On the road, heading east 1992 journal

I'm on the road again and things are moving fast and I want to catch them.

The American Trans-air flight into San Fransisco International Airport descends.I’m stuck in the middle row, middle seat. My eyes look toward the window and as the plane drops I see some lights in the dark. California night from above. I strain to see more— impossible small window.

Get off the plane and collect my bag. It’s ten o’clock pm. At a phone booth I check out the phone book and call a handful of hostels in the general area. Some don’t answer; others are phone recordings and others have no vacancies. I figure I’ll hop on a bus and drive around the city to find a room. I pick up my bag and walk outside into a chilly mist. I’m so damn tired. As I cross the street, a shuttle van driver asks if I need a ride. So yeah, I’ll go somewhere.

Relaxing ride in a big van. A few others with me. Cruise into the night. Signs of the mainland register in mind— young kids at the airport with hockey sticks and San Jose Sharks jackets and billboards promoting sports cards shows. The night is dark; thousands of lights along the hills shine. Steep steep streets. I sit in the van knowing not where I am or going or where and when I’ll sleep. Haight Ashbury is desolate. I am the last person in the van now. The driver is cool, a soft spoken Mexican who just moved here 6 months ago and is still trying to learn the streets. I tell him that I don’t know where to go but I thought Fort Mason hostel, though closed until the morning, was nearby. He tells me he knows of a hostel called The Globe that is close and he drives me there. I pay him ten bucks and say goodbye.

Inside the Globe at check in stands a young Irish student student with red hair who greets me. He tells me all the rooms are full but he can give me a blanket and sleep on the floor in the corner. Sounds good to me. Another man wearing glasses, balding asks if I’m an international traveler. Unaware of why he would ask such a random question I tell him I just arrived from Hawaii on my way to Boston and then Europe. He says I have to show proof— an ID, an old ticket, anything that shows I’d been outside the USA. They have strict rules he says. But I have nothing. Another guy, listening from a distance and who has long rock and roll hair and casual face, he asks if I had ever been to Canada. Canada yes, of course! However, I have no proof. The guy with the glasses says that I can’t stay. Fuck, I’m kind of shocked and I linger. The Irish student and the rock and roller check through phone listings of hostels and motels, one by one making phone calls for me but everytime they hang up they say its closed or full. I’m starting to dread life.

After 20 minutes of phone calls they get through to a motel on Sutter and Larkin Street that has an open room for 25 bucks a night. They tell me it’s only a twenty minute walk from here. The time is now 1 o’clock in the morning. Craving sleep so desperately, I don’t mind the idea of walking the late dark streets of the city if I have a purpose. They give me directions, I double check my route on a city map that is posted by the door and I’m gone.

Any minute I expect to see Dirty Harry race down the street after Scorpio. I’m on Folsom street, darkly lit— many darkened doorways and alleyways— gay bars— drunken stragglers— homeless. I do have, in my pocket a can of mace and I clutch it tightly. In the distance a cluster of people move toward me and to avoid any confrontation, I cross the street. My bag is becoming heavier by the minute. Street lamp lights begin to stretch further apart from each other causing even more darkness.

I turn right on to 9^th Street. There’s a little more light from street lamps but there is a seedy threatening feel in the air. Big cars drive up and down the street slowly. I keep my head down and walk straight. The sidewalks are filthy, the gutters stink. I pass a group of homeless black men who are hanging out in front of some sort of park. One of them darts from the group to greet me with mumbles and invitations. I have the mace ready if need be. I tell him I got nothing and I move on and nothing comes of it. I think I’m getting a little paranoid now. I pass the Civic Center and Market Street; 9^th Street has now turned into Larkin Street. Larkin Street is comprised of more homeless, loud bars, prostitutes and an occasional police car that scatters the whores back into the shadows until the police car disappears and they creep back out on to the street.

Sutter Street is still some ten blocks away and I’m sure I’ll probably die before I get there. The street ascends sharply, it’s angle as steep as a staircase. When a bar door opens, music blares outside for a moment until door closes again. More men appear staring at my forlorn hunched over figure. Eyes without bodies seem to follow my every step. What the hell am I doing here at this point in my life?

At 1:30 I find it. I dream of the safe confines of a room. I ring the buzzer a few times and after some hesitation the gates buzzes open. I climb the narrow stairs, slowly cautiously. Looking down upon me from the top of the stairs, I see the face of an old man’s white unshaven face. “Are you the manager?” I ask.

“Last time I checked.” His voice sounded rotten to the core, miserable. I already knew I hated this man.

“I need a room.”

The man stumbled out of his apartment. “I’m drunk,” he says. He sits on the top stair and buries his face into his scaly hands. I observe, on guard for anything at this point.

“You got a room, right?”

“Sit down. I want to talk to you. Where you from?”

“Boston.”

He motions with his hand and exclaims for me to sit down. “Sit down!”

I hesitate. I study this pitiful scoundrel and not sure if I can actually trust this man. “Listen. I just need a room.”

He gets up furiously as if I had just insulted his manhood. He has fire in his eyes and yells with a slur. “No I got no room, you punk! Get the hell outta here. No rooms!”

“I just called a half hour ago. You said you had a room.”

“No, no, no. Phone didn’t ring. I’ve been here all night. No phone. No room. Get outta here!”

I stand there in shock really as he stumbles back into his apartment, leaving the door slightly ajar. He screams at someone else inside about how I wouldn’t sit down with him. And I stood there— for an eternity it seemed, stunned and tired and ready to pass out. Now what?

I turn and leave and hit the streets. I pass an attractive dark-skinned prostitute who offers her services. “Hey baby, want a date?” In my growing madness it doesn’t sound like a bad idea but I press forward up Sutter and away from the city. The situation seemingly slipping way out of my control.

I come upon a nice hotel with red carpet and beautiful marble lobby. The clerk informs me that a room is 60 bucks a night and there’s no way I’m paying that. He says there’s nothing cheaper around. He gesticulates with soft slender fingers and talks in a feminine voice. He gives me the yellow pages and I dig around for any hostel I may have missed. And I do and the clerk even calls them for me but they are closed. I thank him and leave.

I sit on the front stairs and try and weigh my options. Fort Mason comes into mind. When I had called them earlier, the voice message had stated that they are closed but would reopen in the morning. So I decided I would go there, sleep outside the hostel somewhere nearby and when they opened I would get a room and sleep and renergize my health. I run back inside, the clerk gives me directions and I head back out into the street. I stand there. Nothing makes sense to me suddenly. My memory is deteriorating; my usually sharp sense of direction is spinning in circles like a gauge out of control.

I wander off, unsure if I followed the clerk’s directions the right way. Just then a public bus rattles up the street toward me and I immediately flag it down. The driver is a young black man, friendly and talkative. I ask about Fort Mason and he says he can drop me off within walking distance of it. I’m relieved. There are two other people on the bus and they look as homeless as I feel.

Coming off the bus I slip on the stairs and nearly topple over. I thank the driver and he wishes me well. The bus heads off into the night as I look around and see that I’m on Laguna Street, a quiet, clean stretch of land. I pass a baseball field on my left and this fills me with hope. It reminds me of home, of safe confines of childhood. As I make out the diamond, I wonder if there are enclosed dugouts where I could possibly sleep if I had to. The quietness, green grass and bushes cheer me on. If I can not find a place to sleep I will return to the baseball field. Obviously, I’d like a room.

Clouds splatter the dark and everything is wet, not soaked but wet from mist and light rain that comes and goes. It’s not long before I stumble into Fort Mason which is not just a little hostel but a complex of stores and warehouses— more like an old abandoned military base. The parking lot is empty quiet. Most of the buildings have sealed garage doors that once housed military vehicles. Ahead, there are galleries— like a community mall of art, poetry, film, travel agencies and nick knack stores— all closed. Fort Mason is also on the San Francisco Bay. I come to a pier behind a building and the sound of small waves lick the night. I decide that I’m going to find somewhere to sleep nearby. The cement walkways around Fort Mason are thinly wet. I come to a staircase mounted to the side of the brick building and as I investigate it, its dry and clean and I can certainly fit beneath it. I sit. I smoke. No one is around— no homeless, gangs, fags or police. I unroll my sleeping bag and get inside it. I prop my bag under my head and lay there and doze off around 2:30 am.

Rounds of cold wake me in brief spurts. I change positions. I clutch my bag tight, trying to keep the the little warmth I have inside.

Morning lights wakes me now but I’m exhausted and I lay there trying to fall back asleep. Now there are cars parked in the parking lot. Joggers passing by. A lady walks her little dog and stares at me; I return the stare with red stilted eyes. Fuck it. At 6:30 am I fall back to sleep.

At 9:30 am I wake once more and I feel a lot better than last night. I rise to my feet. I can see the Bay— very beautiful, the sky-scape rounded off by the great bulging hills and forests. The Golden Gate Bridge in red glory spawns over the Pacific. I bring out my map, and see that I slept right across from Alcatraz Island. It’s a chilly morning. I feel a cold tugging at my head now. I could definitely use a ton more sleep but I decide to blow off Fort Mason (I’m happy I saved money on a room) and with bag over my shoulder I hike back up to Laguna Street. My goal is to get to LA by Wednesday to meet Rich. However I have no idea how I will get there yet.

I stop into a generic lunch shop and buy an orange juice and sandwich. As I eat, I study local and state maps. I figure, for now, I’ll hop on the local samtrans (public bus) and go as far as it can take me out of San Fran. I’m hoping Monterrey. When I reach the desolate region of Big Sur along Route 1, I’ll camp there for a night and then thumb from city to city— San Luis. Then I’ll take local buses into LA. It’s a trek of roughly 500 miles. It sounds easy enough on paper so I get up and leave; and then catch the # 28 bus from Laguna Street and ride into Daly City for 85 cents.

The ride to Linda Mar shopping center goes along a beautiful coastal route— giant rounded valleys that overlap one another and at times seem to fall upon each other like granite dominoes— wild terrain of forest along bending road that sinks and rises throughout the valleys. As I stare out the window, my mind dreams along with the gentle landscape.

At Linda Mar shopping center I have an hour before the next bus south. I run into Denny’s for some coffee and journal writing. I believe the town is Pacifica.

At 11:30 am I’m off again— Montara and the coast. The road curves tightly along great shoreline cliffs and the ocean below slaps into the bay and pounds the sandy beach. Beneath the sea water are splotches of coral rocks scattered here and there. The water’s color is a dull blue green and the sky an all encompassing grey. I feel more alive now than I have since the first weeks of Hawaii. All the chaos and nonsense of the past 48 hours means nothing now. I wish Rich were here to see the views. We pass by Montara Point Lighthouse youth hostel (one of the places I had called but was closed) and the bus stops. A young girl gets on the bus. Innocent face and warm blue eyes. I figure she’s probably staying at the hostel. I stare at her, secretly of course, the entire time, enthralled by her beauty until she gets off at a restaurant a few miles up the road.

A new idea pops into mind. At the last stop, I’ll find a store to cash my $200.00 money order (my last check from the scaffolding yard) because I only have nine dollars cash in my pocket. Then I’ll take the bus back to the Montara Point Lighthouse youth hostel and get a room there. The time is 12:30 afternoon and hostel doesn’t open until 4:30. There is a beach behind it and who knows maybe I’ll even meet that blue-eyed beauty. Great idea and this puts me in a great mood. Plenty of time to cash my money order.

The bus rolls along through Miramar; and next we stop at Half Moon Bay Village. I get off to find a place to cash the money order. It’s a quiet little country town. Mexicans lounge around the sidewalks on benches. A mail truck cruises by. Lots of old folks out shopping along storefronts. I enter a bank. They can’t cash it. Then another bank— six banks total can’t cash my money order. I need an account the tellers say. I try to reason without getting angry that I have a perfectly good money order here, no money in my pocket and that I need the money order cashed now because I’m traveling. However, in the bank’s eyes I simply have a useless piece of paper. And time is ticking.

I go outside. I’m hot, mad and tired from all this walking in vain. I stop into a hardware store and two supermarkets. Same shit. A man overhears me talking to clerk. He tells me there is a place in San Mateo, a check cashing store along El Camino Real. He says it’s probably 15 minutes away. I have no choice at this point. I suppose another 15 minutes won’t kill me. I cross the street and hop on the 90H bus that heads east.

The road is long, lonely, bending and sloping through thick valleys.

A half hour later, we arrive in San Mateo. We pass the College of San Mateo—there are literally dozens of small side-streets and bus stops all over the place, a very busy area. My bus stops in front of Hillsdale Shopping Center. I target more banks in the area. No go. No tellers have heard of any check cashing stores in the area. Nearly fed up with it all, I come across one more bank. Again, no can do. However the woman says there’s a place on 3^rd Street that will cash it. It’s 3:00 and Montara seems to be vanishing behind me. I hop on a bus from 31^st Street to 3^rd Street. And walk and search for signs. It seems there is nothing except banks, stores and markets. My patience is once again being tested. I walk into a random bank and ask a teller about check cashing store (I don’t even bother trying to cash my check there) and she said there’s a place on 2^nd Street. I walk all the way back to El Camino Real, bang a right and another right on 2^nd Street. And what do you know? I see a neon sign, an omen, my haven— Check Cashing. Yes!

Inside, I hand over the money order. The clerk looks it over. I’m so happy I’m going to bust out with a song and dance. He tells me all that he has to do is to call the State Street Bank in Boston to verify it. “No problem,” I practically sing.

It’s 4:00 o’clock now and I just might make it back to Montara after all. Then it occurs to me that if it’s 4 here then it’s 7 o’clock there and that means the banks are closed. When he returns, he brings me the news. I want to scream. I want to kill everyone.

There’s nothing he can do of course except make a few phone calls. Fortunately he finds a man who can help. Off of 37^th Street there is a place called Stop-in-Liquors. I thank the clerk and hop on the bus again. As I sit there thinking about this absurdly comical situation, it brings a smile to my lips.

At Stop-in-Liquors, the man, probably the owner he gives me the third degree. Who am I? How did I get here? Where did I find out about this place? I answer his questions stoically. I say if he really want to verify who I am that he can call my parents back home. He does. First he talks to my dad, then mom. He hangs up. He’s going to cash my fucking check! Of course he is going to charge me twelve bucks— and totally take advantage of my situation but fuck it— I don’t care. I’m a hundred and eighty eight dollars richer than I was.

I wander into Hillsdale Mall and grab a couple of cheeseburgers from McDonalds and try and figure out my next move. Fuck Montara now, too late. I better just continue heading south. After I eat, I call Jamie, who’s staying in Long Beach and I tell him that I might be in LA tomorrow and if so, let’s hook up.

On the samtrams again through Redwood City and Atherton. I get off at the Stanford Shopping Center and take another into San Jose. Having abandoned maps for the past few hours I realize we’re going southeast— the other direction from Big Sur and Route 1; I ask the driver which bus I should take to Santa Cruz (the direction I want to go) and tells me there’s a stop about thirty blocks behind me. Fuck. So I hop off the bus to head back the way I came.

I feel tired and sick. My throat hurts and I’m cold and shivering. I stop into a 7/11 and buy some aspirin. 

“Where’s the water?” I ask.

“Take a Coke.”

“Yeah?”

“Go ahead.”

I probably look like a sick weary traveler and he feels bad for me.

Lots of homeless in San Jose strolling the streets in groups. I walk the street like a ghost, uncertain of anything anymore. Across the street, sitting on an electrical box, a homeless black man sits upon it and plays the drums on the streetlight pole with drum sticks and sings inaudibly. I sit down at the bus stop beside a cool black man who tells me he’s spending the night in the San Jose armory. He says it’s a gymnasium with beds, showers and food. A shelter no doubt. I debate it in my head. On the one hand I could really use a good night sleep and a shower to refuel myself for the impending morning— sounds good, too good; on the other hand I imagine some derelict stealing my bag. Besides, sick or not I still want to push forward. The man in the liquor store had said I still had about 400 miles to go. I thanked the cool black man.

Another bus. I excuse myself to the driver. “Which bus should I take to Santa Cruz?”

“Oh man! You’re better off taking the Greyhound. I don’t think buses are going to Santa Cruz now,” he said.

It’s 8:30 and I feel more sick by the minute. And defeated. The driver drops me off at the Greyhound station and I finally decide to get a ticket. At least I’ll be warm and maybe catch a nap while I wait. At the ticket window I buy a one-way ticket to LA for 43 dollars and 20 cents; while only a few months ago, I had paid 68 dollars for a one-way ticket from Boston to LA. Interesting is all. I wait for the bus. I’m so tired I can’t shut my eyes. I’m wide awake. I’m dejected. I go to a phone booth and call Sally Reilly who lives in San Fernando Valley. She invites me to come by her place when I reach LA. I agree. Finally my bus arrives at 9:15 and I’m off.

Cold California night unravels before me in darkness and shadows. Heavy mountains outlined against the night— as we pass through San Luis, Santa Maria and Santa Barbara. It’s an eight hour ride and I manage to sleep four maybe five hours intermittently. At 5:30 am we arrive in downtown LA— the same old familiar Greyhound station where it all began back in February.

I remember the route like it was yesterday. Hollywood and Vine Street. I’m there in no time— a lot less stressful than my first adventure.With fatigue weighing me down, I drag myself to the Mark Twain Hotel where I know I will be able to get some real sleep in Howie’s room. It was Tuesday 6:45 am when I walked through the front doors. I catch my reflection on the glass doors and my eyes are heavy, lidded. Vinny and Diane are there, he’s getting ready to leave— his shift has just ended. Behind them, the owner Andy quietly looks on.

“Vinny!”

“What happened to Hawaii?”

“I missed the big city.”

Immediately, Diane is all over me about buying smokes from her. I ask Andy to page Howie’s room and I pick up the wall phone in the lobby and wait for him to answer. Roberta pops out from his room and wanders to the door saying, “looks like liquid sunshine.”

Finally he picks up the phone. “Hello?”

“This is the LAPD. Is this Howie Geller?”

“Morgan. Is this Morgan?”

“No sir, LAPD. We have a warrant for you arrest.”

“David. It’s quarter of seven.”

“Howie it’s me, Jim.”

“Jim? Are you in Hawaii?”

“No. I’m in the lobby.”

He is as happy to me as I’m happy to see him. He’s got a haircut and has shaved his beard. I ask him if I can crash in his room for a few hours. Sure. I still have to pay Andy a ten dollar guest fee though. Ten bucks will guarantee me the room at least until 3 this afternoon.

We take a short walk to Tony’s Breakfast. Though not hungry he wants to talk.  He tells me how fed up he is with the Twain. He’s got roaches. “The hobos are keeping me up all night— they urinate on my window and the punks next door keep me up with their loud music; one night Vinny called my room 12:06 at night to tell me I had mail— it was your post card and he knows I go to bed at 9. I think Diane made him dot it. She’s so obnoxious….”

He rambles on about the things that matter to him, mostly rent and his dad. He asks if I want to move into the Chesterfield with him on Hudson Avenue. He says for me to ‘just try it’ for a week and see if I like it. Or we can move into the Las Palmas where rent is only 70 bucks a week per person for double occupancy. He’ll even loan me the 70 bucks. Sounds good. However I don’t care— I’ll be gone sooner than later and I tell him that, no strings attached. He agrees. All I really want to do is just sleep.

At the Twain, he checks out immediately. It’s 7:45 am I suddenly find myself moving his bags across the parking lot toward a bright pink building, The Chesterfield, two blocks away. Then we find out that a room won’t be ready until 11:30. We sit out front. I’m wondering why I can’t even buy a little sleep. The manager, a fat albino dressed in army jacket and boots comes outside and tells us to move across the street, bags and all, because he doesn’t want the owner to see us on the security camera. What a prick. I’m sure the owner doesn’t mind Howie’s money though. We move across the street looking very much like bums bathing in the Hollywood sun.

I lay down in the grass, head propped up on my bag. I fall asleep. Shortly, a policeman kicks me lightly. “Get up.” Beside me a homeless man is stretched out and sleeping comfortably until the policeman kicks him awake too. I’m too disoriented to explain my situation and I don’t really care all that much anymore so I sit up. The nap seemed to buoy my spirits.

At 11:30 the manager waves us in. The room is ugly and worn down. Flies converge in the closet and bathroom. There are two beds, a refrigerator and color television. Howie hates the room. “We’ll just see. Someone will move out and we’ll get an upgrade.” He even tries to get his money back. No refunds he says. The slob manager has a real attitude problem. His cartoonish bloated colored pants really go well with army jacket and boots. Dick. I suppose with all the trash that passes through you need a certain attitude however not every apple is rotten. Whatever. You can’t even get into the hotel without passing through a thick iron gate. It’s like a prison. No visitors allowed either.

Once all his stuff is safely in the room, I throw on some shorts lay down and fall asleep.

At 6 pm I’m awake again. At 7 me and Howie stroll to corner of Hollywood and Cuenga for some pizza, a delicious pie, dripping with cheese and sauce. Howie rambles on about east coast pizza, Bostonians and his kooky money making schemes. Outside the crew from the television show, In Living Color are shooting a skit. Comedians David Allen Grier and Tommy Davidson are the actors. I love this show, sort of reminds me of old Saturday Night Live. Anyway, David and Tommy are dressed like tacky outrageous suit glittering pimps and the shot calls for them to walk down the street and walk into a check cashing place (oh the irony— ha!). They go inside. Next shot they come hurtling out of the store with angry proprietor chasing them with a shotgun. They film the scenes three times and every time I laugh. There were cops there helping the film crews keep people from cutting into the scene. Howie is scared of the police and he was becoming annoying with his whiny we-have-to-get-out-of-here routine. At one point I yell at him, scold him like a parent would a child and tell him that if he wants to go then he should go but I’m staying. He left and never said anything.

On my way back to Chesterfield, amazingly I bump into Lenny (a kid from Maine who I met on the Greyhound trip out here, Vegas specifically). He had a couple of buddies with him. They look like rock heroes in ripped jeans and long hair and stuff. Lenny has a band. And for some odd reason his friends call him Adam. We exchange our stories. He invites me to his place on Yucca Street.

He lives in a beat up housing tenement in a small dirty apartment. On our way we pass angry looking Mexicans and black men who are drinking booze— homeless are scattered throughout the neighborhood smoking butts and bumming change. It’s kind of like some filthy hostel at the end of the earth. Inside the building, the corridor rugs are worn down and stained and some of the lights don’t work. His room is on an upper floor, I forget which but he shares it with six other people.

We walk into his pad where two long haired greasy looking guys are sitting on an old ripped couch drinking bottles of GQs. The smell of pot hangs over the place like a cloud. On a smaller sofa or love seat whatever is a thin kid passed out. From a back room, a little girl, maybe 6 or 7 years old runs out to greet Lenny. Everyone seems to talk at once— about weed, money and rock bands. A guy asks Lenny for beer money; another gives Lenny a bag and he rolls a joint, sparks it up and passes it around, to which I decline. The little girl runs around playing. I wonder what the hell a little child is doing in an environment like this. Where’s the mother or father? The guy gets up to make his beer run. The little girl asks if he can bring her back a Coke but he doesn’t have enough money for beer and a Coke so I donate my last handful of change. He takes the money and leaves.

Lenny points to the thin kid on the love seat. “Yeah, Jim. Here’s another dude from the east coast. This here is Steve.”

Lenny wakes him up. Introductions. Seems like a good kid. Steve has no place to stay. His priority tonight is to bum a jacket so he can sleep outside. He’s from Philadelphia and has just thumbed to LA. He spent some time in Cambridge, back home and in New Mexico and LA a while ago. Apparently he’s not settled down. He warns me that if I thumb on 44 that I better watch out for angry reservation Indians. They won’t think twice about beating me up and stealing my clothes.

Lenny invites me to a gig he has Friday night and afterwards, a keg party. Sounds good to me.

At the Chesterfield, I called Sally. She lives alone and welcomes me with open arms to stay with her however long I want. Directions: building 1542 on the right— apartment #G upstairs. I tell her I’ll see her tomorrow. Next I call Rich. He’s arriving at LAX on Thursday morning at 6 am. An ex-girlfriend of his, from his army days who lives in LA arranged a ride for him back to her apartment. I watched the 10 o’clock News: robberies, violence and sports— and a high speed car chase from the view of a sky cam where speeding cop cars are chasing down some drunk or drugged out fool roaring down the freeway and then side streets. Finally it shows a cop car slamming into the guy’s car. Game over. I lay down, starting to feel sick again and I drift off to sleep.

Next morning, except for a slight sore throat, I feel recharged and ready to face the unknown. I walk to the Fame of Hollywood Café to write and drink coffee for a couple of hours. Then I stroll up and down Hollywood Boulevard in the chilly early afternoon. Cluttered homeless along storefronts. I recognize some faces from my first visit. Even the crazy guy who thought I had stolen his bag. Tourists take pictures of friends and family standing in front of a painted brick wall, on Wilcox and Hudson, of the all time Hollywood stars. On the street is a chaotic mix of fashion statements— perhaps too the punk capitol of the US, well if not it sure seems it. It feels like you can be whomever you want too, like Hollywood is just a big playground or a Halloween party and there are a lot of look-a-likes walking around, and its quite natural to see James Dean or Marilyn Monroe walking through a crowded store. You can buy any accessory— Elvis Presley’s jacket, Michael Jackson’s gloves or Jim Morrison’s leather pants, all for you, instant stardom of mind. On the boulevard you can lose yourself amidst the throng of young hopeful and struggling actors, musicians, and writers. Be whomever you want. The coat of illusion fits well and better inside out— the unreality of Hollywood Boulevard. Beneath the illusion, beneath the scum and filth something else exists that fascinates me. Some sort of life and death concept I haven’t quite grasped, something intangible. Something evil lurks in dark alleys, ready to plunge unexpectedly, the grim reaper… who knows?

At the hotel, more writing. That night I tell Howie that I was leaving for a couple of hours. I had no intention of returning. Poor Howie. What the hell is such a lost sensitive man doing living in Hollywood? I fear he might get eaten alive some day. I pack up my bag and tell him I’m going to the laundromat. I give him ten dollars, the cost of the room for one night. I hop on the 426 bus from Highland to DeSoto. As I gaze out the window, the Hollywood freeway heading north is packed. Palm trees frame the road. I sit and ponder and dream my California adventure.

After an hour ride I reach my destination and hop off the bus. I stand alone in the shadows of setting sun. I’m on the corner of Sherman Way and DeSoto Avenue. Sally lives on Independence Avenue, the next street up, beginning at number 7000; hers is 8735. Well, it looks like I have a long walk ahead of me and I throw my bag over my shoulder and I’m off. The neighborhood is clean and quiet— children ride bicycles; others play tag in the yard. I’m beginning to tire now and my bag is cutting off the circulation in my arm, something I’m used to now. I’m only at the 7500 block and my bag is really getting heavy. The street is perfectly straight. Eventually I’ll get there, drink some beers with Sal’ and relax. Night is falling fast. I’ve been walking for a good half hour. I’m beginning to regret this visit, 7692, 7693 and maybe by some miracle 8735 will leap out at me but instead, Independence Avenue ends at 7700. What the hell. In front of me the road veers to the left or right but what I really want to do is just walk straight into the house in front of me and make a phone call. There are no pay phones. It’s getting late. What the fuck am I supposed to do now? No phone, directions or sunlight. I turn left and push forward. I come across a lady getting into her car who tells me to keep walking straight, north and that Independence picks up again. I’m hopeful now.

I follow it straight for four blocks but then the road dead ends in front of me. I curse the woman, myself and life. I turn back and retrace my steps. I come across a man this time getting into his car and he tells me to keep going south for two blocks and eventually the road will split and I will want to stay to the left where Independence picks up again. The carousel continues. Well, I stay to the left at the split and never come across it and I just stare into the big black dark ahead of me.

 

I move on again until I come across an old couple walking their dogs. They tell me to go north and circle back on DeSoto. Damn. Damn. Damn. I’ve been walking for an hour now, having gone nowhere but lost. Still I follow their directions. Eventually I make it back to De Soto, aglow in lights now— gas stations, fast foods and convenient stores. I drag my tired ass down the Avenue, very lost.

Outside Jack-in-the-Box I stop at the payphone and call Sally. It rings and rings and the answering machine picks up. She’s not home, great. I’ll sleep on her front porch if I have to. I go inside and grab a sandwich and rest for about 20 minutes. I try Sally again and still no answer. A bone thin homeless girl approaches me to bum money.

“Sorry I don’t.”

“Can you spare a smoke?”

“All right.”

“How about two?”

“All right.”

“Got a buck?”

“No.”

She storms away, insulted almost, with an angry face. I briefly fantasize what a dollar is really worth to her. Back to reality, I’m fed up with this shit. I decide to call a cab which turns out to be the best decision I made all day, and the cruelest. Ha Ha joke on me for this lost valley night. Turns out her place is a three minute drive and the fare was only $3.10 which considering the fare began at $1.90, I felt like an idiot.

Independence Avenue 8735 is a huge apartment complex. I can’t remember her number so I stroll around looking for a directory or mail box listing. At this point, the complex is so overwhelmingly big, it may as well be some intricate maze and I am Theseus, tracking the Minotaur. I thread along walkways and pass door after door. So tired now. Hell, as far as I’m concerned I might pass out on the walkway. And then I’m back out front where I began my journey. I probably look suspicious.  I spot a woman getting out of her car who kind of looks like Sally and I approach her but on closer inspection, it’s not her.

“Do you know where I can find a Sally Reilly?”

“No.”

From a nearby balcony a woman wearing curlers has taken an interest in watching me. But I circle the complex again and still no luck. When I reach the front again, the balcony woman is still there and she shouts down to me. “Can I help you with something?”

“Yeah. I’m trying to find a friend of mine who lives here, Sally Reilly.”

“I’m sorry but I don’t know a Sally Reilly. She doesn’t live here,” she said.

“How the hell would you know?”

“This is my building.”

“She lives here. This is the address she gave me— 8735 Independence. I have her zip code, work phone number and home phone.”

“I do have a Sally here. I know a Sally but not your Sally.”

“Well I just got into town and she knows I’m coming. I know she lives here.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Jim Utley. I’m from Boston. My good friend Dan Reilly is her brother and she just moved out here a couple of months ago. I’ll give you her phone number to call if you want. There’s no phones around here for me to call.”

She writes down her number and disappears into her apartment. I pray she’s home this time. After a minute or two the balcony lady reappears and says Sally will meet me over by the garage entrance. Hot dog! In the distance I see her running down the stairs toward me. I call out, “Sallaaay.”

“Hey Jim! You made it.”

Together, arm in arm we bounce up the stairs to apartment 12.

Her apartment is pretty big— a loft upstairs that she uses as an office— a room she hopes Dano will one day stay in. A rocking stereo and white as fresh snow wall to wall carpetting that feels unbelievably soft on my feet. We gobble down beer after beer. We agree that Dano’s girlfriend is a psycho and hope that he somehow breaks up with her to join in our madness. When we get drunk we sing along to Tangled up in Blue and we sing more Dylan and soon I’m barely able to stay awake because of fatigue. Fog rolls over the San Fernando night.

Having a few drinks with Sally and listening to Blood on the Tracks.

 

Next morning, after shaking off a dreadful hangover, I sat at the kitchen table and wrote for five hours. Sally had made it to work. Today was the day that Rich was arriving to LA. He was to stay at his ex girlfriend’s house, as I said, Christy whom he dated in  the army— maybe some 10 or 11 months ago, when he was stationed at Fort Belvoir, Virginia to be exact, before his time was up and he was released. She lives in Corona. Anyway I call him up to get directions there and tell him that me and Sally will be there around seven. Then I call Jamie who’s staying with Jamie Hoey in Long Beach. I give him Christy’s phone number so he can call Rich to make arrangements for him to get there.

That night before we left for Corona, we stopped off at El Toritos for happy hour where Sally treated me to frozen margueritas and all the nachos we can feast— for two bucks.

As we drive on 101 South a light rain falls. We hop on to 5 South to 91 East to exit Maple- 6^th Street. It was an hour an a half drive along dark rainy freeways but once in Corona, we easily follow the directions to Christy’s apartment.

Inside Rich is obviously hammered— loud but obnoxiously happy. His socks are hanging half way off his feet. Jamie is already there too and he has drink in hand; while Jamie Hoey, on medication of some kind, stands back, aloof and maybe bored. It feels like a reunion, as if we had never left Randolph and were home just hanging out. Christy’s not even around; Sally is the only girl. Good to see Jamie again and his bizarre sense of humor. 

Rich, me and Jamie: Together again but on the other coast.

We all get hammered and loud and funnier and more obnoxious. The music is loud too.   At this point, Jamie Hoey has left. It is just us four. Jamie and Rich whip out their cocks as Sally tries to take pictures of them in the act. Me and Rich and Jamie pretend to butt fuck each other like flaming homos, laughing, rolling over holding my sides in— sing alongs, toasts and more drinks. And then, I forgot who told me but I discover that Christy is shut in her bedroom with her boyfriend— much to Rich’s displeasure as maybe he wasn’t expecting there to be a guy involved.

Much later, everyone except me is passed out. Jamie on the floor beside Rich and Sally who lay very close to each other. I drunkenly pull out a couch pillow from Rich and he wakes up— we scream at each other and nearly throw fists and I’m so drunk I didn’t even see the three unused pillows in the corner. I’m still mad. I can’t sleep and nearly walk off in a rage in the heavy rains now. As I was contemplating that, Christy’s roommate, Dale and his friend Greg come home and I greet them with a big old, “Allright! Life!” We partied on through the night. Dale whipped out his acoustic guitar and played some cool original material. More vodka and Coke. After the jam session ended, I zonked out.

Come morning, we all wake together it seems. Me and Rich were still very drunk and laughed off the pillow incident; while Jamie needed a ride to Jamie Hoey’s place. He had a job interview later that day. Christy, who we woke with our noise more than once seemed forgiving of our late night madness— or was she just putting on an act? She was the type of person who didn’t give you a straight answer and they were short, curt. Me and Rich decide the best way to cure our hangover is with more alcohol.

“Christy, how much vodka is left?”

“Enough,” she snapped.

We decide maybe beer is in order. The four of us hop into Sally’s car and we stop at the store for a 12 pack. By the time we drop Jamie off, me and Rich are real drunk. We tell him we’ll meet him later. I feel bad. It’s my fault he’s in California. He was coming to live with us in Hawaii and we bailed. Today will be the last time I see him in a year.

We pass through Hollywood cruising on the freeway. I can see that Rich is pumped and filled with dreams and visions of Hollywood— palm trees line the road in perfect harmony and Hollywood Hills in the distance. Hoping for that perfect moment, we hope that LA Woman comes on the radio.

That night, me Rich and Sally took the bus into Hollywood. I wanted to show them around as neither of them had been before. We walked along Sunset Boulevard, me and Sally drinking rum and Cokes. Rich had quit drinking long before— he wanted to take in Hollywood with a sober eye. I brought them by the Whisky and the Central. Drunkenly I took them to the Twain and had Vinny page Roberta and introduced Rich to him. During our wandering we found a yard off Sunset and sat there on a huge fallen tree that had the most beautiful panoramic view of LA night lit up with millions of lights like colored minerals. We all talked— emotions, feelings and sex.

At Sally’s we planned on crashing when we got home however almost as quick as we entered the apartment, Sally asked Rich to cuddle with her in the bedroom. Oh no, I thought. Not good. I thought of Dano’s reaction. But there was nothing I could do so I just crashed.

In the morning Sally let us borrow her car to drive to Christy’s. We promised to be back by noon so after a quick cup of coffee, we left for Corona again, at 7:30. On the drive I felt like hell after this two day marathon. We drove through Orange County and the canyon territories outside LA. Big round sun above, the canyons so grand and magical— Weir and Coal Canyons all smooth and green and rising all around us. In this moment I’m in awe. I’m at peace with the world— nature and myself.

 

And now for some good old fashioned melodrama. A week before we left for California, Rich called Christy to tell her he’d be in the area and that we’d stop by and say hello. Well surprise surprise, oh glorious irony and life— she tells Rich that she has a year and half old daughter, Stephanie Rae and that Rich is the father. He is pretty shocked and happy but mostly shocked, proud. Christy told him that no one knows he is the father— she has this game going on where she told her ex husband that it is his daughter so she can collect child support and whatever fiscal gains. Later during the week he begins to doubt she is her child and he tries to piece things together and recall the dates, names and places of the last months at Belvoir. Well before I left for San Fran, Rich was fired up to see what the baby looked like and get some answers. I think of the poor child— a product of masks and secrets.

We meet little Stephanie Rae, an adorable little girl but one that doesn’t look like Rich at all— she even has red hair. Christy explains to Rich that he need not worry about anything financially or emotionally for her or the baby. Now this is all her word only and no proof so there really isn’t anything else to say.

Rich didn’t want to go back to Sally's. Though nothing happened between them he said, he felt awkward and just wanted to stay away. Of course he told me this after she had lent us her car and after we made promises that we’d stay over her house again and party all night and maybe even drive to San Diego to meet her other brother, Sean. So we had no idea how to approach this. While Rich returned Sally’s car, three hours late and with the story that Christy was going to drive us to San Diego. She was pissed. I was supposed to call Sally to foreshadow the new plan and apologize that we would not be back but I fell asleep on Christy’s recliner. So of course, Rich arrives to a bitter angry Sally and she pretty much told him to screw and left him to fend for himself. I felt bad I never got a chance to say goodbye or thank you— everything just seemed to go real fast.

So Rich is stranded in the valley with both of our bags. He has no idea where to go so he just stood on the side of the road, thumb out, getting spit on or cursed at by local Mexicans. It’s a good hour and a half drive back to Christy's. As I waited for Christy to get home so I could hopefully borrow her car to pick him up, Rich befriended a homeless man and they shared a table at the coffee shop and they had a great conversation.

So I’m waiting and waiting for her. And it wasn’t until 4 hours after Rich’s initial call that she returned. I explained the situation to her and though I got a strong sense that she really didn’t want to loan me her car to get him, she finally relented but warned me that I better be home in two hours. She had plans for the night. I promised her I was just picking him up and coming back. So I bang out of there pronto, and I’m cruising down 91W and then to Route 5 when all of a sudden traffic came to a standstill, a bumper to bumper nightmare. Two hours later, I found Rich at D’Arby’s on the corner of DeSoto and Sherman Way. Of course, Christy was pissed. I think after all the drunken whoops and obnoxious behavior and now the car incident I was getting the feeling we weren’t really welcome anymore. Christy went out of her way to ignore us the rest of the night. Me and Rich agreed that we’d leave first thing in the morning. That night we lounged around and watched TV. Dale came by with a bootleg Neil Young tape that we listened to and soon we quietly went to bed.

Come morning, after some coffee, we packed our bags and we were prepared to thumb to San Diego. We felt ready and excited for the impending journey and a little wary of the 1992 road, not quite the old pre superhighway roads of Kerouac's America. As we left, Dale said if we were still stuck on the 91E on-ramp in an hour that he would borrow his mother’s car and give us a lift. We thanked him and said goodbye. Christy was not home. She had spent the night over her boyfriend’s house. Rich regretted not saying goodbye to her.

Outside the sun was warm and we walked a long time before we came to the freeway. Just as we pulled up to it, Rich discovered that he lost a hundred dollar bill along the way. It could have fallen out anywhere but there was no turning back now. So we thumbed. We waited. We took turns thumbing and smoking. We joked about the no-luck syndrome. I tore a piece of paper from my journal and wrote up a sign that read 15 SOUTH. Cars came and went, trucks came and went and after 45 minutes we scored our first ride.

A familiar routine.

A beat up flat bed. The door stuck when I went to open it. The man driving was a former Harley Hog. He was thin and bearded and covered in oil as if he were just getting out of work from the machine shop. After we outlined our vague plan he turned and asked, “do you know the Lord?”

“Who?”

“Jesus Christ.”

Instinctively, I slipped my hand into my pocket where I kept a small can of mace. Religion is a tricky thing. On the one hand, in moderation it is good; on the other, it can be carried too far, abused and become like a disease. I didn’t know what end of the spectrum he was on. So I was cautious but as he carried on with his life story I began to ease up a bit. His conversation focused on God and his own rebirth. It turned out he was just another lost soul who had found comfort in religion. And Jesus Christ as his savior. He lived in a Christian hostel in Perris. Before dropping us off at his exit, Exit 74, he gave us a pocket testament. We thanked him and wandered back out to Route 15. We agreed to keep the book as a token of good luck.

Our second ride was short but great in a sleek red pick up truck. Rich hopped in the front with the driver and I hopped in the back with our bags. The wind snaps my hair into my face. We race by spacious lands that fill my soul with awe— Bundy and Railroad Canyons— Quali Valley and California Oaks— bolting down the fast lane and realizing a true adventure and my spirit soars.

He drops us off at Temeku and again we’re walking along the freeway, thirsty but psyched. Cars blaze by in a whir. Behind us, I spot the backside of a restaurant partially blocked by trees, bushes and a chain-link fence. I decide to go get us some much needed water and I head out, through the bushes and then through a hole in the fence. The kitchen door is open and a worker fills me up a wax cup of ice water. On returning through the snarly path I hear Rich yelling. “Jimmy! Come on! Ride!” Hot damn this is easy. By the time I return to the road, most of the water had spilled out.

The driver is a young Filipino man who’s driving right into San Diego to visit his parents. Rich is up front talking to the driver; I’m in the back, listening to the radio, the driver’s accent, the wind outside the window— I don’t really care as I just dream over the rolling landscape where the road steeply descends into big rocky canyons that beat upwards into the sky, deep greens of Rainbow Valley sprinkled with a thousand rocks; huge Palomar Mountain— passing over old but slick highway 395 bridge into Gopher Canyon, Highway Valley, Carmel Mountain and as we pull through Carrol Canyon, our next stop is San Diego. We pick up route 163 and cruise right into downtown San Diego.

Rich knows a girl who lives here as well. Her name is Chrissy— another girl he met in the army. We sit on a bench and rest by the gas station. We haven’t really discussed our next move. Rich suddenly realizes he left his address/phone book in the Filipino’s car. He remembers her street and address but not her phone number. He walks to the phone booth and tries a couple of number combinations that could be the right number. Nothing. We pinpoint her address using the bus route map. It looks like we can catch the local bus into her neighborhood.

We hop aboard the bus on Pacific Highway and it brings us into the communities of Ocean Park. During the ride we chat with a local woman. She tells us there’s a cool blues bar nearby called Winstons. Good music, no cover and cheap beer. It’s on Newport Street she says, the happening street.

We hop off the bus at Saratoga Street. We follow a long uphill road lined with symmetrical palm trees. Rich is certain that we’re on Chrissy’s street. At the top, Rich spots a small red house and he pauses a moment and then strolls up the walkway to the front door. He knocks. An elderly woman greets him. There is a brief exchange. I wait on the sidewalk. When he returns he says that the woman is her grandmother and that she doesn’t live there anymore. She didn’t know where she was now.

We need to find a place to sleep for the night— a hostel or dive motel.As we stand there, thinking, a cool breeze blows up from the ocean below and the far reaching coastline. We decide to try our luck on Newbury Street.

Night is upon us as we hike with heavy bags. We agree that if we find Winstons that we will stop in for a beer. So when we stumble upon Newport Street, alive with people— locals, kids on spring break we are hopeful. We pass hotels with managers kicking back on porch chairs but they all have no vacancy signs displayed. I ask a woman if she knows of any hostels nearby. Two miles she says. Two miles might as well be ten with these damn bags. Then we accidentally come across Winstons.

“Fuck it. Let’s go have a beer and talk things out,” said Rich.

Inside there is a coatroom where we can store our bags. We are free to move around without constraint. The bar is packed— yuppies, surfers, hot girls and studs— a stage and a band playing music— in back, through the congestion and smoke, two or three pool tables. We find a seat, order a beer and relax. Trying to be frugal with the little cash we have we try and milk this most excellent beer. Very festive atmosphere. I finish my beer.

“Want to get one more? Just one?” I ask.

“I guess one more won’t kill us,” said Rich.

The bar is rocking. The music is loud. The women are everywhere. I finish my beer.

“Want to get one more?”

“I don’t know… well I suppose if we don’t buy any food tonight… sure we can,” he said.

The comfortable dimness, classic rock and beer are hitting the spot. Because I haven’t eaten, the beer is making me buzzed quickly.

“I’m still thirsty,” I said, smiling.

“Ok suppose we don’t eat breakfast tomorrow?”

“Then we can get a pitcher today.”

“All right!” said Rich, laughing.

We laugh at our ability to blow money. We must have sacrificed three days of food; in short time we were so drunk we didn’t care to remember.

We played pool, teammates and hammered— what a pair. He’s the pool quarterback and I’m just out there to try and protect him. We order pitcher after pitcher. We are winning our games and holding the table until finally we split up in the mad maelstrom of music and women.

I meet a girl, Amy from Montana. She’s there visiting her sister for a couple of weeks. We talk and dance and kiss and touch each other and I can’t remember the last time I made out with a girl. Me and Amy decide to barhop along Newport Street. I bumped into Rich and he’s just trashed, as well as myself and because I have no control, I give him my wallet so I won’t foolishly blow anymore money. I take a ten spot, enough for a few more beers and me and Amy head out, bar after bar. We are unable to keep from hugging and touching each other. At last call we end up back at Winstons. It has thinned out big time and Rich is nowhere to be found. Amy has to leave for the night. She asks if I will be here for another night. When am I leaving? I tell her it could be tomorrow or maybe next week but I’m drunk. She tells me to meet her here tomorrow night. She gives me her address in Montana. We kiss goodbye. I know I’ll never see her again. I would love to stay but we are leaving tomorrow, for sure. She hops into a cab and waves goodbye. I turn and inside the coatroom, I grab my bag. Rich’s bag is gone.

I stumble into the lost night and wander. I come to a beach. I walk through the thick sand but it’s windy and cold. I stop at a picnic table, crawl beneath it and lay down to sleep. But it’s so cold, the wind just racing beneath me that I get up and head back on to the street where its less windy but I’m hammered blind and lost; nothing looks familiar and everything is a blur. I cut through some backyards. I find my way to a dumpster where I can lay down behind it, blocked from the cold wind. I dig in and make myself warm. I open up my sleeping bag and easily fall quickly to sleep.

 

In the morning I woke up to the banging and grinding of a garbage truck making its rounds. I peek out from my sleeping bag and see this huge truck, three houses away coming right toward me. I hop up real quick and I’m aware of stench and garbage all around me and I leave, bag over my shoulder wrapped in a big ball, sagging over my arm. Ragged hair and dead expression. Vagrant now. It’s official. I’m homeless. I have no money, no license— nothing. Rich has my wallet, wherever he is.

I walk along the main street, hoping to find Winston’s on this gray morning. It is a long walk let me tell you. Every approaching figure behind or in front could be Rich and I have to be alert. Finally in the distance, I notice a figure in a familiar faded brown leather jacket standing behind some passer-bys. When I reach him, he’s got a huge smile, his eyes hidden by sun glasses. Thank Christ.

“Man, you look like a truck ran you over,” he said.

“It almost did.”

Last night Rich had met a girl and he tried to pick her up— to no avail. After she left him, he drifted down to the beach (I probably walked right by him) and found a comfortable spot and passed out. He woke up with sneakers filled with sand.

We ate breakfast, well I did, Rich had been here earlier. Eggs, hash browns and toast. The waitress who overheard us talking about the road, informed us that Tijuana, Mexico was only twenty minutes from here. A light clicks in both our heads and we decide— that’s it, our next destination. We might not ever get this opportunity again so after breakfast we hopped aboard the San Diego Transit, leaving the city behind us with visions of Mexican huts and lovely brown senoritas.

Well… it wasn’t exactly 20 minutes for us. Once we reached down town again, we had to catch a ride to San Ysidio, where a trolley took us to the International Border. The border was packed with mean-eyed Mexican men staring at us and frantic security officers running around with two-way radios. San Ysidio just seems to have this seedy feel to it. It looks like a small community made up of Mexicans and Americans. Rich says it seems like the place to be if you were Mexican and left the country. From there, we hop on a Mexicoach bus that drives us right into sunny Mexico, no security check, nothing. The green mountains all around us seem old— ancient; while huts and villas dot the mountain side. I felt a tug of old religion, something, maybe wisdom. Some divine idea passed through me but what it was, was unclear.

Av. Revolucion, so far, is the street of all streets here. We walk along it searching for a room for the night among the street vendors, donkeys, and garbage— the smell of burritos and the lure of bars. Store owners beckon us and try to sell us stuff that we don’t want even though it’s all a bargain, I’m sure. It seems like every Mexican on the street has something to sell— “Amigo, you like?” or “Come in and look around.” Even the taxis are following us trying to get our business. We must have had “Stupid American” tattooed on our foreheads and they wrongly assumed we were there to spend a lot of good old American dollars. We passed more donkeys that stood on the street corner, very casual, ignoring the flies around their bodies. Scores of old ladies sat in rows on the sidewalk with items laid out on blankets— bracelets, necklaces, small candies and wrist bands. A five year old kid even came up to me trying to sell me boxes of gum. Crazy. We turn into 910 Revolucion.

Two senoritas work the front desk. The owner, I’m assuming because she is older and working the register has a weary face; the other, maybe a tenet or friend I don’t know had a nice youthful smile and a sexy womanly voice, not too deep and not too low. Neither of them know English. The tenet spoke to me in Spanish, well it had to be me because she was pointing at me and talking to the owner and then back to me. Then in English the tenet said, “eyes.” She ran her finger above my eye and smiled. “Eyes… color,” she said.

Rich knew a little Spanish— basic stuff he picked up from books in Hawaii and the military.

“They’re loving your eyes,” he said.

I smiled, embarrassed. Rich began to flirt with the tenet using his limited Spanish and she just ate it up. I wondered if she were a prostitute. But finally after all that we settled down in room 9 in the La Sena Hotel.

After a much needed shower we hit the streets. On every corner are tequila stores. Vendors sell cartons of Marlboros for ten bucks. It’s early and the bars are deserted despite the blaring songs coming from the speakers— Guns N Roses and the Doors were popular around town. Taco and jewelry stands. Leather clothes and hat stores. Cheapest in town! These dealers and vendors just stick to tourists like glue. I stop at a place to look at some ponchos. I hear a voice immediately. “You like, yes, Amigo?” We walk on. We come to a sort of open marketplace off Revolucion and the streets are made of cobblestone and wonderful. It reminds me a little of Fanuel Hall back in Boston. Hot scents of Mexican foods frying and baking.

We stop off to eat. Inside it’s blazing hot. The waitress doesn’t understand English but nearby, a friendly helpful Mexican man helps translate for us. He speaks fine English. He tells us he’s from Mexico, had moved to LA but has since returned home. He is a grandfather.

We order a plate of beef burritos with rice and beans— no beans for me. I fill my burrito with hot sauce and pile it on the thin shell I add more spices and sprinkle it with cheese.

Rich warns me not to drink the water as the water has a bacteria that will cause a case of Montezuma’s Revenge or in lay man terms, a case of the runs. So I bypass the water and order a bottle of Manzanita Sol, dark and thick like a crème soda. The waitress offers water and I smartly decline.

“Springwater? Do you have springwater? Botella?” Rich asks.

“Si.”

“I’ll have one, yes.”

Rich exchanges fifty American dollars into Mexican bills and pesos. One dollar is worth 3500 pesos and man that sounded like a lot of money. Ten dollars was worth thirty thousand pesos; altogether, Rich had a hundred and fifty thousand pesos. We would keep our eyes open for deals on smokes, two thousand pesos which would be about 55 cents a pack. 

Magic moment on a side street of Revolucion. Me and Rich are looking at odds and ends for sale on the sidewalk. Old women sit with their goodies all laid out on blankets with their children nearby. We stop at a younger girl maybe twenty years old and she sits alone with a blanket full of wrist bands. Rich only has 2000 pesos left and no American money on him. He wants to buy a wristband.

“I want this one, yeah… here, it’s all I got.”

She smiles; her brown eyes sparkle. She points at Rich’s pocket. Rich is smiling and he pulls out his empty pocket— she points to the other. We all smile as he pulls out the other pocket. She points at his jacket pocket.

“Man, this girl is tough,” he said.

After every pocket is proved empty, she warmly accepts his last coin with an unconvinced shake of her head. Of course I want a wrist band too. The older women look upon us easily, smiling. I show her a dollar bill and hold up three fingers. She smiles. She has the cutest round face, a small ring through her noise and small even teeth. She nods yes. I mull over the bands. There’s got to be at least a hundred of them. I decide on a black one for me and a blue one and finally a white one.

“For baby,” she said.

The white band is a much smaller band.

“Baby?” she asked.

“What?”

“You… you, baby.”

“Oh no, senorita,” I said.

I shake my head no and she smiles.

“I’m too young.”

She shakes her head in confusion. For one moment I wish I could speak Spanish. Well I got my three wrist bands and I give her the dollar. She smiles wide. I’m so happy that I reach out to shake her hand. She looks at me with doubtful eyes but holds out her hand anyway. I grab her loose hand and gently shake it. Though she has no idea why I’m doing this, her smiles remains genuine. I give her two thumbs up sign and we turn to leave. Three or four older nearby women are laughing at the scene and I love all these women today. They are beautiful.

Up and down Revolucion we went in great spirits. We stopped into a bar called Margueritta Village. We drank a few Desquis beers and took a break and we wrote, post cards to send to Randolph. At Rich’s request (we were the only customers there) they played an album side of The Doors. We went upstairs and sat on the outside patio and gazed at the huge mountains beneath the gray sky. Rich writes a post card to me, my mom’s address and on it he writes down what we are doing at the moment of the written word. Back on the street, he mailed it (I never did get it or my family just lost it before I got home).

We stroll down a side street looking for a market to buy smokes and we do, a place that sells Mexican cigarettes called Farros for 35 cents. The package looks like that of a pack of firecrackers. As we turn back toward Revolucion, a small man approaches us from behind and says to us, “you, Amigo, want to see dirty girls?” He’s got our interest.

“Nude dancing, right?”

He shakes his head smiling.

“Sure. Let’s check it out,” said Rich.

We follow him into a little hole in the wall dive. Inside it is dark but for some light from the neon beer signs scattered here and there. We sit at the bar and the man disappears in the back. It’s so small I don’t see how they could have strippers— there’s not even a stage. The bartender is a slight sneaky little old man with one arm. Rich orders two Coronas and the bartender squabbles about his tip; then bums a smoke from me. I turn away and look down into what feels like a growing sinisterism about this place and spot two girls ( I hope) and they are dressed in flimsy sexy outfits and are preparing for something, perhaps a dance— they fix their hair, adjust clothes. I turn back and watch as the bartender expertly navigates the stub part of his missing arm to pry out a Farro. Then two girls come up behind us, startling me. My girl wraps her arms around me and whispers, “ hi, baby. How are you?”

I’m still kind of shocked and say nothing. She plays with my hair.

“Buy me a drink, baby?”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Oh baby, you’re so handsome. Do you want to fuck me? Oh baby, or do you want a blow job? I’ll give you a good blow job, baby. We’ll go downstairs and lock the door.”

She starts to rub my cock.

“Oh yeah baby, you like? Fifteen dollars.”

I look over at Rich who seems to be getting the same treatment from the other girl. My girl continues to rub me until I finally come to my senses.

“No no no. No money.”

She gets off me angrily, swearing, calling me a faggot. Rich’s girl is still laying on the heat.

“Buy me a beer, baby?” she asks.

“Maybe later,” he said.

The bartender just decides to crack open a beer and give it to the girl and then demands payment from Rich.

“No no. I’m not buying this.”

He pushes the bottle back toward the bartender who continues to haggle and demand payment. Finally he gets rid of his girl, rather prostitute and tells me to finish my beer quick.

“We got to get out of here fast.”

But I linger, fascinated by the sinister atmosphere, where something unexpected and dirty and wrong can happen any moment and despite my fascination, I finish up and we head out back to the hotel.

Our room has no windows but two beds. The door is flimsy. The bathroom is so small that when I sit on the toilet my knees rub up against the closed door. Anyway, Mexico would reinvent the word stack. The spring water that Rich thought was clean, it turns out it was bottled here and he’s got the runs big time. As we lie in our beds reading or writing, we amuse ourselves by counting the number of times he gets up to use the bathroom. He’s jump up and bounce over me and into the bathroom; he’d exit, slowly, groaning but smiling and trying to be make a joke of it. “Don’t worry Jim. You’ll get yours, just wait. You’ll get it.” I laughed.

“I didn’t drink the water.”

We went to get dinner. For an appetizer, we ate a plate of carrots, beets and baby limes with jalapeno juice squeezed all over them. I tasted my first jalapeno— quite tasty at first then it was an onrush of fire in my mouth and I drank my whole bottle of Decate beer and that could not even douse the flames. It was so bad I didn’t even taste the beer as it just acted as a cold liquid, a fire extinguisher. For a meal we ordered a soft taco with hot sauce and a muchacca that came with hidden jalapenos that rolled down my throat like lava. Eventually my tongue was so shot, I couldn’t finish it. Back in our room, I discovered the pain of the jalepeno stack. As I slunk my way back into bed, Rich was laughing. “Seeee… see what happens,” he said.

We wrote some more and then I dozed off to sleep.

I woke up to the following dream: Rich is coming into the room with Suzy, the tenet. They had been whispering in the hallway, and then they fell silent. I assumed they went into another room, next one down. Then when I woke up, I turned the light on and Rich was fast asleep on his bed alone.

I went out to find a place to write and drink coffee. . It was night. Instead, I went back to the Margueritta Village. It was still empty. I grabbed a table, ordered a beer and hunkered down and wrote, despite the blaring music of REM over the house speakers.

Outside it rained lightly now. Mexicans gathered in dark doorways. Shop doors were closing and vendors retiring. A disco bar across the street was really kicking with lots of revelers. I pondered checking it out but with little cash left I just went back to the room and wrote a little more.

In the hallway I heard women voices and laughter. I could easily hear them clomping across the floor through our own paper-thin door. Keys jingled, door knobs turned, so clear I thought they were coming into our room.

“What’s your name?” a woman asked.

“Larry.”

They went into the room and voices became muffled. I got up and went into the hallway. I walked down to the end of it, found nothing, shrugged and returned to my room. As I picked up my pen, the sexual groans of a woman came right into our room. Her ecstasy went on for about fifteen minutes. I had to listen. I couldn’t escape it. It started to get me charged up and I momentarily fantasized about going back to the sinister bar and get a girl for fifteen bucks. Then I heard voices again, the door open. I open my door a crack to get a peek at the players. Two tall and handsomely dressed men pass my door and I heard one say, “she’s a pig.” I wait to see what the girls look like. They don’t come out anytime soon. Now I open the door wide and lean against the wall still waiting. Five minutes pass before they come out. The younger one is pretty and checks me out; the other, heavy and thick-lipped ignores me as she fumbles with her fat community tit, trying to get it back into her bra or shirt or whatever she’s doing. The patter of their footsteps recede as they disappear back into the city streets. Then a young girl passes me by, refusing to look up at me. She carries a small bucket and dust pan and turns into the vacated room. Sheets are undone and balls of crumpled toilet paper on the bed and floor ( I had taken a peek inside before she arrived). She cleans the room for a good five minutes and then the toilet flushes. She walks off, passing me looking at her feet, grimly.

The next morning the skies are ashen gray and it’s pouring rain. We repack our bags. We were going to hit 40 East, north of San Diego but we decided against backtracking even though we are preparing to go north. Always move forward. So we decide to hook up with 8 East which looked a lot quicker than 40 East anyway.

 

At 7:30 we made our way down Revolucion in the pouring rain. Stores were closed; seedy looking men hung out in doorways observing the world. Taxis and buses roamed the soaking wet streets.

At the bus station it is closed for another half hour. I take advantage of the delay to go look for a mailbox to mail my post-card— I have this thing about sending post-cards from where I wrote them (once I missed my bus in Denver roaming banks and stores looking to make change so I could buy a stamp). A man on the street said the post-office was off 11^th Street and so left my bag with Rich, to his dismay, and made my slow way— 8^th… 9^th… rain comes down heavier and my head and jacket are drenched… 10^th… Revolucion curves to the left and in the distance, no street signs. My sneakers are sopping wet and squishing with every step. The next street is not 11^th but something else, in Spanish and I curse myself for being wet and for not being able to find it. I head back to the station and we wait for the Mexicoach.

Back in downtown San Diego the weather is warm and feels like a spring day. To the south from where we just came, dark and ominous clouds loom. We walk through the city among glassy skyscrapers, trolleys, buses and business men and women on lunch break. We find a map of San Diego Transit and discover that if we hop on the La Mesa bus, it will drop us off within walking distance of 8 East.

In La Mesa, as we walk toward the freeway, I keep an eye open for a post-office. We are both already feeling rough from the road. It seems everyone I encounter gives me the wrong directions and it feels like we are walking in circles, caught in a sea of lost miscalculations. The bus driver had told us that there was a Greyhound station nearby. He couldn’t be wrong? By accident we find a post-office and both of us mail some post-cards. At this point we are fed up with La Mesa and give up on Greyhound. By 1 o’clock we finally stumble upon 8 East.

We start thumbing again. Cars and trucks pass by; some beep. Sometimes people smile and wave at us like we are a roadside attraction. Sometimes faces look at us in awe as if we were from Pluto. We are starting to hate this place. After a long period of inactivity and nothing, we leave the on-ramp and head on into the breakdown lane. Not five minutes into thumbing, a state police car pulls over into the lane and he kicks us off the freeway.

The sun is setting behind the clouds and the rain has caught up to us. We walk along a big sewer pipe that runs parallel to the highway. The brush is thick and flowery and attracts many bees. Along the pipe is a slimy brown mucous. And it’s extremely hot and muggy and I’m sweating my ass off. The path is becoming thicker with bees. In the distance, thunder barks across the darkening sky.

We come upon another on-ramp opposite a supermarket. We head towards the supermarket. Rich loads up on Snickers bars, a marker and cardboard. In the parking lot, we draw up a sign that reads: Boston 8 EAST and another one, 8 EAST. The rain is lighter but steady.

Original sign from my notebook (with the exception of two head shots I scanned in).

A young driver heading on to 8 East gives us thumbs up. For a moment, I was hopeful— that he would stop. He zooms off and we thumb some more.

We are beginning to dread the rest of our journey. We have blown most of our money, hitchhiking suddenly seems like a dead idea and the rain is getting heavier. Vehicles continue to pass by and honk their horns. Our spirits are down. It’s time to lighten things up. On the bottom flap of Rich’s cardboard sign he wrote : Hey Babe; on mine I wrote: Hi Beautiful. So whenever a young woman drove by, (it seemed like every other car there was a beautiful woman driver) we flashed our signs. We scored quite a few laughs, some sneers and middle fingers. It helped keep our sanity. Having abused and used up our west coast hospitality we still had 3000 rough miles to go.

Just before sunset we finally hooked up with a ride in a nice red sports car. Her name is Wendy. She’s a wild one. She pops open a beer and asks, “you guys don’t mind?” Then Aerosmith comes on the radio and she sings along with the lyrics. She says that she used to hitch around here a lot and that where she picked us up is probably the worst spot to thumb. After the song I said, “Boston sure seems like a long way right now.”

“What? Where are you going?” she asked.

“Boston.”

“Oh man! I thought you were going to Bostonia,” she said, laughing.

“Well there goes our ride to Boston,” I said, smiling.

She said that she’ll drop us off at a prime on-ramp for hitching. A place where, “ I used to get rides from all the time.”

She’s an excited talker, loud and drinks her beer with gusto. She is the best thing that has happened to us all day, an all-to-brief vision from the road soon to be a memory. We thanked each other and wished each other well.

 

It was night now. We thumbed, taking turns as usual while the other stayed off to the side of the road. However no one even slowed down and we stood there again, thumbs in the air like forsaken prophets. Across from the on-ramp was a Texaco, a couple of restaurants and a 24 hour coffee shop. Seemed like a great place to score a long ride. I wasn’t sure where we were as there were no markings anywhere. We sang songs to kill the monotony, inspire laughter and then made up humorous songs mocking ourselves.

“I gotta take a stack!” he cried.

“Keep it in the journal, buddy,” I said, laughing.

“Mexicans.”

“Taco stands.”

We hummed the music of Strange Days songs. Then, The End.

“Seee… see what happens,” Rich says. He crinkled his face as if he just stacked his pants.

We saw a lot of this.

As the vehicles continue to drive off into the night, the rain starts to pick up again. If this is the ideal spot to hitch then where is the worst? Rich has a good idea and we walk to Texaco and ask for a few trash bags so we can make rain jackets and protect our bags. We persevere in the rain for a few hours continually joking about Mexican food, hot shits and taco songs of fire. But finally we are filled with a bleak hopelessness and we wander over to the coffee shop to escape the rain and drink a cup of coffee.

Inside I write a new sign: WILL RIDE IN BACK OF PICK UP. After our coffee we head out and try again. However, our signs might as well just say: we are psychotic killers with knives. Though the rain has stopped, for now, I can see the California mountains against the vapory night. So when a car finally gets off into the breakdown lane and comes toward us we are thrown into ecstasy. We hop about collecting our bags and waving at the car. However it is a state cop and he kicks us off the freeway, talking through a booming megaphone. “You there, off the road.” I wasn’t thinking and thought he meant get out of the lane so I took a step backwards on to the grass and continued thumbing. “Get off the freeway, now.” So, at 11:00 we call it quits and decide to get some rest and start again in the morning.

We decide to make a camp at the bottom of the on-ramp. On one side is the bushy hill that leads to the on-ramp. Behind us is an old wooden fence, trees, shrubs and plants that shelter us from the street beyond. We are depressed and tired. I begin to wipe away a big pile of wet leaves for the dry ground beneath it. I roll out my trash bag and then my sleeping bag over that and then slip into some warm dry clothes. My clothes are dirty and smelly but everything is at this point, having last did my laundry in Hawaii. Rich has made up his own spot and is already laying down looking very comfortable. Before I lay down, I light a smoke and lean against a thin tree that curls over me. I stare in the direction of the on-ramp. 

I wasn’t cold but I felt the dampness. The moisture spread through my body at a slow speed. It wasn’t bad. I could certainly sleep in it. Then I had visions of nasty killer California ants enveloping my body. After a few minutes I calmed down, came to my senses and shut my eyes. I felt sleep was attainable now until… a rain drop landed on my eyelid. Then another. It was frustrating but I fought through the aggravation and somehow drifted off to sleep. 
 

About an hour later I woke from a dream: I’m in a movie with Clint Eastwood as an actor and as cameraman. He calls me on the phone and tells me to come quickly to his apartment, number 0067 0068 (can’t remember which but I was born in 1968 so…). He had something important. He says come immediately, using his best Dirty Harry voice. But I’m not too concerned because he always uses that voice. I figure he won’t mind if I’m late. I take a cruise into the neighborhood where the Beatles live. I had always wanted my friends John Lennon and Paul McCartney to meet Clint. Then I bump into Al Fish ( a friend from my Photography class at UMass Boston) and I invite him along but he’s really tired, not himself and doesn’t want to go. I cruise into the town anyway, Watertown (where I spent my childhood) and Kelly Beck ( a neighbor/ family friend from Randolph) is standing in front of some store. She is a ragged mess now fat and smeared with lipstick and covered in bruises. She is holding a red, ugly and pregnant cat who’s nipples are drooping from its sides; the cat’s teeth are yellow, scowling. I reach out to pet the cat but it only scowls more evil. It doesn’t like me. Me and Kelly talk a little but I’m running late now and have to go. She keeps talking and I linger but try to pull away. I can’t. She keeps talking and I can’t get away. Suddenly something jumps out from nowhere— either a child, a rabbit or a midget— it lands about fifteen feet away holding a boombox. It presses play, stares at me and waits. Then the song, Tangled up in Blue starts to play. Kelly yells, “all right!” She sings along with the lyrics. I join her singing. Somehow, I manage to leave and I don’t remember how to get to the apartment. Now I figure Clint is worried and angry. I run into Mike Cloherty (my brother’s buddy from Randolph) and he gives me directions along with his typical assurance that things will be okay— though I still couldn’t find it. I know that it is near my old paper route (Randolph). Then I bump into Jay Fitzgibbons ( who I don’t get in this dream, a seemingly unimportant character— though he lived just down the street from me and we went to the same school but were never friends but it is also here where the dream gets unclear). Someone else is with me now and he tells Jay, with pride, that I was helping Clint with a movie. Yeah yeah yeah I shrug (maybe this is why he is in dream) as if just another typical day in my Hollywood life. And that’s that. The dream took place at night and all images were dark.

As I woke from this dream, the rain was falling lightly again. Rich seems to be fast asleep, undisturbed. I can’t take the patter on my face anymore, in addition, my mind was still filled with the dream images and sequence so I decided to go to the coffee shop and write them down. I figured I’d let Rich sleep. If he woke he would figure out where I was and if not I’d check on him in a little bit. As I packed up my sleeping bag, he woke up from his own very powerful meaningful dream fresh in his head. So we packed up everything and went to the coffee shop to write. Just as we entered the coffee shop, the meanest, nastiest rain fall yet suddenly unleashed from the sky. How lucky we were on that one.

It was three am. We wrote and wrote and drank coffee. At a nearby table, an obese bearded man snored and slobbered away loudly, hunched over.

It was an easy decision to make. We would catch the first local bus to a dry warm Greyhound. The road had beaten us down pretty good. Born in the east and like the sun, fade away in the west, to die. Depressing thoughts.

At 6 am we ate a quick breakfast at McDonalds. In the bathroom we changed, washed up and brushed our teeth— our journey would be full of public bathroom usage. Outside we waited for the bus and soon we were in El Cajone Greyhound.

At the station we ran into its usual pricing inconsistency. Of course their fares reflected upon the popularity of a destination and not the actual miles traveled. For a one way ticket to El Paso, a ticket cost $186.00 (which was the route we wanted to go). We had $208.00 between us and many untraveled miles ahead. Either way we had to start pushing east. We settled for two one-way tickets to Detroit, Michigan for a hundred bucks each    (the difference between the miles was staggering). Anyway we were just happy to be finally getting out of California. We couldn’t wait for the big party in Virginia. So Rich handed over to the clerk $207.00 and we took our tickets.

So with our last dollar in hand, we ran to the nearest Western Union, in the rain now, to have my mother send my last $200.00 from my bank account. After a series of collect calls to my brother back east, I finally got the message to my mother, now at work to send me the cash. We waited outside Western Union and when it finally came, we ate a huge lunch at McDonalds and were ready to start anew.

Our bus didn’t leave El Cajone until 10:15 that night and now we had the whole day to kill (still this place wouldn’t let us go). At Greyhound, I approached a fat lady who wore a big floppy hat. I asked if she knew where there was a laundromat. For some reason, my eyes played tricks on me at that moment and I saw that she only had one leg. As she rattled on, I looked into her eyes and I saw the devil’s eyes and it made me real nervous. I tried to just focus on her— one leg, devil’s eyes and her rattling off street names to the wind and finally my reality began to seep back into my brain until I could summon the courage to speak. “Oh, yeah. 5^th Street. I know where that is. Oh we did pass it.” I started to walk away.

“Why the hell did you ask me for?” she screamed, so loud people inside looked at her. Me and Rich cracked up all the way outside. I was just happy to get away from her. We spent a good part of the time looking for a laundromat and singing Hotel California. We finally found one and while we waited for our clothes to clean and dry we relaxed outside in shorts and shirts in the hot sun.

Later we found a cool Mexican restaurant where we waited out the rest of our time.We ate fish tacos, drank coffee, played songs on the juke box and wrote in our journals. At 9:15 it was getting hot and crowded so we decided to call it a night and walk back to the station. We sit outside because the station is closed. Night is upon us. A hot dog vendor shuts down his cart. I recall that earlier in the day, from this very spot, observing a torrential flood of butterflies or moths or some flying insect, had raced down through the sky and passed the station. Huge clusters, silent but fast overhead, fling away from what looks like an ominous black rain cloud. It was pretty amazing. Their were so many of them, it took about 15 minutes before they were all passed us.

It wasn’t until 10:30 that our crowded bus finally hit the road. Our first stop was El Centro, the edge of California and during the night the bus was freezing cold. We dug out our jackets and blankets and then I actually got a little sleep too.

At ten in the morning we arrived in Phoenix. We slumped off the bus, stretching our arms and legs. We went for a walk until we found a breakfast joint. Phoenix was quiet, empty. Rich started talking about going into the desert to climb a dune and it was a great idea. We asked our waitress and she said the desert was about 10 miles out. We’d have to spend money on a bus to get there. We decided that maybe we would just forget it and along the way in New Mexico near the station, we could go for a hike in the desert.

The bus rolled north through Arizona, on 17. The road rises steadily, eventually reaching 7000 feet. Where Phoenix was a dry desert region, now we are surrounded by pine trees, snow and rivers. The air is tougher to breathe at this height; my ears pop too. The bus stops for a five minute break near Campe Verde. We are in a deep valley and though fatigued we hop off the bus and are awed by the view— the assemblage of rocky cliffs and twists in the earth and tall grass. It wakes us up at once. Rich feels a connection— a déjà vu. We talk about setting up a camp, starting a fire and a few drinks right there. I imagine old Spaniards and Indians clashing, right here. I feel in touch with a human element of life and history. As the bus gets ready to roll, we come to our senses again and we take our seats and we’re off. Red Rock. Oak Creek Canyon. Munds Canyon. Rocky rivers, wet sand and tall lurching pines. Mountains overlapping one another like great clouds.

In Flagstaff, there is an hour layover until the next bus. We leave the station and walk along old highway 66. Behind us, the looming, snow-capped volcanic San Franciscan Mountains, “the snow bowl.” Beside the huge 12,500 foot mountain (up to this point the biggest mountain I ever recall seeing) is a separate smaller mountain, rounded at the top called Eldor and it is a popular climb for hikers. The snow-bowl towers over everything, smooth and spread out and somewhere unseen beyond it is the Grand Canyon.

We pass a motel that reads: $16.95 a night. We hit a restaurant for coffee and we write post-cards. I’m loving the vibration, the feel of the place and I think Rich is too. After a short debate we decide to take a break from the road and get a room for the night. So we go to the motel, slap down 17 bucks and take the room key. Compared to TJ, this room is heaven— it has a double bed, a big clean bathroom and shower, a black and white TV and a soft carpeted floor. So I use the toilet and take a shower and I feel great. When Rich hops in the bathroom I wander outside to find a store for food and alcohol. At a supermarket I bought two cans of beans for Rich, two cans of macaroni for me and I swiped a small can opener. Across the street, I went to the liquor store and bought a liter of Evans Walker 90% whiskey and a two-liter of Coke.

Behind our motel is a big hill that we decide to climb. We got our booze, a camera and a whole lot of desire. As we cut across an Indian reservation where trailers are spread out in the distance, leashed dogs bark wildly at us. We climb a steep rocky incline, level out and cross over train tracks before climbing straight up the hill again along a muddy knotted path— bare trees guide us upwards. I sweat. The high altitude makes me breathe uneasy until finally we reach the top.   

We stalk around the quiet wilderness and the noise below us has disappeared. We trudge passed a couple of beer bottles, some big mounds of snow and stealthily move deeper into the trees. We come to an old barbed wire fence. As I stop to ponder this fence, I envision an Indian warrior in full dress race by on magnificent horse. Here we decide to turn back in case we are trespassing and we stop at the edge of the trees where we made our climb.

It’s cold up high like this and everything is damp from rain. We find some logs to sit on and mix our drinks and it tastes so good… especially at such heights… such heights— I am invigorated. In the middle of my self-euphoria, a man appears in the woods approaching us.

“Hey!” he says.

We greet him. His name is Chris. I offer him a whiskey and coke and he accepts with a smile. He’s wearing jeans and a thick flannel jacket. He’s of medium build, with mustache and blond hair. He says he’s been living in these woods for about a year but is leaving for Mexico to work on a commercial fishing boat. He’s always loved hiking and has thoughts about the Appalachian Trail back east. He likes to create sculptures out of wood with a chainsaw. He seems like a really good guy and he definitely likes our whiskey.

Night is descending and we light a fire. Chris instructs us how to use the dead branches at the bottom of trees and preburnt logs will burn easier in damp weather. Soon a nice blaze kicks in. We take some pictures. We finish off the whiskey. 

Chris and Rich in Flagstaff

Me and Rich. Oops. I guess it was Pepsi and not Coke that I bought.

Flagstaff 1992.

“Look.”

“Over there.”

A white coyote had been spying on us and when we took notice of him, he sprang back into the dark.

“Strange. They never come in that close,” said Chris.

We all want to continue drinking and Chris knows a good place, a hot spot, he says, called Fiddle Sticks. It’s just across from the Flamingo Hotel where we are staying so we agree to meet him there in 15 minutes. Me and Rich arrive first, already buzzed and order pitchers of beer, play pool and listen to rocking tunes on the juke box. We are buzzed and happy. Then Chris appears, smiling. “Hey guys. Come with me. All the babes are next door.”

We enter a huge club, just off the pool room. The dance floor in the middle of the place is a melting pot of the prettiest, sexiest and hottest women I’ve ever seen in one spot. Soon enough I’m drunk and when I saw Rich the next day he said, as soon as we got inside the club, I disappeared into a sea of gyrating bodies. At one point I hooked up with a pretty lady— we danced, kissed, danced some more, made out and hugged. I lost Rich and Chris. According to Rich, he had been unable to track me down all night when suddenly I popped out of the crowd, dancing wildly, shirtless and my poncho wrapped around my neck, arms flailing everywhere like one big happy drunk.

At Last Call, she agreed to come to our motel room. First she had to tell her friend where she was going. But the place was just mobbed and in my drunkenness I lost her or maybe she lost me, so I left alone and milled about outside for a little bit looking for Rich or Chris. I stumbled around for a bit until I got back to the empty motel. Rich would later say that he and Chris followed some kids to a college party where Chris became too loud and obnoxious and started a fight with some “goofs” but nothing came of it and they left without incident.

In the morning Chris woke us. I had been lying on the bed all hungover and on opening my eyes I saw this big happy grin and red eyes looking down on me. “Time for breakfast. Wake up,” he said. Rich slept on the floor and now he was awake. But we got up, tired and hung over and followed Chris to a breakfast joint called Old Town. It was a most pleasant breakfast as I had a huge omelet. We treated him to breakfast as Rich had confided to me, “he bought us major beer.” That was that. Chris gave us his old library card with his mothers address on it and we gave him our parents addresses. We said goodbye and he left one way and we walked back to the Flamingo to get ready to leave. Goodbye Flagstaff, friend Chris and private bathroom.

Rich and Chris outside the Flamingo Motel. Just waking up on a chilly Arizona morning. "Snow bowl" in the background

We left Flagstaff at 1:00. We cruised along 40 East (old Highway 66) and on through the Painted Desert until we hit New Mexico. It was a clear day. All of a sudden we are passing by these huge red rocks with smooth and rusty layers that surround hollow caves (I dream of spending the night in one); through Gallup and a series of powdery shelf-like rocks with grooves, some spotted with green grass and others dusty and bare. I watched these amazing formations roll by for about a hundred miles and then somewhere near Mount Taylor, they twisted away toward the north, disappearing like a dream forgot. I fantasize about camping right there, jumping from rock to rock, searching for snakes, scorpions and drinking whiskey from a canteen by a hot fire; singing songs beneath the great western sky.

We passed by the Continental Divide— where all water drains to the west or to the east, a dividing drain line so to speak where the water will go one way or the other. My ears are popping as we ascend toward the divide. We were at 7,275 feet— the significance of my personal divide, hitting me at that moment and I knew we would get home, the divide would send us along and gravity would help propel us onward and with some luck we would land right there in Boston Common.

The nighttime is black and not one light is on the horizon and the world travels sleepily by when suddenly like a fist to the eye, a city appears, somewhere in Texas or Alabama as if we had accidentally discovered a lost city… and fatigue pulls me back into the hazy cocoon of sleep.

At 10:00 am, the bus pulls into Tulsa, Oklahoma for an hour layover. Me and Rich stroll up the quiet unpeopled street in search of a breakfast joint. A couple of cars pass us by but other than that, nothing and nobody; buildings, streets— like a real ghost town. A traffic light blinks to no one in particular and even the NO CROSSING signs have no significance on this clean white street. We come across a father and son who tell us about a great place to eat just down the street called, Route 66.

It’s a great friendly atmosphere. The hostess greets us with a big, “hi y’all doin’ today?”

On the wall beside us hangs an old Route 66 highway sign, beside it, a calendar from December 1952 and a scattering of black and white wilderness photograph scenes. On the far wall is an old fashion wood stove. Nice atmosphere. I realize I don’t know shit about 66 except that perhaps Kerouac and Bob Dylan may have hitchhiked it.

We order coffee. Rich gets a BLT sandwich, me, a ham and cheese. After I pay our tab, we have sixty bucks left. We try and figure out our next move once we hit Detroit. No idea what to do once we get there with no money never mind Virginia or Boston. We could call someone from back home for a ride from Detroit to Virginia with the promise of an epic party— Mike? Dano? Wabrek? Maybe our friends could wire us a hundred bucks? I remembered Bart’s dad lived in Michigan and maybe he could let us spend the night and drive us to the nearest truck stop the next day. All these crazy ideas. Rich tried calling Tom in Virginia, a Belvoir buddy but he wasn’t home. With so many unrealistic thoughts on the table and no answers we decide to trust in blind fate and head straight to Detroit broke, homeless, no one to trust, trapped but earnest in our approach and somehow, someway we will figure out a plan.

In Joplin, I called Bart’s mom’s house, collect to get his dad’s phone number only to find he had moved to Texas.

Missouri. Pasture and cow country. I envision a Gary Larson Far Side cow standing alongside the rode, thumbing a ride, backpack over his shoulder until our bus approaches and then he is just a cow, grazing by the roadside fence. I look at the cow, one front leg ahead of the other, slightly bent; back legs firmly planted, its head hung low eating the grass. He looks up into me with a huge frown, sad eyes and tail snapping in the air.

We arrive in St. Louis at 10:00 at night for an hour and a half layover. I took Rich for a walk to The Arch. At night it glimmers with a silvery metallic glow. I point through it and beyond and said, “east, Richie, east!” He’s in awe of its sleekness and height and how thin the top appears to be. We bounce down to the waterfront where he is uninspired by the Mississippi but at night it’s hard to get a read on it. Riverboats glide by, lit up and loud, big parties on board. I stand on the cobblestone walkway by the river and kick at the huge rusty chains that hold the restaurant barges in place. Small waves from the party vessels lick the shore. The river is cold. We both imagine the festive atmosphere on a hot 4^th of July river celebration.

Cutting through downtown streets we head back to Greyhound. We pass a few groups of people, young black men, newspapers litter the empty gutters and it reminds me of Boston at night— stores are closed, taxi’s roam the night, bright hotels with valet parking invite. At the station I call my parents but no one answers. Time grows short and the unknown looms like an ugly pimpled face.

At 6 am we arrive in downtown Chicago. Rich’s bag is not in the baggage claim and he’s afraid it is lost and he’s edgy. I try and calm him down. It was probably sent ahead to Detroit I tell him but this does not assure him. Tiredly we emerge from the station into the windy city. I see a newspaper in a stand and with a little surprise take note that it’s Sunday. We stumble upon a dive breakfast joint off some filthy side street. I buy a newspaper to read over a very tasteless breakfast. We agree to curtail our trip to Virginia and just concentrate on reaching Boston.

At Greyhound, the clerk informs us that a one-way ticket from Detroit to Boston is $92.00. Shit. The cheapest fare east is a one-way ticket from Detroit to Cleveland for $22.00. So because it’s a little closer home, I fork up the money for two tickets to Cleveland, Ohio and now we have $3.00 left. “Hope you enjoyed that breakfast because it’s probably our last,” Rich said.

“No, I didn’t.”

We pull out of Chicago to the sight of battered rooftops, splintered fences and the new untested Comiskey Park. I am reminded of the coming spring in Boston, spring training and the Red Sox.

We come into Detroit in the afternoon, rolling passed dead wintery trees, ground frost, icy rivers and lakes. We weave our way into the city and are close now. Ironically, inside the station, it looks new and clean— polished fixtures, phones and screens and bright floors and big tall security guards. We show up: smelly and dirty, clinging to two tickets to Cleveland,, three bucks and a pack of Mexican smokes. I know we look bad— just yesterday, a man on the bus, having pity on me I guess just out of nowhere gave me two pieces of chicken he couldn’t finish which I shared with Rich.

Now my only hope is Sue. She’s the girl Rich was semi involved with in Hawaii. She lives in Michigan. She would loan us the money to get home. I had brought the idea up to Rich three days ago and he was aghast of it and wanted no part of it; now the idea didn’t suck so bad. She lives in Gaylord and by the looks of the map; it would be a three hour drive to the station. It’s all a hopeless feeling. Damn you road map! I welcomed the possibility of a bed or food, shower or money. We are desperate every mile we go. For the next hour I place collect calls to her apartment only to get the answering machine every time. At least Rich recovered his bag and he is very relieved.

I took a walk to a nearby store while Rich stayed with our bags. The walk was filled with visions of broken glass on sidewalks, wine bottles on yellow grass, and trash floating by. I felt like at any moment I was going to get jumped or shot and for all but three bucks. It was a warm afternoon though— eastern clouds in distant splotches with gray fillings. At the store I found a deal: two packs of peanut butter cookies for a buck.

At the station, Rich is outside sitting on a wall smoking. I hang for a bit until I decide to go in and study the bus schedules and monitors. 

Rich outside Detroit Greyhound, 1992

Outside Detroit Greyhound. What? Me worry?

A young French-Canadian approaches me and asks if I want to buy his Greyhound pass. There are two days remaining on it, good for any route or destination. He’s broke and going home and doesn’t live too far away. I had noticed him earlier trying to sell it to anyone who even looked at him. Well, I’m broke too I tell him. He offers it to me for ten bucks.

“Really. I don’t have any money.”

I explain the situation further and he asks if I have anything to trade— cassettes, music— anything. Just then, Rich comes over now and I tell him what’s up. He looks into his bag and the first thing the French-Canadian sees is his leather jacket.

“No way. No.”

He pulls out his poncho; it still smells of the campfire from Flagstaff. The French-Canadian looks it over, decides that he likes it and hands over the pass.

“I was going to throw it out when I got home,” said Rich.

The name on the ticket is Jocelyn Sicard and a Québec address attached to it. We have no idea if it will actually work but it’s worth a shot. Whatever happens we agree to stay together despite Rich saying earlier, if it came down to it, I could go ahead without him. The thought never even came to mind. Just in case Greyhound asks, I am Jocelyn Sicard and I spend the next three hours practicing my very rusty French, sometimes just stringing random French words together creating sentences that make no sense, to a French-Canadian they might think I’m a schizophrenic.

We pull into Cleveland at 11:00 at night and it’s all brightly lit up and pleasing to my road weary eyes and the skyscrapers are symmetrical and handsome in a post-card way. I am filled with hope. The bus terminal is huge and very hot, overcompensating for the arctic cold outside, I think. We drink water from the bubbler and find seats. Just for kicks I inquire about a ticket to Boston and the price has gone up, $108.00 dollars now, despite us being closer— oh the fucking inconsistency! We decide to start thumbing again and we walk to the 90 East on-ramp in the bitter icy cold.

The on-ramp is deadly quiet. Below us where the ramp curves is a pine tree filled area that would make a great sleeping shelter on a warmer night. We enter the freeway breakdown lane now. It is so cold we take turns every two minutes. My thumb is numb. My body is freezing and the newspaper I have tucked inside my jacket is no match for this biting wind. When cars whiz by they honk at us or just plain turn the other cheek. We watch hopelessly with every passing truck. After a half hour or so, we decide to head back to the station. It’s just too cold to keep trying.

We rush back to the terminal and notice a small coffee shop inside, off the atrium. I buy us coffees with the last of my change. We drink, write and dream of home. After the shop closes down for the night we grab two seats in the atrium and hope against all odds we don’t get kicked out. We sit and stare like a homeless row in quiet dead Greyhound sadness. There are about a dozen seats around us filled with people, homeless or not I don’t know. Rich drifts off to sleep, his bag beneath his stretched out legs. I’m wide awake and I write a description of that moment in time:

 

Cleveland Greyhound Station. Three thirty in the morning, desolation row, homeless sitting on hard chairs with small TV’s mounted on the arms, everyone waiting for daybreak— dirty, stained, puke yellow floor— video game music, bells, voices inviting me to play over and over and it’s quite maddening. Two kids with their mother waiting for their bus and screaming and wailing in high pitch. “Okay buddy, pull over!” says the cop from the pinball machine— desolation row is all asleep but one man who talks with a cigarette smoking frog-like voice to his half-awake friend. They are both old and gray-haired.

“Did they catch him?” Rich asked, dreaming.

“What?”

“Did they catch him? The kid who got away?”

“Who?”

“The American who gave us French fries.”

“Man they’re fine. They left hours ago. He was never in trouble,” I said.

This relaxes Rich I assume as he falls silently back to sleep.

“Operation Wolf,” says the video game.

A man buys a can of Coke and it drops with a clunk into the dispenser. I look up. Heads are bent over arms and mouths hang open. A madman laughs in his sleep. A security guard in white shirt walks by in casual stride.

4:45 am. A yawn. A head scratch. A one-eyed glance. People wake slowly. Rich scratches his cheek. The young black woman beside me, raises her arm as if involuntarily. A tall black man pops up from the chair as if he were just switched on and he walks off tossing his keys in the air. The frog-voiced man is stirring too and sips his Coke and lights a Winston and the smoke twists in spirals over his head.

Sad place to be. Have no choice. To go to sleep and pretend it doesn’t exist or stay awake and watch and study? In a few hours the station will be a mad pulse of hustle and bustle— people coming and going with purpose and urgency. Here right now, it is shelter from the cold, a place to sleep, protecting the few that live unprotected lives on desolation row. This is what happens when life goes absolutely nowhere… I’m so tired… real tired of the road right now.

Desolation Station on homeless row….

Ok so now, Rich wakes up and its 6:30. He heads into the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash up. Apparently, Rich said, I fell asleep for about an hour after he left for the bathroom. When he returned and saw me asleep, he also saw a half a dozen people staring at my bag that was beneath my seat.

In the morning light we make our way down the main street in search of a Red Cross. Rich thinks that in our destitution they will get us home somehow. The streets were frigid as we fought our way through morning commuters. At Red Cross they just gave us a list of missions where we could get free meals. The woman was very business, no smiles and matter of fact about it, despite Rich’s protests.

Outside again. Rich is steamed. He just simply goes off, screaming and cursing at himself and life. I follow him into a pawn shop where he tries to pawn an expensive gold necklace, from an ex-girlfriend. The clerk can’t or won’t give Rich anything close to the necklaces real value— the man even tells Rich he’s better off keeping it and he does. I follow Rich out the door and I’m a little worried about him. He says he’s going to call his mom ( the last thing in the world he wants to do) and have her send two hundred bucks via Western Union so we can get tickets home (assuming of course the Greyhound pass we have is no good). He starts yelling at himself again— mad and desperate; life sucks and money is evil he screams— just everything has hit him at once. He was like a volcano exploding right beside me along the busy morning sidewalk.

After he spit it all out, I could sense him returning to his calm self. He regained reason and perspective and humor. I told him I was still going to be Jocelyn Sicard and if the pass worked and I was hopeful, well then he would have saved his mom a hundred bucks right there.

“See? See what happens?” I joked.

He laughed. We circled back looking for the Western Union. We passed long welfare and food stamp lines. More homeless. At the WU the money comes through and it’s amazing how money can influence moods. She sent $250.00, more than enough for two direct tickets home. Rich’s mom really came through and my new mission is to get on that bus with that pass and save the dough. The plan is for Rich to buy his ticket. I will go first in line and he will be last; if I get bagged, I would have time to run back to the counter and buy a ticket while Rich would hold up the bus for me. Money in hand, we hit McDonald's for a huge feast and stack heaven. Our express bus doesn’t leave until six that night so we decide to hit the streets and explore them.

Lake Erie is windy and cold along its expansive shore. Deep in the distance I see a foggy land mass that is Michigan. It’s a lake but seems to be more of an ocean— such scope and distance on the cloudy horizon. Nearby are railroad tracks. We sit down on some flat rocks and hang out. We remember the rail roads of our youth— placing coins on the rails and collecting the pressed flattened faces, now oily and unrecognizable from steel wheels— playing chicken, trains nearing, the conductor sounds the horn, pelting the train with snowballs or small rocks (juvenile Watertown days but were not passenger trains).

Now we here a train whistle blow and in the distance, a train snakes its slow way carrying truck trailers as cargo. The familiar Santa Fe painted on the sides of yellow car doors, train of the west. Quickly we search our pockets for coins and place them on the track. Train lunges by then slows to a stop— such power and steel. The train strikes me as an old relic and maybe it will be some day. We wait for the train to start up again but it remains there as if its run were over for the day. We slide beneath it to collect our coins and hope it doesn’t start up. My coin had fallen off the track but I recovered it in the rocks around it, my memento of Cleveland and our youth.

Beside Lake Erie is Cleveland Stadium and I see the Indians logo rising out from the park. As I read the paper I discover that the Indians open their season tonight at Camden Yards in Baltimore and that their home opener, here in a week is against my beloved Red Sox. The sports writers (and some Indians fans we talked to here, mostly cool homeless black men) like their chances though they are young and inexperienced. Such potential in players like Sandy Alomar Jr., Albert Belle, Carlos Baerga and Steve Olin.

Greyhound six pm. Small lines begin to form near the door of the Boston bus. The driver appears to collect tickets. I’m second in line; Rich is last. It seems like an eternity, waiting. I caress the potential ticket money in my pocket, a little nervous about getting caught. French words spin around in my brain. The driver begins collecting tickets and the first woman moves on ahead. My turn. I hand him the ticket. He glances at it quickly. He pokes a hole through ticket. He hands it back. Yes!

“Next.”

Rich joins me on the bus, coming on to the bus with a smile and two thumbs up.

“Jimmaaay.”

I hand him over the hundred bucks. We are going home.

Me and Rich in Boston Common having just emerged from the Greyhound.

Two quick layovers through the night— Albany and Syracuse. Rich sleeps easily, his best ever Greyhound sleep he said. We rolled on… early gray Massachusetts and at 10:30 am we arrive, baby, Park Plaza, Boston. Outside it’s sunny and windy but I am alive and full of a new sense of life and danger and home… stroll through Public Garden and the Commons… two weary travelers, dirty and smelly with greasy hair and big backpacks on our shoulders… into downtown crossing— cobblestone streets, policemen on horseback, busy people busy day lunch breaks, Boston Herald newspaper dispensers, Bruins jackets and Red Sox hats. We stop to eat at Providence Pub— best breakfast I’ve had in quite a while. Soon we’re on familiar trains, then Ashmont Station to catch a bus to Randolph, route 28, Belcher Park and my stop. I get up to leave.

“So it ends,” I said.

“Talk to you later, Sunset,” he said.

And I strolled off the bus and into Belcher Park. I feel weirdly strange, like a lost ghost— my house is framed in the distance by branches and trees; Brandy is parked in her usual sheep dog pose on the front lawn. I had remembered in Cleveland, imagining Odysseus homecoming from the war to find his once brave and powerful dog to have become old, uncared for, fat and now finally being able to die peacefully now that its master has returned. Very sad. I anticipate Brandy’s greeting— her whiny loving whistles and licks and jumping upon my knees. I guess I must have been gone too long though as she didn’t recognize me at first. I come to the front door and open it up, Brandy following me in. Mal (Paul Mallet) is there with Slabs (Dave Babineau) drinking beers. Now I know the trip is over.

“Hey dudes,” I say.

They look at me quite startled. It’s kind of funny.