The Seven Near-Death Experiences of Zek J. Evets: Parts 4 & 5

(Sophia, Mother Of The Angels

Art by Gustav Dore)

These two NDE's (near-death experience) happened during a single long weekend trip to Slab City, near Southern California's Salton Sea, a scant couple dozen miles from the international border. It's a place of meth-heads, landed hobos, migrant workers, and burning deserted wasteland flanked by military bombing sites and toxic waste dumps. The air always smells vaguely of rot, courtesy of the Sea's ever-growing decayed population of fish exposed regularly to 120 degree heat.

My friend G-Money and I were going to conduct anthropological research on the squatter's village in the Slabs for a future project. G-Money was the designated photographer, while I did interviews and took a massive amount of notes. We expected an easy few days writing, talking, and photographing. What we got was a hellish, nearly suicidal not-quite-a-vacation.

But before I jump into the happenstance of events that led to mine and my friend's near-deaths, let me tell you about the place we went:

Slab City is the remnant of Camp Dunlap, a marine artillery base originally constructed to train troops for fighting in North Africa during WWII. (Local myth holds that camels were actually used as part of the training here and then fled into the deepest parts of the Mojave like ghost-ships in a desert-sea, seen only occasionally from afar and apocryphally.)

The conflict ended before the base could be put to much use, and was deemed unnecessary afterwards. The base was scavenged over the years, until all that was left were giant concrete slabs. (Hence the name.) The land is decommissioned and uncontrolled, but a group of servicemen stayed after the base was closed, and it has been inhabited ever since -- though the number of permanent residents has declined in recent decades. However, during the winter, tourists flock to the location. These people are aptly termed, "snowbirds".

The attraction of Slab City is due to many factors: the lack of organized civilization, law enforcement, complete and total freedom, as well as the collection of so many strange personages. The dangers of the Slabs are myriad too: lack of running water, lack of electricity, a plethora of dangerous pits from poorly dug septic tanks, criminal activity, poverty (which is why many residents move to the Slabs), and generally deficient social services.

Nonetheless, Slab City attracts thousands of people year after year, and they all come for various reasons, from personal freedom to extreme poverty to a sense of adventure, to a hope to make a new life.

G-Money and I came for the stories. 

Our arrival at nearby Niland was our first introduction to the adventure that was in store for us. The residents told us tales of people sneaking off to a nearby Air Force bombing range to steal duds for sale (except sometimes the bombs weren't duds... and killed the poor bastards). They told us of septic tank cesspools lying in wait to collapse as you drove over them, trapping your car in a foul stench. They told us of meth houses you could see miles away, especially when they exploded in a Breaking Badesque glory. Sometimes they came into town for supplies, and sometimes to test their products.

They told us about the filming for Into The Wild, how they worked with the crew, assisting production, and all the sordid gossip of various Hollywood people. Emile Hirsch was an asshole. Kirsten Stewart was hot. The director was high-strung. The producers were soulless.

They told us about a lot of things, wetting our appetite for the long weekend as we munched on deliciously cheap Mexican food at the only real restaurant for miles.

Our research started off great. Most residents were eager to talk, share their stories. And they all had such wonderful nicknames -- Solar Mike, Tree Man, One Can, among others. We climbed Salvation Mountain, talking with the then-living Leonard Knight as he told us his amazing story of flying into the area on a weather balloon that crash landed! (He was trying to get somewhere for Jesus.) He worked as a handy-man, all the while devoting his time to collecting old paint that was lying around -- or donated -- for a monument he wanted to build for God, which eventually coalesced into the multi-colored Salvation Mountain. 

However, Knight used lead-paint though, so he's often had trouble with environmental groups. The paint has polluted the surrounding landscape for miles.

Things went bad on our second day in, as we prepared to drive out past the Slabs to the Air Force bombing range, where undetonated bombs lay sticking out of the ground like alien space capsules. At first the idea seemed simple enough: drive out there, photograph the bombs from a safe distance, take some notes, and drive back.

But my poor little Toyota Camry - named Gretchen, bless her mechanical engine - just couldn't handle the terrain. As the light faded faster than we expected, I misjudged the distance of the flats we were driving through and as a big one came up my front-end fell right in to it like SLAM!

I tried the gas, but my tires just spun uselessly. G-Money and I looked at each other with an "oh shit" face and got out of the car. Sure enough, my bumper was perched at just the right angle for my tires to get absolutely no traction. We tried digging, we tried pushing, pulling, lifting, and even yelling, but my car was still stuck.

Meanwhile, the sun was setting, and we did NOT want to be caught out there after dark. Not knowing what to do, I called 911.

I'm not sure if any of you have ever called 911 before, but it's certainly an interesting experience when you do. I spoke with a nice woman named Roseanne, who, while sympathetic to our plight, stated quite clearly that due to the distance from town we were, the need for a specifically 4X4 vehicle to tow us or pick us up, and the dangerous nature of the environment we were in, and the fact that it was night time, that there was no way anyone would come out to get us.

But she did say to call her "if anything happened."

Because, yeah, in a life-or-death situation, I'm sure to call for emergency service personnel to help me who aren't going to come anyways.

She told us to stay where we were and wait till morning so someone could come get us. Did we have enough water? Did we have any food? Do you have enough power on your phone to call in case of an emergency?

I tried to say, "wait, but this IS an emergency! Don't leave me! I pay good tax dollars for situations just like this, situations where you can save me from my own stupidity and justify your bloated salary...!" Unfortunately, she hung up before I could pull my twisted panic into a coherent final plea.

As we sit in the car, the heat is intense. Even at night it's still over 90 degress. The moonlight shines down and casts the landscape in a strange picturesque way, like a Mad Max wasteland. G-Money tries to convince me that we abandon the car and walk back to the motel where we're staying.

"Abandon my car!?!? No fucking way son."

"Dude... We've gotta. I don't feel chill waiting out here all night. There are a bunch of bugs, and it's effing hot, and seriously what if we get attacked by wild animals or a serial killer?"

"Nah man. I'm not abandoning my car. End of story."

So we sat. And sat. And sat. For about thirty minutes. Then I said, "Okay, fuck this. Let's walk back."

We grabbed the six water bottles in the car and split them between us. Then we took off shirts and shouldered our packs, armed with a mag-lite and G-Money's Dad's old-school machete, and began following my tire tracks. Along the way we passed meth labs in the distance with tin-foil reflecting copious black-light. We passed hunks of wreckage half-buried in the sand, some smelling like The Bog of Eternal Stench. And all the while we're slowly sweating our asses off, whether from heat or fear I'll never know.

Without that constant, cloudless full moon we never would have been able to see my tire-tracks and find our way back.

No, the scary, near-death part began as soon as we reached the Slabs again. (Only took about ten miles.) As we crossed the edge, the dogs people kept -- part security, part food, part companion -- started barking and snarling LIKE RABID BEASTS!

They followed us, slowly, then faster, and then faster, and as we got closer we tried angling around them, but the dogs just wouldn't give up. G-Money and I started fingering our representative defenses -- him his Filipino machete, and me my footlong mag-lite.

"Don't run dude. They'll just chase us."

"Dude, they're getting awfully close." And they were. Like mere yards away. I could see the juice running down their jaws.

Then all of a sudden one of them jumped a little too close.

I panicked.

And ran.

G-Money went, "what the fuck!?" And followed me as the pack of dogs lunged for us.

The growls turned into full blown barks and snarls, and padded paws with extended claws smacking on dry, cracked ground. Feeling the pressure from behind, I turned and, wielding my mag-lite with both hands I smashed into the nearest mutt with all the force my skinny arms could manage.

Lucky for me, that turned out to be quite a lot. The dog's head cracked and slammed into the ground. G-Money cleaved into another dog's skull with his machete, splitting the beast like a guava melon. After the initial rush, the loss of two of their own stalled the pack's advance and they fell back.

We took that opportunity to book it faster than an industrial strength printing press.

As we reached the main road leading to Niland, and our now much-beloved motel, the high-beams of a Border Patrol cop-car, complete with semi-automatic weapons and shotguns hanging from a rack in the back, pulled up beside us. (By that time our somewhat bloodied weapons were safely stowed in our packs again.)

As the officer exited his vehicle and stepped on the side of the road, he asked us quite forcefully, "what are you boys doing out here?"

We told him the story of how my car got stuck, and we had to walk back to our motel, and why we were even in the Slabs to begin with. (Notably, I left off the part about trying to visit an off-limits Air force bombing range.) He asked us to drop our packs and kick them over to him, along with our IDs.

It was at this point that G-Money said the most brilliant, idiotic and hilarious thing ever.

It went something like this: "Officer. I have a machete."

We all stood stock still for like five seconds, digesting the absurdity of that statement. The cop was the first one to recover, and he immediately drew his Glock and told us to get down on the ground. And by told us, I mean he started shouting at the top of his lungs to get the fuck down on the ground, motherfuckers. Which we did, with the quickness. Then he had us toss him our IDs.

After a infinitely long amount of time checking our records, the officer told us to get off the ground and climb into the back, temporarily confiscating the machete. He was going to give us a ride back to our motel.

To say the next 15 minutes back were "uncomfortable" would be an understatement. But the dude was pretty cool, all things considered.

Back at the motel we thanked him for the ride, and he gave us the number to a good tow company that could help us fetch the car in the morning -- if it was still there, since people around here have a habit of salvaging anything left to the elements.

As we passed out, G-Money and I shared a particularly bromantic moment as we looked across the dark distance of our motel room towards each other and said... "g'night dude".

The next morning I paid some oldster 300 bucks to tow my car from the flat to the motel. It was more or less in one piece, minus a shit-ton of dirt, dust, and random pieces of tumbleweed.

That long walk of over 20 miles was perhaps the crazies trek I've ever taken, and not something I care to repeat. But it wouldn't be the only time during this expedition that G-Money and I would tread near the edge of the abyss and look into the face of Death.

On Saturday, the day after our first NDE, G-Money and I got the invite to go to the Slabbers open-mic/party-nite. We were pretty stoked since it'd be an amazing opportunity to interview the residents, collect some notes, take some pictures -- y'know, whatever.

And it was a pretty great time. We played some music, hung out with some people, basically just chilling. I rode around on some guy's beer-mobile-thing. G-Money took a bunch of pics, and I got to sit down with some of the more eccentric-slash-reclusive residents who I hadn't met yet. All in all, a very successful night.

After the festivities had pretty much died down, G-Money and I got in my car and drove back to the main road into town. I had my high-beams on due to the low-light, and cruising at about 30 miles per hour.

Not paying much attention to anything in particular, I was shocked to see a strange looking woman standing by the side of the road. Her body curved in the ugliest sense: skinny extremities and a fat, fat torso. Her glasses I especially remember, because they reflected the light from my high-beams. Instinctively I slowed the car down and turned towards her to see if she needed help.

What I didn't notice was G-Money in the passenger seat yelling at me, "DUDE WHAT THE FUCK!?" and then he suddenly grabbed the steering wheel, pulling us to the other side of road and attempting to get his foot on the accelerator.

As the car bounced past the woman -- almost tumbling over -- I suddenly noticed that in her hands she held a medium-sized sword, like the kind samurai use. (Turns out it was a wakizashi which is a "companion sword" to the traditional katana wielded by most samurai. Thanks Google.) Finally getting the idea, I sped up right before her swing could cut a hole in my car, and we zoomed back to our room at the motel. 

G-Money hid on the otherside of the bed, gripping his machete and shaking all over. I, meanwhile, took the opportunity to alert the police. Our friendly neighborhood border patrol cop went out with his partner and grabbed the lady, right where I said we'd seen her.

The officer and I talked for a bit about the situation. Apparently the woman was pregnant, and as high as a kite with no strings from meth. She had no idea how she got there, why she had the sword or where she got it from. Even more interesting was that she lived 30 MILES AWAY! In some town called Calexico! The whole thing was honestly quite unbelievable, and yet there it was just the same.

The next day, we packed-up our film, organized all the notes and recordings, and then drove right back home to the relatively safe limits of our homes in suburban Orange County.

We were almost mauled by dogs, maybe almost shot by a Border Patrol cop, and almost karate-chopped by a crazy pregnant meth addict.

All in all, I'd say it was an interesting weekend, chock full of possibilities.