6828. COMING HOME BALI HI

COMING HOME BALI HI

(all a really true story)

One time I stayed up all night, with the guy from California

who had the water bag for the mountain passes hanging on the

front of his Chevy pick-up truck. That was a long time ago, and

the truck was maybe a '64 in '76. Something like that  -  but I was

tired and we stayed up, mainly because he wasn't and he just kept 

talking. I must have been pretty worthless, just nodding and listening,

probably not saying anything back, but this guy had arrived about

8pm, from driving like 5 days across the country. He was probably

still wired or up on something and raring to go. He'd parked out

front, entered the house, we all said hi and the rest; had coffee, and

that was that  -  he just never shut down. Where hospitality is

supposed to end, I guess I never knew. I was a working guy, fact

was, and I had to be there at 8am. I guess I could have just said

'goodnight' and left it at that while I slept, but it was seemingly more

interesting this way. My life was pretty much a bore, and work was

a drudge. Did I mention 'what else is new?' I can't rightly now even 

remember what there was so much to talk about : I guess news about

Benecia and San Francisco  -  his two recent towns in California  -  

and cars and trucks and his version of news of the world, which wasn't

mine, but that never mattered. They had a different head there, that

California bent that I could never get. Until much later then, he 
changed his mind  -  by the nineties he was hating taxes, hating 
Mexicans and hating all sorts of regulations and California 
restricted things. And then by 2004, he was dead. Blew his own 
brains out. Smithereen'd his head all over the inside of a stupid

car in his own backyard. Just goes to show what sleep deprivation

will do, maybe, after a while. I don't know, and it doesn't matter

now. It wasn't me and I wasn't it; him either. Both ways, we'd sort

of each saddled different horses to ride and only this one crossing 
at the gulch was what we, momentarily, had decided to have in 
common. About five-thirty or six in the morning, we heard the 
garbage-men come by  -  this was back in the day when two garbage 
guys walked along with the truck, threw the contents of cans in the 
back of the truck  -  all done by hand then, and live. These guys talked 
to pass the time, as they worked. When they got to his truck with the 
water bag on the front, they started laughing and loudly proclaiming, 
like 'Get a load of this! California plates! Guy rides 'cross the country 
with a canvas bag of water on this bumper!' We laughed too, just 
hearing them  -  little men, with not much understanding. 
Water bags were advised, back then, for passing over the higher 
altitudes, the Rockies and such. Extra coolant just in case, 
something about overheating, needing water,  I didn't 
know. But I didn't care. It was cool  -  coarse, tan canvas bag,

with two nice leather straps, holding about 5 gallons or so of water, 
with a great graphic of an Indian Chief's head on it, printed boldly. 
That's probably, when you sort it all out, the thing I understood the 
least  -  the Indian Chief. Is that a way of thanking America for taking 
his land, killing his children and  wives? 'Here, we welcome you along, 
here's some extra water for your backward trek.' Baffling, no matter. 
I'm still alive, for now; he's the dead one. Both. The Indian and him.
 Soon enough, the sun came up, the sky got light,
 and I did, eventually, get away.