When I first came to the canyon I was only fifteen years
old. It was in 1998. My father was searching on the internet for some friend in
Italy.
Papa was told that his friend could be located by "The Old Man"
in "the Canyon". Papa went to Hackers Canyon only because the person that told
him to go there was a close family member who could be trusted. After several
nights of surfing in the canyon Papa made contact with "The Old Man". My
father's brother in Italy gave him a code name to use in the Canyon. That code
name gave Papa instant trust from "The Old Man". To this day I am not sure who
the "Old Man " is or if he is even "Old". What I do know is that in less than
five minutes we had a phone number and address for the friend my father had been
looking for the last decade. One time after that when we talked to
"Dirkster" we noticed he seemed to know things about us that made my father
nervous. My father banned me from the Canyon because he said it must be "The
Man". "No one can know that much about me unless he's the Law". After that
I would sneak down to our cellar where we kept the computer that kept track of
all my father's bookie records. I surfed the Canyon night after night for
almost three years. Then one night I caught my father surfing the Canyon. He did
not know I was watching him. The speed at which he moved around the Canyon
made me realized that Papa too had spent the last few years in the Canyon. One
day I confronted Papa about his knowledge of Hackers Canyon. He came clean
and admitted that all his underworld connections communicated in the Canyon. In
fact Papa told me to make sure of one thing; if the Law ever busted down the
door of our house, I was to lock myself in the cellar and delete all the hard
drive on our computer. He wasn't worried about his bookie business as much as
he was the "Feds" getting their hands on all his Hackers Canyon records. A few
month after this conversation the Law did come to our house. We did not have to
rush down and delete the hard drive however. We had taken care of that the day
before after a very reliable person in the Canyon informed us that Papa was
going to be served a search warrant the next day.