A Trip Into Cali

So, I took my first foray into California this past weekend. It was Thursday night, and I was getting drunk with Jim. I had bought a case of beer, we were running through it quite fast, listening to old tunes from the sixties, and bullshitting about things related to the trip we were taking the next day. Layla came by at this point, and we sat longer on the balcony drinking more beers while watching the police rousts a nearby apartment. Hours had passed since Jim and I began drinking, and he decided it was time to sleep if he was going to be ready for tomorrow. Layla and I walked next door to the hookah lounge, which was very busy; as it usually is. Once we got in, we happened to know several people already there, so getting a seat wasn’t a problem. We sat for a while, got some dinner, smoked some shisha, and bullshitted with the other regulars there. At one point, Casper was saying that they had plans to go to this girl’s house for beer pong, but she had changed her mind. So I said fuck it, I’m leaving town in twelve hours, let’s do it at my place. After hanging out there a little while longer Layla and I left, telling Casper on the way out to round everyone up and come by when they were done there. When we get back to Apache, she says she needs to study/sleep, and may be down later. I realize that I had better pack a bag for the weekend, because I may not get another chance to do it; which was right. So, I pack my bag, crack open another brew, light up a smoke, lie down on the stairwell outside, and wait. In a bit, the first wave of guests arrives bearing a couple cases of beer. Now we have to figure out how to setup a beer pong table in my cramped apartment. First, we play on the island counter in the kitchen, but it’s just not up to par. Then we contemplate using the screen door from my balcony, no good, it’s just too wobbly. Finally we take the coffee table, stack the two end tables on it, then rip off my closet door, and put it on top; resulting in a majestic beer pong table. By now, more people come, then some more people come, and then some more people come, it goes on. My partner and I had been running the table for too long, and considering I had been drinking since three in the afternoon, I was becoming too drunk to host a party. And it’s not like I’m some hotshot beer pong master, but we had a technique for distracting the competition, this being my partner practically topless and shaking her tits around for the duration of play. Hey, whatever works, right? I had to quit though, so I passed my spot off to another player and began to mingle. I went onto the balcony to smoke a cigarette and talk to some other people. Then I noticed a massive pyramid of beer cans being built in the kitchen high enough to reach the ceiling. Nancy and Mick came by, so Nancy and I went into the bedroom to smoke some bud, and found Casper in there playing guitar. The party continued for another couple of hours, and I met a couple of interesting prospects, which will motivate me to frequent the hookah lounge more often upon my return from New York. Around four in the morning all of the guests had gone, except for Derik. We stayed up another couple of hours listening to grime and scrounging around for phantom beers. We talked about going to Harlows for breakfast, but decided to sleep until ten instead of waiting another couple of hours.

Friday morning, eleven-thirty a.m., Derik comes to my bedroom door to wake me up. We get in the car and head out. After a while of traffic, train crossings, and harassing random passerbies, we reach Harlows, the mecca of greasy diner breakfast in Tempe. After stuffing ourselves with massive breakfasts, and having a bit of fun with the waitress, we made it back to my place just in time for my ride to California. Craig gets to Apache, Jim and I get in the car, tie up some loose ends in the valley, then hit the 10 freeway for a long drive into Cali. Come seven p.m. we’re 350 miles away and eight thousand feet up. We had gone from the eighty-degree valley of the sun to a frigid twenty-five degree mountain town an hour north of L.A.. When we got there, the cabin was cold with no working facilities, so we had to turn everything on. After that, we headed out to the store to get some whiskey and vodka before the liquor store closed. Now we were off to find a place where we could get a square meal. I was the last one to eat, and that was at noon, so we were all quite hungry. We stumbled upon a nice little place called Nottingham’s. When we walk in we find a two piece band doing a set of cover songs for what seemed to be a nice little family environment, but in a drunken bar kind of way. We approach the bar to speak to an English bartender who was very helpful. Our dinners were massive, and satisfying due to our hunger, not the quality of the food. We had many drinks, bullshitted for a while, and listened to the music. The time had come to go back to the cabin, as we still had to wait for additional guests to arrive. On the way back we gathered beer and breakfast foods for the morning. When we got back to the cabin, we started a fire, listened to music, and consumed more alcohol. Now, Viki and Ricky, who were on their way, had gotten lost. Apparently, they had been drinking in the car. Moreover, Ricky who was driving, was getting a bit of road head, evidently this had caused some confusion and they turned off onto an exit about fifty miles before they were supposed to. After we had straightened it out, they called again later and said that they may run out of gas, before telling us their location, and there is no cell phone service in the area they were approaching. So we waited, and after the time had come when we expected them to arrive, Craig and I decided to go out searching. We came head on with them about five miles from the cabin, so we turned around and called them. After a quick trip to the gas station, we all got to the cabin. Once there, we stayed up all night getting very drunk, listening to music, taking silly pictures, and just engaging in general nonsense. The point finally came when we had decided to hit the hay, and the house was lulled to sleep by the sounds of Viki and Ricky fucking.

Twenty-four hours after we had left Tempe, I’m awakening to sunlight and the view of mountains coming through the high window in the loft I was sleeping in. A serious hangover is making its presence known in my brain. But I found the cure in the kitchen; a nice hot cup of black coffee, slightly cooled by a shot of ice-cold whiskey. Shortly after, everyone had congregated in the kitchen. When Craig and I were done ransacking the kitchen for all available options, I made breakfast for everyone with Craig’s help. The plan was to go snowboarding, but the plan had been fucked up. Jack and Wingman, who never showed the previous night, were bringing me a snowboard. Viki and Ricky went snowboarding; Craig, Jim, and I hiked up a mountain. Now, maybe it was because I was hung-over, maybe it was because I smoke too many cigarettes, maybe it was because I’ve been killing my body with excessive alcohol, drugs, parties, and sex; but climbing the mountain had shown me how out of shape I had become. My heart was looking to burst from my chest and my breathing had become desperate. However, we got high up the mountain, chilled for a while, and it was worth it; what a view. After hurdling back down, we took a walk through the surrounding neighborhood. Upon returning to the cabin, we had a thought to check out the town of Big Bear Lake. We parked the car when we got there and decided to check out a couple bars. First off, we went to ‘The Pub’ for a nice cool draft. It was a nice cozy place, but perhaps a little too calm for what we were looking for. Next, we went to Chad’s Place. Here we found a bandstand, pool tables, foosball, darts, tables, couches, and three bars. We soon realized that this was the place to make our scene tonight. There were all kinds of typical California girls in there, many seeming to have fake I.D. as well. By the way, California people; what is wrong with you? I’m going to have to break in here for a minute and comment on these idiots from a land that is known as southern California. Evidence of this had been presented first when we were driving in, such as morons putting snow chains on their tires for dry pavement. Then almost all the people we met seemed to have there heads up there ass. Then as if to make things worse, they had this air of false toughness, and street savvy. It was a joke. I remembered a passage from Kerouac’s Desolation Angels, when William S. Burroughs is telling Jack Kerouac in Tangiers, referring to the Moroccan people walking in the street “Just treat them like peasants and push them out of the way, they may pretend to be tough, but they’re nothing.” I thought of taking them to the projects in Newark, and showing them how little they really knew about there illusory personas. But anyways, after a few drinks we were off. Back at the cabin, we caught the Duke vs. UNC game while waiting for Viki and Ricky to finish snowboarding. Viki and Ricky returned with a very funny story about what had happened on the mountain. I had asked them how many runs they went on, and Viki said only two. They had been gone for hours, so I asked why that was, so she told us. When they were on the shuttle between mountains, Viki began to experience what we call tunnel vision, and somehow this resulted in her shitting her pants. This apparently sent a foul odor wafting through the bus. When they got to Snow Summit, she went to the bathroom. When she was cleaning up, she was still so disoriented, that she walked out with shit still on her hand. Now Ricky tells us that she wiped her face off, and smeared shit all over it in the process. Hence explaining why only two runs were completed in the six hours they were gone. Anyways, we all showered up, and headed out to dinner at a little place called Blondie’s. What a dinner, the food was very hearty, and we ate a lot of it. So much so, that by the end I was in a near food coma, comparable to Thanksgiving. Afterwards we staggered over to Chad’s Place to find a live band, a packed bar, and a five dollar cover. We weren’t even there five minutes when Viki and Ricky are saying their going to go home soon, and Jim is nowhere to be found. I went outside to smoke, when I ran into Jim, who says he has been at the bar around the corner; I tell him we’ll be in shortly. I go back in, round everyone up, and we go to the bar around the corner. We find Jim out back, in the smoking room, which also has a pool table, and another bar. We sit there a bit, wallowing in our fullness from dinner, and drink. Although I wanted to power through and stay out, the decision had been made to head back to the cabin. On the ride home, we pick up more breakfast foods, and Craig and I talk about an upcoming trip to Thailand. When we return we sit in the main room and drink more. The fun vibe of the previous night had been broken, and it did not return. Craig and I ended up debating the points of my current out-of-line life, and its relation to my future aspirations. I don’t think either of us won. Soon, Viki, Ricky, and Craig had gone to bed. At this time, thoughts had been running through my head, I needed to get out, I needed to get into the darkness of the nearby mountains, and try to center some things. Jim and I left the cabin, and entered the forest. Through the star-lit night, we found a cave high up in the rocks. We sat there for a while and philosophized while drinking from the bottle of Vodka I had brought for the trip. After an hour or two of this, we walked back, and slept.

The next day was quite uneventful. Viki and Ricky had vanished before the rest of us had woken up. Jim made us breakfast, we ate it. We cleaned all the evidence of our stay there, and left. A long drive into the sunset of the deserts of California and Arizona. We returned to Tempe at eight p.m.. I was greeted by the remains of the party my apartment had hosted three days prior. The trip was done, and so was I.