Hello Kitty Must Die (15 page)

Sure.

And so I bundled myself up in a heavy North Face down jacket, jeans, GAP sweatshirt and t-shirt underneath. No gloves. I couldn’t find them. All I could find were my snowflake mittens that I had worn in the third grade.

Don drove up to my house and rang the doorbell early Friday evening. When I was halfway down the stairs, my father ran after me, yelling and waving something in his hand.

“Fiona! Fiona!”

“What?”

He handed me a tube of my mother’s Mary Kay cranberry blush lipstick.

“Wear lipstick.”

H
ENRY DAVID THOREAU
wrote a whole book about how great it was to be alone with Nature, how Walden Pond was the Earth’s Eye, how fabulous it was to be among the trees, how he would rather sit on a pumpkin by himself than on a velvet cushion surrounded by other folks.

Problem is, Thoreau never lived in the modern age. If he had, he might have been more like Theodore Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber. Kaczynski didn’t just write diaries about living in the forest. He wasn’t just happy to sit on a pumpkin or a velvet cushion. He holed up in the woods, growing crazier by the day, until he ended up building mail bombs to kill people.

In our time, Nature has become the favorite accomplice of killers, rapists, homegrown terrorists, and other assorted nutcases. The Walden Ponds conceal the bodies and cars of their hapless victims. The lovely trees and shrubs that so thrilled Thoreau now provide ample hiding places for these miscreants, creating opportunities for ambush, mayhem, murder, and terror. Helping them do God’s work.

Thoreau was lucky. He died before the modern age.

If some psycho like the Unabomber didn’t get you in the woods, Nature herself would. With her fangs, her stingers, her claws, her jaws, her poisons. And her cold, her rain, her darkness, and her freezing wind. In case her other weapons failed.

It took man thousands of years to crawl out of the woods. Why anyone would want to go back and spend the weekend sleeping on the ground, I had no idea.

“Don’t worry, Fiona. My friends and I bought tents. Mine is big enough for the both of us.”

“Tent? What tent?”

“For camping tonight, after we set up the crab traps.”

“What?”

“You know, camping.”

“My dad never said anything about staying overnight.”

“Didn’t he tell you?”

“No.”

My father never said anything about camping or sharing a tent with Don. Or spending the night in the middle of dipshit nowhere without a sleeping bag.

“Don, I don’t even have a sleeping bag.”

“Oh, I brought an extra one.”

Great.

I hate camping.

My idea of camping is staying at Motel 6 with a working toilet, shower, and electricity. And a crappy bed with sheets and pillows to keep me off Mother Nature’s dirt because I am allergic to everything. To weeds, pollen, dirt, fur, plant life, animal life, dirty dinghies, tents, and even some forms of human life like Don.

“Where are we camping anyway, Don? I thought you couldn’t camp overnight in the reserve.”

“No, not the reserve. We are going to China Camp.”

China Camp. Four miles east of San Rafael on the shores of San Pablo Bay, China Camp State Park sits on the grounds of an old Chinese shrimp-fishing settlement that once flourished in the 1880s. About five hundred immigrants from Canton, China originally called that village home. In its golden era, the settlement boasted three general stores, a marine supply shop and even a town barber.

These Cantonese fishermen netted fish and shrimp, dried them and shipped them back to China or other Chinese communities throughout the United States. Then the State of California swooped in and turned it into a park, making it a home for a variety of wildlife, including deer, squirrels and numerous birds. So the Chinese had to go.

Except for one guy, Frank Quan, who is still fishing the waters. He’s the last living descendant of the old fishing families at China Camp. More power to Frank.

Take that, Miwok Indians.

“So where are the crabs, Don?”

“Oh, anywhere on the northern flats of China Camp. You’ll see. It’s fun.”

“Are you sure you should be out in the cold, out on the water? I heard the peanuts nearly killed you.”

“Oh, I’m okay now. Sorry for what happened at dim sum.”

No problem.

I rocked back and forth aboard a medium-sized dinghy with Don and his friends, Carl and Joe. They set up crab traps in the waters of the northern flats, baiting them with chicken necks. Apparently crabs love chicken necks, and they are also easy to secure onto the collapsible metal-net boxes.

Carl and Joe threw their traps into the water, marking them with floating Clorox bottles. But Don took his time, tying his chicken necks with careful delicate knots before throwing them overboard. He had a store-bought red and white buoy. Like a serious crabber.

Carl and Joe. Our chaperones. Both Chinese. Both around five foot nine inches. Both a little stocky. Both tanned. Both into crabbing with Don.

“Is this your first time crabbing, Fiona?” asked Carl.

“Yup, pretty much.”

“You like it so far?”

“Uh, sure. What do we do now?”

“Oh, we wait for the crabs to crawl in.”

“No, I mean, what are we going to do while we wait?”

“Well, we usually play Hearts on the shore,” said Joe.

Hearts. I should have guessed.

Hearts is an “evasion-type” trick-taking playing card game for four players. It’s also known as Black Lady, Chase the Lady, Crubs, Black Maria, and Black Bitch. In high school, it was the game of choice for the math, chess, and science geeks. Clusters of these kids would sit around and play in the hallways, until some jock came by and kicked their cards away for their own good.

“Do you play, Fiona?” asked Don.

“No.”

I pulled out my cell phone, praying for some reception. I wanted to call Sean, even though I doubted that he would be inclined to drive all the way out here to save me from Hearts. But I couldn’t get a signal.

“Phones don’t work good out here,” said Don. “Here, you can watch us play.”

How exciting.

Watching Don play cards with his friends and waiting for crabs to come nibble on chicken necks. Suddenly, I missed Jack and my contracts, forms, agreements. But I only had one roofie left. And I was in the sticks.

You never drug the people who are going to give you a ride back into civilization from the boonies. Who have the extra sleeping bag, the tent, and the food.

So I pretended to be interested in Hearts for hours on end. I tried to imagine being happy sitting on a pumpkin by the lake out here with Nature. But by the time Don, Carl, and Joe decided to check their traps in the evening, all I wanted to do was execute scorched earth policy to the entire immediate area.

“Aw, man. I got nothing,” cried Joe, frowning at his empty trap.

“Ooh, I got one, but it’s too small. I have to throw it back,” said Carl as he opened his trap, releasing the dollar-sized baby crab back into the water.

Don eagerly pulled up his trap, reeling it in from his fancy buoy. As he brought it up from the water, we heard a clamor of clacking, from the crusty legs and claws of two giant Red Rock Crabs rattling inside the metal cage.

“Woo hoo! Aw, my mother is going to love this,” Don exclaimed. “She loves crabs.”

“You’re so lucky, man,” said Carl wistfully.

“No shit. More ways than one,” Joe chuckled, casting a furtive glance in my direction.

God.

I made a mental note to myself to ask Sean for more roofies next time I saw him. I made another to never go crabbing again. Ever. Not with Don, not with anybody.

After a dinner consisting of pre-made ham and cheese sandwiches packed by Don’s mother, we sat around a campfire drinking beer while Don and his friends drilled me about my life and my work.

“So you’re really a lawyer?” asked Carl.

“Yes.”

“Do you have a law license?” asked Joe.

“Yes.”

“Do you like being a lawyer?” asked Carl.

“What’s not to like?”

“Yeah. Being a lawyer is so cool.”

“So how did you meet Don?” asked Joe.

“My dad knows his dad.”

“Oh,” said Carl and Joe in unison.

“Man, I’m beat. I think I’m going to go lie down in the tent,” said Don.

Carl and Joe smiled, looking at me.

“Here, go on in. I’ll get you a nightcap,” I said, heading to the cooler. “My mom says it’s always good to have some liquids right before you go to bed.”

“Aw, thanks, Fiona. That’s very sweet.”

Take one roofie tablet in some beer, and call me in the morning.

Good night, Don.

THE NEXT MORNING
, I woke up bleary-eyed and mossy-mouthed from the lack of comfortable sleep and Colgate Tartar Control toothpaste.

“Holy crap. I slept like a log! I must have been tired.” Don sported the worst bed head I had ever seen.

“Yeah, you must have been. By the time I hit the sack, you were already out,” I said.

“Hope I didn’t snore the whole night.”

“Nah.”

Joe stumbled out of his tent, arching his back and rubbing his eyes. He looked around and asked, “Has anyone seen Carl?”

“No, we just woke up,” I said.

“He wasn’t in the tent this morning. I wonder where he went.”

“Maybe he went out for a stroll along the shore.”

Don shrugged and started packing his things, making sure he had his cooler with yesterday’s catch.

“I hope he’s not lost or something. I’d better go and look for him,” said Joe.

I smiled, thinking about what might have happened to Carl.

He could have been eaten by a bear, a wolf, a mountain lion, or a Jeffrey Dahmer trying to get back in touch with nature.

“CARL!” bellowed Don. “Where are you, man?”

“Damn that guy. Where is he?” said Joe, scratching himself. “I need to shower.”

So did I.

I still had yesterday’s makeup on my face. My Clinique cleanser was sitting on my sink at home, promising freshness and clean pores. And I was here in the middle of nowhere with Don and his two Red Rock crabs.

“Look, Don. I really have to get going. I still need to get back to the office to do some work. A lawyer’s work is never done.”

“Sure, Fiona. We’ll head home now.”

Don wasn’t so bad after all.

So we got into Don’s car and headed back to civilization, to the concrete jungle, to the fabulous City by the Bay, having added a fine layer of dirt, soot, and grime to our hair, and two Red Rock crabs to the cooler in the trunk.

And having lost one Carl.

O
N WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON,
I got an email from Don, bearing a bit of good and bad news.

Hey Fiona:

Bad news. They found Carl. He’s dead. Drowned near the shore. Turns out he must have slipped and fallen into the water during the night when he went out to take a piss. Crabs were nibbling on him when they pulled him out.

Good news. My mom loved the crabs I caught. They were delicious.

-Don

So Mother Nature got Carl after all. On behalf of their murdered ancestors, and with a little help from beer and Carl’s own stupidity, the crabs of San Pablo Bay took their revenge on him. At least he didn’t fall victim to a molester or sadistic psychopath. That would have been worse. More paperwork and legwork for the police when that happens. No one blames Mother Nature when she takes a life.

At least Don’s mother got a good meal out of our fatal excursion.

Sean laughed when I told him about the crabbing trip.

“I told you, Fi. Don’t leave home without your roofies.”

“You’re absolutely right. Which reminds me. I’m out. Can I have some more?”

“Oh, of course.” He chuckled again. “Poor Don. He thought he was going to have fun times with you in that tent, you know.”

“Oh well.”

“You going out with him again?”

“What? Hell no, Sean. I’ve had enough Don to last a lifetime.”

“You sure?”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure.”

“Cool. Come by on Friday. We’ll celebrate your return from the wild.”

I thought that I had seen and heard the last of Don. But I was wrong.