TO BERG, THE SHRIEKS and yells of the coyotes sounded like a human party. A party that had been crashed by kids from another town and was, perhaps, about to get out of control. When the sun went down in Talinas, wherever you were, you could hear them. But you could never tell how close they were. Berg had seen a few of them during the day, while walking around the bay. They seemed watchful but relaxed, like rangers patrolling the county.
The coyotes sounded loudest from Woody’s porch, where Berg often found himself after work. Uffa, it turned out, was close friends with Woody, and around 5 p.m. he and Berg would usually go over to Woody’s house and sit on the porch and drink a couple of beers. While they drank, the coyotes would bark and shriek and Woody would complain about this, insist that there used to be fewer coyotes, that things in the neighborhood were quieter then.
Woody lived up by the gas station, in an area that was known locally as the Plains. It was situated on the northern edge of the town and it was considerably more down-at-the-heel. A couple of single-story apartment complexes but mostly mobile homes, parked haphazardly on an expanse of thistle and grass. There were clotheslines strung between trees and rusted beach chairs and abandoned crab traps. Almost everyone except for Woody and his girlfriend, Claudette, was Latino. One of the mobile homes had been converted into a taco truck and Berg, Uffa, and Woody ate there often. Woody usually ordered seven tacos and two Modelo Negras. Most of the time he didn’t finish the last taco. Sometimes he didn’t finish the last two tacos.
“Why don’t you order fewer tacos to begin with?” Uffa said.
“I was raised in a home of scarcity,” Woody said. “I have instincts. I can’t help myself.”
Like many people in Talinas, Woody seemed to have several different jobs. Some days he milked Al Garther’s cows and other days he would be weeding Julian Lewis’ front yard. On occasion, if they were short-handed, he washed dishes at the Station House. He also had his standing gig at the Tavern on Friday nights where he’d sing his deer songs.
Sometimes, instead of sitting on the porch, they would go inside and watch Woody’s favorite show, Salvage Kings. In one episode, the main guy salvaged a large fan and valves from a mill in South Carolina. In another episode, they built a coffee table out of an old factory cart. Woody was always talking about things he might potentially salvage around Talinas.
“One day I’m going to head up there and take that old windmill from Gary Larson’s dairy and hang it on the front of the trailer. I’m also interested in that pile of dowel rods next to Daryl Shapton’s driveway.”
“What do you want with a pile of dowel rods?” Uffa asked.
“I have yet to decide.”
Woody told stories about his past but they were often disjointed and difficult to follow, like an avant-garde novel. Over time, Berg began to piece together a sense of his biography. Woody had run away from home at sixteen and moved to Chicago to join an anarchist collective, where he’d met a man named Treehouse John.
“We were doing a lot of graffiti and stuff,” Woody said, “and we issued political manifestos every once in a while. But honestly, most of it was just partying. By 1969, it was obvious nothing was gonna change so that’s when me and John decided to go to Hawaii.”
In Hawaii they lived in a tent on the beach and sold jewelry in town. After a few years, they returned to California, strung out and broke, their skin golden like French fries. They both moved to Talinas and became involved with a drug rehabilitation program that turned out to be a cult.
“We were fooled, I’ll admit it,” Woody said. “But many people were fooled. Like 30 percent of this town are former members.”
“This is the thing with the Morrises?” Berg asked. “The people who thought they were Venutians?”
“No, no, no,” Woody said. “That was only a handful of people. This was a totally different thing. Much bigger. Like I said, 30 percent of the town are former members. Maybe even 40. Who knows? They don’t do polling on this type of stuff so we’ll never know but it could be as high as 40.”
“When did you know it was a cult?” Berg asked.
“When everyone shaved their heads. That’s when I got out. One day they were like: ‘Warren shaved his head and now everyone else is shaving their head!’” Woody tapped his temple. “That’s when I thought, Aha, cult.”
On occasion Woody’s neighbor Diego would come over and hang out with the three of them. He was six foot six and two hundred fifty pounds but he always drank Coronitas, the little seven-ounce beers, because he said they stayed cold and carbonated the whole time you drank them. Diego was the manager on Al Garther’s ranch. He was the one who helped Woody secure jobs around the county. His wife, Esme, kept several birds as pets. A few months ago, Woody had found an injured snowy plover and brought it to their house and Esme had nursed it back to health.
“She fed it… What did she feed it?” Woody said.
“Mashed-up crickets,” Diego replied.
“Mashed crickets,” Woody said, wonder in his voice. “Mashed crickets, that’s right. And then all of a sudden it was better. Incredible. She’s a genius, that woman.”
Woody was in his early sixties. He lived with his girlfriend, Claudette, who usually came home late in the evening and joined them on the porch. She was a little younger than Woody, with brown hair and warm, hooded eyes. She had come to Talinas in the ’90s after the two of them started dating. They had met at the Six Flags in Vallejo, where Claudette used to work.
“I was a big fan of Six Flags back in the day,” Woody said. “Big, big fan. Addicted, some would have said, no doubt, but look at me now: do you see me at Six Flags these days? No. So I think… What I’m trying to say is I was not addicted. I have a passion for the place. That I will grant you.”
Woody often spoke about his friend Leonard, although Berg had yet to meet him. He claimed that they were going to make a documentary about Leonard’s family for Shark Week this year.
“Leonard has been saying that every year since Shark Week started,” Claudette said. “Which was like, what, 1994?”
“Doesn’t mean this year won’t be the year,” Woody said. “Leonard thinks it will. I think so, too.”
“Leonard’s father is Sharkman,” Claudette explained to Berg.
“Who?” Berg said.
“You don’t know who Sharkman is?” Woody exclaimed. “Sharkman!” he said, and raised his eyebrows at Berg.
“I don’t know who that is,” Berg said.
“Sharkman is a guy who studies great white sharks out at the Slide Islands,” Claudette said. “Been doing it for many years. He’s famous around the county because he has survived over three shark attacks.”
“Some say he himself is a shark,” Woody added.
“He uses a piece of rug cut out to look like a seal to lure the sharks toward his boat,” Claudette said. “When he was younger he would swim around out there but then he got attacked three times so he stopped that.”
“He’s getting honored at the annual Dance Palace thing this year,” Woody said. “He’s almost retired. I want to go but I’ve been unofficially banned from the event.”
“What about your ban is unofficial?” Claudette asked.
“I haven’t signed a contract.”
“You don’t need to sign a contract. They banned you,” Claudette said. Then she turned to Berg: “Last year Woody got too drunk at the Dance Palace award ceremony and grabbed the mic and started lecturing everyone about how there are aliens living among us.”
“A lot of people agreed with me, for the record. They came up to me afterward and said, ‘Woody, I found your comments sensible and instructive.’”
“The problem was more with the yelling and the profanity,” Claudette said.
“Well, people need to wake up,” Woody said. “People need to open their eyes.”