Charlie........The Final Chapter

Ever been to Oildale or Bakersfield in the middle of summer? Well trust me , it's pretty hot. The sweltering heat and Lena's yard, which was basically packed dirt and the occasional sprig of brown grass seemed in perfect keeping with one another. Charlie on the other hand seemed oblivious to the heat. I say this because he walked out of the house in a leather jacket. And just in case wearing a leather coat in 90 plus heat didn't make him stand out enough, there was the color. Remember in the early 80's when people thought natural colored, yellowish leather coats looked good? Well they were wrong, and 10 years later, Charlie was even more wrong for wearing a yellow leather coat in Southern California in the middle of summer.

You don't have to be exceptionally intelligent to be a criminal, but you need at least a smidgen of common sense. Like any other occupation, from dishwasher to brain surgeon, common sense is a prerequisite. Shows like Americas dumbest criminals highlight dumb people doing retarded shit. Charlie would be of that caliber as a criminal. He gets in my car and we hit the 5 for a two and a half hour drive to Los Angeles. Somewhere around 30 minutes in to the drive, I remember looking over at this guy, my friend, and thinking I must be insane. He still had his coat on, and big ass mirror sunglasses, I recall they reminded me of southern cop glasses from a bad 70's flick. I drove a dark red Lincoln at the time, red interior, and here is this knucklehead sitting beside me, all bright and yellow, holding god knows how much. I felt like there was a giant flashing arrow pointing directly at my car.

I remember asking him why he was wearing the coat, and making a comment about sticking out like a giant douche bag at a dick convention, or something along those lines. He told me that it was inside the coat, I naturally assumed he meant it was sewn in the lining or something. I remember he unzipped the coat and opened it up, there were two packages , one in each inside coat pocket, about 3 inches or so stuck out of the top of each pocket, like little loaves of bread in shrink wrap. Yeah, I know. I asked if that was it, was that all he was going to do to conceal it, just zip his yellow coat up and act natural. He gave me the old, I know what I'm doing routine, so I left it alone.

I recall pulling up to the curb at LAX, I know I asked him if he was sure about this, of course he was. I think I asked him if he had money for a cab and food, and I seem to recall he snickered a little when I asked. It's been a long time , so maybe I'm just second guessing, but that's how I remember it today. I'm sure I breathed a sigh of relief as I pulled away from the curb, leaving the Ralph Cramden of the drug trade behind me, no doubt believing the whole ordeal was over. I was wrong.

About 3 hours after dropping Charlie off, I had taken care of my business and made it to my motel in Redondo Beach where there was a message waiting for me. It was from Charlies mother. There was a problem, actually a couple of problems. I had told Charlie to call me when he made it home. I had told Charlie where I was staying, but not his mother. I almost didn't call her back, but curiosity got the best of me. She told me that Charlie called her collect, he had missed his flight. Could I pick him up? I told her I'd pick him up and drop him off at a motel or the bus station, after that I was done. She told me he was at a gas station on La cienega About 2 or 3 miles from the airport.

When I pulled in to the gas station I saw him on the pay phone. His yellow jacket was gone. His clothes were filthy, and he had grass or weeds in his hair. I pulled up behind him and rolled down the passenger window, and yelled his name. He dropped the phone, took the 3 or 4 steps to my car, and dove through the window. He somehow managed to get the majority of his body scrunched down in the floor board , while simultaneously telling me to go, like we were being chased or something, which we clearly were not. I pulled out on to La cienega, and told him to sit up , which he finally did. I have no way of knowing how truthful he was being with me. I do know that drug induced paranoia will make people do some silly shit, and Charlie was no exception.

First of all he was really high, spooked and sprung, out of his mind high. This is what he told me as I drove back to my room. He bought a one way ticket to Kansas City and had about an hour before his flight left. He said he was really nervous so he went in the bathroom and did a little bump just to calm his nerves. I don't know if he did speed or coke, either way it didn't calm his nerves. According to Charlie while he was waiting to board his flight people started staring at him. Probably the yellow fucking coat and bugged eyes. By the time he got within a few people of going through the security screeners, he was certain they were on to him. He broke ranks from the line and did an O.J. Simpson Ala' Hertz rent a car commercial, running through LAX. I asked him where the coat was, he told me he threw it in a trash can. With a straight face Charlie asked me to take him to go get it. I ignored that, and asked him why he was dirty and had weeds and shit in his hair. He explained that he hid in some bushes somewhere between the airport and where I picked him up.

There was no way I was taking him to get his coat, I was done. I told him I'd take him to the bus station and asked if he had any money. It was in his coat as well. in fact unknown to me up till then, Charlie told me he had several thousand dollars in that coat. Not a dime in his pocket, everything in that yellow coat. He had bumped the price up on the guy he owed. So Charley in his infinite wisdom had put everything in the coat. I took him to my room, gave him some clean clothes, made him look semi normal. I gave him a hundred bucks and dropped him off at the bus station. On the way he begged, pleaded, and even tried to cry. The last thing he said to me before he got out of the car was along the lines of "some friend you turned out to be". I was thinking the same thing myself.

The end to this story is anticlimactic. I left charlie at the bus depot, pissed off and paranoid. I don't know if he went back to retrieve his shit. I don't know what happened to Charlie. I heard he stayed in Oildale and ended up catching a drug charge. Rumor was that he muled some dope for the Mexicans and got caught. I do know that he stayed away from Kansas City, which was probably the single smartest thing he ever did. I cant say I miss the Charlie that he had become, drug addicts don't make very good friends. I have often asked myself why I ever got involved in that mess. The best I can answer is to say this. I did it for the old Charlie. The Charlie I remembered from my childhood. The one that got picked on and smelled like pee. But that Charlie was long gone, in his place was just another wigged out dope fiend. I never looked back.

Charlie.... Part 3....

Okay, at this point you may be questioning the type of person I am. Being involved in fraud is one thing, now I've thrown drugs in the mix. I can feel my stock plummet as I write. All I can tell you is to read this story to the end, and draw your own conclusions. When writing about my unsavory past, I made myself a promise to just put it out there. I'll change names, leave out certain details, etc., all in the interest of covering my own ass. Aside from that, I'm not going to lie or try to make myself sound like a Hollywood version of a good bad guy. This ain't Oceans 11, that Robin Hood-esque criminal life doesn't exist. I've got a long list of things I wish I could do over, but that's not an option. So what you get is what it was. No sugar added.


Charlie Part 3...........................

Charlie was buying his way out of a major maiming at the very least. He was given a certain amount of money and was to bring back a certain amount of product. Charlie already had a connection through his mother. And just for the record it wasn't the white trash slim fast that his mommy dearest was slinging from her cracker condo, I would have smelled it, and really it doesn't matter what brand of poison he was getting, it's all bad anyway. I never touched it or in anyway came in contact with it. The original plan was for me to pick Charlie up in Oildale after I went to Los Angeles. At some point on the drive down, midway through Colorado, Charlie had informed me that he was going to fly back. Prior to 9/11, and this was way way prior, it wasn't hard to conceal something and carry it to wherever you were going. To be honest, I thought it was a bad idea, bad for him, but good for me, I thought it was a better idea to remain mute.

I picked Charlie up at his sisters house. Lets call her Lena. Though I have known her from her diaper wearing, pre-peeled onion days, I cannot for the life of me recall her first name. So we will call her Lena. Being dragged under that truck, not only peeled her cap down to the bone, it broke a bunch of shit as well. The end result was that Lena's wig tilted one direction, and the other side of her body was tilted the other direction. Her stance reminded me of a mime doing his blowing in the wind shtick. She always looked like she was leaning,.... thus Lena. When Lena answered the door I tried to focus my vision over her shoulder. I always felt uncomfortable when I had to talk to her. If I looked at her face, I was afraid she would think I was staring at her fucked up wig, if I looked down from her face, I couldn't see past her crazy, clown car milk cannons. The last thing I wanted to do was give her mixed signals. I stared at the giant framed Wolf/Dream Catcher picture on the far wall. I mumbled something about telling her crack head brother to bring his ass on, and went to wait in the car.

When Charley high stepped and twitched his way out to my car, I almost drove off without him. The only thing worse than chauffeuring a semi retard to his deal, was chauffeuring a high, completely sprung, semi retard to same. But I just wanted to get it over with, probably the same thing many of you are feeling regarding this mini series. Anyway, he directs me outside of town to some Almond orchard. They grow almonds in that area by the ass load. Where you have California farms, you have Mexican workers, and not all of them are making their money ensuring you don't run out of blue diamond smoked almonds.

We pulled down a long road that ran alongside an Almond grove, until we finally came to a little cluster of crappy looking houses. Charlie went inside, while I sat in my car, marvelling at all the aftermarket shit these guys had bolted on their new pickup trucks. Not for nothing, but I also kept my engine running and my eyes glancing up to the rear view. Had anything gone wrong, charlie would have been ass out and on his own. Loyalty and friendship don't extend to getting shot or killed. Surprisingly, all went well. Charley reappeared and we headed back to my motel. From there Charley had his sister, the lovely Lena pick him and his shit up, I wanted neither of them near me until we left for LAX the next morning.

***** That's it for this installment. I'll be back Monday with another installment. By Tuesday we should be putting this thing to bed.***

Charlie........... part 2

If you havent read part one read it now

The story Charlie fed me was at least 50 percent bullshit. I knew that from the git go, dope fiends, especially coke heads will lie when the truth would work better. So when Charlie lamented that he had been burned by a guy in a deal, I knew it probably meant that Charlie had gone on a binge with someone else's stuff and money. Knowing that he was being less than truthful about how he got in this mess, didn't mean I wasn't believing the part of the story about him being in big trouble. I knew he was in trouble, I could hear it in his voice. So I did what you were supposed to do for a life long friend. I agreed to help, in a limited capacity.

I am sure there are worse things than driving the better part of two days with a coke fiend. I doubt there are many things more annoying. Charlie wouldn't or couldn't, shut up. At some point during the drive I managed to block out his bad breath and babbling. We made it to Oildale. Before I get in to Charlies scheme, I have got to spend a little time on Charlies people in Oildale. Truth really is stranger than fiction, trust me, I'm not making this shit up.

Charlies sister owned a house in one of Oildales' many rundown subdivision. Best I could tell, all of Oildale was run down. Sometime in the early 1980's she stepped out in front of a delivery truck, drunk as Cooter Brown. The truck drug her about a half block. While it didn't kill her, being drug under a box truck for that distance didn't do her any favors. She lost about 3/4 of her scalp, and the hair attached to it. She got a pretty fat settlement, the proceeds of which purchased the house she was living in, humongous breast implants , and a collection of wigs, cheap wigs, that always seemed to sit a little off kilter on her scuffed up melon.

The first thing I noticed upon pulling in to the driveway, was a private security company car sitting across from her house. Charlie informed me that the home owners association hired the security company to harass his family. Translation, they were there to take notes and share them with the local police. When Charlies sister got her settle she bought her house, she also bought Charlie, another brother and her Father new Harleys. Charlie took his bike back to KC, sold it and snorted the proceeds. She also wanted her mother to live close by. Houses aren't cheap, but 5th wheel campers are, at least in comparison to a house. In the backyard were two well worn 5th wheel campers. Charlies parents lived in one, while the other was used as a guest house.

The first thing we did was walk around back to his moms place. I hadn't seen Charlies mother in at least 10 years. My memory of her was that she was a big woman, easily tipping the scales at 300. The woman who opened the screen door of the 5th wheel was reed thin, a buck O five tops. Charlies mom had lost about 2/3 of her former self. While she had undergone a dramatic change physically, her demeanor was the same. Most mothers would greet their child with a hug, glad to see them after a long absence. Charlies mother took one look at him, rolled her eyes, unlatched the door, and walked away. Her name was Betty. She was a first class twunt, and treated her son much the same as I imagine a lioness treats one of her cubs, right before she eats it. I never liked the fat Betty, and the new skinny Betty was just as unlikeable, there was just a lot less of her to dislike.

Now would be a good time to mention that this all took place in the middle of summer. I honestly cant recall the exact month. I just remember it being hot when we left Kansas City, and really fucking hot when we got to Oildale. The inside of the hillbilly bungalow on wheels was neat as a pin. Charlies dad was watching soap operas at one end of the trailer, he looked up long enough to say Hey, then went back to the TV. As neat as the trailer was, I couldn't help but notice the smell. The place smelled like cat piss. Betty had taken a seat at a small table that was connected to the trailer wall, it looked like it probably folded down for storage. She had a big Tupperware bowl in front of her. She had a slightly yellow powder on her hands, the table had some on it as well. When Betty informed her child that she wasn't "turnin him loose with no dope", things became crystal clear to me. The major weight loss, the cat piss smell, the big Tupperware bowl. I told Betty it was nice to see her, and asked Charlie to come outside to get his things out of my car.

After Charlie retrieved his crap from my car, I left for Bakersfield, took care of my business, and checked in to a motel. I was to return the next afternoon, for what I thought would be my last dealings with Charlie and his fucked up family.

Only the most naive of readers have yet to figure out that Charlies trip to Oildale involved drugs. The problems with the drug business are unending. Moral issues aside, it's just a bad way to make money. The people at the top of the Drug Food Chain are ruthless, they are also rich. As in all big business there is a trickle down theory in the food chain. The guy in the middle makes a lot less money, but it's still a considerable amount. The people Charlie owed fell somewhere in the middle, Charlie was a bottom feeder. I stayed out of the drug trade for a multitude of reasons. I wont bullshit you, my reasons weren't of a moral nature, they were of a self preservation nature. In the drug business there is always someone willing to rob and or kill you for your stuff. There is always someone more than willing to tell on you if they get caught. It's a losing proposition.

In the movie Body Heat, there is a scene that takes place between William Hurt, the lawyer, /arsonist, and a young Mickey Rourke who plays a professional arsonist. Hurt is getting tips from Rourke on how to burn down a building. Mickey says to the lawyer, " Anytime you commit a crime , there are at least 100 things that can go wrong. If you can think of 50 of them, you are a genius, and you ain't no genius". By now we all know that Charlie was far removed from being a genius, just short of needing to wear a football helmet and weaving brooms for a living. Being involved with this guy, made me almost as stupid as he was. What you need to understand is how I came up. I have had maybe 3 close friends in my life, Charlie was one of them. I really believed that you stuck it out, you didn't leave your friends flapping in the wind when they were in trouble. Laying in that shitty Bakersfield motel room, I knew just as surely that this would be my last time to bail Charlie out of a mess....................

To be continued

Charlie

I made a decision when I first started this blog, that I would refrain from writing about actual crimes I was a party to. This decision wasn't based on fear of being charged, that part of my past is far behind me, hanging out with the Statute of Limitations. I've read a couple of blogs by guys who talk about the dirt they did. It comes off sounding like bragging. It also comes out sounding contrived, if not complete bullshit. So I wanted to avoid making myself look like a bigger waste of space than I already seem to be. Makes sense, no? So it is with that thought in mind, that I go against that original decision, and delve in to a page from my seedy past, not to glorify or make light of, but some stories just have to be told. I'll just warn you in advance that this wont be like a regular blog post. This one will be in several parts. It may get a little long winded, and it may be a complete bust. Just consider it a short story or a mini novella, whatever gets you through the day. And kids, please don't try this shit at home.

CHARLIE
part 1
We all have at least one friend who is a perpetual fuck up. You know the type, they are always breaking shit, the list including but not limited to their own bones, other peoples stuff, random shit in stores. Give them a brand new car and it will have 6 dents in it within the first week. Walking accidents and a solid argument for legal abortion, everything they touch, no matter how well intentioned, turns to shit. Charlie was that friend in my life. Charlie and I went back to the second grade, he was that kid who always smelled like pee, he was a walking target for schoolyard bullies looking for an easy mark.


I was an oddball in my own right. Born in Kansas City, transplanted to Oklahoma for those formative years when one learns to speak, then returned to the bosom of Kansas City, just in time to start first grade, with a full on Okie accent and sounding as country as a chicken coop. While I did not smell like pee, or break an inordinate amount of shit, my twangy accent made me stick out. Charlie and I were friends by proxy. I never outran my Okie accent, some days it's more pronounced than others, but it has stuck. Charlie managed to stop smelling like piss, but he never escaped being the walking accident he was, and probably is to this day.


Charlie was the first in my circle of friends to go to prison. He made the full tour of boys homes around the same time I did. I got out, had brief periods of productivity, managed to stay out of jail for the most part, for a very long time. Charlie on the other hand, was 6 months out of Booneville and got busted stripping a stolen car in his mothers driveway. The reason he got caught is a good example of Charlies thinking process. The first thing he stripped off of the car and sold, were the wheels. The car sat on cinder blocks for two weeks in his moms driveway, no way to move it, before the cops pinched him. Charlie wasn't a bright guy.


Jump to 1990-ish. Charlie and I had kept limited contact over the years. Said contact mostly limited to Charlies uncanny ability to track me down and borrow money. Charlie developed a pretty nasty drug habit sometime in the early 80's. While I grew up in the late 70's, and did my share and yours, of experimentation, it wasn't a full on occupation for me. I dabbled, as did a lot of other people back then. Charlie didn't dabble, Charlie wallowed in it. So it was no big surprise when Charlie came to me one day asking for help.

Charlie, like all dope fiends, decided at some point, he was going to sell drugs. Drug dealers are by and large scumbags. The bigger the scumbag, the better drug dealer they make. Charlie was stupid and had more issues than TV Guide, but he wasn't on the same level of scummage as most dope dealers. Charlie had periodic moments when he was a good guy, as fucked up as a soup sandwich, but hard to dislike. So when he told me that he was in to someone for a lot of money, I couldn't say no to the likable Charlie.


Off and on for about 8 or 10 years I made periodic trips to California. I would stop in two places, Bakersfield, which always seemed like a small Oklahoma city, shitty, dusty and depressing, and Los Angeles. I loved L A, as much as I hated Bakersfield. I'm sure you are wondering what I was doing, and I'm not going to tell you. I will say it had nothing to do with drugs, I had no business doing it, and it could have been construed as illegal, mostly because it was. Besides, this story isn't about me anyway, it's about Charlie. So stop being so nosey. Not for nothing, but Charlies people lived in an even shittier area, next door to Bakersfield, Oildale California. And that small factlet is why this story is possible.


When Charlie showed up at my door he looked like 10 pounds of shit stuffed in a 5 pound bag. He had that big black eyed stare that comes with a 3 or 4 day coke binge. Coke fiends always reminded me of rabbits, tweaked out Precious Moments figurines, or surprised babies. You know that wide eyed look babies get when they hear an unexpected loud noise. Like they touched something hot. That's the way Charlie looked. He needed a ride to Oildale, I should have said no, but I didn't........................
To be continued......