I was exhausted, having spent my days off among the bangers of Waugh Lane in Ukiah and nearly getting my cap peeled by a pair of school-age junior-grade neo-Norteños who asked me who I ran with in prison. "Woods," I said thoughtlessly, forgetting momentarily the neophyte gangster's constant lookout for a splashy act of violence to cement their position in the clique. "Woods," for you unaware squares out there, is short for "peckerwoods," which denotes the bulk of the white prison populace, those not affiliated with the more radical and violent white fringe gangs. While not technically a gang, the Woods are expected to band together for the white cause when things jump off, but where they really shine is in running, hiding, and being stabbing-practice dummies for the Sureños and Norteños. They're also quite skilled at blustering, posturing, naming themselves after auto parts ("Turbo," "Sparkplug," "Smallblock," etc.), and beating up their own people.
I could literally go on all day about the lameness of Woods, but you'd probably find them as boring and stupid as I do, so suffice to say that prior to abandoning prison politics and the mainline and going the dropout route, I was nominally a Wood and negligently told these fools so. Once I realized the danger I was in, I dropped the name of a Norteño honcho I worked with at Applebee's who turned out to be their capo or overseer or lieutenant or whatever, who vouched for me and saved the day.
So, between the barely averted peril and the usual ripping, running, wheeling and dealing, I was all in and ready for some food, sex and sleep.
With that in mind I headed over to South Dora and the domicile of my girlfriend Christine. Christine, as those familiar with my adventures will recall, enjoys a fairly casual relationship with sanity. They've met, decided they were not one another's cup of tea, and now smile and wave politely on the rare occasions when they interact. She's not a gibbering lunatic and is perfectly capable of navigating the rocks and shoals of life, at least in Mendocino, she just does it with a splash more color and a few more burnt buildings than your average person. She's pretty, outspoken, unpredictable, and terrifyingly direct; unrestrained by convention or politesse, she will say pretty much whatever pops into her head. She's hell on egos but keeps me grounded, and I enjoy pointing her at people whose affectations offend me. Complicated hairstyles, for instance, or fake tans are guaranteed to elicit a comment from her.
Christine answered the door looking slightly wan and dressed only in her underwear. "Oh, it's you," she said. "State your intentions."
I gave her a smile and a kiss. "Just coming to see you, babe."
She stood aside to let me in. "I guess that would be okay," she said. She rendered herself supine on the carpet, arms extended, and stared at the ceiling.
I took a look around the room to ascertain the local weather. Sometimes Christine will broadcast indications of her mental state with modifications to her surroundings — the furniture might be oriented toward the walls, say, or drawings of skulls posted in the windows. Today there were small piles of food deposited around the room, little pyramids of comestibles stacked as high as their respective angles of repose would allow. There were scrambled eggs, M&Ms, raisins, uncooked fusilli, beef jerky painstakingly cut into star shapes, and sliced-up tofu pups. On top of the toilet tank was a pile of gummy worms topped with chunky salsa.
I sat down next to her on the floor. "What's up with all the food, hon?" I asked.
"Strictly precautionary. Don't eat any of it," she answered.
"No worries. So, let me tell you about my weekend." I spoke soothingly as I ran my fingers through her hair and the tension gradually left her. She curled into me like a cat and made soft contentment noises, and I too began to relax.
It suddenly occurred to me to wonder, as one with the yoke of addiction around one's neck always must before retiring, whether I had sufficient chemicals on my person to jump-start what would surely be an obdurately unwilling body in the morning. A quick check determined otherwise and I regrettably disentangled myself from Christine's warmth. "Sorry, hon, got a quick errand to run. I'll be back in 20 minutes."
She groaned unhappily and said, in the manner of a princess sending a suitor on a quest, "Bring me back a pomegranate."
I agreed and bicycled over to Smith Street, across from the Palace Hotel, where my friend Hillary the part-time hooker lived. It was a rare day when someone with a salable quantity of the ol' yippety-skippetty wasn't sniffing around in hopes of catching her in a bartering mood, and that day was no exception. I obtained a forty, secreted it in my wallet, threw a leg over and headed for Safeway on Part II of my mission.
The sky was doing its usual late-afternoon thing and I was without a light, but I figured I at least had time to get to Safeway before I was in violation. No light is the pretext most often employed by the police when pulling people over for being skinny on a bike. Granted, profiling thin, drawn-looking men in their 40s riding bicycles and wearing backpacks is probably just solid police work — we're usually up to no good — but still, you hate to be singled out for your appearance.
I was cruising down State Street at a pretty good clip and when I crossed Seminary there was a Ukiah PD vehicle waiting at the stop sign, as there usually is (duh). Heart hammering, I tried to appear unconcerned and focused on my destination. The patroller made a right, followed me for a few seconds, and then there it was. Flash, flash, woop! Woop! Son of a BITCH! I pulled it on over.
"When's the last time you used?"
"I don't know, a couple days."
"Couple days, huh? Alright, do me a favor. Close your eyes, tilt your head back, and tell me when you think thirty seconds have passed, okay?"
"No problem." (One mississippi, two mississippi, three Mississippi…) "Okay, now."
"You think that was 30 seconds?"
"If it wasn't, it's near enough as makes no difference," I said.
"What makes you so sure?"
"I did one mississippi, two mississippi."
"I told you to estimate, not count," he chided me, "Now do it again."
(One mississippi, two mississippi, three Mississippi… damn, I wish I was in Mississippi right now, anywhere but here… What's that smell? Damn, I'm hungry. Tired, too. Shoulda stayed with Christine…)
* * *
"Hey! Wake up!" Fingers were snapping in my face.
"Okay, now. 30 seconds," I said.
"Dumbass! You've been asleep for three minutes. You were snoring," the cop said. "Well, that oughta tell you I'm not high, right?"
I might've gotten by with it, but on the second excavation of my wallet they found my sack. I was transported, booked for possession and taken to Low Gap. Oddly, my Parole Officer elected not to violate me back to San Quentin and I got 90 days county time (60 actual days).
Toward the end of my sentence I received a visitor. It was my manager at Applebee's, a perky little Jimmy Neutron look-alike with a can-do attitude and oomph to spare. "Hey there, Flynn," he said. "Are you ready to leave all this drug business behind and rejoin the Applebee's family? 'Cause we're right behind you 100% with all the support you need."
I was quite touched by the gesture and agreed to come back to work upon my release.
It was a beautiful spring day when I was sprung and I was fairly skipping down the street on my way to resume the day so very rudely interrupted by Ukiah's finest. I know I've touched on this before, but there really is nothing quite like the pure and simple joy of reacquainting oneself with the world after a stretch inside, however short. I decided to stop in at Hillary's on Smith first. "Hey, girl. I think that forty I got from you back in March was defective — it attracted the police," I said. "I'd like a refund, please."
"You're the one that's defective," she said. "Christine came by looking for you, said something about a pomegranate."
"Thanks. Listen, I got like 9 bucks here. Hook a brutha up, willya?"
She did what she could for me, which in my thoroughly detoxified state put a significant spring in my step, and I sauntered on over to Christine's.
"Oh, it's you," she said on opening the door. "That was fast. Where's my pomegranate? Your stuff’s in the closet."
I sat down to inventory my backpack. 8 flashlights, check; 35 pens, check; 4 cellphones and 6 chargers, check; assorted tools, check; wait, what's this? One Altoids tin with a sack full of the finest? Huh. Appears my errand was unnecessary and the entire misadventure could've been averted with a more thorough accounting. What do you know? Eh, what the hell. I was tired and I'm sure the respite did me good. Onward and upward! Excelsior!
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