ALL THE LEAVES ARE BROWN
The Sunday drive up Coastal Highway was just that, a Sunday drive avoiding Southern California forest fires. I stopped off in Huntington Beach to see some old friends from back East in Baltimore. We had stopped off to see Frank and Kandy when I was out there with Glasseye who died of lung Cancer. Frank had just been diagnosed with prostate Cancer, so when I tried to hit him up for gas money after showing him and Kandy the film he said that he would contribute if it was about Cancer. And the preacher said, “In sickness and in health till death–Or to quote Kierkegaard, “Sickness unto death.” When I got closer to LA I called the treasurer of Hemophilia of North Carolina to tell him to expect a check from the homecare company. I told him my situation about having to stop off in Rockville and Vienna to deal with a few problems and he agreed to make a direct deposit to the Bear Naked account as soon as they got the check, withholding the Chapter’s 5% plus any transfer expenses incurred. I drove to downtown LA and looked for the company where I sold plasma for eight bucks a pint back in 1987 while I was homeless in LA. They were supposed to have screened donors since 1985. I recalled speaking to another homeless guy with visible needle tracks on his arms who had been a regular donor at the center.
I found downtown LA before the sun went down. The homeless delegation was not as prevalent as it had seemed in 1987. I got a couple false leads to where some homeless guys thought that they remembered where the plasma collection center had been located. At first I thought it had been turned into a parking garage across from the Ronald Reagan Building which would have been appropriate since Gipper was at least partly responsible for setting up the climate for the AIDS epidemic since he never even spoke the word as though it weren’t there. But it was all too vague. I figured I should spend another day of research since things seemed a little screwy. I drove to Coastal Highway and North of Malibu before I found an appropriate spot to park and sleep until daylight.
The next morning I called Dominic Rodriguez Sepulveda who had kicked me out on the street in 1987 and set up an appointment with him for later that afternoon. He was no longer in ladies lingerie. I had all morning to find the building of blood. I questioned a guard at City Hall where I had spent a couple of nights in 1987 and he directed me to a building a short walk away, and there it was, the sign was still on the building at 263 Main Street, BIO-MEDICS PLASMA CENTER. I bounced from one City or County Agency to the next, finally being directed to the Business License Division. The Plasma Bank had been in business from 1982, at the height of blood contamination, until 1992. And in 1987, two years after screening was to have begun, they were operating full force to an inflated population of 35,000 homeless people in LA for the Super Bowl, out there in the COMBAT ZONE. I called the owner of the building who had the vacancy for rent and got stiffed after he told me that there was an operation in Long Beach and another in Nevada, owned by his former tenant. The same private operator was still in business.
I was worn out and went to see Dominic Rodriguez Sepulveda so I could hit him up for gas money and show him the video of the film. Dominic had been a major manufacturer of Easy Now in the late 70s and early 80s. It later became known as Estacy. He was no longer in his house in Westwood and no longer had his Mazerati. He had lost everything. He was going to NA and AA meetings at least once a day. He looked at the film and commented how he believed that the hemophilia community should be allowed to die off because they were inferior.
“You’re Jewish. Didn’t Hitler say something like that about the Jews?”
“I’m Jewish only on my mother’s side. That was different,” he said.
“Shalom”
I made my way to HOLLYWOOD and picked up a few cigars for the long ride and headed for Las Vegas, hoping to get up with the Hawaiian/Asian who consulted for the huge homecare company. The hour grew late and I heard an advertisement for rooms for 20 bucks a night at Buffalo Bill’s Resort across the California State line in Nevada. I blew right by the slot machines and took a room on the ninth floor where a roller coaster passed by the window. I showered and slept like a baby in a real bed, not one of acrylic, not one of straw. I called Yamaguchi from the really big homecare company the first thing in the morning and he was leaving on a plane for Salt Lake within the hour. He blew me off. I expected to have to keep the long distance calls rolling at the usual feverish pace. I was locked in. The money raised was once more being used to raise money. I called the treasurer of the Chapter and they had gotten the check for two thousand and deposited it into the Bear. I called the bank and had money transferred into my personal account which I could squeeze from a bank machine but that wouldn’t take effect until midnight. The Black Jack tables looked inviting downstairs but the money was tight enough that there was no room for funding in that direction.
I headed in the direction of Las Vegas, having lived there in ‘70 and passed through on several occasions, including the trip with Glasseye. Las Vegas loomed on the horizon like a giant Spoon in the desert, gleaming in the sunlight.
“Ain’t no Fairy Godmother for Duda,” he said aloud to himself, and turned hard right toward Boulder, Nevada. I picked up hitchhikers outside of Boulder. They were headed to Albuquerque after going broke in Vegas, losing the truck and everything else they had. I dropped one passenger at is home and the other in a trailer park where he discovered his girlfriend had changed the locks on the trailer. “I’ll stay with a neighbor till morning,” he said. I kept on truckin’. I was out of money and low on gas before the bank machine coughed up in Tucumcari on Wednesday morning. A Chicken Fried Steak for breakfast in Amarillo Texas, at the Blue Front Diner and nothing could be finer with two thousand miles to go.