• The angels that cling to my back.

narrated by: Frank Tedesco
written by: Jay Miner
june 2000

• Orlando Trip

     It was 1974 and I was very tired of the home situation. My friend Danny and I conspired together to run away. None of our classmates at the time believed that we would, and this of course only pushed us more strongly toward our hypothetical goal. The plan was to leave without a trace. We decided to head for Nashville, Tennessee, but to tell everyone else that we opted for Florida. I forged a check of my fathers for $140, which was enough for two one-way tickets to Nashville.
     It came down to the day and I was to meet Danny at Marsh's General Store in the middle of the night during the March 1974 winter. This was the town of Niagara, New York, just a few miles shy of the infamous Falls. At times, even during March, winter was still going strong. The store was a little one, owned by a very large man, Bud Marsh.
     While waiting in the snowstorm outside Marsh's, a cab eventually pulled up with Danny in it. We took that cab to the Buffalo International Airport and hung out and slept all night until our flight to Nashville arrived. We later found out that at this point we were considered missing and he cops were looking for us. They however, did not think to check the airports. Based on the assumption that we probably had little to no money, they only cased out the train stations and bus terminals. We flew out of Buffalo unscathed.
     We arrived in Nashville several hours later lost and not knowing a soul. We took a cab into downtown Nashville and got a cheap motel room in a rather seedy area. The night was hot as shit and we dumped our bed mattresses out on the balcony and slept there to secure some relief from the oven like claustrophobia of the room.
     First thing in the morning, we grabbed the want ads and began to search for jobs. The first to strike our attention was Sales, Great Opportunity! Which led us to the offices of the employers to be (an illustrious room at a Super 8 Motel.) After weaseling our way through the not so detailed interview and background check, we were awarded the position of magazine subscription canvas men. We started the work the next day selling door to door posing as a charity outfit. After being dropped off in the neighborhood with some paper work we were left to fend for ourselves. We hooked up with a tall Indian named Bubba Farley who had all his hair burnt off and wore a wig. We were given commission plus free hotel room. I remember smoking pot for the first time in the hotel room and rehearsing my sales pitch in front of the rest of the crew. It was some kind of skanky peer review for the determination of how smooth we may or may not have sounded. I did pretty well with the sales gig from town to town until we ended up in Huntsville, Alabama. Once there, I had become more than a little disenchanted with the franchise and wanted to cut out. Daniel, on the other hand, had developed too strong of a camaraderie with Bubba and wanted to stay on. By luck I had found a checkbook in front of the hotel and forged enough to swing me into a classier dive. I wound up renting a room in a large house with a cast of the lost. One guy kept full jars of urine atop his dresser. They all kept tight padlocks on their doors. I bagged a job as a dishwasher in a small diner and began saving some dough for Florida. I forged a $50 check and took a bus to Orlando.
     I got off the bus in Orlando and was approached by two black guys with a trash bag full of weed. They asked me if I wanted to make some money. We hit the streets and went to work selling fake bud and stolen diet pills labeled as speed.
     We arranged a business meeting with a guy with long hair and a red beard. It was to take place in a hotel room. I was sent in first. I met up with the contact (s) and waited for my partners. Upon their arrival, we went to a store with a door moving straight into a back lot. The black guys asked that we all move toward the back lot. At that point the potential buyers began to move very quickly and spun around flashing silver revolvers "Freeze yer under arrest: Orange County Police!" Approx. 10 cop cars pulled up and we were nailed.
     During the booking process, I stashed my I.D. into my socks and was able to get pinched not under my real name. I used the name of a childhood friend back in New York who had died and whose father had owned a shoe repair store. We spent a few days in general lock up getting our coffee and meals to the enthusiastic cries of "Coffee in the hole! Breakfast in the hole! Lunch in the hole!" After the lab determined that the stuff we were selling was all bogus diet pills, parsley, tarragon, etc. we were released.
     We split the prison and headed for the one black dude's mother's house. They had gotten me so stoned on who knows what that I can recall smoking a cigarette and seeing some ash flake off onto my arm where it burned a hole that I couldn't feel. I figured that they had intentionally wired me into some PCP. I waited to get snuffed somewhere out in the everglades or the swamps. A friend of theirs' showed up with a pick up and I was thrown in the back. I had noticed that they packed a .22 rifle on the way out. The driver dropped off the other two assuring them that he would "take care of me." Luckily for me, this meant that he was feeling some remorse and planned to let me go. He gave me some cabbage rolls or some shit and told me to split. I hoofed it down the streets of Orlando and wound up at a city mission where I had the evening meal and listened to the sermon. As the sounds and images of possible forgiveness and atonement wailed in my head, the tears flowed forth. I called my parents and had them wire me a ticket back to Niagara Falls.

 

• Cailfornia Trip

     It was 1977. I was two years out of high school and I had been looking for work. My uncle, who was a General Motors executive, landed me a spot as an assembly line geek at Harrison Radiator in Lockport, NY. I was hired on as an air conditioning "perma- seal" installer. Perma- seal was a big wad of black goo, a strip of permeable seal which seals off air-conditioner units. Some good looking chicks on the assembly line, but I hated it right away. Unit after unit, putting in this perma shit.
     I began to save some cash to go to California in my 1974 dodge tradesman, my cheesy hippie van smut vehicle. I saved $700 and informed everyone I was going to head west.
     I left my parents' house and stayed at the home of a friend of a friend who turned out to be some kind of queer. He made me soup and tried to hit on me, but I wasn't into it.
     With a bag of weed and a case of beer, I begin to take an LA route through Ohio, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. I wound up in Corpus Christi. Met some people and partied and got stoned. Blew off a job on a shrimp boat. Caught some bad vibes and split.
     I cut down through Laredo and later ended up in Tuscon, Arizona. Caught some bad vibes there as well. I was hanging out with the wrong people and spinning my wheels hanging out in their cheap motel type apartment with Black Widows underneath the chair in the room. One cat that I met was a drifter type who balled some chick in the back of my van while I sat up front. I decided to cruise to California. I headed toward San Diego through the Mohave Desert during a sandstorm.
     I had had some experience with my father in insulation, and home improvement. On the highway, there was a billboard sign for "Golden West Insulation." I pulled over and filled out an application and landed a position in Indio, California, which is an isolated farming community in date country.
     Hooked up with a cat named Dave Brady and stayed with him, his wife named Angel, and Dave Junior in Desert Hot Springs near Palm Springs. I had a van and a job insulating houses. I was hanging out and partying with Dave, smoking pot and shooting heroin on the weekends. We would go into this little wet back town called Cochella and score brown H at $100 for a few grams. We would split the stash among us all and shoot it. It was my first time. Nothing quite like a heroin buzz, the big rush, the mellow relax. Also smoking some real good Hawaiian pot at the time and slamming a lot of Budweiser. I almost OD'd once and got thrown into the shower. Angel wasn't shooting because she was pregnant at the time. They fed me well and called me Sam, because that's the name I was using at the time.
     I traded my van for Dave's old continental and got my own place in a motel apartment on Cactus Lane owned by an old Russian woman. Hanging out, working, paying the bills, getting a buzz and riding a Yamaha in the desert. Due to problems with Dave, who wasn't paying on the van, I left Golden West for another insulation firm and another apartment.
     My new next door neighbors turned out to be from LA, including Donny, a Vietnam vet and hardcore alcoholic, who drove a bus in Palm Springs and kept a shotgun at his door. They hooked me up with a superb LSD with paper spots as big as a nickel. I saw Jesus in my living room and heard all the angels singing to me. Stoned and paranoid, I felt that they were trying to kill me and take my van which I had since gotten back from Dave. One dude came at me with a knife and at the last second shut down and backed away. I was hallucinating and yet it was real. I was so high that I could hear the blood rushing in my veins and saw the snakes under my bed. I lay there on the bed and felt my system dwindle. What I did not realize at the time was that they had turned on the gas in my stove and split.
     Donny, who never left his house, came by pounding on my door. I realized that I was too high and that the gas was on. They were trying to waste me and steal my van. Donny got me outside and cleared my head with some fresh air. The acid and the divine intervention. The acid so intense and the malicious intent.
     I hooked up with another friend and planned to hit the coast. We packed the van and drove to a hotel in Hermosa Beach. Hit a bar with $700 in cash I had saved. Sold the van to some Mexicans for $2000. Dave Brady was still looking for me. Got real drunk in the bar and woke up with my "friend" and ½ of my cash gone along with most of my stuff.
     I got on the phone with my parents and had them wire me another set of airline tickets. Flew home with a pot leaf tattoo on my arm that read "smoke it."

 

• Phoenix Trip

     It was 1978 and I was back from California living at my parents' house. I wanted to go back to school, but was instead puttering around being a loser, working for my father. I was smoking a lot of dope on my parent's back porch.
     I wanted to get into psychology because I figured something was wrong with me. I never felt right.
     I ordered a book on psychoanalysis from Psychology Today magazine. I would sit on my parent's back porch and read the chapter on Schizophrenia while smoking dope. The trees sang to me as I read with their chants growing louder as I delved further into the symptoms: loss of appetite, wandering thoughts, and the behaviors. It read like a menu from my mind. I seemed to have all the symptoms and as I read on, the trees got louder and louder, telling me that I was nuts and to get used to it. I had been in some therapy after coming home from California. My mother figured that it was the drugs and that I needed help. I had been briefly incarcerated in Niagara Falls with anxiety attacks at Strong Memorial Medical Center. I had a lot of inner frustration and the book helped to open my mind. I decided that I was schizo and that these were my symptoms. I needed to go away and check in somewhere. I figured that I would never do anything with my life and that I would always be locked up.
     I remembered feeling a strong connection toward Arizona and decided that if I was going to be crazy, AZ was the place to do it. I booked a one way flight to Phoenix and erased myself from Niagara Falls, New York.
     I did not desire to be a burden upon my parents. I wanted to vanish and erase my identity: I wanted to be dead, essentially. I devised a plan for my own suicide (as an act.) I was going to fake my death and check into a mental institution for the rest of my life.
     My mother fell asleep on the couch and I took the keys to her red interior 74 Coup D'ville and drove to Goat Island. The note I left on the dash said, in short spurts, half baked and semi coherent statements like "Cannot take it anymore. Done. Sorry for everything." I locked the doors and took a cab to the Buffalo airport where I had a flight booked to Phoenix. During the flight, I smoked a few joints in the bathroom that I had stashed on me. I had nothing but the clothes on my back and $800. Back on the home front, the park police had found the car and the note. Several bodies had been found below the falls while they had been searching for mine. On several occassions, my parents had been called in to the coroner's to ID my body. Obviously, the façade had worked. Everyone thought I was dead when in fact, I was in Arizona reinventing myself.
     As soon as I arrived in Phoenix, I took a cab to the downtown area. I found a phone booth and started to thumb my way through the yellow pages looking for mental health institutions. For some reason, I chose "Camelback Clinic," probably because I liked the name. I called them and made an appointment, playing it up, telling them that I was crazy and suicidal. I needed to check in somewhere and talk to someone. I recall getting there and doing the first interview and exam. I took a Rorshach test and fucked it up intentionally, saying all kinds of crazy shit in a wild attempt to convince them that I was nuts. It went over like the footsteps of reindeer on the roof of a suburban house on Christmas Eve. I was admitted with honors immediately.
     Before my admit date, I had a few days to kill. I got a motel room. I remember hanging out and swimming, ordering a lot of fast food and an escort. She came to my room and fucked my brains out and packed my gene cells into coffins the size of tinder boxes.
     Camelback was more or less a resort inside of a mental institution. At first, they put me inside of a lock-up called Ramada, which was a place for heavy-duty type observation and evaluation. At Ramada I met a lot of nutcases and realized how messed up the entire ordeal was. But I also knew that on the other side of the facility rested a resort where the rooms looked like a motel. There were swimming pools and basketball courts. You could walk on and walk off the grounds as you pleased, so I decided to stick it out. I was slated to be in there for six weeks. I figured that this would at least bide me some time. They put me on some mild medications and I tried to hang myself one night with the bed sheet and part of the door to make them think I was even crazier than I really was. I eventually made my way out of the lock up because they believed I was making progress. I was moved into a room with a guy on lithium whose name I can't remember.
     The resort portion was kind of cool. You could walk around. They had arts and crafts and psycho-drama. Psycho-drama was fun. They would turn the lights down and get dark. And in front of the others in the room, I would re-enact the guilt I had and the whole fake death routine that I had put together back in New York. The group would pick me up and support me as if I was levitated.
     In south wing, I met Becky, a cute blond with large breasts. I remember having sex with her in the bathtub. We met another guy named Vince who had some weed. We would smoke pot and look at the stars in this low security resort. I remember meeting a lot of very young girls. Everyone was getting laid and smoking a lot of weed and going to therapy.
     We went out one night and got some booze, got real drunk and puked coming home. I had received my own room. There were dances every Friday. I got into swimming, smoking dope, and arts and crafts. I became heavily entwined in ceramics, copper, and leather.
     Finally, things had reached the point where Camelback could no longer keep me. I had met a guy inside named Norm Reece who had a nervous breakdown. Norm took me in as I had no where else to go. I stayed in the camper in his driveway. He was a collector and a handy man kind of guy doing the flea market circuit. He was just a little exhausted and mentally frazzled. I remember getting back into the anxiety attacks and not feeling well. I had tried to commit suicide using the propane gas in his camper. I wound up with a massive headache.
      I had met someone else inside named Alicia. She was tall with black hair and only 16. She called me and we got a room. I fucked her during Battle Star Galactica. She wouldn't take her top off because of a scar on her tits. She went crazy and AWOL from there. I was still at Norm Reece's place feeling fucked up and withdrawing from drugs. I tried Camelback, but they would not have me. I ended up in the Maricopa County lock up.
     They gave me a drug called Navene. I would pace back and forth and could not sit still for 2 seconds at a time. They just put me on it thinking I needed to chill out…I remember talking to God: "Please help me, please get me out of here." I believe it belonged to the Zombie class of medications. To describe it as a downer or a sedative would not be giving it its proper credit. This shit had me on the floor studying ceiling patterns for hours at a time. I really didn't know my name or where I was or what sequence of events I had just been involved in or what was coming next. There was a point of freezing there, mentally, physically, and spiritually. The worst hell could possibly be feeling stuck inside of yourself with a wild desire to scream, curse, cry, anything, and not being able to do any of the above. I would look at the hospital staff looking at me with their lack of understanding as to what was occurring inside of me. They had no idea that I wanted more than anything to at least yell "Hey, ballsack! Get me off this shit!" But I couldn't do anything. It was like watching my own life from a distant mirror. All I could do was pace in my cell and wait for the small hours to drip away.
      The next day, they took me to a minimum security area. I was able to go outside one day and felt a little better. I decided that I was not crazy and wondered what I was doing there. I called the parents and the maid answered.
     "We thought you were dead!"
Talked to my mom…pretty emotional and crying. They came to the hospital to pick me up. It was the only way they would let me out. Mom came in and picked me up and took me to airport. We flew home and I chilled out for awhile and enrolled in Buffalo State College…

     That was 1974-1979 and I was walking around in a fog with someone looking over my shoulder. I should have been dead a few times.

 

Jay Miner born 1973 buffalo, ny, Jay has lived in michigan and arizona and now resides in nevada. publishings included at: rebel's advocate, wooden head review, fuck!, lucid moon and at the-ho!d. • more poetry/prose   by Jay Miner at the   ho!d • e-mail Jay Miner • website

Frank Tedesco birthplace: MIAMI, FLA 1957 MUSICIAN / ENTREPRENEUR BUFF ST- PSYCHOLOGY arts - ? bands: HIGH YIELD, ARGYLE PARK, SMALL WORLD, BLUE WHALE, MELLO MELLO GREEN, JERKBAIT, PETER GREY, HEART SHAPED BOX.... other projects: PRODUCED JAY MINER'S DSDP...PROMOTER...RESTAURANTEER..... residence: WEST PALM BEACH, FLA         • e-mail Franco da F.A.T.man         Peace, Love and Loud Guitars...