The Desert Morning Sky
Taken with a phone camera
The Shiv, the Raven Woman and the Stripper
The Conspiracy
I woke up in a cold sweat with my heart pounding so hard it felt like it was skipping beats. Was I having a heart attack in my sleep? I coughed up something nasty but I felt no chest pains.
Then I remembered I was dreaming, but suddenly I realized I was awake! There were those screams again. It was the sound of a woman's voice; in sheer terror.
"Help me! Somebody call the police. Will somebody please help me? Help!"
I grabbed my 12 gauge cannon from the bedside and tried to locate the screaming. I pumped a shell into the chamber and attempted to clear my head while trying to keep from shooting it off; always a concern when you're half asleep.
I heard the screams again.
"What kind of shit is this?"
Outside in the courtyard, I saw glass shattered everywhere beneath the window where she was screaming. I looked around and saw no one and no one on the street side either.
"Shut up god damn it! I'm tryin' to find if anyone is still around." I told her. So much for the element of surprise.
"Call the police for me please? I don't have a phone yet."
I went inside my apartment and dialed 911 and within 15 minutes the whole complex where I lived starts to unravel. Inside my apartment, I unload and clear the cannon, then I stepped outside. What I found out from her was that Shiv was window peeking at her from outside her window, she'd started screaming and then Shiv took off. It scared her to death and with good reason, Shiv was a convicted felon.
People were milling around everywhere like ants, cops were lurking in shadows and I gave a cop a witness report. Already, events are not coagulating in any meaningful way. Nothing added up to what she had told me.
Raven Woman
The deal around here in this 105 year old apartment complex was the somewhat temporary crowd living in other parts of the complex. A drunk named Raven (ravin'?) Woman had moved in, she was always begging beer from me after I got off work. I occasionally bought her a six pack in trade for some of her wild stories and a titty grope. Her real name was something else, but now she claimed to be part Cherokee Indian. I never saw even a part Indian with that much white skin. Besides, every American claims this I think. So I heard these strange stories about her Indian relatives. I always got a few laughs and copped a feel.
One evening I was standing outside smoking and enjoying a double-shot of Jack Daniels when a car pulled up with her in it.
"God damn those fuckers." she said. She got out of the the car, slammed the door and the car peeled off.
"What?" I asked, wondering what the hell was going on with her that night. She always had some drama going on; either real or imagined.
"I go to my boyfriend's house OK? And like, he has a bunch of his friends over. You know, I have been dating him, we all sit around and drink a few beers.."
Raven Woman drinking a few beers was like a deep sea Blowfish getting a little wet, I knew where this story was headed and I couldn't wait to hear the rest of it. She put a puppy dog pouting look on her face. If you didn't know her you would have been worried.
"We got a little drunk and the next thing I knew he started feeling me up and taking my clothes off in front of all his friends!"
I was amazed that she was acting shocked and pissed off about this. What a hoot!.
"You didn't try to stop him?" I said.
"Well you know...." she said (a girlish grin snuck over her face) "It was kinda fun and...well...I like got a little carried away with it, ya know? I started to like feel liberated or somethin'. They like got me all spread-eagle and shit and start screwing me and my boyfriend starts making a video of it! Then he told me he wouldn't make a copy for me ... the fucker!"
I was amazed.
"I don't think Cherokee Indians were into that sort of thing." I said.
Her life always seemed to be filled with that kind of drama mixed with comedy. I really couldn't say if any of it was true but when she started drinking like a sailor on shore leave it was not hard to believe. I soon found out that her stories weren't that hard to believe.
She had met a biker that worked as a contract anthropologist for the state highway department. The two got it on quite heavily and at some point they decided to get married, two days before Thanksgiving. The so-called reception was held in their dungeon troll apartment and it ended up being nothing more than a drunken drug-and-sex party that got wilder by the minute so I left.
Raven Woman was conspirator #1. I think she dreamed up the whole scam during one of the basement orgies when he had her on all fours with a collar and chain.
The Stripper
Next there was the topless dancer and her boyfriend that live there also. Now they were always up to weird shit. They threw a number of parties (without the lap dances damn it) and this was the party I met Shiv. At that party, he told me way too much about himself being in the penitentiary and nothing at all about the ONE THING I really want to know; why he spent so much time en la chirola.
Asking a convict why he was sent to prison is like taking a stick and stirring up a den full of copperhead snakes. Him and the titty-dancer couple took too many drugs and screwed each other in their apartment. What a bunch of depraved fucks Then the titty-dancer couple got pissed off at him for some reason and told him to quit coming over dressed only in his underwear, ready to go. They may have been mad at him because he always wanted to play 'titty bingo' every time he saw her. The titty dancer was conspirator #2 and she was scorned.
Finally, throw in the Screaming Mimi that woke me up that night. She too was a topless dancer. I didn't know her too well and the Screaming Mimi normally stayed to herself or hung out with the other dancer and Raven Woman the drunk. Somehow, the Raven Woman and the Titty-Dancer claim to be related, like 3rd cousins or something. She didn't stay at her apartment much.
All three were a fucked up mess.
This then, was the depraved menagerie that formed the conspiracy.
The Victim
"Here! Let me do that for ya!" he said, "I don't mind at all."
Shiv yelled this after I pulled into the parking lot after a long day at work. He saw that I had a flat tire. I pulled out the tire iron and jack.
"Lemme do it, you have your good clothes on." he said.
It was over 100 F. and so hot you could boil cockroaches in oil, so I didn't argue. That's the kind of guy he was, at least around me.
As far as I could tell, Shiv was like that with everyone he knew. For me it was hard to imagine him being a convicted murderer. It was the rumors though that got things fucked up. All of a sudden one day, he quit hanging around much. The Conspirators quit being seen with him and started bad mouthing him.
Their main complaint that he was beating on Bruja one of their chick friends that lived in the apartments. This was not inconceivable considering everyone's preconceived notions of ex-convicts let alone a convicted murderer. But the odd thing was I saw Bruja every day and there was never a scratch on her to speak of. I wrote it off as one of the Conspirators S&M fantasies or their cracked up moronic machinations.
Shiv was introduced to his future girlfriend Bruja, by way of the topless titty dancer. It all gets rather shitted up when they partied and did too much XTC and crack. It seems as if Shiv, hard as he tried, wasn't adjusting well. I liked him, in an unexplained way and on hot evenings we sat around, bullshit and drink cheap drugstore beer.
For me the victims in all this were Shiv and his girlfriend. He treated her like gold and was a fine gentleman to her. There were never any loud arguments from across the courtyard. They stayed to themselves and went out on Saturday nights dancing and hitting the casinos.
It was at one of those parties that I crashed one hot summer evening, that I met Shiv. He had a face like a boxer and he looked like he had his face pounded a few times. He told me he had just left the correctional facility, came home and was staying with his parents. He was trying to get back on his feet.
"Yeah, I did wrong but now I got another chance."
I tried to look at him such that he would finish and tell me what he did. He'd been down this road before I suppose and started talking about something else.
I found out later from rumors that he went to jail for manslaughter.
Conspirators Get Unraveled
The next couple of days I looked around the apartment and tried to figure out what she described as the crime. Nothing she told the police or me added up. The problem was the fact that there was no way Shiv or anyone else, could have done what she described. It was obvious to anyone that cared to look.
First for him or anyone to be able to look through the window and also try to get in her apartment would mean he had to be on a tall step ladder. Not just that but the screen has been pushed from the inside out, NOT from the outside in. I took some pictures of this and showed them to others; The 'crime of the century' was big news around the apartments.
It was very obvious to me or anyone what really happened that night.
It didn't seem to matter to the police. I came home from work one day and two detectives were sitting in their car across the street. They had been there for a couple of hours and then left. The next day the same thing happened. I walked over to them and asked them what the problem was.
"Hey, it's pretty obvious you two guys are staking someone out. Is there criminal activity going on we should know about?"
They told me to not worry about it, then they left. Sometimes I wonder about how smart these guys are. A couple days later, I find out that Shiv was busted and thrown in jail. He couldn't make bail.
I basically keep my mouth shut about all this and asked Bruja how he was doing.
"He's doing OK...say, would you go down tomorrow at 1:00 and file a deposition with his lawyer?"
It was still nagging me why they would accuse him of something that he obviously didn't do. So much for police investigations. You get what you pay for.
I had an appointment to see his lawyer. I typed it up and printed the deposition. I even described the day after and included photographs refuting the account Screaming Mimi gave to the police. He rots away in jail for about 60 days. During that time I wondered why these chicks tried to set him up and blame this on him. They stuck by their story. But one day, I caught Raven Woman in one of her finer drunken moments and started quizzing her about it.
This is your brain on drugs...
It had been awhile since I had seen Shiv and I met up with Bruja and asked her how things were going.
"Well, he's been in the hospital. He had a hernia operation."
"Damn!" I thought to myself. I saw him lifting weights all the time. I guess convicts do that a lot in prison.
"Yeah he did it lifting weights about a week ago. His folks are taking care of him right now."
A week or so later I was having a beer with him outside on the porch. He started telling me about the operation and how dumb it was for him to do what he did to get the hernia.
"I didn't realize that I am getting older and can't do what I used to do. In prison, I could lift weights all day and nothing like a hernia would happen at all."
He shows me where they opened him up and exposed his guts and stomach muscles. It was an ugly scar but it was how they do it so that there eventually wouldn't be a scar. I knew it was painful for him. When we laughed, he tried to stifle it. Shiv told me the only good thing about it are the was the pain killers they gave him to take.
"Yeah, one of these and some cheap beer you could saw your leg off and not care." he said.
"Shiv dude, you shouldn't do that. You might be real messed up some night and forget you took one and then take another."
"Naw, I have done it before." he told me. The light went off in my head.
"Yeah Shiv I know, but you just said you can't do things you used to when you were younger."
It gets us every time I think. We fool ourselves and commit perjury to our inner voices. We don't like to admit to things we don't want to hear and sometimes it gets us in deep shit that we can't crawl out of. It is that moment, that ignorant second of thought an ignosecond, that takes us swiftly into the Hall of Idiots.
A few weeks later I had one of those mornings where I woke up and it felt like someone beat the hell out of me with an ax handle. I went out to the back step, noticed what a great looking morning it was and grabbed the morning dead tree paper. Eventually, I got to the obituaries, something I never read and glanced at them.
There before me was a photo of Shiv. He was staring back at the world blankly. I go running over to Bruja's house, amazed that she hasn't said anything to me about his passing.
"Yeah...I'm sorry I didn't come over and tell you. You did a lot to help him with his innocence. His parents found him in his room dead, he passed away in his sleep."
I woke up in a cold sweat with my heart pounding so hard it felt like it was skipping beats. Was I having a heart attack in my sleep? I coughed up something nasty but I felt no chest pains.
Then I remembered I was dreaming, but suddenly I realized I was awake! There were those screams again. It was the sound of a woman's voice; in sheer terror.
"Help me! Somebody call the police. Will somebody please help me? Help!"
I grabbed my 12 gauge cannon from the bedside and tried to locate the screaming. I pumped a shell into the chamber and attempted to clear my head while trying to keep from shooting it off; always a concern when you're half asleep.
I heard the screams again.
"What kind of shit is this?"
Outside in the courtyard, I saw glass shattered everywhere beneath the window where she was screaming. I looked around and saw no one and no one on the street side either.
"Shut up god damn it! I'm tryin' to find if anyone is still around." I told her. So much for the element of surprise.
"Call the police for me please? I don't have a phone yet."
I went inside my apartment and dialed 911 and within 15 minutes the whole complex where I lived starts to unravel. Inside my apartment, I unload and clear the cannon, then I stepped outside. What I found out from her was that Shiv was window peeking at her from outside her window, she'd started screaming and then Shiv took off. It scared her to death and with good reason, Shiv was a convicted felon.
People were milling around everywhere like ants, cops were lurking in shadows and I gave a cop a witness report. Already, events are not coagulating in any meaningful way. Nothing added up to what she had told me.
Raven Woman
The deal around here in this 105 year old apartment complex was the somewhat temporary crowd living in other parts of the complex. A drunk named Raven (ravin'?) Woman had moved in, she was always begging beer from me after I got off work. I occasionally bought her a six pack in trade for some of her wild stories and a titty grope. Her real name was something else, but now she claimed to be part Cherokee Indian. I never saw even a part Indian with that much white skin. Besides, every American claims this I think. So I heard these strange stories about her Indian relatives. I always got a few laughs and copped a feel.
One evening I was standing outside smoking and enjoying a double-shot of Jack Daniels when a car pulled up with her in it.
"God damn those fuckers." she said. She got out of the the car, slammed the door and the car peeled off.
"What?" I asked, wondering what the hell was going on with her that night. She always had some drama going on; either real or imagined.
"I go to my boyfriend's house OK? And like, he has a bunch of his friends over. You know, I have been dating him, we all sit around and drink a few beers.."
Raven Woman drinking a few beers was like a deep sea Blowfish getting a little wet, I knew where this story was headed and I couldn't wait to hear the rest of it. She put a puppy dog pouting look on her face. If you didn't know her you would have been worried.
"We got a little drunk and the next thing I knew he started feeling me up and taking my clothes off in front of all his friends!"
I was amazed that she was acting shocked and pissed off about this. What a hoot!.
"You didn't try to stop him?" I said.
"Well you know...." she said (a girlish grin snuck over her face) "It was kinda fun and...well...I like got a little carried away with it, ya know? I started to like feel liberated or somethin'. They like got me all spread-eagle and shit and start screwing me and my boyfriend starts making a video of it! Then he told me he wouldn't make a copy for me ... the fucker!"
I was amazed.
"I don't think Cherokee Indians were into that sort of thing." I said.
Her life always seemed to be filled with that kind of drama mixed with comedy. I really couldn't say if any of it was true but when she started drinking like a sailor on shore leave it was not hard to believe. I soon found out that her stories weren't that hard to believe.
She had met a biker that worked as a contract anthropologist for the state highway department. The two got it on quite heavily and at some point they decided to get married, two days before Thanksgiving. The so-called reception was held in their dungeon troll apartment and it ended up being nothing more than a drunken drug-and-sex party that got wilder by the minute so I left.
Raven Woman was conspirator #1. I think she dreamed up the whole scam during one of the basement orgies when he had her on all fours with a collar and chain.
The Stripper
Next there was the topless dancer and her boyfriend that live there also. Now they were always up to weird shit. They threw a number of parties (without the lap dances damn it) and this was the party I met Shiv. At that party, he told me way too much about himself being in the penitentiary and nothing at all about the ONE THING I really want to know; why he spent so much time en la chirola.
Asking a convict why he was sent to prison is like taking a stick and stirring up a den full of copperhead snakes. Him and the titty-dancer couple took too many drugs and screwed each other in their apartment. What a bunch of depraved fucks Then the titty-dancer couple got pissed off at him for some reason and told him to quit coming over dressed only in his underwear, ready to go. They may have been mad at him because he always wanted to play 'titty bingo' every time he saw her. The titty dancer was conspirator #2 and she was scorned.
Finally, throw in the Screaming Mimi that woke me up that night. She too was a topless dancer. I didn't know her too well and the Screaming Mimi normally stayed to herself or hung out with the other dancer and Raven Woman the drunk. Somehow, the Raven Woman and the Titty-Dancer claim to be related, like 3rd cousins or something. She didn't stay at her apartment much.
All three were a fucked up mess.
This then, was the depraved menagerie that formed the conspiracy.
The Victim
"Here! Let me do that for ya!" he said, "I don't mind at all."
Shiv yelled this after I pulled into the parking lot after a long day at work. He saw that I had a flat tire. I pulled out the tire iron and jack.
"Lemme do it, you have your good clothes on." he said.
It was over 100 F. and so hot you could boil cockroaches in oil, so I didn't argue. That's the kind of guy he was, at least around me.
As far as I could tell, Shiv was like that with everyone he knew. For me it was hard to imagine him being a convicted murderer. It was the rumors though that got things fucked up. All of a sudden one day, he quit hanging around much. The Conspirators quit being seen with him and started bad mouthing him.
Their main complaint that he was beating on Bruja one of their chick friends that lived in the apartments. This was not inconceivable considering everyone's preconceived notions of ex-convicts let alone a convicted murderer. But the odd thing was I saw Bruja every day and there was never a scratch on her to speak of. I wrote it off as one of the Conspirators S&M fantasies or their cracked up moronic machinations.
Shiv was introduced to his future girlfriend Bruja, by way of the topless titty dancer. It all gets rather shitted up when they partied and did too much XTC and crack. It seems as if Shiv, hard as he tried, wasn't adjusting well. I liked him, in an unexplained way and on hot evenings we sat around, bullshit and drink cheap drugstore beer.
For me the victims in all this were Shiv and his girlfriend. He treated her like gold and was a fine gentleman to her. There were never any loud arguments from across the courtyard. They stayed to themselves and went out on Saturday nights dancing and hitting the casinos.
It was at one of those parties that I crashed one hot summer evening, that I met Shiv. He had a face like a boxer and he looked like he had his face pounded a few times. He told me he had just left the correctional facility, came home and was staying with his parents. He was trying to get back on his feet.
"Yeah, I did wrong but now I got another chance."
I tried to look at him such that he would finish and tell me what he did. He'd been down this road before I suppose and started talking about something else.
I found out later from rumors that he went to jail for manslaughter.
Conspirators Get Unraveled
The next couple of days I looked around the apartment and tried to figure out what she described as the crime. Nothing she told the police or me added up. The problem was the fact that there was no way Shiv or anyone else, could have done what she described. It was obvious to anyone that cared to look.
First for him or anyone to be able to look through the window and also try to get in her apartment would mean he had to be on a tall step ladder. Not just that but the screen has been pushed from the inside out, NOT from the outside in. I took some pictures of this and showed them to others; The 'crime of the century' was big news around the apartments.
It was very obvious to me or anyone what really happened that night.
It didn't seem to matter to the police. I came home from work one day and two detectives were sitting in their car across the street. They had been there for a couple of hours and then left. The next day the same thing happened. I walked over to them and asked them what the problem was.
"Hey, it's pretty obvious you two guys are staking someone out. Is there criminal activity going on we should know about?"
They told me to not worry about it, then they left. Sometimes I wonder about how smart these guys are. A couple days later, I find out that Shiv was busted and thrown in jail. He couldn't make bail.
I basically keep my mouth shut about all this and asked Bruja how he was doing.
"He's doing OK...say, would you go down tomorrow at 1:00 and file a deposition with his lawyer?"
It was still nagging me why they would accuse him of something that he obviously didn't do. So much for police investigations. You get what you pay for.
I had an appointment to see his lawyer. I typed it up and printed the deposition. I even described the day after and included photographs refuting the account Screaming Mimi gave to the police. He rots away in jail for about 60 days. During that time I wondered why these chicks tried to set him up and blame this on him. They stuck by their story. But one day, I caught Raven Woman in one of her finer drunken moments and started quizzing her about it.
This is your brain on drugs...
It had been awhile since I had seen Shiv and I met up with Bruja and asked her how things were going.
"Well, he's been in the hospital. He had a hernia operation."
"Damn!" I thought to myself. I saw him lifting weights all the time. I guess convicts do that a lot in prison.
"Yeah he did it lifting weights about a week ago. His folks are taking care of him right now."
A week or so later I was having a beer with him outside on the porch. He started telling me about the operation and how dumb it was for him to do what he did to get the hernia.
"I didn't realize that I am getting older and can't do what I used to do. In prison, I could lift weights all day and nothing like a hernia would happen at all."
He shows me where they opened him up and exposed his guts and stomach muscles. It was an ugly scar but it was how they do it so that there eventually wouldn't be a scar. I knew it was painful for him. When we laughed, he tried to stifle it. Shiv told me the only good thing about it are the was the pain killers they gave him to take.
"Yeah, one of these and some cheap beer you could saw your leg off and not care." he said.
"Shiv dude, you shouldn't do that. You might be real messed up some night and forget you took one and then take another."
"Naw, I have done it before." he told me. The light went off in my head.
"Yeah Shiv I know, but you just said you can't do things you used to when you were younger."
It gets us every time I think. We fool ourselves and commit perjury to our inner voices. We don't like to admit to things we don't want to hear and sometimes it gets us in deep shit that we can't crawl out of. It is that moment, that ignorant second of thought an ignosecond, that takes us swiftly into the Hall of Idiots.
A few weeks later I had one of those mornings where I woke up and it felt like someone beat the hell out of me with an ax handle. I went out to the back step, noticed what a great looking morning it was and grabbed the morning dead tree paper. Eventually, I got to the obituaries, something I never read and glanced at them.
There before me was a photo of Shiv. He was staring back at the world blankly. I go running over to Bruja's house, amazed that she hasn't said anything to me about his passing.
"Yeah...I'm sorry I didn't come over and tell you. You did a lot to help him with his innocence. His parents found him in his room dead, he passed away in his sleep."
Red Meat and the Factory of Convicts
I am sitting in a suite in Amarillo right now. It reminds me of when I worked in a roller mill. It is quite a machine. A roller mill produces the food the cattle feed on in some of the largest feedlots in the world.
I had only one goal and that was to work my ass off for a year and travel on that money. It wasn't hard to do I only had to work 12 hours a day. This type of shift is weird and puts you on a strange schedule. It was a roller mill factory. Monstrous machines they were. They also made steamers. If you are a vegan don't read any further. You are warned.
I thought working in a roller mill factory would be worth it until one day. Let me explain.
To fatten cattle in the feed lots of the Texas Panhandle you must feed them grain and lots of it. Cattle cannot digest whole grains by default. A basic roller mill is two rollers (like rolling pins) that are positioned on roller bearings that are so huge to clean failed roller bearings I had to lift them with a hoist. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Zap Yourself and You Die...
Being a fuck off the first two weeks on the job, three of us punks were sent to paint a huge factory 30 miles away from the main factory. What a hoot, we were unsupervised. What we didn't know at the time was that the union contract specified that they had to maintain a certain number of workers at all times. They hired three of us jerk offs and consequently stuck us in Siberia doing an unsupervised, unskilled job. We had to paint the complete interior twice and we had two weeks to do it.
It didn't take us long to figure out how fucked up we could get while doing that. Smoking pot in an unventilated and empty factory can work on your mind and you don't even know it. I am sure I lost quite a number of brain cells that first week.
The second week got outrageous. The previous week we thought we had some really killer weed that we smoked at lunch because it lasted the rest of the day. What we didn't realize was the paint fumes was a cocktail after lunch. By the second week we could barely stay on the scaffolding.
We painted with highly pressurized nozzles filled with white lead paint connected to compressors that (no matter what we did to them) maintained an even 100 lbs of pressure. The nozzles didn't mist the paint out it shot it out with a three foot spread pattern at around five feet. That way we could reach hard places from some distance. It also meant if you fucked around too much your ass was worse than grass...and that is exactly what happened to one of us.
We were up on the roof having lunch and smoking up a storm. That day we got so blasted we could hardly walk. We were celebrating by finishing the first coat that morning. When we went back to work the other two guys started fucking around with the paint guns spraying each other. They were a mess covered in paint.
One of the guys says, "Watch this you fucker!" and pointed the gun at the palm of his left hand and pulled the trigger. The spray guns looks innocent enough, benign even. The second he pulled the trigger was the second he realized what a fucking rich kid dumbass he was. As me and the other guy screamed at him to not do it it was too late.
Fuck Dees Shit...Wanna Hit of Paint?
It was one of those moments that forever plays in your mind IN SLOW MOTION. A pound or so of compressed, highly pressurized paint ejected from the gun six inches from his palm and entered it ripping flesh, tendons and muscles while splintering a couple of bones. Next I saw the mess exiting the back of his hand. First gobs of blood and then bits of bone and flesh and the whole mess splattered against the wall like a popped watermelon filled with ketchup and gore.
We both stood there shocked for a moment and time had frozen. Had it just been water he would have been crippled for life in that hand. As it was however, he had just injected himself with lead based paint.
For the next 10 years or so that law suit followed me around. Each time I talked with his lawyer they had chopped of more of his arm. Finally, when they cut off his left arm his life was no longer in jeopardy. Finally I quit hearing from his lawyer. I never knew what happened to him.
She Came In Through the Bathroom Window...
Needless to say we quit painting. They moved us over to the main factory. This was a more dangerous place. They had steel forming tools, sheers that sliced 1/4 inch steel like it was butter, huge drill presses and any number of ways to get maimed and killed.
The worst threat were other workers.
Winter approached and we came to work in the dark and left work in the dark. Lunch was the only time I saw the sun for months. The other guy that was hired when I was and I were each given a broom and were told that we only had two jobs until another position opened, sweep the factory floor and clean the bathrooms twice a day.
FUCKIN' A! what an easy job. Well, let it be known that pushing a broom for 12 hours is so menial it is hard. Machinists and welders get real picky and cranky about their work areas. A couple of them were downright nasty about it and constantly bitched to the foreman.
We both got written up a couple of times and after a month of eating shit over it my buddy and I decided to get even.
People have bathroom habits like clockwork. The machinist that kept ratting on us was no exception. Every day a certain time in the morning he would head for the head to dump some foul smelling shit that would clear out the bathroom. We clocked his ass every day for a week and timed his entrance, his exit and position of the foreman. One day we were ready for him.
We had innocently positioned a couple of gallons of ammonia, a sign that said the head was out of order, two buckets, some mops and a two charcoal activated masks by the bathroom entrance and waited.
Like a factory clock and right on time, here he comes dump his nasty load and we followed about 10 feet behind. We heard him slam the stall door and went into action by putting on the masks and filling the gallon buckets full of bleach.
"OK now, on the count of three."
I counted off with my fingers and from the doorway we both hurled the buckets of ammonia on the bathroom floor me covering one side and my buddy covering the other. I was thankful that ammmonia is not exactly flammable.
He started coughing and choking and came running out of the bathroom with his pants around his knees and shit hanging off his ass. We almost got fired and would have had the bosses liked him. We were written up.
Bang Bang Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon his head...
But the weirdest thing was yet to come. The company had a policy of giving convicts a second chance. If you got out of the penitentiary with a trade they would hire you regardless of what you were convicted of. If you paid your debt and had a decent trade you got a job.
I took up with one of them...a machinest. He had served 10 years for manslaughter at the state pen at McAllister. At lunch he and I would go to the parking lot, eat lunch in his car, listen to blaring rock and smoke a joint each of righteousness. He did all the talking I did all the nodding of either yes or no and all he talked about was prison and the shit that happened there. We'd laugh, get toked up and try to make it through next six hours. Me and my broom, him and his micrometers and metal lathe. Each man had to supply his own tools and The Machinist carried own. One of the tools was a two pound shop hammer; blunt on one side and wedge shaped on the other. It is a wicked tool.
I noticed over a couple of weeks that him and another fellow machinist would have words at each other during the day. Not only did it continue but became more and more frequent as the weeks went on. I also noticed that the ex-con friend of mine was starting to clock and measure the other machinist.
One day at lunch I asked, "You and him gonna fight it out sometime soon?"
"No way dude," he said, "That is a sure way to get fired around here. No fighting on the property. I am just fuckin' wiff 'im."
But words between the two continued and at times they would get so loud the foreman had shut them both up.
One day though it would all end.
At 6:00 sharp the bell went off and it was time to leave. I watched the ex-con clocking his nemesis like he always did but today it was different. He followed his nemesis to the line to punch out on the clock and got right behind him. We were towards the back. He reached down into his toolbox and pulled out the shop hammer. He turned around and looked at me.
"Would you move back a bit?" he asked, "I don't want this here shop hammer to hit ya."
I stepped back and before I could say a word he tapped the machinist in front of him on the shoulder.
"Hey man I think you dropped this on the floor." he told him.
In one fluid motion, like tai-chi, the machinist turned around and as he did so the ex-con's shop hammer had reached the height of its arc and began plummeting towards the machinist's forehead. Before the machinist knew what happened, the ex-con had firmly planted it into his forehead and buried the head halfway. the shop hammer hit with such force it cracked his head open like an egg shell and hurled the machinist's brains and gore all over the next guy standing in line.
The machinist dropped dead like a steer on the killing floor.
I had only one goal and that was to work my ass off for a year and travel on that money. It wasn't hard to do I only had to work 12 hours a day. This type of shift is weird and puts you on a strange schedule. It was a roller mill factory. Monstrous machines they were. They also made steamers. If you are a vegan don't read any further. You are warned.
I thought working in a roller mill factory would be worth it until one day. Let me explain.
To fatten cattle in the feed lots of the Texas Panhandle you must feed them grain and lots of it. Cattle cannot digest whole grains by default. A basic roller mill is two rollers (like rolling pins) that are positioned on roller bearings that are so huge to clean failed roller bearings I had to lift them with a hoist. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Zap Yourself and You Die...
Being a fuck off the first two weeks on the job, three of us punks were sent to paint a huge factory 30 miles away from the main factory. What a hoot, we were unsupervised. What we didn't know at the time was that the union contract specified that they had to maintain a certain number of workers at all times. They hired three of us jerk offs and consequently stuck us in Siberia doing an unsupervised, unskilled job. We had to paint the complete interior twice and we had two weeks to do it.
It didn't take us long to figure out how fucked up we could get while doing that. Smoking pot in an unventilated and empty factory can work on your mind and you don't even know it. I am sure I lost quite a number of brain cells that first week.
The second week got outrageous. The previous week we thought we had some really killer weed that we smoked at lunch because it lasted the rest of the day. What we didn't realize was the paint fumes was a cocktail after lunch. By the second week we could barely stay on the scaffolding.
We painted with highly pressurized nozzles filled with white lead paint connected to compressors that (no matter what we did to them) maintained an even 100 lbs of pressure. The nozzles didn't mist the paint out it shot it out with a three foot spread pattern at around five feet. That way we could reach hard places from some distance. It also meant if you fucked around too much your ass was worse than grass...and that is exactly what happened to one of us.
We were up on the roof having lunch and smoking up a storm. That day we got so blasted we could hardly walk. We were celebrating by finishing the first coat that morning. When we went back to work the other two guys started fucking around with the paint guns spraying each other. They were a mess covered in paint.
One of the guys says, "Watch this you fucker!" and pointed the gun at the palm of his left hand and pulled the trigger. The spray guns looks innocent enough, benign even. The second he pulled the trigger was the second he realized what a fucking rich kid dumbass he was. As me and the other guy screamed at him to not do it it was too late.
Fuck Dees Shit...Wanna Hit of Paint?
It was one of those moments that forever plays in your mind IN SLOW MOTION. A pound or so of compressed, highly pressurized paint ejected from the gun six inches from his palm and entered it ripping flesh, tendons and muscles while splintering a couple of bones. Next I saw the mess exiting the back of his hand. First gobs of blood and then bits of bone and flesh and the whole mess splattered against the wall like a popped watermelon filled with ketchup and gore.
We both stood there shocked for a moment and time had frozen. Had it just been water he would have been crippled for life in that hand. As it was however, he had just injected himself with lead based paint.
For the next 10 years or so that law suit followed me around. Each time I talked with his lawyer they had chopped of more of his arm. Finally, when they cut off his left arm his life was no longer in jeopardy. Finally I quit hearing from his lawyer. I never knew what happened to him.
She Came In Through the Bathroom Window...
Needless to say we quit painting. They moved us over to the main factory. This was a more dangerous place. They had steel forming tools, sheers that sliced 1/4 inch steel like it was butter, huge drill presses and any number of ways to get maimed and killed.
The worst threat were other workers.
Winter approached and we came to work in the dark and left work in the dark. Lunch was the only time I saw the sun for months. The other guy that was hired when I was and I were each given a broom and were told that we only had two jobs until another position opened, sweep the factory floor and clean the bathrooms twice a day.
FUCKIN' A! what an easy job. Well, let it be known that pushing a broom for 12 hours is so menial it is hard. Machinists and welders get real picky and cranky about their work areas. A couple of them were downright nasty about it and constantly bitched to the foreman.
We both got written up a couple of times and after a month of eating shit over it my buddy and I decided to get even.
People have bathroom habits like clockwork. The machinist that kept ratting on us was no exception. Every day a certain time in the morning he would head for the head to dump some foul smelling shit that would clear out the bathroom. We clocked his ass every day for a week and timed his entrance, his exit and position of the foreman. One day we were ready for him.
We had innocently positioned a couple of gallons of ammonia, a sign that said the head was out of order, two buckets, some mops and a two charcoal activated masks by the bathroom entrance and waited.
Like a factory clock and right on time, here he comes dump his nasty load and we followed about 10 feet behind. We heard him slam the stall door and went into action by putting on the masks and filling the gallon buckets full of bleach.
"OK now, on the count of three."
I counted off with my fingers and from the doorway we both hurled the buckets of ammonia on the bathroom floor me covering one side and my buddy covering the other. I was thankful that ammmonia is not exactly flammable.
He started coughing and choking and came running out of the bathroom with his pants around his knees and shit hanging off his ass. We almost got fired and would have had the bosses liked him. We were written up.
Bang Bang Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon his head...
But the weirdest thing was yet to come. The company had a policy of giving convicts a second chance. If you got out of the penitentiary with a trade they would hire you regardless of what you were convicted of. If you paid your debt and had a decent trade you got a job.
I took up with one of them...a machinest. He had served 10 years for manslaughter at the state pen at McAllister. At lunch he and I would go to the parking lot, eat lunch in his car, listen to blaring rock and smoke a joint each of righteousness. He did all the talking I did all the nodding of either yes or no and all he talked about was prison and the shit that happened there. We'd laugh, get toked up and try to make it through next six hours. Me and my broom, him and his micrometers and metal lathe. Each man had to supply his own tools and The Machinist carried own. One of the tools was a two pound shop hammer; blunt on one side and wedge shaped on the other. It is a wicked tool.
I noticed over a couple of weeks that him and another fellow machinist would have words at each other during the day. Not only did it continue but became more and more frequent as the weeks went on. I also noticed that the ex-con friend of mine was starting to clock and measure the other machinist.
One day at lunch I asked, "You and him gonna fight it out sometime soon?"
"No way dude," he said, "That is a sure way to get fired around here. No fighting on the property. I am just fuckin' wiff 'im."
But words between the two continued and at times they would get so loud the foreman had shut them both up.
One day though it would all end.
At 6:00 sharp the bell went off and it was time to leave. I watched the ex-con clocking his nemesis like he always did but today it was different. He followed his nemesis to the line to punch out on the clock and got right behind him. We were towards the back. He reached down into his toolbox and pulled out the shop hammer. He turned around and looked at me.
"Would you move back a bit?" he asked, "I don't want this here shop hammer to hit ya."
I stepped back and before I could say a word he tapped the machinist in front of him on the shoulder.
"Hey man I think you dropped this on the floor." he told him.
In one fluid motion, like tai-chi, the machinist turned around and as he did so the ex-con's shop hammer had reached the height of its arc and began plummeting towards the machinist's forehead. Before the machinist knew what happened, the ex-con had firmly planted it into his forehead and buried the head halfway. the shop hammer hit with such force it cracked his head open like an egg shell and hurled the machinist's brains and gore all over the next guy standing in line.
The machinist dropped dead like a steer on the killing floor.
The Carnies, The Midget-In-A-Miniskirt and Assorted Menageries
"Gawd...".
I had been sitting on the side of the rode for friggin' hours. Maybe a handful of cars came by. I started thinking that I was not going to make it out of there alive. Honestly, I didn't think so. My ass had flattened against the pavement far too long and I almost decided to give up for that day.
Not only that but I felt like a swollen mass of bleeding flesh from all the deer fly bites that had been feasting on me all day. I was stuck between Nowhere and Someplace, somewhere between the Canadian border and Great Falls, Montana. Behind me was a wall of mountains to the west and in front of me were the Northern Great Plains. I was headed for the World's Fair in Spokane Washington which may as well have been on the moon.
Then suddenly the Evil Clown appeared. I saw it coming down the highway in the form of a 1969 Ford Fairlane Squire Station Wagon. The car screeched to a halt on the Interstate and a door flew open. Then billows of smoke belched out a Midget-In-A-Miniskirt and she landed none to gracefully on the asphalt.
"You need a ride buddy?" she said dusting her miniskirt while getting upright, "If you do, I can help you with that."
I didn't care who was in the car either. She was giggling at me, which I thought was a bit odd.
My mind started drifting, if I remember correctly. Lots of cheap whiskey and too much smoke plays tricks on you when you're too tired. The Midget-In-A-Miniskirt took one step turned around, pulled up her skirt, squatted and started peeing like a cow pissing on a flat rock. It didn't seem to matter to her that she wasn't wearing underwear. She grinned while flashing me.
I looked quickly away but she noticed me staring anyway.
"Hurry up!" the Carnie yelled. "We'll never make it to Spokane if everyone has to stop and piss like this."
We weren't far from Great Falls, MT and Spokane was still far away.
"YEOW! My ass is on fire!!" She screamed.
I jerked my head around, snapping out of my daydream to see the Midget-In-A-Miniskirt with a frightful look, tears streaming down her face and her grabbing her ass.
I was horrified with what I thought I saw. Immediately I tried to get out of the station wagon. A snake was slithering off to a rock a few feet behind her.
"Don't touch it!" Were the first words from my mouth.
I was referring to her ass. Then I bent her over and looked at her bare ass. The Carnie had also jumped out of the car too. The snake it seemed had been hiding from the intense sun under the overpass where it was cool. We had stopped right where he lay and the Midget-In-A-Miniskirt not seeing the rattlesnake squatted right over it and started pissing on it. Scared, the rattlesnake's first impulse was to strike; missing her holy-of-holies by inches.
"She's snake bit." I told the Carnie. "How far are we from Great Falls?"
"Not far..." he said "But too far for her."
Her small size and the place she was bitten made it difficult to determine the effect of the venom. He then pulled out his folding Buck knife and opened the blade. Then he made two slices across the two puncture wounds where the snake injected it's venom. Blood poured out and dripped down her small ass like rivulets spilling on the ground.
He then bent over and started sucking on the wound and spitting blood and venom on the ground next to her. She was shaking and crying. I stood there in shock not wanting to believe this had just happened. He sucked on the wound on her ass for what seemed like minutes. His mouth and mustache were covered with blood.
"Hurry" he told her. "Get in the car. Let's get your ass to a hospital in Great Falls."
She got on the seat next to me facing the back of the seat with her ass stuck in the air, blood dripping down her thigh. Droplets of blood were hitting the car seat and the Carnie sped off the shoulder and onto the highway.
Everyone else in the car was trying to comfort her and sooth her sobs. The whole scene was exciting and terrifying at the same time.
"You'll be OK baby." he told her.
He was trying to soothe and calm her down.
"Stay calm sweetheart, you'll be OK. We''ll get you to the hospital real quick now."
I wasn't so sure. Watching her shake and at the same time trying not to touch her bite I would have thought if she had been anyone else of normal size this would be different. But who would know what would happen to a snake bit midget? Had this been anything other than what it was, it would have been a most interesting situation with her ass stuck up in the air like that. But because of her size this could end in a tragedy. Me and everyone was concerned. It was hard to listen to her sobs and whimpering.
"It burns like hell." she sobbed.
None of us could think of a way to soothe or comfort her. Miles from an emergency room and poor made the situation seem uncertain.
With what seemed like hours (it could not have been more than 30 minutes) we entered Great Falls and started looking for a hospital. The Carnie noticed a sign that said "Hospital" and started following them. The bleeding had stopped and dried blood was caking up on the seat beneath her. She was crying now, telling Carnie to hurry.
The Carnie was speeding through the city trying to attract attention of the local police. Of all the times he wanted to avoid the police this was not one of them. It was as if we were invisible. None of us attracted any attention. She was twitching and vomiting. I was getting scared and the Carnie was visibly shaken.
We got her to the emergency room and the story should have ended there. We felt lucky that the hospital was not far from the highway.
But it didn't...it never does. But I often wondered...
I wondered why this happened to the snake bit Midget-In-A-Miniskirt. Often times fate indeed comes up and bites you on the ass. In her case, fate was a rattlesnake that bit her on the ass.
All this struck me as odd but I was the odd man out. I was largely ignored. I was a friendly microbe swimming around in a sea of white blood cells.
"Let's find a flophouse." one of them said. "We can all cram into one room."
"I think I'll just go back to the highway." I told Carney. "I don't have enough money, even to stay in a flophouse downtown."
"Don't worry 'bout that." Carney said. "We'll take care of it."
I couldn't (at that moment) see myself spending the night with a carney and midgets. I wanted to keep moving on to Spokane even at night. At the very least, I could sleep under the overpass that stretched over the Interstate highway.
"Stay with us." one of the midgets said. "We'll get a nice room. We like you. Come on...it beats sleeping outside."
I would have taken anyone else up on that offer. But I capitulated... "OK, it's a deal." I told them.
The Midget-In-A-Miniskirt had to spend the night for observation. "Hey," the Carney said. "This will work out great then. I can spend the night watching over Midget-In-A-Miniskirt and you can drive everyone downtown and get a place to stay. ...It's a done deal."
I realized at this point I had no choice. No matter how much I objected they would have none of it. Since I was the only one with legs long enough to drive I was elected to take everyone downtown. They knew where to go.
"Turn here." "Go there" "Take a right at the corner." Did they know where they were going?
We ended up in a part of town that I was worried about...seriously worried.
I get out of the station wagon not having any idea where I was at in the general scheme of things. I knew it wouldn't soon because as soon as we entered the lobby...
"Hey baby, wanna date?" a prostitute said.
"Not unless it's free." I told her half seriously. Of course it wasn't and she totally ignored my response. This was bizarre in the extreme.
The Gate of the Mountains Hotel must have been at one time a glorious place. But all I could see was a seedy shell of what had once been. I turned around to one of the midgets. "I will sleep out in the station wagon tonight." I said.
"Suit yourself." the midget told me. I was stupid and should have listened to him; he knew what horrors could happen.
I did and turned around and nodded with a smile at the whore standing by the door. It was a dumb mistake to leave that sanctuary.
Puking on the Window
The problem with traveling like this is that you never know where you'll end up and what direction it will take you. That night was such a night. I was beat and still itching from insect bites and just feeling filthy. I had just turned down my chance for a decent shower.
While unpacking my sleeping bag I noticed all the pedestrian traffic covering the sidewalk. I was not comforted by this.
I started mumbling to myself and beginning to wonder why I had decided to sleep on the main street in a Ford Fairlane Station Wagon. Bums were stumbling up and down the street in a carnival-like parade of freaks.
One such 'freak' banged into the car and fell to the sidewalk. I ignored him. He grabbed the car and wrenched himself upright enough so that he could wretch and cover the back window where I was at, with vomit and gawd knows what.
I decided that night that nightmares would be a pleasant release to what otherwise was an interesting day.
Meanwhile, I was sure there was a midget orgy going behind the walls of infamy.
The next morning I am startled awake with banging on the glass at the rear of the station wagon.
"Wake up you lazy bum" I heard. "We're headed for the Snake River Canyon and you're coming along."
After the previous night it sounded like a good idea. This situation was not going well. It was reaching out of my control.
"I'm a Space Cowboy...
Bet you weren't ready for that
I'm a Space Cowboy
I'm sure you know where it's at..." -- Steve Miller
"Ewww! who puked on the car?" the midget asked. "Did you do that? That's some nasty stuff there." I still hadn't gotten used to the ephereal, helium-sounding voices.
Then he asked me for a cigarette. I couldn't resist the temptation...
"Those things will stunt your growth." I told him.
"I could slit your throat if I wanted to." he said not grinning. I didn't doubt it. I had no creds yet and never would.
The look I got from him after he lit up told me to never say THAT again. What I said was stupid but I didn't care.
"Smart ass!" he muttered. "Hey let's get moving buddy, we have quite a drive ahead of us. We need to hurry and pick up Midget-In-A-Miniskirt and Carney so that we can make to the Snake River Canyon in time to see the jump."
Reebus Kneebus
Knievel was some kind of hero to them. He was another freak in the land of freaks, except he made tons of money. The carnies respected that. I supposed they also respected the balls had to do such a dumb thing. It's all about the money I suppose.
Evel Knievel was a one man carnival on a Harley-Davidson Sportster. He was America's daredevil hero at a time when being red, white and blue was unpopular and safe sex meant not getting caught banging someone's wife or girlfriend and ...not messing around with a carnival midget.
More than anything else people watched him to see if he would crash his bike while jumping school buses at Cesar's Palace. It was then that the resulting crash would turn him into a jumble of crushed and broken bones. He had flipped head over asshole flopping around like a tossed monkey. The carnies understood this bit of showmanship. Why else do people go to carnivals and circuses?
It was earlier that summer that I was sitting in a greasy spoon in Butte, Montana his home town on the Fourth of July. He was to be the Grand Marshall of the Fourth of July parade. That was all anyone was talking about.
In a few months Evel Kneivel would jump the Snake River Canyon not on a Harley Sportster but on a steam powered rocket. I kept staring at the scrambled eggs covered with cheap ketchup and a side of hash browns. I grabbed the front page of the Butte, Montana newspaper and saw a drawing of the steam powered rocket.
It was one hell of a strap-on. The guy is fucking nuts. They won't let him do it or he'll back out at the last moment.
Into the Chasm of Oblivion
Within minutes we were piled into the station wagon and we were off to the hospital. I had a sinking feeling that I really was going to Snake River Canyon with this carnival crew.
We arrived at the hospital and the pair greeted us at the entrance. She eased into the seat next to me like before, took off her miniskirt and started showing everyone the ugly snake bit sore on her ass. She was lucky; very lucky.
She fell asleep and slept most of the trip in her underwear and swollen junk-in-the-trunk butt. The others would tickle her on the bottoms of her feet and her ribs. She wouldn't budge. She only flopped around when Carney would take a corner too fast or barely passed an eighteen-wheeler. A couple of she flopped into my lap.
"They musta gave her some kinda powerful shit..." Carney said. "to knock her out like that." She had a whole bottle of it too. What a pint of whiskey and a couple of those would do.
The poor thing had blisters and the part of her ass where the timber rattler bit her was black as a burnt match head. It looked like someone beat the hell out of her butt. It was horrifying.
Carney reached down somewhere and revealed a bottle of pills. I didn't want to know where he kept them.
"Here man," he said, "Take ONE OF THESE."
Everyone ew'ed and aw'ed as I remember (in between shots of whiskey at 7:00 in the morning). I took one of the little white pills and swallowed it with a swig of cheap whiskey.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Acid!" he said. I had assumed they were whites to chill out all the whiskey we were drinking.
In a way I was now horrified but at the same time amused at my own idiocy and three ring circus full of Evil Clowns. I had to go with this. I couldn't regurgitate it on an empty stomach and at any rate, better than anything else, watching Evel Kneivel blast himself off a cliff across a river canyon had to be one of the all time hoots of the century.
By the time we got to the viewing area I was in full roar with pulsating veins. The Midget-In-Miniskirt had awakened and was groggy. Everyone else was in a party mood and drunk (except for Carney). The sea of distorted, dripping faces I was looking at, made me feel like I was at the running of the bulls in Spain amongst aliens.
There were thousands of people and most of them were pissed off. Beer and concessions were expensive and there fences to keep people from the edge of the canyon. There was anger in the air half of the people were drunk and the other half were stoned...many were both. We found out we were a day early and I couldn't imagine at that moment how I would survive the rest of the day and that night in the condition I was currently in.
I started freaking out in a serious way.
"Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war." - William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"
"?KO gniod uoy era" he asked "?Retaw fo knird a deen uoy od".
"Yeah," I told him, "I'm doing fine. I could sure use a beer though. Say...am I talking backwards?"
He looked at me puzzled. "Man, are you ever messed up." The midget towered over me like the Jolly Green giant. When he walked off the ground shook.
Geezus everyone is talking backwards now AND I am understanding them! What serious fuckin' switch went off in my head to cause THAT to happen? Can I fix it? Is this reversible? Will I be like this for the rest of my life? Am I talking backwards or forwards? ......
"I don't believe this Carney called Knievel." I said to a passer-by, "He's a dare devil, showman and most of all, he's a carney sonofabitch."
I forgot I was in Idaho and this show wasn't a rock festival either.
"I oughta kick your dumb, stupid ass." the drunk said. It was obvious he had been vomiting and looking for a fight; both at the same time. He stumbled on.
I had stretched out underneath a giant Ponderosa pine doing nothing, thinking about everything and freaking in my own private bubble. The distance brought me waves of loud voices. The steam rocket was visible but faint. I was not sure if I was imagining all this.
I wasn't sure of anything.
"It's getting ugly out there." I remembered one of the midgets telling me and motioning off in the distance.
All the noise in the distance sounded like a herd of cattle tearing up a corral.
"They're tearin' up the concessions," the midget said, "and stealing beer and food."
The midget pointed to the crowds hanging around the concession stands. If anyone knew about this sort of thing, he would. But the crowds were too large and ugly. Chaos began to rule the night.
"They're gonna lose control." he said. "I've seen this happen before a bunch of times."
I was sure that he had and was glad I was no longer seeing dripping faces and talking backwards from self-induced drug taking. Then all hell burst loose. Waves of people started coming towards us in a mad rush; in hysterics.
"Uh...we need to get the fuck outta here!" the midget said. I trusted his impeccable judgment and observation.
I grabbed the midget and got around on the downside of the herds of people behind the huge ponderosa pine. We let the horde sweep past us. In a few hours all was quiet.
That next day was jump day. I wanted out of there, fuck the jump and this carnival of clowns and idiots.
"Here comes Knievel," the midget said. "Look up over there."
A chopper was flying in off in the distance and was landing quite a ways from us. It disappeared beneath the throngs of people. People started rushing towards the staging area. Moments later The King of Karnival Karneys Knievel lifted into the steam powered rocket. Within minutes he popped off the launch like a monsterous bottle rocket. Cheers went up but then...
"What the hell happened?" the midget asked. I hoisted him onto my shoulders.
There it was and for a moment it was suspended in mid-air, a parchute deployed halfway across the canyon then it nosed down. The rocket was headed for the Snake River. People started booing and rushing the fences to tear them down and get a look at what could be Knievel's last crash.
"That fucker!" the Carney said. He ran past us on his way to the edge of the chasm. He was either stumbling drunk or too high.
"You can't let him do that." I told the midget. "He'll see that Knievel screwed us all with this scam and wanna jump in it. How much did you pay for the tickets anyway?"
"I have to go save him" the midget said. "and see if we can get our money back too." He took off to the edge of the canyon like everyone else.
"Does anyone get their money back at a carnival?" I yelled at him. But I already knew the answer to that question.
I didn't look around for anyone that I knew. I picked up my backpack and headed down the road. I wanted the hell out of there and I didn't look back either. I still had miles to go before I reached Spokane.
I'll never know why the carney jumped off that cliff.
Youtube of the Snake River jump.
I had been sitting on the side of the rode for friggin' hours. Maybe a handful of cars came by. I started thinking that I was not going to make it out of there alive. Honestly, I didn't think so. My ass had flattened against the pavement far too long and I almost decided to give up for that day.
Not only that but I felt like a swollen mass of bleeding flesh from all the deer fly bites that had been feasting on me all day. I was stuck between Nowhere and Someplace, somewhere between the Canadian border and Great Falls, Montana. Behind me was a wall of mountains to the west and in front of me were the Northern Great Plains. I was headed for the World's Fair in Spokane Washington which may as well have been on the moon.
Then suddenly the Evil Clown appeared. I saw it coming down the highway in the form of a 1969 Ford Fairlane Squire Station Wagon. The car screeched to a halt on the Interstate and a door flew open. Then billows of smoke belched out a Midget-In-A-Miniskirt and she landed none to gracefully on the asphalt.
"You need a ride buddy?" she said dusting her miniskirt while getting upright, "If you do, I can help you with that."
I didn't care who was in the car either. She was giggling at me, which I thought was a bit odd.
My mind started drifting, if I remember correctly. Lots of cheap whiskey and too much smoke plays tricks on you when you're too tired. The Midget-In-A-Miniskirt took one step turned around, pulled up her skirt, squatted and started peeing like a cow pissing on a flat rock. It didn't seem to matter to her that she wasn't wearing underwear. She grinned while flashing me.
I looked quickly away but she noticed me staring anyway.
"Hurry up!" the Carnie yelled. "We'll never make it to Spokane if everyone has to stop and piss like this."
We weren't far from Great Falls, MT and Spokane was still far away.
"YEOW! My ass is on fire!!" She screamed.
I jerked my head around, snapping out of my daydream to see the Midget-In-A-Miniskirt with a frightful look, tears streaming down her face and her grabbing her ass.
I was horrified with what I thought I saw. Immediately I tried to get out of the station wagon. A snake was slithering off to a rock a few feet behind her.
"Don't touch it!" Were the first words from my mouth.
I was referring to her ass. Then I bent her over and looked at her bare ass. The Carnie had also jumped out of the car too. The snake it seemed had been hiding from the intense sun under the overpass where it was cool. We had stopped right where he lay and the Midget-In-A-Miniskirt not seeing the rattlesnake squatted right over it and started pissing on it. Scared, the rattlesnake's first impulse was to strike; missing her holy-of-holies by inches.
"She's snake bit." I told the Carnie. "How far are we from Great Falls?"
"Not far..." he said "But too far for her."
Her small size and the place she was bitten made it difficult to determine the effect of the venom. He then pulled out his folding Buck knife and opened the blade. Then he made two slices across the two puncture wounds where the snake injected it's venom. Blood poured out and dripped down her small ass like rivulets spilling on the ground.
He then bent over and started sucking on the wound and spitting blood and venom on the ground next to her. She was shaking and crying. I stood there in shock not wanting to believe this had just happened. He sucked on the wound on her ass for what seemed like minutes. His mouth and mustache were covered with blood.
"Hurry" he told her. "Get in the car. Let's get your ass to a hospital in Great Falls."
She got on the seat next to me facing the back of the seat with her ass stuck in the air, blood dripping down her thigh. Droplets of blood were hitting the car seat and the Carnie sped off the shoulder and onto the highway.
Everyone else in the car was trying to comfort her and sooth her sobs. The whole scene was exciting and terrifying at the same time.
"You'll be OK baby." he told her.
He was trying to soothe and calm her down.
"Stay calm sweetheart, you'll be OK. We''ll get you to the hospital real quick now."
I wasn't so sure. Watching her shake and at the same time trying not to touch her bite I would have thought if she had been anyone else of normal size this would be different. But who would know what would happen to a snake bit midget? Had this been anything other than what it was, it would have been a most interesting situation with her ass stuck up in the air like that. But because of her size this could end in a tragedy. Me and everyone was concerned. It was hard to listen to her sobs and whimpering.
"It burns like hell." she sobbed.
None of us could think of a way to soothe or comfort her. Miles from an emergency room and poor made the situation seem uncertain.
With what seemed like hours (it could not have been more than 30 minutes) we entered Great Falls and started looking for a hospital. The Carnie noticed a sign that said "Hospital" and started following them. The bleeding had stopped and dried blood was caking up on the seat beneath her. She was crying now, telling Carnie to hurry.
The Carnie was speeding through the city trying to attract attention of the local police. Of all the times he wanted to avoid the police this was not one of them. It was as if we were invisible. None of us attracted any attention. She was twitching and vomiting. I was getting scared and the Carnie was visibly shaken.
We got her to the emergency room and the story should have ended there. We felt lucky that the hospital was not far from the highway.
But it didn't...it never does. But I often wondered...
I wondered why this happened to the snake bit Midget-In-A-Miniskirt. Often times fate indeed comes up and bites you on the ass. In her case, fate was a rattlesnake that bit her on the ass.
All this struck me as odd but I was the odd man out. I was largely ignored. I was a friendly microbe swimming around in a sea of white blood cells.
"Let's find a flophouse." one of them said. "We can all cram into one room."
"I think I'll just go back to the highway." I told Carney. "I don't have enough money, even to stay in a flophouse downtown."
"Don't worry 'bout that." Carney said. "We'll take care of it."
I couldn't (at that moment) see myself spending the night with a carney and midgets. I wanted to keep moving on to Spokane even at night. At the very least, I could sleep under the overpass that stretched over the Interstate highway.
"Stay with us." one of the midgets said. "We'll get a nice room. We like you. Come on...it beats sleeping outside."
I would have taken anyone else up on that offer. But I capitulated... "OK, it's a deal." I told them.
The Midget-In-A-Miniskirt had to spend the night for observation. "Hey," the Carney said. "This will work out great then. I can spend the night watching over Midget-In-A-Miniskirt and you can drive everyone downtown and get a place to stay. ...It's a done deal."
I realized at this point I had no choice. No matter how much I objected they would have none of it. Since I was the only one with legs long enough to drive I was elected to take everyone downtown. They knew where to go.
"Turn here." "Go there" "Take a right at the corner." Did they know where they were going?
We ended up in a part of town that I was worried about...seriously worried.
I get out of the station wagon not having any idea where I was at in the general scheme of things. I knew it wouldn't soon because as soon as we entered the lobby...
"Hey baby, wanna date?" a prostitute said.
"Not unless it's free." I told her half seriously. Of course it wasn't and she totally ignored my response. This was bizarre in the extreme.
The Gate of the Mountains Hotel must have been at one time a glorious place. But all I could see was a seedy shell of what had once been. I turned around to one of the midgets. "I will sleep out in the station wagon tonight." I said.
"Suit yourself." the midget told me. I was stupid and should have listened to him; he knew what horrors could happen.
I did and turned around and nodded with a smile at the whore standing by the door. It was a dumb mistake to leave that sanctuary.
Puking on the Window
The problem with traveling like this is that you never know where you'll end up and what direction it will take you. That night was such a night. I was beat and still itching from insect bites and just feeling filthy. I had just turned down my chance for a decent shower.
While unpacking my sleeping bag I noticed all the pedestrian traffic covering the sidewalk. I was not comforted by this.
I started mumbling to myself and beginning to wonder why I had decided to sleep on the main street in a Ford Fairlane Station Wagon. Bums were stumbling up and down the street in a carnival-like parade of freaks.
One such 'freak' banged into the car and fell to the sidewalk. I ignored him. He grabbed the car and wrenched himself upright enough so that he could wretch and cover the back window where I was at, with vomit and gawd knows what.
I decided that night that nightmares would be a pleasant release to what otherwise was an interesting day.
Meanwhile, I was sure there was a midget orgy going behind the walls of infamy.
The next morning I am startled awake with banging on the glass at the rear of the station wagon.
"Wake up you lazy bum" I heard. "We're headed for the Snake River Canyon and you're coming along."
After the previous night it sounded like a good idea. This situation was not going well. It was reaching out of my control.
"I'm a Space Cowboy...
Bet you weren't ready for that
I'm a Space Cowboy
I'm sure you know where it's at..." -- Steve Miller
"Ewww! who puked on the car?" the midget asked. "Did you do that? That's some nasty stuff there." I still hadn't gotten used to the ephereal, helium-sounding voices.
Then he asked me for a cigarette. I couldn't resist the temptation...
"Those things will stunt your growth." I told him.
"I could slit your throat if I wanted to." he said not grinning. I didn't doubt it. I had no creds yet and never would.
The look I got from him after he lit up told me to never say THAT again. What I said was stupid but I didn't care.
"Smart ass!" he muttered. "Hey let's get moving buddy, we have quite a drive ahead of us. We need to hurry and pick up Midget-In-A-Miniskirt and Carney so that we can make to the Snake River Canyon in time to see the jump."
Reebus Kneebus
Knievel was some kind of hero to them. He was another freak in the land of freaks, except he made tons of money. The carnies respected that. I supposed they also respected the balls had to do such a dumb thing. It's all about the money I suppose.
Evel Knievel was a one man carnival on a Harley-Davidson Sportster. He was America's daredevil hero at a time when being red, white and blue was unpopular and safe sex meant not getting caught banging someone's wife or girlfriend and ...not messing around with a carnival midget.
More than anything else people watched him to see if he would crash his bike while jumping school buses at Cesar's Palace. It was then that the resulting crash would turn him into a jumble of crushed and broken bones. He had flipped head over asshole flopping around like a tossed monkey. The carnies understood this bit of showmanship. Why else do people go to carnivals and circuses?
It was earlier that summer that I was sitting in a greasy spoon in Butte, Montana his home town on the Fourth of July. He was to be the Grand Marshall of the Fourth of July parade. That was all anyone was talking about.
In a few months Evel Kneivel would jump the Snake River Canyon not on a Harley Sportster but on a steam powered rocket. I kept staring at the scrambled eggs covered with cheap ketchup and a side of hash browns. I grabbed the front page of the Butte, Montana newspaper and saw a drawing of the steam powered rocket.
It was one hell of a strap-on. The guy is fucking nuts. They won't let him do it or he'll back out at the last moment.
Into the Chasm of Oblivion
Within minutes we were piled into the station wagon and we were off to the hospital. I had a sinking feeling that I really was going to Snake River Canyon with this carnival crew.
We arrived at the hospital and the pair greeted us at the entrance. She eased into the seat next to me like before, took off her miniskirt and started showing everyone the ugly snake bit sore on her ass. She was lucky; very lucky.
She fell asleep and slept most of the trip in her underwear and swollen junk-in-the-trunk butt. The others would tickle her on the bottoms of her feet and her ribs. She wouldn't budge. She only flopped around when Carney would take a corner too fast or barely passed an eighteen-wheeler. A couple of she flopped into my lap.
"They musta gave her some kinda powerful shit..." Carney said. "to knock her out like that." She had a whole bottle of it too. What a pint of whiskey and a couple of those would do.
The poor thing had blisters and the part of her ass where the timber rattler bit her was black as a burnt match head. It looked like someone beat the hell out of her butt. It was horrifying.
Carney reached down somewhere and revealed a bottle of pills. I didn't want to know where he kept them.
"Here man," he said, "Take ONE OF THESE."
Everyone ew'ed and aw'ed as I remember (in between shots of whiskey at 7:00 in the morning). I took one of the little white pills and swallowed it with a swig of cheap whiskey.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Acid!" he said. I had assumed they were whites to chill out all the whiskey we were drinking.
In a way I was now horrified but at the same time amused at my own idiocy and three ring circus full of Evil Clowns. I had to go with this. I couldn't regurgitate it on an empty stomach and at any rate, better than anything else, watching Evel Kneivel blast himself off a cliff across a river canyon had to be one of the all time hoots of the century.
By the time we got to the viewing area I was in full roar with pulsating veins. The Midget-In-Miniskirt had awakened and was groggy. Everyone else was in a party mood and drunk (except for Carney). The sea of distorted, dripping faces I was looking at, made me feel like I was at the running of the bulls in Spain amongst aliens.
There were thousands of people and most of them were pissed off. Beer and concessions were expensive and there fences to keep people from the edge of the canyon. There was anger in the air half of the people were drunk and the other half were stoned...many were both. We found out we were a day early and I couldn't imagine at that moment how I would survive the rest of the day and that night in the condition I was currently in.
I started freaking out in a serious way.
"Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war." - William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"
"?KO gniod uoy era" he asked "?Retaw fo knird a deen uoy od".
"Yeah," I told him, "I'm doing fine. I could sure use a beer though. Say...am I talking backwards?"
He looked at me puzzled. "Man, are you ever messed up." The midget towered over me like the Jolly Green giant. When he walked off the ground shook.
Geezus everyone is talking backwards now AND I am understanding them! What serious fuckin' switch went off in my head to cause THAT to happen? Can I fix it? Is this reversible? Will I be like this for the rest of my life? Am I talking backwards or forwards? ......
"I don't believe this Carney called Knievel." I said to a passer-by, "He's a dare devil, showman and most of all, he's a carney sonofabitch."
I forgot I was in Idaho and this show wasn't a rock festival either.
"I oughta kick your dumb, stupid ass." the drunk said. It was obvious he had been vomiting and looking for a fight; both at the same time. He stumbled on.
I had stretched out underneath a giant Ponderosa pine doing nothing, thinking about everything and freaking in my own private bubble. The distance brought me waves of loud voices. The steam rocket was visible but faint. I was not sure if I was imagining all this.
I wasn't sure of anything.
"It's getting ugly out there." I remembered one of the midgets telling me and motioning off in the distance.
All the noise in the distance sounded like a herd of cattle tearing up a corral.
"They're tearin' up the concessions," the midget said, "and stealing beer and food."
The midget pointed to the crowds hanging around the concession stands. If anyone knew about this sort of thing, he would. But the crowds were too large and ugly. Chaos began to rule the night.
"They're gonna lose control." he said. "I've seen this happen before a bunch of times."
I was sure that he had and was glad I was no longer seeing dripping faces and talking backwards from self-induced drug taking. Then all hell burst loose. Waves of people started coming towards us in a mad rush; in hysterics.
"Uh...we need to get the fuck outta here!" the midget said. I trusted his impeccable judgment and observation.
I grabbed the midget and got around on the downside of the herds of people behind the huge ponderosa pine. We let the horde sweep past us. In a few hours all was quiet.
That next day was jump day. I wanted out of there, fuck the jump and this carnival of clowns and idiots.
"Here comes Knievel," the midget said. "Look up over there."
A chopper was flying in off in the distance and was landing quite a ways from us. It disappeared beneath the throngs of people. People started rushing towards the staging area. Moments later The King of Karnival Karneys Knievel lifted into the steam powered rocket. Within minutes he popped off the launch like a monsterous bottle rocket. Cheers went up but then...
"What the hell happened?" the midget asked. I hoisted him onto my shoulders.
There it was and for a moment it was suspended in mid-air, a parchute deployed halfway across the canyon then it nosed down. The rocket was headed for the Snake River. People started booing and rushing the fences to tear them down and get a look at what could be Knievel's last crash.
"That fucker!" the Carney said. He ran past us on his way to the edge of the chasm. He was either stumbling drunk or too high.
"You can't let him do that." I told the midget. "He'll see that Knievel screwed us all with this scam and wanna jump in it. How much did you pay for the tickets anyway?"
"I have to go save him" the midget said. "and see if we can get our money back too." He took off to the edge of the canyon like everyone else.
"Does anyone get their money back at a carnival?" I yelled at him. But I already knew the answer to that question.
I didn't look around for anyone that I knew. I picked up my backpack and headed down the road. I wanted the hell out of there and I didn't look back either. I still had miles to go before I reached Spokane.
I'll never know why the carney jumped off that cliff.
Youtube of the Snake River jump.
MadameMantra Fortune Teller and Visions from Alice B. Toklas
I had a five year old 1964 six-cylinder Ford F100 pickup. It was made for the redneck South. It had an empty gun rack but had I been able to afford it, I would have had a shotgun hanging on it. Oh well...I loved pheasant hunting. Anyway...
I lived for a bit in Oklahoma City. It was early Spring and I was 'cruisin' for burgers' and saw the sign that said, "Christian fortuneteller", Tarot and Palm Reading".
I had to stop.
I was a bit apprehensive seeing anyone that claimed to be a Christian fortune teller. I about a quarter ounce of hash brownies in me and it was just enough to glide me to the fortune teller's porch. I knocked on the door scraping my knuckles.I agree with what you are thinking right now, honestly I do.
A fortune telling Christian? Yeah right but it was such an oxymoron I couldn't resist.She opened the door, greeted me and stood before me in a sun dress and an apron. I could smell baking coming from the cool air behind her.
"Do you have an appointment?"
"No...but I thought maybe...you know...you could ... like ...." my voice trailed off into nowhere and I felt stupid.
She sized me up and opened the screen door to welcome me in.
"Sure buddy, come on in." She was 40ish and quite pretty, luscious actually.
"Have a seat, I'll be right there honey." she said.
I looked around and the place didn't seem all that strange. It was just a normal southern house piled with nik-naks and pictures of her family. She offered me an RC Coca-Cola and a chocolate Moon Pie. I had the munchies and my eyes were burning from the Alice B. Toklas hash brownies.
She emerged from a doorway inside this 1930s bungalow and showed me to the parlor. She had me sit at this small table and she sat across from me. She was the sign of a sweet Southern lady. No one else was in the house.
She grabbed a deck of cards and began to shuffle them. Then one by one she pulled cards from the deck and laid them before her. Her face grew serious and studied each one. I tried to make small talk but she told me to shut up.
"Dear...I can't make hide nor tails of this if you don't be quiet. Please, don't say a word."
I nodded and STFU. Minutes went by I was unsettled at the time. Today it still gives me chills.
"Can I see your hand?" She grabbed my left hand.
"You ARE left handed right?". Again I nodded yes.
She studied my hand and didn't say a word. I was squirming in my seat at this point and was wishing I had eaten just a couple more brownies cause had I done so, I wouldn't be sitting at that spot. I would be in my apartment totally fucked and with a bottle of bourbon and a fan watching a baseball game on TV.
But no...I had to get out in the world and drive around in my 'new' Ford pickup and happen across the sign that said Fortunes Told. Then there I sat only a Mockingbird breaking the silence and the aroma of Magnolias began to fill the room. At least I thought that was what it was.
For those that have never been there, the South is filled with these obscure people that pop up out of nowhere. There are snake handlers, tent revivalists, Christian fortunetellers and holy rollers. Those are the ones I remember. I am sure there are weirder ones. They would make Catholic pedophiles seem innocent or so it would seem. Sorta like the Jewish Kabala that somehow managed to take over a small town in Mississippi.
Her Mind Is Like a Steel Trapdoor and Mine Had The Clarity of Mud
I felt like I either had heart worms or malaria sitting there. I began to sweat profusely and started FREAKING OUT. What kind of dumbass nonsense had I stumbled upon and my mind was screaming for a shot of bourbon or a blow job. Indeed I had what everyone calls a 'racing mind'. These are usually brought about from monstorous consumption THC and paranoic visions of Alice B. Toklas.
She searched every inch of my LEFT PAW and I realized that brunt of the hash brownies were beginning to hit me in full force. The cards that she had laid out and studied seemed sinister but her light touch holding my hand seemed to begin to calm my rattled consciousness. I no longer wanted to screw in light bulbs or stick my hand in a wall socket. She had such a calming effect on everything, even the cat was asleep in the corner of the room. This reaction to everything came and went came and went. I felt like I was somehow swimming in duck soup and simmering in the broth of total bewilderment and astonishing lack of clarity and focus.
Finally, she looked up at me. I thought she was gonna speak to me and reveal the rest of my life and spit it out on a dinner plate. I was getting bad stoned and it was a steam roller.
Drastic circumstances require drastic measure and I had nothing to counter any of this so I sat there dumber than a Souther Repulican when asked whether or not to plead guilty to something.
And this is all I remember...
"Suga'" she said in that sweet Magnolia voice. "You're gonna have an interesting life. I can't tell you all of it though.".
I was afraid of that.
"You will have two kids." she said. "You will live somewhere where it is green, dank and wet. You won't be married to who you are with right now."
I paid my 6 dollars, said thank you and got the hell outta there.
~~~~
Years later when I had forgotten all about it, it popped in my mind. These things have a way of bubbling up from the depths of some primeval horror. They are like dormant seeds waiting for just enough water and then popping out enough to recognize them for what they are.
I recall now that I did indeed have two kids but the ex aborted them. I lived for a number of years in the Pacific Northwest. So now I can once again put them back in their compartments and look to see where the future will lead.
I lived for a bit in Oklahoma City. It was early Spring and I was 'cruisin' for burgers' and saw the sign that said, "Christian fortuneteller", Tarot and Palm Reading".
I had to stop.
I was a bit apprehensive seeing anyone that claimed to be a Christian fortune teller. I about a quarter ounce of hash brownies in me and it was just enough to glide me to the fortune teller's porch. I knocked on the door scraping my knuckles.I agree with what you are thinking right now, honestly I do.
A fortune telling Christian? Yeah right but it was such an oxymoron I couldn't resist.She opened the door, greeted me and stood before me in a sun dress and an apron. I could smell baking coming from the cool air behind her.
"Do you have an appointment?"
"No...but I thought maybe...you know...you could ... like ...." my voice trailed off into nowhere and I felt stupid.
She sized me up and opened the screen door to welcome me in.
"Sure buddy, come on in." She was 40ish and quite pretty, luscious actually.
"Have a seat, I'll be right there honey." she said.
I looked around and the place didn't seem all that strange. It was just a normal southern house piled with nik-naks and pictures of her family. She offered me an RC Coca-Cola and a chocolate Moon Pie. I had the munchies and my eyes were burning from the Alice B. Toklas hash brownies.
She emerged from a doorway inside this 1930s bungalow and showed me to the parlor. She had me sit at this small table and she sat across from me. She was the sign of a sweet Southern lady. No one else was in the house.
She grabbed a deck of cards and began to shuffle them. Then one by one she pulled cards from the deck and laid them before her. Her face grew serious and studied each one. I tried to make small talk but she told me to shut up.
"Dear...I can't make hide nor tails of this if you don't be quiet. Please, don't say a word."
I nodded and STFU. Minutes went by I was unsettled at the time. Today it still gives me chills.
"Can I see your hand?" She grabbed my left hand.
"You ARE left handed right?". Again I nodded yes.
She studied my hand and didn't say a word. I was squirming in my seat at this point and was wishing I had eaten just a couple more brownies cause had I done so, I wouldn't be sitting at that spot. I would be in my apartment totally fucked and with a bottle of bourbon and a fan watching a baseball game on TV.
But no...I had to get out in the world and drive around in my 'new' Ford pickup and happen across the sign that said Fortunes Told. Then there I sat only a Mockingbird breaking the silence and the aroma of Magnolias began to fill the room. At least I thought that was what it was.
For those that have never been there, the South is filled with these obscure people that pop up out of nowhere. There are snake handlers, tent revivalists, Christian fortunetellers and holy rollers. Those are the ones I remember. I am sure there are weirder ones. They would make Catholic pedophiles seem innocent or so it would seem. Sorta like the Jewish Kabala that somehow managed to take over a small town in Mississippi.
Her Mind Is Like a Steel Trapdoor and Mine Had The Clarity of Mud
I felt like I either had heart worms or malaria sitting there. I began to sweat profusely and started FREAKING OUT. What kind of dumbass nonsense had I stumbled upon and my mind was screaming for a shot of bourbon or a blow job. Indeed I had what everyone calls a 'racing mind'. These are usually brought about from monstorous consumption THC and paranoic visions of Alice B. Toklas.
She searched every inch of my LEFT PAW and I realized that brunt of the hash brownies were beginning to hit me in full force. The cards that she had laid out and studied seemed sinister but her light touch holding my hand seemed to begin to calm my rattled consciousness. I no longer wanted to screw in light bulbs or stick my hand in a wall socket. She had such a calming effect on everything, even the cat was asleep in the corner of the room. This reaction to everything came and went came and went. I felt like I was somehow swimming in duck soup and simmering in the broth of total bewilderment and astonishing lack of clarity and focus.
Finally, she looked up at me. I thought she was gonna speak to me and reveal the rest of my life and spit it out on a dinner plate. I was getting bad stoned and it was a steam roller.
Drastic circumstances require drastic measure and I had nothing to counter any of this so I sat there dumber than a Souther Repulican when asked whether or not to plead guilty to something.
And this is all I remember...
"Suga'" she said in that sweet Magnolia voice. "You're gonna have an interesting life. I can't tell you all of it though.".
I was afraid of that.
"You will have two kids." she said. "You will live somewhere where it is green, dank and wet. You won't be married to who you are with right now."
I paid my 6 dollars, said thank you and got the hell outta there.
~~~~
Years later when I had forgotten all about it, it popped in my mind. These things have a way of bubbling up from the depths of some primeval horror. They are like dormant seeds waiting for just enough water and then popping out enough to recognize them for what they are.
I recall now that I did indeed have two kids but the ex aborted them. I lived for a number of years in the Pacific Northwest. So now I can once again put them back in their compartments and look to see where the future will lead.
Installing WordPress On A CPanel Hosting Site
Introduction
I have installed the WordPress blogging software many times on dedicated servers for clients. Although I am not comfortable with all the possible vulnerabilities in PHP, I feel comfortable with the people developing the software.
I recently purchased a website through a hosting service and wanted WordPress as my blog software. As expected, I knew it would be different installing it using the cpanel admin interface. Below is a step-by-step, copy and paste procedure for installing WordPress on a cPanel hosted site.
Create MySQL Database
Configuring WordPress: wp-config.php
List the contents of the ./wordpress directory. You should see a file called wp-config-sample.php. Copy this to a file called wp-config.php:
Change these lines in wp-config.php that you copied earlier.
Finally, point your browser to: http://yourWordPress.example.com/wp-admin/install.php, following the instructions and you are done.
It is as easy as what you just read.
Installing plug-ins
Probably the most important plug-in to install would be a Comment SPAM plug-in. Here are the various tools/plug-ins to combat spam.
Installing themes
Get your favorite theme and install it as you would normally install themes. Grab one, unzip/untar it in the ./wp-content/themes directories.
I have installed the WordPress blogging software many times on dedicated servers for clients. Although I am not comfortable with all the possible vulnerabilities in PHP, I feel comfortable with the people developing the software.
I recently purchased a website through a hosting service and wanted WordPress as my blog software. As expected, I knew it would be different installing it using the cpanel admin interface. Below is a step-by-step, copy and paste procedure for installing WordPress on a cPanel hosted site.
Create MySQL Database
- Login to your cpanel admin page, you should be familiar with the cpanel page and it has a number of icons on it. The one you want is the "MySQL Databases" icon. Scroll down the page until you find it, then click on it.
- If you have created a database for something else you may need scroll down the page. Find where it says: "New Database", an empty field next to it and next to that a "Create Database" button. Here you can create a new database or use an existing one. I usually choose to create a new one. For purposes here I called mine wordpressblog, but any name you can remember will work. When you have created the new database, go back to the MySQL Databases page.
- If you have a database username already then scroll down to where cpanel screen says "Add Users To Your Databases:" and add your current "username" to the database you just created.
- Click on the "Add User" button. Some version of cPanel X name this button "Create User". Then go back to the MySQL Databases page.
- If you have not created a database username for other applications then you need to create one now. This user will access the wordpress database.
- The final and most important thing you must do next is to click on the "Add User To Database" button.
- Access Hosts - localhost(the server you are working) is there by default. Add any other host you want in order to admin the MySQL Database. It is not necessary to add any hosts as you can manage your databases by using phpMyAdmin provided by your hosting provider.
- ssh to your website to access the command line. Change directories to your DocumentRoot.
- Download the newest version of Wordpress (currently it is 2.1). cd to your DocumentRoot. Then grab the latest version of the file using wget from the command line. For example:
# wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gzThis will place the latest Wordpress software in the proper directory.
- Gunzip and untar the latest.tar.gz for example:
# tar zxvf latest.tar.gzThis will create a directory called wordpress
- Change directories to wordpress:
# cd wordpress
Configuring WordPress: wp-config.php
List the contents of the ./wordpress directory. You should see a file called wp-config-sample.php. Copy this to a file called wp-config.php:
# cp wp-config-sample.php wp-config.phpYou next need to configure the following lines to whatever they should be based on how you set up your databases and how your website is set up. :
Change these lines in wp-config.php that you copied earlier.
// ** MySQL settings ** //My hosting provider tacks on my username and an underscore for the DB_NAME and DB_USER variables above. For example it would be
define('DB_NAME', 'myusername_wordpress'); // The name of the database
define('DB_USER', 'myusername_slacker'); // Your MySQL username
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'secret'); // ...and password
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost'); // 99% chance you won't need to change this value
define('DB_NAME', 'myusername_wordpress'); // The name of the database
define('DB_USER', 'myusername_slacker'); // Your MySQL usernameIf you forget this when you first point to the installation script you will get an error page. You need to fix this if you get a WordPress error page.Finally, point your browser to: http://yourWordPress.example.com/wp-admin/install.php, following the instructions and you are done.
It is as easy as what you just read.
Installing plug-ins
Probably the most important plug-in to install would be a Comment SPAM plug-in. Here are the various tools/plug-ins to combat spam.
Installing themes
Get your favorite theme and install it as you would normally install themes. Grab one, unzip/untar it in the ./wp-content/themes directories.
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