Fall, storm season United States Pacific Northwest coast. Heavy storms moving in churning the sea into a washing machine with 35 foot breakers, and dimming the sky to dark grey obscured by rain and fog.
Not the kind of weather for an outsider.
Ronald Dutch had an outstanding warrant in Utah and now warrants in Phoenix. Through a charity group he had scored a Grey Hound bus ticket to the Pacific Northwest city of Portland. He was on the next bus out. Portland renowned for drugs, partying and charity. He loved the place, except for the winter weather, but never expected to visit the region again.
“These people are really fucking stupid, you go from church to church, place to place – you’ll always find anything you need, food, clothing, whatever, understand?”
— Ronald Dutch, Portland Oregon
After a long bus trip Ronald had spent the first week in Portland partying. He set up in a local municipal park that the public now avoided for safety reasons. An altruistic stranger provided him with a tent. Strangers who were soon friends the drugs. Ronald didn’t recall much from the week, but truth be told law enforcement was once again looking for him after an assault complaint from a local sex worker (SW) and a breaking and entry (B&E) in which he was caught on camera at a downtown business albeit he had been one of three perpetrators, and he had no memory of the event. He had only taken one item: the machete.
In almost every way Ronald was the typical visitor to Portland.
His first thought was of being cold and second was irritation — “where in the hell is my tent?” Second thought: “some mother fucker stole my tent, I’m going to kick his ass, I bet it was Jimmy B, if it was Jimmy B I’m going to take my machete to Jimmy, fuck Jimmy.” Ronald’s third thought: “damn, my high is wearing off, I gotta go find that dude in the white Honda again.”
Ronald sat up, but he didn’t recognize anything, he was laying on a sidewalk along a waterfront with a river or ocean along side him, water, water everywhere. Everything was muted dark blue-grey, projectile rain was driving into him by sustained storm winds.
“Well fuck” Ronald muttered, where in the hell was he, a freakin’ car wash?
He saw an elderly gentleman bundled in yellow rain slicks and matching galoshes walking down the sidewalk in his direction holding cans in his hands, “hey, hey” said Ronald drenched in rain, still sitting in the middle of the side walk, his machete on the ground beside him, “hey, I am talking to you. YOU, I’M TALKING TO YOU, don’t you dare turn your back to me you son of a bitch, I’m asking you a god damn question, understand?” The elderly man turned right back around shuffled away quickly cutting across the grass as fast as he could muster.
“These God Damn snobs, nothing but apathy for the homeless. They live in their big houses and don’t give a damn about anyone or anything but their own wealth! They’re entitled as hell. If I ever see that old mother fucker again, I’m slitting his tires. I’ll throw a rock through his window.”
“The least that mother fucker could do is just tell me where I am.” Ronald squinted around looking for cover, the wind was unreal and the rain stung his eyes. If he could have seen, he would have realized he was not alone.
It was hard to tell the time of day. The grey was almost uniform from 7am up until 4pm when the sun did a quick set. There was no way, especially for an outsider, to tell the time of day making the coast line particularly disorienting. He was obviously still in the Pacific Northwest but most definitely not Portland.
It was actually 9am. Feeding time.
He had of course found himself in Dysmal Nitch which was slightly unused to this sort of visitor, as partying in Dysmal Nitch had never held much appeal to anyone at all.
Ronald needed a cigarette but found that his pack had drawn water and were soaked. He could dry them out but they were going to taste awful afterwards. Maybe there was a church around where he could get a cup of black coffee and take a shit he mused.
But it was hard to see in the rain and chill and his head was pounding and his mouth was dry. Damn, he thought, best sleep it off a bit more. Gotta find that Honda, and if not the same Honda he was sure there was a hookup nearby in a car, all he needed was $5.00 and surely he could hustle that up. Anything other than getting dope sick [withdrawal].
He looked around and alongside the river was a dark thicket which would clear and open up in spots revealing structures in the interior – bits of rocks, and concrete and straw – shelter. A lot of shelters in fact, perfectly hidden from the side walk.
It appeared dry inside the little created rooms in the thicket. Painted on the concrete: KEEP OUT.
He smiled wryly — assholes, it was a free god damn country. He had done his time, paid his dues, fuck ’em. He was going in.
Slightly rubbed out from a thicket branch and obscured underneath evergreen leaves was the word DANGER.
DANGER KEEP OUT.
Ronald went to investigate closer, ducking into the thicket through a small break worming his way toward the haphazard shelter – his mind lost in blurry thoughts. When he got on his feet he had plans. It wasn’t his fault, God only knew what he had been through with the last marriage. The nagging never stopped, ‘get a job’, ‘stop drinking’, ‘make your ex-wife stop calling about child-support ‘, ‘who is that woman you were with?’ ‘are you using again’… on and bloody on it had went. If he could ever just find someone to actually love him for him, he would quit all of it, the drugs, the partying, he would settle down — but women were all bitches and trash that did nothing but use men as an ATM$$ and he doubted that finding someone to truly love him would ever happen. Fuck ’em.
Luckily he had no issues squeezing through the hole created by the concrete pieces once he adjusted his coat and it was dry and warm inside, straw lined, and the wind was blocked, thank fuck, he thought. He reached outside for his machete which he dragged inside with him and promptly fell back into unconsciousness.
The old man wearing yellow rain slicks with the cans had not returned. This was a problem. They had a simple pact – the long haired intelligent black roof rats with their white feet were only kept in check by coastal feral cat colony #9. They had a simple transaction: food for freedom.
Nobody wants roof rats. Nobody.
Irritate feral colony #9, yeah there were going to be a whole spring of roof rats to contend with.
It was after breakfast. The wind had eased up, the rain now just smattered instead of torrential.
A claw was on Ronald’s cheek tugging at him. Waking him. Two intense cat eyes stared at his face. This human smelled bad thought the cat. Ronald cursed. The light was low…but was that a cat? It was the largest damn cat Ronald had ever seen up close. It looked like a normal orange tabby…but big and muscle bound. It had to be at least three times the size of an average cat. “God damn” Ronald muttered starting to scoot his butt out of the concrete shelter worrying his face might get used as a pin cushion – Ronald did not trust cats. This startled the cat that had been curled up sleeping on his stomach which jumped and hissed. How many cats were there???
Ronald’s joints creaked as he slid free of the concrete and still crouched to avoid the worse of the thicket quickly exited, a ring of cats were around him without fear, more showing up by the minute – staring. Did this human have the food today? Why did he look so weird? What was with that body odor?
“Wow, you a big lot, but I’m taking my leave, understand? None of you muther fuckers get any ideas, understand?” The cats did not understand. Feral colony #9 waited looking at him wanting their kibble. The stand off seemed to last forever. Ronald reached for his machete and realized he had forgotten it in the shelter, “damn”, he cursed, “nice kitties, nice little mother fuckers, let me get by, understand?”
The cats looked to something behind him, they were nervous now, eyes large and then all together they scattered in every direction. Ronald had a bad feeling about this, as he had been on the run for some time after the incident in Utah hounded and pursued by beings so strange he had only the word ‘alien’ to describe them.
He turned around slowly and froze in terror. There was a young thin man with excellent posture in an old European waist coat standing watching him from eyes that were solid black, the man seemed to float. Ronald felt dizzy and nauseous like the ground was flying away from him and reality was an unsettled construct that this being played with The feeling was one he had before … at the bank of Utah. The Bank of Utah … that day, that awful fucking day, but now they had caught up to him. Finally.
Ronald who had honed his survival instincts along with his addictions over the years realized he had to act immediately, if he remained frozen he was a gonner. “FUCK!” He screamed and then he started to run. His lungs heaved and burned unused to anything resembling cardio, the rain blocked his eyes and he had no idea where he was going but he had to get away.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Ronald windmilled his arms to stop as he realized he had rushed out amid an intersection. He heard the screech of tires as a transport truck tried to come to a sudden stop. The truck slowed and Ronald realized he was about to be run down in the street and picked up enough speed to reach the side walk before falling completely winded.
The trucks brakes strained and whined, and as the truck came to a shuddering halt the back container upended spilling the contents – 55 gallons of fish heads and assorted fish parts – into the intersections. The smell was sulfurous fish essence that went up into the sky like a beacon and overwhelmed the senses.
The driver hopped out and pulled up the hood on his sweat shirt from the rain. He hung his head. This was the worst day, look at all that fish product, no help for it… they all knew what was going to happen next so the driver slunk off to a safe distance, tears dripping off the end of his nose, as roar of a legion of sea gulls homed in on the fish feast.
Ronald knew he had to get up but as the dark shadows swirled around him he was frozen stupified. He was a gonner and that moment he felt in his bones he was going to die. “OHhhh MY GOD!” He shouted from deep inside as the army of sea gulls descended down from above his head and alighted on the fish. They were big boofy birds with mighty shoulders and a red spot on the beak. They took no prisoners, proud they were, as proud as any sea birds had ever been and they were here for the free fish.
He couldn’t control his breathing. He was hyperventilating but could not take his eyes away from the crush of seagulls on the gallons of fish heads and tails before him, but then a shadow. Another shadow. The cats. The cats had followed him.
“Dear God”, he prayed, “just let me survive this.” The cats had to weigh 30lbs a piece, what were they feeding them? Black cats, Orange tabby, Grey tabby – if Ronald had been a cat person he could have appreciated how beautiful and well put together feral colony #9 was — but Ronald had been starved of love, beauty and compassion so that appreciation and empathy was utterly lost to him.
The cats jumped into the frey of seagulls.
They had one hell of a fight. Some of the seagulls were trying to fly away with fish heads almost the same size they were. They spread their wings and rushed the cats who would dodge and try to come in behind them. The cats could grab a large chunk of fish and retreat with it. Breakfast time – finally. Feral colony #9 decided the strange stinky human wasn’t so bad, he obviously was trying to lead them to the fish-feed.
There was enough fish to go around.
The police pulled up, but there was naught for it but to let the natural denizens of Dysmal Nitch to work clean up on the intersection. Upon every roof for blocks sat sea gulls. It wasn’t going to be long before the mess was cleared.
A police man walked up to Ronald, he stiffened. He got to his feet – sore he realized, he was really sore. “HEY YOU” said the officer, Ronald put on his best poker face, “the movie theater is two blocks down – just keep heading East.” The officer pointed in a direction and waited. Ronald’s feet obeyed and he started walking. “Movie theater, yeah.”
The theater was tall and adjacent to the grocery market of organic produce. Brand new pretty green carts were parked outside. The theater had a poster in a window frame facing the parking lot. “Communist Christmas Classic: GHOST DAD, now playing!” The image looked a lot like Bill Cosby, but surely not, right? Communist? Ronald scratched his head. Was Ghost Dad a Christmas movie even? Ronald couldn’t recall.
He went into the movie theater.
“Right, you’re here” a short round lady with overtly red dyed hair said to him. “You’ll be staying back here, we have a room with a cot, hope that will do for now…”
Ronald was really just at a loss for words as he completed training for the job. What should he say? What could he do?
He ended up filling up cups of slushy, dishing out popcorn and recommending the communist classic, Ghost Dad.
He noticed a bad stain on some of the orange tile so while slow he worked on cleaning it up and polishing the popcorn maker.
When his shift was over he felt a sense of pride.
It had been a good day.
He found a few bucks in his coat pocket. He walked over to the grocery mart and bought a couple of cans of cat food for the morning – he thought he might walk up around the river pay feral colony #9 a visit, he planned to make soup on a hot plate so purchased a selection of vibrant veggies and at checkout picked up a small bouquet of flowers for the woman with red hair. Ronald didn’t realize it, but it was the first non-selfish day of his life and it felt good.
It had been a good day. He was where he was supposed to be, and not even a black eyed alien could beat the fate that had dropped him into Dysmal Nitch.
And that’s how Ronald Dutch became the manager of the theater, later married (yup, the round short red head with the big smile), volunteered at the fire department and church and eventually could barely recollect his past.
You may also enjoy the prequel story, ‘There Are Aliens Running the Bank of Utah‘
