Indoor Fountains and My Life Of Crime
a nice essay from a friend...
Indoor fountains are great, don't get me wrong, but few people know the terror and ugliness that goes into creating indoor fountains. The trade in indoor fountains is dangerous, and the seedy underworld it breeds must be cleaned up. I have good reason to say all this. It all started way back in my freshman year, when I went to school in Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara is a beautiful place, but for a college kid it can be hard to find work. The need for a job was what first introduced me to the fast-paced world of indoor fountains. Since there are so many college kids in Santa Barbara, there's a lot of competition for the "cool" jobs, like bartender and bouncer. That's why I went for something even cooler, even more dangerous than that. I'm not proud of it now, but I was a rock thief. I stole rocks for indoor fountains.
Wall fountains are often sent out with little river stones to arrange in your wall fountain to change the flow and the sound. Ever wonder where those river stones come from? Rivers, that's right. The problem is that in Santa Barbara, pulling rocks out of a riverbed in large quantities is illegal. Some hippy law about destroying ecosystems. Manufacturers of wall fountains can't just go dig up a whole river bank, so their only alternative is to find rocks in smaller quantities. Black market, illegal rocks. There are actually a few wall fountain manufacturers in Santa Barbara, and that's led to a violent gang war between rock collectors battling for turf. These "rock runners" are some tough dudes, too. I know a guy who got beat up pretty bad, just for skipping stones. All of these stones were one day destined to be used in a wall fountain.
Indoor fountain manufacturers just could not get enough of these stones, and for a while it was pretty sweet. Me and my crew would go down to the river bank and fill up our backpacks with rocks, and the indoor fountain guys would pay $50 a pound. Then one night, we had a big order from one of our indoor fountain clients, when the East River Rock Crew jumped us. things got pretty crazy, but it got really bad when they tried to take some of our slate. We was like "oh, no son. Don't front.", and right as I was about to bust a cap, the park rangers rolled up. Now I'm serving twenty years to life for grand theft rock. All because somebody needed an indoor fountain.
© 2006-2008 All Rights Reserved. Please do not steal my work.