The Body
Beaten almost beyond recognition, Butch Holland lay sprawled out against the west bank’s rocky outcropping of the long since dried up Santa Ana riverbed. God only knows what would possess someone to give a man a beating this bad. Whoever it was that did this to him, did the dirty deed so methodically rich in evil that just a glimpse sent shivers down Jimbo’s spine, making the short hairs on the back of his neck stand on end at full attention. He couldn’t help but look over his shoulder, scanning his immediate surroundings, hoping that whoever did this horrible thing wasn’t hiding in the brush and eyeballing him with intentions of doing the same damn thing to him. By the looks of this dude, he’d been out there for a day or two at least, no more than three to four days tops. Any more time than that, he’d have been picked on by hungry predators indigenous to the area. As it was, the body was already surrounded by a halo of flies. Splayed naked, except for the worn-out sneakers on his feet, Jimbo immediately got the feeling that ol’ Butchie Boy didn’t die right away. There were no visible signs of massive trauma on his body, not that he was an expert in such matters, but any fool could tell that he’d been tortured in ways that would destroy his psyche long before his will to live would succumb to the throes of death, definitely making him wish he were dead several times over before actually giving in. They probably kept him alive for as long as they could…poor fucker. The first and most obvious thing Jimbo noticed was the tiny metal key dangling from a long rolled up piece of skin suspended just under his chin. This was the product of one of the most excruciating tortures known to man. He was spam keyed. Though he was familiar with this grisly practice, he’d never actually seen it, nor did he know anyone who had, except one other person. The only time he had ever heard of this before was when Dirty Dick and he were swapping horror stories over a couple of cold ones a few months back. Describing Dick would be futile, in that no justice could be given to him without going into his past, or even present, which actually would not be the wisest thing to do. Let’s just say that Dick didn’t get the descriptive “Dirty” preceding his God given name because of his reputation as Fontana’s pristine leader of the Christian Coalition for Moral Standards in Education. What can be told is that Dirty Dick Mueller is a highly ranked member of one of the most notorious motorcycle clubs in America. He’s also a twice decorated United States Army Ranger in the 101st Airbourne Division (Screaming Eagle) and is also one of the fiercest repo men you’ll ever find. He’s a man that all are proud to call his friend, and loyal to the teeth if he can say the same about you. The two of them were trying to beat the heat on one unusually humid afternoon, slamming down some brewskis, while both were working on one of Dick’s old panheads out back in his garage. Dick really wasn’t the kind of guy that liked to talk about himself, or anyone else for that matter, but every once in a while, he did speak of some of his past adventures. Why he felt comfortable enough to talk to Jimbo about some of the things he’d done in his life, was beyond reason, but he did nonetheless. Jimbo loved hearing what Dirty Dick had to say. When Dick spoke, it was typical of Jimbo to just sit there, shut up, and listen, the same way children will sit glued to the T.V.; watching their favorite cartoon while lost in a hypnotic trance. How they got started about Vietnam that day was anybody’s guess. Just as Jimbo was putting the final torque on the last of the head bolts, he turned his head up toward Dick, just in time to catch him wiping a dab of grease off that big ‘ol dome of his, spotting a furrow across Dick’s brow he was not quite used to seeing on the old scooter tramp. All of a sudden the conversation stopped dead. He could see that Dick was lost in a sobering recollection of a memory he probably hadn’t thought of for quite some time. He began to tell Jimbo about one particular mission he’d been on during his second tour, one in which he and another enlisted soldier were on as members of an elite ultra-kill squad, their sole purpose was to search and destroy. Traveling in groups of two, the manhunters’ days, from beginning to end, would be spent in the exercise of murder in silence. No firearms were ever used unless absolutely necessary. Remarkably, there never was a need for weapons to be fired on any mission undertaken by Dick and his fellow assassin. The instrument of destruction was always a garotte; a long piece of razor-sharp piano wire placed quickly and strategically over the unsuspecting head of their victims, around their necks, decapitating them cleanly without so much as a peep out of their mouths. By days end, it wasn’t uncommon for a team to bring back 4 or 5 heads each, tied to their belts; trophies to be gushed over in their reconstituted minds, psychotically revered in the mix with the spoils of this convoluted conflict our U.S. Government called a war. If you believed Dirty Dick, he amassed over 150 kills by the end of his final tour in Nam. Those who know him understand why he is the way that he is. Enough said. On one particular mission, they stumbled across the body of one of their own, who had been tied down to a group of fallen trees on the edge of the jungle forest. He would have gone unnoticed in the tall grass of the thicket had it not been for the two of them walking dead up on him. Had they been 20 feet to either side, they would have missed him completely, but as fate would have it, there he was, stripped naked to the world; spam-keyed from his scrotum to his bottom lip. As was said earlier, it’s a heinous torture, that not even the foulest of sorts would wish on their worst enemy. It basically goes like this---the same kind of metal key that is used to open a can of spam, or sardines, is also used to peel off strips of skin off the intended victim, who usually passes out when he’s reached his point of no return. The process is repeated upon his awakening until he passes out again, then repeated again, and so on, and so on, etc. The horror of this exercise can be enhanced with gasoline or alcohol. Need more be said? The really weird thing about their discovery was the absence of the soldier’s partner. He was nowhere to be found, and seemed to disappear without a trace, never to turn up that day or ever again. After a few days, he was listed as A.W.O.L. By the end of the war, they finally pronounced him M.I.A. By the look on Dick’s face, it was obvious that this was a memory that bothered him still. Looking down at Butch, Jimbo couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor, pathetic son of a bitch. He just couldn’t wrap his brain around anyone deserving to die in that way unless they were a baby rapist or something just as bad. Someone must have thought Butch fell into that category. He really didn’t know Butch that well, but he did know that he’d fucked over a lot of people in the last few months of his so-called “life”. Butch was the kind of guy you knew you couldn’t trust, but when you were jonesing for a shot of dope ‘cause you’re crawling out of your skin like a snake, it’s not surprising that a person would take a chance on him. Hoping beyond hope that Butch could be believed this time, when he told you he’d be right back with the shit. What the hell else are you going to do at 3:00 in the morning when everyone else you know has hunkered down in their holes for the night? Not take a chance? Jimbo knew from experience. He’d been there too many times before, hurting for a dose. He couldn’t tell you how many times he himself had been in that exact same situation. Searching through the night, high and low, looking for a score and not finding anything because no one could be found. Or chasing down someone because you knew they were slinging a bag, only to catch up with them hours later, after they had sold the last of what they had. Then the person you’d been looking for all night would try to pull a game on you by telling you they were on their way to cop another big bag of dope, but they were a hundred bucks short, so if you’d give them your duckets, they’d be able to get a better deal and they’d pass the deal on to you. May be if you were lucky, you’d catch up with them the next day with your stuff, after you’d already come close to killing someone else because you were so pissed at yourself for being made a fool of again, because you once again played that same waiting game you had played so many times before. Butch knew how to play that game better than most, which is why Jimbo didn’t know him all that well…he never wanted him that close. Guys like him just ended up pissing him off. Besides, Jimbo had seen him work too many people too many times. He knew how he operated, so it was no big surprise to find Butch in the dirt with his eyes rolled back in his head. Jimbo figured ol’ Butchie Boy just fucked with the wrong amigo this time. He was probably so strung out on dope that he didn’t realize who he was okey dokin’. After you’ve been up for a week or two, the mind begins taking you places so surreal that your realm of reality can leave you feeling invincible, causing you to suffer delusions of grandeur, thinking no one can touch you, thinking you are smarter than everyone else. Or…maybe you’re just an evil fuck that doesn’t possess a conscience, so you display it by getting some kind of sick and twisted kick making other people jones. Maybe it’s none of that at all. Maybe it’s something totally different. Maybe you’re trying to make something out of nothing and you’re hoping for the best, because at that point, maybe hope is all you’ve got. Maybe if you dot all of your “I’s” and cross all of your “T’s”, you might find yourself at the right place, at the right time. Then again, you might see a badge-wearing squirrel pull a rabbit out of a hat. Desperate people do desperate things, and maybe on that fateful day, Butch Holland was desperate in that way. More than likely, it was nothing more than him believing his own lies too many times and falling victim to his own stupidity. Thinking he was smarter than he really was. Maybe he was higher than he should have been. If you don’t learn anything else on the streets, you’d better learn that eventually you will get what is coming to you if you continue to screw people over, no matter how good you are at screwing. That’s rule #1 in the daily grind of the methamphetamine game. The San Bernardino Valley is unlike any other place in the world. The more you think you understand what’s going on there, it’s more than likely you don’t know a goddamn thing. San Bernardino is, and always has been, the meth capital of the western world. The popularity and abundance of meth is surpassed only by the cloak of evil resting in the underbelly of this vast wasteland of the undead. What was once a normal town as far as California standards for normal go, Berdoo is for all practical standards, a gateway to Hell, sucking up souls faster than Satan’s best ambassadors ever could. It is truly a town without pity. Its disease spread like wildfire throughout the whole of the Inland Empire, then to Los Angeles, and eventually throughout the Southwestern United States, and has reared its ugly head in places around the country better known for crack heads, not speed freaks. It’s the new modern evil of the twenty first century, spreading the word to anyone that will listen…in a world of all ears. At one time, this area was a thriving community of industry and well-being. Kaiser Steel had the biggest steel mill this side of the Mississippi River, fully up and operational, calling Fontana its home. For decades, the mill was considered by most who lived in the area the #1 place to work. Many aspired to someday land a job at this financial paradise and mecca for the unemployed. Jimbo himself once stood outside the mill from 7:00 in the evening until 9:00 the following morning, waiting for the employment office to start handing out applications. It was rumored that 25 new job openings had become available. At the time in Fontana, rumors of that nature spread like wildfire. By 11:00 that night, there were already 75 men in line, fully prepared to stand out there until the next morning. One hour before the doors were to finally open, there were over 200 men standing in line! Unfortunately for the 175 men in back of the line, Jimbo included, there would be no job to be had for them with Kaiser Steel. Nevertheless, they all waited until they were sure it would only be 25 applications handed out. If nothing else, they all had a good time drinking together throughout the night. Kaiser wasn’t the only game in town, mind you. It’s just that their benefits and job security were so overwhelmingly superior to anything else being offered to unskilled labor, such as Jimbo and anyone else he associated with. For the most part, there were more jobs available than there were men to fill them. It was pretty much the same story all across Southern California back in the 70’s. While the rest of the country was suffering a recession, California seemed to be unaffected. There was the tourist industry, which had always been strong. There were also a lot of auto plants, but most of all, there was the aerospace industry and defense contractors, such as McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed and Boeing, just to name a few. As long as there was a conflict somewhere on the planet that the U.S. was tied up in, there would always be a demand for the supply and technology produced in these factories of war. On top of that, Southern California was littered with military bases. The economy was booming, and things were happening in a big, big way. Then the bottom dropped out. Without warning, Kaiser Steel shut its doors for good, putting thousands out of work, leaving them with nowhere comparable to go. These were people with second and third mortgages on their homes, up to their necks in financial debt, living well beyond their means and they never saw it coming. They all believed that tomorrow would never come, but it did. While America was busy sleeping, Japan was turning out a better grade of steel for a whole lot less money. It was simple checks and balances. The American people should have taken a lesson from Allentown, another steel town in Pennsylvania that was already in the advanced stages of a similar death. As soon as the Berlin Wall had come down, some of the locals suspected that the days of milk and honey they’d all become so accustomed to, would now be coming to a screeching halt. If the talk about the Cold War ending had any merit, there would be a distinct possibility that life in Southern California would take a dramatic turn for the worst. There would be a whole lot less need for the instruments of war and destruction that their economies depended on to survive. Though this was considered paranoid thinking and premature for the time, locals couldn’t help but wonder if this was the beginning of a new trend that could end up plummeting their part of the state into a downward spiral. Those who saw this in the future could not have been righter. Within a couple years, there was talk of unnecessary military installations shutting down, with our nation’s armed forces being downsized right along with them. All of this could add up to only one thing if the talk was true, and that was trouble. Trouble for the state and trouble for the county, which all spelled big-time trouble for the one whom always gets hurt the most, the working man. Unemployment and recession were soon to follow. Construction came to a standstill, because now no one could afford to buy a new home. Interest rates were out of sight. What was once a place untouched by the problems experienced in the rest of the country, now had those same problems banging on their doors in a way they had never seen before. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when they began closing military bases around the country and California said goodbye to more than their fair share. One of the first to shut down was Norton Air Force Base, located right in the heart of San Bernardino. Sometimes peace comes at a very high price. It wasn’t likely that anyone in these parts ever expected or imagined that they would be the ones saddled with that burden of payment. What is being eluded to here is pure and simple fact. The vast majority of defense contractors in America are located in Southern California, with the bulk of those centered in the Inland Empire. In other parts of the country where supply and technology layoff’s made a dent in those economies, it would be fair to say that those same layoffs damn near crippled the economy in the San Bernardino Valley. Maybe it was just their turn this time around. This is how the doors swung open, inviting one and all to the grand opening of the great methamphetamine war of 1993. As long as Jimbo could remember, speed was the drug of choice for practically everyone he’d ever known. Growing up in Rialto, nestled between San Bernardino and Fontana, he could remember being exposed to the drug at the highly curious age of 13. That was in 1970, and it wasn’t his first high. Speed came shortly thereafter. He started out on little tablets called “crosstops” or “white crosses”, which were pure methedrine. Back then he could buy a nickel (50 of them) for 5 bucks, or a 100 (called a dime) for ten bucks. If a person wanted to sell them to their friends like he did, they could buy a jar (1000 count) anywhere from 35 to 65 dollars. He found this to be his calling very early on. Not only was he getting his drugs for free, he was also very popular with his peers. It wasn’t long before he became known as the one you went to if you wanted to cop some speed, and he was more than willing to oblige. Speed back then was much more than a high for him. It was a ticket on a fast-moving train, leaving behind the mundane existence of his adolescent ineptitudes. Making him feel and believe that whatever he did was perfect, God-like, and complete. Most likely it had the same effect on the people he sold it to that ingested it in those first formative years experimenting with the stuff. That’s the hook that has enslaved so many people for so long. Jimbo could remember many a night, in those first few years, of his using when he’d take 10 or 12 pills at once. Feeling the hairs growing on the back of his neck. For him, it was like a 10-hour body orgasm, coupled with a state of mind in tune with the ways of the world. Something as simple as writing his name on a piece of paper would become spiritual in nature, prompting visions of his soon-to-be discovered talents becoming known to the world in ways he himself had yet to conceive of, then fulfilling his destiny by becoming a monumental legend in his own racetrack of a mind. The revelations were startling. To stay enraptured in this enlightened state of bliss, it wouldn’t be long before he would have to reach for his bag and scarf down another 10, 12, or even more, thus repeating the process all throughout the night until his little keys to nirvana were gone. But then, there was the come down, which made him feel like Chicken Little scrambling around in a circle, pronouncing to the world that the sky was falling. Shouting to anyone who would listen that they had better hurry home because the time was nigh for the moon to come crashing down, as he disintegrated into Hell’s eternal crash and burn. Where most normal people would say to themselves the crash wasn’t worth it, Jimbo would do it all over again. He had no idea where these little beauties came from, nor did he care. The only thing that mattered to him was how long it would take for his suppliers to deliver his package. It wasn’t until he had been watching television after school one day, when he discovered where the pills came from, seeing film of huge pill presses destroyed, along with a whole gang of Mexican nationals being cuffed and arrested somewhere in the Mexican desert, just south of Tijuana. According to the news report, these men and their machinery were responsible for most, if not all, of the meth tabs flooding into the United States. As time passed on, he knew it had to be the truth because he never again saw the quality he had become accustomed to. Sure, he could still get crosstops after a while, but they’d end up being nothing more than caffeine. After being fooled once or twice with that garbage, he learned real fast not to ever trust in them again. The thought crossed his mind that…had he been up for a few days tweaking, this ghastly sight, of Butch having been spam keyed, would have immediately thrown him into a tailspin of uncontrollable terror. A scenario like that would have been a few days prior, at the end of his last dope run. Because he’d only been awake for a couple hours after three days of sleep, he was actually in more of a dull state of shock, rather than full on panic. After being unconscious for that long, he was in a slow lifting fog, trying to get it together just enough to hold his head up straight. Getting the gray matter clear enough to think was another matter entirely, but the sight of a corpse baking in the noonday sun, along with the stink that comes with it, does speed up the process considerably. Satisfied that nobody was lurking in the vicinity, Jimbo found himself to be more curious than anything. He started to fixate on the pained expression on the dead man’s face, and he was fascinated, mesmerized, and enthralled. It was his first look at someone who’d been paid a visit by the last of the Four Horsemen. The memory of the author was escaping him, but the sight of Butch stone cold dead and undressed in the wash made him think of the title of the book “Death Be Not Proud”. It was required reading back in junior high school. It was a real-life story about the last days of the author’s son, who had fallen and hit his head against an old cast-iron wall radiator. The kind you’d find in an old apartment building somewhere back east. His son ended up with an inoperable brain bleed and eventually died. Jimbo thought the boy’s death was pretty damn honorable by comparison. As Butch, the rotten fuck, looked more like roadkill than a human being. There were plenty visible signs of trauma on the body, but nothing that would have killed him. Jimbo could tell that Butch had endured the torture for a while. Strips of skin were missing all over his body, leaving little crimson roads trailing off in every direction. Some of the roads would dead end, some would intersect, some would merge and sometimes cloverleaf, but some would just go nowhere, leaving Jimbo wondering how many times Holland must have passed out, only to be revived again? And what’s more, how did he, in fact, die? Did they just leave him out there to die from exposure? Could he really have been beaten to death? Whatever it was, they took some time doing it. Around his wrists and ankles, it could be seen where heavy jute had been used to tie him down to something, most assuredly to hold him in place while the killers had their fun. They must have had him tied somewhere else. Nothing could be seen in the vicinity that could have served as an anchor for their purposes. Jimbo figured they cut him loose once he gave them what they came for, or he died on them, whichever came first., then drug him out to where he lay, so someone would find him. Maybe it was to make a statement. He couldn’t tell. Jimbo couldn’t help but to curse his bad luck, that it would be him to find Butch first. What was also very strange and cryptic were the letters “ B O H I C A” written on his forehead, with what looked to be black magic marker. He had no idea what those letters signified, or if it was supposed to mean anything at all. It was the first time he’d ever laid eyes on it. Maybe it was some kind of secret gang tag. Being out of his league and not a part of this scene was the reality check he needed to click into rational thinking. All he knew at the moment was that he had to get the hell out of there, right then and there, and hope to God no one knew of his witness to the aftermath of the Grim Reaper’s arrival. His life was interesting enough without getting caught up in the middle of this, so he made his way down the riverbed about a quarter mile to where he remembered waking up under the tamarack tree, just below the huge cement drain feed that hadn’t seen any runoff for at least a month or more. Sure enough, under the stack of old newspapers, so faithfully serving as blankets for those who came before him, there was an outfit (syringe) and his bag of dope, just as he had left them, before falling out more than 3 days prior. After seeing what he had just witnessed, Jimbo really wanted to do a shot of dope, but he had long since used up the gallon of water he had brought down there to the wash with him days ago. He’d have to hoof it on over to the El Camino Truck Stop bathroom on Valley Blvd. to do his wake up dose in their bathroom where there was water. Throughout the course of his northward trekking, he was immersed in the notion that he knew the person who had done that to Butch. He didn’t actually have a clue who it could be, but since he knew or was familiar with practically everyone in the meth game in the area, the chances were good that he might have even sat in the same room with the freak or freaks and shot a big load of dope with them and not even known it. Who Knows? If you think about it, how well do you really know anybody? From another perspective, how do you think John Wayne Gacy’s friends felt after they’d found out he murdered thirty-some-odd boys and buried them in the walls of his own home? As Jimbo walked on, he must have pictured over a hundred or more people in his mind, trying to pigeonhole someone as a possible suspect. John Wayne Gacy’s was the only face he could see as he marched onward.
