by Tom Nelson
Tommy pays close attention. He wants to be a better fighter. His father is the last person who beat him up, and he intends to keep it that way!
Tommy and Arthur work several times every week on the young man’s boxing skills and, by the end of his prison term, Tommy has learned to be a pretty good fighter. Arthur definitely did what he said and Tommy now has boxing skills. Skills he will need to survive the rest of his crazy life.
Part Two
For Mary and Auntie-Mommy-Mary,
I adore you both!
1982
Nineteen-year old Tommy looks much different than the skinny kid in the bathroom with his father six years earlier. His blond hair is a little longer than before, and he is very muscular. Pumping iron, running, and boxing for the past few years has transformed his body from that of a boy into that of a man.
Tommy is visiting his “crazy” Uncle Lewis. They’re in the small, untidy living room of a singlewide trailer in the middle of nowhere Georgia. It’s basically a party den that somehow managed to roll away from the trailer park.
“So, how did you like your stay in the graybar hotel?” Lewis asks jokingly.
“You know, eat, sleep, read, workout . . . same thing every fucking day!” Tommy replies.
“You’re a crazy little son of a bitch, Tommy. Here.” A pound of weed is dropped on the table in front of Tommy. “This will get you to California.” Lewis fires up a joint, and the two men chat. Lewis says, “You know, we’re exactly the same, Tommy, just a generation apart.” Lewis pauses and asks, “Have you been home?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“You know there’s nothing there for me anymore.”
“Your mom is gonna be pissed off if you don’t stop in to see her before you leave. And, she’ll be twice as pissed off if she knows you came by here and not home.”
“I’ll stop in and see her,” Tommy promises.
~~~
Tommy is in a bedroom that obviously belongs to a young lady. There are frilly sheets and pillowcases, with stuffed animals on the bed. A poster of singer Leif Garrett is on the wall. Perfume bottles and partially used makeup on the dresser. Of course, the bed is now a mess and many of the stuffed animals are on the floor. The two have been alone. Thankfully, Lori’s mom and dad both work, so it isn’t difficult for them to get time alone together.
Lori asks, “Why are you going to California? Why don’t you stay here with me?”
“I’m not the right guy for you, Lori.” Tommy’s not biting.
“So, you just stopped by to get laid?”
“No. I wanted to see you—I needed to see you—before I go,” Tommy tells her.
“Why?”
“Because I’m not coming back.” Tommy hands Lori the Valentine. She looks at it with a smile and puts it aside.
“You kept it all these years.” Her voice is dreamy. Then, she says, “Take me with you!” But Tommy just picks up his bag and tosses the strap over his shoulder.
Tommy looks at her and says, “Sorry, Lori, it’s not gonna happen. I have no idea where I’m goin’ and no idea how I’m gettin’ there.” Tommy pulls an ounce bag of pot from his carry bag and hands it over to Lori.
~~~
Tommy is on a cross-country trip to California at age nineteen. He is on the side of the road on an onramp to the interstate heading west. He is sitting on a small, foldable beach chair with his duffel bag beside him containing all of his worldly belongings: a few pairs of socks and underwear, an extra pair of jeans, a couple of shirts, and, of course, nearly a pound of weed. He also has a portable AM/FM stereo with a cassette tape rocking out beside him propping up his sign, which reads: Now Accepting Rides.
He takes a puff off the fatty he has rolled and proceeds to get stoned as he waits for a ride. In a matter of minutes, a car pulls over. Tommy stands up, tosses the radio in the carry bag, grabs his sign and chair, and heads up to the passenger side of the car. He looks in and sees a pretty brunette at the wheel. He smiles and she smiles back. “Where ya headed?” she asks.
“California,” Tommy replies.
“Well, I can get you all the way to Birmingham,” the pretty girl says with a friendly smile. “I’m going down to see my folks.”
“Great!” Tommy says.
After tossing his things in the back seat, Tommy asks, “Mind if I smoke?” a little sheepishly and holds up his hand, which is holding the smoldering joint.
“Not at all,” comes her reply. “Your sign is funny as hell.”
“Obviously effective too,” Tommy says with a chuckle as they drive off. He passes the joint to his new friend. “I was only out there long enough to sit down and fire up a doobie.”
The two laugh as they continue down the highway.
~~~
Tommy is back on the side of the road in Birmingham after his first ride with the brunette. He is sitting in his chair with his bag, the ghetto blaster, and the sign. Within a few minutes, a trucker pulls over and Tommy heads up to the cab.
“Where ya headed?” asks the trucker.
“California,” Tommy replies.
“I can get you as far as Phoenix,” the trucker says.
“Cool,” Tommy replies. He loads his stuff and himself inside, and they start off. Tommy gets settled into the passenger seat of the cab. After a couple of hours, he notices the trucker getting drowsy.
“Have you ever driven one of these things?” asks the trucker.
“Uh . . . no.”
“Can you drive a car?”
“Yes,” Tommy answers.
“Okay, then, it’s kinda like that. What I’m going to do is get the truck up to speed as we get into Texas and you can shimmy in behind the wheel while I hop in the sleeper and catch some z’s,” the trucker says nonchalantly, as though what he is saying really is no big deal.
“I don’t know about that . . .” Tommy says.
“Ahhh, you’ll be fine! It’s going to be the middle of the night and no traffic. All you have to do is keep us on the highway and do the speed limit.”
“Okay,” Tommy agrees reluctantly.
~~~
A wide-eyed and focused Tommy drives the eighteen-wheeler into the state of Arizona. He turns a little and knocks on the roof of the cab near the sleeper where the trucker is crashed out.
“Time to switch back,” Tommy says.
“Where are we?” the trucker asks sleepily.
“Just crossed into Arizona about ten minutes ago,” comes Tommy’s reply.
“What?!” the trucker asks incredulously as he looks at his watch and the time sinks in. “We should have barely been in New Mexico now,” he continues.
“Well, there were times there when we were the only thing on the road so I opened her up a little bit,” Tommy says.
“A little bit?!”
“Well, you know . . .”
“I guess I should say thanks for getting us here so fast,” the trucker tells Tommy. “The quicker I unload, the quicker I turn around and head home with another load.” The man asks Tommy, “You wanna make fifty dollars?”
“Doing what?” Tommy asks a little suspiciously. He’s had his share of indecent proposals in his young life.
“Helping me unload the truck at the warehouse.”
“Absolutely,” Tommy says, relieved. He can definitely use the money considering he is showing up in California homeless with everything he owns on him.
~~~
Tommy is sitting on the side of the road with his chair, sign, boom box, and small duffel bag. He is there for a brief moment and someone pulls over in a pickup truck. Tommy retrieves his things and heads up to the passenger side of the vehicle.
“Where ya going?” comes the driver’s question.
“Los Angeles,” Tommy replies.
“Great! Hop in!” the driver of the truck says. “I’m headed to San Francisco and driving right through LA.”
Something doesn’t seem quite right. The guy seems nervous. Tommy has a s
trange sensation but tosses his stuff in the back of the truck and starts to open the passenger door to get inside. Suddenly, the driver tries to take off! He throws the truck in gear and tries to get away with Tommy’s belongings. Quickly, however, Tommy is able to reach over into the bed of the truck before it gets away and snag his duffel bag. He manages to pull it out of the bed of the truck, so the driver only gets away with Tommy’s chair and cardboard sign.
Fuck, Tommy thinks, that was close. All of the weed he has—which represents almost all the money he has—is in his duffel bag. He can’t afford to lose that! He obviously needs to be far more careful. He watches as the truck speeds away and sees his sign fly out of the back of the truck. The wind has caught it and tossed it out. He walks over and picks it up. He still needs it for the last leg of his hitchhiking trip to California.
~~~
Tommy is standing on the side of the road in Phoenix, hitchhiking to LA. This is the last leg of his journey. He no longer has his chair, but has his music, the sign, and his duffel, which contains his entire life. The little lawn chair he had brought to sit in is gone. Off to San Francisco perhaps.
Another pickup pulls over and Tommy approaches it cautiously. He walks up to the passenger side of the truck and sees a man with a young boy in the truck with him. The boy, presumably the guy’s son, is asleep and leaning against the man driving the truck.
“How far ya going?” Tommy asks.
“We’re headed to Ventura,” comes the reply.
“Is that close to LA?” Tommy asks.
“We’ll be driving right through LA to get there.”
“Cool,” Tommy says as he gets into the truck. He keeps his duffel bag with him this time. He isn’t taking any more chances.
The truck and its three passengers take off on Interstate 10 west toward Los Angeles. After some brief chitchat, Tommy discovers that the boy is, indeed, the man’s son and that they are driving to his home in Ventura following a custody hearing in Texas with his ex-wife.
Tommy lays his head against the window of the truck and falls asleep within minutes. Tommy is suddenly awakened by something touching him. He wakes up to find the driver of the pickup reaching over and fondling his crotch.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doin’?!” Tommy asks incredulously, sitting up in his seat.
“Just playing,” the driver replies.
“Well, don’t play with me,” Tommy tells the man. “It’s just not my thing!”
“Oh,” the driver says, “okay. I won’t do it again.”
Tommy closes his eyes once more and, of course, within a few minutes, the driver of the truck has his hand on Tommy’s crotch again. Tommy slaps his hand away this time.
“I’ll give you twenty dollars if you let me suck you off,” the driver of the truck says to Tommy.
“No, thanks,” Tommy responds.
“Forty dollars?” the gay man asks.
“I said no!” Tommy thinks for a second, then adds, “Touch me again and I’ll wake up your little boy and let him know his dad’s a queer!”
“Okay,” the guy seems a bit distressed now. That’s the last thing he wants. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I promise.”
“It better not!” Tommy had experienced a man sucking him off in prison a couple of times, but it really isn’t something he is completely comfortable with. Despite feeling great, it just isn’t Tommy’s thing and isn’t what he will look for when he is horny. Besides, the guy’s kid is in the fucking truck!
The rest of the drive goes uneventfully, and the driver drops Tommy off at I-10 and La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles. He walks north on La Brea Avenue.
Tommy’s adventures in Hollywood begins!
~~~
Two months later, Tom, as he calls himself now, hands off a small bag of coke on the streets of Hollywood. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots a black and white drive by and make a quick U-turn. Tom pops open a newspaper box, which he has propped open with a small stick, and throws some drugs and money inside just as the cops pull up, jump out of their car, and throw him against the wall. The cops search him. Tom knows he’s not supposed to be out here. The cops have told him a dozen times already! But they find nothing and drive off.
Tom casually puts a quarter in the newspaper box, props it open with the stick again, and continues selling. He makes several more sales and decides to head home. There are too many cops out tonight anyway.
Tom gets in his blue Jeep, a 1978 CJ-5, turns the key, and puts in a cassette tape. The song “Living After Midnight” by Judas Priest starts playing as Tom fires up a joint and checks his watch: 12:59 A.M. He drives through Hollywood with its neon signs and city life: I took the city ’bout one A.M. . . . Loaded, loaded!
Tom drives by the Hollywood police station, turns left, then right, and pulls behind the narcotics building, which is catercorner from the police station. He parks, gets out of his Jeep, and peers over a six-foot brick wall. He spots the cars parked out back. These are the confiscated cars from other busts that are now being used as undercover vehicles. Tom makes a face as he spots a 1969 Mustang Mach 1 parked in the lot. Apparently, it’s a vehicle confiscated from some other drug dealer. Two of Tom’s favorite cars are the 1969 and 1970 Mach 1—pure American muscle!
Tom’s pager starts to buzz as he cruises along in the Jeep. He checks the number. It’s a coke whore who likes to hang out when there are drugs available and business is slow or the cops are too heavy. The number on the pager is a three-digit code that let’s Tom know where to find her. He heads toward the corner where the hooker will be loitering. He pulls up to a light on Hollywood Boulevard, takes a tight right turn, and immediately pulls to the curb. A hot brunette comes running up to his car and hops in.
“How’s it going?” she asks with an excited giggle.
“Great!” Tom replies. “Ready for a little fun?”
“I’m always ready for fun!” she says with even more excitement as she gets settled into the ’78 CJ-5.
The next morning, Tom is standing naked in front of the toilet taking a leak. He scratches his ass, takes a slug of Jim Beam straight from the bottle, and makes a face. He exits the bathroom, and there is the brunette getting her last little bit of clothes on. She steps up to Tom and gives him a kiss. While her aim is for Tom’s mouth, he turns his head in time to receive her kiss on the cheek.
Rule 1 when it comes to hookers: NEVER kiss them on the lips!
“It was fun, as always,” the hooker says as Tom opens the apartment door for her to leave. In the drug game, it isn’t safe for a man to have a girlfriend, and hookers are a dime a dozen, so he just has a few girls he likes more than others. No girlfriends.
Tom goes back into the apartment, lies on the bed, and crashes out.
~~~
Tom wakes later in the day to the sound of his pager going off and rolls over on the bed, groaning. He picks up a small mirror with a couple of lines laid out and quickly sniffs one with the straw he keeps handy, makes a face, then checks the number on the pager. Tom sniffs another line up the other nostril. Gotta keep things even, ya know.
He recognizes the number. Tom pulls on some pants and stumble walks down the hall to a pay phone. He drops in a quarter and dials. He has a short conversation. “What’s your game today?” Tom asks. The voice on the other end says what he wants, then Tom says, “Okay. I’ll be up in a little bit.”
Tom heads back to the apartment and into the bathroom, sits down on top of the closed toilet, and grabs a can of “shaving cream” from the sink. He unscrews the bottom of the can and removes a couple of eight balls of coke. Tom stands up, stashes the coke in the front of his shorts, then heads toward the door.
Tom is walking up La Brea Avenue toward Hollywood Boulevard. The drop-off is close enough to his apartment where he can easily walk. It’s about 1:30 P.M. on a beautiful Southern California day. Tom is wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and Vans with no socks. He turns on Hawthorne Avenue and heads west. As he appro
aches the sale destination, Tom begins to notice a lot of action around the block: flashes of movement, a car pulls into an empty spot, and foot traffic. Tom passes a parked car with two guys in it. Both seem to look at him. Is this paranoia from too much cocaine use, or is this really happening?
Then Tom sees the 1969 Mustang from the previous evening up ahead. Parked right in front of the building he is going to. Fuck!
Tom’s mind instantly puts two and two together, and he realizes he is being set up. He looks around and notices that the passenger door of the parked car containing two men, which is now about half a block behind him, is opening. Someone is stepping out.
The guy on the corner ahead suddenly seems far more attentive to Tom than before. FUCK! Suddenly, Tom bolts to his left toward an apartment building. He jumps atop a dumpster and over a security fence, heads through a courtyard and pool area, then jumps the rear security fence. Tom crosses the alley in a flash and quickly scales another security fence at the rear of the adjacent building. He is hoping that the element of surprise will buy him a few seconds head start.
Loud, angry voices; heavy footsteps—Tom can hear the police closing in behind him and knows they will be circling around front to cut off his escape. He runs into the pool area of the second apartment building and realizes he is cut off. He can hear the cops behind him closing in. With only a second to think, Tom pulls the bags of white powder from his shorts and tosses them under a chaise. He tears off his T-shirt, quickly covers the drugs, kicks off his shoes, and dives into the pool.
Tom surfaces to realize that he’s not alone in the pool. There are four others in the pool also. Every one of them are staring at Tom in wide-eyed amazement. In an instant, two cops come over the security fence in pursuit of Tom. The two undercover narcotics officers run into the pool area looking around, then look at everyone in the pool. All four of the people who were already in the pool quickly look at each other and—as if by some secret signal—look up at the cops, point toward the other end of the pool area and another security gate and say, “He went that way!”
The cops quickly bolt toward the gate and exit the building. Everyone in the pool slowly turns their attention toward Tom again.
