Out On My Own

When I was 19 or so I had a good job with a steady income. Things were going my way. I decided it was time to leave the nest. So I packed up my bed, desk, typewriter, stereo, and a pile of clothes and moved in with my buddy Brad. It was in a little two bedroom apartment in a nice part of town. In my mind I envisioned Party Heaven. And for the first month or so, that is exactly what it was.

Then the economy stumbled. The people who'd bought my Dad's company laid me off. Sitting around in that apartment with nothing to do, my muse long gone on vacation somewhere, it was horrible. I couldn't write because I was too worried about money. I couldn't get a job, because my skill set was strange and I'd only really worked for the family business. My experience might have been able to land me a job in Hollywood, but not in Stockton.

My friend Tony told his mom, and his mom got me a job at Zody's Department Store, which used to be a kind of Wal-Mart or K-Mart type place. I ended up in the photo department, selling cameras, stereos, and records. It was supposed to be part time, but the other employees were so unreliable - and kept getting busted for theft - that I ended up not only working full time, but overtime as well. They even fired my manager. I was on my own in an orphaned department as the Christmas season began.

One night, after a particularly long stint at work, I came home to the apartment and opened the door to see Brad and my friend Don huddled around another friend, Stephanie, who was lying on the couch crying. It was hysterical crying, like something was really wrong. The first thing that came to my mind was that she'd been raped or maybe her parents were dead.

She held her arms out and screamed my name. I hurried across the front room, diving to my knees, and embraced her as she wailed loud and hard. "What happened?" I kept asking. She couldn't answer through her sobs, and Don and Brad said they didn't know. They'd found her crying hysterically on the front doorstep, calling my name.

Stephanie was a lovely girl. She had curly black hair and a face that reminded me a bit of a young Shirley MacLaine. I really cared about her, and it was breaking my heart having her cry like this. I had Don call her best friend, Alex, to ask if she'd come over. Don said Alex was on her way.

Stephanie stopped sobbing long enough to tell me she was going to throw up. I smelled the alcohol on her, so I knew she'd been drinking … now it was clear just how much. In the bathroom I held her hair out of the way as she prayed to the porcelain gods.

Don gave her some 7-up, and she drank it down, still shaking, and then threw that up too.

Alex arrived and took over. She managed to calm Stephanie down a bit, and after I carried her to the couch, Alex called Stephanie's mother and told her what was going on. She said that we'd keep Stephanie until she was better - we were not going to let her drive. Then Alex pulled me aside, out of Stephanie's earshot, and started talking in a low voice.

"She always does this," she told me. "This is like the third time."

"Why?"

"I don't know. She gets drunk and then decides she absolutely has to be with somebody." She was looking at me with a serious, concerned expression. "She really messes up guys minds." She leaned closer. "I don't want her messing up yours."

I felt a big rush of love for Alex. She was one of my very best friends, and I'd always had a thing for her. She knew this, I think, but also knew I wouldn't do anything about it. I valued her friendship too much to ruin it by crossing that line, no matter how much I wanted to. I loved her so much. I still do. To be honest with myself, I have to admit what really held me back was that, if she rejected me, it would have crushed me completely. So I didn't dare.

We hugged, and then went and bundled up Stephanie, and I carried her into my room and put her into my bed. "I'll just sleep on the couch tonight," I announced, just so that it was clear. Then we went into the kitchen and sat around the table, talking in low voices for a while, recovering from the event.

Then Don and Alex went home. Brad went to bed. I sprawled out on the couch and tried to sleep.

About twenty minutes later, Stephanie came wandering out. "What are you doing out here?" she asked.

"Um…"

"I don't want to be alone." She held out her hand. I took it and she led me back to my bedroom.

I got her settled back into bed, covered her up, and then laid down on the floor. Stephanie peeked over the edge of the bed at me. "You don't have to be down there," she said.

I looked up at her through the gloom, wondering what she really wanted. I mean, I had no intention of making love with her. It would just be wrong. But, at her insistence, I climbed into the narrow little bed with her and held her. She finally went to sleep, and I lie awake all night, very aware that there was a beautiful girl in my arms. A beautiful girl who had the sickly-sweet smell of liquor vomit in her hair.

Around dawn, I woke her up and gave her a large dose of Tylenol, then had her go back to sleep while I watched TV for a few hours with the volume off. She woke me up later on the couch, and thanked me for giving her the Tylenol - she barely had a headache, thanks to that - and we hugged and she left.

And then nothing ever happened with her again. At least, not with me. I never found out why Stephanie chose me that night, why she had to see ME of all people. Within a week she had a new steady boyfriend. It wasn't a friend of mine - in fact it was someone I didn't really like. After him, she started seeing my friend Ted.

About a month after this, some psycho bastard murdered John Lennon, and Alex started dating my friend Dan, and Brad got involved with a group of the first true computer hackers. These hackers nearly landed Brad and I in jail, and so I moved out. Back home again, to my parent's house. I ended up at my parents house several times before I really got out on my own for good.
By the time I was out for good, it wasn't the same. That wonder at being on my own was gone. That heady excitement and feeling of freedom.

It wasn't new anymore. It was commonplace.

Subaru Brat

When I was 17 years old I was thumbing through one of Dad's Penthouse magazines, and I saw something I wanted badly. No, not what you think. Well, besides that, anyway. It was a car review.

I can still see the picture in my mind: a cool little blue pickup with a white camper shell. It had white spoked wheels and a big white push-bar up front. There was a stripe going up the side, and a logo that read: "BRAT."

It was the first time I'd ever seen a Subaru Brat.

I have no idea why, but I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. There was just something about the design that meshed perfectly with my personality. It was something that was just so me, at least the teenage me.

I took it as fate when my father pulled me aside just three days later to drop a bombshell on me: "Son," he said, "we're just making too damn much money with the business. The tax is going to kill us if we don't spend some of it."

I just stared at him, electrified. What was he about to say? I had no idea, but I definitely wasn't expecting this: "I want you to go pick out a car, and the company is going to lease it for you."

"I already have a car picked out," I told him. I was in a kind of daze.

"You do! What is it?"

I went and got him the Penthouse magazine and showed him the picture. He frowned and scoffed. "What do you want that for? I'll get you sports car, or a Cadillac like your brother's."

I didn't want a Cadillac. I didn't want a sports car, either. I wanted a Subaru Brat.

I went down to the car dealership with good friend Brad, and we walked right up to a salesman and explained the situation. My father was getting me a car. The financing was already arranged. I wanted a Subaru Brat.

The salesman led us right over to one. It was red and ugly – I wanted a blue one like in the Penthouse magazine. No problem, I was told. It would be arranged. Did I want to take a test drive?

Brad and I looked at each other. It had never occurred to me that they were going to let me drive one. "Sure!"

Brad rode in back, in one of the jump seats. I drove it around the block and then back into the car lot. "Yes, this is what I want," I told the salesman.

They led us into a room, and then the salesman excused himself. He had to go take care of "paperwork." Brad and I talked excitedly about the fun we were going to have with a Subaru Brat. The places we would go … the girls we would pick up. Little did I know but that office was bugged and the salesman and his manager were listening to us. I found out later that – at least at the time – this was common practice. Now whenever they do that I sit silently for a few minutes and then say, "I'm going to walk out of here if that idiot doesn't come back." Magically the "idiot" always returns, and quickly.

Anyway, the paperwork was done. My car arrived from another dealership. It had the white spoked wheels, the white push-bar, and the white camper shell. It looked exactly like the picture in Penthouse. I was deliriously happy.

I zoomed home and parked in front of my house, but before I could get out of the car, I spotted my friend Larry from down the street coming out of his house. So I started it up and zoomed off over to Larry, not realizing my Mom was out the door and walking up to see her son's first new car. This hurt her feelings, and she didn't want to see the car after that. It took me two hours of groveling and apologizing to get her to come out and see the Brat. We went for a drive, and she forgave me, and when we got home she approved the little pickup. She thought it was cute.

A few weeks later, when my father needed some parts couriered down to San Diego, he decided the Brat was handy. I was able to fit the big alloy turbines into the back just perfectly, yet the truck was still small and quick. I zoomed down south and came back the next day. From then on if he needed something special picked up in the bay area, or dropped off in Sacramento, he'd send me and the Brat.

For Christmas I got a really cool sound system that replaced the cheapo AM radio, and we'd take it cruising up and down the Avenue thumping out the tunes. The drawback was that, especially in the winter or summer, the friends sitting in back would either freeze or sweat. The air conditioner worked fine in the little cab, but wasn't able to do anything for the passengers in back even with the little sliding window open.

During one trip down to LA, my friends and I discovered we could actually squeeze through that sliding window while on the road. We'd take turns driving, riding shotgun, and standing CHP watch (looking intently out the back window for the Highway Patrol, because back then the speed limit was 55 miles an hour and no one – especially me – ever drove that slow on the freeway).

Dad's business hit one of its lulls, and the money dried up. He wanted me to start paying for the Brat's lease out of my own pocket. If I worked full time, most of my wages would go to the car payment. Being a spoiled brat myself I didn't think that was fair, especially after having it free for so long.

My 18^th birthday happened right around then, which complicated things. I came out and declared myself no longer subject to my parent's rules, and they shot back that – as long as I was living at home – there would be rules no matter what my age. This fight escalated to the point where I just walked out, leaving the Brat and everything else associated with them behind. I stayed for 2 weeks with my friend Jeannette, avoiding my father's attempts to find me – when he finally did catch up to me he just told me to come home. I had won.

(By the way, I'm being paid back for this – in droves – by my own kids.)

Since I refused to pay for the car, I also refused to drive it – so the Subaru sat down at his shop unused for about two months. Finally my Dad told me I might as well drive it until it gets repossessed, and I thought about it and decided he was right.

Knowing I wasn't going to have it much longer made me use it more than usual. I'd scrounge gas and snack money and my friends and I would take it on long drives up and down the coast. It was especially fun to drive on Highway 1, with all it's snaky twists and turns. For months, when the repo men came looking, the Brat was nowhere to be found. It was out having fun.

Once my friends took it out on a beer run, and then had to call from the liquor store – the Brat was in the field across the way, stuck in the mud. While the little truck was a 4WD vehicle, it didn't have a whole lot of clearance. We had to give two rednecks a 12-pack of Coors to get them to pull it out with their pickup. My friends were very, very sheepish on the way back to the party.

The repo men caught up to the Brat soon after. Dad's business was still slumping – I went back to using the Corvair. That was a letdown.

Several month later, parked out in front of Carnations restaurant – our hangout at the time – was none other than my Subaru Brat. Out of nostalgia I had kept the old Brat's key on my keychain, and to my amazement it unlocked this Brat's door. They hadn't even re-keyed the locks. But it was very neat and clean inside, and had a girl's knick-knacks and some feathers hanging from the rearview mirror. I thought that, if the new owner loved it half as much as I used to, it would be a horrible thing to come out and find it missing. We shut and locked the doors and went inside the restaurant. Though we watched everyone who left, we somehow missed seeing the new owner take off in the Brat. I was going to offer her the key.

About two years later I saw it one last time. I knew it was the same one because it had the same license plate. The camper shell was long gone, and the body was beat to hell. It looked like it had been in the middle of a riot.

About a year after that, my good friend DT found an actual plastic model of the Subaru Brat, and gave it to me for my birthday. I very slowly, carefully built and painted it to look exactly like my real one. I even had to hand-make the push-bar out of sprue. This model lasted for years, but didn't survive the last move. It was time to let go of it anyway … I mean it was just a car, after all.

But I still have pictures.

I Was A Teenage Anarchist

During my teenage years, back before there was HBO, there was this thing called "Channel 100." It was our first premium movie channel. It played the same movies over and over and over again for a week. One of these movies was S*P*Y*S with Elliot Gould and Donald Sutherland, a silly spoof where at least one set of bad guys were bomb-throwing anarchists. That was the germ of the idea.

Later, when I was around 18 or so, I started writing a (really bad) novel called "Freedom At Large." The bad guys were going to be anarchists who've built an atomic bomb. In my mind I had the picture of the anarchists from S*P*Y*S, but I really knew nothing about anarchy or anarchists, and decided I'd better research it. The bad guys in my story had to have some semblance of realism.

I cracked open Volume One of my Encyclopedia Britannica, thumbed through the A's, and found the listing for anarchism. As I read about anarchy, my interest began shifting. I liked what I read. Lord help me – it was the beginning of several strange years. Anarchism, I discovered, has been given a bad rap through the ages – and whoever wrote that Britannica article really believed this.

If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Of course any government is going to slander and villainize a philosophy which declares government undesirable. Many anarchist philosophers (they weren't leaders, because anarchism doesn't have any) were very peaceful people with a high set of morals. Some were even Christians. They were the one who started the idea: "Educate, don't legislate," and were very much opposed to radical behavior and terrorism. In most historical cases, the acts of terrorism attributed to anarchists were actually perpetrated by the governments trying to persecute them.

So what is anarchism about? For one thing, it's utopian. The goal is to raise everyone's morals and values to the point where laws become unnecessary. The dream is to raise a society where everyone knows what's right, and everyone acts accordingly. Decisions are made by groups in a democratic fashion. Any type of government is avoided because, to quote the anarchist's motto, "Power corrupts." Anyone who has a position of power over others is in danger of becoming corrupt. So in an anarchist society, everyone has power over one person – themselves. Everyone is equal. Everyone. No one is "more equal" than someone else.

This explains what was going on in my head when I adopted anarchism as my philosophy. To an idealistic teenage mind, anarchist philosophy is wonderful. That's because an idealistic teenager has yet to figure out that no one is perfect, and it would take perfect people to make anarchism work. Just look what happened in the 1960's, when people decided that there could be a new, better society. How long did that last before self-indulgence overtook the movement of peace and love? About four or five years, tops.

I think I realized this even back then, but I didn't care. Announcing to the world that I was an anarchist caused some interesting reactions. Within a month I had a whole new persona. The more I studied anarchism, and the more I talked about it and preached it, the stronger this new persona became. People who met me had a label to put on me. "Jerry, you know, that anarchist." It was fun for people to know an anarchist. That made it fun to be an anarchist.

The down side was that, as an anarchist, people expected me to act in an outrageous fashion, and I felt I had to oblige them. Many things I did as an "anarchist" were, in retrospect, very embarrassing. In junior college, when I was first getting into journalism (and reading too much Hunter S. Thompson) I was in a classroom and the students were each asked to introduce themselves. We were asked to share what made us want to become journalists and write for the college paper. When it came to my turn, I stood up and said, "I used to draw on the walls with a crayon, and I feel that qualifies me to write for the paper." The few others in the class who knew I was an anarchist laughed, but the rest stared at me in shock. The instructor didn't know what the hell to say to that. A bit flustered, he went on to the next student.

This wild anarchist persona made it my duty to park in wrong places, to drink on campus, to sit where I wasn't supposed to sit, and to walk through doors that said "Do Not Enter." It justified driving over the speed limit, running stop signs, and ignoring No Trespassing signs. "Property is theft!" I would yell.

My friends who knew me before I'd adopted anarchism would just laugh and say, "Yeah, whatever." Other friends seemed to take pride in knowing an anarchist. My friend Mike, in particular, seemed to enjoy introducing me to people. "This is my friend Jerry, he's an anarchist." That was my cue to say, "Where's the beer?"

As the teen years passed, and I started working up into the twenties, I began shedding the anarchist persona. It was becoming impractical if I wanted to remain employed anywhere. I said goodbye to it by writing a silly novel about pure anarchy, one which had portions published in a San Francisco literary-comedy magazine.

The novel ends with this epitaph:

"…I got older, got married, became a father, and the weight of civilization pressed down on my shoulders. There's no way I could be an anarchist. Morality caught up to me. This novel is all the anarchism that I once held dear."

That about sums it up. I no longer consider myself an anarchist. I copped out, I joined the evil empire. I played the game and made a niche for myself in this capitalist society.

But every once in a while … when someone steps all over me just because they can, because they're in a position to do so … that anarchist inside me pops open a lid and stares hatefully out, riling at the injustice, and wishes for that utopia he's glimpsed and can never quite let go of.

Spinning in San Diego

"Looks like you're going to be on your own for the next few days," the biker told me. I don't remember if he really was a biker, but he looked like one. Long curly hair, beard, thick gold ear ring. Come to think of it, he looked more like a pirate than a biker. "Here," he said, "this will keep you company." He handed me a zip-lock plastic bag.

The bag was full of weed. I was a bit afraid, but I didn't hand it back. "Thanks."

He said goodbye and left. I sat down, staring at the bag in my hand. I'd never had more than a single joint in my possession. Here was at least thirty joints worth.

The biker/pirate was one of my brother's employees. I was at the San Diego apartment that the company kept for northerners, like me, visiting the offices down south. I was in town taking promotional shots of work being done at the shipyards, and had more to take on Monday. There was no going home for the weekend – my father had flown me down and wouldn't be back until next Tuesday. I had no car. I was stranded.

Unlike the first apartment we had in the area (which had been on Mission Beach) this apartment was inland, on 4th Avenue by Balboa Park. The sight of airlines coming in for landings would fill the whole window – they were close and very loud. Needless to say it was a cheap apartment.

I think I held off about an hour. Maybe two. There was nothing to do and the TV didn't work, and I didn't even have anything to read. I was already a writer by then, but was in the middle of a writer's block (one of many I had when first starting out). I did have my cameras, though, and there was a nice park up the street.

I rolled a fat one and lit it up. I was still rather new to it – my joints kinda looked like a damaged Hindenburg – and I only dared three hits before I let it go out. Then I took my cameras and went for a walk to see if the marijuana would enhance my creativity.

By the time I made it to the park, everything had become funny. Unfortunately, everything was fascinating too. A crack in the sidewalk looked like the etching of a tree, and I had to photograph it – 24 times! I took pictures of leaves. I took pictures of stucco. I accosted people in the park, yelling "I'm a lizard!" and photographing their reactions.

At some point I spotted another photographer with some really pro equipment, taking shots of a pretty waiflike blonde woman who was standing in a fountain. I went and stood next to him, zipping off a few shots of my own. Boy did that piss him off. He had a British accent and swore like a sailor, and he threatened violence. The girl – who turned out to be some minor fashion model / actress (I saw her later that year in a silly TV movie) – scolded him in return, telling him not to be such an asshole. She posed for me a few times, but the other photographer was literally shoving me away. I called him a dickhead and walked off.

I moped back to the lonely apartment and consoled myself with some more weed. That was a big mistake. I was already high, and so I wanted to get higher. Nothing seemed to happen, so I smoked more. And more. By the time things did start to happen it was too late.

The room began to spin. It started slow but gained speed, and soon it was impossible to stand up. If I tried, I'd fall right over. I had to crawl to the bathroom to throw up. But that didn't help any, because the bathroom was spinning too. I crawled into one of the bedrooms and up onto the bed, and the bed was spinning. In fact, the bed was spinning worse. It was spinning so fast I was positive I'd slide right off of it.

On my back, staring up at the ceiling, I wished I would just die and get it over with. It went on for hours upon miserable hours. Intellectually I knew that at some point the THC would wear off and the spinning would stop – but emotionally I was terrified that the spinning would go on forever. I was afraid that, even if I managed to go to sleep, I would still be spinning in my dreams.

The bed wasn't working at all, so I crawled out to the back patio and onto one of the rickety chairs, sitting there staring out at the distant water and the sprawling airport. I hung onto the railing so hard my knuckles were white. It occurred to me as I was sitting there that what I was feeling was the actual spinning of the Earth. Us Earthbound humans, born and raised on this spinning planet, were used to it and never noticed it. Something that the THC had done to my brain had enabled me to feel it. The spinning. The Earth's rotation.

Staring at the horizon helped a lot. No matter what I was feeling, my sight told my brain that I was NOT spinning. Slowly my brain began to accept this, and the spinning sensation began to fade. It was replaced by an incredible case of the munchies.

I spent $25 on junk food at the local 7-Eleven that late afternoon. The guy behind the counter gave me a knowing look. I had to go back there later that evening for aspirin and Pepto-Bismol.

I learned one solid lesson from the experience: smoke marijuana in moderation. Of course now I don't smoke it at all. Not because it's illegal, but because I'm a father. Don't want to set a bad example, you know – at least not any worse than I already have.

The next day, Sunday, I smoked more of it. This time I was very stingy with myself, which helped. I got a good solid buzz going and then went to the zoo.

The giraffes for some reason were hilarious.

Avila Beach

Seagulls are cool. One used to hang out with me when I was a teenager – it was a fair-weather friend, though, because the bird was only in it for the bread crusts and potato chips.

My father's business was doing so well that he had to spend money to keep from getting killed with taxes, and he expensed an apartment on the beach. The main reason was for my mother, who used to suffer in the horrible brown air of the California central valley during the summer. The theory was that if she were on the beach, with the wonderful, clean Pacific breeze constantly blowing in, her allergies would clear up. It worked to an extent.

The seacoast town Dad chose for the apartment was Avila Beach. I had graduated from high school early and started going to junior college, but took a break and went to live on the coast for a while. Dad would only show up on weekends.

I would wake up in the mornings and look out the balcony window at the shore. The window was open all the time – the sound of ocean waves would lull me to sleep at night and greet me gently in the morning – but when the sun came up, the seagulls began screeching. Not enough to be annoying, though. It was usually in the distance, and only once in a while.

That is, until I'd go to the balcony and start throwing pieces of bread crust.

It pissed off the neighbors because it would attract every seagull within 20 miles and they'd go into a flapping, screeching frenzy. They would hover right out from the balcony and catch the bread in mid-air. When I was done, all but one of them would go away. The last one, my fair-weathered friend, would sit on the balcony railing and stare at me.

Avila beach is a small town with a main drag along the beach, and houses and small businesses going inland. It's between a big golfing resort and an oil refinery. My dad did business with that oil refinery, which was why he could write the apartment off as a business expense. I spent a lot of time walking up and down the beach – mornings, afternoon, and night – and that's where I met my muse.

Muses are real. They actually exist. Mine started talking to me while I was on those lonely walks up and down that beach. I'd listen to her whisperings and take notes, then go up to that apartment – mainly out on the balcony, sitting next to my seagull friend – and work on my first serious story.

I had written things before. They were silly kid things, little novelettes involving my friends in wish-fulfillment type plots. Most were directly inspired by Rick Brant and Ken Holt books, and their cousins Tom Swift Jr. and The Hardy Boys. My muse had nothing to do with these early stories.

She had everything to do with my first science fiction story. She was even in it. Inconstant Island, it was called, and I wrote and rewrote that story until I could practically recite it – and when I finally typed it out from my handwritten original, it was 50 pages long!

George H. Schithers was editor of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine at the time. I sent it to him, and he sent back a long, hand-typed note, telling me he enjoyed the story but that the ending didn't work for him, and he told me why. Then he told me to send him something else. That was a mistake on his part. I sent that poor editor so much tossed-off garbage that he eventually stopped reading them, and sent everything back unopened and refused. That's what he got for encouraging a 16 year old writer. (I have a lot of respect for editors – it's not an easy job.)

Avila Beach ended up becoming my fictional town Cameron Cove. Cameron Cove shows up in a lot of my stories – I don't know why, really. Maybe it's because I'm paying homage to the place where I met my muse.

Nearly 30 years later, I sold a very different and updated version of Inconstant Island and, at least at the time of this writing, it's available to read on the Internet.

My One Covert Mission

Back in the mid 1970's, during a period when my Dad's business was going full blast, we had an office down in San Diego that was being run by a crook. We didn't know this at the time, but we should have. As Dad liked to brag, this was "one of Nixon's old dirty-tricks guys." He enjoyed having one of Richard Nixon's dirty-tricks guys on the payroll. I don't want to use his real name, so let's just call him "Dick Headley."

I hated the guy the moment I met him, and that's a rare thing for me. He was somehow oily, slithery, in a social way. Smarmy and smart-ass. I could just tell that everything he said was a lie. He was the type to talk to you like a best friend and then insult and make fun of you the moment you walk away.

Dad realized there was something weird going on when a big check showed up at the office for work we had no record of performing. Another thing we noticed, is every time my Dad left to go down there, our office manager would call Dick Headley and let him know Dad was on his way. She did it, said another office assistant, even after my Dad told her not to.

We found later that this office manager was having an affair with Headley. We also suspect Headley was slipping her money under the table. It was a fact that she was spying on the main office for him.

What my father suspected was that Dick Headley was running side operations, using our employees and equipment, but pocketing the money. The check sent in for work we didn't perform had actually been performed, on the side, and the innocent customer had sent the check to the wrong place. According to Headley, business was slacking down there. During one "slack" week, my Dad called me into his office, and with the door open, said, "Hey son, how'd you like to go trout fishing with me up in Oregon?"

I gave him a funny look. It was a Wednesday. He wanted to go trout fishing? In Oregon? "Um," I said, "sure, I guess."

"We'll fly up tonight," he told me, saying that we'd stay at his friend's ranch. "I need to get out of here and relax."

When we left for the airport, my Dad explained what was really going on. He wanted me to go with him down to San Diego, and sneak around without the office manager tipping Dick Headley off we were in town. I was going along to photograph evidence.

I'd never seen Dad so paranoid. He acted like Headley might have spies everywhere. We got into his plane, took off and flew North as if we really were going to Oregon, but after we got away from town he made a wide circle round to the south, and we followed the coastline down to the bottom of California. When we landed, it was at an airport he never used.

We rented a car that no one would recognize.

Dad got us a hotel room and we ate in, watching TV, and then he made some phone calls. One of the calls was to Headley, telling him he was up in Oregon and would be incommunicado for a few days. Still no work? No? Got any promising leads? Yes? Great! Go get 'em!

The next morning we started snooping around. Dad made phone calls to some of our established customers to see if there was any work going on. Nothing was brewing, although some said they'd have work for us later in the month. Then one of the people he spoke to said he'd seen one of our trucks working at another site. My Dad inquired where and when they'd seen the trucks working. They were working that very day, down in the San Diego shipyards.

Bingo!

Dad and I piled into the rented car and zoomed out there. We drove up and down the shipyards until we spotted one of our white vacuum trucks, removing sandblast sand out of the inside of a ship. Dad had me sneak up and take photos of the truck and the workers with my telephoto lens. I got a lot of shots, from several angles. I recognized the guys who were working.

Then Dad walked right past me, out in the open, and crossed the yard to where they were working. I followed, feeling nervous. What was he doing? I'd thought this was supposed to be a covert mission.

Dad asked them how the job was coming along. The guys looked freaked – they all had that "Oh shit!" look on their faces – and Dad poked around and asked how long they'd been working on this job. They all gave different answers, but it was clear it had been going on since Monday at least.

"Well, keep up the good work," Dad told them, and he walked back toward the car. He was walking so fast I had trouble keeping up with him.

He drove in a rush across town to the local office, which was a small warehouse in a shabby business park. The place was closed and locked, and Dad's key didn't fit – Dick Headley had changed the locks. There was a window open, though, up on the second story. "Can you get up through there?"

"Uh…" I looked it over. "Yeah," I told him, and started climbing. I had to get on the roof of a lower building and work my way over the top of a large sliding door. Swinging one leg through the window, I found … nothing. There was no second story inside. The inside wall, however, wasn't finished – there were beams and supports that I used as rungs to work my way down inside. I unlocked the door and let my Dad in just as someone pulled up. It was one of Headley's guys, a shop mechanic, coming back from lunch.

"Hey!" he yelled. "What do you think you're doing! I'm going to call the cops!"

"Excuse me," my Dad told him, "but I own this business."

"What?" He looked unsure. It took him a few minutes, but he changed his tune, and afterwards was following my Dad around helping him.

Dad was confiscating all the paperwork. The receipts, the ledgers – everything. He went through all the drawers in the office, all the file cabinets, all the desks. When the guy asked him what he was doing, Dad said, "I'm performing an audit."

We piled it all into the trunk of the car, and locked it up. Before we could leave, though, Dick Headley himself came driving up, very fast, like there was an emergency. Apparently he'd gotten a call from one of the guys at the job sight. The car slid to a stop in the gravel driveway, and he jumped out. "Jim!" he said to my Dad. "I thought you said you were in Oregon!"

"I thought you said we didn't have any work."

"We just got some today. I was about to call you."

"Uh-huh."

Dick Headley was desperately trying not to lose his cool, quick-talking a mile a minute. Dad wasn't listening. At one point, Headley began getting belligerent, like my Dad had no business sticking his nose into what Headley was doing. Dad, in one of his rare shows of restraint, just rolled his eyes and told me to get into the car.

Dad had an accountant go over the papers and receipts, and as it turned out, there were two separate ledgers. This didn't surprise the accountant – this was common. Usually it was one real ledger and one for the IRS. In this case, it was one for the company and one for Dick Headley. Dad was able to take this down to the DA's office and get a warrant. They used my pictures as evidence, too.

Dick Headley went to jail. At least, he ended up there for a few hours, only long enough to get himself bailed out. He still had some strong political ties, as strings were pulled and he was let off, after paying back part of the money he stole. It was only a small fraction, though, and then Headley walked away. Smirking.

And people wonder why I'm cynical about the American justice system.

We didn't get a chance to fire the office manager who was spying. She quit the moment she heard what had happened. She was gone by the time we got back.

Heather's Difference

Heather was a mutant.

She was a beautiful mutant, though. A very feminine California blonde with sparkling light blue eyes and an infectious smile. She wore that glossy lipstick that was popular at the time, and always had painted finger- and toe nails. Her earrings were usually large and intricate, like miniature jeweled wind chimes.

I met her though my friend Ronny who was the girl-magnet that lived across the street. He brought her over swimming one day, and after he went home, she stayed behind. We were having too much fun talking. Movies, I seem to remember, was her thing. She loved movies and could tell you who played in what, and knew the director's name, and the year it was made. You name the movie, she could tell you the stats. I was interested in that, and in the fact that she wore a gold chain around her hips.

I'd never seen anything so exotic in my 17 years of life. A beautiful blond, tan, blue-eyed nymph with glossy lips and a gold chain around her midriff. There was something almost magical about her, like she was a girl who would be seen with a unicorn. I had her maneuvered into my bedroom, and sitting on my bed. And it was there, on my bed, I discovered she was a mutant.

We were talking about movies, and rock albums, and sitting side by side with our arms touching. I looked down at her legs to see she also had an ankle bracelet – the same fine gold as her belly chain, but with little heart trinkets spaced out around it. While looking at her ankle, I looked at her feet. Looking at her feet, I saw the mutation.

Not only did she have webbing between her toes, but two of her middle toes were grown together as one. "Oh, that's cool!"

"What?"

"Your toes. That's neat."

"Oh, yeah." She lifted her foot and wiggled the toes. "I'm a mutant."

Mutant was not a word that would have come into my mind when describing her. "No wonder you swim so fast," I said.

"I don't think it makes much of a difference, really."

"It doesn't?"

"No." She looked at me challengingly. "It doesn't gross you out?"

"No!"

"It grosses some guys out. Ronny doesn't like it."

I rolled my eyes. I could care less what Ronny thought about her. "I think it's cool. Makes you kind of unique."

"I guess you're right about that. I never thought about it that way."

"Does it bother you?"

"Sometimes. But usually it's not what guys are looking at." She gave her shoulders a slight shake, which caused another part of her anatomy to jiggle. We laughed.

Heather came over to swim several times that summer. One time when I was driving her home, we were talking and giggling about something, and I think I was tickling her. As I turned a corner in that old Corvair, she reached over and gave the steering wheel a playful yank. Not much of one, mind you, but just enough at just the wrong time.

It startled me and I overcorrected, which threw the car to the side, and then I overcorrected in the opposite direction, which threw the Corvair into a spin. Since we weren't wearing seat belts, I was thrown out of the driver's seat and into the passenger side, smashing Heather against the door.

The front of the car bounced over the meridian and hit a speed limit sign. I saw all this in slow motion. I saw the sign magically become separate from the ground, and go twirling into the air like a giant baton and out of sight. The car continued spinning and the rear wheels smacked into the meridian, and the car was suddenly still.

Fortunately there wasn't another car in sight, and there were no witnesses. The Corvair's engine was silent. I scrambled back into the driver's seat, and then looked at Heather. She looked completely calm. "Are you okay?" I asked her.

"Yeah. You?"

"Yeah. Okay. We're okay." I started the car and pulled off the meridian, and then drove quickly back onto the street where I lived. The car was making frightening sounds, and was wobbling. As soon as we were away from the main road I pulled over and stopped, and we leaped out to inspect the damage.

Two rims had huge gouges in them from going over the meridian, and the tires were flat. The front bumper suffered a minor ding from hitting the speed sign. Other than that, the car was okay.

Suddenly it was funny, and Heather and I started laughing and we gave each other a long, strong hug. It was pure relief. I knew my dad was going to be unhappy, and it was going to cost me to fix the tires, but it could have been worse. There could have been other cars involved.

Somehow – and I've never figured it out – the city knew it was me that busted the speed limit sign, and I was sent a $35 bill for repairs.

Heather stopped coming over after this happened. It had nothing to do with the accident; she just happened to meet and fall in love with another guy. According to Ronny, it was some drug-dealing, chain-wearing, cocaine-sniffing macho man with a black and red Trans Am. An awkward geek like I was, back then, couldn't compete with that. Even if I did have a swimming pool.