[sent to a bunch of people]

The Saga of Frick and Frack

By way of intro:  Yesterday night Bert, with whom (as you probably already know) I've been living in a parking lot on the beach for the last couple of weeks, brought in a couple of hitchhikers he'd picked up in the nearby town. They were stinking of beer and roadgrime, with cheap sleeping bags smelling like piss.   They were in their early 40s and had a way of staring that I've seen only in people who've done serious jail time.  It's a stare you can't read, somehow lifeless and disquietingly intelligent.  It doesn't follow the usual eye contact rhythms.   Other than that, they both seemed a bit on the effeminate side, again in a jailhouse way, muscular but speaking with a lisp which surfaced from time to time, which was again disquieting.   One final point about them is they looked just like the people you see in episodes of COPS filmed on the West Coast.

So these two -- I never got their names so I'll call them Frick and Frack -- invaded our Eden beach, spreading their jailhouse vibes, telling stories about various stints they've done in "the joint" (they actually called it that), and stories about all the crack they smoked in SF, about how a few days ago they'd beaten up some movie usher who tried to kick them out of a theater, about all the various encounters they'd had with cops in this two week trip alone, etc.  They were getting trashed, it was getting dark, there was no one else for miles....

I left to sleep in my van, and stowed all my stowables in their designated stashes.  I locked the doors for the first time in a week.   Morning came and I went to see Bert.  He'd just returned from driving Frack to town because Frack woke up shaking from alcohol withdrawal and needed beer.  Bert was harried, not relaxed as he'd been.  He wasn't his usual vigorous self, his voice was weak.  Frick and Frack had to go.

But we couldn't exactly kick them out of the public parking lot.  Besides, it seemed brutally judgmental to want them out just because they'd been in jail and had obvious problems.  After all, the poor guys were clearly outcasted from everywhere else for the same reasons we were trying to outcast them.   And Bert and I had been priding ourselves on living isolated from society, and suddenly we were thinking awefully societally.  But that's a living room analyzation:   when you're sitting there in a remote parking lot with a couple of seriously unstable people, you don't think like that.  And they were talking about how nice the place was and how they were going to stay for a few days. 

They moped around in the morning, Frack drinking his 40 ounce beers, "waiting for them to sink in", talking about some "downer" he'd just taken, and a few times asking me if something was wrong, if there was some problem.  I said nothing was wrong of course. 

The only thing I could think to do was offer them a ride somewhere, telling them I was on my way to some made up place.  They vacillated at the deal, so I had to sweeten it by saying I was going all the way to San Francisco, 4 hours away.  They accepted.  I wasn't planning on leaving yet, but it was probably time anyway.  And if I left, I absolutely couldn't leave Bert alone with F&F, so this seemed the best plan.

I was dreading the 4 hour drive.  I stashed all my stuff in hard to get at places, arranged various weapons within my reach, and all that.   During the de rigeur and unfortunate driving conversation I learned a bit of The History of Frick and Frack:

Turns out Frick met Frack just two weeks earlier while Frack was in the process of having his head pounded against a tree by someone.  Frick intervened and, in Frick's words, Frack has followed him ever since.  Fortunately for Frick, Frack had just been released from a 6-month stint in jail for a heroin overdose and had 6 months' worth of SSI (Social Security Income) checks waiting in his mailbox.   $2200.  He burned it down to $600 by the time he met Frick, and in one of his signature pathetic drunken self-effacing moments (I imagine) he asked Frick to manage his money for him.  Frick would hold Frack's money and spend it on both of them.  So Frick was having a grand old time, living free for the job of allotting Frack funds for his constant consumption of 40 ounce beers. 

They planned to reach Oregon, hoping to catch a Rainbow Gathering along the way, but when I made the offer to drive to SF Frick took it, understandably wanting to ditch Frack.  Frack was, as always, hurt.  Frick held firm.  And so Frick, after presumably deducting a service fee, gave Frack the remainder of the money he was managing for him.  To Frick's credit he managed to spend only $300 in two weeks on the road for two people. 

Frack naturally tagged along with Frick on the drive to SF, though only as far as Santa Rosa, which is an hour shy of SF.  Frick sat up front next to me, Frack in the rear.  In the rearview mirror I watched him perform his drunken sulk the whole way, while taking pulls on his 40 ouncer.  I was imagining being pulled over by some cop who saw the beer, and god knows what the ensuing search of their bags would turn up, and I as the driver would be legally responsible....

Frick would bait Frack whenever he got the chance, either by contradicting everything Frack said, or getting in little jibes like "You invite victimization", which was actually a pretty good observation.  A few times they escalated to shouting, and I'd have to pull over in case one of them threw a punch.   Whenever Frick would leave the van, Frack would plead with me in his drunken drawl about how hurtful Frick was being, begging me to agree with him.  I'd just nod.   I'm getting better at just being in the background when I want to be.  It paradoxically draws people out, and I get to just observe and listen. 

So I got to Santa Rosa and dropped Frack off, thank God.   I pushed off to SF, an hour away, just me and Frick.  Frick said he's writing a book and that, in his words, he's an "expert on South Central Los Angeles", and the book will be about the riots.  He said he has lots of other people's research culled, but hasn't written a word yet.....

Well, I dropped Frick off at the SF Greyhound station finally, and drove the hell off feeling about 100 pounds lighter, in San Francisco at last.