Diary of a Lad Insane

One: Five

2011-12-06T16:12:00.000-08:00

The thick foliage made it difficult to move forward. How had the old woman gotten through this tangle of vines, leaves, and bushes? Roots seemed to rise up and catch at my feet, sending me sprawling onto the moist forest floor. It was as if the trees had closed ranks behind her to keep me from learning any more from her.

As the sun rose I could see more around me, though all was done in shades of green and brown. As I pulled yet another creeping vine from my face a bright yellow bird flew before me, making excited little noises before lighting on a branch above a small clearing. At the center stood a wonder such as my poor words cannot describe. It was a small plant, at least compared to the massive trees around me, with dark green leaves. The real wonder was the single flower perched in the center. It was of the purest white, and it shone as if the sun itself had been captured within.

I was filled with joy as I saw it, so much that I wanted to weep. I took one hesitant step forward. At that moment the bird sounded a single piercing note that I felt like an arrow through my heart. My vision blurred with tears, I took another step and began to feel the air about me tremble with a soft vibration. Another step forward and it filled the clearing, echoing off the massive trunks that surrounded me. Now I was right upon the flower and I reached out towards its perfect beauty.

All was dark.

One: Four

2011-07-14T19:15:00.000-07:00

I thought to follow her, but she had vanished so quickly I had no way of knowing which direction to choose. I sat in her spot at the roots of the willow, pondering my fate. A wind rose in the trees, causing the birds to squawk and twitter noisily. The air seemed heavier, and darkness soon descended on my lonely shelter. I hunkered down among the roots, hoping sleep would come to me soon.

Some time deep in the night I awoke. I could see little, though all around me there were patches of yellow-green light. Foxfire. The word came to my mind, though I knew not where I had heard it. While I marveled at the sight, I noticed too that there was no sound in the forest. The wind had died down and the heaviness to the air pressed against me. There was a brief flicker of light, followed a few moments later by a low rumble.

Tock. Something had struck a leaf overhead. Tock, tock-tock, tock. More sounds. Now I felt a wet trickle on the back of my neck. Then all at once a great rush of water from the sky, a jagged flash of cold light and a mighty roar overhead that shook the earth beneath me. I curled up within the roots, fearful that some mythical beast was stalking me for the kill. The rain fell in torrents, soaking me through my thin clothing. I could do nothing but close my eyes and wait the storm out.

The rain fell for many hours before finally fading away, the rumbling in the sky now far off. Water dripped lazily from the leaves above, and the stream feeding the small pool nearby gurgled busily. I shivered in my wet clothing, but soon exhaustion took me again and I fell into a dreamless sleep.

One: Three

2011-07-01T22:41:00.001-07:00

"Late for what?"

A breeze stirred the branches of the willow and I thought I heard the sound of soft laughter in its leaves. The old woman said nothing, but only looked at me impassively, as if sizing me up. I picked up the sack at my feet and tried to guess what might be inside.

"What is this?", I asked.

"Well it's a big, slimy snake that will eat you up, isn't it?", she said with a gleam in her eye.

I shook the sack but nothing seemed to be moving within, so I emptied it on the ground. There before me lay a small loaf of bread, a cloth-wrapped cheese, and an apple. I remembered suddenly how hungry I was and spent awhile tearing into the bread and taking bites of cheese between mouthfuls of the soft loaf. I pocketed the apple for later. When I had finished my simple meal I drank from the pool and sat back to watch the old woman.

"Thank you", I said.

"A small thing, lad. You have a long journey ahead of you."

"Do you know me?"

"I know that I had to be here now to give you what you needed. And now I will go. The light is fading and these old bones have to rest."

With that she rose from the roots of the willow and turned to go.

"Wait! Where am I going? I don't even know who I am! Can't you help me?"

The old woman turned back toward me slowly. She looked up into the high trees and pointed toward the green canopy above.

"The birds know. When you need answers you can always ask them."

She smiled slightly at this and shuffled slowly into the ferns, the sound of her footsteps gone as she vanished.

One:Two

2011-06-26T21:19:00.000-07:00

The green ferns seemed to go on forever. With no idea where I was going I began to lose hope. My skin was hot and irritated by scratches from branches and thorns. The hunger in my stomach and soul were painful, and thirst consumed me. The world was now no more than heat, the sounds of the forest, and my own labored breath. My vision became blurred and I fell heavily to the ground, weeping into the warm moss.

For how long I lay there I do not know, but soon I heard the faint sound of water. I dragged my weary body up to a tall tree and propped myself against it, trying to discover the source of the sound.

Now it came to me more clearly, and I raised myself up and stumbled, half-blind, through the stalks and leaves in the hope of finding water. Each plant seemed to reach for me, tearing into my flesh. I grunted and moaned while the oppressive heat seared my thoughts. The sound of the water became my sole focus. If I could only reach it I would be saved. I burst suddenly into a clearing and before I could stop myself I pitched forward into a pool of clear, cool water.

I was coughing and spluttering, the shock of cold taking my breath away. As I fought to keep from drowning I saw an old woman sitting on the far bank within the roots of an ancient willow. Her dress was plain and she had a small sack by her side. She eyed me closely but said nothing as I thrashed about. When I had finally had my fill to drink and the cold had become bearable I waded back to my side of the pool and sat upon the pebbled shore. The old woman picked up the sack and tossed it at my feet.

"You're late," she said.

One: One

2011-06-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

When my eyes were opened I thought at first that I was blind. The air was warm and still around me, and I could hear the faint sounds of small creatures scratching and moving through dried leaves. Bird calls echoed over my head. I was afraid, for I knew not who or where I was. I was joyful, for no reason other than my freedom.

As I sat, a soft greenish light began to illuminate the space around me. I saw that I was in a great forest, with trees arching hundreds of feet above me and ferns closer by massed and marching off into the distant wood.

I did not know where to go from the log upon which I sat, but a hunger soon rose in me. Not just for food but a hunger to know more. Without a map or compass, I rose and waded through the greenery in search of answers...

Time in a Bottle

2011-03-11T19:08:00.000-08:00

"But there never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do once you find them..."

Over the last few years I have become aware that no matter how "young at heart" I feel, Time the Avenger is beginning to whistle his tune on a park bench somewhere in my neighborhood. As of this writing I am 54 years...old, but in fine health and good spirits. Good job, great family, own my house (in loose cooperation with The Bank, of course), and lots of fun things to do on the side.

Yet still strange thoughts have entered my cranium: I am a small boy in Connecticut and I am watching a young woman (Mom?) hanging the wash out to dry on a square clothes hanger outdoors. I can smell the clean, damp linen as it snaps in the cool breeze, hear the slight creak of each wooden clothespin as she attaches more items to the lines. The sky is impossibly blue, studded with puffy white clouds.

The woman is happy at her work, and she smiles at me from time to time. It must be Mom. that's the face that keeps popping in there. I am sitting on the green, green grass, thinking only of the very moment I keep remembering. The whole scene is barely five minutes or so but I could watch it for hours.

It occurs to me that this may be the last image I see before the guy with the scythe beckons me to The Other Side.

And that's.....OK.

Courage

2011-03-06T09:23:00.000-08:00

"But I could show my prowess, be a lion not a mou-ess
If I only had the nerve."

Throughout my life I have considered myself to be a peaceful person. I do not go looking for trouble and tend to try to negotiate my way out of it when it finds me. As a kid I was bullied pretty regularly and that made life hellish at times but I learned to stay within myself and escape into the solace of literature. Sometimes it would be a classical work like Huckleberry Finn and other times I'd just read the first book I put my hand on at the school library. I spent many happy hours perched in the maple tree in the corner of our yard, letting the warm breezes of summer gently rock the leafy cradle that was my refuge.

One of my first friends there in Vienna was Billy, the kid across the street. Funny thing was, he was known as the neighborhood tough guy, but he never bullied me once. Even when the other kids on the 'hood were exploiting my pacifist nature, Billy was a true buddy. We even started smoking together at the age of 11. What a pal!

While I did get my butt kicked from time to time, there were also some key moments that stood out in my life as Underdog:

About age 8 in Rhode Island one of the local bullies decided now was the time to smack me around a bit right outside my own house. He advanced on me and tried to get me to the ground, but I lunged at him and pushed him into the neighbor's flower bed. Almost immediately he began screaming and flapping his arms then ran off home, never to be a bother to me again. I had, by sheer strike of luck, pushed him into a wasps' nest. Score one for the little guy!

When I was 11 years old I was at the local elementary school blacktop shooting hoops with a buddy. Enter Billy Ray Chappell, the redneck-est creep from the other side of the tracks. He started taunting me and roughing me up, finally reaching out and boxing my ears. I stood there for half a second, blinded by tears with my ears ringing and swung my fist at his face. I fully expected to be beaten to a pulp, but Billy Ray just walked away, his nose streaming blood. Lucky punch? Can't argue with results.

One day in Virginia my sister Leslie was with a girlfriend walking not far from our house. I was across a field from them and noticed a couple of boys giving them a hard time. Without even thinking of the consequences I ran over to them and stood between them and the girls, skinny little wimp that I was. And they actually backed down.

The list goes on. At different times in my life I've found the spark of courage that pulled me through. But nothing prepared me for how difficult it would be to be patient and forgiving with myself and the people closest to me.

After Lani and I divorced my two older kids and I embarked on a difficult journey. At first it was all weekend visits and going to the park, ice cream and watching movies together. But as circumstances changed so did our relationships. The emotional tug of war that always seems to surface in these affairs began to take its toll on the trust between us. The dysfunctional crap that I couldn't let go of from years before paralyzed me emotionally and instead of stepping up I stepped back, torturing myself for being so weak.

This caused the inevitable results: My kids grew tired of the act. It all came to a head in late 2005 when Jess sent me a scathing letter that confirmed everything I already knew about myself. I tried to talk to Peter about it but it was a total cock-up and only made that situation worse as well.

How do these things relate? It's easier to face down an armed bank robber than to step forward and admit the worst about yourself, finding redemption through patience and true love. A good friend of mine just lost a buddy. He posted on Facebook, reminding us all to always let the people in our lives know just how special they are to us every day.

It's just that easy and just so hard. But instead of dithering and worrying about it, I will have the courage to tell them all that I love them so very much.

The Trial: Epilogue

2010-10-12T06:13:00.000-07:00

Sentencing

Later that summer Charles Stevens had his sentencing hearing before Judge McGuinnis. I was on vacation at the time and couldn't find anything about it in the local papers, so I called the prosecutor's office to get the news. Our recommendation had been upheld and Charlie was shipped off to San Quentin's Death Row.

Mr. Burr had told us at our post-trial meeting that Stevens would have appeals for the next few years and that the soonest we might see his name pop up on the execution list would be seven years. That was April of 1993. This is being written on October 12, 2010, and Charles Stevens is still awaiting his turn on the gurney. California declared a moratorium on executions while the lethal injection procedure was changed to make it more humane. That has always puzzled me, but the courts know best, I guess. Humane executions.

In the years since I sat on that jury my opinion on the efficacy of the death penalty has changed. I have researched its application to persons of lower economic status and minorities. I have read enough about prosecutorial misconduct in some cases to change my mind. The Innocence Project has helped to get 17 people off Death Row with DNA evidence. I shudder to think about the innocent people put to death before this organization came to be.

Yes, some folks, like our friend Charlie, are caught stone cold guilty. If we put them in a hole and feed them what little it takes to stay alive until they finally shuffle off, it will cost less than a full capital trial and execution. What then is left? Revenge. And what does that change? Does it truly provide "closure"? How? Many family members have come out against the death penalty, preferring to know that the individual will instead have a lifetime to contemplate how fucked up his or her life will be right to the end. The debate goes on.

One thing rises to the top for me: Innocent people have been executed. As of this writing there is a news story about Cameron Willingham, a man from Texas who was executed based on faulty science. What if that person was your brother, son, father?

Appeal

On June 4, 2007, the California Supreme Court heard Stevens' appeal of his conviction. He challenged many aspects of the trial, from the exclusion of some African American jurors to the murder of Leslie Noyer. It can all be found here.

Richard Clark

Within a month of the end of the trial I read in the paper that Clark had accepted a deal and copped to voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to 12 years and has served his time. I still wonder about just what was true in that jumble of lies. Were we who wanted to acquit just a bunch of suckers? The fact that Charlie is going to waste away in prison eases that in my mind. The real monster is in jail now, forever.

In the News

One day I was out walking the dogs when my cell phone rang. It was a reporter from the Oakland Tribune who wanted to get my story about the trial. Here's the link to that article.

After all that, I never wanted to participate in another trial. I was called to jury duty a couple of years later and wouldn't you know, it was a Brink's Armored Car robbery where a guard was shot and killed. When I told them I felt I'd already done my duty with the Stevens trial, they agreed and cut me loose.

What did I learn from all this? The guy was a psycho who got off on killing people. We put him away. End of story. I became a fan of law & order reality shows: Cops, Forensic Files, First 48 and the like. It never gets old seeing bad guys, mostly stupid, greedy people, get popped by the white hats. No matter what problems I've had with authority, a respect the hell out of the thin blue line and the people who help them put thugs away.

Let's start in on Current Events real soon!

The Trial: Deliberations

2010-09-20T17:12:00.001-07:00

Day 1

So the now the whole enchilada was in our laps. Judge McGuinnis had instructed us to choose a foreman and begin deliberations forthwith. We all filed into the jury room, sat at the table and sort of looked at each other. Somebody piped up and said: "So who's going to be the foreman?"

Leigh, the young lady who had the problem with Mr. Selvin, said: "How about the umpire?", pointing at me. There was a general sound of agreement, some saying "yeah", or "sounds good". I guess my occasional requests to shut the hell up about the testimony earned me that position. They took a quick vote and I was in. Well. Now what?

Pete, the bailiff, brought in a bunch of papers. Each individual sheet represented a charge against either Stevens or Clark. It was really thick. Almost every one was for Stevens. We got started.

I could tell that Skip, the former Vietnam War helicopter pilot, was a little peeved at how quickly I had been chosen as foreman. It seemed maybe he wanted the post. I put that thought in my back pocket for later.

We wanted to do the "easy" charges first. We started with the Raymond August murder because that had the only credible eyewitness and loads of physical evidence. Guilty of murder there, no question. I put a little check mark on the list I'd drawn up.

Then came Lori Rochon. Not as easy to work out due to Clark being the only witness, but all the circumstances were the same as August and the forensic evidence all pointed to Stevens as well. Guilty. Check.

Loquann Sloan. Same gun, plenty of motive. Near the freeway. No way Charlie is giving that gun to anybody else. Besides, the bastard sat there grinning while the evidence was presented. He was proud of what he'd done, it was obvious. Guilty. Check.

Leslie Noyer. We had a lot of problems working out just who shot her. We referred to our notes and discussed the positions of each actor in this situation. Clark was definitely there. But again, no way Charlie is giving him the gun. Wish we could have heard from the other girl, if indeed there ever was one. Finally decided on Charlie. Guilty. Check

All the other charges, including the special circumstances - check, check, check.

Now for Richard Clark. All those stories, the manner in which he was interrogated, his general lack of smarts. What were we going to do with him? Was he guilty of murder as well, or did Charlie just set him up to take him down with him? We talked and talked about it. A couple of jurors were adamant that he actively participated in the crime and should be convicted. Others, including myself, could not make out the truth between all the stories. He knew something, he did....what? After a couple of days of hacking this out we took a Friday break. I skipped work, thanks to Pete's advice, and took my collie, Mickey, out into the woods for a long hike. I contemplated the consequences of sending a man to prison for something he may not have done, or at least for a specific crime that did not apply. I walked for hours and finally decided that I would vote Not Guilty.

When we met Monday to continue deliberations, the vote stood at 7-5 to acquit. The five who wanted to convict were implacable. So were we seven others. I signed all the papers on Stevens: Four counts of first-degree murder, six counts of attempted murder, and the three special circumstances of lying in wait, multiple murders and use of a firearm. I felt very disconnected as I watched my hand sign that familiar autograph on line after line, knowing this monster would be under lock and key until the state determined when to dispose of him.

While the judge and Mr. Burr were not happy about our deadlock on Clark, they proceeded on to Stevens. I handed the forms to the bailiff, who gave them to the judge, who handed them to the clerk of the court to read. Good. I don't think I could have read all that stuff in the now-packed courtroom. There were reporters, families, and other court-watchers jammed into every seat and standing along the back. The clerk read each charge and verdict, and as the families of each victim heard "Guilty", the reactions were emotional. Lori Rochon's son let out a "Yes!", others wept, the murmurs in the room got louder. I glanced at Charlie as the clerk read the papers. He was impassive until the one about Leslie Noyer. Then he frowned deeply and clenched his hands. That was as much emotion as I had seen from him for nearly two months. Judge McGuinness had to ask for order. Then it was done. The judge polled each one of us, asking if this was indeed our decision. "Yes", was the answer from each.

Penalty Phase

In California, the jury hears evidence in capital cases that will help determine whether the convicted murderer will be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole. The judge said that if we wished we could pick a new foreman. Nobody seemed inclined to vote me out, but I remembered Skip's disappointment. "If it's all the same to you guys, I think Skip would be a good leader during this part". They basically shrugged their shoulders and said Whatever.

This part of the trial took a week, but it was the most difficult part outside of the photos. One relative or friend after another got up to tell us about the emotional impact the murder of their loved on their lives. Ray August's father, a retired postmaster, was asked by Mr. Burr about the effect of this loss on his life.

"I have no life", he said, "It ended the day my boy was killed".

The defense was given the chance to offer mitigating evidence in order to spare Charlie the death penalty. It included a story about how his Mom was an alcoholic who died at the dinner table in a drunken stupor and a plea not to kill him out of the goodness of our hearts. Nobody came to stand for him, speak to his good qualities. We trooped up to the jury room after both sides rested. We sat looking at each other, then Skip suggested we take a preliminary vote just to see how we felt. Scraps of paper were passed out, filled out, and gathered up. Death, death, death....eleven for death and one question mark.

The one woman who had written the question mark was getting cold feet. She sensed the importance of what we were doing and didn't want to have his death on her conscience. I suggested we go around the room and talk about our reasons for voting the way we did. When it came to my turn I said: "This guy did not have a horrible childhood. No abuse, no mental defects. There were many times in his life where he came to that fork in the road. One way was right and good, the other took him closer to Hell. What we have heard over these last two months is that every time he came to that point he chose the downward path. Now he's in this place and all we're doing is opening the gate to the fate he's been running toward." She thought about the words and I told Skip that maybe we could get one more free lunch on the taxpayers.

We went to a Chinese restaurant and had a great feast. When we got back we voted again and it was unanimous: Death. I stuck my head out the door to tell the bailiff that we were ready. She got all jumpy and said that a lot of the court officers were still out. Phone calls had to be made. So we sat in the jury room for a couple of hours waiting for our last march down the stairs. When we got to the courtroom it was even more crowded than before. Same procedure, only this time the clerk simply read: "In the matter of the people of Alameda County versus Charles Arnett Stevens, we the jury set the punishment at Death."

The room was again buzzing. The judge polled us again, we answered in the affirmative, he thanked us and it was over. Charlie was led away, people were hugging, some family members came over to hug the jury. I was having trouble seeing well with the darn pollen making my eyes water so much.

Back up to the room to get our stuff, a few words with Mr. Burr. He told us that the one notation we never saw on the "score card" was the California Penal Code for murder of a peace officer. It had a zero next to it.

We went out for drinks at a local seafood place. On the way there I heard the live report from the courthouse about the verdict. Was that us? We had drinks, talked about other stuff, promised to stay in touch (which we did not do), and went home.

Yeah, there really has to be an Epilogue, huh?

The Trial - Last Journal Entry

2010-08-09T17:14:00.000-07:00

Once I get these last few pages down I'll try to reconstruct the scenario in the jury room as we deliberated the fate of these two bad guys.

The Defense Concludes

Mr. Selvin got up to begin his closing argument. His position was that Mr. Burr had a preponderance of evidence, and he was afraid that that would cause us to neglect regarding each case separately. A difficult task, indeed! Mr. Burr used the physical evidence to show a killing pattern, a man who not only practiced, but perfected his techniques and only got caught due to his fascination with the destruction he had caused.

Logically, Mr. Selvin started with the Stokes/August case. He conceded that it would be foolish to try to deny TC did it. (Really!) However, let's just look at the facts, says he. Charlie carried the gun, but he didn't have a plan to kill anybody that night. Yes. it's terrible the way these people were shot at, but Charlie is sick. He simply pulled out the gun and shot without thinking, a cold act of unpremeditated murder.

Selvin tries to minimize the act to one of second-degree murder. He tries to cast Clark in the role of the shooter in the Rochon case. He discounts the theory that TC "loved" the Desert Eagle, having us consider it as "just another gun", which Charlie would have passed around his circle of criminal friends, one of which was probably the real killer of Laquann Sloan. He puts Clark at the Noyers scene with the Desert Eagle by himself, shooting the girl for whatever reason. He decries the violence of the attempted murders but states that we must judge for ourselves whether or not Charles did it. He says that Stevens' defense rested on the evidence, charging Mr. Burr with the task of proof of guilt against the assumption of innocence. He urges us to seek any shadow of a doubt and cultivate it, not being content to vote with the group.

He's really muddying the waters, and gets so frothy at the mouth and emotional that the spit literally flies out of his mouth. It's not easy to look at him. Leigh, a juror in the front row, was having a really hard time. She's particularly affected by Mr. Selvin's histrionics.

Clark's Conclusion

Mr. Zimmer re-hashed the argument that Richard was pressured into his confession bith by over-zealous cops and his need to comply with authority figures due to his childhood exposure to abuse. To his credit, he did not attempt to argue for a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, taking the high road all the way in insisting that Richard was not even there.

Instructions

On Monday morning, March 22, the judge read us the instructions, defining our role as a jury, the definitions of first- and second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, and special circumstances.

We went up to the jury room, and within minutes I was nominated and selected foreman of the jury by acclamation. Whew! Jan says it's just people seeing the light that shines from me. Well, I haven't tried to campaign for it but I've accepted their choice. I'll do my best. As we reach each verdict I will put my signature on the bottom of the sheet, indicating a unanimous opinion.

We spent the first day of deliberations speaking about each case in detail and in general. Outside of the Noyers case it looks as if we will be concurring with Mr. Burr as to the charges. I haven't tried to guess anybody's mind up 'til now, but it looks as if we're all in agreement about TC's guilt. This guy is in a lot of trouble. We'll be talking about the two most difficult cases tomorrow: Leslie Noyers and Laquann Sloan.

We had lunch at the expense of the taxpayers of Alameda County today, going to Jack's Bar & Grill at Jack London Square. Nobody's drinking alcohol, which is really for the best.

I don't think this part will take very long. The hard part will be the penalty phase. Really hard.

Thus concludes the journal of Juror #5 in the capital murder case against Charles Arnett Stevens. My memories of the events following these will continue the tale.

The Trial - Countdown

2010-08-08T16:23:00.000-07:00

My journal from the capital murder trial of Charles Stevens....

Last Witness

On Tuesday, March 9, Sgt. Art Roth took the stand for the DA to testify as to the conduct of Clark's questioning. For the entire day he answered questions from Mr. Burr. Here are some points that really shot holes in Clark's account:

- From the time Clark was picked up in Monterrey until the night/early morning of August 1st, no mention was made to him of where any crime took place or what it was. Clark supplied the street name "Chetwood" and first said that Noyers had been shot dead.

-The interview was conducted in a passive, re-directive way, relying on Clark to provide the narrative after encouraging comments like: "Tell me more about that" and "Let's talk about that". No threatening or stern behavior was shown at that extended interview, yet Clark still unwound the yarn about the Noyers killing and the Rochon incident with very little persuasion. Hardly the picture Clark paints.

-I trust the testimony of Sgt. Roth because he is a cop. If he's outright lying about this conduct at the interview, he;s in for really big trouble. He states that no sterner measures were taken with Richard until he had already told the story I call "I held her while Charlie shot her", and refused to change it even though the officers knew it was heavy with inconsistencies. It was only after that version was directly challenged by the physical evidence at hand that Richard broke down in the sally port and confessed to shooting her himself.

I can hardly wait to see what Mr. Zimmer might ask (Sgt. Roth) on Thursday.

3/22/93

I've gotten away from writing in the journal but that's just a function of how busy I've been. Mr. Zimmer questioned Sgt. Roth extensively about the conduct of Richard's questioning. He wanted to characterize it as an "interrogation", while Sgt. Roth described it as an "interview", which only became more confrontational on the second day, when Clark stuck to his BS story about holding Noyers while Charlie shot her. Zimmer tried to impeach Roth's testimony by referring back to previous sworn statements the sergeant had made at a preliminary hearing. Specifically, Roth had said that a picture of Leslie Noyers was shown to Clark at one point in time, while on the stand he stated a slightly different point. It wasn't even important to the believability of the testimony, but Zimmer needed to show that the police fed Richard information which he simply "parroted" back to them. Zimmer wants us to believe that two seasoned cops who had a real suspect in custody (Chuck), were trying to get Richard to tell a story that they didn't even have the answers to by feeding him bits and pieces of information that may not even have told the true story. Richard supposedly put it all together exactly the way they said it, even though they hadn't gotten any information from Stevens.

Now the kicker - Richard says he shot Noyers. They would have railroaded Clark into saying that before trying to force him into confessing. I'll be more lucid about this when it's over.

Roth was the last witness. Then come the closing arguments.

The Prosecution Closes

Mr. Burr was first. Even though he took three quarters of one day and the entire day after, he was really just expanding on his case against Charlie. I didn't even take any in-court notes. I knew what he was trying to show. He described the law to us in his own terms, mostly dealing with first-degree murder. He wants us to convict TC on all four counts, alleging that Stevens had malice and predetermination. Second degree murder calls for malice without predetermination. Attempted murder is a situation where a person wishes to kill and acts on it unsuccessfully, something coming between the act and its completion outside of the design of the potential murderer.

Mr. Burr wants us to find the special circumstances in this case to be true as well. The first in the case of Leslie Noyers, where Burr believes TC lured her into a vulnerable position then aided and abetted Clark by giving him the weapon with the sole intent to kill.

In the Raymond August case, Rodney Stokes' testimony makes it clear that Charlie thought about what he did then sneaked up on him, taking him by surprise- "lying in wait" is the name of this special circumstance. If we find Charlie guilty of one first-degree murder as well as any other count of first- or second-degree murder, the special circumstance of "multiple murders" will apply.

Mr. Burr is not impressed by Dr. Cooper's theory on "coercive compliant" behavior. He pretty much reiterated his rebuttal to that theory. Zimmer tried to show places in Clark's testimony where he only fed back information given to him by the cops. Burr showed us the booking photo of Leslie Noyers, he played the tape where Richard describes her as having "sandy-blond" hair. The booking photo is a poor color rendition, and her hair looks almost black. The better photo of her, the one with her on the driveway of 541 Chetwood with her brains blown out, shows sandy blond hair. When Mr. Burr showed us that one, an older woman on the gallery began sobbing uncontrollably. It was a moving and difficult moment for all of us. All of us but Charlie, who was trying his best to stifle a laugh. The judge had us recess for five minutes, and the anger in the room was palpable.

One more round o' notes, then I gotta rely on memory....

The Trial - Doctor's Orders

2010-08-07T08:35:00.000-07:00

The journal of Juror #5 in the case of The People of Alameda County v. Charles Arnett Stevens and Richard Clark.

...Which brings us to today. Dr. Cooper came back to the stand to continue his testimony. Mr. Burr began by detailing all of the sources used by Dr. Cooper in formulating his opinion that Richard was inclined to be compliant in the face of authority. First, Richard met with Dr. Cooper on two occasions for three hours each. He was given the MMPI, the TAT, and a Rorschach at the first meeting and the MMPI-2 and a Babcock Story Recall test the second time. They only spoke about the circumstances of his arrest and questioning for an hour at most. The doctor "skimmed the notes" and transcripts of the interrogation. He read the reports of a private investigator from five people who had known Clark and he used the data from six published articles dealing with alleged false confessions.

From the articles, Cooper found that false confessors can be broken down into three groups: the "kooks", (a very scientific term), who call or come in to confess to high-profile crimes for attention; people who are essentially brainwashed, believing they in fact committed the crime after being programmed or forcibly coerced into thinking so; and finally the people who are "compliant passive", who will follow the flow of a perceived dangerous situation and do or say things against their best interests in order to avoid conflict or harm. As expected, he feels that Clark fits this mold due to the abuse suffered at the hands of his father, the father figure looming large in the mind of this good doctor as the atypical symbol of authority.

Mr. Burr began his attack on the credibility of this theory and its application to Mr. Clark by asking whether Dr. Cooper had studied the notes and transcripts from the actual questioning sessions of August 2-3, 1989. "I did skim them" was the reply. ("Skim" them!) Then Burr discussed the five people spoken to by the private investigator hired by Mr. Zimmer. Turned out that four of them had only known Clark in his per-adolescent years. He is now twenty-five, so they are no more than faint background noise. The fifth person was Richard's godmother, who lives over at 740 27th street, right at the scene of Loquan Sloan's death. She was the one who confirmed that Clark came to see her three or four times a week right up until his arrest, hardly something useful in the proof of innocence.

Then the real show began, One by one, Mr. Burr picked up the six articles used as research by Dr. Cooper and picked them apart. First, we found that only two of the articles were written and published in the U.S., one was the result of a French study involving their methods of interrogation, and the final three were written by the same author concerning a British study of false confessions.

Mr. Burr picked up the first U.S. study. It dealt with a 22-question test to determine a person's predisposition to falsely confess. Though over four hundred people were tested, only fifty of them were actual criminals. And of the fifty, none of them was found in a court of law to have given a "true" false confession, under duress or otherwise. The rest of the people were students, school faculty at UC Berkeley, student nurses, etc. So Mr. Burr held up the Xeroxed packet and said: "So this study really doesn't have any relevance to this particular case, does it?"

"No, I suppose not", said the doctor.

Mr. Burr deftly tossed the report to the side of his table with a soft "plop", like the showman he is.

The next article was. of all things, highly critical of the use of psychologists and psychiatrists in legal cases to determine predisposition to false confessions. It stated outright that "one should be skeptical of any claim of false confession, considering the nature of the criminal to recant in order to escape punishment." While there might have been some useful information in the study, I can hardly see why the doctor would use it to the extent that a copy would have to be provided to the DA. Didn't they suspect that any reasonable person would use its very words against them? I've given up second-guessing, preferring to be surprised...it's much more interesting.

Plop...as that one bit the dust.

Next Day

I'm a little rushed this morning, so I'm going to shorten up my notes here and expand on them later. Today I expect to hear the first closing arguments and I don't want to let this slip away with whatever else goes down'

(1) French - 48 hours limit
- sleep deprivation
- physical abuse
- American system geared against
"plop"

(3) British
- client tells barrister he committed the crime, must plead "guilty"
- British system the model by which we offset our system to counter exactly that
kind of coercion
- No evidence in these studies of somebody "true" false confessing
- Just theoretical model, not applicable to this case
"plop. plop, plop"

3/10/93

continued...

Mr. Burr then looked over the results of the MMPI and discussed the results with the doctor. Mr. Zimmer wasn't very happy about it, as none of the data were used in his claim of coerced confession. The independent analysis of the report indicated that Richard Clark was "prone to using others hedonistically for his own ends irrespective of their welfare." He has higher highs and lower lows than the norm and is said to have a "borderline" personality. Truth to tell, with all the objection to this line of questioning by Mr. Zimmer I didn't really change my opinion of Mr. Clark or his ability to kill. Mr. Selvin got a hold of Dr. Clark briefly, just long enough to imply that the part in the MMPI about using other people might lead to Clark accusing Stevens of crimes he himself had committed.

Mr. Zimmer tried to do some spin control to counter the damage done by Mr. Burr's cross. It wasn't very effective, given the masterful mix of theatrics and painstaking homework done by the man. He was able to converse intelligently and concisely in the language of the specialty to turn the testimony of this defense witness into a flaming wreck.

Judging by most of the reactions I observed amongst the jurors, (a lot of) doubt about the idea that the state of mind Clark was under was not adequately addressed was confirmed. In other words the "expert" helped shoot bigger holes in the defense than some of the prosecution witnesses.

Getting down to the wire....

The Trial - Psychoanalysis

2010-08-05T15:02:00.000-07:00

The trial was becoming my life. No matter what else was going on, umpiring, family matters, what little time I spent at work, I was thinking about the testimony. We saw pictures, heard testimony, handled weapons, listened to tapes. The folks in the jury room got considerably less chatty and we tended to keep to ourselves. Now we would be hearing a lot of VERY dry psychobabble, but I vowed to myself I would hang in there. Not so for a couple of others, who sometimes went to a local bar on their lunch break and downed a couple of shots. Had to prod one of them several times one day just to keep him awake. This was important shit we were listening to and it upset me when any of the others didn't treat it seriously enough....

After Richard finally left the stand Tuesday afternoon Mr. Zimmer called Dr. Lowell Cooper, a clinical psychologist with about 30 years of experience in general psychology. After a rundown of his credentials he was acknowledged by all present as an expert in his field. Mr. Zimmer is counting on the testimony of this man above all else to prove that Clark made a false confession, not through any extraordinarily cruel treatment by the police, but through a more complex dynamic set up by past experiences in Clark's life. Through a continued pattern of physical and mental abuse, the doctor opines, Richard is inclined to read subtle and less threatening behavior and language to alter his story and avoid conflict with authority figures.

The doctor cites studies that back up the notion that a person might become so compliant that he will do or say anything to get out of a perceived threatening situation, even if it means losing sight of the long-term consequences of these actions. He compares Richard's situation to the nervous feelings that most people have when a policeman pulls us over. He's pretty convincing, stating that there are over one hundred documented cases of false confession on record. This is interesting. There might be a case here. I hear the doctor saying things that ring a bell within me about how abusive behavior can cause you later to become a peacemaker, a person who tries to avoid conflict by any means. I have something to think about as the evening recess is called.

3/3/93

On Wednesday Dr. Cooper had other commitments, so we heard from a few other folks. First was our old friend Tech Hutchinson. I don't understand why it was brought up, but a good 30 minutes was taken up by both Mr. Zimmer and Mr. Burr concerning the location of the lights at the Chetwood site and the relative quality of the lighting overall. That was it for him. Then came one of the more emotional moments of this trial (so far).

Mr. Zimmer called Leslie Noyer's Mom. The intent of this questioning seemed solely to be establishing whether it was normal for Leslie to carry a purse, whether she may have had any money or ID on her in any other location, and whether the mom saw Leslie carrying a purse out with her that fateful night. The worst part was when the mom had to explain that. She and Leslie had fought that night before the girl went out. Even though Leslie called her later to say "I love you. I'm coming home", I'm sure her Mom carries the memory of that fight with her even now. She was very upset and needed several moments to compose herself. She stayed in the courtroom afterward until the last recess that day.

Richard's sister, Kimberly Clark, came to the stand next. She was called up to confirm that Clark had pretty much broken off all contact with Stevens after Lori Rochon was killed. Then Mr. Burr began asking her about when she knew the details of Rochon's death. She was very uncooperative, saying that she did not recall anything she might have been told in 1989. Mr. Burr played back selected portions of a taped statement she made at the time, each time "refreshing" Kimberly's memory. The point here seemed to be that we are reminded of the consistencies in the story as told by Richard Clark. There was never enough time to line up all of the details of the story between the time Richard was arrested and the taped statement she gave. The only other alternative might have been intensive coaching by Clark of his sister.

To be honest I really don't think that's likely, given the rather simple mentality of the two. They aren't stupid or mentally deficient, but I don't get the impression that they would do that on the contingency that Richard would be arrested.

The last witness today was Terry Jones, the First Sergeant of Richard's platoon in the California National Guard. He described Richard as a good soldier, always ready to volunteer for extra duty; a meek acquiescent "gentle giant" who sometimes stepped into conflicts between fellow soldiers as a peacemaker. Mr. Burr tried to balance that testimony by presenting Clark as a good soldier who could kill on command. He tried to have us see this as the "job" of a soldier. Richard was in Communications Support, hardly a front-line position. He had a sharpshooter's qualification with the M16, but I knew that all military personnel are required to qualify in some category regardless of their specialty. Sgt. Jones wasn't very happy with Mr Burr but that's to be expected.

How many of us know somebody we could classify as a potential murderer?

Next: The beat drags on through the MMPI

The Trial - Richard Clark Part 3

2010-08-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

3/1/93

The main part of Mr. Burr's cross-examination was clear today. Once Richard found out that the DA had decided not to press charges when he told the truth abut Lori Rochon, why did he continue to lie about being the killer of Leslie Noyers?

"Because if I told them something completely false then they would figure out that I was not involved. I thought that Charlie would tell them, you know, that, well, 'Rich wasn't there, how could he say that?'"

Huh?

What kind of logic says the best way to get out of trouble is to admit that you killed somebody, using the facts you know the police already have?

Mr. Burr asked Clark why he didn't report the killing of Lori Rochon to the police.

"I didn't want to be a witness. I was afraid Charlie might hurt me or my family."

Alright. Given that Richard's family had very little (financial) support with him out of work, did he know about the $25,ooo reward for the arrest of the killer? It had been mentioned in the first article about the murder as well as radio and TV reports. No, he hadn't heard about it. Would he have claimed it if he had known?

"I would of tripped over something doin' it."

"So you just didn't know about it and that's why you never claimed it?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps you didn't know, or perhaps you just had something to hide..."

Over loud objections and the judge's order to strike the remark, we were sent to lunch knowing that Mr. Burr had just sunk a 40-foot 3 pointer.

March 8, 1993

Last Tuesday, Richard Clark was cross-examined by Mr. Selvin. (Stevens' attorney) He didn't take long, concentrating mostly on the testimony surrounding Lori Rochon's killing. After establishing that Richard was not being altogether truthful, he attempted to make the same impression stick that maybe Richard was trying to cover the fact that he himself was the shooter that night. Personally, I'm not buying it. It's an impression I get through the interview tape that can't be defined precisely. I wrote down in my court noted that the way Richard said "stupid" in the interview was enough to convince me he was being truthful.

As an aside here, let me get down an interesting observation I made. While the tapes of the various confessions to Noyer's killing were played, old Chuck Stevens seemed to be rather amused. It seemed like everyone else in the courtroom was intent on following the transcript, but I watched Stevens out of the corner of my eye. As we heard Clark describing all the different ways the murder went down, Charlie was smirking and shaking his head. Then we listened to the Lori Rochon tape. As Richard's voice intoned in that slow, dull way like in the other tapes, Stevens was intent, serious. He appeared to be following the transcript word by word, looking perhaps for any small inaccuracy. When that one tape finished, he was still solemn. I take that as a measure of his belief in the account. I've watched Mr. Stevens closely several times in order to gauge his reactions to testimony.

I'm no clinical psychologist, but after these many weeks I've seen a good cross-section of his behavior. I'm convinced he killed Lori Rochon. I think it is not yet firm in my mind whether this killing warrants the death penalty. However, there is no doubt so far for me that Stevens committed a capital crime in the murder of Raymond August. He was seen by Rodney Stokes as he (Stevens) raised a gun to shoot at him. I believe Stevens killed August because he went out that night to hunt humans on I-580. God help me if it is immoral to think it, but under the law as I know it, Stevens should be put to death for that.

Continuing on next time with Adventures in Psychology!

The Trial: Richard Clark Part 2

2010-07-28T14:03:00.000-07:00

Finally back to the blog. Thanks to a couple of loyal readers for poking me to get back to it...

Richard Clark Continues

Can I see the logic of Richard Clark's mind? Not really...He has made four taped statements, two of them sharply differing accounts of the night of April 2, 1989. In between he has woven a tapestry of lies. Now he is being escorted back to his cell and he has a new revelation: After the "final" statement by Clark, which puts TC behind the RX7, shooting Noyers as Clark held her, he was led from the interrogation room to the OPD sally-port by Sergeant McKenna. On the way down McKenna was saying that they knew he wasn't being truthful. He told Clark that Sgt. Roth was Clark's only friend, and that once Richard was in that cell all bets were off. As they reached the sally-port Richard became very emotional. I'm trying to picture this. Calrk is six foot seven and must weigh 230 pounds at least. Now he's breaking down, sobbing like a baby and telling Sgt. McKenna that he is the gunman, the shooter. He killed Leslie Noyers. Sgt. McKenna takes him back up to the "blue room" to tape another version.

In this one Clark is sitting in the passenger side of the RX7. Stevens is in the driver's side. Two women approach the ca. Stevens tells Clark that they will be "gettin' busy" tonight, getting free sex from a couple of working girls. One girl is white, the other black. They both approach Stevens' side of the car. Stevens has already handed Clark a .38 caliber snub-nose revolver. Stevens tells the black girl to go over to Clark's side of the car. Both doors are opened. Stevens asks the white girl how much a blow job would be. She says about $50 for both. So now we have a girl on both sides of the car and Stevens pulls out the Desert Eagle, ordering the white girl to get down and do it. Clark takes the cue, doing the same with the black girl. They both go at it for a while, but according to Clark neither one of them has an orgasm for about 15 minutes or so, so Stevens tells the (white) girl to stand up. Clark does the same (with the black girl). The white girl starts getting pissed off at Stevens, yelling about "You motherfuckers ain't gonna rip us off!" TC says: "Handle it, Rich", and Richard gets out, crosses behind the car and hits Noyers a couple of times. Stevens tells him to get back in the car. When he does, Stevens hands him the Desert Eagle (!) and takes the .38 snub-nose from Clark.

Noyers is still mouthing off to Stevens, so he says: "Man, we got to kill these bitches." Clark is not too happy and says he won't do it. Stevens gets out of the car and stands in front of the left front tire, pointing the revolver at Clark, ordering him to shoot Noyers. Clark says no. Stevens raises his voice, getting a stern look in his eye. Clark fires at Noyers three times, knocking her to the ground. As she lays there moaning and writhing, Stevens orders him to finish her off. He fires two or three more times, closing his eyes as he does. Stevens steals her purse and the two of them run back to Stevens' apartment house, hiding out for a couple of hours before splitting up.

The investigators heard this version and taped it for posterity. Richard Clark went to his cell at 1AM, having confessed to the murder, under duress, of Leslie Noyers. The next day he gave something called an Aranda statement. This is a taped statement in which only the actions of the person speaking are documented. Any reference to a partner is discussed obliquely, referring to them as "my friend". Richard is told that, based on his statements, the DA's office has decided not to press charges in the case of Lori Rochon. However, because of what he's admitted to in the previous tape the DA is continuing its pursuit of a murder charge against him. Now he is asked to tape the Aranda statement. He asks if his cooperation will ensure lenient treatment and he is told nothing special will ne done. "We'll see about that later."

He then tapes the statement which reiterates the previous night's story. At the end he says that he couldn't sleep the night before, thinking about how that girl died, her moaning in agony. "She didn't have to die. It was just stupid." I heard it again. That same tone in his voice. I'm getting the idea that he he probably did shoot Leslie Noyers and is afraid of going to jail for so many years. His testimony in court has been confused, contradictory, and confusing. He speaks clearly about most other events, but when the subject of the incident on Chetwood comes up he gets mixed up and contradictory, like a kid who doesn't want to get into trouble.

Mr. Burr's questioning continues...

Aaaannnd we're back.

Intermission

2010-04-30T06:22:00.000-07:00

For the last several weeks I've been running myself ragged, what with softball/baseball season, my high school reunion and all that stuff. I will complete this story of Charles Stevens and Richard Clark as soon as I can get enough sleep and tidy up the yard. See you soon...

The Trial: Richard Clark - Part 1

2010-03-20T18:22:00.000-07:00

The murder trial of Charles Arnett Stevens and Richard Clark. From my journal...
2/25/93

On the morning of February 24th, we all assembled in the jury room and trooped down the stairs. I'd like to digress here momentarily to describe this up-and-down-the-stairs ritual: In the morning, one of our group (jury) is required to bring some sort of breakfast. Usually it is a type of pastry, but we've had bagels and variety breads as well. I've come to anticipate having breakfast now, and I'm sure my waistline will soon show it. After all, we don't really do much besides sit around all day listening. When we have our breaks, things get pretty noisy. There are a few men on the jury who are quite loud when they speak. When everybody gets going it can be pretty boisterous.

There is a buzzer system that serves as our communications link with the deputy sheriff down in the courtroom. His name's Peter, like my son, and we all appreciate his friendly manner. He makes coffee and transmits our requests and questions to the judge. When we are all present before session, somebody in the jury room pushes a button to indicate such. He will give us a single return buzz to acknowledge. When he buzzes twice, we all rise and assemble in numerical order at the head of the steps that lead down from the sixth floor to the fifth floor courtroom. When we have been dismissed for a recess, we all rise and file up the stairs. For some reason, due I suppose to my position on the steps, I relay the information from the head of the stairs to Peter that the door at the top is either open or closed. It has become mundane almost to the point of screaming routine. "Is the door open?" By the time this thing is over I won't want to hear that phrase ever again!

Whew...We strolled into the court and took our seats on Wednesday morning. The judge asked Mr. Selvin if he had anything further, to which he said: "Mr. Stevens' defense rests. For now."

Say what?

We all looked at each other. This wasn't really what we were expecting. Well, the prosecution once reopened its case, perhaps that would happen here, too. A strange and wonderful thing is this system. With that, Judge McGuinnis asked Mr. Zimmer if he would present his case for defendant Clark.

All along this Zimmer fellow has been somewhat facetious, asking rather pointless questions. With his opening statement, which lasts well over an hour, he discusses the circumstances of Richard Clark being charged with murder based on his confession. He said that we could go into a far-reaching discussion about whether a person who killed another under duress could be considered guilty of murder. He spoke about the techniques the police use to gather information during interrogations, never once claiming that the methods were truly improper or coercive. He claimed that Mr. Clark had been mentally and physically abused as a child, and that the mind-set Richard had had contributed to his completely fabricated confession. He said that we would hear testimony from a clinical psychologist verifying a mental condition that made the subject conducive to authority figures. He told them what he thought they wanted to hear, filling in the blanks as they were "cued" into him until he came up with a story that implicated himself as the shooter in a crime he was nowhere near.

Then Mr. Zimmer called none other than Richard James Clark, jr. to the stand in his own defense. Other than the one edited tape we had heard earlier in the people's case, no one had heard his voice. Now it was to be almost all we were to hear. The primary focus was on the chronology of the weekend Leslie Noyers died. He claims to have helped Charlie, or TC as he was known on the street, steal the tan Mazda RX7 on Friday night 3/31/89. He took the car home, the "first sports car stolen for me", that night and parked it next to his house. Saturday he drilled in Fairfield (CA) with the Army National Guard. Sunday, same thing. Sunday night he drove around with TC, drank some beer and went home in the RX7. Monday morning he got up late and drove the car to Mosswood Park in Oakland to abandon it.

What's wrong with this picture?

Leslie Noyers was killed on Monday morning at about 1:45 AM. The RX7 was in the impound lot at OPD by Monday morning. I'm writing this part two days later and I have to remember that I don't know just exactly what has really happened that night. Clark was picked up in Monterrey County jail after being held on a supposed bench warrant for car theft. Sergeant Roth and Sergeant Chenault escorted him to OPD and into an interrogation room. They started talking to him at about 1:30 in the afternoon and didn't stop until just after midnight. In the course of questioning, Richard Clark told many stories. He claimed then, and still does, that at first all he did abandon the RX7 on Monday morning. The officers challenged that, and the story began to change. Now he was with TC, Mario, a fictional character named Chuck, and they were all rifling through cars on Chetwood. The two women in the story approach TC and Chuck as Clark and Mario "hid down" behind cars. He sees TC and Leslie Noyers argue and he shoots her, standing right in front of her. Now he's challenged again, now the story has just TC and himself in it. He holds Noyers near the back of the RX7 while Charlie shoots her after an argument. Nope, the sergeants aren't buying that either. They sketch out a small diagram of the car, showing him where the casing were found in the car and where the body was found. Now he says he's in the car, he gets a little confused, he's with other people or he's not. Now he's just rambling and the investigators have to leave the room to let him calm down.

While Richard is being questioned, he starts volunteering information about another incident. This is something that takes all of us on the jury by surprise, as I expect Mr. Burr knew it would. Richard started telling them about a night when the two of them were out drinking, talking about stealing some cars. They went over to the south side of the I-580 freeway, eventually settling on an Olds 98, '79 model or so. They drove around, getting beer and later some burgers. Just goofin' around in a stolen car. After getting pretty drunk, Clark asks TC for a ride home. They get on the freeway at Park Blvd., and as they are entering the ramp TC starts rocking back and forth, saying "I got to shoot somebody". He unzips his jacket, revealing the Desert Eagle, and puts the gun in his lap. Richard says something to him about "What you talking about, man?" as they start to pull up next to a dark-colored car, a Ford Granada, driven by a black man. TC opens his window and picks up the gun. Richard says "Hey man, don't kill him. He's a brother, you don't want to do this". Stevens rolls up the window and keeps driving. He sees a white Mustang and pulls up beside it, matching its speed. As he opens the window Clark says "Hey man, you gonna shoot that white woman?" Stevens says "No, that's a man." Clark says "No, it's a..." Stevens fires one shot into the Mustang, shattering the passenger window and causing the car to "wobble" in its lane. Stevens turns to look at Clark, who is by his own testimony shocked by what's just happened. All he can think of to say is "Can I have one of those beers in the back?" Stevens says "Yeah", then they drive to TC's to drop him off, where Clark says TC threatened to harm him if he told anyone about the shooting.

Then Clark drives home, unloads the beer and goes out to Antioch to see a friend. The next day it seems the police have found the Olds 98 in Antioch and Clark has to get home somehow. When he does he makes sure to find out about the shooting on TV after telling his Mom and sisters about it. He talks to TC on the phone, asking him "Did you see on the television about last night?" TC is excited, agitated. That's pretty much the gist of this tape. Little side comment intrigue me here. I've heard a couple of the other tapes, listened to the tone of his voice while he rambled about different versions of the Noyers incident. While he related the Rochon killing he was steady, consistent, calm. While he described the chronology of Lori Rochon's murder he kept describing the feel of the draft of air when TC opened the window before shooting her. When he had finished the account, the sergeants summarized briefly and Richard seemed to get a little detached, saying the word "stupid..." in a sad, regretful way.

This would not be the last time I would hear him say this.

He also told them that he had been in the 27th and West neighborhood the afternoon before Laquann Sloan's murder. Nothing more on that now but I'm sure we'll hear more later.

Thursday ended with Mr. Burr questioning Richard Clark about various aspects of his taped statements. The defense wants us to believe that Clark was badgered and bullied into admitting his role in the killing of Leslie Noyers. We are expected to see that Richard did this in order to "give them what they wanted to hear" , to tell them stories so absurd, (his contention) that they will know something is wrong and stop questioning him. He thinks that TC will state that Clark wasn't even there, even though Clark has just implicated him in two murders.

(An aside here: I'm watching Judgment at Nuremberg. An interesting note while jotting down thoughts about a murder trial of lesser scale)

And the beat goes on.

The Trial: The Other Side of the Story

2010-03-12T16:45:00.000-08:00

I wasn't spending much time at work. The trial was really stressful on all of us, and even though we regularly had Fridays off, not many of the jurors went to work, preferring a three day weekend. Our kindly bailiff, Peter, told us that if our bosses called, all he would say was: "I'm sorry, I cannot disturb jurors during the trial." This was, of course, before the advent of the ubiquitous cell phone.

The journal continues:

Mr. Selvin's opening remarks...

...were something less than spectacular. His client faces the possibility of a death sentence, and the remarks were nothing more than a mild reminder to remain objective, to "trust me", and that "you will see that things are not what they appear to be", referring to Mr. Burr's presentation. He has a strange manner, and it was affecting Juror #9, a woman named Leigh. She was on the verge of losing it with laughter. She thinks he's really buffoonish, a view shared to greater and lesser degrees by everybody, and she's finding it hard to contain herself. I told her that all she needed to do to calm down was to look into the gallery at the relations of Raymond August who have been there every day since the start. Maybe she won't find this so funny anymore after seeing the lines of pain on those people's faces. I'm not an altogether serious person by nature, but this is probably one of the most important things I'll ever do as a human being, and that helps keep my mind on the right track.

The first defense witness was a gentleman who had stopped at a traffic light at the corner of West and 27th St. on the night of Loquann Sloan's murder. He saw a "black male" come around the corner from West to 27th and proceed eastbound. He saw two more "black males" follow about 50 yards behind, coming from the same direction. A white "Chevette-type" vehicle came from the same direction on West, turning quickly onto 27th and through the red light. The next sequence of events is quick: The car stops as three shots are heard, the two "black males" run across the street behind the witness's car yelling "somebody's been shot!". The witness looks in his side view mirror, through glass that is "limo-smoked" tint, and sees the white car drive off. He takes off, returning later to give a statement. All this information is distilled from a fairly combative between him and Mr. Burr. The fellow seemed to be trying to keep from being "railroaded" by the prosecution. He was really defensive, unnecessarily so, and it was a little painful for us to listen to him when there really was no problem. I think he felt that Mr. Burr represented The System, the same one that held him for several hours the night of Loquann Sloan's murder. He was cooped up in an interrogation room at OPD, and he probably didn't enjoy it.

Next on the All-Star Chuck Stevens defense parade was Mrs. Ziegler. She was a real hoot! What is it with the old black ladies living on the 700 block of 27th Street? This lady got up there, she must have been seventy years old, and she was wearing a very shiny silver blouse with gold ornaments on it, along with several necklaces and intricately designed earrings. To be blunt, she looked like an aged madam. I don't know if these were her best clothes, or whether she always dresses this way. Anyway, she began her recounting of the events of the night Sloan was killed. She lives, still, in the house right above the murder scene. She was somewhat confused about the facts, but eventually Mr. Selvin was able to glean a certain chronology from her. She was in her bedroom that night, just about to get into bed. She heard three sharp sounds and assumed that her daughter was banging on the door, trying to get in. When she didn't hear any other sounds she looked out the window of her bedroom. She saw a male black man run from the area just behind her car into the street and jump into the passenger side of a vehicle which had pulled up there. (The earlier witness claimed that nobody had entered or left the vehicle he saw) She crossed from the bedroom to the living room. By the time she looked out of that window she saw the car pull away and a body was lying on the sidewalk. She then dialed 911. It was really funny watching Mr. Selvin struggle through this lady's testimony. He asked her specific questions about her position in the house, her angle on the scene, the position of her car in the driveway, the autos in the street, the number of steps the suspect took between one position and the next, what time it was, time intervals, so many things... She tried to answer as best she could, but it was apparent that Mr. Selvin had little experience with older people. He tried leading her through several sequences. only to have Mr. Burr object to the questions being leading. When he re-phrased the questions to suit the objection, Mrs. Ziegler couldn't answer the question properly. We got a fair picture of what she saw, and it wasn't much. Mr. Burr was able to exercise patience and tact with her, and his questions simply clarified in a matter of minutes what it had taken Selvin an eternity to accomplish. No doubt about it, if nothing else this guy is a master showman, using the defense's own witness against him.

We spent a lot of time in the jury room today, just waiting around. This doesn't even require speculation. It's obvious that certain items of evidence or questioning or procedure are being discussed out of our presence in order to present a proper case to us. It may be proper in the strictest legal sense, but it makes for some extremely tedious work. The other folks I share the jury room with are nice enough, but I have to admit that none of them would be particularly interesting to me as acquaintances save one: A fellow named Skip, a Vietnam War veteran helicopter pilot. He seems the closest to a kindred spirit, but there is a feeling there that I cannot explain. I don't think we would be friends on the "outside". Something stands in the way...Is he gay? He sends out cloaked signals. He is definitely a complex person. The dynamics of this jury are most definitely potentially explosive. We have both strong and weak personalities, and I see the possibility of sharp discord when the time comes (to deliberate). Meanwhile I survive, small talk, reading whatever book I check out of the library. So far I have checked out The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov, The History of Western Civilization, or My Story by Joe Bob Briggs, and Rabbit is Rich by John Updike. Nothing inspirational yet, but we'll see...

I seem to say that a lot. Hmmm.

Next: Day to Day, or Now for Defendant #2.

The Trial: Deja Vu

2010-03-07T08:27:00.000-08:00

It's yesterday once more...
2/23/93

This morning Mr. Burr reopened the case for the prosecution long enough to introduce some new evidence. I had been prepared to hear Mr. Selvin's opening remarks, but what we ended up seeing this morning hardened my view considerably toward Charles Stevens. Paul Fenn was brough to the stand again, and he identified lead fragments and two copper jackets that he had found around the inside of his van for a few days after being shot at on the Harrison Street/Oakland Avenue off ramp. Next, Lansing Lee, the OPD's criminologist, stated that the jacketing had been fired from a weapon with 6-right. polygonal rifling. Mr. Selvin got Lee to admit that a person could take the .357 mag bullet out of the casing, or buy it separately, and then reload it into a 9mm casing, firing it through another polygonal barrel. Sorry, doughboy. (I refer to Mr. Selvin in this way because of his pasty skin and The Ladyfingers Incident) I don't buy it. When a person could buy ammo of that type that was suited to that gun, he wouldn't go to the trouble to reload it just to save a few pennies per round. Besides, the 9mm is a .355 bullet; the .357 bullet reloaded into the 9mm casing would fit, but dangerously close, with a possibility for blowback in the breech. Not worth the trouble.

The last witness for The People was Sgt. McKenna. He explained that the jackets and lead fragments had been given to the OPD Property Section, only to be forgotten. He was pretty straightforward about it, as might be expected. He's a very sober fellow, never once cracking a rather grim facade. I can imagine that it must be tough being a homicide inspector for a happenin' town like Oakland.

The real bombshell came just before lunch. Sgt. McKenna identified an envelope that was found on Chuck's dresser the day of the search (and the death of Raymond August). On the back side of the envelope we saw a list of numbers and letters, followed by a dash at each number, and another number, like this:

Sgt. McKenna identified the first number as the designation under the California Penal Code for assault with a deadly weapon. The next dealt with auto theft Section 187 designates the crime of murder. The last is a violation of the forearms code. (There is also a mysterious gap in the list, and we don't find out until after the trial what was not shown to us that day) With no real fanfare, Mr. Burr has presented us with Charles Stevens' scorecard, listing in detail the crimes he has committed. This really dealt a hell of a blow to his case, even before we've heard it. I will be very interested in seeing how the defense explains what it means to them. We looked at pictures of the DaSilva shooting scene, Paul Fenn's van, and the neighborhood around Santa Clara Ave/Chetwood Ave/Jean Street. The prosecution makes a good case for itself, with all these assaults occurring in the same area at the same time with a unique weapon, no further assaults or physical evidence connected with the gun type since then. Tough stuff to overcome. We'll see...

Next Chapter: Doughboy makes the Case

The Trial: Second Wind

2010-03-01T21:23:00.000-08:00

Real Life was weird around this time. Every day I walked out of the madness and mayhem and into school conferences, paying the rent, doing my job. It was like leaving a movie. It stuck with me, coloring my view on the day to day shit coming at me. My company had a bowling party one Saturday and I enjoyed the chance to get away from it all, drink some beers and knock over a few pins. One of my buddies had a friend with him. The dude heard that I was on the Freeway Shooter jury and came over to me. "Hey that's cool, man. Guy had a Desert Eagle, right? I heard that he..." "Hey!", I said, "I'm not supposed to talk about the trial. I'd be in deep shit if I did." He tried to just wave it off, like hey, nobody will know, but that just wasn't my style.

My journal from 1993 continues...

2/17/93 (One day after my birthday)

Today Mr. Burr concluded the case for the prosecution. We have heard from many witnesses concerning each individual scene, and here are my opinions so far:

-Leslie Noyer

From the taped statement it is obvious to me that Richard Clark murdered the woman. He admits to it directly, with no more emotion than he might display describing throwing out the garbage. I am appalled and angry at him for this act, though I will listen with whatever objectivity I can muster to his attorney, the ever-smiling Mr. Zimmer. Charles Stevens left a palm print on the RX7 found at the scene, and of course the Desert Eagle is his. No witnesses have been called to place him there, though Mr. Burr continues to imply his presence through photographs and testimony showing the proximity of Stevens' apartment house to the scene of the shooting.

The taped statement from Clark mentions a black prostitute (who) performed oral sex on him, but I suppose she hasn't been found or whatever. There is also the question of who Mario is, the mystery man in or not in the car around the night of the Stokes and August incident. But I get ahead of myself...

-Anderson/Lee

Eight casings found at the scene are positively matched to the Desert Eagle Exhibit #40 by ballistics criminologist Lansing Lee. The scene is just a couple of hundred yards from Stevens' apartment. Jenelle Lee gives a partial identification of Stevens himself, though she only sees him for a second or two before he starts firing. These were two lucky ladies.

-Loquan Sloan

As I have said, the boy was quite simply executed. The casings (3) at the scene are positively identified as coming from the Desert Eagle. This scene is the farthest West from Stevens' home, though it has been stated that the trip between them is only five minutes or so...I believe firmly at this point that this murder qualifies as one involving special circumstances, unless the defense admits to the responsibility and builds a case around the actual nature of the shooting. It won't be easy to change my mind right now.

-Fenn/Peters

This shooting scene bears all of the same method that is described by Stokes. There really isn't enough physical evidence to say with absolute certainty that Stevens did the shooting. Thing is, though, that just minutes later, after the "white sedan" in the Fenn/Peters (shooting) turns left on Pearl from Harrison...

-Upendra DaSilva

...is assaulted on Oakland Avenue, not far from the intersection with Santa Clara. That's a straight shot down to Jean Street. The casing found at the scene came from the infamous Desert Eagle. There are also the slugs and copper jackets which have become so familiar to me now.

-Lori Rochon

No casings found, but the slug that tore through that poor woman's body was quite well intact enough to be linked to a .357, polygonal, right-wound weapon; only the Desert Eagle fits that set of characteristics.The scene of the killing is within easy reach of Stevens' home, and no other murder or shooting has occurred using that type of weaponry or ammunition since. (Stevens was apprehended) The DA made a point, initially contested by Selvin, of telling us that nobody had offered any evidence since then leading to any other suspect, even though a reward had been offered.

-Rodney Stokes (and Raymond August)

No doubt about it, this is the most damning evidence against Stevens. We listened to his testimony for over two hours today, and his memory is impeccable. He remembers every detail with clarity, and identified Stevens positively in court and at the scene. He was a man involved in extraordinary and terrible circumstances, and he came through it with guts and courage.

(We discovered later that he had also been threatened with death if he testified by some of Stevens' lowlife friends)

He saw Raymond August murdered by Stevens; the physical evidence is clear in implicating the man. I have no doubt that Stevens should be severely punished for this crime. I will ponder just how far this severity needs to be carried.

The search of Stevens' home shows all the classic symptoms of the serial killer as seen on TV. Newspapers recounting each of the shootings, the cardboard wrapping for a dent-puller used to strip RX7 ignitions, all of the paraphernalia for the Desert Eagle, identical ammunition to that found at most of the crime scenes, some unidentified (though obviously important) 3x5 photos. The defense has so far laid down a patchwork plan, though I'm sure that will flesh out. Mr. Selvin has tried to cloud some inconsequential issues, though one stands out slightly. Technically speaking, the bolt from the Stevens Desert Eagle could be removed and used in another identical weapon, leaving the same identifying marks on the casings.

The probability or possibility that this happened is slim enough in my mind as to be out of the question. The gun is rare enough, much less would somebody ask to use the firing bolt alone, in exchange for what(?).

A brief word about Selvin and Zimmer. I am frankly not impressed. From the beginning they have seemed ineffectual, capricious, only semi-serious. Their questions have been without much point, except to interrupt. They asked me stupid questions while the jury interviews were going on, and they have asked frivolous questions about whether people have been to bakeries or whatever. I get the feeling that most, if not all of the jury had no respect for these two fellows. They'll have a lot of ground to make up with us before they're back even with Mr. Burr. He is self-assured and confident, with a businesslike manner. I have been impressed with his presentation.

On Monday, Part II of this act begins. Hold on tight...

The Trial: More Carnage

2010-02-21T08:49:00.000-08:00

At some point during my commute to the courthouse I noticed what I thought was a bit of fuzz on my left eye. I kept trying to blink it out or dab at it with my finger, but it remained. I discovered later that I had a "floater". I was told by my doctor that these are usually not a problem, and can be brought about by stress. Hmm...what kind of stress had I been under recently? The journal continues.

2/10/93

Seemed like a pretty routine day. We heard from Evidence Tech Viglienzone three or four times today, for one crime scene or another. The testimony of a Tech seems to be designed to set the whole gruesome picture before us, warts, guts and all. We saw photos and physical evidence in the murders of Loquann Sloan and Lori Rochon. We also listened to Tech-man explain what he found at the attempted murder of Mr. DeSilva on Oakland Avenue. Lori Rochon's son gave testimony, mostly concerned with his Mom's normal routines and schedule the night she was killed. The boy was just 19 when this happened, and I'm sure that Mr. Burr had him up there mostly for emotional value. It worked.

A fellow named Critchlow got to the stand and described how he was reading about the car (owned by Upendra DeSilva) getting shot up by the bakery his daughter owned down near Santa Clara and Oakland Avenue. He got curious and went down to the scene. Lo and behold! He finds a Federal .357 Magnum shell casing just sitting in the street! When the DA asks him to indicate, on a photo taken the night of the shooting, where he found it, he draws a little "X" right under the rear bumper of a police car! What a guy...Well, the DA is finished with him and now we come to the cross-examination. We on the jury wonder if Mr. Selvin is going to try to get flip with this older gentleman as well. All he asks is what the name of the bakery is. Mr. Critchlow tells him that the place is called Ladyfingers. Doughboy says: "Excellent muffins she serves there..." We sit, wondering where this is leading, and Selvin says: "Thank you, no further questions." with a sly grin on his face. Everybody is looking at one another with astonishment. What the hell is this? Joking is one thing, but this guy couldn't have less tact or subtlety. He exacerbates the situation by offhandedly saying to the judge: "I eat there often, great place."

That's all I can take, and in a loud stage whisper I say: "Who cares?" This causes something of a buzz and I look at the judge, who is turning slightly red, with his hand over his mouth. Some of my fellow jurors are looking at me with amusement or astonishment, but I meant it. Levity has its place in some small measure, but goddammit there are people in the gallery who have lost loved ones to violent crime, and his client is the main suspect! Treat these proceedings with some decorum or you can just kiss off my sympathy vote...

"Loquann Sloan was executed." That phrase appears in my court notes, and it's just plain fact.

(A note here: We were not allowed to take our note journals home with us, so I had actually paraphrased. See image below.)

Somebody stepped out of a walkway, put a gun to his head and pumped two rounds into his left temple, with a third bullet grazing the back of his head. No matter what this kid was into, he didn't deserve this.

With each new packet of physical evidence we see, those same copper bullet jackets show up. The DA referred to them as "calling cards", and that's an apt description.

We parked our cars across the street at the Oakland Museum, the cheapest place we could find. $2 for all day parking and we were being "paid" $5 per day plus mileage one way. My "pay" came to just over $7 per day. I was lucky that my employer actually had a jury duty pay policy in place or I would have been screwed. I often used that short, (and sometimes dangerous) walk across 11th Street to pause and take in the picturesque beauty of Lake Merritt and surrounding trees. Then I'd take a deep breath and plunge back into Life, one direction or another.

Continued...

The Trial: Grim Reality

2010-02-20T14:16:00.000-08:00

After a three day weekend away from the trial of Charles Stevens and Richard Clark...

2/9/93

Looks like it was one day down, one day up. Yesterday we spent most of the day on Leslie Ann Noyer's case. The centerpiece of the day was Richard Clark's statement concerning the early morning hours of April 3, 1989. He recounts that he drove around town after getting home from Army Reserve training out in Fairfield. He stopped at the Quick Stop on Santa Clara at Harrison, bought beer and somehow got to 541 Chetwood. In the tape, several parts have been edited out. To maintain my objectivity, I don't think I'll speculate here what the judge ordered edited out. It's really tempting, though, and I'll write about it when appropriate. Clark is sitting on the passenger side of the stolen RX7, yeah, another one...He somehow gets one of the two women "on the street" to come over to his side of the car and perform oral sex with him at gunpoint. He has the Desert Eagle pointed at her as she does this.

He states that he couldn't "get off" because he just wasn't "into it" like that. Somehow an argument ensued between Clark and Noyers, and Clark pumps three bullets in her direction. She falls to the ground, moaning and twitching. Clark stands over her and shoots again. The pictures tell it all...my God, I'm really consumed with anger over the dumb animal thinking that this tape shows. Clark shows no real emotion about it at all. I really don't understand the cold-bloodedness of it. In my court notes I write:

I'm shaking with anger. I've had to sit here all day Monday, looking at the horribly mutilated skull of this young woman, brain tissue out of the body, a life of possibility cut short. That night I go home, turmoil bubbling inside of me like a cauldron. I'm really glad Jan is home. I give her a hug later in the kitchen while fixing dinner, and I shed some tears for this woman I never met. The terrible intimacy of her death forces me to view the possible demise of anybody close to me. Well, I need to chill.

2/10/93

Today was much easier to take. We had several interesting moments. The first two witnesses of the Anderson/Lee shooting came forward. Ms. Anderson is a Federal parole officer. She and her friend, Jenelle Lee, were driving back to Anderson's apartment on Jean. They were coming down the hill on Santa Clara and Lee truned briefly, noticing a man walking down the hill. He stopped, raised his hands, and shots pinged into the car, shattering the window. Ms. Anderson simply filled in the details as best she could. When her testimony was finished, she happened to be standing in front of an elarged map of her neighborhood. The DA had just walked back to his table without asking any further questions, so she just strolled off the stand. She hadn't been dismissed, and nobody noticed her leaving until she was past the gate into the gallery. The judge said something like: "Oh by the way, you are dismissed." It really cracked everyone up. Believe me, the tension of this case will create a funny moment whenever one tries to eke through.

The next witness, Jenelle Lee, brought us right back into the here and now. She recounted what she experienced that night, and it was obvious that it was difficult for her still. She bit her words off, becoming snappish with the defense attorneys even at the most innocuous questions. She barely saw the shooter, but gave a pretty fair general description of him. In the lineup that included Stevens held over three months later, though, she identified a different man. Tell the truth, I don't hold that against her. The weight of Stevens' other taped testimony convinces me so far that the gun used in the shooting at Anderson's car was wielded by Stevens. He sits there in court smiling and grinning while Jenelle Lee recounts possibly the worst night of her life. This doesn't help him in my eyes. I'm developing a certain hatred for him.

The last witness today was an older black woman named Mary who first called the police the night the 16-year-old boy was shot. (Loquann Sloan) She had been up late with a cold the night of 6/8/89, and she heard four shots ring out in short order. She went to the window. Seeing nothing, she went to the doorway onto the porch. She then went out onto the porch, leaning over to see the young man lying in a pool of blood on the ground. This woman seemed on the face of it to be a frail old woman, with occasional memory lapses and shaky mannerisms. When the defense doughboy got ahold of her, though, she just set him right in his place. He wanted to clear (muddy?) things up in the chronology of her actions just after the shooting. She corrected him several times, her voice taking on a stern tone whenever she felt he was leading her astray. We all got a kick out of her. It was a nice way to end this day.

We're all human beings here. Well, some only biologically I guess. That "certain hatred" I spoke of came from my reaction to Stevens' totally inappropriate reactions to the testimony. He did this time after time over the course of the trial. Obviously his attorneys didn't know, didn't care, or felt they could do nothing about this. His loss.

Movin' on...

The Trial: Further Testimony

2010-02-19T15:19:00.000-08:00

My journal entries from the trial of The County of Alameda v. Charles Arnett Stevens and Richard Clark

2/4/93

Get tires from Bill Roberts

~~Dog & cat food~~/Other groceries

Equipment from Brian for clinic after 4:30

Call dentist to cancel Peter's appointment

Call printer about forms

Start calling to confirm clinic help

Confirm pitching machine availability

Things pile up when you're out of touch. I'm back to work tomorrow. Will each individual crime scene play itself out this way, day after day? I can see how we'll be here for some time. How do you really and truly disregard something you've heard in court, yet been told to forget?

We made the paper, the trial did...I was a good juror and didn't read any of it. So proud of myself.

2/4/93

We listened to Tech Rivers complete her report about what she found around the RX7. The prosecution focused on the fact that there was a regular house key stuck in the ignition of the RX7. I'm sure her job is tough. She has to take pictures at some pretty horrible crime scenes - blood and guts everywhere.

We heard from Officer Flynn, the cop who searched Stevens, finding an extra clip, loaded, and one live round in his jacket. Not much other testimony here, just substantiating the fact Stevens possessed the optional (?) equipment for the gun.

Next up: The coroner who autopsied Ray August. What struck me about the testimony here was that the DA had to structure his questions to prove it was the gunshot wounds that killed the man, not the accident. After viewing the photos of the man's head, it's pretty apparent to me that it was the bullet that did the job. The entrance wound was small and neat, the exit wound about the size of a half dollar, maybe larger. We got a detailed description of all the wounds, just to be sure that nothing there would have killed him outside of the bullets to his back and head. We also examined the slugs taken from his body, some aerial photos of the scene. The most sinister piece of evidence though, is the Desert Eagle. As it's passed around, all eyes are on it. It comes to me. I hold it with the barrel pointed at my left eye in order to see the rifling inside. What the DA said in his opening statement was accurate: Instead of the lans and grooves of a normal fire arm which are carved into the metal to spin the slug accurately, there were six smoothly polished, twisted ridges. This supposedly improves accuracy with such a powerful charge. Then I hold the weapon in my left hand to check the balance.Stevens is right handed, and I have wondered how easy it really was for him to steer a car with his "strong" hand while firing with his left.

The DA claims, and there is a statement later by Stevens himself, that he has practiced firing the Eagle with both hands. It is a well balanced weapon, semi-automatic. I could probably do the same kind of damage he did with a gun like this.

After lunch we're treated to the detective from Homicide who interviewed Stevens at the police station. We listen to his tape-recorded statement while following along with the transcript. Stevens admits to possession of the gun, practicing with it, driving around the area at the time of the shooting. He says that he had no idea why the officer pulled him over. He was with somebody named Mario earlier, and in the statement he thinks Mario is still around, either busted or running away. He claims to have had one 16 oz. beer earlier in the evening. He thinks he was turning onto 35th or MacArthur instead of the freeway when he was captured at the on ramp. He sounds tired, but lucid. So lucid, in fact, that either he is blocking out what he did or he's one hell of a liar.

There are moments where he mumbles or hesitates, and I don't know how to interpret these moments. I'll need more information all around this point before I get a clearer picture of his mental condition or personality. How much of this can I believe?

This seems to wrap up the main portion of the DA's case with respect to the night of 7/27/89. I'm sure we'll hear more about it later. Now the next fellow on the stand is another ordinary cop, the first one on the scene of the murder of Leslie Noyer. She is considered the first victim of the Clark/Stevens murder lesson. Clark is charged with being the trigger man, while Stevens supposedly lured Noyer to her death. The officer seems like a tired man. He's not too happy having to describe what he found on the driveway there on Chetwood, but he hangs tough. No need my describing here what he found. It was all covered in the opening statement. Time to chill out now. Time to go home...

I drove beneath the 35th Street overpass on Interstate 580 every day going to and from the trial from my home in Dublin. It was hard to pass the concrete pillar where Ray August died without feeling a pang of sadness and sympathy for his loved ones. I'm so glad I had a lot of other things on my plate at home to keep my mind off the horror I was seeing recounted every day.

Next: Keeps gettin' rougher...

The Trial: The Story Continues...

2010-02-18T20:17:00.000-08:00

From my personal journal....

2/3/93

Although we only spend five hours, more or less, in the courtroom, everybody is feeling pretty fatigued toward the end of the day. Today we listened to the testimony of Deborah Rivers, a police civilian evidence tech; former captain Smith of OPD, (and) police evidence tech Hutchinson. These three people describe the events of 7/27/89, the techs (delving) into precise detail.

Hutchinson the gathering of evidence, physical and photographic, from the scene of Raymond August's final resting place in his Prelude. He took photos of the skid marks, the place on the 35th Street overpass pillar that the Prelude struck, the interior and exterior of the Prelude and the Blazer, and one shell casing found on the freeway. Some contention arises between the defense and the prosecution when the DA tries to get Hutchinson to interpret the blood spatter pattern on the Prelude windshield. The problem seems to be, only my opinion, maybe the defense wants us to believe that somebody else did the shooting or what? Jeez, I really don't know if they want us to think maybe Stokes did it or if it's a tactic to cloud the issue.

Captain Smith detailed his capture of Stevens, identifying him in the courtroom and identifying the weapon that fell out of Stevens' jacket. There was no real challenge to his testimony, only how long it took him to get from 14th (Avenue) and 35th (Street) to the overpass. Why? The details, as I've written them, were really immediate and exciting when listening to Smith tell them. It's only day two, but there's a hell of a lot of evidence already mounting up against this guy.

Rivers was the tech that that secured and collected evidence from the westbound 35th ramp. She collected the gun, clips and ammo. She photographed the interior of the RX7, showing a spent casing and a live round, .357 Mag load. She also notices scratch marks along the driver side of the RX7, consistent with glass shattering against the car.

It's eerie to project myself into that scene: the Mazda pulling up beside the Prelude, shots ringing out, the car skidding across the road, striking the center divide, pinballing across into the concrete abutment head-on, the driver probably already dead before the car stops skidding. The interior of the Prelude is showered with blood and brain tissue, Meanwhile the RX7 circles around and stops to watch. I will be objective, but it is really asking a lot of me.

I think I'll go to the library tomorrow and check out a book, just to distract me from this when I can.

The Oakland Public Library is just steps away from the courthouse and I take full advantage of my library cards privileges. Sometimes I walk around Lake Merritt. On one of the first days we jurors are packed into an elevator, descending to ground level to go out for lunch. The doors open on floor 4 and there are all three defense attorneys. We all stare at each other for a moment before Mr. Selvin says: "We'll wait for the next one...." Good idea!

More later.

The Trial: Day One Part Two

2010-02-12T16:03:00.001-08:00

My journal from 1993 continues. I italicize from time to time to keep things clear or smooth out choppy ideas. I wrote most of the entries the day they happened, trying to get down every detail from the proceedings.

Back in synch now...

Now the DA talks about the circumstances of the night of July 27, '89. A fellow named (Rodney) Stokes, in a red Blazer, is traveling westbound on 580 near the Harrison Street exit. A white RX7 pulls up close to him and Stokes sees a gun held in somebody's hand extending from the car. He tries to outrun the RX7 unsuccessfully, then he slams on the brakes just as a shot is fired into the Blazer's lower-right windshield. The driver (extends his arm from the car) turns and pumps two more shots into the grill of the truck, then speeds away. Stokes recovers, unhurt, and follows the RX7 with his lights off. He sees the RX7 approaching a white Honda Prelude in the same manner he was approached. He begins flashing his lights and honking his horn to distract the (shooter) driver or warn the other motorist, but three shots are fired into the Prelude, one of which passes through the skull of the driver, killing him.

The car crashes into the center divider then caroms across the freeway, crashing into the bridge support of the 35th Street overpass. The RX7 has exited at 35th, crossed over the freeway, then down the entrance ramp on the other side to the halfway point, where a man gets out to view the damage. Stokes stops at the accident scene, seeing that he can't help the driver and noticing the suspect watching the action from the other side of the freeway. He gets into the truck and drives down the High Street exit to Walgreen's, where he calls 911. He then drives the opposite way up the freeway (off ramp) back to the Prelude. He sees people gathering at the car, sees people on the overpass, sees the suspect's car still on the ramp with a police car parked right behind it!

A watch commander, out on routine patrol on 35th Ave has gotten the call from dispatch about the shooting. As he turns down the ramp to get on the freeway to double back, he sees Stevens sitting in the RX7, watching the action. The officer gets out of the car with gun drawn and orders Stevens to get out of the car with his hands up. Stevens does this, turns around once completely, then begins slowly stepping backwards. The cop yells at him to stand still and Stevens makes a break for it, trying to hoist himself over a concrete retaining wall. The officer (Smith?) pulls him down, is struck by Stevens, and the officer hears the sound of a gun clattering to the ground. He manhandles Stevens to the ground away from the gun and cuffs him just as Stokes comes running up, shouting that Stevens "..is the guy the guy who shot at me and the other guy!"

Ballistics ties the weapon to the other killings and shootings by the tool marks (on the brass) and the hexagonal striations common to the Desert Eagle. Clark admits, according to the DA, to killing Noyers with the Desert Eagle. The DA wants us to convict Stevens of special circumstances, lying in wait for his victims, a consideration that would bring the death penalty.

Both defense counsel declined opening statements, deferring until their defense arguments began.

With that, the first witness for the prosecution took the stand. His name was Matthews, and he witnessed the incident between Stokes and the RX7 from about 30-40 yards away. He testified that he saw flashes of light and heard reports as if the car was backfiring. He said that it never entered his mind that he might be witnessing a shooting. The RX7 had moved close to the Blazer, and after the flashes the two vehicles swerved around each other, with the RX7 accelerating quickly away. The Blazer pulled over, turned off its lights, then sped after the RX7. Mr. Matthews lost sight of both of them, then came upon the Prelude crashed on the side of the road, with the Blazer stopped and (Stokes) trying to render aid. Matthews drove to a gas station, where the phone did not work. He went back to Walgreen's where Stokes was already on the phone. Matthews went home, calling the Homicide Department later, after hearing about the shooting.

The defense attorney for Stevens seemed to try to cloud the testimony somewhat by asking if Matthews could see how many people were in the RX7 or the Blazer, or whether he had seen the gun or identified the shooter. Matthews said that he could not make out details like that in the dark. The DA clarified things by asking the witness if he could see the actual bullets fired. The witness was excused. That pretty much took up the day.

The DA really put a hell of a lot in front of us. The thing I need to do most is maintain objectivity in the face of all this damning evidence before it is presented as actual fact. (What the hell did I mean by that?) It's snake-man's job to do just that, just as the two or three doughboys at the other end of the table will try to make me see it a completely different way. Well, one day down and (?) to go.

From my courtroom notes on that day:

"Note:
I wish the DA would get his names straight. He constantly confused street names and victim names. This doesn't help us keep track."

To Be Continued...

The Trial: Day One Part One

2010-02-10T19:00:00.001-08:00

My journal from 1993, continued...

February 2, 1993

Wait. Wait. Wait. Woke up this morning at 7:30 to be there in time for the (supposed) 10AM start. Got there by 9:30 or so and waited until 11:00, bullshitting with the other jurors. Skip (#4) and Jim (#2) and Rudy (#6) and I (#5) talked about every small subject imaginable. What the hell will we be able to dig up for conversation if this trial goes on for 2-3 months? The possibilities boggle the mind. We finally filed down to the courtroom, somewhat edgy and giddy. After being seated, the judge spoke to us again about appreciating our service, and instructed the clerk to read the statement of charges. I listened to them with a new intensity, placing each incident within a time frame in '89. It still amazes me how many charges we will have to rule on.

The prosecutor began his opening statement. We were brought up to speed on the entire case against (Charles Arnett) Stevens and (Richard) Clark. It started with the two of them getting together in high school as friends. After that time Clark joined the Army Reserve and Stevens worked at a pawn shop. The DA contends that Clark and Stevens met up around early '89, and that the two of them exchanged knowledge. Clark about effective killing methods and Stevens the sophisticated weapon, namely an Israeli-made handgun called the Desert Eagle. (I was right in my recollection of the weapon).

Clark and Stevens then supposedly went to an apartment complex on Chetwood, in Oakland, and by some means lured a young woman to the vehicle they were in, where Clark used three rounds fired from the passenger side toward teh driver side to mortally wound her. ((Leslie) Noyer is her name). He then allegedly gets out of the car and stands over her, bringing the weapon to within 18 inches of her head, and administers two shots as the coup de gras.

The DA shows us the horrible photo of her body, the skull cap blown ten feet from her body by the force of the last two shots. The photo doesn't affect me too terribly, what with my experiences seeing things like that (and worse) through the various photo labs I've worked in. It does visibly shake some of the jury members, and one or two people get up from the gallery and leave, probably to get some air. He shows us the weapon, the shell casings found at the various scenes, slugs taken from the bodies of the victims, and attempts to tie them all to Stevens. He shows us maps of the Oakland area, with red dots for murders and blue dots for attempted murders. He relates the circumstances of the shootings:

Two women returning home after a party, driving on an Oakland street. Their car is riddled with bullets. Neither is seriously injured. The casings matching the "tool marks" of a Desert Eagle are found at the scene. The area of the gunman is shown in its proximity to Stevens' home: down a driveway, across a church parking lot, over a fence from the apartment of Stevens. Noyer was killed just blocks away from the same point. The DA tries to show the ease of escape for Stevens from both points.

Then we hear about (Lori) Rochon. She was the first actual killing on (Interstate) 580. A single round was fired into her from (her) passenger side, mortally wounding her. She was able to stop the car without crashing, but died of the wound shortly thereafter. I then remembered hearing about that the morning it happened, knew that she was driving a white Mustang. Sure enough, the DA showed us a picture of the car and it was that Mustang. I remember that I felt glad that I was still driving the 24 Freeway to work and didn't have to pass the scene. The traffic reporter said that it was being treated as a potential homicide, and that sent a shiver through me.

I think that's when I started feeling edgy about being shot on the freeway. People were getting shot down in L.A. around the same time, and my fear was that my semi-aggressive driving habits might get me killed as well. Funny what you imagine...

Then we hear about two other incidents where shots were fired, but nobody was killed. A van was shot up at the 24/580 westbound merge, then three minutes later a man named DaSilva was slightly injured when (the windows of) his LeCar was shattered by several more shots. A fellow who read about this shooting walked down to the scene and found one of the shell casings bearing the same tool marks as the Desert Eagle. Imagine! How many people really have the wherewithal to go search a crime scene on their own just to "see what they can find"? Maybe I'm naive about this, but I can't see legions of people crawling about on all fours near every other shoooting in Oakland.

Oh, I put this one out of context: A 16-year-old boy was shot in the head three times in an outlying area of Oakland, He was, as the prosecutor put it: "...a drug dealer, as so many young men today are..." Well! The bot was taken by surprise, and three rounds were pumped into his skull at close range. We saw another graphically gory photo of him, showing the "stippling" effect of gasses and lead particles around the wound indicating weapon proximity. Again, a casing from a Desert Eagle was found. Whoever, and I stress not using the defendant's name here, used that gun was crafty but stupid. Leaving the brass at the scene of all these shootings was going to do in the shooter sooner or later, unless the person just tossed the weapon in the Bay and picked up another one.

Part Two Real Soon...

The Trial: Selection

2010-02-09T16:07:00.000-08:00

From here on I will be quoting directly from my journal from the time. Jan told me it would be the best way to come to grips with what I was experiencing. Once again she proved why I love her so.

January 25, 1993

At this, the fourth pre-trial visit to Section 6, it seems like a reunion. I recognize the people from my interview group, including the big guy who was obsessed with having many chickens for lunch. (Oh yeah, forgot that part!) I think about speaking to him, asking him if he had chicken and maybe how many he had, but sanity takes hold and I refrain. There is still that feeling of pent-up excitement in the air as we are ushered into the courtroom, a smell of old paint, dust, sweat mingled with aftershave and perfume. We are all silent but for the shuffling of feet. Everybody files into the room and finds a seat. Once again the whole crew is waiting for us: bailiffs, reporters, attorneys, the sanke man, clerk and assistant, and the judge, William McGuinnes. He's a pleasant guy, showing a lot of deference to all of us for sacrificing so much of our time to this cause. With the calling of the roll, the action begins.

McGuinnes instructs the clerk to read off a list of twelve names, randomly selected, to compose the initial jury. My name is the fifth one called, no particular surprise to me. I take my seat as juror #5, knowing deep in my soul that I will not be removed, that I will be here when the process is complete...

(This morning was odd, filled with snippets of dreams, odd talismans appearing in my second sight. The most vivid looked like this

It is the front of an eagle's beak clutching a bright ball of light with distinctive rays shining out. It reminds me of something from the Mayan art I saw recently on PBS. I'm not going to try to interpret it, but it was one more sign to me that my life path is being followed and intersected by this trial.)

...Three hours later. After numerous challenges by the three parties involved, the gallery has been cut to just six people from about 60-70, we are all in place. I have not been challenged since taking my seat. The only other person from the original group of 12 called still there is #6, the fellow next to me, named Rudy. The same Rudy from the interview group who wanted to discuss football to great lengths. I suppose we'll have something else to talk about from now on...

The bailiff shows us the jury room on the sixth floor, our home away from home for the next couple of months. He tells us the mundane details. Everybody seems a little shocked, bored, excited all at the same time.

Afterwards, as I drive home, I feel a sort of relief from finally knowing, but apprehension over the upcoming trial. How long will it really go? They said 8 weeks or so, but when has a government official ever really stuck to estimates? Hearing witnesses, seeing evidence, watching an ancient process being played out before me as I, along with four (other) men and seven women "good and true" sit to judge guilt or innocence, life and death. It connects us to thousands of others, maybe millions through history who have answered this call. Therein might lie the thrill running like a cool blue current through our veins, expressed in nervous laughter and glassy eyes.

This should really be memorable.

Next up: We're off!

The Trial: Stages

2010-01-10T09:43:00.000-08:00

Voir Dire:

In the United States, it now generally refers to the process by which prospective jurors are questioned about their backgrounds and potential biases before being chosen to sit on a jury. It also refers to the process by which expert witnesses are questioned about their backgrounds and qualifications, in order to potentially give an expert opinion in court testimony. As defined by Gordon P. Cleary: "Voir Dire is the process by which attorneys select, or perhaps more appropriately reject, certain jurors to hear a case."

I didn't think much about the jury duty experience over the next few weeks. It was strange enough that I was in the same room as a two guys accused of such heinous crimes. I remembered back when they were in the news, in 1989. There had been a couple of news reports about people being shot at and/or killed along Interstate 580 in Oakland, but even though I often took that freeway I never got the sort of fearful feeling one might in a case like Son of Sam or something.

I do recall one report clearly because of the nature of the story. On my way down to Berkeley early one morning the news was dominated by the capture of a young man who had shot at a couple of drivers on I-580 in the wee hours of July 27, 1989. The first guy, Rodney Stokes, had survived having three shots fired at him by ducking down and playing "possum". He then watched as the assailant drove forward and accosted another driver, shooting him fatally. Stokes kept his cool and after contacting the police was able to finger the shooter. The cops had the guy in jail and were questioning him. This action spoke to the altruist in me. I would have done the same thing as Rodney Stokes. That's what I was thinking at the time.

Spin forward four years and now I have seen this man standing before a judge with his accomplice. It made those stories more real. I had seen this accused killer and he really didn't look like a bad guy. I guess that was the point, with the nice clothes, neat haircut and nerdy glasses.

Next Letter

The next correspondence I got from the County was in a regular envelope, sent to me by the prosecutor's office. I was instructed to come to the courthouse on a particular day for voir dire. In this part of the trial preparations, small groups of potential jurors come in and sit in a small room, waiting to be called into the courtroom for individual questioning. There were three or four other people with me and we made small talk, speaking only a little about the particulars of this case. None of us knew that much about it, with one exception. There was fellow, a tall, rather overweight guy who seemed really anxious to get on the jury. He said he had been summoned before but never "made it". It seemed like he considered it a personal affront not to be among the chosen, just the opposite attitude most folks brought to jury duty.

Eventually a bailiff poked his head into the room and said: "Mister Newbegin, please." I followed him through the heavy wooden doors into a now nearly empty courtroom. Only the principal characters were there: The judge, defendants, lawyers, clerk, stenographer and bailiffs. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach much like the one I have before performing or public speaking. I was directed to the jury box and took a seat, a microphone before me.

First to question me was one of the defense attorneys. He asked me about my responses to the questionnaire concerning alcoholism in my family and my views on the jury system. I was forthright in my replies, talking about how alcohol had been tough on our family and that I had a lot of faith in the system, flaws and all. They asked me about my umpire experiences. "I suppose it's pretty tough to put up with the criticism, isn't it?"

I gave them my corny answer: "I call 'em like I see 'em."

Then Mr. Burr rose. I could feel my gut clenching as he walked slowly over to me from his seat. There was a sharpness, calculation in his eyes, and he smiled slightly and said: "Good morning, Mr. Newbegin". I knew I could not be untruthful with this guy. He was going to get the facts, ma'am.

"How did you first hear about this case?"

"I had heard some reports on the radio about a couple of people being shot on the highway. Then I heard about the guy getting caught one morning when one of the people he shot at followed him."

"And what did you think when you heard that report?"

"I guess I was hoping they got the right guy."

"You have heard that this case involves charges of murder in the first degree along with three special circumstances?"

"Yes, sir."

"This is a capital case, Mr. Newbegin. If this defendant is found guilty of the charges and any of those special circumstances are found to be true, he could be sentenced to life in prison without parole or the death penalty. Were you aware of that?"

"Yes, sir."

Burr went on to discuss with me my views on the death penalty. He asked me whether I thought it was a deterrent, talked about California Supreme Court Justice Rose Bird, whose controversial stand on the death penalty had gotten her fired. At the time I supported the death penalty as just another way of punishing people for the most heinous of crimes. This trial was my "put up or shut up" moment.

"What I need you to tell me, then, is this: If that were the case, would you be able to cast a vote to send this defendant to the gas chamber for the crimes he committed?"

I looked at Charles Stevens, who was busy writing something at his seat. Always writing, almost never looking up. I turned my gaze back to Mr. Burr. "Yes, sir, I could."

"Thank you, Mr. Newbegin. No more questions, your Honor."

I got up and headed out of the courtroom. I had no real sense of what would happen after that. Outside, the fat guy was still hanging around in the hallway by the elevators. "Hey, how'd you do?"

"I don't know, I just answered the questions."

"God, I hope they pick me for this one. This is just so cool, huh?"

"Yeah, cool. See ya."

I got in the elevator, went back to my car and returned to the working world. I thought about Burr's question and really had little doubt I could do it. If these terrible things were true, well, he deserved to fry, right? I felt at once a little excited, a bit overwhelmed by the potential experience. I guess I could see why the fat guy was that way. He was just acting out what most of us were thinking.

Furthur: A Jury of His Peers?

The Trial: Preface

2010-01-07T17:03:00.000-08:00

I will not be writing a linear account of all the events in my life after Jan and I were married. Too many stories would be left out because they are still being written; they are not yet resolved. This particular tale is a big honkin' nugget that deserves the light of day. Enjoy!

The Letter

It came through the mail slot like every other piece of correspondence I got every day of every week. I thought at first I had gotten a parking ticket I'd forgotten, left unpaid. "Superior Court of Alameda County" and the Seal thereof right on the front, light blue lettering on a white envelope. One of those perforated types that requires instructions to open. While I followed those notes carefully, I still tore the inner notice slightly. And there it was:

"You are hereby summoned to appear at Superior Court for Alameda County for jury duty."

Ah, really? I had joked with friends who complained about jury duty that I had never gotten a summons even though I had been a licensed driver since I was 16 and registered voter since 18. Now it was my turn. You know, people bitch about it but I thought: "Cool. Wonder if I'll get on a jury." I told my boss at Custom Process, the photo lab I worked at in Berkeley, that I had gotten the summons. I said I thought I probably wouldn't even make it to a trial. He looked at me kinda funny and shook his head: "Oh, you'll be on a jury, all right."

"What makes you say that?"

"I know you, Ed. If I was on trial for my life I would want a whole box full of people like you."

I didn't know what to say. I suppose it was a compliment, but could it have been a backhanded one? Was I gullible? Too empathetic? Ask too many questions?

The week I was to report I had to call before 8AM on Monday to see if my number was one of this week's pool. If not, I would be in a temporary pool for six months, then cut loose. I was on my way to work early that day and i forgot to call before I left, so I pulled off the freeway and stopped at a pay phone near a McDonald's. I slotted the quarter in and dialed the number. A recorded message rattled off the group numbers and sure enough, I was in. I had to report to the courthouse that day.

I called one of the guys on my crew and told him not to expect me that day and headed for downtown Oakland. I parked in the city parking garage and strolled around to the huge entryway. The courthouse is perched just above Lake Merritt.

A quick pass through the metal detector and up to the third floor to sign in and join the other cattle waiting to be called. I had brought a book, Bones of the Moon by Jonathan Carroll. A truly weird book to be reading in preparation for jury duty.

The lady in charge of the cattle call room would occasionally rattle off a list of names and tell them to go to Department so-and-so on floor something. The room was emptying out and I was still there, reading away, eating snacks from the vending machine. Finally my name came up, along with 20 or so others. We all filed out and headed for Department 6, Judge William R. McGuinness presiding.

As we shuffled in and took our seats. one man stood on the right side of the court and watched us all enter. He had a nice designer suit, short, dark, bushy hair and, as I wrote in my journal at the time: "snake eyes". His right elbow rested in his left hand and his right hand was on his chin, index finger just touching his lips. He scanned the room slowly, a slight upturn at the corners of his mouth. This man was Ken Burr, the Alameda County prosecutor.

On the left side sat a couple of other suits. The defense attorneys. We all got settled and finally Mr. Burr turned around and sat at his table. The clerk told us we could remain seated as Judge McGuinness entered, which was a little disappointing. Not like TV at all. Not the last time I'd have that realization, either.

Then the bailiffs brought in a couple of guys who could only be the defendants: One a large, darkly complected black man who looked terrified and the other a lighter-toned, confident looking young man with large, dark-rimmed glasses. His almost haughty gaze swept the rows of potential jurors once and he took his place next to his attorney.

The clerk of the court stood and began reading the charges. And oh, my, what a list of charges: Four counts of First Degree Murder, Six counts of Attempted Murder and two Special Circumstances. The main defendant was one Charles Arnett Stevens, known four years earlier as the I-580 Freeway Killer. His co-defendant was Richard Clark, who was being tried for his role in one of the murders. Damn! When I get summoned, I really get summoned!

After the charges were read, the prosecutor told all of us that we would be given a questionnaire. We had to fill it out at our seats and hand it in before we left that day. Then all the principals left the court, with just the bailiffs sticking around as proctors. The questions were pretty run of the mill, asking if we knew any of the people involved with the trial in any way, from the judge to the attorneys and defendants to any investigative personnel. We were asked about any crimes committed against or by each one of us. Had there been any history of alcoholism in our families? I related my Dad's struggles with booze and his father's drunk driving accident that seriously injured a man who died within a year of the accident.

Then I went home. We had been told that about 300 people were being considered as potential jurors for this trial, so what were the odds?

Answer: Not as astronomical as I would have thought...

More music, more music, more music...

2009-12-08T19:32:00.000-08:00

Spin me back down the years and the days of my youth.
Draw the lace and black curtains and shut out the whole truth.
Spin me down the long ages: let them sing the song.

Life & Such

After the realization, the denouement as it were of my musical pipe dreams, I didn't play much. It's like one of those movie montages where one item, or person, sits perfectly still while everything else around them goes by at super speed. The guitar just sat there, waiting. I worked, tried going back to school as a journalism major, crapped out on that in less than a semester. We moved to Hawaii, where I used a simple cassette recorder to put down a tune I'd been working on for my boy PJ. I started working on it while he was still in utero, and this is the only recording:

The Secret of Life (For PJ)

Also my only instrumental. I was often sad living in that paradise, and occasionally I'd pull out the old Guild and strum So In Love. Why were these words still so relevant to me? I was married and happy, happily married, happy, right? No. There were things happening that I was too blind, dumb, whatever...to see.

I was at a party one night there in Hawaii and one of the guys kind of took me under his wing. I got to go out to the garage with the other "brahs", smoke some fine pakalolo and play a cool Taylor guitar he had. Everyone thought I was great! I was reminded of that feeling the first time I performed in 7th grade.

Mainland Bound

All the things that led to my separation and divorce are laid out in sordid detail in earlier chapters. Now I was back in SoCal with nothing to my name but my car, my bike, some clothes and the Guild. It was a present from my folks Christmas 1975, and I still have it. A luthier friend of mine once said: "That's the cool thing about classical guitars. The older they get, the better they sound, all mellow and shit." True that.

I played a lot during my exile, but I didn't write songs. I wrote a ton of poetry, along with some long letters to my soon-to-be ex. Still that guitar was a life saver. It has nicks and scratches all over it from my performing days at Shakey's Pizza Parlor, along with newer ones from the kids climbing on it and playing it. An old friend sitting there, always waiting.

When I first got to California I had a Yamaha steel 6-string, but it was stolen not long after I moved there. Never had a strong attachment to it, though I hope it found a good home.

Fast Forward

After I got back to Northern California I was so busy putting my life back together I just let the Guild sit quietly again. But after I bought her a companion, an Epiphone FG160-ASB. Great sound, solid axe. Now I could start building those callouses again! Still no performing, though.

I got a job working at a custom photo lab and shortly thereafter met a fellow named Michael G., who had a nice home studio and lots of musical friends. I started going over to his place from time to time, recording tunes like:

Dream Zone, written by a friend of mine.

I kept going over to his house, playing on my own with occasional guest musicians, and then Michael started joining in, playing seafaring tunes and ballads. Over the years we played more and more often. I wrote more songs, he introduced songs he liked, we got toasted and had fun playing. Other folks would come over, joining in or listening and singing along. We performed at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley on open mic night. We played at a couple of parties. The toughest thing was this: Michael just wasn't, isn't that good. he's a passable musician but put him in front of people and all the rehearsal in the world can't cure his flop-sweat.

We fought about the material. He got to be a prick. I was frustrated by our inertia. He thought we were going to be a touring band! Pipe Dreams, indeed! One night he basically told me off in front of a mutual friend and I walked out. Called him a couple of days later and basically broke up with him. Strangest phone call ever. Breaking up with a dude is not what I had in mind. We didn't speak for over a year, until February of 2009, when we got together for a jam with some other guys. Since then we've jammed a couple of times but nothing like before. Nothing like the fun we had doing this one:

It's Normal to Smoke Pot, about my views on the state of the Federal Reserve. I think. Or not.

Yes, it's rough, oh so rough. But we had a great time making it, as far as I can remember.

Misc Music

I was lucky enough to hook up with some bluegrass players as well, and every year I go to the annual Pickin' Party, where my inner redneck gets a chance to strum some traditional 'grass tunes.

Christmas 2000, our first year in the new house, my lovely wife Jan got me a Martin DM-12, a magnificent 12-string guitar. I thanked her by polishing up a tune I'd written for her:

Faith in Me, a song that came to me and refused to be ignored.

Here are my two steel beasties:

I was on a jury in a capital murder case. Strong shit there. After I finished the ordeal another song came to the surface:

A City of Light, written about Charles Stevens, the I-580 Freeway Killer

Jan and I sing together. She plays the piano and sings in local choruses. My four kids are all musicians or performers in their own right. Life is good. And I will play on....

C	F	C
	One toke over the line, sweet Jesus,	one toke over the	line

	C/B	Am	D9	F	G	C
Sittin' down	town in a	railway	station,	one toke	over the	line

	C
	Waitin' for the train that goes home, sweet Mary

	F	C
	Hoping that the train is on	time

	C/B	Am	D9	F	G	C
Sittin' down	town in a	railway	station,	one toke	over the	line

I Got the Music in Me

2009-12-02T16:46:00.001-08:00

I write the songs that make the whole world sing
I write the songs of love and special things
I write the songs that make the young girls cry
I write the songs I write the songs...

Don't that tune just bring the tears to your eyes? Yeah, me too. Barry may have been a big sellout but he could take baths in hot and cold running cash for years and never see the same $100 bill twice. So what's a struggling musician to do?

Early Days

When I was in the second grade I got my first musical instrument. It was a plastic ukulele, a gift from my Dad's parents. I can still remember my Pop telling me that all ukes were tuned to the song "My Dog Has Fleas". Very short number. I played around with it for a while but eventually it got laid aside with the mythical baseball card collection, first edition Spiderman comic and mint-in-box Original Slinky.

Next up was the piano. My Grams, Mom's mother, had graduated from Julliard School of Music and had played the piano extensively, along with having a passable singing career. So when we got a piano in the house and Grams came to live with us, I started taking lessons. While I enjoyed playing tunes, I simply detested having to learn sight reading sheet music. I also hated the endless finger exercises that sounded like nothing to me. I had no passion for this instrument, though when nobody was around I would open the top and play the strings inside or run my fingers over the keys in random ways, creating strange, discordant melodies. In other words, junk music. But mine nonetheless.

In the sixth grade I got the bug to play again. A friend of mine was in the band, and he said they needed a coronet player. No clue, me. I went in and the band director told me he could teach me how to play. Cool. It got me out of class early twice a week. I started learning the instrument but two things became clear to me pretty quickly: 1) I had to sight read again and 2) Playing this thing hurt! My jaw hinges were sore, my lips got numb and every now and then I'd blow out my eardrums. No fun whatsoever. The final straw came when Mom came to see a performance at school. She noticed that I wasn't moving my fingers like the other horn players and correctly correctly deduced that I wasn't keeping up. While I was out a day or two later she took the horn back to the rental place. I didn't complain.

I was also in the sixth grade chorus. Miss Milford was my teacher and the accompanist. She loved my clear, bell-like voice, singing noted as high as any of the girls in the company. I got a place of honor, right next to the piano. I even got some solos! Then, one dark day, my voice changed. I tried to make it soar, but just crawled out and flopped around like a drunken frog. I thought it was just temporary. I kept saying: "I think it's 80% laryngitis and 20% my voice changing." Two months later it was official: New voice. I was now a Bass, not a Tenor. I was banished to the ranks of the unwashed, far in the back rank of the kids who couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Abandoned and forgotten, this Golden Boy. Sucked.

Revelation!

In middle school I was listening to a lot of pop music on the radio. I would stay awake at night, listening to music like the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Black Sabbath and the cool funk and soul so popular in the Washington, DC area in the 60's and 70's. I wanted to be like those guys, Play on the stage, get chicks, travel. First I would need to play something. Enter Mrs. Siemanns, my 7th-grade music teacher. One day she brought a dozen beginner guitars to class and asked us to pair off and learn a song to perform in class. My partner was Tom McGuire, a weird kid who was also in my Boy Scout troop. I wanted to learn This Land is Your Land, by Woodie Guthrie. Tom wanted to do the easier piece, Proud Mary by Creedence. I couldn't get him to change his mind, so we did that one. We practiced in school and at his house and then finally the day came.

I had performed onstage before but this was different. I was actually nervous! Tom and I got our turn and played the thing through. As I performed I could feel the eyes of my classmates on me. Their attention to my performance was palpable, like energy being beamed directly into my bloodstream. I was bit by the showbiz bug. I wanted more.

I went to my parents and told them I wanted my own guitar. Amazingly, they got me one. Nothing fancy but it was a really nice beginner model, Sears Silvertone. I played it for a while, found it not so much fun and gradually abandoned it, letting it sit in its case in the corner of my room. Then one day I came home to find my little sister Lori playing my guitar in her room. Hey, what gives here? "Mom said it was OK for me to play it because you weren't playing it any more." Is that so? Well, I can fix that. I had the Mel Bay Basic Guitar Chords book and I set about learning each and every one. With no real plan outside of that, I sat on my bed night after night, putting my fingers on the strings where Mel told me to. I would strum the chord and listen to the sound of it. I learned to play chords in progression: G to C to D, C to F to G, D to A to E and so forth. By doing this over and over I started to hear those progressions in the music on the radio. "Wait, this sounds familiar..." And it would all fall into place. I started playing with the tunes there and off my sister Leslie's record player. It was official. I was a guitar player.

For Christmas of my freshman year I got an electric guitar and small practice amp. I sat in my room and played along with Abbey Road, Black Sabbath's Paranoid and other LP's. I also experimented with feedback. That lasted until Dad came pounding on the door, shouting at me to knock it off with the God-awful noise.

Journeyman Days

My biggest problem was that I didn't know anyone else who played, so I had to keep pushing myself to learn more. Mom and Dad had had enough of paying for music lessons and Grams was a bit of a snob about guitar players. So my first two years of high school didn't see much progress in my playing. Then came military school.

It wasn't long before I found other guitar guys to play with. A fellow named Stacy Evans invited me to come and jam with him and some other guitar guys. I accepted, and learned quickly the Rules of the Jam:

Bring guitar
Sit Down
Shut Up
Join in whenever you want
Don't ever say: Hold on guys, slow down. I can't keep up!
Bring something to share (songs, drinks, or grass. Preferably all of the above)

My musical sensibilities grew by leaps and bounds with all the different things my classmates brought to the table. I listened to Robin Trower, Todd Rundgren, Frank Zappa, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Wishbone Ash, King Crimson and so many others. I met my friend Jim Lange, another guitar guy who helped shape my view about the mental approach to being a musician. What kind of artist was I? What was my philosophy?

Even with all this experience, I never considered taking my studies further after high school. Why? I still didn't want to read sheet music. Chord charts were easier and those little black dots made my head hurt.

College

The best thing about being a passable musician is that it can get you laid. Play some sweet tunes with genuine feeling and someone will want to boink you. So it was with me in college. Not that I was any Lothario, but I was rarely lacking. My musical talents grew somewhat in that I played with other guys from time to time. Sitting in stairwells, we could imagine ourselves in a huge concert hall only without the screaming, adoring fans.

I met a lovely young lady there named Nicole, and she became the inspiration for my first original song: So In Love.

After a couple of weird years I finally got back on track, studying music with college professors. It was amazing, spending the day exploring my muse and networking with other motivated musicians. We played, sang, got high together. I was the assistant manager for the campus music club, The Glass Cellar. We had various traveling groups in, including Happy the Man.

Meanwhile I had written some more tunes:

Claudia, about yet another girl.

Pamela, ditto.

Death to Disco, about Man's inhumanity to Man.

My sister Lori and I joined a short-lived group, playing cover tunes by the Eagles, Steve Miller, Peter Frampton, etc. Our first gig was our last. After all our practice we thought we were ready to hit the road, but Fate stepped in and on our plans. We were supposed to play at a middle school yearbook signing party. Lori and I picked up the lead guitarist Billy at his high school and met the other guys at the gig. There were about 200 kids there so this looked promising. Then the guitarist realized he'd left both his guitars in the parking lot at his school! My buddy Bill, also in the band, ran him back to get them, if they hadn't been stolen. Meanwhile it was blazing hot, I was wearing my silk shirt and bell bottoms with my platform shoes (oh yeah!), sweating like a pig. "When are you youngsters going to start?" asked the principal. "Oh, our guitarist will be right back..."(we hope).

By the time Bill and Billy got back the crowd had dwindled to about 15 kids and the rest of us were developing heat stroke. We slammed our stuff together and started playing. The sound levels were horrible, we were out of synch and Billy was still pissed about the guitars, even though he got them back. By the middle of the third song the principal had heard enough and literally pulled the plug on us. That was it for The Band that Never Was.

My best gigging experience was at Shakey's Pizza Parlor in Tyson's Corner, Virginia. I was hired at forst to be a pizza guy, then I became a bartender. We had a great house musician named Jay who was a fantastic piano player and showman. He also didn't mind sharing the spotlight with audience members. It was the precursor to karaoke bars! Just bring in some sheet music and Jay would play the tune to accompany you. Not your key? Jay could transpose on the fly.

When he left for greener pastures I saw my chance and took it. I told the manager I would play Friday and Saturday nights for $10 an hour and free beer. He took it and I was a star! I had a regular group who came to hear me and I performed covers plus stuff I had written. It was the best performing experience I ever had. But one day the owner decided to go all Fern Bar, so the old "Gay 90's" decor was out, along with the house musician, me.

I was jonesing to play in front of people, so I put an ad in the classifieds, something like: "Guitar player seeks performance venue. Will travel." I got a couple of calls, including one from a place in Morningside, Maryland. I went out there and spoke to the owner. I was nervous, anticipating the audition. He never even asked me to play. Jusy kept talking about putting my picture in the front window with the notation: "Appearing Friday and Saturday nights 10PM until 2AM" Well, OK. Turned out all he needed me for was to stay open an extra hour. I played that nearly empty room for 6 weeks or so and blew that pop stand.

Dad wasn't happy with my college course choices, and after one too many arguments I moved out. There went my college bankroll. After kicking around the Washington, DC area for a while I got the bug and moved to California. Better luck there, no?

No

I figured that if I hung out and played the guitar on my couch, I would be discovered by a recording exec and make millions playing for the masses. Pretty bad plan. So I got my girlfriend pregnant, married her and started working for a living. I gave music one more shot, though. I went to Ventura College with my heart set on getting into the music biz. I even won a spot in a Master Class in vocal performance! It was just after that performance that I asked my professor the question that had been on my mind for the last five years. I looked him in the eye and said: "Am I good enough to make a living doing this?" Without a pause, Mr. Kenney said, "No, Ed. You have a solid voice and good command, but it would take far more than that to make it in the world of operatic vocal performance. I'm sorry."

I looked at my wife, and she was nodding in agreement. So, there it was. Time to give it up and grow the hell up. I had a kid, a wife and bills to pay. Quit dreaming and wake up, fool.

Part II: Striking a Balance...

My Automotive Life

2009-11-13T17:04:00.000-08:00

Now comes the expansion stories. The items vaguely alluded to in Book One which need to be put in their proper context and time line. I begin with a tome concerning my love/hate/stupid/unfortunate relationship with the Horseless Carriage.

Do You Have A Leesance for Your Minky?

With my poor performance in school weighing me down I stood little chance of getting my driver's license by sixteen. Just another thing to hold over my head, though that strategy really never worked. Then suddenly the problem was solved when Mom and Pop decided to send me to military school. They figured that I would need a license to visit friends whenever I came back for the Holidays. So some small good thing was going to come from getting sent off. Whoopee!

I went to Driver's Ed classes at the local high school that summer. Weird side note: We had just moved from Vienna, where I had gone to two years of public high school, to Alexandria, my holding cell before shipping off to SMA. The local high school was called Robert E. Lee. And it was an exact carbon copy of Madison High, my previous school, right down to the room numbers. I would walk into the building from my new, unfamiliar world and into one eerily reminiscent of my old life, then back out onto the surface of Mars for all I knew.

The driving classes were boring but necessary. Truth to tell, my Mom had been letting me drive her car for a while before I even took the classes. Not alone, but with her white-knuckled next to me.

So I get my license in early August and three days later Mom lets me take a few friends for a spin in her car (1970 Ford Torino wagon) and I promptly get into my first accident. Funny how you can't pass somebody while somebody is passing you. Yeah. The other guy bounced off me a few times but I'm proud to say I kept it on the road. He was a big ol' redneck who threatened my family until Dad put the cops on him. So I didn't drive the car again until my first time back from school.
Car One

My Dad had a lot of problems with cars. Well, the cars weren't the problem. He just drove them badly. After owning two VW bugs and a really cool Mustang, (and trashing them all), he got a Ford Maverick. Once I started driving it became "my" car. I didn't own it. I still had to ask to use it, but it was the one I got to drive. Robin's egg blue with a straight 6 under the hood. Real chick magnet. Some notable events in our sordid history:

*I crashed it into my girlfriend's car one day when we were crossing a divided highway. She stopped in the center and I didn't see until it was too late.

*I got at least two speeding tickets and a couple of other moving violations. Driving was just so much fun!

*When I came home for Christmas break I was so incredibly happy to be home. I wheeled the Mav up to 7-11 and got my stuff. As I backed out of the lot I cut the wheel and promptly raked my right front bumper down the driver side of the car parked next to me. I stopped, surveying the damage to the other car. Oh, shit...I looked around - no witnesses. My eyes darted to the store - just a guy in there pushing a filthy mop, not looking at me at all. Shift into drive, pedal to the metal and I am out of there.

I drove over to my buddy Scott's place, dreading the potential damage to my car and how I would explain it to my Dad. When I got there I walked cautiously around the front and peered at my car. Nothing. Not even a scratch. Weeks later Dad saw a tiny bit of paint had flecked off at the site and went ballistic, believing somebody had hit and run the car "recently", and since I hadn't driven it in that time I was off the hook. Fate is feakin' funny. Made up for the times I got hammered for shit I didn't do.

I worked at a local warehouse and we got stoned during the day every day. On the way home one night I decided to impress some girls I worked with by racing up beside them and giving them a sexy wave. They laughed, but in a second those smiles became looks of terror. I hadn't noticed the bend in the road coming right at me! I slammed on the brakes, went over the curb, missed a telephone pole by inches, skidded back onto and across the road and bounced off the opposite curb. The undercarriage was boned. I tired to tell Dad that the accelerator had stuck but that was bullshit. The car was shot and needed a lot of repair work. I wasgoing off to school anyway, so who cared?

Car Two

After military school I went to college, and while I was there the parents decided the old Mav now belonged to my sister. Nice. When I came back from ODU with my tail between my legs I was carless. Dad let me use his car from time to time but that was a desperation move only. No matter what I did he always knew when we had messed with the car. I even emptied the ashtray and he asked me why the single butt he left in there was missing. Entrapment! Arrgghh!

So I went ahead and wrecked his car. Drove it into a ditch. Two days later I was in the Navy Federal Credit Union signing loan papers to buy my own car. Dad had picked out another Maverick, owned by a friend down the street. I bought it, moved out of the house and almost immediately sold it at a loss to buy my most favoritest car.

Car Three

A buddy of mine at Shakey's Pizza had this car he wanted to sell. It belonged to his grandfather who had just passed away. It was a 1964 Ford Custom 500, and the old man had driven it to town and out in the fields. The rear bumper was all rusted out, it smelled like mildew. I loved it.

A few months later I drove "Old Bessie" to California. She got me back and forth to work, supervised my dates, escorted me and my new wife home from the wedding and brought my firstborn son home from the hospital.

The gas gauge stopped working at one point but I just guessed the mileage I'd get with each tank and it mostly worked. I only ran out of gas a few times. When I finally had to leave her behind to go to Hawaii it broke my heart. I never got a ticket and had no accidents the whole five years I had her.

Hawaii Cars

When we got to Oahu there was a car waiting for me. It was a 1982 Datsun B210. Blue. Boring. Fortunately some nice guy I used to work with decided to steal it and trash it, so that was all for that piece o' crap. The insurance settlement got me my third Maverick, a 1970 this time, red with no heater. Hawaii model.

We also had the use of a cool 1965 Lincoln Continental. I loved tooling around in that big ol' car, letting the warm tropical breezes waft over me.

So after the move back to California and my divorce, the red Mav was my mate, my space capsule, my red badge of geekdom. Tough to impress any gal who went out with me when I couldn't even turn the heat on to keep us from freezing on a date. And such a sexy ride! After my exile in SoCal I got back to the SF Bay Area and moved from job to job, dragging the Mav behind me. Got tired of a car with no personality and decided on a switch to something...different. Enter Alexander, my red 1980 Toyota 4x4 pickup. Now that was a man's vehicle.

Jan and I had just started dating and this was my "newly single guy" truck. 2-seater. Just a guy and his girl out for a rugged day on the mountain. Cast iron rear bumper, so I could back into anything with impunity. Fear me, little passenger cars! Make way for the King of the Highway! This was my attitude, right up until my girlfriend became my wife and along came a new brood of kids. No room for all those people in the truck, but it had served me well. We used it as a moving van and Jan had learned to drive a stick on him. The name Alexander came from my boy Peter. The only car I ever gave a male name to. We traded him in for:

The Buckaroomobile! (1994 Mitsubishi Expo)

Yeah, it is a minivan of sorts, more like a station wagon that started to turn into a van and stopped halfway. We loved it. Smooth driving and lots of room. We drove it to CA to Cincinnati, up to Seattle, down to Phoenix. We brought Zack home from the hospital. Just a few months after we got it I was washing the car when I noticed some interesting scratches on the hood. Upon closer examination I saw the name "Casey" etched into the paint. There were other designs as well, and they remain to this day. Over the years the Buckaroomobile has been Jan's commute car, the family travel car, my business vehicle and is currently in the hands of its rightful owner, Casey. It has 226,500 miles on it, all put there by the Newbegin family.

Since then I've owned a Kia Sephia and a Chrysler PT Cruiser. I have the occasional fender-bender, about one every two to three years, same with minor moving violations, never really my fault, oh no.

I put about 120 miles per day on my car, whatever it is, and the toughest part each day is dealing with my fellow drivers. Speed, following too closeley and dangerous lane changes threaten my safety and sanity each time I hit the road. And it doesn't help that I'm a recovering Type A driver. I want to run these twits into a ditch half the time, but I don't think that would please the Buddha, so I breathe deep and get home alive.

Another good case for gun control, let me tell you.

Chapter 46: How Do You Find Your Soulmate?

2009-08-27T15:28:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since I could sit down and put the next chapter into words and do it justice. I think that’s because it represents one of the big turning points of my life. In fact, I’m going to bring this part of my “Life Blog” to an end as soon as this part is done. I’ll call it Book One. Not that things changed radically all at once, but I definitely went in another direction after Jan and I met.

Date One

I was pretty damn nervous as I wheeled my Nerdmobile Ford Maverick (no heater included) into the Video City parking lot that Friday night. I hadn’t been on anything like a real date in many months and my self- confidence was at a low ebb. Did I still have the flashing red light on my head? Only time would tell.

I picked up Jan and we headed out to the comedy club. I picked that as a safe place since I knew she at least had a sense of humor. On the way to the club we exchanged the usual small talk. She asked me about my kids and I told her about PJ and Jessica. She got a strange look on her face but I didn’t ask about that. Then she told me about a funny thing that had happened at the store. One of her co-workers had a cat that had had kittens. She couldn’t keep the litter at her home so she brought hem to the store to give them away. Her sales pitch consisted of handing the customer their movie then reaching into the box behind the counter, saying “OK, here’s your tape and here’s your kitten!” It worked, and she was able to give them all away in a day. They were strange cats, too. Each one had six toes.

We got to the club and saw that the star that night was Chicago Steve. I had heard him riffing with a local DJ on a San Francisco rock station so I knew he was funny. We settled in, got our drinks and chuckled at the warmup acts. Then Chicago Steve came onstage. He got us going with a snappy routine, getting lots of laughs. Then he told us about a true funny story that had happened to him at his local video store: “I went up to the counter to get my movie, right? So the girl behind the counter hands me my tape and says: ‘Here’s your movie and here’s your kitten!’ How weird is that? Here’s the kicker: the cat had six toes!” I looked at Jan, “Tell me you know this guy. You set this up, right?” “No”, she said, “I’ve never seen this guy before.”

Later on Steve was riffing away and pointed at Jan and me. “Hey, you two together?” We looked at each other. “What’s the matter, not sure yet?” No, not yet.

After the show Jan told me why she had looked a little startled when I mentioned my kids’ names. Seems that years before she had decided that if she had a boy and a girl she would name them Peter and Jessica. Guess that put those two names out of the running. Besides, who said we were ever going to get married?

I got her home and we sat out front talking for a bit. Then came the “Well, OK, goodnight”, “Goodnight”, etc. I turned to give her a kiss on the cheek and she turned to kiss me not on the cheek and wham! I stuck my nose in her eye. Smooth operator, that’s me. A quick peck and she was gone. Date number one over.

Next day I figured the best thing to do would be to send flowers to her at work with a nice note. I’m sure her coworkers were suitably impressed. This was a real change from the all-consuming passion that marked the beginning of my previous relationship. Much quieter, but it felt warm and non life-threatening.

Yeah, I’m a Hero

Jan had moved out to California from the Midwest with a group of friends. An interesting lot, including one fellow who decided he was going to run the show. There was Jan, her best friend Carrie, another girl and the two guys, including Mister All That. Jan and I went on another date at a local burger joint and I had a chance to meet them all, including Carrie's brother Andy. I got the sense that the group did what MAT wanted to do. There were "rules" around the house about who got to get high and when, a routine for watching TV and a certain watchfulness on group behavior. I represented a change from that norm, and MAT was not happy with my presence. I liked to comment on movies, be spontaneous; you know, be human.

One day I called Jan and got a busy signal. Then I called again. And again. After about 90 minutes of this I said "Screw it" and drove over there. "Somebody" at the house had left the phone off the hook and I knew who that was. I spent a lot of time over there and made my contempt for him and the groupies obvious. Carrie and Jan were pretty happy that things were starting to change, and finally the stalemate broke. MAT, along with the other girl and guy, decided to move out, citing all sorts of terrible transgressions and personal hurts. Damn shame.
I was living with the meth freak and now we could all solve our problems by jettisoning the people who were dragging us down. I told the girls:"And the windows will be thrown open, the sun will shine upon our faces and the birds will sing. This is the beginning of a new day."

Odds & Ends

Living in the house on Hillsborough Avenue in Concord, CA was a time of healing, transition, and downright weirdness at times. For our first Christmas together I got Jan a set of earrings. I put them in a nice little box then put that box in a giant TV box filled with paper and weighted down with a tool box full of rocks.

So many other memories, best done in montage: The night Haley's Comet came and we all floated through the neighborhood, nearly suffocated in our house and watched the sun come up over Mount Diablo. The day the ceiling fell in while my ex was there picking up the kids. My very brief rapprochement with Lani. Buying my kickass Toyota 4x4. Continuing my hop from lab to lab. An epic Halloween party where I seared my nostrils on some truly bad speed. Going back to Virginia for the SMA reunion. I decided to ask Jan to marry me on that trip. A very nice wedding indeed. A garden of delights, literally! Home improvement projects, kids, pets, Little League, soccer, judo, schools, teachers, coaches.........the mind boggles. Where did the time go?

Oh yeah, and the time we rescued Mervyn. You remember, the cat that my evil roomie was abusing. I went to Sacramento to visit relatives and while I was there Jan stole him from the witch girl and we raised him as our own. He lived to nearly 13 years old, pretty good when you consider the treatment he had received.

I felt stronger every day, and Jan and I had a relationship that was growing the way a good one should. We had started as friends and took it one day at a time. Boring? We are still together to this day, partners in Life.

"And in the End

The Love you Take

Is Equal to the Love You Make"

End of Book One

Chapter Forty-Five: One More Small Bump

2009-08-24T19:16:00.000-07:00

"Welcome to your life
There's no turning back
Even while we sleep
We will find you Acting on your best behaviour
Turn your back on mother nature
Everybody wants to rule the world..."

The Long and Winding Road

As I cruised ever so slowly up California Highway 101 from Ventura, towing the U-Haul trailer behind with my poor little Maverick, I had time to think. Every mile under my wheels brought me closer and closer to Lani and the kids. I was excited about getting back to more contact with PJ and Jessi but feeling a knot in the pit of my stomach over being so close to Lani again. She was my Kryptonite, I was powerless against her. I had such a burning desire for her that being summarily dismissed as I was had not stilled my beating heart. And it came down to physical proximity. I could talk to her well enough on the phone but face to face I started turning into a puddle of goo.

Didn't matter. Man's gotta do what he's gotta do.

The New Grind

I had rented an apartment in Walnut Creek for cheap and I moved right in. The reasons for the cheapness were two: 1) A home nearby had recently burned to the ground and had caught the roof above my place on fire as well. The firefighters got it out quickly but the place smelled like mildew and burnt wood. Yum. And 2) In a year the whole place was going to be torn down to put up an office complex.

The one hazard the property manager didn't tell me about was the squirrels. Damn things had found their way into the attic through the burned spot and had set up housekeeping. Memories of the dancing rats of SMA ran through my head when night after night the furry bastards would run across my ceiling, apparently bent on driving me insane. One early morning I had had enough and stood on a chair screaming at the fuckers, pounding on the ceiling. "Aaaaagghhh! Get the hell out of here, motherfuckers!" BAM BAM BAM CRUNCH! The "crunch" was my fist going through to the attic. While it was pretty unsightly, the squirrels were gone for good.

The guys next door were not much help either. I worked the night shift, so I had to try sleeping during the day. It was hard enough without the drunken frat boys waking up at the crack of noon and partying til dinner. What did they do for a living? I didn't think the "fist through the wall" maneuver would work as well with them. Grin N bear it.

The lab job was...another lab job. No more, no less. The work flow was identical to the place in Hawaii, the machines carbon copies of so many others. The people were tolerable, but it takes a certain kind of person to work the graveyard in a production job. If you were willing to hang out after work and watch the sun come up over breakfast/dinner, trying to have some kind of social life with a very limited group of people the job was great. I wanted to split my time between that world and the daytime one to be with the kids. Sleep? I'll do that when I'm dead. Believe me, I heard that a lot from my co-workers.

The layout of the place was kind of funky. Where the Hawaii lab had been spread out over a large single floor, this one was split between four floors of an old office building in downtown Oakland. The elevator was right out of 1929, with a folding gate and no door. One had to reach up and manually disengage the kill switch, then press the floor button. The elevator would take off and only stop when the switch was released. With practice I was able to step on, rise, and step off without hesitating or closing the gate. That was the most interesting part of the job. The rest was the same boring crap that I tried to look interested in.

One evening I was slogging through another shift when Mike the Manager called me up to the exec offices on the fourth floor. When I entered the office I saw Grady the general manager there with him. Uh-oh. This was getting all deja vu-y on me. Right on schedule I had worn out my welcome. This time it only took a few months for them to get tired of my act. And it was such a good act! Another exit interview, another severance check, another slow ride home. But you know, this time I didn't feel panicked at all. I was relieved. They had seen something I was denying: This crap was not for me, not at this time. It was time to simplify, pare down. No more management jobs. I was happiest as a worker bee and that's what I would go for next.

Keep On Smilin'

Dad always said that to me. Now it was time to start living it. Next day I got the paper and scanned it for photo jobs in my area. I came upon one in Walnut Creek and decided to go for it. I called the manager and we had a brief phone interview. He told me to grab a resume and come on down. So I hopped on my bike and hit the road. As I spun along the Iron Horse Regional Trail
I smiled at the thought of going back to good old lab work, nobody to answer for but myself. The early Spring weather had me feeling alright, maybe just a bit too good. As I whipped between a couple of poles set in the trail to keep cars off, my hand nicked one and went flying out behind me. I felt a jab of pain and I pulled over to check it out. Oh my. Middle fingers aren't supposed to jut out at a 30 degree angle at the center, are they? No. Guess the interview will have to wait. I pedaled slowly home and drove myself to the emergency room, where i got a quick tug to match the bones back up and a splint with a cast. Now for the interview.

While I was waiting for the doctors to set me up I was thinking about all the ways I could still do a lab job with a cast on my wrist. By the time I got to the interview I had it all figured, and I impressed the manager with the stuff I could do. He was curious about why I wasn't looking for a managerial job myself, worried that I might jump at one and leave him high and dry. I told him not to worry. I was done with that gig for a good long time. A little Ed's Recent Adventures with Three-Part Harmony and he was convinced. Welcome back to the hive, little worker bee.

"Its my own design
Its my own remorse
Help me to decide
Help me make the most
Of freedom and of pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever
Everybody wants to rule the world"

New Digs

I also needed to get out of the stinking, squirrel-infested apartment. I saw an ad for a room rental that would knock $100 off my rent payment so I took it. The young girl, Chris, who rented the place had a spare room and I was a sublet, less than legal.

What a setup. She was 19 and, I found out later, a meth head. We never got close. In fact, she told her friends that I was a loner type who didn't like talking to people, so none of them ever had a word to say to me. She had two cats, one a female tabby and the other a friendly, tuxedo-clad fellow named Mervyn. I loved that cat, though it was maddening when he raided the trash can, knocking it over and scattering stuff like a raccoon. Chris insisted he should never go outside, and he worked tirelessly to defy her. Whenever he made it out she would drag him back in and scrub the bejesus out of him in the bathtub, slapping him and shouting the whole time. It was a crime. One she would not get away with.

So my new day to day became simpler. Wake up, nice breakfast, bike to a job I loved, bike home, rent a movie. Weekends I would spend time with the kids. They stayed with me for overnights and we spent a lot of time at parks and the mall. Malls are a divorced Dad haven. Lots of cool stuff to look at and a center court for play in any weather. I couldn't afford much more but that wasn't the point. I felt a great sadness every Sunday night when I would have to drive them back to Lani's folks' place and drop them off. It was hardest on PJ, who would cry and hold tightly to my leg or try to block the door. I found myself sitting in my car with tears in my eyes, trying to drive away without running into anything.

A Fortuitous Meeting

My only real entertainment besides long bike rides was watching videotapes. My buddy Jim had introduced me to his friend Rick, who managed a video store. Rick had been with us the night I left Lani and he and I had bonded over the many lines of coke and cans of brew consumed that night. We also had a great barter agreement: I would develop and print film for him and he provided me with a never-ending video rental account. I would stop in once or twice a week and pick up three movies: a new release, a classic and a porno. Once I had them all memorized I would get a refill and start all over again.

One day I was returning my tapes and a cute girl was working the counter. I had seen her there before from time to time. Her name was Jan and she was the company's relief manager, on duty at various locations when the regular manager had a day off. She took a look at the movies I was returning and gave me a grin. "Airplane, huh? You have to have a pretty weird sense of humor to like a movie like that."

"Is there something wrong with having a weird sense of humor?"

"No, no. I like weird people."

OK, time for the Mr. Suave act, voice included..."Really? So, what are you doing on Friday night?"

"Nothing, really."

"Ah."

Then I took my new videos and went home.

I was about halfway through dinner when the thought suddenly hit me: "Nothing, really." So...she...was saying...that she...would like to....go out with...me? Man, I had taken this laid-back approach way too seriously! What the hell was I thinking?

Next day I was off, so I waited until the place opened at noon and pedaled on down there to follow up. God only knows what she had been thinking. "Is he gay or something? No, I see he rents all hetero porn so that's not it. Is he slow?"

Yes, I was slow. On the uptake. But now I was oh so confident and ready to jump back into the pool. I glided on up to the store and walked in like Alexi Grewal. And she wasn't there.

"Check the Concord store, dude", said the slacker at the counter. Back on the road.

I enjoyed the sight of myself whizzing past the store windows at the Concord store and strode forth, my longish hair blown out behind like a freak flag. There stood Jan, admiring my form in those tight cycling shorts.

"Hi."

"Hi."

"So, were you serious about being free on Friday night?"

"Yeah. Were you serious about asking me out?"

"Yeah."

"OK"

"Well then, um, I guess I'll see you at around 7 on Friday. OK?"

"OK"

"OK. Ah, see you."

"Bye."

This is the stuff of great literature. But hey, I had a date for the first time in too long and it was looking good for Mister Ed.

Chapter 46: Some Endings, New Beginnings, Three Dates and a Wedding

Chapter Forty-Four: The Human Trampoline

2009-08-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

"Keep on rollin'...keep on rollin'...oooooooooooooo"

Roll with the Changes

With renewed energy I decided I'd spent enough time watching TV, reading dime-store sci-fi and whacking off and now it was time to get out into the world again. Where to start? To be truthful, the dating scene had been a complete disaster. I remembered thinking while I was still married that I "wish I knew then what I know now". I had this idea that I was so much more sophisticated and confident around women. Getting one (or more) to come home with me would be easy. Right. I dated more than a dozen women over the course of six months or so...once each. No matter how smooth I thought I was or laid back or whatever, the night would end quickly. One young lass slammed the door in my face so quickly I almost kissed the doorknob. There was that damn red light on my head again.

So much for that. Instead I bent my energies toward diversifying my interests. I saw an ad in the paper for an internship at a local cable TV station. They wanted people to learn camera work for sporting events and meetings. Perfect. I attended the orientation class and got signed up for the program. I joined Big Brothers as a way to get back in touch with some day-to-day fathering experience. I rode my bike competitively. I resolved to make myself healthy again and show Lani and the kids that I would not give up trying to be a better person.

And then Life came along and set up those stupid orange cones you so hate to see out on the road. "Detour Ahead", said the big sign and oh, shit what a left turn it was.

One Exile to Another

I was at the lab one sunny morning talking to my pal Peggy. I was telling her about all the cool things that were happening in my life. I knew she worried about me and I wanted her to know that the whole killing myself thing was in the past. I was bubbling over with joy at all the possibilities laid out before me. Peggy seemed oddly detached, as if something were bothering her.

"What's the matter, Peg? Aren't you happy for me?"

"Yes of course I'm happy. You seem to be trying to do an awful lot at once, though."

"Yeah, but it feels good to have something to do. For the first time since all this crap started I feel like it's all coming together again. Like it's going back to normal."

Just then the owner, Pete Jaffe, came into the lab. He passed Peggy and me with a quiet "Hello" and went into the manager's office. I puttered around the lab, putting film into the processor and cleaning up. The manager came out and asked me to come into the office.

I'll spare the dialogue, since after all it's always been the same. I'm not fitting in with the new manager, I'm depressing the coworkers, my attitude sucks. Take your pick. Bottom line: Fired again. Some nice severance in the form of three separate checks that will keep me from being immediately broke. But with that my five year, on and off again relationship with Jaffe's Camera came to a screeching halt.

I rode my bike home through the cold, my mind alternating between anger and fear, trying to see the way out of this newest smackdown. I went home and immediately checked the paper for jobs in my field. No dice. Over the next several days I knocked on every door, followed every lead I thought would get me on my feet again but it just wasn't going to work. I had definitely worn out my welcome in SoCal. As I saw it, it was time to go North again and get closer to those kids, be some kind of Dad.

So Long and WTF?

I started checking the out of town papers and found a few promising leads in the SF Bay Area. Over one long weekend I went to visit four different photo labs within a 100-mile radius. I got a really nice job offer from a place in Petaluma, just an hour from where Lani and the kids lived. That would maintain some small separation from her but be close enough that we could exchange the kids in a central place when they visited me.

I got a call from another lab after I had agreed over the phone to take the Petaluma job. This place was in Oakland, much closer to the kids and the pay was better. After talking to Mike, the plant manager, I decided to go with them. They even threw in moving expenses. Sweet!

With so little stuff to my name it didn't take long to pack everything up and get ready to go. The day before I left I was back in my room when there was a knock on the door. Dale, the crazy guy who owned the place, answered and I heard him say: "He's right here. Do you want me to get him?" I heard a soft female voice but couldn't make out the words. The door closed and Dale came back and handed me an envelope.

"Some Asian girl just dropped this off for you."

Asian girl? I don't.....wait. The only Asian girl I knew was the young lady at the stationery store next to the lab. I had gone in there many times to buy paper, envelopes, stamps and little books and such to send the kids. I had spoken with the girl at the counter and we shared stories of our lives but I had never gotten the idea that we were more than platonic friends.

The letter begged to differ. I cannot quote it now, but in reading the two neatly-penned pages I saw that she had grown quite fond of me and was heartbroken that I had not told her I was fired or that I was leaving. I went to the store but they told me she had left for a few days. Man, just how blind could I be? It had been a heartbreaking experience for me to have to call my Little Brother, Terry, and tell him that yet another man in his life was walking out on him. He had said, "Yeah, great, good luck man" and hung up on me.

So my mood was anything but festive as I gunned the motor on my 1970 Ford Maverick and pulled away from the Ventura city limits, bound for points North. How do I disappointeth thee? Let me count the ways....

45: The Oxi-Clean of the Melodramatic Blog!

Chapter Forty-Three: Standing Against the Wind

2009-07-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

"Who's gonna drive ya home.....tonight?"

Back to Basics

I was feeling like an empty shell, doing everything on automatic. Eat, (though I had little appetite) Sleep,(fitfully) and wander through the day. Peggy brought me down to earth in short order. "You can stay here for a couple of weeks but then you're moving out." Got it.

Peggy Williams was truly my best friend during those first really fucked-up months after the breakup. She sympathized but never patronized me. And it gave me the strength to get up off my ass and start the survival process. A week or so after I got there she did a complete astrological birth chart on me and came up with some fascinating things. There was an awful lot of personal stuff in her interpretations but the one thing that interested me most was her prediction that I would meet the "great love of my life" within the year. I didn't know if she was just saying that to make me feel better or what, but it piqued my curiosity.

I needed a job. What more logical thing to do but go back to good old Jaffe's Camera one more time? So I found myself once more having lunch with Paul and telling him my whole sad story. He hired me back on and that was that. My buddy Bill Stewart came out from Virginia and helped me furnish my new digs, a room I had rented in a small boarding house. Now I had my own furniture! Dresser, bed, my bike, a lamp and an alarm clock. Bachelor City.

And back to work at the lab. While things looked the same there, people treated me differently. I believe to this day that I must have had a flashing red strobe light right on top of my head, with a siren screaming: "This guy is in pain! He fucked up his life and he'll do the same to you if you get too close! Stay back!"

Sundays

Nearly every Sunday during my time down South I would visit with cousin Joe and his wife Suzanne. It would mean a hot, home-cooked meal, drinks, good conversation and usually some leftovers to take home for the week. Those guys were so good to me. Sometimes other people would come by and we'd all play Trivial Pursuit. I love that game! It was a relief to use my brain for something other than self-pity for a change. Old friends would stop by as well. The Jorgensen brothers, Chip and Greg. Big Al, the guy who got me busted at Point Magu Naval Base. The usuals. This was part of a slow healing process, but every now and then the scab would rip away and all that pain would come right back fresh.

1984 Olympics

With the Olympics being held just down the road in LA, there was a huge amount of local interest in the Games. The rowing events were being held at Lake Casitas in Ojai. I would see team buses rolling along 101 with police escorts almost every day. I watched every event I could during my days off from the lab. I was an avid cyclist by then which was good, because I had very little cash for gas. I followed the exploits of the USA Cycling Team, which won several medals due to the absence of the Eastern Bloc countries.

This is Gabrielle Andersen-Scheiss, a Swiss women's marathon runner. I was sitting at home watching what looked like a fairly boring win by Joan Benoit. She ran away from the field and never looked back. I was going to turn off the TV when the cameras caught Gabrielle entering the stadium. The announcers were actively debating what should be done about her. One was imploring the officials to help her as she lurched onto the track, obviously dehydrated and disoriented. The other insisted that if anyone as much as touched her she would be disqualified. You can see the man in white actively avoiding her. I found myself on my knees in that God-forsaken living room, yelling at the screen "Don't touch her! Come on, baby. Stay on your feet! Do it for me, Gabrielle!" Tears streaming down my face, I watched as she finally fell into the arms on the track officials at the end. I knew that if she could make it, so could I.

Gotta Get Up

Every day I woke up alone, feeling farther from reality. I worked through the day and went home at night. I watched TV, wrote letters to Lani, the kids, my folks. When things got too much I would hop on the bike and spin a quick 30 miles or so. One day a fat envelope arrived, bearing the official divorce papers. "Irreconcilable Differences" listed as "Reason for Divorce". Really? What were we arguing about? Whatever. The tone of the attorney representing Lani was pretty much "Here it is. Sign it and return it immediately. Failure to do so will result in complete emasculation." Cool. What else can you take?

The truly nice thing that Lani did for me was to ask for a fairly small child support payment and no alimony. Believe it or not, I hung some tiny little hope on that, thinking she might some day want me back. I signed here, initialed there, mailed the thing. And it was done. Now just a judgment and a waiting game.

In October I decided I needed to see the kids again, so I asked cousin Joe to come along on a road trip back to the Bay Area. Moral support badly needed. I might have "accidentally" run off the road if I had gone alone.

It was so great seeing PJ and Jess again. I hugged them for all I was worth, my heart bursting at the seams with joy and sorrow. We went to the park, out for lunch. Another day we visited some friends who ran a cattle ranch. Here's a picture of us there:

Sweet kids, and they still are. On the way back from the ranch PJ asked me: "Dad, why don't you love Mom anymore?" That hit me like a hammer to the forehead.

"I do still love Mom, PJ. We just can't live together any more. I can't really tell you more than that."

Kid's just four years old and it's breaking my heart. Jess was a beautiful little chatterbox who loved the Kool Aid Popsicles we were eating. Joe and I turned back for SoCal, me feeling like I was leaving an even bigger piece of myself behind.

Happy Holidays

So now Christmas is rolling around and I am feeling lower than whale turds. My boss, Paul, had just gotten fired. It was inexplicable to me but I soldiered on under the new manager, a total tool who treated me like the contents of a litter box. I was missing my wife, my kids, my life. People around me were happy, excited about the holidays. I felt my perspective shrinking down to what I could see in front of me, and that sucked.

The folks at the lab had swung a deal with the local Holiday Inn to get a room for our Christmas party. Perfect. The same hotel where Lani and I had spent our wedding night. So I would go, have a few drinks and then kill myself. Seriously, I was going to go out on the balconey and jump.

The party night came and I was excited, jazzed up at the fact that I would finally be at peace. I went up to the room and started drinking. I talked and talked, laughed at jokes. Well, time to go now. I slid the door to the balconey open and slipped outside, alone. Music and laughter were muted by the closed door. The fresh sea breeze cleared my head a little as I tried to figure out where would be the best place to land so I wouldn't just be a vegetable, but truly dead. Hmm. Why did I care? Suddenly, the faces of PJ and Jess appeared in my mind, their smiling faces distorted into grief and anger. Lani trying to explain to them why they would never see Daddy again. Having them grow up thinking, no, knowing I took the coward's way out. At that very moment I actually heard my ass hit bottom and rebound. I was not going to do that to them.

I felt complete joy wash over me, a happiness I hadn't felt for a very long time. I was made of stronger stuff. I could fucking well do this. I was so happy I wanted to tell somebody. I looked around and saw a champagne bottle sitting on a chair. I picked it up and swung it back, ready to toss it into the air in my place. It knocked over a glass which shattered on the balconey. The music and conversation in the next room suddenly stopped. People came pouring out onto the balconey as I stood there with the bottle in my hand. "Oh my God", said one of the ladies. "We thought you had fallen off the porch!"

"No, no, I'm fine. I'm OK, really."

I was ushered back into the room, fussed over. Wow. Am I George Bailey or something? I smiled and reassured all that I was OK, then left to tell my friend Peggy what I had (almost) done. She had a gentleman guest, and we three smoked a bit o' ganja before I told her: "Peggy, I almost killed myself tonight. I wanted to but I decided to stay alive for my kids."

She was shocked. The dude was confused. It was their first date. What a thing to drop on them. Well, got more people to see.

I drove all the way down to Joe's house, to a party I had not planned to go to, seeing as how I'd be dead and all. I walked in the front door and spotted Greg Jorgensen, a big, lanky, redneck Swede who was also my auto mechanic. He saw me and walked across the room. "NEWB!", he shouted, and gave me a huge bear hug. I nearly lost it, so full of joy and cascading emotions. I recovered nicely, and the party went well into the night.

The first night of the rest of my life.

Chapter Forty-Four: "...and there's more, Yes there's more. You hear and you see yet you do not believe that there's always more. There is more."

Chapter Forty-Two: Once in a Lifetime

2009-07-01T07:13:00.000-07:00

"And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house
With a beautiful Wife
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?

Countdown

In the couple of days that followed Lani's call I tried to come up with a Plan. How to make our marriage work? I really didn't have any close friends to talk to in California and I did not want to call my parents for advice. Having been an avid reader all my life I figured the best thing to do was read a book about it. I went to the bookstore and browsed through the Self Help section, looking for anything that could speak to my situation. I found Beyond the Marriage Fantasy: How to Achieve True Marital Intimacy, by Dr. Daniel Beaver. After reading the first couple of chapters it was clear to me that Lani and I needed real help. We had been living together in two separate worlds and it was time to see clearly. I hoped that when Lani read the book she would see we needed that kind of help as well. Just a couple of days more.

Olympic Torch

So I still had to hold it together and get some real-world work done back at Wild Bill's Photo Lab O' Horrors. It wasn't easy. Orders were few and far between so I didn't have enough to keep my mind off the feeling of impending doom. I found myself sitting in a printing room one day hiding out from the boss, feeling desperate. I got a legal pad and composed a long note to God asking him for help. I was trapped by my own pity, hoping something would turn around for me. It was a heartbreaking letter that I simply finished, read back to myself once, then hid it away in that dusty back room.

One day that July somebody at the lab told us that the Olympic torch relay would be passing through Oakland, just blocks away from us. I took my lunch break early and drove up 14th Street in search of a relay group. I found one pretty quickly and the fellow who was to be the bearer was happy to let anyone who wanted to hold the torch.

It was beautiful, with the Los Angeles Coliseum in relief and the words "Altius, Fortius, Citius" inscribed around the top of the bell. I felt a real connection with the history of the Games at that very moment. Then the relay approached and we all cheered as the flame was passed and "our" bearer ran off happily to the next station. It was a very bright spot in my day and in my life. And that part of the story wasn't over yet, either. The 1984 Olympics took on a whole new meaning for me in a short period.

"And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!"

Letting the Days Go By

The day Lani and the kids came home I had a dozen red roses on the table and a nervous hope that things would work out. She seemed distant again, unsure what to say to me, but she read some of the book I had picked up and agreed to see Dr. Beaver with me. I asked her why she was avoiding me and she told me that she had been thinking a lot about our marriage and her feelings. Just before leaving Milwaukee she had found a note penned by a favorite cousin who had passed away at an early age. The note described "what love is". In reading it Lani realized that she did not have many of the feelings expressed in this note and considered it a sign from her cousin that she needed to reassess things. So down went the roller coaster again. I couldn't take it. Just as I had done when things turned to shit between my parents and me I got in my car and took a drive around the Bay. I was out for hours, yelling at myself, at Lani, at God. Trying to come up with a Plan again. I could fix this. I'm not a bad person! I'm an idiot! You deserve this! Fuck it all!

I got back to the house just before dawn. I was so revved up emotionally that I couldn't sleep. I called in sick to work and got in touch with Dr. Beaver, the author of the marriage book. He seemed rather peeved by my insistence that we see him that very day but relented and agreed to meet us. I felt like I was down to my last shred of hope here. Dr. Beaver looked the part of a Modern Marriage Counselor, with a full beard, bushy, unkempt hair, brown polyester slacks and open-necked shirt. He listened as first Lani, then I poured out our stories, from our first meeting to the present day. He considered things for a few moments, looking thoughtful with his hands together and pressed to his chin. Then he said: "I get the picture of the two of you being in a swimming pool together. Neither one of you can swim and you're climbing on top of each other to keep from drowning. I don't think that's a healthy relationship at all. I don't know if there is anything I can do to help you."

So. That's it?

With little more to say he ushered us out the door and bid us good luck. Slam goes the door, see ya! Out in the bright July sunshine I felt like I was falling through space. We got in the car and drove back home. We discussed what we would do. I would move out because I didn't feel that sleeping in another room was a great idea. I needed time to clear my head so I was going back down to Ventura to see cousin Joe. I packed a few things in a suitcase, tossed my bike in the car. Lani was giving PJ and Jess a bath. I sat in the bathroom with them for our last moment together as a family. They were so happy, laughing and playing in the water. This was so unreal. What the hell am I doing? WAKE UP! I kissed my dear babies and told them I'd see them soon. I kissed Lani's forehead and told her I loved her still.

I paused at the front door, noticing the roses still in their vase. The petals had begun to droop and the arrangement looked a little sad. On an impulse I reached out and plucked one single petal and carefully pressed it in my wallet.

Then out the door and on the road.

One Last Stop

It was late in the afternoon and I didn't want to drive all night so I stopped in at my buddy Jim's house. He was very sympathetic and like so many friends have done over the centuries, suggested we getting totally pissed. I liked the idea, so we went out and picked up some beer, whiskey and cocaine. The substances flowed through my veins and I railed against Fate, women, artificial turf and whatever else my brain came up with. Late into the evening we went until all passing out.

"And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go to?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right? ...am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself
My god!...what have I done?"

I awoke some time later, the morning sun an angry spotlight through the window. "What the hell are you still doing here?" it seemed to say. OK, OK, I'm going. I found a scrap of paper and wrote "Thanks", leaving it on the coffee table. Then I snorted the last of the coke and split without looking back. Got to I-5 toward LA in a few hours. Considered throwing my wedding ring out the window for dramatic effect. Not yet. Burned down the highway through King City, Bakersfield, The Grapevine. Hotter than hell and I just kept going. CA126 at Santa Paula and down 101 to Ventura. What time is it? Time to stop. Call Joe's house. His mother-in-law answers. "Joe is at work right now but he'll be home soon." "OK, I'll call back."

"Where are you right now, Ed?"

"Oh, I'm in town."

"In town? We didn't expect you."

"I didn't expect to be here."

"Are you all right? You sound strange."

"Yeah. I feel strange. I'll tell you about it later."

"Why don't you come over now and wait for Joe?"

"I have some other people to see but I'll come over tonight. Thanks."

I went to the old photo lab and talked to one of the women I had worked with. Her name was Peggy and she was always a good friend, someone who could listen and then tell you just what she thought, no matter what you wanted to hear. She was getting off work later, so I went to the home of another woman and she fixed me a cheeseburger. The best, best cheeseburger I ever ate. The desert wind was still rattling around in my brain. I went to Peggy's house in Ojai later and she agreed to let me stay there until I found more a permanent place. Then on to Joe's to tell him what had happened and get drunk all over again.

Home away from Home.

"Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was..."

43: Same but not the same...

Chapter Forty-One: Hard Rain

2009-06-26T15:29:00.000-07:00

"Hello, it's me
I've thought about us for a long, long time.
Maybe I think too much but something is wrong.
There's something here doesn't last too long.
Maybe I shouldn't think of you as mine..." -TR

Weirdness on the North Shore

I got a call from my buddy/co-worker Jim asking if I wanted to camp out at Point Reyes, California over Fourth of July, 1984. His friend Kenny the Glassblower was coming along and it was a great way for me to get out of the funk I was in. Wild Bill at the lab said we didn't have to come back to work until the following Monday, and I was going out to Milwaukee soon, anyway. Things at old School Products were just too strange and unreal for me. Time to get away.

I took the VW bus Lani's folks had sold us and made for the open highway. It was a beautiful summer day in the Bay Area and I enjoyed every mile, tuning in the newest classic rock station on the radio dial. About an hour out from Point Reyes I saw a fellow traveler thumbing for a ride. He seemed like a likely sort so I stopped to pick him up. He jumped into the van and turned to face me. Long, scruffy, dirty hair, missing a couple of teeth, body odor like a dead skunk and talking a mile a minute from the moment he sat down. Oh, crap. Honestly, I couldn't understand half of what he said to me and when I could it was nothing but non sequiturs. I asked him where he was going and he asked me where I was going. I told him I was camping on the beach and he said "Cool, sounds cool. Yeah, cool." We were driving along the park road out to where my friends were staying and the guys asked what kind of trees those were. "Pine, I think." "Whoa, you really know trees, man. Tell me something about pine trees."

"Well, some guy once said many parts are edible."

"I gotta eat some pine tree. Yeah, cool."

We got out of the car and I grabbed my backpack. Now I have lived on or near the beach most of my life so I know how to make time walking on sand. The poor hippie guy was lugging his loose bedroll and duffel bag, saying "Hey, man, wait up." I got to my buddies' campsite well ahead of him and told the guys about how I couldn't shake him loose. The hippie came up, well out of breath and dropped his stuff. "Man, I am so hungry. Can I use your fire and cook some, like, stew man?"

Kenny, Jim and I walked around the beach scrounging up firewood. There was a ton of driftwood lying around and it gave Kenny an idea. "Follow my lead", he said, giving us a conspiratorial wink. He took all the wood we had gathered and began setting it on the fire, which grew dramatically. By now the hippie dude had opened his can of Dinty Moore and was trying to heat it up. The three of us kept gathering wood and tossing it on, choosing larger and larger pieces until finally we dragged a pier post across the beach and threw it into the flames, causing sparks to shoot thirty feet into the air. And as we threw the driftwood on we began to chant "Kill, kill, kill", softly at first but increasing in volume and intensity. By now it was full dark and I'm absolutely certain that our bonfire could be seen from space. The dude finally got the hint and moved off beyond the dunes. I was half-imagining as I dozed off that night that he might return and kill us all in our sleep. Next morning he was gone, perhaps to annoy another group of campers.

Leavin' on a Jet Plane

So back to Concord and next day a flight out to Chicago. I was flying on Jet Blue, a brand-new airline at the time. I got into my big, comfy seat in First Class and waited for the other passengers to arrive. And they did. All three of them. Yes, there were a grand total of four people flying in a 747 from San Francisco to Chicago. We each had our own personal airline hostess, ready to fill our free drinks and food upon our whim. It was heavenly.

I got to Chicago at about 5AM, having taken the redeye. My sister in law was coming in about four hours after me so I had to wait for her in order to get a ride from Neal. Chicago's O'Hare Airport is the second-busiest in the world, but you wouldn't have known it that day. I wandered through the nearly empty corridors, my footsteps echoing in the vast chambers, reminded of the movie The Mouse That Roared. I sat and played my guitar for a while, entertaining no one. Finally the time came for me to meet up with Neal and Maile and we cruised up I-94 to Beertown. Time to meet the relatives.

The Shit Really Comes Down

From the moment I walked in the front door at the Klug House in Milwaukee I felt like Uncas walking through the enemy camp. Lani was cold, distant. Merle ignored me. Other relatives were kinder, though I felt ill at ease in their presence. It was as though they all knew something and were keeping it secret from me. PJ and Jess were having a ball. There were people fussing over them all the time, from aunts and uncles to great-grandparents. I was the nineteenth tire on this 18-wheeler.

Some of us younger adults were cut loose to go to the River Fest, where the Stray Cats were playing and Paul Rodriguez was doing his standup stuff. It was so surreal...I was there on a beautiful summer day with my wife, her sister, Neal's younger brother (much younger..oops) and his wife. The Cats were amazing, the comedy dead-on. And my heart feeling like a cold rock in my chest. What was going on? Lani could hardly look at me, wouldn't even hold my hand as we walked around the grounds. The beer and carnival food tasted like water and sawdust. There was some serious shit coming down and I could feel it. It was a Wile E. Coyote moment: Here comes the anvil. You know it's going to hit you. Fuck it.

That night in our room I finally asked Lani to tell me what was going on. It was more than obvious that she was unhappy and I needed an explanation.

I wish my powers of recall were strong enough to see through the fog that began to descend on my mind as I listened to her pour her heart out. It had started back in Hawaii, when she saw how I was killing myself to make a buck. Then it continued to the mainland and nothing had changed. I was so wrapped up in my angst over being the Man that I ignored a growing concern Lani had. The one that was telling her she might have made a mistake. The same little voice of fear that had clawed at me these four years and set the whole situation up. The only quote that survived in my emotionally charged mind was: "I don't love you now, and I don't know if I ever really did." How could I argue with that? What was to love about a monster like me? An unworthy fuck-up who couldn't do anything right?

We talked a little more, made love, fell into fitful sleep. Jess woke up while it was still dark and I went to her, rocking her back to sleep. A storm blew up in the middle of the night, the shutters of our room bursting open as if we were at sea in a gale. The gods were restless, this I knew.

The next day was Sunday and we went to church in Green Bay. I looked up at the guy hanging on the cross and with my own emotions boiling over I sent him a silent message: "I feel you, brother." Lani sat a few feet away, separated from me by her parents. That irony was not lost on me. She kept sneaking glances at me but I couldn't meet her eyes.

That afternoon it was time for me to fly back to California. It had been a very nerve-wracking stay and I felt as lost as ever. Neal drove me down to the bus station where I would take the Greyhound back to the airport. Lani and PJ came along and a summer rainstorm soaked the pavement. PJ laughed and jabbered, pointing out signs and funny people on the street. The rest of us were quiet. When we got to the station I got out and pulled my stuff from the trunk. I shut it and went to the side window to say goodbye to Lani and PJ. Just as she rolled down the window, Neal gunned the motor and drove off, leaving me standing in the rain. Alone again, naturally.

It was one lonely-ass trip back home. Some lady behind me on the bus talked non-stop for the whole trip. I got fairly liquored up in the airport bar and listened to a song called For the Good Times, crying into my drink. Yeah, it was all so dramatic. But also very, very real. I was losing this girl I never deserved in the first place, just like I knew I would.

The Eye of the Storm

Got back to the house and wallowed in self pity for just a bit. On my first night home Lani called to say that she had had a change of heart. She wanted to make things work. I was filled with hope and joy. "First thing we need to do is move out of your parents' place", I said. She agreed, and told me she could hardly wait to see me again. I felt an energy rising up in me. We could do this. Together. Just us. She couldn't come home soon enough for me.

42: Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...

Chapter Forty: Hawaiian Sunset

2009-06-12T15:58:00.000-07:00

"It seems like yesterday
But it was long ago
Janey was lovely, she was the queen of my nights
There in the darkness with the radio playin' low
And the secrets that we shared
The mountains that we moved
Caught like a wildfire out of control
Till there was nothing left to burn and nothing left to prove

And I remember what she said to me
How she swore that it never would end
I remember how she held me oh so tight
Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then" -Bob Seger

I heard this song one morning as I drove home and I couldn't get the thought out of my head that it was time for a change.

So Happy Together

We wanted to baptize Jess at the local church, but the priest there was not all that willing to help us because we weren't church-going types. He interviewed us and told us he was interested in counseling us before he could perform the ceremony. We saw no harm in it and I thought it might be a nice way to reconnect with my spiritual side and with Lani, too. Over the course of our visits Lani and I talked more about our feelings toward each other than at any time in our marriage. We decided that we could attend services more often. We also agreed that our wedding had felt far too hasty and that a renewal of our vows would be nice. Before any real planning started, though, things got a little hairier on the work side.

Desperate Times

By late winter, just after Christmas, I decided I'd had enough of this bullshit at the lab. I suppose that even with all the other crap that John was throwing at me and my struggles with fatherhood I probably could have kept my head together. But then one night I went out to the parking lot after another grueling day and my car was gone. I stood looking at the parking space dumbly, as if I could will my eyes to see it there even though it was clearly gone. Maybe I parked it somewhere else...OK, let's look around the parking lot. Nope, no car. On the street? Nada. Yeah, it's gone. It was a 1979 Nissan B210, a real beater. The exhaust was bad and the thing sounded like a Harley when I started it up. What the hell would anyone want it for? The cops told me thieves stripped cars like that for the seats, battery and other usable parts before trashing it. I called Lani and she had to wake the kids and come all the way over to pick me up. She wasn't obviously angry at me but there seemed to be an air of tension coming from her.

They found my car two days later, stripped and totaled about 10 miles north of town. A tow company had hauled it in. My insurance agent inspected it and gave me a check for $500. I used it to buy a 1970 Ford Maverick. Loved that car.

But back to my state of mind. I wanted to leave the confines of the lab, but the employment situation in Hawaii was horrible. Even for the $3 per hour night shift jobs we offered, a hundred people or more would show up. I struck out everywhere I looked. Lani told me that she was feeling a little lost living in Kailua, that her friends were never around and it just wasn't the place she remembered. So I expanded my job search to the Mainland.

One day Merle called to say that she had seen an ad in the local paper in Concord, CA advertising for a lab supervisor in Oakland. I called the number and had a long chat with a gentleman named Bill Thompson. He agreed to hire me at a salary of $20k but couldn't help with the moving expenses. No sweat. We had saved a little and Lani's folks helped with the rest. In fact, we were going to move in with them until we could find a place of our own.

It was easy to walk into John's office and tell him that I quit. I gave him two weeks notice but he told me he would pay me two weeks and I could just go. Mighty nice of him. I drove away from that place like it was on fire. The guy he promoted to my position was the chronically late guy I had written up. The guy who also accidentally cut off a fingertip on one of the film splicers. It put me in the mind of checking out the guy your girlfriend dates after you. This is better?

Aloha

We built our own packing crate, a sturdy beast made from 2x4's and heavy plywood, and packed it full of stuff. A big truck came by and hauled it off to the docks. Then I drove my car down there and dropped it off in the Matson Lines lot for shipment.

The big day came again and we were on a plane and winging our way back to California. PJ, now 3 1/2 years old, looked out the window as Oahu drifted beneath us. I saw sadness in his eyes and asked him if he was OK. "No", was all he said and he rested his head on my shoulder, asleep in minutes.

New Home in CA

Now we were in Northern California, the San Francisco Bay Area. A beautiful place, with dramatic views and perfect weather. I looked forward to biking on all the cool trails around Concord and Walnut Creek. And of course, starting the new job. Lani was talking about going back to work as well, which would get us on our feet quicker.

I went to work at the lab and met the quirky cast of characters there. I made a fast friend with Jim Burnette, a funny guy from the Midwest who'd just moved to California. There were Randy and Peggy, a strange couple who collected TV shows on tape. There was Carlos, the Mexican working stiff who was technically the Lab Manager, but turned out to be more of a whipping boy. I met Barb, the mousy secretary. Then there were the photographers and sales people.

Our specialty was school portraits, class pictures and sports team packages. you know the type: vanity baseball cards, rows of kids' portraits around a school crest. Before the digital age all that stuff was done as a photo composite. Without going into detail I'll just say that it was a mother$%#ker to get done right. And every finished piece had to be approved by The Big Guy before we could mass produce it.

Ah yes, "Wild" Bill Thompson. Here's his idea of priorities: One day the outside temperature topped 90 degrees and we had no air conditioning. I looked at a thermometer we had in the lab area and saw that it was 82 degrees inside. Looking up, I spotted a big fan suspended from the rafters. I switched it on and it started recirculating air, at least creating some kind of breeze. It hadn't been on five minutes before Bill came storming out of his office. "Who turned on that goddamned fan?" he shouted. I told him I had done it to try to cool us off. He said "It'll put dust all over the prints! Turn it off now!" And he returned to his lair.

Birthdays were bizarre. Bill would drive us mercilessly to get orders finished, sometimes berating the staff even when his demands were physically impossible. Then, in the middle of the fray, he would announce that it was somebody's birthday and now we would have cake and ice cream. Seriously. We were to drop whatever we were doing immediately and go to the break area for a party that lasted exactly 15 minutes, the federally-mandated time for afternoon break. We had to wear paper hats and sing Happy Birthday. The very second that 15 minutes was up he would growl "Back to work!" and we would take off the hats and shuffle off. One day Carlos made the mistake of not finishing his treat in time. "But I steel have some lef'" he said. Bill took the plate from his hand and tossed it into the trash. "Not any more", he said. And that just scratches the surface.

He would stand at the door on payday, handing each worker an envelope and saying something to each one: "Don't spend it all on booze....Next week let's try to earn this....Pretty good job this week...Don't forget your landlord...", ad nauseum.

So it's no surprise that I felt somewhat...panicked at this point. Shit, out of the frying pan and into the fire. What is it with these lab owners, managers, whatever? Are they all just nuts?

Day to Day in Concord

Merle and Neal were cordial to me, but it was clear that more had been expected of me on the supporting the family front. I was still "meathead", and I still got the occasional silent treatment from Merle. I tried to carve out time for myself now and then, cycling around town or taping sci-fi movies on Neal's Betamax. I wanted a clear copy of War of the Worlds, so I set myself up in front of the TV with remote
in hand, ready to cut out the commercials. I had snacks, beer and a nice Saturday afternoon to kill. Lani and Merle were packing the RV for a trip to Milwaukee, where Neal's family still lived. I was going to stay and work a few extra days while they drove then fly out to Chicago and get picked up and driven down to Neal's parent's place.

I had only gotten a few minutes into the movie when Lani came in and asked if I could help put a bike rack on the RV. "Can it wait a bit?" I asked. "I really want to tape this show." She left, a look of mild contempt on her face. I felt put down, but a little voice in me insisted that I had the right to this "me time". Lani came back in about 30 minutes later, looked at the screen and asked how much longer the show was going to last. "It's a movie, Lani. It will be about another hour or so." She stalked out. Now I was feeling pretty low. I stewed for a while, muttering defensive statements and sulking. Finally I found my heart wasn't in the project anymore and I went out front. Merle and Lani were just finishing the rack as I came out. "Oh, you're done. Anything else I can help with?" I got cold stares from both of them that I have only recently recovered from. And this was 1984. So...

The next day they all took off for the open road and I had the place to myself. It felt more than empty. Something very tangible was missing and I felt a deep sadness I couldn't put my finger on. I needed the company of friends right now, but I hardly knew a soul in the area. What to do?

Chapter 41: Tragedy tomorrow, Comedy tonight!

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Aloha means three things...

2009-06-11T14:20:00.000-07:00

Movin' Again

Back home in Ventura after my adventure in the tropics, now we were wrapping things up for the move. Sold my cool old car to a nice Mexican family and Lani sold her little brown pickup truck to her sister. We pretty much got rid of everything we owned, including the majority of my burgeoning record collection. I had accumulated over 1000 LP's at garage sales, flea markets and Salvation Army stores over the years but they were way too heavy to transport to Hawaii. So I had to make the hard cuts and get the stack down to a reasonable number. I hated to see those hard-won prizes go but there was no choice.

The people at work were happy for me, though my boss expressed some reservations about the company I was going to work for. Apparently they didn't have a great reputation amongst middle management in "the business". He and I went to a photo processing convention in Las Vegas before I left and I heard the same story from other folks in the know. Cool. I'm uprooting my family, selling everything we own and moving what amounts to a foreign country and it looks like my job will be a drag.

Then Lani decided to tell me that there was just one little thing that bothered her about moving back to Oahu. She told me that she had been at a party and had had too much to drink one night at a friend's house, a family she had known and worked for in high school. She passed out and when she awoke the next morning it was apparent to her that a son in the family had taken advantage of her during the night. I can't describe how angry I was at that moment, but I told her that it was OK and was she still angry at him. She said that while it was disappointing, she didn't harbor ill feelings about him. But inside my head I was thinking "Gonna knock that bastard flat if I ever see him."

We shipped our stuff out, got on a plane and headed West. The flight attendants seemed dubious when they saw Lani's advanced state of pregnancy but they let us fly anyway. Thanks!

Playing House

We were lucky enough to be offered the use of a home belonging to Lani's grandparents. We lived rent-free, only having to pay utilities and keep up the place. The house was in a neighborhood called Enchanted Lake in the little town of Kailua. The town is on the windward side of the island, so all we had to do to cool the place off was open the windows. No air conditioning required. Good thing, too, because even then, in the mid-80's, electricity on Oahu was outrageously expensive. We had few lights, hung wash out to dry and never needed to heat or cool the house artificially and still paid $100 or more per month. Gas was so expensive they had to post the price per liter to make it look cheaper. Median price per liter then was 35 cents. That's $1.40 per gallon and we were not much better than poor.

I started working at the lab a few days after we got there. I had to drive over the mountains that loomed above Kailua by way of the Pali Highway. Then down through the outskirts of Honolulu to the airport, where the lab was just a few blocks from the freight area. Pretty nondescript building and neighborhood, but there was a "plate lunch" place within walking distance that served hardy Island fare for cheap. I met the night crew I would be working with: a typical collection of locals. Hawaii is a true melting pot, with Asian, European and Polynesian mixes all calling themselves Real Hawaiians.

My management partner on these shifts was a "Portegee" fellow named Willie Medley. His uncle was Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers. Willie had never left the Islands and was not too interested in ever doing so. Much as I had been warned about the feeling of confinement called "rock fever" some people felt living on an island, some island folks were terrified by the thought of living in the "wide open spaces" of the Mainland.

This was my job: Film came in from delivery drivers. We sorted it by film size and order type. Film processing orders went first to the splicers. They spliced film together into big reels. The reels of film were run through a developing machine like the first one I ever worked on years before. The developed film was printed using automated printers that transferred the images onto huge rolls of photographic paper. These were run through a paper processing machine. We ran the rolls, sometimes five lanes across, along a manual inspection station. If a print looked like it needed to be re-done due to machine error we put a black sticker on one side of it using an instrument that looked like a price gun. If it was just a garbage shot we marked the other side and it would get pitched. The inspected paper rolls were matched back up with the film and order envelopes at a packaging station, where the individual prints were slipped into envelopes and the whole thing tossed into a bin where it was sorted by driver route and priced. Then we filled the big plastic delivery bags and the drivers came back in the morning to ship 'em out.

I had to know how to do any one of the jobs in the production chain in case people called in sick and believe me, they did that often. Just another Island way. I also handled personnel issues, mixed photochemistry, tested the chemistry in the machines for proper balance, picked up deliveries at the airport and performed routine and emergency maintenance on the machines. All between the hours of 6 PM and whenever the hell I was done, usually between 4 and 6 AM, Sunday through Thursday. Every now and then I would stick around on Friday long enough to pick up my check before going home around 10AM. Long-ass days to be sure.

Why did I work those kinds of hours in the stink and mess, with no real acknowledgment from John Lee of the sacrifices? Why did I put up with his condescending attitude and veiled threats whenever I questioned his methods? What the hell kept me going once I realized the warnings I had gotten about the company started coming true? Two things: Coming over the Pali at sunrise with the windows down, the warm, salty breeze in my hair, and my family. I had an Irish Catholic mentality about What One Does to support his family. Even if it's killing you, you keep doing it to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. Trouble with that is it doesn't leave the mind open to other possibilities. It just slowly starts killing your desire and rotting things from the inside out. And that can lead to disaster.

Good Times/Bad Times

We had only been there a couple of weeks when we got an invitation to go to a party at the home of "that" family friend. I could feel my blood warming to a boil as the day of the party approached. Lani was nervous, asking me what I was going to do. "I don't know", was all I could say, though I pretty much knew what I wanted to do. The day we were to go she finally took me aside and admitted she had made up the whole story. I was crushed that she would do such a thing and relieved that I wouldn't be acting the fool. Did I believe her? What could I believe? My trust in her took a blow then and to this day I still don't know the real story.

We had a great time at the party, though. The guys took me out to the garage where they turned me on to some major-grade "pakalolo", the Hawaiian word for home grown ganja. It absolutely kicked my ass, and that particular guy and I were best buddies by the time I left that night. Hawaiians have this cool custom of leaving their "slippers" at the front door before entering a house. After a party you might have to sort through dozens of pairs to find yours, so you usually end up wearing any ones that fit. It's a wash.

I also loved going to local luaus at places like the Lions Club and elementary schools. Pot luck at these soirees included lomi salmon, kahlua pig, chicken long rice and all the rice and macaroni salad you could eat. The hula dancers always entertained, from the little wahines to the old ladies in their muumuus.

The beach in Kailua was never crowded, and PJ and I went there often to play in the sand and make sand castles. The sand was as fine as dust, and mixing it with a little water allowed us to dribble it out of our hands, making spires that looked like soft-serve ice cream cones.

Another Bundle of Joy

After a couple of false alarms, Lani finally went into labor on the morning of July 1, 1983. By that evening she had delivered Jessica Pi'ikea Virginia Newbegin into the world. There was a scary moment when we saw the umbilical cord around her neck, but she came through like a champ and I now had a son and a daughter. "Please", I implored Whoever Was Listening, "Keep that fucking Beast in its cage this time. There has to be some strength in Love to overcome this!"

Alas, not to be. Lani was now aware of my "little problem" but like me she wanted to believe it could be managed. I had some very difficult days when Jess simply did not want to sleep in her crib. She would scream and cry for hours at a time, and my nerves would fray near the breaking point. All the old crap that circulated in my head from before all came back. "I'm a horrible person. Make it stop! Those people know what a monster I am. Stop crying!!"

But I did persevere. Barely. With the stress of my job on top of it I just didn't know what to do but to keep on keepin' on.

Train Coming at You

The days flew by, each much like the rest. There were cookouts on the beach, visiting friends, seeing the sights. I took up biking to stay in shape and clear my head. I would bike all over the windward side, through town and out by Lanikai, an exclusive community boasting homes owned by Don Ho and cookie magnate Famous Amos. We actually met him on the beach and exchanged pleasantries with him and his wife, who was also pregnant and due to deliver about the same time as Lani.

But there was also the relentless routine of working at the lab. I was feeling beaten down by the little fires I was always putting out. The staff couldn't give a damn whether anything got done as long as they got their hours. John was becoming a total prick, once lambasting me for being off on my paper roll inventory count by one roll. He harangued me about the value of the paper on the black market. Black market? Who the hell steals one roll of photo paper for profit? I once disciplined an employee for being chronically late by writing him up. John upbraided me in front of the staff for not respecting other cultures. I saw the writing on the wall. My time was short.

Then the weirdest thing happened. One night John called Willie and me into his office. He congratulated both of us for helping the company exceed mandated production goals. Whoopee! Then he handed us both our bonus checks. "This is money I keep hidden from my wife", he told us. "You should do the same. Have fun, buy something just for you. Tell you what...let's go have some coffee."

"Oh, thanks, John, but I really want to get some sleep and it's 2 in the morning. If I have coffee now I won't sleep all day."

John looked at Willie, who looked at me and said: "Ees just a code werd, man." Well, all right.

So we left right in the middle of the shift and ended up at a strip bar about a mile away from the lab, where it just so happened one could cash company checks to set up a tab. Then the balance would come back as change when you left. Pretty handy, that. We sat in a booth and talked about our lives, our families, artificial turf. The bartender had obviously clued the waitresses in to our monetary situation and they were....very friendly. One asked me "You want to buy me a bottle of Lancer's? Only five dollars." Even in my semi-drunken state I knew what was starting to happen. John and Willie were glancing at me knowingly and I could see my small-town naivete crumbling. I declined to buy the young lady a bottle and she gave me the bitch treatment for the rest of the evening. Finally I said "Shouldn't we be getting back to the lab?"

"Go home, Ed. Sleep it off and we'll see you tomorrow." I was there.

I was on my way home up the Pali, feeling a bit bleary but my head was OK with the fresh air replacing the smoke and heat from the club. Suddenly, as I rounded a curve, a woman came running right at the car in the middle of the road. I swerved, missing her, slowing down and pulling to the side of the road. She ran over to me, babbling about needing to find her purse. As I got out of my car I noticed hers just ahead, upside down in the roadway. Then I saw she was bleeding from several bad road rashes and her dress was torn. "Is there anyone else in the car?" I shouted. I say shouted because she was babbling and screaming alternately about needing to get her purse. Finally she calmed down enough to say no, nobody else in the car. The highway was deserted at 4AM, but finally a Honolulu cop pulled up on the other side. He shined his side light on us and the car. "Everything OK here?"

Sure. We're all fine. Nothing to see here. Move along. What a turd.

The girl was in her early 20's and definitely blitzed on something. She needed the purse because it still had a couple of grams of coke in it. Ah. That explains it. The emergency people and cops all starting showing up minutes later and she went completely batshit on them, trying to refuse treatment and calling the cops every name in the book. I stood aside, getting ready to slide away when a cop told me "You're girlfriend is pretty messed up." Whoa, partner! "Not my girlfriend. officer. I'm just a guy who stopped to help. She told me she had coke in her purse so you might want to see if somebody can find it." Yeah, I narced on her. I wanted out of this cluster fuck and that did it just fine. He took my contact information and I went back to the car, which I had actually left running through the whole ordeal. I got back home and had to shower off the blood on me from her grabbing at me out there. The end of a perfect night.

When we return for Chapter 40: Yes, aloha means three things.

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Stranger than Paradise

2009-04-30T18:08:00.000-07:00

The Urge for Goin'

As the days went by in our little house in Ventura, I couldn't help but feel that Lani wasn't happy. Not that she sat in her room crying or snapped at me, but there seemed to be a wistfulness about her. With another child on the way I felt it was my duty to jump-start things and get us into a higher income bracket. The photo lab had moved from a little backwater business park into a brand-new shopping center, and we were now an official One Hour Photo Lab. I was learning more about photochemistry and machine repair from my boss, Paul Blumenfeld. He had been very accommodating in giving me my job back after running away to Santa Maria. He was a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology, one of only two schools that specialized in photofinishing. I learned a lot from him, and it got me to thinking that maybe I knew just enough to move up the ladder into.....dum dum dum.....management.

I didn't want to work in the area for a competitor, and then it hit me: Lani sometimes spoke about going back to Hawaii. Well, why not? A plan formed itself in my head and I started getting pretty excited about the possibilities. I was also relieved that I would have something else to think about other than the cute girl at the bakery next to the lab. The one who liked to flirt with me and got the hound dog in me all riled up. Yeah, better leave that pup behind.

I went to the library and got a copy of the Oahu phone book. I looked in the yellow pages and got the names of every photo lab on the island. Then I composed my first-ever resume. A thing of beauty, no doubt, showing my many years of "lab rat" experience and my desire for better things. I sent out about a dozen letters, not telling Lani of my plan. A couple of weeks later, just as I started to lose hope, a letter came from a company called Phototron. I know, sounds like some futuristic weapon. "Eliminate the Earth scum! Fire the Phototron!"

The letter was from the personnel director, and he wanted me to come down to Rialto, a suburb of Los Angeles, for an interview. Well, all right. I told Lani what I had been doing and she was really happy. We were both jazzed about the prospect of living in Hawaii.

Two days later I drove down to Rialto and apparently I said all the right things to the right people because they decided to send me to Hawaii to interview with the plant manager and production manager. Before I left the building a secretary set up my flight and hotel arrangements for the following weekend. I walked back out to my car with my head spinning. Now things were getting real.

Get a Job, Part Duh

Lani and I were both excited about the prospect of living in Hawaii. I saw it as a way to revitalize our marriage and get away from the rut I felt I was getting into in my life. Travel Day came and I was dropped on at LAX wearing my best brown polyester suit, (vest included). I met the plant manager at the gate and we had lunch, gabbing about this and that. He didn't seem to care much about my experience, focusing more on my attitudes toward different disciplinary scenarios. How would I handle catching somebody stealing from the company? How would I react if somebody called me some derogatory name? I also got this weird vibe off him that perhaps he was coming on to me. Hmmm. Nothing overt but I was happy when he dropped me off at the Ala Moana Hotel after lunch.

I had a few hours to kill before the meeting that night so I changed my duds and went for a walk. I walked through the local shopping mall, down to the beach and out to Kapiolani Park, where the famous Kodak Hula Show happened daily. This was good. This was cool. Walkin' around Honolulu, staying at a fancy hotel. I went back and ordered room service just because I could.

That night I met the plant manager for dinner and we hit it off. His name was John Lee and he had moved to Hawaii from South Korea to run the plant. We dined at the famous revolving restaurant Top of Waikiki. Seeing Honolulu go from sunset to sparkling city night hypnotized me. I was as in love with this city now as I was with Lani. I could feel the ancient nature of the land and the slow, easy pace of its people through every pore. So John had no trouble getting me to sign an employment contract after my tour of the plant. The place was a typical mass film processing plant. smelling of photographic bleach and dust. Just the place for a lab rat like me. I was to be paid the princely sum of $12,000 per year and my title was Production Supervisor. I would start May 3, 1983, just six weeks from that interview. The company would help with travel and moving expenses. This was real. We movin' to da Islands!

The Big Kahuna

I spent the next day hanging out around town, since I wasn't going home until Sunday. That evening I was to meet some of Lani's friends from high school at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Up in my room I dressed in a nice, new aloha shirt I had just picked up and a pair of white slacks Lani had bought for the trip. Add a pair of slick, new "slippers" (Hawaiian word for flip-flops) and I looked the part of White Missionary Out on the Town. There was a soft knock at the door and I opened it to a beautiful Hawaiian girl in a clingy dress who said "Hi, I'm Rachel" (I think) and gave me a big kiss. We exchanged pleasantries and I escorted her to the Royal Hawaiian.

We waited in the lobby, getting our share of looks. (I was much better looking then) The the other girls started showing up, some in pairs and some alone. Some had flower leis they put around my neck with a kiss, and each one was stunningly gorgeous. Eventually the group was complete: Thirteen of them and one of me. The maitre d took one look at me, winked and showed us to a large, circular table in the center of the showroom. We talked and laughed, and I felt like the friggin' King of Hawaii sitting there with his harem. The musical act that night was the Brothers Cazimero, a long-time traditional Hawaiian music group. At the break they came to our table because many of the girls knew them. That cemented my status with the crowd as Somebody Special. It was a magical evening that I'll probably see as my life flashes before my eyes.

Sunday came and I was just a pumpkin again. Took a cab to the airport, flew back to LAX. Saw Charlton Heston strolling through the halls and walked just behind him out to the street thinking: "What can I say to Charlton Heston that wouldn't sound all gooey and stupid and possibly idiotically insane?" And then he got into his illegally parked car and drove off. Later he became the president of the NRA and a total tool so I felt better about snubbing him.

We had six weeks to wrap up our lives in California and make a new home on Oahu. Time for a big change.

39, like a cup of wine. But oh, don't be left with bitter dregs.

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Pushing the Stone

2009-04-20T20:32:00.000-07:00

Day to Day Stuff

With all the angst I was now putting myself through, now I was under the analytical gaze of my in-laws. My father-in-law was a true man's man who loved to go deep sea fishing, watch football and feast like a king. He had been a four-year football player at Wisconsin and was considered draftable. But a knee injury put an end to that. Our relationship was prickly from the time we first moved into his home. I know he saw me as a bleeding-heart liberal and let's face it, not good enough for his daughter. Sure, we watched Boxeo de Mexico and football together but outside of that I was only barely tolerated. While it started as a joke, my nickname became "meathead", like the character Mike Stivic on All in the Family. I was working at a photo lab and going back to college to finish my degree in music. That went over well, too.

But I would not be fair if I didn't mention the best part about living with the in-laws: the food. Oh my God what an amazing assortment of dishes we had there! My mother-in-law was a fantastic cook. My favorites included: Ox-tail soup, seafood chowder, chicken noodle soup and the best sushi and sashimi I ever had. Father-in-law loved barbecuing and had a smoker. We had smoked fish, beef, turkey and chicken regularly. Steak tartar for New Year's Day and loads of incredible appetizers. A great afternoon out with Neal was going to several smorgasbord restaurants in one day, coming back dizzy with the high calorie count. I could do that in my skinny days.

Then came the Silent Treatment from my mother-in-law. When I violated a rule of etiquette or protocol in the home, or just said something stupid, I was treated as if I did not exist. I remember the first time this happened, when I had no clue what was going on. I walked into the kitchen and she was washing dishes.

"Hi, Merle."

Silence, washing.

"Lani out with PJ?"

Silence, moving around the kitchen, not even meeting my eyes. I am a ghost. Worse, I am a non-person. I have to wait until Lani gets home to find out what my transgression was and avoid that behavior in the future. When my probationary period is up I am then spoken to again.

And woven through it all were the fears I could not put to rest. You're a horrible person for all these thoughts. She doesn't trust you around the baby any more. What good is a fucking degree in music, anyway? How will you support a family by working in a photo lab? They would be better off without you.

And so on.

But holding me together, keeping me strong in the face of all this, was the unwavering love and sense of duty to little PJ and Lani. I didn't have any real plan for the future yet outside of keep working harder.
A Dark Day

One Sunday night, December 8, 1980, I was working the night shift at the lab. I was listening to the local rock station, KTYD out of Santa Barbara. The evening DJ, a guy named Zeb Norris, came on and said: "Please stay tuned after this commercial for a very important announcement." Okay, so maybe Led Zeppelin is coming to town, or Joe Walsh dropped in at the studio. (He lived in SB at the time.) But no. Zeb came back on the air, clearly struggling to maintain his composure.

"Listeners, we've just gotten word over the news wire that John Lennon was shot in New York City and is dead. A gunman approached him at his hotel as Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono were returning from dinner with friends and killed the former Beatle with several shots at point blank range. The gunman has been apprehended and details will follow." This was followed by John's recording of Imagine.

I sat there in shock, not knowing what to think. John Lennon murdered? What the fuck?! I called cousin Joe and asked if he had heard. He said they just got the news in the middle of a documentary about the Doors. We talked about how bizarre the whole thing was. I hung up and did my best to finish my work for the night, listening to the updates as they came in. On the way home that night I was driving up Harbor Boulevard back to the house when something caught my eye. It was a brilliant glow, slowly making its way out into the Pacific. I stood outside my car, watching it fade over the horizon. "John?", I asked. Turned out it was a misfired rocket from Nevada that got destroyed over the ocean. Strange stuff.

I was sitting in an easy chair in the living room when my father-in-law got home from his job. He could tell I was down. Lani told him it was because John had been killed.

"Good", he said, "Now go get the other ones." Can't top that.

The next day the news was full of the reactions around the world. In my vocal techniques class at college we talked about our memories of John and what the boys from Liverpool had meant to each of us. I had an emotional moment that night at work when it all overwhelmed me. I really felt I had lost something, not just a man but a part of my past. A given that I just assumed would always be there. It could happen just that fast, to anyone.

Travellin'

In December Lani, PJ and I went out East to visit my folks. This was an intense time for me, as I was returning to the family household as a Dad in my own right, carrying baggage I had never anticipated. While things at times got prickly with the parents, I enjoyed seeing all my old friends and my two sisters. Leslie was pregnant with her first child and I told her about the difficulties I was having. She sympathized with me but as it turned out that legacy never came to bother her. Looking back it doesn't surprise me. Any oldest child will tell you that the parents usually refine their methods from the first go-round. Mom really got a kick out of seeing the first grandchild.

Movin' On from Town to Town

After we got back I started thinking that we had to get a place of our own. It was obvious that the in-laws were telling Lani that I was a bum going nowhere and she was torn between her feelings for me and the need for their approval. Lani was offered a job in Santa Maria, up in the Central Valley of California, managing a travel agency owned by the people who had trained her in Santa Barbara. We moved there in July and stayed until just before Christmas. The job was a disaster and both of us were feeling lonely and out of place.

We ended up getting an apartment across town from the in-laws back in Ventura, which relieved the pressure somewhat. Lani got a job at a local grocery store and I got my job back at the lab and started really learning how to cook and keep a neat house. While it wasn't domestic bliss, it was secure enough that we actually started talking about having another baby. What remained unsaid, unanswered, was "Why?"

We had some nice neighbors but the place was too busy, too noisy. We moved into a small duplex in a quiet neighborhood, anticipating the arrival of our newest child. While Lani and I had had some conflicts over money and other petty stuff, I saw us as being OK together, a view shared by our friends. I still felt like I wasn't doing enough to help us progress, though. I wanted to take the next step up in my career. But how?

38: Careful whatcha wish fer....

Chapter 36: The Beast

2009-04-15T14:25:00.000-07:00

"Enough, then, that I not only recognised my natural body for the mere aura and effulgence of certain of the powers that made up my spirit, but managed to compound a drug by which these powers would be dethroned from their supremacy, and a second form and countenance substituted, none the less natural to me because they were the expression, and bore the stamp, of lower elements in my soul." - Doctor Jekyll

Readers may find the following narrative upsetting or disturbing. I write this to remain true to the title and spirit of the story. It is a journey through the "lower elements of my soul" as I have seen them manifest over the years. If you would take my hand and come with me into this valley then journey with me to the end, and do not let loose too soon. You will be as lost as I was then.

Origins

I have alluded to the rather strict upbringing I had without going into a lot of detail. That was purposeful in order to save the reader any undue angst. The earlier parts of this story now come forward and are featured in the problem(s) that plagued me after PJ came home.

My introduction to "corporal punishment" came when I was about 7 or 8 years old. We were living in Rhode Island and I had come home late one night for supper. Not "late" as in calling-the-cops or going-out-to-look-for-you, but in terms of the military precision of our home. I was due home by 6PM and I was not there at 6PM. When I walked in the door I was called down to the family room in the basement where Dad had a very angry lecture ready for me. When that was over I was instructed to pull down my pants, kneel facing the couch and prepare for punishment. I was not to scream or attempt to block any action with my hand. Then Dad began striking my butt with a dowel rod, about a dozen whacks. I did try to put my hand out and it was struck as well. I then went to my room without supper, restricted there until morning.

This particular punishment was meted out countless times from then until I was 13. I was whipped for lying, stealing, smoking cigarettes and violating other taboos. The preferred weapon was the belt, pulled off Dad's waist and wielded like a cat-o-nine tails on my slender body, sometimes drawing blood. Other objects included willow switches and a ping pong paddle. I never knew how long the session would go, but I determined that I would not let the old man see or hear me express any pain no matter how bad it got. Only once did he hit me with his bare hand. I had been juggling excuses with my 3rd grade teacher over why I hadn't delivered some note to my parents. She finally called the house and spoke to Dad. I overheard him talking to her and when he was done I came into the kitchen to see if I could nonchalantly calm him down. Before one word had escaped my lips he backhanded me so hard I flew across the room, strking my head on an armchair in the living room. That bought me a fat lip, black eye and a bump on the noggin, all at once.

I also turned into a kleptomaniac. I would routinely steal small, almost insignificant items from the store just for the thrill of it. One day an older gentleman in a white shirt and tie followed me around the store while I tried to sneak out with some cheap plastic toy. I eventually put it back, and he stood by the door glaring at me as I walked past. "Stay the hell out of my store, little boy", he growled as I hit the door and ran home. To this day I still have that small urge now and again to nick some tiny thing, but the potential for embarrassment and some good old fashioned self-control always wins out.

One day I determined I'd had enough of the physical punishment. Dad was pissed at me for another screwup and had that familiar look in his eye. I stood up to him and said: "Dad, are you going to hit me now?" He looked at me levelly for a moment and the fire went out of his eyes. "Not this time", he said. And that was the end of that.

But the psychological war games continued unabated. Every mistake seemed amplified to a criminal act, every small success discounted. Shouting at me and referring to me as "You dummy" got to be routine. I had friends in the neighborhood but even that was little comfort. With my meek ways and gangly build I was frequently picked on and occasionally beaten by other boys who seemed to sense just how easy it was to do. Things like that are what led me to days where I'd sit in the window with the Marlin .30-.30, picking them off in my head. Or just climbing the huge maple tree in our front yard to read books and escape from it all.

I started drinking at age 11. My buddy Billy from across the street was home alone a lot and his Dad had lots of liquor. We drank the stuff straight, from Old Grandad to Wild Turkey to good old Beefeater and Seagram's 7 or vodka. I guess my folks never realized how often I got plastered because they never busted me, even though I'm sure I smelled a bit ripe sometimes. Then at 15 I discovered dope. A kid in my neighborhood had some and I smoked a bit one Saturday morning. Went back home and watched the funniest damn cartoons I'd ever seen! This stuff was great!

Billy had a party at his place one day and I drank way too much beer. Puked all night and the folks thought I had the flu. But I think I've told you about that one.

So that was the me who got shipped off to SMA in my 16th year. And that story has been told.

The Rising

"It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand, I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something." -Samwise Gamgee

One night, not long after PJ came home from the hospital, he began crying. And he wouldn't stop. We fed him, burped him, changed him, rocked him. No good. His piercing cry continued, growing in intensity in my head. And some dark thing awakened there and told me to make it stop. Make it stop now. I could feel a pull at me to pick the boy up and shake him until the noise ended. My vision was blurred, I felt dizzy and out of control. Adrenaline was pumping through me, making my limbs shiver like it was freezing inside. I fought myself for many minutes, Lani completely unaware of the enormous effort I was making to stay calm. I couldn't believe what was happening to me. I had literally wanted to kill that baby just to stop the crying. What the hell was the matter with me?

In the days to come I found it very difficult to be near PJ when he was crying. I would make excuses to leave the house or do something else to avoid the awful realization that I might be some kind of monster from the newspapers. The Mom who smothers her kids or the father that beats some toddler to death. Me? Better I would drive off a cliff than hurt my own flesh and blood. The horror I felt at these base emotions is beyond description. Nobody who ever knew me would have believed me capable of such thoughts. Yet there they were, torturing me every day. Guilt upon guilt along with a great self-loathing set in, turning my days into a struggle to maintain my sanity. I needed help before I did anything to harm myself or PJ.

I looked through the phone book under "Child Services" and found a place called Child Abuse and Neglect Counseling Services. I made an appointment and tried to hang on to that as a sign that things would get better. When I got to the offices I was met by a kind, middle-aged woman who listened carefully to me as I poured out my heart to her and wept with guilt. She tried to console me: "These are not unusual feelings, Ed. All new parents have problems at first."

"They all want to choke their children?"

"Well, not always. But it's not easy to find the patience to listen to your baby cry and not be able to stop it. What you need to do is talk about this with your wife and work it out with her. She may be feeling these things, too."

So that was it. I would have to admit to Lani that I was having these terrible thoughts. Yeah, good one. Perfect reason for her to finally see just what a total loser you really are and realize her mistake. Got that right, Little Voice.

To help us save money on rent we had moved into her parents' house. There in the dark of one night near Thanksgiving I told Lani about the Beast. She was shocked, though she said the right things to make me feel a little better. She cried, I cried, PJ cried later and she went to him, spending the rest of the night in the living room. Safe from you, pal. Indeed.

I didn't want my in-laws to know about my "little problem" so I had asked the CAAN lady not to send any literature to me. So of course a few days later a large manila envelope bearing the return address for Child Abuse And Neglect Counseling Center showed up in the mail addressed to me. Neal took one look at it and asked "What's this all about?" Lani, bless her heart, was quick on the draw, telling him that I had gotten on the mailing list through the hospital. "All new Dads get this kind of stuff", she told him. He gave me a sidelong look but didn't mention it again.

From those darkest days to just a few short years ago this Beast has lain within me, afflicting my life in myriad ways. I got counseling from several sources and hung in there, determined to beat the thing into the ground. It stems from a deep-seated feeling of worthlessness and lack of control. In naming it I have seen it and in the seeing I have known how to fight it. But it is there always, as much a part of me as Hyde to Jekyll.

In 2001 I had the good fortune to meet and work with a man by the name of Kevin Duggan, who by example showed me a way to calm this inner battle and bring a great deal of order and understanding to my life. I have seen through the wisdom of the Buddha that "I" am a collection of perceptions, driven too often by ego to protect some sacred sense of self against attack. While I am far from perfect (amen!) I don't feel like I'm struggling against myself any more. I don't beat myself up if I slip. I'm not the "dummy" I once was.

I am no proselytizer, but I have used the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path to get me over a lot of heavy shit. I am responsible for all I do and all I feel. And I didn't even have to shave my head or give away all my cool stuff to do it! I just don't worry so much about losing the stuff, though it would be a drag...

My wife and my kids know this about me: I am a Seeker. A flawed, stumbling acolyte who is lurching in the right direction most of the time. And I love them for it.

No harm ever came to my kids by my hands. No trips to the hospital, no "tell Grandma you fell off the swing". But the Beast fed my fear for many years to come, bringing self-fulfilling prophesies to fruition one after another and leading to even darker days. And so the story continues.

Chapter 37 - Comes in like a Lion and goes Out like a Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse.

Chapter 35: And then there were 3...

2009-04-14T13:11:00.000-07:00

"People smile and tell me I'm the lucky one
We've just begun...think I'm gonna have a son..."

Waiting Game

Our wedding behind us, Lani and I settled into a weekly routine: We both had our jobs Monday through Friday. Hers at a travel agency in Santa Barbara and me at the photo lab. The weekend would roll around and we would visit friends or go to her parents' house. My "friends" weren't really all that close to me. I had met these folks through cousin Joe, and thought they were fun to hang out with I never felt I had much in common with them. That became really apparent when I found out that a few of them were heavily into cocaine abuse. Not just snorting it, which we all did from time to time, but shooting up as well.

I loved to party. Straight out of military school I was always looking for a good time. Drinking, smoking dope and doing uppers and coke was a great ride for dysfunctional me. I had held a handful of menial jobs without much enthusiasm for any of them except the record store. (And we remember how that turned out!) Now I was a "family man" with a kid on the way. I never really gave thought to cutting back on the partying until later on. It eased the pressure the little guy in my head was putting me under. "This is all going to come to shit, Ed. Not worthy, not worthy." I still had no answer except "Shut up and drink."

Lani was showing her pregnancy more and more each day, and she was having morning sickness. By her 20th birthday in June she told me she couldn't work any more, especially with the long drive from Ventura. That made me the Man. That began the series of changes in me that brought my psyche into the realm of Parenthood, Responsibility, and Duty. I was going to work my balls off to support my wife and child, damn the torpedoes and all that crap. We couldn't afford medical insurance so we applied for Medi-Cal. That gave us the funds we needed to cover Lani's prenatal care and hospital costs. It also meant that every three months I had to go to the Medi-Cal offices and prove I was still too broke to pay for this stuff myself. I considered it humiliating to have to answer questions about my job, my motivation, my family. But it also meant that the baby would be born healthy and that made the difference.

We took Lamaze Method classes to get an idea of what to expect when the baby came. The whole thing came down to this: She manages pain by focusing on the breath (Good old Buddha!) and he takes his mind off how disgusting (I mean beautiful!) the whole thing is by....taking notes! And giving ice chips, gentle massage, and thanks to his Maker he wasn't born a woman. Lani and I sat through the classes, talked about baby names and tried not to imagine what our fellow classmates looked like while conceiving their bundles o' joy. Not pretty.

The Summer came and went and then Indian Summer came and stayed. The fires flared up in the hills near Ojai, scattering ash over downtown Ventura like Christmas in September. The baby kicked and squirmed, sometimes poking me as I lay close to Lani, both she and I nervous and excited about the impending arrival. One morning in mid October we woke up to a beautiful sunrise, the sound and smell of the surf so clear it filled us with joy. A joy that translated into some very amorous entwining. Oh yes, sex with your pregnant wife is a unique and unforgettable experience. Fade to black.....

Later that day we decided to go for a hike in the nearby hills. The baby was almost two weeks overdue and Lani wanted it out now. So we picked up and headed out on the trail. The sun shone down and we walked for hours, enjoying the day we'd been given. On the way back to the house we stopped at a shoreline park and strolled out toward the marshlands. Less than a mile from the car Lani said: "I think we should be getting back."

"Yeah, my legs are pretty tired, too."

"No. Not just that. I'm starting to feel something like contractions."

You know that scene in the cartoons where the cat gets hit in the head with a hammer and he gets that stupid look on his face? Yeah, that was my brain right then. So, she really is pregnant and we're gonna have a baby right now!? I helped her back to the car and tried to stay on the road and not speed getting back to the house. When we got there I told Joe what the deal was and that we had to pack up and go. Our buddy Danner was there and asked if I wanted a sandwich. I stood thinking for a second: "Am I hungry? It has been a while since I ate. Maybe it would be a good idea to...."

"ED!"

Lani called up the stairs to me and all thoughts of food flew right away. What a doofus, man. Your wife needs to get to the hospital!

The Grand Entrance

We were timing the contractions. They were coming at about 8 minutes apart and getting stronger, so we knew we had a little time. We got to Community Memorial Hospital about 7PM and checked right in. I was diligently taking notes, timing contractions, asking questions of the staff, talking to Lani. Thought I had things pretty much under control until the whole process went into overdrive. No time between contractions. "Stop asking me how strong they are!" Nurses pushing me aside to monitor the fetal heartbeat and tend to Lani. Now I was just a spectator. But at least they let me stay in the room. To my credit I didn't flag at all, even at that most precious moment when my brand new son entered the world at 2:45 AM on October 19. It was all slow motion, fine detail, sharpened senses. This pink, crying child that resembled a slimy Edward G. Robinson in miniature was my boy, my first child.

They lifted him onto Lani's chest and we shared a few moments sharing the incredible residual energy that remained after all her effort. Then they took Peter Joseph Hokule'a Newbegin away to clean him up and get all the proper measurements before we could see him again. I Walked out into the waiting area to tell Neal that he had a grandson and we shared a hug. A rare thing for us, but a bonding moment nonetheless. I called my folks and sisters, sharing tears and happiness. The very next day we brought little "PJ" home to Silver Strand to begin our new lives as Mom and Dad.

Chapter 36: Parental Discretion Advised

Chapter Thirty-Four: Weddin' Bells

2009-03-28T09:32:00.000-07:00

"We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout...." J. Cash

With the tough task of telling the folks about our impending nuptials and parenthood, all that remained was to plan the wedding. We decided on April 19, 1980, mostly because we didn't want the wedding photos to make it too obvious that Lani was in the family way. I always thought that photos like that I saw at the lab were kind of sad. Something just short of a shotgun wedding.

Clever lad that I was, I decided to take on the task of ordering the announcements myself, just to take the burden off my bride to be. Yeah, I heard the groan from you there. "Oh, Ed, what were you thinking?" Indeed. I went to the stationery store I used to work at and spoke to the old lady that presided over the Special Events Stationery Department. She asked me where my fiancee was and I told her she was at work so I was doing this on my own. That got me the first rather pitying look. She showed me several patterns and fonts, envelopes and colors. It was all rather daunting but in the end I believed I came up with a very nice announcement. I told her how I would like it to read and spelled out our names and those of our parents. Then she asked me when the wedding was planned.

"April 19."

"All right, that gives us plenty of time. April 19, 1981."

"Uh, no. This year."

Another look, this one sharply suspicious. "This year?"

"Yes."

"Dear, that only gives you a few weeks to send out the invitations. They won't be ready for at least two weeks."

"OK." Clueless.

The rest of the transaction was cold and nearly silent. I walked out still not knowing quite what the problem was. Ah, youth.

I got home and told Lani and her Mom that the announcements were all taken care of. Cold stares. "What?" That's when I learned the lesson so many young men need to know well beforehand: It's her wedding, stupid. Never do anything without permission!"

Over the next six weeks we contacted all our friends and family to let them know, hoping many of them could come out to California for the wedding. I had to choose a Best Man, and I decided that my old buddy Bill Stewart should be at my side for this joyous occasion. Lani's friends were all coming out from Hawaii. Turns out that early pregnancies are not that uncommon in Hawaiian culture and don't have the same stigma as my more provincial East Coast upbringing had dictated. So all these wahines were usually ready to pack up and go off to another wedding at the drop of a hat.

A couple of days before the wedding Mom and Dad flew in to LAX late in the evening. I had just come home from work and had to drive down there to pick them up. While my adrenaline was pumping I was still pretty tired from work, so one of my beach buddies offered me some speed pills to keep me going. He handed me five tiny white pills and I popped them into my mouth without a second thought. Off to the airport!

About 30 minutes later I started feeling sick to my stomach. I had sharp pains and a really jittery rush was starting up in my body. I was worried that I would hurl at any moment but I kept it under control until we got to LAX. When we got to the terminal I raced into the bathroom and spewed the second I got to the toilet. There were thin strands of blood in it. Oh, shit, what have I done?

We met Mom and Dad and I hardly remember the ride back. I know I drank some milk and tried not to think I had seriously poisoned myself. Like the clever dude I was, I just ignored it and hoped it would go away. Through dumb luck, nothing more went wrong.

Then came the Day. Lani's friends had stayed up all night making beautiful leis for us and all the family members. They had gone around town buying up every single bouquet offered by the street corner vendors, and the results were incredible, as you can see. Bill and I went to a local hair place to get our style on and nothing was going to stop me from being on time for the wedding, including a red light or two.

The ceremony was beautiful, the weather warm and sunny. We were surrounded by family and friends and the food just kept coming. Good stuff. My buddy Chip Jorgensen was there along with cousin Joe and ourgroup of ne'er-do-well friends. They wrote crazy stuff all over my car and filled it with balloons. It was several days before I had a chance to clean it and the funniest thing was the day I had to drive around with my father-in-law Neal with "Just Married" all over it. Got some looks.

Lani and I went back to her folks' house ahead of the group and had some time to sort of decompress, getting used to the idea that we were now Husband and Wife. To me it was the logical extension of the great swell of emotion I felt any time I was in her presence. That feeling stayed with me always.

Because of work obligations and a general lack of funds we didn't have much of a honeymoon. We stayed one night at the Ventura Holiday Inn and went to Solvang the next day with my parents. It's a Norwegian-themed village in the Southland hills that tries to dig cash out of tourists like any kitchy place does. It was a miserably cold day and I got in a spat with Mom over some silly crap from my childhood. Then they were gone and it was back to work.

Our next Batter: #35, Peter Newbegin

Only a Hiatus

2009-02-27T17:47:00.000-08:00

Dear Reader,

I am only taking a brief pause to get some photos scanned and home movies turned to digital. I will be back with more Tales of Ed when the work is complete. Y'all come back now, hear?

Chapter Thirty-Three: A Sharp Left Turn

2009-02-04T16:23:00.000-08:00

Lani and I saw a lot of each other after my breakup with Kelly. I felt totally immersed in a warm, fuzzy blanket of sensation. But that little guy in the back of my head, that little punk that just couldn't let things be really just fine with me was whispering in my ear:

"She's way too good for you. You're a loser with no future. Give it time and she'll realize her mistake."

The worst thing was, I couldn't prove it wrong. But I had a lot of blind hope. And I just could not resist her charm. To my mind, she was as perfect a woman as I had ever met and I was going to enjoy the moment.

Lani worked at the local Bob's Big Boy as a hostess. I would slip away from my solo shift at the photo lab to go have coffee and pie and talk to her when it was slow. She was also going to travel agent school, and some of the other students had pitched in for a trip up to Mammoth Mountain for some skiing. Lani asked me to go along, and even though I had never stood on skis in my life, I agreed readily.

In the meantime she came over to the Strand to spend the weekend a few times, blending in pretty well with the domestic scene we had going. I was starting to feel like this could be a longer-term thing than I was used to.

One night I made sure everything was humming along OK at the lab and went up to Bob's for some dessert. Lani greeted me with a strange sort of expression. She took her break right away and came to sit across from me in a booth.

"I'm late." she said.

"Late...."

"My period. I missed the last one a few weeks ago and I think I'm going to see a doctor about it."

"Do you think you're...."

"I don't know."

Now here, ladies and gentlemen, is that moment one plays in his mind over and over, wondering what would have happened if he had said the next line just a bit earlier:

"You're not on the Pill?"

That's the one. So we lived in doubt for a while until she got the results back. See, back then there were no in-home tests, so we had to "be careful" when we went on the ski trip. We had a great time, and Mammoth Mountain had record snowfall. Here's a pic of Lani digging out the VW Bus we all rode up on.
It was also my 23rd birthday that weekend. I look back on it now, with two kids older than that and one nearly 19, Lani's age at the time, and all I can think is: way too young.

The day we went up the mountain I was scared shitless. I hadn't taken any lessons, knowing only that if I got in trouble I could "snowplow" the skis to stop. We went up the lift to the are called Gravity Chute, a double-diamond run. I barely survived getting off the lift and getting down to a flat area. Then it was down a single-diamond run to the lodge. Praise Mommy Nature for all the powder on the hill. It made those runs much easier. I snowplowed when I was going too fast at one point and the tips dug into the snow, catapulting me into the air and face-first into the white stuff. I stuck to the sides after that, making my way down to the lodge for hot chocolate, then booze. Back at the room we got a nice buzz on, (except Lani, who still Didn't Know), and went to the hot tub. It was the first one I'd ever seen, much less sat in. It was in the middle of all that snow and we took turns getting all heated up in the water and then rolling in the snow. That sucked every past ounce of energy out of me......almost.

We got back from the trip still feeling that thrill of early courtship, the issue of impending parenthood seeming more like an adventure than an awesome responsibility. Our discussion about it lasted all of five minutes. I told Lani that no matter what, I was very much in love with her and that I wanted to marry her. If she was pregnant we would get hitched soonest possible. I guess that's what passed for a proposal and to my surprise and great delight she said Yes. We were on our way into a truly exciting possibility. I felt like I could conquer the world.

The test came back bearing the news that changed our lives forever. We were in the family way. She called me at home to tell me the news. Joe had some people over, including a hell of a nice guy named Chip Jorgensen. I told them all and we decided to celebrate. Chip went with me to the Corner Store for beer. On the way back I asked for a drag off his cigarette. One puff and it nearly choked me to death. That was it for me and Death Sticks.

Now all I had to do was tell my parents and, oh by the way Ed could you tell Lani's folks as well? Sure. In for a penny in for a pounding, that's what I say. What a conversation I had with Mom! I paraphrase for the sake of humor:

"Hi Mom."

"Hello, Eddie, how are you?"

"Great, great. Say, remember that girl I told you about that I met a few weeks ago?"

"Who, Kelly? I thought you knew her longer than that."

"No, Ma. Lani."

"I don't think you mentioned her, no."

This ain't gonna be easy, man. Just let it happen!

"Well, yeah. I met her and I think I really love her. And I asked her to marry me. And she's pregnant."

"......................................................."

"Mom?"

"Oh, God."

See, Mom was only 43 and I think she might have considered herself a bit young to be a grandma. The rest of the conversation was mostly about the wedding. We wanted to be married on April 19 and it was already the end of February. Time to make those travel plans!

Now all I had to do was tell Merle and her husband, Neal. We arranged to go fishing down at the Ventura Marina one evening. I was standing next to Neal, poles dangling out over the water, the cold chill of fear running through my veins. Finally I turned to him:

"Neal, I want you to know that I love Lani very much. She's a very special person to me."

"I know what you mean, Ed, she's always been special to me, too."

"We want to get married."

"You two haven't known each other very long. Are you sure?"

"Neal, she's pregnant. I'm the father. The baby is due in October."

Merle overheard that last part and came over to us. She turned to Lani.

"You're going to have a baby?"

Lani nodded. We all looked at each other, then Neal gave Lani a hug and shook my hand. Merle was teary-eyed. Whatever I might have feared didn't come to pass and we started talking about the plans for April right away.

It was tough jumping over those first hurdles, but the really tough ones were dead ahead. As my guy John Irving likes to say: "Beware of the Undertoad."

Chapter 34: The Waiting Game

Chapter Thirty-Two: Life Comes A-Knockin'

2009-01-23T16:28:00.000-08:00

While I was in the hospital I was visited by a couple of girls I had worked with at County Stationers. One was Marina, a shy girl who worked in the Announcements Department, and Kelly, one of the floor salespeople. We talked for a little while and just before they left Kelly gave me her phone number and said I should call her when I got out. Well! It wasn't every day that a good looking girl just told me to call, so a couple of days after I got home we went out on our first date. While we seemed to hit it off OK I could never quite read her expression. She always seemed vaguely amused by my loony ramblings, but I didn't know if this was endearing to her or just confusing. She seemed to be asking herself if she might not have jumped into the deep end too soon. We had a passable physical relationship, though again I never perceived real passion in it. We seemed to be two people in dating limbo, waiting for something better or more interesting to come along. As it happened, the "more interesting" part won out.

At Jaffe's Camera I worked with the two Pauls and a woman named Merle. Merle had two daughters, Maile and Lani. I had met Maile a few times and she was a kick, vivacious and ready to party. I thought about asking her out but two things stopped me: I was already dating Kelly steadily and I was a little scared by how "out there" Maile was. She seemed like a thrash metal band to my acoustic ensemble personality. But she was fun to talk to whenever she came around. Merle told me about her other daughter, Lani, and how she danced hula, collected pictures of sunsets and helped around the house. Sounded like a nice girl. Lani came to the lab one day to visit Merle and on first sight my heart was lost. There stood the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Dark eyes and hair, with a smile that glowed from across the room. When we were introduced I was barely able to speak, though I'm sure I got a few syllables out. Then I got back to my work, my face flushed and pulse going a mile a minute. Too young for a heart attack. Was this love? Then she was gone. Whew. Man, get me a glass of water.

I was hard at the job a few weeks later when Lani came by again. I was cleaning some film racks, always a sweaty, messy job. I was kneeling on the floor, scrubbing away at some stubborn stain when Lani skipped over to me smelling all of plumeria, hunkered down by me and said: "So, when are you going to ask me out?" Oh......my........God. What did she just say? I could picture little guys in engineer overalls in my brain screaming in panic while lights flashed, alarms rang, and smoke was pouring out of every cell. "Uh. Friday?"

"You're going to ask me out on Friday or you want to go out on Friday?"

"Out on Friday." (Doing great, big guy!)

"OK"

So we went out. Had a good time. I drove her home and was a perfect gentleman, kissing her hand as we parted. Didn't want to scare this one away. Over the next couple of weeks Lani brought dinner to me from time to time down at the lab and we'd sit and talk about our lives, dreams, ambitions. I had Christmas dinner at her house, meeting her Dad, Neal. I was getting to know her and with each visit I knew we had to be together some time. That time came near New Years. It had been raining hard for several hours and I was worried that old Bessie would stall out if I drove through any deep puddles on the way back to the Strand. Lani had brought me dinner and offered to give me a ride home. We got back to my place and sat with Joe in the living room drinking beer and talking. Finally Lani said she should be getting home and I walked her back to her car. She had parked across the street from me, on the East side of Lake Rossmore. Every rainy season brought the Mother of All Puddles to Rossmore Drive. It was nearly two feet deep in the middle and about 40 feet long at its biggest. My neighbor Mike had to put sand bags by his house to keep from being flooded. He had a rowboat he used to get over to the mailbox.

We stopped at Lani's car and turned to face each other. The sky was clearing and some stars were peeking out between fast-moving clouds. I looked down into Lani's face in the moonlight and we couldn't resist any longer. She threw her arms around me and we fell into a passionate kiss. I've been to a lot of great 4th of July celebrations but none ever compared to the fireworks in my head that night. We drew apart and I said to her: "Don't take this the wrong way, but I think I love you." My brain screamed back at me "That's it, I'm outta here!" She smiled and said "Thank you." Well, uh, you're welcome I'm sure. And she was gone.

I walked back to the apartment, right through the center of Lake Rossmore, but the wet didn't affect me at all. I was, no doubt about it, smacked-over-the-head-and-that's-all in love. I went back up to where Joe was sitting and he knew something was up.

"How's it going, man?"

"Ah, OK, yeah, OK."

"Nice girl."

"Oh yeah."

"You kiss her?"

Just a smile.

"Well all right. Ed's in love."

Indeed.

What Now, Smart Guy?

I had a date planned with Kelly for that weekend. Kelly...oh, shit. Well, that's just got to end, right? How? I had never dumped a girl in my life. There was no way I was going to start something with Lani and keep Kelly on the hook. So I did the honorable thing: I told her I was sick to buy some more time. Great idea! Why face the firing squad at 5:00 if you can put it off until 5:15? She could tell something wasn't right even on the phone. "Do you want me to come over?"

"No, no, it's OK. Wouldn't want you to get it."

"Is everything all right? You sound strange."

Yeah, I'm strange all right. But not all right, OK?

"I'll talk to you later, Kelly. Bye."

No use putting it off. I met her at a restaurant a few days later and she knew what was coming the moment she saw my face. I 'fessed up that I had met somebody else and it was over for her and me. She looked at me coldly for a few seconds and said: "You're making a big mistake."

"I hope not."

She got up and walked out, and a chapter in the book of my life ended. This new one was going to be a hell of a ride.

Thirty Three: Surprise!

Chapter Thirty-One: Livin' on the Beach

2009-01-11T14:51:00.001-08:00

A Beach is a place where a man can feel He's the only soul in the world that's real...

The Strand

You know all those TV shows and movies that portray California beaches as cool places where surfers rides the waves, pretty girls walk in skimpy suits and the sunsets blow your mind? I'm here to tell you...it's all true. From the first day we plopped our stuff on the floor at 228 Rossmore Drive on Sliver Strand Beach I felt right at home. I had been living in the Golden State for less than three months and I was just getting acclimated to the weather and culture. A big thing: no humidity! The East Coast was always so humid, or cold, or hot & humid, or wet & humid. I would come home from work some evenings, step out of the car and take a huge lungful of sweet, salty ocean breeze. All my tension just melted away each time I did it. I could hear the waves crashing from my downstairs pad. The place was sort of a townhouse duplex and I had what would have been the master bedroom just inside the front door. Upstairs was the living room, kitchen and Joe & Ginger's room. We had a picture window that afforded a lovely view of the street and the hills above the Ventura and Oxnard area.

The neighbors were a motley collection of beach bums and lower income proles like Ginger, Joe and me. Seems funny now that we lived in relative comfort on the beach at such affordable rents. The local businesses were not much more than Mom & Pops type places. Three of them stand out:

Ray's Tacos

Ray operated this fantastic taco place that sold a full menu from his tiny bodega. He was the only employee and he knew everyone in the neighborhood. My fondest memory of his place was Friday evenings, after the workin' week was done. I would pick up a six pack and get one of Ray's Super Burritos. Eat one of those monsters (about $3 each) and you would be full until lunch the next day. I checked the local map and sadly, Ray's is gone. I think I might still have just a sliver of spicy chicken wedged back in a molar somewhere, though.

The Breakers

This was a biker bar, but I had no idea it was the first few times I went in. There was a sign out front that said "No Colors". How terribly racist! And they didn't even spell it right. Nothing but angry-looking guys sitting around drinking and playing pool. Now and then there would be live music that didn't sound like Steppenwolf, but not often enough. I told Joe about the sign and he explained that the bar didn't want bikers wearing their clan colors to avoid fights. Oh. Well, there were nothing but white guys there anyway so what was the difference?

The Corner Store

Beer. Milk. Bread. But mostly beer.

Beach Daze

I loved getting up in the morning and walking on the beach. The breeze through my hair, the sight of the Channel Islands off in the distance. I felt like I was living in a dream. Just after we moved in I did two things to make the place mine: I got two cats and planted a row of pot in the sandy little strip outside my door. Both nearly got us booted out and/or arrested. Our landlady came by just a day after I got my first cat and left a nasty note on the counter: "You have a CAT! This is a VIOLATION of your RENTAL AGREEMENT! Get rid of it or you will be EVICTED!". I stared at the note for a few minutes, anger rising in me like hot lava. That slimy old bag used a passkey and just waltzed right into our house while we were gone to "look around a bit". I stalked down to the rental office and tossed the note on her desk.

Faramir and Gandalf

"First of all, lady, I was just feeding a neighborhood stray, not keeping a cat." (Yeah, another lie...) "And secondly, what the hell were you doing entering our house without notice? It says right on the agreement that you will not enter and will respect our privacy. If I find out you've been in there again like that I'll call the cops and have you arrested for trespassing! Got it?"

"I didn't mean to....I was only....sputter...."

Didn't matter what she wanted to say. I was already gone. Righteous anger can be so very cool when you're also in the right. (Mostly)

I got home from work one afternoon and I was no sooner in the door than Joe told me he had to yank up all my pretty pot plants out back. Seems our neighbors had gotten busted by undercover cops that day and when one of them looked out their window he saw the tiny green sprouts waving in the breeze. One of the busted neighbors used his precious phone call to warn Joe. We never saw them again but it was a stand up thing to do.

I dated a nice girl I met while working at the stationery store. Her Dad was a doctor, which turned out to be fortuitous for me one night. I had gotten tired of humping stock at the place and decided on a change of work scenery. I answered an ad in the Ventura Gazette for a photo lab tech and got the job without much trouble. I was back in the "soup" again and feeling pretty good about it. The place was called Jaffe's Camera, and my job was to pick up film at the three locations, bring it back to the lab and process the stuff. The end result was a semi-finished order. Here was my routine:

Load up the lab car, an old Impala, with completed orders.
Drive like hell to the main store, the Buenaventura Mall store and the Esplanade store delivering and picking up.
Back to the lab.
Sort all film by size: 35mm, 126 Instamatic, 110 Instamatic and Special Orders
Rack up the film on plastic trays, putting a small numbered sticker on each one that was matched to one on the order bag.
Splice together like film sizes (in complete darkness) onto reels.
Feed the film into a processing machine for developing.
Collect the film and manually print each negative on an antique called a "Kodak 5S Printer".
Pull the printed paper out of the machine (in complete darkness) and feed it into a paper processor.
Stack up the processed paper rolls for inspection and packaging the next day.
Mix all chemistry needed to keep the levels up.
Sweep the floor.
Clean the machine racks.

I was a lucky guy. This was a shift-oriented job, not hourly. I was full time, and as long as I got all my tasks done well and completely I could leave and be paid for 8 hours. Of course when things went south that also meant I made no overtime. And things did go that way from time to time. Machines would break down, Christmas was a nightmare. One night I was wrapping up my shift and I noticed I was nearly out of gas. I had no cash and no other way to get home. What to do? I remembered that I had just filled the gas tank in the Impala that day, so there was mondo gas in that beast. I scrounged around in the lab until I found a 4-foot length of rubber hose. I backed my Ford up to the Impala, opened the two feeders and stuck the hose into the Beast. I remembered Greg Jorgensen telling me that the best way to siphon was to first blow a lungful of air into the feeder tank to create back pressure, then suck the gas out to get it flowing. I did so, hearing the Impala's tank creaking with the pressure. Then I sucked on the hose and gasoline came rushing out like a fire hose, gushing into my stomach and lungs. I staggered back, my vision blurry with the fumes, spitting out the residual fuel in my mouth. Oh, shit, what the hell have I done?

I made my way back into the lab and started drinking water. I thought I remembered that in case of gas poisoning you shouldn't puke, just dilute it. I cleaned up all the damning evidence and called the girl I'd been dating. She was confused about why I needed to talk to her Dad but after I explained he came on the line.

"Get to the hospital," he said. "Now."

With the tiny bit of gas I had gotten into my tank I drove to Ventura General and got checked in. I spent three days on a liquid diet and oxygen while the stuff worked it's way out of my system. While I was in the ER the guy in the cubicle next to me was freaking out on PCP, threatening to kill everyone in the place. Nice. Glad the cops and their shiny guns were there, too. On Day Two I sneaked down to the Visitor's Lounge and smoked a cigarette. My doctor walked by, then came back a moment later, motioning me to follow him back to my room. He put an X-Ray on the light box.

"See that little shadow there at the bottom of your left lung? That's where the gas fumes burned a spot. Consider it a chink in your armor. If you keep smoking, that little spot will get bigger and bigger until it kills you. End of story."

He strode out, leaving me to ponder my fate. I went home and life returned to normal. I still smoked, but every time I lit up I could "feel" the smoke going straight to that spot. Finally, on October 24, 1979, I stood at my bathroom mirror and watched myself smoke my very last cigarette. I put it in the toilet, flushed it away and never looked back. It was tough as hell but I thank that doctor for giving me the kick in the ass I needed.

Chapter 32: Torn Between Two Lovers, Feelin' Like a Fool....

Chapter Thirty - First Home in CA

2009-01-05T17:00:00.000-08:00

I Hear That Train A Comin'

For the first few weeks I lived at Ginger's place in Oxnard with her and cousin Joe. I slept on a mattress out in the living room, doing my best not to hear them going at it nearly every night. Hey thanks guys, just what I need to remind me that I have no prospects at all around here! I shared the living room space with Ginger's cat, but she didn't count as female companionship. Except in this really weird dream I had one night. But that's for my therapist to help me with, not a tale for you gentle readers. Once again I reminded myself that looking for a J-O-B was my only priority. Within a week I lucked into a stock room gig with a place in Ventura called County Stationers. It was deadly dull work mostly, checking in stationery shipments and stocking up shelves. I had a couple of other slacker types with me and we also did odd jobs like replacing light bulbs and sweeping floors. I was just happy to be living in a place like this! The warm ocean breeze blew right in through the loading dock and there was a diner just steps away that sold....biscuits and gravy! For cheap! I ate there often, right up until the day I found a curly black hair in the gravy. Oh, man.

One day we were toiling away when I spotted a young kid walking by carrying a small harp. I stopped him and asked if it was his and if so, could he play for us? He smiled and placed the harp on the ground, then launched into a beautifully energetic dance tune that had the whole stock crew jumping around the place like maniacs. He finished a waved a shy farewell.

I also learned how to eat a tamale properly. One of the guys' Mom made them for sale and I bought a few for lunch one day. It tasted OK but man, was it hard to chew! All stringy and tough. Then I noticed the other guys laughing and trying not to spit out all their own food.

"Ed, man, you're supposed to unroll them and eat only the filling."

Silly me.

I had noticed a weird clacking noise coming from under old Bessie so I took her into the gas station where a buddy of Joe's worked. Guy named Greg Jorgensen came out, all grease and smelling of cigs and asked me: "You drove this all the way from Virginia?"

"Yeah, in three days!"

"Well man, you got two busted U-joints. I'm surprised you made it past the state line!"

Luck o' the Irish...

Our apartment was in a bad section of town, right next to a set of railroad tracks. Trains came by a couple of times a day and the whole place would shudder. This white trash couple lived nearby and we always heard them arguing. One Saturday morning the three of us were having breakfast and somebody started pounding on the door. We let her in and it was the female half of the McTrashersons.

"Help me, please! He says he's gonna kill me!"

So we call the cops. The big dumb jerk is pounding on every door looking for her. The bored police officers listen to her, listen to him, haul him off. They ask will she be pressing charges, she says no he loves me I just know it. He can't help himself. Nice neighborhood.

Now comes Fourth of July and a chance to get in some partying! We hung out with the Jorgensens and some other friends until late into the evening. When we got home there was a surprise waiting for us: We done been robbed.

Jethro Helped

After calling the cops and giving him the list of stolen stuff we sat around our much more Spartan apartment. I had lost a nice Yamaha guitar and my junky electric guitar. They took our crappy silverware, the TV, the stereo and all the linens. The toaster oven. I mean, you couldn't get $2 for that old piece of crap! They pretty much grabbed anything that looked shiny or sellable at a garage sale. We were pretty depressed. Then I remembered. My cash! I had put it in a jeans pocket in the laundry heap because I read that that was a good place to keep it in case of a robbery. I checked and yes! There it was, $400 in beautiful cash. So it wasn't a total loss. But we were so pissed.

Next day I was standing out by my car after coming home from work when I saw the big dumbass that the cops hauled away walking out of his place.

"Hey, Jethro, (might as well be his name), you see anything funny yesterday over here? Some guys taking stuff out of our apartment?"

"No, just your friends that was helpin' you move. Had a bobtail truck. Two Meskin fellers with tats on both arms. They was havin' a hard time gettin' some stuff in so I helped 'em load up. You movin' today?"

I stood there with my jaw on the floor.

"Uh, we aren't moving. They were stealing our stuff! Could you describe them to the police?"

"Shit, no, man. I don't talk to pigs. You call 'em and I'll just say I didn't see nothin'."

He shambled back into his lair and I went into our place, stunned.

"Guys, we need to get the hell out of here."

We spent the next couple of weeks looking at places before finding the perfect spot, right on the beach. A cozy, sandy, funky little community known as Silver Strand.

Not just Chapter 31, but a whole new taste experience!

Chapter Twenty-Nine - On the Road

2008-12-25T21:28:00.000-08:00

My time coming, any day, don't worry about me, no
Been so long I felt this way, I'm in no hurry, no
Rainbows and down that highway where ocean breezes blow
My time coming, voices saying they tell me where to go.
Don't worry about me, nah nah nah, don't worry about me, no
And I'm in no hurry, nah nah nah, I know where to go.
California, preaching on the burning shore
California, Ill be knocking on the golden door
Like an angel, standing in a shaft of light
Rising up to paradise, I know I'm gonna shine.

The Trip

Southbound on old 95 in the warm embrace of an early June night. Joe started off behind the wheel because he was the guy looking for the party in Norfolk when we just turned right and kept on going. Several hours down the road I double checked the map and it looked like we had missed our connection to I-40 West in Raleigh, NC. We got off the road and pulled into an all night grocery/gas station. There were three old coots sitting on the porch and we asked them how to get to where we needed to go. They took one look at we two long-hairs and cackled a bit to each other. Then one of the old farts said "Y'all gots to go North to git thar." Whew! And here we thought we were lost. We navigated through Raleigh in the wee hours and when we got on I-40 I got behind the wheel.

A few hours of driving along the unfamiliar highway took me into the dawn at the Tennessee border. I was approaching Douglas Lake, and the sight almost took my breath away. Patches of fog stuck to the hills, sunlight on the water and what looked like the whole country spread out and waiting for me. The image is still soft on my mind as a sign that I was doing the right thing. We were to find out that although Tennessee is only 30 miles wide, it is an incredible 451 miles long! It took all day to drive through. We wanted to get to California as quickly as we could, mostly so Joe could cuddle up to his girlfriend, Ginger. Reasonable, no? Along the way we passed within shouting distance of Pigeon Forge, a tiny burg that would become Dollywood in later years. And a place where at that very moment a young hula dancer was getting ready for her daily show.

Here we were, two guys rolling down the road without a care in the world and plenty of dope in the glove compartment. We drove and drove and drove, digging the scenery and goofing on each other. I had a foam 8-ball hanging from my rear view mirror and Joe liked to smack it now and then as a rim shot to his jokes. Once he took a swat while he was driving and yanked the wheel, causing us to fishtail a bit before getting back on the groove.

"Yeah, I can just see it now, bro'...'Well see, officer, my cousin thought his joke was pretty funny so he whacked the 8-ball and we lost control and that's why we're in this ditch. The dope? No, that's not ours. It must have been there already...'"

We cruised on, hitting the ball more cautiously.

Onward

Now we came to Mississippi, and across the mighty eponymous river. We rolled over a cantilever bridge and I saw the brown, churning water beneath, moving on to the sea. I was really doing this. The song kept coming back:

Goin' to California with an achin' in my heart...

What was I doing? Fucking crazy. Across Arkansas and into Oklahoma that same day, driving relentlessly and in a pot-induced fog. Finally that night we decided that stopping the car for a few hours of sleep was better than dying in a horrible wreck. We pulled into the lot of a Super 8 Motel in Oklahoma City with more gas in the tank than in ourselves. After a quick meal at the diner we checked out our room. What a true dive this place was. Both beds had several layers of thin comforters and sheets. We guessed that this saved the maids having to change them, as they could just strip off the old ones each day. The bathroom was an adventure in science, with mold on the walls, a huge hole in the ceiling and no glass in the window. But the real treat was the TV's. Plural. There was a big cabinet model on the bottom, then a mid-sized one on top of that, topped by a third, tiny set. The big one was just a stand, didn't work. The one in the middle had a halfway decent picture but no sound, and the one on top had sound but no picture. And none of them had tuning knobs. So we had to use the conveniently provided pair of pliers to change the picture set channels until we saw something interesting, then change the sound set until they matched. Since there were only four stations in town, that didn't take long. We ended up dozing off minutes after hitting the pillow.

Sunday morning broke and after freezing cold showers we were ready to roll. At the diner I had biscuits and gravy for the first time in my life. Oh my God! Where has this delicacy been all my life? Maybe it was just the constant hunger born of marijuana munchies but I was in love with this dish. As I sat sopping up every last drop of this ambrosia a scruffy looking fellow shambled into the place and sat next to me at the counter. The middle aged waitress came over and asked "What you want, hon?"

"Well, m'am, I'm passin' through on my way to my sister's place in Albequerque and I'm pretty low on cash. I just need a little somethin' to keep goin'"

She gave him a quick appraising look and said "I'll get you a short stack, darlin'. Want some juice with that?"

"Yes'm."

I thought about what I'd just seen. Was that guy going to be me in the next few months? I had about $500 in my pocket and no job and no place to stay for long. I resolved right there that I would not screw around like I had in Norfolk. Get a job and get on my feet pronto or end up begging for scraps. Never. Not ever.

What a Blowout!

Now I was the pilot, steering the big land boat across Oklahoma into Texas. We saw gas on sale there for 72 cents a gallon. Hell, milk cost more than that! Joe was dozing at one point as I was approaching a truck rest stop. I was flying along at 70 mph or so and a semi decided to pull onto the highway right in front of me. I locked up the brakes and we went into a full power skid. I held the wheel and got us straight again in time to get around the semi and avoid becoming roadkill. Joe woke up and said "Wuzzat? 'Tsappenin'?"

"It's cool, man. We didn't die and that's real good."

Not far down the road the effects of that skid came back to haunt us. One of my back tires blew out and I guided old Bessie to the shoulder. Joe and I got out and inspected the damage.

"You have a spare?" he asked.

"Yeah, I think so. Never had to use it."

The air was hot and still, not a thing moving for miles around us in the desert wasteland.

"Pretty quiet out here."

"Yeah........too quiet."

The trunk was packed with all our junk so we had to pull it all out to find the tire. I fished it out of the trunk and bounced it on the road, checking it's inflation pressure. We were overjoyed to find that the spare was good and we had tire changing tools available, except for a lug wrench. Looking up the road we saw we had really lucked out. There was a rest stop not more than 100 yards ahead of us, so we could get the tool we needed and change the tire in safety in the parking lot. That's when Joe came up with the Brilliant Plan.

"OK. Let's put all the stuff back in the trunk. Then I'll drive the car to the rest stop and you bring the tire."

"Cool."

We packed it up, he took off and I started rolling the tire along the shoulder in the 150 degree heat. Cars were whipping by, nearly knocking me into the ditch. By the time I got to the rest stop I was dripping with sweat and covered in road grime. Joe had secured a lug wrench from a friendly fellow traveler and was waiting for me.

"Man, why the hell did I have to do that? It's a fucking oven out here and I'm rolling a goddamn tire by the side of the road! Why didn't we both go in the car?"

Joe shrugged. "Seemed like a good idea at the time." True. Should I quit smoking pot? Why? What a stupid thing to think about.

Gettin' There

Our tire troubles behind us, we sailed on into the Southwest. Each mile we traveled brought sights and smells I had never experienced. The mesas of New Mexico and Arizona passed in the distance. Albuquerque had always just been a funny name in a geography book. Now we were speeding through town in an ever more desperate rush to get to California. Weird thing: We didn't see a single cop the whole trip. I know that would have made things more interesting but getting busted in such a remote place was not my idea of fun.

I saw the exit signs for towns I'd heard of in song. Tehachapi, Tucumcari, Tonapah, Winslow and so many others. This trip was turning into a blur of roadside attractions and gas station stops. World's Biggest Steak, Petrified Forest, Meteor Crater, The Friggin' Grand Canyon. But were we going to any of those places? Hell, no! It was California or Bust for these freak brothers. Finally, at about 3AM Pacific Standard Time on June 18, 1979, the old Ford rolled into a gas station in Needles, CA. That Grateful Dead tune was humming away in my head as I pumped the 99 cents per gallon gas, the most I'd ever paid for fuel. A warm desert breeze wafted over me and I had the sensation of being on another planet. I told Joe that I would take the wheel and we cruised into the Mojave.

Sunrise was beautiful in the desert. I watched as each passing minute revealed more of the alien landscape, from the soft blue light of early dawn all the way to full, scorching daylight. Cacti right by the side of the road! Little desert critters scuttling for shelter. A buzzard making lazy circles in the air. Heat shimmering off the road like a mirror from the sky. Little flashing lights and the inner redness of my eyelids.....oops! Time to pull over and let Joe drive. I was dead asleep in seconds. Joe piloted us the rest of the way into Ventura. I occasionally raised my head to see where we were but it all looked like a set from The Rockford Files. I noticed after a while that we were cruising much slower, but the lack of quality sleep on the trip was getting to me. The Ford had a horn ring on the steering wheel that was vibrating in a most annoying way. So annoying, in fact, that I wanted to yank the wheel out of Joe's grip and send us plummeting down a cliff. Sleep at last! Just as I was about to implement my plan, the car stopped. We were there.

Part 30: Livin' on the Wrong Side of the Tracks

Chapter Twenty-Eight - Time to Blow This Town

2008-12-19T15:46:00.000-08:00

Spent my days with a woman unkind:
Smoked my stuff and drank all my wine.             
Made up my mind, make a new start,     
Goin' to California with an achin' in my heart.     
Someone told me there's a girl out there     
With love in her eyes and flowers in her hair.

This was turning out to be the most prophetic song of my life...

About May of 1979 my cousin Joe came to visit from California. My Uncle Bob was getting married and two of Joe's good friends were getting hitched as well. For a few years Joe had been after me to move out to California with him but I never felt the time was right. With nothing but dead ends in front of me, I had finally run out of reasons to say "No". Save one: no money. So we're driving around one day in my cool 1964 Ford Custom 500 and Joe says "Give me one reason not to come with me."

"How about 'I'm broke'?"

Cousin Bob has been snoozing in the back seat, but he springs up and says "I'll give you the money". Bob and Joe had come into a small inheritance recently and Bob had so far blown most of his on cocaine. It made him really popular with all kinds of new "friends". Bob gave me $1000, which settled my debts and gave me the working capital I needed to get on my feet. Now it was getting real. Man, I am going to California! This had been a dream of mine for years, ever since I read The Call of the Wild and Other Stories as a kid. I called my roommate and told her I was bugging out. She was cool about it and told me she was coming up to clear out her stuff.

The fateful day came, all my stuff was packed in the Ford. We stopped to fill the tank and buy some mean-ass mirrored sunglasses and hit the road.

Memories

I was really going to miss Virginia. The good friends I had made like Bill, Dave, Scott and Cliff. The wild, hedonistic times in Scott's basement, where we drank, smoked, had assorted (and sometimes interchangeable) girlfriends, and where Dave showed us how to light our farts. Never did try that one. I loved the soft Spring returning to the frozen land, and people going batshit on the roads on the first good day. I had gone to school from third grade through college, with mixed results. I flew kites out in the field by my house and we played ball there, too. My family was all here which was also a mixed blessing. I would miss my sisters most of all. Leslie was a great person to party with, having a vivacious love of life. Lori was my intellectual foil, so easy to talk to and my best audience when I played the guitar. Outside of Joe I knew nobody on the West Coast. Hell, I didn't know anyone west of the Mississippi! This was going to be a big leap.

The Trip Begins

Before we left the Greater Washington DC area, we had to do a couple of things. First we went to Uncle Bob's wedding. Three things stand out from that: 1) Just after Uncle Bob and Rita exchanged vows, they looked into each other's eyes and a tune swelled up from the boom box. It was "For All We Know" by The Carpenters. Did you know that that song is actually 97 minutes long? It sure seemed like it as we all sat or stood in a frozen tableau while the tune dragged on endlessly. 2) We finally got a shot of the "Three Cousins" in an older incarnation.

And lastly, the weird way the night ended. We went to Leslie's apartment to catch a post-wedding buzz and got back into Bob's car for the ride home. I insisted on driving, since I knew the road better. Maybe when I was sober, but that didn't apply here. About three miles from Leslie's place I took a turn too hot and the car leaped off the road, over a ditch and smack down on top of a large rock. I turned off the ignition and looked over at Joe.

"You OK?"

"Yeah, you?"

"Yeah. Bob, you all right back there?"

"Hm? Oh. Yeah, I'm OK. Sure."

Joe got out, tumbling to the weeds because the car was about three feet off the ground due to the rock. "Maybe you can back it off. Try starting it up."

I turned the key and the engine made a noise like a chainsaw low on oil. Nope. That's not going to work. We got out of the car, dusted ourselves off and started down the road. I had left my shoes at Uncle Bob's place so I was barefoot. We had gone about 100 yards when Joe asked: "How far is it back to Alexandria?"

"About 10-12 miles."

"And how far back to Leslie's?"

As if we had choreographed it, the three of us turned on our heels and started back to the apartment. Along the way a small pickup truck pulled up next to us. Inside were two prison guards from nearby Lorton Reformatory. "Does that car back there in weeds belong to y'all?"

"Yeah, hey can you guys give us a ride to my sister's place? It's just a mile or two up this road."

The guards looked at each other, burst out laughing and drove off. Thanks. We spent the night at Leslie's and got the car towed the next day minutes before a cop drove by looking for the wreck. Close call!

Another Prophesy

One more wedding to go. Joe and I threw on our casual suits and had a great time. These two were our age, and most of the time was spent drinking. At one point we went out to the parking lot for a bit of ganja, staggering back into the hall in time for the tossing of the garter. I wandered around until Joe said "Hey, tall guys in back" and pushed me behind him. The groom leaned over the bride's leg, slipping the garter down, down. Suddenly his hand flicked over his shoulder and something flew right at my face. I put my hand up to block it and the garter hooked neatly on my thumb. Whoa! "Hey, that means you're going to be married next!" said Joe. Right.

Time to Go

We hung out at the reception for a while but both of us were ready to leave town. Knowing that we had a long drive ahead and were both pretty wasted from the wedding, we spent the night on the floor at somebody's house and took off next morning. It was a beautiful June day, with Joe at the wheel and the Ford flying down I-95 from DC to Norfolk, where our farewell tour would make its last stop. I felt very wistful as the breeze blew back my hair, me leaning my head against the passenger door. I wanted to feel the wind on my face, so I stuck my head out the window like a dog would. I turned around to look behind and my cool mirrored sunglasses whipped off my face and tumbled into the road. Before I could tell Joe to stop the car a following semi obliterated them with a tiny crunch, and they were gone. Crap. $7.95 wasted.

We got to Norfolk later that day and spent the next few days seeing old friends and frat brothers and going over to Virginia Beach. We saw the Blue Angels doing some amazing feats, including wrapping up a cloud with colored streamers! As I swam in the warm surf I couldn't help but think that in just a short time I would be splashing in the Pacific Ocean for the first time in my life. The day we left I tried to call Mary, why I just don't know. I called the "Mary Jones" in the phone book and a guy answered the phone.

"Uh, is this Jones Construction?"

"No. Who the fuck is this?"

Click.

OK, it was a stupid idea. Maybe I just wanted to tell her that I was going to be OK despite her crappy treatment of me. But that story was over and we had to go. A party was planned that night and Joe and I drove around town, trying to remember the directions. At about 9PM we were having no luck and without the benefit of cell phones or MapQuest or TomTom we were shit out of luck. As we swung onto the main road again, there in front of us was a big sign that said "I-95 South, Right Lane." Yes, it was a sign that was a sign. One look between us and my bro' and I were southbound.

Chapter 29: Joe and Ed's Stoner Adventures on the Road

Chapter Twenty-Seven - Workin' for the Man

2008-12-02T19:00:00.000-08:00

It was like a letter to Penthouse. "Dear Penthouse Forum, You'll never believe this, but this nymphomaniac with a killer body just totally rocked my world last night. And we just met! How could something so cool and so profoundly physical happen to a loser like me?" Careful what you wish for...

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I got back to the folks' house the next day feeling...better...than I'd felt in a long time. Lynn was a total hottie and she made me promise to come back soon. It wasn't hard to do that. I was sitting around watching TV and Mom asked me to come up to their room so they could talk to me. Hmm. Seems they were pretty concerned about my health. Since eating had become a part-time occupation I guess I had lost a bit of weight. Not that I could spare any. I was about 6'1" and weighed 145 pounds. My cheeks were sunken and my ribs were starting to show through. Mom and Dad figured the only way to get me healthy again would be to make a deal to get me to move back in with them. They promised to stay off my back if I would come home, get a job and go back to school at Northern Virginia Community College in the Fall. Now that I knew I had something nice waiting for me over in Vienna, it wasn't hard to accept.

I went back to Norfolk with a lot of confidence. I'd served my time in the vampire brigade as a graveyard shift worker and I was ready to go back into the sunlight. Mary tried to guilt me into apologizing, feeling bad, whatever. All I could picture while she talked was Lynn lying naked on a bed and beckoning to me. "Hm? What? Oh, yeah, I'm really sorry." Mary had been sleeping with one of my co-workers for a couple of weeks and I knew there had been other guys even while we "dated". So it was a less than heartbreaking departure for both of us. It had been about control for her and now I was moving on. It was the coldest relationship I've ever known.

Home,Redux

So started a two year period where I worked a lot of interesting, though not career-making jobs and went to school. I finally studied my passion: music. I took lots of great classes and got on the Dean's List. Dad looked over my report card.

"Let's see, Music Appreciation, Piano, Vocal 101, Guitar, History..."B". Good, you did well in a real class, too."

Love ya, Pops.

After just a few months of this I was going nuts again. Then I got a call from an old friend from Norfolk who was moving to the area and needed a roommate to share expenses. I jumped at the chance and moved out for good. It wasn't long before she developed health problems and had to move back, though she paid her half of the rent until summer.

Lynn and I were going at it like ferrets. Any time and anywhere. That was great while it lasted but we soon found out we had almost nothing in common except sex. Hard to believe, but we actually just burned out. The parting was amicable, though it didn't take long for me to start missing my regular nookie. But that ship had sailed...

My jobs were all fun, too, though I was somewhat capricious about my schedule. I was always drawn to hanging out with friends instead of working when the spirit moved me. When I was at work I did the job well, so I got away with this crap a lot. Jobs summary:

Shakey's Pizza

I was a pie maker, then bartender, then House Musician. Making the pies was easy work, though I had to remember not to knosh on the ingredients, as people watched us make the pies through big picture windows. Bartending was a lot more fun. We only served beer and soft drinks but we were more in touch with the customers, and that's what I liked best. We had a cool piano player named Jay who could not only play any song ever written, he could transpose tunes we brought in for "amateur night". Think a 70's version of American Idol. I sang "Joy to the World" by Three Dog Night and "Feelings" by Morris Albert. I cringe a little every time I think about that song, but it got me performing up in front of people. When Jay moved on I was a natural fit for House Musician. I sang for four hours every Friday and Saturday night, taking a ten minute break each hour. I sang every song I could get my hands on, from Led Zepp's "The Battle of Evermore" to "You Don't Mess Around with Jim", sprinkling in my own songs from time to time. Then there was my sign off, "Margarittaville". Sounds a little sad, but maybe it had been a long night. It was a popular meeting place for all sorts of acquaintances, and I met some honest-to-goodness groupies! A good time had by all.

Handleman Company

Once upon a time there were these things called "records and tapes". That's how music was recorded and brought to the masses. I worked in a vast warehouse that distributed the big, clunky things to stores and then took back the ones that didn't sell. Round and around they went. My work day:

Get there - get stoned
Work
Break - get stoned
Work
Lunch - Eat - get stoned
Work
Break - catch a buzz
Go Home get stoned

I counted the getting stoned part as one benefit. The other was all the "free" music we got. I once walked out the door with no less than 12 cassette tapes hidden in my clothes. One day my buddy (Name deleted by Request) and I decided to get a really great gift for our friend (also deleted). We asked him to write down every LP he wished he had in his collection. Then we filled up a box with those plus a dozen or so extra for a total of 75 records. Blew his mind!

Woolworth's

I started in the Sporting Goods Department which was a total bore. It was so slow that some nights I set up a small range behind the counter and shot target practice with the .177 caliber air pistols. When the old lady in the Music Department retired I begged for the job. It was just as slow but I got to listen to all the albums I wanted to hour after hour. Cool thing about Woolworth's: They paid us in cash! On payday we lined up at a pay window and they handed each employee a manila envelope with all our deductions handwritten on the outside and our pay in cash inside. Who needs a bank account?

Variety Records

I got to work in a real record store! With snotty music know-it-alls who thought my admiration for Todd Rundgren and Neil Young was quaint, to say the least. I fell in love with a girl that worked there but she was involved with another guy and he caught us holding hands as we walked around the Tysons Corners Mall. So that was over right quick. Coolest moments: 1) I met Walter Mondale's wife and daughter and 2) Met Liberace. Hey, a celebrity is a celebrity...Everyone thought the General Manager was a complete dickhead, and when I met him I shook his hand and then dramatically wiped my hand off on my shirt. I was fired three days later. Go figure.

First Foto

Back to the photofinishing darkroom. I operated film processing machines and drove deliveries into Washington, DC. The business did one thing: Within mere minutes of their birth, babies in our contracted hospitals were wheeled under an overhead camera and had their portraits snapped. Anyone who's seen a newborn knows the expression "a face only a mother could love". Then we would sell package deals like the ones you get in school. The whole staff of package assemblers were black girls from the 'hood who sold me dope when I needed it. Thanks!

Budget Rent-a-Car

Way out by Dulles Airport, but not in the airport. Pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Same thing day in and day out: Customers get cars, customers turn in cars. But a few things made for an interesting time there.

One day during the big OPEC "gas crisis" we got a visitor, one Joe Theisman of the Washington Redskins. Redskin Park was just down the road and we were the only gas station open. You'd think a guy like that wouldn't have time for a bunch of starry-eyes football fans, but when one of the service guys asked him a question about last week's game he thought a bit and then sat down and talked about it. He stayed for nearly an hour, gabbing with us and treating us like "real folks". We all became fans for life.

One Sunday night we were getting ready to close up shop, a little before midnight. I was in the back room making copies of our daily car inventory report when I heard the front door burst open and a loud voice shout: "This is a stickup, man! Give us your money!" Hilarious! It sounded just like one of the guys that worked in the garage. "What are you guys doing here so late?" I said from the back room. Immediately, a short black man with a nylon stocking over his head walked into the room carrying a large kitchen knife. "Get out here!" he yelled. Yikes! I put my hands up and went into the front room. As I turned the corner I saw the other guy, also a black man with a stocking on his head, pointing a gun at my face. I took one look at the gun and my brain knew two things: 1) It was a replica, not a real gun and 2) Shut the fuck up. I had sold pistols just like it at Woolworth's. It was an 1850 Colt revolver made of aluminum and had a bead front sight. Problem was, if this guy had drilled it out to fit real bullets it would have fired, maybe, blowing off his hand and perhaps putting a hole in my head. And the kitchen knife that was pressed into my back was real. I was pressed up against the wall just under the Budget Rent-a-Car sign. I was thinking to myself "This wouldn't be a good recruitment poster for the company." The other rental clerk shoveled everything out of the safe into a bag and the guys took off. They had smashed the front phone but the back one still worked. I called the cops and they were there in 5 minutes, roaring into the lot and jumping out with guns drawn, too late. We found out later that the robbers had been stopped for a traffic violation and released when they saw there were three people, not two, in the car. I carried a small scar on my back where the knife cut me, but it's faded with time.

Travellin' Jones

My life was becoming routine and I didn't feel like there was any future in what I was doing. Jobs were always fun to start and then got boring. I wasn't making any progress musically and I never did the dating scene because I was so intensely shy. Friends weren't always there because they were getting on with their lives while I sat in my apartment alone, listening to the jerks upstairs screwing every girl they brought home and partying until dawn. I went a little stir crazy, especially when the weather got so bad that winter that my damn car door wouldn't even latch shut. I needed a change. And then that Spring, along came cousins Joe and Bob to offer a solution. One that would change my life forever.

Saturn Returns at 28: Goin' to California

Chapter Twenty-Six - Norfolk Exile Pt. II

2008-11-18T21:51:00.001-08:00

Into the Darkness

I had a fairly long interview with Frank. He asked me about my likes and dislikes, my plans for the future, my time in military school. Since I had no real job history to speak of, he wanted to get to know me to see if I could hang around long enough to be worth the trouble to train. I found out later that the moment he saw my birth date he knew he should hire me. Frank was a Rosicrucian, a believer in mystic connections."Something" told him that hiring me to this job would be a very beneficial thing to do. He assumed it was to his benefit, but things didn't turn out that way.

I was shown around and finally found out what a "platform operator" was. They needed somebody to run an automated film processing machine. The "platform" part was the front end of the machine, which was slightly elevated, so I would have to take a couple of steps up to get to it. Frank showed me the inner room, where spiced reels of undeveloped film were passed through the wall into a dark chamber. From there the operator would clip the roll onto a long strand of plastic film called "leader" and it would be pulled through the chemistry on rollers until coming out on the end and passing along to the printers.

"By the way, you load the film onto the machine in total darkness." Frank said.

"I thought you used red lights in the darkroom."

Turns out that doesn't work on color film. So I had to learn to work blind. Great.

Not a Good Start

After a couple of weeks I got pretty good at running the film processing machine. When a reel ran out, the tension on the strand would cause a platform to rise until it tripped an alarm. I then had 30 seconds to clip a fresh reel to the end or run some more leader film. While it was boringly routine, it was also nerve-wracking. The stupid alarm bell was like the kind at school, and it would ring continuously until I clipped on the new film and let the tension out slowly. Too slowly, the platform would continue to rise and hit the shutoff switch, stranding film in the developer. Too fast, and the platform would crash to the floor, twisting the film and getting it all tangled up. One night I was putting a new reel on when it slipped out of my hand and rolled across the floor. I felt around in the darkness, going from corner to corner with no luck. I knew I couldn't turn on the light, as that would expose the undeveloped film. So I hit on a new plan: Light a match. I figured the light would be too dim to cause any problem. Tiny flame in hand, I looked around the darkroom. There was the reel, tucked between a box and the wall. I took a second to observe the film strand winding its way around the rollers and into the chemistry before loading up the prodigal reel.

Not long after that it became apparent there was a problem. The film strand winding its way into the lighted drying cabinet looked...funny. Instead of its usual brownish tint, it was all green! Uh-oh. Many questions were asked. I knew nothing...nothing! I sure as hell was not going to tell them I had lit a match in the darkroom and for sure lose my job. Frank tried everything to duplicate the result but never came close. In the end I was written up for "operator error" and kept my job. It reinforced that idea that in a pinch I could still lie my way out of trouble. Great.

The only other notable experience I had was with a woman who worked with me. Her name was Mary Jones, and she was about five years older than me, though her past heroin addiction made her look like a slightly strung-out Bonnie Raitt. Now. In 2008. In the long run our relationship was a matter of how long she could control me and still screw around with other guys. That came to an end not long after my birthday in February of 1977.

Surprise

I came back to Northern Virginia for my birthday to see the folks and visit friends. The photo lab had cut our hours back and I was living on about $50 a week. There were times when I would wait until nobody was home at the frat house and go into the kitchen to raid other guys' food. Always just a bit from this one and a bit from that. A spoonful of peanut butter. A handful of raisins. A packet of oatmeal. I was deeply ashamed that I had to resort to that kind of behavior. One day I was truly starving and had 60 cents to my name and no cigarettes. Food or smokes? To screw up a Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers phrase: "Food will get you through times of no smokes better than smokes will get you through times of no food." I bought two bags of popcorn and that was my three squares that day. I actually know what it's like to wake up in the morning and wonder if I will eat that day. It sucked, and something had to change.

After the formalities of dinner with the family I went over to Vienna to see my good buddies. I had been given directions to an apartment rented by a girl I knew at Madison, Pam Drennan. I had had a crush on her in my sophomore year but she never really suspected anything. When the door opened everyone yelled "surprise!" as I stood there, shocked. I really hadn't expected it to be a party for me, but hey, let's do it!

This was the first time I had Tequila Sunrises, and I drank them down like water. Before long I found myself on the couch talking to a very attractive girl named Lynn who thought I was the most interesting and funny guy. As it got later, people started trailing away or going into other rooms. Lynn and I were there alone. And in the deep, dark hours of the night I got my last, best birthday present of the day. Oh, yeah. Mary who?

27:'77

Chapter Twenty-Five - Home and Gone Again

2008-11-18T15:51:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Workin' Week

No sooner was I home than I got a pretty good-paying job driving a lunch truck for a local deli. I got to the store at about 5AM to load up and spent the next 8 hours driving from construction sites to the DMV to office buildings, lather, rinse, repeat. The worst part of the job was the constuction guys. They were constantly trying to rip me off. I finally started wearing mirrored sunglasses and making change without looking down just so they wouldn't know where I was looking. But the pay was great for the day ($125 per week), and the best parts of the job were: 1) Listening to music all day on the radio and 2) Ruane. She drove the other truck but had the plum route. She only had to park at a Farmer's Market all day and rake in the dough. Man, Ruane was a stone cold fox. She was funny, bright and wholesome as an apple pie. Really wholesome. She wanted me to be the one to take care of that. Yowzah! And yet we never got to that last base. Always some complication or another. And me squealing tires as I drove off in frustration yet again. Looking back I wonder sometimes whether it was part of her act, but I believed it at the time, and that's what gave an extra kick to the insanity.

It only took me a few weeks back under my parents' roof to realize that I couldn't hack being with them again. I had spent too much time out on my own, more or less, and their constant nagging and button-pushing drove me up the wall. Between that and my sexual frustration I was ready to bolt. I spent as little time as possible at the house, preferring to see friends over in Vienna or hanging out with some new buddies in or new neighborhood, Hayfield Farms. Nice name, no? We would meet down at a dead end street and catch a buzz, play music and dream of other places. But it always ended the same way: back to the folks' place. So I started squirreling away cash in a savings account with the aim to move out the minute I had $800 or so. Week after week went by and I watched the balance grow with anticipation, each perceived slight by my Mom and Dad growing in my mind to the level of insult. One day I came back from work to discover that my nice queen sized bed had been replaced by a single. My feet stuck out the end like some Lil' Abner cartoon.

"Why did you do that?" I asked Mom.

"You aren't going to be living here forever", she said.

I couldn't wait to see how they reacted to the dramatic announcement I had planned.

Finally the time had come: I withdrew all my "mad money" and packed up a suitcase. Mom and Dad had gone to their room for the evening. I knocked softly on the door.

"Come in."

"Um, Mom, Dad, I have to tell you something. I really can't stay here anymore and I, uh, I'm moving back to Norfolk. I've already called and they have a room for me at the frat house. So, I guess I just wanted to come in and say goodbye."

They looked at me in stunned silence for a moment.

"Well, if this is something you have to do, then we won't try to stop you. What are you going to do there?" said Dad.

"I'll get a job. Maybe go back to school."

"Will you let me drive you to the bus station?" said Mom.

"Sure."

We said good night and I went to my room with a feeling of excitement and liberation. Out in the big world on my own at last! This is gonna be so cool.

Exit Stage Left

Morning came and Mom drove me to the Greyhound station that had become such an icon to me during the years at SMA. Many trips through there to and from the old place over those two years. Now it was my way station to another big chapter. I got on the bus and my Mom and sisters watched from the car as we pulled out of the station. Years later they told me that she wept on the way back to the house. I knew Mom was sentimental, but I was so full of myself and my own grand adventure that it meant little to me at the time how anyone else felt. I was in charge now, thank you very much.

I got to Norfolk and moved into my new room, a place over the garage the Brothers called the Crow's Nest. It was fantastic. My roommate was a kid named Xavier Cineseros, and he was a real partyin' dude. He had local buddies who we hung out with and some of the cooler Brothers came up for evenings of illegal imbibing as well. I adopted some rats from the ODU Psych Department that had been used as test subjects and we had a lot of fun watching them run around, begging for our munchies and then scurrying off to their cage. Or so I thought. One day I needed my sport coat, and when I took it out of the closet the pockets were filled with rotting food! The rats had been climbing up into the closet and hoarding the crackers, nuts and other junk food in my clothes. Thanks, guys!

With the waning of summer came also the waning of my cash. I hadn't worried much about getting a job as long as there was a party going on. But now it was time to get moving or move on out. I was pretty desperate, going so far as to apply at the Coast Guard office to take the entrance exam. I went to the Virginia Employment Office and sat down with a jobs councellor. After seeing that my job history consisted of a burger joint and a deli truck driver, the man told me to take whatever I could get.

"Here's one," he said "It says 'Platform Operator'. Do you know what that is?"

"Maybe it's like a loading dock type thing?"

"Good. Sounds like something you could do. I'll call and set up your interview this week."

A couple of days later I went for my interview at Colorcraft, INC. It was a big, nondescript building about a half mile from the frat house. I came in through the front door, and that was the last time I would enjoy that view. I was shown into an office where a tall, gray-haired man rose and shook my hand.

"Hi. I'm Frank Pyle, good to meet you."

"So this is the guy who is going to start my long and distinguished career in the exciting world of professional photofinishing", I didn't think to myself.

26 it goes like this: A boom shackalacka boom shackalacka lacka.....