Deer Killed by Beauty Van

Not working was always a key element in my philosophy of life, but every once in a while, lacking in regular cash, I'd have to pick up some dumb job. I had no marketable skills but I did have a driver’s license and that was enough to get me hired delivering beauty products.
My route was on the other side of the state, the Lake Huron shoreline, The Redneck Riviera. I’d never been over there. I thought of it as the wrong side of the state but I considered anything more than thirty miles away from Traverse City wrong. For me wrong meant ugly scenery sparsely populated with rednecks. I didn’t see myself as a snob; I thought Traverse City was a dump too, just that these outer realms were worse.
My vehicle was a big brown snub-nosed van. I'd load it up with shampoo, dye, chemicals and electronics then head north and east stopping at house and garage based salons along the way. These beauty shop ladies were creepy and my favorite drops were ones without any social interaction.
If I needed a signature I was out of luck and would have to field their nosy questions, Was I married? Did I have a girlfriend, children?
They seemed stupid and it occurred to me that they might be experiencing brain damage from inhaling perm solution and nail-polish remover all day. These women were accidental huffers. Later of course I realized that they were collecting gossip fodder to pass on to their homebound associates and possibly a visit from the delivery boy was a highlight of their day. I had a friend who delivered flowers and he was always getting frightened by sexually aggressive housewives. Some of them were not hideous but he was afraid that if he had sex with one he’d have to have sex with them all. Word would get out.
It was a dull drive that was easily enhanced by liquor, so I started drinking on the way home, usually when my route was almost over. This was when I still thought drinking and driving was a safe practice and I guess it was, I had no repercussions from it, until I hit the deer.
I was driving south through pitch black woods. I had one more stop that I knew I would never find. Not because I was on my second bottle of Lambrusco but because I’d never been there before and it was remote. A town called Higgins Lake. I didn’t know if it was a town even, it could just be a lake. The drop was tiny anyway, a couple bottles of toner, so I planned on skipping it. I passed by this XXX drive-in theater that always distracted my imagination. It was off in the woods, and aside from the sign by the road all you could see of it was the top of the screen. What I imagined was what kind of people patronized it, the beauty shop ladies for sure, what sort of vehicles they used and what they did in them. I was just getting into that last bit, trying to gross myself out, when a big animal face blotted out the road.
There wasn't much to the front of the van and the deer was up and across the windshield almost before I could blink, long enough though for its bulging eye and rolling tongue, its little teeth, to be imprinted on my retina. Later when I retold this story, my memory enhanced by time I'd envision the animals head ripped from its torso, blood veined eyeballs popping out of its skull, thick black lips curled back revealing razor sharp teeth. A monster born of the woods.
I hoped it was dead and not crippled but I didn't get out to look, I didn't want to and as it turned out I didn't have to. It was November 14th the day before hunting season opened, and the woods were already filled with hunters horny for a kill. My view of these men as freaks was reinforced as I watched a handful emerge from the mist at the edge of the woods; swamp muck sucking at their boots as they sniffed at the air.
Drawn by the squeal of tires and the smell of blood, they lurched towards my van like movie zombies. One of them approached and seemed to be trying to speak so I rolled down my window. He was fat and gasping for air from trudging thru the woods or, it occurred to me, in anticipation for the dead deer and the promise of sexual release it held. I looked down to see if I could spot an erection but his trousers were all bunched up and I couldn't tell.
“It gawn blow!” A newly dead deer will bloat with gaseous fumes and explode if not gutted immediately. This was what the hunter was trying to tell me. He wanted the deer and I said “sure”, glad to have it removed from my sight while I waited for the wrecker.
I watched through the busted windshield as he unsheathed a huge knife. He bent over, exposing an ass so big it almost dwarfed the deer, and with some difficulty slit open it’s belly. Blood flooded the pavement and settled into a dark pool. Steam rose up as the heat of the animal met the cool night air.
They're gonna fuck that thing, I thought, watching him and another man drag the carcass off the highway and into the woods. I rode to a nearby gas station in the cab of the tow truck. The driver owned the station and told me that although the van still ran it wouldn't make it back home without a replacement radiator. He would see if he had a used one around.
I checked into a nearby motel and then walked to a party store for beer. Across the road from the store was a bar, a roadhouse advertising music and dancing. I wondered if they had food and what kind it would be, I was hungry, but eating food in remote places like this could be risky. I was served a plate of rotted meat at a restaurant in the U.P once. It was just like this one, stuck in the middle of nowhere. When I told the waitress it tasted weird she asked if I was from the city, that I probably wasn't used to wild meat. I tried to imagine what a wild cow might look like? Maybe it would resemble the bony ones with horns from Texas; Longhorns.
I walked back to the cabin and lay on the bed drinking beers and watching scrambled porn on the TV. I thought about what I'd do if I lived over here, and couldn’t come up with anything. I became filled with boredom and wanted more beer so I decided to walk back to the store. The land was flat and the woods just sort of took off into nothingness on either side. I knew there was water off to my left cause the motel cabins were on the lake but I couldn't see it. No glimmer of lights in the woods no signs of people. It was creepy but not scary really. Scary were the hunters earlier, and where they might be now, lurking behind trees, waiting for midnight, or getting hammered at the bar.
They were getting hammered at the bar, a handful anyway. The store was closed and I was still hungry and only half drunk so I walked over to the roadhouse. I would order bar food, it was frozen, came from elsewhere, and was deep fried. It was safe. Earlier I'd hung out at the garage for a bit with a couple local guys while I waited on news about the van. That's when I found out I'd be there over night. If there's been more than just me and at least one girl it could've been a set up for your average strangers off the main track horror movie. Young people stranded in a town filled with ominous uglies. Someone would have sex and then they would be killed, horribly.

One of the guys from the garage was at the bar so I walked over and sat next to him. “What's with the whores?” I asked by way of greeting. There was a trio of sluttily attired women around a table by the dance floor. I wasn't worried about insulting anyone's sister or mom, I'd noticed the short bus version of a Winnebago in the lot. It was not a rig locals’ or even hunters would drive. I had no personal knowledge but had heard that these mini-campers were the chosen ride for the hunting season hookers.
“Oh” said my friend turning to look, “They fuck the hunters” he tells me what I already know but appreciate the validation of a local.
“The hunters come up here to kill and the women follow to suck their dicks for money” he adds succinctly.

“Gross” I say thinking They suck the cocks of the killers! Would be an interesting movie ad blurb.
“I don't know why they don't just stay where they are and do all that”
This makes so much sense that I take another look at the guy. He's maybe my age but at first glance looks older, growing out haircut under a trucker hat; quilt lined plaid flannel shirt and indefinable brand jeans. His baby face poorly hidden under raggedy facial hair. I thought he was a rube and he looks like a rube but clearly he isn't. He just doesn't care about appearance. I'm tempted to offer him some beauty products but don't want him to stop talking to me. I have a compulsion to kiss him on the lips but quash it when I catch him looking at me oddly. He probably saw it in my eyes. I don't know what came over me, probably the beer. Right now we're cohorts, and I'd like to keep it that way.
“Don't you need their money?” I ask under the impression that places like this depended on outsider influxes of cash.
“Not me, I'm on welfare, I just need the bitches to pay their taxes and vote democrat” I like this guy.
“What was your name again?” I ask.
He tells me his name is Ronnie and points out one of the hookers, “I think that's a dude,” he says.
He could be right, boxy of shape and wearing an obvious wig, she's holding court with her chair tilted back, legs spread, longneck in hand.
“Go find out” says Ronnie.
“No, you”
“I live here, you'll be gone tomorrow and I'm gonna be running into the dude all weekend, I could end up with my ass kicked, or worse”
This makes sense so I think about it, how to do it without instigating some extended interaction. You talk to a stranger in a bar and it can turn into a short term relationship.


“Okay” I decide “I'll ask her for the time but I won't refer to her as sir or mam, I'll call her Mrlady” I don't know how this is going to resolve the mystery but I think it's funny. So does Ronnie.
Mrlady and her table watch me approach. To her left is a stringy haired woman with a shiny face and drawn on eyebrows. If she had an expression it would be rage. Across from her is a small pink ball of a woman, a girl, with a short pony tail sticking out the back of her head like a dart. Up close our Mrlady's got a big female-sized rack but it's stacked on top of an equally dense roll of fat. Her face is heavily made up even under the dim bar lights but so are her buddies. I look close and see no sign of beard stubble trying to bust through.
“Excuse me Mrlady douyouhavethetime?” I blurt out. She points over my shoulder in the general direction of where I know there's a clock above the bar. Her expression reads as non-plussed, maybe even pissed off, which turns out to be correct. As I turn to walk away, our question unanswered but at a loss for a follow-up, I’m stopped short by a deep bass voice barking, “Get back here Asscrack!” I assume this is me and turn around.

“Listen you little weasel, if you and your boyfriend at the bar there think you can fuck with me you're dead wrong, and when I say dead I mean that the coffin is empty and the lid is open,” she grabs my wrist, digging in so hard one of her nails pops off, “Got it, fuck?”
“Yes mam,” I say heading back to Ronnie and the safety of the other side of the room.
“He’s a dude” I tell him, “and she’s scary”
“She made it clear she’s got her eye on us both” I point at my eyes and then his for emphasis. I decide to leave.
“I gotta go,” I grab my sack of fried food off the bar, “I’ll look for you when I pass through again, hopefully you’ll still be mobile.”
I left the next afternoon, stopping at the store for a bottle of wine to lessen a hangover headache. As I drove past the roadhouse I spotted an orange vested hunter on his knees outside of Mrlady’s Winnebago. Vomit was pouring out of his mouth. I wondered if she had some deal with the bar owner, setting up shop in the lot like that.

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.

a theme emerges

Wreck of the month
As a kid I would build complicated roadways in the sand and dirt under a huge five-trunked Weeping Willow near our house. My collection of HotWheels, Corgi, and Matchbox cars would barely hit the the streets before there'd be a violent pile-up, usually resulting in flames. Imaginary drivers and passengers who occupied cars with functional doors would run off, the others had no escape route and were imaginarily mangled or burned alive, screaming for help!
My friends and I also liked to hang around a gas station that had a new totaled car on display every month. We loved the smell of gas and would get nauseous inhaling the nearby fumes as we inspected the crumpled cars. Usually these cars were set up as warnings against teen drinking and driving. These tableau didn't scare us. We were intrigued by the drama and violence the twisted steel and smashed glass hinted at. The degree of damage and amount of blood and trash inside always told us a story. Aside from underage drinking teen sex was always a key ingredient. (Another one of our pastimes was rousting half-naked teenagers doing whatever they were doing down the beach from our house. The boys would always chase us, pulling up their shorts, threatening our deaths) We'd work up a scenario on the way home from the garage only to come back the next day because one of us would insist they had seen some bit of evidence that the others hadn't noticed. Was that a trace of blood on the tire iron, or just rust?
The hazardous roadways I built under the willow during the day rarely made it through the night, flattened by the passed out bodies of the bums that hung out there after dark and drank. They always left behind wine bottles and small label-less tins that I learned contained Sterno. She told me not to touch them that it was poison. I'd been using them as substructure for my highways and ignored her warning.


Beach House
We had a canvas tent that my brother, sister, and I slept in sometimes. It was set up at the edge of where the grass met sand. Our mother called it The Beach House. One night as we lay on our sleeping bags waiting to sleep, a flashlight beam started darting around the wall that separated us from the lawn that led up to the house, someone was coming. We sat up on our elbows waiting to see what was up. The front flap opened revealing mother in a nightgown. She had a big knife that she waved around, motioning for us to follow her. As we left the beach the driveway filled with cop cars, and the officers took off towards the willow. We tried to malinger and see what was going on but mother hustled us up to the house.
The next day we found out a bum had killed another bum, stabbed him. We were banned from going to the tree, but overwhelmed by curiosity, we went. We hoped for evidence, blood splatter, ripped clothing, we didn't know. We wanted anything that would reveal the details of what happened cause no one was telling us. My streets were trampled of course, but evidence-wise there was nothing, not even the usual discarded Sterno cans. I suppose we expected what the wrecks-of the-month provided, a story. I checked the paper for a few days but there was nothing.

Harbor Hall native oral

HH
Harbor Hall was a big L-shaped colonial mansion high on a residential hill. Massive injections of cash from wealthy, guilty alcoholics, had allowed it a return to its once former glory. It occupied a corner lot with inside access to the glassed-in porches along the public side, but none from the street. A roofed porch also ran along the inner flank of the shorter wing. It was bordered by the lawn and parking lot. It was out of sight from the street.
There were usually a few guys malingering on this 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 in an alcove between a row of bushes and the side of the vacant warehouse across the alley.
I was being a wet blanket because 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 built like a motel refrigerator, with short stick-like legs holding it up. Cropped dark hair was tucked behind her ears, her age was indeterminate. She stood still for a moment, hands on hips, and barked her presence. I couldn't tell what she said, if it was a word even.
The others were watching to see what I'd do. It seemed like a good enough opportunity to get my first female blow-job, plus it would put them at ease, so I went after her. I found her squatting with her back up against the side of the warehouse. It looked like she was taking a shit, and my penis inverted at the sight. Her head was tilted back, eyes slitted, and her nearly toothless mouth wide open, abnormally wide. Arousal was out of the question. I wondered if they paid her, they must, and dropped a five in her lap. She didn't move, she was waiting. God built her for this, I thought.

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.

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.

harbor hall

Harbor Hall

An old rich guy named Walter was the CEO—or whatever—of the place. He was the money man and when he was around we were supposed to pay attention to him. I spotted him as a predator right off. 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.

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!