Spike and Mike Part 8; Riverside

From Florida I flew home to Sacramento for the holidays. Actually, home didn't exist at this point so I stayed at my folks house in Rockin, or what had been my folks house when I'd left with Spike and Mike ine months ealier. Since then my parents had seperated. Mom was in the house now with my kid brother James, her brother Johnny and Phylis, a woman from church who was down on her luck, or just plain out of luck all together.

My mom was taking the divorce hard. My brother seemed okay, but almost too okay and I figured he was holding in a-lot of shit. He was taking care of his mom. Phylis drove him nuts and I tried to teach him to ignore her as she nitpicked at him endlessly. James and I had gotten closer when he visited San Jose and this coninuted. Having a friendship with my brother meant alot to me.

I got my bus from the house where Christine had stored it and I finally passed my driver's test becoming a liscensed driver just a few months shy of my 22nd birthday, more than a year after I'd bought a vehicle.

Bryna was spending the winter up in Yosemite at a lodge where she usually worked durring the summer months. But she was in town for the week and I convinced her that a visit to Rockin would be a good thing. I'd been thinking about Bryna a great deal and I asked her if she'd be my girlfriend.

This had been a long time coming and her first words were, "It's about time." but she followed this with doubts about weather she could trust me.

I reminder her that I'd never been fickle. I may have taken a long time to say it but I hadn't spent that time going back and fourth. I'd been consistent and I would continue to be. She needed time to think. We were the only two still planning to take the road trip that was originally her, Dan, Christine and I. I told her there was plenty of time to decide, and she headed back to the lodge.

My mom saw that something was going on, and she drove me the three hours up the mountain just to drop me, off have some tea and leave, doing the whole trip again the next day. My mom loved me. My mom loved Bryna. My mom was (and is) the best.

Bryna didn't make any promises in words, but when I left there I knew that we were an item.

I went out with my dad. I didn't bother to hid that I was smoking. We went to a casino and I enjoyed enough free drinks to catch a lite buzz. It was the first time I felt like I was interacting with him as an adult. I told him I didn't approve of all of his behavior before and since the divorce. I needed him to know that, but I also told him that I loved him and that nothing would change that. My older three brother's were giving him the silent treatment. He'd hurt our mom, nothing brought up a boy's emotions like defending their mom. I wished I could relieve my mom's pain, but I didn't see much I could do other than talking to her and listening to her.

It felt great to be back in touch with my family after so long and when I headed south to work the Riverside show I would have a chance to hang out with my older brothers all of whom still lived in Southern California.

Dan was working Riverside as well and we were roommates again. Thes time in a one room apartment in San Bernadino with a small kitchen. Mike Gribble was our crew leader. We both worked hard, but Riverside was an easy town that sold itself. It was the town the Spike and Mike had started in decades earlier.

I got to spend some great time with Mike, seeing movies and taking long drives where Mike would espouse his philosphy on life and love. Mike saw me as a playboy. I was the person on the crew he hooked up with a girl in alomst everytown. He told me a stupid story about three men who die and are facing judgement.
" 'What makes your life worthwhile?' the first man was asked.
" 'I was the world's greatest lover. I loved hundreds of women.'
"The judge was not impressed. He asked the next man, 'What makes your life worth while?'
" 'I was the world's greatest lover. I loved thousans of women.'
"Still, the judge was unimpressed. He turned to the third man. 'Well, I suppose you were the world's greatest lover too?'
" 'I don't know about that. I only loved one woman. And I loved her all my life, with all my heart.'
"And the judge told him, 'Yes, you were the world's greatest lover.'

I told Mike about Bryna, but I was having a hell of a time convincing him that I was serious. After all he'd seen me fall pretty hard for Allegra and move still move on. Oh well, he'd meet Bryna soon enough, and he'd see.

In the meanwhile we were having a great time. Mike took me to see a terrible Sylvester Stalone flick at a megaplex. I thought he was walking a bit swishy on the way in, and then we reached the counter.

"Hey!" Mike said loudly to everyone behind the counter in the loudest gayest voice he could conjure. "I'll have a large Coke, a large popcorn, some good and plenties and get my cute young friend here whatever he wants. Isn't he a dream?"
"What'll you have sweetheart" the counter jockey asked, assuming I was a hustler out with a John.
"I'll have a medium Coke and don't call me sweetheart." I said, playing the angry little hustler as best I could.
Mike was carrying on, complimenting the girls on their make up, flirting with the boys. I found it hillarious but I just stood there sipping my Coke and scowling. By the time the dreadful movie was over Mike had forgotten all about his little prank. We watched the credits, something Mike insisted on and we made our way to the lobby.

"I gotta take a piss." I announced and I headed for the men's room. I stopped and waited until Mike was halfway though the lobby before shouting after him, "You son of a bitch, where the hell's my money?"

Mike turned and looked at me in shock and then at the counter crew. All eyes were on him. He realized I'd gotten him good, and then he fell into character.
"Pay? For that lousy head? You should pay me." and he ran out to the parking lot with me in hot pursuit. We laughed all the way home.

Frank, the crew leader from my first LA tour was on the Riverside crew as was Dax, from Florida. Our apartment was a bit isolated and the crew was a bit older so we had a relatively mellow time. I went with Dax to a couple of gay bars, had a few drink bought for me. I never told the person buying the drinks that I was straight, I'd just tell them I was spoken for, and oddly enough, I was. Dax and Robo had become close friends. Robo had begged Mike not to hire me because I was faggy, so I was perplexed in hearing of this.

"Dax, does he know you're gay?" How could he not. Dax was gay from miles away.
"No. I'll tell him someday."
"You can't be in the closet for him. You're enabling his homophobia."
"Oh don't worry, I'll be curing it. Robo and I are friends for real. I'll tell him at the right time and he'll see what an ass he's been."

I hoped for Dax's sake he was right. For now though, I was enjoying being Dax's friend and I was really benefitting from all the great music he was turning me on to; Liz Phair, PJ Harvey, and I believe he even snuck some Dolly Parton in there.

I wrote Bryna many letters and finally she took the bus down and joined Dan and I in our small apartment. Dan was a huge slob, which you wouldn't think would be too big a problem with daily maid service. Our bathroom didn't come with shower curtains, so we took baths. Dan needed to shower. I suggested he go to K-Mart and pick up a shower curtain but he had a better idea. He took his shower, soaking the bathroom and then he spread his newspaper all over to soak up the water. He left the paper there until it dried, hardening into paper mache mess which had to be scraped off of the floor with a spatula. We loved him anyway, and he and I actually got along really well. He still didn't meet any girls, but I was no longer to blame.

My sister in law broke her leg and Bryna went to stay at my brother Erick's house to help out. So Dan and I took to hanging out there as well. Drinking on the front porch with Erick and his best friend Little Dave was a tradition. We'd drink until Dave started telling us he loved us. We didn't mind this, but it served as a good marker to when we'd had enough. I walked into the corner liquor store with Dave, and no lie, the store owner greeted Dave with a hug and then handed Dave an empty box without Dave saying a word. The man knew the box would be filled with forty ouncers, just as it was every night. Dave was puttign this man's kids through college on box of ber at at ime.

Dave worked at In and Out burger by day. He was on the list to go to Burger U, where In and Out Burger employee's learned to become managers. At In and Out, only the managers could cook the burgers he told us proudly. Dave was the most loyal In and Out employee of all time, and despite his nightly drunks he always made it in by morning.

Erick pulled me aside one night, long after Dave had started on loving us all.

"Keith. Bryna's the one. I've seen her with them kids. You have to marry this one. If you let her get away, or turn her into a lesbian, I'll kill you."
I gave Erick a hug and told him Dave loved him. Bryna's child rearing skills were the least of my concern but I was glad my brother liked her.

Mike let me MC the shows at least once per show night. I learned his routine inside and out and I began working in my own jokes, many of which found their mark. Life was ideal and more so since Bryna and I were loading up my bus and preparing for our road trip. Mike gave Bryna a job selling merch at the shows and he gave me his approval as he found her most charming. I think Mike got it, that I was serious and determined to be the world's greatest lover from his god awful story.

The show's closed and Mike had a party at his Riverside home to celebrate. Mike's girlfriend was an animator herself (She was a big part of the Coca-Cola Polar Bears commercials) and so she travelled frequently. I'd only met her a few times before. Now, at the party, she sat on the couch with Mike falling asleep on her shoulder. Bryna pointed them out and told me something was wrong with Mike. I told her he was tired, that he normally went to sleep right after the show each night.
"No." Bryna asnwered, "Look at her. She's worried sick."
I didn't see it.

The big day came at last. I said goodbye to Mike, Dan, Dax, Frank and I said goodbye to the festival which had just given me the best or at least most memorable year of my life. I don't know why I felt I couldn't come back to it. I guess I figured a relationship with Bryna would require us being in the same geographic location. But I also felt like there wasn't much higher to go in this company. I could become a crew leader, but the only positions above that were held by Spike, Mike and Margine in the office. With no idea where I'd work or live afterwards Bryna and I climbed in a bus and took off to see America.

Prologue:
I was back in Sacramento when my brother Erick called to ask if I heard. Mike was in the hospital, something to do with his pancreas. I didn't rush to see him but I did call a few days later to find out where I could send a get well card. Mike had died of pancreatic cancer.

There were memorials for him all over the world and purple balloons were released at each. Dan and I considered dressing like purple ninjas and attacking the San Francisco memorials with purple cream pies. We figured Mike would have loved that. Instead we got a bottle of some foul tasting purple shit and got drunk.

There will never be another like Mike Gribble, and I hope he got to see that I was making it. That I was becoming the kind of person he could be proud of. The kind of person that he kept giving me the chance to be.

>>>Next up, How The Hell Did I Become A PLUMBER?>>>