Dragnet R.I.P.

March 10, 008
Black Rockalypse

I write this with my heart in my mouth.

Dragnet was a darling crusty-hobo kid from rural Montana, who found train-hopping at the tender age of 14 after his father smacked him around one too many times. He liked to help me with the compost bins when he wasn’t playing around with electricity, and he didn’t even mind when we made fun of his crooked facial tattoos.

He was a good soldier for the DPW; a short court jester; a fearless boozer. He once almost drank a vodka with a dead scorpion in it on a dare (who could help trying, when the scorpion glowed so, under the blacklight at the DPW Ghetto)… until a sensitive hippie stopped him, much to our dismay. Hey, we’d never field-tested the digestive effects of scorpion corpses before. The irate hippie most likely proved a blessing in disguise, as Dragnet might’ve died then. Instead of Friday.

Hyperactive as hell by nature, and amazingly proficient at electronics, Dragnet never listened to other people when he was excited about something. He merely went for it. This is why he accidentally shocked himself while working with the electrocution overlords on the Ranch — more than once — and laughed about it.

This is also why he shot himself in the collarbone with a pistol. On accident. The wound turned septic, as you know.

Nobody has partaken any drugs or alcohol out here for quite some time, as supplies have been nil. But now that the playa is dry enough to be passable in some places, one prankster in a Not-Suit trucked in a pallet of Chartreuse — which we naturally drank all in one night at a Special Party we threw at the Ranch last Thursday.

Guns should never be brought out after a pallet of Chartreuse is distributed. Or handled by drunk people, especially non-gun-owning drunk people.

We have avoided accidents like this in the past, by the skin of our teeth. The owner of the gun Dragnet collared himself with is so distraught at being negligent that he’s exiled himself at the far side of the Not-Dome, right under Dragnet’s Parsi tower.

Everyone out here has a story of Dragnet’s kindness. Too many, too many.

He didn’t pass away because of the sepsis resulting from the gunshot wound. He passed away because the men in black helicopters and Jeeps who have been making our lives a living hell caused his death. Directly. Four of their own died, too.

More tomorrow. I gotta swallow my heart again before I choke on it.

Dragnet’s favorite band too … we played Age of Winters during the funeral party, from beginning to end