From San Francisco to Humboldt Redwoods State Park (part 3)

Paranoia, oh how I love you. You mix so well with prudence, wild accusations and my visually inclined imagination. I have learned to live with you over the years, by and large you might even temper me... But when you get loose, you frisky bugger, you take my breath and vision with you. Jeer me as you might, with unfounded fancy, I fear you might never leave... My world whittled down to your fitful visions.

Bob's sneer stoked my sense of suburban paranoia. He left me wondering, was he playing off the hipster kid in front of his friend, did he mean me bodily harm or was he just a cranky cantankerous coot? If he made good on his offer would he merely load me up with intoxicants? Perhaps he would instead render me unconscious and make off with my pack... or find creative ways to invade my orifices. What if he suggested this route because he had other folks who would do his dirty work, this rugged deceitful Don of Opieville.

I was thoroughly unsettled by the time I made it to the frontage road. It was obviously time to split up my worldly cash bearing goods between pockets, crevices and bags. I sat down as casually as I could, mixing and matching cards and paper, in the hopes that if I was robbed I wouldn't lose everything.

Rummaging and shifting I noticed that for nine in the evening it was surprisingly dark. Atsi Road was utterly bleak, save the light spilling over from the freeway. Could it be that 30 isn't the new 20 but the new 50? Why can't I see? I dragged my eyes from this end of the sky to that and finally realized this was the beginning of a new synodic cycle... No moon at all, all night long.

I briefly rethought my willful foray into uncertainty. I could remain in Cloverdale, possibly overnight, and try to work something out... I could amble up the tracks and dismiss the overbearing voice in the back of my head... How could I slink back into the gas station, head hanging and shoulders slumped, because I chickened out (who else could tell me where to spend the night). I've fought with my outlandish paranoia all of my life, but never with something as potentially life altering as this. What about all of those stories you hear, where the protagonist didn't follow their gut and was suddenly thrust into the overplayed "Man in Hole" plot? Well, they didn't have over-active imaginations and didn't spend their life with these idiotic visions... My assumptions were patently ridiculous. Or my self-determination was being unreasonably heady... Either way I decided there was no turning back.

Atsi Road is fairly nondescript, freeway on one side and farms and fields dotting the other. My double shot and paranoia dictated my pace. All the while, I imagined Bob happening upon me, far from prying eyes and ears. My assumption was that even if he intended to do me bodily harm he might not be a sociopath. I found solace in my verbosity and pleading eyes, sweet talking him was a possibility. Once his greed was tempered by my suave meanderings he would make off with my pack and I would be left with a bit of cash and my sovereignty as a sexual object.

In no time at all I was slipping on the gravel mound the tracks ran along. For the time being I was satisfied with my surroundings, an open field full of California's tall golden grass. If anyone was going to ambush me, it wouldn't be here. It turned out the honeymoon would be short lived...

Where Atsi Road and East 1st Street meet I have two choices. I can throw in the towel and forget this feckless route was suggested and try to bed up for the night. Of course by this point I've only walked one mile and my sleeping options would be limited to ditches and fields... The exit off 101 offered no one but residents a reason to derail their travel plans. My other option was causing me great consternation, because before me stood an arboreal tunnel, nothing more than a silhouette of trees and the tracks.

With a healthy dose of trepidation I began plodding along the tracks. I soon realized it was impossible to see much more than five feet ahead of me. With this I muttered aloud, "jesus fucking christ, you must be kidding." I blurted it out because the sound of something familiar seemed in order... As I finished consoling myself I noticed the white outline of a human torso within my limited peripheral vision. I very quickly realized this shape was attached to a head, and that head was fast asleep, no doubt dreaming of bountiful dumpsters and unending fountains of booze. My chest squeezed so tight my heart bounced off my uvula and sank into place. Bob was no longer atop the list of things my skittering mind could entertain me with.

Bob and the hobo chased me down the tracks while I contemplated my next obstacle... As the freeway parted from the tracks the ground rose before me. My metal guides disappeared into the densest thatch-work of blackness I'd yet seen. Nestled in the middle of this dizzying bleakness was a tiny pin prick of light, just enough to ensure there was some end to this tunnel. I squinted at it, hoping to discern what was on the other side, but it was merely shapeless and light. By now I assumed I had walked no more than a paltry two miles, if anyone were following me this was an unacceptable amount of space between the two of us. I poked my head into the tunnel and hesitantly said, "Hello?" I paused respectfully and asked again. Listen as I might, there was no indication of my imminent death.

With each step my peripheral vision closed in on me, I was being engulfed by this yawning tunnel. The best I could do was inch along, settle my gaze on the hole at the other end and gulp shallow beaths... The utter stillness left the air thick and worthless. Everything stuck to me just as the darkness did.

But what about the other end? What about the middle!? I might rustle another homeless guy or even step on one. Was I stepping on guano, maybe a bear made this tunnel its home? Oh christ, what if I kick a cub and suddenly I've got a maternal paw to the jaw? For all I know that bewitching light could be a barrel of fire surrounded by angry hobo vampires, looking for something more palatable than feral dogs and twitching squirrels.

I began to drag my feet instead of walking. If there was something that might mean my mortal end I wanted to see it head on.

By and by I began to emerge from the sightless tomb, no worse for wear. The cool breeze of the evening air left me laughing at myself.

My fear bewildered me to such a point I was completely incapable of scrounging up any rational thought. I could have easily used my phone or lighter to illuminate the way... I probably could have climbed the fence separating me from the freeway... None of these thoughts occurred to me until I recounted the events later.

I managed to walk about seven miles that night and by the time I stopped there was an indeterminably deep stream running between me and the freeway. I felt I had put enough space between me and my unfounded fear, unfurled my sack and quickly passed into slumber under a pleasant sea of stars.

From San Francisco to Humboldt Redwoods State Park (part 2)

Much as I loathed the idea, I decided to regroup by slurping a double shot from starbucks. Over at the local shell station a friendly cashier was working (much nicer than the pimply teens at starbucks, texting their friends). Diane is a long time local and her friends drop by to chat before heading home for the night, because that's about all there is to do. One of her friends, whose name I didn't catch, has two boys, 18 & 19. They regularly walk the length of the town and back, four whole miles. They help the straggling homeless folks find spots to hide from the cops... How many homeless people are you going to run into, in a town of 10k?

Bob rolls up on his bicycle, leathered from the sun, long gray hair in a pony tail, an overgrown fu-manchu and an unopened bottle of Jim Beam grain alcohol peeking out of his back pocket. He was stumbling, grumbling and I was expecting him to step on me. Getting Diane and her first friend to talk was pretty easy, but opportunities to interject were far and few with him. When he noticed a local cop getting coffee at the starbucks he told us that's where charges will be detonated, I chuckled. With a frightful jerk he began directing more energy my way.

Poor Bob has been stuck in Cloverdale for the last twelve years, because he was voted out of his previous domicile. In his unrelenting bitterness, he tells me, "I shoulda pulled a Hitler and stayed." His two cars, motorcycle and atv are stuck in his driveway because three counties suspended his license... But he won't run? I don't know what he won't run from but he's staying put. He's not going to be chased out of this one horse town by Opie and his band of idiots.

Bob knows of camping spots around town, the difficulties hitching out of Cloverdale and the tracks that run next to the freeway. When he mentions the tracks my ears perk up... Fifteen miles to Hopland, the next town up. They've got their very own Indian casino there! According to Bob four stops north on the freeway it's a new county and a new world... Milk and honey dribbling down the golden slopes of lonely rickety hickity California. To hear Bob tell it you'd think a small mob of suburbanites left Marin County, skulked northward, and wound up stranded in northern Sonoma County... Clogging the roads with their stuffy airs and mid-ranged cars. Just on the other side of that invisible line, it's the wall that stopped a hundred mortgage brokers, Mendocino County. A mere four miles north of Cloverdale, everyone's disposition changes... But, why? I assumed it was the bright lights and loose morals of the casino scene.

I can see myself walking those fifteen long miles. As I near Hopland a glitter on the horizon, the bright lights of civilized salvation... High rolling hippy freaks, hotels, masseuses and rejuvenating foot baths. Cheap stucco plastered onto edifices melting in the summer heat. The Santa Anna winds chipping away at the earth toned buildings... Paint chips and dirt dancing in the gusty pink dusk. Grateful hippies rolling their battered vans up to valet, strolling in, bandannas and head scarves wistfully flowing behind them. Cheap eats and easy slots.

After a day or two recuperating I would easily find a ride and finally explore the Redwoods. Vegas and Atlantic City, casino cities, informed my expectations. The city-state, Sho Ka Wah Casino, is an oasis like so many other native gambles.

Geographically and generally incorrect as it may be, this spurred me on.

On the tracks I can expect to run into homeless folks, feral dogs and tunnels... Bob might even meet up with me on the tracks, get me stoned and give me some alcohol. Bob is now becoming an ominous figure, is he trying to help me or himself? Meet me? On the tracks? He'll take his atv, so he can catch up. Now he's chatting with a friend, picking up a 6-pack of MGD... I shook his hand, thanked him and set off, imagining I'd noticed a sneer of contempt on his face.