Carpet Rash and White Trashed
9/7/2002

<<CLICK HERE FOR PRINTWORTHY VERSION>>apprx. 22 pages 8 1/2" x 11"

Abandoned by Rochester
Wherein Our Stoic Movette Represses Her Inner Jane Eyre

I'm not sure what possessed me to be an unsolicited volunteer in assisting my co-worker, Diane, in her hasty move from her North Sacto flat. I didn't put much thought into it, just like I never put forth much thought before volunteering to help countless other friends and acquaintances move from place to farflung place over the years. My basic move-slut-boy deal was forged. Provide ample coffee, food, and water, and I'll help move whatever the hell you want for as long as it takes.

However, after some thought on the matter, I think sympathy unconsciously played no small part in my spontaneous involuntary reflex to volunteer. See, Diane, was being "dumped" by her roommate, Craig. Now Craig and Diane were not John Cougar Mellancamp-type (or John Cougar Menstrualcramp as some of my more creative friends have dubbed him) lovers making tracks across the Northern California Valley in a beat-up pickup truck in their desperate dance to free themselves from the trap of their lower-middle-class redneck existence. They weren't a couple at all. "We're just roommates," Diane always insisted when teased by her wiser, elder coworkers like me. However, if you ever heard Diane talk of Craig or saw the twinkle in her hazel eyes when her "roommate" called her at work, one experienced in such matters could sense longing desire roiling beneath the skin of the plucky typist from Olivehurst. It was a one sided Charlotte Bronte in the Trailer Park melodrama, an ageless epic of unrequited love. Diane more than admired the hell out of Craig. She yearned for him as if he were Rochester in Red Wing work boots and a gimme cap.

But just like Rochester, our Craig had a dirty little secret which unfortunately was not so secret- Ruth. Now Ruth was not a madwoman in the clinical sense to be hidden away in the attic, but from the descriptions rendered by our poor little Jane Eyre of the Sierra foothills, she should have been. Ruth was evil on a stick. From Diane's descriptions, Ruth may as well as had pointed teeth, blood red eyes and horns growing from her ears. Ruth was not only taking up space in Diane's apartment for months on end and hogging the attention of the not-so-obscure-object of her heart's desire. Ruth was now doing the almost unspeakable. She had convinced dear Craig to move to another city. Not just any other city, but Fresno, a city whose only only virtue is a mockup country band named after a cancer victim western movie hero that seems to understand Texas better than most Texans. Beyond that, all it has to offer is 15% unemployment,a 1 in 7 chance of getting a minimum wage job at a privately-run prison, and eternal, utter, abject boredom. In comparison, Sacto is a bustling metropolis of cosmopolitan chicdom.

So Craig was off to Fresno, and Diane had a two bedroom apartment she couldn't afford. She had to move. To add insult to injury Craig and Ruth left the place looking like Sid Vicious' and Nancy Spungeon's last night at the Chelsea. You could feel Diane deflate upon entering the apartment on Saturday morning. The bitch and bastard had even abandoned the two cats who had naturally pissed and shat all over the fucking place since they couldn't get to the litter box that had managed to make its way from the bathroom to the back balcony and behind a locked sliding glass door. The majority of the excrement was by the sliding glass door. Poor things had tried to get to their feline facilities, but just didn't have the mechanical skills much less the theoretical and logical resources to overcome the situation. Pity overwhelmed Diane's anger. "Looks like Fat Fred and Fanny Fudge are coming with me," she said.

I started with the boxes, carrying as many as I could down the stairs and piling them upon the little red dolly I'd brought along. That dolly has moved a lot of stuff. Diane started on cleaning the bathroom, then the kitchen. It took about 30 minutes to fill Diane's car with boxes. I don't think she stopped cursing Craig and Ruth during that whole time. On the second load, they lost their names completely, becoming only known as "those fucking bastards." From all Diane's venom, you'd think she'd just gotten a divorce and the new wifey/homebreaker was whisking her man away for endless nights at Hotel Ibiza. I refrained from reminding her that Fresno could be construed as its own punishment.

Rio Fucking Linda

Now Diane's new studio apartment in Carmichael, much more affordable at less than half the price of the two-bedroom flat, wasn't going to be ready for at least two more weeks. So the problem becomes, "where the hell do we put all her stuff?" Well, I wish I didn't have to answer that, but the answer is "Rio Linda." Rio Fucking Linda. And not just anywhere in Rio Fucking Linda, but at the goddamn motherfucking Calvary bleeding Baptist Church and demonshit Christian School at the corner of Elkhorn and Raley Road in Rio Fucking Linda. You see, despite the fact that our dearest Diane is a funloving party girl whose favorite place in the whole world is a little shopping center dive of a bar in Orangvale called the Cheddar Lounge, Diane's Pop is a hardcore tightass conservative Baptist preacher who seems to be a nice enough guy, but the thought of driving this guy through the Tenderloin conjures images of a man who would be reduced to a cinder. I would not go bowling with him nor take him to poetry readings. Scary.

Rio Linda on its own is frightening enough. It is flat, dry, and leaves a little too much space between the trailer parks and prefab cracker-ass palaces. Double-Damn-Wide Hell. There's just a little too much room for ditching bodies in those desolate weeds. The place is rural. The streets are country roads sans sidewalks and the street signs are obscure if not completely rotted to nothing. Yes, the street signs are made of wood! It's a string of hillbilly cliches, but in the flatlands- rusting trucks on blocks in the front yard, skinny dogs wondering aimlessly, sunbaked women walking on the side of the road wearing nothing but a halter top, shorts, and big cowboy boots. These are women I don't want to see wearing such. The luckier ones are riding horses in the sunbleached fields. Lucky for me too since they move away from me much faster. It's Deliverance in the Northern Valley. I am astounded that this is the middle of the Sacramento Metropolitan Area. I'm from Texas, and I've never in my entire life been more weirded out by the sheer redneckness of it all.

I dutifully move everything from Diane's car to the storage shed behind the parsonage as quickly as possible, minimizing contact with Diane's family and the rather crusty Christian School teacher who is filling Penatas with candy for some church/school oriented event scheduled for that afternoon. Did I mention that the church also had its own private school, grades 1-12? Indoctrination must start early.

I'd initially tried to be friendly toward the teacher, and gave her a chirpy "good morning." She just stopped her Penata-stuffing and stared at me like I'd just sodomized a goat in front of her. "May I help you?" she responded. Diane walked up from behind me and chimed in,"this is Joe, he's helping me move out of my apartment." Diane tried to introduce us, but the teacher just went "Oh," put her head down and continued with her Penata duties. Such high standards of social grace is quite typical among Sacramentans.

The load was stacked in the shed in record time, less than 15 minutes. I don't think I've moved faster in my life. Of course, I don't think I've ever had more incentive to move faster in my life. It was time to return for the next load, but not before a quick tour of the Christian School classroom. Every desk had a miniature American flag in a neat little round stand, crossed with another odd flag I'd never seen before. At first, it looked like a "T" on a blue background in the upper-right corner over a white field taking up upper half of the flag over a blue field in the lower half. I got a fright. "Is this 'T' for Teutonic? Are these guys Aryan nations bloodthirsty freaks?" Visions of Christian Identity movement goose-stepped through my head. I looked closer. It was a cross and not a "T." Still, I was a little spooked until we went outside and the school children were arriving for that afternoon's event. 3 white kids, 2 hispanic, 4 african-american, and 2 asian. Man I was relieved. Despite the overwhelming redneck factor, I was reminded that Sacramento is the most diverse city in the union's most diverse state.

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