Misadventures of Stash

I

've been talking about my memories of J-Town for almost two weeks now, and it is a memory that is close to the heart. I will continue later about my adolescence and early adulthood as well--the memories are clearer and perhaps a bit quirkier. But for today, another story.

M's green card mess is getting more expensive. We go to see the immigration judge next week and so we went to see the lawyers on Thursday. On the way there we were talking about lawyers and accidents and I remembered an accident I was in when I was 17, my band years.

For those of you who haven't read my previous posts--like eating grass--I used to be in a band called, appropriately enough, Stash. It was the early 70s and experimentation was the thing. Yes, we inhaled. And we had a grand old time doing it. But getting high had its hazzards.

After one gig, we returned our equipment to Diddly's garage and started tokin' a bit. And our lead singer, Vos, was really getting loaded, although we weren't really sure at the time. Someone suggested we go to the beach or something and Dragon (organ), El, and DK got into Bazooka's yellow Plymouth 340 Duster, while Jo, Di and I piled into Vos's little Volkwagon bug. We headed west on the Pomona Freeway and switched to the Santa Monica near dowtown LA. We were singing and talking about how well the gig went, when around the Western Blvd. exit Bazooka--our manager--drove up next to us and told us to pull over. Vos was too high and was weaving like a mother fucker. He was definitely going to get into an accident and Bazooka yelled that I should drive. Jo--Vos's girlfriend--agreed wholeheartedly and Vos reluctantly started to pull over toward the right shoulder.

In the back seat, I looked through the windshield between the two front seats and saw something approaching us really fast on the shoulder.

"Watch out! There's a car!"

But it was too late. No sooner had I blurted out the warning, we rammed into a car parked on the shoulder.

"O-man, your glasses! Did they break?" Di asked worried. She was so cute, and so way out of my league, but it was nice to think that she cared.

"I'm okay. You guys okay in front?"

"Vos, Vos!" Jo screamed, but Vos was groggy with his head resting on the steering wheel

Suddenly from outside, I heard Dragon's voice. "Shit! You guy's okay? What the fuck happened?"

"Fuck. You guys okay?" Bazooka yelled over the din of the passing cars.

"The car didn't have any lights on or anything. We didn't see it until it was too late," Jo whined in defense of her boyfriend.

"Hey, you guys alright?"

We all looked up at the strange voice. Standing next to Dragon was a relatively thin black dude looking into our little Beetle.

"Woah, where did you come from?" asked Dragon.

"Man, I was in that car you hit, man."

"Shit, are YOU okay?"

"Yeah, I was having some engine trouble."

"Then why didn't you have some flairs or something," Dragon asked, but the guy had gone to Bazooka's car.

"What the shit is his story?" we all thought, when suddenly the two girls riding with Bazooka and Dragon, El and DK, appeared. "What are you guys doing here?" Dragon asked.

"That guy stuck his head in the window was asking all kinds of questions and we got scared so we came over here," El explained.

When we all looked back to see where the guy was, we were just in time to see him pull away from the shoulder and drive off in Bazooka's yellow Duster westbound on the Santa Monica Freeway.

Cont'd tomorrow...