s h e e t roots
1 3
June 24, 2011
ESSAY
Gomez’ last swim
BY JAN BOLLING
personal than I thought. It doesn’t really
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
“belong” to any one person. Pisser.
omez was found five days after he
It was nearing late afternoon as we left
died, seated on the driver’s side of
the “secret” jade field. I wobbled over the
his old ’73 Chevy pick up with a
boulders as people were starting to
Busch tallboy between his thighs. They congregate at the beach-access. Beat-up
figure he died happy. “They” being the
pick-ups and older SUVs emptied. There
folks that knew him. I never met him until
were a few seagull-voiced children, a baker’s
after he was dead and that was by accident.
dozen of incredibly well-adjusted adolescents
I was hunting jade for the first time on a Big distinguishable only by age from theft
Sur beach when I stumbled on his funeral.
parents — the same hippies, pot growers,
The folks I was visiting in California used to
hermits and miscreants mentioned earlier.
live in those Big Sur hills and canyons, lived
Someone built an altar of gladiolis,
as a part of that tribe of dirt-poor old
sunflowers, and lilies next to the creek.
hippies, pot-growers, hermits and
Congas were set up on the sand. The
miscreants. Gomez was one of them, and if
drummers were young surfers who looked
you were one of them, when you.die your
better than they played, but then again,
ashes are placed in a fast-running creek near things were just starting. A plastic gallon
Jade Beach and the wake begins.
bottle of Kesseler’s (“smooth as silk”)
I didn’t know a think about rock hunting
rotgut began making the rounds. There was
or jade, so Tamlin, Jeff and theft kids taught also a handful of folks I imagined were peers
me as we went along. We found green jade
of Gomez; men whose age could be mid-50s
and black jade and an assortment of pretty
or much, much older, with sun and drug
rocks. Jade is formed of jadeite or nephrite
engraved wrinkles, deep tans, white-to-gray
that has been pressed between tectonic
haft and beards, tattered clothes, and
plates. Serpentine is a sort of proto-jade.
without exception all missing front teeth,
Black jade (which I didn’t know existed)' ;
giving the impression of brotherhood
sometimes has a white webbing called rind
involving a powerful thirst maintained over
that will come off if it is sanded or tumbled
decades. Scruffy looking folks who would
but is tenacious otherwise. Kinda like life. I look comfortable under a bridge or in any
think about stuff like that these days.
hobo camp — odd to see them socializing
I’m 48 years old with late stage cancer
with children and the younger folk of the
complaining about losing the dubious
group. Everyone except the surfers wore
rewards of middle age — the smug years, the baseball caps.
years when you know you’re good, have the
An older bald and hearty man who still
skills to prove it and the health to enjoy i t
had his front teeth — a man pointed out to
Pisser. Spent my whole life wasting only to
me as the unofficial mayor o f this
find my body has already looted my pension
community - took a couple belts and
fund. Frofn 48 to 65 in just 8 months — me,
started the proceedings.
the guy walking an 8 inch wide block wall 30
“The first time'I met Gomez,” he said, “it
feel high guiding a cement bucket holding
was night and Gomez had a campfire with
tons of concrete; the guy whose ankles the
seven cardboard cartons of wine next to
other longshoremen held while I dangled
him. He offered, and,it seemed to be the
upside down off the side of a 7 stack
neighborly thing to do to take him up on it,
container barge, loosening comealongs and
and by the time we finished those seven
dropping retaining chains into Anchorage
cartons we were good friends. Turns out he
Bay. And now I can’t count on my legs to
had more Stashed in the bushes, and then
have enough strength to support my next
we started the serious drinking arid we
step. Pisser. Mortality and me. Brer Rabbit
became really good friends.”
and the Tai baby — that black stuff seems to
Was it significant no one else offered a
stick to everything. Kinda like death.
testimonial? I don’t know. My friends who
Anger might be a great motivator but i t ,
consider themselves part of this tribe once
isn’t living. So I notice life. Life is a lot less
said that like the folks in some
B
neighborhoods of New York City, these
people would help you out even if they
didn’t like you, simply because you were a
neighbor and needed help. Jeff described
the first time he met the community: “I was
a medic in Big Sur responding to an over-
the-side call (240 feet drop from a cliff). One
person was already dead when we slid down
the talus to them, and the other not so
good. All of a sudden there were these wild
men and women all around us tin ropes
lowering medical equipment and tying off
the vehicle I was upside down trying to give
medical care to the survivor. My partner, an
ex-cop, says ‘what’s this,’ the fucking Hell’s
Angels? I said, “I think they’re the fire
department” For me, it was love at first
sight Maybe that was it. Maybe the mayor
summed up the man but the folks were
there to celebrate the life.
Gomez’s ashes had been placed in a
decanter bottle. Perhaps the lack of a screw
top was an indication of the occasion.
Human ashes are something I know
something about and there didn’t seem to
be enough to account for a full-grown man.
It may be that five-day gap between dying
and being found rendered him somewhat..
Perhaps he was a very small man, and
maybe his tissues were so saturated with
alcohol that he combusted more completely
from burning at a higher temperature. It is
true, you know, that the color of the
deceased’s ashes indicates how hot the
crematorium oven was running that night.
Gomez’ ashes were the whitest white I’ve
ever seen - a titanium white.
The mayor took the decanter bottle and
waded knee deep into the creek. In coming
down the steep canyon the water had picked
up whitewater velocity creating foaming
eddies behind his knees. He uncorked the
decanter and poured Gomez’ ashes into the
water. Gomez’ last swim. And the water
grabbed Gomez like the dream of a high
school quarterback and ran for the Pacific.
Gomez stretched out in the current like a
titanium javelin, taller than he could
possible have been in life, a white anaconda
with a date to shed its skin at a tectonic
plate, perhaps becoming white rind on black
jade.
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