No Truckee, No Santa Cruz

Two towns we had the opportunity to see and didn’t were Truckee and Santa Cruz, both in California.  Truckee, as you perhaps know, lies on the northern end of Lake Tahoe and is a progressive, active mountain town with beautiful vistas, great architecture, and a colorful history.  As Day 11 says, "neither of us had ever heard of  it,” including Lake Tahoe itself, which is true. Nevertheless we had a good chance to stumble upon it . . . except that was during spat #2 with Otto, and we were too busy arguing and being pissy with each other.  I regret bypassing a region which I've since come to love.  We also missed Santa Cruz, a shame and our loss. I’ve since visited there several times, too, and cherish its ideal location high along the Pacific Ocean, and the funky beach stores, and open-minded people and amazing houses that wind through the hills.  But this time (Day 14) the overriding feeling was fatigue.  We spent the night there with muscles and minds aching.  We didn’t appreciate our surroundings and were anxious to get out of town as soon as we could.  Them’s the breaks!

The 65% Factor

All in all, inside and out, I’d say the book is 65% true.  That is a fair number.  That accounts for everything:  names that were changed, incidents altered or somehow smoothed over, tinkering with the timeline, adding some things, taking things out.  That’s why I’m careful to say this is a novel and not a memoir.  It’s more important to get across the message of the book rather than to have it serve as a log or chronicle.  The aspect of some tangibles may have been changed, but not the essence.  If anything, the essence is stronger because there is magic involved. I don’t want to give away too much, because that’s my artistic license as an author. But as an example, I’ll tell you the trip started on a Monday rather than a Sunday.  Why?  I needed an extra day on the timeline. Because I inserted that day at Hearst Castle (Day 18).  But totally made up?  Not really. It’s a compilation of visiting Hearst Castle in 2001 with my wife on our own cross-country trip (by car), and an overnight stay on a boat that my sister and I made to friends in South Jersey years ago.  Why move up everything a day on the calendar?  Because I wanted the struck-by-lightning story of July 17, 1971, to stay intact. So everything coming before got bumped up by a day. Make sense?

Getting Struck By Lightning

It’s totally true I got struck by lightning at Yosemite National Park on July 17, 1971 when I was 17 years old.  So it’s also true about the numerology of “7’s” lining up.  That story, from Day 21, unfolded just as you read about it.  The time of day really was 1700 hours military time (5 p.m.).  To be honest, I’m not sure about the number of stairway steps, but it was “about” 17.  My Uncle Ralph has long since passed away; Aunt Betty, too.  But if you can track down Otto, he’ll confirm it for you.  The bolt must have been pretty thin for me not to have suffered any effects, but I sure remember it clearly . . . a long, jagged bolt extending upward from my forehead into the heavens.  It felt like putting my whole head into an electric outlet. There is no way I should have been out there in the first place.  It was a poor choice on everyone’s part, including my own for acting so cavalier.  Ralph, who had been pushing us to see everything, got a reality check . He was scared that his over-zealousness might’ve gotten me killed.  Otto indeed said, "I thought it was curtains, Roger." Ever since then, I have been wary of lightning storms (can you blame me?)  I don’t want to defy the saying, “Lightning never strikes twice.”

Roger Delivers a Baby

The overnight ride through Wyoming with lonesome Bill and the third hitchhiker, Starla (from Day 8), is all true except when we get to the delivery-of-the-baby part in Utah. That is made up. Sorry troops, this author has never delivered a baby. But Roger Winans has! After four or five edits I got the medical procedure down; the rhythm of the words and the emotion of the moment felt right. It seemed to work, so I left it in. This actually came about on a suggestion from my wife. She read the story of Bill’s fascination with Starla, and commented, “Roger can deliver Starla’s baby, don’t you think? That chapter needs a good sendoff.” Yes! I thought. In real life, just as the book states, Starla appeared from out of nowhere. She was six months pregnant (instead of nine), and after she rejected Bill, disappeared on us after the ride was over without a word. From a reading perspective that was too sapping. Delivering the baby gives the story a proper lift. More explosion. It gives the female police officer a chance to say, “You guys are are inspiration to us mortals, both of you.” And it gives Otto a chance to shake his head at Roger and say, “Sons, you got tricks up your sleeve that would baffle Houdini.”

Do I Rag On My Parents Too Much?

People who’ve read the book make the comment, “I can tell you had a distant relationship with your parents growing up.” The comment is legitimate. My real-life dealings with my dad and mom, into my 30’s, were far from warm and fuzzy, or supportive. The family stayed intact over the years, but it was dysfunctional. I was always sore about the lack of “real conversation” by my parents toward us eager kids, as it says on page 75. They were into routine and small-thinking. They never encouraged me about my plans or dreams, nor guided me nor shaped my seeking. They were as conventional as Eisenhower. They weren’t adventurers, nor achievers. They had no idea what I was about. They were plain and harmless as white bread (here I go again with the negative comments). However, Roger’s eyes are opened in Colorado on page 68 when the outdoors natural girl tempers his complaint by saying, “Even so, you responded by becoming a leader. So it all worked out anyway, didn’t it?” From there he eases off. And then there’s the reconciliation at the end of the book when Roger meets his parents along the beach road at the New Jersey Shore (a true story). So there’s hope for this generational situation yet.

The Name Roger Winans

The name Roger Winans, the character based on my experience, was a little more conventional to come by. That is the name of a favorite boyhood friend from Fanwood, New Jersey, going way back. This is my way of remembering him, especially since our family moved when I was ten and I haven’t heard from him since. When we played together at LeGrande Park, or rode our bicycles to the borough limits, I WANTED to be Roger. He was outgoing, bubbling with energy, friendly to all, casually athletic, charming, smart, savvy—an all-around happy soul. That was better than my demeanor:  I tended to be more of an introvert, scared to reveal myself, more moody, more emotional. He’s the one who liked to eat green peppers as a snack (see page 48) which I picked up on and copied all my life. Of course many people today are familiar with the last name because of the Winans Family gospel singers, led by Bebe and CeCe Winans. So we know it’s pronounced Wi’-nans. But I also liked his name for my book because it is kind of nondescript . . . an American Everyman. I’m not sure of the heritage, but Aunt Betty on page 190 says, “You’re equal parts English, Welsh, Irish, and Flemish.”  So we’ll leave it at that.

The Name Otto George

Readers might wonder, “How did you come up with that strange name for your friend, Otto George?”  There was a method to my madness, indeed.  Neither do I think it’s strange at all . . . I like the name and am honoring my friend who took the trip with me.  I started out knowing I needed a palindrome, a backwards-forwards word, because that describes his wide personality.  He’s present/absent; mighty/meek; logical/bizarre; reasonable/ outlandish; intelligent/lacking; funny/scary; hot/cold.  The interchangeable twist could be extended to both first and last names as well, I realized.  His heritage is German-Irish.  Plus you don’t see the name ‘Otto’ in American literature much.  I had a roommate in college named Charlie Otto. I could honor two people at the same time.  All that appealed to me. Even so, I agonized about this name choice for years . . . that is, until I was in New York City one night with a bunch of friends in the 1980's.  As we walked down a street in Greenwich Village, I explained my dilemma to them, ending by blurting out an anguished prayer,  “Lord, am I supposed to keep this name or not?  Show me a sign.  Please.”  Not five minutes later, our group walked past the Bottom Line Cabaret.  The marquee said, “Appearing Tonight:  The Comedy of Otto and George.” Talk about divine intervention!  I learned later about the advertised act—Otto Petersen was a ventriloquist, and George was his puppet. That name was now written in stone. I wouldn't dare change it.

The Title Explained

I guess the first thing you need to know about is the title. Three basic words, we . . . picked . . . up. It’s an actual sentence, noun-verb-predicate, coming on Day 33 when the guys are in North Las Vegas, Nevada, heading back. It’s when the thick air between Roger and Otto finally clears (after several days of brutal mudslinging). Instead of splitting up, they put aside their accumulated fury and continue on—not in seamless unison as when they started out, but as wiser, seasoned independents. I wrote the sentence long before I realized that should be the title. It was kind of always in the text, waiting to be discovered. How many ways those words can be taken! Let me count a few: The boys “pick up” (gather) their courage during their adventure. A wide swath of generous people “pick up” the boys. Roger and Otto “pick up” valuable lessons and wisdom. Readers are encouraged to “pick up” whatever desires in their own lives might lie hidden and unfinished. Society as a whole “picks up” (improves) after being part of the connected network that lifts up what is good and positive. I consider that three-word sentence on page 297 as the “first climax.” The mounting tension between the characters finally breaks. A ray of light breaks through. They regain trust in each other, and their own sanity.

Author's Hitchhiking Bio

Kenneth Lobb was born in 1954 in Plainfield, New Jersey.  At age ten the family moved to rural Hunterdon County, the hamlet of Whitehouse Station.  As a teenager he developed a wanderlust for travel, mostly through a love of maps, riding trains, and hiking trails.

By the time he got to 9th grade, with both parents busy, Ken regularly took to the road with his thumb.  This was the late 1960's, when hitchhiking was still an accepted—though daring—form of transportation.  He hitchhiked mostly to school and back. But with the support of a friend, thumbed to the Jersey Shore, to New York, and throughout Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia.

Eventually the two developed the idea of a grand long-distance venture.  It would last 40 days and 40 nights, going from New Jersey to California and back.  Their budget was four dollars a day.  They set out in late June, 1971, when both of them were 17 years old, on summer vacation between junior and senior year in high school.

We Picked Up is the story of that trip.

Ken estimates he hitchhiked about 25,000 miles in the United States between 1967 and 1985.  His experiences helped to form his personality and to understand the soul of America.  He still loves any kind of travel, whether by car, rail, bus, plane, boat, bicycle, or foot.  He takes his annual vacation in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

After a career as a journalist and in the telecommunications industry, Ken became an ordained minister in 2010.  He serves in the Reformed Church in America (RCA) in Annandale, New Jersey.  He believes in the connected soul and advocates spiritual wholeness.  He likes to sing and often joins the choir, and sometimes plays the guitar.

Ken and his wife, Wonza, live in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

A Mini-Overview

When seventeen year-old Ken got home from his trip in 1971, it wasn’t long before he realized, “I’ve got to get this down on paper, or else forget what happened.”  The first copy (long since discarded), was 70 pages written in longhand on both sides of the page.  Within a few years, the story, originally called The Other Side of the Nation, was transcribed onto a typewriter.  It eventually ballooned out to 700 pages, and was constantly “under construction.”

“I was not only trying to tell an epic story, a heartfelt coming-of-age adventure that needed to be told, but I was looking for a certain rhythm and flow, almost as if what I was writing was a piece of music,” Ken says.  “It had to contain swells and hushes.  There had to be a mini-climax at the end of each tale.  For half of its existence, the book had no chapters.  It was one long scroll, almost like On the Road by Jack Kerouac.”

Ken tried for decades to get the book published, and met dozens of rejections.  “I got a few interesting bites, but nothing panned out.”  That didn’t stop his determination.  In fact, he says he’s grateful it took so long to get published—“it gave me the time I needed to flesh out the story in all its glory and its pitfalls.  I really wanted to put the reader on the road along with the two characters.  It had to be a thrilling eye-opener, representing all of life's glories and challenges.”

An interesting trivia about the book is that all 50 states are mentioned, and that the characters never eat the same meal twice, nor ride in the same style car twice.

“There is some embellishment and artistic license, but I feel it’s integral to the spirit of the story,” Ken says. “That’s why it’s a novel and not a memoir.  Actually, the trip took place so long ago, I don’t remember what is true and what isn’t.  It’s all meshed together.  So I have to consider what wound up on paper to be the actual trip.”

The character ‘Roger Winans’ is the name of one of Ken’s boyhood friends.  The name ‘Otto George’ was more agonizing to devise.  “I had to have a name that could be switched around, go backwards and forwards, a little unconventional but also German-Irish, to match the unpredictable personality of my friend, who was great in the trenches by the way,” Ken says.  "We brought no tent, only sleeping bags. My friend made me stick to our mantra of not paying for rides, nor paying to sleep."

We Picked Up was published in 2014 by Balboa Press of Bloomington, Indiana.

Welcome to My New Blog!

Welcome. My name is Kenneth Lobb, author of We Picked Up. I am so happy to have you as a visitor to my blog. This project is very special to me, and I hope to share some of that excitement with you here.

I will be using this blog to interact with you about We Picked Up, expanding on some of the topics in it, and blogging on some of the ideas related to the book. This is a great place for you to get to know me. I am looking forward to getting to know you, too. What did you think of We Picked Up? What elated you?  What annoyed you? What questions do you have for me?

I will be returning here frequently with new posts and responses to feedback from you. Until next time, tell me a little bit about yourself so we can get the dialogue going.

Day One (Sunday, June 27, 1971)

“Don’t you like the cops?” Otto George fluttered his eyelashes with a smile, his quirky character uncapped for the world to enjoy. “I thought they were buddies of yours.”

I leaned up toward my goldilocks best friend with a chuckle. “I love them as much as you do, man. I just don’t feel so great hitching in a place overlooking bureau headquarters, that’s all.”

We glanced at each other and laughed some more.

I bobbed in the direction of the state troopers’ barracks across the field down the local road. Otto the Outermost perched above me in road preparedness, packed tight as sardines; thumbs extended over Route 22. Wistful yet confident, his angular figure always brought to mind an erector set.

“Hitchhiker’s best friend, ain’t they?”

“Oh, definitely. Never around when you need them. Always there when you don’t.”

A pack of cars sped past, anchored by a mammoth tractor-trailer generating enough tailwind to knock you down. A junker with an electronics freak wearing headphones passed slowly in its wake. Traffic was so heavy that I didn’t curse him out—much.

“Stop worryin’ about them cops, will you?” Otto instructed. “We’re out here to get a job done. Your right hand has a thumb attached to it. Now use it.”

I presumed my own stance for a new series of vehicles but kept a watchful eye out for those white, cherry-topped hornets outside that building. My partner would never admit it, but all the hiking we’d done prior to this was minor leagues. On this level, we were rookies straight off the farm.

“Come on, people, get us out of here!” I yelled. “We don’t need any early foul-ups. Come on, Americans! Show me some red, white, and blue.”

I stepped down and away from a faulty exhaust system’s swirling soot, coughing. I came up with a stone and flung it into a pole. Truck traffic on this stretch was incredible. They were coming in good spurts east and west. Mayflower. Royal Products. Union Carbine. Branch. White Rose Tea. They’d take your thumb off, no questions asked, if you got too close.

This was just west of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Fifty miles from home and already in strange lands. I bounced on the balls of my feet, wiggled my hips, and extended my fingers. No, I wasn’t polishing my hitchhiking stance; I was playing air piano to the song in my head, the new one by Carole King, “I Feel the Earth Move.” I banged those keys hard. Then I switched to air guitar, switched to “Johnny B. Goode,” and pranced up and down the shoulder in a modified Chuck Berry strut.

“Go, hepcat, go,” Otto said.

My statsheet looked like this: Seventeen years old. Curly dark hair on a big-boned frame. Height: 5'10". Weight: 150. Olive eyes. Often mistaken for Greek or Italian, but just your standard everyday WASP. Hailing from a small town in West Jersey named Whitehouse. Away from home only once before, on a hasty family camping trip to New England in 1966. In school I was a content ‘B’ student, bent more on extracurricular activities than hardcore academia. I was president of the service club. Class representative on student council. A bench-sitter on the football and baseball teams. My favorite action star was Simon Templar in The Saint. My favorite movies were Cat Ballou, A Shot In The Dark, Planet Of the Apes, and The Dirty Dozen. I liked blue-eyed soul on my stereo and tall, long-haired brunettes in tight Levis.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I know I’m young and naiive but I’m going to pick up, or else die trying.”

A Schaefer brewery sat on the other side of the highway. You could smell the hops or whatever it is they used to brew it. Haze bleached the rolling hills and extended halfway to the clouds. I tugged my damp teeshirt. That smoky horizon couldn’t be pollution, not way out here in the Lehigh Valley.

“I don’t know about this place, Otto. Too much congestion. If we go much longer, I think we ought to relocate down. Create some breathing room.”

“Sons,” as he called me, “you ain’t been standin’ here long. How long it’s been, fifteen, twenty minutes? Wait’ll you go five or six hours.”

“God, I hope not.”

Another long series of vehicles passed. I waved to one P-I-E truck, which stood for Pacific Intermountain Express. That’s the kind of ride we wanted. I nudged toward the pavement, daring the drivers to react. Someone, sooner or later, would be willing. Of course many of these trucks, luxury sedans, delivery vans, station wagons, and commercial cars were a poor percentage to “help the cause.” But Otto taught me long ago it pays to solicit everybody. Take our first ride out of Whitehouse, for example: An off-duty taxicab driver.

“Okay, ride number three, where art thou? I’m ready whenever you are, so let’s blow this joint! Come on, Miss Hairdo! Look at all the room!”

“A princess in her daddy’s Benz? Are you kiddin’? She was scared stiff.”

“No reason to feel that way at all. Is there, Otto? We’re respectable citizens. Girl, you have no idea how respectable we are. She lost her chance to participate in the great undertaking.”

Who cares if it was Otto or me who hatched the original idea for “The Trip?” Since last Christmas that’s all it needed to be called. We roughed out a basic concept based on “Forty Days and Forty Nights.” We designed a flexible, 7,500-mile loop. We even had a motto borrowed from the post office: “Neither rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night is going to prevent these two thumbs from acing this trip!”

Call it what you want—sowing our oats, testing the waters, going for the gold, letting it all hang out, whatever. We wanted to do something big, and it had to be now—in this lifetime.

We were more than team; we were one empowered. Born in the same hospital only a few days apart, unacquainted sons of “white flight” parents who both moved from Plainfield to Whitehouse in the mid-60’s. In sixth, we rode the same school bus and were spirited competitors on rival Little League teams. We bonded in seventh and eighth, helped by the same homeroom teacher and many of the same classes. By ninth we rode bicycles on weekends, packing a lunch and ‘talking life’ next to a river lookout or Jersey landmark. By tenth we chewed over girls and teachers; acting as each other’s nerve center and laugh box. This year, as juniors, we hitchhiked to Flemington on Sunday afternoons, competing in tennis.

Between jokes and ideas, we eventually cultivated the specifics of a grand long distance venture.
This was that now. The Trip. It was on. As we speak.

“. . . yeah, and I’m gonna tell you again, sons. We oughta carry a sign that says where we’re goin’. All professional hitchhikers use one. First chance we get. Are you a pro, or are you a pretender?”

We snapped our heads. A tractor-trailer, one we hadn’t even tried to snag, changed gears or something as it passed. It came to a halt on the shoulder about a hundred yards up.

“Holy cow, Phil Rizzuto!”

The door on the passenger’s side opened in a cloud of dust. A man with glasses leaned out and waved for us to come on. We stopped looking dumbfounded and ran up with our stuff.

The door was about five feet off the ground. In a slurry, fast-talking gobble, the man said, “Where you goddamn motherlovin’ whores headed?”

“California,” I said.

He was neither surprised nor skeptical. “Well, I’m goin’ all the way to Nebraska, so hop up ’fore I get my hind quarters rammed.”

Halfway across the country on one pickup! I never dreamed cross-country hitchhiking would be this easy. At this rate, we’d be in California in two days.

The guy got up to full speed after about ten gear changes.

“Name’s Tom,” he shouted. “Tom Pavallow.” He pointed to an identification card of himself taped to the dashboard. Staticky country- western music droned out the AM.

You know how they say everybody resembles an animal? Tom looked like a bird—small and weightless. He seemed about sixty—kind of old to be doing this type of thing for a living. He had short, graying hair, thick-lensed glasses, and a scraggly Bob Dylan beard. He had short arms and discolored skin. His ribs poked out from his yellow teeshirt.

We shook hands. We told him our names, but with the deafening engine it was evident you had to keep conversation brief and general as possible.

“Where you from?” he yelled.

“Newark,” I said.

“What?!”

Otto added, “We’re cousins.”

“Cousins?! You goddamn motherlovin’ whores don’t look like cousins to me. You sure as hell ain’t from Newark, I damn well know that.”

It was so much fun riding in a tractor-trailer. It was like the Spider Dragon ride at Seaside Heights, only better. You were high off the ground, going fast, barreling ahead with so much power underneath that you felt unconquerable. Out of habit only did I locate—for emergency—the door handle.

The noise didn’t bother Tom. He babbled on in such a way that all you had to do was say “yeah” every minute or so and that was enough to keep him going. He was the type whose hygiene, language, and lifestyle you might not agree with, but he wasn’t about to harm us and he was supplying a ride. So I didn’t care what he yammered about.

From what I understood (confirmed by Otto at later points), Tom was a company man, a career trucker who shuttled raw beef from Omaha to New York twice a week, and that a one-way trip took a day and a half. “I don’t sleep,” he said, “I drink coffee.” From time to time he brought down a vial of pills from under the sun visor and popped them in his mouth. Home was Omaha. He spent every Sunday at home with his wife and two kids. He pulled out his wallet and flipped through the leaves. He pointed to a photo of a beast of a woman.

“Hell, you think that stops me?” He grinned with brown and missing teeth. “I’ve corn-holed every waitress at the Zanesville truck stop. Ever’ damn one.”

I was introduced to this phenomenon, “truck stops,” before long, and had the grim obligation of visiting several before the night was over. I never knew they existed. They were like a combination gas station / restaurant / store for truck drivers, always open twenty-four hours, where all these gritty people who look like they haven’t slept or washed recently gather about and stock up on their needs.

Tom fit right in. He slid his rig into the gigantic parking lot, idling the engine instead of turning it off, and the three of us walked in. Tom made believe he didn’t know us, and went to sit with a bunch of his truck-driving buddies in a special section marked ‘RESERVED FOR PROFESSIONAL TRUCKERS. THEY OPERATE ON A TIME SCHEDULE AND THIS AREA IS RESERVED TO ASSURE THEY ARE NOT DELAYED.’

The walls were muddy brown; the tables and booths were thin as balsa. A smell of grease and rubber permeated the air. The store sold just about everything a trucker would need, like baseball caps, wind- breakers, sunglasses, eight-track tapes, watches, decals, and maintenance supplies. A combination salt and pepper shaker was on special, ‘For The Little Lady At Home,’ and was selling briskly.

An additional truckers’ lounge was off-limits to anyone not a trucker, as were laundry and showers. A long row of telephones in the corridor was a busy area. Tom made at least five phone calls, lasting a good half hour.

Not one attractive girl was in there, nor were many of the feminine sex available to begin with. The waitresses were a bunch of dogs who derived their pleasure from flirting with the drivers.

“I’d rather masturbate,” I told Otto. We laughed for twenty minutes.

Outside it was dark. A large chunk of Pennsylvania was already knocked. Already I was a lot further west than I ever was before. My old record was Hershey, Pennsylvania, to visit the chocolate factory. That was three summers earlier, August, 1968, on a day trip with my Uncle Merv, brother Willis, and two sisters. Otto’s furthest point out was the Pocono Mountains, where he once went to a basketball camp.

Adding to our roll call of states was major. Otto rang in with a measly three. I had ten, so at least my disappointing camping trip to New England was worth something. My bro Willis had eleven states and I had ten—always a sore point for me since I was two years older!

Inside the truck behind the grimy curtain was a small, box-like compartment, which explained where truck drivers catch up on their sleep and carry on their sexual activities. It was fun to scan across the scores of shining, stately trucks, picture the compartments, and speculate about the number of bare waitresses.

Tom finally came back and we got rolling again. It had been some kind of busy week since school let out. Tuesday I went to Yankee Stadium to see Roy White and Thurman Munson in a doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers. Wednesday I was at the shore with the student council—a thank you party from our faculty advisors. Thursday I hitchhiked to White Plains, New York, to see my favorite group in concert, the Rascals. Friday, Otto and I attended a Round Valley Reservoir camp-out as stealthy adjuncts of a church youth group, where I drank half a bottle of Boone’s Farm and threw up. Saturday I had a wonderful midnight picnic with my girlfriend, Amy. We ate grapes and cheese doodles under a tree near the Raritan River, punctuated by juicy necking.

It seemed ages that I split home. That had been some dreadful spectacle. My mom, crying, dropped me off with my two duffel bags at the George’s house at noon (my father said goodbye from home). I got perturbed at Otto for having all his trip items sprawled across the living room and bedroom, not even organized. He brought so much extra crap—flares, rope, a rain slicker, searchlight, metal jungle hat, shampoo, even an athletic supporter. All to load in a single, metal- framed knapsack.

“Hey man, I thought we were going to show the world what roughing it really means.”

“Don’t worry, it’s gonna be on my back, not yours,” he smiled.

For good measure, his whole family was staring like owls. I had to answer the dumb questions of his twin sisters, refuse his step-mom’s offers for lunch, and politely laugh at Mr. George’s jokes about “the call of the wild.” Finally we got out of there at one-thirty p.m.

Ride number two had been interesting. That was with a Jewish family named the Silvermans. They were friendly and talkative. The parents took us quite seriously when we explained we were hitchhiking from New Jersey to California and back. They said upon our arrival in San Francisco, there was some author, Alan Watts, who lived on a yacht in the bay north of the city. He was known as a “friend of hippies,” and let people bunk on his boat. I jotted down that item in my pocket notebook.

I didn’t realize Tom’s route of travel along the Pennsylvania Turnpike would get me into West Virginia, but there we were—Wheeling, West Virginia. State number eleven. That tied me with my brother Willis for the lead of the Winans family siblings. Then we hit Ohio and I jumped into the undisputed lead. Otto’s state total skyrocketed to five.

I couldn’t understand why Tom had to stop at every truck stop on the road. After the third or fourth one we ceased going in with him. He’d only get a cup of coffee anyway; that, and make a few phone calls.
At one truck stop in Ohio in the dead of night, he came back to the cab gobbling, “Well boys, we’re on our way to Chicago. We’ll make it by tomorrow afternoon.”

What? Anguish tore through my soul. I couldn’t help but cry out: “What happened to Nebraska?”

Tom replied with some slurry answer I couldn’t understand, though he tacked on at the end, “We’ll have a ball up there in Chicago. There ain’t nothin’ but whores!”

Otto took it in stride, as usual. He rarely got rattled. His complacency smoothed over my outbursts. I was demonstrative and he was meditative. We complemented each other completely. That’s why we did everything as one—sneaking into movies; hitchhiking to Princeton University on a snowy night to see a wrestling match; sitting together on field trips to the Trenton rock station and state museum, counseling each other for hours over milkshakes at Dairy Queen. Our mutual trust ran deep. I knew he watched out for me. In return, I put up with his mysterious nature. That’s to say: Sometimes he did things outside the realm of logic.

This became one of those times. With our ride cut down to Chicago, my morale crashed and burned. I felt drained and could see myself snoozing in that portable sleeping compartment of Tom’s. Otto, though, felt the need to keep himself awake the whole night. When Tom hinted that one of us could grab some shut-eye if we wanted, I took him up on the offer. I climbed over the seat and tumbled inside. Ugh. It was an uncovered box springs with a greasy sheen and moldy smell. Just enough room existed to stretch your legs.

“The young’un needs his rest for the night,” Otto joked to Tom, loudly.

I ignored him and recited my bedtime prayer, with one obvious modification:

Dear God, Please guide me safely through the night.
And forgive me for all the bad things I did during the day.
This goes for everyone in my family,
Including my relatives and friends,
And please guide this house—er, I mean, this 18-wheeler
Safely through the night, too. Amen.
Dear God, that was a special prayer. Amen.
Dear God, THAT was a special prayer, too. Amen.

Day Two (Monday, June 28, 1971)

I rested but never fell asleep, due to the ceaseless engine grunt, diesel scent, and uneven tug and pull. Tom told Otto about the time Tom’s brother caught him in bed with his brother’s wife, and how his brother came after him with an ice pick.

I was dazed and confused as daylight leaked into the compartment. I climbed back out to the bench seat. Tom was gobbling away, briefing Otto on the ways truckers communicate to each other using beeps and lights.

Miles passed. My world was pretty much contained to the interior of Tom’s cab. Beyond the windshield seemed like a movie. Otto was holding up admirably. We were already in Indiana (state thirteen). We arrived into the outskirts of Indianapolis via the broken concrete of the old highway. Rumbling past older stores and shopping centers, Tom craned his head at each corner, looking for a phone booth. He rumbled into the parking area of a dry cleaning store, idling the rig across every slot the place had available. What news would Tom bring this time? We laughed at the elderly clerk peering out the window. She had a fit.

“Well boys, it looks like we’re at the end of the line,” Tom announced upon his return. “I’m pickin’ up my pappy down here to the county garage, and there ain’t gonna be no room for youse. He’s a big whore, with a temper like a billy goat.”

He let us off at I-465, the interstate bypass around Indianapolis, which was fully complete according to my map. We thanked him, collected our gear, and Tom chugged out of sight. The venture was in the past before I had a chance to realize I had been living it.

“What’s with these truck drivers anyway?” I said to Otto from a lazy field of yellow grass, swigging water from our canteens. “Always changing plans!”

“Haven’t I told you before, sons? Never count on bein’ somewhere until you’re there. Especially with thumbin’. The in’s and out’s of this trip are gonna torch your last nerve if you let it. I can see that already.”

“I thought we snagged us a big one.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s a nice day.” Otto stretched out in the high grass. He was 6'3", 130 pounds, a hopeful for this year’s varsity basketball team.

“Don’t you think he was purposely trying to get rid of us with that line about his pappy?”

“Naw, he was too dumb to be a liar.” Otto slipped a blade of hay between his teeth.

“Why would anyone want to be picked up by their son in a rig?”

Otto shrugged his shoulders. “That’s probably the family car.”

Less imposing vehicles bending northward in a never-ending curve whizzed across flat, open fields. Clouds were light, high, and puffy. The air was still. We joked about our ride as if we had just filmed a documentary, “Tom Pavallow and His Semi-World of Tractor Trailers.”

An old guy with a prosthetic device picked us up. He had only one leg. He was going to a small town on the west side of Indianapolis, named Plainfield.

“You’re looking for America? It’s right here,” he said, driving along a boulevard decked out in patriotic banners of baldheaded eagles. “We win all the awards for civic pride and federal allegiance.” We decided to explore the place ourselves. Spend an easy day resting and soaking up atmosphere. Take the day off. Tomorrow we’d go back to work; that is, get up toward Chicago and onto our preplanned route, I-80.

“No sense in rushing to California,” I reasoned. “With thirty-nine days left, it almost seems like we’ve come too far.”

The name Plainfield caught my ear because I lived the first ten years of my life in Plainfield, New Jersey. I liked geography and knew this Plainfield wouldn’t be a thing like the burned-out, old money, divisive Queen City from my childhood. But then I had to keep in mind that neither were all towns suburbs of New York.

There was no way you could spend a hectic day in this Plainfield. All businesses closed at five o’clock. The main excitement was a weekly farm auction. Pedestrians waited for green lights. The radio gave hog and cattle prices. There were lots of shade elms and fertile fields. Was this what they called the Midwest? Whoever was responsible for naming it had to be mistaken. From what I could tell, we were still in the eastern time zone.

A grammar school principal kicked us off the front lawn of his school for sitting in the sprinkler system. I tried saying we were visitors from Indianapolis, but it didn’t work.

We split a Plainfield, Indiana, pizza for dinner. It was terrible, ranking among the worst pies I’d ever tasted: thin, flaky crust, bland sauce, skimpy portion of mozzarella. I had been suspicious all along because the name of the pizzeria was “Larry’s Spot,” and Larry was blond and bland. Our taste buds were acclimated to the chewy, spicy, cheesy pies of Dominick’s Pizzeria in Whitehouse, where we were loyal patrons for years.

“That’s the best we can do. Sorry if you don’t like it,” Larry said sheepishly when I complained. “There’s no Italians in Plainfield.”

Hummel Park was a recreational haven on the edge of the woods. Its old fashioned gazebo, open-air pavilions and band shell, and clean, unsullied walkways conjured up visions of the movie Pollyanna.

We attended a co-ed softball game. We got to talking with the girl sitting next to us on the grass. Her name was Paula, a free-spirit whose eagerness to play was curbed by a sprained wrist. She was interested in hearing all about our adventures. Before we knew it, Paula offered to have us camp in the back yard of her family’s house for the night.

“My father won’t mind,” she said, round eyes jumping and maroon hair jelling to her lipstick. “He used to be a hitchhiker himself. He likes to tell everyone how meaningful it was.”

Sure enough, once we met Paula’s dad, Francis, we knew there’d be no problem lodging in the back yard. He looked younger than his age, but with lines on his face and keen eyes. Paula was engrossed herself as Francis described how he used to hitchhike back and forth from Brownsville, Texas, while he was in the army. He worked on the side as a stunt pilot. “I had a ballyhoo of a time, boys. All of life is in front of you, so reach out and grab it while you can.”

“We hitchhike even when we’re not together,” Otto offered. “I hitchhiked to my father’s office in New Brunswick last week.”

“And I hiked seventy miles to White Plains, New York, to see a concert,” I said. “That was tricky. I had to cross the Tappan Zee Bridge around midnight. But I got home not much later than if I had driven.”

“Now you’re out on national tour. That’s great. Welcome. You guys are heroes,” Francis said.

After awhile, a younger daughter, Theresa, came out and joined our ring. Her wire was just as alive as the others, with a sweet, devilish smile to boot. I was having a great time, but then Francis really did us a favor. Saying, “I’m sure the younger generation has things to talk about that the old man wouldn’t be interested in,” he supplied everyone with lemonade, asked if we needed anything else, and then disappeared into the house.

Whoever thought a meeting between us four would take place on this starry, starry night! In tribute to Francis, I vowed to taste all the life I could while I was able. His daughters were educated and playful. We bandied over some discrepancies in language that already started seeping up, like ‘sneakers’ vs. ‘tennis shoes;’ ‘wallet’ vs. ‘billfold;’ ‘dungarees’ vs. ‘jeans,’ and ‘soda’ vs. ‘pop.’

“Why did I start to hitchhike in the first place?” Otto laughed, fluffing out his long blond hair. “Hmm, lemme see.”

“. . . Fighting the mentality of ‘gas, grass, or ass,’ ” I said.

“. . . I guess ’cause free is me.”

“. . . ’Cause it’s better to stay inside of a dream than out.”

“. . . ’Cause less is best,” Otto said. “Gluttony don’t cut it.”

Paula burst out, “You guys are so alike!”

“We’re body, mind, and soul manifest,” I said, nudging up to Paula’s straightforward energy.

“We’re enlightened spirits one and two,” Otto said, making inroads with innocent, daring Theresa.

“You’re best friends,” Paula said.

“Twin brothers of different mothers,” Theresa said.

“I’m his guru,” Otto said.

“And I’m his swami,” I said.

Before we knew it, the four of us were making out! Theresa and Otto. Paula and myself. Heaven touched earth; angels fluttered when I placed my pucker on warm, willing, moist lips. Otto sweetly caressed Theresa’s hair and neck.

The girls showed no signs of wanting to leave. That is, not until their mother yelled to them from an upstairs window, “Now you girls get on to bed!” They scampered into the house.

Alone in our sleeping bags, under heavenly constellations, I asked my philosophical friend a few questions pertaining to the matter at hand.

“Hey Otto? How could Francis be such a nice guy and the old lady be a witch? Francis wanted to lend us his daughters.”

“Did you have a good time?”

“Best of the best. Paula’s kisses were wanting.”

“That’s the reason,” Otto sighed. “So were Theresa’s. The old lady was afraid we were gonna sign ’em up.”

Day Three (Tuesday, June 29, 1971)

By mid-morning Otto and I were treated to breakfast by Francis and family, washed up in their bathroom, and were back on the road. Led by maps, we took local highways to I-65 north, with connections in Gary, Indiana, for I-80 west. I got caught up with my diary while sitting on a metal railing. Otto pulled out the pack of pre-stamped postcards that his step-mom gave him to send, one-per-day.

“She’ll never be able to track me down using this system.” He cheerfully scribbled one out.
I sang a song appropriate for our location, “Indiana Wants Me,” by R. Dean Taylor. In the open air, you could belt it loud. I donned the roadside stage with a Coke bottle microphone and performed all of side two of The Rascals’ Greatest Hits. Otto practiced his vampire laugh, a high-pitched falsetto squeal which always struck me with a sense of horror, as if something (to his audience only) was hysterically funny.

A state cop blew us down via an overhead speaker. “Get off the interstate! Restrict your thumbing to the entrance ramp! Or get a ticket! Move it! Now!”

A wavy-haired, female hippie pulled over in a VW van. She wore a crushed red leather vest and necklaces of seashells, and no shirt underneath. She was an unmarried mother with a two year-old child in the front seat.

“Thanks for showing us some trust,” I told her. “You didn’t even look us over.”

“Well, I figure hitchhiking is more art than science. So I thought I’d give it a whirl. Say hello to my son, Nate.”

She asked a lot of questions, which had Otto whispering for me to watch out—she might be an undercover detective looking for runaways. “You left from New Jersey last Sunday? Your parents didn’t even give you the first ride? What if you can’t make it the whole way to California?”

It all made sense during the last mile when she asked, “How’d you like a place in Chicago to stay for the night?” She took out a piece of paper and wrote: Chip Bolshakov, 117 Waveland, #3.

“That’s my boyfriend, Chip. Just go to his apartment. I guarantee he’ll let you crash for the night. It’s not hard to find. Tell him Judy sent you. He’ll laugh when he hears it was me, but I know he’ll put you up. He’s the nicest, most sincere guy I know. Just go up and knock on his door.”

No matter how valuable that ride was, it was overshadowed a few rides later, when a big black man with massive hands picked us up in a Cadillac near a construction site. He was as big as a soda machine, had oily skin, a thin mustache, and Asian ambience. He could have passed for Odd Job from the James Bond movie, Goldfinger.

The very first thing he said to us—even before hello, “Do you guys want a hamburger?”

He opened a Mr. Quik bag and pulled out a burger apiece for us, then one for himself. He lifted out a couple of sodas. “Here, you might as well have these, too.”

Great. I was ready for a snack. On top of that, he was going into the heart of Chicago.

I was so glad that somebody of a different race, particularly a black male, wanted to be part of our new social order. Just like the fine print says, “We take on all comers without regard to race, creed, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, orientation, or disability.” It would be people like him, like Otto, like Judy, even Tom Pavallow—melding together to make the world anew. We needed it. Together, we could improve not only the image of hitchhiking in the United Sates, but its cultural milieu. Humanize the landscape. I always struggled to understand why foreigners hated America. Sure, the Vietnam War was still raging and we had a jerk in President Nixon, but what did I witness in the trenches and byways of everyday life? Friendly and generous people. Kind, intelligent, resourceful people. Hitchhiking itself was severely misunderstood. All the warnings that it was dangerous were bogus. I silently said “right on” to the big black man. In his unique, individual way, he was contributing to make our society better.

We traversed over flat, broad farmland. I studied signs and billboards avidly, kind of awed that the English language extended out so far. We laughed at how most New Jersians figured Chicago was halfway across the country. For the record, it’s one-third across.

We got dropped off on the south side of Chicago, in an urban neighborhood across from a blighted row of stores, tenement buildings, and vacant lots. It was noisy and littered. The air smelled of fruit. I was confident we could maneuver in a strange city. I was also confident Judy’s suggestion was reliable.

“So this is Mayor Richard Daley’s city?” Otto saluted in all directions. “Hello Chicagoland.”

I yelled out, “It’s not as big a place as you think, people! Try New York sometime.”

A score of people steered us uptown near Wrigley Field after we showed them our address. I never did find out what “the Loop” was. We had to take a “loop” subway to get to Waveland Street.

Chip’s apartment was on the third floor of a five-story walkup. The buildings on this quiet residential street were older but well-maintained with large windows. Trees were full without blocking views.
A nonchalant, bearded type opened the door, yawning and scratching his belly, wearing wrinkled clothes.

“Chip Bolshakov?” I said. “Your girlfriend sent us. She picked us up hitchhiking. She said you’d let us crash for the night.”

Chip seemed puzzled to have two teenagers adorned in full travel attire standing before him. For a moment I feared disaster. “Yeah, I’m Chip.” A smile broke across his stubbles. “Don’t let me bother you. Come in. By all means, you can stay for the night. I was just wondering which girlfriend.”

Chip gave us a tour of his apartment, which was filled with beat-up furniture, plants, and a great sounding stereo in his living room. His windows faced the street. He brought us into one room devoid of all objects except for a shiny oakwood floor and deep purple walls.

“Here’s your bunkhouse. Anchor down, guys.”

I liked Chip’s come-what-may approach. He said we were courageous for undertaking such an ambitious trip while still in high school. “Who says nothing is impossible?” he asked. “I’ve been doing nothing for years.” I was envious that he was thriving in a city on his own. He winked when he said, “I’m keeping busy being single.” He had never been to New York, but said Chicago was big enough for him. I had been waiting all day to hear a song by the rock group Chicago, in honor of our arrival in the city. Finally, the disc jockey on a free-form FM station played an excellent two-fer, the new jazz song by The Rascals, “Nama,” followed by the live version of “Questions 67 and 68,” over Chip’s giant speakers.

“So, you’re on the loose in Chicago for the night, huh? What are you going to do?”

He said nothing about the closet in the living room whose shelves were stocked with alcohol. Nor did he say anything when Otto sniffed a marijuana pipe resting in the ashtray on his coffee table.

“I’ll tell you the good spots for two seventeen year-olds,” he said.

We took the subway back downtown, which wasn’t called a subway or the loop, but “the El.” We found Grant Park and walked along Lake Michigan’s sand beach. We watched the nightly light show at Buckingham Fountain. There were all sorts of people out—not just tourists with cameras, but students, office workers, and freaks.

We plopped down on a bench near a bicycle path, getting a good view of the skyline, when kazoos sounded our way. “Hey hey / Ho ho / Nixon’s war has got to go!”

A parade of protesters, several dozen of them, came marching by. They were carrying signs, “Out of Vietnam,” “Down With Mind Control,” and “Tank the System.” As they passed by, some guy gestured, “Join us.”

We hopped up and tagged along at the rear, clapping and chanting. I never contemplated Vietnam much, but when you came right down to it, what were we doing over there anyway? Public opinion was firmly against it. I knew Otto and his girlfriend, Laurie, were against it.

“What do we want?”

“Peace!”

“When do we want it?”

“Now!”

We advanced to South Michigan Avenue when . . . look out, jack! A line of cops were waiting behind a clump of trees, and charged us. They had shields and billy clubs. Some were on horses.

There was an instant scuffle. The militants bumped and kicked; the cops pushed and shoved. Everyone was yelling and grunting. Before we got crushed, we dispersed. Fast. We scooted down several side blocks in a wild, erratic pattern (on purpose, not to be tailed), hoofing at full sprint.

We shored up at a Basking Robbins ice cream parlor in a whole different neighborhood.

“We ain’t fool enough to tangle with no cops.” Otto was still panting, ice cream melting in front of him.

“We could have gotten our cans arrested and thrown in jail.”

“Next time we stop, look, and listen.”

“Those guys wanted to lay down in the street.”

“They weren’t merrymakin’, sons.”

“I get your gist.”

Still buzzing, we took “the El” back to Addison. We walked around the perimeter of Wrigley Field as a calming gesture, checking out girls and couples at open-air restaurants. I kept an eye out for first baseman Joe Pepitone, former Yankee and one of my favorite players, who had been traded to the Cubs this year.

“Joe loves the nightlife, and so do I. Cheers, Otto. We’re free and we know we made it at least as far as Chicago.”

Day Four (Wednesday, June 30, 1971)

It felt good to take showers on the morning of the fourth day. The funny design of these city apartments placed a window directly above the ceramic tub. That allowed you to soap up with a clear view of the apartments across the air-shaft. There was no shade or curtain, or even glass in the frame.

“Did you see that family in the next apartment building?” Otto asked back in the purple room, a towel wrapped around his tenders. He was flush with embarrassment.

“Yeah,” I laughed. “I hope they enjoyed their breakfast with my organ hanging out the window the whole time.”

Chip gave us run of the house, which meant to finish our cereal breakfast, pack up at our leisure, and lock up when we left. He chuckled to hear about our previous night’s civil disobedience with the protesters. In fact, he was scheduled to appear in court himself next week.

“A wee scrape with the law,” he explained, adding, “I’m not sure if I’m going to show up.” He waved and tramped down the stairway.

It took me little time to feel at home. I went directly to his stereo, found a good Chicago FM station, and got the apartment rocking. Otto joined me on Chip’s balcony for a spell of sitting and writing. We had a great view of urban activity; artists walking their dogs; cars in search of a parking space; kids bouncing a ball off a stoop, garbage collectors emptying the trash. It wasn’t hard to imagine the place as ours.

I updated my list of top ten favorite groups:

1. The Beatles
2. The Rascals
3. Sly and the Family Stone
4. ThreeDogNight
5. Rolling Stones
6. Chicago
7. Beach Boys
8. Blood, Sweat & Tears
9. Bob Dylan
10. The Doors

(Then I crumpled up the paper. After all, the Beatles had broken up.)

“How’s your beard coming along, man?”

“She’s fillin’ in nice.” Otto stroked barely discernible reddish fuzz under his chin. I rubbed my own shadow. Our beard contest was in full swing. Deep within our friendship, a rivalry still remained.

When we absorbed everything we could at the apartment, we used Chip’s instructions and headed out to I-94. Many times we flashed back to our sumptuous kissing with Paula and Theresa in Indiana and jostled over who was the bigger stud. We agreed to another contest: Tally who got the most girls on the trip.

“One-one, right? That’s our starting handicap. You had Theresa. I had Paula. One kiss minimum. No cheating.”

“Even par, I’m game.” Otto nodded. “But let me tell you, sons, you’re gonna be lickin’ your wounds by the time we get home. Makin’ romance with the fair sex is this kid’s forte.”

“We’ll see about that!”

One of our rides out of downtown was with a driver who looked like Stevie Wonder, with whom we talked about jerk chicken and soul food recipes.

An air conditioner installer, who said he lived “a block away from 80,” was good to his word. This area of Cook County, southwest of Chicago, was faceless, homogeneous, wall-to-wall developments built cheaply over fields and woods. It lent weight to another one of my Roger Winans mottos, “Give me city or give me country, but a subdivision—never!”

The air conditioner installer treated us to a glass of lemonade outside his home for helping him lift an unusually large unit off his truck.

A Mexican migrant worker offered to sell us his car for a hundred dollars, on the spot, claiming that he would start thumbing. No gracias, senor.

We pushed forward onto flat, open Illinois. I was aware that New Jersey ranked 46th in land area among the states, but you had to discover these distant lands to believe it. You had to think twice to realize that the hot, beating sun overhead was the exact same energy source that was shining in, say—Georgia. It no longer seemed like a stroll away to California, either. In fact, it seemed farther away now than it did when we started.

The massive junction between I-80 and I-55, laid out across an endless meadow, was the single worst place I’d ever hung out my thumb. It was impossibly busy. Cars weren’t designed to stop. There were too many doofus suit-n-tie workaholics with stressed faces, shooting out in all directions over mile-long ramps, like battery-operated zombies.

We set up on a secondary approach ramp—one on which the volume of traffic wasn’t so bad. Otto worked from the left side, using his left thumb, while I stood across from him, working my right.
An old Coronet stopped. Sitting behind the wheel, all alone, was a girl.

“It’s my turn for the front!” We ran up.

The girl was at best plain-looking, though sporting a curvy figure. She had glasses and dirty blonde hair, acne, and small, thin lips begging for Chap Stick. She was twenty-eight and studying for her doctorate in Psychological Behavior at Northwestern University.

“Come on, guys, how’d you get permission to go on your trip from your parents? Give me the straight poop.” She rolled over the question twice with her tongue, almost suspiciously.

“It was easy for me, because I would’ve gone whether my parents gave me permission or not,” I said.

“And my parents are pushovers if you get tough with ’em.”

“Don’t they have rules and regulations you need to follow?”

“Not me. I come and go as I please. I create my own disasters.”

“Basically, I don’t put up with their guff,” Otto said.

Like everyone else we’d met so far, the girl assumed New Jersey was one big factory filled with smoke stacks, high tension wires, and oil refineries. It was starting to irk me.

“No way,” I told her. “Over half the state is forestland. My friend and I live where there’s rolling hills and miles of farms between towns. Ever hear of Hunterdon County?”

“I love California.” She ignored me. “I have people in Encinitas. What an oasis. Sunshine every day. The ocean is marvelous. My friends are so creative. They cultivate avocado trees up the side of their hill. Everything they do is organic. They’re great cooks. They eat vegetables and drink tea. They spend every morning at the exercise spa and always have a suntan.”

“Disneyland for the privileged populace?” I volleyed.

She looked me over without smiling. “Are you prepared to meet all the free thinkers out there? I’m afraid their open-mindedness is going to shock you. People are into their own thing. Some of the residents might seem spacey, but they are expressing who they are. California is the closest thing we have to a modern utopia.”

I bubbled up. “Well, that’s what we’re all about, sister! Freedom! Who do you think you’re talking to?”
She gave us “western” tips, on everything from wearing our hats and keeping our canteens filled to dealing with poisonous snakes and what to do in case of bear attack. Otto pulled out his snakebite kit from his backpack and had the girl examine it.

“Two boys from New Jersey need to explore one of our Illinois state parks. We have a wonderful one at the next exit. We deserve at least one afternoon, don’t you think? It’ll be a crucial part of your cross-country education.”

She dropped us off at Starved Rock State Park, an area bristling with woods, sandstone canyons, and wandering streams. Her house was two miles away. “I’ll come back at five o’clock and give you a lift back to the highway.”

It wasn’t until the door was closed and she was motoring away that I realized we entrusted her with all our gear.

“Hey man, our duffel bags!” I began to chase after her.

“Ah relax. She ain’t the type to pull nothin’ like that.” Otto held me back. “Besides, you got traveler’s cheques in your pocket and a shirt on your back, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess . . . ”

Otto laughed. “You also got a brain in your skull. Or maybe we shouldn’t assume?”

“It’s there, I think.” We laughed in merry unison. “But it’s scary to imagine being stranded with no possessions.”

The park occupied us. All sorts of nature trails led to overlooks high above fertile flatlands. We checked out rock formations and waterfalls. We rowed a paddleboat past a deep canyon. We hung around the concession stand. An ice cream supply truck making a delivery left its latches open, and we swiped a couple free toffee bars.

The girl was fifteen minutes late in coming back.

“I thought about that, too, after I left—the theft factor.” She still wasn’t smiling. “I was interested in observing your reaction. Normally I’d be a little more careful about who you trust your packs with. Protect your innocence, boys. Seventeen is awfully young to be in charge of your own life.”

“Step aside, sister,” I said. “We got a trip to complete.” Otto lectured me after we were dropped off at I-80. “If you wanna survive this trip, sons, you’re gonna have to read people a lot better than what you been doin’. Some people we put our faith in. Others we play along with until we got them felt out. Got it? Make distinctions. You get flustered too easy. The good we embrace. If they’re rats, we scram. That’s the secret.”

We sat on a guardrail above the interstate. I felt unschooled compared to Otto, maybe not in raw knowledge or I.Q., but in savvy. Discernment. I needed to learn tact and poise. When to accept advice? When to follow your gut? When to speak my piece? When to keep my big trap shut? I observed the lower angle of the sun and felt the heat ease a degree.

A luxury car slowed while an automatic window rolled down. A man with a thick crop of graying hair and a thick, bushy mustache stuck his head out. “Where the fuck you going?”

Otto said, “Uh, California.”

The guy sweetened. “Well ain’t that something?” He smiled. “I’m going all the way to Davenport. Let me do you the pleasure.”

We did. Davenport was either in Iowa or at the end of Illinois—a good hundred miles, regardless. Otto followed our rotation system and waited for me to climb in the back. I loaded my red Yucatan bag and green gunny sack, topped off by Otto’s tan backpack. I took care not to scrape the metal frame against the interior. It was soft and lush, equipped with the latest 1971 accessories. As we started on our way, the seat automatically adjusted to my weight.

“Name’s Archie. What’s yours?” Immediately ‘Archie Bunker’ from the TV show All In The Family, came to mind, though there wasn’t enough of a resemblance to make the connection work. This Archie was old as Archie Bunker, but more handsome and sophisticated, despite the profanity.

“How the fuck you guys doing? I’d shake your hands, but look.” He suspended his right hand in the air. It was curled in a metal brace and covered in bandages.

“You want a drink? I’ve got whiskey sours here for you, if you’d care to join me.” He pointed to a miniature bar on the dashboard with his injured hand. Everything was included: a pint of Southern Comfort, plastic glasses, an ice bucket, packets of mix, wooden stir sticks, and beverage holders.

“I’m not thirsty,” I said dryly. Otto declined, too, but in a much lighter, pleasant tone, as if he was a binge boozer who just didn’t care for one at the moment.

“You sure?” Archie glanced at both of us. “You don’t mind if I have another one, do you? I’ve got to fucking unwind.”

He picked up speed, moved into the extreme lift-hand lane, and adjusted his cruise-a-matic to eighty miles per hour. My body started to sweat. He ripped open a whiskey sour packet, carelessly added the bourbon, and stirred.

“I’ve got to be careful the next few days.” Archie gulped down a good half of the drink and set the glass in the holder. “Over here I’m okay, but I’ve got to watch it on the other side of the stream. They’ve got a warrant out for my arrest. Concealed firearms. Every cop in Iowa is after me. Do me a favor and watch for any officers, just in case I need to burn rubber. It’s a rough life, fellas. I can’t keep a job, can’t stay off booze, and can’t stay away from the law. I’m a pathetic mess, aren’t I?”

Tremors of dread splashed across my body. I couldn’t believe Otto! While I was going hysterical, he lounged comfortably in the front with no tension, casually smiling in Archie’s direction or glancing out the window. I was ready to evacuate! Yesterday! This was the negative side of hitchhiking, plain and simple. My debut with a drunk driver. Already I knew the destiny of this ride: A high-speed chase and a fiery crash, culminating in all our deaths.

“I’m a brick layer for the union, right? We’ve been on this new job over in LaSalle the past couple of weeks. Real good place to work. Not too high up, all fire brick, new municipal building. I can’t work today because of this, though, right?” He held up his bandaged hand. “But I can’t tell the foreman how I got it, so I figure I better show up anyway, right? The foreman calls me over and says, ‘Archie, you drunken lout, you can’t work today with that hand,’ and I says fine. So I go down to the bar to wait for my buddy to get off, because I promised I’d give him a ride home. I drink five, maybe six beers, nothing heavy. But my fanny gets tired sitting there, you know? So I get a six pack to go and bring it down to the job, innocent as a church mouse.

“Now I know you’re not supposed to drink on the job. That’s the number one rule. But I figure, hell, I ain’t working today. Besides, I’ve got to nurse this hand. The foreman went through the roof when he saw me. ‘Goddamn it, Archie,’ he says, ‘what do you think you’ve doing? Your ass is fired.’ And I said, ‘Nuts to you, jerkweed. You don’t have to fire me, because I already quit!’

“I stormed out of that place and hit the fucking highway. I got ten miles down the road and thought, ‘Archie, you horse’s ass, you’re going the wrong way. That’s when I saw you guys.”

My eyes gummed the white lines. My body was in a manic froth. Archie was hustling plenty fast, but wasn’t swaying from lane to lane or haphazardly passing, like you’d expect. I longed for Davenport. It had to be close, if he commuted.

Displaying his injured hand again, Archie said, “I got this beaute from a fight I was in last night. God, it was senseless. So stupid. I was down at the local bar, which we call Smokey’s, right, to unwind with
some of the guys I know down there, right? So we’re talking about harness racing when this ugly-faced creep walks up to me from over in the corner. I’d seen him staring at me all night, but didn’t pay him any mind. He’s got this long scar running down the side of his face and probably a shriveled up pecker.
“Well, he’s drunker than me and he starts with the cheap shots, saying what a disgrace I am to society and how I’m better off in jail and all this malarkey. Then he starts shoving me, getting up my gander, and he keeps up that lip. I stood up and said, ‘All right, Jack Frost, you stinkin’ pig in the sty.’

“I hit that guy three times as hard as I could. But you know what? He wouldn’t go down. He was solid as iron. I was furious. My buddies stopped me; I wanted to bust a chair over his head. By that time the owner threw me out and warned me never to come back.”

I was shaking. Otto laughed his falsetto vampire laugh.

“You think I got this broken hand for nothing? I’m gonna get that guy tonight. He’s going underground. I’ve got a tip where to find his ass, and I’m gonna track him down and plug him. I couldn’t punch him and make him go down, so I’m going to plug up that blabbermouth.”

My insides were screaming stop . . . stop . . . stop! Otto the Oscillator was encouraging him, toying with him, keeping him gabbing.

“Plug him?” Otto smiled. “You mean with a gun?”

“That’s right, boys. I’ve got my forty-four on me, and tonight I’m going out and murdering that fucker.”

The car banged over a pothole. Archie lost grip of the wheel. Gravel spewed. We rumbled into the left-hand shoulder. Archie eased the vehicle back onto the pavement. My forehead was cold and saturated. My underarms smelled like rotten fish. Slowly I worked Otto’s backpack across my lap. That was my buffer for the crash I knew was coming.

“Nice packs you got.” Archie’s smiling eyes studied me through the rear-view mirror. “I wish I was on my way to California.”

To my complete disbelief, Otto was still all giggles and smiles. “What does your wife say about these activities?”

“Oh, she knows about them, but she doesn’t care. She loves me.”

“Yeah, but your job, Archie. Won’t she say nothin’ about losin’ your job?”

“Not a thing. I just told you—she loves me. Haven’t you ever had someone love you? Why, when I get home, she’ll take me into the bedroom and rape my fucking body.”

A single male hitchhiker appeared on a lonely curve. Archie slowed down and picked him up. It was a small guy wearing round, steel- rimmed glasses, carrying a small backpack and a tiny, crumpled sign, ‘COLO.’ He took a seat in the back next to me.

“Glad to have you aboard, buddy. My name’s Archie. Join the party. I’d shake your hand, but you can see I’m an invalid today with this fucking broken hand. You want a drink?”

The hitchhiker froze. Archie slipped off the pavement again, this time for much longer, generating a stormy trail of dust behind the car. The hitchhiker said, “Here’s my exit.”

“What?” Archie gritted his teeth. “You just got in. Your sign says you’re going to Colorado.”

“It does, but this is my exit.”

“You granola fuckstick,” he sneered. “I can’t stand weaklings.” Yet he stopped and let the guy off. The guy threw a sarcastic wave as we sped away. Archie grumbled. As soon as we returned to the fast lane, he resumed his affable air.

“He didn’t enjoy our company very much, did he?” Archie winked to Otto, ready to laugh.

“That boy got a pair of cold feet.” They both laughed. “Would you hire him? In your company?” “No friggin’ way. He was a wuss,” Otto said. More laughing. I readjusted my barrier (Otto’s pack) across my lap. I wanted out, too, but with Otto’s jovial attitude, that was out of the question.

A moment or three of silence prompted Archie to lean over toward Otto. He whispered, “You’re not scared, are you?”

“Hell no.” Otto was insulted he was even asked.

“Well, I knew you weren’t.” Archie smiled big. “But my little buddy in the back seat is scared shitless.”

Both of them burst out laughing. My face turned scarlet.

“Well then, come on guys, unwind a little and have a drink, will you? Have one for the old Arch. You know, I just hate to drink when my friends aren’t.”

On this point, however, Otto was firm. He refused drinks for the both of us.

“Well I’ll be. All right, that leaves all the more for me. I won’t even ask permission this time because it’s my car and my booze, and I guess I’ll pretty much do as I damn please. Agree or disagree?”

“Your word is law, Arch.”

Archie passed the long stretches by talking about the “black sugar” of Louisiana, the “inconsiderate” Florida highway patrol, and the importance of owning your own firearm. I honed in and out at different intervals, peering out from behind my padding, keeping my eyes fixated on the road.

I rolled out prayer. Except for my daily bedtime ritual, that was unprecedented. But I needed it now. I asked God for divine assistance.

“Say Arch, are we gonna make the Mississippi?”

“Yeah, we are, and I hate to say it, but I’m going to have to let you off there, because that’s as far as I’m going. I’d drive you all the way to California if I could.” Dusk softened the sky into a soothing orange haze. For the first time I felt like we might come out of this mess alive.

“Thank you for having the guts to ride with a fucking drunk like me for two hours. Hell, I wouldn’t trust my can behind the wheel for nothing. But you guys stuck it out. You didn’t give me mouth, and you didn’t get out when I let off that other snot nose. You hear that, little buddy in the back seat? Thanks.”

I begrudged a smile.

“And for riding with a drunk, know what I’m going to do? I’m going to repay you, that’s what. I’m going to let you off at the best damn restaurant on this highway, and give you the money to go out and have a decent meal.”

I sat back, stunned.

Martha’s Home-Style Cafe sat perched over a patchwork valley with a modest view. Archie whipped into the parking lot and got out of his luxury car along with us. He opened his wallet, exposing a thick wad of bills, peeled off an Abraham Lincoln, and gave it to Otto.

“There you go, fellas. Eat all you want, with my compliments.” Even with his bad hand he reached out and wanted to shake.

“Stay healthy and don’t let anyone stop you from having your fun. Don’t get like me. Keep yourselves out of trouble and you can’t lose. I went the other way, and look at me now. I’m one hurtin’ soul. I’ve got the whole state of Iowa on my behind. Yeah, I wish I was going with you. Teach you the ropes.”

He shook both our hands again, then shook my hand a third time. “Little buddy, take care.”

On second thought he stepped back out of his car.

“You guys probably don’t think I’ve got a gun on me, do you? You think I’m not only a drunk, but a lying drunk. Want me to ante up?” He reached into his jacket for his holster.

“No, no that’s all right. We believe you, Arch.” Otto raised his thin, hairy arms, finally showing a little fright. “We’ll take your word for it. I got a jock strap on me that I carry around. You probably don’t wanna see that, neither.”

Archie laughed. “Hah—I knew you had a sense of humor. Just give some of that to my little buddy over here—” he pointed to me—“and you guys’ll be set.” He shook our hands again, my fourth time.
“So long, fellas. Have fun but don’t get into trouble.” He lowered the stick shift and squealed off.

We were five dollars richer, and intended to spend all of it. I ate honey-dipped fried chicken. Otto ate fishwiches with cole slaw and chips. We sopped up unlimited soda and padded around the soft carpet in our stocking feet.

“Archie’s probably a better drunk driver than most because he’s crocked most of the time.”

“How many lopsided buildings has he put up, I wonder?”

“I think Archie’s the type of guy you call ‘friend,’ but only if you don’t see him too much.”

“The Arch sure knows restaurants. Martha served us an excellent meal.”

“What’s the bill?”

“$4.72. Put down that five and I’ll put another dollar on top of it, for good measure.”

Dew wet our sneakers as we hiked off the grounds. Honeysuckle tinged the air. The sun was down. Deep blue hues coated the upper sky. The fields were verdant. I felt sorry for the people rushing east and west along that concrete thoroughfare. They had no time to “be in the moment.”

Otto marched forward in his classic hip-hop bounce. “The Mississippi’s only down here a mile or so. Let’s get one last ride before it gets too dark, and see if we can’t find a place to camp out next to the river. You know, Huckleberry Finn style.”

Not five cars later, we snared the slowest vehicle on the road, a puttering, rusty truck, with muddy tools in the back. A sun-roasted farmer with a dry, rippled face, and sharp, gray whiskers, sat alone. “I ain’t goin’ far. Only to LeClaire.”

“We just wanna get out by the Mississippi.”

The farmer sat lethargic in his frayed clothes. His fingers hung like stalactites, dark circles under his eyes. If this guy represented agriculture in America, it was in sad shape.

“You guys campin’?”

“Yeah.”

“What you got, a tent?”

“Sleepin’ bags.”

“We’re star gazers. Open air aficionados. Life seekers,” I said.

Just then we crossed the modest arch that spanned the Mississippi River. It would have been easy to say, “One short ride for Otto and me / One giant leap for the annals of hitchhiking,” but I didn’t. Too dorky.

The farmer let us off on Main Street, LeClaire, Iowa, at a cruddy trailer park grown over with weeds. Mobile homes and camp vehicles sat resting at water’s edge. Free or not, we walked right in. We trudged past Jet Streams and Horizons and Coachmans and Fleetwoods, while crickets made a fracas.
We laid out our sleeping bags three feet from the river, which flowed without a ripple.

Everyone in town was tucked in. I’d never read any Mark Twain books, but I knew their storylines,
and it wasn’t hard to imagine two boys waving to an ornate showboat floating downstream, carrying goods and supplies to the market in New Orleans. The sassy trumpet of Louis Armstrong, “Hello Dolly,” played loudly between my ears.

Otto’s blond, stick-like body was decked out next to mine, face up, eyes closed. Constellations beamed above. I was almost asleep when my partner’s voice drifted through my ears.

“How di’ya think Archie’s murder went?”

Day Five (Thursday, July 1, 1971)

Bright, warm sunlight caressed my face as I woke. It was great to look across at Illinois and think of “the East” as finally behind us. Chicago seemed like days ago, let alone Ohio and Tom Pavallow. Now
this was what I considered the Midwest.

I popped right up, though it was some time before I coaxed Otto awake. He could be so lazy and slow-moving!

Now that it was daytime, nothing picturesque stood out about the river. The famous Mississippi was brown and murky, bordered by heaps of metal scraps and broken slabs of concrete. Assembled across the waterfront were a bunch of shacks too ugly to look at. On our side you could see the rears of stores and buildings with disintegrated chimneys, chipped paint, creaky stairwells, and windows covered with cardboard. You also had all those homes-on-wheels people around making you feel uneasy.

“You can’t get away from it all when you bring your home with you!” I yelled (out of earshot) to a man of leisure, watching him disconnect an electrical cord from his Winnebago, careful not to get his white pants dirty. “I’m glad our rule is we don’t pay for transportation or for sleeping. Thank you, Otto, for convincing me of that. We go as the wind goes.”

Otto was starting a project to rearrange the clothes in his pack, so I went off and explored the town on my own. One swing around made me an expert. All you had to know was that things were sleepy. I knew why LeClaire had that free campground: to bring in outside dollars. It gained thirty-five cents from me when I stopped at a bakery for a jelly donut and cinnamon bun.

Otto was topless and sitting on a picnic table top when I returned. He had paper towels wrapped around his foot, and a disgusted look on his face.

“Hey man, what happened to you?”

He painfully winced. “Nothin’.” He cautiously unwrapped the wound. “Just this.”

My good friend’s tender white skin was slit about an inch down the side of his big toe, yielding a slow ooze of blood.

“Yeech—where did you get that?”

He rewrapped the towel, and clutched his hand over the wound. “I went swimming.” He didn’t elaborate—just like him. Right away I thought of that debris protruding from the banks of the river. A sign strictly prohibited swimming.

“Do you know you’re not allowed to go swimming here anyway?” He didn’t answer. “How bad are you hurt? Can I help?” “It’s deep but not as bad as it coulda been. Hand me my first aid kit.” “What happened to your eagle eyesight? Look at all that sharp stuff poking out of the water.”

“I saw it.”

“But why ignore it?”

“At least I’ll be able to say I been swimmin’ in the famous Mississippi!” Otto the Opaque suddenly got snarly. I let it rest, but in this case swishing your hand around from the bank would’ve sufficed. While he repaired himself, I did exactly that.

I wore only my green cut-offs, Yankees cap, sneakers, and 32" Fruit of the Loom underpants for our hottest day yet. We normally showed drivers a hatless face, because visibility is truth, but you couldn’t adhere to that policy in ninety-degree heat. Our health came first. I laughed at Otto under his heavy, metal jungle hat. He looked like Dudley Doolittle on a moose expedition. He entertained me with an impersonation.

I felt displaced and a little scared when I realized no major cities were coming up. Even the capital, Des Moines, with its hundred thousand population, stirred no emotion. “Iowa” conveyed only one word: cornfields.

That’s exactly what we witnessed as we worked our way across the state. Long, sloping fields, packed with stalks in all stages of growth, extended in all directions. I remembered being astonished when my
fourth grade teacher told our class how Iowa was landlocked. Shocker. No place called “the shore.”

“What are the girls up to now?” Otto asked between rides.

“Hopefully longing for us.” Amy Weisburg was the girl I was dreaming of, based on the strength of three solid dates as school was coming to a close.

“They’re the best reason for stickin’ with our 40-day, 40-night plan.”

I watched a tractor grind up black earth. “No offense, man, but this would be the ultimate All-American story if Amy was my campmate. Guy-to-guy leaves a few needs unmet, you know?”

He laughed. “And I’d gladly substitute the name Laurie Daub for your slot on our travelin’ roster.” Laurie had been his main squeeze since winter. “A romantic duo is the perfect hitchhikin’ pair anyway.”

“Male and female combo, you can’t beat it.” We shook hands.

Drivers continued to laud California. “A great place to hang loose.” “A freakin’ gas.” “Lots of cool heads.” “Great peeps.” “No worries—just peace, love, and fun.” Everyone longed to be in our shoes, to drop everything and come along, to “share in the experience of a lifetime.” Funny how we were nowhere near California, yet everyone knew all about it. If I asked about, say, the state bordering to our south— Missouri—the people were mum.

The longest ride of the day was a college kid driving an air- conditioned Chevelle Malibu. He was on his way to get his father, so his father could watch him play in a football scrimmage. He had bristly hair, azure eyes, and a good build. Naturally, he said everyone in Iowa hated the Yankees. I was getting used to that. Most of the people rooted for the Des Moines Hens, a minor league team, “if they look at baseball at all. Out here, people eat, breathe, and sleep college football.”

He was astonished to hear Otto was a member of the high school basketball team.

“They let you play ball with hair down below your shoulders like that?” He gaped. “Out here you would be considered a sissy. My father, if he saw you, would refuse to get into the car.”

“Ah, that’s the old viewpoint,” Otto said.

We hammered the kid playfully about his lack of urban stripes—he didn’t even know his own ZIP code. He didn’t know that large cities had commuter trains from the outlying towns. Had never seen a woman police officer or a lady lawyer. Didn’t know the meaning of “viaduct.” Never had eaten ziti. Didn’t know that Manhattan was an island, let alone could name the five boroughs.

“Golly. You always hear things are different on the two coasts. Like taking off for California. Where I come from, that would be unheard of.”

“Do you know that the turning point of the Revolutionary War was when Washington crossed the Delaware in 1776?” (My taunt.)

“Can’t say I do. I don’t need all that jibber-jabber. All I need to know is how to play tight end for the Iowa State Cyclones.”

“I know you gotta like eatin’ corn every night for dinner, or else you’re outta luck in this state,” Otto said.

I decided—again—that blond Otto with his height, wit, wisdom, and passive manner; and me, with my darker complexion, harder slant, stamina, aggression, and economy, appealed to people at every bend of the spectrum. That’s how teamwork works. We complemented each other’s strengths and made up for the weaknesses. Our national web would be like that, too. Diverse yet unified. Otto was still hobbling from his foot injury but was recovering. I thought he set a good example by not complaining, and by treating his injury with care.

Two long-haired freaks in a beat-up four-door picked us up after I finished peeing. They had dazed smiles, red eyes, and seemed to be sailing through some kind of euphoria. They were going to the last town in Iowa, Council Bluffs, which I presumed was the name of some old Indian chief.

“Like wow, you guys are awesome for cuttin’ out to California. You’ll have a rowdy time. Party on. I hear it’s like, bitchin’ cool out there. Are you guys surfers?”

“No, but we like the beach.”

“A couple of my pals drove out to Redondo Beach last summer and stayed with some hot chicks they knew out there. They said the mountains and the ocean and the people were unreal. Say, wanna catch a buzz? We were just gonna light up another joint.”

Thwack! I knew that question was coming sooner or later. Was this the right time, though? I felt utterly unprepared.

My lone drug experience was May 15, 1969, two years ago. The controlled substance was hashish. During our high school’s annual “Night of Music,” our chorus was shuttered in the lab room, killing time prior to singing. Five mutual buddies huddled together and pointed at me, laughing, “It’s about time Winans got stoned.” They coaxed me outside to the football bleachers, convincing me I wouldn’t hallucinate or blow my mind. As the chunky brown “hash” was dropped onto the screen of a pipe, all I could think about was being arrested and jailed. I managed two tokes while everyone else had five or six. Who knows if I got “stoned” or not, but my friends turned into space cadets. One guy ran around in circles, flapping his arms and making sounds like a loony bird. One girl hummed monotone Georgian chants. The rest were laughing over jokes I didn’t get. When we got back to the school building I threw up in the hallway and gave a feeble yarn to a teacher about being sick. Otto was one of a very close circle of friends I told about this.

“No thanks, man, not me,” I told the stoner, when he held the funny cigarette in front of me.
“You sure?” The guy held down the smoke, puzzled. The ends of his fingers were hard and rough and I wondered how many joints he needed to get through the day.

I sat back in the seat, frustrated. The freak turned to Otto, his arm like a crane, the smoky bone smelling like peat moss. “You?” he exhaled. “You want a hit?”

“Naw, I don’t need that stuff.”

That surprised the freak and me alike! Part of the reason I felt I could abstain was because I thought liberal, alternative-lifestyle Otto the Open-Minded wouldn’t. Before the trip and during, he was always filling idle moments with outrageous stories of him and his band of nonconformist friends. His many drug experiences produced supernatural visions and “voices from the crypt” (I had never seen him smoke personally). You just couldn’t predict that human being.

Now I felt stupid. Neither of us accepted their offer, and they had been so delighted to pick us up. It was like not complying with our end of the bargain.

As the weed floated back to the driver, I said, “Hell, give it to me.” The party was expanded to a threesome. They were happy to get a recruit.

The skunky illegal weed went down mildly, smokey but not like a cigarette’s awful cinder and ash. Luckily I didn’t cough. Nothing much came out when I exhaled. By now the two freaks had retreated into their own conversation and didn’t seem to notice. I copied the way they smoked, and felt halfway comfortable by my fourth or fifth toke, as we got down to the “roach.”

Now . . . when would my mind be altered? And how? I felt straight as a razor. I had to think about something, so I thought about The Beatles. I thought about their volume of work, how their unique sound matured and developed over the years, how it took dedication and patience to create something worthwhile. Rock music’s orchestra. Yes, the Beatles. I daydreamed about Amy’s milky, full-figured body. Her breasts, her taut belly. I imagined her moaning and cooing, all of which bid me inside to her private chamber of delight which made me crave her more, more, more. I thought about California. Its size, its collective philosophy, its mental posture, its soul. I listened to the revolutions of the wheels. I tried to calculate the number of spins made in one mile, and then imagined that figure multiplied by three thousand.

Next to me in the back seat, Otto rummaged through his pack and began cursing. He whispered, “My canteen—it’s gone! I must’ve left it in that football guy’s car!”

I laughed at his rare display of emotion—Otto was usually more deadpan than Dr. Spock of Star Trek. I said, “Don’t worry, here’s mine.” I handed over my World War II canteen which my father gave me to use on the trip. Everyone took a swig of warm, metallic water.

We got out in Council Bluffs. The deepening lavender sky smelled of hamburgers. We were on one of those strips that have stores, restaurants, motels, and gas stations built up next to one another. Cars bumped along under a string of red lights. Straight ahead was the bridge into Omaha, Nebraska.
Otto was still venting about his canteen. He seriously wanted to detour to Sioux City, ninety miles back, track down that football player, and retrieve it.

“Without a name or any clues to his whereabouts? No way! You can’t break our rhythm like that, man. Why don’t you buy a new one at one of these department stores? That’s the sensible approach.”

“On our daily budget of four bucks? I’d blow it all in one shot. No can do.”

“Don’t sweat the small stuff, Otto. Swig from mine when you want. I’ll make sure it’s filled. Come on, I’m hungry. Let’s eat at the Little Red Barn for dinner.”

“Why don’t we just go to McDonald’s?” Otto stopped in his tracks. “We haven’t been to a McDonald’s yet, and I feel like a Big Mac.”

“Didn’t we agree to always go alternative? The road less traveled? We’re on a cross-country trip, man. The Little Red Barn probably has Big Macs, only they call them something else. You can’t learn anything at a McDonald’s.”

“We can, too! We can learn what it’s like to eat at the McDonald’s in Council Bluffs, Iowa!” Otto donned a fast testy. “Plus a McDonald’s will always give you free water.”

“Stop thinking about that canteen, will you? Forget it. It’s gone.”

“Yeah, you can talk about being ‘gone’, can’t you? I saw you in that car. How about it? Are you stoned or are you alert?”

“What’re you asking me that for? I stepped up just to keep those guys happy. You’re the long-haired party guy who should’ve been smoking. What about all your drug stories?”

“I fly high in the sky in other ways,” Otto quipped. “I’m not on an ego trip, like you.”

Before it got worse, we split up. We ate at the restaurant of our choice—Otto at McDonald’s, myself at the Little Red Barn. Believe it or not, this was our first out ’n out spat, ever. I was jarred because it came from out of nowhere. Bickering wasn't part of our arsenal, I had always believed. Best to keep a little distance going forward. I skirted across the highway with a duffel bag dangling from each arm. I sat down at a window seat with two Barnyard burgers, Idaho fries, a Daisy-the-Cow chocolate milkshake, and a Coke.

Halfway through I spotted Otto, in full regalia, jockeying past cars with a take-out bag in his hand. In his timid, gentle manner, he pulled open the door of the Little Red Barn, walked up to my table, eased off his pack, and slid into the seat across from me. Without looking up, he opened his McDonald’s bag and began eating.

“Hey!” I laughed, though I was glad to see him back. “Are you here or are you there?”

“I’m here but I was there.” He looked flustered but laughed, too. “I wanted to see what kind of takeout service that McDonald’s gives. Pretty good, pretty good.”

Otto delayed our departure at the last second by purchasing a Daisy- the-Cow milkshake. But I’d take that than remain at odds with him. Some heavy-duty urban maneuvering lay ahead.

Omaha’s skyline looked dark and imposing from the base of the bridge, with more tall buildings than I counted on. To boot, pedestrians were prohibited. How to cross over? We had to pace single file along a tiny ledge between heavy traffic and the railing, with our backs to oncoming traffic. It was more than just illegal, it was hairy. You had to keep your left arm tucked into your body or else lose it. We must’ve climbed to an altitude of 200 feet.

At the dark, windy crest, high above the Missouri River, my hair blowing, my mind clicked from “fifteen” to “sixteen.” A new total. The Cornhusker State. Nebraska, U.S.A.

The Omaha skyscrapers sat bold, dark, and silent along the waterfront. It was late, true, but you’d think some activity would be going on somewhere. Shouldn’t a few buildings keep their lights on?

The bridge branched off into three or four elevated arteries and I felt hexed. We couldn’t stretch our luck against the law much longer. Where to find a patch of open grass to sleep? Where to find a makeshift lean-to?

We could do nothing except bore down through the concrete of downtown. We hiked on grit. I-80 swept around a clump of buildings and disappeared. If only this was New York. We could go from the Battery to the Bronx in a snap.

I knew we were asking for trouble, two teens without bearings in a strange city late at night, lugging conspicuous travel gear. I was alarmed by the number of tramps lining the streets. Who were these lonely, downtrodden guys anyway? It seemed like every bum, drunk, pimp, thief, and pervert was out roaming. We walked past giant corporate headquarters: Western Manufacturing, Greater Omaha Packaging, Burlington Northern Railroad.

“I got rooms for ten cents a night, brothers,” one black guy called behind us.

We ignored him and increased our gait. Down the street Otto explained the guy was renting a flophouse. He warned me to keep to ourselves.

Another guy, white, with tattoos and a sleeveless jacket covered with fishing lures, stepped out in front of a doorway. “Let me carry those bags for you. You look a mite tired.”

“I can take mine.” Otto quickly sidestepped into the street.

I hesitated and nearly let my bag go. Other than stealing it, what interest would this guy have in carrying our gear?

“Roger!” Otto snapped from ten feet away. “C’mon!”

“Huh?” I was confused and peaked. My eyes burned bloodshot. The contact with that guy’s bony fingers jarred me to my senses. I jerked away my bag from his tug.

“Ye gads, when are you goin’ to smarten up?” Otto was furious. “That guy wasn’t no good Samaritan.”

“I was trying to bewilder him,” I said meekly. I smiled but felt miserable. My feet ached in their sneakers. My arms felt like lead. My heart pumped wildly through my shirt. I felt like a grub ball.
Not two blocks later, a sophisticated black with a goatee and white turtleneck gestured as we stepped into an intersection. “Gentleman, you want girls? I’ve got a couple of nice ones waiting down the street. Pretty as peaches and eager to meet you.”

Otto walked ahead as if he heard nothing. I looked the guy in the eye—he looked mistrustful—and said, “How are you this fine July evening?” That stopped him cold. We kept our pace.

“How’d I do?” I asked when we were out of earshot, smiling, trying to keep the atmosphere light.
Otto shook his long, raggedy head. “You wanna know? I think one of these days you’re gonna get the livin’ stuffin’ beat outta you.”

Nothing I saw in Omaha projected a positive image. It was cold and confusing, only steel behemoths towering above us. Manholes clanked as cars rolled down the avenues. Steam smelled like smoldering rags. The few people we saw were misfits, bitter transplants from the farm. Men had three day-old beards, worn-out shoes, and untucked shirttails.

Ladies were smart enough to stay inside. It was spooky. No place to lay a sleeping bag. If there only was a wooded park, even a secluded clump of shrubs. There weren’t even any open restaurants.

We walked for blocks, past many a dark building, aware of the stares from people in passing cars. Where was 80? I had no clue.

Ahead five or six blocks on the left, surrounded by more dark buildings, was the flashing yellow and white lights of a theater marquee.

“Hey, we can go to the movies,” I cried.

Otto used his good eyesight to read, “Bordello Cinema, Open 24 Hours, Adults Only, XXX.”
Admission was a scant dollar to a double feature: The Swinging Swappers and The Nine Ages of Nakedness. We expected trouble concerning our age, but the withered old lady in the ticket booth had but one objective—to receive our greenback. I dropped into my seat as a naked woman was being chased around a castle by a guy with a sword.

It was fun stuff. I emerged from the theater grateful to have anything to occupy my mind besides “The Trip.” Otto’s mood improved as well, though he mentioned, “Sex isn’t a spectator sport; you gotta be in the game.”

“What we need is an open restaurant.”

I was perturbed that Omaha—surely vying for respect among American cities—had nowhere to get something to eat at night. Finally we came across the Topaz, a twenty-four hour spot where waitresses were replaced by telephones. I bought a hot pastrami sandwich and vanilla milkshake. Otto ate corn chowder and a grilled cheese sandwich.

Sitting in the booth, Otto began mourning the loss of his canteen again. I never heard anyone whine about such a minor loss, lamenting how we should’ve spent an extra day backtracking to Sioux City and all that. He bellyached like a cackling goose. Personally, I was still reminiscing about the lustiest parts of the skin flick. Finally I sent him to the lavatory with my canteen. “Keep it. That bulky can is taking up needless space in my bag anyway. This is the United States. I’m not going to dehydrate.”

Don’t ask me how things worked out this way, but I-80 was only a three or four-block walk from the restaurant. A miracle. Something, somewhere, was taking care of us. Half an hour later we secured a ride.

A NASCAR fan, driving a jacked-up Dodge with decals, recklessly raced another idiot down the highway to the outskirts. My nerves got strained all over again.

At 3:10 a.m., raindrops hit the windshield.

Aqua, lots of it—streamed down. What a strange phenomena after going so many miles (and days) without. It felt sticky and sweet on my skin and lips. Otto and I retreated to a nearby Texaco station, where it plummeted even harder. We watched some all-night mechanics tinker with an engine.

Our latest blueprint, devised at the Topaz Cafe, had been to hitch through the night. But in the damp air, back at the entrance ramp, no spirit existed in either of us to catch a ride. My bones felt creaky and my seventeen year-old mind—normally dependable—was deteriorating into a lump. My eyes pinched every time I blinked. We resigned after ten minutes. We set up camp behind a leafy bush between the ramp and an adjoining housing development. We wrapped my sheet of polyethylene around us like cocoons.

Rain sluiced down.