Improvisational Oblivion

9. The boy made crazy: South Beach 2003

2009-03-30T21:09:00.000-04:00

He would stand on the walkway by the sea or the street corner posed with his buttocks out and his back arched. He would bat his eyes and pout with a come hither look. Once he must have got a lot of action. Young fit boy man with glistening muscles and blue black skin in the heart of South Beach for sale to young professionals. To be taken for a ride in fast cars and tossed onto crisp sheets in fine hotels with ocean view. Now his face rougher around the edges and some rash popping through as small dimpled bumps stealing away his beauty. Bruises in odd places and insect bites. Now he was the prey of the lowest. The addicts and the mean. As wanting as the rich ones he used to have but now it was quick and dirty in the dark. Unkind and unspoken and sometimes with violence. He would walk about clad only sometimes in a black speedo. Closer and there was dirt in the sweat. Just enough to give the clue of one walking much too much in the day and night heat.

He would watch me sometimes. I was tanned fit and older than he. Also walking on the street day and night. He tried to approach me with conversation but the words rolled off his lips with so much femininity as to frighten. Too much vulgar desire on his lips. When the rains came under the coffee place on the corner where the sand met the grass we would all take refuge. Those sleeping on the deck chairs and the life guard stations and even in the sand. We sat tired like mixed up plastic toys strewn about a child's floor. With our sheets and our towels. He was there often than. Laying sleeping not to far from me. Out from his lips came night terror as his dreams spilled out in sounds of hurt and shame.

From these close encounters we grew to recognize each other. On the street even a familiar face is sometimes as near to family as can be found. I normally would stay on a life guard tower not to far down the beach. More away than the others and so not having a crew of old drunkards calling it home. No, only I and occasionally this black blue boy man. At first to find him there at my spot startled me and I feared him because of his obvious insanity. Even so, I grew to welcome his presence in some strange way. He slept far from me on the other side of the tower and sometimes I would have to yell for him to shut up in the middle of the night as he would be screaming and yammering endlessly. Yet there was safety that I gave to him and in doing so something was satisfied in me.
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8. In The Low Lands Of Costa Mesa: 2001

2009-03-30T14:51:00.000-04:00

I was living in my truck. A red truck I loved. Toyota with a shell. I lived there for a year. I moved about behind buildings in Costa Mesa. I was working as a telemarketer. After child support I had a little check. Sometimes I would see others. Sad people. Once I got out of my truck to smoke a cigarette and a guy got out of his camper nearby and came to talk with me. He wasn't right. I wasn't right either. He was on SSI. Having problems with his checks. Everyone I have ever met on SSI is always having trouble with their checks. When they are getting their checks they still have fear of having trouble. He had a pot belly and he stank of piss even at two in the morning. He had been living in his camper for awhile. He was a lonely guy. He asked me for a cigarette but he just wanted someone to talk with for a second. I'm the wrong guy for that when I'm living out of a truck. I think everyone in a similar situation is trying to figure me out and get an angle on me. Maybe cut my throat when I sleep. I don't let people know to much if I'm in bad shape like that. Sleeping in a different parking lot every night causes a bit of paranoia. Probably a nice guy though. Just another someone who is off the track for awhile. "I stay in this lot most of the time," he said. "The cops come around here sometimes though.' I'm still waiting on my SSI, are you on SSI?" "No." That was about it.

I decided to move. I was beginning to get the desire to move far. Two days later I sold my truck. I put a back pack on and I went down to the river mouth. Thought I would sleep down there. I had some friends. They offered me a shed in their back yard. I said no. I had the desire to move. I had my guitar, and a backpack. I had some money but thought I was going to ride rails or something. I had no idea how to catch a train. I had been living relatively in good standing with myself. I was working until now - had a gym membership for showers. Hung around at a nice coffee house and knew lots of people. Still I was down at the river.

The ground down there was muddier than I expected. It got wetter as the night went on. I hadn't camped like this for so long I forgot how. I threw down my tarp and it just got so covered in mud that I couldn't set my tent up on top. Everything was a muddy mess. I was freezing and shivering. The air was so damp it felt like it was filling my lungs. Fog had rolled in. Suddenly, just like that, I didn't want to live anymore. It all was to hard. I started to just walk in a circle around my muddy tarp to keep warm. I started to chant like an Indian. I found out about a year earlier that I am Lakota on my Mother's side. I don't know the first thing about being Lakota but I started to chant. I started to pretend I was ghost dancing. That was my exact thought, that I was pretend ghost dancing. I knew I was crazy at that point.
" eeyahh hay yah yah yah!" Or something like that over and over. Pretty soon all the insects, and frogs started to scream and follow along with me. I saw all the cat-tails stand up and listen. They told me to get out of there and they shimmered with the music.

I packed up and walked out of the river bed and up to a gas station. I asked the guy inside to call the cops. I went and sat on a parking curb against the fence. I had a knife in my jacket pocket and I tossed it across the parking lot. The cops came. "You have any weapons"? "I tossed it over there - a knife - just a pocket knife." They took me at my request to a hospital; told them I was breaking down. In the hospital a Doctor came to see me. He asked me what I wanted. I told him that I was crazy and wanted to be admitted to a psych-ward. "Okay", he said. He left me there. He didn't come back so after about fifteen minutes or so I just got up and left. I walked up to my coffeehouse and sat down behind the building until the sun came up. A friend gave me a ride to my folks house in the San Gabriel Valley. "What's wrong", he asked. "Don't know." I really didn't. To this day I don't know. The next day I took a Greyhound to Texas.
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7. When I was Hawaiian: 1992-1994'ish

2009-03-29T14:50:00.000-04:00

When I was Hawaiian I lived in a Hostel next to the Foodland store by Three Tables also called Rubber Duckies. Once I had a room. Once I lived in the back corner of the garage. Once I had a tent on the porch. Occasionally I lived in my Ford Escort. For awhile I collected food stamps and sold my plasma. I used my car as a taxi. I drove the boy's to pull stolen cars from the cane fields. I went to the chicken fights sometimes. I gave all my food stamps to Russell and Elliot for their families. I baby sat their kids. I ate with their families. We would have Barbeque's Hawaiian style. We went spear fishing and would grab shell fish off of the reef. I had a friend who lived in a tree. He was slow because he had been in a car wreck. He new he had changed. I had other friends. Mostly I ran with Russell. We would wake up early and go to the bakery and by donuts and orange juice with food stamps. Sometimes, when we had money, we ate a full breakfast of rice, Portuguese sausage and eggs. Then we would go surf. He had one eye, when we would surf he would say, "oh cuz did you see that and me with one eye backside - eh I'm blind on that side." Hawaiians can eat man. We would come out of the water and we would eat a whole Huli Huli Chicken from a road side stand and then suck down poi from a bag as an after snack. We washed it all down with beer. Than we would drive around and visit with people. Russel knew someone everywhere. "Oh yeah I know your cousin Lonnie - he use to work over by by da kine..." Then we would surf some more. We surfed Jocko's mostly. It was a long peeling left that was perfect when it was on. Sometimes we went crazy and went right and had to dodge the rocks. We surfed Pipe and Log Cabins, Sunset, V-land, Off the Wall, Monster Mush, Alligator's, Haleiwa, Chuns, Backyards, Rubber Duckies, and that place on the Southside that is at that body surfing spot, and others I forget. We laid lobster net, we chased down a wild boar one time. Elliot put it in a pen and tried to breed it with a domesticated pig. It didn't happen. Later we ate the boar. We ate lots of tuna jerky and chili and rice. Spam and rice. Lots of rice. We climbed to sacred falls a few times and to the Pali lookout. Russell would say, "don't let anyone call you Haoli Ronnie, tell them you were born here. You look like you were born here. Tell them you're Hawaiian."
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6. Heroin: Around 2003 -2004

2009-03-29T11:41:00.000-04:00

His habit was between $80.00 - $120.00 every day. In the pouring rain. In damning heat. In a hurricane. Every single day of every single year. He stood about Five foot eight inches tall and had long stringy dirty blond hair, an untrimmed beard, piercing blue eyes, very bad teeth, and was skinny as a rail. Dirt seemed to accumulate on him. He washed every day, as we all did in the public showers on the beach, but because he spent so much time laying on the sidewalk he never seemed to look clean except if he was just walking out from under the shower. He came from North Carolina originally. He had a wife there and some kids. Something bad happened. He never really would say what it was but he left North Carolina any way. No reason to kick if you had nothing to go back to seemed to be his reason for staying where he was.

We met on a day when I was feeling hungry. The day was on and off again rainy and playing guitar while it was wet didn't work so well for me. On a wet day I was lucky to make two dollars. Even though it was wet his business seemed to still have some potential. In Miami Beach, near where the giant sand castle was, several street level businesses existed. Day and night the sand castle had a team that monitored the collection of donations. On rotating scheduled shifts someone would sit there in a chair and offer to take pictures for the tourists and most importantly keep and eye on the tip jar which was kept on a chain. Along the wall on both sides of the sand castle drug dealers would sell cocaine or marijuana during the late night hours. During the day and into the night weavers of palm leaves weaved and would sell palm flowers and hats.

Jeff was one of these weavers. Because his habit was so strong, his production skills were top notch. Developed out of a need to feed the monkey. Even so, he lacked in sales and marketing skills and therefore often had product backed up that would go bad and spoil before it could be sold. A strong market existed for him but because he was usually on the nod quite a bit of business would just walk away and the competition was very fierce especially on the weekends. Sometimes while he was on his nod the competition would steal from him. They would walk off with palm leaves that took a couple hours to gather or steal finished product off of his mat. We became a strong team and business improved dramatically.

Our main competition was English Pete and two or three others who would come and go. English Pete was also a heroin addict and for some reason he seemed to get arrested every other day. We always made more money when he was gone. Pete was a very intelligent guy. Someone who seemed like he had graduated with A levels in England and he traveled with a beautiful young girl also lost to heroin. Pete didn't make her that way. She only stayed around him for companionship. Her boyfriend was being held in key west for heroin. Pete was a polite guy but was also a cagey thief. Pete would often fall asleep while standing up in the process of weaving. He sometimes would stand without moving for over an hour.

I asked Jeff to show me how to weave. He didn't want to do that. "Yer jes gonna be compy tishin fer me." At the time English Pete had a drunk wondering around in front of him asking the tourists to buy a flower. Pete would give him a flower sometimes just to get rid of him. The two dollars a flower would bring was enough for a can of Malt liquor. Jeff, tried to do this a few times but said that the drunks would always just walk off with the flowers and never come back.

I offered to sell for Jeff and he could teach me to weave and we could split the profits. As I was clean cut for a guy living on the sand and didn't drink or do heroin, it worked out well. I simply offered flowers to everyone who walked by. We would make about $150.00 to $200.00 on a good day and my cut was always on the short side. I didn't really care as I also would play guitar. The routine was make money with palm flowers than go play guitar while Jeff made the trip to Miami to buy Heroin. He always made this trip alone. Jeff made two trips a day. On the way back he would gather palm leaves or we would go together to gather. Occasionally he would get beat up. Once he got arrested. Nothing deterred him from making the trip. He wouldn't spend a dime of his money for anything but heroin. Even though he had $100.00 in his pocket he would scavenge half eaten pizza slices from outside tables, or buy $1.00 potato balls. All the money went into a vein.

Jeff would go into the late night long after I had called it quits for the day. At 3AM he would still be on Washington Avenue nodded out with his tip jar in front of him full of money. While I would go off to sleep somewhere alone like on the sand, a life guard tower, or behind Lincoln Road, Jeff would just lay down anywhere he was. I always new him as honest in his dealings with me. It was always an unstated assumption that we didn't have a fifty fifty spit but I understood. Eventually I got a job and didn't see Jeff around to much. Once I thought about loading a bunch of money on him to see if he would go back to North Carolina to clean up. When I approached he was nodded out so I just threw some money in his tip jar. I never saw him after that.
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5. My Name Given In 1958 as a Present

2009-03-28T20:52:00.001-04:00

When I was born I was given the name of Ronald Lee Paul by my Mother. Once upon a time I liked my name. People would say that I had two first names. Cool I thought. My father lived in a metal box that my mother would break out from time to time. Inside the box were important papers that were folded and bound with rubber bands and some pictures. One of the pictures was a black and white that looked like it came from a Polaroid. A little bit of that instant processing chemical caused some discoloration on one of the corners. My Dad was walking up the beach with a fishing pole and a box. I thought his box looked a lot like the box his picture was kept in. I imagined them to be the same color. Green.

I also had a sister in the box named Karla and sometimes she would come and visit with a friend of my Moms named Sharon. I was told we shared the same father. She had blond hair and green eyes and wore little girl dresses with white socks and tennis shoes and she was happy and jumped up and down a lot. Later we moved away and I would never see Karla anymore. Sometimes I would lay awake at night and wonder about my sister. I wanted to tell her my secrets and I hoped she was okay. Sometimes if I needed someone to talk to I would think about her.

My Mother never would speak about my Father. The subject seemed to be very taboo. I would ask about him but she would brush me off. If I pushed to know more about him she would say that she really didn't remember much. I didn't have any argument for that one. If you can't remember something it's just gone I suppose.

Later I was Married and I had children of my own. My wife would ask me more questions about my father than I ever even asked my Mother. "Did he ever get sick?" She would ask. "Does you Mom know his medical records?" These were legitimate questions for sure as we had children and medical history is important so finally I began to bring the subject up with my Mother again at my wife's insistence.

My Mom had told me one story repeatedly. My Father had moved to Montana. Later it was funny to me. My Father was straight out of a Frank Zappa song. "I might be moving to Montana one day." I thought that was funny as hell. One day I said to my Mom. Where in Montana did my Father move? Charlotte wants to know. We need his Medical history." My Mom began with her loss of memory story and I had enough. "Look if you don't tell me I'm just going to find him on my own. Montana doesn't have that many people living there - I'll find him." I picked up a phone right there in her kitchen and started looking up my Father. I knew his name. His name was Donald Leroy Paul. I was told I was given a name that sounded like his. The operator told me she had a listing, actually there was five Donald Paul's in Montana. I called the first one while my Mother looked on with a terrified look on her face. He wasn't in and I left a message. I got a call back within a few minutes. "Look son, I don't know who you are but I assure you I don't know your Mother and you most certainly are not my son but I do wish you luck." He was kind. My mother looked relieved that I had not found the real Donald Leroy Paul. Finally she said she had some information but she just needed to verify something first and could I please wait.

A few weeks went by and finally she said she had some news for me.

"Donald Leroy Paul is not your Father" she said. For a strange reason I thought again of Karla jumping up and down. I had not thought of her in years. I was twenty nine years old. Your Father is Michael O'Daniels, and I have been speaking to your Fathers brother. "Well where is my Father?" I asked. "Your Father is dead. I am not really sure how he died but I have the number of your father's brother and he can answer these things for you."

What happened next is not important but I later spoke with my Fathers family. My Father was killed by a hitch-hiker while he was driving from San Luis Obispo to Santa Barbara on old Highway 101. The guy had killed some others as well. His name was Patrick Ronald Lee. He took my Fathers money, shot him, and left him in a ditch on the side of the highway. My sister Karla wasn't really my sister either. I was named after the man that my Mom thought and hoped was my father, but he wasn't. He was Karla's father. I found out later that I have half sisters and brothers from my Father living somewhere in Northern California but I've never bothered to meet them. I think losing Karla made me not want to know about any more brothers or sisters. My Fathers ashes were scattered over the sea so there is no grave to visit. My Father's killer later died in Atascadero State Mental Hospital for the criminally Insane. By a strange twist of fate I had his name; Ronald Lee. I changed my name within the year. I don't really know who I am now.
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4. The Agony of the Ecstasy: 1995

2009-03-28T11:33:00.001-04:00

The count was way off. Several Dollar bills had the corners cut and replaced with the corners from twenties. Very well done. Couldn't even notice under the laser beams and light show. Vertigo boy was running the distribution end on the floor and I was doing the gathering. We were way short. Back in my room I left my girlfriend Tasha naked in bed. We decided that we would all go - that's vertigo boy, Byron and Byron, and myself - to Hollywood in an attempt to recoup. The drive from San Diego to L.A. is about two hours. We had been up all night and it was now New Years day. The sun was shining. Still rolling, we began the drive North. Vertigo boy insisted that in West Hollywood we would find a good spot to speed up our delivery process.

Along the way we were stopped by the Highway Patrol. It was a black motorcycle cop who pulled us over. Vertigo boy, face covered in glitter, rolled down the window. My pockets were full - two hundred to be exact - and we were all very scared. "Do you know how fast you were going?", he said. Vertigo boy started with, "Officer I believe I was going eighty miles an hour or so and I am very sorry and..." He began to ramble so I grabbed his arm and held him to silence. Although I was wearing large glass beads, had painted black nails, a shiny gold shirt, and a face smeared with make-up and dried sweat, I thought I should do the speaking. "I am terribly sorry sir" I began. "We are coming from a New Years eve party and I apologize for not keeping an eye on my young driver here, I assure you we will stay at the speed limit from this point. Happy New Year Officer." The officer glanced into the back seat where Byron one was sleeping and Byron two held up one of his crutches and tried to look pathetic. "Okay" he said. "Drive safe."

As we began to drive no one spoke. We did not speak again for a solid two or three minutes of silence. Finally we all began to laugh.

We found the Probe. A man's club. Vertigo boy pranced to the doorman, "Are you still open?" It was ten in the morning. "What's it like in there", said Vertigo boy. "This is a Man's club", he said while waving us in.

Inside on the floor giant men gyrated and pressed their chests against each other. Byron two, in a cast, looked on depressingly. Byron one said that the placed looked like "everyone had already been home with each other twice and came back for more." Vertigo boy pranced out on to the floor and began doing leg kicks straight above is own head. The giant men continued to gyrate unimpressed by the little fairy among them. Byron one and I left Byron two standing on his crutches and went upstairs.

The upper floor was a balcony looking down upon the dance floor and ringed with small rooms covered with curtains. Men were roaming about from room to room. "I don't like it here", said Byron. We went down and fetched Bryon two and Vertigo boy and drove home. The consequences of coming up short would haunt me later.
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3. Walking: 1991' ish

2009-03-28T00:58:00.001-04:00

I was going to give English Chris a ride to work. I walked around the block with him for the third time.

"Well that's it then"

"Fuck off"

He said it with a smile and compassion in his face and I understood. An over the top beating of a remark to cut through the awkward sadness of finding my car repossessed. He walked off pissing about being late and I walked back to our apartment. The living room was covered in cornflakes, one of the living room lamps was busted and their was a dent in the metal fireplace mantel. The English often break things when they leave the bars and when they come in from bars and I broke the lamp. Even though I'm not English living with three other young English men was giving me the habit of breaking things. It was nice to have the constant noise and fighting and bickering. The last place was just me, huge white walls and carpet. A small boom box sat in the corner with the same Cd's strewn about that I had forever.
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2. The Big Black Hearse: July 1990

2009-03-27T22:49:00.001-04:00

Two weeks later I came back to the house. No one was home. I was an uninvited guest. I put the car in the garage and closed the garage door. I turned on the car radio and listened to Depeche Mode. Perfect. I opened my first beer of a twelve pack of bottles. Strangely odd as I seldom drank beer then and to have twelve bottles was a unique experience. I had taken a long hose like the kind that is used to clean pools and hooked it to the tail pipe of the car. I don't remember now where I got it. Maybe I bought it. I ran the hose into the rear window. I was thinking to myself that I wasn't sure if this is how you do it and laughed and spoke aloud that I needed to have some instructions. I was thinking that this was the third time. I sat in the car while the entire car filled with blackish smoke. I was disappointed because I thought it was supposed to be a clean death. I was becoming buzzed and sleepy. I began to doze. I woke up simply thinking how uncomfortable the whole mess was and decided to call it quits. I was close. Later I would say to myself different times that God had saved me but I just woke up and hated the smoke.

About a week later I traded the car which was a Black 1988 Ford Taurus Station Wagon in for a brand new candy apple red turbo charged Ford Probe. The prettiest fastest car I ever had. I simply could not stand the smell of the smoke in the car. Everything was ruined inside. I was kind of embarrassed and kept waiting for someone to come from the detail shop and ask me what I did to that car, but they never did. I was thinking about driving my new car off the showroom floor. I was happy in a kind of anxiety ridden way. My whole situation was hopeless. My wife was living with another man. I was discharged from the Navy that very day and had no job, just signed a lease on a new apartment, and was driving a car that smelled like someone had stuck an exhaust hose in the window for an hour. I just had to get out of that hearse.
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1. The dream falling to pieces: July 1990

2009-03-27T22:24:00.001-04:00

I ran head long into the sliding glass door and when my head struck the glass the entire door popped from it's frame and fell flat into the backyard. I stood dumbstruck and she laughed uncontrollably at my failure. Then I ate a bottle of pills. Ritalin. Thirty two of them. I counted each one while the space between my breaths magnified. I layed down on the bed and patiently waited. The kids came and I said goodbye and they asked me if they could have some candy. In a few minutes she came into the room and sensing something was wrong hurried the children out.

"What did you take, she asked?"

I pointed to the bathroom and the drama of it all started to take hold of me. She began to scream and cry and ran to the telephone. I could hear her talking about me. About my emergency. When they arrived they didn't like me. I had inflicted damage to myself and maybe someone else had to die because they couldn't be there so I was wasting their time with my selfishness. I wouldn't cooperate and now they disliked me more. I clinched my mouth but their anger convinced me I was to be saved. There was a Jesus and he was a plastic tube forced down my throat as my heart raced.

Fear gripped me but not fear of dying; only the unpleasant thought that even though I was going to make it, my life was over. I went to the hospital. She came to visit but only as her duty. She was my wife. It was plain I was dead to her. I had been given coffee in the hospital and now was manic and loudly speaking my thoughts to her embarrassment. She would never forgive me I thought. She never did.
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