Chapter 7. Hollyweird! (pt. 2)

We ran into Norm at the free clinic on Fairfax. He found the house he’d been talking about before. It was on the east-side of the freeway. The Taft House had been one of the early communal family houses in Hollywood. It was owned by an older gay couple whose idea was to have a sort of tribal place where people could live together in an experimental communal fashion. It was a nice old Victorian home though the sitting room was half filled with a large canopied bed where people tripped. The dining room had a long table that easily seated a dozen people. The kitchen was small but comfortable and all the cupboards were sloppily painted by trippers with even sloppier psychedelic themes such as rainbows and unicorns.

Miriam I were offered a bedroom upstairs, shared with another couple, which had its own bath. It seemed too good to be true to be inside, with running water and all, in a bed big enough for two couples and two cots on the side.

First thing Miriam did was to run the bath water and get in the tub. The couple, Sarah and Felix, came in the bathroom and sat around her. Miriam didn’t like being watched as she bathed but let herself be appraised regardless as Sarah noted, “You have a cute body.”

“Thanks…” Miriam answered almost shyly.

I was curious… what were these two up to?

Felix added, “Your breasts are small but perfect.”

Miriam opened her mouth like she was in a dentist chair, “You wanna see my teeth too.”

They laughed. I didn’t and was going to say something about wanting some privacy when Felix asked, “… have you two ever thought about posing.”

“Posing for what?” I asked.

Sarah picked up where Felix left off, “Skin magazines.”

I knew where it was going but played dumb and looked at her incredulously, “What?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know. It’s magazines... nudies… X rated, you see?”

Miriam was curious… enthused, “How much?”

Sarah continued, “Thirty bucks an hour for women and ten bucks for men.”

Back then X-rated meant what soft-core porn is now. I was interested but had some concerns, “What about a hard-on?”

Felix laughed, “You don’t have to worry about that. As long as there is no penetration it is legal to have a semi-hard-on.”

“How about my physique? I’m no Adonis.”

Sarah laughed, “It doesn’t matter. These jerk-off rags don’t want an Adonis… except for the gay ones.”

“Yah,” Felix added, “but you look good enough for that.”

“How long can it last,” Miriam asked, “I mean how many times can I be in a magazine without being seen over and over?”

“Oh, you just wear wigs and change it up,” Sarah assured her, “I’ve been doing it for over a year now and I still get two or three calls a week.”

So, that was how Miriam got introduced to the soft-core porn industry, I opted not to do it. It wasn’t so much that I had moral scruples but I didn’t like the idea of posing up-close and nude without getting a hard-on. It didn’t seem natural to me. I decided to take whatever job I could find and leave the porn business alone.

While I was taking an evening walk on Sunset, a nice looking black girl handed a pamphlet to me promising another free dinner.

“This ain’t like that Tony and Sue deal, is it?” I pled.

She chuckled, “No, have you ever heard of Nicheren Buddhism?”

“No, I mean, I’ve heard some about Buddhism but what is this?”

“We meet and have a service where we just chant. No preaching.”

“Oh, I get it. I had a friend in the Navy who was into chanting something like Nam-yo-ho-renge-kyo.”

“Yes, that’s it. You’re welcome to join us for fellowship and dinner.”

She was an attractive girl… reminded me of Glenda and I was intrigued anyway because of the brief discussions I’d had with Dan and Linda back at Altamont. I showed up hoping I’d meet with the black girl but the chanting had already begun. I was handed a printout of the chant so I went along with it. I didn’t know what the words meant but it didn’t seem to matter. The power of the whole group chanting was amazing to me and I found myself, not only enjoying it but, sensing a deeper reality going on. After the chanting, it got what I considered somewhat silly as individuals stood to “testify” about what chanting had done for them. There was no talk about inner-peace, clarity of mind, union with whatever, or any of what Dan and Linda spoke of. One by one, young starlets and used-car dealers, stood to tell about how they got an audition for a role in a movie or sold a high-end auto after chanting for it only a few days or weeks. They did serve a dinner too. It was spaghetti with soy meatballs.

Back at the house Sarah, Felix, Miriam and I, slept together in the big bed for about a week. There was very little fooling around considering we were all in the same bed because all of us had been busy working to make ends meet and were too tired. One night, still half asleep, I felt Sarah reaching over my waist from behind. I came full awake when I heard Miriam sternly insist, “Felix! Get your hand off my tits!”

Felix moaned, “Okay… I’m cool… it’s okay.”

“No. It’s not okay!”

I was ready to have some fun but I ceded my libido to Mariam’s discomfort. I think I might have loved her that much.

The next day Miriam didn’t show up for one of her shoots and didn’t come back to the house until the afternoon after that. Norm and I had taken a job at a carwash on La Brea and thought nothing of her absence until after we got home from work. She came in the door, head hanging, with a gnarly-bearded-tall-longhaired-hippy dude.

“We have to talk,” she grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the kitchen.

“Talk about what?” I felt a stabbing pain in my gut, “You with that guy?”

“I can’t hang here…” She started to explain.

“Are you with that guy?” I drilled her.

About then That Guy came into the kitchen.

“It’s not what you think, Max?” She began to explain.

The guy chided. “You gotta let go, man…”

“Don’t fuckin’ give me that guru-jive. Let go of what?” I glared upward at the lanky hippy towering above me and challenged, “What’s it to you if I don’t!”

“We just talked…” the voice of a guilty little girl was so unlike Miriam’s.

“All night?” I was still glaring at the giant in front of me.

“Um… yes.” She offered hesitantly.

“Oh, I see.” I turned and walked out into the rain that was lightly coming down.

I felt like going somewhere… anywhere but … I thought of Santa Barbara and how much I’d liked it there. I might head there.

I’d gotten as far on the Pacific Coast Highway as Topanga Canyon Blvd. before it started to get dark and the clouds thickened to let loose with a torrential downpour. I had been standing there with my thumb out for over an hour when a man in full rain-gear walking past me stopped.

He pointed out the direction from where he’d come, “You want to get out of the rain… I have a place down over on the other side of the creek.”

I was so enjoying the Bluesieness of standing in the rain in my sorrow that I automatically responded with, “No thanks, I’m okay with the rain.”

The Rain Gear man walked to the corner of Topanga to a store and when he came back it was dumping twice as hard.

“Really, it’s okay. I’m not queer.” He stopped and gestured once more in the direction past the creek. “My wife and kid are all warm, dry and cozy, with hot soup on the stove… You’re welcome to it.” He gave me directions, described the house and slogged on in the rain towards his home.

I stood there for another hour as the rain just kept coming. It was completely dark by this time. I stopped thinking for a minute about Miriam and the cold damp place I was standing in.

I walked up to the door and knocked. One of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen opened the door. She stood there angelically with her long ringlets of golden brown hair in a full length plain cotton dress. It was a small one-room cabin with an open loft built above for a bedroom. I put on a robe offered in place of the soaking clothes that I’d been invited to hang high above a pot-bellied wood-burning stove along with my drenched coat. The daughter was a precocious girl of about four or five who immediately wanted to sit on my lap as soon as I sat down.

A pipe was passed and I was soon after handed a bowl of soup thick enough to be a stew. The rain pounded down above it all as the evening progressed with the soft conversation, the warmth of the stove, the soothing stew of a soup, and homemade bread.

 “Where are you going?” asked the wife.

“I was thinking of Santa Barbara.”

“Are you from there?” Hubby busied himself with his bowl of soup but turned to show a gentle face as he queried.

The girl chimed in, “Santa Barbara! They have a Zoo!”

“No, I’m not from there. I just want to check it out.”

“We went to the Zoo and daddy let me pet some goats.”

“Honey, let Max eat his soup.”

“Oh, I don’t mind… really.” It was so warm and kind and nice in that room I felt as though I’d died and gone to heaven.

“What made you want to leave where you were?”

“Uh, Hollywood?”

“Yeah, if that’s where you were coming from?”

So, it went like that and we talked past the time the girl fell asleep on my lap. We talked and talked about Altamont, Miriam, broken hearts, sorrow, crushed dreams, the military, the Navy, and hope and more smoke… lots of hope for the future, and hope for the little girl. I would see some very dark days in the future but I could always point to this interlude on a rainy night in a cabin at the side of PCH with a bowl of warm soup…

I thought, if there ever was one, God surely lives in these moments.

Chapter 7. Hollyweird!

The trip started off strange enough. A camper truck gave us our first ride. We piled into the cab that opened into the camper. Norm passed the packs and bags to me in back and sat next to the driver. Miriam rode shotgun. I felt uncomfortable and, after gassing up in Gilroy, the driver slowed down reaching across to the glove-box, Miriam let out a scream and bailed out of the moving truck. Norm pulled the emergency break and grabbed the drivers arm before he could open the glove-box. It happened so fast I had no idea what was happening but I tossed out our bags and packs from the back door and jumped out going after Miriam.

Miriam was rolled up on the side of the road. I was relieved that the truck finally came to a complete stop. Norm came out grinning like the Cheshire cat. The truck sped off like a bat out of hell.

“What happened?” I shouted to Norm. I tried to comfort Miriam who was shaking uncontrollably on the ground, curled up in the fetal position.

He was still grinning, “He was just going to get a bottle out of the glove box. I took it from him. He oughtn’t drink-n’-drive.” Adding, “Sometimes street smarts work against you and they become paranoia.”

I wondered how I could comfort Miriam. She had been shaken up quite a bit but not from her roll. This was enough adventure for me for now. What if there had been a gun in the glove-box? What would the guy think he was going to get from three obviously thread-worn hitch-hikers?

“Miriam? Why did you bail?” I asked.

“It has happened before,” the words were barely audible from her quivering lips.

“What do you mean?”

“When I was fifteen I was raped… it happened just like that.”

“But there are two of us with you.”

“Can’t count on that....” She said with a determination that defined her road spirit. “You can’t count on that… I’m not ever going to be raped again.”

The next ride from Gilroy was to Santa Barbara and we got out on the section of the freeway that ended at a strip with grass along sides of four lanes with traffic lights. This break allowed a pleasant place to hitch a ride and take a nap if needed. I felt a premonition about that town. I thought it might be a little rich for my blood but I was able to see a future there and it was love at first sight for me. I wanted to stay but Miriam and Norm were impatient to get to L.A.

Getting off at Sunset on the Hollywood Freeway in the middle of the night, we walked down a couple miles to the West Hollywood Presbyterian Church on Martel and Sunset. We heard it called the Free Church. Anything free had to be good. Transients slept in the courtyard, the idea being that the church would feed and shelter the poor. “The poor” turned out to be hippies, street people, and runaway teens. A few South-Central L.A. hustlers, I called X, Y, and Z, were trusted with the keys to the place and saw an opportunity to muster up the resources of the church for themselves. running it like it was an Orwellian prison yard. Staff, stayed inside of the church and let whoever was part of their posse stay tenuously there too.

Young runaway hippy-chicks were always welcome inside. The rest of the riff-raff had to stay outside after ten p.m. when the church employees and ministers left. The place was to be hosted by the self-appointed Alphabet Staff until six A M. As for feeding the poor, food was donated and then distributed by the Alphabet Staff. It was mostly day-old sandwiches, canned food, or whatever could be scraped up. One regular donation, by the case in cans, was Sego diet meals. You had to gulp down about six of these cans to feel like you had anything at all in your stomach.

Miriam and I curled up together in our bag next to a solitary pole by some bushes. We fell asleep immediately did not awake until dawn. When we awoke we rolled around a bit in our sleeping bag and ended up with Miriam on top. Looking up I saw that the pole we made our bed next to was a tall white cross hovering above us… “Holy fuck,” I groaned. She moaned back and we collapsed together there.

We got out of the bag awhile later. Norm was inside the church Sunday school classroom where he was selling his stolen twenty-two to one of the so-called staff. I would find out later the guy was called X.  I saw X slip Norm a few bills and Norm passed the piece to him as though it was nothing more than a lid of pot. When I found out the guy called himself X, I wondered if the other two called themselves “Y” and “Z”? And where did the rest of the alphabet keep themselves?

The guy I dubbed Y played the part of the Guru. He was a tall, well-built man with a Fu Manchu mustache and beard. He was coifed with an impressive Afro over a set of piercing, cynical looking eyes. He called himself Yogi too, so I felt somewhat vindicated by my alphabet sarcasm. Yogi was in charge. The others did his bidding. The third, I called Z at first, was Willy: it should have been W, X and Y. Willy was a good natured young man still in his teens. He was helpful to Miriam and made sure she got extra cans of Sego.

That night in the classroom, where various street people hung out, the Ghetto Triumvirate revealed the true hierarchy of the place in case there were any doubts. Willy came back all fucked up from turning tricks on Sunset and had been drinking wine and doing Reds.

I noticed a bit of a ruckus going down and people were sort of encircled around Yogi and Willy. Willy had apparently taken the twenty-two Norm had sold to X. Yogi had been talking quietly to Willy with X butting in… “Hey, that piece is fucking mine, nigga!”

Willy shouted at X, “Yogi runs this place… see… don’t fuck with Yogi!”

Willy stumbled back and broke away from the group around him.

X tried to sound calm but his voice quivered, “Listen brother, the gun is mine. I bought it.”

Everyone there made way for Willy as he pulled the pistol out of his waistband… “You ain’t my brother! You ain’t my mutha-fuckin’ mother! And I ain’t yo’ nigga, Nigga!” With that he spun around with the gun pointing first into the air. As he spun around he brought it down to eye level at the crowd that stood frozen in a circle around him. “Pang!” the twenty-two went off. Nobody moved. Willy dropped the gun… “I… I… I didn’t mean to…”

It was as though everyone there was waiting to see who was going to drop. No one dropped. I crossed the room and, picking up the piece and handing it butt-first to X, I said, “I suggest you keep better inventory on this.”

I turned and walked away. I did not miss the fact that a small twenty-two caliber size hole was in the wall behind where my head had been. Miriam and I left then to find Norm; leaving the confusion of the situation behind as best we could.

Going down Sunset Blvd., Miriam and I were handed a flyer promising a free spaghetti dinner at such and such place. We decide it might be better than the Sego we’d tried to stomach the last few days and showed up at the designated time. The place was a big two-story house with a huge living room. The dining room had the wall between them knocked out and folding chairs lined up in rows, converting the space into a makeshift church. Miriam and I felt we had been deceived because the flyer said nothing about sitting through a sermon. Regardless, we took a seat and wondered how long we’d have to endure the sermon before the food was served.

She had a demon alright.

A tall, slender, blond woman in her late thirties or early forties took to the podium after some hallelujahs and a few songs. She introduced herself as Sue Alamos; and then went into her pitch about Jesus, how there were demons out there in the streets conniving to take these souls made vulnerable by drugs to their enticements. The enticements the demons used were nothing like the ordinary admonishments against sexual misconduct and so on, but rather, her sermon focused on suicide. This was somewhat unique to me because I’d heard most of the sermons against drugs and alcohol leading towards all sorts of unsavory behaviors but I hadn’t heard this slant before.

She railed on: “These demons are around us all the time waiting. When you drop LSD, a demon enters your body: the sacred Temple of God. It takes over and lets you feel powerful and wise. Just like Eve in the Garden, you become Gods; until LSD’s master, Satan, decides to call you in. That is when the demon whispers in your ear; ‘you might as well not live, to die is the best answer, take your life and go to Heaven!’” then she got very serious… “And then you commit suicide. Instead of Heaven you go straight to Hell! Don’t be fooled, children!”  It, her harangue, went on and on for the better part of an hour. This woman’s husband, Tony, was the founder of a cult and a ranch outside of town somewhere. They’d entice young and vulnerable white, middle-class runaway teens, or plain ole street people, up to the ranch to be brainwashed and sent back into town to recruit more like themselves. I was hungry but we left before dinner was served… if it was served at all. There were folks at the door, more like waifs, trying to keep us from leaving. They all had this look in their eyes of forced glee and it also looked as though they hadn’t eaten much themselves. Leading Miriam by the hand, I plowed through them like a hot knife through butter to a chorus of their protestations. We had to find Norm.

PS. Yes, this is the same infamous Tony and Sue Alamo. His real name was Bernard Lazar Hoffman (aka Marcus Abad) and hers was Edith Opal Horn. He was a convicted child sexual abuser and she was an actress who'd found a calling and a new name.

Chapter 6. Spokane

The further North we went the colder it got. Although the Bay area wasn’t exactly a tropical zone, I was no longer adapted to anything below forty degrees. The ride we took from Portland dropped us off in the middle of nowhere up the grade from the Umatilla Bridge over the Columbia River. There were a few inches of snow on the ground and we made camp among the sage finding only a stick here or there in the dark to light a campfire. Curled up in our bags we drifted off to sleep. An hour or so later the sound of dogs yapping woke me up. At first, I wasn’t concerned but the yapping seemed to be getting closer.

Then Norm woke up, “What’s that?”

“Coyotes, I guess.”

“Shit, really?” Norm sat up looking around.

“Nothing to be afraid of...” I tried to be reassuring. The yip-yapping seemed to be circling us. I envisioned being found in the spring… our bones scattered and sleeping bags torn up. Then I thought of the old western movies, in which the greenhorn would get spooked by the howl of coyotes in the desert, and tried not to panic.

“They’re getting closer.” Norm was nervous and I was getting edgy myself. I knew how sound can fool you in this semi-arid desert but the yapping did seem to be getting closer. I had never heard of anyone being harmed by coyotes but I had heard of packs of wild dogs in the desert pulling down mule deer and attacking children.

“What do you want to do… break camp?”

“Nothing is open in Umatilla… not even a gas station.” There was a gas station our last ride stopped at west of Umatilla on I-80.

Norm and I, like brave outdoorsmen, left our bags at the camp and headed down the road back towards Umatilla. A midnight traveler gave us a lift to Boardman hearing all about a vicious pack of wild dogs, or whatever, back there. We hung out at the only gas station in Boardman keeping the attendant company until dawn. Making our way back in the morning and expecting to see our bags torn up within a circle of dog tracks, we found no foot-prints in the snow besides our own. I walked out hundreds of yards from our camp finding nothing.

Slightly embarrassed, I stuck to the wild-dog story, saying, “They were getting closer, eh?”

“Yeah, they sounded real close” Norm answered. “They probably gave up when we left.”

 The next ride from there was from a wild, long-haired and bearded, man in an old green International pick-up truck that lived outside of Spokane before Cheney. And, as another coincidence, hunted wild dogs where the rolling wheat fields make way for pine trees and arid ground with little or no growth in between. He had us in for a dinner and a smoke or two. He told of how folks from Spokane drop off their unwanted pups in the woods around his place. “Of course, the pups grow into dogs that can do nothing less than follow their instincts; packing-up, and posing a very real danger to animals and humans alike.” He had a quad stereo hooked up to strobe lights playing, of all things, Steppenwolf. “Born to be WI…ILD!” blasting at us, he wanted to know what happened at Altamont.

I explained the chaos, starting with the early dawn cue stick beatings of the folks in front of the stage, to the school buses plowing into the crowd; the rapes, the carnage on the stage and so on.

The fellow sat there and listened, hardly saying a thing until I’d finished relating it all. Then he spoke; “So, there were three hundred thousand people at the concert?” He paused a moment as I nodded, “… and how many Hells Angels?”

“Maybe fifty or sixty… I didn’t count.” I answered but I hadn’t anticipated what was to come next from the wild-dog hunter.

“Why didn’t three hundred thousand people crush the mother fuckers?”

I had no answer. I could have explained how impossible it would be to motivate that many people to do anything in synch.

“So, all those musicians had the mics and the amps and they calmed everybody down and let a handful of thugs run roughshod over three hundred thousand freaked out hippies!”

“Yes.” I was beginning to get his point.

“There was only one man with any courage out of three-hundred thousand people and he’s dead…”

The implication was clear. Anyone still alive that didn’t try to crush anyone wearing Hells Angels colors after that man died on the stage was a coward. The Wild-dog Hunter didn’t have to say it. I just hung my head.

Then I understood how the Nazis did it; how the Stalin did it and how every tyrant from before and after Genghis Khan did it.

“Give a little candy to the babies and they are jelly in your hands.” The Wild-Dog Hunter said.

The Wild-Dog Hunter dropped us off in downtown Spokane a block or two from the Greyhound station. It was the part of town where the railroads were elevated before what was to become Riverside Park after the 1972 Expo. It consisted of three blocks of skid row up from the elevated tracks by the river to First Avenue. There was slush on the ground and my feet were cold wet and numb having only a pair of boots made more for looks than hiking in the damp and cold to ward of the chill.  We hoofed it up to Sprague Avenue hoping to hitch a ride. Walking out as far as the Dishman Hills, I was pleased to see that the Two Swabbies’ Army Navy Surplus store was still in business. I bought a pair of surplus Army boots and some wool socks. Finding a Navy pea-coat, wool watch cap, and navy-blue wool sweater, my mood was lifted by the familiarity of the clothing and warm feet... at last, I believed in that things were going to be fine from then on. My happy feet were ready to go now.

Norm was accommodating. He never complained. He had shot-up all his smack and was going through mild withdrawals but hardly ever complained about that either. I was afraid my pal might be a junkie but it turned out, I noticed, that some people can turn away from hard-core addicting drugs just like that and hardly miss it at all. As for me, sure that had I shot-up or snorted heroine long enough, like one or two times more, I would be hooked and there would be no end to it. I was finding it so true with alcohol and more so because I never kidded myself about the recreational use of heroin.

 We showed up at the door of my family’s home in Veradale, road weary and ready for rest. My folks were congenial enough and they listened as I related the story of what went down at Altamont. They had vaguely heard of it on the evening news but had no idea how big the event was. Some newspapers reported as many 500,000 attended while others as little as 80,000. Some played it up as “Woodstock West Gone Wild” while others hardly gave it note at all. The conversation around the dinner table turned and it went like this:

“So, are you going to settle down in Spokane now?” Mom asked.

“No, we’re going back to California. I’ve got to get back to my people,” I explained. Dad sat there with the sort of disappointment etched on his face that only a dad can feel for a wayward son.

“You know,” Dad spoke up, “You can go to school on the G.I. Bill at Spokane Community College.”

“I might do that later but I’ve got to get this out of my blood now.” I started to go into a narrative about “seeing America” and how a lot was going on now that I wanted to be a part of. I made casual mention of “My People” as though the whole Hippy Generation of Peace & Love was one spiritual body moving towards the future and that; jobs, careers, family and such, were not only being redefined but damned near irrelevant. The fact that I had little or no interest in any kind of peace movement was beside the point.

Dad made this one last stab at reaching through to me, “There is a spot open at Kaisers and I can get you in the machine shop easy enough.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever do that, Dad.” I was almost sneering at this point and, if I could have seen the hurt I was causing my father, it would not have mattered.

Mom butted in at this point, “What are you going to do when you are old? What will ‘Your People’ do for you then?”

“We’ll help each other, Mom. It’s incredible out there. We’re changing the world and, besides, when my people’s backs are up against the wall… we’ll be together!”

How incredulous this had to have seemed to my Mom and Dad whose lives had been completely devoted to family through the Great Depression and WWII. I had no idea how deeply my comments cut at the time but my fervor for something new... a hidden alternative social reality… was driven by a passion that ignored compassion as much as reason and went straight for blood at any hint of an argument.

After that initial confrontation Norm and I were treated as welcome guests. Dad showed off his trophy moose antlers from a recent hunting trip in Canada. We sat at the bar in the rec-room, played pool and Dad played his harmonica. He gave me a harmonica that he wasn’t using and tried to teach me some tunes but I wanted to play it like Bob Dylan. He also gave us some sausages (made from the moose the antlers had once belonged to) for our journey (whose antlers hung over the fireplace in the basement rec-room). We affectionately referred to it as Minnesota Moose Mung while on the road.

Mom and Dad weren’t sure what Norm and I had in common. Norm was so young and effeminate looking that they might have figured something strange was going on between us. The subject was not breached but Mom was likely relieved that we slept on separate beds and in separate rooms. After a few days, they drove us downtown where we could hitch a ride south. I felt the chill of icy roads and wondered why I was ever leaving that home for this adventure.

Our first ride got us as far as Richland and we were stranded there for half a day. It was getting towards the afternoon when I started practicing on the harmonica. I wanted it to sound bluesy but all I could manage was noise. About that time a big-rig pulled up; “How far you goin’?”  Norm called out as the driver reached over opening the passenger door.

“Depends, can he play that thing?” He pointed to me.

Norm’s enthusiasm embarrassed me, “Sure! He damned-well can play it.”

“I’m going straight through to Stockton and I need to stay awake.”

Hell, I couldn’t do anything but make noise on that damned harmonica but the driver didn’t care at all.

“Can you play ‘Red River Valley’?” the driver shouted over the noise of the diesel as we climbed aboard.

“I know the tune but I got to tell you right off I’m just learning to use this thing.” I admitted.

“Make yourselves comfortable… we’ve got a-long-ways to go tonight.” He motioned to Norm to crawl through the curtains to the sleeper bed in back.

“You can sit up here.” He wanted me up front with him... “I don’t give a shit if you can play or not. I just need some noise to keep my eyes open.”

“Okay then, you’ve got yourself some noise.”

By the time the rig dropped us off in Stockton I had learned to play “Red River Valley”. The ride was as wild as the I-97 through central Oregon. The two-lane highway was icy and completely sheeted-over with ice or blanketed with packed snow. This didn’t slow down the trucker one bit. I’d never seen anyone drive like that and I likely never will either. The guy handled that rig on those roads like he was a formula-1 racer, yet, I rarely felt my life was in danger. Passing rigs and slowing only when he suspected a speed trap, the driver chain smoked and coached me with his song through the long night. Arriving at the race track I was pleased Miriam was still there for me. We made up for lost time in the pillow shack and life was indeed good once more.

Most of the cleanup-crew had drifted off but Dan and Linda were still in the trailer. The company it was rented from had either forgotten about it or been waiting for somebody to return it. There were activities for what was left of the clean-up crew at the race track. One of the most enjoyable tasks was the dirt-bike races held on a track that was tricked-out with jumps, puddles and mud-holes, inside the oval of the quarter-midget track. A few of us volunteered to be red-flagmen. It was dirty, muddy, noisy and sometimes dangerous work, pulling bikes and bikers, from mud-holes after spills and waving the red flags until all was clear. Other times there were parties with a catered full-bar at the tower with the drivers and their dates or wives.

Miriam and Norm got along so well that we talked of going to L.A. together. We agreed that the race track gig was winding down and there was increasingly less for us to do there. Norm and I had a bond that happens on the road; standing in rain or sleet at a freeway entrance with a sign and a common destination. Miriam and Norm possessed combined street smarts that was tempered so very slightly by my age. I was twenty-three but may as well have been a white haired old man compared to my companions. Anyone seeing us could have imagined that I might be their leader or guru. However, Norm and Miriam had no use for a leader or guru and, even at times when I felt paternal towards them, I knew in my heart that it wasn’t my wisdom or age that carried the day.

“Is it warmer in L.A.?” I was huddled with Miriam under a blanket… it was drizzling wet outside the shack.

“Gotta be drier than this.” Norm answered, shivering in a corner from the other side of the shack.

“I’m ready for a change,” Miriam threw in, “the food is getting scarcer here and things are getting back to normal at the track. I have a feeling that Mr. Carter will have us out of here soon anyway.”

“Anybody been in L.A. at all… is there anything there?” I looked at Norm who shot back with another one of his, Duh, smirks. People like Norm make a place for themselves no matter where they are.

“I know of a house in Hollywood… sort of a commune… a big place.” Norm offered.

“How many people are there?” Miriam asked.

“Last time I was there it was like a family… about twenty. It had several rooms… pretty nice place really.” 

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.