Reznjun

back in my younger day i was shipped off the rez in a greyhound bus to make a better life for myself through the government relocation program. i ended up in the bay area in california. i  didnt quite become the success story the government envisioned for me. i was straight off the rez.  i remember those times as the hazy days of summer. like a drunken haze.  i would hit the street and party. i lived just off the tenderloin area. lots of the lost generation lived there. i would walk to chinatown to buy a huge platter of chow mein for a buck fifty. i would get full and this left me some coin for liquor. i would head thru north beach on the way to fishermans wharf to watch the tourists. they reminded me of fish out of water. there was a circuit of bars i hit on the way there and back. i would walk for miles.

normally  people i met came and went. most were transients i would never see again. i did end up meeting a few people i grew tight with. there was bar that i stopped in just because it had swinging doors like the ones on old cowboy movies. i seen that same bar years and years later in a movie.

one time i walked in that bar and someone said to me ‘ni je na’. i turned and seen an indian guy  sitting there. i said ko nu geh. he asked ‘what’. i said im alright. he said yeah i know. he told me he had been sitting in that bar for about 15 years since the days of the alcatraz take over.  he would always  address everyone he seen with that same greeting. i was the first one who ever answered him in indian. he never forgot that. he was ojibway and his name was bob.  we would share what indian words we knew. we became drinking buddies.

another time i was there i turned and bumped into some big biker dude. i was pretty drunk. i told the guy to get the ^%$4 out of my way. he looked down at me and laughed. he was twice as big as i was. he asked if i wanted a drink cause he liked my guts. i said yeah cause i wanted a drink. he bought me a beer. thats how i met big al. he knew bob and they rode together. we would laugh about how we met. we drank whisky and beer together. now and then we would go into the alley to smoke whatever they had.  or snort a line of something. we would go back in ripped.

i met a yaqui dude at the same bar named wayne. he used to go into these drunken siloquys at the coffee houses. most people didnt get half of what he said. he was a deep dude. he came from what he called meso-america. he was a published political writer. he incited people with merely his words. the government there told him he had 24 hours to get out of the country. he musta made it because he and i drank alot of tequila together. straight up. or tequila sunrises.  he went with a beautiful blond girl from russia. he would often call her a communist. that would piss her off big time. he said he would give me his rough manuscript of the book that got him kicked out of his homeland. i never did collect it.

one other time i walked into the bar i noticed an older black gentleman. he was just sitting there holding his cane watching people. i was kinda broke but i asked him if he wanted to drink some wine. my money wouldnt hold out too long. he agreed. so we drank wine all night. wayne asked me how i knew the prophet. i asked who. he said the dude i was drinking with. turned out he was a deep philosopher type during the hippie days. he knew humanity enough that he could foresee what would happen based on human behavior. thus they named him the prophet. he was usually right in what ever he said. i told wayne i dont know bout all that we just drink wine together. some of the best philosophy i ever heard was expounded over a bottle of wine.

it wasnt long before we held court at our own table in this bar. no one else could sit there. it often got to where no one knew who was drinking what. it didnt matter. we were hard drinking crazies who didnt give a damn. and we did way too many drugs. i was just a kid in my early twenties. these guys had been around the block a few times. they were very intelligent political men. our table had some real good conversations.  i learned alot from these guys. they enjoyed my point of view. people left me alone because i was their friend. we would party all night til we got separated. we bar hopped all over town. i would run into big al and bob around town. i seen them at music festivals or free eats.  a few times they were over in the haight picking up wanna be hippie chicks. we would end up partying. they told he if i ever needed anything to tell them. it was the way they said it that got me. i knew they meant it.

now and then i wonder about these guys. are they still alive. they were years older than me.  anywhere from twenty to forty years older than i was. i cant imagine anyone living too long thru the amount of booze and dope we did. alot of my friends are gone now because of that.  i went back to that bar a few times whenever i passed thru town. just to see it. i didnt go in since i gave up drinking and doping. things can never be the same.  i guess i am just lucky that i still walk this earth. someone has to tell these guys’ story.