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I was supposed to be looking for a job... when I set out one day soon after
my Atlanta adventure. (Some friends and I had crashed the Atlanta Jazz
festival or... well, walked over the fence after a bunch of other people
bent down the fence). But I was back home again, now... at my parents'
house... and I needed to
get a job and support myself. And that day... I was just... torn... about
my life. I needed to think clearly about it.
So I drove off in the White VW that my dad had given me for graduation...
(well... he gave the down payment anyway). He picked it out
and drove it home and gave it to me. To keep it, I had to make payments
on the other half of the car. But that day... I just needed to be in the
country. I wanted to roll down the windows... let the wind blow through
my hair... and figure out what I was going to do about my life.
West... was where the nearest country roads were... but I knew that
there was a lake somewhere that I had to get around... and so I ended up
driving 7 miles to the highway that I knew would bypass
it... and then I could take the Interstate west and look for an interesting
country road to turn down on... and just drive and listen to music... and try
to shed some of my worries.
The Interstate was just past the Dairy Queen. I began to enter the
highway and... not far along... I saw two guys hitchhiking. I may not
ever have stopped at all to pick up two guys on a highway... but one
guy was hitchhiking with a guitar... and I thought, "he's going to
lose that guitar." And they were nice-looking-hippies... and looked
like the peaceful types... so I gave them a ride.
Once we got through Oklahoma City, I began to realize... "there is
NOTHING out here." The guys were headed to Los Angeles... with
a guitar... and there was nothing but ranches and farmland for over
a thousand miles. My family had driven that highway for a vacation
maybe twice... to visit aunts and uncles... and the drive was through
a great vast NOTHING.
Where could I stop and let them out... that would be safe for everyone...?
for them and also for ME. And to be honest... I liked one of the guys...
and I hated the idea of saying goodbye. And I wanted to be sure that
they got where they were going... safe and sound...
in one piece... and with the guitar intact. I will say that... it was the
guitar that won the argument...
It was about their safety and not losing that guitar.
I asked them if they wanted to just drive straight through...
all the way to LA... that I would drive them there.
They both agreed to it. Nobody had any money for anything but gas.
Were they going to eat out of trash cans for three days...?
Because it would take them three days to get there.
It was like... this was the ONLY choice for them...
to get to LA as quickly as they could... for lots of reasons.
And I wanted out of the rut I was in. I wasn't liking the local guys
that I was meeting. I didn't want to marry ANY ONE of them. I needed
to get somewhere where I could start rebuilding the kind of life that
I wanted to have. That day, I had about $25.00 in cash on me...
which would be just enough... to get the gas to get us there... to LA.
I called home from a roadside phone booth... and talked to my brother.
My brother was a self-taught musician and had played in rock 'n roll
bands since 1965... which is how I knew that things happen to
hippies...
my brother got both of his hands broken once.
I had to let them all know what I was doing...
that everything was okay... and that I'd call them later.
As for any hopes of romance... well... this guy was so nice... that I figured
that there were plenty of other girls he could pick from... California girls...
girls with sun-kissed bodies and blonde hair... or perhaps hippie girls...
who were all about free love... and hip to the California scene.
I wasn't planning nor did I even expect to pair off with this guy... sort of.
Anyway, I acted towards him with real respect.
I asked to see his guitar. (Anything could have been in the case).
He opened it and showed it to me... a nice 12-string.
I asked him to play us all a song. He said, "no."
Somewhere along that highway I needed to sleep... and I let "Red,"
the other guy, drive the VW the rest of the way to LA. I got in the
back seat and needed to figure out a way to get comfortable so I
could sleep. One of my options was to lean against him so that we
could both stretch our legs. I asked him if I could lean on
him while I slept.
It took us 24 hours to make the drive to Los Angeles. We drove straight
through without stopping. I was afraid to stop... at night... in the middle
of nowhere... with two guys who I barely knew... who could rob me or
steal my car and leave me on the side of the road. Once it got dark...
it felt safer to just keep on moving.
When dawn came the next morning, we stopped at a rest stop. I got out
of the car and took a walk... away from the car... and I squatted down
on my heels like an Egyptian and just sat there in the desert and tried
to gather my thoughts. We'd made it through the night. We were all safe and sound. But what will I do when we get to LA?
It would be great if this guy knew some people where we could crash
for a few days... did he even know anybody in LA? If he didn't, then
we could sleep in the car on the beach... and maybe panhandle for
gas money to get around town... and get jobs or whatever.
If this handsome guy was a California hippie then he was probably into
the California scene... free love, communal living, drugs... and here I was...
a naive girl from Oklahoma... maybe not such a good fit with the
lifestyle of California. I had no delusions about my options. As it
happened, he was not a stranger in LA. Red drove us to a crash
house near the University in LA... and yeah, they knew people.
It had been a long and tiring trip. We hadn't had any money to spare
between the four of us... yes, four of us. Somewhere in Texas, I think,
we saw a girl hitchhiking alone... and so we picked her up.
Her presence made me feel a bit more secure with two strange guys.
Once in LA, we two girls were not fitting into this picture. No one
offered us water, food, or asked if we needed a place to crash.
Well, I don't know for sure what she was doing. She was out on the
lawn... I walked into the house though I didn't get invited in.
I sat on the floor in the front room... next to a coffee table with a dirty
ashtray on it... for quite a long time. Was it just one hour...? more?
I lost track. I was tired... thirsty... hungry. No one talked to me at all.
You know the phrase... "if you ignore them, maybe they'll go
away"...? Yeah, I was really feeling that ignore... I was really
feeling like I was getting dumped... in the nicest way possible...
without any awkward verbal expression of it by anybody...
(several guys had come and gone while I sat there on the floor)...
the general idea being... "no place for you here, so sorry."
So... I took the logical step of... making as graceful an exit as possible.
I got up from the floor where I had sat and kneeled... and I went to the
door of the back room where they were gathered... maybe 8 guys
sitting around on couches... talking.
I interrupted to say, "I'm just gonna go."
As I began towards my car... the guy got up to walk with me outside.
So did all the guys... all the guys came out to sit on the lawn...
as he and I said goodbye after that long trip we'd just been through.
We talked for just a minute.
He said that I was okay to sleep over in the girls' dorm at the University.
I didn't want to impose on anybody...
and visions of a cult... a California cult... ran through my mind.
I shook my head.
I looked up at him and said,
"I was thinking that we could sleep on the beach."
He looked at me and shook his head... ever so gently.
I told him that I had cousins near Hayward...
I could stay with them if I had to.
I asked if I could borrow $5.00... which would get me there.
His friend gave me $5.00.
He handed me a notebook and pen...
and asked me to write down my name and phone number.
Ya know... I had just sat... being ignored for a long, long time...
and was wondering what I had done that may have
offended him so badly that... he couldn't even offer me a glass of water.
If he was angry about something that I had done... what was it?
Did he feel like I had forced them to take this drive...?
without stopping...? with no food? no real sleep?
Had I ruined their great adventure across the country...?
I started feeling really bad about how
this had all gone down so quickly... and I was afraid if he knew my
name and phone number that he'd come looking for me... to give
me some REAL "what for" explanations...
ie... he'd really want to get even about it.
He asked for my contact information... to write it down in his notebook.
I looked up at him and asked, "Why...?"
And it was a rich... gentle... but full... "why".
He answered, "So that I can thank you."
And then I said, "you don't owe me anything."
I handed him back the notebook without writing anything.
He looked at the back of my VW... and all I saw was the license tag.
Was he hinting that he could find me through the tag on my car...?
Something about my car...?
All in all... I was being dumped.
I was just 18 years old.
I wasn't really ready to have a serious relationship with someone.
I had some real sorting out to do...
my life was a wreck and not stable at all.
Getting dumped by him was generally what I thought might happen...
just not... so quickly.
Maybe it was the only thing to do under the circumstances.
And if I had done something so awful... I didn't want to have to hear it.
I just wanted to go.
I asked the woman whom we had picked up in Texas...
what she was going to do...
and she said, "Could I come with you?"
And I said, "I'm not sure even how welcome I will be."
So I drove off by myself... put gas in the car.
I couldn't find the way to the beach...
and I sure didn't want to get lost in the middle of Los Angeles...
so I took the highway North... and was just going to drive it.
... I fell asleep driving... and a car full of hippies woke me up...
honking their horn... yelling and screaming at me...
and I straightened back up... and got myself to Hayward.
My trip to Hayward was disappointing. My cousin was working and
going to school... and her friends... well... we were all on different paths...
She and I took a day trip to Haight-Ashbury... so I could see what
the hell they were up to... and it was like a circus... full of
sophisticated street people... and I could almost smell the underbelly
of the world. It was looking to me like all the gates of hell had been
flung open... and the days of flower power were gone.
Some 5 year-old girl tried to sell me candy from a candy box. I was
going to buy one piece and my cousin nudged me and said, "no,
don't eat that."
Finding no avenues to go down that I could manage...
I ended up driving all the way back home again...
I came... I saw... and I went back home.
I wanted to go back to LA...
to find that guy and ask him, "did I get that wrong...?"
or "did you really mean to dump me...?"
But my mother forced me to promise
that I would drive straight home...
and not go back to Los Angeles...
and I hadn't even said anything about LA to her.
I thought... sometimes in life we only get one chance...
and you just have to swallow your gum and keep on walking.
I really regretted not giving him my contact info.
I had a crazy idea that he could find me, anyway, if he wanted to.
I had told him some things about me
that he could follow the trail to find me.
I half-expected to see him knocking on my door...
just to say hi... or whatever. He hadn't seemed mean really.
And... we had exchanged smiles...
and he had commanded me with his eyes... to fully look at him.
Being mean seemed very out of character with him.
But... whatever... I had surely been kicked to the curb.
I remember standing looking at my empty couch in the front room...
wanting him to be there... hoping that the truth really wasn't...
that he hated me.
The summer of 1970 was a time of real transitions for me.
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