The Stony Lonesome: Happy Anniversary

Happy Double Anniversary to Me! It's a one, two, Jubilee! So pop the corks and pluck the storks and fell the anniversa-tree!

So far as I know, there's no actual anniversa-tree, but I see no reason why there shouldn't be. I propose marking the first anniversary (of a marriage) with the gift of a tree. The couple plants the tree and essentially cedes control over the fate of the relationship to the tree or tree-gods, believing that as the tree goes, so goes the marriage. If the tree blooms and thrives, bears fruit and hosts bird's nests, spreads its branches wide and its roots deep, all shall be well and the union will be blessed with children. Should, however, the tree fall victim to blight or borers, become lightning-sundered or beetle-infested, it's a clear indicator of an ill-considered match and the participants should obey the arboreal dictates and go their separate ways, but not before felling the tree and disposing of it in a ceremonial bonfire. Because what we as Americans need is more superstitions and spurious beliefs.

But back to my own anniversaries. I'm celebrating a first and a second, respectively represented by I believe Styrofoam and Jell-O. Kidding, it's actually paper and cotton. Paper from trees! This whole thing is coming together! Cotton from… cotton.

My cotton anniversary is of my arrival here at Desert View. On November 13, 2013, I rolled up to this dump and for the last two years have lived in a single room with 80 other people who I don't really care for and I have not committed murder, jammed sharpened pencils into my ears or eyes, hurled myself onto the electric fence, or shed my raiment and danced the boogaloo on a table in the chow hall — all measures I have considered during my time here.

This is tower-of-strength caliber stuff, folks, and worthy of note. For a chap of my temperament to have withstood these soul-sucking depredations, it's just… Well, it's heroic, is what it is. I deserve a medal, at the very least. Please don't remind me that I must yet flip the pages of two-and-one-half more calendars before this adventure concludes. Should you in the near future encounter a headline in the "Inmate Spontaneously Explodes" vein, that'll probably be me, having stood all I could stand.

The paper celebration is, appropriately enough, marking a year of composing The Stony Lonesome. I am quite proud of having exerted this kind of sustained effort—just the getting done of it, banging out the pages every week. As to their quality or value, every now and then I do feel that I stumble upon the mot juste and the occasional approbation I encounter in the Letters column validates my mission and gives me an incredibly warm feeling besides. I do have a long history, after all, of being a degenerate thieving tweaker, and that particular subset of humanity isn't known for their ability to close. Their ambition is directly proportional to the amount of shaboobie in their system and a project's allure erodes rapidly as it evolves from the conceptual to concrete, as the latter involves actual effort. In other words, it's fun to dismantle the (clock, toaster, television, car, cat, etc.) but not so much fun to put it back together.

In addition to the sense of satisfaction I derive from the year's output, I also sort of feel like I'm part of the AVA family. It's a good family to be a part of; their long tradition of muckraking and nostalgia is as much a part of the fabric of Mendocino County as marijuana and an incompetent judiciary, and I'm proud and pleased to be a part of it, even if I'm not actually named as such. See, there's a box on page 3 outlining the paper's particulars, and under the heading of Contributors is a list of people who do just that on a regular basis. When that list first caught my attention, I thought well, of course you're not on it. You're a curiosity and an agent of the Dark Side, and you're lucky these nice people are even allowing you to hang out in their yard. But as time went on, I thought to myself: what am I doing, if not contributing? Perhaps I am confused about the definition of the word. No, sense 2 defines "contribute" as "to supply (as an article) for publication."

Well, perhaps someday I'll find myself included among those literary lights and lions, but until then I'll gladly operate as genus stepchild, species redhead. Hell, you can even think of me as the malformed creature chained to an engine block in the basement trading column-inches for bread-crusts and fish heads. Just happy to be here, folks.

It suddenly occurs to me that this is also the twelfth anniversary of my arrival in Mendocino County.

Twelve—that's the spackle anniversary, right? Kidding— it's silk, pearls, and colored gems. Seems a little excessive. Anyone expecting a haul that lavish from me is going to have to put in a lot longer than twelve years.

I boarded a bus in the middle of a blizzard in Colorado Springs in November 2003, westbound and down. Armed with a bottle of Adderall and a jug of cheap vodka to stave off boredom, I staked out a claim in the back of the bus and kicked back, wondering what the future, in the way of a mysterious place called Albion that I couldn't even locate on a map, held for me.

I was able to spread myself out fairly comfortably until we reached Denver and the bus filled up. My new seatmate was a twitchy-looking guy of about 30 years in an enormous wool greatcoat. I offered to share my amphetamines and Kamchatka and soon we were chattering away like a couple of magpies. He was headed to Salt Lake City on "personal business," which information was imparted to me accompanied by a wink—I had no idea how to interpret this. "Where you headed?" he asked me.
"Albion, California," I said.

"Never heard of it."

"Nobody seems to have," I said. "I'm beginning to wonder if it even exists. Actually, the bus is only taking me to someplace called Ukiah, which is the seat of Mendocino County and "haiku" backwards. I'm being picked up there and headed thence to Albion, where I'll be providing the labor for a growing operation. My plan is to earn like 50 grand and then go to Elko, Nevada where my ex-wife is currently living with her new boyfriend and win her back, because he's a stupid cowboy and he has her get in the truck on the driver’s side, which I really don't understand, that and those belt buckles, right? Anyway, I figure I'll have a decent chance with a little bankroll."

"That sounds like an excellent idea," my traveling partner said. "Listen, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I'm really going to Salt Lake to kill my wife."

"Dude, why would you tell me that? Why do I need to know that? Please don't tell me that shit. I don't need to know that."

"Nah, nah, check it out. How about this, man? There's a four-hour layover in Salt Lake. I go do my business, come back and buy a ticket to that haiku place and go to Albion with you. We corner the dope market and make a million bucks. Partners, bro! I know weed. Been smokin' my whole life. What do you think?"

"I think murder is almost always a bad idea, dude. Seriously. I don't know what your old lady did to you, but murder is not the answer, I'm sure. Trust me on this one."

He looked me in the eye for a long moment and clapped me on the shoulder. "You know what, bro, you're right. When you're right, you're right, and you are so fuckin' right. I'm just gonna go and talk to her." Another wink.

"Alright, cool. I don't want to get into your personal business, I just think she'd be better off not dead."

"No worries. Hey, let me get a couple more of them pills."

We passed the rest of the trip talking about this and that and when we got to Salt Lake, he ambled off after promising me he'd be back before the bus left for the next leg of the trip. As soon as he was out of sight, I made an anonymous 911 call, giving the operator the best description I could, as we hadn't exchanged names. I don't know if the cops picked him up or not but he never made it back to the bus. I decided to pull up stakes and move more toward the front of the bus where the less crazy people tend to sit. The rest of the trip passed without incident and we pulled into Ukiah on the afternoon of the second day.

When I reached Albion, it was raining and darker than the inside of a cow. It didn't appear to be a town by any of the usual markers (buildings, people) and instead seemed comprised chiefly of trees and water. The rain, as it turned out, didn't quit until about March, but the cabin was snug and dry.

And now here I am! Two-thirds of the way through my third prison term and one excellent year into my tenure as the redheaded contributing stepchild of the Anderson Valley Freakin' Advertiser. It has truly been a pleasure and an honor. Happy Anniversary to us.