Fuckin' Greggers

     "Fuckin' Greg man... fuckin' dick piece of shit!" I freaked and started yelling cause I had just been woke up being pushed off the bed by Greg.
      "Get up dude lets go," Greg instructed me.
      "No... go away man."
      "Lets go I got Jorge's shit man! Lets go! Come on boy!"
      "Why? Where's Jorge?"
      "Hes asleep next door, fuckin' hurry," Greggers said a bit quieter this time as he pulled out Jorge's  bud. He had jacked Jorge's stash, "Lets go shit-terd."
      And like the shit-terd I was I obeyed.  I knew better than to let him tag along with me but I obviously have not made very wise decisions in my life so far so why start now I figured.  I knew he was quit capable of equally robbing me and the money I had stolen myself. Every time I would fall asleep I would wake up wondering immediately where Greggers was and if he had jacked me yet. It was a very uneasy cloud of paranoia that got thicker in Seattle after we took off on Jorge. I really had to go. I wasn't going to be the one to stick back and explain to Jorge that my friend had robbed him, and after all he had smoked with us I felt guilty but not for too long. I was a little thief myself at the time hanging around Greggers dumb ass. My conscience I believe was there in tact because of values instilled in me by my parents, so the best way I knew how to diminish it was to get drunk or high. Like night and day I had become to those who knew me before my divulgence with these mind numbing gifts of magic, or so I thought at that time.
        Greggos and I used to ride around in my '85 Toyota Celica (w a sunroof I might add) and look for lawnmowers left out on the sides of people's homes or in opened garages that would give us access to even more shit to steal like power tools and what not. He had that I.D. that we were using to purchase alcohol with on our trip and to get motel rooms with. This was a real I.D., not a fake, it was just somebody else's I.D. that  Greggers had, and I know he hadn't stolen it. So it was pretty shady when we used it to pawn stolen shit with. This guy gets his license renewed and thought Greggers was just going to use his old I.D. to purchase alcohol with it. This was the thing to do when you were 16, having our buddies give us their expired license when they turned 18 and renewed. So this guy was trying to do Greggers a free favor only winding up unfairly intertwined to our crimes and the myriad of stolen goods pawned using his name.  All this heat reigned down upon Greggers when he went back to TX, and him robbing a Subway Sandwich Shop with a shotgun didn't help his cause in staying out of prison that year either.
        At this point in our journey I had run that $1300 down to a couple of hundred dollars a few days after we had separated from Jorge. Greggers felt the tension too and I was sick of him bumming off of me and he knew this.  Throughout the duration of those few days we spent a lot of that money trying to cross the canadian border. The first time we tried to cross on this bus that was associated with Am-Track,  the ride was included with the tickets that I had already purchased in Dallas. We got shut down every time, and because we were identified as runaways in the state of Washington they couldnt do anything. The law required the cops to offer us help from the local C.P.S. office and if we refused they had to cut us free unless we had broken any other laws. The second time we took a cab that cost like a bill there and back, again we got shut down. I don't recall how we tried again or what but man did we try every possible avenue in getting there it just wasn't happening.  So now Greggers was heading back to TX with some money he'd recieved wired to him from his girlfriend, and I turned on the hobo in me.... hitchhiking south back down Interstate 5.

  

V. Vain Attempts at Understanding

Dawn broke the night's overcast gloom,

cars struggle thru the thick and thin,

and as we awake to regain our motivation,

should it all be for something,

or for someone,

someone specially suited,

who knows who the next leader will be?

or why or when he will be appointed?

feeding us propaganda to keep the population going strong,

a leader's future madness might bring you to your knees,

as the television glows and hums mesmerizing,

but seem to understand it vaguely,

the mission gone from fascinations,

scenes twice burned out in thought,

I have waited three crazed years for my sign,

with long intertwined crystal intoxication,

has it passed without my knowledge,

the days of senseless journey seem soon gone,

now doubt will be installed terminally,

the sun's glow sheds it's last conception,

and all of the windows and all of the doors everywhere lock,

no one can go out for a long while.

IV. Vain Attempts at Understanding

Now that those bastards have left,

Let's have a real discussion,

well.... like they say about our sun,

never do look directly at him,

well the sun won't let me be,

he is surely out to get me,

eventually the death of me,

man... the fuckin' death of us all.

III. Vain Attempts at Understanding

The old bum would only smoke Pall Malls,

"It's the best damn cigarette ever," he claimed,

as he always told the winos and junkies,

coursed thru every city,

Dallas, Phoenix, L.A., Seattle, Chicago, N.Y.,

or wherever else he so desired to make his place,

I think maybe Pall Mall had somehow...

God only knows how,

but had blackmailed the bum,

to incite the final phase of his demise.

This Monkey goes North for the Summer

        The train now chugs north bound up the West Coast.... traveling parallel to highway 5... but the journey was made  unique by this am-track train's trek thru the plethora of CA's various terrain.  John Steinbeck's stories coursed thru my imagination as I recalled how wonderfully genius he was in his description of this landscape.  Greggers and I were now part of the majority of the passengers aboard... no more smoking cart available... and this was 1998! These were the beginnings I believe of all their retarded anti-smoking laws. (I still have an unpaid ticket from when I did my East Coast wanderings a few years later. I was ticketed for smoking while waiting underground in the pits of those subway tunnels.... so I guess I have a warrant in one of the biggest cities on the planet.... lol... come and get me!)
         Greggers had gone to get some drinks for us and returned with a new friend, Jorge, a chicano from Fresno, who told us a wild story about how he just abandoned his car in the train station's parking lot.  He had a few ounces of that good CA chronic, and he told us he had his dealer front it and was bailing town on him with out paying him back. Sounded kinda of stupid for a little but of weed but we didn't care cause he smoked with us  generously and asked us a lot of crazy shit about cowboys and ranches like he had these particular queries on his mind for years. We just laughed at this stereotype shared by outsiders, never having been to TX.  I asked him if some racists questions that included mexican stereotypes, and with the continued laughter, and without a smoking cart available we began fogging out all the train bathrooms and  to every hidden spot we weren't allowed to be and we smoked and smoked. We just kept moving around every five minutes and found no trouble getting away with this formula. Jorge was headed for Seattle as well, and was a great new travel companion.

Santa Barbara Drizzle

         It probably took around a good 24 hrs to reach Santa Barbara, which was the first stop to get out and walk around in this new state. I vaguely remember we had stopped in AZ also... but 12 yrs. later I vividly remember the atmosphere and that cool rain drizzled June morning in Santa Barbara. It was my first time in CA, and seeing the palm trees shake gently in the breeze made me want to stay forever even though I would be surrounded by "fruits and nuts," as this are the two main types of people that inhabit the state of CA. Pretty funny... my friend from CA told me that last year.  (We went on a cool ass spiritual sobriety Broken Neck AA retreat last year in Mammoth, and I will just barely miss going this year because I fucked everything up.... again. Being a foolish dope monkey) We stayed longer at some stops than others and I didn't really get to enjoy CA until my journey back thru a couple of weeks later. I just remember how inviting and crisp the air was there.