SPRING BAKED (FOLIE A DEUX)
Paying Homage to the Late, Great P.J. O'Rourke, Author of Holidays in Hell
For spring break, I went to Bakersfield—and upon returning home only Xanax washed down by a Grey Goose martini saved me from commitment to a place where medication and counseling would be far more invasive.
Bakersfield is the “other” California—that is, the Central Valley, two hours inland from the coast.
I should have known from the outset that descending into a surreal stew of red necks, beer, country music and Basque grub would probably not be good for my psyche, much less my intestinal health. Wiki Travel tried to warn me off: “This city will never be a tourist destination.” But it only beckoned me and Van Stein, the artist, to hit the road, yakking about art and letters and creativity and madness in a random stream of duo-logorrhea.
The big road forks and we veer right onto 99, California’s Route 66, and it sure feels upside down as we hurtle through urban sprawl and decay until a mysterious magnetic force yanks us into downtown Bakersfield, which at first glance is underwhelming and, at second and third glance, much worse. By fourth glance we realize we’ve hit a rock bottom akin to the dry creek below Cold Spring Bridge, a suicide haven in Santa Barbara County.
Merle Haggard (who hails from nearby Oildale) is singing Gin and Misery on the radio as we draw up to the Padre Hotel, whose windows in my fifth-floor room are locked. I assume the suicide compulsion in this town is just too strong to risk unlocked windows because as I gaze at the Bakersfield skyline it leaves me, well, almost suicidal.
Time to take in the main landmarks—a couple of communications towers—before seeking refuge in a thrift shop, having discovered there is more old stuff for sale in downtown Bakersfield than new.
Thrift shops, pawnshops, tattoo parlors and bail bondsmen account for the shop-fronts still open; all the rest are shuttered with boards or bars or both; one-stop shopping for young adults who can pawn their mother’s jewelry and buy a new tattoo (to compliment a dozen others up and down their torsos and extremities) all on one city block.
We still haven’t seen Oildale across the Kern River in north Bakersfield, reputed to be “the poor white trash capital of the West,” but these tattoo parlors already bring to mind a joke I heard before leaving the American Riviera.
How do you tell the age of an Oildale native?
Multiply the number of tattoos by the number of missing teeth.
Contemplating thrift shop windows, I realize there is something very odd about the mannequins clad in old garments that even the Salvation Army would refuse but I go inside nonetheless to escape The Bake’s extreme heat and bleak cityscape, which are obviously designed to break any man’s spirit.
Further on, F.W. Woolworth (no longer a dime store but another junk shop) sucks us in—and spits us out.
Walking around on heightened alert, the towers beam these messages directly into my brain: Get out! Get out! Before it’s too late!
Van Stein looks at me, alarmed. “Are you hearing that too?”
But it’s already too late because the car is gone or maybe we can’t find it and by this time we’re feeling desperate as we hurry into the Greyhound Bus terminal only to find every departure cancelled.
Oddly, my Land Rover reappears outside a retro movie house-converted into something that defies definition and we climb in, sorry we’d left our travel bags hostage to rooms already linked to credit cards.
Next Stop Oildale
“Where to?” I ask Van Stein.
“I suppose we should get Oildale out the way.”
We roll northward—and plunge into deep depths of despair.
This is Merle Haggard country, where outside a tavern called Trout’, a disheveled young man is enjoying a mid-afternoon methamphetamines break.
Then further up North Chester, the local highlights: a barbershop, closed; a car wash, closed; the last picture show, closed.
The only place open is a warehouse selling caskets.
“That way!” hollers Van Stein, navigating us along an oil-drilling field that continues over the horizon, on to the edge of this abyss and an oasis called Ethel’s Old Corral Cafe. To survive, we reason, we need to do whatever the locals do, try to fit in, which means order Coors beer and swig it directly from the bottle and hum a Merle Haggard tune.
The dude beneath a large cowboy hat next to us at the bar doesn’t buy it—or us.
“You boys are almost white enough to get by here,” he says.
Fortunately, he and his brethren are then distracted by a spectacle outside on the road. We follow them out and cannot believe our eyes: a half-man, half elk mutant is riding past on a bicycle.
“It’s the fumes,” Van Stein finally says. “People here are growing horns.”
And it’s true: My lungs are already on fire, reflecting why the American Lung Association designates Bakersfield “worst air pollution in the nation.”
“This is downright methanic,” I say.
“Is that a word?” counters Van Stein.
“It is now.”
We realize it is time to scoot when Ethel’s clientele circles my Rover. Gingerly, I squeeze by them, not turning my back on the throng while I ease myself behind the wheel.
“In these parts,” drawls a redneck, “we think this kind of ve-hi-cle comes from outer space.”
“Just nod and smile,” whispers Van Stein, fastening his seatbelt. “And get us the hell out of here!”
Slowly, I reverse. “See you at Trout’s later,” I call out in a friendly manner.
“Better not,” replies the redneck.
I leave a trail of dust. But these folks eat dust for breakfast, lunch and dinner so they just stand there watching us roll away, breathing it all in, germinating horns.
Van Stein looks back at them, then at me. “What did he mean by that?”
I shake my head. “And why does everyone around here speak with a southern accent?”
Van Stein shrugs but we already know the answer: Descendants of the Okies who moved here from the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression still talk the way their great-granddaddies did. And the accent seems to reflect their prejudice against anyone who isn’t white as snow—or have a DUI before the age of 25, which they honor as a right-of-passage while believing there’s something wrong with those who don’t.
“Now what?” I study Van Stein, hoping he’s had enough and doesn’t want to stick around for nighttime, the usual subject of his paintings, because, if I had my way, we’d drive straight back to the Padre, check out and skedaddle.
But Van Stein wants to paint Oildale at night. He has an artist’s thing about turning grotesquely ugly sights into something beautiful. In Oildale he’s biting off more than he can chew.
At a red a light I gaze up at a billboard with the lamest logo I’ve ever seen: Bakersfield. Life as it should be.
“Slow?” I say to Van Stein.
Because another red light stops us at an intersection. We wait. And wait. And wait. Eleven minutes later, we’re still waiting. And still another minute ticks by until the light turns green. Next block, red again.
“You think they’re doing this to us on purpose?” I say.
“Careful,” says Van Stein. “Ideas of reference.”
Our study of creativity and madness over a period of ten years and an odyssey through places such as Gheel (home to the relics of St. Dymphna, the patron saint of lunatics), dredged up this odd phrase dreamt up pioneering psychiatrists, meaning, essentially, nuts, on the basis that someone possessing ideas of reference perceives that everything around them is happening because of them personally.
“We might as well just go a restaurant,” I say. “Have a drink, a long dinner—maybe it’ll be dark by the time we come out.”
Wool Growers
Bakersfield is known for its Basque restaurants, because while the Armenians settled Fresno, Basque immigrants aimed for the central valley and its fertile soil. They like to raise sheep and grow stuff. So Basque restaurants proliferated and dominate the cuisine culture.
The quintessential Bakersfield dining experience is Wool Growers. So that is where we aim our sorry selves. It is packed inside, a full hour’s wait so we perch on barstools and consult the Basque barkeep on a choice of libation.
“Picon Punch,” he advises without hesitation.
This bitter orange aperitif is unavailable everywhere else in the United States.
For good reason.
Most tables are arranged banquet style. It is the Basque way, everyone joining everyone else at on long table. But not for Van Stein and me because when we’re summoned an hour later they lead us to a table for two near the bathroom.
“I think what I’ve heard about Basques is right,” I whisper.
“And what’s that?”
“They were dropped on this planet by a flying saucer a few centuries ago. Apparently, their language bears no resemblance to any other language on earth. And look at them,” I whisper. “They don’t resemble humans either. Maybe a little but that’s all. They come from an alien planet.”
The only real choice is this: Beef or lamb.
We go for the bull and everything else gets thrown at us, including pickled tongue, cabbage soup and Basque beans. This is alien fuel. By the time we finish, we literally blast off.
Panorama Drive
Outside, darkness has fallen, so back we roll to Oildale and Panorama Drive overlooking the drilling fields, eerily lit up with industrial lighting. This is not the kind of panorama you’ll ever see on a picture postcard, yet these locals pay premium real estate prices for a property that overlooks a desert valley covered with drilling donkeys and oil refineries as far as the eye can see.
“Wow!” enthuses Van Stein. “This may be the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen!”
I hold my nose. “It’s definitely the stinkiest I ever smelled.”
“This is the inspiration I’ve been looking for: Think Bosch.”
The wind blows sand and grit into our eyes as we hike through shrubs toward the so-called “romantic” promenade overlooking this Boschian nightmare.
Gusty wind fights us as we attempt to reach the edge, weeds reaching up and pulling at our ankles to slow our pace, reinforced by spores bombarded upon on us that our cameras flash visible.
“Look what we’re breathing,” I say.
Van Stein is astounded by the images. “These aren’t orbs.” The artist is accustomed to catching orbs—spirits or angels or aliens or ghosts—in his digital shots.
“Coccidioides,” I say.
“Bless you.”
“No, that wasn’t a sneeze. Valley Fever. We’re looking at actual spores.” I pause. “And inhaling them.”
“Where does it come from?”
“Wind kicks it up from the desert sand, along with all that drilling pollution down there.” I pause. “Why do locals come here for leisure?”
“They need it,” says Van Stein. “It’s a drug to them, they’re dependent on it, like that half-elk mutant we saw this afternoon.”
The more steps we take back to where we’re parked, the further we seem from the road as if breaking a law of nature.
“This is ridiculous,” I say.
We are lost even though it makes no sense to be lost in a park so narrow.
“Must be a supernatural conspiracy to keep us here,” I cough.
“This should’ve been an X-Files episode,” says Van Stein. “They find us here in the morning with our lungs exploded.”
“Don’t even joke about that,” I say. “Mine are on the verge.”
Van Stein discharges the flash mechanism his camera to configure an escape. “This way!”
As soon as we’re on the right track, the weeds or shrubs or some kind of wicked growth reaches for our knees. I kick around to loosen its grip.
“I don’t get it,” says Van Stein. “It’s like we’re on LSD or something. A joint trip.”
“Folie a Deux,” I say.
“Huh-what?”
“Madness shared by two.”
Somehow, a couple of minutes later, we’re rolling south.
Says Van Stein, “This road is like a recurring nightmare.”
The light turns red and we sit for 12 minutes, keeping an eye out for rednecks from Ethel’s in pickup trucks or alien Basques.
“You’ve seen the night,” I say. “What say we just leave. I don’t even need to stop at the hotel and pick up my stuff, they can Fedex it to us.”
Van Stein shakes his head. “We still have to do the ghosts.”
“I was afraid you were going to remember that.”
During our pre-trek research we’d discovered that Bakersfield has a reputation for being one of the most haunted cities in America.
Ghosts
Van Stein consults his Google printouts. “Well, we might as well do Garces Circle. It’s coming up… Holy crap! Look! He’s saying a prayer!”
Francisco Garces is the city’s founding father and he presides here in the form of a larger-than-life statue.
“Huh?” I look up and don’t notice that the driver of the car in front abruptly hit his brakes, probably because he’s from Oildale and under the influence—or many influences. I screech my own brakes, within an inch of slamming into him.
“Ya see?” says Van Stein. “That was Garces warning us.”
“Or distracting us,” I mutter.
“Look at the bright side—we found our first ghost. Let’s move onto Ghost Two.”
“Ghost Two? How many do you expect to see in this godforsaken dump?”
“A lot.” Van Stein studies his map. “We need to drive back to the hotel and do it on foot.”
I ease into a space opposite the Padre and alight. We’ve been in Bakersfield not quite ten hours and it feels like ten days. In fact, it feels like we’ll never get out, like that Twilight Zone episode Stopover in a Quiet Town about a couple who can’t leave no matter how hard they try.
“Now what?” I say.
“The old Woolworth building.”
“We did that that already.”
“Not at night.”
“What happens at night?”
“A ghost named Arnold.”
“What does he do?”
“Changes the displays. During World War II the basement was a bomb shelter. Arnold connects to that.”
We trudge the dark deserted streets, approach the old nickel-and-dime,Van Stein unleashes his camera. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
Suddenly, a wild beast charges from inside—and disappears as it reaches the window before us.
“What was that! Is Arnold a warthog?”
“Looked more a wild boar. Okay, done here,” says Van Stein, shaken and stirred.
Ghost Number Three is at the Bakersfield Californian building, corner of 17th and Eye Streets.
“What’s the word on this one?”
“It’s where the daily newspaper had its offices,” Van Stein explains. “The guy who established it, Alfred Harrell, still stalks the halls. And a dog, a German shepherd, waiting for its master. And an old security guard.”
It is a lifeless night in downtown Bakersfield, nobody walking the streets but us, almost no cars.
“I hear something,” says Van Stein. Somewhere, a dog is barking. “He’s inside the building.”
“Probably a guard dog.”
“Exactly! Must be with the security guard ghost.” He pounds his right fist into his left hand. “Another mystery solved!”
“It doesn’t solve anything. We’re still stuck here.”
“Whattaya mean? We can go anytime we want.”
“You ready?”
“Not yet. We gotta do the old Fox Theater.”
“Why?”
“A man fell to his death building the place in 1930. He was working on the clock tower. They say his ghost still lingers nearby.”
I shrug, surrendering. “Lead the way.”
The theater is a great example of retro art deco—or whatever they call something that looks quaint in California.
Van Stein points and shoots the clock tower. “Yup, got him,” he snorts. “See?”
The digital image shows an orb hanging near the tower.
“Where did you first discover orbs?”
“When we were in Gheel.”
“And Gheel is one big open-air mental hospital, right? I’m outta here.” After turning my back and picking up stride, I hear footsteps behind me, so I turn around to face Van Stein—and instead wind up looking at one of the mannequins from the thrift shop display window, dragging after me.
Zombies
Suddenly, out of nowhere on the next street corner, two more zombies appear.
I cut down a dark alley, 17th Place—and practically collide with Van Stein.
“Mannequin zombies!” I holler.
We sprint down the alley, double back and seek refuge inside the Padre.
The bar adjacent to the lobby is in full swing so we feel secure… until we discover it is occupied by the Basque aliens we encountered at Wool Growers, all talking in a language that bears no resemblance to any other on earth.
This misshapen multitude grows quiet when they notice us gawking at them—and we simultaneously realize they would happily sacrifice us to the mannequin zombies.
“This doesn’t feel like refuge,” I say to Van Stein.
And then it hits me: They won’t gift us to the mannequin zombies.
Because this is an alien abduction waiting station—and we are the daily catch!
Van Stein must be thinking the same, because he eases himself gently out of the bar with a few back-steps. “Don’t turn your back on them,” he whispers.
We back our way into the elevator, press the door close button.
It won’t budge.
“It’s like a Bakersfield red light,” I hiss.
Suddenly, the zombie mannequins come into view—and they’re staggering toward us!
“We’re trapped!” hollers Van Stein.
But a second later the door closes and we hop out at the fifth floor, grab our bags.
“We can’t go through the lobby,” I say. “Must be another way out.”
“Let’s take the stairs up a few floors,” says Van Stein.
Between the seventh and eighth floors we encounter a little girl, giggling.
“It’s one of the ghosts!” hollers Van Stein.
“Nonsense,” I say, and then, “are you lost, little girl?”
She continues to giggle, and waves me in, as if she wants to tell me a secret.
“Don’t. Go. There,” Van Stein cautions.
The little girl puts her lips up to my ear.
“BOO!”
It’s as if a gun has detonated. My head practically explodes—and then my hearing is gone.
Van Stein, white-faced, is hollering about something but I can’t hear him, can only see his highly animated form. And though I’m not a lip-reader, I can actually make out that he’s saying Spar-ta-cus!
I turn around and come face-to-face with a ghostly gray figure with doughy features, a dome of a forehead topped with frizzy, receding hair. Its mouth opens and an ethereal voice booms, “WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH MY HOTEL?”
I point to Van Stein. “Ask him. I don’t believe in ghosts. At least I didn’t until now.” I cannot hear my own voice but Spartacus seems to understand for he turns to Van Stein, who is dripping spittle, mouth agog.
My hearing returns in time for Spartacus to howl: “THEY RUINED MY HOTEL!”
“Who?” asks Van Stein.
“THE CITY! THE RENOVATORS! MORONS!
“Do you have a message for them?” asks Van Stein, who professes to ask the same of monsters in his nightmares.
“I HAVE A MESSAGE FOR YOU!” the apparition howls. “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOTEL!”
“We’re trying,” I say truthfully. “What’s the quickest way out of here?”
Spartacus points to the end of the corridor, a window, from which we see the Fox Theater’s clock tower in the distance.
“Is he suggesting suicide?” I ask Van Stein.
“GO!” booms Spartacus.
We don’t need to be asked a third time.
We’re off, down the corridor, Spartacus in pursuit and behind him three mannequin zombies, a number of Basque aliens—and assorted Oildale rednecks.
Jumping from seven floors does not seem a bad alternative.
Fortunately, a relic of an outdoor fire escape hangs outside the window.
Unfortunately, the window is locked.
Van Stein, closer to it, stands frozen with fear.
“Break it!” I holler.
He shatters the window with his aluminum paint box and out we climb, scampering down the rickety stairway after dropping our belongings to the ground from eight floors up.
I don’t even take time to look up, but hit the ground running and sprint to the car.
We jump in, lock the doors and I press the start button.
It won’t start.
“What now?” says the artist, a hint of resignation in his voice.
“We are going to be dismembered by aliens, zombies and rednecks,” I say, resigned to our fate.
We sit quietly, this still and silent night, a traffic light at the intersection stuck on red.
And then seemingly all by itself the engine turns over—and off we rip, leaving Bakersfield in the dust and spores.
Or maybe not: I rub my aching head—and discover the root of an antler bursting through my skull.