My friend Jim and I went on a trip to Miami. We’d driven down from Atlanta to check out the beaches, driving with all the windows down to get the breeze as beach towns and high-rise condos blurred by. Elderly men wearing Bermuda shorts and black socks padded along the sidewalk to the shuffleboard courts. By the pool of their condo, blue-haired, deeply tanned, leather-skinned women were reclining on sun loungers.

Gazing at the Intracoastal Waterway, I admired the luxury yachts moored by the colonnaded mansion. I was enticed by the lore of Florida as we ventured into its storied past of rum-smuggling, pirates and alligators. Coming into the city, the Miami skyline ahead of us, we rolled up on a car blasting the staccato rap of reggaeton.

We crossed Biscayne Bay and came into South Beach. Getting out of the car and heading toward the beach, I felt the salty air against my face. The Beach was a place where self-created people came to seek casual pleasure and synthetic happiness. We had come here to indulge in the same kind of diversions.

We wandered into the first hotel displaying a vacancy sign. Dropping off our bags, we headed straight to the patio bar and order tropical cocktails. We sipped umbrella drinks and looked over at bikinied women hanging out poolside. After a few mellowing drinks, we wandered Ocean Drive.

A young woman in a pink bikini rode by on a bike cruiser, her long blond hair fluttering in the breeze. A muscle-boy wearing wraparound shades roller-bladed along the concrete path past a woman with streaked blond hair. She had such a fit body, that he couldn’t help but look back at the tiny shorts that showed off her butt cheeks, and nearly side-swiped a group of tourists taking selfies along the beach.

That night the beach traffic was heavy as expensive rides were rolling along the strip. A white Ferrari Testarossa glided down the street, pumping out synthesized instrumental music. My attention was distracted by some skimpily-dressed girls tumbling out of a long black limo, laughing and chattering away as they headed for a bottle club.

The loud beat coming from the club was hypnotically repetitive. There was a tight door policy and a line had formed around the block. A surly bouncer stood looking out over the crowd, doing face control, deciding who entered, picking them out of the crowd. An attractive girl in a thigh-gripping miniskirt flashed him a driver’s license and he motioned her through.

We went into the next club where women danced with their eyes closed, feeling the intense pulse of the electronic music. Posturing at the sleek bar was a blond guy wearing a pale blue T-shirt under a white linen suit and pants and white slip-on loafers without socks. We sat at a table. I chewed on a stirring straw, glancing around at haughty and remote women in bodycon dresses.

A man in a tight black T-shirt, wearing padded headphones, stood in an elevated DJ booth, spinning techno music. Two Brazilian models sat on a white sofa that stretched along the wall, drinking chilled champagne and eating chocolate-dipped strawberries. I listened in on what they were saying. They were beautifully vapid. I found their conversation getting so tedious that I stopped eavesdropping and Jim and I decided to go hang around the bar.

Jim slid onto a bar stool and ordered us some cold beers. Sitting alone at the bar was a lanky guy in a green silk shirt. After a while, he leaned over and introduced himself. Manny was a Miami local of Cuban origin and seemed eager to talk.

“Been in Miami long?” he asked.

“Just since morning,” I said.

“Where from?”

“Atlanta…We’re beat. Been on the road ten hours straight, driving through the night.

“Driving all night? That’s a bit much. What was your hurry?

“Wanted to get more days out of our stay here, ” Jim said. “So when did you get here…to Miami?”

“I was born here, bro. My dad was a political refugee. Castro released him from prison and he came over on the Mariel boatlift in 1981.”

The subject of Miami in the early ’80s came up.

“It was the most violent city in the world,” Manny told us, “The murder stats were off the charts. Castro admitted that by letting all these people go, he had flushed the toilets of Cuba. Many were good, hardworking folks. But Castro used the opportunity to get rid of his rapists, murderers, criminals and even mental patients. Now the streets of Miami were flooded with immigrants needing quick access to money to survive. Cocaine had also come into Miami in a big wave. Dangerous characters were toting MAC-10s and meting out violence on a huge scale. The county morgue overflowed with so many bodies they had to rent refrigerated trucks to store all the corpses.”

“That’s messed up, man.” I said. “But I can understand the lure of it. There was a shit-load of money to be made.”

“Sure was. The Medellin cartel was consolidating its control. Pablo Escobar even had a pink mansion on Miami Beach. They made a fast fortune. Their money was washed clean by building much of the city’s skyline.”

“I heard the party scene back then was unreal!” Jim said. “Fueled by cocaine and cases of Dom Perignon.“

“You bet. You know the Mutiny hotel in Coconut Grove? Well, no place in the world sold more Dom Perignon. The drug lords had so much champagne they filled their Jaccuzzis with it. They didn’t even bother counting their money and paid their bills with wads of cash. Some of the reputed smugglers were into powerboat racing, using their boats to move kilos of drug powder from the Bahamas to Miami.”

From his pocket Manuel pulled out a plastic bag of dried mushrooms. “Come on and we’ll  go to a cool club in Miami,” he said, seeing that we’d all finished our drinks.

Half an hour later, we were waiting in line outside Equinox where a severe man with a ponytail was carding at the door.  We walked into the sterile wilderness where electronic music and strobe lights dictated fast robotic movements to the dancers. The room was populated by a strange variety of people. Cubans and sorority girls, biker chicks and transvestites in bikinis. An Elvis impersonator with long sideburns, wearing a star-sprinkled suit was mime-singing on the bar. Dancing beside him was a woman in a see-thru dress with gold stars on her nipples. The king transvestite, with his huge Afro-hair, wearing Thor shoulder pads, metallic breast cups with spikes and a tiny G-string, was writhing on a platform.

Colored lights flashed and red and blue lasers criss-crossed the dance floor. Synthesizers filled the club with hypnotic bouncing sounds, whistles and sirens. A tweaked-out chick screamed, “Oh my God. The cops are comin’! ” I felt a flash of heat in the heart as she clutched my arm. We walked through a forest of shadows, hallucinating in a tropical night of tracer bullets, escaping from a firefight, pursued through the thick undergrowth of sweltering jungles.

Floodlights from black helicopters overhead sliced through the canopy of trees. I could hear voices, whistles, pounding drums and silhouettes with burning torches chanting behind me. I escaped by climbing a metal staircase. Empowered, I strutted above the seething lurid masses, hypnotized by a beat that ricocheted off the heart. I watched in a trance as a video screen flashed images of ravens pecking at a carcass and bees swarming around a hive while psychedelic music laced the air.