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The car we contracted for was an ’85 white Buick Regal. The deal was: put down $150 deposit and get the money back in cash once the vehicle was delivered to the owner—in this case the owner was in Oxnard. Lindsay Wagner lived in Malibu and Glasseye would be flying out of LAX. I was hoping to stay with Dominic Rodriguez Sepulveda once I arrived in LA until my meeting with Sally and the bionic woman and her production company Wagner Ball Productions. This was the third time I had used the driveaway service and the other two vehicles had been without incident. We had six days for the journey and I had a friend in Taos, New Mexico. Glasseye wanted to visit Las Vegas and I wanted to make my second trip along the rim of the Grande Canyon.
Glasseye’s left eye was the glass eye. This didn’t prevent him from driving but it did throw off his judgment a bit. We spent the first night outside of Saint Louis. We arrived in Taos early enough for a late dinner with Heather and a jazz show at the ski resort. I knew Heather had enjoyed our company when she directed us to a shortcut through the Rio Grande Gorge. Glasseye was driving for the first time and as we made our way up the narrow road the Buick began to skid and Glasseye stopped the car and got out. “Was that your friend?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Why would she send us through this death trap in January?”
“Maybe I should drive.”
I had to back down the narrow arch and then gave it one more try. After sliding again I backed down the icy slope again and found another route. The Rim of the Grand Canyon was also snow covered. We arrived in Vegas and I was nearly broke. Glasseye wasn’t speaking to me anymore but he did rent a room and went off to a Casino. We arrived in LA late in the evening and stopped by to see Dominic Rodriguez Sepulvida. He didn’t like Glasseye.
“These are your friends?”
I took Glasseye to an airport hotel and went back to Dominic’s. Glasseye was finished with me.
“You can stay here tonight,” Dominic told me. “I’m having company this weekend so this is your only night.”
In the morning I drove to the Address in Malibu that Sally had given me.
“Lindsay will be back on Monday,” she told me.
I drove back to Dominic’s and asked to store my duffle there. He agreed. I called a friend in San Francisco and was welcomed for the weekend. I drove the Buick to Oxnard and picked up the $150 cash. Wearing layers in a cold rain, my first ride was on the back of a motorcycle.

Decker, a former bar owner, was a bottled water customer early on in the process when I first brought Mountain Valley to Ocean City. He and his wife Felicity, a tall, slim, mysteriously frightening woman who said more with her eyes and body than with her words that were few, were both practicing environmentalist and even crushed their beer cans for recycling. They had lived in the apartment building where I had shared space with both Fish and Glasseye. I worked with Decker on several occasions at the convention hall, most notably at THE POLKA-MOTION BY THE OCEAN, a three day annual event where people converge from as far away as Chicago and Buffalo to drink alcohol, eat kielbasa and dance the Polka to live bands. Me and Decker were the only Polacks on the staff—the others just made fun of how cheap and dumb the fun loving patrons were even though most had traveled great distances to spend money during the off season at the resort where the economy was tourism—an American Value.
Decker and Felicity took over management of a small Café and rooming house in Downtown OC as the weather turned cold and the town empty. The water business dropped off to a trickle and Mister G decided the farmhouse was a bit too primitive when an opportunity was presented to sell advertising for a radio station in Baltimore. The heat was an oil filled electric radiator. I quickly wrote a screenplay that was an adaptation of Dust, Rainbows and Dirty Sox the novel called Dust, Rainbows and Dirty Sox the movie.
I made contact with an agent, Sally, who hadn’t returned TRAPEZOID and was working for Lindsay Wagner. Sally said that if I made it out to LA she could get me a meeting. I put on my Norman Iland hat, and talked Glasseye who appeared back on the scene into a short drive across country using a drive-away service. Sally had sounded pretty positive and I figured January was a month I could skip. Decker let me build a wall of water in his café so anyone who ran out in the area could pick up water and have a beer and the water wouldn’t freeze since I had long abandoned my storage space. Decker also agreed to check for messages and drop off water if necessary for the aged. I didn’t have a great cash flow but Glasseye agreed to buy the gas and then fly back. I had no idea how I was going to get back since I had about two hundred bucks for expenses—An American Value.

Take a bite of the Apple–Learn how to read
Take a bite of bite Apple
It’s something that we need
Find out where we came from
Watch out where we’re going
Reading is a pleasure
That helps the mind grow strong

Take a bite of the Apple—eat up every page
See why William Shakespeare
Said all the world is a stage
Find comfort and sorrow
Find knowledge and joy
The books of tomorrow
Will be your brand new toy

Once you learn to read you’ll understand
Enrich your life

A proud Republican with a security clearance, a proud American of German heritage and a true capitalist, Mister J only expected the first few thousand dollars out of me.  He was the exclusive regional distributor for Mountain Valley Water in the Tri-state area of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.

He was proud of serving the White House and the “Congressional Cloak and Dagger Room”.  He was surprised when I pulled up in a new white van, he was surprised when I had symbols painted and vinyl words and phone numbers decorating the truck.  He was astonished that I made it through the winter and headed into the spring picking up five gallon accounts along the way, selling and renting coolers, and breaking into many restaurants in Ocean City, MD and Rehoboth, DE.  He was surprised that I suddenly owed him a few thousand dollars due to expansion and bottle deposits and a kindly woman bookkeeper who liked me.

            How odd was the summer: always behind the 8 Ball, bathing in the showers of Assateague Island State Park, watching the Friends of the Ocean City Library grow– we decided to have a readathon on the beach.   I went before the city council and asked permission and got it for BEACHREAD ’86—8 hours of reading to people walk by on the boardwalk.  We even wrote a song to be performed throughout the day called “TAKE A BITE OF THE APPLE”.