Out of the Wilderness

by Steve Stroble

get mad when he finds out I don't want to be in a band anymore."

  "He'll understand."

  "I don't know. He won't really understand unless I can get him into meditation. Then he'll know why my work is more important than music."

  "As good as a salesman as you are, that should be no problem."

  Dave spent the next month contacting as many relatives and friends of Gil's as possible and the guest list swelled to 60. Anxious to renew their relationship, Dave had offered to meet Gil at Travis Air Force Base, about 50 miles northeast of San Francisco. He was there when Gil stepped off of one of the contracted 707s that ferried soldiers "over the pond" until they were "in country" for their tour of duty and then back over the Pacific and "back to the world" 12 to 13 months later. The two grabbed each other in the terminal.

  "Man, am I glad to see you, bro."

  "You're as big as me now. Mom must be feeding you well."

  "Now it's Nancy doing the cooking."

  "Nancy?"

  "Didn't you get my letter about us getting married?"

  "Huh? Oh yeah. Must be jet lag. Let's get my bags and go."

  After Gil's processing out of the Army was over, the two were headed to the interstate highway and the shortest route home through California's central valley. Gil fidgeted nervously. "You think we could go down 101?"

  "But that's out of the way."

  "Yeah, I know. But I want to see the ocean."

  "Okay. Anything for my bro." Dave exited the freeway so he could read the map. "You hungry?"

  "Yeah, a little. Let's stop and I'll buy some dinner."

  "Deal. So how was it?"

  "What?"

  "Vietnam?"

  Gil stared blankly out the windshield. "Man, don't ever ask." He didn't say another word until they exited on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. "How about that place?"

  "Looks sort of run down."

  "Come on, little brother. I can't take you to the Ritz on a soldier's mustering out pay."

  Dave laughed and turned into the restaurant's tiny parking lot. "Okay. After all, you're buying."

  Gil jumped out of the car before it had even fully stopped. "I'm going to check out that head shop down the street. Why don't you go on in and order me a steak? Get whatever you want. I'll be back in 10 minutes."

  "Okay." Dave wandered into the lobby and heard the cashier ask him to seat himself. After ordering two steaks, he kept watching through the diner's front windows for Gil. After 20 minutes the food arrived, but not his brother. He had just started for the door to search for him when Gil stumbled through the door.

  "You seen my little bro?" Gil's words were slurred.

  "Over here, Gil."

  Gil slouched to the table and sat. "Smells good." Once again the words were slurred as his head nodded forward and eyes closed.

  "Come on. I thought you were hungry." Dave coaxed between bites of food.

  "Huh?"

  "Eat. It's eight more hours to LA."

  "Can't. Too tired. Must be jet lag. You eat my steak. I'll go crash in the car." Gil struggled to his feet, shuffled out the door, found the car and plopped into the back seat and slid out of sight.

  Standing occasionally as he ate to make sure Gil stayed in the car, Dave wolfed down his meal and asked for a doggie bag for his brother's. The cashier shook her head as she handed Dave his change.

  "Your friend has some nerve wearing that uniform here."

  "What?"

  "This is Berkeley. People don't want any baby killers here."

  "Baby killer? That's my brother. He never killed any?."

  "Yeah, yeah. They're all the same. Come back strung out on smack and go home to steal anything that's not nailed down."

  "Flushed with anger, Dave walked over to the table and retrieved his tip. "Well, if you don't want my brother around here then guess you don't want the tip either, you slimy whore!"

  "Whore? I ain't no whore, you stinking wetback!"

  Because his dad had engrained in all his children that it took more courage to walk away from racial taunts than to argue with the tormentor, Dave headed toward the door. But the cashier's final words were enough to push him over the edge.

  "Too bad he didn't die over there. He should have come home in a box!"

  Dave lunged at the cashier but the cook, roused by the rising voices, jumped between the two. Fifty pounds heavier and half a foot taller than Dave, he had little trouble in escorting him out the door in a headlock. Dave's arms and legs didn't stop flailing until the cook lightly banged his head into the wall of the restaurant.

  "Look, buddy. We have two choices. One, you drive away now. Two, the cops show up and you go to jail. You don't want choice number two, especially with your brother stoned on smack."

  "But he doesn't use heroin."

  The cook gently guided Dave into the driver's seat. "Did he go to the head shop over there?"

  "Yeah. Don't tell me they sell dope there."

  "Of course not. Your brother pays the guy behind the counter who calls the guy hanging out by the pay phone down the street who meets your brother down the block and gives him the heroin. Then the pusher goes into the head shop, pretends to buy something and gives the cashier his commission. So far they haven't been busted. But today was the last straw. I'm turning them in."

  "But?"

  "Kid, I was in Korea and saw guys get hooked there on morphine. Not many. Not near as many as the ones coming back from Nam hooked on God knows what. I'm afraid your brother's using heroin, son. Get him home and try to help him."

  Dave stared out the windshield as he mechanically fumbled for the keys and started the car. "You sure?"

  "Kid, that's no jet lag." The cook motioned at Gil.

  "Thanks," Dave mumbled.

  "Try to forget what my daughter said in there. She's still young and dumb."

  "Daughter?"

  "Yeah," the cook sighed. "She's got to rebel and say all the right things that her college friends cram into her head. Had to flush her drugs down the toilet more than once."

  In no mood to take the scenic route, Dave spun the car east through the Oakland hills, across the Delta and connected with a highway that brought him home just as Gil woke up.

  12

  "Your brother seems different."

  "Maybe it was being in a war."

  "It's not just that." Nancy stopped her housecleaning to rest for a moment. "He seems like he's ? he's"

  "Dead?"

  "Yeah. I didn't want to say it. But it's like there's no life in him anymore; no soul."

  "Well, that's what heroin does to people."

  "Heroin?" Nancy gulped. "Gil? He only smoked pot once in a while before he left for Vietnam. What happened?"

  "I don't know. He doesn't want to talk about it. When I confronted him about buying the heroin in Berkeley he said he had taken downers."

  "Well, that's possible."

  Dave sighed. "You don't nod off on downers in 10 minutes. He either snorted or shot up whatever he bought in Berkeley. Probably snorted it."

  "How do you know?"

  "I searched his pockets and bags and couldn't find any needles or more heroin when I stopped for gas in Fresno."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "What can I do? You can't help a junkie until he hits bottom. I'm afraid Gil has a ways to go before that."

  13

  As the months wore on and Gil found no job, didn't use his GI Bill to go to school and only rarely picked up his bass, usually when he either sold it or retrieved it from a pawn shop, his family became more distant until in total frustration, his father kicked him out of the house. With Southern California's mild climate and constant stream of tourists to steal from, Gil found life on the streets passable as long as the heroin or a suitable substitute could be found. Home one night was a beach, the next night an alley and then a gospel mission or cheap hotel. Returning home was not an option; too many items had been stolen from family members to support his growing habit. Even worse,
while few junkies will deny their lowly status once they begin to inject the drug, Gil remained convinced that he was not addicted because he always snorted or smoked what he bought from one of the twenty or so pushers he now knew.

  "Can't be shooting up," he'd confide to the winos, junkies and prostitutes whose world he had become a part of. "Makes you a junkie if you shoot up. My partner in Nam taught me that."

  His partner (military slang for a friend to get drunk or high with) had begun smoking heroin because its odor was so much easier to mask than the odor the potent pot produced in Vietnam. After Gil had been busted twice for smoking pot while on duty, he too switched to smoking heroin, only snorting it if a pipe or rolling papers were unavailable. Some would lace ordinary cigarettes with the heroin, but Gil hated the taste of tobacco and refused to use that ruse.

  When the months stretched into a year, Dave decided to act. First, he sold his home and business and moved further east to a community closer to Palm Springs than LA. Nancy went along only for Gil's sake.

  "If you were doing this for any other reason than Gil, I wouldn't go, she had stated with arms folded in front of her. I don't know why, but I think if we don't act soon, it'll be too late for Gil."

  Next, Dave built a small recording studio behind his new home. When it was ready, he convinced Gil to come and record the bass parts for an album Dave was producing.

  "Me?" Gil had protested. "I'm so wasted I can't even pick up a bass, much less play it."

  "Don't worry. The change of scene will do you good. Lots of sunshine out there."

  Gil seemed to turn the corner at last as he faithfully took the methadone supplied by the rehabilitation program Dave had found for him. His day began when the rooster that patrolled the acreage around the recording studio roused him out of bed. As the security