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.

ACTon

We left the interstate for a canyon highway. Taz and I stared out the windows at the ugly barren landscape. He tells me he picked this place to get clean cause its near nothing. No way out. I did too. We drive through dirt mountains sparsely covered with brush and veined with two track roads to nowhere. We pass the add outcropping of buildings that I’m sure million dollar ranches but only look like a collection of landscaped pole barns form this distance. Nothing is scenic. My vague plan is to stay out here in the desert, away from Hollywood, but how can I? This is Mars.

As we turn off the highway Taz points out an arrow shaped sign with Acton painted on it. It’s not just a rehab, it’s a town. Its funny cause I’d been thinking it had some deeper meaning, Act On your problems or whatever. Take ACTion. We drive by the road into the town. Old store fronts surrounded by shacks and trailers. Spahn ranch. We’re in a valley surround by rocks dirt and tumbleweeds. I wonder how many bodies are buried out there.