by Vago Damitio
We loaded our gear into my bus and drove out to the boondocks. A small town called Acme, Washington. There was a free campground with a nice little creek running through it. As we pulled in we noticed that there was a large number of what looked like permanent residents.
Most of them giving us dirty looks as we drive up in a VW. From this, we surmised that we just might have wandered into a camp full ofrednecks. We ignored them and set up our camp a good distance from anyone else. We were up on a hill, having a good view of the rest of the camp with a thick-forested hill behind us.
We started a fire and consumed our sugar cubes as the sun disappeared. For about an hour or so, things went as they usually do with LSD. I had a conversation with a slug, George was tripping on his ex-girlfriend, and the fire held our interest. The trip was pretty intense and so I brought out some white sage to mellow things out. Many people believe white sage brings about a change and acts as a cleanser of negative energies.
The sage helped and as we both began to mellow out the first gunshot rang out.
I looked at George and asked, “What was that?”
“An unnatural pause,” he replied.
Suddenly we heard a woman screaming and a baby crying. It sounded to me as if she were yelling at someone for shooting in the camp and waking her child. She was interrupted by seven or eight more gunshots. She and the child were completely silent. I looked to the right of our camp and saw a head in the bushes, watching us. I motioned to George who looked over and saw it to.
“What the hell? Who was that?” he asked. I didn’t know. The person disappeared.
A few moments later the guns began ringing out again. The sound was somehow different than before. I looked over the hill and saw four men, including the one who had been spying on us, firing their guns in our direction. George stood up and yelled at them.
“Hey, we’re up here, there are people up here!” The firing increased in intensity.
“We got to get out of here man,” I said to him. We zigzagged our way slowly with George’s bum knee. Not far into the hills we found a fallen log surrounded by thick ferns that we lay underneath.
We covered ourselves with ferns and waited as gunfire continued and voices called out “We’re gonna get you!” and humans bayed like hound dogs. The rednecks were searching through the woods for us.
We had left camp suddenly and had no weapons of any sort. Just a nail George was using as a button to hold up his pants. We decided if one of them came upon us, I would take them down and George would stab the nail into their throat. We would then have a gun. This madness continued for about an hour and then we heard more trucks arrive, bottles began to break, and drunken fights broke out.
Finally we heard the trucks all depart and we snuck down to our camp, five hours after leaving it. We quickly packed up and drove back to Bellingham.
I called the police to report the incident and they told me it was out of their jurisdiction referring me to the county sheriff, the county sheriff referred me to the State Parks Service, who in turn referred me to the Forest Service, who in turn told me they would look into it. The same night four campers were shot in a campground about 35 miles north of us in Canada.
To this day, George and I aren’t sure exactly what happened in Acme. We’ve been back there and found bullet holes in trees and both of us agree that everything we remember was real despite the acid trip we set out on.
Hitching with Junkies and Gay Fisherman
As I walked I picked up a stick, some wires, a piece of cardboard, and a bungee cord from the side of the road. I pulled out my black marker and scribbled Seattle onto it. I wired the cardboard to the stick, jammed the stick into a hole in my pack, and began to thumb my way north. I was hoping to find something through this. I wanted some sort of epiphany.
My first ride wasn’t far. A couple of miles, but it got me started. It was like Steve Martin’s first ride in the move ‘The Jerk’. That’s who I sort of felt like. “All I need is this wire, and this stick….”
In Oregon you can hitchhike on the Interstate. I walked to a good spot, set my pack down, held up my sign, and waited. I was surprised that so many VW buses passed me by. Fucking wanna be hippie hypocrite mother fuckers. Hippie must be short for hypocrite. It was about thirty minutes before someone stopped. The bearded man opened the pickup’s passenger door and Grateful Dead music streamed out. He was driving a Ford truck.
“Get in, I’m going to Beaverton but have to make a quick stop in Salem. My names Jerry.”
I got in. He had to clear garbage from the seat in order for me to fit in. Mostly McDonald’s bags and candy wrappers. I dropped my pack in the back of his truck.
“I’m going to Seattle.”
“Yeah, I barely saw your sign; I’m going at least to Portland. I can use the company .”
He looked at me and said “ What the hell, I’ll never see you again” and then started his tale. His wife was sleeping with one of his buddies. He didn’t mind too much because he hadn’t slept with her for five years because he wasn’t attracted to her. He hadn’t cheated on her, but she was a Jewish American Princess and she disgusted him. They had a 3-year-old daughter by artificial insemination pregnancy.
He had started shooting dope with the guy who was sleeping with her now two years before but then she got into it, and now she was sleeping with the other guy. He kept saying how he felt bad about it all but he was mad about it too .He asked me what a good business would be to get into. Internet Porn was what I suggested to him. I’m not sure why. He drove me into Portland where I took the bus to the Triple Nickel, a favorite dirty, down and out pub, and I wondered where I would end up sleeping.
I put back a couple of Pabst Blue Ribbons wondering what would happen next. A couple of guys came in and asked to move so they could get two stools together. Then one of them went straight to the gambling machines and the second looked at me and read my shirt. I’d found it in a dumpster. It said Paris and he said’ “What’s up with you Paris?”
I laughed in a non committal way. I didn’t like the guy. “Not much. Drinking a few brews.”
He started telling jokes and then he asked me to buy him a beer. PBRs were a dollar and I figured maybe he’d have a porch I could crash on. A dollar well spent — maybe. PBR for a buck. The bartender brought me a free one. I should have asked her if I could come home with her. She had been taking good care of me all nigh
I winked and thanked her. The guy next to me, Jimmy, was a meathead, out of work fisherman. He was about my height and fresh out of jail. He told me about all his girlfriends. Told me about his buddy’s gambling habits. The guy who was back gambling as we spoke. Then he said “Thanks for the beer, anything I can do for you?”
“Got a place to stay?” I asked.
“No, I’m crashing at someone’s place.”
“Does it have a porch?”
“Yeah, you could crash on the couch on the porch.” Portland, Oregon porches always have couches on them. I love that.
His friend, the gambler, ran out of money and we all cruised back to Jimmy’s other friend’s house. I really should have stayed with that bartender.
We got to the house and there was another guy there. He was staying there too. The owner of the house, Tony, wasn’t there. Tony, it seemed was very particular about his stuff but also allowed a lot of homeless young men stay at his house.
He might let me stay, they told me. I was drunk and exhausted and laid down pulling my fedora over my eyes. The younger guy got a little freaked out and I heard him saying “Tony’s gonna freak man, he’s gonna freak when he sees this guy laying here in his house.”
I opened my eyes and put my boots on and was going to head back to the bar, but Jimmy said, “ Bullshit, you can stay, it’s Tony’s house, but I call the shots. Come inside.”
I lay down on the living room floor watching professional wrestlers on Tony’s TV with my head on my pack and started to doze. The beer and the road can wear you out. I heard Ton
y come in. He was Filipino. He was suspicious as I was introduced to him. He was also so incredibly flaming gay that he could have been a cartoon character.
His suspicion soon turned to concern. He was like a mother hen and seemed to be adopting me into his brood. He asked me to go to the store to get beer with him. We got a twelve pack and he asked me in the car “Are you gay?”
“No.”
“Well that’s okay, you should know that I am though. Jimmy, he’s my boyfriend, he’s bisexual. Travis isn’t gay and neither is Dave. Is that okay with you?”
“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?” I think he might have been hoping to get lucky with me in the car or maybe he just wanted to make sure I wasn’t some homophobe.
Back at the house, Tony and Jimmy were flirting and slapping each other’s asses and massaging each other’s heads. They kissed and talked shit to each other. It was funny because Jimmy still had this bad boy fisherman jailbird thing going on even as he was playing bitch to Tony. They went to bed and the rest of us crashed out on the couches in the living room.
The next day, I was going to leave early but Tony was already up. He insisted on feeding me cereal for breakfast, insisted that I take some vitamins, and then bought me a pack of smokes before he dropped me off at the interstate.
He gave me his phone number and said to stop in the next time I was in Portland and we’d all go bowling. I still laugh when I think about that night. They were a really good bunch of guys.
Hitching with Jesus
I finally caught a ride from a tattoo artist who told me about his shop getting ripped off and how he worked from home now. He dropped me off at a rest area.
I sat with my sign at the ramp. No one stopped for a long time. People are scared of hitchhikers now. Finally, a neatly dressed man in a v-neck sweater walked over to me. I smelt Jesus all over him. Big smile.
“Hello, Friend. How are you today?”
I thought to myself, I don’t want to be preached to. “Praise the Lord, I’m fine.” I hoped he would leave me alone.
“I was hoping to talk to you about Christ the Redeemer.“
I lied, told him I was Christian, told him I went to Church, told him what I thought he wanted to hear, but he wouldn’t go away until I knelt down and prayed with him. Meanwhile cars were passing us by and ignoring my thumb.
“Dear Lord. Please help this man to find your salvation and forgiveness…” he began. I guess he hadn’t believed me.
“…and a ride to Bellingham,” I added. Then we went on until the Amen at which point he stood up.
“Can you give me a ride?”
“We’re packed full and we never pick up hitchhikers.” And then he walked away.
I felt like hitting him. I thought of doing a speaking in tongues and being possessed by God routine but didn’t have enough energy for anything.
To my surprise, that prayer worked, because a few minutes later he, his wife, and his five-year-old daughter made room for me to get in their car. All I can think is that his wife made him do it.
Hot damn and thank you Jesus!
He called himself a planter and had brought his family from some Baptist church in Texas. They apparently felt that we don’t get enough of a chance to know Jesus in the godless Northwest so they were sending missionaries to save our souls.
He said that if the Arabs and Jews find peace the world would end in 3 ½ years. That helped me understand why so many Christians stay on the side of Israel.
They dropped me off just North of Tacoma at another rest area. My next ride was a middle class white guy driving a nice Lincoln Towncar.
He pulled over and I ran up and got in.
You mind if I drink while I drive?” He asked me, holding up a can of Bud.
“As we don’t crash,” I said, though I was already worried and considering getting out.
“I’m a state senator,” he told me. “ I help make the laws, so I can break ‘em.” He laughed. He told me that he was pretty moderate about his drinking and driving.
“What’s your name?” I asked him. “Maybe I voted for you.”
“Gordon,” he told me. “Call me Gordy.” I was pretty sure I had voted for his opponent. Maybe he was a liar though.
Gordy dropped me off in downtown Seattle near Westlake Center.
I heard chanting and shouting down the street and walked to see what was up. Pro-Palestine protesters were demanding that the violence stop in the Middle East. Banners reading “Stop killing our Children” and “Stop Israeli Violence” flew high. There were about thirty police officers and maybe fifty protesters present. Lots of bystanders looked on. I briefly considered letting them know that the world would end in 3 ½ years if peace came, but figured they wouldn’t care if it did.
Morphine Train
A jar full of morphine tablets on an Amtrak train. That should be fun.
I popped a few in my mouth and as I waited for the train I ate a couple more. I put the rest in my pocket for the train trip. Now I was going to ride the train for 20 hours. I was a drugged out drunk wanna be hobo. This was fun. I crushed up a couple of the morphine in the station bathroom and snorted them through a dollar bill. I didn’t have a $100, or even a $20, or a $5 for that matter. Just $1.But I had the morphine.
Finally, the train arrived and I boarded in a haze of opiate induced fog. The train was late. We were delayed for hours even after the train left and before we entered Oregon the dawn was breaking. As the world became gray the details emerged. A 77 Ford truck buried in snow halfway up its orange and white stripes, a rickety shed, weather-beaten and leaning heavily to one side against a backdrop of the black waters of the Sacramento River and the pine trees springing up from the snow along its banks.
A wooden bridge stretching across the river with a three-inch blanket of white covering it evenly. I sat on the train spaced out of my gourd with no sleep and twenty hours of rail trip ahead of me. I thought how nice it would be to get a blowjob in one of the larger than usual handicapped bathrooms on the train.
The snow had that gritty gray color in the predawn light that stood in stark contrast to the rocks, boulders, and trees while the water added motion in black and white rapids and swirling eddies. The sky, a semitransparent gray wanting to be blue and maintaining a somber gleam for a time at least. At times the tracks curved ahead of us and I would see the engine and cars chasing each other like so many silver bullets from a giant machine gun. The light was refracted from everything to my retina and cornea and then translated into these beautiful gray pictures full of nothing but the absence of color. The red light on the front of the train would sometimes appear on a new outside curve or we would pass a snowed in green cabin with a ladder propped crookedly so that children could climb onto the single story roof and leap into the drifts around the sides.
A white horse in a whiter field and an endless stretching of split rail fences that only end for one-way bridges and then a myriad of tracks being switched. Freights lining up. I always searched for bums but figured it would be real cold for anyone in a box or tanker car.
I needed sleep, instead I took six more morphine tablets. The picture of snow surrounded boxcars dampened my determination to freight hop again, at least for now.
I abandoned my seat and claimed the corner chair in the sightseeing car, hoping a pretty girl would find her way to me. Maybe I would get laid on Amtrak! Nope. An old Russian lady spoke with me then bought me breakfast in the dining car. She told me what an amazing listener I was and I didn’t bother telling her I was floating on morphine clouds. She talked and talked like no one had ever listened to her before. She was much too old for me to think about fucking. Probably close to sixty, but I still considered the possibility. I looked at her pointy breasts. They were big and pointy. I could imagine what the nipples were like. Snow cone cups.
Pines emerged from the snow that littered the shores of the many lakes the train took us past. Catherine, my new Russian friend, was excited about the snow. Like a schoolgirl. I tho
ught to myself that perhaps she would offer me money to fuck her. I would do it. I would probably do it if she just asked me without the money. When had I become such a pervert? Yesterday, I told myself. You became a pervert yesterday. With that, my confusion disappeared and I began to feel whole again.
The train stopped for several hours outside the town of Klamath. Catherine left. Klamath’s brick facade buildings looked as inviting as the tiny tavern with three snow covered pickups in its lonely parking lot. People on the train began to wake up as I wandered back to my seat and I couldn’t help seeing a beautiful girl lying across from me. She sat up and looked over at me. I needed sleep.
I decided to up my dosage taking three more of the tiny morphine tablets. I let them dissolve in my mouth and then took a swallow of coffee. Speedball.
I ate the last four morphine pills a few minutes later. I was enjoying the ethereal feeling from them. I bummed two smokes in Eugene, one for then and one for later. Feeling quite light I got back on the train. The pretty girl was there. She was certainly friendly enough when I got there.
Actually, not friendly enough at all. She was an 18-year-old virgin on her way to Albany to lose her virginity with her boyfriend who went to OSU. Why did she tell me that? I liked that her nose was a little too big and her smile a little too perfect. Inside of ten minutes my hand was on her thigh. She was resting her hand on my bicep in a friendly way. Then it was time for her to get off the train. We were in Albany and I watched in jealousy as she got off the train and jumped into her boyfriend’s arms. Fucker.
My stomach begin doing flip-flops. I curled up into the fetal position on my seat in the coach car and fell asleep as we made our way to Portland. A banging hot teen girl stopped me as I passed her seat and asked if I liked raves. She must have been fifteen. I loved her. She asked me to sit with her.