Seattle To Sacramento On A Whim And A Prayer
When I arrived back on the Strip, I started to look for a
place to crash. My natural high was fading. I couldn't come up with
a place, so I decided to see if Carolyn was working at the Submarine
place. I really liked Carolyn, and though normally I wouldn't impose
on a person like this, I hoped maybe the two of us could get
together. After I found her at work, she told me that she was
already in hot water with her roommates and besides she had a date.
She did however, make a phone call and I lucked out. She found a
friend who said I could stay at his place. A kinder, more good-
hearted person than Carolyn would be difficult to find.
The next day, I had to decide what I was going to do. Dave
wanted me to give him a call once I got back in Seattle, so I
thought I would start there. On the phone, I was confronted with a
dilemma. Dave and his brother were going to the Door's concert. He
could get a ticket for me if I wanted to go, but I wouldn't be able
to sit with them. He told me that his brother said that after the
concert it would be okay to stay at his place; that is if I needed a
place to crash. I liked the Door's music, but the thought of
watching a display of masturbation, as Morrison paraded across the
stage, was not something I was holding my breath to see.
I had a premonition something like this would happen, so
before I called Dave I thought very intensely about what I really
wanted to do. I had fifteen dollars left and I wanted to spend it in
the most enjoyable place possible. I was tired of Seattle, and I was
equally tired of penny pinching. While talking to Dave on the phone,
I made up my mind. Instead of paying to see somebody I didn't care
to see, I would pay to hear some good jazz music. The thought of
sitting in a smoke filled bar, sipping a beer or two while listening
to great jazz, totally captured my imagination. I thanked Dave, as I
told him I needed the rest of my money to get back to Michigan. When
I hung up the phone I headed south, eight hundred or so miles later,
I would be drinking a cold beer in San Francisco, in the quaint
little bar they called the Jazz Workshop.
It was a good day for rides. Everybody was friendly, all
except for that one gay marauder who kicked me out of his car
because I wouldn't let him go down on me. That night, long after
dark, an old Ford pickup stopped to give me a ride. There were
already three people riding in the cab and seven more were stuffed
in the pickup bed. The seven were not happy to see me. They were
sleeping and now there would be even less room to stretch out. I
didn't know it at the time, but I had just become part of a very
interesting group of travelers.
Everybody was wrapped in their sleeping bags, except for
a couple of the cats who were traveling light; they turned out to be
deserters from Fort Lewis, Washington. The kid next to the army
dropouts was a runaway, and the guy next to me was on the lamb for a
narcotics bust. He was busted just hours earlier and ran away before
being handcuffed by a police officer. Even the three dudes in the
cab, as it turned out, were running away from home. I thought it
remarkably strange that so many of society's deviants would wind up
in bed together, or in this case truck. We rode like this throughout
most of the night. Two of the riders decided it wasn't worth it and
split. When it started to rain, I was tempted to do the same;
instead I crawled further down into my sleeping bag. Around 3 a.m.
the truck stopped and one of the cats in the cab got out to take a
piss. He said, "Is everything okay back there?" There was no reply
and no movement coming from the pickup bed, then one small voice got
out the words, "We'll be okay in the morning, if we're still
alive." The cat was trying to be sympathetic when he said, "I wish
everybody could ride up front, but since you can't, here, maybe this
will help. He then handed everybody a hit of mescaline. I couldn't
tell if everybody dropped the dope, but I did and so did the cat
next to me.
As the dope started coming on, the trip did become more
bearable. We couldn't tell how cold we really were. We just knew we
were still cold. We continued in this ridiculous state until
morning, that's when the cat from Seattle and I got out somewhere in
northern California. We stayed together until Sacramento, then he
continued south and I, well, I'm still here waiting and hoping to
get a ride. If and when that happens, I'll be heading west.
No comments:
Post a Comment