Fast Times in Cayucos-By-The-Sea: SAVOIR FAIRE COMES TO HOPPE’S BISTRO

by Dell Franklin

“Cayucos Brad” Heizenrader, or the unofficial mayor and four decades resident of Cayucos, former Rogue of the Month in the former monthly Rogue Voice, observed over the years driving a variety of dilapidated pick-ups with orange cone in the bed used primarily to stake out territory when opportunity arises, and also stakes out territory in Schooner’s Wharf come Friday Happy Hours (a veritable Who’s Who in Cayucos of those who count), will stake out fresh territory as Maitre ‘D under the new management in Hoppe’s Bistro, a gourmand’s destination for decades.

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Now appearing at Hoppe’s Bistro: Cayucos Brad Heizenrader. Photo courtesy of Brad Heizenrader

Cayucos Brad, whose occupations over the years have been bartender at the Tavern and Schooner’s, caterer with Bill Shea’s Sea Shanty, in-demand maestro of ceremonies for various club functions and drawings at the vet’s hall on the pier, promoter of entertainment in said hall, and general handyman whose motto is “I make bad things disappear,” will now try and make bad things disappear at Hoppe’s while creating good things to come with his inner SAVOIR FAIRE so evident to locals.

“I’m ready for this new gig,” says Mr. Cayucos, exuding calm on a raucus Friday evening in Schooner’s preceding the Sea Glass Festival. “I’m into wines and cuisine, big time. I’m ready for a change. I’m excited!”

A dandy, Mr. Cayucos appropriates most of his wardrobe from a few select thrift shops, but will not lower himself below Calvin Klein, Armani, Ralph Lauren Polo, Generra, Van Heusen, etc..”I’m gonna mix it up, nothing too extravagant, don’t wanna detract from the venue,” says Mr. Cayucos, a natural blond who once wore his hair shoulder-length but is now more debonair and dons a simple bracelet and chain and prefers gold or silver cuff links with pink or canary yellow Van Heusen or Armani shirts, designer jeans and red Converse All Star high-tops.

“No tuxedos or formal wear?”

“Oh no. Not yet, anyway. I’ll keep it simple, but elegant.”

“Do you intend to glide about in sartorial splendor, there when needed, but unobtrusive, spreading a relaxing good cheer with the potential of great times for all?”

Mr. Cayucos spreads his arms expansively, a trademark gesture. “Hoppe’s has been a great restaurant, with a great tradition for special occasions and signature cuisine. But it is subdued.” He gestures emphatically with expanded hands. “We want it more festive, like, well, a French bistro in Paris.”

So, citizens of Cayucos by the sea, and those throughout the county who have frequented Hoppe’s over the years, be prepared to be greeted by the charmingly engaging and when needed flamboyantly entertaining Mr. Cayucos, branding his unique charisma on a county institution. §

Dell Franklin is founding publisher and a regular contributor to The Rogue Voice. He writes from his home in Cayucos, where he lives with his rescue dog Wilbur.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE

I’m a little more careful now when I hear someone claim this as paradise. Photos by Stacey Warde

I’m a little more careful now when I hear someone claim this as paradise.

by Stacey Warde

I walked head first into a tree limb at work this week. It threw me back hard, flat on my ass, and stunned me. Shaken, embarrassed, flattened, rolling on the ground, a huge gas blower strapped to my back, blasting leaves every which way as I tried to shake it off, I thought: “I don’t want to do this any more. I don’t want to be a middle-aged gardener sucking gas, eating dirt and picking up other people’s dog shit.”

I like garden work and much of what I do, at the farm and with the landscape outfit, but some days events like this can put things in a different light. It can set you on a downward spiral if you get too much of it. Or, you find some humor.

Nonetheless, I need to be working smarter, not harder, as my dad used to say, doing more of the things I like to do, like this magazine.

I’d flooded the customer’s back yard. I couldn’t figure out how to turn off the water. I had just patched a water line, which was easy enough. Then, I had to test the patch, run the water,  and check for leaks. The line was fine but it took me 20 frustrating minutes to turn the damned sprinklers off. By then, there was a nice pond forming under some trees and in the grass.

After shutting off the sprinklers, I threw the blower on my back, flustered, and began blowing back excess water from the tile patio so no one would slip or fall. I started on the leaves and they scattered everywhere. I couldn’t get the leaves to go where I wanted. They went up, they went back but never where I wanted.

I hate blowers. They’re a nuisance and they stink and they scatter dust. I wear good ear protection, the kind that look like headphones. They can be awkward at times, they feel clunky and heavy, especially when worn over a ball cap but they do a great job of keeping out the noise.

I put my head down and went at it, ears covered, eyes blind to low-lying tree limbs, feeling badly about the high-pitched whine of the blower and flooding of our client’s back yard. Soon, I made a trip around the perimeter of the yard going between rose bushes, shrubs—and trees—blowing leaves until I walked headlong into that one limb. It snapped my neck back and left a big red gouge in my forehead. My neck, shoulders and back still hurt.

“Maybe you need your eyes checked,” said Ray, my workmate. It’s the second time I’ve heard that. Not long ago, when I started washing windows for the Dutch Window Cleaning Artist, he chided me: “You must be going blind! Look at that!” He pointed at a window that I had cleaned that had a large smudge line running down the side.

“In a different  light,” I said, tilting my head as if looking at a painting , “you can really see it.”

Indeed, in the past year my eyes have been more faulty than ever. I probably need to wear glasses more often. It might also help to pay better attention to events as they unfold, like aging, retirement and working smarter.

The previous week, while tricking out a client’s garden, I got bit in the ass—twice. First, by the client, then by her skittish dog, a medium-sized mutt that had it in for me. Dogs like me. The only dogs that don’t like me are the ones that shouldn’t be outside. I might have seen it coming, had I been paying better attention. The lady was mad and rightly so, I thought. The boss had been avoiding her calls.

“I’m not mad at you guys, I’m justing venting…” she said tensely, and right about then I saw a flash of black out of the far corner of my troubled, middle-aged eye and before I could react, I felt the sting of a dog’s bite on the back of my thigh.

“Gawd!” I yelped, grabbing my lower right butt cheek, which had been punctured by the sharp point of that mid-sized mutt’s lower canine.

My workmate guffawed and the lady failed to hide her sadistic enjoyment of her dog biting my ass. She didn’t put the dog away and I grabbed fast hold of a rake and shovel. The dog eyed me from its owner’s side. I set the rake like a spear on the ground between me and the dog.

“Don’t think I’m going to let you do it again,” I said to the mutt, “I’ve got my eyes on you now.”

When I got home, I took tweezers and pulled the black fabric of my work pants, dried blood and skin out of the puncture wound. I cleaned it out the best I could and called the doctor the next day. He ordered a five-day regimen of antibiotics.

“This prescription can give you a bad case of diarrhea,” he said, “so be sure to eat lots of yogurt.”

Between running into a tree, stepping in dog shit, and getting bit, I’ve been thinking a lot about what else I might do for a living. I want to publish, run a magazine, write stories, shake things up again, just the way I did when The Rogue Voice was a monthly print journal. I want to grow my own garden, one that doesn’t have to be trimmed, mowed and blown in 30 minutes. I want to open a brewery and grow my own weed.

So I started this online magazine. The Rogue Voice 2.0. The Rogue Voice on steroids. The Rogue Voice online. Finally. Now, if I step into a pile of dog shit while working, I’ve got something to look forward to at the end of the day, something to cheer my spirits.

Not everyone’s happy about it. Readers might not like what they see here, but our content will always be relevant. In less than two weeks, we received nearly 1,000 views, about half of which, including a few complaints, were directed at a poem titled, “Small Town Gossip in Paradise” by Ibrahim Ahmed. The poem puts a different spin on a refrain we hear often in these parts: “We live in paradise, don’t we?” “We sure do!” Which would be mostly true were it not for a few people who live here, and for a recent murder, several suicides and a handful of drug-related deaths.

Photos by Stacey Warde

Photos by Stacey Warde

You could say, there’s trouble in paradise. Troubles that go beyond getting bit by dogs and running into trees. Suicide, murder, and drug overdoses—in a town of less than 5,000 people, living otherwise peaceably and happily between the wide open spaces of green hills and the vast blue Pacific ocean, where there’s presumably hardly ever a care or worry, no traffic, noise or big-city mayhem. Still,”the little town that time forgot,” despite claims to the contrary, appears to suffer from many of the modern-day plagues and problems of LA and San Francisco that people come here to escape.

I’m a little more careful now when I hear someone claim this as paradise. I’m not sure what they mean beyond the weather and spectacular scenery, none of which has to do with the people who live here. The food can be heavenly at times and there’s plenty of it, lots of farms, produce, fish. And the people, mostly, are great. They work hard and like to celebrate. Some are givers. Others are snakes. Still, others are deeply disturbed.

“It’s people,” I’ve been reminded more than once, “who make or ruin ‘paradise.’” It’s not the place, friends have said, it’s the people. They’re the ones who create the problems and the misery. Maybe these big-city problems like murder and suicide are not that uncommon for small communities around the country. They sure make for some interesting conversation, some of which is featured in Ibrahim’s poem:

“Did you hear
about the guy who hung himself from the pier?

At the crack of dawn there
he was hanging from a rope

dangling between the
pile ons like a shadow

above the ocean where
the pigeons leave their droppings.

Did you hear the lady
from Fresno who, after

several drinks shouted,
‘You guys are so lucky; you live in paradise!’?”

I’ve never been able to confirm whether anyone actually hung himself from the pier, although several residents have assured me that it’s true. Since then, there have been other suicides, and overdoses.IMG_4091

“Killing yourself is pretty fucking selfish, if you ask me,” said a fellow laborer at Schooner’s Wharf, which overlooks the same pier, a kind of icon for our little paradise, as we drank a beer and discussed the passing of Brad Marz, a local contractor, whom I considered a friend, who would have loved that poem and was a frequent commenter, not always favorable, on the content of The Rogue Voice. By most reliable accounts, he put a nail gun to his head and ended his career. Hardly a week later, a young man named Jesse put handgun to his head. “You gotta suck it up,” my bar mate continued, lifting his glass, “or get some goddamned help.”

I wouldn’t be so quick to pass such judgment and was too ashamed to admit that I’ve been so demoralized at times in my life that thoughts of suicide have erupted in my mind too.

“The only people it hurts,” he added with finality, “are the people left behind.”

He’s right about that. I’m one of those people. Brad’s decision to take his own life floored me, as it did others. It got me thinking about what I’m doing and why. If nothing else, his death is a reminder that for all of the dog bites, piles of shit that I’ve stepped in, and tree limbs I’ve run into,  there will always be trouble in paradise, which is more reason to do what I love, be with the people I love, and work smarter. §

Stacey Warde is publisher of The Rogue Voice.

SMALL TOWN JIHAD

“You want blueberry, you tell me what is blueberry.”

“You want blueberry, you tell me what is blueberry.” Photo by Stacey Warde

by Isaac Levy

I’m trying not to be like most everybody else in this country since 9/11 and control myself when I feel like strangling this Arab who works at the gas station/store/deli/bakery on the corner downtown, just off the pier. At one time this establishment was owned by a greed-monger from New York City who was married to an even more aggressive greed-monger, who has moved out of the area after selling out to Arabs, who, if humanly possible, are hated even more than the greed-mongers from NYC, especially after they bought our only two liquor stores from long-standing white owners who were not hated or jacked up prices and fired all the long-established white townies who were barely competent yet at least pleasant and replaced them with morose, unsmiling, downright rude relatives from the homeland.

I don’t go to the liquor stores, but the blueberry muffins are so delicious and reasonably priced, I visit the bakery at the gas station mornings to purchase my lone muffin, which is about as much money as I want to contribute to these bloodsuckers, and especially the swarthy, lean-faced, surly young guy who works the register at the front counter from opening at 6 in the morning until closing at 9 in the evening. He’s usually on his cell phone conversing in Arabic, looking worried and solemn, and he’ll wait on you when he pleases without making eye contact or saying thank you, making a show of taking his time, appearing oblivious to the forming of a line of restless, impatient customers, many of whom need him to go behind the glassed-in counter across the room about 10 feet away to fetch muffins or donuts or croissants or pastries prepared in the wee hours along with breakfast burritos by a Mexican woman who seems exhausted but remains friendly and used to stay until 10 in the morning to wait on people and say thank you with a smile when we dropped change or a dollar into the glass jar with the TIPS sign on it.

But I guess the new owner, who comes in a couple times a day to empty the register for a deposit without looking at or saying anything to anybody, cut the Mexican woman’s hours and has no new landsman to help out his current standoffish uncommunicative relative.

Before the hated New Yorker sold the place he employed a local brother/sister act who baked and cooked and their pastries were voted best in the county in the county alternative paper but the Arabs kicked them out and replaced them with the Mexican. The Arab who works seven days a week does not like to come out from behind the counter and always expresses irritation with me I suppose because I never buy coffee or anything else but a lone muffin. He reluctantly goes behind the glass counter of gleaming goodies and stands there looking crucified, with a little open bag and asks which is the blueberry when I suspect he knows which is the blueberry and especially so since all I ever order is the blueberry muffin. “You have to know the blueberry,” he tells me.

“YOU have to know which one is the blueberry,” I tell him for the hundredth time. “They must be labeled and priced.”

He says, “What do you want?”

I remain polite because I try to see things from his perspective, a Muslim propagandized by voodoo gibberish and marooned in this rich country rife with hedonistic degenerates on every social level, obsessed with garish consumerism, kinky sex, narcissism, exhibitionism, reality programs full of obscenely wealthy women with fake boobs and bulbous lips and mousy husbands and tiny pampered dogs and empty-eyed offspring, repellant jingoism combined with money-sucking Christian TV evangelists and their chanting trance-like minions—an endless tapestry peopled by a diet-crazed fat farm of feeble, drug-addicted hypochondriacs complaining about free health care and Obama. Is there any end to it? So I can see why this wretch is disenchanted with us, but still, he’s taking our money with a sneer and nobody bothers to take that sneer off his face.

“I want a blueberry muffin,” I repeat, raising my voice.

A couple file in behind me. “I don’t know what is blueberry,” he insists, holding his bag. “You tell me blueberry.”

“How am I supposed to know blueberry when I don’t make them?”

His mouth narrows, his eyes flash. “You want blueberry, you tell me what is blueberry.”

A couple framers, in a hurry, dusty trucks running outside, walk in. “I don’t know which one is blueberry! Last time I came here you had me pick one out and it wasn’t blueberry, it was chocolate chip! I don’t want chocolate chip. I want blueberry. A couple days ago I was in here and you were stacking candy behind the counter. You made me wait six minutes while you very slowly finished, knowing I was waiting, and then you did me a big favor asking me what I wanted when you know I come in here at least five mornings a week for a blueberry muffin, and you act like I’m sending you to the fucking gas chamber when I ask you to go back there and get me a fucking blueberry muffin. Is that the way you treat people back home? Huh? Answer me!”

He throws up his hands in frustration, as if dealing with an impossibly stupid person, yet remains cool as a few people in coats and ties trickle in. “You want the blueberry? I don’t know what is the blueberry.” He points to the muffins, so neatly arranged. “You tell me what is the blueberry.”

“I DON’T KNOW WHICH ONES ARE BLUEBERRY!”

A small, retired, white-haired lawyer who walks two Schnauzers and knows me by my dog, says, “Isaac, I’m not sure, but I think those ones in the third row are blueberry.”

“How can YOU tell?”

“Well, they look kind of purple on top.”

“Twice I picked up purple on top and they were chocolate chip.”

“I see your point.”

“Why doesn’t Mohammad here have labels?”

“My name is not Mohammad,” snaps the Arab, aggrieved.

“Fuck you, Mohammad, you piece of shit.”

Mohammad walks out from behind the glass counter and stands behind the register to take money for coffee from a framer. Several people are behind me, addicted to the delicious pastries facing us. My teeth are clacking. I walk over to a rack of chew and candy beside the register and pummel it, knocking items to the floor. “Why are you here, motherfucker? Everybody hates your guts.” I point a finger. “I’ve put up with you for a year now, because you have the best blueberry muffins in the county, even if they’re not as good as the ones before you wrecked this place, but as of now, I will never come in here and buy another motherfucking blueberry muffin, you sonofabitch, because half the time I get a chocolate muffin or an orange muffin, or a goddam raisin muffin, which I detest….”

The lawyer has me by the elbow. “Isaac…”

“I’m not finished yet.”

“Come on, Isaac, you’ve made your point.”

Mohammad goes back behind the glass to wait on trade. It’s early and none of these still half-asleep people want to be shocked at this hour, want only their muffins and pastries and coffee.

A woman says, “I’d like a lemon poppy muffin, please.”

“What is the lemon poppy?”

“You don’t know?” The lawyer and a few others try to help. Mohammad crosses his arms, appears bored. I walk out. I will now have to frequent the Coffee Den on the main drag, where the blueberry muffins fall apart in dry crumbs and don’t taste as good and cost more but at least everybody treats me like a prized citizen even if I don’t buy their coffee.

At night, when I walk my dog downtown, I will still see Mohammad standing outside by the pumps either smoking or on his l phone, and I will no longer feel sorry for him because he seems so alone and miserable in this country people risk their lives emigrating to. §

Isaac Levy is former Mossad and hates jihadists, not Muslims or Arabs. He lives alone in a small town where no one knows his real identity.

Flunkers @ the DMV

CULTURE.FLUNKERS.one_way_sign_rightby Dell Franklin

I’m 70 years old and flunked the written DMV drivers test. I didn’t bother to study for it and felt I knew the answers and flunked it badly, a disgrace for a guy who’s never been in a wreck and hasn’t had a ticket in 25 years and drove a cab for three years. You’re allowed to miss three out of l8 to pass. I missed six. I was handed the DMV manual and told to study it and come back when I was prepared.

I put it off in a couple weeks. I was intimidated by the complicated, purposely deceiving questions and felt persecuted by the bureaucrats trying to trick me. I am easily deceived and confused these days. My mind is no longer acute. My confidence has waned. Still, I read good books and ran a literary journal and have been told I can maintain an intelligent conversation with educated people, especially in bars after a few drinks.

I browsed the manual the night before driving from Cayucos to San Luis Obispo, Calif., 20 miles away, on a day I also play basketball in a gym there at noon—a priority in my life. I arrived early at the DMV and instead of taking the test right away, sat and studied the manual for an hour, infuriated that those sadists accumulated l00 pages of bullshit to absorb and remember.

Feeling doomed, I accepted the test from the same woman who’d flunked me before. Almost immediately, on the second or third question, I was fulminating at multiple choices that were seemingly the same but worded again to trick a person with a perfect driving record who should’ve had his license mailed to him instead of experiencing this humiliation. I was muttering and cursing in the little enclosure, avoiding answering certain questions, answering the few easy ones, then returning to the ones confusing and deceiving me and pissing me off. I ended up trying to use my common sense and instincts and handed the test over to the same woman, who immediately began checking off wrong answers.

I again missed six. I was grinding my teeth.

“I could take this damn test ten times and flunk it,” I railed at her. “This test is designed to trick me. I’m a good driver. No wrecks, no tickets, perfect. What am I supposed to do now, for Christ’s sake?”

She was not one bit ruffled from my fusillade, whipped out information on a computer and handed me a sheet of paper—a date to take another test, along with a renewed temporary license.

“Some people  have problems with the written test,” she explained. “Just show up at 8:l5 and you’ll take it orally with another group of people who have the same trouble as you.”

She briefly scrutinized me. “You’ll do fine, sir.”

Well, I was so rattled I showed up a week later on the wrong day, waited in a line 30 minutes before discovering my idiocy. I went and played hoop, a person competing against men half my age, can sink a shot from 22 feet, out-smart my opponents, and flunk a simple drivers test a l5-year -old could pass in a breeze.

I showed up the following morning. Right off I recognized my fellow flunkers. A middle-aged native American with braided hair and a scowl sat beside an obese white woman. A white-haired lady frantically studied the DMV manual and fretted. An employee in the hive behind the long lines yelled out at her: “Mrs. Russo, did you report in?”

She peered up from her manual. “Uh…yes.”

“Okay, Mrs. Russo!”

A rotund woman around 40, perhaps Latina, also studied the manual. Her sweatshirt displayed a row of a dozen booze bottles followed with the words, l2 STEPS—THERAPY WORKS. A white-haired man with a neat goatee, dressed preppie in a red sweater vest, arrived, peered around, sat down, peered around, stood, gazed around. The woman in the hive yelled, “Mr. Webster, have you reported, sir?” Mr. Webster reported. So did I. I sat back down. A tall, stooped, white-haired man, at least 80, checked in, using a cane. He was morose. A young wild-eyed girl with hummingbird energy checked in. I sat clenching my teeth, knowing if I flunked this test I should probably turn myself into social services and question whatever I was doing day to day. A middle-aged woman led in another geezer, this one in worse shape than the white-haired man who stood against a wall grumbling.

The woman in the hive yelled very loudly at us: “ALL THOSE TAKING THE ORAL DRIVERS TEST, PLEASE FOLLOW ME!”

We all stood and followed her into a room with a long table and padded chairs, the kind of place you see in movies where corporate henchmen grill and terrify sycophants. Mrs. Russo was disoriented and struggling with her chair. I quickly pulled it forward and seated her. She thanked me, panic in her eyes. “I’m no good at taking tests,” she confessed. “I never have been.”

“Me neither,” I said, not telling her I once aced tests in college.

The tall, white-haired geezer was told by the woman in charge to sit down, but he seemed too pissed to do so. I pulled a chair up for him and he nodded at me and sat down, and Mrs. Russo righteously declared, “There’s a gentleman in the house.”

I glanced at the Indian man beside me. His ball cap indicated his tribe. He was still scowling.

The lady in charge handed us a sheet of paper with l8 true/false questions and two extra sheets with street signs. The first question, which she delivered very loudly, was, “True or false? If you come to a flashing red light at an intersection, you slow down to see if it’s safe, then drive through.”

The white-haired geezer couldn’t hear her. She walked over to him and screamed out the question. “Christ,” he muttered, shaking his head. “False. Anybody knows that.”

“Please, sir, do not repeat the answer out loud!” She was not angry.

“Okay, sorry,” he muttered, grimacing.

The blanks for questions 5 and 6 were blacked out. When we came to these questions, she said, “The answer to question number five is on your sheets of road signs! The first question is, which sign is a ‘one-way street’? Place the number five beside that sign.”

I found an arrow pointing one way with the words “One Way” on it and placed a 5 beside it. The goateed guy on the other side of me was confused. So was the lady with booze bottles on her sweatshirt. The lady in charge patiently went over the question with them. Somehow this tolerant woman made it through all l8 questions. We made for the door, the Indian out first, me behind him. In line, the old white-haired geezer was behind me. He was very tall. While the gloomy Indian was being processed, the white-haired goat seemed to loom over me. His lip curled up to reveal a false teeth sneer.

“This whole goddam thing, the goddam test, it’s a goddam crock of shit,” he told me.

“You got that right,” I agreed.

“I’d like t’ find the assholes made up these tests and wring their goddam necks,” he added.

“You’re not alone,” I told him.

“Hell,” he growled. “I was a goddam cop for forty years. Never had a wreck!”

“LAPD?” I asked.

“Naw. St. Louis. My hometown.”

“Hell,” I said. “I’m real familiar with St. Louis. I used to work on the riverboat, the Delta Queen, on the Mississippi. We docked down by the arch.”

“That was my territory. For twelve years!” he exclaimed. “That was a rough area. We cleaned it up.”

“St. Louis is in the World Series,” I said.

Before he could answer, a man in another line down the row, said, “I was just in St. Louis and saw a playoff game. The Cardinals won. I’m from St. Louis, too!”

The old goat said, “I was a motorcycle cop.” He pulled out his wallet and withdrew his old police ID card and showed it to me. It was from the l950s. Patrick Riley. 25 years old. 6-foot-4, l80 pounds. A handsome young officer with those uniforms with a strap over a shoulder. “I came out here fifteen years ago. I’m 87 years old. I got quick-bowel syndrome. You think it’s fun driving from Paso Robles and back, taking these stupid tests when I might crap my pants, for Christ’s sake!”

“I hope that doesn’t happen to me,” I said. “I’m 70, still playing basketball…”

He squinted at me. “Why, you don’t look a day over 50.”

“Thanks, sir. I was beginning to think I’d lost my looks as well as my mind.”

He grinned. “Me, too.”

I was up next. I handed my test to the same woman who tested us. I watched her breeze through, never checking off any wrong answers. Perfect score.I lingered to see that the old ex-cop geezer with quick-bowel syndrome and a constant grimace passed. He did, but didn’t seem any more relieved than when he came in. Walking out, I saw Mrs. Russo, at the end of the line, biting her lips, clutching her test. I felt as if a massive cloud had been lifted from my being. For the time being….§

Dell Franklin writes from his home in Cayucos, which he shares with his dog, Wilbur.  He’s a regular contributor and founding publisher of The Rogue Voice.

Crazy comes to Cayucos

And suddenly there I was left standing alone, the deputy off to who knows where, and the crazy guy raging pissed off at me.

And suddenly there I was left standing alone, the deputy off to who knows where, and the crazy guy raging pissed off at me. Photos by Stacey Warde

by Stacey Warde

We get our share of crazies passing through town. I met one not long ago at Kelley’s Coffee and Espresso Shop, not long before the place closed down. Right away he took a dislike to me—and to just about everyone who crossed his path.

The sheriff’s deputies had earlier informed window washers on the job across the street that they were looking for a scruffy fellow wearing a plaid jacket. Not an easy task in this town. There are a lot of scruffy guys wearing plaid jackets around here.

Apparently he had been spotted waving a stick in a threatening manner at the middle-school up the road, pretending he had a gun.

As one window washer, who had come in for his coffee, described the character, a man, a stranger fitting the description, passed by the window of the coffee shop. “That’s him!” the window washer exclaimed. “That’s him! Should I call the cops?”

“You bet!” I responded just as a squad car drove by the intersection. I rushed out the door and flagged down the squad car.

The deputy turned the car and came back. He rolled down his window. “That’s your guy right there isn’t it?” I nodded.

“Yeah,” the deputy said, offering a look of irritation. He rolled up his window and drove away.

And suddenly there I was left standing alone, the deputy off to who knows where, and the crazy guy raging pissed off at me.

In this climate of gun crazies blowing children to smithereens I figured that I was doing the right thing. “Here’s your man, the one who was waving his hand like he had a gun at the school yard.”

“You got something to say about me, you say it to my face,” the stranger said.

“OK,” I answered, “apparently the cops are looking for a guy whose description you fit to a T, a guy who was seen menacing the children, like he had a gun up at the school.”

“Say gun again and you’ll be sorry,” he threatened.

“The police said ‘gun,’ not me.”

He stared at me menacingly. “Stare into my eyes!”

I snorted a smirk, trying not to laugh.

COMMENT.CRAZY.IMG_4055“I thought so,” he said, as if he’d judged me an easy target, a weakling. Then he followed me to Kelley’s. We sat out front at one of the tables.

I didn’t want him to feel threatened or challenged or bothering the other customers. I kept watching for the deputies to pull up any moment.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

He stared me down again, said he was from Oklahoma, asked me if I’d ever seen the bloody Arkansas River.

“No,” I answered. “How did it get bloody?”

“From people I took care of.”

“Are you telling me you’re a killer?”

“Just keep pushing me,” he threatened.

Where are the damned deputies? I kept wondering.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

No answer.

“What’s your name?”

He got up and walked away, rattled. Clearly he was insane and maybe even a buffoon but I didn’t know that. From our brief encounter, I deemed him a threat to me and to the community. Even faking waving a gun at children warrants a response.  Apparently, the deputies thought otherwise, despite what they had told the window washers.

I went inside the coffee shop and moments later he came back and sat outside the window facing me, staring at me, giving me the Jedi mind control treatment, disturbing other customers.

I can take care of myself but I didn’t feel like getting into a scrape with him. I just wanted to finish drinking my coffee, reading the newspaper, unmolested by someone who belongs in an institution.

I felt annoyed and threatened. He caused concern among customers and staff. He reportedly made threatening gestures at the school. “He gives me the creeps,” an employee said.

Meanwhile, despite word from the deputies that he had threatened students at the school, he continued to roam free.

Finally, after nearly 30 minutes of staring me down through the window, he came in to borrow the shop phone, saying he had been robbed.

“Sorry, the phone is out of order,” a staffer said.

He went outside and got hold of a cellphone from one of the cyclists who stop in for coffee treats on their road trips up and down Highway 1, the same road that brings the crazies through town.

He called the sheriff’s office on the borrowed phone to report that someone had swiped a Rabobank pen, a freebie the bank gives its customers, from his jacket pocket. The deputies investigated, determined it was a false report and hauled him off to jail.

An arresting deputy said, “Mental health is the problem in this country, not guns. We’ll take him in, have him evaluated.”

The next day, the stranger was back, mad as ever and still raging and threatening.

He pretended again as if he had a gun, this time holding his hand behind his back, while confronting Kelley, owner of the coffee shop. She called the deputies and made a citizen’s arrest.

As the deputy pulled away, the nutter in the back seat threw his head in a jerking motion, lips pursed, as if he was spitting on me and Kelley through the shop window.

He’ll likely be back. Then what? And what about the deputy who left me standing there to confront someone who had been reported seen menacing the children?

I felt exposed and vulnerable, not protected by the deputy’s response to my willingness to help. Later when I mentioned it to another deputy, he seemed perturbed, didn’t want to discuss it.

“We’re too busy,” he said. “I wasn’t here yesterday. I’m here getting the story.”

“I’m part of the story,” I said. He gave me a look, irritated.

“Why is that guy back here?” I persisted. “I thought he was going to be evaluated.” The deputy was clearly more irritated than interested in my questions or my side of the story.

Law enforcement’s response to my willingness to help did little to assure me that they’ve got my back. I felt exposed, unsafe and unprotected by lending my hand to the deputy.

The next time law enforcement seeks my support, I’ll think twice, wondering if the deputy’s action will leave me exposed to threats and danger from those they seek. §

Stacey Warde is the publisher and editor of The Rogue Voice. This article first appeared at his blog, Rogue’s View.

Small town gossip in paradise

did you hear?

photo by Stacey Warde

Did you hear
about the girl who gave a blow job,

a one-night hookup, in the restaurant bathroom
downtown, and now the guy’s girlfriend

refuses to enter the coffee shop next door,
or even look that way,

where the little whore works
on the weekends?

Did you hear
about the cute waitress who did a porno,

which would have been ok
(because everyone does it now)

if she hadn’t done it
with that slacker

who sits in front of the liquor store
and smokes cigarettes all day?

Did you hear
about the lonely single mom, a “nooner,”

who likes to go
home and fuck for lunch?

(If you’re not doing
anything around noon time

you might get lucky.)

Did you hear
about that loser who got high on marijuana

and cough syrup and killed his grandmother
(accidentally, he said)

stuffed her body
into a suitcase and threw her

off a cliff in Big Sur?

Did you hear that
before they arrested him he got on

the school bus
to pass out flyers to the children

to help him find his missing grandma?

Did you hear
about that crazy old joe

who answered the door
with stick pretzels hanging from his nose

when the cops came knocking?

Did you hear about the clown,
loose in the head they say,

who got his revenge
by rubbing his manhood, balls and all,

over the glass door of the corner
wine bistro on its busiest night?

He gave quite a show
“swabbin’ it real good,” they say.

Did you hear about the martial
arts world champion

who got pummeled by
a bunch of drunk cowboys?

How his girlfriend got whacked
on the head with a cowgirl’s purse?

Did you hear
about the guy who hung himself from the pier?

At the crack of dawn there
he was hanging from a rope

dangling between the
pile ons like a shadow

above the ocean where
the pigeons leave their droppings.

Did you hear the lady
from Fresno who, after

several drinks shouted,
“You guys are so lucky; you live in paradise!”?

—Ibrahim Ahmed

LIFE IN THE CAGE: Another day, another hustle

Hillbilly Bob had a 'clean' hustle at the California Mens Colony. Illustration by Gene Ellis

Hillbilly Bob had a ‘clean’ hustle at the California Mens Colony. Illustration by Gene Ellis

by Tito David Valdez Jr.

California Mens’ Colony, Medium Security, 1999

I started off my day, just like any other morning, with hundreds of hungry men walking anxiously up a flight of stairs, single file in our prison blues, to enter the large chow hall. At the end of the cafeteria-style line, plastic trays slid out of a rectangular hole, simmering with the day’s slop.

I sat down at an unoccupied table to eat my entrée, which consisted of bland powdered eggs, oatmeal, two thin flour tortillas, pinto beans, and mystery meat, which was supposed to be sausage links. Two miniature packets were provided as condiments: a taco sauce and state-issued coffee.

“Hey dog, can I get that taco sauce?” Jamie, a white lanky inmate in his late forties with a tattooed bald head, hollered at me from his position in line nearby. He was known for his dragon breath from drinking too much coffee and chewing tobacco at the same time. “You know I’m poor, dog,” he added in an effort to make me feel sorry for him.

“Nah man, I’m going to use it on my eggs, give it some flavor,” I replied.

“Can I get your coffee, dog?” he asked, sounding like a transient trying to bum a dollar.

“Sure.” I tossed the packet of state coffee to him in hopes he would just leave me alone. He caught it. I could hear him begging other inmates at the next table as he worked his way up the line. “Hey dog, can I get your coffee…?”

One of the three empty seats at my table was soon filled by Sleepy, a youthful Chicano with tattoos all over his body—symbols of criminality and rebellion. His prison blues were freshly pressed; he smelled of Mennen aftershave lotion. His prison boots glimmered with a spit-shine polish.

“Hey homey,” Sleepy said, “that vato Jamie, he sells those coffees. He doesn’t drink them. Gets a dollar for thirty packets.”

“Really? I always see him with a coffee tumbler in his hand, I assumed he drank coffee.”

“Nah, he drinks nothing but jailhouse pruno. That’s one of his hustles to pay for his alcohol habit. He is a beggar without a conscience. Man, he never brushes his teeth. Have you ever gotten close to him?”

“I already know, man. Just look inside his tumbler, the stains…looks like the bottom of a riverbed, full of algae.”

“Yeah holmes, he is on biker status,” Sleepy chuckled.

A kitchen worker named Spanky approached us from the back of the serving line and handed Sleepy two items.

“Here homey, for the spread tomorrow night on the yard. Two onions. Just get me a mackerel at the cantina on first draw,” said Spanky, an overweight bald-headed young Chicano wearing a kitchen apron.

“Horale. Can you get me some tortillas?” asked Sleepy.

“Yeah homey, but you know I got to charge you. Dollar for twenty. I don’t have a pay number, and this is my hustle.”

“I’ll take care of it.” Sleepy put the onions in his pocket.

“That’s a good deal — twenty for a dollar. The canteen sells them ten for a dollar-fifty,” I said.

“Yeah homey, I always deal with Spanky. If you ever need onions, tomatoes, cheese, bell peppers, oranges or ketchup, you know, for making pruno, he is the man.”

After our meal, we walked out of the chow hall together and noticed three guards talking with a black inmate inside a holding cage, stripping him out. He was on his way to the hole.

“Sleepy, can you see who it is?”

“Yeah, that one mayate…they call him Pookey. He’s the vato I buy my gambling tickets from every weekend.”

“Oh yeah, I know him. He always wears the do-rag and lots of jewelry. I didn’t know he ran the gambling pools.”

“He probably got busted for one of his many hustles, someone probably ratted him out,” said Sleepy.

“Every man has to have some kind of hustle in here. Pay numbers are low, even for those who work a full shift. How can a man survive on just eighteen dollars or less a month? I sure can’t,” I said.

“You know what my work supervisor told me homey, who has worked here for the last twenty-five years?”

“What?”

“The rate for prisoners’ pay hasn’t changed since the 1970s. Still seventeen cents an hour. Ain’t that a bitch?”

***

I first met Pookey when I arrived at the California Mens Colony, a medium security prison in San Luis Obispo, California. He stood up on a bench of the bleachers facing the baseball diamond while nearly thirty inmates approached him to obtain something he was passing out.

He was in his late thirties, always wore a do-rag on his head, African American, tall and lanky, a chain smoker.

“Get your TV guides, just a Top Ramen soup!” he shouted with a raspy voice.

Inmates rushed him like paparazzi, Top Ramen packages in hand, dropping them in a laundry bag in return for a piece of paper typed with information on both sides. I approached him with curiosity.

“Excuse me, what kind of TV guide are you selling?” I asked.

“My friend, you must be new here. Here, take one on the house,” he said smiling, exposing his missing three front teeth.

I glanced at it, seeing that it was nothing but a computer printout of television programs for the week, printed on a copy machine.

“How much do you charge for this?”

“A soup a week, or pre-pay me and get four weeks for only three Top Ramen soups. I deliver each week’s issue right to your cell, if you subscribe.”

“You must make a killing!”

“I get by. Just trying to get my hustle on. Do you like porn?”

“Yeah, what do you got?”

He opened up his legal folder, pulling out three manila envelopes, each had a different magazine: Hustler, Barely Legal, Swank, and Cheri. “For you, my friend, all three, just ten dollars,” he said with a smile resembling Eddie Murphy. “Do you got any coffee,” he asked.

“In fact, I do, two jars of Folgers. I’ll be back.”

Within minutes, I returned, buying the magazines with the coffee. I rushed to my cell and hid them under my mattress.

Later on that evening, right after dinner, I saw Pookey on the yard, hustling something else.

“What are you selling now?”

“You know those two jars of coffee you gave me?”

“Yeah.”

“I broke them down and am selling dollar shots. I can make ten dollars out of a five dollar jar.”

“That’s brilliant! You got to show me more of your hustles. I find it interesting,” I said.

“Let’s take a lap around the track. I’ll show you all the hustles that go down in this joint. Just observe and listen.”

***

We entered building three and in the shower area there was a white guy washing clothes in a bucket. At first glance, anyone would think he was a gay boy. He looked feminine, thin, delicate.

“You see that white boy over there,” said Pookey, pointing to him. “They call him Maytag. He will wash your clothes for fifty cents an item. Skid-marked boxers, one dollar. You won’t ever find me washing a mothafucka’s boxers, but he don’t have no shame. He pulls in a good hustle, about two hundred dollars a month. Lazy mothafuckas around here won’t even put their dirty clothes in the laundry bag to send it to the institutional laundry each week.”

“Damn, that’s a lot of money! Not even the few privileged inmates in PIA [Prison Industry Authority] make that much!”

“You’re right! They work their asses off all day, like slaves, and make about a hundred a month making license plates, boots, and furniture.”

We walked outside of building three and saw an older white man, digging through the huge trash bin. The bin reeked and flies could be heard buzzing around.

“That’s Hillbilly Bob. He looks for potato chip bags and the plastic wrappers from the hoagie rolls we get in our sack lunch. He makes jewelry boxes and women’s purses, sells them for twenty dollars each. Inmates send them to their daughters or wives.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Check it out.” We walked toward an older overweight Mexican national inmate nicknamed Wesos, who was listening to ranchera music on his Super III radio while drinking coffee and sitting at a table. He had four beautiful jewelry boxes and two purses for sale. Each item shined like expensive jewelry as the setting sun reflected in its recycled material.

“He sells them for Bob, on commission. He amigo, what you want for those?” asked Pookey.

“For you, twenty dollars, my friend. You buy two, only thirty,” he said in broken English.

I picked up a jewelry box to see the craftsmanship, original, handmade from nothing but trash. “Excellent work,” I said to Wesos, putting the box back on the table.

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” said Pookey.

We continued to walk around the track and entered the dimly lit recreation shack. Inside, we found Brad, a white inmate with long hair, resembling a stoner, who was painting a nude woman while glancing back and forth at a page from Playboy magazine. A Super III radio blasted the rock band AC/DC’s “Back in Black.” The room reeked of cigarette smoke.

“Brad here sells these original paintings on the internet through a third party — an art gallery — for five-hundred dollars a piece,” said Pookey.

“Wow, how does he get that much? People in society can buy something like that for ten dollars at a Wal-Mart or Kmart,” I said.

“He gets that kind of action because they are autographed by Charles Manson. You see at the bottom corner, Brad simply stencils in the name ‘C. Manson’.”

We exited, walking around the track. A black inmate approached us wearing light blue hospital scrubs.

“Yo Pookey, you still want to see the dentist tomorrow?” said Malcolm, who was about 6-3, 250 pounds, looked like a college football player.

“Yeah, put me down. I’ll take care of you later,” replied Pookey.

“Alright homey, be looking out,” said Malcolm.

“What’s that about?” I asked.

“You know, getting to see the dentist or any doctor around here takes about three months. I gots a toothache right now. I gave him five bucks, he puts me on the list to see the dentist right away.”

“Good to know. Does he deal with anyone other than blacks?”

“Homey, he deals with anyone who has green. You gots money, he will even bring you band-aids, cotton swabs, anything you can think of, directly to your cell.”

Along came another inmate, a short blond-haired white guy named Rick, carrying several items, hidden underneath his jacket.

“Hey Pookey, here’s your ice,” said Rick, as he reached below his jacket, pulling out a plastic bag.

“Thanks, man. Take care of you later.”

“Alright man, don’t forget, you owe me three,” said Rick, reminding him.

“I got it, don’t trip.”

“What’s that about?”

“I hook him up with dollar balls of coffee. He brings me ice from the main kitchen every evening. He only charges two dollars a week. Nothing like a cold soda with ice while watching a prime time sitcom. You dig?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright homey, I’m out for the night. Talk to you later,” said Pookey.

On the way back to my cell, I laughed out loud, thinking of Hillbilly Bob. He made a living committing crimes while free and in prison he had been reduced to making women’s purses.

***

After about six months at the Mens Colony, I observed the hundreds of hustles of many men. I learned that the most profitable and best hustles were those kept secret, but even those were exposed because in the joint everyone knows each other’s business.

I met up with Pookey, after the evening chow, in building three, first tier.

“Yo Dave, see all those mothafuckas standing next to Cedric’s cell, cell 119?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Dead giveaway. They all fronting Cedric off. They forget this aint the streets, po-leece see everything that go on around here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look now, white boy Ray, he is bringing his color television set to Cedric’s cell. It’s like the homeboy shopping club. Traffic in and out of that cell all the time.”

“OK, I get it. It’s like a crack house.”

The top hustlers in the game were easy to spot. They tried to be low-key but always openly displayed their royalties, wearing bling: Rolex watch, gold necklaces, rings with diamonds, expensive designer sunglasses, clothing and tennis shoes the average inmate can’t buy in the prison vendor catalogs. They went out of their way to say, “Hey, look at me, I’m cool.” Such blatant in-your-face attitude catches the eyes of opportunistic guards or jealous inmates who would rat them out for an extra roll of toilet paper. The best hustlers basically tell on themselves.

“Yo Dave, I want to show you the kingpin of all hustlers. The man is right here, hanging with us in the joint. See that big black guy smoking a Cuban cigar, surrounded by the entourage of men?”

“Yeah, isn’t that the rap label producer?”

“You got it, Suge Knight, founder of Death Row Records. He is selling a dream to all us niggas that anyone from the ghetto can be a superstar. He no different than a preacher man or politician.”

“Yeah, but Suge is a multi-millionaire.”

“So is minister T.D. Jakes.”

***

Three months later, I caught up with Pookey on the yard.

“Did you hear what happened to Cedric? I heard he got busted.”

“Yeah, goon squad hit his cell. They found a DVD player with twenty porn movies, cellphone, cash, even women’s panties…heard he was playing the female art instructor up in Education,” said Pookey.

“Wow. How can someone accumulate that much stuff under the radar?”

“It’s all about hustling, homeboy. Manipulation. We all human. Everyone has a price or weakness. When you were on the outs, didn’t you ever want to be a rogue, a rebel, break the rules, like steal something from work?”

“I’ve been very tempted.”

“In life, you got to takes the risks if you want to get ahead. You can’t get ahead in here if you relying on a rat ass state prison pay number. Shee-it, a closed mouth can’t get fed,” he said, his body animated, speaking with his hands.

“You got a point.”

“Being in here ain’t no different than being free. Everyone in the world is hustling and when you doing wrong, you already know the consequences. But you ain’t thinking you going to get caught. You think you are special, invincible. The world is yours, like Scarface said.”

“You know man, from all the hustles you have shown me, I gotta give respect to Hillbilly Bob and Maytag. They got honest hustles. Doing something positive and productive. Just like you. Everyone else, they are sealing their fates, getting busted is the only outcome.”

“People forget where they are at and how they got here. That brings me to the oldest hustle in history,” said Pookey.

“What’s that?”

“See Tanisha over there?” I looked over and saw a very feminine long-haired African American queen standing by her cell door. She wore altered jeans made into shorts, cut high in the crotch, custom halter top white blouse, red lipstick made from Kool-Aid, her chest pushed out showing off her implants.

“What does she charge?” I asked.

“Don’t know, never went there, but damn…she got ass.”

“Yup, looks just like a woman.”

***

Two months later, four goon squad officers were in Pookey’s cell with a K-9 dog, a German shepherd. In just minutes, the dog came out wagging his tail, a high-priced Michael Jordan athletic shoe in his mouth. An officer grabbed the shoe, giving the dog a treat and started tearing the shoe open with a knife. He discovered a medicine baggy full of white powder. The officers gave each other a high five. The dog barked with excitement, started going in circles, chasing his tail. His trainer gave him another treat.

An hour later, they walked out of the cell with four plastic bags full of property. Cellblock Officer Ruiz, locked up all of us in our cells and spent four hours taking inventory of the rest of Pookey’s property, carefully placing it all into cardboard boxes. Pookey had about 300 canned tunas, 200 sodas, and 500 Top Ramen soups, among other things.

After dinner, the dayroom and showers were open. I caught up with Sleepy, who was waiting in line for the shower.

“Horale, holmes. Another one bites the dust.”

“What’s the word?” I asked.

“Same shit as always. He had cash money, cellphone. Heard he was hustling the female dental assistant up in medical.”

“I always thought Pookey had a positive hustle. I never made him out for being that guy.”

“He just bumped up his game. Trying to come up. You know, when you think about it, we always fuck everything off ourselves in here. We don’t even get oranges, honey, or sugar anymore, due to the pruno makers.”

A white inmate named Rod approached me, interrupting our conversation. He was about 5-4, balding, mid-50s, and wore bottle-thick glasses, which magnified the size of his eyes.

“Hey Dave, I heard you type up 602 administrative appeals. Can you type this for me? I’m appealing a disciplinary write up where I was found guilty of ‘staring at female staff.’”

He handed the papers to me. I looked at the write-up; his arguments took up about three pages. His defense was that he was cross-eyed and on Thorazine, a powerful psych medication.

“Yeah, I can type it up for you. One dollar per page.”

“You take stamps?” §

Tito David Valdez Jr. writes from the minimum security Correctional Facility in Soledad, Calif. David can be reached by email at davidv@inmate.com, or by mail: Tito David Valdez Jr. J-52660, CTF Central E Wing Cell 126, P.O. Box 689, Soledad, Calif., 93960-0689. Visit David’s MySpace at www.myspace.com/prisonerdavid or go to www.inmate.com for information on David’s case. This article originally appeared in the print version of The Rogue Voice.