"The Donkeyland Bums" (a short novelette)

The Donkeyland Bums


Part Three of Three Parts



(The Fall, November of 1967)


Chapter One
The Gas Station


John was in the car and the gas tank was full, the tires were being checked and filled with air, as well as the oil, all was fine,
“I’ll start her up and see how the motor sounds,” Chick Evens said to John, getting into the driver’s seat of the car “You got the things put away?”
“Yaw,” said John L.
“Open up a beer for me than.”
“You want a full one?”
“That’s right, for the road.”
John was by the widow opening up beers and Chick was at the steering wheel waiting for the car’s motor to warm up when he heard a noise like a motor mount loose. He open the hood looked down into the motor. John saw a policeman pull up into the gas station. He had a look in his eye, and he came walking toward their car. Then he walked by him, towards a pizza restaurant, then he was out of sight. A few more folks came out of the gas station with items bought in their hands walking in different directions to their cars. John looked at Chick busy looking at the motormount. A second policeman, who was waiting in the car stepped out to stretch, his hand on top of his revolver, checking to see if it was in place, and as he closed the car door a siren in the gas station went off, John in a long breath holding, yelled and Chick looked toward the gun muzzle of the policeman aiming it at the thief running out into the street from the gas station, Chick jumped to the side of the car and heard the screeching and howling gas station’s siren.
The young man had turned to see where the policeman was and ran, the policeman ran after him, then stopped to aim and fire, firing three shots, two in the air, one at the black lean and slanted lad running, the thief, as Chick stood by the window looking in the car saying, “Damn, he must of robbed the gas station. Man, what can we do?”
John heard the siren of more police cars coming down Rice Street and one out of the side street and saw them moving toward the gas station, “We best just stay put,” said Chick, “Don’t draw attention to us.”
There were now three more police cars surrounding the streets by the gas station.
“Stop!” yelled one policeman.
“Shoot, the fool,” said another.
“Come on. Come on for god’s sake!” said John, “let’s get out of here.”
“That’s Officer Howe,” said Chick watching the event.
“Get in,” said his partner to Chick. “Get your ass in here and let’s get going.”
“Hand’s up,” yelled Howe,” to the black thief.
“You shot me,” screamed and cried the young man, who was bleeding from the left leg, had fallen to his knees.
“You were told to stop three times, it’s your own fault,” said an officer next to Howe, and then yanked the trousers up almost to the young man’s knee to see the wound…
“Get-a going,” said John. One of the police officers looked toward John and Chick.
“Come on, Chick,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Take it easy,” said Chick. “Stop yelling.”
“Put the damn car in gear,” John said. “You’re going to get us in trouble; we got an open can of beer in the car.”
“Just wait a minute; they’re too busy taking care of the thief to bother with us…” Chick said. “I don’t want to take off yet. Let them take the robber away first.”
The biggest of the officers turned and swung his revolver and held it, aiming it at the brown 1959 Fort Station Wagon of Chick’s.
“Hey, don’t! Don’t! We’re just bystander’s watching,” Chick said. “Don’t aim that gun at us—please!”
The bust had been so close to their car that the sound of the bullets echoed in the air like five smacks.
Chick leaned back in the car seat, his eyes wide open, his mouth open and dry. He looked like he was about to say, “Don’t!” again, but the policeman turned about to talk to Howe, who had seen Chick and knew him by face; he had taken him home once when he was drunk, and another time to the police station for being too drunk, both times underage, and still underage, at twenty, the same age as John.
“Hit that gas peddle, and let’s get out of here,” said John.
“We’ll go,” said Chick, “just cool it.”
One of the police was holding a pistol against the side of the boy’s chest; the muzzle almost touching him.
As chick swung the car out of its parking spot, spinning the wheels, burning some rubber on the asphalt of the gas station platform, he looked astern to watch the last of the policemen picking up the lad from his knees, pushing him head first into the backseat of a police car, the boy falling or slipping sidewise, his leg giving out. His trousers wrapped around his ankle, his hands handcuffed, cussing the police with an unstopping open mouth. There was still more police cars coming down the street.
“Come on. Make a turn on Highway 94,” said John. “Let’s make up some lost time!”
“If I make this car go any faster, that motormount may fall right off the motor.” Remarked Chick Evens.


Chapter Two
The Highway


Chick sat quietly at the steering wheel. He was looking ahead now on Highway 94, heading for Long Beach, California, out of St. Paul, Minnesota, it was the summer of 1967. Out of the city he looked back. John looked out of the back window also—perhaps thinking of Karin, a girlfriend he was leaving behind for this road trip, one he’d miss along the way, one he’d marry, but not this summer.
Everything was now running smoothly, and they were going with the wind. Down highway after highway, across the country, heading for Denver, and over the Rockies (the Rocky Mountains); once in the Rockies, he noticed the heavy slant downwards, the sharp curves and their markers, he passed dozens of cars, but going up hill the motor scarcely made it, they all ended up passing him again, and then down the mountains with a current swirling under the car, helping the brown beast of a car along (as one looked down over the cliffs, hundreds of feet below them, you could see snow topped roofs, America at its most beautiful and loveliest, as if out of a Norman Rockwell picture: smoke coming from chimneys, and pine trees dotting the land). The motormount now clanging, and the engine’s motor starting to run rough, and the exhaust pipe, hanging loose under the car creating sparks, and police lights rotating in back of them, and a siren screeching, then over a loud speaker, “Pull that junk heap over to the side,” a voice said.
“How far are you boys going?” asked the police officer now standing along side the car, Chick with his car window open, then before he could answer, he took a quick look around the beat-up station wagon, rusted out here and there, the floorboards had holes in them, and you could actually see the road under your feet.
“What in tar nation are you boys trying to do,” said the Highway Police Officer, walking back to the window.
“Where you coming from, where you going?” the officer said to the two young adults.
John and Chick were chatting between themselves, then abruptly stopped, had kicked the few empty beer cans laying on the floor underneath their seats with their shoes.
“We came from St. Paul, Minnesota, going to Long Beach, California officer,” said Evens.
“Hum…m,” said the officer, “You’re about halfway, if I pull your car over have it impounded as it should be, we’ll have to find you a way home, if you go any further, you’ll end up being someone else’s problem, not ours, I hope you at lest make it out of this state, just wire up your exhaust pipe, and get going, and good luck.”
The Highway Patrol Officer was watching them now, even after the boys tied up the exhaust and all, he followed them for several miles, hoping I suppose they’d make it out of his jurisdiction. And evidently they did, because then he had stopped turned about, and took off as if he was the Lone Ranger, in the opposite direction.
John and Chick felt a little more at ease now.
“Look down there John,” said Chick, “it’s Denver I think.”
“Where?” the sun was bright, Chick pointed “Look!”
It was a long ways off; so far you could hardly see it, like a little oasis rising up and out of nowhere.
John now was looking quite content spoke pleasantly.
Chick could see the tiny building rise on the calm surface below him, but thought, ‘Just another city, go around it.’
“Those clouds over head I think are going to get darker and
Denver is in for a shower, let’s go around it, find a café have lunch?”
“What time is it?” asked John.
“Maybe 2:00 p.m., my watch stopped working.”
“We’ll be okay with the money, right?” questioned John.
Chick didn’t answer, they had made a few stops for beer, and John knew that, and each stop required more of the money they had, and it wasn’t all that much. John had $125.00 dollars and Chick $40. That was it, and his car.

In thirty-minutes they would be at a café eating hamburgers and French fries, drinking down a coke, filling up the gas tank, checking the oil, getting another six-pack of beer, and a few packs of Camel Cigarettes, and noticing the motormount that was before loose, was now gone, the motor had three more, but one side was lose, and that caused the motor to shake except when on a smooth road, what could go wrong was going wrong, but it was still luck holding the car in place; so—thought Chick: maybe our luck will holdout longer, enjoy it while you can; had it not been for John’s worrying out loud, he would have been a great sidekick, because he was a good fellow, but if anyone had to worry, Chick had felt, he was doing enough for both of them, so why join in on it, it wasn’t constructive.
“What’s the matter with you Chick? Can’t you figure it out; we don’t have money to buy beer every time we stop.”
“What did you ask me?”
“If we starve to death, it’s because of you, give me a beer.” John told Chick, and off they were again on the highway like two …Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac would have said.
“Nothing can stop us now John.”
“Do you think we’ll make it?”
“Not today, it’s going to be dark soon, we’ll have to find a roadside rest, and sleep until morning, too dangerous to drive at night and if something happens to the car…well, you know what I mean, let it happen in the daylight.”
“What do you think, Chick?” asked John, his face a little apprehensive.
Chick did not answer.
“Don’t worry, don’t think about it, give me a beer?”
“How much money we got?” John asked in a pleasant way.
“I don’t know. We haven’t counted it for a while, it’s enough to get there, and we’ll have to find a job quick.”

For the first half day, most every hour or so, John brought up Karin and the money, he talked not much more than this, didn’t intensify on the subject of Long Beach, or California at all, or the ocean, the subjects Chick brought to the conversations, and John compared themselves to those two guys who drove a Corvette in the 1960s series on television, crossing the country, on “Rout 66,” the transcontinental highway (the main highway of America, which ran from Chicago to California, in which Nat King Cole, sang a song about, and later on, the Rolling Stones capitalized on). But John was referring to the two fellows: Tod and Buz, not sure who was who on their trip; the series ran for four seasons.
“Are we bums?” asked John.
“I suppose so, but mighty happy ones!”
“What’s a bum,” asked John.
“I don’t know for sure, you’ll have to ask that Jack Kerouac guy I guess, he called himself a bum and made a million I think off his books.”
“Well, you’ve travelled by train and car cross-country before, are we bums or not?”
“Kind-of I suppose, but I worked wherever I went, like to Seattle or Omaha, Nebraska, bums don’t work, hobos do, not sure about tramps, they’re more like homeless folks, we don’t have a home but we do, I mean, we got parents that do, I think willing to help, if indeed we need help, I think. We’re not beggars yet, but maybe by the end of this trip we will be.”

A light rain came down, and it got foggy, and Chick spent the following hour trying to find a rest stop, and it got a little chilly, and John huddled and meditated on the warmth of holding Karin I suppose, he flapped his arms and legs to like a duck to warm them up, the heater was not working and the windshield was fogging up. John’s teeth started chattering.
“We brought a blanket along, pull it out, it is in back of the backseat,” suggested Chick, and John did, “We’ll be stopping soon,” added Chick.



Chapter Three
The Rest Stop


It was 9:00 p.m., where the boys were, they didn’t know, they simply stopped at a rest stop when it got dark, parked the car by several others, had a few beers, and John started to fall to sleep in the backseat, and Chick up front. There was a light near their car, a dumpster nearby, bathrooms in the forefront.

“I’m sorry if we’re ending up spending too much money, I feel bad about that, but we are only spending on gas, food and beer.” Chick told John as they started to talk before drifting off into a deep sleep.
“I guess you mean well,” said John (he had a letter in an envelope in his hands).
“What’s in the letter?” asked Chick.
“Before we left, Karin gave me the letter, told me to read it later on—she was crying, so I read it when you were in the bathroom back-a-ways this afternoon, at one of the gas stations, she said she loved me, and would be waiting for me when I got back.”
“It sounds poetic; she’s a nice gal, not sure how you got her.”
“Maybe this trip will make me appreciate her more.”
“And bug me more.”
“How about you?”
“And who am I? I don’t have any girl worthwhile keeping if that is what you mean.”
“How about that girl you were taking out, called the Shadow?”
“You mean, Cindy or Sharon?”
“Whatever, whoever.”
“I’d say that we lost it somewhere along the line, didn’t see eye to eye, in both cases.”
“I think I’m pretty serious about Karin.”
“I think you’re horny right now.”
“Are we safe here?” asked John.
“Hell yes who can do anything to us, we’re the Cayuga Street Bums), and someday I’ll write a book about this?”
(Cayuga Street being the street in St. Paul, Minnesota, where Chick Evens lived, and John hung out with the Cayuga Street Gang, known by the police as Donkeyland, the police officer, Howe nicknamed it that because the guys and gals were so hard-headed, and I suppose like donkeys: there were some twenty-five young people from that neighbourhood.)
“I hope no one tries to sneak in tonight and cut our throats.”
“If they do, and I survive, I’ll let Karin know you talked about her until I got blue in the face.”
“Funny, funny, funny—pal!”
“Just be careful of the snakes tonight, they can crawl right through those big rusted hole in the back there.”
“Snakes, you’re kidding, there are no snakes here.”
“You see,” said Chick to John, speaking quietly, “this here is dangerous country, snakes kill folks all the time, bit yaw. I don’t think it’s funny either. But the best course is not to think about it, if either one of us really get bitten, just get me to a hospital as quick as possible, and I’ll do the same.”
John now looking over the top of the seat at Chick almost on the verge of laughing but holding it back, Chick looking back at him, “We got anything more to drink?” asked John.
“Nope,” said Chick “Go to sleep.”
“I can’t, now you got me worried about those snakes.”
“Their nothing, I was just kidding, kind of.”
“What do you mean kidding—kind of, you were or you were not kidding and there are or there are not snakes here?”
“Of course they’re snakes but chances one will crawl up and bite you are next to nil.”
John looked seasick and still sitting up.
“Let me sit up front with you?” asked John.
“Sure, it’s going to be uncomfortable, but go ahead.” And John jumped over the seats to set by the passenger side window.

It was about 3:00 a.m., in the morning, and there was a tapping at the widow.
“What you two doing in there,” said a voice, “Open the door up, I want to talk to you.”
“Chick,” said John, “some tramp out there I think, trying to get in.”
“We’re not in the mood for making friends tonight mister, get lost!” said Chick.
“He won’t leave,” said John. (You could smell whisky on him. The window was opened slightly.)
“What do you want to do?” asked John.
“If he doesn’t leave in a few minutes, I’ll get out here go around the car, you get out, and we’ll both kick his ass.”
Chick now straightened up from his laying position. “Wish I had a drink.”
Then Chick opened up the car door, “We’ll go easy on him!” he said, and started to walk around the car to meet the guy head on, John’s hand on the door handle, ready to open it…
“I got some trouble for yaw mister, just what you’re looking for.”
“Don’t kid me,” said the suspiciously looking stranger.
“Why should I try, you’re looking to wake us up cause trouble, you got us up now, and what you got, you got coming, let’s bring it on John!”
“Tak’e it eas-y young man, I’m for-ty-five years old, a lit-tle drunk.”
“Why do you get so tough then, waking us up?”
The stranger stepped back, as John started to open the door, and Chick stepped forward another step, about ten-feet apart, then the stranger ran off to the bathrooms.



Chapter Five
Long Beach


The boys woke up about 7:30 a.m., and headed onto Long Beach, their destiny. They figured they were somewhere around Salt Lake. Chick kicked the gas pedal to and almost through the floor of the car, it was losing its energy, its zip, its get-up-and-go: about 1:00 p.m., they hit the highway leading into Long Beach, and then onto a main road. Three girls were hitchhiking, they talked to the boys some, but left them alone, just wanted a ride, gave them some directions, and then got dropped off. They seemed to be a bit sorry; Chick and John were not from Long Beach, feeling they were not going to stick around town.
“We got any money left?” asked John.
“I tell you, we are down.”
“Oh, shut up, you’re damn drinking, how much we got?”
“Let’s look for a café, get something to eat,” said Chick, John counting the money, looking across the front of the car, the motor was starting to produce grey smoke.
“Watch that, Chick, the smoke,” then the car started to spit and sputter, right then and there by a closed gas station, it was Sunday.
John opened the devise under the hood, the hood popped open and was put into place, they were on the street alongside the gas station.
“The car’s shot, it blew a piston I think,” said John. When they started it back it, it had no compression. The car wouldn’t move. “Not yet,” bellowed John.
“Why not yet,” said Chick, “Thank God we made it this far that was lucky.”
“I suppose, what the hell difference does it make to you.”
“John, it was my car, not yours,” said Chick as John climbed down off the fender, after looking down at the motor.
“How we doing for money?” asked Chick.
“Seven dollars,” said John, “How much you got?”
“One dollar and thirty-three cents!” said Chick.
“The hell with this,” John said. “You keep drinking our money up.”
“So do you,” remarked Chick, “Let’s put the car in back of this station, and bury the license plates, and go find a room for the night.”
The boys walked down to the heart of Long Beach, bought two hotdogs between themselves, and walked along the beach; it appeared to them it was a retirement area of some kind, not much going on. As it started to get dark, it was a pretty twilight. John found a room that cost $5.00. And the hotdogs were $1.50 for two, and they had each a coke, another fifty cents. And now what had been left was one-dollar and thirty-three cents. They sat in their hotel room thinking what was next on their agenda, the afterglow of being in California for the first time had warn off of John, for Chick it was just starting to blossom.
Chick looked out the window; saw a small grocery store open, “Let’s go get a quart of beer, and some crackers. I mean we are broke, we might just as well remain broke, and what’s a dollar and change going to matter.”
“We are damned, and you are thinking of beer, alright, you go get it, while I think of what to do, but give me twenty-cents, two dimes, I will need to make a few phone calls.”
Now Chick had one dollar and thirteen cents. Went out of the one-star minus hotel, across the street, found a quart of beer for eighty-nine cents, and crackers for fifteen-cents, making it $1.14 cents, one penny less, which the good proprietor, overlooked, out of his kindness. And Chick and John had their last meal of the night, John allowing Chick the majority of the beer, John being too unsettled to drink much.



Chapter Six
Conclusion to part One

That evening, John called up his Uncle Whitey, in Los Angels, to see if they’d meet him and Chick at the bus station that his mother was going to send $140-dollars to get them back home, first thing in the morning. And Whitey, a most pleasant man, an albino, did just that, and showed them around Los Angels, and then luck was on their side, they found a friend of Whitey’s going to Minnesota, and that is another story.



Bums in a Haze


Chapter Seven
The Lead

(Chick Evens narrates from his diary :) “We were not tramps, or nomads, in that we were not drifters, perhaps more on the order of bums, in that we didn’t really have a home, and John did have to do some begging to get that $140-dollars from his mother, and we were not forgotten men, per near, but not quite; we were not hobos, because hobos seek work, and bums don’t and although John and I wanted to, we didn’t; so bums we, in that respect, bumming around, but I would have said, had you asked me at the time ‘I felt as if I was on a magic carpet, things just worked out as they did.’ And for the most part they did. But you couldn’t have told John L. that. There was no rainbow for him, and he kept thinking about Karin, and at times even with me by his side, he felt utterly alone. And so our adventure would be cut short. But we did survive the hard times, self-induced hard times of course. And we were both seemingly were always in haze, myself, with booze, and John with anything he could find, from pills, to pot, to alcohol.”



Chapter Eight
Los Angels: Uncle Whitey




(At the Greyhound bus station in Los Angels,
Sitting, while waiting for Uncle Whitey)

“I suppose we’ll have to wait for your uncle, to get here, do you think he’ll come?”
“He’s one of the few people that no matter what we did, he’d help us, so sure, I’d bet my $140.00-dollars he’ll be here.” Then John hesitated, and added, “Indecently, Chick, I do feel badly about your car, even though the policeman in the Rockies was right, it was a piece of junk.
“Very funny, it got us to Long Beach though.”
“I suppose, we don’t know how bad things could have got, had the cop pulled the car in.”
Then Uncle Whitey came in, white as a ghost, hardly could see, eyes squinting, and wavy white hair, tall and lean, with the biggest smile, Chick Evens had ever seen. Whitey looked about; saw the silhouetted of hands waving of two young men,
“Uncle Whitey!” called John.
“He’s half blind Chick, and he’s only in his late thirties.”
“You son of a guns, how the heck you been John, haven’t seen you since you were knee-high to a grasshopper!” (Then he started laughing: ‘ho, ho, ho…ooo!’ as if John was his lost prodigal son.)
As we stood up, he grabbed my hand, “And you’re his partner, Chick, I heard you were coming with John,” then he let go after a minute of shaking hands and added, “let’s go have lunch, on me boys. I haven’t any money to lend you but I got enough gas in the car and food in the house and a place you can lay your head for as long as you want.” (‘Ho, ho, ho…ha, ha, ha!’ he laughed)
(Chick and John sat in the back seat, Whitey, and a third cousin, Gene, a few years older than John, sat with Whitey in the front seat, Gene had his own car and in the following days would decide to go back to Minnesota, and thus, provided the ride for John and Chick to return. But of course at this point none of that was known, and I don’t want to get too far ahead in this story).
“So I heard your car blew up in Long Beach, that’s a damn shame, hell-of-a-thing to happen.”
Whitey hung his chin, neck and face almost over the steering wheel, as he drove, “I’m not suppose-to-be driving, but what the heck.”
He looked hard at what the stoplights read, waiting for the green. “Go, Uncle Whitey, its green!” said John, near smiling.
“That’s what I got to do, stop driving before I kill us all. The doctor says to take it easy as I can, that albinos never live long he says. Says I got a few years left then puff…I’m gone. Oh well, I’ll just try to breathe steadily.”

Then they pulled into his driveway.


(Chick Evens narrates from his diary :) “In the following days, Whitey took John and me, along with Gene on several tours around the city, up and own Sunset Boulevard, looking at the whores walking back and forth. Driving slowly, and stopping by Dean Martin’s nightclub. And then up into Beverly Hills. The police stopping Gene, who was doing the driving, and questioning him why the carload of people buzzing about these premises: and Whitey simply said, “We’re showing our Minnesota kin, how the rich folk live down here.”
The police officer said in a mild manner, “If these folks see you circling about they’ll call us gain, and if we got to come back, we’ll have pull you in for suspicion, so it is best you don’t not come back.”)

Well, they didn’t go back, but they had a number of memorable spots, or sites they saw—and they had some nice dialogue between the foursome.
It was the third day in Los Angels Gene suggested they, Chick and John, head on out into the desert to Lancaster, a small hamlet, and visit a group of young friends of his, that it was party time there, all the time there, and there would be lots of everything from grass to booze to hallucinating drugs and much more. All free of charge.


Chapters 9 thru 12, incomplete

End:
Home for Thanks Giving
And beyond…

John and Chick had left in the beginning of November of 1967 for California, and returned a few days before ‘Thanksgiving.’ Prior to California, he had spent the spring of that year in Omaha, and prior to that a winter in Seattle, all three trips within eleven months. And in eight months to come, July of 1968, he would be going to San Francisco for one year; which he didn’t know of course at this time, and after that, to Germany for ten more months, and to participate in the Vietnam War for another eight months: all within two months less than five years (December of 1966 to October 1971). And since that time, he has added, 700,000-more miles onto his past memo.

Written 6-2-2009

Note: two days going to Long Beach, one full day in Long Beach, then a bus to Los Angels (day 3), that night at Whitey’s and two more days there (5-nights, 6-days), and two nights in Lancaster, and two days back to Minnesota, total, nights, and 10-days)



Part One

Light in Seattle
(Winter of 1966)


Chapter Thirteen
Seattle Bound


I think she wanted revenge, an eye for an eye, for some undisrupted pain her husband inflicted on her, or perhaps it goes deeper into her childhood, I’ll never knew, but whatever I said meant very little, on and during our trip from Minnesota to Miles City, Montana, onto Seattle, Washington, in our 1957-Chrysler, Jeff purchased from my mother for this trip (we were to go alone, him and I). We got stranded in Miles City for a day, blew a piston in the motor, had to leave the car there, right in Miles City. Had to let the car roll down the mountain, slowly, and it was cold, snow up to our ankles, and Jeff’s wife, who we didn’t plan on bringing with us, came at the last minute, decided at the last second to punish us all, and she brought her two kids along, I was emptier than a dry well in the Moabite desert for words when I saw this uncovering, but what could I do, and he was caught like fly in her web.
We had caught a bus out of Miles City, and Jeff had lost his billfold at the bus station, luckily an old lady found it, and my nineteen-year old bones became refreshed again, as did Karin’s twenty-three year old ill disposition. I was learning in life, bad luck comes no matter what you do, and good luck also comes the same way, and in-between, you make your luck, however you can (and where there is no luck, you pray).
Karin was Jeff’s wife and she was no happy glimpse of light, not until I saw the signs leading into Seattle. Once at the bus station, Jeff called his old Navy friend, it was about 7:00 PM, and it was getting dark quick, and it was raining, and I’d find out in time, it always was raining in Seattle, or at least for the time I was there. Anyhow, Jeff’s friend showed up, saw us all, two winy kids, a wife, a teenager (me), Jeff’s luggage, I took one long glimpse at his face and knew we were in trouble, and Jeff’s long time Navy friend at the end of the night, would no longer be his friend.
I don’t know what they said, I suppose he told him our hard luck story, whatever, he did not have much pity to give, and told Jeff face to face, shoulder to shoulder, eye to eye, he wasn’t in the hotel business.
Jeff stood silent, tightening his face, he was six-foot-three, and thin, and could be mean I heard, but seldom was. Had it not been for Karin, he might have punched the guy’s lights out, or tried, I think if he couldn’t have I would have helped. But that wouldn’t have solved our problem for the night, and so he escaped with a trashing of the mouth by Jeff, and that was the last we heard or saw of him.
“Look Chick,” said Jeff, “we got to find a paper and rent an apartment now,” we were outside by a telephone booth, getting wet and cold. We still had most of our money left, gas was cheap, and I think it cost about .30 cents a gallon back then. Karin didn’t like Jeff asking me first on what he and we should do, she felt left out. She said right after he stopped to take in a gulp of air,
“No, I had nothing to do with this, you got me into all this, and you get me a house, rent one for us!” She made her point quite clear, but we were in the process of doing it anyhow.
I figured out, sometimes you simple have to disconnect with certain people who do not want to connect, lest you tire yourself out trying in hopeless to please the unappeasable, and end up being a tightly curled wire. And that was exactly what I was in the process of doing, disconnecting. As a result, my intuition told me to have a plan ‘B’ ready, an escape plan in place, it may come in handy. And so it would.

We, me and Jeff drank a few nights in a row at a local bar, found a job and one evening Karin said, “Stop it, stop the drinking now! Do you hear me, or you both can leave.”
She made me think often, why did she come along, perhaps only to haunt me, or her husband, or was it she had no other place to go, I really don’t know. As I look back perhaps it was that she was ill, in the sense of depressed, and she had two kids, and was alone in this world. Not sure, I never asked, or perhaps didn’t care, I was young, and felt it was not my business to analyze her, nor if I tried, could I. But the adventure was turning into a nightmare.
That night she took the last two bottles of beer we had and drained them into the toilet. It caused me a little heartburn but it was no great loss. Jeff tried to reason with her, but she wanted his attention I suppose and the booze didn’t allow it. And I knew if I said a word or two, it would simply be dropped into a bottomless pot, so I remained quiet for the most part. In time, in years to come, when I’d travel the world, this would come to light, meaning, I’d remember traveling alone was better than traveling with someone who demands too much of you, or more than what you want to give. And it proved to be an asset knowing this, and saved me many a nightmare I’m sure.
You see, I was almost a drunk at nineteen years old, and Jeff at twenty-six, I suppose this was getting to Karin, who was of course, to the contrary, just a tyrant.
In a way it wasn’t a big loss, so I laughed about it, it simply was another triumph for Karin.

—Jeff and I went for two weeks straight with eating only one peanut butter sandwich at lunch for work, nothing in the morning, nothing in the night. I felt sorry for the two kids and Karin, but we only had what we had, and we were down to three dollars, and it was bread and peanut butter for everyone. But one thing got to me, or at least I took note of, and felt it was funny, or unusual, it was that the kids were not complaining, and they were winy kids to say the least. And for the life of me, I couldn’t figure it out, you know, that feeling that something is missing.

It happened in the morning, on a Tuesday, just before going to work, the milkman came early and said to us, as we were leaving, Karin and the kids sleeping, “Do you folks want the usual?”
“What,” Jeff said.
“The usual, your wife, Karin—she is your wife isn’t she? (Jeff nodded his head yes) Well I usually drop off a half gallon of milk, some butter and eggs and now and then cheese.”
Jeff and I looked at the milkman, then each other, as he handed us the usual items, and we carried them into the house, somewhat numb (dumbfounded). Jeff woke Karin up, they all had been sleeping on the floor on blankets, like Jeff and me.
(I figured she had outsmarted us again, and didn’t care if we starved to death or not, her excuse would be: “I had to take care of us, the kids and me, you two wouldn’t, you just care about yourselves, so I just cared about us.” Thus, she justified the whole charade, in one long breath of air.)
Well, there really wasn’t much we could do about it, we’d get paid soon, and there wasn’t much light to be shed upon this betrayal, matter-of-fact, with the daily rain, and the dark hostility, resentment, and secrets Karin was pushing on us, there was no light at all in Seattle. She was surely laughing again, but not so loud, this time, rather in a hushed tone, this time, not to disturb Jeff too much, he was really mad, and in three days it would be payday.
I had plan ‘B’ now, and I would soon implement it. I wasn’t going to, but I figured this had to take place now, living with Karin, was no treat at all; it took all the adventure out of the trip. I planned on getting the last laugh, if only for a high, call it over-learning, I was taught a lesson, life teaches you such, that when it looks bad, it is bad, or better put, if you see smoke, you can bet there’s a fire, and it was smoky along our path from Minnesota, to Montana to Seattle, and now while living in Seattle.

It was payday, and they, the company I worked for, a window company, paid their employees up to date, up to the last day, actually a few hours in advance. I had asked my foreman if he could have the office pay me in cash, and they did.
On our way home, I bought three hamburgers, French fries and a coke, my stomach had shrunk to the point I could only eat one hamburger and the fries.
When we got home, Karin was buzzing around the house like a happy bee, likened to a happy bear after honey, and was very kind to me and Jeff. I could see, and I am sure Jeff knew, she was up to no good again. Her intent was to rob both of us, willingly. But I was no longer her prisoner, I figured, she could go drink her milk and eat her eggs all she wanted, I was not going to go along with what I figured I knew was on her mind. (She quietly reached for Jeff’s check.)
“I’ll cash both your checks, you both must be tired.” She said with a smirk on her face. She felt, or thought because I was unspoken all this time to her nasty dealings, I was easy prey at subject to her whims, and that I didn’t put two and two together, or have a plan, she thought perhaps I was her second husband, and subject to her will.
“No need to cash mine, I already did.” I told her.
Her face turned an ill-yellow, “How is that?” she asked.
“I had the foreman cash it out for me at the company.” I responded, as if it was really none of her business, yet she was making it so.
Her smile left her face completely, and we stared at each other for a moment, her trying to figure out a new plan to get my money. It was two full weeks pay, plus two days, and overtime, it was a big check, $375.00 dollars; if anything I was now somewhat of an instrument for creating a dramatic moment in her life.
I turned to Jeff, and then back to Karin, said with a somber look, “I got my ticket for the 11:00 PM train back to Minnesota, and I’ll be leaving tonight.”
I really had not bought the ticket, but had intentions to do so soon, and they didn’t ask me how I got it, and had they, I would not have answered the question. The point being, I did not want to be talked out of leaving.
“What!” Karin said, and Jeff also looked surprised. I guess Jeff was hurt I didn’t let him know, but under the circumstances, he had no need to know, plus, it would only have given Karin time to talk to Jeff about throwing me out of the house early, for Jeff did not seem to be in charge of his family, and I’m sure would not have stopped her.
I am not sure how to describe her mouth or whatever it was that hung in front of me, like an empty furnace, but it was heated…
“You have to pay us some money for staying here.” She said in a commanding voice.
“Sorry,” I said, “but I need the money to live on, and get a place when I get back to Minnesota.”
“Jeff, say something!” Karin barked.
Jeff did ask me for some money, he was a tinge shy on the matter, knowing the selfishness, and demands his wife made on both of us, and I had to turn him down also.
“Get out of here, go on!” she yelped. And I did gladly, and to be honest, I had the biggest light in my eyes Seattle had ever seen.


Written in the summer of May 24, 2008 (ds)



Part Two

Milwaukee, Nebraska, & Omaha


Milwaukee Bound 1967 [spring]

Chapter Fourteen
Leaving St. Paul, Minnesota


I didn’t know it, but the following decade would be one of intolerance—and some growing pains for not only the country, but me. We lived in the same old neighborhood both Jerry Hines and me, only two blocks west and down a block on Jackson Street from one another—this was Jerry’s and Betty’s house I often visited, just a hop-skip-and-jump one might say to each other’s abode. Across the street from Jerry’s house was Oakland Cemetery. I was twenty-years old and I was available and usable in the sense of travel—something that was stronger than most anything else in my life for some peculiar reason, something that would stay with me all my life most variably; and so in the fall of 1967, Jerry got into a dividing, and harsh confrontation with his girlfriend Betty, and that is when it all started. Having told me about this, we both decided to go to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And this is where the story begins.

—I had a 1960-Plymouth-Valiant [white], it didn’t run all that good but Jerry Hino and I figured it would make it to Milwaukee, and so in the first weeks of November of ‘67, a chill in the air we loaded my car, when Betty was gone [Betty being Jerry’s live-in girlfriend at the time], each of us grabbed what money we had, I having about $125.00 and Jerry about $250, and off they went.
As the miles went by on our way to Milwaukee, one right after the other, we kept drinking cans of beer, smoking cigarettes—chain smoking for the most part, as the Valiant strolled along the black asphalt interstate making stops along the roadside to go to the bathroom, buying more beer at the nearest gas station, or roadside stop, drinking more beer, making more stops to take a leak: kind of a circular motion to these ongoing events. Matter of fact, we were making so many stops, we both got tired of stopping and started peeing into cans, and whomever was not driving would throw the cans out of window into, or onto the fields along the thruway; sometimes just barley missing cars if a good upper wind got hold of it. It was party time all the way, and for the most part, all the time for us two.
Now with loose conversations, the heat coming through the windshield from our heaters, the breeze hitting our hands as we flipped out our cigarette butts, out of the window going down the highway, we felt a bird wasn’t any freer. We lit cigarette after cigarette, talked, laughed, drank and sang, and started all over again from the cigarette after cigarette. We didn’t do a lot of planning, but enough, —barely enough, but enough, our great plan was to sleep in the car until we found an apartment, then get a job, and stay in Milwaukee for a few months, then we could figure on what to do next—not a big plan or even an elaborate one by any means, but then the world and life was simply for us, and again I say, at least we had a shared plan, like a slice from a piece of pie.
Yes indeed, our quest, goal, if you could call it that, was to chum around, and that’s what we’d do, and just chum around is what we were doing. Life’s responsibilities or demands were irrelevant, if not cumbersome, and if ever one was caught in a vortex of remoteness, Jerry was, he had enough for the moment of everything in life, yes, and in a way he was running away, as I was not. That is to say, I was simply running to escape a city for the adventure of another city, whereas, Jerry never got the travel bug early in life like I had; he was running to run, and the farther the better for the mean time. I perhaps was simply available, usable, along with willing, and had an ardent desire to see how far I could go, travel, and the farther the better, and Jerry found in me a companion for the moment.

Chapter Fifteen
Milwaukee

The beginning of spring It was a chilled night, as black as dark-ink, the moon was one-quarter lit, and if there was such things as ghosts, they seem to have been running back and forth across the moon’s light with a grayish robe of a mist. It was a little past midnight when we caught a glimpse of the highway sign that read:
“Milwaukee to the Right…turn-off 2-miles”

—and so Jerry, whom was driving did just that, took the turned-off where the arrow was pointing, whereby, we were on a one-way that lead us directly to the downtown area of Milwaukee. My face flashed with undeniable excitement, it was as if I was being reborn, my blood was regenerated, there was no logic or reason to it, it was a high: a desire filled, a craving to the top, like an empty cigarette package replenish, akin to getting drunk, a destination-high, a quest, all that and more: save for the fact that the boredom from driving helped turn the moment into a rage of excitement.
“Oh boy, I get to see the city,” I said with anxiety of not being there at that very moment. Jerry gave me a more mature chuckle to the fact we had made it; I suppose, cows often forget they were once calf’s; no disrespect intended, Jerry and I were close friends, but there was a decade difference in our age and at times it showed.
Anyway, we were specifically about to make it into the city limits; our destination. “Just hang on, we’ll be there in a moment,” said Jerry, turning the wheel a bit to the left, as he was turning onto the entrance to the city: then straightening the car out to go directly ahead I could now see lights appearing in the distance, an illumination of dotted-lights spread across a distance. We both smiled, we had almost or nearly almost gotten to our end—it was getting closer by the second. Just down and around a bridge or two now.
The one thing we did not take into consideration was the times: it was the 60’s, and neither I nor Jerry, could bridge, or even conceive the white and black dilemma that was sweeping the country, the Midwest, or at least Minnesota was not like or that engulfed with the racial issues of the day, like the West and East coasts, although Chicago and Milwaukee was evidently the showcase and exception to the rule; for the most part, we were isolated from it. Oh yes it was on TV all the time, but until you are in the mouth of the whale, one never can conceive the depth of the situation, or should I say, the depth of the stomach of the whale. There had been some café’s, stores, and tenant-buildings that had acquired damage in the black areas of the City of St. Paul, but not much, not in comparison to the rest of the country. Back in those days, every city had its riots, its racial issues, and to degrees. It was like a plague; but St. Paul, being the conservative city of the Midwest, the City of Culture as it has been called, was almost naive to its engulfing presence in the rest of the country. We also lived in a neighborhood that didn’t read books, occasionally a newspapers, it wasn’t a big deal for us, only one black family lived in the neighborhood, someplace—no one even knew when they had moved in but a few years back might be adequate: the black man had befriended my grandfather, and therefore was left alone. But no one ever saw a black man in the neighborhood before this, much less deal with riots.
In a like manner, no one came to the Cayuga Street area the street I lived on—or walked through the area without good reason, unless they lived there; there was a gang of some twenty-two guys and gals that hung out on the church steps. It wasn’t called Donkeyland for nothing; at one time it was the highest crime related area in St. Paul, and they boasted of that, and the police even tried to avoid us; matter-of-fact, they nick-named it Donkeyland because there were so many hard-heads there—and yes, it suited them. Members of the gang, beat the police up if they chased them up into Indians Hill, which was enclosing with foliage and one could hide easily behind trees and bushes, and so forth and on, which was to the south just off of Cayuga Street, right next to my grandfather’s house. But as I was about to say, as we rode down the turnoff, and into the city center, a white, a huge white car was following us. I first noticed it—a bit after we entered the outer rim of the center.
“Something’s wrong Dennis?” said sleepy-eyed Jerry, driving. I turned about for the third time to examine the white car, again seeing the car following us…then all of a sudden I produced a crisis voice you might say, a voice trembling, and decadence came to my face:
“Oh man, look at what they just pushed out the car window, the white car—there…” I was now pointing at the car,
“…looks—J-j-Jerry, a shot gun…!”
Jerry looked quickly, “What is going on?” he said, as if I knew.
Then out of another window of the car, came a voice from a loud speaker coming right from the white car, you couldn’t make out what exactly was being said though—so we continued on, Jerry driving closer to the center of the downtown area now, looking at a gathering of people on two differed corners—in a four or five square block area; if anything, it looked like a protest, if not some combat zone; —the voice over the speaker now, indubitably said—[even louder than before]:
“Move out of the city’s area, immediately, or we’ll shoot!”
I looked at Jerry, “Where’s the way out Dennis,” asked Jerry [the word shoot sticking in both our minds like a spider to a fly caught in a web, “To the right, to the right, over there man…!” I said loudly, with pointing toward a half lit up bridge: without hesitation, and responsive to my tone of voice, Jerry immediately turned the car southwest, and out we went as fast as that six-cylinder car would go.
In short, both Jerry and I temperamentally was in shock, disbelief, and spellbound, but somehow we must had caught a sign that said, “Madison, Wisconsin” for that is where we headed; and sometime down the highway we had stopped to check the map, and talk about Madison to see if both he and I agreed on the new destination, prior to this stop it would seem we were both ill-balanced, and couldn’t or didn’t want to talk about it for the moment, trying to get our equilibrium back.
When we both arrived in Madison, it was a stinky city, too small, and jobless. We went to the stockyards and they didn’t want anything to do with outsiders, it was a fruitless pursuit. We would flip a coin and figure out where next we’d go.

Written July, 2006 (Re edited 5-2008)




Nebraska Fields
(Spring of 1967)





Chapter Sixteen
Omaha Bound


So, although in a sense Milwaukee (for the few minutes we spent there, and flew out of there in our 1961-Valiant, I won’t miss the city at all), it wasn’t a good experience by far, the racial riots didn’t allow that, it was November of 1967, things were hot throughout the United States, in the white vs. black area.
Jerry was older by twelve-years than I, in actuality, this may have been his first escape out of Minnesota though; on the other hand I was nineteen-years old, and I had been to Seattle, North and South Dakota, and a few other places, and was thinking about San Francisco, but I wanted to visit Milwaukee.
In time, everything in time, I told myself. I am not sure why Jerry Hino and I picked out—of all places—to go to Omaha (other than it was on the map, and near Chicago), but I suppose it was a matter of elimination. When we had got to Madison, we were going to stay there, but it was so impoverished looking, and smelled bad from the stockyards, we high-tailed it out of the city like two cats running from a bulldog. I suppose to an onlooker, we were like some unconscious unwanted creatures torn fiercely from the roots of the world (we were unshaven, and perhaps smelled bad ourselves, from the constant drinking of beer and sweating, in the car, as we drove aimlessly here and there, looking for a nest to roost in, by the likes of others—in addition, we were dirty, and untidy, but we really were not conscious of it, half in a haze most of the time.
Jerry was escaping from a relationship, me, I was just trying to see the world, one step at a time. I perhaps thought I was like some Greek hero rushing off to Troy to battle with the Trojans. In time I would find my war in Vietnam, and go to Turkey, to the site of Troy, but today it was simply, a trip that started at St. Paul, Minnesota, and onto Milwaukee, and now out of Madison, Wisconsin; there we sat going down a highway peeing in an empty can, throwing it out the window, drinking another beer, refilling that, then all of a sudden Jerry says:
“Let’s flip a coin for where we go, Chicago or Omaha?”
It was a question, I suppose, but I simply pulled out a coin, and that was my answer, “Okay, I’ll flip,” I told Jerry, “heads we go to Chicago, and tails, onto that place here on the map called Omaha, matter-of-fact, what the heck is in Omaha?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, but it has to be better than Madison—I hope!” said Jerry.
Oh well, we were too drunk to laugh, and too tired to think of another place besides those two locations, plus we didn’t have an abundance of money to be too selective.
“Well what is it?” asked Jerry.
“We are my friend, Omaha bound,” I said, and Jerry turned onto another highway, a few minutes later, and we were on our way.
It was Tuesday, and the highway was a mere empty road widening here and there, where construction was not, and we passed several small towns, a few taverns, we stopped at one to buy a six-pack of beer, and on our way we were—intact, blocked minded, sort of speaking.

It was the first week of November, and there really was no snow on the ground to speak of, although the ground was hardening, and the fields we passed were browning with the cold weather, and the crows and pheasants were out in the fields and the dogs the folks dropped off, out of their cars, the unwanted pets, they had bought for their children, and then had to watch and take care of because the children were too lazy, and they were too lazy to teach them not to be lazy, thus, dropped them off in the fields to did, to starve to death, who would be the wiser, perhaps the farmer will be kinder and pick the dogs and cats up, even though each farmer perhaps had twenty dogs now to feed from the irresponsible folks of the big city. And I looked at them running, some even after our car, hoping we’d stop I suppose, or perhaps their memory transposed our car into the car that they were thrown out of, thinking their owner had come back to save them. These were moments of gross and simple lusts of the people, forcible incarceration into idleness of the frozen fields (or thawing out fields) of Nebraska; the newly bought dog houses, now thrown into the garbage so the kids do not get new ideas of getting another dog to feed and watch.
There was even a few deer in motion, shapes dashing across the highway, as if on an endurance run, passion and hope in their eyes, they too were on the hit list for the governments of the Midwest, too much overlapping, extended beyond their limits, that now they were drifting into the main cities, and bothering the noble people of the good State of Minnesota, yes indeed, these were the results of generations of deer, healthy, but in need of food. So the state hired hunters, killers to kill them all, vanish them from the city, this was their objective. Now they were in the Nebraska fields, like the dogs.
Anyhow, there was lots of room out here in the wild countryside, so I felt as we drove past fields that would produce corn, one after the other, almost hypnotised beneath the vast incredible and enduring land of growth of food. I had heard we fed half the world with our wheat and corn, and now I could see how. Every time I turned my head, it was empty fields, or straw bundled up for winter feeding of the farm animals. And then we got into the more condensed populist areas filled with watchful eyes and arrogance and less strays, new generations, and old ones sitting on benches waiting for buses, and asking each other unanswerable questions to pass the time of day away. We were going through Counsel Bluffs, a city next to Omaha, which was across a bridge, Counsel Bluffs being in Iowa, and Omaha, being in Nebraska. A new adventure was about to start.

Written: 5-24-2008 (see: “Milwaukee Bound,” and “Rat hole in Omaha,” for the other two parts to this story)

Rat hole in Omaha


Chapter Seventeen
The Apartment


“Come on,” Jerry Hino said, it was morning and we needed to get an apartment there was a light film of snow on the ground, it was November of 1967 and this was my second great trip. The anxiety and dilemma of the night driven through Milwaukee had passed, we had driven from Minnesota, to Milwaukee, onto Madison, Wisconsin, and here we were in Omaha, Nebraska. In Milwaukee we had almost got shot. Anyhow, we had high-tailed it out of Milwaukee, onto Omaha.
I was a little disappointed in the city; it didn’t look like much, I spotted Dodge Street right away, and we drove up and down it looking for an apartment. Jerry was running away from his girlfriend Nancy, and I was on an adventure of my own, my second one to be exact.
I looked about at the huddled set of crude buildings, duplexes and corner grocery stores, dotted around what I called upper Dodge Street, and down an offshoot, here and there (Dodge being the main branch to the tree).
In my adventure in Seattle, I ended up with Jeff’s wife coming along, and here again I got a friend who had left a love sick woman, for an adventure, and I was hoping she’d not popup into the scene, and so far so good. Anyhow, we found a Rat hole of an apartment just off Dodge street, and the duplex was side by side, so our neighbors were closer than white on rice. I didn’t really have a plan ‘B’ here if things did not work out, only hoping they would between Jerry and I, and they seemed to. He, like me, liked our drinking, and he was perhaps a bit over weight, him being about my height, five-feet, eight inches talk, and two-hundred and forty pounds, I was kidding, he was way over weight.
The duplex was grey, and I expect it was built in the ’80s, and it was as I said, 1967, so I mean, 1880s. We paid for two weeks rent, that was all we could afford for the moment, it cost us $65-dollars, and that was highway robbery if you ask me, I mean it was crude and meager accommodations. It surely was not unfamiliar with me for the times, during those years anyhow.
Jerry seemed to speak for both of us, and him being the elder, I took no insult to it, I often listened attentively during those drinking days, we had our stories to tell, and we told them, and laughed half the night. We must have gotten drunk every night we were in Omaha. And in-between I looked for work, Jerry did not, he slept the day away, as I looked; I think that was one of the reasons he and Nancy got into fights; I could be wrong. Anyhow, I went to the Omaha State Employment Office, and they asked me were I had come from, and why I was up there trying to take work away from the good folks of Omaha, who needed work worse than I. I had no other answer than, “I didn’t realize I was stepping on forbidden ground,” he didn’t like my comments, and told me to go back where I came from, and stop taking jobs away from other good folks. I know what I wanted to tell him, but I just shook my head and left the buzzard to his fields of corn.
I did find a job across the bridge in Iowa, good folks there I felt, working for Howard Johnson, as a dishwasher. It paid well, and the work was not hard, and I got a hefty discount on food, and usually they’d give me an extra portion, and I’d bring it back for Jerry, I think they thought it would be my late night supper, but supper for me was beer, not food.

Well, a few weeks went by, and Jerry sent his mother a letter, telling her how he was, not sure why he did that at first, I mean, I never did, I kind of felt no need to, we had just been gone a few weeks, not months or years. Anyhow, our address was on it, this now took away the secret of where we were, and of course Nancy got hold of the address, as you would expect. It was now inevitable, she’d someday show up on our doorsteps, but of course I didn’t know all this at the time. But it didn’t take long, and yes, she was there one evening when I came back from work, and again I was in bewilderment, but not as shocked as I was when Jeff’s wife, showed up from nowhere wanting to go with us to Seattle. I thought at the time: what is wrong with these guys, do they not have any stemma staying away from their patsy women, the ones they are running away from, can’t live with, or deal with. I had old girlfriends also, and I was glad to get away from them, and the farther the better, and the longer the better. In fact, I never went back to one I left, or anyone that left me, what for, once the bond is broken, it is broken, like my mother used to say: get off the bus, and find another.
I was perhaps their shadow the following two weeks; I think we spent a month to six weeks in that Rat hole. I went on my own, visited the museum, which had a lot of Indian artifacts, and we all got drunk at night, like always.

But to make this story more interesting, and build up the plot some, not much though, because it is really the end to the story, we simply went back to Minnesota, I lived with them for six weeks, they asked me to leave after that, since they had kids, and I was sleeping on the sofa, and you know, that gets old. Anyhow, I do remember the Jewish Store, down the block in our Omaha neighborhood. I spent some time down there, talking to the old redheaded Jew. Gold teeth, not in bad shape for fifty years old she had pretty nice curves, and I of course ripe at nineteen. Her place was a Rat hole also, but I suppose, it went along with the neighborhood. The store had high ceilings, you could see the wooden beams, and there was dampness in the place, clutter, and everything looked old, can goods with rust on them. Perhaps she was a dope dealer and this was her front, but I couldn’t have imagined that at the time. I liked her, and she allowed me to come in and out and not buy a thing, and hang around.

5-17-2008