Day Thirty-Four (Friday, July 30, 1971)

Pre-dawn washed the sky from pitch black to steely red. We made a stop at a 24-hour plaza to fill up. Everyone got out to stretch except Otto, who stayed crashed out. The station was buzzing with Buddhists arriving for the wedding which I learned was called a “sangha.” They were strange ducks, all with some kooky physical feature.

My eyes kept dancing over to Gwen, wondering, “Who is this doll who stands apart from this circus?” The bus she painted was mind- bending: a psychedelic rainbow bursting with dynamic stars and streamers. Its message, written as graffiti—“Love All, Hurt None.”

She stood across the circle, smiling and being cordial to everyone. She and I caught each other’s attention more than once, flirting and exchanging coquettish smiles, full of innuendo. I smiled big, flashing messages with my eyebrows. She blushed and smiled bigger, talking without words.

“She knows everything! She knows that I saw. What’s more, she’s okay with it!”

We loaded back into the bus for the final leg to the Canyon. I moved down the center aisle, behind Gwen, to my spot, and grazed her tush. Was it me, or did she stick it out there at the last second to make sure I made the tag?

“Thank you,” I said.

She winked. “You’re welcome.”

Attending the mass wedding ceremony in the morning was mostly a distraction. It might have been meaningful, solemn to those involved, and a spectacle to observe (i.e. an oddity to the nth degree). It was hard to pay attention because the copper-colored, windswept backdrop of the Grand Canyon was overwhelming. The buttes drew my attention more than the Buddhists. God forgive me, they looked silly assembled on their mats. Fifteen or so couples, Norbert and Vanessa included, awaited vows in front of about six monks and a few dozen witnesses.

Otto, Milt, Gwen, and I stood in the back. I was in my own dream, head fixated on everything Gwen, Gwen, Gwen. Otto stood next to me, holding his hands at his waist, half facing the Buddhists and half facing the canyon.

“You know, Evel Knievel is nuts. He’s plannin’ to jump across the canyon in his motorcycle. I give him about five percent chance of comin’ out alive.”

Gwen didn’t seem bonded to Milt. They didn’t hold hands nor look like they were a couple. When she made a gesture to go off on her own with a book under her arm, he nodded.

“That’s her latest craze—birdwatching. She plans to spend the day taking notes. Geez!”

“She’s a bard—your girlfriend.”

“She’s too daffy to be my girlfriend,” he lobbed back. “All those bird names give me a headache. She needs to leave the details alone and enjoy Ma Nature.”

Contemplating the magnificence of the Grand Canyon—at the sun’s first hour no less—was the last thing I expected to do on this trip. But here I was, gazing before the immense panoramic vista with the rushing Colorado River 4,000 feet below.

A crashing gong signaled the start of the wedding. The earnest couples stood on their mats and bowed before a six-foot golden Buddha on a wooden platform. The head monk, or lama, declared the ground “sacred, worthy to hold a betrothal ceremony.” The grooms and brides bowed to each other and exchanged trinkets—candles, incense, jewelry, and replicas of the jolly, fat Buddha.

The couples kneeled and lowered their heads as the lama read from the Sutra. He invited each couple to “take refuge in the Buddha, so that you may have a complete vision of the Supreme Reality.” Each couple recited separate vows, noting things like “the virtues of generosity;” “the high place of ethics,” and, “our glorious rebirth within the heavenly realm.” In dead silence they were pronounced husband and wife. No cheering. Everyone rolled up their bamboo mat and bowed again to Buddha.

Norbert kissed the bride only after they headed off toward a reception tent, stewing with what Milt identified as “curds, vegetables, and yellow rice.”

The North Rim now took my full attention. Tourists popped up as the sun got higher. The viewing slabs got crowded. The views were spectacular no matter where you looked.

At one vista, Norbert and Vanessa came walking up arm-in-arm. After congratulating them on their nuptials, he said, “The group is having a TM session, open to the public. You should come. It expands your consciousness.”

“I ain’t never gonna turn down exercise.” Otto stepped up. “I got a few loose screws from the past few days that need tightenin’.”

“Um, no thanks, I’ll wait until the next time Jack LaLanne comes on channel nine. I want to go hiking. See you guys later.”

I ambled down the steep surface of the ridge, shouting “Gwen!” at the top of my lungs. How joyful to be inside this grand national treasure, to kiss the sky and embrace the bold. It was a crater in the middle of the earth.

I rested under a trove of fir trees, or where they spruce? “No chance getting struck by lightning today.”

A voice peeked out from behind a smooth black boulder. “I knew there was something different about you, Raj. What kind of bolts are we talking about?”

Gwen! She cheerfully strode over, pencil in hand, notebook opened, cap tilted. “What’s your impression so far?”

“Of the canyon? Or you?” I laughed. “I can’t get over this place. Its breadth. So alive. It’s like a sculpture made by the hands of time. You actually shift through different moods as you walk against the backdrop.”

“You’re a bit of a prophet, Raj. Aren’t you?” She smiled under her visor. Her small frame and cute rough face took on fresh radiance as she stood amidst a deep chasm.

“Pardon me for asking, madam Gwen, but you missed most of the wedding ceremony. Get bored? You ran off on my buddy, Milt.”

“I gave them my blessing.” She didn’t seem terribly concerned.

We came to an elbow of rock. She and I sat, sitting closer than neutral. She plopped her daypack between her opened legs. “—But then you know me quite well already. Don’t you, Raj?”

She wore a loose denim shirt over her halter top. The same green micro-shorts that were pulled down to her thighs last night were zipped around her petite waist. Her cap’s message said, “Ask Me Anything.”

“You normally lurk behind rocks? Always springing on unsuspecting guys to get your kicks?”

“That’s how us carnivores get our prey.” Her smile widened.

“Capture anything yet?”

“I thought I saw a coyote. But then you stepped between the schist and stole my concentration.”

We laughed in mutual understanding. “I thought you were studying birds.”

“I like all nature. But I got down to this place first, mister Raj. What’s your excuse for stumbling down?”

“If it’s natural, I like it, naturally. N-yuk, n-yuk.”

We teased each other using the names of the birds from her log—red-tailed hawk; mountain quail; western kingbird; black-billed magpie, ash-throated flycatcher. Everything seemed to work magic.

“So you’re a Buddhist who has fun. Forgive me, I don’t know much about your religion. It seems so . . . unhumorous.”

“I try to live by the precepts. But humans have a fallen nature, you know that. I don’t always make it, Raj. I like the Brahman’s psychological depth.”

She pointed to a bald eagle crossing overhead. We identified minerals from the layers of rock. By the time she lay her cap down, her temples of wisdom became my destination. Her hair, parted down the middle, was healthy and long. Her brown eyes had musical transparency without the normal filters and masks.

“Let’s go farther.”

We walked down a clay path with the south side of canyon in front of us. The red dust was speckle thin. It got onto my legs and shoes something fierce. It infiltrated everything, even my crotch. We zigzagged down the switchback. I was lathered in sweat.

“Let’s check out that cabin, Raj. They should have running water.”

I hand-pumped an old-style well from inside the subdued shelter. Gwen drank her fill. I refreshed my pipes. I swished the good stuff around my head and neck. It felt like bristles of a freeze pop. My hands were clean.

We sat inside on a plank, looking out the framed opening, breathing. “The cabin is ours, Raj. What do you make of that?”

“You’re four-star company, Gwen.”

I pressed my shin against her calf. “The wind even has its own whistle.”

“They say it blows uphill instead of down.”

“The shadows make delicious sights.”

“You’ve seen delicious sights the last two days, haven’t you, Raj?”

She lifted her throat. We tenderly touched lips, faces, hands, arms, hair, shoulders, and backs. We gripped each other’s sweaty cotton and skin. It was long-play, slow-motion heaven.

“You’re a flower, Gwen.”

“I’m nothing, Raj. I’m a Sagittarius college dropout from Merced, California. You’re a dayspring.”

We stood while caressing and kissing. She hugged me tighter. I squeezed down toward her hips.

“Go ahead, Raj. I trust you.”

I slipped my hand under her shorts. She firmly pressed her leg into my crotch. A group of German-speaking tourists tromped close, and we detached, abruptly.

“Milt’s a holdover,” she explained later, next to a pile of split wood. “He’s not for me. I’m trying to convince him to stay straight.”

“So that’s the behind-the-scenes story. You need to have your straightness verified, too?”

“You mean by this guy down here?” She reached down with surprising aggressiveness, and squeezed. We stepped back in unison against a cactus tree, still clamped. I was enamored. Another tour group of backpackers exiled us to the reality of the bright sun.

“Is that what we call a dance?”

“I’d say panoply, Raj.”

“Let’s be friends, Gwen. I want to share your goodness. That bus you painted is way-y-y-y out there. It rivals the canyon in magnifique.”

“Do you like my mantra? That’s classic Buddhist thinking.”

“‘Love All, Hurt None.’ Let’s petition the earth to make that the Eleventh Commandment.”

“You would make a beautiful Buddhist, Raj.”

“I’m all over it—that is, if it squares with Jesus Christ. I need an Almighty Being. I need holy trinity. God-is-big-and-we-are-small sort of thing.”

She wet her lips. “Would you have interest in becoming my maker? What if you made 1971 the year this girl’s miserable life became worth something?”

“Darling.”

“Kiss me again, Raj. You are the anecdote for a crying soul.”

The next time I saw Otto, it was in full company of the other four at the snack bar. Milt’s sunglasses still hadn’t been removed once. I ate a cattle burger “with everything” and shared a full-sized bag of Mexican chips with the others. Otto was loose and laughing, gloating over his transcendental meditation.

“It got me centered, Winans. That stuff works. I feel rested. I think I can handle even you from here on out. What’d you do?”

“Hmm, I went panning for gold . . . Gwen was down at the bottom.”

I thought he’d be able to guess something by the way I said it. But he said, “You mean with your willy in your hand?”

“She and I hiked down almost as far as the river.”

He shrugged her off completely, preferring to gloat about Vanessa. “Norbert’s got quite a Barbie to do his domestic duties.”

I was twittering. Coated with glee. I saw my chance, so I took a bath—in a horse trough. It was hidden by trees, the only running water around with an active spigot, so I quickly washed, feeling daring and bawdy and sensual. I rinsed out my filthy socks in the wastewater. I banged the red dust out of my shoes. Otto was licking clean a leftover bowl of salsa paid for by Vanessa and Norbert. He looked at me he said, “You know your animal, Roger? You’re a donkey. No wonder girls don’t look at you.”

The ride back to Utah seemed fast compared to getting there, even though the bus drawled. I was glad Otto was drawn to snobby Vanessa. Gwen and I chattered as much as plausible. I was in consternation about her soon-to-be-missing presence. Would I ever see her again? I wrote out my name and address and tucked the paper inside her bag when no one was looking.

“Know all the sleepin’ I did last night?” Otto said. “That was my preliminary for tonight. I’m gonna sleep as if tomorrow ain’t never gonna come.”

“Thanks for recommending this detour, man. Knowing me, I may have skipped it. But your vacation within a vacation program turned out to be a great idea.”

“Travel By Thumb’s deluxe package, sons.”

At dark, our group stopped at the same drive-in for more grinders, apples, and soda. The old school bus carried us about twenty more miles north. Gwen spied me plenty, offering small talk, smiles, and inward laughter. But with Milt on hand, there was nothing either of us could do. They were heading west, on the Extraterrestrial Highway of Nevada, then back over the mountains to California.

Otto and I got dropped off at Cedar City.

“Come on, Roger, that small clearing through the woods looks good. Let’s throw out our sleepin’ bags and have a real campin’ experience, the kind you been moanin’ about.”

“I feel rubbery. I need sleep, sleep, sleep; deep, deep, deep; now, now, now.”

I intended to tell him about Gwen, about everything. I was not one to withhold, you know me. But after we were done marveling about the Canyon and joking about Buddhists, I went out like a light.