The U Haul Kamikaze
by
Jaye B.
(editor’s note: one of the advantages of living like I do is that I’ve learned how to instantly adapt to the unexpected. Such a skill enables me to survive and escape many a predicament intact.)
My shaking car jarred me from an afternoon nap. Through the sun reflector, I could see the blur of something passing by much too fast and where there was no shoulder. Sliding off of my plywood bed and out of the back passenger door, I then walked towards a truck, classic rock blaring through open windows.
But there was no one around.
A man finally appeared, standing on the roof. He held out a pair of large binoculars to me. "Care to take a look?"
"You're lucky you didn't go any further." I said, surveying how close to cusp of the rocky creek he was.
He climbed down quite agilely.
"You should back up and park so we can sit in your shade." I said, getting a bit nervous, seeing just how uncaring the guy was in regards to his precarious situation. I didn't tell him that there would be no way he could back the truck up and out to the main road as large boulders lined the shoulders on both sides. Nor could he turn it around without sinking the back tires deep into the sand.
"Here's some shade." He said, ignoring my suggestion and pushed up the sliding back door of the U Haul.
Inside was nothing but a mattress and a bunch of clothes scattered on the floor. At least it wasn't stuffed with kilos of heroin or human cargo.
We both jumped in and I sat on the left wheel well, bracing myself with my legs.
"I was born into a political family. Dad's a state senator." He began and I tried to adjust myself to keep from sliding off the wheel well, as the truck was parked at such a steep angle.
"It's full on war." He then said, eyes blazing. "And we are the ones with the guns. They are afraid."
"No doubt. Martial law."
"No martial law. Something worse."
He then gave me a run down on all the prisons he had been in. Beat some police officers in Berkeley unconscious. Then described the choke hold technique they tried to use on him, the one that killed Eric Garner.
"Pelican Bay?"
"Yeah. I've done business with Pelican Bay." He said. "All prisons are the same."
He began to move the pile of clothes around and swept some dirt away from the mattress.
"So what do you do?"
"I'm a writer, working on a book. I describe how people are exposed in certain environments and their camouflage stripped away. Deserts, mountains, large parking lots." Why I said that became quickly apparent. Now the exposure was taking place in a place of confinement and not some naked expanse.
We then talked about the Book of Revelation.
“I’ve got the gift of prophecy.” He said and I believed him seeing how transparent his eyes were.
He offered me a yellow, seersucker, short sleeved shirt that he grabbed from the floor and a hat which I took from him.
I thought of TK. All that time in prison, used to fabricate very detailed and convincing stories. This guy's descriptive abilities were beyond spooky: his family with Goomba ties, a Syrian wedding he attended where he spent all his time with the women in another room and the men all hating him in the other. His mom selling him out on a produce company the two founded in San Fernando valley.
"You should camp up in Andrus." I said, my nervousness not abating. "It is beautiful there."
"I thought it was Aspen Bell. But then again my short term memory isn't very good. All my years of being in the ring and taking blows to the head."
He didn't seem like a tweeker. His eyes were too bright and his articulation quite excellent. There was no time/space disorientation evident in his utterances.
He talked about Agenda 21. Then the Deutsch Bank scandal.
And he reminded me once again who really had the guns and who would win.
"We should find you a camp site. There's one a mile down the road." I said after my five minutes or so of nodding and jumped out. "I'll help you back up."
I got in my Malibu, ripped all the sun reflectors away, turned around, drove up to the road to the highway and got out to watch him try to back up. Then, looking down around my feet, I saw something even more peculiar. He had not turned off the highway and onto the road I was camping on. His tire tracks indicated that he had come up the rocky desert road from the opposite direction before barreling past me straight into his dead end dilemma.
"In a U Haul?" I thought, waiting for the back up lights to come on but they never did.
The red flag was completely unfurled now and was fluttering strongly, high above in the desert wind.
I stood there and waited. But nothing. Then, the truck disappeared. Walking tentatively back down the road, I could see the silver colored roof of the U Haul, shrouded in the branches of the willow tree beyond where he had first parked. No longer at a 30 degree angle. The truck was perfectly level. In the creek.
There was no, "I should help him." impulse. Rather, I bailed onto the highway and drove a good three miles up into the mountains and sat in my camp chair for several hours. Using a combination of spiritual discernment and logical deduction, I reviewed, over and over, what had happened that afternoon:
1. Very bright, articulate and charming. Guess what kind of person possesses these traits?
2. "I don't have enough gas to get to the campsite you want me to go to. Are we going in your car?"
3. "I make a lot of money selling cuttings to marijuana growers. $5.00 a piece."
4. Bragging about how he was going to expose all the political corruption in San Fernando since he was born into a political family and knew everything that was going down.
“I just came from the reservation”
Among many other revealing things he relayed non-stop to me.
At my new camp site, I climbed down a rock escarpment and buried the hat and shirt under some boulders. Sitting back down again, a Cal Fire truck drove past me. On the side:
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Just the synchronistic reminder I needed, seeing that my newfound friend opted for a an alternative to letting me help liberate him from his rig predicament.
And now for the punch line:
About a week later, I ran into the U Haul Kamikaze at the McDonald’s in town, when they opened up in the morning.
“Did they get that U-Haul out?” He asked me. “I was tripping on LSD. All I remember is wandering through the desert.”
“Just a lot of tire ruts.”
My new friend then took me out to breakfast at a Mexican restaurant and then to his motel room at the Thunderbird. But first he had to show me his new rig. He gave me random things he plucked from various piles. I then grabbed my manuscript and guitar out of my car and followed him up some stairs.
When we got to his room, I played my songs for him and read a few chapters from my book. And then told him I was having trouble raising money to get my book published.
He reached into a dresser drawer and pulled out a meth pipe and took a hit. The pipe glowed orange like an alchemical alembic and the smoke spiraled counterclockwise before he inhaled the hit.
“I’ll publish your book.” He said confidently, exhaling in the smoke.
Please help support Reset News @ Paypal, Cash App or contact the author for other options such as Apple Pay @ jayeb444@protonmail.com
(C)2017- Jaye B.
***
Jaye B. is a writer, musician and artist. His art criticism has appeared in Art Paper, New North Artscape, Art Muscle, Northfield Magazine and elsewhere. His articles have also appeared in City Pages, Twin Cities Reader, Mysteries Magazine, Fahrenheit San Diego, High Plains Reader, New Dawn and Rain Taxi. He has appeared on BBC Radio, WGN Chicago, WLW Cincinnati and elsewhere in the mediasphere to discuss his work. Please help support Reset News @ Paypal, Cash App or contact the author for other options such as Apple Pay @ jayeb444@protonmail.com