She told me she was a christian and a pineapple and a lesbian.

She told me she was a christian and a pineapple and a lesbian. I knew that the Mary on the dashboard was not ironic, without asking. I also knew straight away that she meant no harm and maybe she knew the same thing of me. That even beyond the illusion of the nice suit, I was harmless, just some lost and drunk guy, at the edge of a carless boulevard, stranded, in the middle of the night. One lone crystalline tear trailing down his cheek...just kidding there, couldn't not. I passed the gutter test, once again, but a few days later sitting sober by the pool, it occurred to me that my luck may be soon running out and that Los Angeles was not Traverse City, and that my next free ride may not turn out so well.

Acton

Marc made us a quartet, not just behind the bush but in the lines too. Meals, meetings, classes, meds, bathroom. We had to wait in line for everything, but if one of us was where we were supposed to be then we all didn't have to wait. He was British and had the requisite rotted teeth. It's funny but there weren't a lot of bad teeth at Acton, probably because most of the residents had done prison time and felons got free dental care.
Marc had been in a band called Sex Gang Children. I’d heard of them, maybe even seen them when I lived in MPLS. I told him that if I'd seen him I'd been drunk and didn't remember it. He said he was pretty sure they'd played there but he would've been fucked up too and so wouldn't remember it either. We had the shared human experience thing. We were both members of the worldwide drunken/drugged brotherhood of man. I asked him if he'd ever heard of the Spahn Ranch, he hadn't, but he had heard of Auschwitz and nodded knowingly when I pointed out the cinder block shower building.
I had a theory in mind that the State of California was using Acton to funnel undesirables off the streets of L.A. and into some netherworld existence further out in the vast desert. Lacking sufficient food and water, we would become dried brown husks, creaking around on stick-like limbs. Our crackly carcasses would be absorbed into the Salton Sea and provide meals for hideous fish mutations. Somehow this vision comforted me, I didn't share it with Marc though, not yet.

pre-acton/ I meet Melba

Pre-Acton

Melba saved my ass at a bus stop on Sunset Blvd. I’d been drinking my way through West Hollywood until the bars closed. I was wearing a stretch denim suit and a dark grey pinstripe overcoat and probably looked okay propped up against the glass enclosure but it had been a rough hike up from Santa Monica. I had to have covered more ground side to side than forward. I was raggedy inside.

I’d forgotten that Sunset buses heading west stopped running early, like at midnight. There was no traffic, nothing. I could walk back down to Wilshire or Santa Monica where maybe the buses were still running but I didn’t. Maybe I was waiting for a rogue cab. That would’ve been for naught anyway, I didn’t know it yet but I’d been ripped off by a Hispanic TG at a bar called Rage. I had no money.

I’d been standing there awhile when a primer grey serial killer looking sedan rolled slowly past. The windows were dark. I watched as it did a u-turn and pulled up in front of me. It was a nice night, December, blurry stars hung in the sky. I recognized it’s potential but felt no fear. A large light-skinned black woman leaned over smiling, and asked if I needed a ride as she opened the passenger-side door. I don’t know what I was thinking as I climbed in, I was curious.