Penultimate Decision

For a brief moment in my life I took a summer job as a bicycle messenger in San Francisco. In the days before pdf's and email, large business districts of major urban areas relied on folks like us to deliver important documents of all sorts. The job was basically like being a cab driver for papers. I had a radio, and a dispatcher, a bag and a bike. The thing that distinguishes being a messenger in San Francisco from other cities like say New York is, you guessed it, the hills. And when I say hills, I mean hills with a capital H. Other than that, I think messenger culture was probably fairly similar in most cities.

Financial districts have a very distinct caste system, and of all the castes, messenger is the absolute lowest. It didn't take long to realize this. Drivers on the road hated you for weaving in and out of traffic and generally causing a vehicular ruckus. Office building folks hated you because by and large most messengers look like they are extras from the movie road warrior. One fellow I met looked rather normal. He had a baseball hat with longish hair coming out of it. Thing was, his head was shaved shiny all around the top, right where the rim of the hat began. His thing was that every time he would make a delivery, as he was leaving, he would tip his hat to the receptionist and wish her a nice day, leaving always a rather stunned expression in his wake. He was also known to write obtuse messages on his dome from time to time. The sheer creativity expressed in the diversity of shenannigans lead me to believe that this might be a culture in which I could thrive. But it was a closed culture, and I needed I guide to show me the underside of these invisible people. That person turned out to be Mike Mowhawk. He was named such because well, his name was mike and he had a bright blue mowhawk. We hit it off immediately. And slowly over time, he revealed many secrets of the downtown pariah.

Since most of the messengers lived in squats and such, most of them had no bank accounts, so being paid by check presented a problem. Mike showed me the Korean liquor store that almost all the messengers went to cash their checks on payday. Payday was once a week, and so this little hole in the wall turned into quite the circus every seven days. Now there are many Korean and Vietnamese liquor stores in SF, who will bend all sorts of rules so I always wondered why this one was the chosen one for nearly all the vagrant messengers. Once I had put some time in, and folks figured I "was ok", I was allowed to find out why. A half block down from this particular store was a large sheet metal fence. The fence could be peeled back giving enough room for a person and a bike. Behind the fence was a large empty lot surrounded by tall windowless buildings on the three other sides. This was messenger party town, and every payday, flush with the cash for their vice of choice, the messengers would party down. I was young, but still I thought I had seen a few things in my time, but this... this was something else. I can remember just staring, soaking it all in, this hidden world that I had somehow found my way into. It left an impression.

Now just like that fellow with the baseball cap and the semi shaved head, I began to learn that most everyone had a "thing". For some, like Mike, it was his bright blue hair do. For others it was more complex games - like taking a huge hit of weed right before entering a building and elevator and trying to hold it in until no smoke came out. Most of the larger buildings had separate elevators for pond scum like us, so it wasnt that big a deal, but did hear tales of messengers pulling it off in the main lobby elevators as well. These stories were carried like trophies, with everyone trying to out crazy the others. Keying cars while in motion. Throwing AA batteries at cars that cut you off or curse you. Now I was young, and not up to any of these potentially litigous antics, but still... I wanted a "thing" of my own. A game I could play throughout the day, something that amused me.

It started accidentally. Every receptionist must sign for a received or picked up package. I would then have to make my own initials on the form. Once I had a woman sign, and then found myself without a pen. I asked to borrow hers, made my initials and then unthinkingly left with her pen. I didn't even realize it until I was out of the building. Thing was, it was a really nice pen - Parker medium ballpoint black, if memory serves. As I clicked the pen, it clicked in my head, for reasons that make no sense at all. I would try to see how many pens I could get a day. Absurd? Yes. But mostly harmless, and it gave me something to think about whilst dueling with the three mortal enemies of all bicyclists: rail car tracks, wet bald, and drivers that have no idea you are there. I had found my zen by collecting pens.

And I was good at it too, maybe 10-20 a day, all shapes, sizes and colors. I would sometimes pass Mike and he would shout "How many?" as a greeting. I would always reply "Six!", or wherever I was in my count, as a response. I kept them in a big box at home for reasons that were entirely unclear to me. I mean, this ink armada was way beyond what an average person could  use in a lifetime. Still, I got this odd sense of satisfaction out of that box of ill gotten writing implements. Was it the minor transgression? Was it a developing obsession? Is this how the concept of "hobbies" came to be a part of the human mental landscape? A minor amusement slowly creeps into the grey area bordering the realm of sanity? How many other aspects of my life have yet and since followed this slow winding path from pass-time to albatross?

As the box filled up, I began to worry. Its as if I could see the writing on the wall in a thousand different color inks. I could see myself sitting in that back lot with my head shaved into a reverse hare krishna, mumbling incoherencies and non-sequetors between gulps from my Mad Dog 20/20, celebrating yet another meager payday. But I had found some friends, outcast and odd though they may have been, and had carved out my own peculiar little identity as the guy you went to if you ever needed a pen. I was the pen kid, and god knows why, I kinda liked it.

I still had three weeks before I was to return to Santa Barbara for my second year of college, so I knew this mental mobius strip of mental hopscotch had a punctuation mark. This was a fact I never divulged to my fellow riders... I wanted to be the pen kid, not the college boy. But my box was nearly full, and when I considered starting a second - I wondered if I would even make it three weeks. I was addicted to the thrill of riding fast through the streets. I was enamored of the underdog access that being an accepted member of the pariah class afforded. And I liked stealing pens. My friends, I was at a crossroads.

And I was literally at a crossroads, 5th and Market, I believe, when my path was decided. The radios are set up so everyone can hear everyone else. This allows for the en route transfer of documents from messenger to messenger, and we were constantly handing things off. I was on a corner, waiting to meet another messenger to pick up some archetecht blueprint something or others, so I was monitoring my radio. On it, Mike was confirming a pick up and heading out for a delivery. Mid-sentence there was a horrible crashing screaching sound, and then total silence. The dispatcher then asked Mike what the hell was that but got no response.  And again. No response. A little while later, I found that my friend Mike had been hit and crushed by a muni bus and killed. I had quite literally just heard someone, someone I knew, die on the air. It was the jolt that shook me from my obsession. It was payday, and I went and turned in my radio and id, collected my last check and never looked back. I never even went to the back lot payday party. My career, sanity lay elsewhere.

And to this day, if I find myself in possession of a pen that is unfamiliar, I often imagine Mike up there somewhere with a bright blue halo saying "Only one? Weak!"

Incandescent Monsters

Thru the day of plod and toil

and beasts that turn one's blood to boil

grey faces pass in one big blur

but rarely one will cause a stir

A rumble somewhere deep below

a reflection of their blinding glow

a slap across the boredom's face

a shine, a smile, a touch of grace.

Nothing gives me joy like the incandescent monsters.

And in the evening, twilight fades

and the sky turns all those mournful shades

the sun has died, the light has gone,

reflections pass, and sorrow spawns

that one that held the key to all

that led me to the tragic fall

dashes through my weary head

and leaves me with the words unsaid

Nothing like the sadness missing incandescent monsters.

And then to bed in hopes to sleep

where mirrors wall and conclusions leap

I drift off and start to dream

misty narrative with lens of cream

So of course at four I wake

cold, alone I start to shake

I must face the nameless dread

of mistakes I've made with my own head

Nothing like the late night fear of incandescent monsters

At last its time and up I rise

tired yes, but to my surprise

my body glows just like the sun

and I will face another one

A day, a week, a month, a year

is but a road no one can steer

yet where my path is dest to go

is something Im still inclined to know

Nothing like the hope inspired by incandescent monsters.

Memories of the Afterlife

On my ninth birthday, I got presents and cake, and my father got the flu. My father wasn't a lot of things. He wasn't very reliable, he wasn't a hard worker, nor a very good provider. He was however one thing - a very very funny charming man. A conversation with him always ended in laughter. He was also a prankster, April fools day being a national holiday for him. He was always up to something. Legend had it that in high school, an older gentleman across the street was pegged as to his schedule, and always parked in the same spot. So my father and his friends, having no wheels of their own, would simply "borrow" the car every night, and made sure to return it at the appropriate hour with the appropriate amount of gas in the tank. He never grew out of behavior like that, so to a nine year old, he was a god. Sounds stupid, but at that age, sneaking an entire pizza into a movie under his jacket was often more fun than the movie itself. I loved him very much - but I guess that goes without saying.

So after my party, the cake had been eaten. And after a week, the new toys had been played with and were gone in their newness, but my father's flu did not go away, rather, it had grown quite worse. Many trips to the doctor, and a few trips down misdirected medical avenues later, he finally had his firm diagnosis: cancer of the bile duct. He was hospitalized for exploratory surgery. Trips to the hospital were surreal for a child my age, and I don't remember much. I remember playing pool with relatives. I remember the shock of seeing him with all those tubes and machines. I remember the grave concern and gathering of family when it came to be the day of his surgery. I remember laying my head in my grandmother's lap for what seemed an eternity in the cold steel waiting room. I remember my mother attacking the poor doctor physically when he gave us all the bad news: the cancer had gone too far, and the prognosis was grim. There were things that they could try, but we shouldn't hold out much hope.

And so the medical staff tried those things, and so did my family. In my father's mother's case, this included lutheran priests, which my father did not cotton to all that well. In my mother's case this involved bringing in shamans and healers of various stripes to lay on hands and cleanse auras. My poor father did not cotton well to those either. He was born a cynic and would likely die one as well. I can remember him in a n argument with my mother regarding these healers saying "Hey, you bring these weirdos in and then leave with them… I have to *stay* here with the whole staff snickering behind my back!"

Ultimately, it was clear no amount of science, god or new age shenanigans was going to do the trick, and my father resigned himself to prepare to die. I remember the conversation he had with me, telling me no matter what happened that he would always love me. I guess I kind of understood what he was saying, but he still had that twinkle in his eye, so to my small self, some how it just wasn't real. Though i did not know it at the time, my father was adamant about dying at home, and an epic battle had been initiated to try to accomplish just that. Though I did not know it at the time, it seems that once one is in a hospital, it is very hard to leave unless one is either healthy or dead. I do not know the mechanics of it all, but somehow he arrange to have hospice care at home. And so, home he came, with a plethora of equipment and care nurses of various stripes.

The next couple months, as my father got sicker and sicker, was a parade of old friends and distant relatives. Seems there were always many extra people in the house, which was good in that it distracted me, but bad in that t distracted me. My father was visibly sick now. His skin and the whites of his eyes were a ghostly yellow color. He had lost a ton of weight. I still remember the shock of finding out he was wearing diapers. My rock, my world, my hero was being eaten alive before me and my reaction was at best described as having the dear on the headlights look. As he got even sicker still, people came around less. People could barely even face me, with a few exceptions.

Finally, he was what could be described as semi comatose. He would be out for long stretches, and then come back. I guess you could call it sleep, but it was something else, really. When he was lucid, my mother, younger sister and I would sit with him. And he would talk. And what he would talk about was this on going series of dreams, the narrative of which went something like this…

He had been flying in a plane with his "friend" (I will use the name) Jon Smith, someone that none of us recognized. Jon had been teasing him to learn to fly, but my father was reluctant to try. Then there were several flying lesson dreams about how awesome it was. Then there was a dream where my father had tried to fly his first time, and had, it seems, managed to crash and become stuck in a rock. He was ready to quit flying forever, but jon over the course of dreams, convinced him that not only was it wrong to quit, but that he should just get right back in the plane, and in fact try to fly solo for the first time. After a a few more dreams, my father relented and actually became excited about his "first solo flight". Even at nine I had a vague inkling of what this was all about. I remember the tears as he asked his wife and children to accompany him on this great new achievement. I remember the tears as my mother said no, that this was something he had to do himself, but that she loved him and was very proud of him. After that exchange, he slipped into a coma and never was lucid again.

His condition worsened, and everybody knew that the end was very close. One evening I was told that my father was "probably not going to make it through the night, and that if I had anything I wanted to say to him, now was the time - he couldn't talk back but he could hear me". I was then placed in the room with him alone and the doors were closed. This then is a moment that has shaped my life since. The dim yellow light. The shadows. My frail father, weighing maybe 80 pounds. The diaper clinging to his skeleton. The IV making its drip drip drip, ticking off the last minutes of his days like a timer. What the fuck was I supposed to say? This is not hollywood. I couldn't ask for a line. I stood there frozen, overwhelmed with grief and anxiety. And shame! I was supposed to be making the most of my last night with my father, and I was told that he could hear me, so I imagined him waiting for my final words, and being disappointed in my silence. In my final moments with him I was failing. But I couldn't help it. His twinkle was gone and replaced with the jaundiced haze of the almost dead. I actually remember feeling that this wasn't even my real father, although part of me knew it was. This moment, as I type this, I wish I could have done it different, but for the life of me, I cant figure out what I could have done. I was only nine. I didn't stand a chance. I left the room without saying a word and that is a burden that I have carried with me to this day. I left, went in to the room and went to bed.

That night I awoke with a start. I was half asleep but had this strange awareness, a presence if you will. I looked through the dark at the opened doorway to the hall and thats when I saw it. Now I am not a superstitious guy, I inherited my father cynicism and it runs through my very DNA. But I know what I saw and I know what I felt. I saw a disturbance in the air, like heat waves in the dark, pass through the hall across my doorway. It was vaguely man shaped and seemed to float. It crossed the doorway, paused briefly in the opening, and then left my field of view. When it paused, I felt something, like a familiar presence. It was a very strong feeling of love, of sadness. It is so hard to explain the experience. It was as if it was only barely there, and lasted only seconds. I lay back down and eventually got back to sleep. When I awoke the next morning, I was informed that my father had died in the night.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the wake, which was quite the affair. Having grown up in my father's mother's house, a neighborhood kid of many generations, simply everyone of every stripe appeared. It was my father's wishes that we have a blow out party and just really cut loose. And cut loose we did! My mother, who lived upstairs, was with all the beat hippy types, smoking weed and getting bleary and teary. The pile of seventies weed on the dining room table was like a small hill. Downstairs, in the inlaw apartment when my grandmother lived, the hi-balls were clinking and all the lode more conservative folks were getting tanked. And we, the children navigated the stairs, trying to avoid the hugs and slurred condolences. The downstairs people bitched about the drug use upstairs, and the upstairs bitched about the alcoholics downstairs, but really the bitching wasn't so intense, it was just something to talk about that wasn't sad.

At some point in the evening, my mother related the story about the flying lesson coma dreams to a man named Freddy Norman. Freddy was a giant bear of a man and had grown up in the neighborhood and gone to school with my father. And even though he capped of the evening by falling down the front stairs, the memory of that story must have stuck in his stoned drunken mind. It was about a week or two later when he burst into ow house shouting "You're never going to believe this!"

Apparently the name 'Jon Smith' had rung a bell for him, but he couldn't place it at the time, but eventually he did. Turns out that this fellow had played third base on my father's high school base ball team. He was curious, he said, why it was him, Jon Smith, that my father had named, as they hadn't really even been friends or acquaintances - just merely teammates. Freddy had done some research to try to find him, to tell him about these dreams and what he had found alarmed him. Seems Jon had gone on to be a commercial airline pilot and died in a plane crash the year before.

So. There's that. I'll just pause and let that sink in for a sec.

To this day I wonder. Was this some sort of paranormal experience laid bare by circumstance. I mean I did have some sort of experience the night my father died that was certainly not "normal". Or. Or was this one last practical joke my father had left us with. Did he somehow know about the fate of Jon Smith and concoct one last ruse to leave us all hanging with as his final calling card. Truth is, I will never know. At this point either seems as plausible as the other. Personally, I am burdened that now I will have to come up with something even more extraordinary for my own death, I mean, it seems that it s one of the few family traditions we Cross' have, eh? And man o' man, my father is, as he always was, one tough act to follow.

What Happens in Vegas...

I suppose for this tale, a little bit of context is in order. For a period of time in the late eighties early nineties, I worked for the Grateful Dead in several capacities. Their mail order ticketing program was handled by a group of people named the Hog Farm, who run Camp Winnarainbow in Laytonville CA. After a particularly nasty beat down of deadheads by the police in Los Angeles, the Hog Farm approached my friend and pot source Bobbo (again, all names have been changed) to start a new program for West Coast shows to help grease the wheel so to speak. This involved two phases. One show up to the lot where the show would be the day before and as fans arrived pass out garbage bags, talk about the rules camping or no camping for example, and just sort of be emissaries to promote good will and safety. For this Bobbo and crew would receive free tickets to the shows, and sometimes backstage passes if there were extras. The second aspect was to scoop up folks that had had a little too much of their vice of choice before the police did, and find a place to make them safe. For this we were exquistly suited, as Bobbo drove a 35 foot International Harvester school bus named Laughing Jack.

Laughing Jack was quite the spectacle. All but the first row of seats had been removed. In the back, there was a huge PA system that could be removed thru the rear exit doors and brought around front. The board for the PA sat directly behind the driver's seat, which had been made to swivel so the driver could simply spin around and become the sound man. Bobbo had also rigged a strong FM receiver to tap the FM board feeds in the show so we could literally broadcast the show inside in the parking lot if we so desired. Laughing Jack was also a sight to see, as it had been completely muraled stem to stern, the most noticeable feature being that the front had been made to look like a giant skull, with the windows for eyes. It was an awesome ride to be first mate on, although we didn't use that term. I, as second in command, was known as "the roller". Among my other duties, if Bobbo were driving, he would twist his fingers in the big mirror up front and I would access the secret stash and twist him and enormous joint.

Bobbo smoked and sold ALOT of weed. He was my connection and I was the distributor, so I was trusted. Now I know a lot of you are envisioning Bobbo to be some thin enlightened veggie long haired peace-nik. I can assure you this was not the case. Bobbo was a vile man, both in physical appearance and in spirit. He was kind of like a nerd biker guy, as he was a computer egineer. Sexist, overly flirtatious, almost spherical, unkempt and just foul. He had a twin dreadlocked beard that joined at the end that he would flip over his head to eat his meat. And he ate only meat, with only maybe the occasional potato to break things up. He had heard that Owsley Stanley was a strict carnivore, and semi adopted that stance. He often reeked so bad it was hard to be near him. And, as I said, he smoked ALOT of weed, I'd estimate a half an ounce a day on average. With all his flaws though, I was in his inner circle, and had been in business with him for years. That business payed for my college mostly, so I dealt with it. Besides, from a business point of view, he was very good at what he did. He was extremely careful, knew the laws inside and out. We never held anything but weed at GD shows, and never ever sold there it was just to big and iconic a vehicle to keep anything but joints on the downlow. Even alcohol was prohibited on board.

We had done this "set up and scoop up" for tickets deal a few times and it was a huge success. There are few stories there, but they are not germane. We had our sights on the upcoming shows in Las Vegas, which sounded like a lot of fun. Something happened before the shows though that changed everything - Bobbo got a girlfriend. I know I know it sounds implausible, but its true. She was a local homeless alcoholic named Vanda. I use her real name, because a) I am certain she is no longer alive, and b) she claimed to have a twin sister named "Wanda". Wanda and Vanda. Um... Ok. Bobbo and Vanda were quite the pair. Bobbo was trying to set her up with a business making incense at shows, printing up labels that said "Vanda's Vapors", of all things, and buying her some essential oils and what not. Vanda made me slightly uncomfortable, as brash insane homeless alcoholics often do, but hey, it was a big bus. Like so many things in my life, I could deal.

I too had a new girlfriend, Zulu, whom you may remember from "Second Date". I invited her on the ride to Vegas, and even though she absolutely LOATHED Bobbo, the allure of free tickets and adventure was too much to pass up. So me Bobbo Zulu, and Vanda packed up our wholistically obtained guatamalan backpacks, boarded Laughin Jack, and head inland to Sin City. As an aside, there was one other person in the caravan who was not riding on the bus and that was Eli. Eli was driving a very normal looking K-Car sedan. Why was he not in the bus you may ask? Well it was Eli's job to transport large quantities of LSD back to town after Bobbo had hooked it up at the show. The bus was a cop target, but Eli and his baby face and boring car were not. Even though I knew, I would never guess that that brown car driven by what appeared to be a Youth for Christ crusader was in fact carrying up to 10 *books* of acid (thats 10,000 hits in case you are wondering). So off we went.

We arrived friday late afternoon at the Sands Hotel and parked in the parking lot. Bobbo went up to meet with the crew and receive our assignments. We were going to be spending the night in this parking lot, and then driving in the morning to the UNLV arena to set things up for the Sat/Sun shows. Bobbo returned shortly from his meeting with some special treats for us all - some rather large hits of "purple gel" LSD. I had only ever seen blotter acid, and this crystaline, translucent thing that looked like a bit of hardened fruit roll up looked ominous My tripping days were almost over at this point, having failed the acid test miserably a few months prior (a great story for another day), but I was in Vegas, baby, and feeling all Fear and Loathing. I was also urged by new girlfriend who was all about the hallucinogens. So with a wince of what's to come, I swallowed the tab and headed with Zulu out to the strip.

One thing one must consider. When given drugs by people affiliated by the grateful dead organization itself, said drugs are going to be of the very highest quality, and very very strong. The mescaline I had been given in Oregon a while back kept me up for a two and a half day lesson on the reason native american art tends to be so rectilinear. This purple thing I had eaten was no exception, and as such, I can only offer a few glimpses into what transpired. I remember the bulk of the trip was spent at Circus Circus, which is why, like black cats, clowns now make me flinch. Though I was sure that EVERYONE knew that I was cerebrally supercharged, I soon came to the realization that, no matter what one looks like or how odd one talks or laughs inappropriately, as long as one is pumping money into some sort of game, no one will pester you - hell they will even give you free tang screwdrivers! So Zulu and I camped out at the nickel slots below one of the circus stages, an enormous bucket of shiny nickels in our laps, watching the most bizarre acts perform languidly on stage. I remember going to one of the buffets and watching the animalistic ways in which the morbidly obese ate their dried up steak breakfasts, like some sort of swollen lion guarding her kill. I remember running into shabby old Vanda at one point, who in an alcoholic stupor and tripping balls was trying to aggressively sell incense in the lobbies of the casinos up and down the strip. "Insent! Insent! Smell good! Insent!" How she stayed out of jail that night I'll never know.

Towards dawn we returned to the bus and tried to sleep a little which was of course, impossible. Around 10 we headed over to the arena and did our thing, passing out trash bags and directing parking as folks arrived. We got our tickets during the first song and went in to enjoy the show. As we got situated, Zulu produced a bag of mushrooms and indicated we should at them. Again, I was reluctant, but I knew that mushrooms and lsd are cross tolerant, and after the intensity of the trip the night before, they probably wouldn't hit me that hard. So as not to be a party pooper, I ate the damn things. They hit me alright, and for the most part, I had a good show. At the end, we stumbled back to the bus to see what was cooking. Well, besides meat, Bobbo had been granted the custody of three acid casualties which we were going to have to drive back into town and attempt to find where they lived. Groups of acid casualties can be either amusing, annoying or terrifying, and in this case we had one of each variety. The amusing one was a woman whose clothes kept 'falling' off and wanted to cuddle with everyone. The terrifying one was a black dude who had unwittingly taken a dose of something and was very angry about it, but couldn't get it together to actually be violent, and the annoying was a man who just kept talking talking talking nonsense. Me and Zulu crept up in the bed in the back and left the three to sort it out on their own. We were tired and I needed to lay down for the 20 minute drive to town. They would be ok. Vanda could deal with them, as she was more at their level anyway.

Just as I was being lulled into a coma by the rhythm of the bus I was awoken by the flashing red and blue lights of doom streaking into the rear window. I peered out. We were in the parking lot of some gas station/mini mart in the middle of nowhere, and had a undercover SUV blocking us in. The cop got into to talk to Bobbo the driver. Apparently he had pulled a three point turn across a double yellow line... in a ginormous psychedelic school bus, which was the real reason for the stop. Bad points for Bobbo for giving them a legit reason, but really, if you were a small town desert cop, wouldn't you be just a little bit curious? The reason Bobbo got pulled off the bus was no doubt the ashtray filled to the rim with roaches the size of your thumb. This was also probably the reason for his road side sobriety test, which was one of the most pitiful things I had ever witnessed. Owing to his short, morbidly obese stature, even if he was stone cold sober, he was simply not physically able to walk a line or touch his nose. At any rate, his sub par performance was what led him to be cuffed and led to the arriving squad car. In fact soon, we had a small regiment of squad cars and police vehicles. I guess, some lights in Vegas are just not so cool, you know?

We were inside the bus, the adrenaline of the reality closing in on everyone had a somewhat sobering effect, even on out guests. We watched the cops huddle up and decide what to do next, which as it turned out was to forcefully instruct us all to get off the bus with our id's. For the next four hours we went through every form of cop trick in the book on the side of that chilly desert road, while what looked like the DEA stormed through the bus, tearing every thing to bits. We had the group interview with the 'good' cop which consisted of them trying to convince us that they knew we were on *something*, and it would be better for us all if we just told them what it was. I could understand. As a group we looked more like extras from the movie road warrior, all dusty and disheveled, but I was not gonna give up. Then it was the 'bad cop' who threatened us harm if we didn't confess our ingestion transgressions. One of the most amazing things to come out of this was, that to a person, no one confessed. Everyone copped to "having a couple of beers", except for Vanda, who when asked what she was on managed to belt out "I drank a liter of Vodka!" in her best homeless rasp. I do believe she was the only one the police had no doubts about. Then it was time for individual interviews with both good and bad cop, where they tried to get us to turn on one another. BAd cop even laced our fingers together behind our back and squeezed hard saying if we did not confess, he was going to break my fingers. I stuck it out and so did the rest, which, given the circumstances, had to be some sort of record.

All during the interview, the DEA guys were pulling random bits of hippy ephemera out of the bus and making a little pile on the hood of one of the cars. Rolling papers. Small bag of weed. Quartz crystal. Stickers (which I think they thought were LSD). End of a bag of mushrooms. So despite our surprisingly unified "two beer" resolve, it looked like we were screwed. But the cops made one critical error. They had pulled us off the bus with just our id's, not our 'stuff'. So by the time the had finished putting the contents of the bus through the blender of justice, they couldn't tell what belonged to whom. Good for us, bad for Bobbo, as he was the registered owner of the bus, and no was legally responsible for all its contents. Especially bad for Bobbo when they found the half ounce of weed that Vanda had stolen from Bobbo and bagged into eigths to sell sereptitously for sending money. Now Nevada has some pretty fucking steep possession penalties as they like to control the means of delusion in that town, but even in the more liberal states, bagged out quantity is "intent to distribute" - and that usually means time. Bobbo was fucked.

The cops took all our particulars, took Bobbo off some jail themed casino, and, after allowing the two girls to go on the bus to grab everyone'e sleeping bag, towed Laughing Jack off to god knows where, leaving us, weary, dirty, traumatized and cold on the side of the freeway. Now as Bobbo had been being put in the car he had shouted some instructions to me. BAsically I was to go to the Sands Hotel and find someone named Peter Smith, who would put me in touch with the Dead's lawyer. So slowly we devised a plan. We went into the mini market and pooled our money and caught a cab into Vegas, to the sands. Arriving there, I instructed everyone to wait for me in the lobby, that I would find this guy and everything would be put right. So I left them in a huddled lump on a bench, and me, looking Mad Max Manson himself, approached the front desk. 

Excuse me good sir, do you have the room number for a Peter Smith at this hotel?" I asked, hoping that decent grammar could over come the obvious displacement of my physical presence. 

Clickity click click... "No sir, Im sorry, we have nobody here by that name." 

Damn I thought. So I tried some other names that I knew worked in GDM... clickety click clickety... "No sir..." "No sir..." "Im sorry sir..." 

Things were getting desperate. "Do you have anyone by the name Jerry Garcia listed here?"  

CClickety. "Im sorry sir..."

So after going through all of the band members' names, and realizing that I was seriously testing the patience of the man behind the counter, I threw out my hail mary pass. "Look", I said, "do you have ANYONE affiliated with the Grateful Dead staying at this hotel at all?"

"Do you want the Grateful Dead party room"? he said.

"Um... yes?

"Take that elevator in the corner to the top floor"

"What's the room number"?

"Its the whole top floor".

"Thank you very much!"

I gave the molten lump of my compatriots a thumbs up and headed for the elevator. A well dressed man got in with me, and after seeing that I had selected the top floor, he eyed me suspiciously. Dead heads are forever trying to meet band members and sneak back stage to give Phil that special crystal from Pluton 7 that can cause low harmonic telepathy or whatever they cook up in their chemically imaginative brain. "Where you headed"?, the man asked.

"Grateful Dead Party room." I said, matter of factly.

"Um... Who invited you?"

"Nobody."

"Well you just cant..."

"Look, no one invited me, but I need to find someone named Peter Smith, who will put me in touch with a lwyer because Bobbo just got arrested and he's in jail and Laughin Jacks been impounded..." I blurted out in a panic.

And who did it turn out to be that I was speaking to in that elevator? Why Peter Smith himself. He was alarmed and invited me to come up and relax while he made some calls.

OK. Dead shows are about sleeping in tents, getting dirty, eating "kind veggie burritos' that were barely heated on a propane stove... its kind of the deal. But the room I was in now was palatial! There was a huge buffet filled with all kinds of delicious foods. Amazing couches and views and just well, rock star penthouse in Vegas. All the people were elegantly dressed, or at least clean. I ate, I sat. And as word got round that I had the hottest gossip in the scene, I told the story again and again. Peter Smith told me that lawyers had been called and the legal wheels were in motion to spring Bobbo on bail. I was finally beginning to relax. It was then, after about two or three hours of living the lif of luxury, that I remembered what I had left in a dusty heap down in the lobby. I excused myself, and head downstairs to see what was what. 

The three hangers on had all wandered off and I found Zulu and Eli in the lobby with very worried expressions on their faces. I assured them all would eventually be as well as it could be. We got a room and decided to head back to Santa Barbara the next day, as there was very little more we could do. I slept the sleep of the dead, as it were.

The absolute funniest thing happened the very next day. I got up and went downstairs to obtain my continental under-ripe melon balls and shitty coffee. I passed a news stand. There on the front cover of the Sunday paper, in full living color, was a picture of Zulu taken through the glass of the rear window of Laughin Jack, accompanying a story about how the Dead had come to town. I bought a few copies, and we all had a good laugh. Later I framed that clipping with our unused Sunday concert ticket and gave it to her as a gift. I dont think she liked it very much though as it always reminded her of a very traumatic scary time. But whatever, a keepsake is a keepsake.

Epilogue:

We all, save Vanda, had to return to Vegas two months later for Bobbo's trial. I will never forget the look on the cops faces when we all showed up, all spit shined and in nice clothes, college degrees in hand. The prosecution cut a deal with the Dead's high power lawyer, and Bobbo paid a $10,000 fine, had to take a Drug Awareness Course by mail, and promise never to return to Vegas. Which was fine, none of us were all that hot to get back there anyway.

Can't Get There From Here

Where are you?

Im not here.

Did you leave?

So to speak.

Where did you go?

Over here.

Why?

I couldn't be there anymore.

When did you leave?

A while ago, slowly, you didn't notice.

Is it better over there?

I honestly don't know.

Well…

Well, what?

Well, are you going to stay over there?

Probably.

Really?

Really.

But I need you over here...

I told you, I cant be over there anymore.

But I can barely see you from here...

I'm sorry.

Could I…?

Could you what?

Could I come over there too?

No. You must stay where you are.

Why?

Look, I don't make the rules.

Rules?

Rules. You must stay where you are.

Couldn't I go somewhere else too?

Perhaps. But you cant come here.

I don't like it here when you are over there.

Well…

Well what? I will go somewhere else too!

Even if you go somewhere else…

Yes?

You will always be right where you are.

And?

And that is not here, where I am.

I see. And you like that place, huh?

I don't know. But if I did, I probably wouldn't tell you.

Why?

Because you are where you are. I don't want to make you feel bad.

But I may go somewhere else…

…and end up where you are, which is not over here.

I guess, but…

But what?

But I could…

Stop. I told you, you will alway be over there.

But…

Yes?

I don't know.

Don't know what?

I don't care where you are, I just want to be there too.

Why?

Because you make every place better.

Well…

I have made things pretty damn good over here.

And?

And I could go to even better places...

See?

I guess.

So whats the problem?

I miss you.

I miss you too.

But…

I will shout to you over there soon.

Um… ok.

I am happy you have made over there better.

I know. But…

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

Second Date

After I graduated college, I lingered around for a while. I rented a two car garage in a house known as the "Witch House", which was a house occupied by five young witches. I guess they would be more accurately described as "wiccans" or "pagans", but owing to their penchant for performing elaborate rituals involving fire and costumes and whatnot, the house could not have been more descriptively named by the locals. Shortly after moving to the Witch House, I developed a crush on the girl next door. Well, it was actually three houses down, but close enough to stretch for the cliche, eh? As I have said before, I was rather freaky in my daily attire, and this girl could not have been more the opposite. Clearly an athlete, she looked more like a sorority sister than anything else. Also, the house she lived in was nice. Really nice. There was nothing burning in the backyard, and no one lived in the garage. Everyone knows the freaks can often turn the normal chicks, but my crush lay idle. I mean what was I going to do? Invite her back to my cement floor repository of bones, art and laundry?

That all changed one evening when I ran into her at a party and she bummed a cigarette from me. We got to talking, and I had to pretend to be surprised to find out we were neighbors. We walked around and talked and she turned out to only be half of what she appeared. She was from a wealthy-ish LA family, the only daughter with three older brothers. She did dress normal on the outside, but on the inside, there was definite strangeness. That strangeness appealed to me greatly. We ended up kissing a little and setting up what we would consider our second date for later that week. For the sake of the story, I will call her Zulu, in honor of her strange side, as here real name definitely reflects the normality she projected at that time.

The second date day arrived, and seeing as I had yet to own a car, we took her truck. We headed up into the beautiful Santa Barbara hills to a place called the Vedanta Temple. Vedanta is kind of like the Unitarian Universalist of the East in that they accept everything, but have way groovier bric-a-brac and architecture. Its like this big garden with little nooks and stuff to meditate. Strolling around was very nice, as we got to know each other better. After aligning our meridians for the afternoon, we decided to go out to dinner. So back down the hill we went, to some little bistro in Santa Barbara. We had a lovely dinner over a bottle of wine, and played with the two black cats that appeared to live on the patio. 

Ah. Those black cats. I must say at this point that I am a fairly superstitious guy, but my superstitions are rarely of the cliché variety. I have a whole host of totally specific, unbelievably obtuse, and highly irrational cause and effects running around in my brain, but I dont think they affect anyone but myself, so I mostly keep them to myself. That said, to this day whenever a black cat crosses my path, I flinch a little and put my guard up. Sad, eh? But here's why.

The day, the meal, the wine - it was all overwhelming. We got caught up in the moment and didn't want it to end. So we decided to go "driving in the Santa Barbara hills", which may as well be a euphemism, so thinly veiled are its truths. There is nothing in the hills to do at night. Nothing. There are barely even any houses. There *are*, however plenty of little out of the way places to park and have a little lovin in the back of a truck with a camper shell. So me, Zulu, and her neurotic black dog got in the light blue toyota and headed up into the hills drenched in Santa Barbara night. 

To be perfectly honest, I thought she was driving a little fast. It was almost as we were in a movie, and she was trying to give a thrilling experience up the curvy, desolate hillside roads. She must have sensed my unease, and actually explained to me that she had grown up driving fast in the canyons of LA, and that I shouldn't worry. Besides, its not like there are any other cars up there at that hour. I tried to relax, but I didn't really even find the time, as we went into a turn a little bit fast, hit a patch of gravel that had slipped into the road and began to skid.

Now this wasn't a fast skid. Or perhaps, as we discussed later, the whole thing seemed to be happening in slow motion. I watched the front left tire, with the car at a jaunty angle, slowly approach the edge of the embankment. I had absolutely no doubt in my mind that the car would stop in time, I mean, life is charmed right? Things like that don't happen in real life right? And then things started happening fast again, as the nose of the car went over into empty space. 

Now growing up having a family car that has barely functioning seat belts ('65 VW microbus), my family had developed an odd habit for abrupt traffic situations. My parents would always lunge on arm across the passenger compartment, and attempt to prevent the passenger from, oh i don't know what, defying the laws of physics i guess. This was the move that I attempted out of instinct as the car went airborne nose first. I leaned over and put my arm out to prevent Zulu from hitting the dash. I was a little late and my arm arrived just after the first impact. Funny thing was, neither her nor her dog were there, by which I mean that they had been tossed out the shattered windshield. This left me laying across the bench seat of the truck, a position as it turns out, that would save my life. So down down down I went, 250 feet or so, in a flurry of noise metal and glass. I remember very little save for the gearshift hitting me periodically in the torso on some of the five or so impacts on my log ride of the damned. I was knocked out as the car finally came to rest.

Coming to. Noise. What is that noise? Is that yelling? What is that roar? Where am I? What an odd light? Ouch! And it all began to come back to me in an adrenaline fueled rampage. That roar is the engine with the throttle stuck open. That light is the one headlight pointing straight into the sky through the demolished windshield and dry swirling Santa Barbara dust. That yelling is Zulu coming down the hill telling me to shut the car off. I started to get myself together. I shut off the ignition. I drug myself up to a semi sitting position. Thats when I noticed that the roof of the cab had been crushed down to the seats. I was in the only possible angle that I could be in in the car that allowed my body to remain with its factory issued geometry. I crawled out of the drivers side gap in the windshield and got out of the car. 

The swirly light and sudden silence were straight out of a movie as I staggered away from the vehicle. Now perhaps it was the cinematic quality of the ambiance, or perhaps a byproduct of an overly imaginative brain, but at that moment I remember having one of the most truly unusual thoughts I have ever had. One of those thoughts that leaps into one's head and really soaks in to the core. I had the sneaking suspicion that when I turned around I was going to see my body in the car, all, well, deceased. It is truly hard to explain what it feels like to be utterly convinced that you are already dead. I turned slowly and was greatly relieved, yet slightly confused to find I, or rather my remains, were not there. I was startled out of my confused revery as Zulu arrived at the bottom of the embankment.

Now telling me to shut off the car was sound logical advice, but what followed from her mouth presently was absolutely incomprehensible. She was panicked, saying things like "They can't find out it was me!" and "I have shoplifting on my record, I will go to jail". Before I could even process what this all meant she took off running into the maze of manzanita at the bottom of this valley. Not just running, but rather more like fleeing in terror. As I have said, I live my daily life in a superstition induced personal maze of specific yet irrational fears. There is only one good thing about this fact, although I would be hard pressed to explain why it is true. When the shit actually does hit the fan in real life, I am not panicked at all. So, even though I had just done the ultimate barrel roll, and knowing how easy it is for one to get lost in manzanita scrub, I chased her down the valley and eventually caught up with her. I talked her down, telling her that it was her car, with her name attached to the plate and that there was nowhere to run. Besides, we had had an accident, we had done nothing wrong. Slowly I brought her back to both reality and the accident site. And slowly we began our long climb up the ravine.

Upon reaching the top, we found the body of her dog, which switched her last remaining traces of panic to absolute grief. I sat with her on the side of the road, consoling her as best I could while staring down at the single cyclopic headlight beaming up from the depths below. The adrenaline was wearing off and I was beginning to hurt bad. I heard sirens in the distance. A car pulled up before the firetruck, and said that she lived up the hill always and had heard/seen the accident and dialed 911. Good thing too, as this was a time before cell phones. Once again, things began to to happen really fast. The silence and darkness of the night hills was broken by a flurry of activity, lights and shouting. Firemen. Police. Paramedics. Onlookers. The police, no doubt judging my freaky book cover to Zulu's normal one, were absolutely convinced that 1) I was driving and 2) that I was on drugs of some sort. Despite our unified protestation to the contrary, they were very nasty in their disbelief. Finally, we were left to the paramedics who, in a much more friendly tone, let me know that they needed to know what I was on before they could treat me. God damnit. I'm not 'on' anything!

Finally convinced they prepared us for the ambulance ride. Zulu, still not making much sense, started going on about how much an ambulance ride would cost, especially for me since I had no insurance. I don't know why, perhaps it was a final relenting to the absurdity of fear, or perhaps my brain had been finally rattled sufficiently and all sense was left down in the ditch, but I agreed to forego the ambulance ride. I hadn't even considered how we might actually get to the hospital or home or whatever hell was next in this calvalcade of hellish confusion, when a kindly old grandmother right out of central casting stepped up and offered us a ride. 

So now my second date found me in the back of an old Nova sedan, rolling down the 101, my body's natural painkillers wearing off fast. The thing I remember about this ride was how long it took to get to the hospital. I don't know if it was because this woman was a senior, or whether she was trying not to stress us out by going too fast in a car, but she was driving So. Slow. We eventually arrived at the ER, where I was checked out and miraculously hadn't broken a single thing. Friends came and picked us up. I spent the next four days jacked out of my gourd on pain killers and unable to move.

But on that ride with the old woman, I remember considering my life, the black cats, the silent crazy of the person sitting next to me. It was just one of those take stock moments that arrive every now and then. Unfortunately, the only stock I got out of that moment was that at least I would have a good story to tell, which was disappointing as I have always believed that a proper near death experience should be accompanied by some sort of life changing epiphany. Here I had gone to the trouble of nearly mangling mysel in 3000 pounds of glass steel and rubber and I hadn't changed at all. I mean, what was it gonna take? That was many years ago, and I still haven't had my epiphany. I wonder I ever will. Perhaps it is just not in the cards for me, or perhaps such does not exist. I wish I knew, though, and still feel it is something that I need. Perhaps that itself is the epiphany. Odd that.

The Bear Story

My bear story is the first thing I ever wrote on line (August 2, 2006), and indeed it was writ in a fit of pique. I wlll post it here in its original form, , typos included. So then…
____________

My Karma is Unbearable

So yesterday at one in the afternoon, zipping along the 250 bypass just prior to, fittingly, the Barracks road off ramp, I hit a 150 lb black bear at 55 miles per hour. I didn’t even have a chance to break. I knocked the poor beast probably eighty feet, went into a good long fishtail skid amidst airbag smoke and confusion. I managed to get over to the side of the road about ten feet from whee the bear ended up. And there we were. The bear was still alive, but clearly fucked up bad. I felt HORRIBLE. I have been waiting to see a bear since I moved to Virginia, just not this close. So what to do? Well I didn’t know if the bear was just stunned or what, but it kept trying to get to its feet. So I went over to the side of the road and tried to get oncoming traffic to slow down and/or move over to the fast lane. I was also waving my arms like mad trying to get someone to stop and let me use their cell phone. A good five minutes passed. Probably a hundred cars passed. No one slowed . No one stopped… the bear was making these horrific noises and flailing about. Finally this old man stopped in a tiny car, handed me his cell without asking anything and proceeded to try to get traffic to slow down while I dialed 911. I know, I know, I should have a cell phone to call help. But I have always preferred calling for help the old fashioned way… by flapping my arms and yelling. I guess that doen’t work so well anymore.

Another five minutes, the bear is still wailing and flailing, and here comes the fire truck. Fire men pull up and hop up on their truck on the bumpers and shit, all looking all around. Im thinking what the hell, and I ask them as much. They say that maybe momma bear is probably around and pissed. I am thinking, if there is a reason for three burly firemen in big ass outfits to be up on a truck, then maybe you guys could, oh I don’t know, invite me and this old guy up on the truck? I told them I’d been there a while and hadn’t seen any signs of momma (as if I had even really considered that being mauled by momma was an additional option in this cavalcade of tragedy). So they got down an started putting up traffic cones.

Then the Ablemarle PD shows up. Nice guy. Heavily armed. Lots of equipment. And after a brief overview I start to kind of ask him if he might “put the bear down”. It was making the most awful sounds. He looked at me and told me that “this gun wouldn’t kill that bear”. Now Im no gun fetishist, but Im pretty sure that a 9mm would kill the already mortally wounded animal. And if it really wouldn’t, then Im pretty sure the shotgun in the trunk would. But what do I know? I figured he was avoiding some sort of weapons discharge paperwork. Won’t someone think of the paperwork!

Then a landscaping crew showed up, decked out in hunting cammo and such. They started to tell tales of bears they’ve killed hunting and habits of black bears and on and on. At this point the bear is trying to flop itself down the embankment. I can’t stand to listen to its cries anymore and I start to walk up the road to check the place of impact, maybe find my hood ornament, and also just to put some distance on the whole circus of death. I also didn’t wanna be right there if it got ‘put down’.

That is when two animal control jeeps pulled up from opposite directions. One guy pulls up on the medium and wanders down into the “woods” to deal with the bear. But the other woman pulls over way back up the road, where I am. We ended up walking back towards the circus that was ensuing by my broken car. I casually mentioned that the last thing I expected to pop out of the bushes behind a shopping mall was a bear. She said that bears use this part of the bypass to cross “all the time” and that it must be part of their “migration route”. Again, Im no animal behaviorist, but Im not sure if bears do ‘migrate’ per say. And even if they did, and this stretch of 250 was some sort of orsine artery (which I have driven four times every day nearly every day, for six years, miraculously missing the flocks of bears crossing the road) don’tcha think you’d put some sort of ‘bear crossing’ sign, or some such? I am pretty sure that this woman had just seen march of the penguins the night before or something. All the time. Migration. Yep. Sounds good.

As we then passed my beloved, crumpled honda she stopped looked at it and said ” I thought these cars were supposed to be safe.” Safe? Safe for what? I just hit a 150 lb animal at 55mph and Im here talking with you about it. I loved that car and it had done its job, and here “March of the Bear Cubs” was casting posthumous aspersions. Oh the humanity.

Well the bear finally died on its own, with one last painful moan and then it was paperwork time for everyone. The clipboards were brandished, the numbers jotted, the boxes ticked – heck, the cop who was drawing out the accident diagram even had a litle stencil for animals, which he carefully etched onto the front of the little car diagram. It looked kind of like a tapir riding a golfcart. I asked if he had different stencils for different critters, but no, he said, he didn’t. Damn budget cuts, I thought.

So in this flourish of proto-beauracracy the landscapers came over and were chatting with me, all casual like. ‘I reckon’ this and ‘I can tell you what’ that. Then one finally asked “so… you want that” casually gesturing towards the dead bear, as if it were the last portion of mashed potatoes. I wasn’t sure if I understood him correctly. I glanced at the officer who volunteered that, as the driver, I had “the first rights to the carcass”. First rights to the carcass? You know, if they have made up rules about this, then that can only mean that there have, in the past, been fights over such things. “You may have knocked that bunny into the fast lane, but Im pretty sure it was my grill that killed him.” Tune in next week on RoadKill Court”. Carcass rights, eh? Well at least I know I have them should I ever hit something that I would really treasure. And what exactly did anyone there think I was going to do with the carcass anyway? I had no more car. Was I to sling it over my shoulder in the 100 degree weather and mosey off down the bypass into the horizon like the end of some western feel good movie? Yes, I said. I waive my rights to the carcass. You can have the bear. May has well have been early christmas as they tossed on the back of their trailer and drove off, thanking me. Upon reflection I have wondered what their intentions were. Food? Decorations? One of my coworkers has since told me that I could have sold the “gall bladder to the chinese for thousands”. Oh yeah? And how exactly does that work – ebay? “Winning bidder pays shipping and provides removal of the gall bladder?” Whatever.

So then it was done. I caught a ride with the sixty year old tow truck guy with profound psoriasis who proceeded to point out every female human that we passed with some qualitative observations (mmm look at those nice thick legs!). In between the rounds of pornographic pageant judging he told me that yes, bears are something, but when you’re driving what you really got to look out for is turkies. Turkies? Yes. Turkies. “They’ll come through the windshield and really fuck you up, fuck you up bad”. So I guess now when my post traumatic stress disorder abates slightly I will, while driving, be greeted by phantom suicide turkies popping into my peripheral vision. I tell you one thing, next thanksgiving, Im not leaving the fucking house.

So here I sit, waiting to see if my car is indeed totalled officially, wading through paperwork, and wondering if I will ever pull myself out of debt. I had just paid it off and just changed the oil! I am trying to shake the thought that, if there is a god, that somewhere along my life’s path I must have done something so terribly wrong that now he is throwing bears at my car. It has come to that, has it? I can’t for the life of me figure what my transgression might be, but believe me, if I do, I’ll stop. Please, just no more flinging wildlife. And by the time I finally figure that out, maybe all my coworkers will have stopped calling me “Grizzly Adams”.

So. How was your day?

Muni: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly. Part II

The Bad.
Paul was a kindly old bespectacled man who was the proofreader at the newspaper where I worked. He looked the sort of idealized Norman Rockwell grandfather archetype that some how instilled in me the urge to go fly fishing with him at some bucolic cabin, despite my never having had in interest in such activities. So it was to my surprise to find out that he collected weaponry. Collected may be too soft a word actually, I better go with horded. If his claims were true, his home was a depot that housed enough various implements of destruction to arm a small South American militia. After I had recalled to him yet another tale of feeling menaced on my midnight commute cross town, he gave me a small gift. He called it a "CIA LEtter Opener", and it looked rather like a triangular tent spike with a handle. It was made of black hardened teflon of some kind and was about 8-9 inches long. It was explained to me that I could carry it anywhere as its material would not set off metal detectors, and that its beveled triangular sides were designed to cause "the maximum amount of bleed out from a puncture wound". Um, thanks? My fly fishing fantasy kinda died that day, but I digress. As I am not accustomed to being "armed" in any sense of the word, I threw it in my messenger bag and kinda forgot about it.

Some weeks later I found myself on the good old 38 Geary line about to embark on yet another adventure to make it home. It was years until I figured out that riding a bicycle was a much more fun, more safe and more healthy way to approach this epic nightly voyage, so here I was, paying my dollar and trying to pick a seat. There are many schools of thought when it comes to picking a seat on a bus late night. Personally I have always been fond of sitting all the way in the back, thus being able to have a visual on everything thats going on. Now the problem with this is that the back of the bus is almost invariably where the brigands, ruffians and highway men gravitate, so one may find oneself in close company with such nefarious characters. I am of the opinion that to keep these folks close is bad, as you may be forced to interact and as such have to utilize "The Crazy Eyes". For those wondering, The Crazy Eyes is where one allows just a little white to show over the *top* of your iris, cultivating a truly maniacal visage that can be varied by degree - the more white, the more crazy (see ref: Michelle Bachmann, Charles Manson). By practicing in front of the mirror, you too can become a master of The Crazy Eyes, and when accompanied by the hollow demented half smile, pretty much everyone will just want to leave you alone. Now as bad as getting into an interaction with the hive of scum and villainry that congregate in the back row of seats is, I still would rather have them where I can see them. After all,I dont have Crazy Eyes in the back of my head. The very front of the bus is out of the question, as it prematurely ages and feminizes a young man.

Yes, I have my seat selection opinions, but not very many hard and fast rules, and seeing that this was a relatively uncrowded bus, and just, well, *felt* like an uneventful night, for some reason I perched myself in the middle to rear segment in a forward facing seat. I settled in and within a couple stops, of course, he got on. And oh, gentle readers, what a specimen he was! By means of a quick description, I would say he was cross between Rasputin dressed as a homeless ninja and the black Spy vs. Spy guy. People that live on the streets for a long time often get this patina, and judging by this guy's shine, he had been in survival mode for quite a while. He was all dressed in black, with strips of cloth tied around his outer garments. He had armbands, a black scarf pulled across his lower face and this magnificent hat. It was a hat straight out of a kung fu movie, a kind of fedora with a wider brim that left the rim at a downward angle, obscuring his eyes. It was a spy vs. spy hat, plain and simple.

As he got on the bus he locked on to me as, my overly developed freak magnetism, and two, there were very few people on the bus. It was clear immediately that no amount of white above my eyes was going to out crazy or dissuade this fellow, and I did not meet his gaze. I merely observed him with that absent peripheral vision thing people do sometimes. He walked past me and straight to the empty back of the bus. The next thirty minutes were abject psychological hell, as I soon discovered that this fellow had a habit, and I could just feel it was directed at me. The habit? Lord. He had a nylon velcro man band that apparently housed a watch. This fellow would check his watch, creating that distinct scccrrrritch of velcro being pulled apart, and then change his seat. Sometimes he would get right behind me and do it real slow, and then move a little farther, and then back. Nerve. Wracking.

It is this point that I must lay down one little fact. I lived at the very end of the line. Now downtown SF is always bustling, but out in the avenues at one am, there isn't a whole lot going on. There are only very rarely other people on the streets, and generally I would see no one on my six block walk from bus stop to hacienda. This thought became more prominent in my bean as on by one, the bus emptied out until it was just me an my new friend, popping around the seats behind me. Scrrrriiiitch. With about twenty blocks left in the trip, I became certain that he would be getting off at the last stop as well. It was then that I remembered my gift from Paul, and I slowly retrieved the menacing black spike from my bag and palmed it. If my number had finally come up, I wasn't going down without inflicting "significant bleed out".

I got up to get off at the last stop, and so did my ninja. He stood right behind me, a little too close, and exited the bus with me. The bus drove off to the barn, and I started walking fast. He followed me step for step, maybe one foot behind me, quite literally like some evil shadow. I still hadn't turned to face him, but I could only take about 100 feet of that. I quite literally snapped into some sort of fight or flight mode, wheeled around brandishing my dreadfull weapon and literally screamed, "What the fuck do you want!?! My ninja was startled by this sudden affront and instantly ran down the street and disappeared around the corner. That was the longest six blocks I have ever walked home, and the ones following for the next couple months weren't much shorter.

I never saw the man again, but I remember that moment so clearly to this day. I am a gentle, non-violent person, but if that man had made a move toward me rather than running away, I without a doubt would have plunged that weapon into his neck without hesitating, so jacked on adrenalin was I. I know I would have, and thats a kind of scary thought, to come that close to actually killing another human being. I also know that I was somewhat emboldened by having a weapon. Further, with said weapon, I actually could have done fairly easily. I cant imagine how the psychology plays out when one is carrying a gun. I know the guy was asking for trouble, but he was clearly mentally ill. What if in his mind he was just being funny? Had I completely made up the fact that he was a threat to me? I will never know, but I wonder about it sometimes. A few weeks later, I put the knife thing in a drawer, and haven't looked back.

Muni: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly. Part I

I am fairly sure I have spent a rather sizable chunk of my life on public transportation in San Francisco, better known as MUNI. SF is a town where having a car can be way more trouble than its worth. I rode it as a youth, and as a commuter when I lived there last. I have ridden almost every line at all hours of the day and night and been witness to such a cross section of humanity, that I should bee offered a sociology degree. I have seen folks with live chickens, folks trimming mole hairs, folks that smell like pee, yuppies, perverts, homeless... its just too big a list to make. I am also a freak magnet. That portly Armenian dude with the lazy eye and the diaper hinting out from the waist of his pants - oh, yeah - he's not only going to sit next to me, he's gonna wanna chat. For a while, I would try to repel the riders of Bellvue by out freaking them. It was an extension of a self defense technique I had adopted to ward off scary characters in scary neighborhoods. If you look scarier, bordering on insane, then folks tend to just leave you alone. This does not work with bus freaks. In fact it may make things worse. I tried everything, from the mundane: muttering under my breath, to the truly inventive: allowing a small section of string to dangle inexplicably from the corner of my mouth. It doesn't work, though it was fun trying to come up with ideas. I have a lot of bus stories, but I humbly submit these three as a cross section of that wonderful soul vessel known simply as MUNI.

The Good.
It was a rather busy night for the 38 Geary line. I had just gotten off of the swing shift at the newspaper and was facing my regular walk through the tenderloin to Union Square to take this bus cross town all the way from the bay to the ocean. Its about a 45 min ride at midnight as there isn't much traffic. Still, the busses were usually more empty at this time of night. I had paid my dollar and had just settled in to another long hour of staring absent-mindedly out the window. Something about the drone of those diesel engines an really hypnotize the tired worker bee. But despite the glaze over my eyes and the psychic coccoon I was weaving around myself, it always pays to keep at least half an eye out for the comings, goings and activities of your fellow riders.

It was that half eye that caught them as soon as they got on. I think sometimes there is an energy about people that is instinctual, and anything that may pose a threat instantly registers, and man was it registering with these three. It was as if they were deliberately trying to send off a "you are about to die vibe". They were three fairly strong looking black men, that just kinda had the whole ex con feel to them. No spider web or teardrop tattoos or anything that was obvious, but its clear that they were tough, and trying to act even tougher. They walked slow up and down the aisle, staring people down, almost begging people to make eye contact. Eye contact is a funny thing in a big city, and it can go either way, but I had a sinking suspicion that I knew which way this was going to go. Women were doing that 'clutch the purse, stare at the floor and think of jesus' thing. Men were doing the same, sans purse. There was an instant, almost tangible mood amongst all the passengers thats something really bad was about to happen.

As the three walked down the aisle one stopped in front of an older gentleman, pointed his finger and said "I don't know you" in a menacing tone. The second stopped in front a woman and said "And I don't know you". The third stopped in front of another passenger and said "Who are you?" They went to several people in turn, and made similar inquiries, finally stopping near me and asking "What's YOUR name?" No one was responding to them, and I certainly wasn't about to be the first, but before I could process just exactly what I was going to do next, something surreal happened.

In the awkward silence that followed that last pop quiz, they all drew together, back to back, in the center of the aisle and broke into a beautiful acapella motown-y version of "What's Your Name". This song branched into a medley of motown numbers, all sung in amazing three part harmony. They serenaded the whole, quite stunned, bus for a good third of the trip. When they, apparently, got to their stop the proceed to exit the bus backwards through the large articulated doors slowly as they hit their last notes. The song ended, the doors closed like a curtain and after a silent second, the whole bus erupted into applause. They stood on the side walk waving, and shouting things like "We love you!" and "Be kind to each other!"

At one moment I was about to be shivved for my empty wallet, the next I was being crooned to. I was not alone in the sensation that we as a whole had just been put through some sort of devious social experiment. I know that whole 'judge a book by its cover' deal is a bit on the cliché side of the saying supermarket, but I hold this story up at least as evidence that clichés are such for a reason. To this day I hold this experience in my heart whenever I am confronted by someone scary. This is not to say that I completely ignore my instincts. I guess its just kinda comforting to know that that gangster walking toward you, instead of roll you, just might knit you a scarf or something. Its humanity, and I need all the hope I can get.