A Weekend With the Visigoths

I was driving home to Vegas from Los Angeles on a Friday afternoon, mid-June when I pulled off the freeway into Baker, California; the epicenter of the Mojave Desert. A 134-foot vertical thermometer, advertised as the tallest in the world, read 115 degrees; about average for June 3:00 p.m.

The not-so-subliminal phallic symbol lies in the middle of an establishment called the Bun Boy Hotel. A Vegas tour-bus with a rainbow flag idled nearby.

I pulled into the Mad Greek restaurant, a gaudy blue and white landmark that has served Gyros and Baklava to travelers for over fifty years and I ordered Lamb Gyros with Tsazitki on the side. After that, I headed north on highway 127 which is the back road to Death Valley and also the brothel town of Pahrump, Nevada where I was visiting two rental properties I owned. I was trying to collect on several months of delinquent rent.

Highway 127 covers open, hard desert. A shimmering, dry lake-bed sits to the west and alluvial, baked earth, in shades of tawny brown and russet orange lie to the north. The scorched landscape resembles Mars save for the brittle remains of thousands of creosote bushes that eventually detach in the wind and become tumbleweeds. The land is harsh and starkly beautiful.

Breaking down where the surface temperature hits 160 degrees is a death sentence if you’re not prepared.

The two-lane road runs up a line that forms the eastern edge of California and is patrolled twice a day by the highway patrol and must be the gig that’s assigned to officers that have pissed someone off. Call boxes sit four miles apart but the human body isn’t made to walk two hours in a slow-bake oven and people die every month thinking they can make it to a call box and then wait the hour or more for someone to arrive. When the body overheats and dehydrates, it dies quickly.

I always carry four or five gallons of water and a reflecting survival blanket and basic food rations when I travel there.

I was cruising about 40 miles north out of town when I came to a man who was bent over a motorcycle, working in the full sun. He was sitting on his front tire talking to the engine and there were several Budweiser empties strewn around the bike. He was shirtless and wore a black vest that read Visigoths across the back. I pulled over and asked him if he needed help.

He was morbidly obese, covered in tattoos and bald save for a braid of hair that hung to his waist. He had a six-inch salmon colored scar that ran from the front of his jaw to the back of his neck. I’ve seen renderings of Atilla the Hun and the resemblance was striking. His arms and face were weathered brown and he wore a goatee that was braided with white and red beads that dangled below his chin.

“I threw a fucking rod about a half-mile back. How far is it to Shoshone?” he asked with no humor in his voice.

“Maybe forty to fifty miles. This is a bad place to be stuck. You got water?”

“No but I got beer, help yourself,” he said throwing back the cover of a worn black saddle bag…”if you don’t mind it warm,” he said spitting.

“You want to hitch a ride with me to Shoshone and we can call a tow,” I asked.

“You don’t want to be fooling around out here much longer,” I said.

He looked at the bike and then turned back towards me.

“I can’t leave the ride, but I’d appreciate it if you’d call this number when you get cell reception. Give em my location and tell em RJ says it’s a priority.”

“No problem, but do me a favor and take a couple of gallons of water and this reflection blanket. This is no place to be stuck. I’ll make the call,” I said.

“What’s your name?” he said looking up at me with a sweaty face streaked with dirt and grease.”

“George Fortin.”

“I’ll remember this George,” he said turning back to the bike.

Thirty minutes later I reached the summit of a mineral ridge near the ghost town of Tacopa Hot Springs that sits on the Old Spanish Trail and could see a small patch of green that marked the town of Shoshone, ten miles north.

Shoshone is an old Indian Oasis at a crossroad where highway 127 continues north to Death Valley and 178 splits towards Pahrump Nevada twenty miles to the east. There are two, paint flaking motels, a café, a junkyard, a post office and a Chevron Station with a gift store attached. I tried the cell. Still no reception so I asked the attendant if I could borrow the land line to make a call for a person who was stuck back on the highway. No problem.

A gruff voice answered and I could hear loud music and shouting in the background.

“Yea,” was all the man said.

“I’m calling for RJ; he says it’s a priority. His bike broke down and he’s approximately 40 miles north of Baker on highway 127.”

The man on the end of line became all business.

“We’ll be right there. Who are you?”

“Names George, I’m just helping him out.”

“Thanks George,” he said and hung up.

Now I’m in a quandary. The adult is waving red flags saying stay away… bad boys, trouble, murder, mayhem, extortion and all that…. but the inner child, more the inner, frat-boy adolescent is saying…fuck that, the man is stuck in the desert and unless you’re in a hurry, get your ass back there and make damn sure help arrives. Frat-boy won. I drove back to check on RJ. When I arrived he was sittin under the shade of the thermal blanket, at least twenty five empties strewn around his feet. He was ruddy-faced, and sunburned with a huge cut on his right forearm and covered in streaks of grease. “You make the call?” he asked… then burped.

“The guy I spoke to said they’ll be right here,” I said walking over to the bike. “They better be,” he said. Why the hell did you come back?” he asked squinting up at me.

“I’ve been on this road too many times and have heard of people not making it ‘cause they did stupid things. I’m not in any hurry. Let’s just hang until your people show.”

“Sure you don’t want a beer?” he asked.

“Yea, but I have cold water and I suggest you use it to cool down or you’re gonna overheat and die,” I said.

He ignored the advice and cracked another Bud.

“Where you headed?” I asked.

“The Amargosa Opera House,” he replied

“I wouldn’t have guessed?” I said walking towards him with a gallon of chilled water. He doused himself and took a few long swigs.

“My club rented the hall for the weekend. We like to keep these things off the radar, if you know what I mean. Things tend to get a bit out of control,” he said winking.

“We got a couple of live bands and a professional Barbeque Champion coming out to roast a pig. Pretty much gonna be three days of partying, all the beer, music and women you can handle. We bring in girls from Pahrump and Vegas…USDA Prime, if you know what I mean. We do it once a year, by invitation only. It’s our own version of Burning Man but with nothing but members and close friends. I’m the president of the southern California Chapter of the Visigoths. Membership is somewhere on the north end of 2000 bikers at last count. ”

“I thought you guys rode in packs,” I said sipping a cold diet coke.

“We usually do, but sometimes I just ride solo, particularly in the desert; been doing it my whole life. When I ride near the city, I usually have four bodyguards, two riding in front and two behind. When we ride as a group, we also have two un-marked chase cars, one in the front and the other in back. You know we have one or two enemies riding around that don’t like us much,” he said starting in on what had to be his thirtieth beer.

“What about the CHP,” I asked.

“The old guys are never a problem, in fact we invite em to most of our functions, sometimes we’ll run into a young buck, just earned his stripes who gives us a hard time, we usually just settle things quietly in a variety of ways, usually, cash, women, drugs, or all three.”

“It ain’t the CHP that bothers us…it’s the Angels, Monguls and Vagos that make us watch our back. Most of the shit you hear about us is just that. More dudes die working the roads for Cal-Trans in six months than in all the biker shit combined over the last fifty years.”

RJ tried to stand, wobbled, and fell face first into the sand.

I ran over and checked for a pulse. He was alive, probably heat stroke. I had to get him to a doctor. Baker was closer but I knew Pahrump had a hospital so I dragged his body into the back seat and sped north up the highway towards Nevada. He moaned a few times and threw up all over the back seat. An hour later, the emergency techs at Pahrump Valley Hospital were rolling him on a gurney into ER.

I tried the number he gave me earlier and a female answered. When I told her what happened, she said his friends were already gone, but that she would try and reach someone on a cell phone. An half-hour later I went into the room to check on him. He was awake and in good spirits, connected to an IV.

“Doc says it was a close call. Okay, motherfucker, looks like you saved my life,” he said stroking the braid hanging from his chin.

“What are we gonna do about that?” he asked.

“Nothin man, I’ll just hit the road, I got some properties I gotta check on and then get back to Vegas.”

“Bullshit, the properties, ain’t goin nowhere, and we only do our little rendezvous once a year. You’ll be one of our guests of honor.”

“Is it safe?”

“Probably not.”

He made a call from the bed. “I imagine I’ll be checking out shortly.”

“Sir we’ll need the Doctor to release you, you’ve experienced serious heat stroke and are dehydrated.”

“What’s your name cutie? You got plans this weekend? My friends and I are throwing a little party out in Amargosa.”

She ran out of the room.

“I guess that’s a no,” he said smiling.

“You know how to ride a bike?” he asked gruffly.

“Not really.”

“That’s okay, one of our probationary recruits will give you a lesson and you’ll ride his bike and he’ll drive your car to the gig. I ain’t taking no for an answer. If no’s your answer I’ll have to kill you.”

I swallowed hard. He laughed.

“Just kidding, murder’s illegal in this state and I owe you. Trust me when I say…you’ll never be safer.”

Two hours later I could hear the roar grow in intensity from RJ’s room; a cross between a drag race and a thousand lawn mowers.

“Looks like the friends are here,” he said with a smile, popping some kind of pill from prescription bottle he kept in his vest pocket.

“You like Percocets?” he asked holding the bottle in front of me.

“Is it like Vicodin?” I asked.

“Yea.”

“Sure, I’ll have one, are they strong?”

“They’re best when you do em with a bong hit and a shot of whiskey.”

In five minutes at least 200 Harleys pulled into the Pahrump General Hospital visitor’s parking lot. Three dust-covered men in jeans and black vests with bandana’s and obvious authority walked into the ER admittance lounge and asked for JR. The young female admitting attendant buzzed them in and directed them to room 102 Their appearance made JR look like a cub-scout at a tea party. All were tall, muscled, menacing, tattooed, pierced and wearing Bowie knives the size of samurai swords. They were wearing the Angels vests and oddly sported tiny, pink breast cancer awareness pins on their left chest. The stockiest of the three, of Hispanic decent, had silver hoop piercings covering both ears. A silver stud ran through the base of his nose. He had three teardrops tattooed below each eye.

The tallest, meanest looking of the three spoke first in a surprisingly sanguine, voice.

“JR, what happened? You got four recruits gonna get their asses kicked because you went off solo.”

“Let em go, wasn’t their fault, slip em some ludes later and make em oil wrestle. That should be fun.’

“What about you, what the fuck?” the tallest continued.

“I threw a rod somewhere north of Baker. It was like working in a goddamn oven. George here stopped and called from Shoshone and then rode back and apparently saved my life, I stroked out after about a case and a half of Bud. Get one of the probies to pull out a VP vest. George here’s gonna party with us in Amargosa,” RJ said.

Red Dog extended his hand to me. “Thanks brother. It’s called being at the right place at the right time. You’re going to the biggest party, strip club, and whorehouse, this side of Sturgis in the middle of the fucking desert.”

“And by the way,” RJ said pulling a red and black laminated card out of his wallet. “Keep this at all times, it’s your lifetime friend of the club membership card. I think there’s only ten or fifteen floatin around. We take the brotherhood seriously and when someone steps in to help one of our own…above the ordinary, we take care of him. It’s good for drugs, a safe bed anywhere in the country and your own private security or personal collection service if it’s ever needed…and it’s good for life.”

“Red Dog, get Danny to show George here how to handle a bike and he’s gonna ride in our inner circle as soon as I get checked out of this sanitized shit hole.”

I followed Red Dog outside and he walked up to a twenty something dude with hair below his shoulders and the letters Recruit sewed across the back of his vest.

“Danny, RJ needs a favor, this guy’s a VIP and needs a ride to Amargosa. You need to show him how to ride your bike and then take his car to the gig. Any problem with that?”

“You got it,” he said, then took a drag on a joint.

I put the VIP vest over my t-shirt and hopped on Danny’s ride. He was courteous and friendly without showing any anger at having to give up his bike. Apparently pleasing RJ was like doing a favor for the king. The ride was well-tuned with mid-length forks and handlebars at waist level. He showed me how to lean into a turn and stop and start. I was good to go in fifteen minutes…get your motor running… out on the highway…

A few minutes later, RJ came walking out the ER doors with a beer in his hand and bodyguards on either side.

“You got your ride lined up George?” he asked staring at the fleet of bikes, two- wide that stretched the length of a two football fields. His new ride, not the broken down machine he had left in the desert was waiting with a handler (probationary recruit) standing at its side at the front of the parade. There was a security car out front, two security bikers immediately behind and then RJ and his band of brothers waiting behind, lined up by seniority as I would later discover.

“George you ride by yourself directly behind me and Red Dog and VC and Hit-Man will ride behind you. Nobody behind us can pass us at any time and we’ll keep this order for the entire ride. Your position in line is considered royalty and you’ll be treated with respect by every man in this pack. You ready?” he asked hoping on his fat-boy and kick starting the engine. A hundred bikes roared behind us in the same fashion. You could have heard it in Tucson. The chase car pulled out as did the two bodyguards and RJ lifted up his hand and everyone started to move forward. The sound was deafening. Danny loaned me his helmet and Red Dog gave me a bandana from his back pocket. The column started out slowly with the lead car and escorts speeding out ahead. The ride felt smooth underneath me, Note to self: get earplugs at the earliest opportunity.

Amargosa was a 30 mile ride west towards Death Valley. When we passed an intersection the sense of power was alluring as people would literally stop and get out of their cars and stare at the procession of bad boys in beards and leathers and jeans and vests on their black chromed stallions staring straight ahead, bad to the bone. Some bystanders waived….Visigoth protocol was to flip- em-off, not in anger but as a gesture of biker respect. RJ checked on me regularly with a thumbs-up sign held below his seat with his right hand. I returned the signal. When we approached a stop, the security car and riders would weave in front of the pack and signal with arms up that the column was coming to a halt.

The Opera House is a historic landmark that sits in the middle of blank desert. It was built by an eccentric old woman named Marta who loved opera and decided to build an Opera House on her property. To accommodate the hundreds of loyal patrons she knew would visit; she built a lovely L-shaped motel to one side of the Opera House. Both the Opera building and motel were kept in immaculate condition. The Visigoths loved the location because it offered a nice stage, plenty of rooms for the VIP’s and a lot of open space that could accommodate thousands of Motorcycles.

Pavarrati had no immediate plans to do a gig so the hall was available.

When our procession arrived, there were already at least 500 bikes and a thousand people hanging out around the buildings and open plaza in front of the motel.

We were definitely the VIP column and were ritually flipped off by everyone we passed; women familiar with the column raised their tops exposing breasts in all shapes sizes and colors. Special parking was reserved for RJ, Red Dog and VIP’s like me and we rolled into the center of the motel square where our bikes were attended to by waiting recruits. A full pig was turning on a rotisserie above red coals near the motel office and a band playing Allman Brothers covers was blasting from a stage set near the north-end of the parking lot.

“You know George, since you don’t exactly look like one of us and I don’t want to have to fuck with anyone that fucks with you, get a lanyard from Danny and hang the VIP card around your neck, it’ll be much easier that way because in about ten minutes I’m gonna be so fucked up I won’t recognize you.”

He saw Danny flirting with one of the hookers loitering near the beer kegs.

“Danny! George here is your responsibility. Make sure everyone knows he’s my personal guest. Anyone even touches a hair they’re gonna deal with me. Clear?”

“Clear boss.”

“Okay George, that’s settled, we should have about 200 girls here by tonight and consider them your personal harem. You need any drugs see Red Dog. Dinners at 8:00. Roast pig and all the lobster you can eat. Kid Rock may show later for an acoustic show. Hope you don’t die,” he said as he turned and walked away.

The red badge hanging around my neck was getting me a lot of respect. Hard core, tattooed, pierced men with Mohawks and war paint were everywhere wearing guns and knives and machetes and Samurai swords and whips and were all steering clear of me, as if to say whoa…it’s a red badge, don’t fuck with him. I quickly acquired two personal body guards: Danny and Rock both new recruits and apparently assigned to my safe keeping and comfort for the weekend. RJ was truly the grand Poo-Bah of a very unique group of individuals.

I discovered that new recruits are somewhat like fraternity pledges and their probation could last as long as a year. They did whatever the fuck they were told and sometimes that meant drug running, collections intimidation, officer protection and drunken acts involving bodily waste that not even this author will enumerate in these pages.

“George, you’re looking a little red, first off you need somethin to drink, we got a full bar inside the lobby. What’ll you have?” Rock asked.

“Well Rock, let’s make it a Blue-Bombay tonic with a lime twist in a big glass.”

“Danny…you?”

“Naw… I’m gonna chill for a while and make sure the ambassador here stays safe,”

“Okay, that means a scotch rocks with a beer chaser,” Rock laughed.

“It’s gonna be a long weekend,” Danny lamented shaking his head at me.

Ten minutes later a topless, chaps-wearing Cowgirl was walking our way with a tray of drinks. She sat em on our table and said, “If you need anything else boys, just ask,” and then she winked and walked away with an ass so tight it could double for a vice grip, truss rod bender.

It was hot and I downed the Bombay- tonic like it was lemonade. My head was spinning and I suddenly felt confident, handsome, light on my feet, and sexually irresistible. What the hell did you put in that drink?” I asked Rock.

“I slipped-in some “E” to lighten you up a bit. RJ wants to make sure you’re good and laid before you leave,” Rock said.

“How long will it last?” I asked my heart working double-shift.

“Until you get laid,” which is our first order of business. The guest suites in the corner must have a hundred dancers by now and the red badge gets you anything you want.

“Anything?”

“What the fuck, we only do woman in the club, you want a goddamn goat or a Texas Queer Steer?”

“No, I mean more than one…at a time?” somewhat timidly.

“First, take a Viagra and give me 10 jumping jacks, that’ll get the juices flowing the right direction then we’ll head for the prime, USDA, certified poon-tang waiting in the bedrooms.”

I popped the blue diamond pill, drank a cold beer and did twenty jumping jacks and twenty push-ups. I felt as virile as a bull on steroids and would have humped a watermelon if one were cracked open nearby. My penis was a long hard sexual homing device that actually hurt pressed against my jeans. We entered room 14 which was how long I felt and seeing the badge around my neck I must have had four goddesses, kissing ,licking, and probing every inch of my anatomy which was as naked as my inhibition. Rock and Danny waited outside. I was a good quart-low on bodily fluids when I exited an hour later and my thoughts turned to more drinks and some of that pig which had been turning on a spit for hours. Gunshots erupted across the patio where a crow was standing around a man who was naked standing against the wall with a grapefruit on his head. He was also a recruit and this event was called shoot the grapefruit off the head of the worthless piece of shit. The distance was only fifteen feet but in the condition these men were in it could have been point blank and I would have freaked. RJ saw me and was carrying a fifth of Makers Mark and smoking a joint out of the side of his mouth.

“Common, Georgie….Take a shot, these worthless pieces of ass-wipes gotta know what it’s like to face gunfire and if you can’t trust your brothers then you shouldn’t be in this goddamn club. The guy with the grapefruit on his head was holding a Dos Equis in each hand and smoking an un-filtered cigarette.

“Common motherfucker, take your shot, I ain’t got all day,” he said downing half a beer.

“When you’re being shot at we allow for a bit of inappropriate language from our esteemed targets. Last year we only lost two, but one of the mo-fuckers waivered mid-shot and took a hit right between the eyes. Took us goddamn fifteen minutes for the clean up. You see the little bulls-eye patches on our vests? It means we’ve all taken at least ten shots from out brothers…Of course if a brother misses and does kill a recruit and it was from a bad shot, well let’s just say he don’t come back from the party either.

“Take a practice shot over on the post, It’s a 44-magnum long nose and pretty damn accurate unless you sneeze, so take a few shots and we’ll put Danny up for you.”

“Do I have to?” I asked.

“No, but if you don’t you get thrown in the pit bull ring out back and them sumbucks ain’t eaten in almost a week,” he said smiling.

I walked over to the target post and shot ten out of ten grapefruits off the post. It wasn’t much of a test, but the gun sounded like a cannon and I made sure to aim a bit hi.

“You ready?” RJ asked.

“Ready.”

“Don’t miss bitch.” was all Danny could say after snorting three lines of coke and chasing them with Jack Daniels from the bottle.

They put a grapefruit on his head, I stepped to the line aimed a bit high and blew the yellow ball into a thousand pieces.”

“Bad ass to the bone…motherfucker….you ARE a brother for the weekend,” RJ shouted.

“Nice fuckin shot!” Danny yelled drinking the JD like it was Koolaide.

It was probably near eight as the sun began burning down the western horizon and men began shouting that the pig was ready. No carving line at this buffet. Apparently protocol was wall up, rip off a piece of flesh and throw it on a plate with an ear of corn soaked in sweet butter.

First the Bikers Prayer:

“We Live to Ride, Ride to Live as a brotherhood of one…thank God for our blessings…now eat!”

An Allman Brothers Tribute Band was on stage; slide guitars screaming and rockin white- lightning, all the way to Macon. Topless dancers lined the stage and the bass player was getting head during a marathon lead section of Statesboro Blues.

Most of the audience was too fucked up to dance and a Purple Kush weed, nicknamed Herijuana was getting passed around in joints the size of Macenudo cigars. They had to be laced with acid or PCP because the brown copper landscape was turning into magenta before my eyes and lavenders and yellows and greens and reds and blues and they were swirling and spinning like mazes and I decided to head back to room 14 for another round. The path was full of mushroom rubies with flecks of gold and strawberries and purple pillows and sunflowers with a feint resemblance to Miller beer cans.

The women in 14 were all more beautiful now, softer and more sensual…they became cats and tigers and demons and school girls. The only thing we used rubbers for was to fill them with nitrous oxide and see who could suck the biggest air-cock balloon in one hit.

RJ showed up with a serving platter of Coke. We did lines laid out like a football field and nearly as long line until our noses bled and then we Eskimo kissed and smeared the blood all over our faces. I was naked, fucked-up and sporting a circumcised war-spear that was now guiding me everywhere.

When the band finished around midnight, RJ staggered his way to the microphone for an important announcement propped up by two naked women in thigh boots that could have been on the cover of any fashion magazine in the country.

“As you all know…” he burped…Tonight we’ll witness the passing of one of our own in the dog ritual that’s been handed down for over fifty years. You all know Nam’s been with us nearly twenty five years. He’s had all our backs at one time or another. A month ago he got told by some prick- head doctor that I later killed…not really…that he has inoperable bone cancer that’s mebobilzied throughout his body. It’s our time-honored tradition to let him go out with his vest-on in a battle with the dogs. For our friends and visitors, you might think it’s barbaric but it’s his choice and he’s dying like a fighter on his own terms. This ritual is sacred and any mention of it to anyone outside of our circle means a slow drag behind three choppers down some highway until all that’s left is nub of meat we’ll feed to the same creatures.

Behind the motel, a five-foot-high, chain-link cage about the circumference of a UTC ring was full of 15 growling, ravenous pit bulls. A ladder was placed to the top of the ring and a man in his late fifties, well muscled but sagging slowly made the climb. He wore his vest and a black MIA headband from Vietnam. In each hand he held huge highly sharpened bowie knives tied with leather chords to his wrist. The dogs went crazy in a mouthwatering frenzy, climbing and diving over each other to get at the fresh meat about to drop into the ring. In a ritual of respect some of the older men approached him and sliced a portion of his leg and smeared the blood on their faces.

When he reached the top he turned with a wicked smile.

“My Brothers, I’ll either see you in heaven or hell or both but wherever it is… lets have one more drink together before I go. He held up a fifth of Crown Royal and every person in the crowd did the same. When he finished he threw the bottle at one of the dogs and leaped into the ring.

He was attacked immediately from all sides and became a swirling killing machine, slicing and stabbing any animal within reach. There were so many he was forced to the ground; blood pouring from his neck and legs where the bulls were latched on with vice-like strength and uncontrollable hunger. At least six dogs lay bleeding with mortal wounds to the side but the rest were still all over him. One had a solid grip on his nose and he managed a thrust into its belly sending it limping away dying. Before long… his thrusts were weak and the dogs sensed the kill. One had his right forearm in a bite so strong the nerves were severed and the knife went limp n his hands. His face was a bloody stump. He tried to roll over but the loss of blood and wounds had taken their toll. He was dead in ten minutes and the dogs still standing ripped every ounce of flesh they could get their teeth on.

RJ was smiling. “He took out nearly eight. I think that’s a record.” George…what do you think?”

“I’d prefer about five ambien and a cyanide tablet,” I said.

“Pussy!”… ”Just kidding”… It was his choice all the way. He did two tours in Nam and was a mercenary in Angola for a year. He lived like a warrior, rode with warriors and died like one…enough said, the night’s still young. You gotten laid yet?” he asked almost sober.

“Oh maybe thirty times, I’m just blowing air.”

“Good Tomorrow’s really gonna be fun…. Here’s a couple of Ludes to bring you down a notch.”

The air was still mid-nineties at two in the morning. Dudes were still drinking and firing guns and chasing women and fucking them but for me the world was a slow spinning black hole of stars and neon jet streams sending subliminal messages and Peruvian flutes and Hindu chants and ancient Indian Shamans come to comfort me. Danny and Rock loaded me in the back of a truck where they road several miles over a pitted rock strewn road to a large green patch of bushes I could barely distinguish under the full neon purple moon.

We pulled up to a clearing where I saw a clear-water pool about the size of a swimming pool. Even under the full moon I could see the water was as clear as the ancient Mayan Cenotes I used to visit on several trips around the Yucatan. We dove in and the water which was comfortably warm, maybe mid eighties like a spa that had been turned off half an hour.

“The Shoshones used these for thousands of years,” Rock said emerging from a dive to the thirty-foot bottom.”

They’re fed from the Spring Mountain range fifty miles to the east and filtered through hundreds of miles of honeycombed rock.”

Is this legal?” I asked realizing my sentences were taking minutes to complete.

“Of course not, there’s some kind on endangered toad and pup fish that only live here. If we got caught we’d have to kill the ranger, but no worries, the superintendent was the tall white guy back in 14 who was missing his right hand.

He has us come to this back pond and avoid the more popular pools along the park trail. I’m surprised RJ’s not here, he usually brings a harem by himself.”

I laid on my back in the soothing warm staring at every constellation known to man and unknown to me, except maybe the big dipper, but in my hallucinogenic state some of the stars were moving and had blinking lights and were spraying the scent of sage and night blooming Jasmine on our heads. I tasted the water and it had a hint of mineral, perhaps salt but sweet enough to drink. An old Indian Shaman sat at the edge of the pool and was humming chants. I couldn’t move. I propped a large Creosote Branch under my shoulder and another under my legs and floated while the Shaman prayed and the sky moved in circles and the air was filled with earthly scents that put me in a state of bliss and semi consciousness. I felt love and peace and my hard-on had receded and I couldn’t discern water from flesh. Was this one with the earth?

I was one of the one’s whoever they were, until the silence was broken by RJ and about twenty riders who came roaring across the open field, one man failed to stop and drove straight into the pool with a dancer holding his waist. I was back to being one with the Hells Angels but the thirty minutes of peace had to have added ten years on to my life and something I’ll never forget.

Their arrival was probably our cue to leave, maybe not me, I wore the red card but Rocky and Danny were already in the truck cab. I laid in the bed, not feeling any of the jarring ruts I had on the drive in. When we got back to the Motel and Opera House I entered a room where there was a foursome well into business so I quietly removed a blanket from the floor and laid it on the grass in front of the motel.

I don’t know what time I woke, RJ had smashed my watch the night before, but the sun was straight overhead. Someone had place the blanket on top of me or I would have been a bright red shade of flesh-burn. All was quiet. Twelve noon is about 10 p.m. biker time so I just took a stroll around the property, with the blanket over my naked body. The air temperature was probably at 100 degrees and the carnage of last night’s bacchanalia was everywhere, naked, passed out bodies, liquor bottles, a guitar sawed in half and hanging from the flag pole. Room 14 was still semi alive, apparently sex never ceased at these events. Out back, the cage still had nine dogs alive and the skull and bones of “Nam” who had been devoured in the night. To the south about a quarter mile was a large clump of trees and the ruins of an old train depot. I walked to it and found shade under a pepper tree. With a plastic bag stuffed with tree leaves I made a pillow and reflected on the events that had transpired. I think I did, Coke, meth, acid, pot, Quaaludes, Mushrooms, Whiskey and barbeque pork. I fucked… or went through the motions of fucking… at least twenty five woman, saw a man devoured by a pack of ravenous dogs, rode a Harley through the open desert at the front of a convoy of Visigoth’s, swam in a sacred Indian Pool and shot a grapefruit off a man’s head from fifteen feet with a 44-magnum long- barrel pistol, all in less than twenty four hours. I still wore the red badge around my neck.

Collecting the three months back- rent owed me this month in Pahrump would take on a whole new direction. I slept.