Roadrunner, Indians, Sharkskin suit

Roadrunner
One night my ride left so on my way out of the lot I stole a Roadrunner. It wasn’t planned, I was going to hitchhike, but as I passed by I saw that the windows were open and the keys were in the ignition.
It was an old school muscle car and I knew that whoever owned it loved it. Hood scoop and spoiler, big fat tires, rear end in the air, green metal flake paint job with wide white racing. I don’t know why it didn’t have a stick, but it didn’t so I had a ride home.
But I didn’t want to go home, driving it was too much fun so I passed through Traverse City and headed North, up M22 into Leelanau County. The road was empty and I was going as fast as I could. When I got to Northport I turned South. I slammed the pedal to the floor and It went right through it.
Directly in my path was a house and no obstructions between me and it. There was no way I could make the curve going as fast as I was. I shifted into neutral and the car spun out into the ditch on the other side of the road. The motor was screaming and I was afraid it would blow up or something so I jumped out and ran into the woods. Just like the Torch Lake Indians.




Indians take to the woods
Gabrielle and I were hitching up to our friend Nancy’s cottage on Torch Lake when an overloaded station wagon picked us up. It was filled with four of five generations of an Indian family. Not all of them I’m sure, but some from each. Gabby knew some of them. She liked to hook up with native guys. Anyone third world looking really.
We barely got a mile when smoke started billowing out from under the hood. The car pulled over and without a sound everyone piled out and ran into the woods. I considered it some sort of primitive reaction to the dysfunction of the white mans mechanical monster. They disappeared and we were left standing there. Gabrielle grew up on a farm and had some know how that I didn’t. She popped the hood and started throwing handfuls of sandy dirt onto the engine. I quickly joined in and we got the fire to go out.
A pick-up truck pulled over and the driver got out to help us. By now the engine had quit smoking but the Indians were still nowhere in sight. It was like they had vaporized. I wondered if they were still running, the fiery car a heaving monster in their minds, roaring through the woods behind them.

Sharkskin suit
I stayed in the woods too, for fear of being caught. The car was still screaming and there was the house right there. It was dawn now and I was wearing this shiny sharkskin suit. I was also wearing Beatle boots, this was my look at the time. With both of us being foreign objects in the area I’d immediately be connected to the car.
I started walking in the general direction of Lake Michigan. I thought this was what the Indians had been doing too, an instinctual pull towards water. If the world caught on fire, water would be safe harbor. At least you could see your enemies coming.
It was not a lush forest with a soft bed of needles underfoot. These woods had a lot of underbrush and the suit was getting snagged on branches. I was stumbling along for quite awhile when I glimpsed pavement between the trees.
I didn’t know what road it was or where I was but at this point I didn’t care. If a cop came along I’d just feign ignorance. I don’t know what you’re talking about, I could say.
I was so tired and dehydrated I would have drank from a puddle and slept in a ditch but I didn’t have to. I saw the trail to Vicki’s Place, and knew that if I made it there I’d have a bed to sleep in.

Rehab Nipple

There always seems to be some old queen hovering around the all male rehabs and at Harbor Hall it was Walter. He was the money man and when he was around we were supposed to pay attention to him, be grateful I guess, I spotted him as a predator early on. He liked to hug the better looking and/or younger residents. When he moved in on me the first time I blocked him by extending my hand between us as a rigid barrier. He had no choice but to abandon his intended flesh-press and grab the hand for an awkward shake. The aborted embrace left our faces no more than a couple inches apart. I briefly glimpsed my own reflection in his rheumy eyes then looked over at JD to see if he had caught the maneuver. His smile indicated he had. He’d told me that the old man had blindsided him with a hug that’d quickly turned into a discreet dry hump before he could break it off. I told him about the hand trick and that I’d demonstrate it for him if I got a chance although I wasn’t sure if I was in his target group. Turned out I was.
Walter had a sort of gentlemans farm outside of town where he and his wife lived. He would choose one rehab guy to work a couple days a week as a sort of farm hand. I was offered the job and accepted. I could use the money plus anything to get away from the Hall was cool. The wife always made me a super white person lunch of a bologna and mayo sandwich, a couple of cookies from a bag and a glass of milk to drink. It was a lunch you'd send your kid off to school with back in the day.
Walter wanted me to wear overhauls at the farm, so I did. I decided this was a whores job and I would treat it as such by doing whatever Walter, the trick, needed me to do. I never wore a shirt and always left one strap undone allowing for a glimpse of nipple here and there.

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.

Harbor Hall

There were usually a few guys malingering on the porch til lights out. One night I hung out with them and found out it wasn’t only the last drag on their cigarette that was keeping them up late. It was also for the blow-jobs that were offered up by an old native woman who set up camp a few nights a week behind a hedge across the alley. I was being a wet blanket cause none of them wanted me to see what they were up to. At first I thought they were afraid I’d snitch, then I saw her, and understood their shame. She was big—as in wide—and boxy. Short dark hair was tucked behind her ears. Her mouth lacked teeth. Her head was built for blow jobs. She stood still for a moment, hands on hips, then ducked behind the bushes.

the fail

twenty pounds of gut hang over the waist band of his rust stained gap cords. crusty enchilada sauce embellishes his soiled brown hoodie hidden under which is the gray stubble of his once shiny vibrant bleached blond hair. his once pride in appearence, philosphy even, has been sucked away by the rotted and filthy self propegating self sustaining medusa head thing called treatment center. The fluorescent ceilings of aa meeting rooms spotlight his external disinegration unkindly...clean and vibrant and sharp once he will emerge a fecund and rolly polly hippy, a thing to hate. pray for him, pray for mike m for he, I, is an alcoholic!