Out of Gas
A Backpackers Guide To Trekking In The Urban Backcountry
I ran out of gas.
I don’t mean that in some kind of vague esoteric way, either. I don’t mean that the existential struggle of mortality or the futility of modern life weighed so mightily upon my shoulders that I was left with no recourse but to lay on my bed, forlorn and dejected, wailing into the abyss. I don’t mean that the savage truth of this potentially misguided attempt to fulfill a lifelong dream of being a writer had revealed itself to so obviously be a monumentally bad idea that I was ready to give up, check out, catch an early departure to the big bad beyond.
I mean, let’s be real for a second. All of that stuff is totally true. It just isn’t what I was talking about.
It’s also worth mentioning that I didn’t run out of gas because I’m poor. Which, incidentally, is also true. This whole transitory reformation of my entire identity thing has actually proven to be a major pain in the ass. I totally get why people don’t do this shit, and I’m only six months into the goddamn thing. In any case, I actually have money. It was in my pocket when I ran out of gas. I was literally (read: literally, not figuratively, which I now have to elaborate on being you fucking hipsters ((let’s be honest, the only people reading this are my friends who tip toe dangerously close to hipster territory and actual full-blown hipsters. You know who you are)) used it wrong so god damn often that it’s in the dictionary that it can mean both) on my way to put gas in my truck.
So why did I run out of gas, then? I have a weird compulsion that prevents me from just putting gas in when it’s most convenient. I don’t know why. It’s one of the many ways in which my brain, or my being, or my soul, or whatever term you use to define identification of self, doesn’t function properly. See, I can know exactly how much money I have. I can know what portion of that pool of available funds will need to be dedicated to the righteous cause of buying enough expired ancient reptilians that will provide enough energy to cause enough tiny detonations to get me, as a minimum baseline, to and from work.
I can know, and still not do it. In fact, I can tell you for certain that I won’t. Because I prefer to hold some in reserve. No, it doesn’t make any sense. It just ensures that I’ll have to stop and get gas more often. The only thing accomplished via my inane habit is that I waste time. And not just any time; my time. The time that I contend is the most valuable, mostly because it belongs to me, and I could spend it in culturally worthwhile pursuits. Like writing this. This is fucking glorious by the way. All of evolution, all of existence, billions of years of actions and reactions, have all led to this precise moment in time. Have all led to me writing this article. Have some fucking respect.
Anyway. So I, uh, got a little distracted there. Where were we? Oh yeah, anyway, all my incessant trips to the gas station do are waste time I could spend doing things like. Or playing video games. Or watching porn. Or scratching my balls. It really doesn’t matter. But it makes me uneasy not having enough of an emergency supply of money. So I didn’t buy gas on my way home on New Year’s Eve. I didn’t buy gas when I went to the grocery store, or even when I went to the fucking gas station yesterday.
So I ran out of gas.
As you may know, I live in the hood. It isn’t the worst of all the hoods; it’s not the ghetto-iest of all the ghettos in the land. But it’s still the hood. Now, this thought did not occur to me right away. Even though I tend to swear profusely both in person and on this blog, I’m going to go ahead and not relate the first immediate thought that sprang up when I realized I was out of gas. Maybe we’ll get to that later if I finish saying what I set out to say and I realize we’re a little light on the word count. I promised long form writing, by God, and I’m not going to jeopardize myself and risk finding some measure of success by delivering succinct and to the point content.
Being out of gas, I did the most logical thing anyone can do. I walked home, which was just around the corner, grabbed a gas can, and set out for the gas station. I didn’t yet realize this was going to be the topic of this week’s post. I was annoyed and trying to figure out how I could do this whole thing with enough time left to finish editing another essay (Wizards and Werewolves: The Gradual Death of Free Speech) that’s half finished and a mess of offensive gibberish right now. I guess it was serendipity that this happened, really.
Walking through the hood is an absolutely brilliant time for intensive introspection. It may seem counterintuitive; most people would assume that in any potentially dangerous scenario, you would want to maintain laser focus on your surroundings. Not so, in the hood! Here’s the thing. Most people here aren’t really all that interested in you. Most of them are, in fact, high out of their fucking mind or crazy. Either way, they’re in the night. In fact if you are so preoccupied you don’t notice them, they won’t notice you either. Just pretend you’re Frodo and they’re Ringwraiths. As long as you don’t put on the fucking ring, you should be golden.
The ones who aren’t are most likely drug dealers. The worst thing you can possibly do is notice the presence of a drug dealer. They don’t want people staring at them. They’re doing crimes. And the most important aspect of doing crimes is not getting caught doing crimes. Getting caught doing crimes means, at best, you’re going to get hassled by some cop who’s probably in a really fucking bad mood because he’s stuck working in the hood and not driving around uselessly being a dick to teenagers in some bourgeois town like Roseville. Worst case is obviously getting your ass pounded by your bunkmate until the camera has to pan away and you’re bleeding rectally so intensively it forms a pool around your permanently recessed dick.
That’s how it works in real life, right? When bad shit happens the camera pans away? I’m not going to lie, I’m not sure how it works but I know I black out every time I get punched in the face and it seems to me that that might as well be the camera panning away or fading to black. Same shit.
So don’t stare at drug dealers. In fact, mostly just keep your distance and behave as though you don’t see them. Maybe that’s what the junkies are doing; they just assume everyone is like drug dealers. Could be. Don’t go around telling that to all your friends from the yacht club, though. It’s unverified research and that one bitch who is home on vacation from studying abroad will probably point that out and make you look like an ass in front of all your friends.
By the way, I’m just assuming anyone interested in a guide to hiking in the hood is a rich white person and spends the rest of their time doing rich white people things, because anybody else would think I’m a fucking idiot. And also probably call triple A. Nobody fixes shit themselves anymore, god damn it.
Let’s see, what other shenanigans are you going to run into in the urban backcountry… oh yeah, hookers! So dealing with hookers is really easy, guys. Since we’re assuming you’re all white people, and all white people love hiking and being in the woods, you’re probably already familiar with how to deal with hookers- and I don’t mean because you know that the best lot lizards are found in Lovelock, Nevada and to stay away from Nancy. No, what I mean is that if you know how to handle a bear, you know how to handle a hooker. Look, the sad truth is that they are definitely a lot more terrified of you than you are of them. Even if you wanted to consider yourself a paying customer, there is nothing about streetwalkers that would strike you as any kind of pleasant*.
Just in case anyone reading this isn’t familiar with bears, though, or forgot to pack their bear box when they got to the Urban Trail Head in the back alley behind Wal Mart, here’s a brief rundown. Keep your distance! The worst thing you can do is approach and make them feel threatened. Or make them think you want to “party”. By the way, you do not want to “party”. If asked, say no. They do not mean spend half your paycheck at Dave and Busters. Beyond that, you’ll figure out what it means if, heavens forbid, and when it comes up. Make yourself as big as possible. Back away slowly. You want to be big and imposing but not threatening; don’t wander into Charlie Sheen/Tiger Blood land or they will attack. Your dick. Do not, under any circumstances, come between a hooker and her young. Many mothers love to post facebook statuses about how when it comes to their children they are vicious protectors and woe be to anyone who fuck with that. It’s perfectly acceptable to laugh when they say that- you and I both know that 125 pound woman is not frightening.
This is absolutely not true in regards to streetwalkers. They will kill you. Think about how desperate a human being would have to be to have their child out in the middle of the night while they turn tricks. Bad news bears.
*this only applies to streetwalkers. For high end prostitution, refer to the Gentleman’s Guide to Quality Metropolitan Blowjobs
Finally, I’ll leave you with the definitively most valuable lesson I’ve discovered in all my years of urban trekking (I have a long storied history of making ludicrously journeys, on foot, in the city; including multiple 20+ mile jaunts in sub freezing temperatures while drunk. Utah is a… well, it’s a strange and beautiful wasteland).
Nobody in the hood fucks with a white guy in a tracksuit carrying a gas can.
This is 100% how you should dress for any excursion. People will cross the fucking street once they realize what you’re carrying. Slow moving cars will speed away. I cannot overstate the inherent power in walking down the street of a bad neighborhood with a bomb in one hand.
To be clear, I discovered this on accident. Like I stated before, I ran out of gas. I had nothing but pure intent and good old fashioned self reliance in mind when I started all of this. But if you follow my advice, I think you’ll find it will be one the most pleasant walks of your life no matter how wretched the hive of scum and villainy might be. Because while people may think a lot of unsavory things about white people, they will not hesitate in the slightest to assume that you are a psychotic on his way to burn down his ex’s house, even though if you really stop to consider all the angles a gas can really makes the worst possible weapon you can imagine. Sure, it’s deadly as fuck if I decided to whip my lighter out and scream “I LOVE THE SMELL A NAPALM IN THE EVENING,” but I’m absolutely going to kill myself and most likely not even manage to hurt anyone else while I do. It’s pretty much nonfunctional as a self defense tool, but superb as security theater.
So I ran out of gas, and figured it all out. And I hope that sometime soon you too can get out and walk somewhere. Til next time, friends.
Happy Trails.