TO PROVIDENCE AND BACK––meeting a few more special people on my 1968 hitchhiking quest, while heading home to Berkeley (my 8-day round trip).

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39706081-twelve-dead-frogs-and-other-stories-a-filmmaker-s-memoir

Hitchhiking stories excerpted from my memoir, TWELVE DEAD FROGS AND OTHER STORIES, A Filmmaker's Memoir.

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ROAST BEEF

When I did finally reach Providence, RI, my hitchhiking destination, I went up to the first art-student-looking guy I saw near the campus of Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and asked if I could crash at his pad. The guy reacted pretty well after the first double-take (how crazy did I look after three and a half sleepless days and nights?), and led me to his basement apartment, pointing out a mattress in the corner. I dropped my stuff on the floor, collapsed on the pad and was asleep in minutes.

When I awoke from my nap (maybe four-hours sleep) I looked around the basement and found myself surrounded by the familiar trappings of art studies – stretched canvas, funky sculptures, cardboard, clothes piled on furniture. In a RISD yearbook I flipped through the pages of the entering freshmen artworks and was impressed at their proficiency. The images looked better than some graduate school art I’d seen at CCAC! Soon my host returned and I thanked him, gathered up my things and departed.

By dinnertime I had hooked up with Dickie at the address he had supplied. He didn’t seem all that surprised to see me, so I didn’t bother to fill him in with any further details concerning my personal problems. He and his brother and some of their friends were heading to a restaurant, so I tagged along. Caught in the swirl of socializing I somehow allowed myself to order a roast beef sandwich. When the plate arrived, I did my best to chew the tough meat, moistening it with the salty brown gravy. But just about the only edible thing that I had ordered was the roll. The biggest letdown was when the bill arrived and I looked at the amount I owed. It said $4.35, including tax. Four dollars and thirty-five cents. I know I must have read that cost in the menu before I ordered it, but nothing prepared me for seeing the actual number printed on a receipt. That’s when it dawned on me that I had made a grievous error in judgment.

Since I’d left California with only $20, I had watched my money very carefully on the hitchhike trip, right up until that point. I thought I had designated each dollar as a ’day of freedom,’ during which I didn’t have to think about survival, food, or shelter ($20 equaled 20 days). And yet there in the restaurant I had forgotten, using up four and a third precious days in less than an hour, and for an indigestible steak (almost a fourth of my freedom for nothing!). Thinking about it now, I figure that I just wanted to belong, be considered one of the group, do the logical thing under the circumstances (order a dinner like a normal person...). I didn’t, as yet, understand how much my life had changed in just four short days

As I sat there silently staring at the bill, my guts were turning partly from the food, mostly from my economic blunder. While I tried to conceal my self- loathing from the others, I realized that I’d better straighten out my priorities, and quickly.

BURNING

In a few days it became obvious that it was time to head back. I felt that I wanted to be with my wife and kids right then, that second, but knew that my growing desperation for love and security was something I would have to put off for at least four additional hard-traveling days (the time I figured it could take to hitchhike back). There was no way to shorten the trip. I checked the bulletin boards for rides west and found one listing that was looking for a single passenger to join a carload of RISD students heading for Oregon. I went to the address on the notice and rang the bell of an older, two-story, narrow residence. When a buzzer sounded back, unlocking the front door, I opened and climbed the creaky wooden stairs. A beautiful young woman stood at the top landing and I followed her into her small bedroom, regarding her sweet face from across the blue homemade comforter. I explained how I was trying to get back to Berkeley and she said the ride would leave for the coast in four or five days. I explained that I needed to return sooner than that.

RED CONVERTIBLE

I hitched a ride out of Providence, and started working my way west. At some point, I was picked up by a sporty-looking guy in a flaming-red Chevy convertible. Wearing a brightly-flowered Hawaiian shirt, he seemed very cheerful and eager to chat. It didn’t take long for his questions to draw me out, to my explaining the ’why’ of my journey. He got quite serious as he listened, telling me a little later that he was a Navy chaplain. At the point when we parted, he crammed a bill into my hand during our farewell handshake. I explained that that wasn’t necessary, that I had money, but he got just as adamant, insisting that I keep the extra cash. He won, and drove away with a wave and a smile.

When I un-crinkled the currency I was shocked to discover that he had given me a ten-spot, which, added to the savings I had left, brought me back up to $17 out of my original $20. It felt wonderful to get that kind of positive validation from a total stranger. The thought of that unexpected gift warmed my heart, made me feel like I wasn’t completely alone.

DEAD MEAT

After another 24 hours of hitching, catching naps in cars and waiting for rides, I ended up at a truck stop near St. Louis around 1:00 AM in the morning. Because of the extreme cold I could only stand out at the road and hitchhike for about a half-hour at a stretch, returning to the warmth and comfort of the glassed-in gas station office whenever it got unbearable. Fortunately, the attendants weren’t put off by my repeated comings and goings. There was also a restaurant in the truck stop across the street, where I managed to part with $.75 for a plate of two eggs, hashbrowns, toast and coffee.

It was a strange experience returning to the cold outside, standing in the total darkness, waiting for a chance to stick out my thumb for some as yet unseen vehicle. Finally, a far-off headlight beam would appear as a speck of light in the distance, then slowly approach, the light beam widening, finally tires screeching by me at seventy or eighty miles per hour within just a few feet of where I was standing. I would play a mental game of ’chicken,’ imagining that there was no highway (this wasn’t so hard since I couldn’t even see the ground until the headlights illuminated it), no distinct markings, hardly a yellow line. When the cars or trucks passed at deadly speed it was just a fluke that they missed striking me down. How long could my luck hold out?

It must have been around 2:00 AM when a Buick Riviera sped passed me and then slammed on the brakes. As the car backed up I wondered what whacko would pick up a stranger in the dark at this time of night. But as the big wide door of the large coupe swung open, revealing the friendly face of a college kid, Jefferson Airplane music at high volume, warmth blowing from the heater, I thanked him and settled into the plush seats. Another lesson in life. One second you’re freezing your butt off in the dark, the next you’re speeding toward your goal.

A few hours later, I was dropped off in the dark again, where the college guy had to turned north toward campus. I thought I was alone out there, at the single-lane crossroads somewhere in rural Kansas, but soon found that wasn’t the case. The Buick was barely out of sight before I was suddenly jolted out of my hitchhiking stupor with an unexpected beam of light coming from somewhere nearby. I had to shield my eyes against the illumination to make out the source – a highway patrol cruiser – and see a hand signaling me to come over. Oh my god, I thought, my gut tightening, now what?

It was probably 3:30AM, no moon, and cold as hell. Reaching the patrol car, I was ordered by the officer to get into the front seat, around the other side, and I did. At least it was blissfully warm inside. The patrolman looked me over (mustache, 24-year old ruddy face) and started asking me a lot of questions:

“Where do you live?

What are you doing here?

Are you in the military?

In college?”

When I told him I was in college he sneered, saying he had caught me in a lie...that it was too early for college to be let out. But I explained that my school, The California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, California, ended earlier than others – May 11th to be exact. He seemed satisfied with my answer.

After answering a few more questions, I explained that I had hit the road to try and figure out my marriage. It was then that he totally changed his authoritative stance, revealing a softer human side not usually revealed by people in his line of work. He offered advice on the subject, saying that I should ’stay married at all costs.’ How would I like it to have another man being called “Daddy” by my own kids? He revealed that he was divorced and that his life had been a living hell ever since. He added that it was no fun giving money to a woman you hardly knew or remembered anymore, more than half of everything you earned.

“Your life is gone,” he emphasized. “You will never have any money again.” And your kids will hardly know you.”

About twenty-five minutes into our discussion, he received a call over the police band radio. There had been a bad wreck a couple of miles up the highway. After jotting down the location he signed off, and said in a melancholy tone that he had to get going. As I was getting out he mumbled, mainly to himself, “One second you’re a person, the next a dead piece of meat.” With a roar and skidding tires his car accelerated up onto the asphalt and rejoined the other dots of distant lights and blackness.

THE DOG BITE

The last long ride I got during my eight-day round trip hitchhike journey was in the car of a black man and his wife in their mid-twenties. She informed me that they were heading for LA where he had a factory job waiting. After my previous long cold night of hitching, it was a relief to be traveling in the daytime, and it felt great that I might be able to stay in the same car for a while. As the man drove on, giving off a kind of aloofness, his wife struck up a conversation, turning almost completely around to face me in the back seat. She was extremely attractive and easy to talk to, asking where I was going, what it was like hitching, about my kids and family (I skipped the heavy stuff, just explained that I was heading home). The miles flew by, and before I knew it I started seeing signs for Flagstaff. I couldn’t help telling my story of being searched and hassled by a cop there a few days earlier. Just seeing the name of that city on a sign had made me wince.

After I related my tale of interrogation, hours of walking through town and final paranoia (would I end up in jail for hitching too soon?), the black man at the wheel started telling his own Flagstaff story. He said the place made him think of the track and field athletes who were working-out there at that very moment, getting ready for the Olympics. He then explained how he could have been one of them, because he had been the fastest runner in his high school, doing the hundred-yard dash in under ten seconds. I told him that, though I’d never been an athlete myself, I knew enough to be tremendously impressed with that fast time. He added that he probably could have made thousands of dollars per year just endorsing soft drinks or other products. “If only it hadn’t been for the accident..." What accident, I wondered to myself?

By this point in the conversation, I noticed from the back seat that his formerly gregarious wife was suddenly very quiet and still, almost holding her breath. I could tell by her body language that his story was terribly important to her. I finally asked him what happened, and he continued.

He said that one day, as he was completing a fast jog around a lake, a large Doberman Pinscher had silently stalked him then attacked, taking a huge bite right out of the back of his left leg. The damaged muscles and tendons were beyond repair, he said. In an instant, the good life had been snatched away, and now he would have to pay for it for the rest of his life.

I was surprised that he could still drive the car straight on the road, so agitated had he become as he described the incident and its aftermath. He was obviously extremely bitter. Although I couldn’t see her face, I knew his wife must be devastated, living with this man haunted by his unfulfilled dreams. Given the fact that I had just come off about six days of non-stop soul searching, I was a strangely receptive audience for his hard-luck tale. There was no lag time between my gut reaction and my response.

“That was probably the best thing that could have happened,” I said suddenly and automatically, almost like thinking out loud to myself. My words shattered the quietude of the previous moment, rippled through the car’s interior like a bullet. The car swerved for a second as the driver turned his body to catch a quick glance of me, wondering if he’d heard me right. His wife immediately rotated her head to the rear, a glimmer of hope sparking in her moist eyes.

“What do you mean,” he said, angrily, wondering if I knew. The sound of the tires spinning on the pavement suddenly seemed more pronounced as his question hung in the air. The seconds counted off as the wife’s beautiful face silently beseeched me – awaiting a crazed hippie in her back seat to continue my thought, add smart words to those already spoken, elaborate on my odd rationale, pour forth a clear explanation as salve to her husband’s wounds. Believe me, I felt the pressure.

“You’ve gained an extra 20 years of your life,” I said, believing it.

“All those other athletes in Flagstaff, your friends, will go through the same readjustment you’re doing now, only at age 40. You’ve been given a special gift.” Then, repeating the corresponding logic, I finished up. “So, you’ve saved 20 years.”

No one spoke for several minutes. A few miles later he pulled the car over, across the highway from a gas station where he needed to use a bathroom. Without any hesitation he opened his door, got out, closed it, and at the first break in traffic started running. I watched as he stretched out his long legs, propelled himself forward with a seemingly effortless gate, needing only a few powerful strides to get himself across the lanes. He seemed half-human, half-gazelle. I vaguely remembered some Greek poem that I had studied in high school, something about an athlete dying young, in the flame of glory. I felt honored to be a witness to that legend come to life – a hero’s sprint, spring, and dance before the gods. As soon as the man disappeared inside the bathroom door his wife turned around toward me, her eyes wet with tears. “Thank you.”

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(Most banned books from public libraries and schools in U.S.)

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