Zombie Log — From The AVA Ukiah Bureau

The occupant in the trailer next door has been selling meth since the AVA opened this bureau over a year ago. The following is a typical 24-hour period during mid-week. After a three-day tweaker party, the subject trailer has been silent as a tomb from approximately 10:00 am the previous day. The resident, “Scotty,” could be dead, but is probably just burnt out and recuperating for another three or four days of what tweakers call “blazing.”

1:12 am: Three loud knocks, KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK pause. Series of knocks – KNOCKITY-KNOCK-KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. Another pause. Male voice, in a strained pitch: “Scotty, open up – it’s me.” Four more knocks, louder this time: KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. Same voice, even more strained: “Scotty you motherfucker, open the fucking door, I said it’s me!” KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

Sound of a lock clicking, door squeaking, then muttered male voice, “Be quiet, dude, you don’t want to wake up the guy [AVA Bureau correspondent] in the next trailer; he’ll call the fucking cops.”

“Fuck him, I’ll kill that motherfucker, he calls the motherfucking cops on me. I came to get my bag, lemme in. Hey, who’s the fucking bag whore?” Sound of door closing, click of lock.

You may have guessed that we’re not in Deerwood or Westside Ukiah.

1:15 am: Muted music begins to play, a Beatles anthology.

1:30 am: Two male voices begin to rise over the music, louder and louder, the words unintelligible, as both are talking at once, not necessarily in argument, rather separate impassioned monologues…

2:07 am: Lock clicks, door opens with out-rush of loud music (Rolling Stones’ “Mother’s Little Helper”) and the two male voices amplified, “…and this, this, this is what I’m talking about this motherfucker, motherfucker right here, see? Motherfucker you see what I’m talking about?”

Female voice: “Okay, let’s go now. Come on. Okay, you can stand out here and talk all night, but I’m off like a prom dress!”

Male voice: “I’m coming already, just wait!”

Door closes, lock clicks and voices of female and male fade into distance.

2:20 am; KNOCKETY-KNOCK-KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. Male voice: “Hey, Scotty, open up, I got some icky old pussy for you, man.” Lewd female voice giggles shrilly, lock clicks, door opens with gush of music and mix of voices, door closes, lock clicks. Muted voices and music continues.

2:36 am: Knockety-knock-knock KNOCK KNOCK. Lock clicks, music and voices flood out, door closes, lock clicks.

Music continues muted, volume of voices increases.

The tenant of the subject trailer, Scotty, is in the process of being evicted, but the late night debauchery has gone on for months and still no sign of movement. The area around the trailer is crammed with all kinds of stuff: lots of dying and otherwise neglected potted plants, old bicycles, bags and boxes of junk – since anything of value would by now have been stolen by the people who come for the meth – a stack of old vacuum cleaners, broken kid’s toys; the property is essentially a junk yard. There are lots of craft-fair wall decorations hung about the place and the doors are plastered with Neighborhood Watch posters – this is a snide attempt to disguise the local crack house as a little old granny’s domicile, and the tweakers are often heard gloating over how crafty Scotty has proven to be over the long and successful operation of his sales center. The neighbors – those who don’t buy meth from Scotty themselves – have all been intimidated into silence, mutely tolerating their hellish neighbors in what is supposed to be a senior park. Imagine spending your golden years with Scotty and friends.

2:50 am: Lock clicks, door opens, sound of voices and music escapes; after the door closes and the lock clicks, foot-falls are heard leaving.

Complaints to the manager have been heard somewhat impatiently – nothing ever happens, at any rate. Calls to the police seem equally ineffective.

3:15 am; A jolt suddenly rocks the AVA’s trailer, and a male voice just outside the window says, “Hey, you, you motherfucker, you better get outta here – you better move out, you motherfucker.”

AVA correspondent calls 911.

“What’s your emergency?”

“There’s a tweaker from next door outside my window talking smack {I’d just learned this term, which means saying intimidating or threatening things}.”

“There’s no law against talking smack. Do you want an officer to respond?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll get one there as soon as we can.”

3:40 am: When the headlights come down the drive, the tweaker runs back inside the subject trailer. The police officer finds nothing and leaves. This has happened so often that now the AVA correspondent is regarded as the fellow who calls “Wolf” just for fun. But the visit from the patrol car has quieted things down for a couple of hours and the correspondent gets a couple of hours sleep.

4:50 am: Lock clicks, door opens – no music, and only whispered voices come out. Door closes and lock clicks. Two voices speaking in whispers fade away. A car parked nearby starts up and drives off.

7:00 am: Correspondent leaves for breakfast, then a day at the courthouse. As he goes, the lock clicks, the door opens a crack and a male voice says, “You snitch on us you motherfucker, you’re dead!”

7:30 am: Correspondent sees Public Defender Linda Thompson at the county’s parking lot: “Good morning Linda, how did you sleep? Yeah, well I’m getting sick and tired of your Prop 47 clients! You tell the judge they want to get into rehab, but that’s just a bunch of baloney, isn’t it?”

9:00 am: In courtroom, waiting for judge to come out, correspondent tells Assistant DA Rick Welsh: Here’s a head’s up, Rick. I’ve been invited to appear on two radio stations and I’m going to complain bitterly about the tweaker problem in your area of responsibility.”

Linda Thompson says, “He hit me with the same thing as soon as I got to work, ha-ha.”

Rick Welsh asked: “Are these two different radio stations?”

Correspondent replies: “If they weren’t different, it would only be one, Rick.”

Deputy DA Caitlyn Keane turned in her seat in the well and said: “I live on Main, near the downtown, and have to listen to it all night, too.”

9:05 am: Judge Nelson comes out and the bailiff says, “All rise…”

Later that day I return to Judge Nelson’s court and look on angrily as Deputy Public Defender Jonathan Opet cross-examined a Ukiah PD officer on behalf of a woman I’ve seen come and go from the tweaker trailer. The officer has told the court that he believed the meth this woman had was for sale. Mr. Opet, just doing his job as public defender on behalf of a fed up public, wants to discredit the testimony so that his client will get off on a misdemeanor. And go on tweaking, stealing, bringing down the whole town, a kind of mobile slum.

“How do you know how much meth my client needs, officer – are you a doctor?”

“No.”

“So you can’t really say whether it was for personal use or not, can you?”

This is why we have a horde of tweakers out on the streets instead of in rehab – because they won’t go to rehab unless convicted of a felony and threatened with prison. And it’s obvious they’re selling meth, because they have no other income (having lost their jobs after staying up for three or four days and nights in a row). And this goes on every single day at the courthouse, and this horde of zombie thugs rule almost every neighborhood in the county – except, naturally, those west of Dora, and the nice places up on Snob Hill – or out at Russian River Estates, where the judges and other pillars of the community live. The rest of us live in what’s becoming a penal colony.