The Oak Tree To Somewhere Else

I was cruising just outside of Livermore when I spotted a bright neon sign. It was shaped like a giant cowboy boot and its bright letters it proclaimed the magic word … “Open”. Strangely enough, I’d passed by here before and never noticed the rundown building holding up the sign, but it did appear to be a bar. I was thirsty and this looked like the kind of place that might attract the type of person I was looking for. My goal was to meet up with someone I could pump for a few ghostly tales of the California wine county that I could use on my blog.

The room was dimly lit with a series of neon beer signs providing most of the illumination. Country music was blaring from the jukebox, someone was singing something about all his ex’s living in Texas. The first thing I noticed when I entered the bar area was the pinball machine along the wall. An actual pinball machine, not a video game! The Bride of Pin-bot looked very tempting. I thought to the machine “I’ll be seeing you later baby!” as I made my way up to the bar.

Behind the counter, an elderly woman with red hair and a denim mini skirt had just finished downing a shot of Tequila. As she slammed the glass on the bar she shouted out “Yee-haw! Rodeo!” A big grin spread across her face as she looked at the customer, a beat up looking old cowboy and said, “Thank you kindly Vern, that hit the spot.”

Looking at Vern I felt out of place wearing shorts and an over sized Hawaiian shirt. This was no rhinestone cowboy bar, and Vern was the real thing. He had the look of a man who worked with cattle and horses for too many years and now just wanted a place to hang out and drink with what he considered a “hot looking young chick”. The American Dream! I could tell all of that by the yellowing straw hat he wore, the many deep wrinkles that covered his face, the worn out pointy toed boots and the beat up wooden cane he leaned on as he balanced himself on the wobbly bar stool.

“What’ll you have … a Budweiser?” the bartender asked me. I nodded my head and sat down, leaving an empty stool between me and the cowboy. “I’m B.J.” said the bartender, extending her hand. ‘You new in town?”

“I’m Jimmy, I just got here from back east, a few days ago. Been sleeping in my car at the migrant workers camp up by the highway. I really like it here. Livermore has a kind of unique vibe you don’t find in many places. Lots of … energy. Not like where I came from, this place is alive!”

“Yeah this town is alive alright … most of the time” she quipped. “You looking’ for work Jimmy? Lots of ranchers and contractors come in here, always looking for cheap labor.”

“Sure, I do any kind of job … when I’m not working a Psychic Investigator. I write a blog about weird stuff and I travel around the country looking for strange phenomenon to document.”

“Psychic Investigator … well ain’t that something. People always say this area is… different. That’s because all kinds of strange things have happened over the years. Vern here is the town expert, anything you want to know just ask Vern and if he don’t know … he’ll make something up.”

The cowboy half turned towards toward me and pushed his empty glass towards the bartender. I announced “This round is on me” as B.J reached for the bottle of Patron.

The bartender set up three shot glasses and filled each one with the strong clear liquid before looking at me and asking, “You need a sissy bar with that?” Realizing I had no idea what she meant, B.J. grabbed a salt shaker and lime wedge and set it in front of me.

As we raised our glasses, she. proclaimed “Welcome to Livermore!”

Vern silently drained his shot in a single motion, as did the bartender. Vern looked at her and said “Watch him make the Tequila face” as I slowly raised the shot glass to my mouth and swallowed the contents. My lips twisted into a crazy pucker, my eyes squinted, and my entire face seemed to clench. I let out a small cough, grabbed the lime and frantically sucked the juice from it

“They say that the face you make when you drink a shot of Tequila is the same face you make when you cum” announced B.J.

Vern chuckled, “Then when Jimmy here and his girlfriend have sex, it must end with her laughing and him gasping”.

“Sounds good to me!” B.J. said as she winked at me.

Vern seemed to perk up just a bit as he slid onto the empty stool next to me. “You’re alright pal, buy me a beer and I’ll give you the lowdown on all of the crazy, unexplainable things that happened here in Livermore. Believe me there’ve been some hair raisers. Have you seen the big tree out by the airport yet? The one with a fence around it and another fence around that. Let me tell you about the Livermore Oak Tree, it’s a story you won’t ever forget.”

“Beer all around” I said to the bartender. “It sounds like this party is just getting started!”

“Did you ever notice” the old cowboy began “that no matter where you go on the entire planet, they have alcoholic drinks. If you study history you’ll notice that man must have figured out how to get drunk just about 10 minutes after learning to walk upright . Now how do you think that happened?”

“I’ll tell you how … aliens from another planet. Years ago, there wasn’t much of anything around here, except that oak tree. When travelers started passing through, stories about strange lights and sounds along the trail began to circulate. A tribal descendant they called Rotting Skunk used to hang out at a trading post on the trail. He earned a living telling folks stories about ancient local legends. Naturally, the oak tree was featured as his best story.”

“Rotting Skunk’s people believed that the tree was some kind of a gateway to somewhere else, maybe another planet or dimension. The story was that a group of travelers stepped out from under the wooden wonder one day and started making friends with the tribe. These guys seemed to know all kinds of helpful of tricks and it wasn’t long until they had the locals planting grapes and making wine. Now from what I hear there are similar stories in cultures all around the world.”

“Wait” I interrupted “Aliens from outer space came to earth in search of a place to grow grapes for wine?”

“They visited the best spots all over the planet and built a global vineyard ” Vern replied “but it wasn’t all fun and drinking games for the natives. The tree gateway worked both ways and the visitors had a habit of grabbing the most attractive women, taking them to the oak and disappearing. As guys tend to do, the tribe moved on once most of the women were gone.

“As people started settling the Livermore Valley, it wasn’t long before folks started planting grapes and making wine again. Now most of these new wine makers were supposed to have come here from Europe, but I think they came from much further away than that, by way of that cosmic express. Livermore was an isolated community until the University of California decided to open a Radiation Laboratory on the site of the old Naval Air Station.”

“Now most people know they put the lab where they did because it was the middle of nowhere” B.J. injected. “But Vern here knows there’s more to the story, don’t you Sweetheart?”

“Of course I do, they were considering Livermore for the lab site but being so far from civilization they needed an airport nearby. The Livermore Sky Ranch over on what became Rincon Ave served the Naval Base but it was too close to town. Once they started looking for a place they could build a new airport they noticed the tree. The nearby field was perfect except something from the area around the tree was screwing with their instruments. While the Radiation Laboratory building was under construction they had guys studying that tree with every instrument they had. Eventually they buried a cable that ran from the oak tree to the Vasco Road site. If you ask me they found a way to redirect the natural energy so they could move the gateway inside the Laboratory.”

“After that everyone lost interest in the tree, especially with the new facility opening. After a bit, the local Quilting Society brought in a woman from back east who called herself Miss Beth. She said that the tree needed to tell it’s story. Miss Beth sat quietly beneath the Oak for a while. The next day she came back and began hand sewing a quilt to honor all the people who vanished. Apparently the tree had whispered the names it wanted used on the quilt. The Historical Society put up the wooden fence, there was a dedication ceremony and the next week they put a chain link fence around the entire area.”

“That’s it?” I asked. “Where was the tree sending people? What happened to the quilt and Miss Beth?”

“No one knows where the tree sent ’em but Miss Beth and the quilt are at the House of Stuff. You should swing by there some day, Honey.” B.J. replied with a grin. “So …how about another drink Jimmy?”

Suddenly a mechanical voice from behind me announced “Oooo come on baby, play me”. It was the Bride of Pin-bot, reminding me of our date.