“Where you headed?”

“Just outta here pretty much..”

“You got a paper on you?”

“I don’t think so..”

“Eh man..” he lowers his voice and looks around..

“I’ve got this killer Thai stick .. I’m fixin’ to roll up a ripper, but I need a paper bro..”

  This guy looked all right,  he had a tie died shirt and looked like he was from northern California.. he looked like a Fleetwood Mac song.  He appeared to have just gotten off a bus.

“You  need any help?”

“Sure”

As soon as I hit the ground I found myself talking to some guy..

My luck was already down the toilet so how much worse could it get?  Actually I’d decided on the grey hound from  Las Vegas  that I was going to quit smoking dope forever ; at least for a while. But it looked like I was headed for a relapse.  Besides this is kind of a survival situation.. Can’t lie around in bed all day..

  I was grasping at psychic straws, the way I felt:  I’d go anywhere or do anything.  I’d go to china and get ate by the cannibals.  I was spread thin. I was looking to see what people said. Working on Zen. I was taking some heat from the Great Spirit. Once you don’t give a fuck and a half.

By and by Dick Fleetwood  motions for me to sit down. We’re sitting on an outside concrete bench in the prison wall courtyard.  That L.A. station is a real utilitarian fortress.  Severe architecture.  If things ever went bezerko .. look out.  Not a safe place.  You got every kind of person.  Like a modern Ellis Island.

Luckily I got over most of my nervous breakdown yesterday while I waited at Las Vegas general for a botched minor surgery.

Speaking of anxious, my buddy seems to be ready to roll. He wants to do some weed with the quickness.  In the twilight of the night.  Also the twilight of our relationship..

“I don’t think were gonna’ be able to smoke this thing right here.”

“Well, what about around the corner?”

“You don’t want to go out into that neighborhood.. I’ll tell you what. I’ve got a 50-dollar stick left, but I’ll let it go for $40.  It’s yours if you want it Bro.. That’s a sick deal bro.  This is some ‘killer shit’, tear you up bro.”

I figured “Stick” was just the way they said it down here…

He wanted to hurry up and make this drug transaction.  He suddenly became terse, direct..

“We got to do this quick cause they know me down here..”

“I’ve only got $30 on me”

“Fuck dude!”

Now I’m fucking it all up..

I saw the bag in his hand. It was Thai stick, neatly tied with thread. I’d never seen one before. “I’ll be damned”

He pulled the bag away, and went to work trying to tear a chunk off the end.. In retrospect comically harder to do than you would think..

“man they really wrapped this shit tight”  fuck yeah they did.

“O.K. take this , put it away! but be cool..! wait till I tell you to give me the money..”

He kept looking around.

“HURRY UP”

He was rushing me.  One pocket I knew had 30 and I got the right wad of cash.  We did the deal though.  People were going back and forth in the dark in the distance.   Getting a lungful of the dry dingy downtown world..

“Alright here!”

I gave him thirty of my last 200 dollars..

“Righteous bro!  Be careful with that shit now!”

I wanted to check this Thai stick shit out, so I shoved into the bus station bathroom with my large frame pack and another big duffel bag worth of all my possessions..

On the way in, as I was coming down the desert on the grey dog, the air conditioning was the first thing to go.  I was seated next to this 70-year-old black Louisiana catfish farmer who’d just lost a wife.  And when the grumbling about the heat started he wasn’t part of it.   But then this bearded good ole boy country gentleman, looking like grizly Addams started strolling the isles singing his song about the air conditioning, and leaving Las Vegas and some guy who bought him a ticket.  Barefoot with a guitar and an unbuttoned wool shirt on the ride across Death Valley. . I mean he brought joy to peoples hearts. He’d asked about weed as we waited for the bus in Vegas, but I didn’t have any.  This guy was living life off charm alone ..No doubt finding his was into infinite adventures.  That seemed like the life for me.  If only I wasn’t bogged down with all this survivor guilt.  I figure, I smoke a bowl with this guy and see where he’s going.

So I wrestle all my worldly possessions into the grey-dog bathroom.. and check out the merchandise. This erotic weed turns out to be some of that dog bullshit.  Hand painted rubber cement and toilet paper and moss glued together with an eye for color and texture. Totally real looking but it would bounce off the floor.  Definitely not what it was cracked out to be.  Totally schwagerino..  My heart sank.

“Boy, that guy really screwed me over”

I laughed at myself, in a new, cool, hypnotic-post–post shock- consciousness I had attained. The window had been broken but bricks kept coming.. What I mean is this counterfeit weed was at the heart of the least of my problems. I just needed to cut loose all attachments and then no problems… It’s all nothingness, an illusion, like this weed.  If I never opened my mouth or went out in public, this kind of thing wouldn’t happen.  That’s a question for the philosophers.  I’m not the kind to go try and chase the guy down.   In so Cal life’s a bitch. I thought about re-selling it.  Could an individual get busted for selling fake weed?   This  seemed like rock bottom, but I wasn’t taking any chances.  Besides it’s my souvenir from the southland.

I ended up just mumbling and laughing and went to try to find my way out of there..
In fact I couldn’t say shit as for fiscal responsibility because I’d just wrecked a 4000$ loaner truck and put a lady in the hospital.  I didn’t think I’d be able to pay all that back anytime soon.  I just wanted to go someplace where I didn’t have to deal with people anymore.

But first I’d need to get out of downtown Los Angeles.  I was wondering just exactly what I should do to get out of here.  I figured sleeping on a park bench in Venice beach would be the best way to go homeless with class.  I could see the lights of the skyscrapers in the distance of the downtown buildings up the way.  You understand that I’ve got at least 100 pounds of luggage.  Everything I could scavenge from the car wreck.

It’s like 10 p.m. on a Sunday. Night of the zombies, I don’t know actually, there’s plenty of humanity around here.  I get directions to the R.T.D bus stop.
 
“The rough tough and dangerous”

“Across the street and down the way..” The B team of greyhound gangsters beyond the outside of the walls help me out.  

Looking if “I’m lookin’..” I tried to act like this wasn’t my first day on the job.  They were sizing me up.  But there’s a lot going on.

A long-long block away is the bus stop.  Looks like I got somebody else wait with: fellow bus rider,  a big round  African American gentleman wearing sunglasses and carrying a one of those canes for the blind..

“Hey..  Who’s this now?”  He had a drawl like Biggie and looked like Blind Lemon Jefferson.

“I’m just some guy trying’ to catch the bus out to..”

“HUH.”

We sat there. I was trying to think of how to ask my gruff-blind associate directions how I get a bus out to Venice Beach.  I’m  thinking about where I’m going to sleep.  Not in this part of town.  I wasn’t cracked-up enough for that yet.  I’m going to go sleep under the pier like ‘Carnival of Souls’..

Then another black dude approached across the wide street with no traffic.  Walked right up to me..

“David Parker”- (My name)

“Whhaa  yaaaa..?”

“Mr. Parker, I’m officer Hassle.  L.A.P.D.  Greyhound division. He flipped out some kind of badge. You know why I’m here right?”

“N-No”

I’d never been more startled.

“Oh come on now..  Games Mr. parker?  Must we? . I just watched you buy marijuana form one of our undercover agents.. time to go to jail.”

He was pissed. Jail.  Downtown L.A.  I had a clear picture in my head of what that would look like.  Crazy gangsters dancing around in shower caps and bed sheet diapers and teddy bears.  Men’s central lock-up.

“Jail. For real? Are you sure?”

“We got you on the video machine”

He was wiry, in his early 40’s carrying a small Marlboro mile duffel bag, wearing glasses and a backward NY Yankees ball cap, jeans an old-faded-brown Members Only style leather jacket with triangular lapel.  He had a hard look and a New York accent. More authentic “ghetto” style than any cop I’d been around. More like Rockford.

“Whooeee” the blind guy exclaimed..

I hoped this would just be a ticket or something.  Could I take all this gear to jail? I mean backpacks and duffel bags. Wait a minute this weed was bunk.  Is it illegal to buy fake weed?

“O.K. So what happens now”

“Well Mr. Parker let’s take a walk back across the street and we’ll see how the sergeant wants to play it.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah you’re fucked.  I got you.” He smiles. 

“You see though Mr. parker today is your lucky day sir, there is a one time holiday special deal,  you might say..” He said cracking a full grin..

I was interested.

“If you got 20 dollars cash money we can just forget the whole thing.”

“20 dollars?”

“Or even 5 would work.”

It was beginning to dong on me that there was some kind of sick double -hustle. But who the hell knew what the hell..

“Nah man, I’m bullshitting you, I seen what happened back there with that dude.”

He looked at the blind man.

“I had him GOIN’ huh?”

Blind guy and him thought that was so funny..  guttural laughs “Chhh Chhh Chhh”

All this coming out of the dark fog of impending near death trouble, the clear L.A. sky with no stars.

I automatically paid the 5 dollars..

“Nah man I’m just fuckin’ with you player.  I seen you get ripped off by that dude. I can’t see a man get ripped off twice in one night!”

“Oh-Oh – nah man”

He tried to return the 5.

“Nah man you got me fair and square.  That’s a good one”

“Alright then! You’re a good sport Mr. Parker. Now,  I got to go! David parker!. My name is James.  Look me up if you want some real weed.  I’ll be around.”

We shook hands.  He started off.

“Hey!  Just one thing though.. How’d you know my name?”

“Right there” 

He pointed to my baggage tag on my backpack.

“Damn!”

“Alright Mr. Parker we’ll see you around..”

  He was surer than I was. When you’re caught on a metaphysical roller coaster ride there’s ups and down’s but at least we’re just joking around this twist of the corner.