Chapter 5. A Long and Winding Road

I’m addicted to hitch-hiking: at least I was back then. Hitch-hiking, standing at a freeway entrance waiting for a ride, became a Zen exercise of letting go of expectations and restraints of time. The next ride was it... never knowing where or how far it was going, who’s driving or what their motives were for picking up complete strangers. In the late sixties and early seventies, it had been easy to get around because our hair and clothes were a uniform that said, I’m cool and part of the alternative culture. It was an extension of the beat generation: On the Road or Dharma Bums (that very few had read), with everything, all one’s worldly possessions, in a bedroll and backpack.

Standing at a freeway entrance in Stockton, I couldn’t remember whether Norman had told me why he needed to go to Portland. I laughed when I thought of it….

“What’s so funny?” Norm asked.

“I was just thinkin’… what are we going to Portland for anyway?”

Kicking a rock across the pavement Norm was quiet… like he hadn’t given it any thought at all. “Uh, well… my folks live there… a little town south of Portland, Bethany. I have some stuff there I’d like to get.”

“Oh, okay… I was just wondering.” A few more cars went by, mostly workers… not going any distance. “My folks live in Spokane… figure maybe I’ll head up there after Portland… Are you planning on staying there?”

“Maybe, but they’re just foster parents. I don’t really care for them all that much.”

“Oh? Where are your real folks?”

“Don’t know… well, moms a bartender in Salem but… haven’t seen her since I was… oh, about eight.” He answered as though he were talking about somebody else’s life.

“Sorry, how about your dad?” before he could answer, an extended cab pick-up pulled up with a couple of characters in the front seat.

One opened the passenger side door, “Throw your bags in the back and jump in up here.”

I started to open the back door. 
Norm grabbed my arm… “Hold it Max.” And then, “Forget it dude!”

The wheels screeched as the wagon burned rubber on up the ramp.

“What happened there?” I hadn’t seen that one coming at all.

“I never just throw my bag in the back before I get my ass in a damned car. 'Sides, those guys looked queer anyway.”

I had to chalk that one up for Norm.

The trip to Portland was uneventful but Norman had us take a side trip to Bethany, just south of Portland. Bethany was such a small town… it had no center. It was a bedroom community of suburban houses a couple miles hike from the freeway mixed with older country, white-picket-fenced, cottages and much older farm houses. I felt uncomfortable, knowing that a couple of hippies on foot wouldn’t go unnoticed. Sure enough, within a half hour a patrol car pulled up to us and asked for I.D.’s. I had my  DD-214, separation papers, folded-up in my wallet but Norm had no I.D. at all. The officer wanted to know where we were going, Norm gave the address of his foster parents and a name that may or may not have been his. That satisfied the officer sufficiently to let us go.

We arrived at the address (Norm's foster parents home) but, instead of going to the front door, Norm went straight to a basement window at the side of the house. He picked up a rock, smashed it and started to crawl in.

I stopped him, whispering; “Hey, what are you doin'?”

“No one’s home,” Norm answered in a hushed voice.

I looked around, “Why didn’t you knock first and find out?”  We were behind some bushes and out of sight from the street but we could have been seen approaching the house.

He looked back at me with that familiar, Duh, smirk. “You stay here and keep watch for me… I’ll be right back.”

Damn, I thought, I’m standing watch while this kid burglarizes his own house… um, not his house… his foster parents house! A cop already knows we are in town and that this address is where we are headed! Shit! How do I get into these things? I pictured myself locked up for…

“Hey, grab this bag!” Norm called from another window on the main floor.

I took the pillow-case he handed down to me as Norm plopped down on the ground from the window. It felt like it might have had jewelry and something metal.

Norm led the way down a creek bed, “this is one of my old escape routes. The creek runs all the way to the freeway.”

 We stopped to rest as Norm went through the pillow-case stuffing its contents into his back pack. I saw a nice looking twenty-two revolver and realized that Norm was taking more than just his stuff from the house. I had no more questions.

“Shit, they must have found another hiding place for their petty cash somewhere else. I could only come up with this.” Scattering the contents of some envelopes he spread out a handful of twenties, tens, fives and some ones. It came to around a hundred fifty bucks. He gave half of it to me asking; “You think we have enough to get to Spokane and back now?”

“Yah, sure… what are you going to do with the other stuff?”

I had figured Norm was going to stay in Bethany but it was apparent now what the trip was about. Norm answered; “I know of a place down by the Union Station in Portland where I can fence this stuff. It ought to pull in another couple of hundred bucks.”

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do besides getting as far away from Norm as possible but I felt oddly committed to the whole process. It was a sort of resignation I didn’t like at all. It was as though I had no personal control over these kinds of minor incidents harboring extreme consequences. My heart was heavy with the burden of feeling it was not in my hands to make a choice in the matter. I wondered, how many times can I get by with these abdications before it catches up with me?

Early the next day we arrived in Portland, having made camp for the night in the woods next to the Sunset Highway overlooking the city. It had been drizzling all night and my boots were soaked through to my cheap thin socks from going through the woods. When we got into town Norm made straight for a pawn shop down a few blocks from the Union Station. The proprietor knew Norman and greeted him warmly… well, as warmly as a pawn shop owner can. Norm leaned in to the glass partition and spoke lowly through the grill. The owner nodded and said a few words looking over at me. 
Norm spoke louder saying, “He’s okay… he’s been traveling with me.”

I didn’t want to know what they were talking about. I knew more than I wanted to already. I went outside and waited on the curb. I watched a parade of winos and junkies pass by on the way to and from the liquor store on the corner. I began to feel a thirst and, with cash in my pocket, I figured I’d get something to eat and a pint for traveling.

There was an assortment of soggy bologna sandwiches in Saran wrap on a tray with hard boiled eggs next to the register at the liquor store. I wondered how long the sandwiches had been there but I was hungry and got one for myself anyway. I could have bought something better than the pint of Thunderbird… something like Jack Daniels, but I was drinking wine thinking it wasn’t as bad as whiskey. I hadn’t thought much about it but I’d figured I’d gone several months without drinking and had some control over it now, even though it had only been a couple of weeks since the party in the tower.

It must have been about an hour before Norman came back out from the pawn shop. He was grinning and there was a glint of light in his eyes, “Hey, I scored some China White, some cross-tops and some cocaine…” he said in hushed tones as he approached.

“You’re kidding. I didn’t know you did that shit.” I was strangely naïve when it came to drugs. I figured that pot smoking and hallucinogens were spiritual medicines but that heroine, Seconal (Reds), speed (meth tabs), and possibly cocaine, were hard drugs and entirely evil.

Norm gave me another one of those “Duh” smirks nudging me in the side, “Don’t worry, I got plenty for both of us.”

“I don’t want any of that crap…” But even as I was saying the words the idea… no, the warmth of the blood in my veins said otherwise.

“You sure, I got a couple rigs too. Hey, I rented a room from my friend above the pawn shop for the night. We can fix up… and there is a shower down the hall.” He dangled the plastic blue diamond with the hotel key in front of me.

I was going to walk away right there and then but the idea of a hot shower was more than I could resist. “Okay, but I don’t want to shoot dope with you.”

“That’s alright, more for me… tsk… tsk.” Norm was generous with his money and his drugs… it was a part of the hippy credo he hadn’t given up on yet.

Norm went up to the room but I went back to the liquor store and decided to get a pint of Jack Daniels after all. I got back up to the room, grabbed a towel and I headed for the shower. I scrubbed and stood under the nozzle for an eternity. There was only one shower in the tower of the race track back at Altamont. I did shower a few times there but found that the sulfur smell stuck and was worse than my own body odor. So, it was something special to have clean water and soap to wash off the road. I was mulling over the pros and cons of doing some heroin. I thought, “If I cook it up and snort it … that would be better than shooting it… or I can just drink and I still have a bag of pot to smoke…”

I was still wrestling with the idea when I got back to the room.

“Norm… Norm? Ah no, Norm! Shit!” Norman was knocked out on the bed, lips blue, with the rig still stuck in his arm… the cord he tied-off with was untied… still wrapped loose on his arm… he was out.

A tin with cocaine was next to his bag of H. I didn’t have time to fuss. I’d never done this before but I'd seen it once before... back at Tripler. I found the spoon that Norm had cooked up with and used it for the cocaine. I fixed it up and sucked it up through a cotton swab Norm had on the nightstand into the syringe. I tied him off and hit the vein next to where Norm had hit before and, within seconds after shooting it into the vein, Norm’s eyes opened.

It worked!

After that experience, I decided I needed some kind of reward and cooked a spoon of H for myself. I waited for it to cool down and snorted it instead of shooting up… like this made a difference. A warm glow coursed its way through my body and I no longer needed a drink. Life was good again and I could cope with the strangeness every turn life was taking on my wayward path back home.