Count Crunchula

Lamb ♣ 10 | LGBTQ+ Serial Fiction

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Count Crunchula

♣ ♣ ♣ 10 ♣ ♣ ♣

I’ve gone back and forth about sharing this episode because the guy who pounced on Lamb up at Burning Man is sort of famous, and I read an article not too long ago that he’s been banned from attending a bunch of tech conferences because he was preying on young guys he was meeting at them. According to the article, he was accused of stalking a teenage boy way back in the 70s, so this shit was going on for almost fifty years.

“Count Crunchula” was famous from the early days of hacking for discovering that a toy whistle from a cereal box would unlock unlimited long distance calling, and he spent some time in jail for hacking back in the 70s. Apparently, he was friends with the Apple guys, Jobs and Wozniak, in the early days, and when we met him, he was a well-known nut constantly doing acid and showing up at raves and underground parties.

Lamb said there was a rave camp set up on the playa about a mile away from the main Burning Man area because they were blasting techno at all hours and some people actually did want to get some sleep. Lindsey ended up not doing any of the drugs Lamb had brought for them, which was fine, but she was already asleep in their tent by midnight, the night they burned The Man. That meant he was doing mushrooms for the first time by himself (better than doing them with Fugie, I guess?)

At some point he thought that he was turning night into day and back again by blinking his eyes, so he took ecstasy to smooth himself out—an MX Missile, we used to call that. Seems like it worked because he didn’t freak out, but he had no way to get to the rave camp to go dancing; it was generally considered a bad idea to walk in the dark with all the drunks driving around off-road. Finally Stan, Lindsey’s friend from the dorms, let him hitch a ride after Lamb offered him the hit of E that Lindsey didn’t want.

There weren’t even that many people out at the rave, he said, maybe twenty or thirty, but all of a sudden this weird old guy came bouncing up and Stan somehow either knew or knew of him, and—I suspect to get rid of him—said to Lamb, “This is Count Crunchula, he’s a famous hacker, he does energy and bodywork,” and promptly disappeared. Of course, Lamb was high as a kite, and when the Count asked him if any “areas” needed work, a very horny, lonely Lamb said, “Yes! Sex!” Oops.

“You fucked him!” I accused him when he told me the story after they got back, but Lamb said no. He said he thought the guy was going to do some sort of Reiki and release all his pent-up frustration over not having a boyfriend and all his bad luck at the bars, but they didn’t have sex. Still, Count Crunchula glommed onto Lamb for the rest of that night and next morning—no sleep for Lamb on his MX, or the Count on his acid. They made arrangements to get together and do some of this “bodywork” he was known for the next weekend.

To say the Count was crunchy is an understatement. He was about 50 at the time, total acid head, wild salt-and-pepper hair and scraggly beard, and to top it all off, he was missing his front two teeth. The only reason I didn’t take a giant step backward when I met him the following weekend was because Lamb seemed to like him—he was the only “friend” he ended up making at Burning Man, and the guy was pretty plugged into this sort of next-level underground scene that seemed really cool to us for a minute.

This is how it went: the next Saturday, the Count picked Lamb up in his old beater car, still completely caked in the dust from the playa that covered everything and everyone that goes to Burning Man. They drove up to Mill Valley and this funky basement studio he was staying in, and the bodywork consisted of the Count literally climbing on Lamb’s back, arms and legs wrapped around him like a monkey, and Lamb doing squats and pushups over and over with this creepy dude climbing all over him. There was some poking and prodding too, some leg massaging and other shit, and Lamb was completely oblivious to what was really going on, because, as he said, “It really was a good work out! I was so sore the next day!” Jesus help me—Lamb was such a dummy. Apparently this was exactly the kind of weirdness the Count was still doing to those young guys at these tech conferences that got him into trouble, only there seems to have been some coercion and erections involved. Ugh.

Anyway, this went on for awhile—but nothing else, according to Lamb, nothing sexual—and afterwards, the Count got on his computer looking on a web bulletin board, which was sort of all we had back in the day, like chatrooms and Netscape or nothing, and said there was an underground party called Megatripolis that night, invitation only, you had to have a password or something.

They drove back to the City and Lamb called me to see if I wanted to come, he said he wanted me to meet the Count, and there was this cool party at some warehouse in the Mission, etc etc, and he still had two hits of ecstasy. When I got to his place, I was immediately like, whoa—this Count dude is super freaky, but I didn’t say anything at the time. I gave Lamb some cash for the E, to which the Count looked on wistfully, “Nice if you can afford it,” and popped what looked to me like about five tabs of acid.

When we got to the party we were already starting to trip. We walked in and these guys at the door looked at me and Lamb and said, “How did you hear about this?” suspicious-like, and we both pointed to the Count and were immediately ushered straight on through, no cover charge or anything, it was not like any club I ever went to.

There was this big, gorgeous blond chick with her hair in cornrows serving drinks on a folding table—Lamb pinched my arm and whispered, “It’s Anna Nicole Smith!” and honestly I had to look a little closer but it wasn’t her. She served us, and when we asked “How much?” she said in this sexy Southern accent, “No charge, honey, but I accept tips.” (Lamb: “Are you sure it’s not—?” Me: “Positive.”) We each gave her a buck, and she said, “Good luck.” I guess it was pretty clear we were already flipping our wigs.

We sat down on the patio for a cigarette and this one guy asks, “What vitamins are you on?” This used to be a standard question at the clubs: Vitamin E (ecstasy) or K (ketamine) or C (crystal meth) etc. We told him we took E and he asks, “How many?” Just one. “Oh! Newbies.” And we said, “How many did you take?” Seven! “And I barely feel it anymore…” Well, I never took more than one hit at a time, and after a few times it wasn’t having much effect so I gave it up rather than taking more, that shit’s expensive!

Then these two kids next to us announced they had taken acid, E, some crystal and smoked a bunch of weed—while sipping cocktails and smoking—and when our eyes bugged out, the girl said, “That’s the point, right? Take as many drugs as possible.” I don’t know how they were still conscious. I asked the girl how old she was because she looked really young. “Fifteen.”

Lamb and I didn’t stay too long—I had to work in the morning, we didn’t know anyone, the Count was off on the dance floor, and I was already feeling like he was bad news. A fifty-year-old acid head with no job and missing teeth was definitely not a good scene. It should be obvious to everyone by now that Lamb’s biggest problem was confidence, and he would make friends with anyone who took a liking to him just because they showed an interest. 

We got together a couple weeks later, and I asked him about “the toothless wonder” while we were having burritos at El Toro. “Come on, he’s not so bad,” Lamb insisted, “I feel kinda sorry for him, you know, I think he used to be somebody in tech or something, but he’s got some problems.” Obviously. “He left me a message a few days ago—I’m hesitating to call him back just because he always wants to climb on top of me and do those exercises.” Good grief.

I didn’t try to convince him or anything, but when we got back to his place to watch X-Files, I noticed his answering machine was blinking and I just had this feeling it was the Count—who else would leave him a message besides me? While Lamb was in the bathroom, I closed his bedroom door so he wouldn’t hear and pushed the button.

“Hey, Lamb, it’s me, John—you know, Count Crunchula—I really wish you’d call me back, I mean, I thought we were friends so I’d really like to hear from you. Give me a call.”

I deleted the message.

♣ ♣ ♣

Episode 11: The Watch on the Wall

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Esteemed Readers:

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THREAD: “What we talk about when we talk about ‘Song of Myself’”

SoM, v. 11 | “Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather, The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.” | AUDIO