Chapter 7. Hollyweird!

The trip started off strange enough. A camper truck gave us our first ride. We piled into the cab that opened into the camper. Norm passed the packs and bags to me in back and sat next to the driver. Miriam rode shotgun. I felt uncomfortable and, after gassing up in Gilroy, the driver slowed down reaching across to the glove-box, Miriam let out a scream and bailed out of the moving truck. Norm pulled the emergency break and grabbed the drivers arm before he could open the glove-box. It happened so fast I had no idea what was happening but I tossed out our bags and packs from the back door and jumped out going after Miriam.

Miriam was rolled up on the side of the road. I was relieved that the truck finally came to a complete stop. Norm came out grinning like the Cheshire cat. The truck sped off like a bat out of hell.

“What happened?” I shouted to Norm. I tried to comfort Miriam who was shaking uncontrollably on the ground, curled up in the fetal position.

He was still grinning, “He was just going to get a bottle out of the glove box. I took it from him. He oughtn’t drink-n’-drive.” Adding, “Sometimes street smarts work against you and they become paranoia.”

I wondered how I could comfort Miriam. She had been shaken up quite a bit but not from her roll. This was enough adventure for me for now. What if there had been a gun in the glove-box? What would the guy think he was going to get from three obviously thread-worn hitch-hikers?

“Miriam? Why did you bail?” I asked.

“It has happened before,” the words were barely audible from her quivering lips.

“What do you mean?”

“When I was fifteen I was raped… it happened just like that.”

“But there are two of us with you.”

“Can’t count on that....” She said with a determination that defined her road spirit. “You can’t count on that… I’m not ever going to be raped again.”

The next ride from Gilroy was to Santa Barbara and we got out on the section of the freeway that ended at a strip with grass along sides of four lanes with traffic lights. This break allowed a pleasant place to hitch a ride and take a nap if needed. I felt a premonition about that town. I thought it might be a little rich for my blood but I was able to see a future there and it was love at first sight for me. I wanted to stay but Miriam and Norm were impatient to get to L.A.

Getting off at Sunset on the Hollywood Freeway in the middle of the night, we walked down a couple miles to the West Hollywood Presbyterian Church on Martel and Sunset. We heard it called the Free Church. Anything free had to be good. Transients slept in the courtyard, the idea being that the church would feed and shelter the poor. “The poor” turned out to be hippies, street people, and runaway teens. A few South-Central L.A. hustlers, I called X, Y, and Z, were trusted with the keys to the place and saw an opportunity to muster up the resources of the church for themselves. running it like it was an Orwellian prison yard. Staff, stayed inside of the church and let whoever was part of their posse stay tenuously there too.

Young runaway hippy-chicks were always welcome inside. The rest of the riff-raff had to stay outside after ten p.m. when the church employees and ministers left. The place was to be hosted by the self-appointed Alphabet Staff until six A M. As for feeding the poor, food was donated and then distributed by the Alphabet Staff. It was mostly day-old sandwiches, canned food, or whatever could be scraped up. One regular donation, by the case in cans, was Sego diet meals. You had to gulp down about six of these cans to feel like you had anything at all in your stomach.

Miriam and I curled up together in our bag next to a solitary pole by some bushes. We fell asleep immediately did not awake until dawn. When we awoke we rolled around a bit in our sleeping bag and ended up with Miriam on top. Looking up I saw that the pole we made our bed next to was a tall white cross hovering above us… “Holy fuck,” I groaned. She moaned back and we collapsed together there.

We got out of the bag awhile later. Norm was inside the church Sunday school classroom where he was selling his stolen twenty-two to one of the so-called staff. I would find out later the guy was called X.  I saw X slip Norm a few bills and Norm passed the piece to him as though it was nothing more than a lid of pot. When I found out the guy called himself X, I wondered if the other two called themselves “Y” and “Z”? And where did the rest of the alphabet keep themselves?

The guy I dubbed Y played the part of the Guru. He was a tall, well-built man with a Fu Manchu mustache and beard. He was coifed with an impressive Afro over a set of piercing, cynical looking eyes. He called himself Yogi too, so I felt somewhat vindicated by my alphabet sarcasm. Yogi was in charge. The others did his bidding. The third, I called Z at first, was Willy: it should have been W, X and Y. Willy was a good natured young man still in his teens. He was helpful to Miriam and made sure she got extra cans of Sego.

That night in the classroom, where various street people hung out, the Ghetto Triumvirate revealed the true hierarchy of the place in case there were any doubts. Willy came back all fucked up from turning tricks on Sunset and had been drinking wine and doing Reds.

I noticed a bit of a ruckus going down and people were sort of encircled around Yogi and Willy. Willy had apparently taken the twenty-two Norm had sold to X. Yogi had been talking quietly to Willy with X butting in… “Hey, that piece is fucking mine, nigga!”

Willy shouted at X, “Yogi runs this place… see… don’t fuck with Yogi!”

Willy stumbled back and broke away from the group around him.

X tried to sound calm but his voice quivered, “Listen brother, the gun is mine. I bought it.”

Everyone there made way for Willy as he pulled the pistol out of his waistband… “You ain’t my brother! You ain’t my mutha-fuckin’ mother! And I ain’t yo’ nigga, Nigga!” With that he spun around with the gun pointing first into the air. As he spun around he brought it down to eye level at the crowd that stood frozen in a circle around him. “Pang!” the twenty-two went off. Nobody moved. Willy dropped the gun… “I… I… I didn’t mean to…”

It was as though everyone there was waiting to see who was going to drop. No one dropped. I crossed the room and, picking up the piece and handing it butt-first to X, I said, “I suggest you keep better inventory on this.”

I turned and walked away. I did not miss the fact that a small twenty-two caliber size hole was in the wall behind where my head had been. Miriam and I left then to find Norm; leaving the confusion of the situation behind as best we could.

Going down Sunset Blvd., Miriam and I were handed a flyer promising a free spaghetti dinner at such and such place. We decide it might be better than the Sego we’d tried to stomach the last few days and showed up at the designated time. The place was a big two-story house with a huge living room. The dining room had the wall between them knocked out and folding chairs lined up in rows, converting the space into a makeshift church. Miriam and I felt we had been deceived because the flyer said nothing about sitting through a sermon. Regardless, we took a seat and wondered how long we’d have to endure the sermon before the food was served.

She had a demon alright.

A tall, slender, blond woman in her late thirties or early forties took to the podium after some hallelujahs and a few songs. She introduced herself as Sue Alamos; and then went into her pitch about Jesus, how there were demons out there in the streets conniving to take these souls made vulnerable by drugs to their enticements. The enticements the demons used were nothing like the ordinary admonishments against sexual misconduct and so on, but rather, her sermon focused on suicide. This was somewhat unique to me because I’d heard most of the sermons against drugs and alcohol leading towards all sorts of unsavory behaviors but I hadn’t heard this slant before.

She railed on: “These demons are around us all the time waiting. When you drop LSD, a demon enters your body: the sacred Temple of God. It takes over and lets you feel powerful and wise. Just like Eve in the Garden, you become Gods; until LSD’s master, Satan, decides to call you in. That is when the demon whispers in your ear; ‘you might as well not live, to die is the best answer, take your life and go to Heaven!’” then she got very serious… “And then you commit suicide. Instead of Heaven you go straight to Hell! Don’t be fooled, children!”  It, her harangue, went on and on for the better part of an hour. This woman’s husband, Tony, was the founder of a cult and a ranch outside of town somewhere. They’d entice young and vulnerable white, middle-class runaway teens, or plain ole street people, up to the ranch to be brainwashed and sent back into town to recruit more like themselves. I was hungry but we left before dinner was served… if it was served at all. There were folks at the door, more like waifs, trying to keep us from leaving. They all had this look in their eyes of forced glee and it also looked as though they hadn’t eaten much themselves. Leading Miriam by the hand, I plowed through them like a hot knife through butter to a chorus of their protestations. We had to find Norm.

PS. Yes, this is the same infamous Tony and Sue Alamo. His real name was Bernard Lazar Hoffman (aka Marcus Abad) and hers was Edith Opal Horn. He was a convicted child sexual abuser and she was an actress who'd found a calling and a new name.