'China White' Faucets-(poem from this present day)

Cannonball Express,

Diluted drained distress,

Feathers quilt my down time,

Reindeer games... I don't play them,

but Emu names... I can claim them,

Ruffled chocolate,

Buttery options,

Truffles dispense chocolate,

and Milk from 'China White' faucets!

THIS MONKEYS UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL

The drive was at least twenty minutes from the business highway, and their house could not be found in any of the typical suburban areas that surrounded most of the town. Out into the country we drove, thru pavement carved hills, winding amongst dry mesquites and sage brush, arriving on a chunk of clayish orange-fiery red, rugged piece of real estate. Ronnie was around ten years older than Karen. He was now retired and had done very well for himself. Educated with a civil engineering degree he had started a company twenty years prior, and had just recently sold it for a healthy amount. I am assuming he had gotten at least five million for his twenty years of stress and effort. I really don't know if that figure is correct, who knows? It could of been twenty million because five million is really not as much as it once was. Being in California any number could be under-estimated. I rarely saw Ronnie, but he apparently had no qualms about stowing a runaway at his secluded ranch house in the hills of Paso Robles. Rustin arrived around forty minutes after I had. He was very surprised to see me sitting out on the Spanish tiled patio, lounging languidly road beat like a common loiterer. Then there was that huge smile that formed on Rustin's face, it always caused me to grin in return, a small wise ass grin signifying,'yea I am a crazy bastard that just hitch-hiked across a few states.' My sad rubbered out lizards legs caused me to rise rapid without much strength to aid me. I needed a bath and I wasn't the only one aware that I was being deprived of this common luxury. A shower was initially offered by Karen, but I wanted to see Rustin arrive and watch his reaction relishing his goofy pearl pasted smile. I hadn't been able to engulf my sut and dust smothered skin anywhere except for this ice cold lake in Washington three days prior. As I waited perched patiently on the patio my brain wildly craved some drugs that might cleanse my mangled mental faculties. I had myself convinced that would guide me to effortless ease, just some weed to provide my short cut to everything.

Mrs. Karen Jenkowski Brings Brief Ease to this Monkey

The Jenkowski's were taken naturally by surprise. There I was driven to their town by various truck driving, load hauling characters. As many people have found, and as I have realized, is the gracious and welcoming attitude the majority of folks dwelling in this popular golden state of existence seem to be. It could be equated to the weird hippy-esque character one can see in the citizens of Austin. I rather enjoyed basking in their warmness, and I equally enjoy ignorantly mocking such tree huggin' commis'. I love nature but not more than I love mankind. "Fruits and nuts," a friend from San Diego once told me were the only kinds of people that reign from the West Coast(especially California). Just another one of our planet's vast stereotypes, and how fun and yet how powerful can these connotations become either negative or not. It's equated to the typifying Texans as either "Steers or Queers." Rustin's mother was so damned open minded and compassionate. She was a recovered heroin addict, and at this point I had not divulged in this intoxicant yet. If only I had heeded her warnings, but why start now, I had to likewise as almost all teenagers would, 'learn things the hard way." In this aged old thought that we either ultimately fall or gather strength from those sharp born mind-singeing, silver raw shining, self saturating experiences. Karen picked me up from my spot squatted in the parking lot, my clothe stuffed bag was used to soften the underlying heat soaked pavement. Karen had meet me one year in Tyler,TX as she accompanied her kids at Whispering Pines paying a much wanted visit to her parents, which naturally she had less frequently seen due to the geographical restraints.

"Hey there stranger, hop in," she said with this beautiful kindness she sincerly relayed thru her sweet tone, bold gestured mannerisms, and soft calm expressive dimples.
"Sure thing, thank you so much Karen. I am owe ya' more than you realize," I tried to hide any the abrasive weariness that I was feeling from to fuse with my tone.
"Isaac first off I wanted to say that you are welcome to stay as long as you'd like. We can enroll you here in school if thats what you want. I know you have some issues with drugs...," she paused for about five seconds but it seemed like an eternity as I observed her reaching deep within herself in pained recall of past memories,"Twenty years ago I was a heroin addict Isaac, if I hadn't meet Ronnie I don't believe I would be alive," Ronnie was her husband. He was at least ten years older than her, and he had taken in Karen along with Lisa and Rustin. I can't remember the exact details but I am pretty sure their natural father wasn't there as he ought to have been. "Do you feel like telling me whats going on? Are your parents abusing you?" This hit a distinct cord of guilt because ultimately I knew my parents loved me. I just didn't agree with my father's acts of hard nosed discipline, told to read proverbs as punishment and I would gain wisdom. 'Honor thy mother and father', yea right, fuck that shit I was thinking in pissed off sour resentment. Now as I look back over those days I know my dad loved me and yearned for me to become a great man, he wished I would began a path to walk daily with the Lord. I was so spiritually stifled in ridiculous intellectualism. I frequently went to my mom to complain about my father and his harsh conditioning(these were tame in relation to how his father dealt with him and his siblings,and yet I don't see much of that in my grandpa to this day), and I regret the problems I personally caused in their marriage. My Dad is so much more laid back now and I believe has gained more wisdom in the last few years than he realizes.
"No it's not like that Karen... I mean my dad is an asshole to me. They took my car that I worked my ass off to buy with my own money. I ain't being beaten, but my dad does whip me with his belt and I'm getting to old for that shit. It's embarrassing, but that has kind of stopped since it didn't hurt like it once did, the belt had lost it's effectiveness. He makes me read Proverbs now mainly and then write reports about what I got from it... I hate it," and I probably added some bullshit that painted a negative image in Karen's head bout my parents.
"Well sweetie I need to talk to Ronnie more but he is very compassionate, but here is the deal Isaac. Ronnie has cancer so we are dealing as best we can with the chemo and what not so ultimately we have to as a family keep him as our top priority during these crappy days he is experiencing."

This Dope Monkey on the Brink of Dereliction

The sun overcame shyness to embark triumphantly treading slowly signing high noon. I shuffled into that Denny's, bacon's distinct flavor hit my nostrils, my stomach groaned and growled crying for some greasy consumption. My skins scales baked burnt from the previous week of exhausting exposure, but I was confident that tonight I would slip beneath the depth's of night to finally crash comfortably and sink deep into exile of peace. I wanted to sleep indoors dammnit, I was a punk on an extended mission. Rest assured I would find mine friends, but first I had to figure out some form of contact information and I knew I couldn't call my grandparents. That avenue would have been convenient but it would involve going against the plans of alluding my family. My parents had been hounding my friends incessantly from the day of my initial departure. My ego took it's turn around the dining room, believing to be the center of everyone's attention, all eyes on the wanderer, unique and full to the brim with teenage wit and wisdom. I exhaled as my breath rose glowing neon, adding to this aura of mystery I tried to cooly convey convincingly. I located a pay-phone and thumbed thru an attached Paso Robles telephone directory. I failed to find them, I felt the air deflate my confidence but my resilience aided me. I stared chatting it up with some of the wait staff. I remember this young black chic overhearing me asking about the Jenkowski's, her ears perked, her head rotated finding me, grabbing my attention I trekked over to her relieved that I had found this connection.

"Hey yea I go to school with Rustin and his sister," she said without a shred of reluctance to reserve this knowledge for herself.
"Yea I'm an old friend of theirs from Texas and I really need to find them. I left their number back home," I explained trying to conceal my exploding eagerness, excited I didn't want to destroy this link. She could've very well have assumed that I was a mad stalker. I refrained from mentioning Lisa and told her I was real tight with Rustin. She would be more likely to give me the information I wanted if I kept my inquires on him versus his sister to avoid producing some stalker image that could cloud her willingness she seemed to express. She grabbed her purse without hesitating and shuffled through it looking for Rustin's home number (this was just the beginning of teenagers having cell phones, most of us proudly carried pagers). She retrieved a small brown contact book and then looked at me smiling intensely but I believe that I had just perceived her kind expressiveness to be more than what she was really portraying. It was mostly in my head, I was the one smiling with the intense emotional relief. I really was quite a desperate boy. I was starting to turn terribly mad in my lonely offbeat state. I admired the derelicts I read in books naively, but on the brink of becoming a lunatic at such a young age I was truly afraid. Fear filled to the brim eventually equals a sad grave, and even at this present time 12 year later I am learning more about this and all its immense interlocking dangers.

wordplay poem to exercise this monkeys brain

Creepers climb from the pits of my stomach,

signal some song silly strained stitched slang,


dope monkey!

Fort Worth Dope Monkey!

Dallas Dope Junky!

Recover the passion,

Christ loves my passion,

my fear is lifted and now the devil is afraid,

I am not in you realm,

filter your evil eating my steeple,

Love is so grand in its ultimate climatic stand!

BAM AN ORIGINAL JAM! SWEET AS PEACHES!(not from my youth)

Peaches n' cream fill dreams obscene,

dormant now clean,

trained to thrill,


tinted shades of raw meat unveiled,

I swallowed the intensity,

I drilled the depths to focus,

and man I feel shallow when you came to kill................

Yes I Am Going Westward a Young Man

      Teddy's route mapped him continuing southbound for San Diego to deliver supplies for a United States Naval base. I knew exactly where I needed to be dropped.  As soon as Highway 5 South intersected with Highway 46 West dawn was breaking beautifully revered. No human being should ever discount this everyday event, sleeping in and ignoring such simple glories as we all take advantage naively assuming that there will always be tomorrow. That's when the journey ended with Teddy and his dark story, conveniently and metaphorically ending as the night's black void fell dormant.  I hadn't slept peacefully in the much missed comforts of a bed in around a week now.  Such simple luxuries that I had been taking advantage of my entire spoiled American life.  I was beginning to catch an unwanted strain of homesickness. I fought that feeling with this ornery and stubborn outlook that I'd acquired, and since I hadn't had a drink or drug in a few days I was feeling again unfortunately.  I believe that I was completely out of money at this point in time, although I am positive I found solutions in which to continue my smoking habit. I was on the brink of craziness, harbored native madness, from this unintentional several days sobriety. At minimum I would always figure out how to get some nicotine, finances be damned, and being under-age be damned. I was now on the same plain as that Mexican from the train station in El Paso, when he noticed the last of my cigarette that  I had flicked high into the wind's current, beginning his chase along the grey gum and cigarette littered pavement.
         Highway 46 is pretty much a straight shot towards the dreamy Pacific, interim lies Paso Robles, CA, which was my destination intentionally because of some friends that I knew lived there. These people were my last hope, my final option for shelter.  Richard veered off the road and parked his Suburara Outback, surf board on top, alongside where I was walking.  I told him that I was headed for Paso Robles, and so he offered to take me there assuring me that it was no problem at all because he was passing right through there on his way to the beach. The conversation was so quaint and sane compared to the those dang truckers. Mainly I recall him telling me that he was a P.E. teacher somewhere in that surrounding area, but the coolest fact that I remember him revealing was a little history about this highway we were traveling en route to both our westward destinations. Highway 46 (I double checked this and discovered it to be factual) was the final roadway James Dean sped down like a Nascar driver, being involved in his infamous fatal car crash as he drove a new Porsche 550 Spyder on September 30, 1955.  He had been ticketed by a C.H.P. officer earlier that day before being called out later on to the scene of this icon's mangled muscle machine. James Dean was found dead (he was luckily killed on impact) leaned limped lifeless against the passenger's side door which has ever since sparked the controversy if he was even driving. There is the theory that after he got ticketed James Dean pulled over again and he let his friend take over to drive?
         I was dropped in what seemed to be the heart of the Paso Robles' business district. I ventured over to a Denny's off 24th street, with my giant shoulder bag containing some clothes and books (I have lost so many great books throughout this journey and other travels I went on years later).  The people I knew I had met camping with my running grandparents (a nickname I was told I invented as a child because when I tried to say "other grandparents" other sounded from my mouth as running and for some reason it stuck and my parents ever since I can remember referred to them as my running grandparents) in Tyler, TX at Whispering Pines R.V. Park every year the prior three consecutive years. They were here from California visiting their grandparent's that were acquainted with each other through the Sam's R.V. Club (old retirees  camping club). It was called 'Grandkids weekend' and so every year I grew closer to this pair, a brother and sister, named Rustin and Lisa Jenkowski.  Rustin was around my age, a bit older, but not by more than a year. Lisa was about a year younger than me, and boy did my little brother, Aaron and I have the biggest crush on her. Lisa had a beautiful dark olive complexion, matched perfectly with illuminating green eyes, and  I have always been a sucker for chics with green eyes. Rustin is now and actor/model/musician in West Hollywood, no bullshit, but he deserves any blessing that bestows upon him because he is a very unique individual, not too cocky, and carries with him everywhere an air of confidence. When you are around him you feel like he can teach you virtues and wisdom that as a 16 year old kid you would never imagine he could have obtained such a great understanding, he seemed to know exactly what his place on this earth meant.
        
             *****************************************************************
                    
       Tyler is a beautiful east Texas town thriving with towering pines, and then there are the swamps, most are located a bit southeast of Tyler, but the entirety of East Texas has such a vast array of preciously proud landscapes. Each corner of Texas contains its own wonders, some more dear to me than others. Sulphur Springs is a very remote town in East Texas and is where my "running grandparents" migrated from to FT. Worth after World War II. My mom's side of the family own over 300 acres there in Sulphur Springs still and the majority of my family maintain dreams of settling back down on the old farm to peacefully linger in retirement. One of my Uncles has some cultivating plans for the rich earth the one time cotton farm covered spread like butter even and soft shifting rain soaked land. He knew the soil should yield good crops, at least it did when my grandma was just a girl, her parents (my great grandma Olive Webb I vaguely remember visiting on frequently as a boy before she died in an old folks home. I remember her funeral a bit, mainly the sole memory of her funeral was of my Runnin' Grandma balling her eyes out. I had never seen her so distraught and tore up before or ever since that day) were the last generation to simply live off that plot of acreage. It was so hilarious talking to my Grandma recently reminiscing her childhood out there in the fields in between rows of trees that marked    particular borders and separated various fields, intermingled with dense thickets of forested lowlands, this wondrous canopy under which my grandpa and his brothers hunted deer and trapped wild hogs. My grandma found her childhood diary one Christmas family reunion, and in it almost everyday, every entry simple said something about how she woke up, went to school, picked cotton, and occasionally went to town with their daddy for candied apples if they had been really good girls. The farm was then and to this present day still is located far down a winding country dirt farm road with merely a few houses anywhere close or in a three mile radius. My 'Runnin' Grandpa lived on a dairy farm in one of those houses down the road with his four brothers, and he along with two of his little brothers ended up marrying my grandma and her two sisters. What a concept... friends usually tease me about this when I share it with them, saying it was weird, but as far as I know that happened quite frequently back then. At least they weren't cousins like was once an old tradition for centuries. Naturally these were the closest women around for my Grandpa and his brothers to hitch up with. I really respect this side of my family, our family reunions include the set of brothers and sisters in addition to numerous others from all over TX that come together on multiple occasions throughout the year .  I am proud of my family's pine grained East Texas swamped 'cotton pickin' country roots.

           ******************************************************************

      

New Poetry(not from my collections from youth)

Timed treasure seekers swindle the calm spirit,

they travel northbound during the silent season of fall,

crispness air increased,

lungs grip tugging at the autumn's condensation,

and so they had already found their bounty,

but neither will realize this until years later.

Truckin' Teddy

       Teddy seemed around sixty years old, with a full on santa beard, he carried a nasty stench of Doral cigarettes that hovered about him keeping strangers at bay. The interior of his cab did stink like body odor as well and as sick as it fumed thru my nostrils, I found I'd become immune to this fairly rapidly. Just as Ronnie had, Teddy generously let me bum as many cigs' off him whenever I so desired. We stopped during the end of this road weary coursing night, at the genesis of dawn, the hours I seemed to feel most alive, I could travel in this covered darkness without any fear of repercussions.  I could divulge in any illegal or wrong doings that I frequently found myself involved for the duration of these devilish few hours.  For about a year I never had to deal with any real consequences. That would end very shortly after my return to TX a week or so later.
      The stereotypical version of any truck stop diner one can imagine is where we dined. I was ravenous and he bought me breakfast and I ate un-apologetically crazed by hunger, surrounded by these hurly burly redneck lot of characters sharing in this fried, battered, and scrambled up cuisine.  We were somewhere between San Francisco and the Oregon border. I didn't know exactly where I was but I did know that I was very close to the infamous Big Sur, where I learned about in my reading Kerouac's novels. One is actually titled Big Sur, but he includes this wonder of northern California in several of his works of fiction.
      
      "Thats some of the best biscuits n' gravy in the state," Teddy said as I had just taken my first bite he looked into my face for some sign of reply in my facial expression showing agreement with his statement as my mouth was full and I chewed faster now so I could verbalize an opinion.
       "I don't think they're better than these grits though.... Damn! I always figured southerners made the best grits. I wouldn't ever argue this point with one of 'em but it just goes to show how little I know about something as simple as fuckin' grits!" I laughed and continued on with another mouth load to ravish.
       "Spoken like a true lil' nigger!" he laughed at his instilled racist values and I chuckled too, which pretty much made me just as much a bigot as him.
         "U look like an old ass monkey yourself...."
         "Well aren't you just a little smart ass for such a young man!"
         "Fuck yea... but Im just jacking with ya' Teddy....," I agreed and he wore a vague smile watching me finish as he sipped on his black coffee, "Teddy were you in Vietnam?" I inquired upon seeing an old Army tattoo.
          "No sir Kuhhreeaa.... got shot a few times and almost blown up on a few occasions," he laughed again. At least he can look back on such shitty and violent times such as war in such a light hearted manner. I ate and ate, sat back finally finished with my food and sipped on some black coffee, chain-smokin' Teddy's Dorals and listening to him carry on about the war. Naturally the pervert in the man eventually was revealed as he began talking about dirty sexual shit. I mean I don't blame him he was pretty much a typical dude talking about sex but he creeped me out, but not nearly as the dirty 'ol man had in Tacoma. I sat there and soaked in his story about one of the times he came close to blowing his legs and probably his dick clean off his body as well, but was shielded by a fellow soldier who's body was sacrificed instead of Teddy's.
           If he had been blown to shit in those distant jungles he wouldn't of been telling me this story about a Korean prostitute he saw shortly thereafter almost being pummeled to shreds the previous week. He wouldn't have a little bastard half and half baby that he said he was made aware of 15 years later. I could here hints of shame in his tone as he spoke about him, and he in his ramblings he continually referred to him as his lil' chink bastard boy(I'm just reporting in how he continually described his son w such derogatory 'terms of endearment'). His intentions were once pure he explained when he'd initially discovered his only known offspring, but being clear across the world he never did go and make good on his responsibilities towards that poor kid. My point being proves some truths to how gay and stupid intentions can be if never acted upon.  I forgot the famous quote about intentions, but it's something like roads never get paved merely by good intentions.  Anyways that was the main lingering regret of Teddy's life, though he did not admit to it, the guilt was clearly translated thru his tone and mannerisms as he carried on narrating. I just wish he could let go of the demeaning way he still described the boy's mother. Here he was old as shit and you'd think he'd gained some wisdom and truth from the whole ordeal, but he clearly was another bitter old American, long lost past the standard American Dream. His days' were numbered and he knew it and didn't give a shit about his salvation or anything beyond the grave. He was the same as he'd always been just meaner and bitter. It was sad but another very revealing character I would encounter in my travels that summer.
          

THIS MONKEY'S HITCHHIKERS GUIDE:FAMILY MAN TRUCKER

        This next rig was custom fit for Darryl, and his 8 year old daughter. She had a huge bunk space where she had a Nintendo 64 set up to occupy her as she accompanied her dad on his journey thru Oregon to Redding,CA. He seemed like a normal decent hard working American merely supporting his family as every family man should. Darryl allowed me to ride along so everything became swiftly efficient as the transition between escaping Ronnie's cab and entering Darryl's was a fairly quick exchange.  We were traveling thru more immensely beautiful and vast terrain. Mostly mountain passes that hosted giant monsters of trees, raging waters, overrun with wildlife, and all shared by the spirit of mountain people that inhabited this corner of America.  There is a shit ton of marijuana cultivators in these mountains of Oregon and northern California. Darryl was like all the drivers that had given me a lift in that their motives to have me along was for the mere enjoyment of conversation as they drove their routes, the same ones they'd traveled a thousand times over. My time with Darryl and his daughter was  short-lived. The trip took a few hours, and besides a bad ass gun he showed me that he carried for protection, nothing too interesting or eventful occurred throughout the ride and our conversing consisted of a lot of bullshit on my part. Darryl was too down to earth for me to speak candidly with him about certain subjects, an apparent difference compared with my talks with Ronnie, due to his character naturally arose any random  crude subject. We pulled into Redding where I would find the strangest of the three as my next chauffeur south further down California's mid-coastal spine. If I could meet and interview every single person on the planet I still would never fully grasp the entire soul of the human condition. Characters thrive among us, and everyone has something that they carry which holds power to enlightenment.

THIS MONKEY'S HITCHHIKERS GUIDE: TWEAKIN' TRUCKER

            I was lucky because I only had to walk two blocks west from where I had that old dude drop me. I had to shake off that encounter. I was about to try and hitchhike w truckers, surely I won't be harassed like that twice in a day I thought, but I had to remain resilient. I had to prepare myself for any curve ball now since they usually swung back like a boomerang on me. These guys are some characters, some damn strange road warriors that roamed weary and tired, tweakin' down the highway and gettin' paid. This was just the first trucker of three, Ronnie, he was a tweaker, the majority of truckers I believe have cleaned up do to the huge risks took if one failed a drug test, which most trucking companies by now do.
             Did Ronnie smoke or use in any form around me? No because he would of had to share and he knew that, and it was so dang obvious that he was flyin' a hundred miles an hour.  The first couple of drivers I asked to get a lift from refused because of some buillshit policy most companies had in place not allowing the truckers to have extra passengers unless it was approved ahead of time.  So at first I thought I was going to be out of luck one more time after having been turned down by the first few I'd asked. Then I came upon Ronnie and he immediately seemed cool and actually happy to have me on board.
      
          "Hell yea kid i could use the company. You just got that one bag, right?" he asked.
          "Yep. You are a headed south I am assuming?" I retorted.
          "Well as far as Oregon I am."
          "Thanks man. Seriously."

        Sleep was a treasure at this point and after he finally shut his mouth blabbing to me about all kinds of shit: weather ballons vs. aliens, lots of complaining about state troopers, which somehow transformed into an in depth overview he verbalized describing the different states' flowers. He was not only a tweaker but he was a hype artist, bullshitting as the authority on every subject he had going in his mind.  I finally faded back into a deep sleep that would make Rip Van Winkle jealous.  I hadn't slept indoors in a couple of days so that cab's chair was so comfortable and before I knew it we had made it to Oregon.  I thanked Ronnie for the ride and all the cigs' he had given me.  Just as the dope monkey I am I climbed out of that truck and within twenty minutes would climb right into another.

    

THIS MONKEY'S HITCHHIKERS GUIDE: BEWARE OF DIRTY 'OL MEN!

        I had awoken to the bustling noise going by on the cold concrete  floor outside of the Tacoma's small Am'track branch office. I had arrived there too late the night before and  the ticket office was closed until the following morning so I had to sleep outside under a cart. I woke up, crawled out from underneath that lil trolley baggage cart.  I remember I received some reaction, shocked expressions from those who witnessed me crawl out  from my space.  I soon realized I didn't have enough money for a train ticket back and thought about sneaking onto the train but didn't even try. I left pretty quickly thereafter pissed off, hungry, tired, and still sober.  I was now only a ten min bus ride away where the closest truck stop was. I was at a bus stop and I wasn't even trying to hitchhike at this leg of my journey.  I was going to take a cheap city bus there but then this little car halts to a stop next to where I was sitting on a bench, rolled his window down, thick pipe tobacco smoked billowed out revealing this pudgy lil' old man.
         "U want a ride young man," he asked.
         "Yea sure," I replied and then added gratitude as I hopped in. "Thanks sir."
         "Where you headed?"
         "If you could drop me at this truck stop I heard about in Tacoma I'd appreciate it. You know where it's at?"
         "Yea-yea no problem," he assured me and then we were both interrupted by a good three mins of peaceful silence. I gazed out towards the stunningly beautiful snowcapped mountains that blanketed the terrain bordering the town. I let my imagination wander far... real far, but then the conversation rendered  as the old dude started asking me all sorts of questions, and they just got weirder as he continued on. This encounter made me realize that there was some sick freaks out there. His questions started off basic and harmless.
         "Im Eugene, or just Gene, whats your name young man"
         "Isaac."
         "Laughter... ha," laughing at himself because he knew thats what Isaac meant.
         "Okay, funny, yea, you're right about that."
         "So Isaac where you from?"
         "TX... Im from D/FW..." and then he got perverted on me.
          "So you got a girlfriend back home," the way he asked I could feel the awkward tension that was coming to slap me across the face.
          "No..., uh no I don't.... " I replied.
          "Boyfriend?"
          "No sir," geez what the fuck was wrong with this guy? "Just drop me right her please," and he did without hassling me further. Thank god he didn't have a damn gun or else he would've made me his bitch. I look back and can laugh at stupid shit like that but it did teach me to be more wary of people and to avoid these situations. I knew as I initially climbed into his car that I could easily take him if he did tried to rob me or something. I really had never been spoken to like that before by an old man. It has to be one of the creepiest instances I would encounter.

THIS MONKEY'S HITCHHIKERS GUIDE: I LOVE SEATTLE COPS!

         I was alone, it was fucking raining in Seattle, go figure... and I was pretty much broke. I didn't have anymore weed. All I had was cigarettes, a new tattoo( I have a dang pot leaf on my back shoulder that I had done in Seattle), rolling paper, and the sickest feeling of loneliness and regret. I guess I was feeling too sober to escape the shame and guilt. I knew I had fucked up royally. All the while my mom, unbeknownst to me, had been harassing my best friend growing up, Derek, for information on my whereabouts. I remember Derek gave me hell for it later that year. He said my mom guilted him into telling her that he had taken Greg and me to the train station. "His blood is on your hands!" apparently she had cried to him stuff like this when he initially tried to play dumb. Man that was the beginnings of a good decade of people that care for me now only worry about me. My mom told me years later that I had robbed her of a vast amount of lost sleep over those years.
          I started to walk south down highway 5,  sticking my thumb out trying to get outta' Seattle, and a cop stopped me. Again I didn't get in trouble even though he explained to me that it was illegal to hitchhike, and I plead ignorance and it worked. Those cops in big cities up north seemed incomparably cooler than those from TX. This nice officer gave me a ride to outskirts of town. I mean this guy let me throw my bag in the back seat, didn't search me,  and so that was the one and only time that I had the privilege to sit in the front of a squad car.
        
        

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.
  

II. Vain Attempts at Understanding

My canopy is usually above me,

continued protection from those heaving rains,

I adore my lush greenery,

tranquility is breeding in the forested landscape,

animals lie asleep,

and at times flourish in heat,

the whole scenario does give it to me,

that final feeling of much favored security,

but at the same hour a breeze,

a slightly different breeze,

will plainly throw the plans,

every and all plans-

even the master plan,

off its mounted pedestal,

now solely relying on reconstruction.