[RunDownHouse]

The summer after I graduated high school, I flew out to CA with a friend whose grandmother owned a beach house south of San Jose (La Selva). One week we decided to head down to LA, and having camped our way from Kansas City to CA, we thought we'd find somewhere to camp instead of spending the money on a room.

We found a camp ground in the hills of Malibu that was hike-in only, no RVs. After the mile hike, we arrived at the site to see that there were three places for tents. At the second was a normal tent. But at the first there was a plain mattress on the ground. A few feet away was a clothesline strung with what we guessed was dirty laundry. There was a small pile of a couple pans, some coffee, and other foodstuffs.

We set up our stuff and did some sight-seeing during the day. When we got back, we met our neighbors in the tent. It was a couple in their 20's, and they both had roughly 10 pounds of metal hanging from their faces in various ways. While a couple midwestern kids were initially put off by this, Lance and Jenny turned out to be a couple of very nice, interesting people from MN, who had come to LA because they heard there was a demand for movie extras with metal in their faces.

Eventually the conversation turned to our as-of-yet missing neighbor, he of the lone mattress. His name was Bill, and he was a registered sex offender, and a fairly serious one at that. Multiple convictions for various sex crimes. According to Lance, ol' Bill had been kicked out of every dive motel and run down apartment complex in north LA. He had thus taken to living in this state park in Malibu.

We slept in petrified fear for two days. Sometime during day three, the park rangers came by and evicted Bill the Sex Offender. Apparently you can only stay in a state park for a month, after which time you must leave. We celebrated with Lance and Jenny with a little booze and a campfire story.

Lesson: if you camp somewhere, make sure you don't sleep next to a career felon. With a taste for buggery.