Travels With Georgie, Part 3

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Borealis
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Travels With Georgie, Part 3

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Travels With Georgie, Part 3
Reflections in the mind of George Crocker

Our intrepid friend George Crocker continues his tale detailing his arrest and subsequent escape from a Mexican jail, describing his journey home.

February 9, 2013: Cabo San Lucas, Mexico – After what seemed like five minutes of running, he stepped into a deserted doorway and pulled his iPhone out, using it to log into his Facebook account. He typed out a message and pressed “Share”. There was a pause, and then the message appeared on his wall:

“Who dat think dey keep me, George Crocker, down…”


He then stepped out of the doorway, looked both ways and them coolly walked down the alley. He glanced up at the sun, contemplated its position, pulled his phone out again to check the time, adjusted his route and began walking northward…

It wasn’t long before the discovery of George’s escape had become public and the streets began to crawl with police officers. Bulletins depicting Crocker’s likeness in his old Badgers uniform were quickly posted on streetlights and plastered to the walls of buildings. George would turn a street corner only to find another group of police officers. He pulled his sombrero down low over his head and contemplated his position.

As he glanced about, he saw a produce wagon pull up across the street from him, in front of a small market. As George looked closely, he noticed the tall building that the market was housed and suddenly, for one of the rare moments in his life, a light bulb went off in his head. George entered the market and found in the back, out of view of the shop owner’s counter, a stairway. Crocker looked around him and, when no one was watching, began to climb the stairway.

Fate would have it that the four-story building on the outer edge of town was covered and secluded. Despite the time of year, the temperatures were warm. Crocker sat down. “This may have to be home for me, George Crocker, for a while.” He took off his sombrero and carefully peeked over the buildings edge. Police were wandering the streets. Cars, motorcycles and horses were gathering at the town’s edge. As George watched, they soon speed off across the desert in search for the fugitive.

“Yep… George Crocker will just have to bide his time here for a bit. When it calms down I’ll head out.”

February 11, 2013

For two days, the streets were full of police. Posters littered the town, yet some were written over in graffito suggesting Crocker was a hero! “Imagine that,” Crocker thought to himself. “Me, George Crocker, fugitive turned hero!” He straightened up and smiled as he looked at his reflection in the window of the stairway door. “How… cool… is that?”

When evening had come on the day George first climbed to the top of the building and the streets had quieted some, he snuck back down to the market. The owner must have lived in the building, for the inner door to the store was unlocked. George stealthily entered, gathered some fruit, cold tamales and beer, and brought them back to the rooftop. “I really can’t believe that I’m still eating cold tamales. At least these are better than what they fed me in jail, and I get some beer with them!”

George washed down the last bit of tamale with a bottle of Negra Modelo. He pulled out his phone and fiddled with it. He passed much of his time these past 48 hours flipping, rotating, spinning his phone, the temptation to turn it on being so great. He knew that doing so would be a risk. “They may think George Crocker an idiot, but he’s nobody’s fool,” he’d say to himself.

He leaned over the edge of the building – another preoccupation of his while he lived on the rooftop. The streets had begun to quiet. The previous day, he had watched as cars, motorcycles and, lastly, horses all returned from their searching in the desert, the policemen who formed the posse all shaking their heads as if to say, “Nada. No sign of señor Croaker.” This empowered George further. He had seen no such activity today.

Once more, he pulled out his phone, fiddled with it for a short while, began to put it back in his pocket, but pulled it out once more and, with a longing look, turned it on. He pressed the “Facebook” button, typed out a brief message and pressed “Share”. He then turned the phone off and returned it to his pocket. Soon, at Crocker’s Facebook page, the following post appeared:
George Crocker 2/11/2013 – Can't stay for long, but I, George Crocker, is still alive! These people are ca-razy… gotta fly…
George leaned back and shut his eyes. It was still two hours before the sun would go down, but he wanted to get some shuteye. He had made the decision that he was going to move that night. “It’s now or never. If they haven’t found me on the road, then they might think I’m in town and they’ll start searching more thoroughly. Time to jam!” Crocker dozed, thinking of a list of supplies to take form the market before he left.

February 15, 2013

Fortunately, it was February and the daytime temperatures were in the mid-60s as Crocker set out across the desert. He grabbed a couple of woven bags in the market and had manufactured a kind of backpack, which he filled with water and an assortment of cookies and fruits. Very quickly, George left civilization behind and entered the barren land of the Sonoran desert – an assemblage of cacti, mesquite and rattlesnakes.

Over and around mountainous rises Crocker wandered. During the time since he had left Cabo, he had seen no one. “Just as well,” George thought to himself. “You just can’t trust anybody these days.”

On his second night on the “trail” – not really a trail, but in the open desert, any direction was a trail – he had set camp, only to find a rattlesnake wander into his space. “I hear you guys are pretty tasty.” With that, he climbed above the snake and dropped a huge rock on it, killing it. He started a fire of dried manzanita that burned far too hot and fast for proper cooking, but when you are on the lam, anything will do. He chewed the unintentionally blacked reptile, thinking about Georgiana. “Tastes like chicken.” He burped.

It hadn’t taken Crocker very long to discover that it was best to travel at dawn and dusk. Despite the cool temperatures, the sun baked. The shade of an overhanging rock or a giant-sized Joshua tree sufficed during the day for protection as he’d doze. Between catnaps, he’d think about baseball. He’d think about his days in the PEBA and the WBL and Bogota. Most of all, he thought of Georgiana. “What happened to her?” he’d ask himself. “Why did she split?” Crocker slowly began to wonder if she had set him up, but he always came back to the same lame argument. “Nah, she loved me. She loved George Crocker. She’d never try to hurt me.”

On his third day on the run in the desert, he came across a shepherd… if sheep were his watch. “A goaperd!” Crocker thought to himself. “A goat shepherd.” The goats wandered about the barren land, feeding on the minimal grass that had sprouted out of the hard-baked ground. George noticed that the goaperd had a truck and a trailer that clearly was home to the goats. “Looks like a means of transport to me!” George thought to himself. He quietly walked around the periphery, keeping out of sight. Finally, as the sun began to set, the goaperd gathered his herd, shuttled them into the trailer and got into his truck.

As he drove off, unbeknownst to him, he had an extra piece of cargo in his trailer. His goats, on the other hand – if they had hands – knew of this new trailer-mate. It was only a matter of minutes before the goaperd pulled into the parking lot of a roadside bar in the town of Agua Caliente. George saw him get out and enter the bar. With that, Crocker let himself out of the trailer, wiped the hay off his clothing and looked about. Pick-ups, and a lot of pick-ups. George had no idea where he was or how far he had traveled. “I got to get outta this place and back to the States,” he thought.

As he looked around, he came upon a Ford F-150 with California plates. The truck bed was covered and contained a bunch of junk, as far as he could tell. The moon had risen bright outside the bar and cast a shadow onto the pavement. “Well, George Crocker, what do you do? You think this guy might be heading back to Cali?” His shadow responded with silence. “Okay, this is what we do. Ro-sham-bo. I win, we climb into the bed and hope he’s headed north. Lose, and we rethink this plan.” Again, the shadow of Crocker was silent. “Okay. Ro… sham… bo.” George threw his hand out with a sideways peace sign – scissors. George’s shadow did likewise. “Humphf…” George grunted. Once more, “Ro.. sham… bo.” This time he threw out a closed fist, only to be matched with that of his shadow. “Ah! Come on. Be original, dude!” he cried out at his shadow.

He raised his fist yet again to begin the ritual fist pump of a ro-sham-bo when the door of the bar opened and someone began to walk out. Without hesitation, George hopped into the back of the Ford. As luck would have it, the person who walked out of the bar was the owner of the truck. George heard the cab door open, the driver climb in and the subsequent slamming of the door. The truck’s engine revved hard and loud and it lurched forward with spinning, squealing wheels as it drove off, with Crocker thrown against the truck’s cargo.

Crocker had no idea which direction he was traveling. For all he knew, he could be headed back to Cabo. Damn that shadow for not cooperating and forcing his hand! But luck – the same luck that put George in a jail cell made of adobe, that gave him a spoon to dig with, and that had the driver appear when he did – had the driver head north; not to California, but to Las Palmas on the Sea of Cortez. The driver pulled up in front of a fairly modern looking apartment building, got out of the truck and entered. George waited a while before exiting the truck’s bed.

He wandered the dimly lit streets and found that, even here, his poster was prevalent. Finally, he found a building with an external fire escape. He used this to shimmy his way to the rooftop, where he dozed. When he awoke, he was amazed at what he saw: palm tree-lined lanes and a grand expanse of blue sea and white sand. He nibbled on the now meager supplies he had and pulled his phone out. He had an urge to call Mark Gunter, but he resisted. Instead, he turned the phone on and once more went for the Facebook app.

George Crocker 2/15/2013 – Ain't life grand? Chillin' on a rooftop; here's the view. Man, you have no idea how much they love me in Mexico. My picture is, like, on every wall! Not sure how I'm making it back to Aurora in time for the season opener – I hear home opener is Bakersfield on 4/12. I got two months. Long walk.
February 17, 2013

Crocker spent two days on the rooftop of one of the nicer apartment buildings in Las Palmas. During the evening, he would collect food and water for the next leg of his journey. Mid-February. “I’ve got plenty of time,” he thought to himself. “Spring training doesn’t even start for another two weeks. It’s all good.”

Luck. They say you make your own luck, and perhaps that is true. Crocker walked into an all-night market manned by a kid. As George brought six bottles of water to the counter, the kid’s eyes got wide. “You’re George Crocker!” the kid exclaimed. George’s first instinct was to run straight to the desert. Something told him to stay. This was only a kid, after all. He probably saw his picture on one of those blasted wanted posters. The kid spoke excitedly about being in the presence of a celebrity. That, of course, got George all excited, and before you knew it, George had a ride later that night – early morning, actually. George quietly worked his way back to his rooftop to gather his things. If this kid recognized him, others would as well and, well, they might not be so friendly.

As George prepared to return to the market and meet his ride, he once more opened the Facebook app on his phone, but this time, for fear that he might be followed, he cryptically posted his message:

George Crocker 2/17/2013 – --. --- – .- .-. .. -.. . – --- … .- -. – .- .-. .. – .- --- -. -… .- -.-. -.- --- ..-. -- --- – --- .-. -.-. -.-- -.-. .-.. . .-.-.- -. .. -.-. . -.- .. -.. .-- .. – …. -… . .- .-. -.. .-- …. --- -.- -. . .-- – …. . .-.. .- .-- .-- .- … .- ..-. – . .-. -- . .-.-.- – …. . -.-- .----. .-.. .-.. -. . …- . .-. -.-. .- – -.-. …. --. . --- .-. --. . -.-. .-. --- -.-. -.- . .-.
(GOT A RIDE TO SANTA RITA ON BACK OF MOTORCYCLE. NICE KID WITH BEARD WHO KNEW THE LAW WAS AFTER ME. THEY'LL NEVER CATCH GEORGE CROCKER.)
February 21, 2013

They also say that if it were not for bad luck, there would be no luck. George’s ride to Santa Rita petered out in La Paz. There, the kid dropped Crocker into a big city… as Baja Californian towns may be “big”. With that, Crocker was deposited in trouble. Surly someone here would recognize the PEBA star turned fugitive. George sensed this danger; wanted signs seemed more prevalent than beer ads on the sides of most buildings. He instantly headed to the beach and began walking north.

After a day, he lost all cell reception. On day two, he discovered he could nail a jackrabbit with a stone and have dinner. On day three, his water supply began to look a little thin. On the fourth day, he met a pair of what can only be described as a couple of old hippies. John and “Pedro”, as they preferred to be called, brought George right into their camp and made him feel at home. They had begun a kayak trip in Cabo a week earlier and were working their way up the Sea of Cortez coastline.

George found very quickly that the pair were baked, and not from the sun. On that first evening, after a simple dinner of sierra (poor Crocker had no idea what he was eating, but that’s what they called it), the threesome climbed a small mound of sand above camp and as the sun set. The hippies gave Crocker a small hit of what he thought they called “Hay Hootee”, but we all might recognize it as peyote. Before George lost total consciousness, he pulled out his cell phone and found that he had service once again. He quickly sent a quick post out to whoever may be following him on Facebook – including the police.
George Crocker 2/21/2013 – Been just crusin' the beaches and bushes, looking for food. Caught me a jackrabbit the other day. Met some cool hippie types who gave me something they called “Hay Hootee” – what a trip! Anywho, cool cats kayaking, so they gave me a bit of a lift… I'm a comin', Markie-Mark!
February 28, 2013
George Crocker 2/28/2013 – Dude… man the past week has been a total blur. Kayaking, swimming, fishing and that “Hay Hootee”. Wow… made it to Guerrero Negro. They tell me I can hop a boat here. Spring training is around the corner. Man I miss that. So much fun…
Little did George know that the peyote would keep him pretty baked for the next several days. What happened during that time is hard to say, but suffice it to say that when Crocker came back to reality, they were in a new campsite, supposedly further north. He found Pedro fishing from the shoreline. John was tending the fire. “Dude, where in the world are we?”

John looked up from the fire. “Isla San Jose, man. A beach called Guerrero Negro. Good to see ya with us. You’ve been trippin’ pretty hard. Here, have some grilled punta.”

John handed George something that looked a bit like sliced eggplant. “Punta?” George asked.

“Yeah, cactus. Good stuff, Georgie.”

“What day is it? How long have I been out of it?”

“Dude, I tell ya, you’ve been a maniac in the kayak. Paddle-city, I tell ya. We’ve gone about 100 miles the past few days. We’ve been kickin’ it on this island for a couple; tomorrow we’ll continue on.” He looked up at George from the fire. “You’re welcome to join us, Georgie, ma-man.”

Crocker shook his head in acknowledgement. He looked down at his grilled cactus and took a bite. “Mmmmm,” he thought to himself, and took another bite.
Michael Topham, President Golden Entertainment & President-CEO of the Aurora Borealis
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