Day Twenty-Two (Sunday, July 18, 1971)

I felt deranged when I finally woke. What do they say?—all X’s and O’s. I lay helpless, breathing, letting reality pull me up. The sheets were on the floor. Dried blood streaked across the pillow. My head smarted and felt twice its size. I sat on the edge of the mattress, ruminating. My only article of clothing, my watch, said 11 a.m. Betty was in the kitchen talking to Ralph, who was outside tending the bonsai trees. Otto was no doubt up.

Quietly, I slipped on a pair of shorts and tiptoed to the bathroom.

Alakazam! The rug was clean; the tile sparkling; the white ceramic of the bathtub gleaming. Some kind of deodorizer replaced the bad smell.

I passed a mirror. My face was a twisted swell of colors and streaks. The skin above my right eye was puffed out two inches. The black skin below the eye looked indented. I looked like a Martian. My lower lip was fat, blistery, and cracked. If I strained, I could see out. The white of my eye was more red than white. There was a nasty cut on the brunt of my chin, embedded beneath the hairs of my beard. I felt like a monster. I had buttery deposits in the corner of my eyes; the left side of my face was corrugated with sheet and pillow marks. Betty caught sight of me as I made my way through the kitchen doorway. “You had a night to remember, didn’t you? Take a seat at that table, if you can find it. Do you feel up to breakfast?”

Astonished, I sat. Didn’t anything bother my aunt? Her manner was so even. She went down her supply of breakfast foods, trying to find what I could eat. I painfully objected; Betty insisted I needed something in my stomach.

“We wondered where you went to so late. We watched the late movie then went to bed. Your friend came into our bedroom this morning and the first thing he said was, ‘Roger was beaten up last night.’ He told us everything.”

My mother—had she been here—would have paced the floor endlessly with one hand covering her mouth and the other draped across her stomach, unable to function, let alone help. My father would have kicked my ass.

Pragmatically, Betty placed a bowl of Cheerios in front of me. After one mouthful I quit.

“I saw the bathroom this morning and knew something was wrong. My cooking isn’t bad enough to barf it up in the middle of the night.” She lit a Parliament and looked out the doorway. “Here comes Ralph.”

Ralph trudged through the back door, wearing a sun visor, old shorts, scuffed-up shoes, and gloves, carrying a garden trowel. “There’s the fighter.” He smiled big. “Tell me—win, lose, or draw?”

I tried to return the smile. Ow. I pushed the bowl of cereal away.

“Ralph, don’t make him laugh now. Look at his face for me, will you? I think we have to send him to the doctor.”

Ralph set his implements on the counter and made an examination. He checked my teeth, gums, jaw—everything that was sore. His eyes were roving and intensive. “How do you feel, Rocky Marciano? Woozy? I haven’t seen a shiner like that in a coon’s age. And your lip must’ve been cut by one of your teeth when that guy belted you, because it’s a single gash and goes pretty deep. Isn’t that what you’d think, Betty?”

“Don’t ask me,” Betty said bluntly. “I haven’t been in a fist fight in thirty-five years.”

“I’m awfully sorry about the bathroom.”

Betty snapped her fingers. “That bathroom is all spic-n-span. You worry about yourself.”

I put my elbow in the Cheerios and spilled the bowl all over the table.

The three of us talked it over; the verdict was to hold off going to the doctor for at least a day. It was Sunday, after all, and I wasn’t quite bad enough to go to the emergency room.

“From what Georgy Otto told me, that Duffy sounds like a mean son-of-a-gun,” Ralph said.

“You mean son-of-a-bitch, Ralph. Look what he did to my nephew!”

“Where is Otto?” I asked.

“He went out,” Betty said. “Now don’t you be worrying about that trip, for heaven’s sake. It can wait. I’m not putting you out on any road to hitchhike with your face looking like that. You stay here and repair yourself.”

I confined myself to the inside all day. The San Francisco Giants split a doubleheader with the Atlanta Braves on color TV. I took three naps. I kept a wet towel handy to pat my bloody lip. I tried about fifteen times to get a phone call through to Amy, dialing all three numbers from the inside of my belt. The girl just wasn’t around. I settled for writing a long letter. That was my only happiness. All parts of me hurt.

Day Twenty-Three (Monday, July 19, 1971)

My eye was good and black when I went to bed, and even blacker when I got up. The skin felt like charcoal. What scared me was how the white part of my right eye—which I hoped was just severely bloodshot yesterday—was now totally red. There wasn’t any white showing, at all. When I forced the lid open, I could see out.

Ralph visited my room before he left for work and threw me a pair of sunglasses. “Wear these, so you don’t scare anybody. When I get home from work, we’ll go to the eye doctor.”

Otto took one glance at me with my shades on and smirked. “Now what—you’ve gone Beverly Hills?”

“What?”

“You piss ant, Roger.”

“It was strange, not seeing you at all yesterday.”

“You’re an embarrassment to your species, Winans.”

“Betty told me you went roller skating through the streets with Ralph’s old pair. How was that?”

“God didn’t give you the sense of a mule, Winans. Even a fool wouldn’ta stood there when those big guys pulled up.”

“Is this how you choose to greet me?”

“You even had a second chance to nail Duffy at the police station, but you shook his hand instead.” He looked disgusted.

“It’s history, man. Let’s not fuss with it any longer.”

“You’re a jackass, Winans. A nitwit. The more reckless you act, the more I realize I made a mistake.”

“What does that mean?!”

“—You ain’t up to the task of this trip.”

“La-di-da to you! Oh, please. Pipe down! Can’t you understand I just need to rest a bit?”

“You give me mindache, sons.”

The way he wouldn’t stop berating me got up my ire. He had a talent for harping and nagging. This included saying I was hindering his need for exercise. “My blood vessels are startin’ to harden because of your idiocy, Roger. I gotta get my heart pumpin’, soon.”

“All right then, shut up!” To stop his grating, I agreed to face him in a game of handball at the high school across the street.

Just by walking onto the court I knew I was doing something wrong. After the first couple of points, whole sections of my face were waving in and out. It was more extreme punishment, all inflicted on myself. I was foolhardy. I was stoneheaded. My eye pounded with each heave of my chest. I was melting in temperatures of 103.

I lost, 19-2.

Just when I realized, “I’ve done myself in, but good,” Otto motioned, “New game.”

“Tough titty, forget that!” Blind and crippled, I slowly edged my way back to Betty’s, using my hands more than my feet.

Betty fretted when she returned from her part-time job. “Your eye looks worse.” She poured herself a double Scotch waiting for Ralph to get home.

Dr. Elliott Schulman was located in a Spanish-style ranch house which doubled as his office. He was a roly-poly, happy-zany optometrist. “Sorry you got punched in the eye. But on the other hand, I’m happy. I need things like this to happen to keep me in business.”

He played rough with my tender eye, deftly pushing and poking it barehanded or with long metal instruments, or probing with a penlight. He threw in a dozen types of eyedrops, of all colors and sensations.

“You’d be surprised. I’ve had quite a few cases like yours in the past year.” He smiled. “No one gets punched in the nose anymore. It’s always the eye.”

He and Ralph talked the whole time about eyesight, vision, and cases worse than mine. Duffy smashed a good many fibers in my sclera which caused my body to flood the area with blood, in protection. The
red would eventually disappear, but would take several weeks, perhaps months.

“To me, that’s good news.” I sat on the crumpled paper roll of his medical bench.

“The bad guy landed nothing more than a solid right hook clean to the head.” He chuckled. He made a few more jokes about black eyes and fat lips, and that was my visit. I was to return the next day for “further testing,” though he assured me everything would be all right.

Otto imparted more sharp words from the front steps of the house. “Let’s shove off, meat brain. I’m ready to go. Start up this trip again, Mortimer.”

“Not today, sorry. Not tomorrow, either. I’ve got another eye appointment. Day after tomorrow, looks like.”

“You’re a pain in my white ass! Know that, Roger? What kind of retard are you? I didn’t know you’d have to be coddled this whole trip. I’m goin’ out for a jog.”

“Go ahead, jerkboy.”

For amusement, Ralph treated Betty, Otto, and me to dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Hanford’s China Alley, though it wasn’t so amusing to be caught in Otto’s negative mind field.

Day Twenty-Four (Tuesday, July 20, 1971)

The house was quiet. Ralph and Betty were at work. My sclera was still completely red and the skin coal black. The swelling was down. My eyelid stayed open, but blinking caused a strain. My lower lip and chin looked better.

When I got back from Dr. Schulman’s, Otto was in his gym suit, doing chinups on a crossbeam in the garage. “See my pack there through the window, Wimpy? My stuff’s all ready to go. I want you to know I’m sick of this town. We’re dyin’ here, sons. Why’d we ever come here in the first place? All I gotta do is lift that pack and I’m gone.”

“The doctor said give it one more day to heal, then the light is green. We leave first thing tomorrow.”

“Don’t blow me over, Dumbo . . . Know what I did yesterday? Jogged out to Hanford Municipal Airport. Got me talkin’ to this pilot who was goin’ south to Bakersfield. He wanted to fly me down for ten bucks. . . . That’s what I shoulda done, left your sorry bum ass behind. I woulda, too, if we didn’t have that policy, you know, about not payin’ for no rides or no lodgin’ . . . We been here three days too long, all because of you.”

“Damn you, George! You’re so anxious to leave? Then go ahead! I’ll meet you in L.A. one week from today. Break up the band. Go ahead. Take a sabbatical. Let’s meet up at the corner of Hollywood and Vine next Tuesday at high noon. C’mon, do you mean what you say? Am I that awful? You want your walking papers that bad?”

“You ain’t never gonna be no negotiator,” Otto said during a walk later that afternoon. “You better stick with menial labor as your occupation, Winans. Because you certainly don’t use your brain.”

“Stop nitpicking! I do my best with whatever I see in front of me. God knows.”

“Does he? You coulda thrown a rock through Duffy’s window, or let out all the air in his tires—caused some kind of havoc to get your revenge. The cops’d give you his address if you said you needed it. I’d be up for a little evil.”

“All those wonderful ideas are for me to execute so I can be left holding the bag. Never you. Right, George?”

“I’m just sayin’, kumquat.”

“Stop lashing out, man! Please. I apologize if my presence diminishes you.”

His carping ended at the library. That’s right, the Hanford Public Library. Books—for the first time in my life—made themselves known. They made their grand debut. Their rollout. That’s where Otto and I defused our agitation and found level ground once again.

Can you believe it? I was honestly browsing for specific books and reading parts of them. Roger Winans, reading. Incredible! I was actually soaking in words with my eyes and digesting the meaning.
Knowing your way around the card catalog was essential. A book on the Levi Strauss Manufacturing Company fascinated me like a movie—removed me completely. Call of the Wild by Jack London held my attention from the fiction section as well. I was blazing through multiple genres.

My excuse about books was lame, I know. But I never comprehended a library before. Its purpose eluded me. Every one always seemed like a museum of paper, with tedious compilations of esoteric details, authoritative to a fault, mostly foreboding and exhausting. But I found out something: If you put in the effort, if you give your honest best, books’ll meet you half way. That was the inspiring part—the interactive process. They called out. Books even smelled good. They felt exciting to handle and touch.

“Hey man, this wasn’t such a bad move. Bonus points to you.” I whispered to Otto from down a dark aisle.

“Just keep readin.’ You can thank me later.”

It didn’t matter that our interests were different—only that we read. Otto liked Civil War books and I found kinship with Dr. Seuss. Later on I caught up to him sitting on a stool, skimming through the history of the West Indies voodoo culture.

“Libraries ain’t so strange.” He finished a chapter and looked up. “They’re meant to be used.”

I gazed down a tall stack. “The only time I read a book was the fifth grade. I did a book report on The Babe Ruth Story.”

“Don’t think nothin’ of it.” Otto straightened his posture, sensing his return to the leadership role. “The library is a good place. There are a lot of good books in the world. What you read adds up. You gotta get your head together in a place like this once in awhile. Otherwise your mind’ll go to seed.”

“True, I prefer to stave off Alzheimer’s Disease.”

“Most words last longer than the author does.”

It was heartening to see all those books down all those aisles, written on every conceivable subject, from abacuses to lighthouses to zoot suits. Each idea came to life by some spark of passion, some special knowledge, and a heck of a lot of persistence. People read those books, learn and gain from them. It was essential to read.

“I’m going to write a book someday if I ever find a subject.”

“Don’t forget to put me in it. Mention this ice cold water fountain, why don’t ya. This sproutin’ stream eased this kid’s dry innards.”

Ralph kept us on the restaurant circuit for dinner. This time we tried Mexican. Though hesitant at first, I finished my spicy hot burrito with a burning stomach.

To douse off, we had dessert at Superior Dairy, a local Hanford landmark since 1929, which served delicious hand-turned ice cream. That soothed my palette and served as the right kind of climax.

My clothes were off and I was just about to get in bed for the night when Betty peeked her head into the bedroom.

“Join me in the kitchen?” Everyone else had gone to bed. I found my aunt leaning against the counter with a Parliament, looking wistful. “Take a seat at that table. If you were twenty-one, I’d mix you a cocktail.”

She had a long, long talk with me. She said it was a pleasure having me come. Her door was open any time I felt like it. Accidents and injuries happen, you never know when. But I was young and healthy and shouldn’t have problems healing.

“Do you really need to go to Los Angeles? They’ve got nothing but snakes in sheep’s clothing down there. They’re shady bastards. Area drips with shysters. That whole movie industry climbs all over each other for a buck. I’d watch my step if you go down there.

“And Tijuana. That’s an awful fucking dirty place. You weren’t planning to go to Mexico, were you?”

“We didn’t bring passports, if that’s what you mean.”

“God forbid. Take it from your dear old aunt—good. There’s fast- talking salesmen on the sidewalks who’ll sell you the shirt off their backs. That’s not your idea of fun, is it? You’ll get sick. You’ll be cussing them out, if not from the water, then from the food. American bellies weren’t built to digest unsanitary food like that. You’ve been through enough trauma for one trip. Stick to our good, laboratory-approved California fruit and vegetables.”

She went back in time. She married too young. Her first husband died of influenza. She fended for herself with little money and family support when she came to California as a single. She talked about her jobs and residences, about Ralph’s charm and courtship. She ran down how she became a member of the Bonsai Club, the Upholstery Club, the Rotary Club Auxiliary, the Methodist Ladies Society.

At the end of two Johnny Walkers and five cigarettes I thought she was going to let me go to bed, but then she poured a third drink and lit a sixth cigarette. I did no talking whatsoever. Betty talked about the new appliances Ralph bought her, the improvements they planned for the house, where they were going on their next vacation, what was on slate for tomorrow. She showed me an old photo album containing pictures of her and my dad as kids. After I pulled away and finally said good night, Betty was getting out a mop and bucket, preparing to scrub the kitchen floor at 12:30 a.m.

“They don’t think I do anything back East, do they?”

Day Twenty-Five (Wednesday, July 21, 1971)

Once my eyes opened, I was up. “The Trip” was back on. No more lingering.

My body made good progress in the battle zone. White was seeping slowly into my sclera, a positive sign. When my eye was open, the eyelid no longer drooped. The black skin started to recede. I could touch the ugly areas and not feel too sharp a pain. My mouth looked halfway normal. A thick scab formed over the cut. I dabbed my face with soap and water. Overall, I felt fine. I made a possessions round up. Diary. Wallet. Traveler’s cheques. Watch. Yankee cap. Winter jacket.

Sunglasses were still a must.

Betty brought us to the entrance ramp of the 99 freeway just outside Visalia, saying, “My lord, if you didn’t seem so anxious to leave, I’d show you the drug store where I work three days a week as a pharmacist’s assistant.” We sat in the car about ten minutes. She asked again and again if we had adequate money, all our clothes, toothbrushes, maps, and so on.

Otto and I looked at each other with renewed faith under the molten sun. Traffic was back, swishing. How I liked that auto sound—it was the hitchhiker’s lullaby, in the same category as gurgling streams and rustling leaves. Our troubles as a team had flared up again but were currently dormant. Otto’s mateship was dependable. His head was screwed on right. I liked him being around. As long as we had that, we had stability. Otto wasn’t going to change over a little blip. Neither was I. As we laughed about our desolate location, I still savored his companionship. He was good in the trenches. Kept my head stimulated. He knew we were at our best working as a pair.

“So this phase two?” he asked.

“You got it. Travel By Thumb, under new and improved management. A total makeover, featuring exciting and unseen moments from your favorite hitchhiking characters, Roger and Otto. The best is yet to come, ladies and gentlemen. Stay tuned.”

A ride came quickly. But it was only for two exits south, to an even worse ‘on’ ramp, smack in the middle of farm country. It had to be 105 degrees, with neither cloud nor tree in sight. Just flat, arid farmland. Hay wagons, tractors, and equipment trucks comprised the majority of vehicles puttering past. None of the farmers had the slightest inclination of helping out. I entertained Otto by singing “Hot Fun in the Summertime” by Sly and the Family Stone. We drank freely from the canteen.

I was shocked to see a mileage sign: Los Angeles 195. Just to Bakersfield was 89. I pulled out my map and whistled. San Francisco and Los Angeles were a whopping 420 miles apart. New York and Philadelphia, I knew, were 90. Those were the proportions I was used to.

Otto studied a cop buzzing past on a motorcycle. “Now I know why they call the California Highway Patrol ‘CHIP’s. Have you noticed? They go by every fifteen minutes.”

“You can set your watch to it.”

After two hours of deepening our suntans, shouting at farmers, and singing dozens of songs, he and I had no choice but to tempt the CHIPs. It was a new Otto Overture. He suggested inching down the ramp as close as we dared, to a spot legally arguable if we were “on” or “off” the freeway proper.

“Keep your eyes open and your knees loose. I don’t wanna to start the second half kickoff with a ticket.”

Ten minutes into the gambit, a cream-colored Buick Electra angled across the lanes. We said hello to a guy with a frumpy permanent wave and a tape deck playing Monterey Pop Festival Live. He was a hairdresser named Gerard. We called him, ‘Gerard zee Hairdresser.’

He was tall and European. A scarf was tied around his neck. His pants were pinkish; but his hands were too rough to be gay. His conversation was decidedly hetero.

“Fellows, I spare you shop talk about zee curling irons and shampoo and wigs. Those are zee tools of my trade. Instead, we enjoy talk of womens’ beautiful behinds, no? You like Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot, no? Gina Lollobrigida, no? Catherine Deneuve, no?”

“Yes yes yes yes,” Otto nodded.

“We like babes in all flavors, sizes, and shapes. Sophia and Gina and all of them.” I licked my lips in the heat.

Gerard fancied himself as “zee fastest safe driver on zee roadway.” He got close to a 100 m.p.h. several times by staying only in the right hand lane, a feat worth remembering.

“People are so busy passing. They leave zee slow lane open. That is my secret.” He powered southbound through heat and hot air. “When you stay to zee right, you stay invisible. Especially when you deal with zee CHIPs. That is zee object of zee game, no?”

Gerard knew the 99 freeway like the back of a scalp. He maintained a safe distance behind other cars, always used his blinkers, and stayed patient. He buried uninitiated fools in his rearview mirror. He pointed out possible police lookouts, “corners I zee them hiding.” Sure enough, at one spot a cop was lodged behind a clump of mulberry trees.

“This is fun, no?” He cruised at ninety steering with his fingers that had seven or eight rings. “Never give zee CHIPs a reason to stop you. Drive an American car with nothing fancy. Keep your papers up to date. I love when some fellow rolls out ahead of me. I follow close behind in zee slow lane. I do not challenge, do not get mad. But I laugh when he gets a ticket—not me.”

Miles clicked by. Traffic got heavier. The grooved, concrete lanes got stained and oily. Gerard flew past Bakersfield, and I was snapping my fingers to the beat of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band on his tape deck. He suddenly signaled and exited north. He let us off at Mettler, a town so small that my Shell map didn’t even list it in the legend.

The land remained flat, yellow, worked over, in need of a good rain. Blue sky fused into chalky white at the horizon. Reflector cups and small, star-shaped flowers in the median offered up the sole color
(pink) across sun-choked fields. Smog blanketed the atmosphere in a grainy haze.

Our previous wait was two hours. That seemed to be the new standard. This wait grew into two hours, twenty minutes.

A hairy guy gulping down a full can of V-8 juice stopped in his El Camino. He welcomed us aboard by saying in an unusually deep voice, “It’s a beautiful day, my brothers.” He was short and bulky with long arms and big hands.

“You probably seen me on TV or in the movies and never known it, my brothers. I’m a stunt actor. I do four or five productions a year. Sometimes the only thing I do is tumble down a set of stairs, though I’ve taken a horse’s foot to the mouth and landed a parachute in a tree.”

“Pleased to meet a Hollywood star!” I said it mostly to make him feel good. He was one of the homeliest men I’d ever seen, with a thoroughly broken nose and scarred forehead.

“My specialty is westerns, but I’ve been on Ironside for a few seasons now. I’ve been on Wagon Train, Lancer, Here Comes the Brides . . . movies, I’ve been in Little Big Man and The Boatniks. Some assignments are more lucrative than others, my brothers.”

“Did you hang out with Dustin Hoffman on Little Big Man?”

“He’s the biggest studio name I’ve worked with, but to answer your question, no. Not enough. Nice guy, though. Loves to party when he’s in the mood.”

“All your bills get paid no problem, I bet.”

“Stunt work pays good money as an avocation. But my vocation is to pick up every hitchhiker I see on the highway. That’s who I am, my brothers. Do you know who you are? I come from the land of the free and I help others be free, too. This is my labor. My way to serve. I do it in gratitude from years standing among the masses with my thumb out like yourselves. Hitchhiking is artwork formed out of movement. Do you sense that in your souls?”

Meanwhile, the 99 freeway merged with Interstate 5. Gloriously high mountains rose across a vast, desolate plain. We chugged up one of the mountains at a forty-five degree angle.

“Let it come to you, my brothers. Let it come inside your soul.” The engine rallied.

Overtaking the summit opened into a new universe. A moist glen with intermittent lowlands beckoned. First came dappled forest, then random houses carved out of hillsides sprawled across mountains, dotting the landscape with creamy-orange rooftops and Spanish- style architecture. Soon came glut: older, smaller houses; commercial buildings and stores; industrial distribution centers; office complexes; parking lots; people noise clamor hubbub rancor. It crammed together, pressing mind and eye. Objects swirled around in a color-drenched kaleidoscope. A moody song on the FM, “A Case of You,” by Joni Mitchell, filled the waves.

The freeway got packed. The stunt man was doing eighty-five. Anything less was too slow. Further, further we thrust. It was almost sexual. There was a throb to it. I was here, in it deeply. One life, one glob, one giant throbbing lifevein.

Just as I started hoping the stunt man would show us around the set of his latest movie, he said, “My brothers, welcome to the L.A. basin, land of fallen angels. The next exit, I regret, is mine.” The most recent mileage marker said Los Angeles 36.

Otto and I refueled our jets at Honey Dew’s Cactus Flower Restaurant, a lively taproom with plenty of customers. I felt exuberant coming out, though I wasn’t sure about getting a quick ride. The ‘on’ ramp was horrifically busy at the beginning of afternoon rush hour. There was nowhere to stand—the ramp itself was long, curving, and treacherous.

“We lost our momentum by havin’ a sitdown meal instead of just goin’ to that hot dog truck like I wanted, Roger.”

“I was hoping your frown was my imagination.”

“This is the pits. There ain’t no artwork standin’ in this mess.”

A guy in front of a giant truck yelled, “Hey buddies! How’d you like to help us unload this furniture?”

Allied Furniture, Missouri plates. The guy said, “It’s down the road a stretch. I’ll give you both twenty dollars if you’re interested. We just got to town and want to get this stuff off tonight.”

“I could use capital refurbishment,” Otto decided.

He and I boarded the truck. We said hello to the boss, ‘Jocko’; his partner Antonio, and Antonio’s son, Jose. The five of us rode to an unincorporated village, Lancaster, which was nothing but one new housing development on top of another. The dry scrub land made for such a vapid environment that you wondered where they found water for all these newcomers.

The work Otto and I agreed to was tough. The truck was chock full. I grabbed at least six Cokes from the cooler to help me get through the sweat and stink. My bad eye didn’t affect my lifting; I took care not to touch or bump into anything. Otto worked “as a way to get exercise.” It was a ranch house built mostly on all one level.

By the time we slacked off, it was dark. My strength was sapped. We didn’t finish. The quantity of furniture was tremendous. Jocko treated everyone to take-out food from Burger King before departing with Antonio and Jose for a motel. Otto and I took showers inside the new house. He and I camped in the living room amidst unpacked cabinets and chairs stacked atop one another, with the owner’s son in- law sleeping down the hall.

“Quite an unexpected turn of events. But I sanction it.” I settled into the soft, carpeted floor.

“As long as Jocko antes up with the gold, it was a smart turn. If you’re not inside makin’ money, then you’re outside spendin’ it.”

Day Twenty-Six (Thursday, July 22 1971)

Jocko and Antonio were decent stock. They liked to chitchat about travel, towns, sports, and music. They marveled at the trip we were taking and asked about its delights and foibles. Jocko even knew how many states he had—38. Ten year-old Jose was a wise ass, but Antonio, tattoos and all, was a loving dad to his son. He and his boss, Jocko, had been doing this for six years.

“We look for help in each new town and hire on the spot. That makes more sense than to take another guy on the road,” Jocko explained as we finished up.

I liked the idea of being inside a private house in California. It gave vibrations of being “on the inside looking out” rather than the other way around. The owners were coming from Joplin, Missouri.

Twenty dollars each was major; it increased our coffers by about a fifth. It was almost like being a millionaire. It was a profitable side- spree. Jocko dropped Otto and me off in Santa Clarita near I-5. I picked out a splashy restaurant that had open courtyards and palm trees next to its tables. I ate steak and eggs with hash browns, pancakes, and fruit salad, served on a heavy square plate, and drank chocolate milk. Otto ate steak and eggs and ordered “muffin mania,” intended for families. He ate six.

“Check out the bathrooms, Roger. It’s like you’re walkin’ through a rain forest. The walls are dark blue and the mirrors are curvy. I’m gonna disappear in there; do some contemplation from the throne.”

“I’ll be out here looking at these paintings of the Tejon Pass and Pyramid Lake.”

Hitchhiking at 2 p.m. was easier said than done. Like yesterday, the “on” ramp was intolerably long. With its sharp curve in the distance, you couldn’t even see the interstate beyond the mountain. Did rush hour in California start this early? Cars—cranky and resentful—charged at us from two lanes. They came in smatterings of twelve or sixteen, malicious for no reason; aggressive, road raging; trying to get somewhere they weren’t.

“What’s the glitch, folks? Come on, you dumb Californians! You can’t drive past without dealing with us. Stop!”

“I thought these people were supposed to be hip.”

“They would be, if they gave us a ride.”

“Look at that tall guy with a bow-tie.”

“Hey, Fred MacMurray, smarten up! Your three sons wanted you to stop!”

This simpleness dragged on for more than two hours when a little Mexican kid, driving a crumpled up, rebuilt Volkswagen, came whirling past in the outer lane. Screeching his brakes—jamming another car—he cut inside and skidded to a stop on the shoulder. The righthand blinker flashed through the dust.

The car was a mess—no bumper, fenders dented, license plate hanging. The refinish was some odd powder blue. I sent Otto to the back seat with one of my bags. The front seat was raw springs under a greasy towel.

The kid was tuning in a staticky FM station with his urchin hands, and offered no formal acknowledgment. But when the door closed, he checked the mirrors, threw the stick into gear, and shot up the ramp. He edged between two tractor-trailers, one of which broke its speed and honked.
Traffic was a circus. A hullabaloo. It was lurching ahead in knots and bunches, with concrete tributaries siphoning off cars and feeding them back on at about the same rate.

The urchin couldn’t have been much above the California legal age. Straight black hair draped his dirty, olive face. He looked like ‘Dondi,’ the wide-eyed Italian war orphan from the funny pages. He flicked on the blinker and sped into the center lane.

Hunks of new freeway hung suspended in midair. Cars funneled through an excavated rockslide area. A sign read ‘BEGIN: GOLDEN STATE FREEWAY.’

Houses and more houses assaulted the senses, increasing proportionately with exits, billboards, cars, construction, and a coffee- lemony smell. Colors and noise filtered across the canyon. Crime detective Joe Friday from Dragnet recited in my ear with a steady, authoritative voice, “This is the city—Los Angeles, California.”

Every tract of sprawl laid claim to some unique, distinguished feature. Swimming pools in the hills. Health spas and fast food emporiums. Muscle clubs in garages. Posh tennis courts and tea gardens. Cross streets jumbled in with traffic lights, town houses, billboards advertising Carnal Knowledge and The Last Picture Show, dinner shows, car rentals, offices, Thai restaurants. Fifteen blocks down or so objects disappeared into the smog.

“Where you going?”

“L.A.,” I told the urchin. The freeway expanded to four lanes, five lanes, six lanes, even seven lanes in each direction.

“That tell me zero, amigo. What section?” He raced into a faster lane.

I started to lose my wherewithal; lost in a flume of stimuli. I looked back at Otto, studying an embankment studded with flowers, bushes, and scrubs.

“That’s what we’ve got to figure out.” I adjusted my sunglasses over my bad eye.

“What address you got? Hurry, my exit’s coming up.”

“Hey Otto, what’re we doing, man?”

The urchin’s jaw dropped. “You got no address?”

Otto slipped his head through the seats. “Are there any big parks around?”

“Griffith Park. But you can’t go camping there. Camping anywhere in L.A.’s out. Say, what you doin’ comin’ down here in the first place?”

“Which way is downtown?”

He frowned. “Over there.”

Sitting across a broad, swampy wasteland, past sagging palm trees, stood a clump of tall, dark, shiny buildings pillared through the smog. I remembered Otto’s disinclination about mingling in big cities and lost my marbles.

“Hey Otto, we’ve got to talk about this.”

“What’s your gig, amigo? You coming down here without knowing no one? You don’t want no downtown. What you gonna do down there? You crazy?” His accent got stronger.
“What’s wrong with that park?” Otto said.

“Pigs. They patrol it all the time and would stop you when they saw your backpacks. They’s crackin’ down, lookin’ for people to bust. It ain’t cool right now. There’s lots of crime, rape, murders. People are afraid of gettin’ robbed. Pigs’ll search for dope. I hope you got no dope on you, man, and if you do, you better eat it up.”

Potential attractions were falling away as we talked—Hollywood Bowl. Los Angeles Coliseum. Historic Olvera Street. Dodger Stadium. Little Tokyo. Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

“By the way, that was my exit.” The urchin referred to a ramp, ‘EAST LOS ANGELES.’

“Where’s Hollywood?”

“We passed it. I’m telling you, homeboy. L.A. ain’t cool for a hitcher. It’s too insane. I gave up and bought a car.”

“Is Disneyland any good?” Otto asked.

“That’s Anaheim. Ain’t bad if you do that kind of scene. They got things to do and places to mellow out. You want to go there?”

The image of Disneyland flashed across my mind. Tinkerbell was flicking around the TV set with her wand, lighting up the castle with stardust. Pluto and Donald Duck beckoned visitors inside the magic kingdom. The late Walt himself was introducing this week’s episode of The Wonderful World of Color, always on Sundays at 7:30 p.m. on NBC.

“Hey yeah, Otto, Disneyland. That’s the solution.”

Otto turned to the urchin. “Would you recommend it?”

“Recommend it?” He smiled with sparse teeth. “It’s better than where you was gonna have me leave you off. You want me to drive you down?”

This kid was crazy, going out of his way like this. These distances were far. Santa Clarita and Disneyland must’ve been seventy miles apart.

“’Preciate it, man,” I said.

“Don’t bother me none. If I let you off down in the barrio, you’d never get out of there. You’d be road meat.”

The urchin cruised down South Harbor Boulevard in Anaheim, a catchall of red and yellow flowers and solid motels. Palm trees branched out among ivy groundcover. Rows of hyacinths paraded in front of restaurants. The urchin stopped along a high mesh fence. This was Disneyland, he said (though you couldn’t see it).

“You weren’t gonna drag me around no downtown Los Angeles.” Otto brushed off his pant legs, standing on the pavement.

“Not since that kid knew what he was talking about.”

“’Cuz I wasn’t gonna let you if you tried.”

I tightened my belt. “No, Otto Omnipotent, I was in it long enough to decide we’re not going to mess with L.A.”

“Good. There oughta be enough fun down here.”

“I agree with you.”

“Look at the sky.”

“He-he—Tropicana orange.”

Can you believe the majority of Disneyland was a parking lot? Acre upon acre was filled with parked cars, thousands of them. The actual park stood a quarter-mile away, completely contained within the bounds of this outer lot, hidden behind foliage, mounds of dirt, and a barbed- wire fence. Only a silver mountain with a twisting rollercoaster peeked out from within.

“Walt should do a remote broadcast sometime.” I watched the elevated monorail shuttle passengers between the inside of the park and Disneyland Hotel. “Set up his camera right here.”

“Walt’s take on entertainment is a far cry from Palisades Amusement Park in Jersey, I’ll tell ya.”

It was too late in the day to enter, and sneaking in was not up for discussion. For fun, Otto and I hiked around the perimeter, following the mesh fence—probably a three mile junket.

“If there was an alternate way in, we woulda found it.” Otto tramped ahead.

“The fence is not only high, it looks new. Walt thought everything through completely.”

“You got any thoughts about bunkin’?”

“What say we go in style for one night and pay for a room?”

“Excuse me, Roger?”

“Just this one night, since we’re doing so well financially. Let’s go off message and splurge. After all, we’re rich. Can we?”

“Balderdash! Our rules are set in stone. Don’t you remember our agreement? We don’t pay to sleep. We don’t pay to ride. How you gonna hold your head up high if you don’t follow through on our pledge? No way. Ain’t gonna happen, sons!”

We settled for Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge. We checked ourselves onto a soft, double-occupancy cushion of ice plants behind Mr. Johnson’s garbage shed, next to his parking lot and twenty yards behind his lodge. It was adequately secluded, but noisy. On the other side of a cedar fence, not five feet away, ran the Santa Ana Freeway.

“I’m trusting God no trucks overturn along this stretch.” I stuffed change in my shoes from my knees.

Day Twenty-Seven (Friday, July 23, 1971)

I stirred at the first inkling of daylight. My body felt infested with dirt and bugs. My eye pounded. The black skin had swollen back up and my cheek was tender. My sclera was still red. It was evident I hadn’t taken care of myself as well as I thought.

Otto sat up haplessly with drooping arms and shoulders, hair twisted, mumbling, “I didn’t get any sleep at all.” With all the tractor- trailers whistling past, I knew why. I tried to cheer him up but felt just as miserable.

My sunglasses went back on.

“I gave up bein’ tired, so let’s see what this mouse business is all about,” Otto said.

Considering our unexpected windfall, there was no dispute about what type of tickets to buy at Disneyland. Otto and I each shelled out $9.75 for premium “E” tickets, the highest tier. That gave us admission to practically everything.

The other strategy was to get as much value for our buck as possible. He and I were among the first guests to push through the Magic Kingdom turnstiles at 8 a.m. We actually had a chance to be absolutely first, though some eager-beaver Disney fanatics ran ahead.

“Disneyland’s open for seventeen hours, and we’re gonna spend every minute inside these gates.”
“M-I-C-K-E-Y / H-E-R-E / W-E / A-R-E.” I sang it, but it didn’t quite fit the iconic theme song.

Main Street U.S.A. was a replica of a Midwest Victorian town from the 1890’s, complete with central square, city hall, ragtime musicians, horse-drawn carriages, sidewalk cafes, a firehouse with a steam-powered pump engine, and fake birds chirping in the large, well-tended shade trees.

The park spoked out like the hub of a wheel, to Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, Adventureland, and the newest attraction, New Orleans Square. Walt’s layout was clever, adroitly condensed and designed to keep you moving.

“I feel charmed almost in spite of myself.”

“It’s like walkin’ from one sound stage to another. There’s a lot of back areas they don’t show ya. It’s a performance.”

“It’s a menagerie of feel-good culture.”

“Reality is suspended, but you’re glad it is.”

My experience with Donald Duck will never show on film. Imagine, seeing my all-time favorite Disney character waddle past, waving, posing for pictures, surrounded by a crowd of children. I handed my camera to Otto and told him to get ready.

I waited my turn, moving in for an embrace. I got closer, closer . . . until I realized Donald was pushing me away. It was like he was saying, “I’m for children only. You’re too big.” I corralled him against a bench. Donald pinched my arm, hard. First chance he got, he waddled away. Otto snapped the picture.

“You can’t even make friends with Donald Duck? You got a problem, sons.”

Disagreements with Otto started early—too early. Couldn’t we ever stay in synch anymore? He and I couldn’t agree on what rides to go on. The only rides we liked together were “Haunted House” and “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Otto claimed I hijacked him into riding the “Sante Fe & Disneyland Railroad.” I criticized his next selection, “Flight to the Moon.” Otto defiantly banged through the doors of a kiddy ride, “Alice in Wonderland,” while I took solo flight on “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.”

By “Tom Sawyer’s Island,” we were traversing the paper mache rocks on our own, barely civil.

“You’re not supposed to argue at amusement parks!”

“So why you squabblin’?”

“This being pissy all the time has got to stop, Otto.”

“You’re killin’ all the fun, not me. I’m the same as I ever was.”

Otto tapped his foot impatiently while I browsed through the gift emporium. When I was in the mood for a cheeseburger at the Dancing Bear Jamboree, he opted to buy four Ding Dongs in front of the Autotopia. When I lingered in front of the Coca-cola boogie- woogie pianist, he motioned to meet him at the Big Game Shooting Gallery. After I mentioned how I liked the guide’s clever speech aboard the Gullywhumper Keel Boats, he bickered, “Sheese, I’d rather go flyin’ with Peter Pan.”

We blasted each other’s reasons whether to endure the wait for the Tomorrowland Jets or the Sailing Ship Columbia—and wound up going on neither.

“For all the time you spend in the bathroom, I could’ve taken an extra ride on the monorail!”

“Why you bein’ so righteous, Winans, not wantin’ to make free prank phone calls at the AT&T pavilion? Doesn’t Jesus like to have fun? Was he a killjoy like you?” He disappeared up the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse.

“Sit up there on your brooding rear end and take a powder!” I yelled from the ground.

Otto asked me to take his portrait with the camera in front of a white horse. He shot me sitting next to a trash can. We never asked anyone to take a picture of us together. I didn’t want the camera to break.
He coaxed me to sample Disneyland’s most popular attraction, “Matterhorn Mountain Bobsled,” after bearing a 55-minute wait. I was deeply impressed with the robot technology of “Great Moments with Abraham Lincoln.” Otto fell asleep.

Fireworks were shot off at 9 p.m. Singer Freda Payne performed “Band of Gold,” and “Bring the Boys Home,” from the Tomorrowland Terrace. The crowd got unruly. A rougher element milled around the passageways the later it got. At one o’clock security guards literally pushed the throng out the exit gates. Otto and I were among the last to file out.

My expenditures for the day totaled an astronomical $12.50. “Holy crap, Otto, that’s eight dollars more than our budget!”

“True, Walt’s got his hand down your pants the moment you come through the gate.” He smiled, now more relaxed, in control. “But I guess goin’ into fantasy for seventeen hours was worth it.”

“My only worry is our stuff.”

We stashed it in a dark, woodsy, triangular hideout between Harbor Boulevard, the Santa Ana Freeway, and its ‘off’ ramp. The clearing lie well below street level, shielded by overhanging trees. Not so good were the charred campfire remnants, litter, a mangled suitcase, and torn white bra.

Everything was in place.

We bedded down inside the triangle. It was sweaty and buggy. No fresh air circulated because the thick foliage choked off all oxygen. I slept nude on top of my sleeping bag, inhaling stale beer, burnt metal and plastic, and chlorophyll.

Day Twenty-Eight (Saturday, July 24 ,1971)

I was pleased with my image the next time I looked. The red of my sclera was condensing. The blackness of the skin was ebbing. I decided to try it without sunglasses. I brushed my beard and stroked my hair and scratched wax out of my ears.

“No, I’m not from California.” I stretched my cheek muscles into a smile, showing evenly-placed pearly whites. “But admit it, Winans. The longer you’re here, it’s growing on you. Isn’t it? You like ‘Fornia.’ You do.”

I asked Otto if we could go to Huntington Beach. That resort was my original inspiration for wanting to visit California. Back in 1967 a TV special on surfing was broadcast, using Huntington Beach as its backdrop. I recalled a clean, wide beach, high waves, a long pier, and the type of atmosphere that drove to the heart of what this California phenomena was all about (read: girls in bikinis, girls in short shorts, girls in halter tops, girls in Levis, girls in strapless dresses, girls in party gowns, girls in no makeup, girls in nothing, etc).

“The only thing I wanna say,” Otto swallowed a bite of his strawberry pancake from Howard’s restaurant, “and don’t get mad—is that once we get to Huntington Beach, I wanna stay there at least three days, and not go nowhere else.”

“. . . Sure. That’s what I was going to suggest anyway.”

“I don’t need to be runnin’ all over the place, Roger. You got me wore down to the nub, sons. Let’s just get to this one town and throw down the anchor.”

“That sounds perfect.”

“We got hitchin’ back to worry about, too.”

“Indeedy. Forty days and forty nights.” I sipped my sweet light coffee.

“So let’s take it easy while we can. Hit the beach, enjoy three days of fun and sun, then bolt outta here.”

Sparkling ocean and glimmering sand whetted my senses as we got out of a tiny sports convertible, the second of two short rides. This was exactly what I envisioned: unlimited sun, blue sky, roaring surf, salty breeze, and a broad, stirring sea—of bikinis. They blanketed the beach with color, laughter, and derring-do. Already I could smell coconut from the female posse sending wafts of lotion swirling off Coppertone bodies.

Highway One, by now feeling like a compadre, paralleled the beachfront, still continuing its trek southward. The swaying palm trees made shadows on the ground. An advertising plane zoomed overhead: ‘Make Yours Sweet ‘N Low.’

To think, I walked on without paying a cent. There was no filching here—California beaches were gratis. Free!

“What’s taking you so long? C’mon man, let’s hit the water!”

I jogged across the sand with my bags and heaved them next to three blonds who were suntanning on their stomachs with their tops undone. My shirt was peeled and my towel spread by the time Otto caught up.

“See you later, Otto-izer!” I sprinted toward the water. I hurdled over sand castles and sidestepped waders. I leaped over a breaking wave. A big one splashed a coat of Pacific water on my front and I dove in. I surfaced and dipped like a jack in the box. I kept both eyes shut so not to abuse the bad one.
Here came Otto through the crowd, using a slow trot. “Thataway, George!”

You would expect Mr. Otto-miser to hesitate at the waterline, even backstep to dry sand. But no, he continued gingerly, meeting the foam with delicacy. He tiptoed through the shallow water, bearing the temperature with a grimace. He eventually swam out as far as me.

“How you doing, my brother?” I drifted to and fro.

“Fine.”

“Hey man, this is it! Now I can say it—we’re here.”

“I got you.”

I slung water from my scalp with the most grandiose gesture I could summon. “This is not the Atlantic Ocean. It’s the Pacific Ocean!”

“Hey O.J. Simpson, you shouldn’t have been such a wildman back there. You kicked sand in everyone’s face. Those girls next to where you put your stuff? You got their hackles up.”

“Plenty of girls to go around. Two girls for every boy!” I dove through a wave and used vigorous butterfly strokes to go deeper, making a couple of deep-sea explorations. Otto dove a few times but then retreated to shore.

“Otto the Ostrich won’t get his feathers ruffled!”

I bobbed up and down, flopping around like a porpoise. I rode in waves—challenging them to thrash me. The waves weren’t pacific; they crashed with rapture. Salt water is good for what ails you, my mother always told me. So is salt air. I remembered my dad forcing me out of the water as a kid, “before you drown yourself,” he used to say. My eyes would be bloodshot and my fingers wrinkled. I would be waterlogged, teetering and tottering, smelling like an oyster.

I was like that now. Except it was my choice to stay in.

West Coast lifeguards didn’t blow their whistle at you all the time, either, like New Jersey beaches.

I loved my positioning on the Earth. It was like having the whole United States in front of me. I lifted my arms as if cradling the nation in my arms. This great body of water carried no subordinate names, like bay, cove, inlet, sound, or kill. It was ocean, the biggest in the world. Hawaii slanted out past that horizon somewhere to the southwest, an unbelievable three thousand miles away. It was as many miles west to Hawaii over the water as it was the other way over land east to New Jersey.

I rested my head on the foam and dreamed.

In due time Otto returned for a second dip. We enjoyed an extensive session riding in waves and floating around.

“Hey Otto, we’re on the other side of the nation. You can’t go any further.”

“Natch.”

“Don’t you think that’s incredible? It’s like sitting at the end of the rainbow.”

Otto slicked back his hair. “So what you preachin’ to me now, Winans? The rest of my life will just be a sad epilogue?”

It was funny to be in a bona fide ocean, yet facing the opposite direction. I was definitely facing west. The afternoon sun hit my eyes from over the water, not land. It made California good to the last drop.

I bought bottled water (imagine such a thing!) at a straw hut. Radios played acoustic rock by classic bands like the Byrds, and new bands like the Eagles. Lifeguard stands looked like spaceships, but there weren’t ridiculous numbers of them, like on New Jersey beaches. Nor were there all those obtrusive umbrellas, shading gross tubby landlubbers. Sun was king here. The beach, free of litter and waste, got manicured by machines. The pier stood to the north, its dozens of wooden pilings withstanding a hard slap from the sea. The sand scorched. The grains were noticeably larger—brown pebbles. A New Jersey-style boardwalk was missing; instead, a blacktop squibbed along, beautified, of course, by well-nourished beds of plants and scrubs.

It was so pleasurable not having any big “NO” signs telling you what you couldn’t do. That was standard fare from Sandy Hook to Cape May. Everything on Jersey beaches was prohibited—alcohol, firearms, pets, bicycles, off-road vehicles, disrobing, fires, glass containers, kites, ball playing, etc. Even fishing in most places.

Here volleyball nets were set up, encouraging people to play. Throwing a football or frisbee was perfectly all right. Outside showers and restroom pavilions were provided at no cost. Large concrete tubs were installed for cookouts. There were no fences, no beach badges, no stickers, no hand-stamping. I gladly forgot about the Jersey macho men with their bronze bellies, gold crosses, and Brilliantine-slick, nappy hair.

As afternoon progressed into evening, hamburgers sizzled over charcoal. You could smell grilled chicken, teriyaki sauce, relish, mustard, hot dogs. Heck, if you started a fire on a Jersey beach for any reason whatsoever, a cop would be there in ten minutes to give you a ticket.

The sheer number of girls was driving me crazy. I could really surmise how the melody of “The Girls on the Beach” arrived into the mind of Brian Wilson. I affectionately recalled ‘Eileen,’ Asbury Park, summer of 1967, first girl to kiss me on the lips.

The surfers were fun to watch on the north side of the pier, too. They were doing hang tens and duck dives and 360’s and acting hardcore. But you had to keep your distance. It was a clique. An unwritten rule said don’t mingle unless you had a surfboard, wetsuit, a dab of sunscreen for your nose, long blond hair gnarled with sand, and an entourage of groupies hovering around smoking cigarettes.

The only disappointment was the sunset. The same confounded fog that plagued the coast further up—suppressing the beauty of the evening—came rolling back toward the end of the day, right on cue. Same fog, same misty dankness. It was ubiquitous. That didn’t bother the natives. Emphasis swung to bike riding, kite flying, roller skating, and jogging. Sweatshirts and windbreakers covered up swimwear. Otto and I returned from a fast-food dinner at Jack in the Box to check on our stuff, which in the spirit of the day we left right out in the open.

Two girls were sitting on a beach towel not far from our spot. They were facing the water and not saying a heck of a lot to each other: an agile, rough-and-tumble blond, wearing a gray teeshirt and faded corduroys; and a cunningly mysterious, dark-eyed brunette. She wore a white lace shirt and dungarees. Both in bare feet.

“Where’s the sun?” I ranted. “I don’t call this a sunset.”

The two stared at me with that wondrous feminine lure. The blond giggled happily and carefree; the dark-haired one smiled and winked with surprising maturity.

“I trek out here all the way from New Jersey, and the least I expect is a decent sunset. But look at that.” I pointed toward the water.

“Yeah, it’s crummy out,” the blond said.

“It’s like this all the time,” her friend said sadly. “It’s depressing. It’s like the sky has a disability.”

The blond wiggled herself a groove in the sand, and sat up straight. “Haven’t you ever seen a sunset before? That’s funny. Where have you been all your life?” She took the Doublemint she was smacking and pushed it under the sand. She looked at me with smiling wonder.

“Well, yeah, I’ve seen sunsets. Not over the Pacific, though.”

“Where do they get this fog?” Otto joined the circle.

“Oh, it comes and goes. It’ll go away tomorrow morning. It’s nothing new. It’s the same old thing. We weren’t even watching it.” The blond rubbed the bottom of her feet together, and kept wiggling herself a better position, all while looking at me.

“My goal on this trip has been to come across a sky like a velvet- orange mural. Or see the sun sitting on the water like a big red ball. But I don’t think so, not tonight anyway.” I shifted the weight on my legs. “It’s like this all the time, huh?”

“Constantly,” the dark-haired girl said. “It’s the unCalifornia California.”

“Say, you guys are a scream. Did you just get into town or something?” The blond blinked in rapidity.

“Yeah, around noon or so. We came over from Disneyland. Before that, we were up in the Valley. Before that, Big Sur. We’ve seen quite a bit of your state.”

“We’re hitchhikers,” Otto announced.

“Yeah, the originals.”

“Oooo, that sounds like fun,” the blond said. “I knew a guy from Marin County who did that once. Except he was a biker on a Harley. He rode wherever he wanted, day and night, camped out by himself, cooked over a fire, and partied with the people that he met. He had a bitchin’ time.”

“Where are you girls from?” Otto asked.

The blond laughed outright. The brunette snickered. The blond made a hitchhiking gesture with her thumb. “Out,” she giggled. “Way out. Hemet. Ever hear of that?”

I took my foot and dug a question mark in the sand and looked up with a smile. “Well, guess what, folks? The professor is stumped. That’s one I’ve never heard of.”

“I didn’t think so. No one has.” The blond smiled with empathy. She reached for a cigarette from her bag, then thought better of it and tucked her bag against her leg.

“Is that down by Mexico?” Otto ventured.

The girls stared at each other, deciding. The blond replied, “No, but it’s way out in the boondocks. It don’t matter, we’re not there now. Good god.”

“Really, that place is beat. I think that’s where they invented the term ‘one-horse town’,” the dark-haired one said. The two giggled in unison.

“Hiccup, hiccup, pass the bottle, Marla. Cut the deck. Let’s play another round of Spades. Say Linda, who’s got gas money and a car that works? Hey Donna, when’s the next race?” The blond laughed. “That’s all that’s going on in Hemet. Drink drink drink.”

“In other words, it’s a boring place,” the dark-haired one summed up.

“So if you ladies weren’t out here watchin’ the sunset, what were you doin’?” Otto inquired.

“Oh, not much.” The blond’s nature was open and trusting. “We were just talking about this neat dragstrip race in Laguna Beach that we could’ve gone to if we had someone to give us a ride. The top fuel eliminations are tonight. Do you guys have wheels? Oh, that’s right— you’re hitchers.”

“We were just planted here on the sand, talking up a plethora of nothing.”

“Do you mind if we sit with you?” I said. “We’re not doing much ourselves.”

“Sure. Grab a seat.” The blond wiggled a spot free on the blanket.

“Great!”

I was ready to pair off, and the winner was the blond. She had the most spunk and made the most accessible comments. With her blond, toned, rugged body, she was dripping ‘California.’ I craved her physicality and lack of pretense. The dark-haired girl was attractive, for sure—in many ways she was a jewel—but she was too complex and serious, a little too cerebral for my mood. Her eyes hid too many secrets. I stepped onto the rumpled blanket and sat cross-legged next to the smiling blond, on the spot she vacated. Otto lowered himself next to the pixie.

The four of us shared a no-pressure, sprightly evening. They were sisters, half-Cherokee at that. Cindy Latourette was the blond, sixteen. Denise Latourette, her sister, was fourteen. They were on an overnight getaway with their parents at a motel on Highway One, something their family did every few weeks during the summer.

“My name’s Omar,” Otto uncorked for all to hear. Immediately I knew what he was up to. He was referencing Omar Sharif, the dashing male lead in Dr. Zhivago. It sounded like some sort of calculated advantage. To prevent him from moving too far ahead, I adjusted my identity as well.

I went from Roger to ‘Rodney.’ That not only kept up with Otto, but would counterbalance Cindy’s heavy interest in race cars, motorcycles, and auto mechanics. She already cut down her talk about drinking after she realized I didn’t imbibe. It was a gamble, but she didn’t hold it against me to promote myself as straight. If anything, it raised my stock.

The four of us remained engaged until well after dark. When the mist turned chilly and the pier lights blurred through the wind I kicked the affair into a higher gear. “Say—why don’t we all get together tomorrow for a day of swimming and socializing?”

“Oooo, that sounds like fun,” Cindy said. “Denise, you and I can make sandwiches. We’ll bring Mom’s extra cooler, and the radio. Maybe we can find some wine.”

“I’m dying for a glass of burgundy right now.” Denise yawned and looked about.

“You can count on us,” Cindy said. “Rodney, what’s the matter?”

“Oh, nothing. I’m just trying to think of where my friend and I are going to sleep tonight, that’s all. But don’t worry about that. We’re experienced vagabonds.”

“You poor guys.” Cindy put her hand on my shoulder. “We’d have you come back to the motel and crash with us if it weren’t for Mom and Dad. They’re so dumb for coming out to the beach and staying in the room watching TV all night.”

“Come on, let’s go home, Cindy,” Denise said. “I’m getting cold.”

The only ingredient I needed to declare the evening a total success took place while the gentlemen from New Jersey escorted the ladies from California back toward their room. Cindy walked at my side. Tall, big-boned, and slim, I sure was anxious to know what her package looked like unsheathed. To my delight Otto and Denise seemed to be pairing up as well. I heard them laughing and talking behind us.

First chance I got, I veered Cindy off behind a row of bushes. I threw my arm around her, and our lips met. Yes! It was a hungry smootch. Her lips devoured mine; I returned the gesture. I swallowed that kiss and let it sit in my stomach.

Hand-in-hand we joined Denise and Otto on a sand hill overlooking their motel. That’s where we parted ways. I was ecstatic. Otto looked lonesome.

“I did all right for myself,” he barked when I questioned him. He seemed dejected and testy. “The last thing Denise told me was, ‘See you tomorrow. I’ll remember to wear a smile.’”

“So you got no kiss, but you got a date. You can work on that kiss tomorrow. Cheer up, my brother.”

“Shut up with that ‘my brother’ talk. I ain’t nobody’s brother.”

Our main concern was where to sleep. Supposedly the beach closed at midnight. But my watch said 12:20 a.m. and all these older couples had built fires in the cookout tubs, and were standing around with bottles in their hands, singing and cavorting. A line of tour buses sat along the roadway.

“I’m thinking that rule about the beach being closed has been suspended. It looks okay to me right here.”

“You’re gonna unroll your sleepin’ bag just like that, without checkin’ out our options? That don’t bode good in my book, sons.”

“From a man who said he’s had enough running around? You’re the one who mentioned to Denise that sleeping on the beach would be the ultimate. So here we are. Those fires are high. You’ll never have a chance to sleep on a beach at the Jersey shore, that’s for sure. We’ll mix in with those couples.”

“You expect me to sleep like a dog, don’t you, with one eye open.” Otto slowly bedded down next to me on the sand.

“Dream of Denise. She’s cuter than Cindy, you know. She’s got a deep personality.”

I fell asleep fairly fast, resting to the rhythm of the waves. For sure I thought I was dreaming when I heard a beckoning voice.

“Hey fellas? Fellas?”

A flashlight seared my eyes. Where was I, in a hospital bed? At home? I recognized a jeep, its running engine, and the guy’s Huntington Beach badge. “Fellas? Hey fellas?”

It was a patrol guy. I rose in my bag. I could hardly believe what I saw. All the beach fires were dark. Everyone had gone home. The only life on the moonless, windy coastline was this astute patrol guy atop his jeep, its fat tread grinded deeply into the sand.

“I’m sorry, you’re not allowed to sleep on the city beach. You’ll have to move.”

“What’s this?” I feigned disbelief.

“No one is allowed on past midnight. It’s a city ordinance.”

“You won’t believe this, but when we went to sleep, there were hundreds of people right over there. It was past midnight then.”

“That may have been so, but you’re breaking the law by being here now.”

“We’re from out of town,” I pleaded. “Do you know where we can go?”

“That’s a good question. I don’t really care, as long as it’s not on the city beach. Now please, don’t make me radio for the police. Believe me, it’s nothing personal. I’ll give you a couple of minutes to load up. For your own sake, don’t be here the next time I drive by.”

I shook the rest of the sleep out of my body and checked my watch. Please please please let it be close to five o’clock. Lord, 2:45 a.m.! Otto arched up in the sand and relayed all sorts of negative stimuli: disgust, anger, resentment, bitterness, exasperation.

I snapped my fingers. “The state park!”

“What?” Otto looked over with half-open lids.

“Didn’t you hear that guy? He said no sleeping on the city beach, but nothing about the state park next door. He gave us a hint. He’s showing that he’s one of us, part of the new regime. Come on, man, it’s only a hundred yards down. That’s under a different jurisdiction. Let’s ramble.”

“Ramble gamble schmamble . . . shit. We gotta get off the beach altogether.” Otto dragged his opened pack behind me. “This ain’t gonna work, Winans.”

“Looky here.” I pointed to the tire marks deep in the sand. They curved back the other way right at the state beach boundary. “There’s your proof.”

“That don’t tell me shit.”

“Trust me for once, will you? I’ve been waiting this whole trip for you to trust me.”

“It’s too hazardous to trust your can.”

I moved far enough down on the state park so even the most powerful searchlights would never be able to pick us up. I dug out a shallow sand bed for two. Otto cursed me loudly as he lay down in the cranny. I tried to go to sleep.

One small blip later, Otto’s hand was pounding my chest. In the distance—headed toward us from the opposite direction—churned the wheels of another jeep, searchlights beaming.

Otto scooped up his gear. I followed. Thirty seconds made a difference. It was like fleeing a no trespassing zone. The jeep circled our abandoned area and drove back the other way.

3:19 a.m.

“We’re in trouble.” We were stunned, exhausted, and stranded. Highway One looked evacuated. We had authentic cops to contend with, not just beach patrol summer hires. Illuminated signs warned of a curfew between 2-5 a.m. for persons seventeen and under, “strictly enforced.” I scanned the dusky roadside while stuffing away my sleeping bag. There was nothing to snuggle against or to hide under. I felt pale.

“You goddamn son of a bitch, Roger!”

“Shut up and find us a place to sleep if you’re so smart!” We traipsed northward on the left-side pavement, stumbling and stealthy. I felt like a fugitive. Every time a car drove past, I sweated until I was sure it was not a cop. Without even including Otto’s sniping, it was dreadful.

A black Cadillac, southbound, stopped across from us. Its windows rolled down, revealing a duo from the nethersphere. The driver was gangly and blanched, with narrow cross-eyes, a faint mustache, rolling Adam’s apple, and wearing a Navy uniform. His companion was older, stout, and black, lackadaisical and remote, wearing a full tuxedo.

The white guy asked in a fruity voice, “You guys need a ride?”

They scared the hell out of me but I didn’t ask questions. We scrambled into the back and blurted out our dilemma.

“Sleeping on the beach is a cinch,” the white guy said, suddenly smiling. “Isn’t it, Homer? You only have to know the in’s.”

“Where?” I demanded.

“Right up here.” He pointed. “I know a little old waterbank where you’ll sleep like babies curled up with a warm bottle. The black and white don’t know everything in this town, do they, Homer? We’ll drive you up.”

4:02 a.m.

We were deposited at a thin, rocky beach at the north edge of Huntington Beach, a pitfall really, eroded from landslides. What looked to be oil dredges and oil repositories were built into the sandhills, operating at full throttle. I took precaution stepping down the rocks.

Those guys were straight. They didn’t murder us, slash our throats with a switchblade, rob us at gunpoint, nor leave us decimated and destroyed.

True to their word, I took my slumber.

Day Twenty-Nine (Sunday, July 25, 1971)

I woke to a community of squatters in sleeping bags etched across the rocky beachscape. Couples and singles. Painted vans, secondhand campers, and motorcycles parked along the road.

“Were these people here when we arrived? I was in a major daze.”

“You bastard, Roger!”

“Huh?”

“If it weren’t for my date with Denise, I’d tell you where to stick it. I’d stay right here in my sleeping bag all day!”

“Hey man, what are you so sore about?”

“Suffice to say I know where I’m gonna be sleepin’ tonight, and it ain’t gonna be on no recommendation of yours.”

“Well excuse me for not knowing ahead of time the laws of Huntington Beach.”

“You son of a bitch bastard prick, Roger.”

The sun was hot early. The oil dredges, or derricks, whatever you call them, were like mechanical woodpeckers, digging deep into the ground with strong metal lines. The air smelled oily and rank. The sand below our ledge was like roofing tar. The surf, brackish. It was an environmental disaster in-waiting that I hoped was under control by people who were in charge of such matters.

“Hey man, the romantic pair-ups are right for once. Don’t you agree? I like Cindy best; you like Denise.”

Otto didn’t reply.

“That’s the key in this pickup business—don’t compete for the same girl.”

He stared like I was poison.

I laughed. “We seem to attract Indian squaws, don’t we? You heard Cindy say they have Cherokee blood? Except this is going to be way better than Alvah and Natasha, I promise you.”

“Know what, Roger? Go fug yourself.”

“What?”

“Go fug yourself!”

Cindy’s long blond hair, blowing in the sun, was the reference by which I found her. She was sitting on a blanket—minus Denise—with a picnic basket and radio, clothes folded to one side. Prayer come true, she wore a brief white bikini, held together by silver rings. She saw me coming from the side of her eye and stood. “Hi Rodney!”

Her body was deeply tanned, with mature curves all in the right spots. Her smile was warm and unassuming. A thin, gold necklace with a small gold heart hung on her neck.

“You look good.” I gulped.

“Thanks. Come and have a seat. What’re you doing on the beach with your shoes on?” She consolidated her items, and looked at Otto glumly. “Denise is off somewhere. I don’t know where.
I get so mad at that girl. Don’t worry, Omar. She’ll be along sooner or later. She knows she’s supposed to come. I’m as upset as you are.”

Omar was cranky, to say the least. Add being spurned on top of it might prove fatal. But there was nothing I could do. Denise wasn’t on a leash.

“Hey, we’ve got an apology to make ourselves, Cindy. I hope you weren’t sitting here long. We had one of those pesky nights that gets your head out of alignment.”

She laughed, then listened to our adventure of the night before with benevolence. She turned it around and mentioned a few times when she’d been stranded in the wee hours of the night without a ride.

“Rodney, your eye is all bloodshot. Do you know that?”

That led to my telling her about my encounter with Duffy, the “abridged version.” Somehow it came out sounding more noble than foolish. Our early back and forth exchange let me know we’d be able to fill up a whole day with conversation.

Cindy clumped her shirt into a ball and tucked it under her head to lay on her back. Not me—I nestled into the sand and sat up avidly. One thing I didn’t bother with, though, were other girls. Cindy Latourette took care of that need just fine.

Omar lay on his small frayed towel a foot off Cindy’s oversized blanket, which made him seem like a poor orphan. I didn’t object to his presence; I just hoped Denise appeared soon. Personally, I was set.
Between the sound of the waves, I hummed “You Really Got a Hold On Me” by Smoky Robinson and the Miracles, which Cindy recognized. She conducted the music score with her arms and swayed her body.

Cindy sure could talk mechanics. Shovelhead choppers. Ignition systems. Engine blocks. Muscle cars. She clacked away while I relaxed like a prince. One thing she didn’t talk about was an oversized class ring on her finger—a heavy brass nugget with string wrapped around it. She mentioned a foxy friend that she did things with, always referring to “friend” and dropping the gender, and never correlating between this person and the ring.

“It’s her business if she’s going steady with some guy,” I thought. “I’m sure as heck not bringing up Amy Weisburg.”

When I tried to shift talk to my home turf, she asked, “New Jersey— is that near Montana?”

We hit several dead ends, but always managed to bounce back into common territory.

The ocean was cold, no denying that. But having someone to bear it with made it tolerable. Cindy’s hide was immune. I loved watching her taunt belly bend and twist to the motion of the waves. She was the type of swimmer who didn’t body surf all the time, but instead glided overtop the waves as they rolled in. Once a big one swept her apart from me, and we grabbed hands and pulled one another closer.

“You’d be my pick of the girls even if we hadn’t met. Thank you for the privilege, Cindy!” Lustrous water streamed down her skin.

We went for a meandering walk along the water, bumping hips, arms, and legs. I was aware of Cindy’s every smile and glance, her keen attentiveness, the position of her dangling hands and gyrating hips.
At the tail end of one of our laughs, I strung my arm around her waist. She moved closer. Not only that, she slipped her finger through the belt loop on the back of my shorts.

Cindy stopped to collect seashells and gave one to me. “A keepsake of our day together, Rodney.”

“Do you know that the shells of the Atlantic Ocean are much bigger?”

“They are?”

“Must be different species of clams. I’ll send some to you.”

“Oooo, that would be bitchin’.”

Further down, she was in the middle of a story about waiting outside a liquor store for someone old enough to buy apple brandy for her and her friends.

“Should we turn around?”

I enveloped her in my arms. Sun-warmed skin swooned from my fingertips to the small of her back. Her lips came up to mine, a limitless well. I thought, “Girl, this is so bold and joyful, in front of the whole world!”

Arriving back at the blanket, Cindy was laughing. Rodney was blushing. Omar was vacuous.

“Denise still hasn’t gotten here?” Cindy hunched forward with her fists clenched and shook her hair. “That two-faced girl! She should’ve been here long ago! She does this all the time. You can’t depend on that girl. I’m sorry, Omar. It looks like it’s not going to happen.”

“Ah, I’ll get over it.” Omar’s pout drifted away in the sea breeze. “I’m in no mood for company today, nohow.”

Not so much as a rustle came from Omar for the remainder of the afternoon. He nibbled on half a sandwich and gave the other half to me. I tried to get him involved in the conversation, but he was sacked. Unplugged.

For Cindy and me it was more sunbathing, another swim, and another nice walk. With the radio on I deeply meditated over music, its textures, its structures, its harmonic elements. Every time I lifted my head off the blanket and viewed the golden tanned Californian body next to mine, I heard a rhapsody.

“Thank you, Cindy!”

“Rodney, you’ve said thank you to me more times than all the guys I’ve ever known put together. Thank you, honey.”

She stood up to straighten out the blanket, and I saw her nipple. Lord! On display was one whole white female breast, water fresh, teenage-certified, garnished with erect brown nipple. I leaned over and
initiated another kiss, which I got for the taking. Omar was asleep. I smashed the cymbals and pounded the bass drum. The scoreboard was even! George 2, Winans 2. Knotted at two apiece. All squared up and ready for more.

“You look like you need another, Rodney.” She leaned in with confidence. We squeezed each other passionately. It was even exultant.

As the hours moved ahead the sun’s warmth waned; the ocean’s roar grew distant. Cindy sat up and put on her shirt; I knew the hourglass was drawing low. Denise supposedly was having a piano lesson back in Hemet in the early evening, so the family needed to be getting back. I could accept that. Everything happened that I wanted, no major foul-ups occurred aside from Denise’s failure to show up, I tied George on the tallysheet, and my hormones eased. That’s success. If Cindy and I were to see each other a third day in a row, I might not have much to say, judging how we came from opposite poles. But as a one-day stand, physically and mentally, it served its need.

“Goodbye, Omar, nice knowing you,” Cindy waved to my distraught partner. He squinted as if he couldn’t see who she was.

Cindy and I kissed goodbye on the sandy hill across from her motel, another long one with hugging. We exchanged addresses.

“Rodney, I had a very good time. Take care and we’ll see each other again. Write.”

“I will,” I said, positive I wouldn’t.

She ran down the side of the hill, her blond hair and flexible body bouncing in rhythm. “Bye for now!”

Otto was burnt to a crisp. He was sitting on his towel, running his fingers through his hair, purposely contorting it as badly as possible.

“No offense, Omar, but you look like an orangutan who has been sitting in the middle of a burning fire all day without moving.”

“That’s how I feel, Roger. Singed in black.”

I didn’t know what else to do to cheer him up, so I serenaded him with an all-out performance of “Soul Man” by Sam & Dave.

“Got what I got the hard way / And I’ll make it better / Each and every day /
So Omar, don’t you fret none / ’Cause you ain’t seen / Nothing yet.”

If he was surprised I knew the lyrics to the second verse, including the bridge, he didn’t show it. I plopped down, cupped my arms around my legs, and rocked back and forth.

“Well well well.” I barely held back my glee. “A quality performance by today’s starting pitcher. Keep those batters swinging at the wind. Guess what? We’re both at .500 in the standings.”

No response.

“Two-two. The new standings’ll be in tomorrow’s newspaper. ‘Rodney Pulls Even With Slugger Omar.’”

Still no response. “Now excuse me, good sir, but is your name Omar or Otto?” Otto’s face was red, sullen, prickly. The skin on his nose was peeling.

I resang “Soul Man.” He finally snickered.

“So how you doing, my good man? Nice day, huh? I see you got some sun.”

“Burned.”

“You can’t win every ballgame, you know.”

“Oh, yes you can. The U.C.L.A. basketball team with Lew Alcindor has proven it.”

“Well, I won in convincing style today. It’s too bad the other team got drubbed. It always lifts the morale to win the away games.”

“Shut up, please.”

I went for a long swim in the ocean. Otto declined. He agreed to come for a walk afterward. We headed down the beach, southward, letting foam run up our legs, kicking through remnants of sand castles, inhaling sweet, seaweed aroma. Neither of us spoke for a long time. I was dying to rave about Cindy, but kept my tongue in check. However, I did my first-ever cartwheel.

“Let’s face it, Omar,” I finally said. “Last night at the motel, Denise probably said to Cindy, ‘Hey, forget about me going tomorrow. That Omar looks like a wack-off of dire proportions.’”

“I’m low, Roger. The only thing I got on the top of the world are my feet.”

We kept going and going, past the far end of Huntington Beach State Park, to where no one was swimming or even walking. Just us, a quiet stretch of beach, and a breeze to tighten my curls. Finally, the orange sun edged dramatically close to the horizon before fading behind distant clouds. Gulls flocked against the sky.

“Hey man, there’s our postcard moment. Life is glorious. I know I don’t speak for everyone. I feel for you. I would’ve been pissed, too.”

His mouth twitched. “At least we know Denise had good sense. She stayed away from me.”

He got hypnotic on the walk back, absently relating boyhood stories about fishing excursions he used to go on with his father, about marching in the Memorial Day parade with his Little League team, and remembering fun times in Boy Scouts. He circled back to Denise.

“She didn’t make mince meat outta me, Roger. No way. That would be givin’ her too much credit. I’m the fool on this one. I’m the do-it- yourself variety.”

At Jack in the Box, I toasted him with my chocolate milkshake.

“Here’s to our upcoming tour of the United States. Say, why don’t we use Route 66 and see the south? I read that it’s famous for Art Deco architecture all the way across. The canyons and red valleys must be beautiful. They say it’s the most direct route through the south, though it’s in danger of becoming extinct by the interstates. Let’s use that—at least to St. Louis. Then we can turn northeast from there.”

“Don’t talk to me about nothin’ south.” Otto caught a piece of hot apple pie about to fall from his mouth. “I’ve heard there’s all sorts of rednecks who don’t like northerners, Roger. They think they’re still fightin’ the Civil War down there. We’d have to keep an all-out watch for anyone carryin’ a Confederate flag. Plus you don’t know how many cars there’d be down there. Places like Oklahoma and New Mexico have hardly been settled. I don’t know if we can put up with that. Travel By Thumb says no.”

I made a concession. I agreed to shelve Route 66 in favor of Otto’s less-ambitious plan—take I-15 through Nevada, and go up the middle of Utah. In Salt Lake City, we’d connect with I-80 again for the haul east.

“Does it have to be that way?”

“Throw the old dog a bone, won’t you? I deserve it, sons.”

With darkness falling, he led the two-mile hike down to the oil rigs where we bunked the previous night. Tonight our slumber was ruined . . . by helicopters. That’s right, loud, menacing choppers. They were on the same mission as the ground jeeps—to uproot beachcombers. Imagine—sleeping peacefully on the sand near one of the mechanical woodpeckers, and being shocked awake by a loud chop-chop-chop- chop, the rotor hanging precariously low, its powerful strobe piercing the soil.

I was frantic. The beam spotted me as I climbed up the rock hill to the road. I ran for my life. It was terroristic. Bombastic. Soon as we were off the beach, the copter capped its beam, lifted higher, and rotated its attention to others who were scrambling in all directions like ants.

He and I cut down a side street into the residences. California suddenly turned into sinister Hanoi. It was a suburban jungle. I tramped blindly down an enemy street that was dark and narrow, hidden by foliage. I was wringing wet with sweat. Within a block we came across a modest, cinderblock house, private, encased by leafy plants, bushes, and unpruned vines. All the lights of the rooms were off. We spent the night there, on private property, propped up against a green, mildewed, slat fence.

“Goddamn it, Roger. I’ve had it with this trip. This ain’t no way to take a vacation.”

“We got there too early. I guess you can’t show up at the oil fields until after four.”

As always, I tried to look on the good side. But it was getting brutal out there.

Day Thirty (Monday, July 26, 1971)

At dawn I felt chewed up and unsanitary. Mosquito bites covered my face, hands, and arms. My veins felt juiced. My forehead was damp. We evacuated after we heard someone on the phone calling the police. The back door sprang open as we sprinted down the street.

“This trip is not all glamor,” I said to myself from the public restroom while taking a dump.

I showered under one of the outdoor nozzles at the beach.

I went to the nearest receptacle and chucked out most of my possessions. This included the entire contents of my green duffel bag— plus the bag. That left me with one basic outfit in one basic bag, plus diary, camera, long pants, maps, toothbrush, soap, and sleeping bag.

“I needed a reduction in aggravation,” I explained.

Breakfast was at a Danish pastry house. Otto and I anchored next to a quilted tapestry in back. I supplied myself with three sticky buns and a cup of coffee and opened my diary with a pen.

“Hey Roger.” Otto diverted his eyes. “Don’t look now”—he reduced his voice to a whisper, “—but we’re gettin’ the eye from a couple nice lookin’ girls.”

“Yeah? Where?”

“Over by the counter. They’re facin’ this way. I smiled at one, ’n she keeps smilin’ back.”

I got a refill on my coffee. What was Otto crowing about? They were two girls from the Kiddie Brigade, barely into their teens. They sat squirming and giggling in their seats, twirling spoons, flicking sugar packets at each other, bursting into hysterics over nothing.

Otto leaned forward when I came back. “What’s your evaluation, scout?”

“What else? Minor leaguers. They’re not for us. When did you start dipping for talent below the major league level?”

“No way!” He looked irked. “They might be rookies, but you can never tell about their playin’ ability until you’ve given ’em a tryout. I like the one on the left. She’s been givin’ me the eye every five seconds.”

The girl was precociously tall and baby-faced, gawky, undefined. She was shining her lips with some kind of pink roll-on gloss. Her small friend had long ears and moles and looked like an aardvark.

“What do you say, huh Roger? Let’s make a move.”

“Go ahead, man. They’re too green for me. Let me relish my victory with Cindy. I don’t feel the need.”

“The one on the left doesn’t thrill you?”

“But you claimed her already, didn’t you? And I’m certainly not going to tangle with the creature on the right.”

“Come on! They’re about to leave. We can’t let ’em get away. Here’s our chance.”

“Go ahead, Brackston! I don’t object. My lust subsided yesterday. I’ve got writing to do.” I turned and concentrated on the next sentence in my diary.

Otto banged the table. He half stood, nearly toppling over my coffee. “Damn it, they’re goin.’”

The tall girl was up, waist in and breasts out, dishing a dollar bill from her pocket. Her friend scampered out of her seat behind her. Height and figures aside, they were both cast from the same mold: chopped, pony-style hair; costumed in sailor shirts and white shorts, panty hose, and sneakers. Both were caked in enough Max Factor to join the circus.

They glided through the front door. Otto summoned nothing more than to bite his lower lip and observe.

“You can’t hesitate on something like that, man. Once the moment passes, it’s gone.” I tapped the table with my eyebrow raised.

“They wanted us to come over, too.”

“Hey George—do me a favor and stop all this ‘us’ talk. I’m not an ‘us’ and neither are you. You’re calling your own shots from now on. Those girls are your project, not mine.”

They unlocked their bicycles from the rack outside and coasted past the window. The tall one, knowing she was being watched, turned her body to give potential suitors the most advantageous view of her rear end.

“What did I tell you?” Otto reached over and grabbed my shirt. “She was tryin’ to get a message across.”

“. . . And you let her get away, you dope.”

“Temporarily, maybe. There’s a larger picture to this, Winans. I’ll tell you that. Tie your shoes. Let’s go.”

We sat under a palm tree near the beach, relaxing, soaking up life. Otto suddenly blurted, “I’m not doin’ no beach activities today.”

“What do you mean? We’re at Huntington Beach.”

“Just what I said, dumbbell.” He crossed his arms. “I ain’t gonna roast on no beach, and I ain’t gonna do no swimmin’. Take it or leave it, wise guy.”

“What’s got into you? Why am I a wise guy?”

Eventually, he came around with the specifics. He intended to sit up on the curb of Highway One—all day if he had to—to see if that girl would ride by on her bicycle. If she did, and if he could get her to stop, he was going to ask her out.

“Well, have fun playing Romper Room. I’m going to use the beach for its proper intention.”

“Go your own way, Mr. Know-It-All.”

“You think you’re being highfalutin. But you’re just being silly.”

“I’m bein’ the me I need to be, fart face. And your poetry sucks.”

I switched to solitary mode and took off. True, there was endless activity on California beaches. I made the acquaintance of two guys from Oregon and Washington who hitched to Huntington Beach from Ventura the day before. The three of us went body surfing. I used their nerf board, which was like a light, stubby surf board. We played round- robin volleyball with a 50-member church youth group who stormed the beach en masse. Food and soda were provided at no cost. I chatted with dozens of girls, my smile affixed to my face. My jaw got sore from so much smiling. When that was over I rambled around the shops on Main Street. I went into clothing shops, record shops, beach accessory stores. I even found an acceptable place to sleep at night, right in town, a clever new spot where there’d be no problem.

Toward the end of the afternoon I spotted Otto, stationary, on the curb under a palm tree. When he saw me coming, he stood. He bounced on his toes with a facetious, spiteful smile. When I got close enough, he began with his high-pitched falsetto laugh.

“He-he-he! He-he-he! Kelly Cooper, ain’t she sweet! He-he-he! He-he-he!” He danced a jig on the sand.

“What happened? You saw a little action?”

“Action? Action?” Otto backstepped onto a sand hill and looked down at me, still dancing. “Sons, I had a ballgame! Yeah. Yeah, I say yeah, brother. Kelly Cooper. A resident of Whittier, California. Winans, she’s beautiful.”

“For someone in the Bobby Sherman crowd, maybe. You should’ve stuck with Denise Latourette. She had mature beauty. But you blew it with her. Sons.”

“I didn’t blow this one, sons. This is a meant-to-be situation. I’m in, and before I’m through, I’m gonna be in as far as one man can go.”

I backed away from his flying spit.

“Lord above, is she beautiful.” He clasped his hands above his head with a snigger. “Things are gonna be nice. I jumped right into the number one position on her squad. She was ready. Do you hear me, Winans? She was ready for some reelin’ and rockin’ and rollin’!”

“Just tell me the facts without the editorial comment, please.”

“You’re jealous. Aren’t you, Winans?” Otto wheeled around. “You wish you were in my shoes, don’t you? You can’t stand to be upended, can you? You can’t stand when the spotlight’s not on you.”

“I’m just glad I’m not wacky, like you.”

“Wacky nothin’! I got a woman.”

“Are we witnessing the great conquest of Otto B. George? Underwhelm me some more, why don’t you? You won’t even tell me what happened.”

“She showed—that’s what happened. She showed.”

“That’s all?”

“No, as a matter of speakin’, Winans, it ain’t all! She came up to me a-lone. That’s right, all by her lonesome. You hear that, Hercules? I’m talkin’ ’bout one-on-one. Heart to heart. Eye to eye. Peace, love, and understandin’ be with you.”

“Cut that crap out.”

“You cut it out, dirt hole! I been puttin’ up with too much shit from you for too long. You been manipulatin’ me this whole trip.”

“Get real! I followed your lead across America day and night. That is, until I smartened up.”

“Well, someone had to look after your naiive ass.”

“Every suggestion you made was something that would ultimately benefit you. Right, pal?”

“You’re so damn cocky, Winans. You’re fucked up.”

“How old is this new love of yours? Still under child protection laws?”

“She’s a big one-five, fifteen, goin’ on twenty-two. But that don’t matter. She wasn’t too young to
come up to a lonely man and take him in.”

“You never seek them out, do you, George? They have to pursue you, isn’t that fair to say? You let them take the risk. That’s your whole style to life, isn’t it, the coward’s approach.”

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it? That’s the only way you can tell they want you. Look how she penciled me on her squad. I drew the number one seed.”

“Well, where is she?”

The cool shine of his eyes retreated. “Home.”

I gobbed on the sand, the biggest I could muster, and covered it with my foot. “Sounds like a lot of effort for nothing, to sit up here in the heat all day just to say hello. That’s where boiling in the sun got you—one hello?”

“Hello, nothin’! That shows how much your arrogant ass knows!” Otto clenched his fists. “We got plans. This kid wasn’t standin’ idle. I got a date, Winans. Tomorrow. I’m on my way to Whittier, California. I got an address and I got a phone number. How you like them apples?”

“I thought we were leaving California tomorrow to start our hitch back home.”

“Not yet we ain’t. You’re gonna spot me one extra day. And you’re gonna do it whether you wanna or not. That’s the least you owe me, after that big delay you caused in Hanford.”

“Aren’t you chasing a promise in the wind?”

“Hell no, Winans. I’m chasin’ love. Do you got the map in your back pocket? I wanna look up where Whittier is from here. I think it’s close by. You’re invited, too, you know. Kelly’s friend, Bristol, wants to show you her azalea garden. She’s an officer in the 4-H Club. We’re gonna go together.”

I waited for a car to hiss by. “Look man, this is all your idea. Now hear me out. There’s no way I’m getting involved in this kind of wild goose chase. It doesn’t work for me. But since you brought up that crap about my eye injury in Hanford, your tradeoff is valid. It’s not exactly the same, but go ahead. I’ll spot you the extra day. I’ll hang out here. Go to Whittier and have a good time. I’ll watch our stuff so you won’t be bogged down. Fair? That’s the best I can do. But get her out of your system because I’ve had enough playing King Of The Hill. Take it or leave it.”

Otto stuck his nose out. “Fine! That’s all I need! I’ll be havin’ a great time with one of California’s true beauties, and you’ll be here by yourself, beatin’ your meat.”

“You’re serious about this, aren’t you, George?”

“Serious as a heart attack. Don’t worry about me, sons. I’ll be here tomorrow night, all safe and sound. You won’t have to call out the National Guard. I’ll come back. But it’s time for this man to show his ability on the field of play.”

“You’re totally crazy!”

“Eat my grunnies, dork.”

“Why don’t you . . .”

“Shut your yapper, Winans! Don’t talk to me.”

Getting through the evening was rough. We played miniature golf in total silence. Otto won, 63-71. He gloated over banana splits and Cokes, saying several times, “It’s me who’s the peoples’ champion on this trip, Roger. The crowd is rootin’ for me. Not you. You’re the peoples’ wank. You ain’t got nothin’ on me, Winans. I’m the hero. You’re the zero.”

“We’ll see about that.”

I led him into the backlots, through an older residential section. Down a common pathway stood smaller-sized water tanks—an outmoded cistern system, I guessed. Constructed around each tank
was a three-foot high protector wall made of cinder blocks. Sleeping quarters were in there, in the space between the tank and the wall. Just enough room existed for two people and gear. It was quiet, adequately clean, and secluded.

We unpacked and bedded down without a single word.

“Goodnight,” I said.

No answer.

“Goodnight, Otto.”

“Bad night.”