Pete's come over and told us that it's finally quits between Patty and him and for good this time, which isn't at all surprising. The only real surprise is that it didn't happen sooner, a lot sooner. You see, we've known Pete and Patty a lot longer than they've known each other, way before they became an item.
Pete's been coming out to the springs for years. He was a young single guy with a real good paying job. He had plenty of money because he lived in a converted garage behind his parent's house. His philosophy was: Why spend money on rent or anything else when you could spend it all on beer and pot. He'd come out to the desert every Friday night after work and bring a bag of weed, a cooler full of steaks with enough wood to Bar-B-Que them and a bigger cooler full of Budweiser which he'd share with everyone who'd listen to his jokes. Not just regular jokes mind you, but the most sexist racist dirtiest jokes in the world, of which he has a never ending supply, and some of which were even funny. He'd sit atop his cooler, drink Bud and tell jokes whether anyone was listening or not. When he told himself a particularly amusing one he'd bark like a dog instead of laughing. If you wanted to smoke a joint or drink a beer or eat a steak then you had to listen to his jokes. After awhile only the hard core drinkers, smokers and hungries would hang around him because by Saturday night he'd be so drunk that he'd start mixing up the punch lines making the jokes even worse and making no sense at all. On Sunday, being out of food, pot and beer, he'd pack up and tells everyone, "See ya next week." then leaves.
Patty on the other hand lived in the desert with her boyfriend Dan, a clean shaven guy but with a pony tail down to his ass and her 7 year old son Jimmy. Patty was an Indian from back east somewhere who had gotten herself pregnant at a very young age. She said that her father had given her hell for it so she hitched a ride to California, had Jimmy, met Dan, had moved in with him and had lived with him ever since.
Patty and Dan would come out to the springs about once a month in their van on a Friday night and start drinking tequila and beer, a deadly combination. Now this is kind of funny, although they would be at the springs the same time as Pete, I never remember seeing them together. Maybe even drunk they couldn't stands Pete's jokes. A lot of us were like that. They'd drink all Friday night, all day Saturday and by Saturday night Patty was no longer Patty, she was Patty P! Now, Patty was a nice girl, always congenial and never troublesome, but Patty P! was as wild as a tornado and as mean as a snake, a real she devil.
One night a guy camcorded Patty P! in all her glory. He played the tape for a sober Patty the next day and even she couldn't believe it was her. When she got drunk enough, she'd start in on Dan, bitching at and belittling him. When he didn't respond, this would proceed to name calling and insults. Sometimes she'd get physically abusive, hitting Dan, but Dan couldn't be bothered. He had come to get drunk and to party so he'd just ignore her, but what he wouldn't ignore was when she started putting the make on some other dude who was either too drunk and/or too stupid, the smart ones ran away fast. Patty P! would come up to some guy and right in front of Dan, tell the guy how much she loved him then start rubbing her lovely little body all up and down him. If he rejected her then he'd have hell to pay in the form of Patty P! who'd give the poor sap the same treatment she'd already given Dan.
Once she even pushed a guy into the fire. If he accepted her advances then Dan would have had enough. He'd walk over to the happy couple and tell Patty that that was enough. She would tell Dan to fuck-off, that she'd found herself a real man. Dan would grab her, she'd hit him and he'd drag her away hitting, kicking, scratching and cursing him. When he'd had enough of that action he'd punch her once or twice and if that didn't cool her down, it usually it did, then he'd hit her a couple more times, always body blows, never in the face. He'd then drag her into the van for the night. Sunday they'd be all hung over suffering real bad together. They'd pack up and go and unless you went and visited them you wouldn't see them for another month.
Except for that monthly craziness they had a good life together. Dan worked and Patty took care of Jimmy and the house, but then Patty started taking speed, and not good speed either but crapo crank which is pure poison to the mind and body. Patty took crank and drank while Dan was at work then she started fucking other guys right in her own home. It was only a matter of time before Dan would come home early and catch Patty in the arms of another. When he finally did, he threw out Patty, Jimmy and all their stuff into the street and told her never to come back again. Patty moved to the springs and celebrated by screwing every male there who wanted to. This was not an uncommon occurrence out there. Every now and then some woman will either leave or get kicked out of her home and will come out to the springs, fuck every male out there who's willing, and most men were.
One time these two women in their late 30's who'd been friends since high school, both decided to leave their husbands of over 15 years at the same time. To celebrate they decided to have sex with every single guy, both young and old, in the entire town. They called themselves "The Desert Whores". After a couple years they claimed to have had fucked all the single males but four, who, they were sure, were either its or closet cases. This might even be true because we have a gay friend who says that he gets all kinds of midnight visitors from macho ladies men to straight family guys.
Anyway, after a couple of weeks at the springs Patty meets a couple of lesbians who have a commune and they invite her to come and live with them for as long as she likes. She moves in knowing she'll be safe because these lezi’s have lots of guns and know how to use them so that even the most vicious lesbo hating males in the desert leave them alone. They're also into speed, something Patty sees as a plus. I've told them that they're welcome at my place anytime they're not on crank because when they're not, they are lots of fun but when they are, they become both vicious and dangerous.
Patty stays with them a few months until one day at the springs she sees Pete who's not too drunk yet. She's heard that he has a good job and sees he is clean shaven, has a pony tail down to his ass and is 10 years younger than Dan. She goes up to him and introduces herself and it's Love at first sight for both of them. They spend the night together and leave for Pete's place the very next day after picking up Jimmy and her stuff from the lesbian commune.
About this time Kelly and I heard of a really cheap but nice little house for rent in the same town that Pete, and now Patty lived in. We checked it out and it was a real deal so we took it. After moving in we go over to Pete and Patty's to say, "Howdy neighbor." When we get there we see two pick up trucks with most of their glass busted out and their head and taillights smashed sitting in the driveway. As we walk around back to the garage/home we see five, count them, five TV's with smashed screens plus a couple stereo's, a sink, a toilet and an assortment of other broken and destroyed things. The TV antenna is laying in the yard looking scorched. The front door has plywood where the glass used to be. We knock. Pete answers, "Hi, hey how are you guys? Hey Patty, look who’s here. Like a beer?"
We enter, not too bad, the walls have some holes in them but there's glass in all of the windows. "Jesus Pete, what happened?" I ask. "
Oh," he says, "the aerial was struck by lightning one night. Scared the hell out of us too. We thought the whole damn house was exploding." He doesn't mention the rest of the broken stuff so we don't either. After a couple doobies and a few beers we leave telling them to drop over to our place anytime.
Next day Pete shows up at our house alone and tells us Patty is driving him nuts and that it was him who smashed all of the stuff because he gets so pissed off that he has to hit something, and he can't hit Patty. We ask if he knew about her and Dan and how it was with them. He says yes, but he though he could change her, a foolish notion at best. I ask him why don't he just beat her a little, like when she becomes Patty P!, after all it's what she wants.
He then tells us this story: "The guy my Mother lives with is not my Father. My Father is an Indian who lives on the Res. We lived with him until I was 14, then my Mother left him and took us kids with her because of on one day what happened when my Dad and me were hunting together which we did all the time. My Father told me that he was going to show me what it meant to be a man. He told me to go over and stand by this fence. When I got there and turned around, he shot me right in my shoulder." Here he opens his shirt to show us the scar. "I've never spoken to him since, and since then I've never been able to do violence to another person, so I can't hit her."
I say, "Okay Pete, you can't hit her, but you sure can't live with her either because one of you is going to end up bad hurt or worse."
He says, "I know, but I can't leave her. I Love Her." And what can you say to that except, Good Luck!
In a years time Pete had broken his hand twice, an arm once and a foot once. We don't know how many TV's, stereos, vehicles, etc. there were, but he so completely destroyed the garage that he had to buy a trailer to live in.
One day he comes over to tell us that he's had enough, that next Saturday he's turning 30 and wants a new and better life. He's going to give Patty $500 and a bus ticket to anywhere she wants. We tell him that it's probably for the best. Sunday night here’s Pete's at our door and with him are Patty and Jimmy. " Congratulate us." he says. "We just got married in TJ."
We congratulate the happy couple. Pete continues, "When I told Patty that she had to leave, she said that the only reason she got so mean was because she was insecure, but if we got married then she wouldn't feel that way anymore and we could be happy together." Patty agrees. We wish them luck, but of course things get worse, much worse in a very short time.
Patty finds a speed connection. Usually Patty's a very nice looking girl, a pretty face with a good shape, but on speed she looses her shape and her face is covered with speed bumps. The crank not only changes her personality to Patty T! it also destroys her body as well.
Well, we've had enough of this town living so it's time to move on and since Pete and Patty's trailer is now almost completely destroyed, they ask if they can move into our house. I tell Pete that our neighbors are Hells Angels heavily into cringe and that there's probably a new meth lab right down the street form us so it might not be a real good idea, but they need a place to live so they take it. A year later they're evicted and the house is in such a shambles that the landlord has it bulldozed. They buy another trailer and move it onto some friend’s land. Again within a year it becomes unlivable, completely destroyed.
Pete thinks that if they move into the desert where we now live that he can get Patty off the speed. However, there's as much around here as there is in town and Patty already has a connection here; the lesbians. They rent a house and move in. Within a month things start to get broken.
One day we visit them and the doors and windows have all been replaced with plywood and there's something new; blood on the walls. We ask Pete what happened and he tells us, "Me, Patty, Jake, Bud and Nick were drinking the other night, getting a good buzz on when we run out of beer. Patty tells the guys that they have to buy the next case. They give her the money and she gives it to me and tells me to go to the store and get it, so I jump in the car, go to the market and get the beer then drive back (a 10 minute trip at the most). When I walk in the door there's Jake fucking Patty, and Bud and Nick are watching with their dicks in their hands waiting their turns. When they see me they drop their cocks and attack me. They start beating on me so I pick up Nick and throw him head first against the wall."
He points at one of the blood stains. "Bud's still beating on me so I bash his head against this wall" and points at the other blood stain. "All the while Jake is still fucking Patty like nothing is happening, so I go over to them, pick up Jake and throw him right through the plate glass window. Now Nick’s back up and he has my baseball bat so I have to take it away from him and slug him with it a couple times. All the while Patty's screaming at me about how I'm always spoiling her fun. It was the first time that I almost hit her. I still had that bat in my hands, but I just told her to get out. I don't know where she is now."
A week later Patty's back. A week after that the landlord sees the house and throws them out. Now no one will rent to Pete and Patty, and only the hard core drunks and dopers will hang out with them. I've known them for years and it's been bad before but now it's getting real bad, crazy bad. They're living out in the desert in the back of Pete's pick up truck, camping here for awhile then there. We hear about their fights from Pete. Now finally, he’s telling us that it quits for good this time. He tells us that they were camping up in the high desert and he caught Patty fucking some guy in the back of their pick up. He says "I saw that and just walked away. I walked all night until I came to the freeway then hitched a ride here. I just came to get some stuff I got stashed here and to say good bye. I'm going somewhere Patty can't ever find me." We shook hands, we wished him luck and he left.
Pete still comes out to the desert every once in awhile. He always asks if Patty's been around. We tell him no, no ones has ever seen her again. He then relaxes, smokes some pot, drinks beer but he don't tell no more jokes and he don't stay long. Good Luck Pete.
About two years later we were passing through Las Vegas and stopped at a U-Bag-It to pick up some supplies. On our way out to the store we see standing there in a U-Bag-It uniform, Patty smoking a cigarette. "Hey, hey, how are you doing?" we ask each other.
"Well," Patty says, "I'm off the speed and booze. I've had this job for almost a year. Jimmy’s in school doing good and we have a little apartment not far from here, so I guess that I'm doing pretty good."
"You sure are." we say.
We chat a little then she says that her breaks over and that she has to get back to work. “Nice to see ya again." we say to each other. We've never seen her again. Good Luck to you Patty.
Now some of you reading this are going to see this as a pretty sad little tale. But consider this: Through all the years of insanity a lot of property got destroyed but no one was really hurt or jailed or killed. And maybe, just maybe, they even learned something about themselves. It seems to me that is something and to me anyway, that is a happy ending.