Mushrooms; a true story told to me by a friend.
I was caught in an incredible down-pour in the middle of the night and the middle of nowhere; cowering inside my old pea-coat hopeless of hitching a ride though I had no choice but to try. By-and-by a car pulled up and I saw to my further discomfort it was the police. I’m standing in the headlights suddenly blinded, from the blinding darkness of moments before. The cop yelled at me to get in the cruiser. I did. Out of the rain!
He started driving and asked where I was headed. I said south and out of this rain. He also asked if I had any weapons and an ID. No and yes. As few minutes later we pull up to an old dilapidated building and he says, “these people will look after you.”
I got out of the cruiser, thanked him and ran the twenty paces to the front porch where I sat down, on a hanging loveseat, out of the rain. I brushed my teeth from the water streaming off of the porch roof. It was maybe 3AM.
About dawn life began to stir from inside and presently a couple of young women came out. “Who are you?” blah blah blah.. “Well we’re off to work.” “Where do you work? “The packing house” one answered pointing at what I guessed was the packing house. “You wanna work?” “Yes” “Well come on then.” The packinghouse culled, sorted and crated mainly cucumbers and tomatoes from local fields. I had the best paying job. I worked for the truckers loading their semis with the crates of produce. Obscene money for the day, 5 cents a crate. I could stack maybe 600 crates in an hour. $30 cash! Wow! Out of the rain into the sunshine.
That evening I came to meet the residents of the “hotel” which had actually been a hotel when the RR track next to it carried trains. Now the tracks were gone and it was a rooming house. And this was the hippie days. The owner of the place was a longhair I’ll call Bob who said his father was a Miami surgeon and he’d left home and dropped out; rich kid. His pride was a Rube Goldberg electric water-pipe that was the entire top of his coffee table.
It was quite a collection of humanity transits (like me) white witches drunks. One of my favorite characters was Pops an about 80yr good ole boy who had an incredible Country Gentleman electric guitar and no amp. He taught me quite a few old songs some I still play.
I asked to rent a room and they said they’d have to have a meeting. They did. And I could. $40 a month and then I’ll be on my way. So I moved in. It was kind of a commune but there was no leader. There was plenty of weed, beer, good food, music and a “make love not war” attitude toward freedom.
After a month I had several hundred dollars and announced that I’d be leaving. Not so fast!
So it was decided that there would be a party for me and everybody came and they made a big spaghetti with mushroom sauce. Wow!! The magic kind. And that was the beginning. I stayed a couple more months.
One day, after a big rain, Bob says he wants me to go with Greg and give him a hand. So I did. We drove out to these huge desolate cow pastures far off the road and eventually Greg, who had a bunch of paper grocery bags, walks out into the pastures with me following and stops at one spot and just starts picking the mushrooms. There were patches everywhere! 10-a few dozen shrooms growing right out of the cowshit. Greg showed me how you tap the shroom on top before you pick it spreading 1000s of spores for next harvest. He had established these small patches everywhere. Soon we had six grocery bags full and headed back home. He explained you always use paper bags cuz in plastic the shrooms would rot before you got home. They grow at an incredible rate after a rain. In one morning, before noon, they’re ready to harvest.
The job was not without risk. This is country where trespassers get shot with rifles by ranchers. It was before the drug war. I reckon Bob & co were in business. I couldn’t have cared less.
After a few “trips” I decided to move out to the fields for a while; live out there for a couple weeks. Greg could just drive out bring me some provisions and pick up the goods.
My chosen spot was an acre size woods surrounded by barbed wire separating the enormous pastures. I was never discovered. I built a lean-to sort of tent and set up camp, had an old road guitar and moved in. Really I was outdoors.
I didn’t discover any supernatural creatures or find god. But I tripped for days. After about a week I got bored so I went to town and I worked a day labor job at a stock pavilion, where cattle, hogs and such are sold by auction. That place was a lesson in itself. Old dairy herds were sold for beef. When a herd reaches a certain age and its butterfat yield diminishes they’re sold, usually around 20-50 cows. Who buys those? I asked somebody. Macdonald’s, Burger King they’re all up there bidding. Lol! 100% pure beef.
Hitching back, a guy in a yellow VW bug picked me up. He starts asking all these questions; who are you? where you going? Blah blah… I’m tripping and just start making shit up. Then suddenly he laughs says sorry, I always ask too many questions I’m a state policeman. Yikes! And he knows everybody everywhere around. The names and destinations I just made up confused him. And I’m shrooming my brains out trying to explain where my made-up friends live as we drive right by the mushroom fields. I wound up walking back 3 miles to my lean-to. Lol! (end Part 1)
Mushrooms Part 2
I had these really nice cowboy boots.
A few nights later I was suddenly rudely awakened in the wee hours by my lean-to crashing down on me totally drenching me in freezing water and a driving rain. I barely made it out from under the debris without drowning only to stand up in absolute black darkness and the relentless rain. This really sucked. I couldn’t safely move even one step. It was a moment of helplessness in the face of mother nature, and an introspection I’ll never forget. This really waaay sucked. And if that wasn’t all bad enough you must remember I was shrooming like hell, which of course made it suck even worse than waaay.
And then lightening!…. Wow! I could see! For a split second.
At a high point of one of the pastures, about 1,000 feet distance was a big old abandoned house. I didn’t stay there cuz it was clearly visible in the day. But I thought if I could make it up there I’d be ok or at least out of the frigging downpour.
I could only move a step or two when the lightening flashed, stand in totally darkness, step forward a few feet….ok! I could see the house in the lightening too; right out of The House on Haunted Hill horror flick. Unreal! Surreal as can be…. But ok. I’m moving. Rain is relentless. Lightening…two steps…
After half a dozen flashes I come to the barbed wire fence that surrounded my forested enclave. Jeeezus! That looked pretty ominous. Several lightenings later I’m still wondering how to get thru this obstacle. Getting tangled in a barbwire fence would have downgraded a pretty bad situation to worse than desperate. So I decided the safest way was to get on top of the fence and jump off to the other side. I waited for lightning and grabbed a small tree which was right up against the fence. Awaiting the next flash I climbed up the barbed wire strands and got to the top. So here’s the picture. Fking hilarious (now).
I’m maybe 4 feet off the ground, standing balanced on top of a barbwire fence, in absolute pitch-black darkness, rain pouring down, waiting for a lightening flash so I could pick my landing zone on the other side. And tripping my brains out. Lol! A soft looking spot appeared next flash and the next flash I jumped.
The spot was soft alright! I went right down in mud over my knees. Quicksand…almost. And of course everything went black again by the time I landed. I doubt anybody…ever! on planet Earth found themselves in this predicament. I absolutely could not move to get myself out of the mud-hole. After some fruitless struggle I realized I could pull my feet out of my beautiful cowboy boots and escape. So somewhere 3 feet underground is a pair of beautiful snakeskin cowboy boots waiting for an archeologist to discover them fossilized 3 million years from now.
It was smooth sailing across empty pasture after that and I made it up to the old house and that’s almost the end of the story. Next morning as the mushrooms were blooming everywhere I dragged all my stuff out of the campsite and set it out to dry. Later that day Greg showed up, we harvested shrooms and I took the ride home. That was the end of my trip.)
