She came to Olympia in a new Westphalia VW camper van. She came with a cat, a boyfriend from New York named Ron, a substance abuse problem and bagloads of money.
She began to appear on the scene; at shows, houseparties, the local hangouts. Rumors began to spread that she was buying people expensive musical instruments, beer and drugs. She quickly attracted the attention of a handful of creeps, losers, wanna-bes and hangers on, who followed her like clouds of gulls trailing a fishing boat.
The rumors were true. Kevin Bush got a $1000 guitar. Bushman got new Zyldjian cymbals for his drum set. Her story was that her musician son had died in a car wreck, and she was spending the insurance money to help struggling musicians. She thought he would have appreciated the gesture.
She seemed older than me. Perhaps it was grief, or age, or drugs; but I always got the sense that she was like somebody's mom, only with cocaine.
My band, No Problem, tried to stay away from the whole scene. With one exception, of course, the rapacious Ian McKinnon, our drummer and opportunist of great charm and talent. He brought her into our lives. She bought him a whole new drum kit, and he insisted that we should all take advantage of this opportunity.
At the time, we were using a borrowed dinosaur of an 8 channel PA system and a mic borrowed from Evergreen College, but it was adequate. Our guitarist, Jim Swindle, agreed; he didn't want or need any new equipment. He was happy with what he had. Nathan, our bass player, was using an old amp that worked, and that was all you could say about it.
Nobody blamed him for accepting a new one after Ian introduced him to this woman. Since she might not appreciate my using her real name, I'll call her Fran. With her cloud of dark hair, she sort of reminded me of Fran Drescher, without that gawdawful laugh, thank Xenu.
We played a basement party at somebody's house. I saw her flitting through the crowd and tried to stay off her radar. She cornered me after our set. "I'm taking you to the store tomorrow. You need a PA system," she told me. I protested that, after all, the PA we had worked fine for our purposes, but she was adamant.
Sure enough, she and a grinning Ian corralled me at the Smithfield coffee shop and dragged me away to a big music store on the East Side. It was like winning one of those supermarket sweep contests where you get to keep everything you can toss in your cart.
They swooped through, selecting sound equipment. Microphone, mic stand, mains, monitors, a big mixing board, and all the snakes and connectors needed to hook everything up and make it go came to over $2000 worth of gear! (I subsequently had to learn how to put the whole thing together. And I thought moving drum equipment was a bitch!)
Jim Swindle was the only member of No Problem who didn't get any new toys; but since he insisted he didn't need any, there was no drama. We continued to play gigs around Olympia and Tacoma. And Fran's coterie of hangers on continued to grow.
She rented a house, and they all buzzed around it, partying hard on the drugs and booze she provided. They kept their partying mostly at the house; the gang of parasites didn't want to add more to the mix.
Once in a while, I'd see her downtown. Rarely, I'd see her in the early stages of sobering up, at which time she would start to complain about how her money was disappearing. Ron kept an eye out for that, to make sure she didn't get too sober.
Another pitcher, another bottle, more drugs, and she'd sink back into pliable complacency. You see, she had a plan, and she had a ferry ticket from Seattle to Sitka, Alaska, where she would start a new life. When she was high, the plan would fade away, along with her money worries.
The parasites knew that time was getting short. Soon, their gravy train would disappear into the Great White North. So Ron and his cohorts hatched a Cunning Plan that, unfortunately, involved your humble narrator.
At the time, I owned and lived aboard a 36' steel hulled liberty vessel from the USS Seattle, which had been converted into a liveaboard. It had an 11' beam (width) and was quite roomy. Under the decks in the salon was a nice, functional Greymarine engine.
There was a propane system, a wood stove, and an on-demand water heater for the shower in the head. (bathroom, you lubbers!) There was the captain's cabin in the bow, a guest bunk next to it, and a fold out futon couch as well as a full galley. (that's kitchen, you scurvy wogs!)
All in all, it was a very nice boat; strongly built, and comfortable. Winter nights were no problem; Westbay Marina, where she was berthed, was next to a sawmill. There was always plenty of free wood for anyone who cared to grab a marina cart and trundle it over to load up on scraps.
The Ship Canal Queen cost me $5000.00. I also had a shell of a VW van in the Percival Landing parking lot. Sometimes it ran. It didn't even have seats in the back. I think I paid this guy Bill $50.00 for it.
By contrast, Fran's camper van had a Blue Book value of $60,000. It was fully loaded with all the modern conveniences. And, unlike my boat, it was practically brand new.
So, one day, I was joined at my table in the Smithfield by her grinning crew, who had a proposition to put forth. I would trade my boat and van for her van. They would get my boat, and she'd be on her way to Alaska in a farting, undependable shell of an ancient VW window van. This was their plan to extract the last asset she owned, acquire a pirate ship they could live on, while I would have the landbound equivalent of a small road yacht.
I knew what they were trying to do, so I told them I'd think about it. The value of the vehicle was a real temptation. $60,000 is quite an incentive. I thought, "I'll sell it and put the money in an account for her. I'll do something good for her." But I was never able to convince myself that it was the right thing to do. You know what they say about the road to Hell. It's paved with good intentions.
One day, I met with Fran and her flock of seagulls. Ron, Petey the Meat Boy, Dave Bushman, and others I don't remember were urging her to agree to the deal. She was wasted, as usual. I realized something at that meeting. If I declined the offer, they'd find another way to pick her clean before she left town. So I agreed.
Word got around town about this deal. Suddenly, I was Persona non Grata amongst the kaffeeklatschen, the 4th Ave Tavern crowd, the music scene. I got the cold shoulder on the street. People ignored me from the West Side to the East Side. People were disgusted, and I couldn't say a word in my defense, because in a town that small, the word would spread like a Los Angeles wildfire.
The night before she was due to leave, I told her to meet me at Percival Landing at 8:00 am, and I told her to come alone. We would exchange pink slips and finalize the deal.
So, at 7:30 I fired up the Ship Canal Queen, and motored over to the landing across the Sound. She was waiting on the dock. Once aboard, I cast off and took the boat to the middle of the harbor, where I tied off to an old hull anchored there.
I made us some coffee. She seemed sober and, I think, felt trapped by this deal. I gave her a mug, sat her down at the table, and told her my plan.
"Look, I don't want you to trade your camper. These people would send you off with virtually nothing left. I want you to get in your van, drive it to Seattle, and get you and your cat to Alaska."
Outside, I heard faint voices calling my name from the dock. Looking out, we could see Pete the Meatboy and Ron, yelling for me to come pick them up. That is why I took the boat out to the middle of the bay.
She hadn't planned to leave for Seattle until around 11:00 am, so we stayed on the boat and chatted about nothing in particular until it was time to leave. I returned to the dock at 10:30. The would-be pirates must have known by then that the jig was up, as they were nowhere to be seen. I gave her a fur coat I had, and walked her to her van. She got in, and drove off into her future.
I got a letter from her several months later. She made it to Sitka, quit drinking, sold her van and bought a houseboat. She and her cat were doing well.
After I watched her drive away that day, I moseyed on back to my boat, feeling pretty good about life, and the sense that I'd learned something valuable about myself. As I was preparing to return to Westbay Marina, a despondent Ron appeared at the landing, alone.
He bummed a smoke from me and whined.
"Now I got no girlfriend and no place to stay any more."
I took his lighter, lit a cigarette, and dropped his lighter in my pocket.
"Now you got no lighter, either." I said, and I fired up the motor, cast off, and headed back home, watching his lone figure dwindle on the dock. I never saw him again.
