ESCAPE IS NOT FREEDOM

"Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does."  

- Philosophe Français 

June in Death Valley is hot. Duh. The road to Panamint Springs from Bakersfield is half highway madness and half endless miles in every direction of nothing—no homes, businesses, services... nothing. No cell reception, no GPS. My friend Rod in Santa Cruz had worked as a gold prospector in Darwin and he had sage advice for me: Check your spare tire, get beer, jerky and repeat, get beer in Inyokern once you're on the other side of the Sequoia National Forest, and bring maps. Rod gave me his road maps from several decades earlier, with strategically placed x-marks pinpointing campsites, gas and convenience stores. I passed several of those spots marked on the maps and all that remained were empty, shuttered buildings. They were way too far in the desert for graffiti, and anyone within tagging distance wouldn't waste money on spray paint for such frivolities. I measured the driving through that wasteland in hours, not miles. Car, don't fail me now.

I'd stopped in Bakersfield to break up the drive. I don't drink and drive, so I would have to make a stop halfway to get fucked up before the shakes kicked in. I am spectacularly talented at picking the worst fucking hotels. It's extraordinary the difference $10 a night can make, but even when I was a six-figure earner, I was cheap as fuck when it came to myself. I wore the same pair of jeans, when I wore pants, for about a decade. To clarify, Santa Cruz was year-round shorts weather. I wore them until duct tape was holding them together from the inside. Though I probably have $40K in guitars and more in bicycles. I bought my car for $500. Priorities.

This place was a dump, even by my low standards. There was obvious open-air drug dealing, the planet's most horrid-looking beasts shaking their loose asses out the bottom of sequined, baby doll skirts, a homeless camp in the aqueduct behind the parking lot, and a yeller. You see the yellers in most drug-addled areas across the US arguing with street signs and imagined demons. The desk clerk needed my license plate number, and I couldn't remember it. I went out to the parking lot and snapped a pic of my front plate. The guy slumped in the front seat of an untagged '80s Cutlass next to my car jumped out. 'Yo, why the fuck are you taking my picture?' I explained that I was taking a pic of my plate and he huffs and puffs, then settles back into his semi-slumber. Welcome to Bakersfield. I wanted to retreat to my room, but couldn't relax now; I had a B Double E run to do. That was code at work for a beer run during break. B-Double-E, Double R-U-N.

The room is everything I expected: flies and solid proof of smoking in a nonsmoking room—it reeks of cigarettes, the covers are burned, and what's this? An ashtray glued to the dresser. OK.

I pulled the shitty chair out of the room to sit in fresh air. Not so fresh being 98 degrees and next to the dumpsters, Taco Bell next door and that same bum scent that permeates every shitty part, of every shitty town. Bakersfield is a shitty town throughout. A young guy with tats all over his face and really all over his body approaches me and asks me if I need anything - pot, coke, pussy. I say no thank you. He remarks on my vodka bottle and asks for a sip. Who am I to deny a Cholo who might roll me otherwise? He tells me I have pretty eyes and knows a girl that would love to meet a white boy like me. I say no thank you. An offer to come by his room later to party was put out there and he left. What the fuck just happened? I see a young Black guy doing what I can only describe as... dance-running in the parking lot of an abandoned business. Running, jumping, swinging arms and an ear-to-ear smile. Fuck this. I'm locking myself inside. The TV doesn't work, WiFi? Hahaha. At least the air conditioner works. I fell asleep to the hum with no disturbances. I'll take it.

My car barely makes it over the first half of the mountain range in Sequoia. I was in the right lane with OTR truckers barely matching their snail's pace. That was fine. My head wasn't ready for highway speeds. Newer cars, crotch rockets and especially the seemingly track-tuned Hondas were flying past up the hills. That was just annoying. The scary part was the descent on the other side. The smell of searing hot brake pads was thick coming from my car and the surrounding semis. Some of those crazy bastards were flying past on the left at over 60 mph. 80,000 pounds of truck, unstoppable in an emergency, and terrifying to watch taking the switchbacks heading into the valley. 

As advised, I stopped in Inyokern. A tiny little town. The sign on the door read, 'No eggs June–October.' The cashier told me that was because of a decades-old practice of visiting dipshits breaking eggs on the road for photos—the road surface will cook an egg in the hotter months. This poor old lady. No teeth, faded indistinguishable trailer-park sumi-ink tattoos, was the personification of the hellhole I'd driven into. She looked so tired, and so broken. My car was full of gas, beer and jerky. Please car, start.

The road ahead looked like the scene in Forrest Gump when he's running through the desert, huge mesas in the distance, and not jack shit in between. It's 104 degrees, and I don't have air conditioning. There was a section where the road was taped off for repairs. No one was working then—I suspect roadwork happens after sunset. What an ungodly punishment it would be to work in that heat and spreading hot tar. California doesn't have savages making the rules like Texas. I've passed road crews during summer drives there and you have to be some kind of brutal monster to sit in an air-conditioned office and send crews out to half-vaporize themselves for labor wages.

The drive to Panamint Springs was just under two hours. I'm not a religious person, but I said a silent prayer hoping for no mechanical problems or flats along the way. I forgot to buy water. That wasn't included in the sage advice inventory and I'm sometimes too dumb to remember the basics. Like toilet paper. I had to crap, and I didn't want to turn around. There was absolutely no one—nobody—on the road. I pulled over, left my car running for fear it wouldn't restart—it was a piece of shit—and took a squat on the side of the road. After I wiped, I was down half a pair of socks. I don't drink and drive, usually, but I sure smoke pot and drive. I was cotton-mouthed thirsty and there was beer on ice in the cooler. By now it was beer in cool water, but that was good enough for this emergency situation. My taste in beer is simple: Is it beer? The dopes in Santa Cruz that buy craft beers at $8–12 each at the bar are fucking retarded. I'll have one just to remember how much I hate a flowery taste to my drink and move on to shit beer and whiskey. 

So there I was, drinking and driving and singing to myself. There's no radio station that broadcasts out there, my stereo was broken anyway, so I was making up stupid songs for myself to pass the time. I cleared about 6 or so Hamm's along the way and I wasn't even buzzed. Pot doesn't really get me high anymore, just makes me sit lower and look like shit. I was chain-smoking joints like a cigarette smoker in an AA meeting. 

Panamint Valley was 106 according to my little thermometer. The wind through my windows felt like a blow dryer in my face. 

At the other end of nothingness, I spotted the resort. It has a huge dirt parking lot called a campground, a mini mart with a gas pump, and to my surprise a restaurant. I see no one, but the mart and restaurant are apparently staffed. How the fuck do you make money out here? Surprisingly, the gas was cheap. I had a small fantasy of being a fuel hauler out there. Work and no people. Heaven. There was one guy wandering around...

The dude was maybe 30, shaved head, wearing surplus fatigues and a heavy vest that resembled an Army flak jacket from the '70s. It's 106 degrees, bro. And bright, white tennis shoes. He looked like a fucking psycho, really. He had that California bum face: deep tan and far too leathery for such a young guy. Lots of side-eye from him, but never a direct look.

The restaurant actually looked nice, and if they had air conditioning, liquor, and ice, that would be just fan-fucking-tastic. And they did. I still had no cell reception, but the restaurant had WiFi and I was able to charge my phone at the bar. I had no way to charge my phone in my shit car and of course I left my portable charger...somewhere. The menu looked OK enough, but what was delivered from the kitchen came way too fast for what was advertised as a cheeseburger. I'd pulled similar burgers out from under the red lamps at Circle K. But the drinks were spot-on. No little jigger for the cocktails, just a long pour over ice in a tall glass. I had my first Negroni. Nasty cocktail. Just give me well gin over ice and a slice of lime. 

I wasn't sure where I'd sleep, so I had to drink about it for a bit. I brought a tent thinking better than sleeping in my car. The psycho was pacing around outside and that had me plotting to move on for some rest, but I was too drunk even for driving in no-man's-land. There I would stay. There were a few air conditioned cabins to rent, but again, I'm cheap. And I'm armed, anyway. It's a shitty camping handgun I've had for decades. Something cheap, that functioned well enough, and if damaged or lost, I wouldn't be terribly upset. 

Sun's still up, and the heat is still high but I need to leave the bar while I can still walk. I had parked my car in the dirt lot across the street and saw numbered signs seemingly indicating this was not a free place to crash. I'll wait for someone to complain. I set up my tent quickly enough. It's a bargain basement dome tent a five-year-old could set up in two minutes. That's done; let's have some beer. Of course by now the beer was warmer than warm, but screw it. Then psycho guy comes walking past, with the same sketchy side-eye, and disappears into the desert brush. Great. I feel marked, and on guard, and I fucking hate that feeling, especially when I've traveled so far for some goddamn peace. There are junkies in every motherfucking corner of California, and they have the survival skills of post-apocalyptic cockroaches. 

I didn't bring anything to read, but I grabbed a magazine from the hotel lobby in Bakersfield without even looking to see what it was. Glamour. Great. Maybe it could come in handy if I wanted to jerk off later. So I sat and watched the sun slowly make its way down, and then...there were Sandmen! I could hear a Sandman from Star Wars loud and clear! It was just a desert donkey braying. Apparently what you hear in the movie is a recording of just that. A donkey.

Night fell into dead quiet, and at 9 p.m. on the dot—I looked at my phone—KABOOM! An enormous explosion from the other side of the mountain range behind me. It felt like the ground belched and my heart was beating faster than my thoughts on the matter. My thoughts were trapped in synaptic molasses. I just stared off for a minute. No sense was to be made of it. It wasn't fireworks, the concussion that came over the range wasn't from a pipe bomb, did a plane crash? I didn't hear any aircraft. I was half wincing my eyes for a bit waiting for another. Time passed, beers emptied, joints smoked, I guess I'll try to sleep. It was still hot, about 90 degrees and what little breeze there was I had cut off zipping up my tent. No way I'm crashing out if even a little dirt weasel can get in. 

I woke up early to my own snoring. I crashed the fuck out. I was thirsty, sticky and I had dirt around my mouth for whatever reason. At the end of the lot there was a concrete block building with bathrooms I'd passed earlier. I was just pissing in the wind all last night. And son of a bitch, a shower. There was no door to the bathroom, no shower curtain, just a single faucet lever, but fuck it. A quick round trip to the car for fresh clothes and I'm going in.

The well water didn't need hot and cold knobs to adjust for temperature, there was just one temperature: warm. It was perfect. I didn't have any soap, another simple necessity I'd neglected to bring, so I just stood and hand-scrubbed. Walking out of the shower into the warm morning air was nice, none of that cold mist you feel in the bathroom at home. I don't have a towel, so I'm drying off with my dirty clothes when the psycho walks in. I'm fucking naked and the only exit is through him. He's still in his GI Joe get up, and said hi. He just turns and starts washing his face in the sink by the door, still in my way. I get the boys packaged away in my shorts and start walking out carrying all my shit to just get going. The guy was just staring into the sink, washing his face...

'Where ya from?'

'Up north.' I'm trying to keep it simple to limit the engagement.

'There's a lot of places up north. Where ya from?'

Fuck this prick. I walk out making a beeline for the car where my handgun is stowed. I was sure he would follow since I'd seen him yesterday dip into the desert near where I was parked, but he didn't. Somehow, that made me more concerned. I packed my tent and made a wish that my car would start. I drove across the road to park at the restaurant. I sat and waited for them to open, keeping my car running in case I needed to escape any of the scenarios playing out in my head. It felt like my Saturdays in Santa Cruz when I'd wake up with the shakes, drive to the liquor store near the bar to wait for them open like a desperate drunk—which I was—and head over to the bar to wait for it to open like a desperate drunk—which I was.

The manager let me in early, remembering me from the day before. He said the kitchen wouldn't be serving for another hour, but I was welcome to drink. My brother. I was thirsty, the restaurant was hot while the air conditioner struggled to fill the space, and I asked for a tall G&T before even considering a glass of water. Very small talk while he prepped for likely no guests, and he invited me to serve myself some crap draft beer for the perceived inconvenience. I didn't even have to give him a blow job. Nice motherfucker. 

A cook and a server that weren't there yesterday came in after a bit and we started having real conversations. Kelly, the server used to live in Santa Cruz and we bonded on shared bar experiences. That's how bar folk do. She was my age and told me she lived with her daughter in a trailer nearby and was working under the table at the restaurant while collecting disability. She didn't appear to be physically affected by anything, so I assumed she collected a nut check. She was fun and we both went through every cocktail recipe she knew throughout the day. I asked her about the weird guy roaming around and she said she'd never seen him. I brought up the explosion the night before and she was like, 'Oh, yeah, that was probably a prospector in Darwin using dynamite. There's no noise ordinance out in the badlands.' Around lunchtime, we're both fucked up when two preppy couples walk in. The fuck. They're speaking something Russian-like, if not Russian, but they speak English well when ordering from Kelly. I stayed all day happy for the cool air, cheap cocktails and free shots. I was loving it. I still hadn't had any water aside from melted ice at the end of my drinks. I go to settle up and Kelly invites me over to hang out later. It was tempting as a safe space, but repellent because I thought she wanted to fuck. I'm not into her, and besides I have a Glamour magazine in my car that's not going to want to talk after I jizz. Short, fat, and loud makes for a fun chat, but my dick would retreat if she grabbed my wad. She saw my hesitation and said it was OK. I felt bad. She's not likely to ever meet anyone aside from the occasional gold miner, and was probably a very lonely person. My heart has strings and she pulled them. I said OK, but told her I needed to get outside for a while before I embarrassed myself. She gave me her number and directions to her place and said she'd be home by 7. See you then.

I walked over to the mini mart. I may have been too drunk for a restaurant, but I could still drink more. They had overpriced beer and water, and none of it was refrigerated. Great, more warm piss water. But like any good drunk, I bought a case of Coors and two gallons of water. I went back to the car and thought I'd head over to one of the trailheads I'd seen on the way in, take a short hike, and snap some phone pics. Hundreds of square miles of nothing, and it was all national park land where vehicles were strictly forbidden. I thought, fuck that, I'll drive in a few miles, until I passed a Park Ranger on the way. OK, time to be responsible. God, I hope I don't get pulled over drunk. I pulled into the lot by one of the trails and just looked out on the barren nothingness. This was enough. Here I'll sit and drink and relax and play fantasies in my head of what would've been a great hike. I knew it was for the best, anyway. Drunk and dehydrated are not ideal physical conditions to be in at the start of a desert hike. It's 106 again today.

It was approaching 7 p.m. but I couldn't drive. I was falling over while taking piss breaks. On one trip—literally, while returning from taking a leak—I fell against my car. That fucking left fender that was poking out from a crash months ago, that I could never force back into position, snapped right back in looking as it had before the accident. That gave me the giddies. I was at peace. In the quiet, I was lost in memories of life's wins, losses, achievements and regrets, wishing I could do it all over again but settling into the discomfort of knowing there was only the way forward, toward death and I should probably stop doing the things that counted as losses and regrets and create a better pasture for myself as a final resting place. As it is, I'll only be remembered as a fuck up. My life was like that hotel room in Bakersfield. It fucking stinks and is surrounded by chaos and uncomfortable people. 

I'd passed out. I always dream or have nightmares, but there was none of that. I just died for the night and woke up early in the morning. I cracked a beer and made another wish for the car to start. I may as well head home. Home was a parking lot in Santa Cruz. I had money, but I was homeless. At least my friends, well the people that tolerated me better than others, were there. I didn't feel any level of excitement for the destination, but it was my destination all the same. About an hour into the drive... fuck. Kelly.