Sonya Renault « The Historical Truth Project

Editor’s Introduction: In 2016, a Reddit story posted by user, u/Jermmz77,exploded across the internet. It was this true story, reprinted word for word below, of a young man who traveled across the country to visit Slab City.

Slab City is a former military base, located in Southern California’s Sonoran desert, that was taken over by the dregs of society many years ago. It’s Liberal to Left-Wing proponents prefer to portray it as a majestic, if not utopian world, inhabited by the type of principled, incorruptible souls who would prefer drop out of our unscrupulous, materialistic, and dog-eat-dog society, rather than participate in it. “The last free place on Earth,” they call it. Really? It’s been deceivingly puffed as a type of year round “Burning Man Lite” for the impoverished. Those naive simpletons who swallow this bait, soon become disillusioned after entering the Big Slab. Hence the oft repeated joke: “What has twenty-four legs and nine teeth?” Punchline: “The first dozen residents you meet in Slab City.”

The unpleasant truth is that Slab City has always been a weigh station for society’s undesirables. It’s lawless, anything goes reputation draws in the most unsavory of our societal bottom feeders. Included too, are the harmless, as well as gullible, young people, in search of a 1960s style, hippiesque redux. Those hapless thrill seekers, drawn by the illusory lure of free love, peace and drugs, often experience a “bad trip.” I’m not just referring to the unsatisfactory acid, they pop there. When snakes drop LSD they undoubtedly hallucinate about being surrounded by the human inhabitants of Slab City. For every one hirsute, young, free spirit in search of the ultimate hootenanny, there are at least four other hardened Slab inhabitants who have either: a) done serious prison time; b) been committed to a metal hospital; c) are presently wanted fugitives from justice; d) look like they could be cast as the antagonist in an 80s style slasher movie; e) all of the above.

Just ask Poe Delwyn Black, an otherwise honorable and altruistic 21-year-old trans man, with a big heart and kind demeanor, who made “the pilgrimage” to the Big Slab in 2021. Oh, wait a minute, I remember now…It’s starting to come back to me…you can’t ask Poe Delwyn Black because, well… he’s dead. Yes, tragically, this nice young man was murdered in Slab City. Hauntingly, young Poe Delwyn Black’s mutilated body, chalked with dozens of stab wounds, was recovered from the same canal, North of the Big Slab, where u/Jermmz77, fled for his life from a crazed mob of Slab residents. This drug frenzied pack of depraved miscreants, with an eerie resemblance to the mutants from the classic film, The Hills Have Eyes, (1977) hunted and stalked u/Jermmz77 like a trophy boar. Of course, the authorities have no promising leads in Poe Delwyn Black’s murder as “nobody saw nothing.” Naturally. News Story here:

https://calexicochronicle.com/2021/09/16/sheriffs-push-slabs-murder-probe-in-new-direction/

Back to the story of u/Jermmz77. You can read for yourself his harrowing account below. Unsurprisingly, the politically correct thought police at Reddit took down his story. Because we stand against this type of Orwellian censorship, we have reprinted his story, word for word and unedited below.

Story follows:

I was hunted in Slab City

A tiny history lesson on Slab City for those that have no idea what it is. I first became aware of it in the Sean Penn directed movie about the life of Christopher McCandless, “Into the Wild”. In Alexander SuperTramp’s (A name Chris chose for himself) travels around the US before ultimately dying in an abandoned bus in Alaska, he spends time at Slab City.

It was originally an army base, it looks peaceful and loving, a hippie utopia. He visits Salvation Mountain. It is a monument right outside of Slab City that was built over the course of 30 years by Leonard Knight. A crazy old Slabber, but full of love like nobody you’ve ever seen. He built it out of Hay bales covered in adobe, items he found in the desert and covered it in over 300,000 cans of paint, all donated. Leonard has since died, and his mountain is a tourist attraction. Without him to do the constant maintenance on his creation, it will slowly crumble to nothing.

I researched the Slabs a bit just out of curiosity. Even thoughhough it is in the damn Imperial desert in California, it has a water source. What I believe to be the Colorado River is redirected along side the Slabs. There is a natural hot spring where these fuckers bathe in each others filthy body stew. There is a makeshift Library, an internet café, a bunch of little social clubs you can join and even a hostel for teenage runaways that takes any sort of miniscule donation. There is a church and they actually feed the Slabbers on Saturday’s. And of course, there is “The Range”. Saturday night’s entertainment. A stage set in front of a hundred of the worst condition couches and chairs you’ll ever see. Have you ever seen a stained couch on the sidewalk with holes and springs poking out and a “free” sign on it? Well, I assure you it ended up at The Range. Anyway, it’s a talent show of sorts. Possibly the only talent it has ever seen was an acoustic song sung by Kirsten Stuart in the movie.

So that’s Slab City. The state of California is trying to sell the land and evict all of the squatters, Snowbirds (retirement age RV’ers) tweakers, criminals, hippies and lowlifes. Had I written this before my actual experience there I would have said they are trying to evict the loving hippie commune that just want a simple life and deserve to have this one forgotten piece of desert. But, I’ve been there and opinions change. So, I figured if I ever want to check out this place before it is sold or Salvation Mountain crumbles to dust, now is the time.

That’s why I went. Just to check it out, camp for a week or so…maybe longer if I liked the vibe. I had enough supplies to last me and my dog for months. Now on with my horror story…

I left on 11/3/15 at 7am with my trusty road dog named Cooper. He is an Italian Greyhound/Pit bull mix. I wanted to get there as fast as possible. New Hampshire to southern California, just over 3000 miles in a Honda Civic with NO radio. I only stayed at 2 Motels long enough to get a full night sleep and took a 3 hour nap at a rest stop. There isn’t much to say about the entire length of the US when you’re rushing through it. I arrived at Slab City on 11/6/15 at 9:30pm having spent only $300 on gas, not bad at all. Being so late at night and as dark as I’ve ever seen, I had no idea where to go. I didn’t want to infringe on someone’s established site. I drove down a dirt road that could shake the bolts loose on your car. I saw a spot I could pull in with nobody around. I got out and looked into the darkness and filled Coopers bowls with food and water. I was expecting to hear people, maybe rowdy people or talking or music, something. It was completely silent, at 9:30pm. NOTHING. I then realized that I am making a lot of noise when A flashlight came on in the distance. I’ve been opening and closing my doors and my dog eating is echoing in the distance. I realize that I’m the asshole.

I was expecting all sorts of noise from these people and it was just me. They have some sort of silence at night rule and I’m breaking it, badly. The flashlight points in my direction so I decide to move on to a new location. Sorry folks, my bad. I continue down the a road with a makeshift street sign that says Coachella Rd. I will camp on this road because it’s so dark and I have NO idea how this place is set up. I pass the library sign and I drive over a mile down this road where nobody is camped, maybe the extreme antisocial and me. I find an empty lot and pull in, turn my car to face the road and arm myself with my hunting knife, just in case.

I open the sun roof and see the galaxy for the first time ever in my life. It was pretty amazing. I just stared at the sky for hours. A truck drove by, stopped at my car and shined a spotlight at me. Maybe to see if it was abandoned? I moved around a bit and it drove off. Finally got some uncomfortable sleep in the drivers seat of my car that couldn’t recline due to supplies stuffed behind it. The next night will be better, right?

The suns rises and there is still a chill in the air. I decide to look for a new spot that has a large enough bush or tree to hide my vehicle and tent from any passersby. I find the perfect spot just a few hundred feet back towards the heart of the City. I pull my car behind a very large bush, set up my 4 man-2 room tent and tie off a tarp to the tree for shade.

Now that I can actually see, this desert is trashed. Sun scorched cans litter the ground, there are tires that have been burned, there is the classic sign of car windows being smashed out, There are lots of female boots that belong in an 80’s hair metal video, there is children’s toys, glass bottles and jars in shapes I’ve never seen before and very old electronics that someone had a serious problem with. Every piece of early technology had its circuit boards ripped out and smashed.

I collected large food cans and empty paint cans. I used them to block off the entrance to my new property line. It is wise not to cross makeshift property lines in the Slabs. Assume everyone is armed, crazy and has a small army of angry dogs.

Now I have to search for this aqueduct. Even in the winter months it gets to be in the 90’s so water is vital. I soon realize that the river is actually across the street from me. I just have to walk a bit into the desert and there it is. Easy access, couldn’t have been better positioned. I won’t have to lug liters of water for miles. There is no way in hell I would ever drink this water straight from the source. I brought a life-straw gravity fed filter and I planned to boil it after that. However, I brought 5 gallons of water with me and wouldn’t need to worry about it for a couple of days.

Now is the time to take a walk into the heart of the city and see what it’s all about. I passed Indian reservations on my way to California that made me sad. Some of the American Indian’s live very poorly in little shanty towns. Well, they were living in the lap of luxury compared to some of these folks. I pass a tarp in a bush that someone calls a ceiling to their home. I pass a dog house for people that’s made out of pallets. I pass two small planks of ply wood that lean against each other to form the most claustrophobic tent I’ve ever seen. You would have to crawl into it and the point of the tent would be inches from your face. “OCCUPIED” spray painted on the side. I’m hoping it’s so nobody scavenges the wood and not because the dude came home one day and someone else crawled into his cubby hole and made it their own.

The further in you go, the more community you start to see. Multiple shacks and broken down vehicles all in close proximity. I pass the signs to the library. I look up the road to see what it looks like and it doesn’t look too inviting. I don’t know what I thought a desert library would look like but I wasn’t expecting pallets, torn tarps and anything else that can almost form a solid wall. MAYBE I’ll check that out later.

I pass the “Internet Café”. For a small donation you can charge your electronics, use the WIFI and they serve coffee in the morning. I’ll definitely stop there today. I start to pass various social clubs. “The Oasis Club” I still don’t know what that’s all about. Then I pass a more sinister looking club. A dark shack with tattered black fabric and tarps blowing in the breezy. It had a very pirate like look to it. The black sign with white lettering read “The Cannibal Club: If you’re not a member, you get eaten”. I hope that’s a joke. Later that night, that sign would bounce around in my head and make me reconsider if it actually was a joke or not.

So with all this extreme poverty and hand built “homes” there is the complete opposite, The Snowbird community. The retirement folks that park for free for the winter before heading out in the spring. RV’s costing $250,000. They stick together and have a pretty good community watch going. They’re old and don’t have much else to do than watch what’s happening around them, plus dogs.

Everyone I pass on the road is friendly. A smile, A wave, A “good morning”. I head back to camp to make some breakfast and charge my phone. I don’t get a signal but I would play some app games to pass the time until dusk when The Range starts drawing people in. I charge my phone for about 30 minutes using my car. 5%-in 30 minutes. This is not good and a waste of gas, so I decide to head back to the internet café, charge up, leech some WIFI and mingle with the natives. This is where I do everything wrong and make myself a nice juicy target for at the very least robbery, an ass kicking and quite possibly murder.

There is a dog problem at the slabs. It seems everyone has at least one and many have giant packs of dogs. I’m talking 10-20 dogs and they all go bat shit crazy as you walk pass. Don’t expect anyone to tell their dog to Sssshhhh or even attempt to restrain it as it follows you down the road growling and making advancements toward you. My poor dog Cooper (the only leashed dog in the slabs) is not an aggressive dog at all. He’ll warn me if someone approaches but he generally loves all people and doesn’t know how to deal with packs of dogs growling and showing their teeth to him.

I arrive at the internet café which is a small camper with a shaded addition built on, Couches and power outlets. I walk to the gate where I hear people talking. I ask who is in charge and how this place works. An old bearded man tells me they accept donations. I’m always generous, I can’t help it. I step inside and a cloud of deer flys lifts off the occupants. I was not prepared for that, these people gave zero shits that they were covered in flys. I can’t help swatting the fuckers away and that was very out of place here. The older gentleman tells me I can put my dog in the pen behind the shack. I check it out and there is a large crazy looking female pit bull in there. Her owner tells me she can be really bitchy sometimes but encourages me to feed my dear dog to it. I decline.

Besides the nice old man, there is a woman in her late 40’s knitting mushroom shaped lighter holders that hang from your neck. Weird but what did I expect? There is a dreadlocked Hippie chick in her early 20’s. She is mildly pregnant and actually quite beautiful. She is a Slab City 10 or a real world 6.5 Beside her curled up in fetal position with his head on her lap is her filthy bearded boyfriend. He is much too stoned to do anything at all but lay there. There is a dreadlocked drifter looking kid in his early 20’s. He sits silently by himself never saying a word. So I offer my donation to the old man. I hand him a crisp $20. I was not expecting the reaction but he basically told me I can use their service forever and he is used to 10 cent donations for the week. And with that single stupid move on my part, I set off a chain of events.

I plug in my phone and sit on the couch and shoot the shit with the old man and the knitting lady. All very easy conversation. They tell me a bit about them and ask me a bit about me. Where are you from? what made you come here? how long are you going to be here? It all flowed as natural conversation and I’m an idiot. So after a while of talking the drifter kid gets up and leaves. I forgot he was even there. Oh yeah, 8 phones charging by solar panel while the old dude uses his lap top is not a quick thing. I’m going to be here for hours. Then I start noticing the preggo chick keeps looking at me with a strange expression on her face. At the time I took it as her being super high and me looking so out of place. First off, I am clean. No dirt, no holes in my shoes, a dog on a leash, a nice phone, my arm tattooed with a sleeve that obviously cost a shit ton of money. Thinking back to her expression, I think she knew I fucked up and she taking in the details of someone that is going to have something horrible happen to him.

10 or so minutes after the silent dreadheaded drifter kid leaves, in pops a new drifter kid. Early 20’s as well. Tall and lanky. Blonde hair covering one of his eyes. I know this is shocking but everyone I have been near did not have any sort of over powering odor. Maybe the constant breeze kept the stinks away, who knows…but this kid stunk like nothing I’ve ever smelled before. I can only describe it as sweaty unwiped ass and rotting potatoes. Everything about him was a bad sign. He had a large knife on his side. He had a rat face. He had toes poking out through his shoes. He had muck caked to his clothes. In contrast to my professional tattoo, he was covered in words and doodles that looked like he took pen ink and a hypodermic needle and went to town on himself. But that smell, it was unforgivable.

I can’t remember what he said to me. I just remember him saying “Hey we have to give the new guys a hard time, ya know” He sits on the couch and my lovable dog isn’t loving this kid at all. He gives the kid a serious look for a second. Rat face says something to the effect of “I wouldn’t think about it dog, I have a (I can’t remember what kind of dog he said, but he said it’s the best hunting dog in the world and she can track anything) she might be smaller than you but she’s stronger”.

This kid gives me the creeps, and my dog too. Thankfully an ancient man with a walking stick enters looking like a thousand year old scarecrow and freaks the fuck out of Cooper. He goes into a barking panic, thankfully not giving the man a heart attack but definitely startling him. I use this as my cue to get the fuck out of there. I leave my phone to charge and say I’ll be back later for it. The café boss says ok, not a problem and says he’ll see me at The Range and tells me it starts filling up as soon as the sun begins to set. I apologize to the old scarecrow but he doesn’t even acknowledge me.

I head back to camp to get my car and hopefully my phone will be mostly charged when I stop off at the café before heading to Salvation Mountain. I hike my mile back to camp, explore the desert a bit and then head out to grab my phone and see the mountain. I arrive back at the Café to find nobody there. That’s ok with me. My phone is still charging thankfully. I pick it up and it is at 73% good enough for me.

I drive down to Salvation Mountain which I should have seen on my way into Slab City but it was so dark, even my headlights didn’t allow me a glimpse of it. To my surprise there was about 100 people at the mountain. Not typical Slabbers, none actually. Tourists from all over the world. Lots of beautiful Asian girls, photographers and families. I didn ‘t know until later but it was Leonard Knights birthday. The photos of this place are nothing special, it looks like a mess. It looks small but it looks interesting. In person it is actually much more impressive. Tunnels, caves, nooks, all painted with odd sculptures. Leonard gave over 600,000 tours of his mountain in his life time and every last person sought him out. That’s pretty impressive for a dude living in the desert. I may also be exaggerating that number, but it’s something ridiculous like that.

It’s getting late and I want to check out the night’s entertainment at The Range. I park my car back at camp and decide to walk to the festivities. I pack a small bag with a flashlight, a dog bowl and a bottle of water. I fill a 20 oz. bottle about 1/3 the way with rum and the rest with coke. Off we go.

It’s already dark, I didn’t plan my timing very well. We are confronted by packs of dogs. It seems in the dark they are even worse. Luckily none attacked and Cooper didn’t provoke them, scary either way.

We arrive at The Range and cars are parked all over. All the couches are filled and people are standing in groups all around chatting. I decide to stand way in the back because there are dogs everywhere and I don’t want Cooper to cause a disturbance.

A 20 something dark skinned girl gets on the mic and says that they will be featuring a 45 minute documentary about Leonard Knight because it was his birthday…who knew? It was fairly interesting. The guy was obviously crazy but completely harmless. I was expecting him to be some sort of icon to the slabbers but most paid no attention and many just talked through it and smoked whatever their drug of choice was.

There was a handful of people standing in the back with me. The girl on the mic came up to me and asked me to sit on the couch. I explained that my dog is freaked out and I don’t want to be a distraction. She says it’s ok and insists I sit in the back row. Fine, whatever. She didn’t ask anybody else to take a seat.

I sit down beside a man that looks like your typical filthy bearded bench sleeping bum. Cooper immediately liked him, in fact he was the only person that Cooper acted like his normal self around. That instantly made him cool with me. We talked for a bit and it was a cool conversation. I took a swig from my rum and Coke and then offered it to the bum. “It’s all yours, Buddy” He was very thankful. I don’t think he receives much kindness for no reason. He chugged that bottle in an instant. I made it potent and said it was so good.

A group of dogs comes by and start freaking Cooper out. I hold his leash tight and keep him close. The guy to my right says I need to just let them work it out. Let them fight, they usually stop. Then he tells me about a pit bull that he just beat to death with a bat because it wouldn’t stop. What the fuck kind of person says that nonchalantly like it happens all the time to a person they don’t know?

Now that guy gets up and leaves…good. But the dreadhead drifter and the rat faced ass scented drifter kid both come and sit right beside me. They say hi to the bum and he says hi back in a subdued, don’t talk to me sort of way that for whatever reason instantly put me on high alert.

I started to become hyper aware of everything. Dreadhead kid gets up after 2 minutes and heads to a group of people to my left. Ass scented kid gets up a minute later and heads to a group of people to my right. My heart starts pounding because I suddenly feel like I need to get out of here quick.

I stand and put on my dark blue jacket because it’s getting chilly. The bum looks at me with worry in his eyes and says “you be real careful on your way back to camp ok” I smiled and said “I’ll see you again”. Trying to play off the sudden realization that something bad is going to happen if I don’t hide fast. I hop off the platform the couches are on and walk calmly. As soon as I am around the corner and out of sight, I start sprinting in absolute darkness.

I take my hunting knife out of its sheath. I don’t know the layout. This is not the place you want to suddenly run onto someone’s spot. I get off the road immediately and try to find cover. About 2 minutes after I start running, 3 cars come speeding out of the lot where everyone was parking. I duck behind a bush and hold Cooper down. All of the cars branch off in different directions. We run when we can and duck as the cars turn around whip up and down these little side streets of dirt. We duck behind another bush but Cooper is freaked out by how frantic I am and backs out of his harness. And that’s it, he sprints like the Greyhound he is into the darkness.

This is not good but I can’t call for him and I still need to be on the move as more cars are driving around. Off in the distance are city lights, an actual city. That is the only direction I can go as I will be running off into harsh desert in any other direction. Those lights are my goal.

I know the nearest city is 5 miles away and I need to get there. There are also three towers of red lights flashing. I thought they were a truck stop, A boarder patrol check point or something with normal people. I would later find out that they mark the stopping point for freight trains. But for now I don’t know what they are but that’s where I need to go.

I start running towards these lights and find myself trespassing. Dogs bark as an alarm that I’m in the area. A man comes out yelling “you better get out of here” He then shines a light on me and starts yelling “There he is, there he is” He then proceeds to start barking himself setting off all the other dogs in the area. I try to zig zag my way out of the light while running as fast as I can. In full sprint, suddenly the earth drops out from under my feet. I slam face first into some sort of ditch. I lose my knife, my phone, my car keys and now have a mouthful of desert sand.

The cars are now coming toward me, they know where I am. No time to feel around for any of my shit. I still grip Coopers harness though. I just get up and run. I come to the aqueduct. It’s too wide and fast flowing for me to attempt crossing but I think about it. I lay on the ground and watch the cars to see where they are going. I notice one cross over this river. So there is a bridge across. A wait for that car to gain some distance and I cross the bridge into open desert and the city I need to reach.

I come across a canal. Thick trees line it but it looks like I can jump mostly across to the other side. I jump in and realize it’s a thick muddy swamp. Why does this exist here? I climb the embankment and the crusty dirt just crumbles making it hard to climb and also leaving a very big sign that I was there. I discard Coopers harness. I should have left it in the swamp, instead I left it on the bank. I’m making terrible decisions left and right.

I see a flash light bobbing in the distance at this point. I run a bit into the distance and throw myself to the ground behind a bush. I catch my breath for a moment and watch the light. He is walking along the canal and sure enough, there’s a huge disturbance in the mud and a dog harness. His flash light starts blinking repeatedly. And here come the cars. I watch them set up at each side road lighting up the roads so I’ll be seen if I cross.

There are many more cars now. 3 with lights pointing straight down the dirt roads and a few more pointed into the desert. I now see a bright yellow LED light with one of the cars. I army crawl for a bit but it’s slow and is destroying my knees and elbows. I then employ the barrel roll technique. It doesn’t hurt but I can only go so far before getting dizzy as shit. I roll my way to a clearing where there is no brush, no bushes and no trees.

The light bobs towards me but I still can’t judge how far it is. I lay still on the ground hoping I’ll just look like anything other than a person. I’m positioned so I can look down my chest, passed my feet and directly at the light.

Then I start to hear the crunch of the footsteps. This guy is very close. I make the decision to make a run for it again. If I can get to some more cover I might be able to hide. I roll to my chest, up to my knees and run in a half crouch directly straight from the light hoping that I can gain a bit of distance before he can really make out that it’s me. That doesn’t work out too well. I run to bushes, dive in and look back to see if I was spotted.

Now I see the flashlight bobbing and a green LED light is shining. Immediately I understood the significance of the LED’s. Cars start changing their positions. I start rolling to my left. I am so disoriented at this point. Dizzy, thirsty and my throat is scratched raw from sand, I can barely swallow. I lay behind a bush for a while and watch. The single flash light turned into 3 and there is now a group of 8-10 walking shoulder to shoulder, moving very slowly, like a rescue team looking for a missing person. I will stay as far from that group as possible. I hear someone make a wolf call in the distance. It sounds like a younger voice so I blame it on the rat faced shit kid. Then I remember what he said about his hunting dog, She can track anything. I then decided that should get into some water for a bit in case this dog is with them.

At this time I hear a roar coming from the distance. I have no idea what it is but it is big and it is moving fast. It’s a freight train and it passed in front of the cars that were lighting up the desert. I jump to my feet and sprint for as fast as I can. This is a long train. It gave me about a full minute to run before I had to dive into some more shrubs. I noticed the train stopped at the towers with the red flashing lights. I believe there is civilization just beyond these tracks or maybe I can hop onto a train or maybe I can alert a conductor or one of those patrol guys that look for train hoppers.

I roll back to the swamp canal again. I have a pretty good idea of where everybody is due to the utter darkness I’m crawling around in and their only hope of finding me is using those flashlights. I can’t judge the distance but I can’t here the crunching of footsteps either. I roll down the embankment of the swamp canal and stay in the water for a good distance. I am so thirsty and my throat so torn up that I say fuck the parasites and other bullshit, I need to hydrate and clear my esophagus if I plan to keep going. I lift handfuls of muck water to my face and slurp away. I manage to drink some but every swallow is agony.

Because I stopped to drink, my feet sunk deeply into the sediment. As I lifted my feet to move on, my shoes were sucked right off my feet. I didn’t even care. Because I was in the canal, I can longer see any of the lights so I don’t know if they are closing in on me or if the splashing and sloshing of water is drawing their attention. I just have no idea.

I move forward as fast as I could while fighting the suction and plants that are constantly holding me back. It then dawns on me that unless I fully submerge myself, this may not cause a hunting dog to lose my sent. I say fuck it and climb up the side of the embankment opposite of the side I rolled in. I catch my breath for a few moments and peek my head down the road both ways. I can see a car is parked on the road in the direction I just came from, headlights pointing in the direction I want to move. I look to the flashing red lights and I can see a row of vehicles have parked along the train tracks and their headlights are all facing into the desert. My way is blocked. I can’t tell exactly how many cars there are but I can’t get through.

They are evenly spaced and close enough that I can’t even consider moving closer to my escape route. I see that the red tower cars have a yellow LED. They know I’m at least in the area. I sit and watch the foot patrols for a while.

I’m amazingly calm considering that I am pretty sure that I’ll be found at some point. I am cornered into this area. They just haven’t found me YET. I think about Cooper and if he got attacked by a pack of dogs or caught by a crazy guy that will bash his head in. I think about my family and how I haven’t been the greatest person in the world lately.

I actually pray for a minute, I am not religious at all. Hands in classic pray formation “Please, if I live through this I’ll be better”. What the fuck, it couldn’t hurt. I then started to plan out what I would do when I actually was found. Should I try reasoning with them? “Good chase guys, you win…I’ll show you to my camp, take it all, just let me go please” or would I just bum rush the first person and go down swinging assuming that I would be attacked anyway and what do I have to lose?

I hear a car coming down the road that runs parallel to the canal I’m in. It moves slowly and I try to duck even tighter into the embankment. It doesn’t see me and keep going. I then see the patrol of 3 is along side the canal I am in . The flashlights are not bobbing . They are scanning into the canal.

I continue along the canal while clinging to the embankment as best I can. I come to some sort of a concrete tunnel that the water is flowing into and comes out the other side. I climb the structure and move on a bit further. I feel like they must be gaining on me and I need to hide the best I can. I’m struggling through bushes and swamp trees and they have flat ground to walk.

About 30 feet after the concrete water tunnel is some pretty thick bushes and branches. Most likely as good as it’s going to get to hide in. I wind my body through the stick and branches and sit still for a bit. Now they are closer and I can see what they are doing. One guy is pushing branches and sticks aside while the other 2 are scanning the canal. They seem to be very thorough so I have a limited amount of time to hide myself. I crawl deeper into a bush.

They are close now, just beyond the concrete. I can’t risk making any noise so I just sit silently and watch, this is where I’ll be found.

My heart starts pounding again as they are searching the brush and canal right before the concrete tunnel. One guy climbs down onto the tunnel and lights up the canal in the direction they just came from and them toward my direction. And then they left. They just stopped.

I couldn’t risk moving to see where they went so I just stayed put and felt like the luckiest person on the planet.

I can hear the trains every so often. Maybe every 45 minutes, maybe every hour, I have no idea. I am now shivering uncontrollably. I am wet up to my waist and it has to be in the 40’s. I think about a podcast I listened to about a week before leaving. Wim Hof was the guest and he spoke of breathing techniques that allow him to endure freezing temperatures. He climbed Mt. Everest in shorts while shirtless, clearly he knows his shit. I try to use those techniques. Breathe in in in in in in out in in in in in out. It was a nice distraction but it did nothing for my shivers or the cold wet clothes.

Feeling a bit safe I crawl up the embankment for a peek. I don’t see the patrol. The cars are still pointing into the desert. A yellow LED is still on. I see a red LED off in the distance, no sign of a green LED. I can see a flashlight moving back and forth in the air a very short distance. I think someone was on top of a van or camper for a higher vantage point. I crawl back to my safe space.

I think the sun must be coming up soon. They will find me pretty fast when it does. I am wearing all blue and it might be a great color for hiding in the dark but It will stand out like a sore thumb in the desert light.

I crawl further into the bushes and lay on my back all twisted between sticks that have no give. My body cramps up for the awful position. I begin to pull sand and mud and twigs onto my body. I need to cover up as much as possible. I break twigs off the branches all around me and do my best to build some camouflage around me. A little dirt on the face and I’m as hidden as I ever will be.

I don’t know how long I’m there before the sun finally begins to rise. I hear a vehicle coming down the road. Are they leaving or looking? A mother bird decides she doesn’t like me in her bush and starts making so much noise. I would have broken that birds neck if I could reach her. Seriously, She wouldn’t shut the fuck up. Squawking at me while staying out of reach.

The sun is up. I hear nothing. A sit a bit longer. I decide I need to see if they are still searching. I crawl back up the embankment and look left and right. I see nothing. I can now see the towers. To my surprise, there is nothing there. This is just a random place the trains stop? Beyond the tracks are fields, empty fields. No cover at all. And way beyond that is Niland, California. 5 miles away. If I’m going to make a run for it there will be nothing between them and myself for 5 miles.

I know these desert people wake up early because you want to do the physical labor before the cool early sun becomes the hot mid morning sun. So these people have been up for a very long time looking for me. They must be exhausted and wasted quite a bit of resources, Gas and battery power. I felt like they was a decent chance that they think I got away somehow and just went to sleep angry and tired. Time to make my move.

Now, I estimate the train tracks are about 200 yards away. I also suck at judging distance, SO… My plan was to sprint all the way to the tracks and get low to see if anyone spotted me. Well, I ran for about a minute before collapsing to the ground out of breath. I looked back frantically ,scanning the area. I am way outside the actual camping area of the city so I can only see a couple wooden shacks and a camper way off in the distance. I Catch my breath and run again. It took me about 8 bursts of running to make it to the tracks that I planned on running to in one effortless sprint. I did however feel a bit more confident that I wasn’t noticed.

I make it to the road that the cars were lined up on that runs beside the tracks. I cross the tracks and another swampy canal. This whole time pain has not been a concern of mine. A raw throat and a few cramps that I dealt with but my mind was elsewhere. And then came the fields from hell. I have very sensitive feet. I can’t walk on the beach, grass and certainly not a road barefoot. I am never barefoot. Now I find myself wearing wet socks and crossing fields of sun baked soil. The dirt was in baseball sized clumps and felt like walking on lava rocks. These fields never seemed to end and I had to cross 3 industrial sized lots of them. At a certain point I found it easier to smash my heel into the clumps with each step in hopes of turning it to dust. The pain was awful. But I just limped forward. As long as I wasn’t running, I could keep going. After crossing the 3 fields I came to the highway. THANK GOD!!!

The highway way no easier on the feet. This was some rough grave they pave these highways with. I tried flagging down cars, I tried throwing up my praying hand gesture, I tried putting my hand to my head, thumb to ear, pinky to mouth in the international phone sign. I tried everything. Nobody wants to help someone that looks the way I did. Filth head to toe, no shoes, limping.

I can’t blame them for not stopping so I needed a new plan. About a mile down the highway I found a cardboard box that held canned goods. A few hundred steps further and I found a shredded tire from a tractor trailer. I used it to write” PLEASE CALL 911”. This way nobody would have to stop for the psycho looking guy but they can at least call. But nobody did.

I walked 3 more miles showing that sign to every passing vehicle in each direction. I came up to a fence with 3 Mexican guys raking up some debris. I stumbled up to them and asked if they had a cell phone. One of them did and I asked him to call 911…and he did. I collapsed to the ground and sat and waited for my rescue.

The Sherriff arrived. He rolled down his window and asked if I was the one that needed help. Because it wasn’t obvious to him. I said yes and asked if he had any water. He said he’d get me one. The Sherriff stepped out of his SUV vehicle, gave me the water bottle and asked what happened to me. I took a painful swig of the water and the first words out of my dumb mouth were “I was being hunted”. He instantly went into high alert asshole mode. “Hands behind your head, turn around” he grabbed my wrists firmly and began to frisk me. He yelled out to the Mexicans “Did this guy threaten you?” the replied “no, he needed help”. “YOU’RE SURE YOU DIDN’T FEEL THREATENED?” “yes”.

That was all of the story he ever wanted to hear. He asked me what drugs I smoked. I told him I never smoked anything in my life other than weed and I haven’t even smoke that in 6 months. He said he didn’t believe me and I’m not telling him everything. Which is funny because he didn’t let me tell him anything at all. I volunteered for a drug test to prove it. He said we don’t have time for that. He said in the biggest asshole attitude he could muster “What do you want me to do?” I said, file a police report. “And what will that accomplish?”

At this point I just thought fuck it and asked if he could drive me to my camp so I could retrieve my wallet. He said yes and implied that he would leave me there. I told him if he was going to leave me there that I’d rather not go. He really wanted to see my ID, so he said depending how things go, he’d bring me back to Niland to call for a tow truck.

On the way to Slab City, he was running my name, SSN, address and all that and kept asking the same questions in different ways. I AM NOT HIGH. I told him exactly why I was there and how long I was staying. He was getting pissed off because he couldn’t hear me. Sorry asshole, I ate sand and my voice is destroyed but you don’t want to know anything about that. (no, I did not say that to him)

We arrive at my camp and he sees my tin can barrier and tells me I have been here way longer than a day. I guess my 15 minutes of gathering cans that litter the area cannot be done in a single day. To my surprise and relief, Cooper is at the camp. Amazing! He approaches me with his head hung low. Poor guy, he didn’t do anything wrong. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t stay hidden if he didn’t escape.

I give him my ID and he runs it again. No warrants, no jail time, no nothing…happy asshole? At a certain point on the ride to town he comes around and realizes that I’m not a tweaker. He starts being much nicer to me and offers the number to 3 tow truck companies and a lock smith to make a new key. Hell, he even called my mother the next day to check on me and see if I was ok and the car got towed. I’m just bitter about the ¾ of the way he treated me and the fact that he didn’t even want to hear my story even after he realized I am not a meth head or high on anything.

The tow truck guy told me he picks of vehicle from Slab City all the time and he doesn’t go there unarmed. He said he had to pick up a camper with a dead man in the back and while he was pulling away, 2 men were trying to get into the camper to loot it. He had to tell them he called the police and scare them off with a pipe. Lovely place.

So, moral of the story…

I’m a dumbass and Slab City is free of charge, free from the law and is truly the last free place in America AND IT SUCKS!

$300 Supplies to spend up to a month camping in Slab City plus what I already had

$300 gas to drive to California from New Hampshire

$150 motel rooms

$30 fast food

$600 Samsung Galaxy lost to the desert

$150 new cheap ass Android phone

$150 hunting knife lost to the desert

$250 tow to nearest city

$250 locksmith (2 days to make key)

$210 motels