Existential West
1972: I'm standing somewhere in the middle of the New Jersey Turnpike, it's starting to get dark. I have a small back pack with a few clothes in it slung over my shoulder, along with a sheet of plastic and a sleeping bag rolled around a Louisville Slugger baseball bat. I have just been dropped off there by two guys in a beaten up Oldsmobile that had picked me up on the John F Kennedy freeway heading out of New York City. I noticed that they had a handgun in the glove compartment when the one that wasn't driving opened it to take out a small bag of green and white capsules that I recognised as 'Christmas Tree' amphetamine caps. He gave me a couple, I swallowed them to help stay awake, and they dropped me off in what was not the best place to get another ride. I only have a couple of cigarettes left and I'm saving them for later. I have tied my hair back so that I look a little more 'respectable', better for getting picked up. I'd been here for about an hour when a guy in another beaten-up looking automobile pulls up. He is leaning over to the passenger side and winding down the window.
"Where you wanna go kid?" he is asking without taking the cigarette out of his mouth.
"West" I answer.
"You're in luck kid. Get in. Put your stuff on the back seat."
2006: This wasn't another one of my dreams floating around in my dream soup head. This was a memory returning as the wind in Oxford, England, blew my not-so-long hair into my eyes as I turned the corner to my office. It was me then, in 1972. A younger me, twenty years old. Twenty years old and heading West. Heading for San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. All my life I had wanted to see that bridge.
I'm sitting in the front of the car now. I place my bedroll with the Louisville Slugger carefully on the back seat so that it is 'accessible' should the situation become 'difficult'. The Christmas trees are kicking in, a lot stronger than I'm expecting. I offer him a cigarette and light one for myself. Only two left now. My hands are shaking from the speed rush. The dash lights and cats-eyes glow brighter the darker it gets. There is nothing to be seen out of the windows now other than the freeway in front and a few signs that are getting picked out in the car's main beam.
"D'ya like baseball?" he is asking.
"I don't really know much about it. I'm English. We don't really get to see any there," comes my speed-driven reply.
I had never really travelled before. This trip to the States was the first time I had ever been out of the UK. I took a ferry to the Isle of White to see Jimi Hendrix once, but that didn't really count, it was at the time however, about the furthest I had ever been outside of East London. The states trip was also my first ever experience of flying. Something that I would have a love hate relationship with from then on, erring more to the hate. I landed at JFK a few days before the start of my big trip west and stayed in a cheap hotel for a few nights while I got my bearings and had a look at New York City. Having spent all my life in London at that time, cities I knew a bit about. It was leaving the city and heading out into that vast continental expanse that the USA is, that unnerved me. Space I wasn't used to. New York was eating my money up pretty fast, so after a few days of eating pizza slices and walking the streets of Manhattan, I got the courage up to start my journey. I packed my bag and bed roll, took my last hotel shower, got into my clean pair of personally distresses 501's, a white cotton T shirt and a thin blue velvet jacket with small white polka dots. I had been given the jacket by my sort-of then girlfriend in London. It was her jacket, a girl's jacket, but in 1972 this didn't matter, not to me anyway.
"No baseball, huh! Too bad about that. When I was a kid it was....." he is stopping in mid sentence and telling me that there seems to be a problem with car he is going to have to pull off the freeway and take a look at it.
I'm not sure if he has seen me looking into the back seat for the handle of my Louisville Slugger but we are pulling over and driving down an exit slip road into the darkness. I'm lighting up a cigarette, my hands are shaking, as he is getting out of the car. The headlights are still on and he is round the front but I can't see him as he has lifted up the hood. I'm looking around but there is nothing but black. My mouth is dry, my heart is beating fast, I'm regretting haven taken the Christmas Tree caps. My hand is now on the baseball bat, just for reassurance. The hood slams down and he is standing there in the main beams, rubbing his hands together as if washing them. He has a grin, distorted by the headlights, on his face. This is making him look like an American psycho, the ones we get to hear about all the time back in the UK.
Jimi Hendrix was good at the Isle of White Festival. I didn't have enough money for a ticket so I stayed for a week on what was dubbed by the press as 'Devastation Hill'. Jimi came on late on Sunday night, at least I think it was Sunday. I can't be too sure about that. Whenever it was, he was amazing. That must have been a year or two before the States trip. I think the trip to that concert gave me the initial desire to travel, or maybe we all get that desire when we are in the rush of youth. The summer after that I hitched down to Cornwall with my mate Mick Summerfield. We were close friends and sort of long-haired look-a-likes at that time. That was the trip that showed me that you can travel without much money and you can hitch hike without getting killed. Actually I don't think I had even considered the possibility that it could be dangerous. That thought first occurred to me when I caught a glimpse of the gun in the glove compartment, just before I was dropped off in the middle of the New Jersey Turnpike. I was feeling the speed very strongly when the hood slammed down and my latest ride was back opening the driver's door.
"Just like ah thought. Loose lead. I'll get around to buying a new distributor cap one of these days. That's if it don't break down completely before then." he says.
His smile has broken out into a laugh now and without the headlights it looks warm and genuine. Not a trace of psycho left. I'm still shaking but I am relaxing again. My heartbeat is slowing down, well as much as the speed will allow it to. I am smiling with him as we pull away and head back up to the freeway. I hand him another cigarette and light one for myself and screw the empty packet up.
"Do you ever hear of the New York Yankees over there in England?" He asks me as we pull onto the freeway.
The lights from the dash and the glow of the cigarettes feel comfortable. I have even stopped shaking and for the first time since I left New York City I am starting to relax and the speed rush has calmed down. I'm talking much more freely and loosely now.
"Yeah, I've heard of them. We don't get much baseball on TV but most people would have heard of the Yankees, Babe Ruth and all that." I'm much happier now but he doesn't seem to have noticed, well he is not letting on if he has. Why not just roll with it. He is turning turns towards me with a smile on his face.
"Well, I used to play for the Yankees. A long time ago now, twelve years, but I played for them alright, 1955 'till 1960." He puts his cigarette back in his mouth and waits for my reaction.
"Wow!" I am a genuinely impressed. I'm not much of a sporting person but like I told him, even I know the Yankees.
Nearly 35 years later and I am still impressed: Imagine playing for the New York Yankees when the game was a game of legends. What happened after that? Well, from what I remember I fell asleep once the caps had worn off and we drove through the night. It was just starting to get light when he dropped me off outside a shiny steel and neon lit diner at the side of the Interstate 80, the second longest highway in the United States, connecting Downtown San Francisco to the suburbs of New York. We must have been somewhere inside Pennsylvania; I still remember the breakfast: hash browns, crispy strips of bacon, two eggs over easy, and a thick bottomless mug of dark brown coffee. The Yankees player? I never saw him again. And after breakfast, I started hitching once more.
Some weeks later, I was sitting in the back of a red Chevy Pick-Up truck with two Jesus Freaks, squinting in the early morning sun and smelling the sea air as we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco. My summer of youth had begun.
"Where you wanna go kid?" he is asking without taking the cigarette out of his mouth.
"West" I answer.
"You're in luck kid. Get in. Put your stuff on the back seat."
2006: This wasn't another one of my dreams floating around in my dream soup head. This was a memory returning as the wind in Oxford, England, blew my not-so-long hair into my eyes as I turned the corner to my office. It was me then, in 1972. A younger me, twenty years old. Twenty years old and heading West. Heading for San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. All my life I had wanted to see that bridge.
I'm sitting in the front of the car now. I place my bedroll with the Louisville Slugger carefully on the back seat so that it is 'accessible' should the situation become 'difficult'. The Christmas trees are kicking in, a lot stronger than I'm expecting. I offer him a cigarette and light one for myself. Only two left now. My hands are shaking from the speed rush. The dash lights and cats-eyes glow brighter the darker it gets. There is nothing to be seen out of the windows now other than the freeway in front and a few signs that are getting picked out in the car's main beam.
"D'ya like baseball?" he is asking.
"I don't really know much about it. I'm English. We don't really get to see any there," comes my speed-driven reply.
I had never really travelled before. This trip to the States was the first time I had ever been out of the UK. I took a ferry to the Isle of White to see Jimi Hendrix once, but that didn't really count, it was at the time however, about the furthest I had ever been outside of East London. The states trip was also my first ever experience of flying. Something that I would have a love hate relationship with from then on, erring more to the hate. I landed at JFK a few days before the start of my big trip west and stayed in a cheap hotel for a few nights while I got my bearings and had a look at New York City. Having spent all my life in London at that time, cities I knew a bit about. It was leaving the city and heading out into that vast continental expanse that the USA is, that unnerved me. Space I wasn't used to. New York was eating my money up pretty fast, so after a few days of eating pizza slices and walking the streets of Manhattan, I got the courage up to start my journey. I packed my bag and bed roll, took my last hotel shower, got into my clean pair of personally distresses 501's, a white cotton T shirt and a thin blue velvet jacket with small white polka dots. I had been given the jacket by my sort-of then girlfriend in London. It was her jacket, a girl's jacket, but in 1972 this didn't matter, not to me anyway.
"No baseball, huh! Too bad about that. When I was a kid it was....." he is stopping in mid sentence and telling me that there seems to be a problem with car he is going to have to pull off the freeway and take a look at it.
I'm not sure if he has seen me looking into the back seat for the handle of my Louisville Slugger but we are pulling over and driving down an exit slip road into the darkness. I'm lighting up a cigarette, my hands are shaking, as he is getting out of the car. The headlights are still on and he is round the front but I can't see him as he has lifted up the hood. I'm looking around but there is nothing but black. My mouth is dry, my heart is beating fast, I'm regretting haven taken the Christmas Tree caps. My hand is now on the baseball bat, just for reassurance. The hood slams down and he is standing there in the main beams, rubbing his hands together as if washing them. He has a grin, distorted by the headlights, on his face. This is making him look like an American psycho, the ones we get to hear about all the time back in the UK.
Jimi Hendrix was good at the Isle of White Festival. I didn't have enough money for a ticket so I stayed for a week on what was dubbed by the press as 'Devastation Hill'. Jimi came on late on Sunday night, at least I think it was Sunday. I can't be too sure about that. Whenever it was, he was amazing. That must have been a year or two before the States trip. I think the trip to that concert gave me the initial desire to travel, or maybe we all get that desire when we are in the rush of youth. The summer after that I hitched down to Cornwall with my mate Mick Summerfield. We were close friends and sort of long-haired look-a-likes at that time. That was the trip that showed me that you can travel without much money and you can hitch hike without getting killed. Actually I don't think I had even considered the possibility that it could be dangerous. That thought first occurred to me when I caught a glimpse of the gun in the glove compartment, just before I was dropped off in the middle of the New Jersey Turnpike. I was feeling the speed very strongly when the hood slammed down and my latest ride was back opening the driver's door.
"Just like ah thought. Loose lead. I'll get around to buying a new distributor cap one of these days. That's if it don't break down completely before then." he says.
His smile has broken out into a laugh now and without the headlights it looks warm and genuine. Not a trace of psycho left. I'm still shaking but I am relaxing again. My heartbeat is slowing down, well as much as the speed will allow it to. I am smiling with him as we pull away and head back up to the freeway. I hand him another cigarette and light one for myself and screw the empty packet up.
"Do you ever hear of the New York Yankees over there in England?" He asks me as we pull onto the freeway.
The lights from the dash and the glow of the cigarettes feel comfortable. I have even stopped shaking and for the first time since I left New York City I am starting to relax and the speed rush has calmed down. I'm talking much more freely and loosely now.
"Yeah, I've heard of them. We don't get much baseball on TV but most people would have heard of the Yankees, Babe Ruth and all that." I'm much happier now but he doesn't seem to have noticed, well he is not letting on if he has. Why not just roll with it. He is turning turns towards me with a smile on his face.
"Well, I used to play for the Yankees. A long time ago now, twelve years, but I played for them alright, 1955 'till 1960." He puts his cigarette back in his mouth and waits for my reaction.
"Wow!" I am a genuinely impressed. I'm not much of a sporting person but like I told him, even I know the Yankees.
Nearly 35 years later and I am still impressed: Imagine playing for the New York Yankees when the game was a game of legends. What happened after that? Well, from what I remember I fell asleep once the caps had worn off and we drove through the night. It was just starting to get light when he dropped me off outside a shiny steel and neon lit diner at the side of the Interstate 80, the second longest highway in the United States, connecting Downtown San Francisco to the suburbs of New York. We must have been somewhere inside Pennsylvania; I still remember the breakfast: hash browns, crispy strips of bacon, two eggs over easy, and a thick bottomless mug of dark brown coffee. The Yankees player? I never saw him again. And after breakfast, I started hitching once more.
Some weeks later, I was sitting in the back of a red Chevy Pick-Up truck with two Jesus Freaks, squinting in the early morning sun and smelling the sea air as we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco. My summer of youth had begun.
posted by Outcast Poet | 4:25 pm
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