No Good Deed, Fort Bragg Branch

What I love(d) about living in the big city is the wealth of opportunity. I'm not talking about the potential for cultural enrichment or the multitude of career options, the accessibility of art or the rich admixture of diverse humanity. I mean the chance, every single night, of embroiling oneself in some seriously interesting mischief.

When the citizens go to sleep and the city-within-a-city turns into vivid, seething life, that's when things get real, and often times real weird. Sure, there's a chance of violence or theft being visited on you, but there's also the possibility of meeting a transvestite hooker with a sack full of cocaine and the need for someone to talk to, or a graffiti artist needing a lookout, or a pimp in full regalia out walking his pet ocelot — all encounters I've had. All one need do is open oneself to possibility.

Just as there is a way to communicate to the city through body language, Do not mess with me — I am only passing through and I may be armed, one can just as clearly shout: City! Do with me what thou wilt! Bring it on, city, whatever you got! I'm in. Let's do this. And things will happen, assuredly. Things that may leave scars, or blots upon one's permanent record, true, but memorable things. Ore for the currency of stories, tools for the shaping of personality.

Naturally, not everyone is equipped for this kind of nocturnal adventure; depending on the value one might place on personal safety and freedom, some might be better advised to stay in well lit and conscientiously policed areas, but for those of us unburdened with such quotidian concerns, the city is our oyster.

In recent years I found myself haunting not the hurly-burly precincts of our nation's Metropoli — not the Tenderloin, or the Montrose, or Alphabet City, or Fells Point or Deep Ellum or West Colfax — but the considerably less teeming and more tame streets of Fort Bragg, California. One zip code. Four bars if you don't count the ones that are seriously inhospitable to strangers, which I don't. I like my drinking to be loud and convivial, not a grim chore to be pursued sadly and silently. You all know of whom I speak.

So, four bars, one fast food outlet, one Starbucks, two supermarkets, and a hardware store. No pawn shops, adult entertainment, dance clubs, after-hours spots, or any other of the environments conducive to the sort of urban hijinks a sophisticated cosmopolite like myself requires to stay interested and engaged. What's a fellow to do? If you guessed "create your own craziness," then I think I'm finally getting through to you people.

In Fort Bragg, if you want to be a catalyst for, or at least a witness to, late night shenanigans, the time and place to be in is last call at the Vortex of Mischief. That is, interpose yourself roughly between the Welcome Inn and The Tiptop at roughly 0200ish. There is liable to be a fistfight, a screaming match between sweethearts, someone needing to buy drugs, or, best of all, a tomato sufficiently stewed that her standards have lowered to the point of finding me a viable sex partner.

This is where I found myself one fine summer night, sitting on the bench a few yards south of The Tiptop.

I heard a small commotion and turned to see a grandly drunk fellow reeling and weaving down the sidewalk, attended by much shouting and laughter. He had the look of a fisherman about him, I remember thinking; something in the squint of his eyes as he strained to focus and the set of his shoulders as he struggled mentally to negotiate the tempestuously heaving sidewalk. He caromed off a trashcan, then a building, then his body shot forward significantly ahead of his feet, sending him sliding into the sidewalk face first. This provoked another burst of laughter from the assembled revelers still smoking and rehashing the night's events outside the bar.

Nice, I thought. Not only did nobody, bartender included, think of curtailing this poor sap's intake while he could still function, but now that he'd become cop or ambulance bait, their only response was hilarity. Either these are some seriously heartless people or the downed dude is a Grade A Prick.

Well, I thought, getting up, somebody's got to help him. I squatted down next to him and took him by the shoulder. "Yo, buddy, you all right? How we doing?" He made a gurgling noise and I turned him over to reveal an angry red scrape on his face. I took his hand and said, "Okay, we're going to get up now, right? Just a few steps and you can sit down on the bench. You can't stay on the ground."

I pulled him up and steered him toward the bench where he sprawled bonelessy, arms and legs spread wide. "Hey," I said, slapping him lightly on the cheek. "You got someone I can call to come get you? Huh?"

"Phone," he said.

I checked his coat pockets and found a cell phone. Scanning the call history, I sent the following text to the last number called: The owner of this phone is seriously wasted on the street and needs some assistance, can you help? 15 seconds later the phone buzzed and this text came in: lol.

I texted back: Totally serious. This dude is going to end up in jail. I'm just a passerby trying to help.

Response: I said, LOL!!!

I texted the next 10 numbers. No response, no response, fuck off, kiss my ass, no response, you must be joking, fuck that dude, etc. etc. I returned his phone to his pocket.

I turned back to him: “Okay, Bro, looks like all your friends are busy. You got cab fare? How did you get here?"

"Truck," he said, pointing up into the sky.

"Which one? That one? Give me your keys."

I found his keys and pointed them at the Toyota parked at the curb, pushed the unlock button and I was rewarded with the chirp-thunk. "Okay, pal, we're going to get in the car now, ready?"

I opened the passenger door and poured him into the cab, shut the door, and his head thumped against the window. I got into the driver's seat. "Okay, where do you live?" Silence. Then, a snort as he shook his head violently and looked at me, zero comprehension in his eyes. "So go! Go!" he said, then laid his head back against the window and went to sleep.

I dug in the glove compartment and found an insurance card with an address on Harrison and drove off. I hadn't gone a block away when — of course — Fort Bragg Police Department, out on DUI patrol and naturally as aware of the rich possibilities around the mischief vortex as I, pulled onto Franklin. They passed me, flipped a Uey, and lit me up. As I pulled it over and sat there cursing myself for thinking it was a good idea to try and get this fool safely home, I looked in the rearview and saw that it was Nick and Karen, my two favorite (by which I mean least favorite) officers. Clearly they recognized me behind the wheel of an unfamiliar vehicle and decided to investigate further. After the obligatory search, I explained the situation. I was given a field sobriety test which I passed and my license was run and found clean.

Then an odd thing happened. Officer Nick thanked me for keeping this guy off the road and instructed me to get back in the truck and follow him. The drunken chap was known to him, apparently, and the Harrison address was no good. We took him up to Cleone and left him in his driveway to sleep it off and I got to experience a no-cuffs ride in a cop car back to Franklin Street.

When I got dropped off I was practically glowing with self-satisfaction. Maybe I shouldn't be an agent of chaos, I thought. Maybe I should walk the earth and provide aid and comfort to the helpless and weary, refusing recompense or recognition. Restore the balance of my karmic accounts, become a force for good.

I got into my car and drove home, mischief no longer on the agenda.

Several days later, I was walking down Franklin Street and again encountered the man who was responsible for my transformation into Super Samaritan, champion of the inebriated, and all-around good guy. He was drunk again, though not insensibly so, and accompanied by a friend. “Hey there," I said with a smile as I approached them. "You're looking much improved from the other night."

"Who the fuck're you, motherfucker?" he snarled.

"Whoa, whoa," I said, holding up my hands in a conciliatory fashion. "I'm the motherfucker who saved your drunk ass the other night, motherfucker!"

Pow! Next thing I know, I'm looking up at him from a seated position on the sidewalk, dazed and rattled. The man has got a serious right-hand. "Just stay down," his friend advised me, pulling my attacker away. "You got him," he said soothingly. "He's done. Let's go."

"God damn right he's done," my assailant said, squaring his shoulders and strutting off down the street.

I sat there on the sidewalk for a moment, collecting myself and thinking about the strange and interesting turns life takes. In an effort to impose order and meaning to the events that led me to be sitting on the sidewalk with a swollen face and a throbbing head, I constructed a moral for the preceding tale and that moral is as follows:

Should you encounter a lion with a thorn in his paw, do not pull it out. Instead, address the thorn squarely, and, employing your dominant leg, drawback your foot and with a swift pistoning motion, drive the thorn deep into the beast's paw. As he screams in shock and pain, throw a croker sack over his head and lash it with a stout cord around his neck. Using a cudgel or similar stout implement, begin bashing him lustily about the head and shoulders until he loses consciousness. With another length of the selfsame cord used to bind the sack, tie all four legs together in the manner of a dogie at the rodeo. Drag the insensate, helpless creature to a secure location and keep him locked up until you can find a buyer for him on eBay. Take the money and spend it on drugs, alcohol, fireworks and hookers. Have a party. With whatever cash remains, compose and print up mocking broadsides of the shortcomings of lions and post them all over town. Continue existing in a cynical, selfish, hedonistic manner. Baddabing.