Busted

On November 22, 1977 I left a “Sheila and Jessie” concert at the Garberville Theatre and headed north toward Eureka to UPS a box of canning jars full of trimmed weed, the first pound I ever tried to sell, to a friend in Nevada on a front. (I had been planning to take my '65 Dodge Dart station wagon but hadn't been able to replace the regulator so instead I took this old Plymouth Valiant I had found somewhere which didn't have a muffler and only bright lights.)

I wanted to spend the night at the Salmon Creek house just off the highway with a woman I had recently met, who was also from Indiana, but at some point during our visit I made a gauche move and had to leave. What could I do but keep driving north late at night in my dilapidated Valiant powered by the popular slant six engine?

When the county cops stopped me near the Elk River exit there was a roach in the ashtray, a canning jar of weed on the seat beside me, and the backpack holding the box of canning jars was partially open on the back seat. I tried to blame some random hitchhiker but that didn't work. (I had a red patch on the knee of my old green slacks and the police claimed that a bank had been robbed in Mendocino earlier that day by someone with a similar patch.)

I was busted with the first pound I ever grew, then booked, photographed, fingerprinted, and lodged into the Humboldt County jail for fourteen hours. In the morning I was let out on my own recognizance and I called my food stamp worker who came down with her husband, took me to their home, and made me breakfast. (When they went to bed I raided the fridge and cut some nice fat slices of cheese, but it tasted weird and I soon realized I was trying to eat a butter sandwich.)

I returned to my home, Jack Glick's cabin up on what we called Fern Hill, looked inside and in my friend's mail truck up the hill, where all my weed had been hanging, and nothing was there! I immediately thought of the Tower House just down the hill where Charity had a daycare, and sure enough it was all hanging on the top floor. (Reb Barker, Richard Gienger and Mel had moved my scene after hearing I was busted.)

I thought, hmm, okay and proceeded to continue drying it there, umm, using the firewood from Charity's daycare. Very soon after that, the big mean heroin addict Ray Balliett was sent over to tell me to get my shit out of there and replace the firewood. (The enforcer!)

My court hearing was scheduled for January so I flew down to Guadalajara on New Year's Eve for a quick vacation, then headed over to Mexico City where I walked out of “The Towering Inferno” bored, just after Faye Dunaway said to Paul Newman, "Oh Doug, I'd live with you anywhere, even on the cliffs of Mendocino." (At that point I was living on some cliffs of Mendocino.)

As I walked back to the Hotel Estadio I wondered if I was anywhere near Jack Kerauac's old rooftop apartment at 212 Orizaba Street? I looked up at the street sign and it was Orizaba! I looked again and saw I was right on the 200 block, in the biggest city in the world. (That’s my best coincidence, I have seven others.)

I walked up to the top floor and told the young woman resident that a famous writer had lived there, and could I come in and see if there was any writing on the wall? She let me in to look around.

When I got back I hired noted weed lawyer Robert Cogen, who convinced Judge Thomas to throw the case out: illegal search and seizure. I paid him $2200 and he lectured me about how to transport weed: “Always drive at high noon,” he said.

(Robert died this year after an illustrious life. RIP)