Brotherly Love and Alcohol

Wed Aug 21
It was about this time I had a nice, warm, danceable buzz going on and felt no reason to run up my tab. I told Mac to get one last drink cuz I was closing my tab. He begged me not to. He said, "Trebacca wouldn't be like this. Why do you have to be such a little bitch." I couldn't believe the fuck would be such an ingrate. I said, "Look, I'm not Trebacca. I don't have his money, and if you don't like it, why don't you get your own fucking credit card and your own fucking checking account and a learn to manage your finances and grow the fuck up."
He said, "All right, little bitch. It's on. Let's go." He wanted to fight. I was so incensed that I welcomed fighting his big All-Conference sack specialist ass. It was only the Big Sky conference. We growled at each other there in the bar. The bouncers tried to cool us off. Mac said, "It's okay. We're brothers." I said, "Call the cops on this asshole. He wants to fight me cuz I'm closing my tab." They said take it outside. Mac went out to wait for me. When I'd paid my tab, I went out there. How'd it start? He charged me there in the parking lot, and I sidestepped him and said, "Boom!" and gave him a no-contact stunt punch to the side of the head as he went by. He stopped and whirled, charged again, got another stunt punch, and lowered his head to tackle me. I got my arm around his head and pulled it down to my side, but I had him around the ears, and I needed to get under his chin for the lock. He pulled out behind me and buried me face-first in the asphalt before I could turn around. Sitting on my back, he was slapping my head around and shouting, "See, little bitch! See! I could break your neck!" I said, "Go ahead. It'll just make you a bigger fucking loser than you already are." I lunged up, trying to buck his two hundred and fifty pounds off of me. I was able to roll over beneath him and grab his face.
Meanwhile, upstairs in the bar, Peachtree says he was dancing when one of the bouncers tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Hey, your two buddies are out in the parking lot trying to kill each other." Peach came out and found Mac on my chest, with me trying to rip his face off. He ran over and pulled Mac off of me. Mac was in a bull fury now. He went after Peachtree and shoved him in the chest a few times before returning his attention to me. When he did, Peach darted in and kicked Mac in the ass as hard as he could and took off running, Mac right on his tail. I yelled at Peach. "Whaddya gotta go and do that for?" Mac threw a few drunken roundhouses at Peach and me before I got him in bearhug, and he spun out of it and faced me with hate-filled animal eyes.
I said, "This is over a bar tab, Mac. You've got to calm down."
He said, "This ain't over no bar tab. This cuz you a little bitch. A little nickel and dime counting bitch." And then he started talking about a time twenty years earlier when we were fighting at Disneyland, he said, and I had made him cry, and a lady walked by and I said, "Isn't he ugly when he cries?" and she said, "No, but I think you're very mean."
"That was Knott's Berry Farm," I corrected him. Then I told him to stop it. "You're my brother and I love you." I held his face when I said it, and he pulled away and said, "Fuck you and your little black bitch." [referring to Shirelle] "You've gone against the family every way you know how. You don't know shit about love! As of this moment, I don't need you. I've got a dad and a stopmom and that's all I need."

Weak Fishing and Whiskey River

Tu Aug 20
We hiked along down the edge of a cliff to the river. The guy with his family camping next to us directed us across the meadow to the trail. We wound along past piles of horse dung. The trail was narrow and rocky. Steep below us the river ran clean and blue and white. At the bottom we came to a shallow reedy lake and cast in our lines. We reeled in some small ones and let them go. After a while we hiked another mile or so beyond the mile or so we'd already done and came to a bridge over the river. Again, no sizable fish. After less than an hour we walked back to the reedy lake and fished there some more, and then went back up the trail. A dog passed us. We came upon four women our age, small talked with them a little, and walked on discussing our missed oppurtunity. Back at camp, Mac lobbied for another trip to Vons, forty-five miles back in town. I gave him another 30 bucks. We bought more alcohol. We drove back to Minaret Falls, this time. Still no sizable fish. I broke my line on a branch and sat down on the bank to tie a new hook. When I was done I walked a good while bushwhacking through the high thick cottonwood and came to a small calm tributary, where a little brook was leaping from the water, gorging himself on the little flies buzzing above the surface. I reached into my pocket for my can of bait. It wasn't there. Left it back where I'd changed my hook. Dejected, I walked back. I found Mac, and Peachtree and Angel. I got a beer from the chest. We crossed the river on a log and I rolled a cigarette and watched our shadows stretch across the rocky bank until they were overtaken by the larger shadow of the mountain which crept over them as the sun set behind it. We went from there up to Red's Meadow and showered at the hot springs telling Beavis and Butthead jokes while we dried off. Back at camp we cooked hot dogs on sticks over the open fire and heated some chili in a pot and raved over our chili dogs. Then we drove up to Whiskey River bar and restaurant in Mammoth and listened to the band. I ordered myself a bourbon and a beer for Angel. The barmaid's face was bright and warm. I stayed with her through a couple more bourbons. When she went on her break, I sat by the dance floor with Peach and Mac. I asked a Miss Piggy-looking chick if she liked to dance, and she did, so we did. Just one song then she quit on me. I asked her friend if she liked to dance. She was better looking with nicer tits. She said when the mood was right and that at the moment it wasn't. I crossed the floor to two girls sitting by themselves and asked them if they cared to join me. I boogied until I was out of breath. The two girls who had turned me down came out to dance next to us. The band took a break. I drank a few glasses of water. A couple bought my brother Mac a couple shots of tequila, and he went into the bathroom and puked. I had set up a tab and when I came to the bar again, Mac was ordering a couple of drinks for him and Miss Piggy on my tab.

The First Wild Bear I Ever Saw

Thurs Aug 15- Mon Aug 19
Writing from Camp Clear Creek- Angeles Natl. Forest. Thurs. was a pupil free day at school, a frustrating day of meetings

Drove up to Mammoth area with my brother and Peachtree and Angel. We drove all night to Devil's Postpile and the whole place was full. We drove around seventeen miles of different campsites looking for a place to no avail. We had to drive about twenty more miles back down the highway to Rock Creek. We drove up to Big Meadow up near the top of the mountain and it was full, too. So we drove back down to the bottom of the mountain to French Camp and found a spot,the last one, hidden in among some boulders. We got the lanterns going and pitched the tents, and whereas we had been exhausted and irritable (and stoned and drunk), now it was four in the morning and we stayed up drinking and playing guitar and talking. I don't remember going to bed, just the black turning gray and the cold to warm in the tent-- no wait, it was like Joshua Tree all over, it was the same old lady wanted 11 bucks.  Out the tent and went back to sleep until I had to piss and I slept about another hour too tired to get up and piss, and then I did, and I woke up everybody else, and we passed around Granola bars and decided to go down to Tom's Place and call Devil's Postpile to see if we could get a campsite.
The lady on the phone said it was first come first serve, so we packed our poles and headed the twenty-whatever miles back to the Pile and a good-looking ranger named, Debbie directed us to Agnew Meadows number 20, the fishing was supposed to be good there, only it wasn't anywhere near the river, so we drove from Agnew to Postpile, and some of the guys caught some little rainbows, all I did was soak my boots wading along the rock strewn bottom. After a few hours we went back the twenty-something miles to French Camp at Rock Creek and struck camp in a thuderstorm and drove back under big plopping cool raindrops accompanied by the occasional bass drum of the thunder and drove until the storm was behind us and we were again under the sun and Debbie welcomed us back with a "Good job." We had to stop first for beer and shit, etc. Ate chicken wings in the parking lot, gave Mac another 30 bucks on top of the 50 or so I spent on him back in Northridge to get his license and all the beer he drank on the way up. We had taken Peachtree's Sunbird and Mac's Nissan Pick-up after determining that my Toyota was too slow and Angel's tires were too bald. We drove through Taco Bell in Mojave and Mac hit me up for more money for ice, and Peachtree didn't want Taco Bell; he wanted Carl's Jr., so we drove to that drive thru from the Taco Bell drive thru, and Mac asked, "Where are we going next, McDonald's?"
Anyway, back at the Postpile we fished the San Joaquin around Pumice Flats. I didn't catch crap, not even a bite. Angel caught a good-sized rainbow and we were walking toward the spot where he cuaght it when a guy on the other side of the crick yelled across that there was a bear coming "right at us."
A bear! We'd seen one lope across the road in Mammoth the night before; he and his friend, coyote, seemed to have been tearing up the town together. It was the first bear I had ever seen. He seemed to have this big anthropomorphic, wag-tongued smile, but he quickly vanished into the night. This bear now ambled into view and plopped non-chalantly into the river and seemd to be enjoying the idiotic pleasure of the cold mountain water running over his genitalia. I turned around and Angel was gone, only the trout and Angel's sunglasses were in the place he'd been standing a moment before. The bear was small, an adolescent brown'd be my guess. He didn't look big enough to hurt anybody, so I picked up the fish and just watched him until some tourists happened upon the scene and chased him off.
Back at camp, I crawled right into my sack and zonked.

Sittons on Magnolia in North Hollywood

Wed. Aug 14

From Sitton's on Magnolia in North Hollywood, a colony of ants marches up the doorjamb, a loony old street lady with all her bags looks like she knows I'm writing about her, everyone in this place has a tatoo. The guy behind the counter looks like a failed mob sergeant who would at least rather be working in a titty bar. The service is crappy. An eleven-year-old girl with a cockney accent did finally come around after I'd gotten a menu myself and poured my own water. There was a hair in my salad. But the Dodger game is on and everyone's friendly. I think I'll come back next week and try their Monte Christo.

Nothing

Tuesday August 13
Need to call Peachtree about leaving to fish the 15th. They nominated me for a UTLA Leadership Council position after the faculty meeting today. Fuji Rosarito came by to visit my class and observe a lesson on estimation. The kids were all whacked out cuz they got to build stuff with interlocking cubes. I went hoarse trying to get them to listen.
Last night Shirelle was all itchy, shaking up my Richter scale, and sirens were blaring, and the helicopter was fucking around overhead, all about 2:30 AM, and I never got back to sleep. I wrote the first paragraph of my homework assignment. Read the paper around 4. Got ready for school and ate breakfast at IHOP. If that wasn't nasty enough, I went to McDonald's for lunch. Well, there's a little serendipity. I "wound up" parking way the hell across campus so that I could cruise (got the college talk going) over to Ackerman Hall and pick up an extension catalog for fall, butt he construction and my relative unfamiliarity with the campus nudged me at odd angles until I guessed there was no time left, and I was closer to Public Policy anyway, so I just walked up there, guessing I would not be getting the catalogs today, and I arrived just as the instructors Harry Youtt and Judith Praeger were arriving. We walked the last hundred yards to the class together. Judith stopped me at the door, under the impression that I am too harsh a critic of myself and would find more fullfillment if I let go. Maybe. On the other hand, I've let go quite a bit over-often, no? But I did think of my dad. Judith released my elbow. I said, "I'm happy with what I write, but at the moment, I'm more curious what's wrong with my writing."
When we got into the room there was a mysterious package on the table. Judith said, "Uh-oh, a missive from above?" You wonder these days whether or not it's even a good idea to open a package like that at a university.
She opened it.
There were the catalogs. Bah da bing!

I discovered later that I had walked all the way across UCLA with my fly down.

Monday August 12
I got up at five thirty this morning. Shaved and showered in the still dark, ate some bran with raisins and dates, took my vitamin, pecked Shell's cheek and drove off to school. I thought I'd get a lot done before school, but I only read the headlines and the sports page. Still before the end of the day, I changed the bulletin board, counted the trip slips and moved that computer from room 37 into mine. The kids interviewed each other and wrote in the 3rd person, past tense, what their partner did. So many of them wanted to read, they ran into recess. We placed "Close to 100" for math. I went to the Partners in Education (PIE) meeting after school and to the Technology Task Force meeting after that which was a clusterfuck. The traffic sucked on the way home. The signal was out at Hollywood and Highland. I had to get gas and waited at a few different lights through multiple cycles before I was able to get past Hollywood. Shirelle made salmon, and broccoli with ricotta cheese, and roasted potatoes. I've got to go to an AA meeting at the Log Cabin tonight. I've packed a bowl. Do I dare go high? Will I be creative or paranoid. I've got a coupon for 3 dollars off at Blockbuster music. I'm going to buy Lyle Lovett's "Road to Ensenada" on the way to AA.
I did 27 minutes of treadmill while I read over some paper and gabbed with my mom, who was told by Kristin that I wondered allowed what her father would think if she and I went out.
Funny commercials on during the Dodger game.   Should I tell about them? "Somewhere beyond the sea..." the old song plays as three college-age alkies enjoy cold Miller Lites on some exotic tropical beach, and three busty, beautiful babes walk by in slow motion. One guy giggles spit helplessly at the sight of them, and then slams his beer down on the arm of his beach chair and rewinds the women.
What was the other?
My guitar's awk ockward ward. DeShields shoulda made that play. Worrell's in the bullpen now. I need to visit that Ackerman place at UCLA and see about fall extension classes.

"How You Doin', Man?"

Sun August 11
Ellsworth had his going away party last night before leaving for Harvard next week. Kristin sat on my lap for a good part of the night at Hennessey's after we left the party, and she put her arm around my waist on the way there, so I put mine around her shoulders. On the way home in the car, I stroked her neck. She was supposed to have been going down to see Jim, but he was wasted and had had too many people to entertain, so he lost out. You gotta wonder about such a chick. "Johnny, that guy's loaded, isn't he?" she's asked back in Malibu on the Fourth. Her brother called her a gold digger. Mac body-slammed Thing. I gave Frodo 20 bucks to give to Mardi for her birthday and 30 for her to keep for her own. Patricia asked about the CBEST so she can become a substitute teacher. Peachtree left early cuz he was golfing in the morning. Maria drove home. I told the centipede joke a couple times.
In the day , Shirelle and I drove across town to the Southwest Museum looking for a place to get breakfast along the way. We drove east on Olympic and north on Broadway and didn't see much. Finally we stopped at a Colima Mexican place and I had some huevos rancheros and Michelle #29 tamal, taco, and enchilada. Plus she ordered a margarita. The little old lady who was the mesera took a while getting the margarita. After we had eaten, she took a while bringing the check, too. Shirelle whined that she was tired of sitting there. I told her to quit acting like a baby and went back to reading the paper, a story abou the army's presence in keeping stability, rather than the police, which was my exact take after our trip in November. On the way out to the car there was an old black junkie, the grime on his ebon skin making him even darker, shirtless, shoeless (He'd've been unable to get service in 7-11), pants unbuttoned, standing in the ivy below the freeway, poking a syringe into a sore on his arm. I looked at him and he looked at me, and he said in a strong deep voice I didn't expect, "How you doing, man?" Then he asked for some change. I said sorry and got in the car.
The museum was kind of cheesy. There were a few good indian artifacts, but mostly it was a lot of junky trinkets. I did my sketches. Shirelle informed me that she had a job to go to. Now she tells me. I rushed through til I was done. We went home. Carlos came over about four, and later Mac, and then Thing, and we all piled into the Insanity Pepper's Montero and drove down to Manhattan Beach.