gonzosflyingdog

Garth’s friend, Greg, came into town Friday. He’s a confident and extremely intelligent fellow of about 60. With a white beard, long white hair and a white crystal hanging from his neck, Greg looks like he should be living in a Volkswagen Bus. That’s what he was doing when Garth met him in Key West in 2003. Greg works as a writing professor at Shepherd University. In his spare time he paints Gay Erotica. As an unconscious hobby, he takes care of lost and semi-tortured young men, one of which he brought along with him for the weekend.

Steve is 24 and somewhat on the awkward side. He’s been wearing the same bowl-cut hairstyle since 8th grade. He works in the university library and also grades papers for Greg, a task which the two often undertake in bars with the aid of plenty of alcohol. Steve claims he has no interesting stories to tell because his life has been utterly boring. However, when he sees the thirty-six packages of Ramen noodles packed onto the shelves along our v-berth, he launches (only after at least 2 beers) into a story about how he ate those in jail for months while serving time for a crime he didn’t commit.

Greg, Steve, Garth and I spend Friday nite drinking beer (provided by Greg) in the glow of the Christmas lites that line Gonzo’s cabin. The following morning, Steve and Greg stay ashore while Garth and I moor gonzo at the Navy yard and row back to city dock in the dinghy. Then, stuffing ourselves like sardines into Greg’s borrowed yellow VW bug, we make a drive to Salisbury. Greg and Steve both have an appointment there with Greg’s hair dresser Jenny.

At the salon, after Greg and Steve have browsed thru a couple of Men’s Hairstyle books, Greg admiring the hot young fellows, Steve curling his lip at the haircuts, Jenny comes and fetches Greg to a to a chair. She’s a hip lesbian in her thirties. She wears a striped dress, and her short, neon-blue hair shoots up off her head like flames. After she and Greg are well beyond earshot, lost in the din of gossip and hairdryers, Steve says with a genuinely worried look, “I’m gonna be in the hands of her?” Steve gets out of it tho. It turns out Jenny is too emotionally and professionally swamped to deal with him.

Next, Greg drives us to Crucial Tattoo, where Steve is supposed to get his ear pierced. Garth and I make a side trip into Pipe Dream, the head shop next door, while Greg accompanies Steve to arrange the appointment. Garth and I are analyzing the cover art on the porn films and contemplating purchasing Salvia (one of the few legal hallucinogenic drugs still available at your average head shop), when Greg slips in and joins us.

Once we’re all stuffed into the car again, Steve molests the thrilling new hole in his ear while recounting the nervous moment he’s just survived in the tattoo studio. Greg was supposed to pay for Steve’s piercing, but had apparently gotten a little too distracted when he joined Garth and I in the porn market. He had left poor penniless Steve waiting alone at the counter in the tattoo studio staring down a skeptical attendant while muttering something about how “his uncle” would be right back to pay for his new chrome attachment. When Greg didn’t show up, Steve continued to stutter awkwardly and pointed to the yellow bug in the parking lot, saying, “That’s my uncle’s car. He’ll be back any minute. He didn’t take off or anything.”

“We found you some drugs,” I tell Steve. His entire countenance brightens and floats up in the air. Garth explains to him what Salvia is, and Steve begs Greg, who’s already steered us away from the head shop, to turn around so we can buy some. He’s like a little child begging his mother for toys in the store. Greg refuses. He doesn’t do drugs himself. He drinks. And he doesn’t seem to mind others doing what they please in the realm of intoxicants, but he’s had some bad experiences with Steve in the past. It turns out Steve is prone to epileptic seizures, doesn’t hold his liquor well, and refuses to take his medication when drunk. Greg has no desire to relive the moments he’s spent holding Steve down during out-of-control moments. He steers us instead toward the mall, where Steve is to make a second attempt at getting his hair cut. On the way there, Steve gets hyper and recounts his first experience with acid. It took place at school when he was in the 9th grade and involved things like lockers following him down the halls.

Once most of Steve’s hair has been severed and left on the floor of a mall salon, and the remainder of it has been properly spiked and gelled, Greg drives us all to Ocean City. It’s an out-of-season beach town consisting almost entirely of motels and dead brown palm trees. I can’t understand who thought it would be a brilliant idea to plant palms in Maryland. We go to a bar called Seacrets. It’s one of Greg’s old haunts. At the door, the bouncer asks me to remove my red bandana in accordance with a sign that reads, “No baggy pants, no backward hats, no no no no no….”  It’s supposed to keep black people out. And it works. Inside, a bunch of white people mill around and swing hips rhythmlessly to live Reggae music while collecting the sand floor in their flip-flops. The place has no walls. It opens up onto a sandy patio with picnic tables on one end, tall round tables at the other, and a view of a picturesque sunset out front. Dead palm trees crowd in on everything. It’s like dining and drinking in a jungle cut out of paper bags.

To Greg’s quiet chagrin, Steve begins ordering Rum and cokes, the mixture that has often been his violent downfall in the past. The rest of us drink cheap beer, as Greg is supplying all funds. Steve gets cocky about his new haircut and his new metal-filled orifice and starts getting loud and obnoxious about how “sexy” he is. He tells us about his fat ex-girlfriend, a music major who spent all her time playing fantasy video games, watching movies like Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia over and over, and refusing to leave the house to attend social functions with Steve. He eventually became fed up with her lifestyle and concocted a plan to get rid of her. The nite before Valentine’s Day, Steve made plans to go out with her. Then he went over to Greg’s and got incredibly drunk and refused to go home. When she came looking for him the next morning he couldn’t be found. When she called to say, “I think it’s time we go our separate ways,” Steve simply said, “Okay.”

The amusement Garth and I show upon hearing this story, as well as the rum he’s been drinking, imbues Steve with a new kind of confidence. He gets over zealous and decides he’s going to become our slave and sail the Pacific with us. It’s evident that Steve needs to get out into the world, but despite his enthusiasm, I know he’d never really be willing to live aboard a boat. Once that topic is extinguished, he regresses to the issue of drugs. He’s somehow got it into his head that Garth is a professional drug peddler who can locate and acquire any given illegal substance in any town in the world. He tries to coax Garth into wandering out into the streets of Ocean City to conjure up some intoxicants. Garth sits and grins like he’s watching a show. Greg looks somewhat tired and disgruntled. I get quiet, realizing it’s pointless to try to interject in the belligerent monologue Steve is performing for everyone.

In the end, Greg plays the father and usher’s us all back into the yellow bug and we zip thru the darkness in search of a hotel. When we stop off at Arby’s to get some food, Steve makes a detour to the convenient store across the road and buys himself a six-pack. He also inquires about Salvia, an action which reveals his slightly sheltered and naïve nature. Convenient stores do not sell Salvia. The clerk, Steve tells us later, just raised his eyebrows menacingly as if to tell Steve to immediately vacate the premises. Half way to Salisbury, Garth and I awake from our back seat stupors to find Steve has two empty beer bottle jingling around his feet and Greg has pulled over to make him throw away a third which is already half empty. “That’s not happening,” I Greg says flatly as tho a line has been crossed.

Once inside a Salisbury hotel, Greg disappears into the shower. Steve, still hung up on the idea of finding drugs, says, “I’m gonna take his wallet.” I feel bad for Greg. He’s been taking care of Steve this whole trip. Steve doesn’t seem to have any respect for this. I guess Greg probably recognizes the true nature of their relationship. I guess, in some way, he enjoys providing for young men who take advantage of him. Steve tries to convince Garth to go out on the streets again and search for illegal  substances. Once again, his naiveté shines thru. We’re on a two-lane highway in the middle of nowhere. There isn’t even a real town anywhere nearby. I don’t know what highway median he expects to find acid peddlers lurking in. Garth just laughs and remains reclined on the bed. Greg emerges from the steaming bathroom just in time to intercept the theft of his wallet. Steve rails on belligerently for a while about how he’s going to share a bed with me instead of Greg. Everyone falls asleep around midnight to the maniacal jabbering of some Adult Swim clay-mation show.

I awake in the darkness of a curtain-sealed room, melted into the softness of the fluffy hotel bed. Garth’s side is empty. I look blearily around to find that Greg is also gone. Steve’s snores reverberate off the shadowy walls. I’m slightly annoyed that Garth didn’t wake me up. He knows I love breakfast above all other meals and that I wouldn’t want to miss the free continental spread down in the lobby. But he probably figures I’d also appreciate spending as much time as possible in the excessively comfortable bed, given the lack of good sleep one suffers as both a hobo and a sailor. I get up quietly and shower then slip down into the lobby where Garth and Greg sit drinking coffee and discussing “technology and society,” the subject of Greg’s favorite college course.

After checking out of the hotel and shopping for food and champagne, we head back to Annapolis to attend the annual St. John’s College Versus United States Navy Croquet Tournament. “It’ll be like a scene from The Great Gatsby,” Greg says, trying to give us an idea of what we’re getting ourselves into. Steve looks nervous and uncomfortable at the prospect of being out of place. Garth and are thrilled. We love being out of place. We love showing up in places we’ve never been before, probably never will be again and are not expected to be in the first place. It’s what we do.

This is definitely one of those places. Greg was right about the F. Scott Fitzgerald feel of the event. Jazz bops from a band set up near the entrance to the university lawn. People in suspenders and fedoras swing dance like they’re being attacked by fire ants. Women in long lacey dresses shade themselves with parasols. Men in gangster plaid suits puff on huge cigars and sip champagne with smug looks of deliberate boredom on their faces. Argyle socks twinkle beneath striped shorts. Girls in wide-brimmed sunhats decorated with giant bows flirt with boys in letter sweaters. No one watches the croquet match. It’s just an excuse to dress up, get drunk and socialize. This is the oldest college in the United States. This event is an opportunity to display your social status.

Greg has attended many times. He lays back on an elbow, cracks open a beer, surveys the scene comfortably thru orange-tinted sunglasses. Steve sits stiffly, unsure of where to put his hands and how to arrange his face. Garth and I take pictures of everyone and everything, ecstatic to once again find ourselves in the middle of foreign ground. I’ve read my share of Fitzgerald. I didn’t think his world still existed. I didn’t think I’d ever find myself right in the middle of it. But then, I’d not yet been to Annapolis, Maryland.

In the afternoon, we leave the match with heads full of champagne, Bud Light and Mike’s Hard Lemonade. We don’t know which team won or if either of them actually has yet. We head downtown, find a bar near the City Dock and order some Flying Dog beer so we can say we’ve drank the brew our boat was named for. I examine the label after deciding the logo has a familiar ring about it. I find it was drawn by Ralph Steadman, the artist who worked most closely with Thompson over the years.

Steve begins to obsess about drugs again. Garth decides to entertain himself and asks Steve, “Have you ever eaten a sugar packet?” His mischievous grin and tone of voice insinuate that it has some kind of stimulating drug-like effect. Steve’s eyes light up. “No,” Steve says. “What’ll happen?” Garth hands him one from the container on the table. “Just try it,” he says. Like an admiring and impressionable kid apprentice following his older brother’s knowledgeable advice, Steve rips the paper package open and tosses the tablespoon of sugar down his throat, grimacing like he’s just taken a shot of Jack Daniels. He waits, saying nothing. Garth’s grin widens. Greg watches, expressionless. I almost feel bad for Steve. “I don’t feel anything,” Steve says. “Try two at once,” Garth recommends. Steve gobbles two more packets, scrunches his face up, wait’s a moment. “I still don’t feel anything,” He says. Garth chuckles. Steve decides he wants another Rum & Coke. Greg decides it’s time to go.

The four of us par ways in the City Dock parking lot with hugs all around. Steve and Greg scrunch into the little yellow bug and roll away. Garth and I head to the dinghy dock to retrieve our inflatable kayak.

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