I quickly dropped the groceries given to me by the drug-enhanced holy man next door and headed for the bushes to empty my bladder before it exploded. I checked the trees for surveillance cameras and found a fern to drown. “Why me?” I asked myself as I watered the plant. “Why did this strange fellow tell me his story and show me his habit? Hell, I could have been an ATF agent, for all he knew. Was it because he needed to unload to someone and I happened to be there? Was he just lonely?”
The park ranger was walking through the campgrounds on his rounds, making sure all the paying inmates were obeying all the signs. In spite of his menacing look, I decided to approach him as he passed by our campsite. “Hello, Ranger,” I called out, walking in his direction. “My name is Richard.”
“I’m Ranger Bartlett,” he replied, glaring.
“Your first name?” I asked, trying to break down his wall a little and get on a first-name basis.
“Just Ranger Bartlett,” he fired back.
I felt I was in the presence of a CIA agent. His first name must remain a secret, or be shared only on a need-to-know basis. “I was wondering what Illahee meant,” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he snapped. “I think it’s some Indian name.” The beeper on his hip interrupted our “conversation.” He quickly checked the number, whipped his cell phone out and dialed. “I’ll be right there,” he said into the phone as he dashed away.
“Whoa,” I thought to myself, as I walked back to my 20-by-20-foot, sixteen-dollar-a-night campsite with a rotting picnic table. “I’m glad he didn’t grab his gun instead of his cell phone; he could have blown his ear off!”
As the full moon began to rise over our prison camp, somehow I felt this journey back to nature was going to turn out to be a mistake. My instincts were right on.
It began just as our pot of Dinty Moore beef stew was reaching the point of culinary perfection on the campfire grid. The couple in site number 7, right next to ours, was having a not-so-delightful after-dinner discussion about laziness and dishes and parentage (legitimate or not) and lack of relationship. The louder and nastier their attacks and retorts, the more liberally laced they were with the f-word.
Then there was silence—a respite, albeit a short one.
I dished up the stew and buttered some slices of wheat bread for C and me, hoping for a peaceful meal. Foolish me.
“I’m leaving!” she launched. “Give me the Goddamn car keys!”
“Go ahead and leave, bitch,” he retorted. “But I’m keeping the car!”
“Fine!” she yelled. “I’ll call my son to get me, you motherfucker!” She grabbed her cell phone and dialed the number, while he grabbed his paint-ball gun and took aim. He fired and spattered a purple blotch onto her sequin-studded denim shirt, just below her right breast.
“Randy,” she screamed into the phone. “Come and get me at the state park, quick! No, pick me up along the road to the park. Come quick! Harry just shot me with his paint-ball gun!” Then she ran.
Harry stood there with his paint-ball gun, dressed in the Desert Storm fatigues he’d probably bought at Wal-Mart. He fired a round at the trees. Then he slowly reloaded, grabbed his Sharper Image night-vision goggles and marched away, I presumed in pursuit of his quarry.
It seemed such a short time—way too short. We were halfway through our beef stew and thinking delicious thoughts of making s’mores with the Hershey bars and graham crackers we had gotten from the food bank, when suddenly the miracles of modern-day cell phone communication and OnStar technology jolted our tranquility. The only thing that could have made it more bizarre would have been the sound of helicopter blades over our heads. A Washington State Patrol car was the first of the ground force to arrive, followed by a Bremerton Police cruiser, then an unmarked police car, then another State Patrol vehicle, then yet another Bremerton police car with two officers. The rush stirred up the dust and clogged the pathways and brought people peeking out of their aluminum camping palaces to see what all the buzz was about.
Willow hid under the rotting picnic table as the chaos intensified.
C hid in the trees, fearing he might be recognized by someone involved in one of his past exploits.
The high rollers in their Auto Villas locked their doors, closed their curtains, and loaded their guns. They were truly locked and loaded.
Achilles slammed his Dijon van door shut and hit the deck. “Oh, God!” I could hear him cry out as he hid under the blanket in the back of his rig.
I could also hear C quietly singing the theme song from Cops as he retreated further into the forest: “Bad boys! Bad boys! What you gonna do? What you gonna do when they come for you?”
Ranger Bartlett was the last to arrive on the scene. He appeared disheveled and was still slipping on his flak jacket as he approached. The laces of his jackboots were untied and he had a milk mustache. The knowledge that his park had been turned into a refuge for homeless drunks and drug-using, longhaired freaks seemed to infuriate Ranger Bartlett. He was hopping mad.
The chocolate from my s’more was oozing from the corners of my mouth when no fewer than ten law-enforcement officers, plus Ranger Bartlett, approached to find a deserted campsite 7.
“I think they were some of that homeless trash that gets some welfare money and comes down here,” Ranger Bartlett explained to the detective in charge. A policeman was roping off campsite 7 with yellow crime scene plastic tape, tying it to the pines and the firs.
“Sir?” The detective approached me, offering his badge. “Did you hear anything going on next to you in the last thirty minutes?”
“Sir!” interrupted a patrolman. “They left a lot of things behind over here. Should we call in the canine unit?”
“Let’s see what this man has to say first,” the detective answered.
So I explained, as best I could, trying to reconstruct which “fuck” went where and which “son-of-a-bitch” was used at what time in the discourse between the two unhappy campers. They probably would have been making whoopie in their tent by now if they just could have sung a couple of verses of “Kum Ba Yah” around a warming fire.
It dawned on me that I was getting to tell a campfire tale after all—just as I had secretly wished. I had their full attention, and they leaned toward me like Boy Scouts around the fire pit, hanging on my every word. “In the intense heat of the torrid argument,” I said, spinning my tale, “her feeble hand shook as she dialed the phone number of her son Randy and cried out, ‘Come and get me at the campground—no, come and get me along the road. He just shot me with his paint-ball gun!’”
The officers raised their eyes to the sky as if they had all just seen the Northern Lights shimmer. “Did you say paint-ball gun?” the detective asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “He shot some trees, too.” I pointed into the woods. “Those two Douglas firs and a madrone.”
The detective took a radio from his belt and said, “Command—all clear.” The intensity of the moment immediately began to deflate; only the adrenalin hangover remained. “Please excuse us for bothering you,” he said. “Her son heard ‘He shot me!’ so he called 911. Thank you for your help.”
I could have led the troops twenty feet to the most dangerous and deranged person I have ever met, hiding in the Dijon van, but decided not to. After all, he wasn’t hurting anyone.
I also had a hunch that, if we lived to camp at Illahee another night, Achilles would provide the campfire story I would need to tell the police on their next visit.
“I’m going to make a sign, no paint-ball guns, and put it up tomorrow,” Ranger Bartlett told the detective as they walked away.
A woman pulled into Achilles’ campsite just as the ranger was leaving. I assumed it was his ex-wife stopping by to peddle him some more heart pills.
It was about ten o’clock when I decided to take Willow for a walk. The generators were turned off. Achilles and C had stopped reading. Osama and his tribe and the other Auto Villas had turned off their lights, and there was
no sign of the ranger. I took Willow off her leash, and we walked into an open field in the park.
The August moon was full and Saturn sparkled in the sky. The planet was as close as it had been in some sixty thousand years. We lay in the grass, looking at the stars. “There’s the Big Dipper,” I told her, pointing to the sky. “And there’s the Little Dipper,” pointing to the sky again. The little dog looked toward the sky and then looked back at me. I told her, “When you spell DOG backwards, it spells GOD!” We sat quietly for a moment. “I think that’s Aquarius, right up—” I started to say as I pointed, but a shooting star darted across the sky. “WOW! Did you see that, Willow? A shooting star!” The silence was so precious that we just lay there in the grass looking at the sky.
Chapter 26
A ROOM WITH A VIEW
“Well, well, well. We are so fortunate this morning to be joined by ‘The Mayor of Bremerton,’” chimed C, leaning back in his chair.
John, the subject of C’s jesting commentary, had just shuffled into Sally’s for breakfast this Friday morning, which was the beginning of the Labor Day weekend. He pointed a finger at C, closed one eye, and used his thumb as the make-believe hammer of a gun as he pretended to shoot C. “Gotcha,” he said, smiling, and turned to pick up his tray and receive his breakfast portion for the day.
C had given John the moniker “The Mayor of Bremerton” a long time ago, because not only had John lived in Bremerton all his life, but he had lived in Bremerton. John must have been sixty-something, and he looked a little like Captain Kangaroo. His white hair was cut in that same Dutch fashion, though not quite as neatly styled, and he had a nearwhite mustache. His right eye was always half closed from an injury he received while working at the naval yard as a young man. On fire watch, he had stood near the welders as they made repairs on the massive aircraft carriers in the shipyard, keeping his eyes open for stray sparks that could lead to disaster. It was one of those sparks that damaged John’s eye.
John was a walking encyclopedia of Bremerton history and enjoyed spinning yarns about the town, with a touch of Will Rogers’ wit. He had played the trombone in the high-school band, which had regaled every ship entering and leaving the yard. He knew about the secret tunnels under the shipyard and all the dirty laundry about past and present politicians and other local notables.
C and I were sitting at the table nearest the serving line, in the company of “Willie the Walker.” He was an extremely quiet man, maybe seventy years old, who was nicknamed for his brisk walks from one side of town to the other every day, carrying a small plastic bag in each hand. I’d heard Willie would fill the bags with abandoned newspapers, rolls of toilet paper from restaurant washrooms, and other things he could use at home.
John, his tray now filled with a bowl of Malt-o-Meal, a cinnamon roll, a hardboiled egg, and a cup of java, turned his sprightly step toward our table. He was wearing his usual smile. “May I join you gentlemen?” he asked, placing his tray on the table.
“Of course, Mr. Mayor,” said C.
“Well, I see you somehow lived through another night,” John said, looking intently at C. “For the life of me, I don’t know how!”
C just laughed and picked up his cinnamon roll. “John, look at this. I think I see the face of Jesus in this cinnamon roll!”
John rolled his one good eye, but then peered at C’s roll. “It could be,” he replied, cocking his head slightly. Sally’s is a church, you know.” Then he picked up his own roll and looked at it. “Mine looks a little like Donald Trump!” He bit into it. “But it tastes like it’s just a week-old cinnamon roll.”
“You know, a cinnamon roll with the image of Jesus on it could be worth some money,” I said.
Willie looked at his roll intently. He turned it from side to side and then all the way around before slowly sliding it into one of the bags sitting on the floor beside him.
“Well, what’s the latest?” C asked, as John attempted to guide a spoonful of cereal past his mustache. What John didn’t know about Bremerton probably wasn’t worth knowing. He had lived in the same house for all of his sixty-plus years—a big two-story house with a large front porch—less than half a block from Sally’s, across 6th Street. It was smack-dab in the center of town, by the A1 Auto Repair and a drive-thru bank, directly across the street from Monica’s Social Club, a well-known, brightly lit watering hole that served beer in big, frosty mugs.
John swallowed his porridge and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “You mean you haven’t seen today’s newspaper?” he asked.
“No,” said C.
“Well, now they want to spend thirty million dollars to build a tunnel under the city to take the traffic away from downtown. That’s after spending millions over the last thirty years to get people to come downtown!” John huffed.
“Where are they going to get all that money?” I asked.
“I’m sorry,” John said, leaning toward me. “I didn’t hear what you said.” I happened to be sitting on his bad-ear side.
“Where’s the money coming from?” I said, a little louder.
John looked at our other tablemate and asked, “Willie, did you get a paper today?”
Willie, without a peep, picked up one of his bags and laid it on the table. Then he pulled out a stack of papers—the New York Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, USA Today, and the Kitsap Sun. He silently handed the Sun across the table to John.
“Thank you, Willie,” said John. “Willie gets these to do the crossword puzzles,” he said as an aside. “He’s a wizard at them.” Willie just smiled.
“Now, let’s see,” said John, snapping the paper open. “Headline: DIKS Encourages City to Accept Tunnel Money,” John read. “Story: Congressman Norm Dicks has encouraged the City to accept grant money from the federal government to build a six-block-long tunnel under the City that will ease traffic congestion during the departure and arrival of Washington State Ferries. ‘The City needs to accept the grant as soon as possible, or risk it being taken away in the next budget session,’ Dicks said.”
John folded the paper and handed it back to Willie. “For heaven’s sake, why don’t they take that money and build a recreation center right here, downtown, with some showers for the homeless people to get cleaned up, and maybe a pool table or two, and a place for some free movies. A room with some books would be nice, too—where somebody can sit down and read. We need someplace for the poorest of the poor to go besides begging for enough change to get a beer at Monica’s and walking down the alleys at night.”
“Here, here!” chimed C. “That’s why I call you The Mayor!”
“Oh, don’t get me started,” John replied. He cracked his hardboiled egg on the oval table and began to pick away at the shell. “Look at that Congressman Norm ‘Dickhead’ Center going up down the street,” he grumbled. “What a monstrosity that is!”
C broke into a laugh. “Did you just call our congressman Dickhead?” he asked. Even Willie could not contain himself and started giggling.
“It’s going to cost thirty million for a government building to house a bunch of paper pushers,” John continued, peeling his egg. “Why didn’t they just buy the old Eagle Hardware building on the other side of town? There are thousands of square feet of empty space in town. It’s just pork, pork, and more pork money from the feds. This little piggy developer gets some, this little piggy banker gets some, and this little piggy real-estate firm gets some. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. They could have taken some of those millions to build a homeless shelter—maybe with a free medical clinic and a dentist or two to help fix up some of our rotten teeth.”
“Jesus, John, somebody’s going to call you a communist, or at least a socialist!” C leaned forward as he accentuated the titles. “Or, maybe you are the worst of the worst, John: a liberal!” he added.
“Well, I’m no communist or socialist,” John replied. “But if helping the poor and the sick and the oppressed makes me a liberal, then I guess I am one, and damne
d proud of it! I’m in good company, too. Jesus believed in helping the poor; he must have been a liberal, too.”
John had finally finished peeling his egg. He reached to the middle of the table for the salt and pepper shakers. He delicately salted his egg and added just a dash of pepper. Just as he was putting the egg to his mouth, C asked, “What about those waterfront condos they are building right down by the new convention center and hotel?”
John drew the egg back from his mouth and shook his head. “I don’t understand it. That’s a Housing and Urban Development project. I thought HUD was supposed to build affordable housing for the poor. Some of those condos are going for a million dollars each! That’s not ‘affordable housing’ to me! That’s how convoluted our government has become. Oh, the bureaucrats can rationalize and tell you that the spending is going to create jobs and make the city better, but the homeless and the poor won’t get any of those jobs. The big construction companies will come in and build the condos and leave, and the rich will buy them. The poor and the homeless will still be poor and homeless as they walk by those condos. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” John concluded, as he popped the egg into his mouth.
Without saying a word, Willie picked up a bag in each of his hands and shuffled off toward the door.
“Do you need a ride somewhere?” I asked C.
“No; a ship came in last night, and I’m going to hang around downtown for a bit to see what’s going on.” he replied. He picked up his tray and turned to go clean it off. “I’ll probably see you later,” he said over his shoulder.
That left just John and me at the table. “I’ll see you later, Mayor,” C tossed in as he passed our table again on the way to the door.
John picked up his cup and took a sip of coffee. “Some little bird told me that you are writing a book,” he said to me.
“Well, yes and no,” I said. “I have started a book, but I don’t know if I will ever finish it. I feel like throwing it away sometimes. It’s not very good.”
Breakfast at Sally's Page 28
