Hermosa Beach

I’d been travelin’ up and down the coast of California for about six months when I hit the beaches. You know Huntington, Redondo the usual. It wasn’t long before I caught sight of the surfers, man to that 18 year-old boy that looked really cool. So I got myself a job washin’ dishes at this hash house. I was still sleepin’ in alleys and under life guard stands because I was workin’ for a surf board. And you know what? Before I knew it, I could quit that job because I had enough for a used surfboard.

Now you young cats gotta’ understand, this was 1968, and a short board was anything under ten feet. I got me a 9’6’’ beauty; even painted the American flag on the bottom. I think it was in protest to the Viet Nam War, I’m not sure, but it did look cool.

I bought the board from a shop on Hermosa Beach, so naturally I stayed there. I mean, how far could I go with a surf board and no car. It was summer, and sleeping on the beach was pleasant, most of the time. When it rained, well, that was a bitch. But for the most part, I was happy surfing all day, and cagin’ a meal at night. I usually feed myself by goin’ to the back door of a restaurant and askin’ if I could do some work for a meal. Half the time they would feed me without the required work. Now don’t get me wrong, I always preferred to work for my meal. The times it was given to me made me feel beholdin’, and that is something that has stayed with me well into dotage. I don’t like to owe.

One of the most memorable times of my back door escapades was the time I knocked at a restaurant’s back door and gave my usual spiel. Well this cook, or maybe he was a chef, let’s me in, walks me over to a table in the kitchen, and says, “Don’t worry about the work, just sit here and I’ll feed you. Just as I was puttin’ the first mouthful of his fine cuisine in my mouth, this woman walks into the kitchen from the dinning room, sees me, and says, “What’s he doing here, get him out of here.” It turned out she was the owner. Well my friend the chef, I’ve decided to promote him, tells the owner, his boss, “When a man come to my kitchen hungry, I am goin’ feed him.” As he finished speaking, he lifted the knife he was using to slice some meat with in a menacing manner, pointing it at his boss, and he kept it pointed right at her until she turned and went back through the door she had just come through. Which was a no no. It was the entrance door to the kitchen, the other door next to it was the exit. She was lucky a bus boy wasn’t comin’ through at that moment carrying a plate of her dishes.

Anyway back to my story. Okay, I’ve got my new surfboard, I’m eatin’ at least once a day, and I’m surfin’. Of course I’ve got nowhere to live, but to an 18 year-old that’s no sweat; I’m happy as a pig in shit. I need nothin’. But somethin’ was right around the corner.

I had it worked out with one of the life guards to watch my board on the few occasions I left the beach. Surfin’ does work up an appetite. So I’d meander up the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) every once and a while to see what I could promote food wise, Well, on the day in question, I was attracted by music blaring out of this storefront shop. It was Canned Heat’s “Goin’ Up to the Country.” At the time I didn’t know it was an old blues number they had redone. In fact they took the name Canned Heat from an old blues tune. But I didn’t know any of that crap at the time. I just knew the song moved me.

So I’m standing in front of this store just killin’ time until the song is over when this dude walks up to me, and says, “I dig this song too.” He was about my age, maybe a few years older, blond hair, about 6’1’’, and kinda thin. His name was Pete. We get to talkin’ and then he says, ”Wanna’ blow a joint?” Now in 1968 did you ever hear of a kid who didn’t want to blow a joint? Of course I did.

He took me to his house that he shared with his sister. It was only a few feet from the beach and it was painted green. That I remember. I also remember his sister, she was my age, beautiful and unattached, which did me no good whatsoever. I was too shy in those days to open my mouth, and the girls of that by gone era were just learning to be assertive. So we danced around one another, but nothing happened. Anyway I was into surfing, not girls. Yeah right!

The long shot of it was, I was invited to move in half way through the first joint. And that set into motion events that led to me having a knife at my throat, being robbed, murder attempted on me, me tryin’ to smuggle a pound of pot across the Mexican/US boarder, jail, near death, and all sort of fun things. And no Pete was not a bad guy. Pete was a fuckin’ great guy; he was just an idiot like me.

Okay folks, I’ve got better things to do than sit here at this fuckin’ computer telling you my life story, and I’m damned sure you got better things to do then hear about my shit. Especially since all this crap went down 42 fuckin’ years ago, so I’ll make a deal with you guys. You just let me tell this shit in my own way, don’t interrupt, and I’ll cut to the chase, so we all can get outta’ here and go for a beer. Deal?

After a few weeks of living with Pete and his sister, he and I start talkin’ about how we could make real money. We thought that if we went down to Tijuana, copped a pound of primo Mexican Gold, and brought it back to Hermosa Beach, and sold it by the ounce, or “can” as it was referred to in Southern California in those days we’d be rich. Not to mention all the “free” pot we’d have. So guess what the two idiots do? If your guess was that we hitchhiked to Tijuana to buy a pound of pot and then walk it across the boarder, then give yourself a cigar. That’s exactly what we set out to do. But things didn’t quite work out that way.

On the way down to Tijuana we get picked up by these two guys that are goin’ down there to cop “Reds” and “Greens.” Now I know those things have legit names, but to me they were downers, not my type of high at all. Anyway I was pretty square in those days. Sure I smoked pot, did a little acid, shot a little acid, shot a little speed, ate mescaline, both organic and pharmaceutical , but besides that I was as pure as the driven snow.

Anyway these guys are hip. They stopped before we got to the boarder and showed us how they were goin’ smuggle the shit in. It’s probably old hat by now, but at the time I thought I was talkin’ to two geniuses. What they did was hollow out the carburetor on their car engine. They even popped it off and showed us were they were goin’ put the two jar of pills. Genius I tells ya’, pure genius.

Okay I’m tryin’ to make this short. They drove us into Mexico, and there we split up. Each pair out to make their own score. The only difference was that those guys knew what they were doin’. As opposed to the two babes-in-the-woods that Pete and I turned out to be.

I don’t remember how we found the asshole who said he’d sell us a pound of marijuana, but find him we did. He took us to the seediest whore house I’ve ever seen. And seeing how it’s the only whore house I’ve ever seen, I reckon that’s not sayin’ much. As he’s bringin’ us in the back door, who the hell do you think we meet comin’ out of the place? You got it, the two geniuses. They are each holding a big brown bottle of pills. There had to be at least 500 pills per bottle. They stop to show us their shit, and then ask, “Hey, you guys want some reds?” “Sure why not.” So they open one of the bottles and pour about ten pills each into Pete’s and my hands, and we put the pills in our pockets. Now this tender scene between old friends is keenly observed by our connection. Which as you’ll see in a moment, plays a big part in this sordid tale.

So Pedro, or Fuck Wad, or whatever his name was, was holding the door of the whore house open for us so we may enter. Now right then and there I should have smelled a rat. He was smilin’ so broadly, and that one gold tooth he had in his mouth made him look just like the bandit in the Humphrey Bogart movie. You know the one, Water Houston’s in it along with Tim, can’t think of his last name right now, but it’s the one where the bandit in reply to Bogie’s request to see his badge when he, the bandit, and his cohorts, are pretending to be the police; “Badges, we don’t need no stinking badges.” Great line, great movie. Holt! That was his last name, Tim Holt. Well our doorman looked just like that bandit. And if there were any other similarities, we were in for trouble. I’ll save you from wondering, our guy was far worse.

Once inside we were escorted down this poorly lit corridor with rooms on each side, I’m being generous when I call them rooms. They were about ten feet by ten feet, just big enough for two people. There was some kind of bed in each room, and upon each bed was a roll of toilet paper. Because it was the middle of the afternoon every door was wide open, no customers. That is why I can relate to you what the rooms of a seedy whorehouse located in Tijuana looks like.

Okay boys, here is where the fun begins. It’s all been peaches and cream up to now. We get about half way down the corridor and the bandit stops in his tracks, and asks to see our money. You know just to make sure we’re legit. If we’re legit! And being the complete idiots that we were, we whip our money to show him.

It was at the very instant that a door flew open and three guys that look even worse than our bandit rushed right towards us. Before either one of us knew it, we both had knives at our throats. They were talkin’ Spanish, but I had a feelin’ they wanted our money. Hey guys, you can have it. We appreciate you asking so nicely. Behind the three guys and the knives, stood our bandit, still smilin’; the son-of-a-bitch.

Then our bandit says somethin’ to the new bandits in Spanish, and then next thing we knew, these guys were rooting around in our pockets. You know it’s pretty hard to hold a knife to someone’s throat, and go through his pockets at the same time. Try it some time, and you’ll see what I mean.

After my personal bandit, and by that I mean the one holding the knife to my throat, as opposed to Pete’s personal bandit holding a knife to his throat, pulls out about six of my ten reds; he, while still holding the knife in the prerequisite position, turns his head and shows his find to our bandit, who in turn intones, “Si, si.” Si, si is right, Yes, yes, what the fuck am I doin’ in a whore house in Tijuana in the middle of the afternoon being robbed by a character out of a Humphrey Bogart movie?

Did I say before that the fun was goin’ start when these guys held knives to our throats? Well, if I did, I was mistaken, now the real fun begins. Pete has gone through everything I’ve gone through. His bandit is now holding his reds. Then they turned their attention back to us once our original bandit nodded his head in approval. Approval of what we didn’t know. But hey, no sweat, we were about to find out.

Believe it or not, these guys were all right. All they wanted to do was get us high. Now before I go any further, for all you non-junkies out there, two of these reds would put you to sleep for at least twelve hours; three and you could kiss an entire day good bye. Four you’re talkin about a trip to the emergency room. You get my drift? I don’t know how many Pete had shoved down his throat, but I got six.

After these nice fellows alleviated us of our money, just so we’d be safe from bandits, and then did us the honor of making sure we’d have a good time in Old Mexico by helpin’ us take drugs, they threw us out onto the street. I didn’t know what was going on then, but over the years my feeble mind has kind of pieced things together.

This is what I think their thinking was. One, we would either OD on the streets of Tijuana, or two, we would be picked up by the police for pubic whatever you call it when you‘re really stoned on reds. They had very little fear that we would go to the police on our own volition. What the hell were we goin’ say, “Excuse me sir, but I tried to buy drugs in your country, and I was robbed.” I didn’t think so, and our bandit friends knew so. And anyway, they probably had the police in their hip pockets. Mexico is one of the most corrupt countries in the world when come to the police. And Tijuana was , and probably still is, the most corrupt city in Mexico.

Well, whatever their plan was, we fooled them. We didn’t pass out until we were back in the good old United States, barely. This is no exaggeration, we were only two steps into this country with its wonderful jails, as opposed to Mexico’s jails when we keeled over.

Now can you imagine the police of today finding an 18 year-old boy comatose on the street and takin’ him to jail? I mean really! But that is what the San Diego County Police did. I was in the goddamn cell two days before I regained consciousness. The only saving grace as far as I was concerned was that Pete was in the same cell with me. He had come too about an hour before me.

So there we were, two would be drug kingpins, on the second tier of the cellblock, in the last cell. Would you like a visual help so you can know what the scene looked like. Well tough shit here it is anyway.

You know that Elvis Presley movie Jail house Rock? Well, when they do the title number, at the very end, the cell The King is in was the same location as Pete’s and my cell. See the fuckin’ movie, cause that’s all you’re getting'.

I told you guys I’d make this one short. This is the up shot.

The coppers want to get us for being under the influence of dangerous drugs. But to do so they need a urine sample. Yeah, I find it hard to believe too; that they had the technology in those ancient times to run a test on someone’s pee and know what the hell that someone digested in the form of recreational drugs. Who would have thought?

So I’m the first. I’m escorted downstairs, handed a cup, and told to go into the open cell in front of me a pee into said cup. Now this next part I swear is the God’s honest truth. When I walk into the cell, there is a puddle of piss on the floor. I knew what it was because of its fragrant aroma. Now I don’t know about most, but when I come outta’ a coma, I just can’t piss. Maybe it’s because my body was in the process of shutting down. You know, some people call it dying. Well, whatever the cause, I just could not pee that night. And believe me I tried.

When the copper came to take my sample, I told him I just couldn’t go. He smelled, and saw the puddle on the floor at about that time, and accused me of being the culprit. Who me, I’ve never peed on a floor in my life, at least not until recently.

I was unceremoniously thrown back into Pete’s and my cell. By the way, (btw) we were not given a phone call, or arraigned within the time limit prescribed by the Constitution. Of course, at 18 I was not yet the Constitutional scholar that I am today, so I kept my big yap shut.

To pass the time while awaiting our day in court, we made a chess set out of torn paper bits. We were lucky; somehow, we came in possession of a pencil. Which meant we could identify the pieces, you know, “P” for pawn. “Q” for queen, etc …, etc … Though we didn’t have a board, so we had to imagine the squares. Three days of that shit, and I haven’t been right since.

Okay, you’re tired, I’m tired, so here’s what happened. We were finally brought before a judge. I guess looking down from his bench he saw a couple of stupid kids; and after all the charge was only a misdemeanor, so he gave us OR. Which means your Own Recognizance, which means no bail need be posted, they’ll trust to come back for your day in court.
So Pete and I find ourselves out on the street once again. Pete says to me, “So, what now?” I say to Pete, fuck California, I’m goin’ east. Sell my board and you keep the money. Tell your sister that I have always loved her, and I’ll probably never see her again.
And as I am so fond of sayin’, I walked into a new life.

This yarn was written for Victoria Mary of Albuquerque New Mexico, of the planet Earth, who is my little firecracker.