My wife and I met when we were undergraduates in college.
We had totally different majors, but I think the free thinking
lifestyle of being a student showed us that we both had a lot
in common, especially in regards to morals, personal values, and
where we both saw ourselves later in life.
By the time we graduated, we had been dating for a year, and
everything started moving much faster after that.
We moved in together after graduating, and within another
year Mary was pregnant with our first child.
Let's Fast forward another 10 years.
We're both working corporate jobs in the city with a 10 year
old son named James and an 8 year old daughter named Sylvia.
This is pretty much where things kick off.
The city had always felt suffocating, a constant den of
noise and chaos that just wore us down.
Mary and I would often Daydream about escaping it all, finding a
secluded spot where we could raise our kids in peace.
It was a fantasy that we'd indulged in since our dating
days back in college, and it only grew more appealing with
time. I hated all of it.
The commute, the mortgage, the endless taxes and bills accrued
purely from living in a high demand area.
My college experience turned me on to some radical thinking,
mostly that of off the grid living, self sustained
practices, not bending over for any local or national
government. I work hard and I feel like I
should have something to show for it all.
That's when fate intervened. Mary's father passed away,
leaving her the family cabin in his will.
It was a remote place 75 miles outside the city limits, nestled
in a small community on the mountainside.
Some of the homes had lights and water, while others relied on
generators and wells. Our cabin fell into the latter
category. It was a small price to pay
though, the chance to live off the grid.
It was a very humble cabin, something Mary's father and
grandfather had built back in the day.
I'm talking the late 1950s. It really only had two rooms.
They were big though, with a small bathroom and then a larger
house on the edge of the property.
Being four of us in the family, this really wasn't ideal, but
Mary and I had it in our heads that we could do some light
remodeling, turn it into exactly what we both needed.
The square footage was good, we just needed to convert it from
less of a hunting headquarters and more of a family home.
I was beyond excited to begin making changes to what I
envisioned to be a perfect life. We packed up our lives and made
the move, trading pavement for dirt roads, skyscrapers for
towering trees. The cabin did need a lot of
work, but we were both eager to put in the effort.
The kids, James and Sylvia, were excited to explore their new
surroundings, and Mary and I were determined to make this new
life a complete success. The truly beautiful part was
that this wasn't any kind of huge investment for us.
The cabin literally was handed over deed and everything, so all
we had to do was just pay to haul everything.
A few 100 at most. Between our jobs and what we'd
saved in the last 10 or 12 years, we had a healthy cushion
to take our time and approach everything with this relaxed
energy. It was ideal, truly everything
we've been hoping for, and it all came at once.
The cabin itself was a charming but rustic affair, with creaky
floors and a chimney that puffed up smoke like a grumpy old man.
We spent those first few months cleaning and remodeling, trying
to bring it back to the 21st century.
My wife and I have wildly different skill sets.
So while she took out the cobwebs and scraped the dust off
everything, I knocked the paper thin wall down.
That divided the home, cleaned up the residue, and then divided
the master bedroom, which was more like a bunk room large
enough to sleep 10 grown men. Then I put up two shorter walls,
allowing for my wife and I to share a bedroom, then James and
Sylvia to share one as well. This was all just temporary
until I decided exactly how I wanted the floor plan to look.
The kids would spend their days wandering through the
wilderness, exploring the sparse neighborhood, getting to know
the locals, but only when they weren't helping us, when we ran
out of work for them to do. They check out the trails,
walked a few meager houses in the area.
The community that we lived in was nothing of the sort though.
No gas station, no store, no hotels, nothing.
No business, no commerce. One guy had a shed on his
property that he called the supply shop.
He kept extra stuff on hand and would sell it to folks in the
area for a premium price. Things like nails, Maple syrup,
Mason jars, mouse traps, that kind of thing.
One day, as they were walking back from the mailboxes outside
of town, they spotted a man lurking in the trees.
He was near a cabin, his face hidden behind a bushy beard and
a mop of unruly Gray hair. James and Sylvia exchanged a
nervous glance, but the man didn't seem to notice them.
He was too busy staring at our cabin, his eyes fixed on our
little family home like a hawk on its prey.
Who's that? James asked, his voice barely
above a whisper. I don't know, but he's creepy.
Why is he watching our house? Sylvia said again.
That's when they quicken their pace, eager to get back to the
safety of our cabin. Once they were inside, they
recounted everything to Mary and I, all while eerily looking out
the windows over our shoulder as they spoke.
I just imagined every single average mountain man or off the
grid type of person. I just chalked it up to a
curious neighbor. Kids, it's just got to be some
old hermit. I said, dismissing their
concerns. He's probably just wandering
around looking at his new neighbors.
We've had power tools running over here for the better part of
six weeks. Mary nodded in agreement.
There are plenty of people like that up here.
They just want to be left alone. The kids accepted our
explanation, but I could tell that they were still uneasy.
They've always been city kids. This whole new world was full of
unknowns. Seeing a big shadowy man off in
the trees probably would have scared me at their age too, so I
did my best to just be understanding.
At the same time, I was trying to showcase what off the grid
living requires to be tough, rugged, logical, fearless.
Our move was going to require a different outlook, and I was
more than happy to help them achieve that.
I made a mental note to reach out to a few neighbors, clear
the air, and hopefully put everybody at ease.
As the days continued to pass, we settled into our new routine.
The kids explored the woods, Mary tended to her budding
garden, and I worked on fixing up the interior of the cabin.
We'd occasionally see Marty. That's what the kids started
calling him, lurking around the edges of the property.
He never approached us. He never spoke, but his presence
was always felt. I learned that the kids had
asked some others in the area about him, some of the neighbors
that were a little more friendly.
The story went that Marty had moved up here 20 years ago with
his wife, who died suddenly about five years prior.
After her death, Marty turned into a complete recluse, stopped
talking completely, and was only seen sporadically on his
property or in the trees throughout the community.
He apparently had enough know how to keep himself alive and
well on his own without ever having to venture back into town
for any real supplies. He purchased gas when he needed
it from the shopkeeper in town, the guy with the shed, but
besides that, Marty didn't need help from anybody.
It was a slow burning tension, though, one that simmered just
below the surface. We tried to ignore it, focus on
our new lifestyle, but it was hard to shake that feeling that
we were being watched because, well, we were.
Almost at any hour of the day, one of us could look outside and
find that old man hiding in the trees, standing still to prevent
us from potentially seeing him. At first it was something that I
could explain away, but after three months of steady creeping,
I didn't really know what else to make of it.
One night we heard the generator sputter and then die.
Great, I muttered, getting up from the couch.
Just what we need. Mary then followed me outside,
where we stared at the dark shape of the generator.
Right from our porch was this old thing very prone to
breakdowns. Fortunately for us, we've been
lucky so far, but now, not so much.
I had some skills in regard to woodworking, but electrical and
mechanical problems? That's where my knowledge would
start to dry up. I'd have to go back inside for a
few tools before I could actually even take a crack at
it. Hey, I'll go take a look.
I said, grabbing a flashlight from the kitchen counter.
Mary nodded, her eyes flickering towards the trees.
Careful, I knew what she was thinking.
Marty might be out there watching us, waiting for his
chance. But I pushed the thought aside
and headed out into the darkness.
Little did I know, our lives were about to take a drastic
turn. I squatted before the generator
and started to work the exterior panel off so I could just look
at the wiring. I also made a mental note to
check the gas and the fuel cap. Maybe, and hopefully it was just
something simple. Maybe the vibration of the
machine had rattled the cap loose, made it shut down.
I methodically went over everything until I found the
problem was exactly what I was hoping for, a very, very simple
fix. The issue from what I was
looking at was that somebody had definitely messed with the
generator. They loosened the cap, then
yanked a handful of cables, unplugged the main power line to
the house, and lastly flicked the power button off for good
measure. I checked the ground around the
area, but didn't find anything. Didn't see any boot prints or
any kind of calling cards. Then I checked the perimeter of
the property. Nobody.
So I just called it a night and went back inside.
I didn't mention any of my concerns to Mary or the kids,
but I was certain that somebody had paid us a visit and
sabotaged our only source of power.
To say I was on edge was a drastic understatement.
It wasn't long until we had our next run in with our neighbor.
Mary and I were working on hanging the door in the kids
room, which was one of the last tasks that we had planned for
our update. Next, we were going to refocus
on the exterior work, getting some better furniture for each
room to better serve the family itself.
With the door installation almost complete, Mary and I
exchanged a satisfied glance, our mind shifting to the next
project on our list. But before we could even take a
step back to admire our handiwork, the kids burst
through the front door, their faces pale and frightened.
They were out of breath, talking a mile a minute about whatever
just happened to them. My wife and I did our best to
calm them down, get them coherent so we could figure out
exactly what was going on. Dad, Dad.
James exclaimed, out of breath. Marty.
Marty had a gun. He was pointing it at us.
My heart skipped a beat as I started to put it all together.
Wait, what happened? Sylvia's eyes were wide with
fear. We were walking in the woods and
he came out of nowhere. He chased us.
Mary's voice was laced with concern.
Are you kids OK? I didn't hesitate.
Stay in the house, I'll go talk to Marty.
The kids nodded, still shaking as I headed out into the cool
mountain air. I knew exactly where Marty's
cabin was, and I didn't need to follow a road to get there.
The woods were dense, but I knew the root by heart and I had this
feeling I might run into Marty if I stuck to the trees because
that's where the kids said they saw him the most.
I trudged headlong into the wilderness empty handed, looking
for the guy that kept messing with my kids.
This conversation was long overdue, but the mountain of
work that the cabin had demanded prevented me from ever going to
even say hello. Now we were at an impasse as
neighbors. My suspicions were quickly
confirmed. Just a couple of 100 yards in,
Marty lurched from the underbrush, his eyes fixed on
the ground. I called out to him.
No response. Anger quickly flared up inside
of me. Messing with the generator,
messing with my kids, and now he wouldn't even acknowledge me.
Something primal just snapped in me, and suddenly I was over the
edge. I found myself running,
hollering out through the trees. Marty, stop right there, God
damn it. Finally, he turned around, his
eyes narrowing at me. What do you want?
He shouted back. I could see the shotgun in his
hands. My heart began to race.
Of course he was armed. My kids had literally told me he
had a gun. But for some reason I wasn't
expecting that to be the truth. I guess I thought maybe it was
just some kind of misunderstanding.
No, he had a gun, and an illegal one at that.
He held the remnants of a homemade sawed off 12 gauge
between his wrinkled hands. You need to stay the hell away
from my family. You're scaring my kids.
Was all I said. Marty's face twisted into a
snarl. Then you keep your damn kids on
your property. It's real simple.
I took cover behind a tree, not wanting to get blasted.
If you come near my property again or speak to my children
again, I'm calling the sheriff. You're not welcome here.
My kids have done nothing wrong to you.
You want to make this into something, Fine, we'll make it
into something. Marty's eyes flashed with anger,
but he didn't move. Keep your family away from my
property. It's all I ask.
With that, he turned and disappeared into the trees.
I watched him go. My heart's still racing.
I knew I had to protect my family, but I also knew that
Marty was unhinged and very dangerous.
I couldn't believe how heated that exchange was, and neither
of us had really even communicated anything like a
classic neighbor dispute. This was the kind of stuff that
I wanted to move away from when I left the city, but here I was
again dealing with that same crap.
I made my way back to the cabin, mind racing with worst case
scenarios. I flipped on all the external
lights, grabbed my rifle, and loaded it up.
It was time to take matters into my own hands, even though I
didn't know exactly what that meant, but I knew that I needed
to be ready for anything. This guy didn't hesitate to get
crazy when the time called for it, so I figured I needed to do
the same. As I placed the rifle on the
mantle, Mary approached me, her eyes very worried.
What happened out there? Mary's lost it.
He's dangerous, and we need to be prepared.
I said, trying to sound calmer than I felt.
The kids were watching, their faces pale.
I knew I had to keep them safe, no matter what it took.
I didn't make a big boisterous show or anything, but I just
made sure the windows were covered, the doors were locked,
flashlights placed near every door.
I also made this little bug out bag for my family, just in case
we had to take off for whatever reason.
Hey, we'll get through this. I said, trying to reassure them.
Stick together, we'll make it through.
He's just an old man. He's not going to actually do
anything. But as I looked out into the
darkness, that feeling that we were in danger grew and grew.
Marty was out there watching us, waiting for his next move.
I remember it dawned on me then that I didn't even know why this
was happening. Were my children really even
that close to his property? I mean, have they been doing
something else they weren't telling me about?
I questioned them a bit, but they were adamant they hadn't
done anything more than walk around in the woods.
We all hung out in the living room for the rest of that night
and slept in each other's company.
The next morning, Mary and I went over our options and
decided on a course of action. Sitting around and waiting
wasn't really on the table anymore.
We decided to call the sheriff and make a report as well as to
get the scoop from any other locals.
After making our call and explaining the situation, we
were told that the sheriff would be out to our location within
the hour. Our next move was my idea.
I wanted to get any information on Marty, so I decided to
approach some of the others that live nearby.
I hopped in the truck and buzzed over to Walter's house.
The guy with the shed out front, he called the store.
I went there because I knew this guy the most out of the people
that lived in our area. We were actually on a first name
basis and on top of that I knew for sure that he'd be home.
He was the retired type, made being home a full time
responsibility. He came out to greet me even
before I got out of my vehicle. Hey there, need something from
the shop? He called down, nodding to the
shed. He was always looking to make a
few bucks. Not today Walter, I'm actually
looking for information. I replied.
Walter laughed and waved me up the steps.
I don't really have a whole lot of knowledge, but I'll see if I
can help. He said I didn't waste any time,
just got right into the thick of it.
I told him about all the early run insurance with Marty and how
they were slowly escalating over time, even about the generator
mishap. I mentioned the gun, the
property disputes, everything that I could remember.
Walter just went stoic as he took it all in.
Well, what do you think? I asked when I was finished.
Well, Martin was never right after his wife died.
He started, then Walter went on to tell me his own story.
Filled in a lot of the gaps. It turned out that just before
Marty's wife died, the two of them were bickering a lot.
Marty's drinking was at an all time high, was cruising into
town every single day to hit a bar or pick up a case of beer.
His wife was really the only one keeping him in check and
suddenly she was just dead. No story, no funeral.
Marty was just telling everyone that his wife died last night.
He didn't even seem that upset. Everyone living on the mountain
thought that that was a little strange, but didn't know Marty
well enough to question him anymore.
The general consensus was that he murdered his wife.
When the other residents reached out to law enforcement, they
assured everyone that Marty reached out to them with the
news as well. Everything was copacetic on
their end. Still, it was weird because no
coroner came by, no body removal, nothing.
Marty just said she was dead and that seemed to be it.
No one ever saw her corpse. This is when Marty's behavior
got really erratic. He started to patrol the woods
around his home. He'd gotten into a few pissing
matches with other locals that lived up there.
It was always the same thing. Stay away from Marty's property.
Don't come near Marty's property.
Everyone else seemed to see a heartbroken, perhaps mentally
unwell old man. I saw a guy trying to hide
something. As Walter and I continue to
talk, we put some pieces together and he was inclined to
believe me when I said I had to go back to my house and meet the
sheriff. Walter asked to go with so he
could do his part and make a statement and hopefully get
everything figured out. Neither of us were prepared for
just how deep this grave went. The sheriff took everything down
that we said, even offered up some of his own hearsay that
he'd acquired over the last five years and told us he'd be in
touch. From our house he went straight
to Marty's and from there everything exploded.
I don't know how it all occurred, but Marty ended up
arrested by the end of the week. It turned out Marty's wife was
found buried just under 2 feet of loose soil, and it definitely
wasn't a beautiful or ceremonious burial.
No, not at all. He dragged her body to the edge
of his property line, posted a little dirt over and called it a
day. The really telling part was the
multiple bullet holes found in her bones.
She'd clearly been shot to death.
The whole story was this. Five years prior to my family
moving out there, Marty and his wife were having a rough patch,
just like Walter described. What wasn't public was that
Marty's wife was telling him that she was leaving, going back
to South Texas or New Mexico. Somewhere along the border was
getting back together with an old boyfriend of hers.
What she had with Marty had dried up.
He was now just a miserable, drunk, bitter old man.
Marty heard a threat one too many times, decided to do away
with the woman for good. What she didn't know was that
Marty had actually killed the boyfriend she spoke of many,
many years ago. Like in 1981, there had been
something of a love triangle between Marty and his wife and
whoever this third man was. The wife originally was with the
third man, but Marty wooed her away.
Then they moved away, but before they did, Marty went back to
that man's house, attacked him before shooting him as well.
They left town and miraculously no one ever got fingered for
that murder. After that, they lived a
relatively normal life before deciding to move up on the
mountain. Marty slowly but surely lost his
mind over time. We were living next to a guy who
had killed not one, but two people in his life and seemingly
had gotten away with both. As the story rolled out over the
next couple of weeks, we were blown away to bear witness to
such a sick, mind blowing event. What started out as our little
Daydream lifestyle quickly devolved into solving a multiple
murder that stretched through the decades.
I guess Marty had given himself up pretty much right away, much
to the surprise of our little off grid community.
The courts couldn't be kind to him as he was every bit of 70.
If it were any amount of time behind bars it would be a life
sentence. So that's what he was given.
We still live in the cabin and I've come to enjoy every aspect
of our rural lifestyle. Mary homeschools the kids, and
we're all very grateful to have that whole Marty fiasco behind
us. We didn't realize just how close
we came to tragedy. The guy literally pointed a
shotgun at my children and had the nerve to pull the trigger.
It turns out it doesn't really matter where you live, the city
or off grid, there are still crazy people residing in both.
I was a parole officer in the state of Utah for nine years,
four months and 18 days. It was nothing like working as a
correctional officer, but after a bad car accident in the spring
of 97, it was one of the few options open to me that didn't
include medical retirement. Many guys told me to take the
medical, buy a boat and start up that charter service idea that
had served as a pipe dream for so many years.
But frankly, that felt a little too much like giving up.
On top of that, there was the fact that if I worked nine more
years, I'd be entitled to a full pension and I'd have all my
treatment covered by the state. That last thing proved to be the
deciding factor. Instead of walking off into the
sunset with a big check and a bum leg, I joined the Utah
Department of Corrections as a parole officer.
I worked hundreds, possibly even thousands of caseloads prior to
my eventual retirement. And sadly, I think I only had a
handful of stories that might interest you.
Being a parole officer wasn't exactly action-packed, and it's
always laughable when the movies present us as bad ass bounty
hunters when really we're mostly just slow horses with a motley
collection of dysfunctional appendages.
With a few exceptions, obviously.
I think I only had three or four major incidents in my whole
parole officer career, but the incidents I did experience were
just as intense, if not more so, than anything I experienced as a
corrections officer, including the time that I almost lost my
life to a man who in another life could have been a cousin or
a nephew of mine, maybe even a son.
I first met Sean at the trailer park that he was calling his
temporary home following his release from federal prison.
The trailer park was part of the halfway home scheme that we were
sort of running due to budget constraints, and all that extra
freedom meant only the most promising of parolees got to
stay there. Out of all these promising
parolees that ended up calling the park home for a while, I'd
swear that Sean was the most promising of them all.
He was a former Marine flight mechanic. 2 tours of duty before
the crap really hit the fan. Even so, the base he operated at
got pummeled by insurgent rockets and mortars.
I remember him saying meaning that he came back stateside with
a nasty case of what he called the shakes.
I guess officially speaking, whatever Sean suffered from
would be categorized as PTSD, but for whatever reason he never
called it that. He just said that he got the
shakes sometimes when he got to thinking about things too hard.
He tried all kinds of medication, all kinds of
therapy, but nothing ever worked.
Then one day, out of pure self-destructive desperation,
Sean smoked a bowl of meth at a party on Memorial Day weekend
and found that it actually stopped his shakes.
I don't know how something like meth came to have that kind of
effect on him. If anything, I'd have assumed
that it made his shakes worse, but surprisingly, it had the
opposite effect, I guess. He said it focused him like a
laser, but brought the tremors down to almost nothing.
Having discovered what he thought was the miracle cure for
his shakes, Sean started using a little meth here and there, just
whenever things got a little too rough, he said.
Then he discovered it made him feel better, shiny and new as he
put it, and much more able to deal with all the bullcrap of
being freshly discharged from the Marine Corps with nothing to
show for it but a glorified severance check.
He started doing more and more, a little before work, a little
after work, then in his free time, and then all alone
whenever he was craving. But then this obviously left
Sean with a problem. One day he found that he wanted
to smoke more meth than he had money, but he also really didn't
want to be that depraved drug addict who spends his last few
dollars on drugs. So instead he goes to a meth
cook, asks what he needs to cook him a batch, and then goes
around either stealing or buying everything on his little
shopping list. He helps the cook with the
batch, makes a bunch of mental notes, and then starts cooking
his own for purely personal use, keeping the batches as small as
possible. But just like when he first
started smoking, the amount that he was cooking got bigger and
bigger until eventually he couldn't hide it anymore.
Cops raided his cookhouse, Sean got arrested, and then he spent
the next 12 years in a federal prison.
He'd have gotten way longer if it wasn't for his military
background, and his behavior as an inmate was impeccable.
Had it not been for that, there's no way that he'd have
been paroled 9 years into the 18 the judge gave him.
But I'm also guessing in front of the judge, he showed a hell
of a lot of enthusiasm for putting his life in order.
Because that's sure as hell what he showed me That first time
that I met him at the trailer park, I thought that he was
going to be the easiest case that I'd ever dealt with.
He was itching to get his life back together, and every time I
stop by his place or we met for bacon and eggs at a nearby
diner, his enthusiasm seem to have only grown.
A few months go by. Sean's well on his way to
getting all the early release recommendations he needs,
including my own, and I stopped by his place for a pre arranged
meeting only to find that he's not there.
I figured something must have been wrong for him to just pull
a no show like that, and unlike some other cases I've worked, I
didn't assume that he was trying to duck me or play games.
After building up a little trust, I tried giving him a call
on his cell and the first time the call went through, but when
it suddenly and abruptly went to voicemail, I started to get this
sinking feeling. Best case scenario, he was
running late driving back to the trailer park and didn't want to
risk getting pulled over by talking on his cell.
But then the next time that I tried to call him, it went
straight to voicemail. No dial tone, like he quickly
just turned off his cell between calls.
Again, I get that sinking feeling.
I liked Sean, I had high hopes for him.
So the idea of him messing up all of his progress and ruining
his chances of getting those recommendation letters, it made
me feel like a scared parent. I didn't just leave right away.
I walked back and forth in the dirt in front of his trailer,
hoping to catch one of Sean's neighbors.
He'd mentioned borrowing one of their trucks to get to and from
his job, so I moseyed on around the trailer park, hoping that I
might be able to talk to someone who knew him.
I knocked on the doors of a few trailers, got no answer, and
then finally the last one I visited had someone home.
I asked if they knew Sean and they said yes.
Then when I asked where he was they started giving it the usual
whose business isn't of yours kind of thing.
I explained that I was his PO and that he wasn't in any
trouble and I wanted to know where he was because I was
worried about him. It wasn't like him to miss a
face to face. I wasn't making up some story to
get him to talk and I'd appreciated it very much if he
could do me a solid and just tell me what he knew.
I remember the guy gave me this look like, you really don't
know, do you, and then told me Sean's mom had died.
He took it real bad. An owner of one of the other
trailers was out there drinking beer with him for a while, but
Sean was pacing back and forth making phone calls, and the next
thing you know, a truck pulls up, Sean jumps in the back, and
then off he goes. I ain't seen him since.
I asked him how long ago this was, and my heart sank when the
guy said Tuesday. So four days now, give or take
four days. Sean could have been halfway
across the country by then, and if he'd gotten some kind of
terrible news, there was no telling what he retreated to in
order to cope. I couldn't blame him.
But as I got back into my truck, I was praying to God.
Please just stick to booze, Sean.
Stick to booze if you got to. The last thing I wanted to do
was call it into my superiors then and there.
If it were some scumbag who had been caught with some Kitty
pictures on his computer, I'd have come down on him like a
stampeding steer. But as I've said already, Sean
was far from some pervert scumbag if I came down hard on
him over one missed appointment, especially when it was due to a
death in the family, I'm not sure that I've been able to look
myself in the mirror for a while.
And the trouble was leaving him to his own devices for too long.
Not to mention, in a state of grief, he might not pass a urine
test then. If that happened, he was
definitely going back to jail to serve out the remainder of the
sentence there instead of doing it on parole.
Obviously Sean wasn't my only parolee during that period, so
it's not like I could devote all my time to searching for him.
But over the next few days, I kept calling his cell phone,
kept stopping by his trailer, and most importantly, gave my
cell number to the neighbor that I spoke to and asked him to keep
his eyes peeled for me. A few days later, I get a call
on my cell and it's the neighbor saying that he's just seen Sean
and a few others entering his trailer.
I thanked him for the info, but before I hung up, he warned me
that they didn't look like the kind of folks who woke up bright
and early for Sunday service. And then I might want to be
careful if I was looking to arrest anyone.
I definitely wasn't looking to make any arrests.
I didn't even have the power to. But I did want to make sure that
he was OK, and if these friends of his wanted to put themselves
in the way of that, then that might pose a very big problem
for myself. I drove over to the trailer park
as quickly as possible, hoping to catch Sean before he did
anything that he'd lived to regret.
When I arrived, all the curtains of his trailer were drawn, and
music was so loud that I could hear it as I turned into the
park and was thumping out of some kind of sound system
inside. Now, just to be safe, I put on
the bulletproof vest that I kept in my trunk and then headed up
to the front door of the trailer.
I had to hammer on it just to be heard over the racket and when
someone opened up the door, not only was it not Sean, but they
didn't look too pleased to see me standing in front of me when
the door opened up. It was a guy that looked like
his daddy was Bigfoot and his mommy was a skeleton, and to
him, with all of the narcotics in his system, I guess I look
like the devil himself. He slams the door closed and
even over the loud music you could hear him scream.
It's the cops. At first, I found the guy's
reaction to be kind of funny. Sure, I was wearing a vest and I
had a gun on my hip, but I wasn't a cop.
So I guess it was halfway to bringing a smirk to my lips as I
peered around to a window and tried to peer through a crack in
the curtain. Having these guys throw all
their drugs in the chemical toilet would have most
definitely been in their best interest, but the fact was, I
wasn't there in that capacity. I was only there to talk to
Sean. Everything else was secondary,
and if they knew how understanding I was prepared to
be, then I'm not sure that they'd have reacted so
frantically at all. I started to call out.
I'm not a cop, relax. I'm just here to speak to Sean
for a minute. But it didn't seem to do any
good. I could hear the people inside
scrambling around, cursing, saying things about the cops
being outside. I repeated myself again, and
that's when the first bullet smashed through the trailer
siding. It all happened so quickly that
at first I wasn't quite sure what had happened.
Or maybe I did and I just didn't want to think that it was
happening. I backed up upon hearing the
sound, but the shot came through way below eye level, so I didn't
see the bullet hole or realize what was happening until the
next few shots came through. I remember throwing myself back
off into the little wooden deck that led to the door, then
feeling almost certain that I'd broken something when I landed
on my back and shoulders. I think I must have knocked the
wind out of myself too, because there was a second there where I
was scared that I'd been shot. But after seeing no entry wounds
on the vest and seeing no blood on my shirt underneath, I pulled
my sidearm and did the only thing I could.
Emptied the entire clip into the front of the trailer.
There wasn't any time to consider the implications, I
just had to scare them into keeping their heads down long
enough for me to get back to my truck.
I got there, but just in time to have someone shatter the
windshield with a well aimed shot.
Someone in the trailer had a solid view of the driver's seat,
meaning there would be no getting in it or getting out of
there without taking a bullet. I had to crawl underneath and
then out the other side, taking cover behind one of my truck
tires. I then reloaded, dialed 911 on
my cell phone, and then just lay there peering out towards the
trailer, hoping nobody came out the door in pursuit of me.
Luckily someone else had heard the shot, so uniformed officers
arrived at least a minute or two faster than they would have from
my call alone. But by the time they did get
there, they noticed what I had. Around the same time I made my
own 911 call that Sean's trailer was on fire.
The officers and myself that arrived figured everyone inside
would have run before the flames got too bad, but from the
perspective of those inside, they had no idea what they were
facing. In their minds, if they ran
outside, they'd have been shot to pieces, but staying inside
and trying to put the flames out, they stood a fighting
chance. So as myself and the officer
started moving on the trailer, someone inside pulls one of the
curtains back. But the silhouette they made,
including the gun in their hand, made them look like one of those
training targets. And for the officers who arrived
as my backup, they were just as easy to shoot.
What followed was another prolonged gunfight, and as more
shots went into the trailer, the less those inside were able to
put the flames out. The fire grew and the shooting
died down. In the end, the fire department
arrived far too late to save those inside from burning to
death. I honestly don't know if any of
them were still alive by the time they got there, but by the
time the flames were out, everyone inside were either
burned to a crisp or died of smoke inhalation, or a grizzly
combination of the two. It took the county coroner a
hell of a long time to figure out who was who, as well as the
exact cause of each person's death.
Only one person died by gunshot, and that person was Sean.
The coroner's Id'd him through his Marine Corps dental records,
but determined that he'd been dead before the flames got to
him. There was no telling whose
bullets were the ones to put him down, either mine or the cops
that showed up after. But deep down, I think I know.
I think I killed the one person that didn't really need my help.
I think Sean would have gone through the grief of his mom's
death. He might have gone off the
rails, but I think her ghost would have dragged his butt back
on them again. I think I should have called in
that first no show meeting as and when it happened, and that
way he could have gotten picked up long before I had the
opportunity to empty my pistol into his trailer.
He might have gone back to prison, maybe for a hell of a
long time too, but at least he'd still be alive.
There was a phrase I'd heard long ago that never made much
sense until that day. The road to hell, they say, is
paved with good intentions. I have an off the grid story,
but not in the usual fashion. I never lived off grid per SE,
but I existed off grid for many years as a young man.
I dropped out of college and started hitchhiking around my
state when I was around 18, which was also when I quit
wearing shoes. I was a free spirited type with
long hair and covered in these makeshift DIY stick and poke
tattoos. As a musician at heart, I would
just hit the road with a guitar or banjo and land wherever the
wind took me. I did this until I was 21 or 22
and usually hitchhiked back and forth between my hometown in
South Dakota to Denver or Fort Collins, Co.
These were happening places for a small town kid like me, ripe
with drugs, cool people, and all kinds of different musical
shows. I could catch a concert and make
a few $100 playing on the street in Denver while high the whole
time. This quickly became a
ritualistic way of life for me. In my most impressionable years,
I'll never forget the night that I met Chaz.
It was a warm summer evening in downtown Denver.
I was playing my guitar at the corner of 16th and Champa.
I had just finished a set and was packing up my gear when I
heard a voice behind me. This caught me off guard because
it was a man. I figured I was about to be
robbed. Usually the only people who
lingered to talk after a show were single girls, so it being a
man was a little suspicious. Also, there had been a string of
muggings in the area, so I was extra cautious about whoever was
behind me. Hey, pretty good.
You play like a real musician does, he said.
I turned around to see this tall, lanky guy with messy hair
and a big wide grin carrying a battered old guitar case.
It looked like he'd been on the road for a while too.
I immediately let my guard down. In the moment, it felt like I
was looking in the mirror. I knew this guy just wanted to
talk shop, maybe even buy me a beer, so I took the bait and ran
with it. Hey, thanks man, I said,
shouldering my pack. I try my best.
It's not easy out here. There's lots of stiff
competition. We introduced ourselves and Chaz
told me that he was a musician too.
We started talking about music, life on the road and everything
in between. It felt like we had known each
other for years and years. He was from Kansas, also from a
small town, and got out of town the only way he knew how,
playing music. He tried to start a few bands
and failed, so hit the road as a solo gig, never looking back.
Colorado cities were like a magnet at the time for wandering
souls like ourselves, so it was purely happenstance that we just
happened to meet up that night. Chaz opened up the conversation
only because he liked the way I picked the strings.
From that night on, Chaz and I were inseparable.
We spent the next three years traveling around the central US,
playing music, hitchhiking and seeing all the sights we could
see. We lived a colorful life, always
on the move, never staying in one place for too long.
We did this largely without phones or technology of any
kind, just our instruments, some clothes, and whatever money we
could scrounge up with our talent.
Those years were incredible because we really got to learn
how the other played, and by doing so, truly learned how to
complement one another. We got many high praises from
people all over the country, but as the holidays would approach,
we'd always make our way back to our respective home towns to
spend our time with friends and family.
It was a ritual that we both looked forward to, a chance to
recharge our batteries and get ready for another year on the
road. We also like to hide out from
those winter months as Colorado and some of the other places we
like to reside in were pretty unforgiving during the cold
season. Snow, ice, frigid temperatures.
We lived on the street and didn't even wear shoes if we
didn't have to. We weren't built or prepared for
any kind of experience like that, so home retreat was always
in order for some time around. Thanksgiving this year was no
different than any other. I had just got back to my
hometown, a small town in South Dakota, and was settling into my
parents old house. Looking forward to having a few
weeks of relaxation, some good home cooking, and maybe even
playing a few local gigs. I like to come home and really
fine tune whatever it was I'd been working on.
That way when I hit the road again in the spring, I'd be much
sharper and ready for a whole set repertoire.
Then, on a cold winter evening late in the season, my phone
rang. It was Chaz.
We usually didn't start making plans until March or April, so
he was a little early to be reaching out.
I figured something was up. He had some kind of question or
maybe just missed me. Whatever the case, I answered
and said hello. Hey man, how's it going?
He asked, his voice crackling with excitement.
It's going, Chaz, I replied, laughing.
Just enjoying my downtime. How about you?
I'm ready to hit the road soon, my friend, He said.
Been studying these railroad maps all winter, and I think I
found a way for us to get to a music festival down South.
My ears perked up at that. A music festival that sounded
like the stuff of dreams. What a perfect destination for
our reunion trip. The fact that it was in the
South was a little off putting, but who knows, There are indie
festivals all over the South. I quickly bit my tongue and
waited to hear the rest of the details.
Tell me more. I said, Curiosity piqued and
Chaz did. He explained that he had found a
route that would take us away from my hometown to the festival
grounds all by train. We'd have to hop a few freight
trains, but he was confident we could make it.
He went on that he actually caught a train back home when we
split, and that's what gave him the whole idea.
All right, So what kind of festival?
I asked. Indy new wave, sludge pop beach
bum crap. He said as fast as he could.
Exactly what I wanted to hear. I was hesitant at first, but I
mean, Chaz's enthusiasm was just unrelenting.
Before I knew it, I was agreeing to meet him at the local train
yard next month. He literally had everything
planned out from when he needed to depart and when he would
arrive, to which train he needed to hop on in order to be on
time. Frankly, I was blown away, super
impressed with how much time he thought about this and put into
it. As we continue talking, I'll
admit something though. Chaz sounded different, almost
like something was off. His voice was tighter, more
urgent. There was almost a hint of
desperation in his tone. I didn't know what to make of it
other than maybe he was just excited.
I wanted to ask about how things were going at home.
Maybe something was wrong for him to be so focused on
hypothetical train schedules, but I didn't want to pry for
being a road ass hobo. He was kind of a private guy,
like to keep his personal stuff to himself.
He was my best friend so I had nothing but respect for
boundaries like that. So I pushed those thoughts
aside. We were going on an adventure,
and I couldn't wait to see what lay ahead.
Chaz said he'd send me more information over the next couple
of days, but for the most part, all the hard work was done.
I just needed to pack up my stuff, get some extra strings,
and make sure my hands were in working order for the next eight
months. I breathed a sigh of
restlessness as I hung up, already ready for this trip.
Little did I know this journey would take us down a dark,
dangerous path, one that would test our friendship and our
resolve. But for now, all I could think
about was the thrill, the ride, the rush of adrenaline as we
hopped from train to train, and the music that would bring us
together. In the end, I got myself and my
belongings ready over the next few weeks, patched up my
backpack and patched up my jeans, tuned all my strings,
even picked up a few extra sets just in case.
I had all kinds of weird routines that I did before
hitting the road, Meditating, exercising, weird stuff that
prepared my mind and body for month after month of pretty
rough living. I even fasted before I started
my travels just to shrink up my stomach and get ready for these
sparse meals. The day finally came and it was
time to meet Chaz at the rail station.
It's a relatively open place. For obvious reasons, I assumed
Chaz would be riding in on a train.
I stashed my stuff so it wasn't obvious that I was a hobo, just
wandered up and down the tracks looking for any sign of him.
After an hour or so, I see a little dumpy SUV pull up down
the way. Sure enough, Chaz pops out with
all his stuff. He waves to the driver, who
waves back, then departs back toward town.
I go over and greet my best friend, ask him about why he
hitchhiked instead of rode a train.
He explained the train schedules are rigid and none were coming
this way. The quickest and safest way to
get here on time was to hitchhike, and so here he was.
Whatever the case, I was just glad to see him.
Now we were ready to get the show rocking.
Come on man, let's move. Chaz whispered, his eyes
scanning the train station. A ride is waiting.
I followed him, my heart racing with excitement.
Been planning this for weeks and finally we were about to hop our
first train together. We shouldered all of our stuff,
instruments as well, and began that long jaunt down the tracks.
I was sick with sweat, nervous as hell, fearing something bad
would happen. I don't know why, I just heard
about all kinds of crazy horror stories about train hopping.
Everything from run over accidents to getting teeth
knocked out by railway workers. Just kept close to Chaz and
watched my back as we walked. We made our way down the line,
avoiding detection by hiding behind crates and stacks of
luggage. Finally, we found a quiet car
with an open door. In here.
Chaz said, gesturing for me to enter.
Dingy as hell, just a rough wooden floor with some hay here
and there. The car was mostly full of
pallets, but they had a little room for us to hide our
belongings and sit down, stretch out if we wanted to.
We made sure to keep clear of the door, just in case anyone
came back to check on the car before departure.
We settled in, our backpacks stashed in the corner.
I couldn't believe it, we were actually doing this.
We were train hopping out of my hometown.
It was dead silent in there and there was no sign of any workers
so we just shot the crap in there while we waited.
Chaz said it could be a couple of hours before it was time.
We caught up for a bit, talked about our holidays, and then he
filled me in on the festival and that train hopping schedule.
I was over the moon to be having such a discussion.
The hour slowly passed by, but eventually the train rumbled to
life. We chugged out of town, the
scenery blurring by us outside through the crack in the
compartment door. I scooted out from the wall so I
could get a better look at the terrain as it went by.
I knew once we were clear for the long haul, I'd probably
break out my guitar and start jamming as the country went by.
It's almost like something out of a music video made me
emotional to even think about. Dude, this is amazing.
I said, grinning at Chaz. He smiled back, his eyes
gleaming with excitement. I told you it would be.
You want to play some tunes? I asked.
He shook his head and got this funny look on his face.
Let's get high instead. He said.
This was another commonality between us.
Chaz and I both love to get messed up.
It was one of the things that brought us together in Denver
all those years ago. I'll admit he was a little
crazier than me, but I could hang with the best of them with
almost any poison. I figured he wanted to smoke
some weed or pop some pills, at the most break out a ball of
coke. Instead he pulled out a drug
that I had never used before. Black, sticky heroin.
I remember getting a jittery, nervous feeling all throughout
my body and for some reason I instantly had to take a dump.
Scary and exciting, just like that train ride.
I figured this would be a perfect place to experiment.
Chaz did the honors as I had no idea how to even prepare a shot
of heroin. I just watched in awe.
He explained. He started using on his last
trip home and it quickly became integral to his creative
process. Loved playing music when he was
high on it. He argued that all the greats
used it during their prime and frankly, I couldn't really
argue. I wouldn't have anyway as I
loved using too much to mess it up.
After he hit me with it, I just remember blasting off, feeling
like my body was tripping away underneath the train as it
rocketed along the earth. Such a euphoric sensation, truly
indescribable. But that's what all us junkies
say, isn't it? We start chasing that high and
it's never coming back. All that tacky Hollywood crap.
It was honestly amazing and I fell in love with that draining
rush instantly. We rode in silence for a while,
watching the countryside roll by.
We would talk occasionally, but mostly we were just zoned out
and enjoying the ride, both literally and figuratively.
Anytime anything cropped up in my head that I thought I should
be concerned about, but nothing like that ever came to me.
No anxiety, no panic, nothing but bliss.
The hours ticked by and we got closer and closer to our next
rail station. Then Chaz stood up, his eyes
fixed on something outside. I looked and saw the sun had
gone down quite a bit. Time to get out.
He said, his voice low. We grabbed our packs and I
followed him, my heart pounding. It was like all that stress from
earlier had suddenly reappeared, now wanting to suffocate me.
I gripped my guitar case with steady resolve, trying to
quickly catch my breath, and did my best to be quiet and alert.
We jumped off the train as it moved to the next station, our
feet pounding the gravel. If the train had been moving any
faster, we both would have eaten dirt.
There was a pile of rubble nearby, some kind of
jackhammered concrete. If we had fallen headlong into
that, we both would have cracked our skulls and died right there
on the first stop. We made our way through the
station, avoiding detection by hiding behind pillars and these
little alcoves. Finally, we found the next train
that we needed to be on. Chaz was seriously badass at
reading trains. I don't even know what he was
looking for, whether it be icons or serial numbers of some kind,
but he found us the right train every time, without fail.
We continued to repeat the process, hiding in a car then
waiting for the train to depart. This station seemed to have much
more in the ways of employees though, as we could hear boots
crunching on the gravel outside, occasional voices, shadows
passing over the crack in the door.
My heart was slamming at this point, terrified that we'd be
discovered. Not only were we traveling
illegally, but we also had heroin, which I suspected would
land us an even deeper crap. We stashed our stuff deep in the
cart and hid out in the back corner.
Eventually somebody came over and pulled the Hatch open, took
a look into the car with the new light I could see a little
better. When I looked over to Chaz to
see what we should do, I found him loading up another bullet
full of heroin. I couldn't believe it, but I was
honestly relieved. I wanted all this nonsense to
dissolve. The 2nd that needle hit my vein.
He had us both dosed up by the time the train was rolling down
the railway, and I could tell it was a higher amount.
This time I was swimming, teetering on total detachment
from myself and the world around me.
This time, though, we nodded off again, the most stereotypical
junkie behavior on the chart. I know.
I don't know how much time went by, At least a few hours.
And then our lives were messed up forever.
Our peace was shattered. When we awoke, we were being
dragged off the train by rough hands, our bodies collecting a
healthy array of splinters of various sizes, burying
themselves deep all over our hips, stomach, chest, and neck.
As I'm being dragged, my head is bouncing off every pallet corner
around me, taking me out of that heroin delusion right into a
concussive state. What the hell?
I protested. My words met with a punch to the
gut. I tried to kick out, but someone
caught my legs and another person started drilling me in
the groin with a closed fist. I lost all steam after that,
could hardly breathe from the pain shooting through my body.
Next, a boot found my face and somebody did the favor of
kicking my head in. Chaz and I were beaten
mercilessly, our cries for help ignored by any and all that
could hear them. They continued to drag us until
we fell 5 feet onto the hard ground below.
That further knocked the wind out of me as I felt like I was
drowning. Then came more fists, more
boots. I looked up to recognize our
assailants were the railway workers.
They kicked our asses inside and out for another 10 minutes
before throwing all of our stuff into the dirt and telling us to
get lost. We gathered up as much as we
could and just limped our way out into the woods.
Neither of us spoke as we stumbled into our next little
town. We found a dingy bar where we
bought some beer and cigarettes, then wandered the streets
searching for a place to hide. It was pretty much our only
option since getting removed from the train, just trying to
recover as much as possible. We didn't know anyone in the
town we were in, didn't even know the name of it.
No cell phones, no tablet, no nothing.
Just clothes, drugs, and instruments.
Eventually we found an alley, dark and narrow.
We wandered down a bit to get away from the businesses near
the front of it. Found a pretty dingy looking
dump in the back. We collapsed onto the ground,
our bodies aching. It was pretty dark back there,
even had a dumpster to help get us out of sight of everything
else. You want to jam a bit?
I said. Chaz shook his head at me, his
eyes dark. Rather get high.
He said. My heart skipped a beat as I
watched him load up the needle. I didn't want to do this, but
Chaz reassured me, his voice low and persuasive.
Play music. After we got that good and got
that magic in US, I can now see how much of A toll this was
taking on him. Chaz had been using maybe a
little longer than he let on, was gone.
Veiny, super pale. We shared that needle, the drug
coursing through our veins like fire.
I felt myself drifting away, my vision blurring again.
We talked for a bit, but I really don't remember any of it.
Again, he must have upped the ante, because I was absolutely
blasted to hell in that shot. We never even pulled our guitars
out. Never played a single note on
that trip, just did heroin three times, passed out in our own
mess in the back of some crappy alley.
When I awoke 8 hours later, Chaz was still beside me, his eyes
glassy and unfocused. His chest was still, and he was
unnaturally pale. Charles.
I whispered, shaking him. How long you been up?
He didn't respond. I thought maybe he was still
high, so I shook him again. That's when I noticed how cold
he was, the paleness, the chill on his skin.
Something was wrong. Then I noticed the dried vomit
on the side of his face, a touch of blood underneath his nose.
I was looking at my best friend's dead body, literally
the syringe still in his lap that sent us to the moon.
Panic set in. I scrambled to clean up all the
drug paraphernalia. I couldn't be caught with this
stuff. I didn't know what could happen
to me, but I knew how much more heroin Chaz had in his stuff,
and I would definitely test dirty if this turned into some
kind of investigation. There's no way I was getting
caught up in anything crazy like that, so I just did the only
honest thing I could think of. I stumbled out of the alley with
my heart racing, reported Chaz's body to the proper authorities.
I did it anonymously, just saying.
I saw a young man laying in the back of the alley between such
and such bars. I was in total shock, teetering
on losing my grip on reality. I had the jitters from all the
heroine and I was absolutely starving for some kind of real
food. I got a meal somewhere with my
last few dollars and found a place to spend the night.
I got my stuff together, slept in a park hidden away in the
dark. And cried the entire night.
I knew I only had one option to go back home.
This was the worst case scenario.
The music festival wasn't even on my radar.
Chaz overdosing was not part of the plan.
And now I was thrown to the wind.
He and I had courted chaos for the better part of three years,
so that kind of thing catching up to us was partially expected.
Still, it was a brutal thing to endure in a town I didn't even
know, with zero access to any kind of resources or any kind of
support. I hitchhiked home Morning Chaz
every mile of the way. I didn't even know who to call
to tell. We traveled together as
companions, but I didn't know anything about his home life or
his family. I wasn't even sure of his last
name or the town he actually lived in.
I wish I could tell you that I got myself together after this
whole experience, but I didn't. I actually got much, much worse
for the next few years. I stopped traveling around as
much, stayed home getting plastered every night.
I gave up music, just started partying and getting tanked with
my buddies. It was the only way to cope with
the reality that I met out there.
I did clean myself up, but only within the last couple of years
with the help of podcasts and YouTube channels like this one.