The Legend of Dodgy Pete
Hi. My names Global Scouser and I’m a closeted Disney adult.
No wait! Stay! Not a weird one! Let me explain…
In recent months I’ve realised just how important it is to have a child-like wonder these days. Let’s face it the world is on its arse, and we’re all just plodding on trying to make the best out of a bad situation filled with rising costs and lowered morale. This is why I’m writing to you today about Disney. Have you ever been? To any of the parks? There is little I can do to critique the experiences I’ve had in them. For someone who is dead set against capitalism, I sure do change my tune real quick when you put me in front of a fuck off castle and put a Micky Mouse shaped ice cream in my hand.
So, i’ve started pricing a trip up to go over to Florida with my fiance. I’d been loads as a kid, and we weren’t what you’d consider a ‘well off’ family. Taking this into consideration, and adding in my shockingly strong ability to scour the web for bargain travel, one would assume i’d have something booked by now.
My friend this is unfortunately not the case. Like, I know inflation is a thing and stuff, but fuck me it’s expensive. Like super expensive. As in “Global Scouser, there will be no wedding in the next couple of years if you book those tickets” expensive. Upset and folorn, I did what every girl does, vented to my Dad. And then he hit me with a question that shot nostalgia in to my veins:
“I wonder if Pete is out yet?”
Buckle up amigos, here is the bittersweet tale of a once dear friend and the Godfather of questionable attraction tickets.
I was eight years old when I went on my first family vacation to Orlando, Florida. Me, my sister, my Father and my Mother. My Dad has always been ‘that guy’ you see haggling in a market stall. He’s always been determined to find the best deal possible, so I knew that my trip to the Magic Kingdom may not be as magical as Walt Disney would have originally hoped. His bartering has always paid off, though.
So there we were, driving down another one of Orlando’s generically shoddy highways. “CHEAP TICKETS, FREE TICKETS, CHEAP DISNEY”. You couldn’t get away from these words if you tried, and you learn to ignore them, but there, in the middle of an American Blackpool, we felt drawn to a shabby stand, inhabited by only two souls. Pete and his Hispanic lover, Martha.
I’ve never met anybody from a film, but Dodgy Pete is the epitome of a B-class movie gangster straight outta Miami. In his late 50’s, smoking a cigar and flaunting bushy chest hair from his unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt - this guy was the business. If you had Chat GPT create a new Tarantino character, he would be it. The closest reference I can give you is Gus from the hit 1999 Play Station classic Crazy Taxi. He may not have killed somebody, but you can tell he was the kind of person that ran all sorts of kitschy deals. I was too young to understand what was going on at the time, but the next thing I knew, I was on my way to Disney World, and my father was only about $88 out of pocket. God bless Pedro the Dodgy.
I was very lucky, I am aware of this, as trips continued for me and my family, due to the the unwavering abscence of having to rock up to Thomas Cook for our ticket packages. Every year without fail, we would visit our main man. We got closer and closer every year, and Martha even sent us Christmas cards! You know a bond is real when you commit to translantic postage charges in the early 00’s. My dear mother would shop with Martha while Pete and my Father talked business. Martha would lavish me and my sister with all sorts of knock off disney adjacent souvenirs. The third time we visited, I was gifted an elaborate faux Minnie Mouse candle that i’d hug and smell when I was back at home in Liverpool dreaming of my next Floridian adventure (i’d give anything to give it a cuddle and a sniff again).
In early 2012, I visited Florida at the age of 20. It had been seven long years since we had last visisted and there was absolutely no question as to where we would be getting our Disney park tickets, obviously. I remember being unbelievably excited on the drive to Pete’s ‘office’. We pull up, and Martha instantly recognised us. “Ayy Mami! You were so little but now you grown! You’re so beautiful and big!” It was definitely the same loud and loving latin queen from my childhood, and I couldn’t have been happier. We hugged tightly, tighter than I could have ever hugged my candle - and she kissed my face all over, leaving streaks of pink lipstick all over my sunburnt cheeks. Her hug felt like home, and there, being embraced by Martha on the side of that highway I felt exactly like that gangly little girl back in 2001. A young lass never forgets her first four acts of fraud, and as I write to you today my face can’t help but involuntarily sneer knowing everything is digitial in the parks now and that tickets from men like Pete won’t cut it anymore.
The Al Capone of Disney wasn’t to be seen. We excitedly asked where Pete was, and the answer sobered us all. “Pete... is... out of town”. Suddenly the neon lights didn’t feel as bright. The Floridian humidity crept up on us all more than ever before. We knew what that meant, and I very much doubt I have to explain to you what it meant, either.
I was heartbroken. We all were. The man who had given me my childhood had finally been caught. I didn’t want to ask Martha what he was charged with, as she seemed pretty anxious about her own future in Orlando. Dodgy Pete had gone. Desaparecido. He really was ‘out of town’.
The Christmas cards look so empty without his name on them. I’m sure one day I’ll meet Pete again. Until then, nobody could ever give me or my family a better discount. The human spirit endures all types of calamities and heart aches, and my friend, I’m not giving up on this Florida trip. Martha, get a candle ready. I can’t wait for you to see me as a grown woman - hopefully, very soon.
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