I’m Alive - Day Ten

I've been on the road for ten days now, about a third of my trip down. It's a benchmark to be proud of, though on this night I find myself in a terrible motel in Oklahoma City wishing I hadn't rushed all day on I-40 to get here. Instead of going out and celebrating my proud, little milestone, I'm holed up in this shitty motel room in this dodgy neighborhood, not going anywhere.

The drive out of Albuquerque is nice enough. An early wake-up, and I'm on the road before the heat takes hold of the day. The plan is to rally through north Texas, making the eight-hour schlep to OKC. I have high hopes of seeing the city.

Through eastern New Mexico, I take historic Route 66, intersecting off and on with Interstate 40. I pass through quiet towns at a leisurely pace. It's a long drive, and I'm in no hurry.

Nearing the border, I see a sign for something called Art City. Curiosity and a lifelong appreciation for the arts compel me to detour to take a gander. I go through Tucumcari, a beautiful, small desert town just barely holding on to what it once was.

An abandoned, graffiti-strewn gas station is the first structure to greet me. As I drive through the slow, hot, and empty streets of the town, I notice how every other building used to be something; now it's nothing much. A couple of cannabis dispensaries, a few lonely bars, cigarette shops, liquor stores, food trucks, a couple of industrial agriculture supply stores, and gas stations seem to be the only businesses open. I don't see a soul walking around.

The architecture of a Southwest long gone but still standing proud, if not dusty and forgotten. I count maybe twenty cars driving around. I take a slow left and find what seems to be its Main Street from a lifetime ago. The only business still open is a family-style Mexican restaurant.

On the outskirts of town is Art City. A large plot of land that has fourteen or so large, outdoor sculptures and installations and a few RVs for glampers to rent. Each sculpture is set apart by a short walk between them through wild grass three feet high and barely maintained trails, with thousands of grasshoppers hopping away underfoot. There's a definite Burning Man vibe here, and no shade- it's just not my thing, though the scope of it all is impressive.

I'm particularly taken aback, however, by a large sculpture made with cut-up rubber tires and god knows what else; of a monster on four legs, roaring its fanged maw at a young boy who stares back with an expression of curiosity, defiance, and a healthy dash of fear. Inside the monster's mouth, I notice a golden version of the child.

We are what we fear.

Or perhaps, within our fear lies our bravery.

"Facing the Fear Beast" by Tigre Bailando is a striking work in its scope, execution, and location. I feel a kinship to this boy as I'm currently facing my own fear beasts on this trip. I stroll through the wild grass, briefly visiting the other sculptures before heading out.

On my way back through Tucumcari, I stop in to the Mexican restaurant on Main Street, figuring a couple of tacos is seldom a bad idea. Walking in before me is a real-life cowboy, older than dirt and thin as a twig. Dressed in dusty, well-worn clothes older than I am, with a slow, easy swagger that belies his age. We nod howdys to one another and head to our separate booths in an otherwise empty restaurant.

I enjoy some of the best tacos I've ever eaten, and trust me, I know a thing or two about delicious tacos, having grown up in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Both those cities have some epic taquerias. The barbacoa still makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

It's time to get back on the road. Like I said, I'm in no rush, but this will be the longest single-day drive I've taken on this trip yet. I don't know how my body is going to respond to the hours and miles.

The landscape changes slowly between New Mexico with its mountainous desert background, giving way to the stout, flaked mesas and shallow canyons of Texas. Even the clouds seem to take on a new face- wispy and strewn haphazardly across the pale sky. The horizon expands far and wide, monotonous and dull.

The air hangs low and brown, not from smog but from a cattle ranch abutted against the highway. Sad and sweaty cows stand or lay in their fields of dirt. Thousands and thousands of them, further than I can see.

I contemplate stopping in Amarillo for the night; my back is feeling tight and achy. My old man bones are yapping for a rest. I remember that I'm two days behind my loose schedule, and I'll have a long schlep the next day to my actual next destination: Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas. Better to suffer now and rest later. I'd like to make up for lost time.

Though time well spent with good friends is seldom lost.

The rest of Texas is a slog. I don't take any photos.

Into Oklahoma, the Southwest clearly and suddenly becomes the South.

The dry Texas landscape suddenly rolls into the pale-green grassy plains and farmland of Oklahoma. The Southwest surrenders to the South. It's a drastic and noticeable shift in environs.

Brown becomes green. Flora that quietly conserves life becomes loud, lush, and wild.

Death becomes life.

Hundreds of rolling grass mounds topped with rust-red soil border the highway. Grassy knolls scalped to reveal the red clay-like dirt below. I learn later they’re called redbeds.

Even the air changes suddenly as I leave the last vestiges of desert and the foothills far from, but still a part of, the continental divide. This southern air is humid, thick. I can feel it on my skin like a layer of grease. The air hangs heavily on everything it touches.

Oklahoma countryside is beautiful; I highly recommend a visit. Unfortunately, as I enter Oklahoma City, I realize I should have camped somewhere out there, away from the city. Not sure why I rushed to get here, other than feeling behind schedule. It feels like I made a mistake staying here. I booked a $40 motel room, and I got exactly what I paid for. A crappy room in a terrible neighborhood full of addiction and desperation, made worse by its unfamiliarity and the fear of random violence that I'm still struggling to face.

Facing the Fear Beast indeed. I am that brave and scared boy.

I miss the desert. I miss camping. I miss night skies lit by stars, not fluorescent street lamps. I miss the sound of crickets chirping in the midnight distance, not the angry late-night cackles of struggling people in the parking lot outside my dingy motel room.

I miss home too. I know how San Francisco breathes, how it speaks, how it comforts me.

I don't like it here. I fear this next southern leg will be more urban, more populous, louder. Scarier too, probably because I'm unfamiliar with the pace and pain of this kind of life. I have to get used to it. Expect it. Accept it. Appreciate it, best I can.

It's part of the journey, for better or worse.

---

I had multiple IVs poking me, a chest tube in my ribs, and EEG sticky pads throughout my torso monitoring my weak vitals all night. The hair on my chest caused one pad in particular to repeatedly fall off, which triggered a loud beep throughout the night.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

As soon as I had finally drifted off to sleep. That damn beep.

I woke up the next day and despite being thoroughly medicated; in throbbing pain with an exhaustion from deep within my soul that was impossible to shake.

I don't remember much of those first days in the ICU, which will make the retelling of that stay a bit difficult. I remember at some point my brother was there. He might have been there when I woke up; I'm not sure. He had flown up that morning as soon as he could. I probably cried seeing him. I love him.

Anne, Melinda, and Patrick were there as well. Shortly after, my dear friend and business partner Tina arrived, having driven down from Humboldt County. Then Tiffany arrived after she drove from Los Angeles.

My friends were holding back tears. My pain was their pain. The sympathy from my friends was overflowing and overwhelming.

Well, most of them at least.

Tiffany's first words to me were, "Bro, you look like shit." Laughing hurt a lot, but I'd soon find out just how healing it could be as well. That was a good start.

I may not remember specifics, but I do remember the feeling of love and concern that surrounded me from people that I love in return. I tried to put on a brave face, like this was no big deal, but there was no hiding the state I was in, not from the people that knew me best.

The left side of my face had swollen to a softball-sized mass of wounded flesh. The irritating stitches interlocked with what was left of my beard. There was no way to shave it prior to the previous night's suturing effort. The lacerations were too deep.

Bruised and scabbed. I could barely speak.

There was talk of wiring my jaw shut to help the recovery. I was given a meal plan of pureed food.

The tube in my ribs pumped out a thin, pale red liquid from my lungs into a flat, rectangular canister with ounce gradation markings. It reminded me of watered-down Kool-Aid. The amount of blood water it had already collected shocked and terrified me.

My bullet wounds were stuffed with gauze. Too deep to stitch, too many bits of shrapnel embedded deep in my meat to remove. I'd live with this shrapnel inside me until the end of my days.

But I'd live.

I was, at least, out of those nightmare woods, no longer wondering if I'd die.

My brother took the reins; he made arrangements, answered a multitude of texts from concerned people, and tried to track down my keys and wallet that were stored by SFPD or the EMTs; we weren't sure. We realized someone had stolen my cell phone after I dropped it on the street when the shooting first started.

There I had been, shot and bleeding to death, surrounded by people attending to me or just watching... and someone had the audacity to steal my blood-stained cell phone.

Gotta respect the hustle, I guess.

Tiffany had just taken her final nurse exam the same day I was shot. I'd been so proud of how hard she'd studied and worked the last few years to become a nurse. She'd spent the last three years skipping nights out at the bar, having no social life whatsoever, focusing on her studies, acing her exams, and being a fantastic straight-A student.

Little did we know just how crucial her education would be to my recovery in the coming weeks. She was in the room asking the ICU nurses all the right questions with a relaxed and professional mindset, all while keeping a positive and funny approach to this awful debacle I'd found myself in.

Nurses and doctors came in throughout the day. Poking and prodding me. The nurses were warmer than the doctors. Asking me questions, speaking in medical terms my drug-addled, traumatized mind couldn't understand. The words "miraculous" and "beyond lucky" were tossed about far too often for my comfort.

One thing I remember wondering… from laying on the sidewalk dying, into the chaos of the ER, waking up in terror that sleepless night, into the first day's glaring din of the ICU, was whether they'd caught the shooter. What happened to him?

I recall fearing that if he hadn't been caught, if he was still out there somewhere, then I was likely still in danger. I remembered how intent he was in shooting me. Like an assassination attempt. Hospital reception had selected a code word for visitors to use to prevent someone coming into the room to harm me, to finish the job.

Emu. The code word was emu

I also remember fearing that if he'd been caught, would I face him in a trial? What kind of witness would I be? What if he wasn't convicted? What if he got out of prison in a year or two? The justice system often offers little justice, and I panicked at the thought of him walking away from this attack with little to no punishment for his crimes.

Would I have to leave San Francisco?

Would I have to change my identity?

Would I seek revenge?

Would I murder him?

What would I do? My mind raced with fantastical revenge scenarios over and over. My heart panicked when considering a life spent living in fear of another attempt to murder me.

I found out that day that my fears and anxieties were irrelevant. Unnecessary, as most fears tend to be.

That same night, after a four-hour standoff with SFPD from his apartment above my shop, the shooter Cheasarack Chong recklessly and aimlessly fired an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle at the SWAT team stationed on a neighboring rooftop. In a similar manner in which he missed my internal organs, failing to murder me with his Glock 9mm handgun, he also missed with multiple rounds shot at the police from his assault rifle.

They returned fire with two sniper rifle rounds and killed him where he stood. He bled out and died shortly afterward. I hope he felt the pain of those rounds, realized the pain he’d caused me, and felt regret.

Hearing the news, my fears were alleviated. I could rest easier knowing his role in my life; brief but life-altering, was over.

Justice had been served, for better or worse.