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Lucky Little

I’m like, “Bro, you got to get out here” continued...

.. these California girls are just like you see on TV and every one of them is just fine!” I turn around to see a cute girl go breezing by me on roller skates. “I’m talking gorgeous!” I was on a payphone on Venice Beach. Right on the sidewalk where all the action was going on. Summer 1985. I was in paradise. At home we owned the beach, or we thought we did anyway. Even though Galveston was a long way from southwest Houston, if you had a few bucks on you and some determination, you could make a weekend out of it. We had just got in town. Joey was one of my very first friends when I moved to Alief in 1973. We rented a car so we had wheels for the week and a place to crash for the first night. All the people up and down the sidewalk, the beautiful sand and ocean. All these beautiful girls! I was like a kid at the zoo for the first time. Joey and I had been side by side for the whole journey thus far and were needing a little space so had each gone our own ways deciding to meet up at the car in a few hours. Back to my call, “Shawn, bro, I’m telling you, you will never want to go back home.” I listen as he tells me that he had a little fender bender in my car. It didn’t matter to me. I was never planning on going back. I didn’t tell anybody else. At least he told me about it. We hang up and I’m just looking around taking in the view when some young guy approaches me. He looks to be about my age. Looks like a cool California dude type. He asks, “Hey man, this your first time out to Venice Beach?” It is so easy to see now how green I was when I went out to L.A. I probably responded with something like, “Uh, yeah, I’m from Texas.” Like anybody gave a spit about Texas. It just showed them you were a hick showing your cards. Your terrible, un-examined hand. Doopy, doopy, doo. Even though I was street smart in my little neck of the woods, I was green in Cali. So he says, “So hey we’ve got a little party going on, you like blow?” “No, thanks, not my deal.” I’m sure I sounded as ‘country’ as he had heard in a while. Right away he says, “You want a beer?” Boom, he’s got my attention. “Sure”. He leads me up to this beautiful house, right on the freaking sidewalk that is up against Venice Beach! I was all of a sudden in this house, door closing behind me. A few guys in the place also looking pretty typical Californian, but not like surfers, more like models. I’m looking around, super sweet pad, this is fat. “Here you go dude”, one of the guys hands me a beer, already opened. ALERT: Already Opened! It was the first alcohol I had in L.A. At 19 it was legal for me to drink in Texas but I had to be 21 in California. Boy how things have changed. Before I get half a beer down they’re shoving a joint in my face. All of a sudden I start to get real messed up real fast. I mean real fast. My survival mind kicks into gear. “They drugged me. He put something in the beer. Get out now. Do not pass out in this house.” I tell myself. I’m spinning. With all I could manage I stand up from the couch. First right out of my lips is to call attention to something, to back up, “I think my buddy is right outside” I slur and point. I wobble towards the door. “Hey man, it’s cool, I’ll go find him” one of the guys says as he stops my forward progress with an open hand to my chest. Everything is still cool, I’m not going to need to start throwing punches just yet. I’m just a few steps away from the front door, out to the sidewalk full of people, and maybe some cop somewhere. I’m fried, I would probably pass out before I could tell a cop the story. I’ve just gotta get out that door. With rubbery legs I stagger to the door, “Hang on let me just check something real quick.” I say still pointing to the door. People will look at whatever you point at and that’s when you get a quick look at their faces and their eyes in a situation. I can see, in their eyes, that they are recognizing the threat of me leaving and they give a last attempt to try to actually strong arm me back away from the door. I surprise them and shake them off like any wired up contemptuous and aggravated drunk, and make my escape out the door. I sway back and forth as I walk down the sidewalk. It’s the same beautiful sunshine warming the sand, but now I feel like I’m about to take my last steps. I picture myself laying down in the middle of the sidewalk as the beach police load me in the back of a truck and cart me off. The last thing I want to do is spend the night in an L.A. jail on my first night in town. Or any night for that matter. “Get out of sight and purge Bobby” is my only hope and strategy and it better happen fast before I drop. I manage to get around a corner and into an alley and jam my fingers down my throat. I throw up as much as I can but continue to force the dry heaves to eliminate all I could from my body. I was about to be hibernating, like it or not. Joey would find me a couple of hours after that curled up in the back of the alley in some trash passed out beyond being awakened. He dragged me over a half a mile to the car and loaded me into the back seat. He found a perfect place up the road where he was able to park right by the water like we do at Surfside. It was dark and he didn’t see all the ‘Do Not Park’ signs until the morning. As for me, I would lay fast asleep in the back of the car for the next 18 hours.