The Bermuda Triangle of California

The Grapevine is the Bermuda Triangle of California. My memory of that expanse of Highway 5 is desolation, dust and depression. Current crazy-ass boyfriend Simon and I were about to experience this marvel of soul-sucking spirits firsthand.

We had been celebrating Simon’s 24^th birthday in the coffee shop I worked at by day, Ground Zero. The café was closed, and the turnout was sad: just his sister and best friend, my best friend and her tweaky little brother. We drank chilled Stoli, fortified with cigarettes and methamphetamine. Best friend Frank was a dealer. Simon’s hurt feelings were morphing into fury as the evening dragged on, madness was radiating from eyes as black and polished as a rabid rat’s, the pity in our own eyes fueling this sorrowful rage.

Simon sprung up from the bench seat at the table and began pacing the floor between the tables and booths, his long legs snugly clad in shiny red faux leather bell bottoms, his thin white arms roped with muscle swung from the long silver raincoat he’d cut the sleeves off of. Under it, a black mesh tank. Quite possibly he’d cruised his sister’s wardrobe again. His grin was as wide and maniacal as his dark, kohl-rimmed eyes; his long, teased bleached hair waved around his pale face like scarecrow straw in a hurricane.

I got up to calm him down. When in one of his temper-tantrummy moods he seemed taller, Simon’s lanky 6’4 frame seemed to stretch to the height of a pro baller’s, he towered over me, and I was 6’1”.  My black and purple hair was big. It was 1987.

Simon says, “I need to get out of here.”

I nodded, grateful to be on the same wavelength. “Where do you want to go? It’s still early, ten-thirty---”

“Away! Out-of-the-city away!”

Now I was a little concerned. This was a new kind of crazy. “Um…o-kaaay.”

“LA. C’mon, lets drive to LA!”

I’d not been to Los Angeles since I was twelve and then we only drove through it to get to Disneyland. The more excited Simon got, the more infected I became, the dread turning to enthusiasm.

He said, “Let’s hit the road!”

“Wait. We need to get ready, pack, the car----”

Frank piped up, “Dude, you gotta install the stereo first.” He and I had pitched in together and bought Simon a stereo with cassette player as a gift. Simon liked this idea very much.

We each had a room in a big old Victorian we shared with four others. After gathering some clothes, make-up and Aquanet, we met up with Frank.

At Frank’s we grew impatient with his slow progress in installing the stereo. Simon’s input only made it slower. This was so totally tweaker behavior. Meth heads ALWAYS believe they are doing meaningful things, making progress, taking care of business…but in the end, the results are ALWAYS a big waste of time and more often than not, a jimmy-rigged concoction at best. After over two hours, the stereo installation was just that. Attached to the underside of the instrument consol, it was a mess of colorful wires bristling and snaking everywhere. But it worked! We were outta there in Simon’s ugly, creakity,’65 Dodge Dart at about one in the morning, amped to the gills and excited for awaiting adventures.

At a rest stop, as I waited for Simon to get back in the car, I heard the rattle of a paint can and got out when I realized he was painting the car. I grabbed a can and began spraying the other side. We could barely see what we were doing but it was fun and just the sort of quirky spontaneous thing he was known for. We drove on through the morning, the sunrise over the hills of the grade quickly turning to the wavering optical illusion of a mirage as the desert-like land grew hot. The waves of the horizon shivered and danced to the loud music in our eyesore of a car: Joy Division, Nick Cave, The Sisters of Mercy, Love and Rockets, Ministry, The Cult…

We were expected in LA at our friend’s place. Effy had moved there to be with his girlfriend, Olive. We found the place old school style: with a paper map, made squishy by tons of folding and re-folding, and the aid of a payphone to narrow in on the location.

The four of us admired our paint job, the big rectangle of a boaty car was no longer ugly beige, it was red, blue, silver and black, painted in big bold squares, very Simonesque. To this day, when I see cars painted weirdly, my mind bellows, “Tweakermobile!”

We napped in the living room of the small apartment without sleeping, basically resting our scratchy eyeballs and worn-out minds. Afterwards, we shared our drugs with our friends then wandered over to Melrose Ave. We had very little money but needed very little, we certainly were not hungry. I took pictures of us posing- on a life-sized cow here…in a fancy doorway there. It was fun. I look back on those photos and the memories are weird but good. I wore Simon’s black satin coveralls (probably Angie’s) unzipped to my navel over a navy and white striped midi-top and black patent booties with spike heels and very pointy toes. Simon and I were very tall that day.

We headed home the next afternoon. There really wasn’t much to do. We’d made it. Simon was calm and content.

That did not last very long.

We made it to The Grapevine- desolate, wide open dry land with Interstate Five running flatly and boringly down the center- your basic “bum-fuck middle-of-nowhere”, when the front passenger side tire blew.

“No problem,” says Simon, “there’s a spare in the trunk.” He proceeds to change the tire with little complaint. I was on eggshells.

Perhaps two miles farther the back tire blows. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I say as Simon’s temper flares in a fit of curses and steering wheel whacks. We were screwed in the BFMN. A long low building sat off to the right about a half mile ahead, those cheery mirage waves radiating off its shiny metal walls.

An eighteen-wheeler pulls up behind us but there’s little the burly trucker can do. I do the talking because Simon was deep into his snarky mood phase. The trucker points to the building and says, “that there’s a farm. There’s sure to be a phone there and people.”

I looked at the building and shuddered, the waves of heat no longer cheery but ominously sweltering like the pits of hell. Industrialized farming was why I was a vegetarian. The trucker left us, and I relayed the message.

“I can’t go there,” I said.

“Well, I’m not walking all that way.”

“Grrrr. Fine. Stay with your piece’a’crap car.” I started off down the pebbly dirt shoulder in my dumb little booties, certain I would sprain an ankle or worse.

I walked right into the huge building that was- thank God- not full of animals being tortured. It was quiet and cool and empty. I found a man in an office and used his phone.

We had been towed two or three miles back towards the city to a service station that sat next to a grand redneck watering hole called “Truckstops of America.” The locals called it The Big TA. It had a diner called “Eat Ralphs” (the ‘at’ was missing). I paid the tow truck driver with the ten the trucker had given me. We had just under twenty-five bucks to our name, enough for a plate of fries and gas to get home.

We spent that night and the next day in that damned car. We spent the time scrounging change from the floor under the seats and using the pay phone in the diner to try and contact our friends in SF. Either they were not around or couldn’t afford to wire us the $145 we needed to pay the mechanic.

Early the second morning we ran out of drugs, and I’d run out of patience with the petulant snarky child I was trapped with. I was down to my last cigarette too and I’d be damned if I’d share it with him. I smoked on a boulder by the side of the road, shaking with the effort of not breaking down and screaming til my lungs exploded.

At last, on my sixth attempt to get ahold of my friend Stephan, I had a bit of luck. He answered. We had been ‘friends with benefits’. This was not something Simon would be able to handle in a mature adult way so that tidbit of knowledge was kept tucked in a sane cupboard far from his reach. Stephan was able to wire us $200. It took all day, and we headed back to SF at sunrise the next morning.

***

Six months earlier…

I was losing my mind.

I was a nervous wreck and heartbroken and relieved all at the same time. I had just had ‘the talk’ with Yves. We’d been living together for exactly one year- May of 1986 to May of 1987. My first long relationship and of course, it was with a crazy person.

At first, it seemed he just didn’t handle his hard alcohol very well, but we weren’t beer drinkers, and I cocktailed nights at a large nightclub South of Market. So, he got crazy. A lot. Ranting at me for talking to other guys, fighting with me at my work because I looked hot in fishnets and corsets. He was from Marseilles, France. The crazier he got, the harder it was to understand him. Then I caught him using intravenous drugs with his French junkie friends. I knew he cheated too; I couldn’t prove it, but it was written all over those smarmy French faces. Yves was thirty-two and strongly resembled Prince. I was nineteen.

The good half of Yves was so sweet. He was kind and funny and held down a decent job by day as a professional painter. I loved him very much. But he needed help. His madness had escalated over the year to where he was hearing voices in public places. We were in a 7-Eleven by our apartment building and music was playing tinnily overhead.

He grabs my arm and hisses, “hear that?!”

“What?”

“Those voices in the speakers…they are talking to me.”

It was always ‘them’ and ‘they’.

He says, “they’re getting closer. They are trying to destroy me!”

I rushed him out of the store, people were staring.

The next morning before work I sat him down and said, “I can’t do this anymore. Yves, you need help. I can’t give it to you. You’re destroying me along with yourself.”

“Please. I’ll be better. Please don’t leave me. I promise I’ll talk to anyone---”

“It’s too late, the damage is done, and I don’t believe you anymore. Maybe if you can prove it in the future…but for now, please move out.”

During the ten-minute walk to the café I cried, his sad face and watering puppy eyes in my head. It would have been easier if he was Bad Yves. But the Good Yves would hear me loud and clear, the Bad not so much.

Two weeks previously, I’d picked up a Penthouse magazine of Yve’s and glanced at the articles in it. Yes, I really did read it for the articles, the magazine employed talented people. There was an article written by a well renowned psychiatrist; I forgot his name, but the article was about schizophrenia. Bells went off in my head. The case files were ringing true, loud and clear. I wrote to that psychiatrist and told him all about Yves.

So that morning in the coffee shop, as I prepared tuna salad and heated the big industrial espresso machine, the phone rang.

I answer, “Ground Zero Café, how can I help you?”

A man’s voice, “Is this Tanya Ogilvy?”

A moment of panic, my skin prickled like hives as sweat popped out on my forehead. My pits suddenly stinky. I’d been dreading being caught. I am Canadian. The threat of deportation loomed like a hulking shadow in the corner of my life in the States, silent, but there and threatening.

I say, “No, this is Alice. Tanya’s not here.”

The man says his name. It rings a bell. A tiny fairy-sized one emitting the faintest of tinkles. Then he says, “I’m a psychiatrist in New York and trying to contact her.”

He got my letter! He’s actually calling me back! And I just told him my name was Alice…ugh. “It’s me,” I stutter, “I’m Tanya, not Alice. I realize I just told a psychiatrist I am someone else. But I’m not the crazy one! I swear.”

We laughed and talked, me answering key questions about Yves until the doctor says, “Yves is certainly certifiably a paranoid schizophrenic. Whatever you do, don’t marry him.”

“I won’t. In fact, we broke up just this morning.”

Back at home I was relieved to find Yves gone.

***

My fellow co-workers at the café were relieved when I was back at work. Angela, who always reminded me of Mary-Ann from Gilligan’s Island, said, “If you need anything, anything at all, just ask.” It was sincere but a little intense. It had just been a road trip gone wrong after all, but I was touched. After the third or fourth friend expressed similar good intentions, I was going from feeling loved to feeling uneasy. Something was off. With everyone.

My best friend Caroline lived in the same block as the café, she was dating my boss as well. She came in and said, “Have you talked to Yves lately?”

That was odd. I had not seen him in six months although he’d been renting a room in her flat. I avoided him. I’d moved out of the small apartment we shared the month before to live in the large flat with five roommates including the one I was sleeping with, Simon.

“No. Why?”

“He really needs to talk to you. It’s important.”

“Okay, I’ll be over after work.”

While in his bed we talked. We did not have sex, we held each other and talked. Nothing we talked about seemed too important. Caroline…being dramatic. At one point, just before leaving, I asked him, “Is there anything you have to tell me?”

“No.”

The weirdness got worse. My friends were all asking about my well-being. It was intensely awkward, and I knew something was going on but its not easy to think straight when you hardly ever sleep.

The next morning my other boss and close friend called. He was a dance instructor who I did secretarial stuff for a couple days a week. His name was also Stephan, but he was rounder than my hot little friend with benefits was.

I’m in the doorway between our two rooms, Simon is sitting up in bed staring at me, I turn away from him as Stephan asks, “Did you talk to Yves?”

“Yes. For a couple of hours yesterday. Why?”

“You don’t know do you?”

“Know what?”

“Yves has AIDS.”

My knees buckled and I hit the wooden floor. I realized that must look bad; I was not ready to tell Simon this news. I was sure to be dying. So many thoughts whirled around in my head like fall leaves ripped from the safety of branches… flying out into no man’s land…or wherever. Everything came together like the Big Bang. All my friends knew. Even people I didn’t like.

 I should have realized Simon already knew.

After our last and most intense fight, I pushed the cartilage of my nose back in place- he had elbowed me in the face at the apex of the fight- and I ran from the house. Simon ran after me, blaming me for his early demise. He didn’t know where my doctor friend lived and assumed I’d run to Caroline’s.

In the safety of my friend’s place, he took a sample of my blood. James was a surgeon; he worked at SF General and had been a medic in Vietnam. He brought home AIDS tests for homeless vets and other needy who couldn’t afford to be tested. The tests were expensive even though they were basically simple blood tests; they were expensive because USPS refused to handle the sample cannisters, so the cost was having to have the samples couriered to the testing facility which was located in one of the government buildings downtown. I took my sample there myself.

The next two weeks of waiting for the results were hell. I had no friends. They all knew but said nothing. I was dying. How could I not be? I might as well kill Yves. I surely wanted to. But the most I could do, after all my energy was drained through tears and suicidal thoughts, was confront him… and so he told me the story he should have told before anyone else.

Yves says, “That night I left…Caroline offered me a room here…but before that…the day we broke up…I got really drunk. Black out drunk. I passed out on someone’s front steps. They called the cops. It was a woman cop who came to take me away. I thought it was you.” He laughs here. “I remember yelling at her, why are you doing this? I could have loved you!” I laughed then too, picturing him yelling this to a perfect stranger. He continues, “we fell down the stairs together. I black out again and the next thing I know is I’m waking up in jail. The drunk tank. They took a blood sample from me because during the fight I had bitten her.”

So, Yves died, and I did not.

But I did break down in The Grapevine again…twice.