Boners and Vampires in the San Gabriel Mountains

Photos by Scot Sothern

I’m somewhere on a mountain in the Angeles National Forest, and someone has opened the gates to the loony bin. A three-day shindig for alternate religions: witches, warlocks, Satanists, doomsday Christians, Unarians from outer space, ghosts and goblins, psychedelic druggies, wizards and elves, young kooks looking for something outside the boredom of the Holy Trinity. I’m here with my friend Stephen, who is conducting interviews. I’m taking pictures, and I just ingested a hit of mescaline I scored from a guy with finger cymbals and blond dreadlocks.

Drifting around the area taking pictures I come upon a naked guy who has no legs and walks with his hands. His long dusty dick and scrotum drag the ground like a sandbag leaving a trail in the dirt. I don’t take his picture, and I regret it for the rest of my life. It’s about 90 degrees, and people are running around naked. Down a wide path where merchants have set up to sell magic potions, lotions, scents, and handicrafts, I find a spooky pale-blue-eyed redhead hawking homemade jewelry. I don’t feel a wind, yet her hair is kinetic like heat waves across her face. I’m feeling the edge of the mescaline, and my digits are abuzz. She smiles and pulls back her lips like a growling tiger. Her canine teeth have been permanently capped with acrylic fangs. She’s a practicing vampire. “This is not a Halloween thing,” she explains. “We have numbers, and we’re serious about what we believe. We drink real human blood.”

I’ve never had sex with a vampire, so I tell her I think she’s hot, and she tells me she's never had sex with a guy who has a tan. She says she's from San Francisco and gives me her phone number, letting me know she may or may not respond to my calls.

I wander off to find Stephen, who needs me to photograph a ceremony that involves a topless girl with an ax and a faux human sacrifice.

When I tell Stephen about my vampire girlfriend he reminds me it’s 1985 and she lives in San Francisco and drinks blood and maybe I should give it some thought. The mescaline is rushing into my system, and it feels like a toilet is flushing in my gut. I have an urge to go skipping and puking through the flowers while pushing aside anything associated with common sense. Everywhere I look people are naked.

After the ceremony I go to Stephen’s car, which is where I’ll sleep tonight, and take off my clothes, except for my watch, shoes, and camera. I like being naked and stoned in the woods. I’ve been working out and look as good as I’ll ever look, so I go swinging my dick down the trail.

At a clearing, at the hub of activity, a hot Amazonian Wiccan in a fringed rawhide G-string is at one with the cosmos, sitting cross-legged at the opening of an orange and white nylon tepee. I flex my muscles and butt cheeks and ask her, "Hey, hey, how’s it goin’? Is it OK if I take your picture? I’m supposed to get pictures of different people here, though I’m mostly drawn to attractive women. What’s your name? I’m Scot.”

She has straight white teeth and caramel skin. She’s in her mid 20s with a body like a surfer-girl goddess. “My name is Sappho,” she tells me. “You can go ahead and take my picture. Should I look into the camera?”

“How about if we go into the tepee. The sun is all spotty out here, and the light inside should be really nice.”

“I thought you just wanted to take a picture. We’re not making a centerfold.”

“We could, you know, make a centerfold.”

“No, we couldn’t. Let’s just go ahead and do this.”

She goes into the tent and I follow, and she tells me nothing personal; she doesn’t trust me and wants me to not come any closer than the door flap. I tell her that I understand and I’ll stay where I am, across from her on my knees with my backside outside in the sun, catching some rays. She poses sideways like Cleopatra on a chaise longue. I’m getting excited, and I’m really loaded, and I start my automatic patter, saying, "That’s good" and "That’s great," "Just like that," "Look at me," "Lick your lips." She stops all motion and sits up covering her breasts with her arms. “You’re a pig,” she says. “No more pictures.”

I don’t blame her. I’ve got a bare-naked erection telescoped the same direction as the camera lens, and she’s not a girlfriend, wife, model, or whore. I’m trying to think myself flaccid, and I tell her, "Uh, OK, sorry, I don’t mean to be lewd. Thanks for the pictures, and if you give me your address I can send you a couple of prints."

“That’s fine, thank you. I don’t want any prints.”

The mescaline is now full-tilt, the tepee is breathing in great sighs, and I’ve got purple ghost lights at the periphery of my vision. I crawl back into the open on all fours, and a few yards away is the guy with no legs, and he’s not naked anymore—he’s wearing a T-shirt and a duffel bag. He’s just sitting there looking at me. I climb up to my feet, and I still have a boner. A ceremonial group has gathered close by, and they include an inordinate number of plus-size women. No one is naked, except for me. I’m inside my own recurring nightmare of being naked and hard as a pinecone in a forest of women who are not here in praise of men. My stoned brain is telling me they were never naked and I just imagined it. Now I’m in a hurry to get the fuck out of here. I start walking a busy trail back to the car.

Around a curve I see a woman wrapped in black like she’s a walking coffin. She kind of freaks me out, but I take her picture anyway and then jog the rest of the way to the car. When I get there I light up a Kool King and check my camera. I only have one exposure left, so I take a picture of my dick, then roll up the film and spool in another.

Scot's first book, Lowlife, was released last year, and his memoir, Curb Service, is out now. You can find more information on his website.