Randsburg – RIP Tommy

Originally wrote this while living in the Mojave Desert a while ago.

Didn’t have much going on at the time just helping out friends and family.

Unfortunately, “T” in the story committed suicide recently after going down in a large scale Medical Marijuana operation. It’s even legal recreationally in California at this time.

Randsburg

As odd jobs go, it was a pretty good one. P, the owner of a ranch near Victorville, California, had bought some fountains and statues. One of the fountains needed to be moved to Randsburg. She asked me to help T, her boyfriend, to move the fountain.

T had the trailer loaded up by the time I got to the ranch. I jumped into his truck, and we were off to the small desert mining town an hour North on 395.

As T drove we spoke about properties for sale, the difference between Japanese and American urban planning, and of alfalfa fields for Dutch dairy cows. There wasn’t much to see on 395, except near Four Corners. From a distance it looked like a lake, but as we got closer it was a giant solar panel field. T said an Israeli company had built it some years ago.

About a half hour later we were in Red Mountain a small town on the 395. T turned left, off of 395, and toward Randsburg. He pointed out some abandoned mining shafts covered with steel grates, and a colossal mound of dirt that held pounds of gold, but no one could sift through the dirt to find the gold without paying the state of California for the privilege.

After a few more twists and turns in the road we were in the one hitch town of Randsburg. We stopped at T’s whorehouse that he had bought a few years back. The women that once worked in the small brothel were long gone, but T had done a tremendous job of restoring the whorehouse to its former luster.

An amusing side note, the original jail house built in 1896 was only a stone’s throw away. It made me wonder how many people walked up the small incline after being released from jail. One could almost see the boot marks in the sand.

Nobody had a horse in Randsburg, but everybody had a dirt bike, or quad. There were dirt trails in the low hills, and the people were riding out to them, and then back again. T explained they were all from out of town. We unloaded the fountain to their buzzing sound.

When we finished unloading the fountain we strolled through Randsburg. I imagined a six-shooter on my hip, and nodded hello to everyone I saw.

My clothes did not meet the standard of the locals though. It really came to my attention when I met Cowboy Bob in his thrift store. He was true to his name wearing a cowboy hat, flannel shirt, Wrangler jeans, and cowboy boots. He had a worn face from years of walking into the sunset. He must have been in his 80s. I shook hands with him, and he squinted at my gym clothes. He probably thought I had just finished playing basketball.

After T talked to Cowboy Bob for a while, we continued our walk up Main Street to say hello to R, a soft spoken gentleman and master craftsman.

He was measuring some slabs of pine wood when we walked in. His wood shop used to be a bank. The safe door, a large black steel door with a combination dial on the front of it, stood where it had for a hundred years. The safe was empty of course, and T let me in on a little secret. Many years ago someone had robbed the bank. They didn’t go through the imposing safe door though. Instead they knocked the bricks out of the wall while standing on Main Street.

R invited us downstairs for a cup of coffee. He told us he had seen a tarantula that morning, and explained that tarantulas are not spiders. Tarantulas are from the family Theraphosidae, as opposed to being simple Arachnids.

He handed us each a cup of coffee from his small kitchen, and started looking for his dictionary to prove his point. T began to explain that if a tarantula’s abdomen wasn’t large enough it couldn’t survive the winter. He recalled personal experiences with just this sort of thing.

I listened to his stories looking around the downstairs shop. The floor was dirt, the walls were the cement of the foundation, and the roof was support beams and the underside of the floor upstairs. On the support beams hung various tools for carpentry, levels, nail pullers, and hammers. What interested me most was what I saw written in neat letters: π = 3.1415926

R came out of the kitchen with the dictionary opened to the page on tarantulas. He pointed to the part about “hairy spiders of the family Theraphosidae.” I nodded in agreement.

We stood in silence drinking our coffee. When we finished drinking it, we handed our cups back to R and he rinsed them off. Then we walked back upstairs.

R asked T to bring him some oak 2’ x 4’s when he came back to Randsburg. T said he would, and we left the old bank, and let R get back to his work.

Dilapidated outhouses lined the road as we walked back through a residential district. Some had addresses pinned on them. It made me think that the old cowboys here must have spent a great deal of time in the outhouse. I could see the appeal though. With their backs to Main Street, and the outhouse door open, any cowboy would have had a wonderful view of the low hills in the distance. As I searched the hills with my eyes that afternoon, I could see small dust raising dirt bikes racing across the peaks.

T and I made it back to his whorehouse. He offered me a Mountain Dew from his refrigerator, and I gladly accepted. I drank it, looking at a small coffee table with two empty chairs pulled out next to it. For a moment, I saw the outline of two ladies playing a card game in my mind. Then they disappeared along with the thought.

We loaded some old plank boards on top of his truck from a wood pile near where we had set the fountain. T locked up and I got back in the truck. When T got into the driver’s seat he gave me $20 for helping him out.

RIP Tommy

Thank you,
Cyrus Emerson

Red Roses the audiobook for your consideration at the Voice Arts Awards (NYC), and the Grammys (LA).
https://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Red-Roses-Audiobook/B07F2LWHPN

Red Roses narrated by Kira Omans
www.kiraomans.com

Red Roses music by Rike Luxx
www.rikeluxxbeats.com

Red Roses sound by Pond5
www.pond5.com

Also, available from The Author:

Fear and Loathing in the State of Jefferson - ebook
https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B079R5KLPN&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_GsURAbAVDYNEM

Lost Angel – Introduction with Ray Manzarek of The Doors
https://www.downpour.com/lost-angel?sp=249812