"Working With Thor"

Dave’s first night in the Sierra Nevada mountains, he was greeted by rain - and a harrowing situation.

“I made it out of LA.”

That was my thought as I passed Bakersfield and it sounded so sweet, I said it aloud.

Adventures are adventures because you have no idea what will happen. You plan, you imagine, you visualize, but all that means squat to adventure. Adventure doesn’t follow rules or have morals or care what’s fair or mean, and that’s what makes it so damn exciting.

As an artist, failure is my best friend. Without it I’d be unsuccessful, lost. After living with failure for more than 60 years, you sense it’s coming - but you never know when. It is possible to anticipate, but failure always catches me like a baseball bat to the head. A catastrophe is a combination of unforeseen failures that fall like dominos. I’m not friends with catastrophic failure. I hate the guy, he’s a prick and makes me feel all icky inside. The only good to be taken from catastrophe is in making a great recovery.

The first truck I rented wasn’t big enough. A measly one hour delay. I know, it doesn’t sound like a falling domino. Patience.

Daylight and my cell phone signal started fading around Fresno and by the time I turned off the interstate onto a two-lane highway into the Sierra Nevadas it was dark, the navigation on my iPhone quit, and I started to realize just how alone I really was. On cue, the asshole voice in my head started with the I-told-you-so’s and the you-should-have’s. It was hard to stay positive and the feeling morphed a little into… survival.

The weather changed, just some rain sprinkles, but it continued to build as I reached the end of the road where my winding driveway started up a long hill to my new life. I could feel badness, waiting for me in the dark like a predator. I sat idling in the huge diesel truck with my animals next to me. The extreme darkness of the country made it seem like I was looking at the worldthrough a pinhole camera. I had doubts about being able to get the huge truck close enough to the house. I just couldn’t see, and then it started raining harder.

I wasn’t seeing any dominos fall though, and I didn’t want to be scared into inaction. The truck was strong, it was heavy, I’d have plenty of traction, it wasn’t as steep as it looked… but the trees hanging over the drive were a problem. And I’d have to move with a good pace up the hill because it was getting muddier. I talked myself into it.

I gunned the truck, dropped it in low gear, and gathered speed so I could hit it hard and barrel though it. It’s all about confidence and doing stuff - like, with confidence. Unfortunately, I missed “smart” by a mile and picked “stupid.” I should have turned the truck around, gone into town and slept in a hotel and had a big expensive breakfast in the morning.

Avoiding the trees, I caught the front tire in the soft muddy ditch, only barely getting out beforeover-correcting and sliding off the driveway onto the steep hill, finally catching the bumper of the truck on a utility pole. My heart bumped like a hummingbird’s and waves of adrenaline made my bones ache. In a state of shock, I climbed out of the truck into the pitch-black night and was greeted by my neighbor’s dogs. I followed them home and asked my new neighbors if I could use a phone to call a tow truck. The mountains were winning this war and I hadn’t been on the property even one hour. What had I gotten myself into? Even my negative voice was quiet andafraid.

The tow truck driver said he could be there in an hour or so, and it’d take maybe two hours to get my feet back on the road - but he could for sure get me out. However, it was gonna cost $900because he already had his shoes off and was cleaned up for the day. I couldn’t respond. How do you make your voice work when you hear something like that? After nearly dying.

He waited a good 10 seconds before adding, “But, if you wait ‘till morning, say, around 9:00 or 10:00? I’ll do it for $200.” It was a compelling argument for patience. I agreed.

I got a limp fire going in the woodstove, had some cold fried chicken and beer. I went to sleep on a yoga mat in a sleeping bag with my animals in my new, empty house. I never heard quiet so loud in my entire life. I took stock. Technically, I was here. Success. Not pretty with a bow but still, success. See how positive I am? Or tenacious, take your pick.

I awoke feeling much better and wasn’t aching, but the house was freezing. It was warmer outside, so I made a trip down the hill to see the damage to my vehicle and wait for the tow truck.

I was exploring with the animals when the tow truck driver showed up. He looked like Thor, theGod of Thunder, but his truck looked like a Tonka, a one-third scale-model toy. I crooked an eyeat it and he assured me that “Lil’ Yellow” had gotten monsters bigger than mine back on the road. He said it with such sincerity that it had this real quality of vast experience. A good sign, I figured.

After a quick survey, he said it might be another $200 for a backhoe because there was no way to get Lil’ Yellow around my truck to pull it up. He was a nice guy but I got the sense he was getting to know me so he could charge me accordingly and decide how hard he was gonna work, being that I was a city slicker who had just moved here from LA. I guess he liked my mannerbecause he said he needed to sit and think. He lit a cigarette, so I sparked a joint.

He was figuring weight, force and leverage, and I was imaging how cool it would be to do mushrooms or other hallucinogens up here. It was beautiful and quiet… and the views! Even the dirt was clean. You know what I mean? I wanted to rub it in my armpits and roll in it.

Thor rose like a cartoon hero, picked up a block and tackle and a few yards of steel chain, and got busy. It’s exciting seeing someone tackle a problem, especially one of mine. I was pretty happy. Less than an hour and a couple hundred dollars later, Thor and I had freed my truck from the hill and turned this near-death arrival into a mere bump on the road to adventure.

Unpacking only took about two months… okay it’s been many months and I’ve still got boxessitting around the garage, but nothing essential so I’m letting ‘em stay packed for a while longer. Maybe forever because I’ve got more important things to do, like ordering non-violent mousetraps and fixing everything.

It feels like I’m getting a lot of stuff accomplished but every time I go outside or look out a window, I drop back into this pause-and-stare mode to watch a deer wander across the field, or the weather change, or the clouds scud by, or to breathe in the invisible, clean air. For the first time in my life I am surrounded by nature. I’d spent so many years moving from one boring crowded neighborhood to another. Window coverings, always a priority, now dropped to the bottom of the list.

I had planned for unexpected expenses with an emergency fund, but one fiasco after another had me back on my soldier’s diet to make ends meet. It felt like old times in LA, only without the smell of human urine burning my nose or homeless in tents on the sidewalks. My poor man’s dinner had a noble taste to it. Being surrounded by bird song and oak forest made scrimping on money feel important, and rice and beans tasted like a delicacy. I was living on solid ground for the first time since being a kid. I could feel change and I wondered how deep it would go.

The house I bought had sat empty for over two years, which is a classic nightmare homeowner scenario. A house needs people as much as people need a house in order to work right and last long, but it wasn’t only the house that drained my pockets of everything but lint. All the miles I’d put on my little Fiat while finding this place had killed the transmission. This was a very BIGdomino, and if I let it tease me into angry-land I’d go bonkers. I just put my head down and ate my rice and beans.

I fixed what I could and spent what I could on used books - fuck TV. My town only has 1700 people. If you want a lover, you have to bring one. In my case, “Print” was her name. I’ve read over a hundred books in my ten months here; I have the time because I’m no longer wasting it sitting in Los Angeles traffic. Words fed me what food and other people couldn’t.

Cutting firewood wasn’t as easy as I remembered from my youth, and that chore damn near killed me. After two hours of splitting wood, I didn’t have the strength to light a match to make a fire. I had to schedule in healing time and limit chopping sessions. Cost isn’t always about money; sometimes, it’s about age.

I earned new scars on my face, hands and shins from the maul exploding into hard white oak.One day I was smacked in the forehead with a formidable chunk that moved so fast and hit so hard it knocked my lights out. I saw stars, then black, then went weak; my knees buckled and I barely caught myself before going down. I went inside and ordered a full protective face maskwhile icing my head.

A week later, I got hit right in the throat. That scared the shit out of me as my job relies on my voice box. I decided next winter I’d pay just about anything to avoid it. All the exercise has me in great shape, so I got that going for me, and I sleep well at night. I’m just scabbed, purple and have a perpetual sore back.

I bought rugs and sewed my own drapes for insulation against the cold nights. Eventually, my new digs became cozy and familiar. The fear of a mountain lion leaping up out of the darkness and sinking its long teeth into my neck while I was sitting on the porch finally faded away, but the knowledge that I could die out here makes me always think twice about even the mundane. And, for now, I have no one to lean out the back door and say, “Honey? What was that sound? Are you alright?” and rush me to the hospital. It’s just me. Alone. By myself.

I didn’t expect winter to bring much sleet or snow, but in one storm I got a half a foot. Nature brought more big storms for months. I was out of the Southern California drought and I also knew the locations of every leak in my roof.

I miss my friends in LA terribly, but I’m not lonely, which is weird. I do wish I had a special someone to share all this with, but it would have to be someone eclectic. I have many flaws, weird fetishes and bizarre beliefs, AND I’m an artist. It’s a tough combo. Love is the only thing worth risking everything for; that and friends. Everyone in LA asks when am I coming back, but I’m not. When I do go back, my nose burns and I get antsy. It’s too loud and not private enough. I’ll visit cities, but I’m done living in them.

The voices of nature are siren sweet, like a Venus flytrap. I see the trap but I don’t care, I have to get a deeper smell. I’ve spent the better half of a century living with mankind in cities and it can’t compare with the awesomeness of nature’s love.

Coming next: Further adventures in Hollywild… with me talking to the trees, and doing the right thing even though no one is looking.