"Temporary Reprieve" - Submission #39

Obviously... I didn't do it. I didn't harm myself. Partly because I didn't have the guts to go through with it. But mostly because I had received a reprieve of sorts. I had decided to throw a Hail Mary and ask my mom if I could go out to California for part of the summer. You know, spend some much needed bonding time with my three brothers... chill out at Huntington Beach... maybe attend church a little... try to find myself. 

After days of psyching myself up, I presented my case with passion, emotion and yes, even a few tears. I was desperate. It paid off.

To my utter amazement... she agreed. Miracle! I was heading to California! Far away from my patchwork, dysfunctional family and toxic home life. Far away from the hostility of those whom had once been my friends. Far away from the small, Midwestern town that seemingly did not like me anymore... if it ever did at all.

"One month," mom told me. A one-month vacation in California.

There were a couple negative aspects to taking this trip. 

One... I'd have to miss my sophomore year of baseball, as the Iowa high school baseball season took place in the summer. Under normal circumstances, this would have been a deal breaker. Miss a baseball season? Are you kidding me? But during this season of my life... yes, I would gladly miss a baseball season for this great escape.

Two... the plane tickets purchased included a return trip. The escape would be temporary. The thought of this depressed me... so I tried not to think about it.

As the final days of my sophomore year counted down, I kept quiet about my pending trip to the golden state. I'm not sure why. You'd think that I would be shouting it from the mountain tops. Maybe I thought talking about it would jinx it. Or maybe I thought revealing my plans would result in a stronger urgency for those who wanted to do me harm. Or maybe... I just thought that nobody would care.

I don't remember the exact date, but it was in the month of June... 1975... when I flew into LA. My brother Bill (the preacher) picked me up at the airport. He seemed genuinely excited to see me as he rattled off all that we could do while I was there.

As it turned out, I spent very little time with Bill while I was there... which was ironic given the events that would unfold in the months to come. More on that later.

I chose to stay with my brother, Bob, first. I'm not sure exactly how that choice was made but I'm certain it had something to do with his plentiful stash of cannabis, pipes, rolling papers, hash oil and other related paraphernalia. In my massively misguided thinking, these were key components to my summer "escape."   

Bob lived in the Orange County community of Los Alamitos. The small, 2-bedroom house he rented was crammed onto a small piece of property that held two houses... One in the front and one in the back with a shared driveway. Bob lived in the front. He had no garage and a front yard about the size of a postage stamp. A chain link fence enclosed the property.

Bob worked the swing shift at his job and wasn't home when we arrived. His live-in girlfriend, Ginny, greeted us cheerfully at the door. Ginny was a pretty, dark skinned Latina with long, thick black hair and an ever-present smile. She was cheerful and had such a servant spirit about her that it was almost uncomfortable at times. Very Stepford wife-ish.

Ginny was a waitress at a local restaurant that Bob frequented... the "Casa Castillo," an upscale Mexican restaurant in a busy strip mall on Seal Beach Boulevard. That's where they met.

Ginny was a recent divorcee with two children who lived with their father. Within a month of their meeting, they moved in together.

After a bit, Bill left and I spent the afternoon and evening getting to know Ginny better. Being 16 and somewhat socially awkward, I was pretty uncomfortable despite Ginny's efforts to make me feel at home. She made me the best tacos ever, followed by these huge chocolate chip cookies, fresh from the oven. Man... she could cook!

Bob and Ginny had only one car between them... a Volkswagen Beetle. Bob's shift ended at 11PM and so we hopped into the bug to go pick him up at about 10:30.

LeFiell Manufacturing Company had played an important role in the Munson family over the years. My mom worked there briefly in the early 1960's. My dad was a machinist at LeFiell up until he was stricken with cancer in 1968. My brother, Butch, got a job there right after graduating high school in 1967 and would retire from LeFiell some 48 years later. Bob followed the family tradition, working at the plant for 27 years... until he was let go after testing positive for marijuana somewhere around the year 2000.

Bob came strolling out with a stream of employees promptly at 11, empty lunchbox in hand. Ginny hopped out of the car and jumped in the back seat. Bob settled in the driver's seat, slugged me in the arm and pulled out of the parking lot.

We briefly engaged in some small talk before Bob pulled a hard pack of Marlboros out of his shirt pocket. He flipped it open and thumbed through the content before pulling out a tightly rolled joint. 

"Here we go!" I thought.

Driving south on Bloomfield Boulevard toward Los Al, Bob lit the joint and took a long drag... and then held the smoke in his lungs for as long as he could before slowly exhaling. He handed the joint to me. I followed suit.

Ginny held up her hand and shook her head "no," and so Bob and I passed the joint back and forth until it was almost completely consumed. Bob opened the ashtray, retrieved a roach clip and clamped it to the end of the joint. I finished it off.

Within seconds, I was higher than a kite. I had been smoking pot for a couple years at this point but I had never felt such an intense high as that June evening in Southern California. I felt like I was floating inside the car... like an astronaut floating inside his space capsule.

"What the hell is this stuff?" I asked incredulously.

He told me the name of it. Said it was grown in the deep south of Mexico. It was known for its potency.

Um... yeah.

As if that wasn't enough... we got home and Bob rolled an "oiler." He put some marijuana on a saucer and used a toothpick to mix in some drops of a dark liquid from a small vile. Hash oil. He mixed it together... almost like a stir fry... and then rolled it into a joint using his Zig Zag brand papers.

 

We hit the "oiler" until it was gone... and then I was... gone. Waaaaaaay gone!

Bob had me lay back in his big, yellow bean bag chair and close my eyes. He put some headphones on my ears and cranked up the sound as Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird" blasted my eardrums. The feeling of floating was quickly replaced with the sensation of spinning. I lay there for a minute or so... hoping that the spinning would slow down... or stop. It didn't.  

When I couldn't take it anymore, I quickly sat up, threw the headphones off and threw open my eyes. Bob and Ginny were sitting on the couch... but I couldn't focus my eyes on them because they were vibrating rapidly, up and down. 

I felt sick to my stomach and I knew I was about to hurl. I got up and dashed toward the front door, stumbling and falling before I reached for the doorknob. Bob ran ahead and opened the door as I groped my way past him.

On my hands and knees, I vomited violently into the flower bed. I'm not certain but I'm pretty sure that partially digested tacos and cookies didn't make a very good plant food.

Bob sat next to me with his hand on my back. Every time I threw up, he'd say, "Alright man... get it all out. You're okay. Now you'll feel better." A vomiting coach of sorts.

I stayed on my hands and knees for about 10 minutes... until I was certain that I was done. Eventually, I looked up at Bob and started laughing hysterically and asked, "What's for dinner? I'm starved!"

Wow! If that first night was any indication of what was to come that summer of '75, and it was... this was most certainly going to be a wild ride.

Welcome to California!