A stranger pulled to the curb. I expected to be propositioned -- this had happened to me a lot on the road -- but the gentleman, for reasons known only to him, asked if I was a veteran since I was carrying my Army duffel bag. Yes, I was. He asked if I was hungry. Yes, I was. He treated me to burgers at a nearby chain and I think I ate three or four. He gave me ten dollars, which would end up being useful indeed on my hitchhiking return.
I never even listened to the race to see who won.
This hitchhiking trip, a turning point in my life, is documented in a journal I kept and which I still possess. A wondrous piece of personal history to look at! Here are some excerpts from my memoir, Dress Rehearsals: The Education of a Marginal Writer.
3/ On the Road
In Berkeley I again begin writing in volume three of my journal in the spring of 1959. I’m recording thoughts and experiences exclusively now, not mathematical equations. I note that I’ve met a girl, Diana, who is boarding at the sorority house but isn’t a member: “… in her presence I feel more myself than I have ever before. No false Christian ethics to hide her beauty of mind!!!” The relationship remains platonic, however.
On April 4th I begin a character sketch of Duncan that does not do him justice: “A handsome easy going guy with a sparkle and charm intensified by his carefree attitude. Travels often. Determined not to punch time clock all his life. He figures the average guy works through college to get good grades to land a good job. Then the guy continues to work the rest of his life to keep up with the bills. Duncan is rebelling against this.”
The next day I note, “Am seriously considering working on freighter to Europe. I am in a state of confusion concerning my future – have been so since I left Tech.”
On April 11th: “I have reached a major decision concerning my future. I’m quitting school – at least temporarily.” In fact, I’d stopped going to classes over a month earlier.
At the same time, I am writing youthful, bad verse in the journal. The best of them is perhaps this one:
Things work out, for goodness sake;
God points out the straighter road.
(“Pie in the sky” is hard to take
But, heaven help us, ala mode!)
On April 12th I quote Thoreau: “I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A man has not everything to do, but something; and because he cannot do everything, it is not necessary that he should do something wrong.”
More youthful verse the same day:
Me thinks
Life stinks.
But me said,
Death’s dead.
On April 13th is an important entry: “Yesterday I roamed the woods above Berkeley’s Strawberry Canyon. In a very secluded spot I found a tree just made to live in. A livable tree house could be made there with little trouble. I’ll start gathering material today. It would make a nice place to stay this summer.”
I ended up living most of June and July in the tree house. Before I moved in, however, I began an adventure that begins with a single line written in my journal on April 21, 1959: “I leave for Kentucky.”
I’ve already written about how my grandfather taught me a love for horse racing. After Duncan turned me on to hitchhiking, I got the idea to hitchhike to Louisville to see the Kentucky Derby. By this time, Quentin thought I had quite lost my mind. Duncan, of course, encouraged me and even said he’d hitch the first few days with me. On April 21st, we departed.
Three week later, I officially ended the trip by arriving at my parents’ home in Pasadena, hungry, broke and thinner than I’d ever been in my life. My appearance shocked my mother. But I saw something else in the mirror entirely. I saw the image of a man who had completed a wonderful adventure, and I had recorded all of its highlights in my journal.
Today, of course, my notes read as if they were written by someone else. It is difficult to remember how different the country was then – and how different, how innocent, I was. Here are some highlights from the trip.
[later that night] Met interesting woman tonight. Old in physical appearance but strong as an ox, has been in 48 states 4 times. Tattooed from head to toe. Had on man’s pants, shoes, shirt. Shirt buttoned in only one place, high. Breasts hanging loosely, visibly, with no bra. Has two kids in Vermont. Friendly as hell, the type of woman one does not believe exists. Makes freighters all over. Used terms like “shack out,” “this side of midnite.” “Hell” most popular word in vocabulary.
April 23, 1959 … Rode from Mojave half way to Barstow with desert-rat wino. Passed bottle; very unsafe. Glad to have left him. Duncan bummed meals for 3 of us.
[that night] Between 1st and 2nd Ave. on Fremont [Las Vegas] is a “main drag.” The lights are so bright that the sidewalk is as bright as at mid-day. The city never sleeps. It jingles alive – stretched endlessly over the desert.
Monday, Ap 27, 1959 … [after Duncan left me on my own] I’m headed for Mississippi. Since Salt Lake been with Al, 29 from Miss. Going there for fishing and pussy – talked me into making it.
[later, same day] I’m a little south of Carthage, Mo. It is still light – overcast, thundering, raining intermittently.
Today, about 3pm, Al told me he was going downtown. We were both damn sleepy, so I stretched on a blanket in the park – where I am now. He was to meet me in 2 hrs. He was going to try to con $10 from the Amer. Leg.
I don’t know how long it has been since I went to sleep, but Al is not here. I don’t know what to think. His jacket is here, but I can’t find the $ he is supposed to have in it. I “thought” he took his crap and perhaps cut out. He has nothing of mine, which makes me believe he’s slowed down. I’ll wait all nite if need be – I hope he’s not in trouble …
For the first time this trip I am alone with no one to talk to. I suddenly realize the intensity of loneliness. And in a goddamn thunderstorm no less!
Tues Ap 28 ’59 … 9:00 AM … No sign of Al. I have choice of going – to Miss. Or Ken.; or waiting. I’ll at least wait a few more hours.
Wed Ap 29 ’59 … I left Al – never showed. Got ride today with another queer. This one teaches j.v. deliqs.
[later] Another drunk, another queer tonite.
Although I made it to Louisville in time for Derby Day, I had little money and no more inclination to see the race. The journal continues:
Thur Ap 30 ’59 … Man asked if I wanted ride as I walked down street of Louisville. Bought me 3 hamburgers and a coke. Very friendly.
[later, outside Danville, starting home] Ken. friendliest state I’ve been in. Rained hard tonite – small boy & his older, cute, blonde sister let me sleep in their parents’ barn. I slept up in the hay loft above the hog – protected from the rain.
Fri May 1 ’59 … Sicker than dog today, can’t keep anything down. Finally picked shade and slept. Slept most of day. Tried hitching at 5pm. Long wait for short ride. Hit sack at sunset with thumping headache.
Sun May 3 ’59 … Rode to Memphis with Mississippi newly-weds.
[later] Anxious to get home and feel clean again. Would like in future to motorcycle around states. Hitching fine if time has no meaning. This is its appealing factor.
My three-week journey by thumb to Kentucky and back introduced me to people I didn’t know existed, who lived on the edge of the society, often without homes or jobs, sometimes with addictions and eccentricities bordering on mental illness, a range of characters I could not have been exposed to otherwise. I also got a different glimpse of America itself, the sprawling landscape, through eyes far different from the eyes of the child who drove across the country and went camping with his parents. This, in dramatic terms, was my coming of age, or at least the first footsteps of it, for I still had a long way to go before finding myself and my calling. Duncan was the inspiration for this journey, and to him I owe thanks for getting on the road.
In retrospect, I find it interesting that I returned via Pasadena, making a stop to see my parents. I suppose I was being both the good son, letting them know I was fine – though, as it turned out, my mother thought I was starving to death – but also, selfishly, to get my clothes washed, a monetary gift from my father, and a little family love and sense of security before I returned to Berkeley – this time on a bus. But return quickly I did. And with a new purpose.
“Reading Short Story Writing for Profit,” I note in my journal in early May, suggesting new interest in becoming a writer. Then I make an addition demonstrating how far I still had to go: “Thinking of writing story wrapped around a second rising of Christ.”
On June 23rd, I write a single name in my notebook, followed by a terrible poem. I’m going to call the girl “Shirley” here. Shirley was an important figure in my life. I had my first love affair with her.
Since this is a hell of a place to end, here's that first love affair ...
4/ “Shirley”
I was four months away from turning twenty. Shirley was younger, seventeen, a senior in high school in Oakland. We met on Telegraph Avenue.
Other than writing her name on one occasion, I mention nothing about Shirley in my journal. But my memories of her remain strong, triggered in part by her resemblance, in my mind, to a young version of the Shirley MacLaine character in Some Came Running, a sexy, sweet, somewhat daffy girl with long limbs and big sparkling eyes.
Our romance grew slowly but steadily over the several months we dated. She loved where I lived, which I had come to call by the beat term, our “pad.” At first, Shirley and I did little beyond heavy petting when she came to visit, but everything escalated when we had an opportunity to be in the pad alone for the first time.
Duncan decided to spend the summer in Alaska fishing in order to save up a ton of money, enough to last several years on his lifestyle. I don’t recall if Quentin decided to join him or to go home for the summer. At any rate, I had the opportunity to have the pad all to myself for the summer if I declined Duncan’s offer to join him fishing, and this is exactly what I did.
Shirley figured a way to spend Friday and Saturday nights with me at the pad. She lied that she was visiting a relative who had a farm near Haywood, something she actually did now and again. Instead she came straight to Berkeley to be with me.
What is more memorable than first love and first sex? My memory of Shirley is romantic, almost ethereal, as if the idea of what we were doing is more attractive than its execution. I was young and knew nothing about how to please a woman – I’m not sure the idea even occurred to me. Sex at this age was an explosion, an eruption of desire and a rush to self-satisfaction, an act driven more by biology than psychology. Whether or not Shirley had an orgasm never even occurred to me. I was blindly led by my own hormones, by the mysterious power of Mr. One Eye.
Still, I have sweet memories of Shirley, however bungling my gropings and thrusts as an inexperienced lover. My fondest memory is when she bought a shorty see-through nightgown to wear around the pad. It was baby blue, and she left it there. Through the week I would stare at it and look forward to her arrival to put it on.
I thought I was in heaven. I was trying to write and also studying philosophy, making notes from my studies in my journal.
I started phoning her at home at night during the week, wanting to hear her voice. Unfortunately this proved to be our downfall because now and again a parent would answer the phone. Eventually they would learn that their high school daughter was dating a man old enough to be in college. But while they lasted, our weekends in the pad provided a special period of youthful bliss.
The end came with astonishing speed over a period of a few weeks. Shirley was Catholic. One night when she was staying over, I awoke to find her hitting me in the middle of a frenzied nightmare. After I got her awake and settled down, she told me that she’d dreamt she was sleeping with the devil, that I was Satan incarnate.
About the same time, her parents caught her in the lie that brought her to me each weekend. The next time I phoned, her father threatened to call the police if I tried to see his daughter again. He would charge me with statutory rape.
Shirley managed to sneak away for a final daytime visit in the middle of the week. She was skipping classes and arrived at the pad with a girlfriend. She had some of my albums she’d borrowed to return. She picked up her shorty nightgown and some other personal belongings she’d left over.
I didn’t want the relationship to end. I didn’t want her girlfriend to be there, a chaperone and censor keeping me from saying and doing what was in my heart and loins.
After she left, I felt miserable for days. For weeks. But I wasn’t suicidal. I had no instincts to kill myself. What I felt like doing was joining the Foreign Legion. That’s what a scorned lover did in a movie I’d seen once.
But there wasn’t a foreign legion in America. There was only the military. My dad had joined the Navy to escape his fate in a mill town. Maybe I could join to escape the fate I saw whenever I looked in the mirror and found endless misery staring back at me.
And so I joined the Army on August 3, 1959, as a heart-broken young lover. Since I had some college, my recruiter put me in the Army Security Agency, to fill a quota he had. Since I was in the Agency, I took a battery of special tests in boot camp, one of which was a language aptitude test. I did well and was sent to the Army Language School in Monterey to study Russian. I became a Russian linguist at the height of the Cold War. Another adventure had begun, and Shirley was forgotten.
Except I ran into her later! I ran into her in the PX in Germany! She was an Army wife! She had a kid (mine? I always wondered), had put on weight, had her hair in curlers and looked like hell, a far cry from the lithe goddess wandering around the pad in a blue see-through nighty. Another lesson in Innocence and Experience. And so it goes.
1 comment:
**I ran into her in the PX in Germany! She was an Army wife!**
Wow. Life is strange.
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