a day on the delta with lady dee

                      

                                         Satellite image of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

                                                                             California

I'm not sure of the timeframe to this story, likely in the early 2010s. My girl Dee ( aka the Dope Mistress ) was working for PG&E at the time. Her car was in the shop and she needed a ride to a training center in the Central Valley. I'm always down for a road trip experience, plus I'm that friend who will come through in a jam. Chauffeur, regulator, clairvoyant, dog sitter. I'm a renaissance woman. 

Dee and I met as coworkers 20 years ago at a high volume digital print company in Oakland. We worked in customer service which was 99.9% black. Management was 99.9% white. Dee maintains that I came up with the code name Plantation Print, which is probably true. Our department manager, in her 20s at the time, was a Bay Area Becky. Determined to live like Paris Hilton, she once hosted a party at her place with lots of booze and no food. Drunk and starving to stay thin, swinging her hair around seemed to be lifestyle choices. 

Several years later, we moved on in our working lives. Dee had been recruited by PG&E as an Executive Assistant. She was tasked with doing a survey of a training site in the Central Valley for a linemen recruiting initiative. The crew were gents and good people; mostly young men getting started on the line. We watched a training session where they practiced scaling and maneuvering around demo poles. Their instructor, chauffeuring us in a golf cart, asked the crew to greet us, in unison, as they hung from their harnesses 50 feet up. 

" Good morning, Dee and Lisa!" 

We had lunch with the crew in the commissary. It was interesting to learn about their work and how dangerous it can be; something we all take for granted except when the power grid goes down. It's physically demanding work, like the forestry service. Wildfire and winter storm gladiators. We finished the tour and made a plan to stop for an afternoon adult libation on the way home. Tequila! Driving back towards Tracy, we spotted a colorful taco shack restaurant along the Delta. 

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, locally we call it the Delta, is the river and estuary system that twists and turns through this area of Northern California. In a satellite image, it looks like earth arteries. It's another world in this part of the state; a landscape similar to the plains with hills and the center of agriculture. We drove past wind farms and crops ready to harvest as far as the eye could see. It's Grapes of Wrath country, just a few hours east of San Francisco. 

The taco shack was a funky little place built on stilts playing music and a captioned soccer game on an overhead monitor. We sat at the bar, chopping it up when we heard a speed boat pull up at the lower level dock. I love boats and being on the water, so I went to check it out. 

The boat was owned by a Mexican couple, partying along the Delta for the weekend. They were from Sac or maybe Modesto. We chatted for awhile and they invited us back up river where they had launched. Dee was reluctant. 

" I don't know, Lisa." She said. " I can't swim and they seem a bit rough." 

" I can swim! " I said. "Don't worry. If anything happens I will save you!" 

" Girl..." Dee's tone was all doubt. 

As a friend Dee trusts that even if I lure her into the moment, I will not let her down or harm come her way - ever.  We'd been through some rowdy times with the Plantation Print crew ( dinner party after parties including one in San Ramon for a coworker's hip hop-player's club experience ). We paid our bill and climbed into the boat. Dee was fitted with a life jacket. Cue Bay Area gangster rap.

Hubby was at the wheel; a burley dude with tattoos who liked hood rap. I was cracking up. We're from the Bay and we'd never heard such vulgar, low budget rap in our lives. Dee let out a sigh, shaking her head in disapproval. E-40 is about as raunchy as we can get. He's funny and he doesn't rap about genitalia. We tend to be discreet about our parts and the parts of others. Dee and I are not hood, but rather hood-adjacent. 

We set off from the taco shack. Hubby cranked up the speed to 40, 50, then 60mph as we zipped up river. " Odelay! This bitch got power tho for real!" 

Dee leaned into me. " Lisa, these people are hella hood!" She whispered.  "We are going to die out here!"

" No, no." I said, patting her hand with reassurance. " They're cool." 

Wifey sat across from us at the back of the boat. She pulled out a blue bottle of 150 proof mescal she had brought back from Mexico. 

" This is my shit!" She said. " I snuck it back in my luggage. Los mexicanos don't give a fuck! Do you want a hit? It's the best mescal in Mexico. You can't get it here." 

I passed. Dee took a sip and gagged. "Wow. That's some strong stuff."  

" You are such pretty ladies." She said. " Are you mixed?  I had a novia mulatta in jail. She was fine! I like the chicas. My man is cool with that. It's nice yall were down to hang out with us! " 

Dee and I exchanged the Bay Arean non-verbal look where you check in with your homie. 

Did you catch that?

Yes, yes I did.

Bitch, are we in danger?

Bitch, we could be. Stay ready!

" Lisa, I am so mad at you right now." Dee whispered, squinting against the river spritzing her face. "Are we going to have to jump off this damn boat?" 

" Don't do that!" I said. " You could injure yourself. We're going too fast. Just be cool. It's not that far to the launch and campground." 

" Hey! How fast do you want to go?!" Hubby shouted over his shoulder. 

' 100!" I said. 

" Daaaamn....que bueno." He adjusted the throttle and we lurched forward as he accelerated. 70, 80, 90.... Wifey squealed with joy, swinging her legs up in the air, flip flops flying, as she clung to her blue bottle mescal. 

" Lord Jesus!" Dee gripped her side of the boat for her life. 

I stayed close to Dee. If we did flip, I would be close enough to save her before being immolated myself. Honor is the way of the Jedi! It's quite a vivid sensation to be on a speed boat. You experience physics internally while flying through space on the water. 

Dee had had enough. " Okay!" She yelled. " Can we slow down please? Gracias!'

Hubby decelerated down to 40 - 50mph which still felt fast, just less rocket fast. By the time we reached the landing, Wifey was stumbling fucked up. I'm a nice person, so I helped her toward the clubhouse where they were meeting friends. Out front, Wifey lost her footing and crashed right into an A-frame sign, taking it out in a loud kah-clang-clang in front of scantily clad Delta summer people.

" Lisa! LET'S GO!" Dee was mad hot at that point. When she starts waving her hand like a church lady, she means business.

 " This bitch...." 

" I hear you!" I said. "We need to get a ride back to the taco shack." 

Guess who we ran into at the landing? Bay Area Becky from Plantation Print. I swear. She was there partying with her husband, a bro who talked like a juggaloo. We couldn't get a ride from them, lost as they were in a haze of weed, booze, and sunscreen. Delta culture has an outdoorsy, country-hood aspect to it. Wannabe rappers and DJs who motocross and jet ski. Low key Appalachian energy in California. 

 Eventually Hubby, who had maintained sobriety, left Wifey with friends and drove us back down river in their Chevy Tahoe. Nice dude, I thought. We had to go by visual memory, not sure where we were or even the name of the place. By the time we found my car it was getting dark.

On the drive home, Dee went off. Are you crazy?! You endangered our natural lives! You're reckless! You don't exercise good judgement in the pursuit of fun and adventure! Those people were dangerous! 

Well, she wasn't wrong. I can get into some shit, but I always find a way out. I think the couple were drug dealers or the homie-primos of dealers. Cali is diverse! I ate the bowl of crow with humility. I apologized ( even though I had fun in the moment ). I thought that was the end of it, but Dee didn't talk to me for 2 whole weeks. Bitter.

I pleaded mea culpa. No more drunk Mexicans on speed boats! You have my word. As older women now, we crack up remembering that day. The next spontaneous adventure with Lady Dee included a squad of international capitalists we met at Vesuvio's in North Beach. 

Dedicated to the Dope Mistress