CHAPTER ONE: SOME ORIGINAL PEOPLES NOT ALWAYS PROPERLY RECALLED

 

Long before the current race of San Luis Obispoans arrived with their packaged stir-fry vegetables, their curling irons, their iMac accessories, and their never-ending weekend garage sales, the county was occupied by several unsung races of Original People who didn’t like to toot their own horns through the normal social media outlets. One of these races has been forgotten far more completely than all the others, so much so that nobody recalls their tribal name, their customs, or even their strange tastes in lawn ornaments and wallpaper. All anybody recalls is that they lived in the vicinity of Laguna Lake, never made use of the countless discount vouchers they received daily from Bed, Bath & Beyond, and occasionally referred to themselves (in their most secret dreams of themselves) as Those Who Get Screwed Often, or We Who are Fed Up with the Whole Business. The dispenser of their most ancient tribal wisdom was a former shaman who eventually became the tribe’s only (and continually over-worked) undertaker. His original name is unpronounceable, but he was known by all who knew him as General Thread.

“Sure,” he often told the tribal children, before they got bored and wandered off to the local Game Stop, “our new neighbors like to talk the talk when it comes to respecting the Original People. But when it comes to walking the walk, they get blisters. They need to put their legs up and take a long nap. They too busy to even sign a crummy petition. And when it comes to Crowdfunding a monument to our forgotten tribe–forget about it. They remember places they have to be and things they need to do. Maybe it’s discount day at “Gunner Go Crazy Tatts and Stuff!” and they have this bare piece of flesh that needs inking. Or maybe their kids need a new underpaid nanny or whatever. I’m not telling you kids to distrust the White Eyes, or even to avoid being assimilated by the White Eyes. I’m not even suggesting that you sneak up on the White Eyes and crush out their brains with a hatchet, which is pretty much what they did to us–metaphorically and otherwise. But I am suggesting that you think twice before entering into any contract or obligation with the White Eyes. And for heaven’s sake, please stop playing that stupid Candy Crush game on your devices when I’m trying to pass on tribal wisdom. It’s like talking to myself around here.”

Now that General Thread is the last forgotten member of his tribe, he can do as he pleases. He enters and departs local grocery stores with armloads of fresh produce and nobody notices. He lights up campfires in the open parking stalls at Sunset Drive-In and watches stupid super-hero movies, roasting his bear-meat and marshmallows on untwisted wire coat-hangars left behind from the last Flea-Market. And on cold evenings, he freely enters unlocked homes of random neighbors and sleeps on available sofas, where even his snores don’t make any impression on those who inhabit the land they stole from his people. The problem for General Thread is that he can’t decide whether his life as a ghost is a good thing or a bad thing anymore. Perhaps a little of both.

 

CHAPTER TWO:  BEAR HUGS FROM HUGGY BEARS

 

A lot of people don’t know this (and please don’t spread it around) but well before the Spanish conquistadors arrived on the central coast, the local brown bear population formed a long-standing, anarcho-syndicalist society than preached non-violence, peaceful coexistence, and sustainable living in a sunny, plentiful land of total harmony. They subsisted on fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grain cereals. They never looked cross-eyed at one another, or at any of the nearby tribes of Original People. And they disdained any forms of fast food and dairy products, such as those sold at some of the first franchise restaurants, Gotta Have Sushi on Marsh Street, or Obsesso-Lactose on Palm. No, the brown bears felt no animosity for other creatures. And their generally-beneficent outlooks might well have continued had it not been for the first arrival of the conquistadors, led by the infamous Catholic zealot and all-round bad sport, Captain Gustado el Merchanto, Esq.

While the local bears were not usually judgmental, there was something about Captain Gustado el Merchanto, Esq. that quickly got up their collective noses. “Submit!” he began shouting, right off the boat. “Surrender! Worship! Obey! Somebody get a broom and sweep up all this bear poop! Somebody else help erect our Mission and holy crosses. Come on! We haven’t got all goddamn day! I hereby name this day the immemorial Feast of our King–you know the one I’m talking about. The big shot with all the orbs and whatnot. King What’s-his-face and his illustrious Queen, Queen, oh hell, it’s on the tip of my tongue, I just can’t spit it out. But the long and short of it is you bears better prepare to be slaughtered for the good of our international empire, and don’t–ow! That hurts! Double-ow! That hurts even more! Arggghhh!” And that, of course, was the last anybody saw of Captain Gustado el Marchanto, Esq.–though it was later rumored his surviving family opened a Ford dealership in Ventura.

Strangely, the bears were not entirely satisfied with conquistadors as a main course. They were stringy; they smelled funny; and they left a displeasing flavor in the back of the mouth. But what had been done could not be undone, and eating conquistadors became something of a passion for the brown bears–a passion that eventually consumed them.

 

CHAPTER THREE:  ZORRO RIDE!

 

Another thing people don’t know about the central coast is that Zorro (aka Don Diego de la Vega), the once notorious defender of California’s most downtrodden people, retired to San Luis Obispo in the mid-fifties to tend his herb garden and spend more quality-time with his increasingly befuddled horse, Tornado. But like many local residents, Zorro grew steadily dis-enamored with his neighbors and fellow-Obispoans. “I remember when a gentleman could walk these fine streets,” Zorro whispered to Tornado after sharing a long and fragrant spliff of Acapulco Gold, “and not suffer the raucous misbehavior of drunken students, or the clatter of bad local R&B bands. The adult schools offered excellent classes in Make Your Own Amontillado at Home, Rancho-Management, and Velasquez-Appreciation. And even the bears of Los Osos were kind to a gentleman, offering to share their whole-grain cereals and organically-grown produce, usually without asking! But those days are gone forever, Tornado, my noble steed. And all that’s left are these terrible Thursday Night Farmer’s Markets, selling nothing but overcooked meat on sticks. And if a bear catches a whiff of a gentleman like me, well, forget it! They take a big bloody bite out of my nalga!”

The years have been kind to Don Diego de la Vega, but the cultural revolutions have not. Striding down the moderately-populated streets on a sunny afternoon in his long black cape and matching black Spanish-leather boots and gloves, he cannot help but feel as if these strange young people reply to his charming repartee with derisory glances at one another, as if confronted by some silly old fool. “Buenas días, lovely ladies!” he tells several chunky, knotty-haired young ladies in crumpled denim shirts and pants, just to give them a thrill. “And how are we this lovely fine morning, yes?” To which the young “ladies” usually reply: “Cool duds, Grandpa!” Or: “Andale, muchacho!” Or even more cryptically: “Viva Las Vegas!”

Long ago, this was a land that respected a titled gentleman who battled military-dictators on behalf of the poor, Zorro reflects later over a pint of IPA at Old Cootery, the only local bar devoted to male clientele over a hundred. “But these days, they only respect super-heroes who fly, throw hammers, turn green and whatnot. True heroes make no impression anymore. They must drink in silence in their dark bars. They must tend their lonely herbs.”

 

CHAPTER FOUR:  THE MINER FORTY-NINERS

 

Another thing Californians don’t like to talk about is that while the Miner Forty-Niners initially went roaring past San Luis Obispo with their picks and pans, they soon returned after losing their britches to bankers, brawls, and the income-equalizing highway-robber, Zorro–which is when they decided to buy up the central coast’s available mid-priced condominiums. “There’s gold in them thar students!” shouted Randy P. Goldigger, the forty-seventh (and least appreciated) member of the Miner Forty-Niners. “’Specially if yuh charge ‘em by the head, make ‘em pay six-month rent up front, and invest their deposits in high-yield Treasury certificates!” After earning a small fortune from his substantial property-holdings, Randy eventually retired to Florida with his soft-boned, amber-hued partner, Sgt. Pedro Gonzalez, where they spent their remaining days as Tea Party activists distributing lawn-posters for their favorite political candidate, Marco Rubio.

As a result of these economic machinations, the bears of Los Osos grew increasingly bitter and disconsolate. Priced out of the housing market, they hungered for revenge–yet never managed to successfully devour more than three or four of the remaining Miner Forty-Niners–the final death-tally depending on whether or not you counted Miner Forty-Niner #17, Cheapskate K. Rapscallion, who simply disappeared from the central coast one day without leaving behind either a hat, or a pair of disturbingly-soiled britches, for identification.

Meanwhile, like a memory of rain, General Thread, the last surviving member of his long-forgotten tribe of Original People, made himself secretly welcome in the over-priced homes of those he referred to simply as the Less-Than Original-People, or Those Who Screwed Us Often. He slept on their fold-out sofas in the wide living rooms decorated with cheap seascapes and wall-mounted duck-sculptures, or on the dew-damp deck chairs of their patios. He helped himself to refreshments from their impossibly large, military-postured fridge-freezers. And on nights when he needed a little air, he borrowed the keys to their Hyundais and Hondas and went for lonely drives to Avila Beach.

 

CHAPTER FIVE:  FATHER JUNIPERO SERRA

 

The Franciscan missionaries who settled California in the late seventeen hundreds have received a lot of bad press recently and boy do they deserve it. First of all, they built their well-touristed Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa on the site of a feast in which nearly one thousand pounds of bear meat was spitted, roasted and devoured by the hungry “men of peace” who assembled there. They “converted” most of the local tribes of Original People until there were hardly any Original People left. And, finally, they gave extremely boring sermons to anybody who attended in the mistaken belief that they would be served free bear-ka-bobs and orange marmalade, those locally grown delicacies were never dispensed to anyone but those in the topmost ranks of the holy fathers.

“Our Lord–chomp chomp chomp–” Father Junipero Serra extolled to his parishioners one Sunday morning after waking everybody with his clangorous Mission bells, “really got this bear-ka-bob thing going–chomp chomp–boy, did he ever. Before me and my donkey, Phil, arrived here from Majorca–chomp chomp–we never saw a decent bear let alone ate one. First we settled down in Baja and ate abalone mostly, and little sparrows with crunchy bones, and every day went to bed feeling not at all full. Then we came to this lovely Valley of the Bears and things started looking up. With the Lord’s guidance, Portola and his amigos dragged home lots of big fat bear carcasses. And the local Original People were persuaded to do all the cooking and cleaning, especially if we showed them the barrel of our flintlocks. There is just something about bear meat, boy–chomp chomp–that goes down smooth and greasy, just the way Father Junipero Serra likes it. Okay, maybe we received some written letters of complaint from the bears. And yes, they’ve written to the Holy Father in Rome and initiated formal complaints–chomp chomp–but the Holy Father wisely swept those under the Holy Carpet, which is where they belong–chomp chomp. Anyway–chomp chomp–I can see you all looking greedily at my bear-ka-bob here, so maybe it’s time for you to sing a few psalms, perform some obeisances, and get out of my Mission so I can finish breakfast. I gotta admit–a hairier bunch of parishioners I never did see, stuffed into your deerskin jackets and wearing those funny red hats and hey–Stop licking your lips–chomp chomp–I mean, stop licking me–Father Serra needs to go now! Make me some room there in the aisle–what? Stop that! Ow! That hurts! I said double-ow! I said–arggghhhhhhh!”

At which point the bears collectively roared, flinging off their deerskin jackets and red hats. And Father Junipero Serra was never seen on the central coast ever again.

 

***

 

Novelist, short story writer and critic Scott Bradfield’s works include The History of Luminous Motion, Dazzle Resplendent: Adventures of a Misanthropic Dog, and The People Who Watched Her Pass By. Stories and reviews have appeared in Triquarterly, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, The Baffler, and numerous “best of” anthologies. He lives in California and London. He has stories and essays forthcoming in The Weird Fiction Review, The New Statesman, Potato Soup Journal, Delmarva Review, and Flash Fiction Magazine.