Points South
In Sacramento I purchased a Greyhound Bus ticket with ten dollars Tesia had given me. She was continuing on to Los Angeles but I'd compulsively decided I needed to track down a friend attending college in Hayward. I knew little about this friend anymore except he was majoring in Chemistry and living in some kind of fraternity on B Street. I had no doubt Tesia was another of my angels meant to nudge me along the way, but my sudden desire to visit JC had grown obsessive, certainly overwhelming. I wasn't exactly sure how Tesia's stories had charmed me into making this detour or what I expected to find once I got there, but they were an instigator, surely, a provocateur, if not the reason why.
I discovered I had enough money only to get as far as the bus depot in Oakland and from there I supposed I could walk or hitchhike the rest of the way into Hayward. As the bus traveled southwest on Highway 80, a spectacular sunset painted the valley in deepening shades of red. It was nine o'clock at night and all the windows on the bus were still open because the air was warm and sweet and smelled of grapes and corn, olives, pears. The people either dozed or talked amongst themselves in hushed tones. For a brief moment I lost all track of myself, of who I was and where I was going, the florilegium of words and verses and pictoglyphs sprouting inside my head, the dull ache in my chest, until I was the valley, the Sacramento or San Joaquin or whatever its name, ashimmer with heat dancers and hawks shadowing high in the crimson sky, the tips of their black wings tickling the fat cider-filled belly of the moon. What was the meaning of this stark image, round as a doubloon and golden and auspicious in my mind's eye? I wondered. Could I expect answers in this lifetime, and if not, was I being honest enough to be worthy of answers in the next? Had I suffered enough for the sake of truth and honesty to earn the right to a reply, even if it meant doubt? Fear? Shame? Emptiness? Was such a thing even possible?
In the bus terminal I studied the faded map of Oakland near the ticket counter then exited onto San Pablo Avenue. I hiked several blocks before turning southeast on East 14th which I calculated would lead me toward San Leandro and Hayward miles away. After walking a couple more blocks it had become obvious I was in the wrong part of town. The streets were alive with cars, the sidewalks, people were swarming out of bars, there were screams and shouts and the sound of sirens and shattering glass, and I was the only white face among the hundreds I could see. Up ahead, a half a block away, a large black man was cursing and hitting the sidewalk with a baseball bat. Up and down the bat would swing, rising and falling in tempo with each bitter profanity, the man's eyes locked hard on my approach, dogged and unflinching. I was worried and not sure how to proceed. If I crossed the street to circumvent the batman I'd be showing my fear and potentially inviting a chase. If I ignored the batman and walked past him without acknowledgement what's to stop a clubbing from behind. I saw no way around it; my best choice was to walk up to the man and start talking.
The batman watched me approach and grinned crazily, the bat swinging harder and faster with each convergent step, smashing the pavement, screaming, ready to split in two or splinter into kindling.
"Excuse me," I said about ten feet away. I could hear the quaver in his voice and mustered everything I had to keep from bolting. A sudden rush of panic constricted my throat, blood roared in my ears. I was practically deaf. I had no arms, no legs. Mysterious forces were reaching down from above and holding me upright like a marionette.
"Huh?" the batman grunted, his bat suddenly frozen mid-swing. "What's that you say?"
"I'm trying to get to Hayward," I said now five feet away.
"Haywood? You trying to get to Haywood?"
"Yes, Hayward. I'm not sure how far away it is, if you think I could walk."
"Haywood? You one crazy mofo you think you walking to Haywood. Shit."
"So it's far?"
"Shit, man. Far? Haywood's ten fifteen mile easy, that's how far. You one crazy mofo you think you walking ten fifteen mile. Shit."
"Okay, thanks," I said and started walking.
On the next block an AC Transit bus pulled up beside me, its hydraulic brakes hissing and squealing, its doors flying open. The driver leant sideways and called down from his seat, "Son, get on this bus now!"
"I don't have any money," I said.
"I don't care about money! What the hell are you doing out there anyway? Are you nuts?"
"I'm trying to get to Hayward."
"Hayward! All you're going to get is yourself killed! I'll take you to Hayward, it's the end of my run, but, son, you gotta get on this bus right now and do exactly as I say or you're history. Jesus! Start moving!"
I quickly climbed the four steps into the bus.
"Now, son, you sit right behind me there. Right behind me. And just look at your shoes. Don't look around. Don't make eye contact. Don't lift your head. Just look at your shoes. You understand? Anybody says anything to you, don't look up, don't reply, don't open your mouth, just keep looking at your shoes. You gonna be deaf and dumb, got it? Deaf and dumb. Once we get you out of Oakland I'll take you wherever you're going, right to the front door, just like a taxi cab, but right now all you gotta do is look at your shoes. Understand?"
"Yes," I said, and looked down at my shoes.
"Good," the driver said and threw the bus into gear.
It was one o'clock in the morning. The man at the front door was barely awake. "JC's not here," he said yawning. "He's at Saint Anthony's. He won't be back until sometime Sunday." It was Friday morning.
"Saint Anthony's?" I asked.
"In Santa Barbara. The seminary. What time is it anyway?"
"Around one. So JC's in Santa Barbara?"
"He's helping the seniors with their hike up La Cumbre. Did you say one?"
I nodded, although I couldn't understand anything the man was saying. I was dead on his feet, empty headed. "I've come all the way from Seattle," I sighed.
"JC never said anything," the man frowned. "Did he even know you were coming?"
I shook my head. "It was kind of spur of the moment."
"I'll tell you what. You can crash here on the couch until he gets back. It's a school day tomorrow so there'll be some commotion early, but the gang's not too loud. The walking wounded. I'm Chris, by the way."
"I'm Craig," I said shaking Chris's hand.
In the morning I awoke to find Saint Francis peering down at him from a dais in the corner of the living room. With tonsured head, friar's robe, rope belt, and tiny bird on the shoulder, the statue was similar to those decorating Catholic gardens and flowerbeds up and down the coast. Hanging above the saint was an ornate wooden crucifix painted orange and red, the same crucifix I'd seen in the film Brother Sun, Sister Moon. From elsewhere in the house he heard the faint strains of organ music and Gregorian chant. What kind of fraternity was this?
I sat up on the couch and wiggled out of my sleeping bag. I smelled toast and bacon, eggs, fresh coffee, and realized I was famished. I hadn't eaten a proper meal for over a week and certainly not any breakfasts.
"You're awake," Chris grinned from the archway leading from the living room. He was holding a large ceramic mug with the words Pax et Bonum engilded on the side and wearing an old t-shirt, shorts, ratty terrycloth bathrobe. In the daylight I saw Chris was older than I assumed last night, in his forties, with shaggy blonde hair and bushy sideburns. His face was friendly and well-tanned, his blue eyes mischievous. He looked a lot like Steve McQueen. "I'm putting together breakfast," he said. "We're the first ones up."
"What can I do to help?" I asked, getting to my feet.
"Well, you can shower for one thing. And give me your clothes. Looks like they could use some strong detergent. I laid out a shirt and sweats for you in the bathroom along with a towel and washcloth. Bathroom's through there and to the left. You need a toothbrush? A razor? Anything else?"
"Thanks, I don't think so."
In the shower I started to cry. I didn't know why. The hot water drumming my back, the smell of soap and shampoo, coffee, all of it opened up something in me and uncorked a deluge. My knees wobbled, my legs felt like rubber, so I grabbed the handhold above the soapdish on the wall to keep his balance. I looked down at myself. I'd already lost a lot of weight. My stomach was sunken and I could see the roll of my ribcage. I thought of those pictures of Biafra babies I saw in Life magazine. Flies in their eyes. Some of their limbs hacked off by Nigerian butchers. God, why? The world no longer made sense to me. The Kennedys. Martin Luther King. Vietnam. And now Nixon. What was going on?
I dried off then slipped into the fresh clothes Chris had laid out for me. A gray t-shirt that said PROPERTY OF ALCATRAZ. Blue sweatpants bearing a CSUH logo. A pair of socks. The sweats were a size too big so I cinched the drawstring. I took a swallow of coffee and looked in the mirror. I'd seen more fuzz on a peach. I pushed my fingers through my hair and let it air dry. It had already bleached the color of flax. I was clean and hungry.
At the large dining room table seven young men were eating in silence, busy wolfing down their breakfasts. Chris and another man were sipping coffee at the far end of the table, talking among themselves, going over some papers. They all looked up when I entered.
"Morning all," I said.
Chris stood up and smiled. "This is Craig, everybody. He's here from Seattle to visit JC but because JC's in Santa Barbara he'll be staying with us a few days. I was thinking he could bunk with you, Dan, since you've got that spare bed in your room."
"No problem," Dan said around a mouthful of toast. "Nice to meet you Craig."
And everyone agreed.
"I don't believe it!" JC was saying. "Craig Duckett! And here I just sent you that postcard."
"That was Christmas," I grinned. "Six months ago. But it's kinda goofy, huh? Me showing up like this?"
"I'll say. So what's going on? I mean what're you doing in Hayward? How'd you find me? I always knew you were part bloodhound."
"Your postcard. I'm heading south, Mexico maybe, but I thought I'd drop in and see my buddy JC since it's on the way."
"More or less. But what's happened with school? I thought you were heading into Biology or Oceanography or something?"
After I told JC about M and the others, my looking over my shoulder, jumping every time a car backfired, my newfound faith and its subsequent crisis, JC grew solemn and thoughtful. Finally he said, "Jesus, Craig. I'm sympathetic. I really am. But I hardly think running off to Ixtapa or Zihuatanejo or Oaxaca to eat mushrooms and smoke fungus or whatever the hell you're planning on doing is relevant to what you're really going through."
"And what might that be?" I asked.
"Oh, come on, man. You don't have to be Sigmund Freud to see what's happened has just stirred up all that stuff with your mother. She screwed you up, man. She screwed you good. Every time you experience a little stress in your life you equate it with some crisis of faith and make it all about religion. The Hiddenness of God. The Problem of Evil."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh, don't I? Just look around. Where do you think you are? Does this look like your typical frat house? It's a Franciscan house, man. I'm a novitiate. I'm considering becoming a monk."
"You're kidding?"
"I'm dead serious."
"Who's kidding who? You're too girl crazy to become a monk. I'll be toasting your wedding long before you're toasting mine." [And, incidently, this was the case.]
"Think what you like, but I've entered into this with open eyes. I've put a lot of thought into it. Unlike you, I just didn't wake up one morning and decide to alter the course of my whole life. It's been a ongoing thing. I've shown diligence. When we moved away in the ninth grade it's so I could attend the seminary in Santa Barbara. Saint Anthony's. I've been working towards this a long time."
"And here I thought I was the one who was crazy."
"Careful, pal. You know what they say about politics and religion."
"They're the same thing, JC. They're one and the same."
I stayed with the Franciscans another month before leaving finally for Mexico. The monks—Chris, whom I'd met on the morning of his arrival, and Mel at the dining room table, and all the novitiates were genuinely heartbroken to see me go. Even JC, whom by this time I'd nearly convinced to abandon the monk foolishness, was particularly distracted by my departure. Because I possessed a strong work ethic and did not want to 'mooch' or be thought a freeloader, I'd busied himself with household chores, yard work, and other picayune tasks. I vacuumed and dusted, scrubbed the bathrooms, washed windows inside and out, did laundry, mowed the lawn, pulled weeds, went grocery shopping, prepared meals, cleaned the kitchen, even worked on their cars. I was houseboy, gardener, seamstress, cook, and mechanic rolled into one.
On the morning I left, all the house members were gathered out on the sidewalk to see me off. "Don't be a stranger!" they called after me. "Come back and see us anytime!"
Instead of returning to the Interstate, I thought he'd have better luck hitching along the PCH. I caught a bus across the long San Mateo Bridge and headed southward from there. The air was sweet and smelled of jasmine and eucalyptus. At first I only had to wait a few minutes between rides—even less through Santa Cruz—but after finding myself abandoned out near Salinas, the offers—unlike the green valley itself—had all but dried up.
Called the 'pastures of heaven' by John Steinbeck, the valley was really a giant salad bowl with heads of lettuce and tomatoes and radishes as far as I could see. The perpetual drone of sprinklers and insects emanated from all directions and I found himself tranquilized by the white noise and radiant heat of the sun. Occasionally a truck loaded with produce would rumble by, churning up dust and grit in a crestless wave of thunder, completely ignoring my outstretched thumb. It was getting hot. I sipped water from a canteen and ate cherry tomatoes off the vine. After removing the DeLorme Gazetteer from my backpack—a parting gift from the Franciscans—I checked the sun and shadows to reckon my whereabouts. I was somewhere out on Foster Road which didn't appear on any of the maps, but I decided by following it around I'd eventually run into Highway 68 which could lead me back to the coast.
It was already dark by the time I made it to Monterey and starting to drizzle. I was dirty and dog-tired and had no place to sleep. The town seemed deserted, abandoned in the lonesome call of the ocean, all the windows draped and dark. Nothing moved, not even a stray dog or cat. I felt as if I'd stumbled into an episode of the Twilight Zone. I walked around for another twenty minutes, dead on my feet, before finding a squat pine tree beside a ball field whose thick underslung branches created a natural canopy. I crawled up underneath and unfurled my sleeping bag just as it started to rain. The smell reminded me of Christmas. It was the best night's sleep I'd ever had. In the morning I awoke to the sound of children laughing and roughhousing on their way to school. I could hear everything, everything. I was lying less than six feet from where they were walking but they had no idea I was there, concealed and motionless beneath the tree's low branches. When I was sure they'd gone, I crept from under cover and started walking through town. I discovered I'd spent the night alongside some kind of man-made lagoon. Ducks and seabirds scampered in the green water while a platoon of groundskeepers tended the lawns. I turned down Camino Aguajito street and walked towards the sea. It was a gray morning, overcast, with a slight chill in the air. I climbed an outcropping of rocks white with guano and looked at the bay. The sand had been beaten smooth by the waves and rain except for the wandering footprints of an early beachcomber. Overhead a shapeless knot of clouds turned and rolled, mottling the water below with mixed light and shadows. A file of pelicans skimmed its patchy surface in strict formation before twisting suddenly landward to dart through trees, telephone poles, streetlamps for a rousing game of tag. Standing on the encrusted rocks, my hands folded behind my back, I peered out over the ocean, the seawind whipping my hair and causing my eyes to sting, and tried imagining being anywhere else, in Seattle still, getting ready for class, or Chicago, Boston, New York. I found I could imagine nothing. Far away, out at sea, a small black dot pursued the horizon several minutes before vanishing completely. Soon there was only the sound of the waves, the taste of salt, the smell of smoke and seaweed. I closed my eyes, then opened them again. Something was happening to me and I didn't care what. I was alive, right here, right now, standing at the very edge of the world.
Climbing down off the rocks, I strolled over to the public restroom to wash up, brush my teeth, shake the grime from my clothes. I stood shivering in just my shorts, kneading the soap into a fierce lather, scrubbing at the gritty sediment distributed evenly across my body. I rubbed and scoured until my skin shone pink. After dressing I stuffed handfuls of toilet paper into my backpack then hiked back out to Highway 1 to continue working south.
It took me five days, but I finally made it to San Diego. I thought getting through Los Angeles would be tough but I lucked out and caught a ride outside Thousand Oaks that took me all the way to Laguna Beach.
Getting past San Clemente turned out to be the hardest leg of my journey, the curse of Nixon or something, devil-dealing Republicans, and I couldn't catch a break to save my hide. The doldrums hit, inertia, hebetudes beleaguered all.
I ended up camping three days lost among the chaparral and bougainvillea on the cliffs overlooking the beach, the botanical yellow sun. I ate lemon berries and sinewy wild cucumbers. Every so often the Santa Fe train would roar below me, extravasating a black spiral of soot and smoke, its boxcars stretching a half-mile behind. At sundown I'd hike up Avenida Calafia and prowl the neighborhoods, nothing illegal, no trespassing, just roaming and killing time, simply out of curiousity. In front of one of the hacienda-style houses someone left a box out on the curb and I found a tattered copy of Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion. I took it back to camp and started reading it the next morning. I did nothing that whole day except sit and read and sip from my canteen and by evening, after I'd finished the book, had decided it was the greatest novel I'd ever read. I couldn't have known it at the time, but thirty years and a thousand books later my initial reaction to the novel has remain unchanged.
On the fourth day a hippy couple in an old Studebaker truck picked me up and let me ride in back with their three dogs as far as Del Mar. The dogs were different sizes and breeds and well-groomed and friendly and all wore identical red bandanas around their necks. Before driving away the woman gave me a cello bag of oranges, a pink bottle of calamine lotion in case I should wander into poison oak, and told me to stay mellow. She was very pretty in a granola sort of way and I wondered if the man knew how pretty she was. That night I dozed under the stars at Torrey Pines, my chin gummy with orange juice, and dreamt about the hippy woman, her kind green eyes, her happy smile. I woke twice, immersed inside the sound of cicadas or crickets, but the rhythmic chirping quickly soothed me back to sleep. The following day I crossed into Mexico without any fanfare, pomp, or circumstance, then decided it was time to turn around and start back home.
