agent, Alexander Toth, who is now the DEA administrator for all of Latin America and the Caribbean, caught up with me on the island of Montserrat and told me that he didn’t know who I was but when he found out and could extradite me he would, “stick your real identity up your ass”, unless I told him right then and there. By that time, I had a wife and two sons, all named Berrell, back in St. Maarten and, that was a decision that, although increasingly attractive, would take some thought. I declined, but took his card.

I almost wrote, “to make a long story short”, but it’s way too late for that and, besides, most people think my name should be Allen Longwinded anyway. So…..let’s just say that a few months later I went to Florida, retained an attorney, contacted Alex Toth and revealed my true identity agreeing to plead guilty to marijuana conspiracy and elucidating my own criminal history. The fact that I started out as a filmmaker seemed to hold little importance as the tale unfurled. The reason that it all took place was immaterial in light of the weight of my crimes (pun intended). I went to Federal prison.

It’s a funny thing but when people find out that you’ve been to prison, they inevitably ask, “what was that like?” What they really mean is, “did you get raped?” Nope, I guess I was too old to be attractive anymore. Once I was incarcerated, though, I called Robert Sabbag and told him that it was time to start writing. Bob was doubtful. He felt that there had been too much time, that it was a no longer a “topical” story and that no one was interested. At least, it was not enough so to fork over an advance. I got out of jail in 1995 and, in 1997, Bob and I put together a six page story outline and he submitted it to his agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh. Lo and behold, nearly a dozen publishers expressed interest and I was invited to New York for a “dog and pony” show. That meant that the three of us, Jennifer, Bob and I made the rounds of all the publishers.

Another truism about recounting my experiences is that everyone inevitably takes me aside and whispers, “You must/probably/might know a friend of mine. He was in the business, too. His name is ________________.” Sort of the “two degrees of separation” that exist in the drug world. These publishers were no different. Whether they wanted to buy the book, or not, they all took the opportunity to regale us with their own drug related tales and inquiries about some connection to their friends in the 70’s. Finally, we made the deal with Little, Brown, and the rest, as they say, is history. In this case, it really was history, since, by this time, it had been nearly thirty years. I felt as though I was Butch Cassidy reading an account of his own life as an outlaw. The point, now that I finally get to it, is that, without the great book that Bob wrote all those years after we sat up all night, high above Manhattan discussing my exploits, I could never have found a way to make the movie I went to Mexico to make in 1972.

Donnie Bell and I are committed to turning the book SmokeScreen into a sympathetic, true, funny, and adventurous account of the halcyon days when weed smuggling was a romantic endeavor. To that end we are devoting the resources and time necessary to arrive at a great screenplay. That is the first step. Meanwhile, Belltower is starting production on the first of a three picture slate, the last of which is SmokeScreen. Read all about it by clicking on the link below.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Belltower-Entertainment-bw-602691354.html?x=0

Oh, and again, just for the record: No, I was not anyone’s girlfriend or maid in prison. See. You really wanted to ask that, didn’t you?

OK! Next time let’s talk about my meeting with the boys from A Band Apart Productions (yep…..Pulp Fiction and all that jazz) at Nobu for lunch. “We love your story, dude!!!!”

What the hell is a Nobu, an African gazelle? I’m not that hungry, dude!