Chapter 45. Serena of the Marina (pt. 2)

I moved in with Serena and we were up that whole night with nothing but our own sexual vitality to keep us awake. Still sitting up in the forward cabin, as twilight loomed beyond Sterns Wharf, we walked out over to the end of the breakwater to greet the sun breaking over the horizon down the coast. I had hungered for someone to empty my heart out to over the last year. I especially wanted to tell Serena about what had happened in Florida. I had this gnawing urge to confess everything, but I held back, telling her only about my adventures up to Jamaica.

What was I going to say anyway? “Look honey, I’m a rapist and, though I might seem like a nice guy, you’d best not have anything to do with me.” Rape doesn’t make for nice bedroom chats.

I secretly wished I had a priest or padre with whom to make a formal confession. I thought of this Chuck Pope character and wondered how to approach him on the matter. Something in my heart told me that it was important to tell someone of my past… a psychologist perhaps? For reasons obscure to me, I felt better about talking to a shepherd of winos at the Rescue Mission than trying to explain myself to a clinical practitioner. Finally, one evening at the Rescue Mission after the “Sing for your Supper Service” I approached Chuck Pope, “Do you have a minute?”

“I’m on my way to another service but…”

“Yeh, it won’t take long… I just need to get something off my chest and perhaps some advice.”

“Sure, come on into the Prayer Closet.” The prayer closet was exactly that. It was a small room big enough for two chairs with a picture of a praying Jesus, like the stained glass behind the dais, the only decoration on the wall.

Once inside I fidgeted but jumped right into the topic. “I have some… oh, whatchacallems, sins to confess.”

Chuck surprised me with the answer he gave before I even had a chance to say anything, “We don’t need another human being between us and God, son. You can confess directly to Him.”

“Oh? I wasn’t sure of the protocol…”

“I can help you to get it out, but I am not a priest. Are you Catholic?”

“Well, I was raised that way.” Then I thought I might probe a little before getting into the meat of the matter. “If what I tell you is… oh, man, if it is bad enough, do we have a deal for… you know, confidentiality?”

“Like I said, we aren’t priests, and this is between you and God. But if I believe you need to make it right or others might be hurt because of it, I might be compelled to advise you to take care of it.” Chuck realized he was losing me on this count and interjected, “However, I’ve rarely heard anything severe enough to break confidentiality in all the years I’ve been doing this.”

I figured I’d better buy time and change the subject. I was going to have to think this over. “Hmmm, well, I am sleeping with a girl and I know…”

“I’m sure that this isn’t what’s bothering you, Max.”

 “Of course, I know enough of the Bible,” I went over Chuck’s probe going straight for the diversion. “It say it’s better to marry than to burn, right?”

“You are right. But Max, please don’t jump into things right away. God will make it right when the time is right for you. When you are ready to tell me what is on your mind I’ll be here. Just don’t put it off too long for your own sake.”

I left the Prayer Closet feeling worse than when I went in. I went back to the harbor wondering what to do. I should’ve just let it drop. She was there on the aft-deck talking to a man on the dock when I got back.

“Injun, this is Max.” I reached out to shake hands. Injun just stood there expressionless. He didn’t lift a hand to meet mine.

“Injun has helped me out a lot in the harbor. He has an Ab-boat.”

Injun turned away, walked up the ramp and out the gate to the marina. He was barrel-chested with a heavily pockmarked face and I could easily see that this was no one to mess with.

“Ab-boat? He doesn’t talk much, eh?”

“Abalone boat. No, he’s jealous. He has been trying to get in my pants since I first got here.”

“He looks dangerous.”

“Yeah, he is… did time for murder… he’s only been out a few years.”

“I’ll take note of that.”

   We took a walk to Ledbetter Beach. It was another beautiful February day. The quality of light was so clear it was as though I were seeing the Channel Islands through a giant magnifying lens. The Santa Ynez Mountains were majestically poised as a backdrop to the city with pure white, puffy thunderheads forming above them. The city itself seemed to sparkle like a jewel with orange tiled rooftops over bleached white cubicles of houses. I looked at Serena and was overcome with a bliss that only a new love can know.

“Look,” she bent over and picked up a piece of clear hose out of the sand that had been cut off the size of a ring… “It’s an engagement ring.”

I held my hand out to let her slip it on my pinky finger, “Yes, I will marry Thee.”

Serena lifted my hand above her, “Before the Eyes of God, I pronounce you man and wife!”

I then took the piece of plastic and put it on her ring finger. It fit perfectly, “There now, it’s final. Now let us consummate before God and man a sacred vow.”

Under the cliffs on the rocks below Shoreline Park were a few semi-private places where we were able to do exactly that… consummate, that is. We went back to the harbor to the Sea Breeze and consummated some more. Though we had been joking, I took our jests seriously. I had been so very lonely and now… well, now I had somebody to hold.

That afternoon I decided to make my Act of Confession with Chuck Pope, even though he wasn’t a priest, and I walked back to the Mission. Bob-O was there, sitting at the curb at the front door,  and talking with one of the Mission Stiffs, Frank. Frank was on his day off and had a few bucks in his pockets and Bob-O had been talking him into buying a jug. I had an overwhelming desire to have a drink and felt that I had gone without one for long enough to have another. Frank had become convinced it was a good idea too. We went up a few blocks up State Street and got a jug of Red Mountain and went back down to the boat. What the hell, I figured I wasn’t as bad a wino as Frank and he was okay with it. Besides, I reasoned, this Jesus business and Serena had cured me of alcoholism. Serena was there but wasn’t all that happy to see us with a jug. But she was ready to have a sip or two also. Drinking didn’t agree with her epilepsy, so she would only have one or two cups of wine. Bob-O assured her that it was okay… as if he knew… and the four of us sat at the galley table sipping wine from cups.

It was a happy little holy communion, at first, with laughter and talk about the Bible and this spiritual moment we were enjoying: of how it must have been for Jesus and his disciples in the old days of dusty Palestine. We exclaimed ourselves as modern-day disciples of Jesus, lifting our cups as a sacramental gesture.

“Take this cup and drink, for it is my blood.”

Serena lifted a loaf of baguette bread above us and tore off some pieces, “This is my body, eat me.”

Frank exploded at this perceived sacrilege, “This ain’t right! Leave Jesus out of this. I get all the Jesus I can stomach at the Mish. When I get a day off I don’t want to talk about the Bible or…”

Then, after saying this much Frank gulped down the rest of his wine and passed out. He fell right over onto the floor and started to snore. I had thought of myself as having a pretty heavy drinking problem; however, I had never really witnessed someone with advanced alcoholism. I was later to learn that there are stages of alcoholism. Towards the end, the liver and kidneys can’t process the juice and it goes straight into the bloodstream. Frank turned out to be one of those people who, after only a few drinks, blacked-out, and/or, went berserk. He lay there snoring on the floor.

Serena decided she wanted to go to Sambo’s for coffee but asked, “What do we do with Frank?”

Bob-O looked down at Frank and nudged him with his foot, “We could leave him… he’ll be okay.”

Serena’s eyes pled to my better judgment as she spoke, “I’m afraid he’ll wonder where we are and try to look for us… he might fall into the harbor or something. We can’t leave him on the floor.”

Bob-O and I carried Frank into the forward berths where we could lock the door to the cabin. We left Frank thinking he would sleep until we got back. We walked to Sambo’s where we drank ten-cent bottomless cups of coffee and jabbered back and forth about all the great things we were discovering in the pages of the Bible.

I was starting to become perturbed and felt some jealousy that Serena was paying more attention to Bob-O than me. It was as though Bob-O and I were competing for her. I made a mental note of it and decided to tell Bob-O to back-off whenever I got a chance to do so. What’s going on? My road-dog pal is seriously hitting on my girl!

We eventually had our fill of coffee and went back to the boat. What we found there was a horror. The door to the cabin from the forward berths was hanging on its hinges in splinters. The cabin had been trashed. The bow hatch from the forward berth bore signs that a serious attempt to kick it open but it was dogged down. The two-way marine radio had been torn off its mount on the bulkhead and was on the aft deck. Frank was nowhere around.

“Oh, shit… Oh, shit! Shit! Shit!” Serena wept. “Where’s Frank?” She peered over the side as though she’d been thinking, she’d find him floating there.

Bob-O took a swig straight from the jug, “Don’t worry, it is all God’s will.”

“Shut the fuck up Bob-O!" I heard myself saying,"You won't get in Serena's pants that way!”

“No, Max, you shut the fuck up!” Bob-O countered, “Either God is everything or God is nothing!”

“Don’t try that spiritual one-upmanship with me!”

Serena turned on me, “This is all your doings, Max. You brought the wine on board and you brought that wino! What were you thinking?””

“Shit, why are you turning on me? You had as much to do with it as I did?”

Bob-O hadn’t let go, saying, “God is everything or God is nothing…”

She spun around and yanked the jug from Bob-O. “And you, Bob-O, Frank was your friend. You said it would be okay!”

I was relieved that she was finally laying into Bob-O too. My heart sank when she chucked the wine jug into the harbor. It was almost empty and floated. I thought about diving in for it but thought better of it when I saw the fire in Serena’s eyes.

Bob-O left, repeating, “God is everything or God is nothing!”

I sat down at the galley table. Serena slid in on the bench next to me and purred, “I’m sorry… is this our first marital spat… eh?”

We went to bed, sleeping until sunrise. There was nothing else to do that night.

Chapter 45. Serena of the Marina (pt. 1)

Max arrived in February of 1971
two years after the Valentines Day
 Oil Spill of 1969

A couple of hours later I was down at the harbor watching the masts of the boats gently waving to the movement of the waters.  A petite woman with short-cropped dark hair caught my eye as she approached. A sea bag, packed full slung over her slight shoulder, made her look exceptionally cute. She greeted me with a cheerful smile, “Hey, can you help me with this bag?”

“Can I help you? Sure, sure I can!” I was so eager the bag felt like it weighed no more than two ounces as she led me down to her boat, The Sea Breeze.

“I’m Serena… what do you call yourself.”

I stuttered, “M-Max…”

“Is that Max with two M’s?”

I laughed, “Naw, just one. I get nervous when a pretty girl…”

Serena grinned a welcome grin, “Yeh, I can tell,”  and, when I passed the bag over to her from the dock, she offered, “Come on aboard and I’ll make you a sandwich… I’ve got cheese and baloney. That is… if you aren’t a vegetarian.”

“Hey, I’d eat a mud pie if you’re the one making it.”

So, it went like that. Serena was renting the boat with a friend, Becky, who was hardly ever around. Becky had a boyfriend in town and only used the boat to stash her stuff, so Serena had the place to herself.

“You new around here, Max?”

“Yeh, I stayed at the Rescue Mission last night. It was alright, but it won’t do for long.” I was at home with this strange girl and fascinated by her exotic good looks. I just wanted to be near her and it really didn’t matter why or for what reason.

“I’ve sung for supper there a few times. The Bible thumping gets tedious, eh?” She busied herself with putting together a couple of plates for the sandwiches.

“Yeh, but I like some of it.” I looked around the boat. It was well kept and tidy. The galley was spotless, and I noticed that Serena cleaned up everything as she went. Not a crumb was left on the counter or cutting board. “Can I use the head?”

“If you have to go you will need to use the can up topside.”

“Topside?”

“Yeh, the one on-board works but we’re not supposed to use it in the harbor. It has a tank, but we save that for night time. Go up the ramp and out the gate to the left, here’s a key… There is a shower there too if you ever need to use it.”

On the way back down, I reveled in my luck. The sun was out. The warmth of it had me enthralled enough but then I saw Serena laying out on the deck over the cabin… in a very small bikini bra (tiny triangles on a string) and gym shorts… my ecstasy was barely contained. We chatted each other up and I enjoyed the easy laughter as we probed each other’s opinions and attitudes.

“So, what do you think of the Jesus freaks at the mission?” She asked.

I was sitting on the bow looking up to her… my attention captured by a corner of her bikini bra that let peak the underside of her small but well-rounded breast when she lifted her head to speak, “I’ve been reading the Bible lately. I don’t know. The parts where Jesus speaks in the gospels sound good… feels right, you know?”

She propped herself up on her elbows, “Yes, I know what you mean. It seems a lot of hocus-pocus until you get it straight. I have epilepsy and need to take meds for it. A guy at this church in town claims Jesus can heal me if I throw away my meds.”

“You’ve got to be kidding? Eh?” I was sure she wasn’t dumb. She certainly seemed smart enough.

“Well, he wasn’t kidding. I’m not sure. He said that throwing the meds away is an act of faith.” She put a terry cloth thing on over her beautiful bare chest and got up, “C’mon, let’s go for a walk on the beach.”

As we were walking towards the cliffs of Shoreline Park I related what happened to me in Berkeley and what Bob-O did at the altar-call; how some of it seemed absurd while other things made perfect sense.

“I’m Italian Catholic,” she smiled showing a perfect row of white ivory, “we’re used to religion being absurd but we aren’t into this snake-handling, holey-rollin’, faith-healin’ business.”

“Okay, I’m with you on that. I grew up part Catholic too.”

“Part Catholic, how do you manage to do that?”

“I didn’t manage it at all. I was born with it. My dad is proud to be a Nothin’ and my mom is Irish Catholic. They got married in the church but Dad had to promise to let Mom raise the kids Catholic. She did and he let her... so, I’m part Catholic and the ‘Part’ part of it wins except for the Big Questions.”

I had to believe I had struck gold. Sex, romance, and religion! What could be better? The miraculous manner in which it all folded together was a convincing argument for something happening. I was as hopeful at last as I had been when I sat on that bus from Treasure Island. I felt young again. At twenty-four years I had been feeling quite old the past year: especially in Berkeley where it had drizzled nonstop for the whole time I had been there. It was as though I had stepped out of darkness and into the light as soon as I left the Rescue Mission that morning. Here I was, walking on the beach, in the warmth of the sun with a beautiful woman… What else is there here in this town that GAWD has in store for me!

Chapter 44. To Santa Barbara

The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole world…

Old SB Rescue Mission at State and Yananoli

I made the usual rounds to keep my belly full. The free-lunch at the Lutheran Church was one stop I made to start the day. There was a Fish n’ Chips place on Telegraph that had a wire mesh waste basket on a light pole out front where folks threw their left-overs. I was always able to find some good bits in that basket, if I got hungry later. The International Pancake House on Telegraph had a Tuesday Night special: All You Can Eat stacks of pancakes for seventy-five cents. It didn’t take long to panhandle that much for a few hours of gorging myself once a week. This was getting old and I had a yearning to go somewhere else... anywhere else.

Bob-O talked of Santa Barbara, promising, “There are plenty of places to eat there. They have a Rescue Mission and it serves three meals a day. They got a Salvation Army too. It ain’t as good as the Mish but it serves a couple of meals. ‘Sides, there are a few churches that serve up ‘em up too.”

By this time, I was completely burned out. I had no idea what to do or where to go next. I was cold. I was damp, and my belly was never full of anything but white port. I came to a place where despair was worse than hunger. Besides, as hungry as I was, I could always pan-handle enough change for a pint and I had been drunk for several days in a row by then. I was crossing the corner of Channing Way and Dana Street… I’d thrown away my shirt because it stank, and I was barefoot because my feet needed air… I’d discarded my socks and boots out of disgust for the hygiene. As I crossed the Street, I held up my arms and cried, “Come on, Big Guy! What gives? I need help. I’ll do anything! Anything you say... just say something! God Damn it! Anything!”

I let my arms down and lamented, “Nothing, that’s what I thought… nothing.”

I walked on down to the stairs of the Free Clinic. I turned instead and entered the church building upstairs. I sat in a pew for a spell. I wasn’t praying but it was more like I was just sitting there waiting. I saw a Bible in the hymnal pockets on the back of the pew and randomly opened it to a page in one of the Chronicles: For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him…  I took the Bible with me back downstairs and sat down reading it on one of the stuffed chairs across from the painting of the Hot-Air Balloon. One of the volunteers from the clinic saw me, “I remember you from the Drop-in Center. I do a gig here too.”

I was halfway expecting for him to read me the universal rule; no shirt, no shoes, no service.

I nodded, “Uh, hi.”

“You don’t look so good. Are you okay?”

I was going to brush him off  but I heard a smattering of compassion in this guy’s tone. “No, I think I’m checking out.” I just felt like being honest.

“Checking out, you mean? Sounds like a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”

“Naw, not that.” I was afraid to admit it ‘cause I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in a funny farm, “I meant leaving town.”

“Say, before you do check out, uh, leave town, the clinic was given a bag of clothes… some shoes and socks. It looks like you could use some clothes, man.”

I looked at this character with suspicion. The thought crossed my mind, Was he queer? but I understood in that moment that it didn’t matter. I looked down at my pants, they were greasy and worn.

“Look, I know you need a shower and a clean set of clothes. I’m at the Baptist Seminary Dorms by Peoples Park. You can get a shower there and crash on one of the couches for the night.”

I thought of that prayer I had spewed at Channing and Dana… What? … a coincidence? … a Baptist Seminary? What did it mean… perfect toward him?

“Why are you doing this for me?”

“You look like you’re ready.”

I spent that night at the seminary, but it wasn’t at all what I’d expected. The guy’s name was Theo and he was kind enough. I was introduced to a few of the seminary students hanging around the lounge. I had my shower and put on the clean clothes. I might as well have been one of the seminary students myself now that I was scrubbed up a bit. Everyone back then had long hair and beards… at least in Berkeley, so my appearance wasn’t all that far removed from those reading and studying. However, I found that there seemed to be a barrier to discussing religion. I tried to strike up conversation about what was happening to me, but no one seemed the slightest bit interested in the subject. I figured it probably had something to do with the fact that they were studying religion. Studies were serious business and not for casual conversation. It was easy to get someone involved with social justice or Liberation Theology of Gustavo Gutiérrez in Central America, but I was there looking for some answers on a personal level.

It was a bright, sunshiny, day that next morning. I found Bob-O at the Cody Bookstore. We hitched a ride out of town as planned. I’d also acquired a day-pack for a few extra shirts, socks, jeans and a place to tote my Bible. I was road-ready once more and optimistic. I felt that, for the first time in months, I was going somewhere.

Bob-O and I hitched a ride straight from the University Avenue onramp from a young Sociology student going to UCSB. She was a tough looking and street wise and smoked and talked all the way, almost non-stop, though I remember very little of what we talked about because I slept most of the way.

I heard her ask Bob-O, “You want me to drop you at State street? It’s the next exit.”

“Yeah, State Street. That’s it.”

I wasn’t paying attention, but I remember the freeway ending and there were stop lights, “This don’t look like it.”

Bob-O assured us, “Yes, this is it. That’s what the sign says. I think they built a freeway since I was here last.”

Our driver didn’t know. She’d been at UCSB for two and a half quarters but had never been downtown. Like many students of the era, there was no reason to leave Isla Vista for Santa Barbara.

We walked away from the off-ramp. RR tracks crossed the street but went over it on an old trestle. There was no sign of a fig tree, or anything else that looked like anything from my memory, “What happened to the stop lights, Bob-O? That trestle doesn’t look new.”

I vaguely remembered the Rescue Mission from when Norm, Mary, and I, had passed through town. It seemed like ages and eons ago. This didn’t look like any part of town that a Rescue Mission would be in. We walked past La Cumbre Plaza and the Peppertree Motel. Bob-O was confused, and I saw no evidence of tracks crossing the street. There wasn’t anything like a Rescue Mission in sight either, so we began hiking. Bob-O kept assured me that the Rescue Mission and the tracks couldn’t be far… maybe around the bend up ahead.

Another hitch-hiker approached us as we walked. I asked, “Hey man, do you know how to get to the Rescue Mission?”

“The mission? He pointed west, “In the hills that way.”

“That don’t make no sense,” Bob-O looked confused.

“Oh, you mean the Mission. You mean where that big-assed fig tree is? You go that way three, maybe four, miles.”

Bob-O wasn’t shaken by the bad news, “We’ll miss lunch, but we got plenty of time before they serve dinner.”

“Yeah, there’s a big fig tree near-by…” I remembered, “…and the highway has grass and stop lights, right?”

The guy scratched his beard, “Yeah. That’s the Mish.”

“Shit, Bob-O, we have a long, hard, hike ahead of us if we’re going to make dinner at the Mission by six.”

And hike we did, with our thumbs out, taking a break but a few times. It was a couple hour trek and no one gave us a lift. We arrived just in time. A line of winos was cued up and waiting for a mission-stiff to open the door. We got in line. Mysteriously, one of the winos sitting on the curb handed me his bottle. I thought of it as merely a friendly gesture. I was not one to turn down a friendly gesture. I had no desire for a drink and I hadn’t since crossing the street at Dana and Channing Way. But I had no intention to quit drinking entirely since I threw up that prayer…. I lifted the bottle to my lips. But, it wasn’t a friendly gesture, he just needed to get rid of his bottle before the door opened. I tried to return the bottle but the man just shrugged, and gave me his back I put it in my coat pocket.

The door swung opened and, the regulars began filing in the door. As Bob-O went in, the Mission Stiff stopped me, “I saw you hittin’ on a bottle.”

“Sure," I admitted, "but it was just a toke.”

The winos from the curb passed by me and entered the door.

The Stiff puffed up his chest, “You ain’t getting’ in today, buddy.” He was proud to have caught a miscreant.

“Awe man, you gotta give me a break. It was only a toke… it was offered to me… I was just being polite. Isn’t there someone I can talk to?”

“You’ll have to come back tomorrow…”

Just about then a white haired, slightly balding man in a suit, came up from behind the Stiff, “What is your name son?”

 “Max, sir: I was in line,” I took the near empty bottle out of my pocket, “and, honest to God, one of the guys handed me this bottle. I don’t even drink… but I was only trying to be polite.”

“You haven’t been drinking?”

“No sir,” I paused while the kindly man peered into my eyes, “we just hiked a couple of miles to get here in time for dinner...”

He let me in the chapel with everyone else. I sat in the back row with a couple other old-timers. One of them queried, “You know who that feller is?”

“No, he the manager or something?”

“That guy’s Chuck Pope. He is the founder of this place. You’re lucky he was here, kid, ‘cause them Stiffs don’t give nobody a break.”

The service before dinner at the Mission was tolerable. The hymnal was memorized by all the winos. They called out the numbers instead of the names of the hymns between each set. After a half-dozen songs were sung, a guy with a thick accent in a suit, who called himself Brother something-or-other, preached. Rather, he told the story of his conversion. He was a tailor from Austria and he painted a vivid picture of his playboy life before his conversion. Standing at the dais before a stained-glass window in yellows and greens of a praying Jesus, his story was one that I’d heard before. He started out dry and slow but it reached a crescendo then, with a highly emotional pitch, it ended with Mary Pope on the organ, for an ‘altar-call’.

The altar-call is a low-rent Evangelical ritual in which the lost are called to come forward and be saved. Being saved was a simple enough affair. All the prodigal son has to do is admit out loud that he’s a sinner, and that he believes a two-thousand-year-old story about a man that was executed, knocked out for three days, and rose again. All you gotta do is believe that horseshit and all your sins are forgiven. No matter what you did, confesses that and you are saved. It’s a simple, but evidently not at all that short of an affair because it was long enough to start me wondering when, or whether, we would ever get to dinner. Then, just when we were all getting ready for the closing hymn to stand in cue, Bob-O stood and went forward. The good Tailor laid a hand on Bob-O’s head and asked; “Do you want to be saved?

“Yes,” Bob-O answered.

The wino, the one that had passed me his bottle earlier, shouted from the back pew, “Then say it, brother.”

“Yes, I want to be saved.”

Then he disappeared into a prayer closet with Chuck Pope. I had no idea what was going on in there. A Mission Stiff opened a door to the dining hall after one more from the hymnal; The Old Rugged Cross, and after that, everyone stood as if on cue and lined up for dinner.

As we sat at the tables I asked Bob-O, “So, what happened in there,” referring to the closet, “anything?”

Bob-O answered, “I was saved.”

“What do you mean, saved?”

“Just like the man said, I confessed and believe… so I’m saved.”

“Have you done this before?”

“Yeah… sure.”

“Do you feel any different?”

“Naw.” He dug into his bowl of beans, rice and wieners cut-up with a few carrots and added, “The food is better here than at the Sally.”

We were staying the night, so we were directed to the entrance where, from behind a half-door, a Mission Stiff took our old clothes, packed them in a bag, and issued a clean set of hospital pajamas, soap and towels. We all filed upstairs to the showers and after that to the beds. The mission beds, and the way we were filed from one place to another, reminded me of boot camp and I did not take to it very well. All of my valuables; my pack with my clothes, and my bible were locked up downstairs. There was no way of leaving without leaving my stuff. I settled in at lights out and slept the sound sleep of a weary man.

The staff woke us, our clothes and belongings were issued back, to get to the chapel by 5:30. Breakfast was served at six a.m., oatmeal and toast… all we could eat until they ran out. We were able, if we so wished and if there was a size that fit, to have a clean set of second-hand donated clothes. I finished my fourth bowl and hurried down to Sterns Warf hoping to see the sun rise over the ocean.

However, the sun was rising towards what looked to me like the south on the coast and not, as I expected, the ocean. I still stood in awe at the beauty of it all. Bob-O was standing next to me. We just soaked it all in then walked up to lower State Street where the first signs of life appeared. People had begun moving on to their jobs or dropping in at Esau’s greasy spoon on the first block past the highway from the beach. At one point, near the Barbara Hotel at State and Cota, I thought I heard Aaron’s words come back to me, “I hope you find it, Max.”

I stopped to look around… almost expecting to see him standing there in his yarmulke, I answered, “I believe there’s something about this place…”

“What?” Bob-O never got used to me mumbling stuff out loud.

“I feel this place has something for me.”

“Like?”

“Like, I belong here.”

“Oh.”

At once, upon saying it, I felt a peace and assurance that I was going to be okay no matter what might come down the pike. Some of this Jesus stuff might have some weight to it, I was thinking. Like, believe in it, say it out loud to someone, and it happens. I believe I belong here. I tell Bob-O I do, and, here I am.

Chapter 42. Raising the Dead

On the road north to Lake Mendocino, I didn’t know what I would be going to, but I trusted that Bob-O knew. I hadn’t figured that the Lake wasn’t anything more than a small reservoir. We got a ride to the highway junction and walked the rest of the way up from 101 to a camp ground on a peninsula overlooking the lake. It wasn’t such a bad spot, but it was closed until spring. CAMP GROUNDS CLOSED. NO CAMPING! signs were posted everywhere but that didn’t deter Bob-O. Besides, I didn’t like the looks of the camp grounds. Like a lot of California camp grounds, it was more of a parking lot than anywhere I’d want to pitch a tent.

As we put up a tarp over a picnic table under a steady drizzle from an oppressively gray sky, despondent, I complained, “We can probably get by with camping here tonight, but I doubt we can get by with it for very much longer.”

Bob-O assured me, “No one comes around here for days.”

We gathered up what dry twigs we could find and waited until dark to light a small fire under the end of the tarp stretched over the table. It made for a cozy little camp. Before leaving Berkeley, we’d panhandled up enough for some beans and hot dogs and we put them together in a pie-pan we’d found in the trash.

Cooking them over the small fire for a hot meal under our tarp reminded me of better days with Stan in the A-frame on the New Mexico Mesa. We hunkered down for the night and I said, “I get up in places like this and I start thinking about my life… do you ever do that, Bob-O?”

“Naw, can’t say as I have.”

“You ever think about God?”

Bob-O answered, but sounded annoyed, “My mom was a Captain in the Salvation Army in Seattle.”

“Well, I wasn’t thinking of any kind of churchy God.”

“Oh then, I met Jesus at this very same camp-ground once.”

I thought about the guy in jail with his story of Jesus on a railway trestle.  “People tell me that and I don’t know whether to believe them or not.”

“Well, you can believe me. I saw him.”

Bob-O was a pretty strange character, but I was getting used to strange, and strange wasn’t so strange after so much of it and I was seeing and hearing so much strangeness that I was damned near drowning in it.

I was just a little sarcastic by then, “So, tell me, what happened, Bob-O.”

“Well, I was up here kickin’ back with a bag of glue. I was trippin’ heavy and he was standing right in front of me. He reached out his hand.”

“How did you know it was Jesus?”

“He had holes in his hands and there was blood.”

I waved my hand in the dark over my head thinking that perhaps Bob-O might not be as delusional as a jailhouse wino, and rephrased the question, “Do you believe there is something, a vibration of collective energy behind all this?”

That morning we awoke to another drizzly day. Daylight filtered through a thick layer of dark cloud-cover that went from one horizon to the next. We sat around our little camp; cold and miserable until a park ranger in his green ranger truck toured through and came to us.

“You boys read the signs?”

Bob-O stood up, looking around from one side to another, he shrugged, “What signs?”

“You can’t camp here; the park is closed for the winter. You’d best be moving on.”

“Okay, we’ll be out in an hour or so,” I offered.

“That won’t do. I want to see this site empty by the time I come back from my rounds.”

After the Ranger left, Bob-O just sat down and continued reading a Louis Lamoure western.

“Hey, Bob-O, we gotta go. He’ll be back soon, and I don’t want trouble.”

I rolled-up the tarp right out from under Bob-O’s elbows and gathered the stuff from under the table. I had it all in my pack and was ready to hike out, but Bob-O was still dithering around.

“C-mon man, that Park Ranger sounded serious.”

“They all sound serious… that’s their job.”

“Well, I’m hiking out in five minutes whether you come or not.”

I kept to my word and started towards the entrance to the camp grounds.

“Hey, wait-up, damn-it!” Bob-O came, putting shit in his pack, as he struggled to catch up.

We were about a half-mile down the road when a clean-cut man in an International pick-up truck came rumbling up to us from behind.

The driver shouted through his rolled down window, “Where you guys headed?”

It was a green truck, close in looks to the one the park ranger was driving, but a little older… maybe a lot older.

“We’re going back to the 101. You goin’ that far?” I hollered back.

He opened the passenger door, “Almost, I can take you there but, if you want a hot meal and a place to crash for the night, I’m headed for a place a short ways from the highway.”

As soon as we were in the seat, Bob-O came alive, “You from the Peoples Temple?”

“So, you’ve heard of us?”

If this part of the story
reminds us of... well, it's true!

“Yeah, Amen, we’re with you,” Bob-O answered, “Praise the Lord!”

“Amen, brothers, welcome aboard. My name is Larry.”

I climbed into the cab of the truck after Bob-O. I looked over at Larry and sensed a hardness I’d seen from some combat vets. Combat vets that had seen too much. It wasn’t real apparent, but the guy gave me a chill. He was friendly enough and he had offered us a ride, after all… but I knew that I didn’t want to be around this character much longer than I’d have to. Perhaps the folks where we were headed would have a better continence about them.

Larry went into a pitch of sorts; “Father is in San Francisco today, but he’ll be back tomorrow. Maybe you can meet him. He is an amazing dude. There is no one quite like him on the planet. God put him here and I am so friggen lucky to bump into him when I did. I was lost before that. Been to the Nam… Been in the bush for eighteen months… came home… the ole lady ran off with a bunch of hippies… not even a dear fuckin’ John… know what I mean? I met Reverend Jim and my life turned completely around, you know.”

I sensed that Larry was reciting something from rote; like he was trying to be authentic but there was something hollow in his pitch… as though he didn’t believe it either, except for the parts where he said his ole lady ran off with a bunch of hippies.

“I got nothing against hippies, mind you. We’re actually doin’ a hippy commune thing… Everything in common… It’s one for all and all for one. Everybody pitches in and contributes. Each man according to his needs and each man gives according to his means. Karl Marx said that. Father’s been to the USSR, too.”

“How about girls?” I was testing him to see how serious he was about this business of sharing everything in common.

“How about girls?” His eyes got steely again. “You’ll see, was it… Mark?”

“Yeh,” I answered. I wasn’t giving up anything to this guy… especially not my name.

We pulled up to a regular looking church. I half expected some sort of ramshackle hippie looking place, but it was like any church built after the 1950s. It sat there on an empty looking lot that looked like it had been plopped down rather recently. It had a cold and austere feel to it… not at all what I’d expected. There were several people outside and I was relieved to see that none had that hard-assed look that Larry had. There were easy smiles, joking around and some very attractive young women of every race: Asian, black, white, some Native American or Mexican.

It was lunchtime and, because a vigil of sorts was going on in the large hall, a table was set up for lunch with a serving line in an adjacent room. I felt a little uneasy as I was unwashed, and I knew he had about me the odors of the road… campfire and so on. Everyone else there was well scrubbed and cheerful to an annoying degree. After I ate lunch, I decided to get out of there.

Several people tried to talk me into staying for services, especially the one the next day when this guy they alternatively called, Father, was to speak. I was assured that it would be the most important service I would ever attend.

One cherubic girl in auburn braids held me by the arms and exclaimed, “It will be like Lazarus, you know!”

A miracle was to be performed at any time… a New Testament miracle like those of Jesus himself… and some of the convincers that tried to persuade me were rather gorgeous to look at. Still, I was determined to leave, despite feeling almost guilty for not staying after such a good meal, but Bob-O stayed on.

It was about a mile and a half back to the 101 and the drizzle was coming down hard enough to be considered rain. I walked, putting one foot in front of the other, wishing that the Peoples Temple was more to my liking and I wondered what sort of miracle was going to happen that the whole place was abuzz about at mealtime. Still, I knew I had to get out of there. It just felt strange enough for even my ‘strange adaptation meter’ to accept. Back at the highway, I cried out to the grey sky; “Tell me something… anything… anywhere… anyone?”

“Max, I hope you find it,” was the answer I imagined.

Anger rose up from my gut, “Yeh, well fuck you! You gotta come up with something better than that.”