You know it’s bad when you are bleeding mojo and the flow is weak. I want to say I’m not like Charlie. I have more mojo and better sense. Well . . . 29-May-2024 happened to both of us. I wrecked my car. I wasn’t hurt. But I was bad off. I’m 64 as I write this with a common set of old man maladies—Type 2 Diabetes, overweight, hypertension and a UTI is what the ER docs found. They kept me for three days while the hospital worked to bring all of this under control.
One way I am not Charlie is that I age. Fictional characters, some of them, are frozen in time. Charlie Brown will always be a child. My Charlie will always be thirty-something. The average life expectancy of a guy like me is 76 years. Eight years left for me if nothing changes. Ouch. It’s easy to explain my depleting mojo. Charlie? Not so easy.
Charlie is in Humboldt County Jail. Guys like him don’t go to jail. Guys like him don’t get bit by piranhas they are trying to steal. Charlie did that. He’s not in jail for the piranha caper. He’s in jail because his latest brilliant idea is to steal a gymkhana car, use it to impress a girl, and wet his willy. I’m home writing this and drinking my coffee.
That Car Don’t Drive
Charlie likes old Honda Civics circa 1988-89. If you know, you know. He lives in a small desert town in Humbold County, NV. Outside the Paradise Casino the place is ranch land and National Forest. Nothing fancy. An eighties Civic is a “go to town” car. Most people own pickup trucks. Charlie *needs* a car, says he.
Saito o-jiisan is a semi-retired grandpa. His kids are grown. One of them, his youngest son, shares Charlie’s fondess for eighties Honda Civics. The car lives in the employee parking lot at the casino. Everybody knows the car and its owner. Only a complete fool would contemplate stealing it. Yes he is. Yes he is.
It’s a gymkhana car that Charlie just knew he had to have. He also knew that his crush, a waitress in the American Cafe would like it too. Ms. Waitress would date him and the whole manic fantasy would come true
I Reject Your Normie Life
Charlie, if he would just be quiet and live the life set before him by Saito-ojiisan and his family, could be serene. His bleeding mojo would recover. One of Charlie’s bitter roots is that he is entitled to his vision of utopia. The basement he was kicked out of by Felina is by rights, his. The farm he lost to foreclosure is his. Felina is an evil bitch who had no right to throw him out. Goochland County is racist. His family has owned that farm for generations. The County should know that they can’t touch that farm. Sure. Pay your taxes, Charlie.
Charlie works potwash during breakfast in the American Cafe. Is he good? It’s Charlie, what do you think? You can’t screw up washing pots, can you? Charlie is gifted in unique ways. He is lucky to have Saito-san.
The car doesn’t have a key. It has a cut off switch and a pin at the back for rescue crews to cut the power. Saito-san’s son usually takes the pin with him when he parks it. On track weekends it lives on a transport trailer. The weekend of the incident was a track weekend. Charlie tried to take the car on Sunday night.
Sunday Fun Day
Lots of families devote Sunday to church and Sunday Supper. Saito-san is Shinto/Buddhist. He does a Japanese version of Sunday Supper at the casino’s American Cafe. Ichiro is always there. So there is that. This Sunday Charlie begged off, saying he had a thing. A car theft thing, but he didn’t say that.
Charlie practiced this scheme in Grand Theft Auto V. He had all the moves memorized. The car was parked in the employee lot. Sunday gathering started at 2pm. Charlie made his way to the car by 3am, ensuring that Ichiro and Saito-ojiisan were drunk enough to not care. He had a spike of the correct size to fit the hole for the emergency cut-off. He put the spike in its place, reached into the car, turned the battery cut-off to “on”, and got in.
The car was in a parking spot. It fired right up. Nothing subtle about the exhaust note. You need ear protection around this car. One of the servers was on her phone outside the employee entrance to the casino. She heard the car start, noticed it wasn’t the son starting it, and began filming. Charlie caught her glance and waved. Nothing to see here, right?
In Out Clutch
This oversized lever where the e-brake is on old cars is the gear selector? Then what’s all these buttons on the dash? And why is the dash gutted and replaced with a screen? Gas pedal works. But why are there three pedals instead of two? What’s the third pedal for? Charlie tried selecting drive but it wouldn’t go into gear and when he tried the car made a painful grinding noise.
At least he could buckle his seatbelt, right? Or . . . not. The typical three point belt was there but no place to lock it in? He was sitting on four belts that seemed to meet at his stomach. Must be some sort of racing thing.
The server was in her phone for under a minute. Seems like she texted someone. The street lights illuminating the employee lot came on. Also the blue light announcing that the cameras were filming. Ruh roh.
Can’t Not See
The night guard put down his Black Widow comic book and looked in the direction of the commotion. Car alarms are jumpy. They go off for random reasons. So most of the time car alarms are ignored. Not this time. “Fuck!” Charlie triggered yards of paperwork to explain why the o-jiisan’s son’s car was bleating for help. Asshole.
Over the public address speakers, “CHARLIE! YOU FUCKING STUPID LITTLE SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!?” チャーリー!このバカなガキめ!何をやってるんだ!Charlie froze, “Nothing.” The phone in the booth wrang. It was O-jiisan. “Yeah. ボス、あなたの食器洗い係があなたの息子の車を盗もうとしています。バカ。(Boss, your dishwasher is trying to steal your son’s car. Idiot.)”
Core principle—you don’t piss in your own pool. For the more dense, you don’t steal from your own boss. Worse is stealing from a retired o-jiisan who hired you. Jail isn’t safe because o-jiisan has loyal associates inside. Saito-ojiisan is a very patient man who retired. Calligraphy and bonsai are enough for him. This. This latest stunt by Charlie disrupts his serenity. It will not be ignored.
LEO, Law, Inside Culture
I’ve been to jail. Charlie has not. Until now. Once in cuffs you are on court/cop time. Things happen when the legal system wants them to happen. Tantrums just slow things down. Your best move is to shut the fuck up and do as you are told. Protip: when your cell mates tell you to take a shower, do it.
Did Charlie behave? No. If his mojo wasn’t bleeding, if he had the sense to chill out, none of this would be happening. It is happening. After booking and eventual placement in a pod, he refused the shower. Sheriff’s deputies arrived, he fought them, and is now in solitary once the nurse had a look at him.
According to Charlie his mojo is infinite, his family richer and more powerful than Jacob Rothschild, and he would sue the shit out of ojiisan, the Paradise Valley police, Humbold County sheriff’s department and the Pope for good measure. Charlie wasn’t supposed to be in jail, in bandages, and in solitary. He was supposed to be on a date with a hot waitress doing burnouts in a gymkhana car. Choices have consequences, Charlie.
It Doesn’t Take
So . . . if this weren’t Charlie, if the ending were a Hallmark moment, a dressing down by a trustee would go the way you hoped. Big speech by the trustee and that would unlock step one for Charlie. I’m out of space for this piece. So the big speech will have to wait for part two.
I spent a night in Santa Rita jail before Y2K. A trustee who had the top bunk asked me what I was doing there. I told him my story. I hit my son’s Mom in the face. Arrested, bench tried, convicted, sentenced to 5 years suspended with probation and anger management classes.
What the trustee said to me is that I didn’t belong in Santa Rita. I was too white, too upper-middle-class, too educated with a wife and son to do time. I listened, did the anger management classes, and stayed married until we moved to Richmond, VA in 2001. Charlie is more bougie than me. He has his MBA, had his peak mojo moment, and has been in freefall since. His mojo is pulsing out of an arterial bleed in his soul. It’s not over for him. It won’t get better.