Travelogue #7
Tacoma's Druggies
Tacoma was an empty place. The main drag on Pacific Avenue was virtually empty until the art school let out, spilling kids on the sidewalk Yahtzee-style. But, besides them and smiling tourists visiting the glass museum, nothing.
By the transit center, men stalked the streets with emaciated pitbulls. The women were of the minority-variety, but mean-looking. As if they had been plotting to jump you when night fell. I scored a free meal at the mission and skipped town, feeling lucky to not be as fucked-up as the young man with Tourettes, who had a handless cellphone. "No way, bro," he'd say, his baseball cap pulled just about eyebrow level. This, and other verbal ejaculations, echoed off the walls across the two-lane street. Another man paced back slowly, the seat of pants covered in (I would hope) dirt. The bus arrived to Olympia and driver gave us a discount.
Thank God.
The Urban Bivouac with Ranger and a Bunch of Townies
Arriving in Olympia, I was almost instantaneously joined by two girls--Mary Jane and another--who sang Modest Mouse songs in unison. Street derelicts, like Tacoma, paced back and forth, purposefully. They were dealing drugs and looking to make a living on 4th Street's strip. One particular derelict, looking just this side of Aryan Nation, tripped over potted plants and chairs. His friends tried to intervene, to which he responded "Fuck off! I've been living on the streets since I was twelve," and then dived headlong for the cement. Minutes later, he disappeared and reappeared with his friends dragging his feet off into the darkness.
As someone told me in Seattle, if I play the guitar, I'm sure to draw a crowd. Sure enough, I was surrounded by all the locals in minutes. I even got a whiff of the scene: "Crawdaddy runs this town," said one to another. A hippie sat down next to me, playing guitar and we jammed over one chord--E major. We got acquainted and I gave him a guitar lesson. His name was Ranger, and we smoked excellent marijuana. Ranger took care of some "business" across the street.
Playing songs got old, as the town was impoverished from Evergreen College not being in session. Mary Jane, who had left briefly, came back with a pout-y story: her heroin-addled friend had ditched her downtown without a second thought. Seventeen years old and stranded on the streets until... when? Ranger intervened, suggesting that he she stay with him in his trailer. "Where you staying tonight?" he asked me. I told him some storefront or so--standard order for traveling--to which he invited us to smoke some "medicine" at this "campsite".
We walked to a parking lot just north of 4th Street and there it was... a pickup with a trailer attachment that housed ANOTHER pickup. His trailer had two cars, which lead to a surreal scene of this train. Think: Cal Schenkel's illustrations for Frank Zappa's albums. There was bric-a-brac everywhere, stuffed in the spaces, the passenger-side door, the spare pickup's cabin. And what stuff! Cooking gear, copies of High Times, gigantic jugs of diesel fuel, bags of food from Fred Meyer...
The three of us, Mary Jane, Ranger and myself, laid-out a blanket on the wet asphalt, with a laptop powered by a cigar-lighter outlet. By now, it was 3am. All the alcohol-addled twenty-somethings had sashayed to their vehicles and drove home, the streets were deserted. MJ suggested Flight of the Conchords, I suggested The Whitest Kids You Know, and eventually we were all huddled to keep warm, laughing like maniacs.
I can only imagine what all the townspeople thought about us, but the Weather God certainly frowned on it; it began to rain. Mary Jane began to massage my scalp, taking refuge in the front seat of the pickup. I joined her. Ranger insisted we make ourselves comfortable; he slept on the roof.
Olympia's Magic Fountain
Olympia, WA's spring water fountain on 4th Street and Jefferson is a sight to see, as its the main community hub. All day long, suburbanites in Range Rover's pull up, pop open their trunks, and unveil numerous jugs of water to carry off to Godknowswhere--home? the factory? But all day long, those blue water jugs...
The city's homeless also deals drugs there. One vivid memory was of the aforementioned Ranger stripping to his shorts and washing his chest as two women looked on, obviously drawing the conclusion in their minds that they ultimately wanted the water despite some hippie soaking himself in it.
Washington's Age of Consent and the Miracle of Bench-Seating
Are hypothetical crimes still crimes? Does swearing a seventeen-year old to secrecy still perpetrate a crime in other states even though Washington has an Age-of-Consent law for 16 year-olds? Hmmm... Morality seems to be a subjective thing, especially since this guy named Downtown Patrick (his real name might be John) used my computer to look up a webpage called Jail Bait Gallery...
Phew!
Moldovians
Portland to Salem, these fierce-looking Moldovians picked me up. Curiously enough, the Spanish language is a close cousin rather than my assumed Slavic origins--well, at least according to them. It sure sounded like Russian. The conversation hit the language barrier constantly, but elicited such fantastic quotes as:
While stuck in traffic: "traffic bad... my English... bad"
Tacoma's Druggies
Tacoma was an empty place. The main drag on Pacific Avenue was virtually empty until the art school let out, spilling kids on the sidewalk Yahtzee-style. But, besides them and smiling tourists visiting the glass museum, nothing.
By the transit center, men stalked the streets with emaciated pitbulls. The women were of the minority-variety, but mean-looking. As if they had been plotting to jump you when night fell. I scored a free meal at the mission and skipped town, feeling lucky to not be as fucked-up as the young man with Tourettes, who had a handless cellphone. "No way, bro," he'd say, his baseball cap pulled just about eyebrow level. This, and other verbal ejaculations, echoed off the walls across the two-lane street. Another man paced back slowly, the seat of pants covered in (I would hope) dirt. The bus arrived to Olympia and driver gave us a discount.
Thank God.
The Urban Bivouac with Ranger and a Bunch of Townies
Arriving in Olympia, I was almost instantaneously joined by two girls--Mary Jane and another--who sang Modest Mouse songs in unison. Street derelicts, like Tacoma, paced back and forth, purposefully. They were dealing drugs and looking to make a living on 4th Street's strip. One particular derelict, looking just this side of Aryan Nation, tripped over potted plants and chairs. His friends tried to intervene, to which he responded "Fuck off! I've been living on the streets since I was twelve," and then dived headlong for the cement. Minutes later, he disappeared and reappeared with his friends dragging his feet off into the darkness.
As someone told me in Seattle, if I play the guitar, I'm sure to draw a crowd. Sure enough, I was surrounded by all the locals in minutes. I even got a whiff of the scene: "Crawdaddy runs this town," said one to another. A hippie sat down next to me, playing guitar and we jammed over one chord--E major. We got acquainted and I gave him a guitar lesson. His name was Ranger, and we smoked excellent marijuana. Ranger took care of some "business" across the street.
Playing songs got old, as the town was impoverished from Evergreen College not being in session. Mary Jane, who had left briefly, came back with a pout-y story: her heroin-addled friend had ditched her downtown without a second thought. Seventeen years old and stranded on the streets until... when? Ranger intervened, suggesting that he she stay with him in his trailer. "Where you staying tonight?" he asked me. I told him some storefront or so--standard order for traveling--to which he invited us to smoke some "medicine" at this "campsite".
We walked to a parking lot just north of 4th Street and there it was... a pickup with a trailer attachment that housed ANOTHER pickup. His trailer had two cars, which lead to a surreal scene of this train. Think: Cal Schenkel's illustrations for Frank Zappa's albums. There was bric-a-brac everywhere, stuffed in the spaces, the passenger-side door, the spare pickup's cabin. And what stuff! Cooking gear, copies of High Times, gigantic jugs of diesel fuel, bags of food from Fred Meyer...
The three of us, Mary Jane, Ranger and myself, laid-out a blanket on the wet asphalt, with a laptop powered by a cigar-lighter outlet. By now, it was 3am. All the alcohol-addled twenty-somethings had sashayed to their vehicles and drove home, the streets were deserted. MJ suggested Flight of the Conchords, I suggested The Whitest Kids You Know, and eventually we were all huddled to keep warm, laughing like maniacs.
I can only imagine what all the townspeople thought about us, but the Weather God certainly frowned on it; it began to rain. Mary Jane began to massage my scalp, taking refuge in the front seat of the pickup. I joined her. Ranger insisted we make ourselves comfortable; he slept on the roof.
Olympia's Magic Fountain
Olympia, WA's spring water fountain on 4th Street and Jefferson is a sight to see, as its the main community hub. All day long, suburbanites in Range Rover's pull up, pop open their trunks, and unveil numerous jugs of water to carry off to Godknowswhere--home? the factory? But all day long, those blue water jugs...
The city's homeless also deals drugs there. One vivid memory was of the aforementioned Ranger stripping to his shorts and washing his chest as two women looked on, obviously drawing the conclusion in their minds that they ultimately wanted the water despite some hippie soaking himself in it.
Washington's Age of Consent and the Miracle of Bench-Seating
Are hypothetical crimes still crimes? Does swearing a seventeen-year old to secrecy still perpetrate a crime in other states even though Washington has an Age-of-Consent law for 16 year-olds? Hmmm... Morality seems to be a subjective thing, especially since this guy named Downtown Patrick (his real name might be John) used my computer to look up a webpage called Jail Bait Gallery...
Phew!
Moldovians
Portland to Salem, these fierce-looking Moldovians picked me up. Curiously enough, the Spanish language is a close cousin rather than my assumed Slavic origins--well, at least according to them. It sure sounded like Russian. The conversation hit the language barrier constantly, but elicited such fantastic quotes as:
While stuck in traffic: "traffic bad... my English... bad"
