The Deaths of Chuck Norris

The passing of 80s movie legend Chuck Norris was unexpected but it’s not, in fact, the first time he’s died.

Back in 2017, Chuck died twice — once during a medivac flight — following a heart attack at a hotel in Nevada, after a martial arts tournament. Paramedics brought him back to life both times.

At least, that’s what I believe. Y’see, it was the weirdest incident I’ve ever reported on.

It started with a tip sent to that troubadour of truth, The National Enquirer. The tipster said the above: Chuck, two heart attacks, medivac flight, it happened in the town of Tonopah. The person had to remain anonymous as they noted, correctly, they were breaking HIPAA laws.

Wary of the fact Norris was one of the first human memes and a magnet for tall stories, the editor called me in Los Angeles and warned to approach with trepidation. For a start, why on this earth would Chuck Norris be in Tonopah, Nevada: population 1,938?

I placed a few calls to local businesses and it didn’t take long before the receptionist at a local hotel excitedly told me her colleague knew about it and ran off to get him.

“Oh yeah, it’s the talk of the town. He was driving back from a tournament and he stopped for the night. He was on his way to Reno, like, it’s all true,” I’m paraphrasing, but the phone call went something like that.

A few searches established Norris was, indeed, in Las Vegas a few days earlier for a martial arts tournament and did usually reside near Reno, with Tonopah about halfway between. That was enough to get me in the car racing toward this mysterious little dot on the map.

Tonopah is a one street town, although it manages to pack two casinos into that little area. Its most famous draw is The Clown Motel, where I wasn’t staying. It was late Friday when I got in, the man I had talked to on the phone had finished his shift and left the hotel.

The best place at that time of night to gather information would be the town bar. I entered, there was a sunburned road mending crew who had no doubt had a long week, still in their overalls.

The bar lady was sullen, she knew nothing of Chuck Norris. Somebody in the bar played the Nine Inch Nails Version of “Hurt” and then the Johnny Cash version back-to-back on the jukebox. This wasn’t the right place.

The bar, in all its glory 

The interior of Tonopah Station 

Undeterred, I visited the Tonopah Station Hotel and Casino.  

People who work in casinos are used to dealing with hustlers, hucksters, trickers, con artists, weirdos and all sorts of other miscreants and they instinctively know to keep things quiet. Tough crowd for a reporter. I tipped the bartenders heavily and got no answers to my questions. It was 1am, so I left. 

Tonopah, in the dry July desert heat, is an old mining town and a cluster of dusty  buildings. It’s the true West, the passing of time barely noticed since the 1800s.

As it has only one main street, It wasn’t hard to find a gossip, who turned out to be a lady who ran a clothing and dry goods store. Around an hour later I was fitted up with a new denim shirt, cowboy hat and boots. More importantly, as the sweet tobacco-voiced shopkeeper had made numerous calls, I had new information.

Ya'll ready for some rootin' and/or tootin'?

Chuck was driving a van, he was with his wife and some others, he had indeed stopped at the Tonopah Station Hotel and it had, apparently, all happened late at night a couple of days previously, so I needed to talk to the staff who on the late, late shift.

Next task was to figure out who had been working that night. A little further down the street was a junk shop run by a pair of dentally-challenged old dogs who had clearly spent the last 15 years being sandblasted on the shop’s porch. Either one of them could have been cast in an 1880s gunslinger movie and not even had to change their clothes. 

I bought a broken watch ($15) to get things moving and in between chewing tobacco spits, they loosened up and told me what they’d heard, including a name, one of the staff they said worked late and would have been there Thursday. 

Around this time I started to wonder, is this real, or has the entire town got together  and are all somehow pulling my leg? Is this the ultimate Chuck Norris conspiracy? 

These boys knew exactly what made the town tick

Now that's an office

Discreet enquiries back at the casino revealed my apparent witness would be working later that night. The lady in question spoke to me and confirmed much of what I had been told. She said Chuck had arrived about 1:30am with some of his family, his wife had checked them in and they’d gone to their room. Later she’d called down panicking, saying she needed assistance, at about 5:30am. Chuck had apparently fallen in the shower and they called an ambulance. The martial arts star was rushed out the casino, his wife went with him, and that was as far as she knew. 

Was there video? Not that she could get hold of. Was there a police report? No, police weren’t involved. Did anybody else see it? Probably a couple of people, but it was the dead of night… Did I have any evidence? Nope.

What followed after this was a lot of groundhog day-type stuff. Within three days I had become a fixture around Tonopah, and people would greet me with “oh, are you the guy asking about Chuck Norris?” Word travels fast. 

...is that a Banksy?

The door of the cab has a guy burning in hell surrounded by lost souls and asks 'will this be you?' Bet the guy who drives it is a barrel of laughs.

I found out the logistics – Chuck’d have to be taken by ambulance from Tonopah to one hospital, then transferred by air. For a serious heart emergency that would be the protocol. Nobody had taken a pic of Chuck, very few had actually been in contact with him, the casino shut down every line of enquiry and request for assistance. 

Everything seemed tainted. Was this real, or were my presence and questions fueling some wild joke which was getting out of hand? One thing I will say - the story itself never changed. And it was so inconvenient, who would lie about it?    

I visited the former gold mines nearby, learned about a failing solar power project in the area. A reality show about prospectors had been through town, as had a YouTuber. Eventually I stayed at the Clown Motel for a night, why not. They even upgraded me to the “suite.” It was very run down, old, decrepit, straight out of a Rob Zombie movie, next to a 1901 cemetery. Exactly as it should be. 

Home sweet home, baby

Seriously though, no clowning around.

A few days in, I got a guy on the phone who worked at the local fire department, who were all volunteers. He said: “If it was anybody else famous, that type of thing, I wouldn’t care about the laws and I’d tell you, but Chuck Norris is someone I respect a lot, and because of that I can’t tell you anything about what happened last week, but it sure was crazy.” 

With that, my fever dream in Tonopah was over. A couple of weeks later Chuck was back out posting his fitness routines online. Nobody else ever reported on the frantic dash to save his life. I’m glad he got to live another nine years. 

I guess it was TMZ got the tip about his medical emergency this time.

 

Cafè Heartbreak

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It’s a small place out in the woods a good 35 minute drive out of town on a one-lane dirt track. Café Heartbreak. It opens well after dark and closes when it feels like it. The dusty road up there winds, thick with trees on both sides so you can hardly see three feet left or right. If you wind down your window you can hear owls hooting and creatures rustling. 

Eventually, a sole upright streetlamp rumoured to have been an original from London in the 1930s when they had real thick fog, but now its ultra-bright bulb is dull. Next, you notice the sign, even dimmer but in pink neon spelling ‘Cafe Hearbk’ with one or more letters flashing, as you’d imagine for a scene like this. 

The bar itself has a blue facade, faded and cracked with age, but discernibly blue. Blue is the theme. You can’t see inside, the panes are thick with dust but park your car and as you approach, the door will open. You’ll find yourself face-to-face with a huge unfriendly brute of a man, completely bald, with a very thick moustache and Italian features. He wears a huge black overcoat no matter how hot it is. This is Plato. He never smiles and you have to concentrate to make out what he’s growling, but you’ll be OK. Don’t be afraid of him, he’s got the biggest heart of anyone in that place. Softer than butter in summer. The exact opposite of Steve.

You’re on your own, well, you’d better be, because you can only get in if you’re on your own and - as the sign says - heartbroken.  Cafe Heartbreak is for the properly broken hearted. Those who are desperate, who can’t stand themselves but also can’t help themselves. You’ll feel it soon as that door creeks open. It seems to let out a sigh and you’ll taste the saltiness of tears on your lips as you approach. The sorrow embraces you like an old friend, and you’d better be in the right frame of mind to embrace it back, because if not, you’re not getting in.  

You don’t need me to tell you at this point, but I’m going to anyway - don’t try and fake it. Many, many have tried. Actors and chancers have put on the most mournful shows and Plato has spotted every last one of them before they’ve even reached the door. They all get turned away, and its for their own good. If they were inside Café Heartbreak without the requisite broken heart, they’d die of shame within minutes of exposure to the truly forlorn. Their sham laid bare would make them so sick, they’d be out the door in seconds.

Entry is $25, or £15, but its negotiable over the state of your suit and shoes, which are obligatory, or a dress if you’re a lady. If it looks like you’ve been living in your clothes three days and you already stink of whisky, lines of despair on your face, he’ll let you in for 10 or even 5. I told you Plato has a big heart.

He will show you to your table. Once you’re inside you hear his perfectly shined shoes clacking over the jagged black and red pattern on the floor and you’ll wonder why its so clean when everything else is coated in such a thick layer of dust? You can try and sneak a peek into the other booths, but you won’t be able to make out much more than hair colour, illuminated by the single lamp at each table. There’s no lighting on the ceiling, and you’ll never quite be able to make out where the corners are. Everything is thick with cigarette smoke. As your eyes adjust you’ll notice a partition dividing off the bar at the back wall and the lowly illuminated outlines of a man and woman sign over the toilet doors. 

It’s akin to a grimy post-war bar, where the gin used to be like petrol and your hand came off black every time you wiped your brow. 

The tables are tiny, hardly big enough to sit behind and with barely any space for drinks. Only one person can sit. A large black telephone with an old fashioned receiver and a thick, curly cord sits before you. Next to that is a bottle, which at some point years ago had a label on it. Also, a fine well-cut crystal whisky glass, which you’re about to find out is in complete juxtaposition to the contents of that bottle. The whisky’s there for you, feel free to pour as much of it as you like, but be warned, it is truly the most foul tasting, sour and disgusting stuff you’ve tried to soak down. God knows where they get it from - China is my guess - but it’ll have you heaving. I can’t say I know of any man who’s made it so much as halfway through a bottle of that paraffin, let alone finished one. Truly a drink only a brokenhearted man or woman could subject themselves to, and believe me, you will. 

Once you’re sat down and comfortable you’ll hear the music, you somehow never notice it straight away. It’s soft and creeps up on you. Gentle but weary strings, adagios and sonatas, played by the most mournful string quintet you could imagine. It’s a recording, but they seem to have hundreds of them, I’m no master of that sort of thing, but its said you can tell its the same quintet playing each one. They’re supposed to be from Mexico, a group of the most fierce-eyed women you’ll ever see, who all wear complete black aside from a deep red flower in their hair and who all lost their husbands in a fire at a notorious whorehouse. Their strings resonate with bitterness and resent but, above all, sadness, the engulfing sadness of the bar. Every now and then you’ll hear the record run out and click for a few minutes before Steve changes it. 

The telephone has a large and unusual circular dial with 21 numbers on it, zero to 20. Zero is for the bar. They’re not cruel enough to make you actually drink that putrid mess in the bottle, so you can order drinks. Everything costs five, but they don’t serve beer. Only cocktails, spirits and wine. Steve takes your order on the phone, but The Boy brings your drinks. He’s called that but he must be pushing 40 now, even if he still looks around 17. Wordlessly he’ll set down your libations and there will be a nod, that is all. I’ve never heard him speak. 

Now you’re sitting comfortably, its time to talk. Pick up the phone and dial a number - one to twenty. You’ll be connected to a table. They’ll pick up and, usually, just start talking. Oh, the stories you’ll hear. You won’t be able to stand them. You won’t be able to stand yourself. Mothers who have lost their sons in car accidents just days before. Fathers with daughters murdered by jealous husbands. And so many who have lost the great, great loves of their lives. Near-teenagers going through the gut-wrench punch of their first love leaving, widowers bereft after 60 years together. Stories to make the devil cry.  You’ll cry, you’ll cry and you’ll confess your own heartbreak, you’ll rain down the tears and push your angry misery back on them too. Its exhausting, it leaves you aching. The tears will roll down your cheeks and all over that floor (so that’s why its so clean!) The tears will flow forever and ever and you’ll lose yourself in sentiment, in self-pity, in loathing. The blubber and mucus congealing on your shirt, you won’t care. Your heart beating so slow and yet so hard, kicking your ribcage. Your shame at being so small and pathetic compared to the 88-year-old-man you’ve just heard wring his stomach out. More people in the bathrooms are retching the last little bits of love out of them than there are pissing. Nobody sits in silence, and the cacophony of wails alone is overwhelming. The music gets a little louder once all the tables are full, once everyone is sobbing away. 

Then there’s the bar. If you’re new, the other person has to ask, and people usually pair up. You’ll be talking to a 55-year-old lady and she’ll say “come to the bar with me, we all need a little company, huh?” and you’ll give her ten minutes to clean up, you’ll wipe the corners of your eyes and you’ll get yourself together, then you’ll meet her behind the partition. Here the tables are a little larger, enough to get two people around and no telephones. There’s only one rule, but its a strict one: First names only. 

Here you’ll catch your first glimpse of Steve. His icy-cold stare, a thousand yards and then some. His lips are curled at the edges and his hair dyed jet, jet, black, blacker than Elvis’, framing an old and deeply lined face. Steve hears everything, even if you murmur. He appears hateful but you will come to realise it is at best indifference, the only thing he has to shield himself against all the pity and hopelessness. 

There are rumours about Steve. That his left chest is criss crossed with a thousand scars, deep cuts above where his heart is or was. Others say there’s just one huge scar, where he stabbed himself through with a blade so deep it came out of his back, somehow he lived but the blade’s still in there, for if they removed it he’d die. Like Plato, his brother, nobody knows a thing about him. They look Italian but certainly are not, the language they occasionally utter to each other said to be Albanian or Hungarian, or an archaic form of Norwegian everybody else in the world has forgotten. Nobody knows how long they’ve been running The Heartbreak, but stories go as far back as my father in the 40s. 

If you’re at the bar you’ll get your drinks there and the price doubles to ten. As a gentleman or gentlewoman I’m sure you’ll buy the shrunken old lady in front of you the first one. Steve will be surly as he serves you, and don’t you dare make small talk. He’s a man of function, always in a dirty white shirt unbuttoned at the top, but not enough to see if the rumours are true. His eyes are circled black like he never sleeps. He grunts and stamps your drinks down, but mark my words, he’s on your side.

  

You’ll chat, more people will appear at other tables, and maybe you’ll even start to feel better. The night goes on and the music gets faster, but its still so awfully sad as to shake your bones. From there it depends how the night goes. It could all stop there, continuing until you’re so drunk you can’t see and you wonder how you even got home the next day. But if its a good night, if people really gel together in that atmosphere, suddenly a light will come on. A small pineapple shape will appear above a door you never noticed before. Everybody’s eyes will be on it, but for a while none of the 20 will dare make a move. The oldest person - always the oldest, as they are the bravest - will make their way over and open the door. Inside is the blue room. A regal room with lounge chairs and large, lush, blue velvet curtains, and a blue light. The music changes now, becomes more modern. The saddest songs of the 20th century, some the originals, some dreamy, breathless cover versions by bands who have never been heard of in this half of the world, in languages you only know the beginnings of: Latvian, Estonian, Khazakh. They play Don’t You Want Me, Stay, Love Will Tear Us Apart, Broken Heart, old Spanish polkas and Cossack epics.

   

Steve couldn’t possibly be DJing, and Plato is still by the door. Is it The Boy? Nobody knows, but now they can’t help but dance. The saddest songs you ever heard can make you feel something else. You won’t care who you dance with, but you’ll place your feet carefully, not wanting to spoil such a beautiful night, bathed in such mournful blue light. Will you feel better? Undoubtedly, but it won’t last long, especially after you leave. Everyone must leave, and depending how drunk they are, they usually start to file out at 4am. The thick night air will provide little compensation, but you’ll be glad for it as you step into the real dark. Do people leave together? Of course, but not often, and usually just because they can’t stand to be home alone. Plato drives everyone in a once-silver Rolls Royce, rusting around the edges and poc marked with dents from coming up and down that track. 

With so many people to drive, you have to share and you talk to people on the same route. At this point Plato can usually be coaxed into a few words, although nothing personal and he never discusses his own love life or heartbreak, whichever it is. If you took your own car he’ll move it to the bottom of the hill by morning, the other side of the chain stopping anyone driving up there in the day. 

You’ll wake up late and your mouth will be hoarse and taste of old leather. It’s all so surreal you’ll be convinced you have seen things you haven’t, a monkey with a tray of drinks or a pinball machine in the corner. You’ll believe you were playing the jukebox even though there is no such thing. You’ll be convinced you’ve heard things you haven’t, a certain Beethoven arrangement or an incredible version of Loomer which was never played. And the strangest thing - every person you’ve seen there, you’ll never see again. 

Even if you somehow take another person home you’ll be left in an empty bed by the time you awake. There will be a piece of paper with ‘Rose’ or ‘Tom’ on it, and a number with an out-of-area code, which is always - always - disconnected. 

You’ll start to think you were never there at all, but then you’ll be in the Post Office a few days later and you’ll hear a low murmuring, humming a song you’ve only ever heard in The Heartbreak. Or you’ll phone for a restaurant reservation and recognise the voice taking your booking, but they won’t give you their name and will never be there when you arrive. 

That’s the way Cafè Heartbreak is. You have to go with the enigma. Push too far and you’ll find yourself down a track you don’t want. Believe me, and don’t ask why. You take it for what it is, a place to indulge a broken heart, but a place to never ask questions.

One Night in Baker

It’s 115 degrees in a ten-mile Sunday desert traffic jam, the loathing of leaving Las Vegas. The part Hunter S. Thompson never wrote about.

A horde of hungover, newly broke people slewing back south, uncaring, impatient, distorted by the heat haze, crawling in front of us.

214 miles from Los Angeles. The ideal place for The Silver Bullet, my 12-year-old VW, to splutter out pathetically, muscled out by the newer cars which are still panting like mechanical dogs.

We rapidly reach a boil without air conditioning, but nobody gets angry. I think about Nic Cage for some reason. This never happened to him in Vegas. He just stayed drunk. Or married Sarah Jessica Parker, if you watched the wrong movie.

I grimace and choke the car hard until something sparks the last bit of life out of it and I can bully it onto the hard shoulder. A miraculous 15 minutes of the Bullet’s death throes get us clenched-jawed to the only refuge from the sun - Whiskey Pete’s. The first or last place you can gamble in Nevada depending on your direction of travel. Either way you look at it, a desperate place.

We shelter from the heat in a choking haze of cigarette smoke, in the dark, sad, last gasps of Nevada’s gambling problem. Hard to believe Vegas was originally a Mormon trading post.

My girlfriend and I eat small ice creams from McDonalds and make calls. Eventually a large, jolly man of about 24 with beads of sweat running down his face appears and almost wordlessly loads the car onto his truck. My girlfriend falls asleep in the back while I make awkward conversation. There are very few places to notice on the on the 275 mile drive between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, none of them remarkable.

The smallest is Baker, a collection of mobile homes and fast food outlets willed into existence on the very southern edge of Death Valley around 80 years ago by a fairly unremarkable prospector. It was originally a railway stop.

People call Baker a town, but officially it is merely a ‘census designated place’. Nobody from a city stops for more than an hour or recognises anything past the bleached junk food signs.

The ‘Worlds Largest’ thermometer, Baker’s sole tourist ‘draw’, reads 99 degrees, even though it’s now completely dark.

Behind us the hum and lights of the sluggish funeral-like motorcade toward Los Angeles continues, the only sound - no crickets, no cicadas. Who would live here, but those running away, or with something serious to hide?

On the edge of this place there’s a hastily erected pound, a chain link fence keeping in the rusting remains of cars the desert is trying to claim. Some of these metal hulks spill onto the front by the side of the road, some sort of invite.

It’s the only garage open and, by that virtue, the only place busy. Three gnarled mechanics ignore our presence as I push the car into the pound.

There are a pair of stranded teenage sisters on their way back to San Diego and a wild eyed computer game developer waiting for their cars to be fixed.

I watch the mechanics - one a burly, black-haired greaser with a mean pair of eyebrows and blue overalls at least ten years old. He looks incapable of anything above a grunt, but is enthusiastically trying to get the girls back on the road. It’s costing them though, I note.

A sulky boy in his early 20s with dirty brown hair in no particular style and freckles lurks at the back, pretending to busy himself with some equipment.

The third guy wears a short-sleeved shirt which appears fairly clean. He must be the gaffer, and he seems friendly. Mechanics are never friendly. He looks like your friend’s dad would if he’d been left in the desert for twenty years. Truly, men without women.  

His name is Marc. There’s small talk as he sizes me up, then he gets me to start the car, which it now does, as if nothing had ever happened, a cruel trick it has played before.

He checks the alternator then lazily decides the problem must be the fuel pump. Seeming satisfied with this, but by no means checking the part, he declares the work can be done first thing tomorrow. $100 advance Of course. You’re in the desert now, boy. The hotter the place, the slower the pace.

There’s one motel in Baker. Run by people who don’t speak English, but they’re cheery enough. The room’s clean and has a big fan, but offers little shelter from the sweltering desert. The cold tap spews hot water.

Outside is a huge flatbed truck with Idaho plates, repainted in a badly applied matte black. It looks like a huge wreck, as big as a whale. As we step outside to go eat I notice a pair of beady eyes. A tweaker - what else – in the driver’s seat. Around 5’ 2”, bulging muscles and a huge, burly, badly tattooed chest. He’s breathing heavily and fidgeting wildly. He’s not really watching us, or anything that exists but he’s watching. He’s shaking a little and twitching, but mostly harmless. Tweakers breaking in and steal stuff from hotel rooms. The lock on the door is little more than a catch. Of course there are only three rooms occupied in the whole motel so they put us right next door to the tweaker. I take my important things with me.  

I look longingly at the slowly moving streak of colour blurring down the interstate. Maybe the car would make it now? But its late, and we’ve paid for the room.

We eat, get water, no beer, and I phone my boss and make my excuses for the morning. I get ice from a freezer in reception. The lady behind the counter is brushing her teeth when I walk in. She smiles nicely. The tweaker is around, just out of sight. I can sense him twitching. He follows me back to our rooms, but doesn’t go into his, preferring his car.

We watch TV. I hold my girlfriend tight, precious to me today. We fall asleep.  

I dream of bandits breaking the door down and casually pointing guns at us. Of the tweaker and a group of other zombies smashing in the place and setting fire to the room for no reason. Of the sandstorms drawing in and my mouth drying out, the whole of me swallowed by the desert.

At 4am our neighbor is shouting. His silhouette was frantically pacing and smoking outside of our room and making threats into a mobile phone. He was badly attempting to blackmail the parents of the mother of his children. Hopefully the children are with their mother in… Idaho? He swung between aggression, pity and pleading, a sorry sight from the bottom of the desert.

We left the motel about 10, of course the garage wasn’t open, so we found ourselves wrapped in a 114 degree blanket with nothing to do. We sat in Denny’s. In the morning Baker didn’t want us anymore. Its nowhereness had set in, stark and hot and I could feel the resent of its legitimate residents.

The coffee wasn’t being refilled anymore. I tipped a decent amount, but we were still pushed out.

At the garage an unknown lady was now sitting on a stool in the middle of the shop floor. She was next to the fan with a goofy grin of cracked, bad teeth. She had large fake breasts, spilling out over her particularly tight, short top.

“Say, come here - she’s got a story for you,” said Marc.

The lady proudly offered her hand, which appeared to have a computer memory stick in it.

“They got the cameras all over the house. They got me filmed and they’re coming for me, so that’s why I had to get out. My husband isn’t who he said he was when I married him. He’s part of it, they’re going to get me,” she garbled with a childlike, dumbfounded grin on her face.

Another deserted druggie. I told Marc about our friend at the motel.

 “Yuh,” he said, adding, “he was here yesterday. Wanted to trade that rusty thing in and take a car. Says he’s got to get to Vegas, his mother is going to wire him money.”

The lady was a different matter. She had been deliriously wandering around in the heat near the garage when Marc appeared, so he had taken her in, given her a bottle of water and placed her under the fan. A slither of tenderness or paternity, I noted. Marc must be a family man after all.

Of course, these distractions don’t get my car fixed, and the part hadn’t come in yet. Of course. It never would.

Two more hours passed with us watching flies in Dairy Queen, observing the inhabitants of Baker. There’s as much to do on Monday in Baker as at any other time: Eat bad food, stare at the road or nothing.

Marc came back with the bad news. They’d bought the wrong part. It was going to take longer and he started to talk in hundreds of dollars. I had other ideas.

He would give us a lift to the nearest place to hire a car: Barstow, a real town. I’d come back for mine when it was fixed.

As Marc moves some cars around, the younger mechanic rolls in, sour faced, from having been sent to fetch something. The surly, brooding, bad-attitude mechanic is in the shadows at the back of the garage. I catch the end of Marc telling the young one “…don’t let Danny get to you. C’mon, chin up.”

We load in and reverse. As we leave the rusting garage and exit Baker, it all comes out. Now, Marc’s not going to take us out into the desert, take our credit cards and dig a hole, no sir. He’s going to educate us.

He starts, waving in the direction of the boy we’ve just left: “See, he’s a good kid. My son. Mixed up in drugs. He got into heroin and then that’s all he can do. He’s been in rehab, up in Oregon, but didn’t finish. Now he’s here and there’s nothing here. Nothing. Just rocks and sun. I hope he doesn’t go back to it, but he will. Nothing out here to do.”

Then came the whole sad story. Marc had been planning to become the King of Barstow, or the mayor at least. Big plans. Started running weed over the Canadian border in the 70s and did time for it. Five years. Undeterred, he grew a horde of pot plants back in SoCal, and business had thrived. He then owned a gold mine and was prospecting.

But mining for precious stones didn’t work out and the only other thing around was cars. The garage had originally been in Barstow, but all the trade was from Vegas anyway, so to head the other mechanics off at the pass and bought the only garage in Baker. He hated Baker and it was too hot to work in, too hot to think in, and too hot to live near, but that was how things were. 

Danny was his brother. Danny had issues though. He wasn’t a nice person, and wasn’t one for messing around. He never suffered fools, or customers.

There were astronomical figures given about money gained and lost, and how Marc knew heroin because he’d bought a few grand worth and done it all himself. He’s not got addicted because he’d refused, things like that were “all in the mind.”

He liked folk-rock on the radio, but liked to talk a lot more. The plan was to buy out Barstow as a businessman. Instead he’s overcharging people in Baker.

Then there was the paranoia. Marc didn’t like cities, he didn’t like masses of people, he was sure the government is up to something. The army is out on manoeuvres in the desert, he said. They’re training up hundreds and hundreds of troops for something. They’re embedding troops into everyday life, into normal communities, to spy on us - the man who shines your shoes, who serves your food, who drives the bus. This continued. I liked Marc. He didn’t listen when I talked or gave opinions, but he was kindly enough. He wanted to be friendly, but why I couldn’t tell. The further we got from Baker the more normal he became.

We got back to LA and continued with our working week. I personally bought the part for my car and sent it to the garage. Promises were made and not kept, money went down the drain, the sands shifted around Baker, but the Silver Bullet never moved an inch.

Friday we got up early and drove back up there, in my girlfriend’s car. Marc was the only one there. It was fixed. He refused any tip. Said he didn’t need the money. I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that one bit.

I saw the matte black whale the tweaker had been driving in the rusty lot. Marc said the short, stumpy man had been back. He’d got money. Marc had shown him a car, and before he could even get the title for it, the tweakshow had bolted. He’d been in touch with the guy’s mother, who had sent the money down. Where he got her number from I was unsure. 

She said her son had driven to Vegas and crashed the car. He’d left it wherever it crashed, in the middle of the street. He’d been found by some bad people who he owed money to, probably for drugs. He’d been badly beaten and was taken to hospital. Once he decided he was feeling well enough, he’d also fled the hospital. That was the last anyone had heard of him, family, Marc or otherwise. Nobody mentioned his kids.

The tweaker woman had been escorted back to wherever she had come from by a local part time sheriff. Marc’s son was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t want to say where he was. Danny, in his malevolent blackness, wasn’t there.

And that left us. I was happy to be back in the Silver Bullet, and it roared into life. We headed East toward Joshua Tree and around 100 miles later my car spluttered out again, exactly the same, in a tiny two street place in Johnson Valley.

(Written October 2015)