Los Alamos Fuckers
March 2017
When I left my aunt and uncle’s house in San Miguel I headed for one of my preferred stops along I-5 to rest for the night. It had been almost exactly eleven months since the last time I set up camp there and I was pretty excited to unload the bike, unpack my things, and go for a ride in the Hungry Valley OHV Area a few miles down the road from the campground. I wanted to make sure everything on the bike was in good working order before heading to Joshua Tree the following day. And I really wanted to run around a while without an extra forty pounds of baggage strapped to my ass.
When I pulled up to the campground I was elated to see that it was nearly empty and that I would likely have the bulk of the place to my lonesome. It was a Friday and I hadn’t allowed myself to get my hopes up too high until that point, Los Angeles isn’t far from there and I knew the probability of the place being overcrowded was high. After visiting and registering with the camp host and her giant German shepherd puppy, I made my way to where I had hoped to spend the evening; a high up, semi-secluded spot, hugged by the rocks bordering the campground. When I turned the corner to make my way up to the site my stomach dropped when I saw that someone else had pitched their tent right where I had hoped to pitch my own. However my disappointment quickly turned to amusement when I noticed that the front of the tent had been left wide open and inside, in plain view, was a young couple in the throes of passion, screwing each other’s brains out with staggering pertinacity. I imagine what I saw to be the same thing house pets see before leaving the room and drowning their sorrows in a cool bowl of toilet water. Entirely unflattering. Somehow admirable. Hilarious. I gave the throttle a quick twist and let out a throaty brap to announce that there was a stranger approaching. In return I got a nervous over the shoulder glance from the man on top hump hump humping away and a cheery head lift from the woman underneath him. They didn’t miss a beat.
Later, after I unpacked my things onto a different tent pad and had already returned from my joyride, the couple passed by my campsite on their way back from picking up a bundle of firewood. I was reclined against my picnic table, with my head resting on a piece of luggage, and my feet propped up on my motorcycle. My stove was working on boiling some water for my nightly cup of tea and I was listening to the daily news according to one of my favorite podcasts. As they passed I gave them a little wave and a grin. Considering my brief intrusion earlier, I assumed that would be the extent of our interactions.
As the sun set and I could smell their fire burning, and I was finishing off my tea, I was visited by “Gloria”. She appeared out of the growing shadows carrying two s’mores sandwiches and a beer, which she offered up as an icebreaker and apology for the show I had witnessed earlier. I turned down the beer but gladly took both of the s’mores. I rolled a spliff and lit it while she asked where I was going, where I had come from, and why I had chosen to ride a motorcycle rather than drive a car “like a normal person.” The visit was cut short when her partner gave a holler from up in what I still wanted to be my campsite. We said our goodbyes and she left me with, “He’s not my boyfriend, so, ya know.” We made eye contact. Stunned, I exhaled and raised my eyebrow. Did I know? Jesus, I think I did. She smiled and swished off in the direction of her not-boyfriend’s voice. What in the hell was I supposed to do with “ya know”? Well, shit, I laughed to myself as I sat back on my picnic table, eyeballing my s’mores. Later that night as I was closing my eyes, my attention was grabbed once again by the familiar plip plip plipping of two horny kids going at it like their lives depended on it for what I assumed to be the hundredth time that afternoon. I smiled to myself and thought about melting chocolate and roasted marshmallow oozing slowly together between two stale graham crackers and reached for my earplugs.
