CALIFORNIA: The King of Cabazon

The pulsating glow of Los Angeles fills the night sky 75 miles to the west, and the velvety oasis of Palm Springs is only 16 miles away. But Cabazon, Calif, (pop. 855) is a seamy, sun-seared desert slum. A drab procession of beatnik churches, hamburger stands, service stations and motels, Cabazon straddles the confluence of three major highways. The blast-furnace winds of the Colorado Desert roll in through San Gorgonio Pass, and on winter nights the temperature drops to subfreezing levels.

In its sordid development, Cabazon got more than its share of human tumbleweed, and with it on the hot desert winds came unbridled avarice and violence. The town is stonily accustomed to all sorts of trouble. In Cabazon last month, a Four-square Gospel preacher and a gun-toting bandit—who was shot to death by Los Angeles cops the next night—fought a grim, barefisted battle for the right to buy the festering town dump. In Cabazon last fortnight, two octogenarians battled over a woman.

Promised Land. The man who rules Cabazon is an incredible person, even in California politics. His name is L. D. (for nothing) Tallent. He drifted into town from Oklahoma eight years ago. His past is murky. His body is tragically misshapen: he was born without legs, with a right arm that ends at the elbow, a left that withers into two malformed fingers. But the face of L. D. Tallent, 41, is alertly handsome, his mind razor keen, his ambition huge.

From the first, Tallent saw dismal Cabazon as a promised land. He bought a dilapidated parcel of land, divided it into lots, became publisher of the local weekly and president of the Chamber of Commerce. Then he waited. In 1954 came the sort of man that Tallent had been waiting for: Jerry Kosseff, a glib, messianic promoter from Hollywood. On the speaker’s stand Kosseff was a Bible-quoting spellbinder. Recalls one Cabazonian: “Kosseff told us, ‘Look around us. This is the Sinai Desert. All we have to do is stretch out our hands and the manna will fall from heaven.’ Don’t ask me why, but we believed him. All of us.”

Led by Tallent and Kosseff, the manna-mad citizens of Cabazon soon voted to incorporate their town. The specific purpose of the move was to establish a drive-in draw-poker palace; under California law, only incorporated towns may establish poker parlors. In as Cabazon’s mayor went L. D. Tallent—and before long he was also police commissioner, fire commissioner and civil defense commissioner (Kosseff, his usefulness fulfilled, soon sloped back toward Hollywood, later died).

Working Man. The $100,000 Club Cabazon failed to attract the expected bonanza of customers from Palm Springs, and its franchise passed from hand to hand like the Hope diamond, bringing bad luck to everyone who held it. But under the direction of Tallent-appointed Police Chief Robert (“Doc”) Morton, an ex-chiropractor, Cabazon quickly won and richly deserved a reputation as the worst speed trap in Southern California. Last year traffic tickets brought in $27,985, while all business license fees returned only $5,817. Explains Morton, who has since broken bitterly with Tallent: “It was all Tallent’s doing. He demanded a minimum of eight tickets per officer per day.”

Long before Club Cabazon mysteriously burned to its foundations last December, it became clear to the townfolk that the only citizen who was making any profit out of Cabazon was Mayor Tallent. An opposition group, the Civic Improvement Association, began to gather recruits. The anti-Tallent cause was helped when Riverside County deputy sheriffs raided Tallent’s home, claimed they found and photographed him nude in bed with his secretary, the wife of a Cabazon cop. Says Tallent, still up for trial on a misdemeanor charge: “I will definitely ask for a jury. I don’t think you’d find one man in twelve who’d find anything wrong with a businessman occupying the same room with his secretary.”

Just Deserts. Tallent’s bedroom look cost him his majority on the Cabazon town council; it voted him out as mayor, although he kept his place on the council itself. It was L. D. Tallent who seized the initiative, forced a recall election of the council members, including himself. At high noon on election day last week, the temperature in Cabazon reached 110°. But resting beside his 40-ft., indoor swimming pool, Tallent was cool to the point of indifference. “I don’t care if I win this election or not,” he drawled. “I’ve got $2,000,000 worth of property here; I’ve got a thousand house lots to sell; and if I don’t win, I’m going to concentrate on getting them sold and making that fortune I’m after.”

When the returns were in, Tallent was off the council—and so was the three-man anti-Tallent majority. Aware that a new poker parlor was beginning to pay off, Cabazon chose Tallent’s followers. “Yes sir,” beamed Tallent, celebrating with gambler friends, “you can say I’m perfectly satisfied.”