Day Eleven (Wednesday, July 7, 1971)

We were two wrecks when it came up light. We didn’t talk; we only knew we had to push our achin’ souls back to the road and continue our job. My sprained wrist ached. My face felt coated with soot.
I threw up my arms in resignation when only a short while later a young guy and his wife picked us up.

“Can you believe this junk? That’s how it works, folks!” I shouted to no one in particular.

It was comforting to have this rather timid-looking couple offer their services after the hell we were through. Randy was diminutively built, well-grounded, and prudent. His wife, petite and plain, only looked at or spoke to her husband.

Was he spoofing? Randy announced his destination as “the San Francisco area.”

Did my ears clog? San Francisco area? My grubby smile latched onto Otto’s.

“Did we hear you right?”

Otto’s bloodshot eyes gleamed. “Shiver me timbers.”

“Man, man, man, man.”

“Sounds like that’s what you guys wanted to hear,” Randy said.

The tonic was overwhelming. San Francisco! It was maddening, it was ridiculous, it was the farthest thing from my mind. Yet with Randy’s generosity, it would come to pass. I was amazed at how life runs, how the good and the bad take you by surprise but always balance out. That pendulum had to swing the other way sooner or later. Those cowboys ran us down because we were too happy with ourselves.

I drifted into a peaceful stupor, knowing I earned it. In fact, I dropped into a deep sleep.

“Say guys?”

Randy’s voice brought me back from a dream I was having about smearing a car windshield with black paint.

“One of the next towns up, Elko, is pretty big with lots of gambling halls. This one hotel is where my wife won two hundred dollars last year. She’s got her mind set on a repeat. She’s dragging me down there to see if she can do it again. See the dollar signs in her eyes?”

Randy’s wife gave him a playful slug.

“When we get to town, then, we’ll let you off to go on your own for a couple of hours, and choose a place to meet. This might be a three or four-hour layover. I hope that doesn’t dent your schedule.”

“Are you kidding? No way. We’ll be fine. That’s the way we like it!”

It was. The promise of a long, relaxing ride separated by a sizable break. Hitchhiking didn’t get any better than that. God knows I needed the boost. The only thing more fulfilling would be if I had a girlfriend. Amy, I wanted you.

Elko was a well-preserved outpost, maybe a haven for outlaws and rough living until Nevada’s legalized gambling pumped tourists and a civilized outlook into its veins. The houses were century-old bunkers, built with handmade brick in three-story square designs. There was still an unsettled feel to its layout. You felt part of the frontier.

Randy knew right where he was going, to the parking lot of the Commercial Hotel. The four of us would meet there in four hours. I took my diary, wash cloth, and toothbrush. I left the rest of my junk in the back seat.

“Ain’t you gonna change?” Otto held his shorts in his hands.

“I’ll keep my dungarees on for the sake of travelers reboarding to California.” When I read Otto’s questioning face, I added, “But take all the time you need in the bathroom. This is Easy Street.”

Preening his lemon yellow locks was becoming Otto’s usual habit, if for nothing more than to show me something I didn’t have.

Had we entered the Pacific Time Zone? Several people confirmed yes. Turn that watch back one more hour!

Had Elko been a stop along the Pony Express? No—according to a historical brochure. The trail ran south of here.

“Maybe Wyatt Earp or Wild Bill Hickok had a shootout in Elko— I’d believe that.” Otto mused through the massive racks.

Aside from a few more cracks, we left the subject of “cowboys” and “Wendover” behind. Just like when I delivered Starla’s baby or that protest march in Chicago, or even our experience at Fellowship Mission, once the event passed, it was tabled. I had a lifetime to muse over “Roger’s Reflections.” There was too much stimulation in front of my eyes right now, in the present.

Otto and I were drawn into the Commercial Hotel to see if we could sneak a peak at some of the gambling action. Randy and his wife weren’t around, but Otto and I fixated on the slots. The place was roomy and dark and it was early enough so that when the attendant went to clean the lavatories we disregarded the age restriction and got down to some serious gambling. I gambled two cents in the penny machine. I lost twice. After the second time, I said, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

“That’s why my gamblin’ stops at a penny.” Otto’s half-smile was wry.

At the appointed time we headed to the parking lot. I scanned over the rows for Randy’s red 1967 Ford Fairlane. I scanned twice, three times, four times. By the fifth scan, an ugly anxiety lowered across my brow. “Where’d they go?”

Part of the answer lie in the vestibule of the casino. Stacked neatly on the red Astroturf, in the corner, was Otto’s light brown backpack, my green Yucatan bag, and my red duffel bag. No note.

“Our connecting ride to California—gone!”

“I keep tellin’ you not to get excited when people say things like that.” Otto checked his zippers for tampering.

I kicked the concrete divider slabs in the parking lot. “Damn, damn, damn!”

“I ain’t gonna judge ’em ’cause we don’t know why they left. Maybe they had an emergency and had to leave Elko in a hurry.”

“Or else our b.o. smelled so bad they didn’t want us tagging along,” I grumbled. “This will make toiling across Nevada murder.” Rick Nelson’s song came to mind again, the one I liked, “Pick up the pieces / Put them together / Pick up the pieces / Put them together . . .”

“That’s an axiom I need to get used to.” I dragged my gear to the road.

I was walloped further when I saw a mileage sign: ‘RENO 289.’

“Holy cripe. Guess I’ll change back into shorts after all.” I was subdued and prepared for the doldrums. I curdled when I thought of Randy, his mousy wife, and those two empty back seats.
“Live and learn,” Otto said. “They created that sayin’ for a purpose.”

A series of kiddie rides brought us through dry alkaline gulches broken by hills and mountains; empty sagebrush reservoirs, and canyons stripped by quarries. We gained sporadic distance at best. The mountain ranges were colorless and never seemed to change in formation. And it was so very hot. Mind sapping. Were gold and silver still being mined in these decaying pits? If they were, the facilities looked awfully shabby. The interstate was complete, incomplete, complete, incomplete. The few small towns were dusty and idle, if not already tendered to “ghost.”

“At least Coca-cola is ubiquitous.” I stood next to a familiar red machine, gulping down another delicious six and half ounces for fifteen cents.

“I’ll be surprised if I don’t get no torn muscles from this ordeal.” Otto was spreadeagled on the ground, squeezing his calves, stretching.

Sparks, then Reno, brought change. It was like an episode of The Jetsons, the one where George Jetson gazes out his office building and sees a gargantuan tube emit a luxury highrise, complete out of the machine, finished in seconds.

It couldn’t have been much different here. Brand new hotels and casinos, restaurants and entertainment complexes seemed to rise out of nowhere, from desert to city, presto. Reno billed itself, “The Biggest Little City in the World.” It was chaotic and ostentatious. In my book anyone dressing up in dark polyester or formal tails to go walking around in temperatures of ninety or more was inviting heat stroke. The people looked incredibly silly.

Otto and I refreshed ourselves at Tastee-Freeze. A super giant vanilla milkshake bolstered my vitals.

The blazing heat, though, was nothing compared to learning the big news: We were only six miles from the California border! Six miles! The physical variables vaporized. My energy level shot back up to full capacity. It was like the needle of your internal monitoring system going from empty to topped-off full. One ride! Six minutes! You could hike those six miles. You could crawl them. California here I come!

“I smell the goal line, Otto.” I drummed hard on the orange seats. “First and goal from the six. One play and we got six points. Give me the ball. I’m going in for the touchdown.”

Otto paged through an entertainment flyer and didn’t look up.

“We could even wind up sleeping in San Francisco tonight, don’t you think? Improbable, but not out of the realm.”

“Aren’t you exhausted?” Otto threw down his pamphlet and went haywire. “I wouldn’t care if it took another two days to get to California. I wanna tell you, sons, this kid’s body is beat.”

“Mine, too. But hey—we’re on the threshold. This is why we took this trip in the first place. We’re high on the arc and it would be negative energy to hesitate. Now’s the time to push. You need a sense of dramatics here.”

“Well, I ain’t no hero marchin’ to no fife and drum.”

“All I’m saying, Sir Otto, is don’t stop when you’re breaking for the basket. Isn’t that what Coach Gil Kraft tells you at practice? When you suddenly stop, it confuses your teammates. Like me. Your teammate.”

I forced him to look me in the face. “Just one more ride, man, so we can sneak inside the Caly border. That’s all I ask. Please. Nothing else. That’s what we did at the Mississippi—at your request—and it worked. Remember? Look, it’s seven o’clock. Let’s duck inside the state line and call it quits for the day. No more. I promise. I’m tired, too. Let’s just get to paradise.”

I practically had to yank him out of his chair and strap on his backpack.

“Lube up those joints, man. I’ve gone along with every suggestion of yours since this trip started. Now you’ve got to take one of mine.”

Otto moved like a turtle. He was devoid of excitement until he stopped along a wide, palm treelined boulevard in front of a motel- casino complex to watch a bikinied girl dive into a swimming pool.

“I’ll tell you what we oughta do, if we’re smart. Grab our towels and walk into one of these motels that got a swimmin’ pool. Ditch our gear. Act like we got our own room. They ain’t gonna check. Get in with a couple swingin’ swappers and spend the night with them. It should be easy with all these motels. Head into California the right way, with the scent of a girl on your chest. Or better yet, with a real one on your arm. How ’bout it, Mr. Ladies Man? How’d you like to enter California freshly laid?”

“You think a scheme like that would work?”

“Sure. Single girls are dyin’ for eligible bachelors to pick ’em up. They don’t let on, but that’s what they want. Look at that flesh, Roger. I know you like ass. Can you imagine gettin’ into bed with that? There’d be no end to the good times. Heh? What do you say? I’ll let you take your pick.”

“You’re taking an awful lot for granted, man. What if their parents are staying in the same room? What if cutoffs aren’t allowed in the pool? I’m not in the mood for risk. We don’t need to tip off the staff that they’ve got two vagabonds on their hands. Let’s save it for the right moment.”

“If they got parents, we just keep lookin’ for two who don’t. And if we get kicked outta one place, we just move on to another. Outta all these motels, we gotta find a couple gorgeous babes by themselves somewhere. Percentages are in our favor.”

“I thought you were exhausted. Doesn’t that takes work?” Otto had no comeback for that. “How will you explain if we get caught? Where there’s money, there’s security. This isn’t the flapper era anymore. This is 1971. Things aren’t as innocent. We might start lounging, and without knowing it, a surveillance camera is on us. I didn’t come a hair away from California to wind up in handcuffs.”

“Ah Winans.” Otto moaned. He tramped behind me, disgruntled. “You don’t wanna have fun. Admit it.”

“I thought I was already having fun. If you were realistic I’d be giddy.”

“Kiss my anus, Roger. Is that realistic enough for you?”

So that was our second spat—Council Bluffs, Iowa, first; now Reno, Nevada. It was adding up. Otto had little to say for the next several hours. His sway was sulky. That was his tough luck, though. California was a holler away. This was the gateway and it didn’t make sense to miss it.

Thumbing the entrance ramp of I-80 gave hitchers all they could handle. It was sharply elevated and curving, squeezed between buildings.

Not only wasn’t there a shoulder, but a freshly-painted chain link fence was sticky and smelled like oil. Otto the Obstinate stood beside this fence, arms tightly crossed, while I admired the mountain greenery, knowing the range to our west, the Sierra Nevada, lie inside California.

“Yep, we’re on the verge.”

He was forced into token participation when a third hitchhiker, a forty-year old guy with a bushy beard and black sailor’s cap, joined us on the ramp. “Hello maties. Glad to see a few other free spirits. Reno law prohibits hitchhiking. All three of us will get busted now instead of just me.”

“Power in numbers. Meet my other half,” I said.

He wore a tattered sports jacket and sneakers. He was a freelance writer, going to a place called Lake Tahoe, “the back way.”

In short order a big car with California plates and a tall blond hunk inside whipped off to the side. Was this our ride to California? Maybe . . . maybe . . . yes! I was on my way to Truckee, California. Otto and I claimed the back while the writer got into the front. We burst for the hills at high speed.

The hunk was strong and handsome with slicked back hair and a Hollywood smile ready for hire. His olive-colored Getty uniform looked professionally dry-cleaned, straight out of central wardrobe. He and the writer immediately engaged in nonstop conversation, like they were old friends.

My West Coast debut was upon me. The crowd was going bonkers. We were streaking toward the blue tape. The cheering was nonstop. Though I didn’t look at Otto, I couldn’t deny he was with me every step of the way. This was the actualization of continuous planning since last Christmas, idea spun into reality . . . of pain, effort, prayer. It was coming into being now, simply; nothing to stop it.

We slid around curves at seventy miles per hour, headed toward the uplands. Wisps of evening danced through my splotchy beard. The crowd was still roaring. “Do You Know What I Mean” by Lee Michaels sounded over the loudest, cleanest set of car speakers I ever heard.

“Good tune,” the writer said, turning up the volume.

The border came modestly, directly beyond the Last Chance Casino (what else?). A humble marker—green with white reflective letters, ‘WELCOME TO CALIFORNIA.’ We tore past like a checkered flag. Made it! No problem overtaking that demarcation!

Sweet spirit of God, this was California U.S.A. Named by Spanish conquistadors for an imaginary earthly paradise. Once a territory of Mexico, barely inhabited. Made notorious by the gold rush of 1849. Admitted to the union in 1850 as the 31st state. Fastly overtaking New York as the most populous state in America. I was here!

The hunk streaked forward. We surged up a rugged incline, entering the depths of nature. Sweet aroma wafted off tall, spiky pines. A patchwork of snow dappled the ground (in July!). A menagerie of shadows dashed across chasms and fissures. Clean, free-running streams twisted through solid rock below.

No need to promote these attractions. The evidence spoke for itself!

Up, up we went, to 5,160 feet. Then down to 3,420 feet. The surrounding place names sounded colorful, lyrical, inviting: Soda Springs, Homewood, Verdi, Hobart Mills, Tahoe Vista. Crazy reflector cups were glued to the pavement, four per broken white line, making distracting bumps every time you crossed them.

It was some spin, finished way too soon. The hunk let Otto and me off at the first Truckee exit, “unless you guys meant to come to the village.”

“Sure,” I said. “Come on, Otto. There’ll be motels galore to crash. Now’s the time to put your plan into action.”

“We’ll get off here,” he said brusquely.

The writer stayed in. We got a friendly wave goodbye and the car was down the exit ramp not long after I slammed the door.

Greet feelings! My feet were planted on California soil. I reached for the sky and touched my toes, then dirtied my fingers. It was tranquil, serene, clement . . . a natural woodsy musk hung in the evergreens. The comfortable evening cool; a prevailing vibe of openness was helped by cars that weren’t moving so fast; a full blue sky. Before us stood a deep forest; a soft floor of needles to sleep on; enough loose hardwood to make a campfire; spaciousness, a rustic general store across the street, open. I couldn’t resist—I was dancing and singing and jumping and shouting.

“We did it! See? I don’t think we did so bad for ourselves.”

Otto stood rigidly.

“Yeah, forget about Lake Tahoe Village tonight. Camp here instead. Spend the day there tomorrow.”

He stared at me with tight neck muscles.

“Don’t you feel better going along with me for once, man? Give me some credit. We can’t follow what you want to do all the time. Look at this place. Awesome.”

Otto glanced back with disdain. He still didn’t say anything.

“You agree about camping here for the night? This place is ideal.” I stared into the forest. “It couldn’t have matched what I pictured in my mind any closer. This is it. Total heaven.”

“I’ll be damned if I do that, Roger. I ain’t stayin’ here. Forget this shit. I’m goin’ to San Francisco.”

“What?” I set down my bags. “There’s no need to . . .”

“Shut your freakin’ trap!”

“What?”

“Shut up!”

Did Otto expect me to apologize for reaching our destination? Go back to Reno and purposely fail? Cry for mercy? Where did this kind of O-logic come? Was his goal to outwit me even if it lowered the experience?

While I was still in shock, Otto Brackston One-Upmanship George walked back to the roadway, backpack still attached. In the same motion, he raised his thumb. And then I was the one damned, because the very first car that passed stopped. The very first. That had never happened in four years of regular fulltime hitchhiking, with Otto or without. A first for my history book.

A sedan idled with its brake lights on, the hitchhiking magic working against my sensibilities. It was a blow to the gut, and a low blow at that. It was underhanded, and even vicious.

I was stunned, but stood down. I had little choice. Take a hit for the team. For the “sake of the benefit of the doubt.” For Otto. For team. Maybe I was too stubborn. Maybe I was a controlling idiot.

Without complaint, for the sake of unity, I relinquished utopia. Let it go and sighed. I hated to do it, but I climbed into the car behind Otto. Now I was the sulky ogre in the back as Otto talked away with the driver—a guy who looked like comedian Jerry Lewis.

Jerry came complete with animated expressions and a high, silly voice. He was a pharmacist who no doubt owned a Nutty Professor chemist’s jacket.

Donner’s Pass was brilliant against the setting sun, speckled in greens and blues. We swathed through redwood splendor and twisted our way up and across scrumptious summits. My mood slowly settled down because underneath everything was holy. I felt dipped into eternity; caught up with my destiny. Anointed with ken. A partial genius. The contrast between the mountains and valleys (of life) was spectacular. In some places the heavy snow almost reached the interstate. The glare of the setting sun kept knocking Jerry into the other lanes. Those reflector cups would bump you back to your senses.

It was dark by the time we conquered the mountain range. The reflector cups guided us safely into a gentle valley dotted by the soft, shimmering lights of Sacramento, the state capital. For miles all you could see were modern-style condominiums buffered from the interstate by wooden sound barriers. Wouldn’t you know, I-80 suddenly rated its own personalized name, “Elvas Freeway.”

Jerry let us off at an interchange consisting of three gas stations and one vacant lot—a hilly, underdeveloped field of dried-out brush and scattered bushes. Again, I attempted to anchor. It was dark. We made California. It seemed senseless to stretch our luck any further.

“I thought we had to get to San Francisco today, Roger,” Otto said gruffly.

“I never said that.”

“You did too!”

He stalked about in a rage, calling me pigheaded and deluded. Since I demanded earlier that we make San Francisco, he had absolutely no intention of stopping until we got there. By this time we were already situated on the hill with our sleeping bags unrolled. We packed up and left.

He and I never made it out of Sacramento. We wound up lost in another neighborhood, in a remote part of town, sunk by a ride we never should have taken. It was with a young couple on a blind date, a mismatched pair if I ever saw one—a girlish boy with severe acne and a mannish girl whose hair was dyed lollipop red. When I asked them where they were going the guy said, “Oh, nowhere out of sight. We’re just, like, driving around. We’re like, looking for something to get into.”

When Otto said we were going to San Francisco, the guy said through his bangs, “Oh, you should call up KZAP-FM. Tell the disc jockey where you are and that you’re thumbing to the bay area. They’ll announce it over the air and everyone going tonight will want to pick you up. It’s like, a real mellow way to catch a ride.”

With my patience fried to a crisp, I found that hard to believe. So did Otto. But the guy insisted, “It’s cool. It’s the latest happening. It’s like, people serving people. They do it, like, all the time.”

They dropped us off at an exit somewhere on the northeast side of town. Otto walked across the street to a phone booth at an Esso station while I kept track of our stuff.

“How’d it go?” I asked when he came back.

“Darned if I know. The disc jockey said he would announce it, but he sounded like he didn’t like it too much.”

No one helped us out. We stood at the entrance ramp, excuse me—“freeway entrance”—a full one, two, three hours. Sufficient traffic rushed by. All souls that powered up the ramp in their Italian sports cars left us stranded down with the flowers and plants and landscaped shrubbery. It was so dumb to be out there to begin with. I was depleted. I cussed every car that went past. Otto and I said nothing to each other. It was like we were Lennon and McCartney working separately-but- together on The White Album.

We loaded up and tramped through dark residential streets. Bunking wouldn’t be so breezy now. This was blue collar territory—older houses close to each other on tiny properties. Being the middle of summer, everyone had their bedroom windows open and screen doors latched.

A downtown renovation site had possibilities. A sand pile next to an open foundation merited examination. Down farther still stood a boarded-up, vacated appliance store, ready for the wrecking ball. He and I tiptoed around back, into the alleyway near the former delivery dock. We found a giant piece of cardboard propped on its side, one big enough to ship a refrigerator. We tipped the cardboard to the ground and unrolled our sleeping bags on that.

It was a blessing to drop inside that bag.