weed, whites, and wine

Puss

Puss

U.S. 6

Tonopah fits tight as a glass eye into that mix.

This one happened in the mid Eighties, when I was still in my twenties. I was a poor student with love in my heart and hope in my soul. My Mother had recently died and my family was bickering, so I decided to head down to Jtree for Xmas to visit with some friends that were climbing there. I didn't own a vehicle at the time and couldn't find anyone to go with. My partner in crime(illicit drugs) was kind enough to lend me his Ford Country Squire station wagon with the fake wood paneling. I threw some gear and some clothes in the back along with a .22 rifle and stuffed my pockets with various herbs and chemical substances and counted my cash and then took a fifty dollar bill and folded it up to the size of a dime and shoved into the corner of my wallet. I filled the tank and then left Santa Cruz and headed south.

Somewhere near Salinas as I got onto the 101 I noticed a guy with his thumb out so I thought I could use a little company and I pulled over and let him in. He seemed like a nice chap at first and we kinda shared stories and drove south down the 101. He said he was heading to someplace near LA and I told him that I could take him at least to I5. Somewhere near Paso Robles we stopped and I bought us a couple of sandwiches and two quarts of beer. We ate and drank and smoked some weed and listened to tapes of Big Country and Bob Marley. My passenger who I will call "J" was decent at conversation and I got a little of his life story. He was a "carny" that had recently lost his parents and he was headed south to see his sister.

I cut east on 198 and hit I5 and as I neared Bakersfield J decided that he would ride some more with me and catch the 14 into LA. I was headed over on 58 towards 395 and then 247. Something started to smell fishy but I was young and gave people the benefit of the doubt. At Mojave he changed his mind again and said he could get the 15 into San B'doo. I was really thinking that I needed to get this f*#ker out of my car. It was between Mojave and 395 that J showed me his tattoos. He rolled up his sleeves and had "white" on the inside of his upper arm and "power" on the other arm. He pulled up his shirt to show a swastika with wings around his belly button. Nice, an Aryan Brotherhood member, and I was playing Bob Marley. My mind was spinning and I was trying to figure a good excuse to get this guy out of my car.

We stopped for gas and a piss run in Victorville and as I was walking to the bathroom I thought I heard glass breaking. I didn't put it all together then, so we proceeded to drive. I made up some excuse that I had to go see a guy in Apple Valley and I would have to let him out soon. It was dark now, and couple miles down the road in Apple Valley we passed a bowling alley and it was shortly after that when the nightmare started.

J faked like he was getting something out of his pack in the back seat. As he came forward he wrapped his left hand around my neck and in his right hand he had a broken quart bottle of beer. He shoved the glass into my neck and held it there with his left as he screamed in my ear not to grab my piece. He thought I might have a handgun beside me. He had me pull over and place my face on the seat. J then dragged me out of the car, screaming the whole time and threatening my life. He then tied my hands behind my back and told me he or his buddies would hunt me down if I ever identified him. He took my wallet and all my stuff and drove off in my car. Oh great, now what do I do?

Now it's really ironic because as a little kid my brother and I would practice tying each others hands and then trying to get free. We learned a few things about tying and getting free. So Mr. Nightmare, left me face down and tied up in the desert at night and as he drove off I had myself untied while the rear lights of my car were still in view. I ran the half mile or so back to the bowling alley and made a little scene trying to get a phone call out to the cops. The shitheads wouldn't let me use their phone and I had to bum a dime for the payphone! Standing in the lobby, I could see the CHP interceptor blast by while I was still on the phone. After I hung up I waited there until all kinds of cops showed up and the next part of my drama unfolded.

J got about two thirds of way to Lucerne Valley before that interceptor caught up with him. He drove off the road trying to get away and bottomed the front end in the desert and made it away on foot. They didn't get him but at least I had my car. Sort of. The wagon wasn't going anywhere soon. The radiator was punctured and the front end was very tweaked. The cops on scene found my wallet and ID in the back and the rifle. The CHP got my wallet back to me while I was still being interviewed by the local cops. There must of been five or so cops of various jurisdictions standing there as I looked through my empty wallet and dug into the corner and pulled out that fifty that I stashed earlier. As I unfolded the bill and they all saw it was a fifty, there was a sweet silence. They liked me.

That all happened the day before Christmas. The cops put me up at the Green Spot Motel in Victorville and my car was towed to Lucerne Valley. I had my wallet and ID and that fifty and some clothes that the cops retrieved from my car. I also had whatever was in my pockets, which just happened to be all my weed, a gram of good flake and about five hits of window pane. I walked down to the liquor store and got a pint of Cuervo Gold and some beers and settled in for the evening. I'm telling you, you got to make the best of a bad situation and I think I did a pretty good job.

The next few days I could do nothing. I eventually got some money and got my car fixed well enough to continue my journey but J was still on the loose. When i got to Jtree I looked around for my buddies but I couldn't find anyone, so I camped by myself in Hidden Valley and waited. I was supposed to check in once in a while with the CHP in case they found the maggot and I needed to id him. So I just sat around, ate some window pane and listened to a lot of Rachmaninov.

A couple days later a ranger came by and said the CHP wanted to see me. They caught a guy they thought might be J. It was. He found some trailers out in the desert there and broke into a couple of them, ate some food, found some guns and even shot someones pet parakeet. He waited for one trailer owner to come home and stole his truck at gunpoint and was soon thereafter apprehended.

I eventually went to the prelims and identified J as the guy that robbed me in front of a judge that turned out to be a black man. Poetic Justice. He then plead guilty to several counts and was sentenced to twelve years and six months in the State Pen. He made it back to his sick buddies.



So there kiddies, don't pick up hitchhikers, especially if you are alone. And young and stupid.

I've stayed at the clown motel.

...in my mid western hopelessness I couldn't help but keep on staring at her grimy feet.

I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was – I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.