CutThroat
Active member
I began my squatting and busking career in 1997. It eventually led to more glamorous things, but here's the story of the less glamorous times. It's good. Promise.
A lot of names and a few details are changed so as not rat people out, but here's the story for you....
On the day before I was kicked out of my parent's house (shortly after I finished High School) I fucked my girl 7 times.
I also slammed my thumb in the window jam in a mad rush to open the window to provide a breeze, 'cause we had incited
such a sweat riot. It turns out that that slam caused a sub-ungle (sp?) hematoma (internal bleeding under my thumbnail),
for which the urgent care prescribed me some vicoden.
The next day while my parents were at work, my girl came over again, and I attempted to pick up the fornication marathon where I'd left off. But not even a 17-year old aspiring gymnast and circus performer with a cute little teenage girl with huge tits, and a penchant for asking to perform oral in a Siberian accent, could overcome narcotics and the previous day's draining. So I started putting my pants on again when my Dad walked in.
My dad is a strict Right wing, catholic, republican (sans all the cool shit like approving of guns), who insisted on instilling morals in me. Porn was bad. The Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Issue was bad. The words "boobs" or "tits" were bad. He wasn't hypocritical about it at all, he actually believes it all. And he just walked in on me pulling my pants up in front of a kneeling teenage girl.
So he laid it out like this:
"We have rules for a reason. If you can't follow them, this isn't the place for you to live." "Your curfew is now 10pm. After that the doors will be locked."
So I packed a bag, called my buddy Brent, and my girl, and we rode to Carrows (the diner where I once stayed for over 24 hours), where we met up with Johnathan Redman. I told them what happened and spent a few weeks couch surfing with a thumb that was rotting off.
Urgent Care had failed to drain my thumb as they should have, and it was now an unsightly shade of black and purple. It was also leaking brown stuff, and hurt worse than anything I'd ever felt anytime anything touched the nail. And I was a juggler who had no access to the narcotics that were prescribed to me, because my mother was sure I'd sell them on the street, or take them recreationally.
After wearing out my welcome on couches, I wandered the street tired and lonely as fuck.(this is easily the WORST part about homelessness. It sets in like a black fog, and any company is good company. Could be why so many homeless talk to themselves.)
At about 4AM I hopped the backwall of a grocery store and leaned up against it. The only spot that wasn't covered in weeds and uncomfortable rocks was about a foot away from a spider's web. Said spider's web belonged to a black widow. But I was to tired to hop the wall again, and there really was no other place to sleep nearby. So I set the alarm on a watch (whose straps had broken off) to beep every fifteen minutes and put my head down.
Every fifteen minutes I looked up to make sure that spider wasn't going to kill me. He never moved.
Only a couple hours later the sun came up and and I got up to wander Lancaster some more.
The next night I decided, fuck being a roomie with a deadly spider, I was going to live like the kids in the movie Suburbia, (the one with Flea and the Vandals and shit), and break into an abandoned house. The house I picked out was a little two bedroom place sitting on a huge vacant lot. All the windows were busted out, the doors were all boarded up, and a thick layer of dust and torn out pages of bad porn covered the floor of the living room. Someone had already decided to model it after the movie "Suburbia". The previous inhabitants had painted "TR HOUSE" all over it. They had also left behind all kinds of anti-racist, communist, socialist and anarchist graffiti and literature and a fifth of gin with about two sips missing. I cooked a can of ravioli over a camp light and read all night. I tried to drink the gin, but I had no chaser, and it was my first taste of hard liquor, so it didn't work out. I fell asleep reading something by Noam Chomsky.
The next night I was riding around with Brent, and we saw that the backdoor of a gas station was open a crack. So Brent backed the car up to it and we fucking looted it. A couple cases of sprite, a few cases of cookies, and lots of fruit snacks. The next night was a lot better.
I shoved some couch cushion foam into the window of the bedroom I'd picked out, and pushed a board up against it to keep out the cold. I finally drank that gin, and fell asleep after painting the walls with some orange tempura paint someone had left there.
The next morning I woke up to footsteps. They were fucking LOUD. It was a hardwood floor, and every one was like a door slamming. I was scared shitless. I had fought a lot of skinheads growing up, and even won a few knife fights. But they were all around my age. Nobody my age was awake and breaking into abandoned houses at sunrise. I didn't want to Just come out and commence to fucking this guy up... I mean, what if he was some kind of crazy ex-marine? He'd probably kill me right there, and nobody would know until I started stinking. Or what if they were just like me and looking for a place to sleep? Or worse, what if it was a cop?
So I grabbed this big ass bolt that was on the floor and jumped up and shouted through the door; "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?!" and waited for the answer to make my next move.
All I got was a "Shit, sorry man." and I opened the door to see a middle aged man in combat boots climb out the window and disappear.
I lived in that house for couple weeks before realizing that I pretty much everyone but my girl was tired of my mooching homeless ass. I opted to hitch-hike to the one place where A punk-rock newly-anarcho-communist squatter who only has mediocre juggling and a potty mouth to offer, could get be appreciated.
That night my girl and I convinced a Kinkos employee to take us to Venice Beach for the night. My girl was going round trip, but I was going to be on my own in a mean ass city where I knew absolutely nobody. For real.
We decided that Santa Monica would be a better bet for fun, since Venice is more of a daytime thing and the sun would be setting soon. We headed pretty much straight for the beach. My girl and the Kinkoid and I fucked around for a little while on the beach. I had kinda been kicking around the idea of pushing for something more than high school sweetheart, from my girl. She was standing by me in my plight to become a great street performer, and didn't leave me and look for someone who had a house. Or even a car. She actually loved me. And here we were on the beach in Santa Monica, about half a mile from the pier. my girl was about fifty feet away. I quickly wrote;
"WILL YOU MARRY ME?"
in the sand with my toes. About then, my girl and the Kinkoid were ready to go, and were calling me to leave. I acted like I couldn't hear them telling me to leave, hoping my girl would get close enough to read it. She kinda huffed and walked over to me. She looked down to see "MARRY ME?" -the ocean had washed away the will you.
I handed her a drawing I had done which I thought would make a good wedding band one day.
It was all perfect like in a movie. Her eyes welled up with tears, and she jumped up and hugged me and said yes.
And we walked back toward the third street promenade, and eventually to the car. She agreed to come back every weekend, at least, to come and see me, and she left.
I walked around a little bit after that, kinda took in the scenery, and noticed a bunch of punk rock looking kids hanging out on the benches of the second block of the third street promenade. I made a mental note, and walked back toward broadway, and the Mall. I walked around to the far side of the mall, scaled halfway up the roof, and layed down on a two foot wide ledge. There was a little bit of cover provided by a tree, and a lot of traffic noise. I pushed my backpack under my head, set my alarm for 8am, gripped my giant bolt with one hand and fell asleep. It was labor day weekend, and tmrw was my best bet at making some money street performing in Venice.
Before my alarm even went off, morning rush hour traffic, and the sun woke me up. I hopped down and walked toward the beach.
It's only a couple miles from the Promenade in Santa Monica to the Boardwalk in Venice, and it was really pleasant. The bus only cost fifty cents, but I opted to walk and save the little bit of money I had for making phone calls to my girl.
I walked past muscle beach to the pit in Venice. There's some amazing grafiti, and a LOT of beer bottles there. I picked up as many empty 40 oz bottles as I could carry and walked back toward the boardwalk. (I know, I know, I say to reporters all the time that I learned the glass stunts in venice. Well, I Lied. I learned in my parent's backyard in the suburbs.)
I laid out a rope border where I expected would be my spot and immediately started catching shit from the vendors. I knew nothing of permits, or that these people paid for their spots. So naturally they were pissed that I was stealing good real estate. I told her to fuck off, and started to set up for the first show of the day. I intended to break bottles and look busy until I caught someones eye, and then start with a fire act.
A few people stopped to see what I was doing, and I went into it. I did some great fire eating. I was breathing fire, and pulling a crowd. Granted, I couldn't keep them very well, because I was such a bad talker back then, but a sizable group stayed to see what was next. I got to the broken glass portion, and pulled a volunteer to stand on the back of my head. By some huge fluke, I got cut. I heard the glass break under my head. I felt the sting. I knew I was fucked. I stayed there, face down in the glass contemplating my next move. I knew I was bleeding. There was an angry middle eastern massage therapist pissed that I was in her spot, screaming about permits, and a crowd of people waiting for me to get up. So I did.
I came up wearing a crimson veil. I was bleeding all over the place. I threw my hat on the ground, and the only thing I could think to say to the people who hadn't run away freaked out was "pity buck?".
People went for it. People gave me money. People looked worried. People called 911
In about two minutes after the 'crowd' had dispersed a fire truck drove up. On a pedestrian walkway. It was so fucking embarassing. I was just going to stop the bleeding with my shirt. But they cleaned me up, threw on a couple butterfly bandages, and made me sign a "refusal of care" form. My name on the form was listed as "transient". It was weird. I hadn't really thought of myself as "transient" yet.
I spent the rest of the morning and some of the afternoon, playing chess with a hippie named Tom, who told me about the Hari Krishnas, and where to score free meals and showers. As I was leaving to go hang out in Santa Monica, he gave me a couple cigarettes (I don't smoke), a half gallon of water, and some almonds which he said were poisonous if I didn't remove the outside papery crap. And I walked back to Santa Monica with my hat pulled low to cover my bandages.
I got back to the 3rd street promenade in Santa Monica as the sun was setting, and hung out on the curb, trying to look as punk rock as possible and make some new friends. I was being way too dumb and timid. But then an older couple -probably in their fifties walked up with grocery bags, and I stood up. Everyone was calling them "Mom' and "Dad". I later figured out that nobody even remotely thought of them as anything close to maternal or paternal, and that those were just the magic words to inspire charity in these two. Mom asked me "Have you eaten today?" I told her I had had a handful of
almonds, and she insisted that I eat some of what she had brought. I can't for the life of me remember anything I ate that night. But I remember being fucking stoked about it. I ate, and a couple of the punk rock looking kids introduced themselves.
After eating I was sitting on a bench watching the people walk by and a shaved headed guy with a stern glare, and a Pittsburgh Steelers polo shirt on asked me where I was sleeping tonight. I told him that I hadn't decided yet. He told me he was going to sleep in the bushes a few blocks away, and told me I was welcome to come with him. I said cool, and he introduced himself as Bailless. (Like no bail) and we hung out a little while longer.
He told me he was wearing the Steelers polo shirt because he liked the message (steal/steel, haha) and because he wanted to keep a low profile with the cops. He said he was selling weed. Even though I never saw anything else to suggest that the entire time I knew him. He said he normally looked "punk as fuck" and that his girlfriend was "punk as fuck". He said her name was Chevawn, and that I'd meet her tomorrow.
It was 8 O'clock, and since LA had a curfew of 8 o'clock for minors (me being 17 still), we headed for "the bushes a few blocks away". On the way I told him it was my second night there, and he told me he had just gotten off a train that was headed for San Diego. We walked down Wilshire and made a right on Ocean. Shortly after that right, a skinny dirty ass old man started screaming at us about how we were soviets, and deserved to die.
Bailless had this mean ass stare. His eyes would open up wide. As wide as possible. His head would cock up, just enough to make having that much of the whites of his eyes showing look even more unnatural. HIs brow would sink a little, and his jaw would stiffen. He gave this look to pretty much everyone he came across. Except me for some reason. No idea why not me, but that's the way it was.
So he's staring right through this guy, and he kinda almost whispers to me, "have you had to deal with a wing nut yet?" and walks with a real calm posture and body language, but that same creepy ass stare over to him, and just starts fucking screaming at the guy. Mostly just calling him a wingnut, and saying fuck a lot. And the guy stopped with the death threats, apologized, and kept walking.
Bailless told me that all wingnuts back down when you scream. Whatever is malfunctioning in a wingnuts brain, is just incredibly easy to shut down with volume. Just scream at them. It doesn't even matter what you say.
I asked him what he'd do if it didn't work, and he said "smiley", and pulled a lock on a chain out of his pocket just long enough to punctuate the message.
We walked a few more blocks up ocean and came to Montana st. We hopped a fence that was keeping people from falling off the grass and onto PCH, and pushed through some bushes. There was a rather long stairway that led down the bluff and to a bridge that went over the highway to the beach. It was all unkempt, and overgrown. It also smelled really good. The ocean air mixed with all the trees and bushes and shit was really nice. At the bottom ofg the stairs was a clearing. Bailess kicked some cardboard to me, and pulled out a can of bug killer and sprayed down the whole area. We made beds on top of the cardboard (it's good at lessening the pain of the rocks on the ground), and laid down. He actually said "good night".
We woke up with sunrise again, and he said "the tweakers are probably still up, let's go to the promenade." and we did. There I met a lot of people. People were talking about a squat, and telling me all about how to score free coffee and soda, and how great their last squat was, and about how they got hassled by cops last night, and asking where we had slept, and generally just bullshitting. Bailless told me the definition of spanging (spare changing) and told me he doesn't do it. He makes money other ways. (never saw any further eveidence of that either).
That day I met most of the people I hung out with that summer. I actually wrote down all of their names, because they all had such cool street names. I still have the book I wrote it in too. Their names were:
Roam
Spider
Cataya
Bailless
Kyle
Ogre
O-Dogg
Sebastion
Mom & Dad
Hippie
Chipper
Adam
Scott
Canibal
Crash
Purple
Mad Dog
Doc
Smoker
Germ
Mouse
Pia
Red
Kio
John
Richard
Phoenix
Wicked
Wallace or Patch
Blitz
Chiffon
Solo
Sorrow
Swamp Thing
Turtle
Shorty
Shorty
Cane
Roch
Kevin
Half Pint
That was my family that summer.
Bailless told me that some people had found a squat and that it was a real shit hole, "but at least it's four walls and a roof". After a 20 minute long distance phone call to my girl from a pay phone (in which Bailless informed my girl over my shoulder that we were "being faithfull together"), we headed to. We walked down Ocean again. This time in the opposite direction. We ducked into a side alley and walked past a large parking lot to an abandoned hotel. I later found out it was called the Flamingo. We waited for a car to pass, and climbed through a small hole in a chain link fence. I followed Bailless as he hurried accross the courtyard and filled in pool to a stairway that had been boarded up. We pried the pre-loosened
board open a little and squeezed into the stairwell. After moving up a flight of stairs, Bailless pointed out some of my new friend's rooms, and told me that about 75 people would be sleeping in this hotel tonight. We walked around a couple corners, and came to a hallway with two holes bored in the walls. -Exterior walls. I still don't know how they got holes into load bearing walls like that. He pointed to one said "that's where you piss, and climbed into the other. We each lit a candle. Inside there was a mattress, and those cool mirrors with the tacky gold foil running through them. We talked some more about our past squats, and the girls, and he told me about hopping trains, and how to get away with it.
Midway through a story we heard some ruckus and jumped out to investigate. It was Cane, Mad Dog, Spider, and Pia. Bailless told them to shut up and walked them upstairs. Spider -a tall geeky looking skinny guy with glasses broke into the room next to ours via prying up a board, with pia. A really young looking hot black girl dressed in what seemed to be clothes that belonged to Spider. Cane and Mad Dog (two really big guys in sleeveless shirts followed Bailless and I into our room. They were introduced to me as Bailless' body guards. About an hour later I heard some screaming coming from the otherside of the wall. I was instantly concerned, until everyone else in the room started laughing. It was explained to me,
that Pia was a virgin. Emphasis on the 'was'. And everyone starting laughing about how Spider couldn't do it, that he pussed out and was screaming like a girl to make us think that he had. -a few minutes later, Spider showed up in our room to tell the tale. I went to sleep.
The next day I was hanging out on the sidewalk and an older skinny guy was making conversation. I mentioned that I was homeless, and he offered to let me shower, clean up and eat something at his place. So, I figure; sure, why the fuck not?! Maybe I can even score some money on this shit. So me being naive as shit, I go with him.
He introduces himself, and asks if I like tv. I say yeah, and he puts on some porn (straight porn), which strikes me as a little odd, but whatever, dude likes porn, okay. And I plop down on the couch. He disapears around the corner, and I look around to see a lot of gold records laying against the wall, and backstage passes hanging from hat racks and shit. He told me he was a rock band's manager, and the evidence suggested he was not full of shit. (I saw him on VH1 years later. It was true). After a few minutes he comes around the corner and sits down next to me. It wasn't that weird, 'cause he kept his distance, but after a few minutes he reached over and put his hand on my knee.
I fucking freaked out. I about jumped out of my scrotum skin. That was the first time I ahd been aware a dude wanted to do me. I said "Whoa! There's been a misunderstanding. I'm straight!"
He said; "Are you sure? There could be money involved"
Me: "How much money?"
Him: "hundred?"
Me: "To watch porn with your hand on my knee??
Him: "With an open mind"
And so, I watched porn with a masturbating old man touching my knee for an hour. He paid me a hundred dirty, filthy, nasty, underage, male hooker, dollars, and drove me back to the promenade where I tried to forget about it.
That night Bailless told me that he saw I had met so-and-so, and that so-and-so likes little boys. Little late. Thanks fucker.
I called my girl who told me she'd come to see me in a few days. These calls really were the highlight of my day out there. I spent more on the payphones than anything else combined.
After hanging up I talked to a few people who introduced me to a guy named Scott who did tattoos. And I told him that I wanted a dotted line and scissors. When he asked me where, I pussed out and told him my wrist, insterad of my throat like I really wanted. He told me to bring 7.50 to the park the next morning and he'd do it. So my first tattoo was paid for with money I made by being the little boy that an old man paid to touch. A tattoo that I got in a public park, from a homeless guy, with a home made machine. I'm lucky I didn't contract Hep A,B,C,D,E-Z that day.
A couple days later my girl came out and we got our wedding bands. 5 bucks for the both of us.
We got married the week after labor day on Saturday in 1997.
On my way back into the Flamingo one night, I bumped into a buddy named Solo. He had scored a few 40 ounces, and offered to share with me. So Solo, his girl, Sorrow, and a couple other guys stood in a circle and passed around a few 40s for a few hours. It was my first malt liquor. I believe it was Old English. Eventually Bailless showed up and smoked us all out on hash. Which tasted pretty bad, but worked really well at making me not feel like a nasty little manhooker who hadn't told his fiance yet. And that's how I discovered substance abuse as a means of dealing with stress.
I think It's important right now to mention that I'm really appreciative to the Dread Pirate Robert who worked graveyards at kinkos in lancaster for warning me not to do anything harder than booze or marijuana. I told him I wouldn't smoke no crack, and he told me not to fucking say that shit.
Everyone says that and then they go and do heroin and shit anyway. Just stay away from that shit. Without such a stern warning, I probably would have tried harder and harder shit.
In the morning, Bailless and I caught a bus to his girlfriend's house. Her name was Chevawn. Bailless told me she hated to be called Chiffon, but that a lot of people called her that anyway. He introduced me to this band he'd been listening to called "Nausea" and I've been a fan ever since.
I was listening to a walkman in Chevawn's living room, when this girl, who's name I beleive was Tanya, started hitting on me. Like trying to sit in my lap and shit. All I remember is that she looked really good in a camaflauge miniskirt and that I wanted nothing more than for her to back the fuck off, so I could keep on being faithfull to my new fiance. I politely stood up, and did other shit and changed the subject a lot. Until Chevawn called me on it. Evidently she was pissed that I didn't want to do her friend, and we got in a real good yelling match in her living room.
I left. So did Bailless.
On our way back, A payphone rang. Some guy answered it, and a few seconds later, the guy asked if a "Jason Bailless" was nearby. Freaked me the fuck out. But he took the call with a huff, like it was normal. They argued, and I kept walking.
Later that day he showed me a gun he had aquired. I can't remember where he said he got it. Shortly after he introduced me to strong arm robbery.
We were walking down second street, and he got right in this guys way, and that mean ass look fell over his face, he glanced down at the guys hands and said "Can I have that?" And the guy just forked over his boxes of food, and quickly walked away. He told me he wanted to stare "pure hate into people's eyes. Just burn their soul" and then laughed, like he couldn't keep a straight face anymore. I thought the whole thing was hilarious, and took it up as soon as possible. Just looking at people and asking was enough to score money and doggybags all day.
There was this kid named Lyle, who I don't think was homeless, he just didn't shower, and hung out with us a lot. He was always talking shit to people and instigating fights. Then, at the first sign of confrontation, he'd run away saying "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry!" Until his pursuer gave it up. Then he'd start again. There was one morning where he was out early and was doing this to everyone that walked by. I was eating day old bagels that this guy named Sebastion had scammed out of a bagel shop with a fake letterhead that said he was with some charity. While I ate bagels I sat in the same spot and this 14 year old kid with a beard and dreadlocks from vancouver and I counted the wingnuts that walked passed us. From about 8:30 until noon when we gave up counting we counted 72 different wingnuts. People that were completely bonkers and out of their minds. We were in the middle of telling people about our findings when Lyle started up with his provoke and retreat shit with Bailless. Bailess said a few times "I'm going to butt rape you, Lyle" and after a while he got up and calmly walked toward Lyle. He had that mean look, only now he grinning. He walked up and down the block unhurriedly, but not quitting until he eventually grabbed Lyle, shoved his head into a trashcan, and "pretend" fucked him in the ass, right there in the middle of the fucking street. Nobody could believe that that was actually what was happening. But it was.
Right in front of everyone. Which was mostly bums, wingnuts, gutterpunks, suicidals, and tweakers.
Which reminds me. There isn't just homeless and not homeless, there's a whole class system to it. Gutter punks are all the runaway kids who are into pretty much any music with guitars. There's also a group called the suicidals, who I think were racist, were a little older than gutter punks and were really territorial. I suspect a lot of them had houses as well. Then there's the bums. We reffered to them as humbums a lot. They were the older guys, who weren't insane, that were just old and homeless. There were the tweakers, who weren't homeless by choice, and were always bitching about it, but still stayed on that shit. So they were always awake and causing problems for those of us who just like living outside. And
hippies. But they pretty much flew under the radar. They were all real quiet, and never caused any problems. Every group kept to themselves and felt superior to everyone else. Once in a while groups would clash, but mostly they served as sort of a family structure. Loneliness is the worst part, remember? Even though more than half of the people in our particular group were 99% unbearable, there was still that 1% that was better than being alone. That one percent that was betther than seeing people enjoy themselves with their family while we're spare changing, and getting kicked out of spots to sleep because it's illegal to be homeless.
I guess a lot of people don't know that it's illegal to be homeless. In 1997 in Santa Monica, it was illegal to camp. Meaning, that you could not sleep outdoors with a blanket on. It was illegal to ask people for change. It was illegal to remove anything from a trash can. It may seem like these are laws that weren't enforced, but cops were trying. When a cop would stop any of us, the most legal person would raise a shit while the rest of us scattered. He'd give the cop a fake name and social security number and split when the cop went to radio it in. This happened every day.
There was also a point where people started talking about the Flamingo getting raided. People were saying they knew people in the LAPD, and that we'd be kicked out of our home soon. I figured it was bullshit. Turned out not to be. I only found out recently that food not bombs was using our home as a publicity stunt to further their charity business.
In the middle of the night I woke up to people running from door to door saying were about to get raided. I figured it was drama and made only a mild effort at packing my blanket into my bag. A few minutes later people got real antsy and were saying that the cops were going to smoke us out.
I smelled a little smoke. Sort of. It smelled weird. But Then again, between the candles and the drugs in that building, even a weird smoke smell wasn't enough to convince me. It wasn't until we heard some yelling outside that we all bailed out of the place. I saw people that were scared to use the main stairwell jump through the hole in the wall that we'd been pissing and shitting into for the last month, and run down an internal stairwell. The rest of our group hopped a rail onto a roof, and jumped and climbed down the wall. It was like a waterfall of homeless kids. About 20 or so of us poured over that wall and ran accross the courtyard to the fence. Some people climbed through the hole. Some of us jumped the fence.
I looked back as I jumped the fence and saw the rest of the inhabitants running out. I only saw two cops, and they were on the street side of the
hotel busy beating the shit out of two people pinned against a fence. (turns out these people were with food not bombs. They had chained themself
to the fence and put out a press release to protest the lack of sheleters in LA -which none of us wanted anyway.) I didn't want to be next, so I
hauled ass down the alley, and around a couple corners. I slowed down and talked to a few people. Some folks went to a beach house. A squat that
supposedly still had electricity and cable. I opted to go back to montana street and sleep in the bushes for the night. I was tired and didn't
feel up to the drama of more breaking in and entering.
This seems like nothing but adventures, and antecdotes. And it's a lot of living to cram into a short amount of time, but most of my time was spent
sitting on the bricks on second block sewing shit to my clothes, attempting street peforming with mixed results, and talking to people. I'd break up the monotony with trips to the bookstore, and
the pier. Once in a while, I'd go swim in the ocean, but it was hard to enjoy it when I had to leave everyhting I owned sitting on the beach,
waiting to get stolen.
After a long day of doing not a damn thing this guy named Jim jired me to do construction work at his house. Where he's just watch me with a grin
on his face. Another guy who got off on teenage boys. But between that, and various shady deals, I had managed to accumulate about 600 bucks at
one point. I spent most of it on shoes and spaghetti. Being homeless is hard on shoes. It's also hell on an apetite.
I also met this guy named Key. He was a drug dealer who had one of the dealers under him skip out on a deal. Key was a tiny little asian guy, with
a big mouth. He hired me and a couple other guys to be his body guards, and to try and recruit us to run weed for him. Turns out he was a real
shitty weed dealer, but he was great at credit card fraud. He rode us out to hollywood to kill the guy that ran out on a deal. He just wanted us to
keep him from leaving they alley, while hey killed the guy. He intended to kill him with a smiley. He had a stylish fucking smiley too. One of
those round, chrome locks, on a purple dog leash. Never did find the guy, but we did eat steak, and get driven around southern CA all night. At one
point we even drove past Disney Land. That was weird. The last time I was there, I was with my parents, and my brother. Now
my brother was in jail, my parents didn't know where I was, -and probably for the better since I was involved in pseudo-male-prostitution,
credit card fraud, drug dealing, attempts at murder, breaking in and entering, and all kinds of shit I never thought I'd be doing. Eventually we
found ourselves back in Santa Monica, with Key talking about getting a hotel room. I opted out of that one, and convinced everyone to sleep on the beach.
After all, If the cops found out that were using stolen cards, they'd have our address in a hotel. So We walked under the pier right before sunrise,
and Key and another guy pulled their blankets out of the raters, and we walked to a lifeguard tower and passed out under it. I woke up an hour later
when the trucks started combing the beach.
my girl had been coming to see me every weekend. One saturday, she didn't, and I got worried. I called her over and over, and eventually she answered.
I don't remember why she couldn't make it, but she couldn't. After a long phone call, in which we reasured each other of how much we loved each other
I started planning to get back to Lancaster to see her. She didn't know it yet. The next morning I caught the first bus to downtown LA, and hopped a
train headed toward Lancaster. Now I was a hobo too. I got in at about 3 O'Clock, and walked about 4 miles to her house, with a full backpack.
by this time I had aquired a tent, two blankets, an extra pair of shoes, and some clothes and toiletries.
I showed up at her door at around 5, and knocked. She was stunned when she opened the door. She said "Is that really you?" "OH MY GOD!! I LOVE YOOU!"
And jumped into my arms. I spent a few days there, where she told me about how seriously fucked up her family had been to her, and she came to live
in the TR house with me. A few days after that, and we had gotten a couple months worth of fucking out of our system in an abandoned house in two days
We hopped a train back to Santa Monica.
The ride back to Santa Monica was really romantic. We had two backpacks, we were leaving our hometown together to live on the beach, and watching california pass by in front of us. I've always thought there was something really sexy about trains.
We got into downtown LA pretty late. Most of the buses weren't running anymore, so we missed the last express by about 3 hours. So we took the shitty slow ride. half an hour turned into two hours. Eventually we arived on Wilshire and 3rd street, and walked toward second block. I introduced my girl to a few people, and split to go get a 99 cent Big and Tasty. my girl had been a vegetarian the whole time I knew her, but changed pretty quickly when her choices were limited. When I got back, my girl was talking to Chevawn, and her homegirls, that were being all catty and bitchy because my girl was fucking the dangerous edgy squatter, and not them. Bailless apologized for his bitchy girlfriend, and they argued some more. Shortly after, I led my girl to the clearing on Montana st, and pitched a tent I had bought a week or so earlier for 10 bucks. It took way too long, because it was fucking dark outside, and I was missing one tent pole, but eventually we climbed in.
She ahd on brown overalls and these cute panties that said 100% princess on them. We fucked for a few hours, with my girl laying on her stomach, and me entering from behind. We were silly loud due to a mistaken sense of privacy provided from a thin sheet of vinyl for a wall, and I could hear people giggling once in a while. my girl was easily the least punk rock, least gutter punk looking girl around. She was very pretty. At that point I looked pretty damn, homeless. I was clean, but my clothes were pretty well stained and patched. I overheard it being the topic of conversation later, a few times.
When we woke up, we climbed all the way up the stairs (god, there was a lot of them) and up to the sidewalk. We walked to the pier and hung out for a few hours. We met a hippie named Crash, who was making and selling hemp necklaces, and had a gay lackey with him named richard. Crash was easily one of coolest people we ever met. Real nice. Lived real well for a homeless person too. Full bedroll, drank import beer, good weed, and over stayed clean. Not like any other hippie I'd met before. I mentioned that we needed a shower and he told us the only ones open in the afternoon, were the ones tourists use to wash the brine off of them after they get out of the ocean.
We went down to the beach, and right on the side of the pier there's these showers right out in the open. I stripped down to my shorts, and showered. My girl -a 17 year old girl, who probably weighed about 120, and carried every bit of that weight in her tits and ass, stripped down to a racer back wife beater, and showered. I swear to god the whole world stood still when she washed her tits. This guy came to a dead stop pushing a stroller, and his wife walked right into the back of him. It was so fucking sexy. Also kinda creepy, the number of old guys were watching this underage girl in a wet t-shirt. It was then that I realized I had my hands full with keeping this girl safe, and away from creepy old men.
We spent the next month or so spanging, fucking, and living completely fucking care free. Some mornings we'd walk along the beach as the sun rose. Some days we'd smoke a bunch of hash in the park. Or even right on the front lawn at McDonalds. It was almost lawless. As long as we got my girl off the street and into hiding by 8pm, it was like fucking never never land. My friend Dave once told me about an island in Denmark. Called Christiania. It was an old military base that was taken over by squatters, right outside Copenhagen. Denmark is willing to let them act as an independant nation, and won't demand taxes, or extradite anyone. There's an anarchist honor system based capitalism. People primarily just farm and build bike parts when they need money, and just leave what they have for sale out in front of their house. Pay by the honor system. Supposedly the place only has three laws/rules. No guns. No hard drugs. No cars.
Just as I was getting ready to throw away my shoes forever, take up weed permanantly and start hugging motherfuckers, we returned to our campsite in the clearing on the Montana st stairs to find that someone had entered our tents and stolen both our backpacks. Right before El Nino (big storm) was suposed to hit. Someone who was okay with stealing everything from someone who had almost nothing.
I had gone back alone, to retreive my girl's sweater. I had left my girl in the care of hippies at a bookstore, drinking coffee.
I freaked the fuck out. I smashed up a bunch of raggedy ass old railings and generally acted like the savage I really am. After blowing off some steam, I went back to my girl and told her what had happened. I talked to a few people, and found out that some humbum had stolen my buddy mouse's raincoat, and my friend Cataya's guitar. I also found out that the same humbum was spotted messing with my tent earlier.
I knew right where he slept. None of the friends I know who were the type to seek vengeance, were on the promenade. So, I went alone. I found his campground. My fork was there. So was the raincoat, and a few other obviously stolen items. But the theif was nowhere to be seen. I was still full of rage however, so I unloaded his entire campground onto PCH. I then returned what I knew belonged to my friends.
Right about then, we made plans to got to Vegas for the winter. I tried to say goodbye to Bailless, but he was busy getting bitched at by Chevawn.
my girl and I hopped a train back to Lancaster. We spent two nights in the TR house.
There was one morning where I stopped to kiss my girl. We were right in the middle of the desert in front of the TR House. We had our bags at our feet, and we were wearing some patched up clothes. Right after my girl and I stopped making out, our friend Joey Firmwalt stopped us and asked us to do it again. We did. He took a picture for a college art class he was in. I've been trying to get my hands on theat picture ever since.
anyway.... We made it to vegas, where we decided to raise a family, and therefore give up living on the streets. It was in Las Vegas that our daughter was conceived. As soon as winter ended we headed back to Lancaster.
In Lancaster, we shared a bedroom with Brent for three months.
During those three months, I hopped a train to downtown LA. There I met a guy named roch. (intentionally misspelled). He was a puerto rican who was with this girl nazi chic. They weren't like a girlfriend-boyfriend kind of deal. They were road dogs. Which is to mean they don't quite like each other enough to call one another a girlfriend or boyfriend, or remain monogomous, but they still like the sex, and most of all the company. If you have a road dog, instantly anything you have or get, is half theirs. It's a sanity and survival thing. (sex isn't manditory either. There were plenty of hetero same sex road dogs).
Well, one night, Roch and I heard that his nazi girl had started some shit, and was getting her ass kicked. So we ran down to said place where the shit was going down. There we saw her bent over a rail, getting raped. (which leads me to a kinda funny story, I'll tell right after this). So Roch and I did the right thing and stopped it. I don't like neo-nazi chics, but I like rapists even less. So, I broke a law. One of the important ones too. I'm not sure what happened to this person. (Which is part of the reason for my vagueness.) But it wasn't nice. It wasn't how I was raised to deal with bullies. After we tired ourselves out, we threw what was left off of a nearby bridge, and commenced with drinking too much.
Now for the funny story. This actually happened a while prior, but I forgot to mention it... I was sitting on a bench as usual sewing new pockets on my pants when this guy comes up and starts telling me about how every time he walks down the alley on fourth street the same guy jumps out and bends him over a dumpster and rapes him. He asked me what he should do. So, I said, "Don't go down that alley anymore". And he perked up, this lightbulb lit up over his head, and his eyes got ell wide and he says: "yyyyeah! Thanks man!" and takes off. Never saw him again.
But that was the alley where the free bagels were, so I made sure to bring crew everytime I went after that.
While I was out there, some of my homies from before I went to Vegas told me about what happened after we left. Evidently most people found out about Bailless killing Chevawn because Americas most wanted was out interviewing people and stirring things up. Jerry Springer even spent a night in one of my old squats.
Everyone was saying that Bailess had killed her, and that Linus was with him when it happened. But Linus was gone. Everyone said he had gone to Arizona.
A lot of people split the state after that because there was so much law enforcement attention. I bet there was a huge spike in auto theft right then. Everyone was stealing cars. A few people thought they were going to make it to Florida. Some hopped trains to San Francisco. But most everyone I knew got the fuck out.
End. Not really the end, but that's that story.
A lot of names and a few details are changed so as not rat people out, but here's the story for you....
On the day before I was kicked out of my parent's house (shortly after I finished High School) I fucked my girl 7 times.
I also slammed my thumb in the window jam in a mad rush to open the window to provide a breeze, 'cause we had incited
such a sweat riot. It turns out that that slam caused a sub-ungle (sp?) hematoma (internal bleeding under my thumbnail),
for which the urgent care prescribed me some vicoden.
The next day while my parents were at work, my girl came over again, and I attempted to pick up the fornication marathon where I'd left off. But not even a 17-year old aspiring gymnast and circus performer with a cute little teenage girl with huge tits, and a penchant for asking to perform oral in a Siberian accent, could overcome narcotics and the previous day's draining. So I started putting my pants on again when my Dad walked in.
My dad is a strict Right wing, catholic, republican (sans all the cool shit like approving of guns), who insisted on instilling morals in me. Porn was bad. The Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Issue was bad. The words "boobs" or "tits" were bad. He wasn't hypocritical about it at all, he actually believes it all. And he just walked in on me pulling my pants up in front of a kneeling teenage girl.
So he laid it out like this:
"We have rules for a reason. If you can't follow them, this isn't the place for you to live." "Your curfew is now 10pm. After that the doors will be locked."
So I packed a bag, called my buddy Brent, and my girl, and we rode to Carrows (the diner where I once stayed for over 24 hours), where we met up with Johnathan Redman. I told them what happened and spent a few weeks couch surfing with a thumb that was rotting off.
Urgent Care had failed to drain my thumb as they should have, and it was now an unsightly shade of black and purple. It was also leaking brown stuff, and hurt worse than anything I'd ever felt anytime anything touched the nail. And I was a juggler who had no access to the narcotics that were prescribed to me, because my mother was sure I'd sell them on the street, or take them recreationally.
After wearing out my welcome on couches, I wandered the street tired and lonely as fuck.(this is easily the WORST part about homelessness. It sets in like a black fog, and any company is good company. Could be why so many homeless talk to themselves.)
At about 4AM I hopped the backwall of a grocery store and leaned up against it. The only spot that wasn't covered in weeds and uncomfortable rocks was about a foot away from a spider's web. Said spider's web belonged to a black widow. But I was to tired to hop the wall again, and there really was no other place to sleep nearby. So I set the alarm on a watch (whose straps had broken off) to beep every fifteen minutes and put my head down.
Every fifteen minutes I looked up to make sure that spider wasn't going to kill me. He never moved.
Only a couple hours later the sun came up and and I got up to wander Lancaster some more.
The next night I decided, fuck being a roomie with a deadly spider, I was going to live like the kids in the movie Suburbia, (the one with Flea and the Vandals and shit), and break into an abandoned house. The house I picked out was a little two bedroom place sitting on a huge vacant lot. All the windows were busted out, the doors were all boarded up, and a thick layer of dust and torn out pages of bad porn covered the floor of the living room. Someone had already decided to model it after the movie "Suburbia". The previous inhabitants had painted "TR HOUSE" all over it. They had also left behind all kinds of anti-racist, communist, socialist and anarchist graffiti and literature and a fifth of gin with about two sips missing. I cooked a can of ravioli over a camp light and read all night. I tried to drink the gin, but I had no chaser, and it was my first taste of hard liquor, so it didn't work out. I fell asleep reading something by Noam Chomsky.
The next night I was riding around with Brent, and we saw that the backdoor of a gas station was open a crack. So Brent backed the car up to it and we fucking looted it. A couple cases of sprite, a few cases of cookies, and lots of fruit snacks. The next night was a lot better.
I shoved some couch cushion foam into the window of the bedroom I'd picked out, and pushed a board up against it to keep out the cold. I finally drank that gin, and fell asleep after painting the walls with some orange tempura paint someone had left there.
The next morning I woke up to footsteps. They were fucking LOUD. It was a hardwood floor, and every one was like a door slamming. I was scared shitless. I had fought a lot of skinheads growing up, and even won a few knife fights. But they were all around my age. Nobody my age was awake and breaking into abandoned houses at sunrise. I didn't want to Just come out and commence to fucking this guy up... I mean, what if he was some kind of crazy ex-marine? He'd probably kill me right there, and nobody would know until I started stinking. Or what if they were just like me and looking for a place to sleep? Or worse, what if it was a cop?
So I grabbed this big ass bolt that was on the floor and jumped up and shouted through the door; "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?!" and waited for the answer to make my next move.
All I got was a "Shit, sorry man." and I opened the door to see a middle aged man in combat boots climb out the window and disappear.
I lived in that house for couple weeks before realizing that I pretty much everyone but my girl was tired of my mooching homeless ass. I opted to hitch-hike to the one place where A punk-rock newly-anarcho-communist squatter who only has mediocre juggling and a potty mouth to offer, could get be appreciated.
That night my girl and I convinced a Kinkos employee to take us to Venice Beach for the night. My girl was going round trip, but I was going to be on my own in a mean ass city where I knew absolutely nobody. For real.
We decided that Santa Monica would be a better bet for fun, since Venice is more of a daytime thing and the sun would be setting soon. We headed pretty much straight for the beach. My girl and the Kinkoid and I fucked around for a little while on the beach. I had kinda been kicking around the idea of pushing for something more than high school sweetheart, from my girl. She was standing by me in my plight to become a great street performer, and didn't leave me and look for someone who had a house. Or even a car. She actually loved me. And here we were on the beach in Santa Monica, about half a mile from the pier. my girl was about fifty feet away. I quickly wrote;
"WILL YOU MARRY ME?"
in the sand with my toes. About then, my girl and the Kinkoid were ready to go, and were calling me to leave. I acted like I couldn't hear them telling me to leave, hoping my girl would get close enough to read it. She kinda huffed and walked over to me. She looked down to see "MARRY ME?" -the ocean had washed away the will you.
I handed her a drawing I had done which I thought would make a good wedding band one day.
It was all perfect like in a movie. Her eyes welled up with tears, and she jumped up and hugged me and said yes.
And we walked back toward the third street promenade, and eventually to the car. She agreed to come back every weekend, at least, to come and see me, and she left.
I walked around a little bit after that, kinda took in the scenery, and noticed a bunch of punk rock looking kids hanging out on the benches of the second block of the third street promenade. I made a mental note, and walked back toward broadway, and the Mall. I walked around to the far side of the mall, scaled halfway up the roof, and layed down on a two foot wide ledge. There was a little bit of cover provided by a tree, and a lot of traffic noise. I pushed my backpack under my head, set my alarm for 8am, gripped my giant bolt with one hand and fell asleep. It was labor day weekend, and tmrw was my best bet at making some money street performing in Venice.
Before my alarm even went off, morning rush hour traffic, and the sun woke me up. I hopped down and walked toward the beach.
It's only a couple miles from the Promenade in Santa Monica to the Boardwalk in Venice, and it was really pleasant. The bus only cost fifty cents, but I opted to walk and save the little bit of money I had for making phone calls to my girl.
I walked past muscle beach to the pit in Venice. There's some amazing grafiti, and a LOT of beer bottles there. I picked up as many empty 40 oz bottles as I could carry and walked back toward the boardwalk. (I know, I know, I say to reporters all the time that I learned the glass stunts in venice. Well, I Lied. I learned in my parent's backyard in the suburbs.)
I laid out a rope border where I expected would be my spot and immediately started catching shit from the vendors. I knew nothing of permits, or that these people paid for their spots. So naturally they were pissed that I was stealing good real estate. I told her to fuck off, and started to set up for the first show of the day. I intended to break bottles and look busy until I caught someones eye, and then start with a fire act.
A few people stopped to see what I was doing, and I went into it. I did some great fire eating. I was breathing fire, and pulling a crowd. Granted, I couldn't keep them very well, because I was such a bad talker back then, but a sizable group stayed to see what was next. I got to the broken glass portion, and pulled a volunteer to stand on the back of my head. By some huge fluke, I got cut. I heard the glass break under my head. I felt the sting. I knew I was fucked. I stayed there, face down in the glass contemplating my next move. I knew I was bleeding. There was an angry middle eastern massage therapist pissed that I was in her spot, screaming about permits, and a crowd of people waiting for me to get up. So I did.
I came up wearing a crimson veil. I was bleeding all over the place. I threw my hat on the ground, and the only thing I could think to say to the people who hadn't run away freaked out was "pity buck?".
People went for it. People gave me money. People looked worried. People called 911
In about two minutes after the 'crowd' had dispersed a fire truck drove up. On a pedestrian walkway. It was so fucking embarassing. I was just going to stop the bleeding with my shirt. But they cleaned me up, threw on a couple butterfly bandages, and made me sign a "refusal of care" form. My name on the form was listed as "transient". It was weird. I hadn't really thought of myself as "transient" yet.
I spent the rest of the morning and some of the afternoon, playing chess with a hippie named Tom, who told me about the Hari Krishnas, and where to score free meals and showers. As I was leaving to go hang out in Santa Monica, he gave me a couple cigarettes (I don't smoke), a half gallon of water, and some almonds which he said were poisonous if I didn't remove the outside papery crap. And I walked back to Santa Monica with my hat pulled low to cover my bandages.
I got back to the 3rd street promenade in Santa Monica as the sun was setting, and hung out on the curb, trying to look as punk rock as possible and make some new friends. I was being way too dumb and timid. But then an older couple -probably in their fifties walked up with grocery bags, and I stood up. Everyone was calling them "Mom' and "Dad". I later figured out that nobody even remotely thought of them as anything close to maternal or paternal, and that those were just the magic words to inspire charity in these two. Mom asked me "Have you eaten today?" I told her I had had a handful of
almonds, and she insisted that I eat some of what she had brought. I can't for the life of me remember anything I ate that night. But I remember being fucking stoked about it. I ate, and a couple of the punk rock looking kids introduced themselves.
After eating I was sitting on a bench watching the people walk by and a shaved headed guy with a stern glare, and a Pittsburgh Steelers polo shirt on asked me where I was sleeping tonight. I told him that I hadn't decided yet. He told me he was going to sleep in the bushes a few blocks away, and told me I was welcome to come with him. I said cool, and he introduced himself as Bailless. (Like no bail) and we hung out a little while longer.
He told me he was wearing the Steelers polo shirt because he liked the message (steal/steel, haha) and because he wanted to keep a low profile with the cops. He said he was selling weed. Even though I never saw anything else to suggest that the entire time I knew him. He said he normally looked "punk as fuck" and that his girlfriend was "punk as fuck". He said her name was Chevawn, and that I'd meet her tomorrow.
It was 8 O'clock, and since LA had a curfew of 8 o'clock for minors (me being 17 still), we headed for "the bushes a few blocks away". On the way I told him it was my second night there, and he told me he had just gotten off a train that was headed for San Diego. We walked down Wilshire and made a right on Ocean. Shortly after that right, a skinny dirty ass old man started screaming at us about how we were soviets, and deserved to die.
Bailless had this mean ass stare. His eyes would open up wide. As wide as possible. His head would cock up, just enough to make having that much of the whites of his eyes showing look even more unnatural. HIs brow would sink a little, and his jaw would stiffen. He gave this look to pretty much everyone he came across. Except me for some reason. No idea why not me, but that's the way it was.
So he's staring right through this guy, and he kinda almost whispers to me, "have you had to deal with a wing nut yet?" and walks with a real calm posture and body language, but that same creepy ass stare over to him, and just starts fucking screaming at the guy. Mostly just calling him a wingnut, and saying fuck a lot. And the guy stopped with the death threats, apologized, and kept walking.
Bailless told me that all wingnuts back down when you scream. Whatever is malfunctioning in a wingnuts brain, is just incredibly easy to shut down with volume. Just scream at them. It doesn't even matter what you say.
I asked him what he'd do if it didn't work, and he said "smiley", and pulled a lock on a chain out of his pocket just long enough to punctuate the message.
We walked a few more blocks up ocean and came to Montana st. We hopped a fence that was keeping people from falling off the grass and onto PCH, and pushed through some bushes. There was a rather long stairway that led down the bluff and to a bridge that went over the highway to the beach. It was all unkempt, and overgrown. It also smelled really good. The ocean air mixed with all the trees and bushes and shit was really nice. At the bottom ofg the stairs was a clearing. Bailess kicked some cardboard to me, and pulled out a can of bug killer and sprayed down the whole area. We made beds on top of the cardboard (it's good at lessening the pain of the rocks on the ground), and laid down. He actually said "good night".
We woke up with sunrise again, and he said "the tweakers are probably still up, let's go to the promenade." and we did. There I met a lot of people. People were talking about a squat, and telling me all about how to score free coffee and soda, and how great their last squat was, and about how they got hassled by cops last night, and asking where we had slept, and generally just bullshitting. Bailless told me the definition of spanging (spare changing) and told me he doesn't do it. He makes money other ways. (never saw any further eveidence of that either).
That day I met most of the people I hung out with that summer. I actually wrote down all of their names, because they all had such cool street names. I still have the book I wrote it in too. Their names were:
Roam
Spider
Cataya
Bailless
Kyle
Ogre
O-Dogg
Sebastion
Mom & Dad
Hippie
Chipper
Adam
Scott
Canibal
Crash
Purple
Mad Dog
Doc
Smoker
Germ
Mouse
Pia
Red
Kio
John
Richard
Phoenix
Wicked
Wallace or Patch
Blitz
Chiffon
Solo
Sorrow
Swamp Thing
Turtle
Shorty
Shorty
Cane
Roch
Kevin
Half Pint
That was my family that summer.
Bailless told me that some people had found a squat and that it was a real shit hole, "but at least it's four walls and a roof". After a 20 minute long distance phone call to my girl from a pay phone (in which Bailless informed my girl over my shoulder that we were "being faithfull together"), we headed to. We walked down Ocean again. This time in the opposite direction. We ducked into a side alley and walked past a large parking lot to an abandoned hotel. I later found out it was called the Flamingo. We waited for a car to pass, and climbed through a small hole in a chain link fence. I followed Bailless as he hurried accross the courtyard and filled in pool to a stairway that had been boarded up. We pried the pre-loosened
board open a little and squeezed into the stairwell. After moving up a flight of stairs, Bailless pointed out some of my new friend's rooms, and told me that about 75 people would be sleeping in this hotel tonight. We walked around a couple corners, and came to a hallway with two holes bored in the walls. -Exterior walls. I still don't know how they got holes into load bearing walls like that. He pointed to one said "that's where you piss, and climbed into the other. We each lit a candle. Inside there was a mattress, and those cool mirrors with the tacky gold foil running through them. We talked some more about our past squats, and the girls, and he told me about hopping trains, and how to get away with it.
Midway through a story we heard some ruckus and jumped out to investigate. It was Cane, Mad Dog, Spider, and Pia. Bailless told them to shut up and walked them upstairs. Spider -a tall geeky looking skinny guy with glasses broke into the room next to ours via prying up a board, with pia. A really young looking hot black girl dressed in what seemed to be clothes that belonged to Spider. Cane and Mad Dog (two really big guys in sleeveless shirts followed Bailless and I into our room. They were introduced to me as Bailless' body guards. About an hour later I heard some screaming coming from the otherside of the wall. I was instantly concerned, until everyone else in the room started laughing. It was explained to me,
that Pia was a virgin. Emphasis on the 'was'. And everyone starting laughing about how Spider couldn't do it, that he pussed out and was screaming like a girl to make us think that he had. -a few minutes later, Spider showed up in our room to tell the tale. I went to sleep.
The next day I was hanging out on the sidewalk and an older skinny guy was making conversation. I mentioned that I was homeless, and he offered to let me shower, clean up and eat something at his place. So, I figure; sure, why the fuck not?! Maybe I can even score some money on this shit. So me being naive as shit, I go with him.
He introduces himself, and asks if I like tv. I say yeah, and he puts on some porn (straight porn), which strikes me as a little odd, but whatever, dude likes porn, okay. And I plop down on the couch. He disapears around the corner, and I look around to see a lot of gold records laying against the wall, and backstage passes hanging from hat racks and shit. He told me he was a rock band's manager, and the evidence suggested he was not full of shit. (I saw him on VH1 years later. It was true). After a few minutes he comes around the corner and sits down next to me. It wasn't that weird, 'cause he kept his distance, but after a few minutes he reached over and put his hand on my knee.
I fucking freaked out. I about jumped out of my scrotum skin. That was the first time I ahd been aware a dude wanted to do me. I said "Whoa! There's been a misunderstanding. I'm straight!"
He said; "Are you sure? There could be money involved"
Me: "How much money?"
Him: "hundred?"
Me: "To watch porn with your hand on my knee??
Him: "With an open mind"
And so, I watched porn with a masturbating old man touching my knee for an hour. He paid me a hundred dirty, filthy, nasty, underage, male hooker, dollars, and drove me back to the promenade where I tried to forget about it.
That night Bailless told me that he saw I had met so-and-so, and that so-and-so likes little boys. Little late. Thanks fucker.
I called my girl who told me she'd come to see me in a few days. These calls really were the highlight of my day out there. I spent more on the payphones than anything else combined.
After hanging up I talked to a few people who introduced me to a guy named Scott who did tattoos. And I told him that I wanted a dotted line and scissors. When he asked me where, I pussed out and told him my wrist, insterad of my throat like I really wanted. He told me to bring 7.50 to the park the next morning and he'd do it. So my first tattoo was paid for with money I made by being the little boy that an old man paid to touch. A tattoo that I got in a public park, from a homeless guy, with a home made machine. I'm lucky I didn't contract Hep A,B,C,D,E-Z that day.
A couple days later my girl came out and we got our wedding bands. 5 bucks for the both of us.
We got married the week after labor day on Saturday in 1997.
On my way back into the Flamingo one night, I bumped into a buddy named Solo. He had scored a few 40 ounces, and offered to share with me. So Solo, his girl, Sorrow, and a couple other guys stood in a circle and passed around a few 40s for a few hours. It was my first malt liquor. I believe it was Old English. Eventually Bailless showed up and smoked us all out on hash. Which tasted pretty bad, but worked really well at making me not feel like a nasty little manhooker who hadn't told his fiance yet. And that's how I discovered substance abuse as a means of dealing with stress.
I think It's important right now to mention that I'm really appreciative to the Dread Pirate Robert who worked graveyards at kinkos in lancaster for warning me not to do anything harder than booze or marijuana. I told him I wouldn't smoke no crack, and he told me not to fucking say that shit.
Everyone says that and then they go and do heroin and shit anyway. Just stay away from that shit. Without such a stern warning, I probably would have tried harder and harder shit.
In the morning, Bailless and I caught a bus to his girlfriend's house. Her name was Chevawn. Bailless told me she hated to be called Chiffon, but that a lot of people called her that anyway. He introduced me to this band he'd been listening to called "Nausea" and I've been a fan ever since.
I was listening to a walkman in Chevawn's living room, when this girl, who's name I beleive was Tanya, started hitting on me. Like trying to sit in my lap and shit. All I remember is that she looked really good in a camaflauge miniskirt and that I wanted nothing more than for her to back the fuck off, so I could keep on being faithfull to my new fiance. I politely stood up, and did other shit and changed the subject a lot. Until Chevawn called me on it. Evidently she was pissed that I didn't want to do her friend, and we got in a real good yelling match in her living room.
I left. So did Bailless.
On our way back, A payphone rang. Some guy answered it, and a few seconds later, the guy asked if a "Jason Bailless" was nearby. Freaked me the fuck out. But he took the call with a huff, like it was normal. They argued, and I kept walking.
Later that day he showed me a gun he had aquired. I can't remember where he said he got it. Shortly after he introduced me to strong arm robbery.
We were walking down second street, and he got right in this guys way, and that mean ass look fell over his face, he glanced down at the guys hands and said "Can I have that?" And the guy just forked over his boxes of food, and quickly walked away. He told me he wanted to stare "pure hate into people's eyes. Just burn their soul" and then laughed, like he couldn't keep a straight face anymore. I thought the whole thing was hilarious, and took it up as soon as possible. Just looking at people and asking was enough to score money and doggybags all day.
There was this kid named Lyle, who I don't think was homeless, he just didn't shower, and hung out with us a lot. He was always talking shit to people and instigating fights. Then, at the first sign of confrontation, he'd run away saying "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry!" Until his pursuer gave it up. Then he'd start again. There was one morning where he was out early and was doing this to everyone that walked by. I was eating day old bagels that this guy named Sebastion had scammed out of a bagel shop with a fake letterhead that said he was with some charity. While I ate bagels I sat in the same spot and this 14 year old kid with a beard and dreadlocks from vancouver and I counted the wingnuts that walked passed us. From about 8:30 until noon when we gave up counting we counted 72 different wingnuts. People that were completely bonkers and out of their minds. We were in the middle of telling people about our findings when Lyle started up with his provoke and retreat shit with Bailless. Bailess said a few times "I'm going to butt rape you, Lyle" and after a while he got up and calmly walked toward Lyle. He had that mean look, only now he grinning. He walked up and down the block unhurriedly, but not quitting until he eventually grabbed Lyle, shoved his head into a trashcan, and "pretend" fucked him in the ass, right there in the middle of the fucking street. Nobody could believe that that was actually what was happening. But it was.
Right in front of everyone. Which was mostly bums, wingnuts, gutterpunks, suicidals, and tweakers.
Which reminds me. There isn't just homeless and not homeless, there's a whole class system to it. Gutter punks are all the runaway kids who are into pretty much any music with guitars. There's also a group called the suicidals, who I think were racist, were a little older than gutter punks and were really territorial. I suspect a lot of them had houses as well. Then there's the bums. We reffered to them as humbums a lot. They were the older guys, who weren't insane, that were just old and homeless. There were the tweakers, who weren't homeless by choice, and were always bitching about it, but still stayed on that shit. So they were always awake and causing problems for those of us who just like living outside. And
hippies. But they pretty much flew under the radar. They were all real quiet, and never caused any problems. Every group kept to themselves and felt superior to everyone else. Once in a while groups would clash, but mostly they served as sort of a family structure. Loneliness is the worst part, remember? Even though more than half of the people in our particular group were 99% unbearable, there was still that 1% that was better than being alone. That one percent that was betther than seeing people enjoy themselves with their family while we're spare changing, and getting kicked out of spots to sleep because it's illegal to be homeless.
I guess a lot of people don't know that it's illegal to be homeless. In 1997 in Santa Monica, it was illegal to camp. Meaning, that you could not sleep outdoors with a blanket on. It was illegal to ask people for change. It was illegal to remove anything from a trash can. It may seem like these are laws that weren't enforced, but cops were trying. When a cop would stop any of us, the most legal person would raise a shit while the rest of us scattered. He'd give the cop a fake name and social security number and split when the cop went to radio it in. This happened every day.
There was also a point where people started talking about the Flamingo getting raided. People were saying they knew people in the LAPD, and that we'd be kicked out of our home soon. I figured it was bullshit. Turned out not to be. I only found out recently that food not bombs was using our home as a publicity stunt to further their charity business.
In the middle of the night I woke up to people running from door to door saying were about to get raided. I figured it was drama and made only a mild effort at packing my blanket into my bag. A few minutes later people got real antsy and were saying that the cops were going to smoke us out.
I smelled a little smoke. Sort of. It smelled weird. But Then again, between the candles and the drugs in that building, even a weird smoke smell wasn't enough to convince me. It wasn't until we heard some yelling outside that we all bailed out of the place. I saw people that were scared to use the main stairwell jump through the hole in the wall that we'd been pissing and shitting into for the last month, and run down an internal stairwell. The rest of our group hopped a rail onto a roof, and jumped and climbed down the wall. It was like a waterfall of homeless kids. About 20 or so of us poured over that wall and ran accross the courtyard to the fence. Some people climbed through the hole. Some of us jumped the fence.
I looked back as I jumped the fence and saw the rest of the inhabitants running out. I only saw two cops, and they were on the street side of the
hotel busy beating the shit out of two people pinned against a fence. (turns out these people were with food not bombs. They had chained themself
to the fence and put out a press release to protest the lack of sheleters in LA -which none of us wanted anyway.) I didn't want to be next, so I
hauled ass down the alley, and around a couple corners. I slowed down and talked to a few people. Some folks went to a beach house. A squat that
supposedly still had electricity and cable. I opted to go back to montana street and sleep in the bushes for the night. I was tired and didn't
feel up to the drama of more breaking in and entering.
This seems like nothing but adventures, and antecdotes. And it's a lot of living to cram into a short amount of time, but most of my time was spent
sitting on the bricks on second block sewing shit to my clothes, attempting street peforming with mixed results, and talking to people. I'd break up the monotony with trips to the bookstore, and
the pier. Once in a while, I'd go swim in the ocean, but it was hard to enjoy it when I had to leave everyhting I owned sitting on the beach,
waiting to get stolen.
After a long day of doing not a damn thing this guy named Jim jired me to do construction work at his house. Where he's just watch me with a grin
on his face. Another guy who got off on teenage boys. But between that, and various shady deals, I had managed to accumulate about 600 bucks at
one point. I spent most of it on shoes and spaghetti. Being homeless is hard on shoes. It's also hell on an apetite.
I also met this guy named Key. He was a drug dealer who had one of the dealers under him skip out on a deal. Key was a tiny little asian guy, with
a big mouth. He hired me and a couple other guys to be his body guards, and to try and recruit us to run weed for him. Turns out he was a real
shitty weed dealer, but he was great at credit card fraud. He rode us out to hollywood to kill the guy that ran out on a deal. He just wanted us to
keep him from leaving they alley, while hey killed the guy. He intended to kill him with a smiley. He had a stylish fucking smiley too. One of
those round, chrome locks, on a purple dog leash. Never did find the guy, but we did eat steak, and get driven around southern CA all night. At one
point we even drove past Disney Land. That was weird. The last time I was there, I was with my parents, and my brother. Now
my brother was in jail, my parents didn't know where I was, -and probably for the better since I was involved in pseudo-male-prostitution,
credit card fraud, drug dealing, attempts at murder, breaking in and entering, and all kinds of shit I never thought I'd be doing. Eventually we
found ourselves back in Santa Monica, with Key talking about getting a hotel room. I opted out of that one, and convinced everyone to sleep on the beach.
After all, If the cops found out that were using stolen cards, they'd have our address in a hotel. So We walked under the pier right before sunrise,
and Key and another guy pulled their blankets out of the raters, and we walked to a lifeguard tower and passed out under it. I woke up an hour later
when the trucks started combing the beach.
my girl had been coming to see me every weekend. One saturday, she didn't, and I got worried. I called her over and over, and eventually she answered.
I don't remember why she couldn't make it, but she couldn't. After a long phone call, in which we reasured each other of how much we loved each other
I started planning to get back to Lancaster to see her. She didn't know it yet. The next morning I caught the first bus to downtown LA, and hopped a
train headed toward Lancaster. Now I was a hobo too. I got in at about 3 O'Clock, and walked about 4 miles to her house, with a full backpack.
by this time I had aquired a tent, two blankets, an extra pair of shoes, and some clothes and toiletries.
I showed up at her door at around 5, and knocked. She was stunned when she opened the door. She said "Is that really you?" "OH MY GOD!! I LOVE YOOU!"
And jumped into my arms. I spent a few days there, where she told me about how seriously fucked up her family had been to her, and she came to live
in the TR house with me. A few days after that, and we had gotten a couple months worth of fucking out of our system in an abandoned house in two days
We hopped a train back to Santa Monica.
The ride back to Santa Monica was really romantic. We had two backpacks, we were leaving our hometown together to live on the beach, and watching california pass by in front of us. I've always thought there was something really sexy about trains.
We got into downtown LA pretty late. Most of the buses weren't running anymore, so we missed the last express by about 3 hours. So we took the shitty slow ride. half an hour turned into two hours. Eventually we arived on Wilshire and 3rd street, and walked toward second block. I introduced my girl to a few people, and split to go get a 99 cent Big and Tasty. my girl had been a vegetarian the whole time I knew her, but changed pretty quickly when her choices were limited. When I got back, my girl was talking to Chevawn, and her homegirls, that were being all catty and bitchy because my girl was fucking the dangerous edgy squatter, and not them. Bailless apologized for his bitchy girlfriend, and they argued some more. Shortly after, I led my girl to the clearing on Montana st, and pitched a tent I had bought a week or so earlier for 10 bucks. It took way too long, because it was fucking dark outside, and I was missing one tent pole, but eventually we climbed in.
She ahd on brown overalls and these cute panties that said 100% princess on them. We fucked for a few hours, with my girl laying on her stomach, and me entering from behind. We were silly loud due to a mistaken sense of privacy provided from a thin sheet of vinyl for a wall, and I could hear people giggling once in a while. my girl was easily the least punk rock, least gutter punk looking girl around. She was very pretty. At that point I looked pretty damn, homeless. I was clean, but my clothes were pretty well stained and patched. I overheard it being the topic of conversation later, a few times.
When we woke up, we climbed all the way up the stairs (god, there was a lot of them) and up to the sidewalk. We walked to the pier and hung out for a few hours. We met a hippie named Crash, who was making and selling hemp necklaces, and had a gay lackey with him named richard. Crash was easily one of coolest people we ever met. Real nice. Lived real well for a homeless person too. Full bedroll, drank import beer, good weed, and over stayed clean. Not like any other hippie I'd met before. I mentioned that we needed a shower and he told us the only ones open in the afternoon, were the ones tourists use to wash the brine off of them after they get out of the ocean.
We went down to the beach, and right on the side of the pier there's these showers right out in the open. I stripped down to my shorts, and showered. My girl -a 17 year old girl, who probably weighed about 120, and carried every bit of that weight in her tits and ass, stripped down to a racer back wife beater, and showered. I swear to god the whole world stood still when she washed her tits. This guy came to a dead stop pushing a stroller, and his wife walked right into the back of him. It was so fucking sexy. Also kinda creepy, the number of old guys were watching this underage girl in a wet t-shirt. It was then that I realized I had my hands full with keeping this girl safe, and away from creepy old men.
We spent the next month or so spanging, fucking, and living completely fucking care free. Some mornings we'd walk along the beach as the sun rose. Some days we'd smoke a bunch of hash in the park. Or even right on the front lawn at McDonalds. It was almost lawless. As long as we got my girl off the street and into hiding by 8pm, it was like fucking never never land. My friend Dave once told me about an island in Denmark. Called Christiania. It was an old military base that was taken over by squatters, right outside Copenhagen. Denmark is willing to let them act as an independant nation, and won't demand taxes, or extradite anyone. There's an anarchist honor system based capitalism. People primarily just farm and build bike parts when they need money, and just leave what they have for sale out in front of their house. Pay by the honor system. Supposedly the place only has three laws/rules. No guns. No hard drugs. No cars.
Just as I was getting ready to throw away my shoes forever, take up weed permanantly and start hugging motherfuckers, we returned to our campsite in the clearing on the Montana st stairs to find that someone had entered our tents and stolen both our backpacks. Right before El Nino (big storm) was suposed to hit. Someone who was okay with stealing everything from someone who had almost nothing.
I had gone back alone, to retreive my girl's sweater. I had left my girl in the care of hippies at a bookstore, drinking coffee.
I freaked the fuck out. I smashed up a bunch of raggedy ass old railings and generally acted like the savage I really am. After blowing off some steam, I went back to my girl and told her what had happened. I talked to a few people, and found out that some humbum had stolen my buddy mouse's raincoat, and my friend Cataya's guitar. I also found out that the same humbum was spotted messing with my tent earlier.
I knew right where he slept. None of the friends I know who were the type to seek vengeance, were on the promenade. So, I went alone. I found his campground. My fork was there. So was the raincoat, and a few other obviously stolen items. But the theif was nowhere to be seen. I was still full of rage however, so I unloaded his entire campground onto PCH. I then returned what I knew belonged to my friends.
Right about then, we made plans to got to Vegas for the winter. I tried to say goodbye to Bailless, but he was busy getting bitched at by Chevawn.
my girl and I hopped a train back to Lancaster. We spent two nights in the TR house.
There was one morning where I stopped to kiss my girl. We were right in the middle of the desert in front of the TR House. We had our bags at our feet, and we were wearing some patched up clothes. Right after my girl and I stopped making out, our friend Joey Firmwalt stopped us and asked us to do it again. We did. He took a picture for a college art class he was in. I've been trying to get my hands on theat picture ever since.
anyway.... We made it to vegas, where we decided to raise a family, and therefore give up living on the streets. It was in Las Vegas that our daughter was conceived. As soon as winter ended we headed back to Lancaster.
In Lancaster, we shared a bedroom with Brent for three months.
During those three months, I hopped a train to downtown LA. There I met a guy named roch. (intentionally misspelled). He was a puerto rican who was with this girl nazi chic. They weren't like a girlfriend-boyfriend kind of deal. They were road dogs. Which is to mean they don't quite like each other enough to call one another a girlfriend or boyfriend, or remain monogomous, but they still like the sex, and most of all the company. If you have a road dog, instantly anything you have or get, is half theirs. It's a sanity and survival thing. (sex isn't manditory either. There were plenty of hetero same sex road dogs).
Well, one night, Roch and I heard that his nazi girl had started some shit, and was getting her ass kicked. So we ran down to said place where the shit was going down. There we saw her bent over a rail, getting raped. (which leads me to a kinda funny story, I'll tell right after this). So Roch and I did the right thing and stopped it. I don't like neo-nazi chics, but I like rapists even less. So, I broke a law. One of the important ones too. I'm not sure what happened to this person. (Which is part of the reason for my vagueness.) But it wasn't nice. It wasn't how I was raised to deal with bullies. After we tired ourselves out, we threw what was left off of a nearby bridge, and commenced with drinking too much.
Now for the funny story. This actually happened a while prior, but I forgot to mention it... I was sitting on a bench as usual sewing new pockets on my pants when this guy comes up and starts telling me about how every time he walks down the alley on fourth street the same guy jumps out and bends him over a dumpster and rapes him. He asked me what he should do. So, I said, "Don't go down that alley anymore". And he perked up, this lightbulb lit up over his head, and his eyes got ell wide and he says: "yyyyeah! Thanks man!" and takes off. Never saw him again.
But that was the alley where the free bagels were, so I made sure to bring crew everytime I went after that.
While I was out there, some of my homies from before I went to Vegas told me about what happened after we left. Evidently most people found out about Bailless killing Chevawn because Americas most wanted was out interviewing people and stirring things up. Jerry Springer even spent a night in one of my old squats.
Everyone was saying that Bailess had killed her, and that Linus was with him when it happened. But Linus was gone. Everyone said he had gone to Arizona.
A lot of people split the state after that because there was so much law enforcement attention. I bet there was a huge spike in auto theft right then. Everyone was stealing cars. A few people thought they were going to make it to Florida. Some hopped trains to San Francisco. But most everyone I knew got the fuck out.
End. Not really the end, but that's that story.
