Third Saturday Fiction

Chapter 22. The High Country, from the novel Boystown: The Cocaine Highway

By edRogers

[James Hamilton has had to abandon his business and flee Mexico to avoid being killed by a Colombian drug cartel. Previous excerpt, "Santa Teresa," published here on August 30.]

Northern California is not like any other part of the state. I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge about six in the morning, a light fog hung over the water. As usual, there was a chill in the air, but fortunately, I wore my full leathers. Most of the traffic came across the bridge from the north at that time of day. The line of cars looked like ants as they broke from the darkness of the tunnel into the gray morning light. Each little soldier, sadly in search of a dream that required them to spend eight hours locked in an office. Then at the end of the day they would make the drive back across the bridge and start over tomorrow.
    My life was fucked up. I knew some asshole might kill me at any moment, but I’d be damned if I would have traded places with those fools. I kicked the bike up a gear as I approached the tunnel to Sausalito. The air, which rose from the bay, slapped me in the face like a cold wet fish. My leg still hurt, but only if I moved wrong—I could sit on a bike just fine.
    True to his word, Buddy met me in New Mexico. He flew me back to California and stashed me somewhere near the airport. It was one of their many safe houses. A doctor sewed my wounds and loaded me up with drugs. I was in and out of my mind with fever for two days. Then after two more days, I was walking…not good and not without a hell of a lot of pain…but walking none the less.
    While I hid out and fought to heal, the Colombians placed a bounty on my head…$200,000. The price of life had gone up. I guess I should have been proud—that was a lot of money. When Jay and I were in Colombia, you could have fifty people bumped off for that amount of dough. It didn’t take long for the news of the bounty to reach the streets. There were people gunning for me from Texas to California.
    Buddy insisted I get out of town. He said the Colombians made it clear they wanted my head on a stick and they’d kill anyone that helped me. He damn sure wasn’t afraid them, but he and I both knew there was an army of dope-heads in need of a fix. The Colombians didn’t have to do anything but wait.
    The drug scene on Haight Ashbury no longer radiated with laughter and the spirit of freedom. As Buddy predicted, they fed upon the drugs and happiness until only the drugs were left. A few addicts still walked the now-empty streets, but most of the hippies moved to Northern California, or went home.
    Those lucky enough not to have fried their brains completely joined the back-to-the-earth movement. The open land in the northern hill country was isolated and gave them time to heal. There they grew their own crops and a little weed. They ate their crops and smoked most of the weed themselves. However, they sold or traded some of their super grass for food and goods needed by the members. Buddy said the grass they grew was the best dope he ever smoked—two hits and you were fucked up.
    It took little money to live off the land. Large communes sprung up in the backwoods north of Willits, off Highway 101. Buddy arranged for me to move in with a small group. He said it was just until things cooled down with the Colombians. Pablo Escobar was new to us and we weren’t sure how he would react to the death of his men in La Pesca. The bounty on my head was one thing. If that were as far as it went, then things would blow over. However, if he turned his soldiers loose, there was nowhere I could hide, and the Outcast would be at war. I could tell Pablo wasn’t the typical Colombian, but at that time none of us had any idea what he was capable of doing.
    As I came out of the tunnel, I felt free for the first time…in a long time. Pablo Escobar, La Pesca, and the drug business slid from my mind. The rumble of the big Harley reverberated off the tile walls, and the sunlight warmed my face. The temperature rose by twenty degrees once I was out of the Bay Area. I flew past the houseboats and headed for Highway 1, toward a small art town on the coast called Mendocino City. It had been a logging port when the redwoods were king. Now, the hippies opened shops with paintings, baskets, and tapestries. Before the hippies moved north, the only industry was whale watching. Now the tourists came to watch the freaks.
    The head of the commune, Jean Perry, had a jones for a special cigar from one of the shops in the picturesque town. It was a thin black cigar sold in tins of twenty. The name was El Grande Premio. Buddy mentioned it would be a nice gift. I figured with my life on the line, the cigars were a cheap trade-off.
    Outside of Stinson Beach, a small town with a two-lane main drag, I stopped and removed my leathers. There were only a few cars on their way into town, and their drivers checked me out with distrusting eyes. I parked alongside the road, not thinking the locals might be upset about a biker in their town. I quickly shoved the hot clothes in my saddlebags. The temperature was in the eighties and the sun promised an even hotter day. I got back on the bike and drove north along the coast. It was a nice drive through two-lane, wooded stretches, which shaded and cooled me, and the breeze that came off the water was fresh and smelled of salt. It was a wonderful day to be on a motorcycle.
    The Pacific Ocean was nothing like the Gulf of Mexico—the coast had a magnificence the Gulf lacked. However, as beautiful as it was to look at, it was a cold, uninviting coastline, with jagged rocks and crashing waves. The waves were like hungry mouths that ate at the shore and rock. White foam rocketed high into the sky as the surf broke against its adversaries. As I raced along the shore, I noticed no sign of swimmers along that beach.
    The Pacific Coast Highway had to have been built by a biker; big bikes like the Harley were at home. I cut easily around the corners, the sound of the pipes bouncing off the cliffs and sounding like a lonesome train whistle. I became lost in the beautiful summer day and it crossed my mind…that I might just keep riding until I got to Alaska. Maybe I could start a new life, one that didn’t have drug dealers or Colombian hit men in it. Maybe I could settle down, get married, and have kids. It wasn’t impossible—Antonio had done it. Why not me?
    The sign ended my daydream. It read 1 mile to Mendocino City. I turned off Highway 1 and saw a wonderful sight. The town was one big art fair. The buildings, painted in bright reds and yellows, with blue trims, gleamed with new paint. With the bright sun and the blue ocean in the background, it looked like a picture from a book.
    On the main drag, a white hotel with a large front porch dominated the view. Having been built in the 1800s, it was in its day home to loggers and women of the night. The veranda faced a flat green expanse of grass that appeared to run right into the ocean. I rode to the edge of the grass and looked over the cliff at the storm of waves fifty feet below. So complete was the illusion that the cliffs were invisible until you stood on the flat landscape and looked down. I came back and parked the bike in front of the hotel. From there, I began to walk the side streets.
    The art shops hung the same kind of paintings. They were of rocks, oceans, and redwoods. All of them had peace signs somewhere on the canvas. Here and there you could find pictures of the old hotel or the town.
    A young girl draped hand-stitched quilts on lines outside of her shop. As I passed, she gave me that look that said the right line could get you a nooner. I smiled and walked on down the street. Incense filled the air as I came upon a head shop. Bongs and pipes, along with grow lights, covered the window. They had books on how to grow marijuana, how to sex it, and even how to turn it into hash. No wonder the market dropped out of the pot trade. The third street I turned down, I saw the cigar shop. It sat on a corner. The fresh blue paint and yellow trim set it apart from the red coffee shop next door. A hand-carved redwood Indian stood outside the front door. He held a fist full of cigars and looked pissed off at the world.
    I opened the door and a cloud of smoke rolled onto the street from the inside of the shop. The owner, who looked to be in his early twenties, had long hair held back by a headband, with a peace sign in the middle of his forehead. His sandals, torn jeans, and flowered shirt labeled him a hippie, but the tobacco store screamed capitalist. The shop had cigars that were imported from every South American country that made them. No sign of American brands anywhere.
    He sat his cigar down and turned from his friends as I entered. “Hi there,” he smiled and said. “Welcome to Cigar Heaven.”
    “Thank you.” I looked around at the shelves loaded with the different brands. There were hundreds of tins and wooden boxes from around the world. I never thought there were that many types of cigars. “I was told you carried, El Grande Premio,” I announced, as though I were a cigar connoisseur.
    The want-to-be hippie opened a cabinet behind him and pulled out three tins. He laid them on the glass counter. “A wonderful cigar from Brazil,” he said. “There are three varieties. The strong black, the mild, and the blanco. Which do you prefer?”
    I picked up the black tin. “This will do. How much?” I asked.
    He rang it up and held out his hand. “That’ll be twenty dollars and twenty-six cents.”
    I handed him twenty-one dollars and waited for my change. A dollar apiece for cigars was a little high for my taste. “Thank You,” I said, and headed out the door.
    Back on my bike, I turned north toward Fort Bragg. From there, I would catch Highway 20, east over the mountain to Willits. It promised to be a nice ride through the redwoods.

I’m not sure what I though a commune would be like, but the shithole I found myself in was not anywhere close to what I had expected. There was no running water, everybody shit in the woods and wiped their ass with the foliage. Baths came by way of a cold creek that ran out of the mountains. The water felt like it had come off an iceberg. My dick would draw up so far into my belly, I would have to stick my finger up my ass in order to take a piss. Few of the locals had that problem. It appeared that I was the only one that bathed. The others made do with a sponge bath, when they washed at all.
    We lived, cooked, ate, and slept in one large room. The building was a cross between a tent and a shack. Wood made up most of the walls, and in places canvas covered the holes. Each person had a little piece of the floor that they called their own. Father Jean (as he wanted to be called) had this girlfriend that was a screamer. We had to listen to her sexual howls at night, and as horny as I was, I never got that horny. I knew my girls at the Golden Place were clean—at the commune, clean was a matter of choice.
    Long bike rides helped pass the time and get me the hell out of camp. I found a place called Blue Lakes in the county next to us. I spent a lot of time fishing along the banks of those lakes. One day on my way back to the commune, I began to worry because I hadn’t heard from Buddy. It wasn’t like him to be out of touch and I was dying for news…even if it was bad.
    I had been three weeks in hell, but I was alive and I had managed to tune out Jean and his girlfriend. I had begun to settle into a routine and I had accepted my fate. Then, as I returned from hiding out at the Lakes, Jean met me on the road that led to the commune. He had all my belongings setting next to him on the ground.
    “There are three men in Willies looking for you,” he said. “They have your picture and they’re offering money. They could be on their way here, right now.”
    I threw my saddlebags over the back of the bike and tied them down. I knew better than to take the time to question Father Jean about his informant. It was time to go—he knew it and so did I. “Tell Buddy, I’m heading to Portland. And, I’ll call him when I get there.”
    I left Jean in the middle of the field. I spun the bike around and headed back down the road. At Highway 20, I turned east toward I-5. It would take me three hours to get to Sacramento. In the meantime, whoever these men were, they would be on their way to Portland. I knew it would take very little pressure to get the information out of Father Jean. He would spill his guts like a dropped melon. I wondered if it was the Colombians or some freelance asshole after the money. In the end, it made no difference. Someone would pull that trigger.
    The moon came up and the highway was like a black ribbon that ran over the hills and through the valleys. Alone on the black ribbon was a good place to think and get lost in your thoughts. A plan began to take shape in my head. It was like a puzzle. Once you found the essential piece, everything else came together. It was so simple I wanted to kick myself for not thinking of it sooner.
    The bugs began to beat me up. I pulled over at the Blue Lakes, and could hear the clear waters lapping at the shoreline as I got my goggles and bandanna from my bag. I covered my eyes with the goggles and pulled the bandanna over my mouth and nose. Protected from the night bugs, I roared on down the highway. I passed the Lakes and climbed a small mountain that dropped into Clearlake, California. Highway 20 ran 18 miles along the shoreline of this large lake. Dotted among the trees were summer homes and resorts. A few small towns spread out on each side of the highway; but soon I was back into the mountains.
    Three hours later, I pulled into a low-rent motel on the outskirts of Sacramento. The manager never looked up as I signed the register as Mr. Smith. He counted the money and handed me the key. I’m sure he didn’t want to know who rented his rooms.
    The room had gray trim and white walls. A chair in the corner and a table with a mirror along the wall were all the furniture. The bed was a single, and a night table with a telephone and light completed the decor. The rug was old and worn, with a hole at the doorway. The room was crummy, but in comparison to the commune, it was a palace. I took a long hot shower and, nude, fell across the bed. The air conditioner blew heavenly cool air over me and for the first time in almost a month, I slept in comfort.
    I awoke at eight in the morning. The day felt good, the air even tasted better. It had been a long time since I woke up in such a good mood. I couldn’t help but wonder what was going to fuck up. Still nude, with my bare feet on the floor, I reached for the phone book on the night table and looked up storage areas. I found one close to downtown.
    I packed what few things I had taken from my bag and tied the bag onto the bike. I left the bike running while I dropped the key off at the front desk, and then headed out on the road. Two Hell’s Angels passed me going the other direction. I gave them a down low and they returned the wave. Bikers who flew their colors in the wrong territory were fair game. However, put your colors away, and you were just another civilian on a bike.
    The smell of the farmland gave way to the smog of the city. Sacramento was in a long valley that supported a large farming community. The busy hub of the Capital City of California was in contrast to the miles of rice fields that surrounded it. To the east was the Sierra Nevada mountain range with all of its ski resorts. The mountains on the west side, which I had come out of, formed the valley that reached to San Francisco. Although it was still early, heat waves and steam from last night’s dew rose off the fields of grass and the concrete. The trees and bushes remained calm in the silent air. Only the movement of my bike produced a breeze. The rush hour started and the roadway filled rapidly. I turned onto Baker Street and headed north into the industrial part of town. Within a few minutes, I saw the lock and store sign. It was large and high on a rusted pole. The white background had started to peel, but the red letters were clear. I parked at the front door and pushed a buzzer. A black man in his fifties came out of the back and sat his coffee on the counter. He drug his feet in order to keep his house shoes on, and covered the ten feet to the door at a snail’s pace.
    With the door half opened, he blocked my entrance. “We don’t open until 10:00,” he said. As he tried to close the door, he mumbled, “You come back in thirty minutes.”
    I pushed against the door. “I’m sorry, but I can’t come back. I need to rent a place to store my bike and I’m willing to pay in advance for a year.”
    I could see the old man try to add the amount up in his head. “Come in,” he said with a big grin. “I’ve got a unit that’s made for your motorcycle.”
    Thirty minutes later I stood by the road as the Yellow Cab pulled up. “You call for a taxi going downtown?”
    I opened the back door and threw my saddlebags on the seat. From my back pocket, I pulled a torn piece of paper, which I had ripped from of the phone book.
    “Take me to this address.”
    He turned in his seat, and looked at my long hair, tie-dyed T-shirt, and flowered pants. “Are you sure this is where you want to go?”
    I smiled because I knew what was going on in his mind. “That is the right address.”
    He pulled out into traffic and raced around a VW Bug. “You’re not one of those nuts that’s going to blow this place up or something crazy like that. Are you?”
    “No, I’m nothing like that.” I turned my attention to the city as it passed by at a rapid speed. The speed limit was forty miles per hour and we were doing sixty. I got the feeling the driver wanted me out of his cab as soon as possible.
    Unlike San Francisco, Sacramento was flat and spread over a large area. You could drive through the industrial part of town with its low-rent housing, drunks, prostitutes, and drug pushers, or take a left and be in the middle of high-rise downtown.
    There was also Old Sacramento, with its wooden sidewalks and parks. I had seen all the pictures and had planned to visit the capital if I ever got back to California. But, this was not a sightseeing tour. My journey was only to the edge of the industrial part of town. Today the city had nothing to offer me.
    “Here you are, pal.” He turned the flag down. “That’ll be nine-fifty.”
    I handed him a ten and got out. “Keep the change,” I said. I watched him drive off before I turned to face the storefront.
    The window had a large picture of Uncle Sam. The writing proclaimed; “The Army wants you.”

Copyright © 2014 by Ed Rogers