Part Three of Three Parts
(The Fall, November of 1967)
Chapter One
The Gas Station
John was in the car and the gas tank was full, the tires were being checked and filled with air, as well as the oil, all was fine,
"I'll start her up and see how the motor sounds," Chick Evens said to John, getting into the driver's seat of the car "You got the things put away?"
"Yaw," said John L.
"Open up a beer for me than."
"You want a full one?"
"That's right, for the road."
John was by the widow opening up beers and Chick was at the steering wheel waiting for the car's motor to warm up when he heard a noise like a motor mount loose. He open the hood looked down into the motor. John saw a policeman pull up into the gas station. He had a look in his eye, and he came walking toward their car. Then he walked by him, towards a pizza restaurant, then he was out of sight. A few more folks came out of the gas station with items bought in their hands walking in different directions to their cars. John looked at Chick busy looking at the motormount. A second policeman, who was waiting in the car stepped out to stretch, his hand on top of his revolver, checking to see if it was in place, and as he closed the car door a siren in the gas station went off, John in a long breath holding, yelled and Chick looked toward the gun muzzle of the policeman aiming it at the thief running out into the street from the gas station, Chick jumped to the side of the car and heard the screeching and howling gas station's siren.
The young man had turned to see where the policeman was and ran, the policeman ran after him, then stopped to aim and fire, firing three shots, two in the air, one at the black lean and slanted lad running, the thief, as Chick stood by the window looking in the car saying, "Damn, he must of robbed the gas station. Man, what can we do?"
John heard the siren of more police cars coming down Rice Street and one out of the side street and saw them moving toward the gas station, "We best just stay put," said Chick, "Don't draw attention to us."
There were now three more police cars surrounding the streets by the gas station.
"Stop!" yelled one policeman.
"Shoot, the fool," said another.
"Come on. Come on for god's sake!" said John, "let's get out of here."
"That's Officer Howe," said Chick watching the event.
"Get in," said his partner to Chick. "Get your ass in here and let's get going."
"Hand's up," yelled Howe," to the black thief.
"You shot me," screamed and cried the young man, who was bleeding from the left leg, had fallen to his knees.
"You were told to stop three times, it's your own fault," said an officer next to Howe, and then yanked the trousers up almost to the young man's knee to see the wound...
"Get-a going," said John. One of the police officers looked toward John and Chick.
"Come on, Chick," he said. "Let's go."
"Take it easy," said Chick. "Stop yelling."
"Put the damn car in gear," John said. "You're going to get us in trouble; we got an open can of beer in the car."
"Just wait a minute; they're too busy taking care of the thief to bother with us..." Chick said. "I don't want to take off yet. Let them take the robber away first."
The biggest of the officers turned and swung his revolver and held it, aiming it at the brown 1959 Fort Station Wagon of Chick's.
"Hey, don't! Don't! We're just bystander's watching," Chick said. "Don't aim that gun at us-please!"
The bust had been so close to their car that the sound of the bullets echoed in the air like five smacks.
Chick leaned back in the car seat, his eyes wide open, his mouth open and dry. He looked like he was about to say, "Don't!" again, but the policeman turned about to talk to Howe, who had seen Chick and knew him by face; he had taken him home once when he was drunk, and another time to the police station for being too drunk, both times underage, and still underage, at twenty, the same age as John.
"Hit that gas peddle, and let's get out of here," said John.
"We'll go," said Chick, "just cool it."
One of the police was holding a pistol against the side of the boy's chest; the muzzle almost touching him.
As chick swung the car out of its parking spot, spinning the wheels, burning some rubber on the asphalt of the gas station platform, he looked astern to watch the last of the policemen picking up the lad from his knees, pushing him head first into the backseat of a police car, the boy falling or slipping sidewise, his leg giving out. His trousers wrapped around his ankle, his hands handcuffed, cussing the police with an unstopping open mouth. There was still more police cars coming down the street.
"Come on. Make a turn on Highway 94," said John. "Let's make up some lost time!"
"If I make this car go any faster, that motormount may fall right off the motor." Remarked Chick Evens.
Chapter Two
The Highway
Chick sat quietly at the steering wheel. He was looking ahead now on Highway 94, heading for Long Beach, California, out of St. Paul, Minnesota, it was the summer of 1967. Out of the city he looked back. John looked out of the back window also-perhaps thinking of Karin, a girlfriend he was leaving behind for this road trip, one he'd miss along the way, one he'd marry, but not this summer.
Everything was now running smoothly, and they were going with the wind. Down highway after highway, across the country, heading for Denver, and over the Rockies (the Rocky Mountains); once in the Rockies, he noticed the heavy slant downwards, the sharp curves and their markers, he passed dozens of cars, but going up hill the motor scarcely made it, they all ended up passing him again, and then down the mountains with a current swirling under the car, helping the brown beast of a car along (as one looked down over the cliffs, hundreds of feet below them, you could see snow topped roofs, America at its most beautiful and loveliest, as if out of a Norman Rockwell picture: smoke coming from chimneys, and pine trees dotting the land). The motormount now clanging, and the engine's motor starting to run rough, and the exhaust pipe, hanging loose under the car creating sparks, and police lights rotating in back of them, and a siren screeching, then over a loud speaker, "Pull that junk heap over to the side," a voice said.
"How far are you boys going?" asked the police officer now standing along side the car, Chick with his car window open, then before he could answer, he took a quick look around the beat-up station wagon, rusted out here and there, the floorboards had holes in them, and you could actually see the road under your feet.
"What in tar nation are you boys trying to do," said the Highway Police Officer, walking back to the window.
"Where you coming from, where you going?" the officer said to the two young adults.
John and Chick were chatting between themselves, then abruptly stopped, had kicked the few empty beer cans laying on the floor underneath their seats with their shoes.
"We came from St. Paul, Minnesota, going to Long Beach, California officer," said Evens.
"Hum...m," said the officer, "You're about halfway, if I pull your car over have it impounded as it should be, we'll have to find you a way home, if you go any further, you'll end up being someone else's problem, not ours, I hope you at lest make it out of this state, just wire up your exhaust pipe, and get going, and good luck."
The Highway Patrol Officer was watching them now, even after the boys tied up the exhaust and all, he followed them for several miles, hoping I suppose they'd make it out of his jurisdiction. And evidently they did, because then he had stopped turned about, and took off as if he was the Lone Ranger, in the opposite direction.
John and Chick felt a little more at ease now.
"Look down there John," said Chick, "it's Denver I think."
"Where?" the sun was bright, Chick pointed "Look!"
It was a long ways off; so far you could hardly see it, like a little oasis rising up and out of nowhere.
John now was looking quite content spoke pleasantly.
Chick could see the tiny building rise on the calm surface below him, but thought, 'Just another city, go around it.'
"Those clouds over head I think are going to get darker and
Denver is in for a shower, let's go around it, find a café have lunch?"
"What time is it?" asked John.
"Maybe 2:00 p.m., my watch stopped working."
"We'll be okay with the money, right?" questioned John.
Chick didn't answer, they had made a few stops for beer, and John knew that, and each stop required more of the money they had, and it wasn't all that much. John had $125.00 dollars and Chick $40. That was it, and his car.
In thirty-minutes they would be at a café eating hamburgers and French fries, drinking down a coke, filling up the gas tank, checking the oil, getting another six-pack of beer, and a few packs of Camel Cigarettes, and noticing the motormount that was before loose, was now gone, the motor had three more, but one side was lose, and that caused the motor to shake except when on a smooth road, what could go wrong was going wrong, but it was still luck holding the car in place; so-thought Chick: maybe our luck will holdout longer, enjoy it while you can; had it not been for John's worrying out loud, he would have been a great sidekick, because he was a good fellow, but if anyone had to worry, Chick had felt, he was doing enough for both of them, so why join in on it, it wasn't constructive.
"What's the matter with you Chick? Can't you figure it out; we don't have money to buy beer every time we stop."
"What did you ask me?"
"If we starve to death, it's because of you, give me a beer." John told Chick, and off they were again on the highway like two ...Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac would have said.
"Nothing can stop us now John."
"Do you think we'll make it?"
"Not today, it's going to be dark soon, we'll have to find a roadside rest, and sleep until morning, too dangerous to drive at night and if something happens to the car...well, you know what I mean, let it happen in the daylight."
"What do you think, Chick?" asked John, his face a little apprehensive.
Chick did not answer.
"Don't worry, don't think about it, give me a beer?"
"How much money we got?" John asked in a pleasant way.
"I don't know. We haven't counted it for a while, it's enough to get there, and we'll have to find a job quick."
For the first half day, most every hour or so, John brought up Karin and the money, he talked not much more than this, didn't intensify on the subject of Long Beach, or California at all, or the ocean, the subjects Chick brought to the conversations, and John compared themselves to those two guys who drove a Corvette in the 1960s series on television, crossing the country, on "Rout 66," the transcontinental highway (the main highway of America, which ran from Chicago to California, in which Nat King Cole, sang a song about, and later on, the Rolling Stones capitalized on). But John was referring to the two fellows: Tod and Buz, not sure who was who on their trip; the series ran for four seasons.
"Are we bums?" asked John.
"I suppose so, but mighty happy ones!"
"What's a bum," asked John.
"I don't know for sure, you'll have to ask that Jack Kerouac guy I guess, he called himself a bum and made a million I think off his books."
"Well, you've travelled by train and car cross-country before, are we bums or not?"
"Kind-of I suppose, but I worked wherever I went, like to Seattle or Omaha, Nebraska, bums don't work, hobos do, not sure about tramps, they're more like homeless folks, we don't have a home but we do, I mean, we got parents that do, I think willing to help, if indeed we need help, I think. We're not beggars yet, but maybe by the end of this trip we will be."
A light rain came down, and it got foggy, and Chick spent the following hour trying to find a rest stop, and it got a little chilly, and John huddled and meditated on the warmth of holding Karin I suppose, he flapped his arms and legs to like a duck to warm them up, the heater was not working and the windshield was fogging up. John's teeth started chattering.
"We brought a blanket along, pull it out, it is in back of the backseat," suggested Chick, and John did, "We'll be stopping soon," added Chick.
Chapter Three
The Rest Stop
It was 9:00 p.m., where the boys were, they didn't know, they simply stopped at a rest stop when it got dark, parked the car by several others, had a few beers, and John started to fall to sleep in the backseat, and Chick up front. There was a light near their car, a dumpster nearby, bathrooms in the forefront.
"I'm sorry if we're ending up spending too much money, I feel bad about that, but we are only spending on gas, food and beer." Chick told John as they started to talk before drifting off into a deep sleep.
"I guess you mean well," said John (he had a letter in an envelope in his hands).
"What's in the letter?" asked Chick.
"Before we left, Karin gave me the letter, told me to read it later on-she was crying, so I read it when you were in the bathroom back-a-ways this afternoon, at one of the gas stations, she said she loved me, and would be waiting for me when I got back."
"It sounds poetic; she's a nice gal, not sure how you got her."
"Maybe this trip will make me appreciate her more."
"And bug me more."
"How about you?"
"And who am I? I don't have any girl worthwhile keeping if that is what you mean."
"How about that girl you were taking out, called the Shadow?"
"You mean, Cindy or Sharon?"
"Whatever, whoever."
"I'd say that we lost it somewhere along the line, didn't see eye to eye, in both cases."
"I think I'm pretty serious about Karin."
"I think you're horny right now."
"Are we safe here?" asked John.
"Hell yes who can do anything to us, we're the Cayuga Street Bums), and someday I'll write a book about this?"
(Cayuga Street being the street in St. Paul, Minnesota, where Chick Evens lived, and John hung out with the Cayuga Street Gang, known by the police as Donkeyland, the police officer, Howe nicknamed it that because the guys and gals were so hard-headed, and I suppose like donkeys: there were some twenty-five young people from that neighbourhood.)
"I hope no one tries to sneak in tonight and cut our throats."
"If they do, and I survive, I'll let Karin know you talked about her until I got blue in the face."
"Funny, funny, funny-pal!"
"Just be careful of the snakes tonight, they can crawl right through those big rusted hole in the back there."
"Snakes, you're kidding, there are no snakes here."
"You see," said Chick to John, speaking quietly, "this here is dangerous country, snakes kill folks all the time, bit yaw. I don't think it's funny either. But the best course is not to think about it, if either one of us really get bitten, just get me to a hospital as quick as possible, and I'll do the same."
John now looking over the top of the seat at Chick almost on the verge of laughing but holding it back, Chick looking back at him, "We got anything more to drink?" asked John.
"Nope," said Chick "Go to sleep."
"I can't, now you got me worried about those snakes."
"Their nothing, I was just kidding, kind of."
"What do you mean kidding-kind of, you were or you were not kidding and there are or there are not snakes here?"
"Of course they're snakes but chances one will crawl up and bite you are next to nil."
John looked seasick and still sitting up.
"Let me sit up front with you?" asked John.
"Sure, it's going to be uncomfortable, but go ahead." And John jumped over the seats to set by the passenger side window.
It was about 3:00 a.m., in the morning, and there was a tapping at the widow.
"What you two doing in there," said a voice, "Open the door up, I want to talk to you."
"Chick," said John, "some tramp out there I think, trying to get in."
"We're not in the mood for making friends tonight mister, get lost!" said Chick.
"He won't leave," said John. (You could smell whisky on him. The window was opened slightly.)
"What do you want to do?" asked John.
"If he doesn't leave in a few minutes, I'll get out here go around the car, you get out, and we'll both kick his ass."
Chick now straightened up from his laying position. "Wish I had a drink."
Then Chick opened up the car door, "We'll go easy on him!" he said, and started to walk around the car to meet the guy head on, John's hand on the door handle, ready to open it...
"I got some trouble for yaw mister, just what you're looking for."
"Don't kid me," said the suspiciously looking stranger.
"Why should I try, you're looking to wake us up cause trouble, you got us up now, and what you got, you got coming, let's bring it on John!"
"Tak'e it eas-y young man, I'm for-ty-five years old, a lit-tle drunk."
"Why do you get so tough then, waking us up?"
The stranger stepped back, as John started to open the door, and Chick stepped forward another step, about ten-feet apart, then the stranger ran off to the bathrooms.
Chapter Five
Long Beach
The boys woke up about 7:30 a.m., and headed onto Long Beach, their destiny. They figured they were somewhere around Salt Lake. Chick kicked the gas pedal to and almost through the floor of the car, it was losing its energy, its zip, its get-up-and-go: about 1:00 p.m., they hit the highway leading into Long Beach, and then onto a main road. Three girls were hitchhiking, they talked to the boys some, but left them alone, just wanted a ride, gave them some directions, and then got dropped off. They seemed to be a bit sorry; Chick and John were not from Long Beach, feeling they were not going to stick around town.
"We got any money left?" asked John.
"I tell you, we are down."
"Oh, shut up, you're damn drinking, how much we got?"
"Let's look for a café, get something to eat," said Chick, John counting the money, looking across the front of the car, the motor was starting to produce grey smoke.
"Watch that, Chick, the smoke," then the car started to spit and sputter, right then and there by a closed gas station, it was Sunday.
John opened the devise under the hood, the hood popped open and was put into place, they were on the street alongside the gas station.
"The car's shot, it blew a piston I think," said John. When they started it back it, it had no compression. The car wouldn't move. "Not yet," bellowed John.
"Why not yet," said Chick, "Thank God we made it this far that was lucky."
"I suppose, what the hell difference does it make to you."
"John, it was my car, not yours," said Chick as John climbed down off the fender, after looking down at the motor.
"How we doing for money?" asked Chick.
"Seven dollars," said John, "How much you got?"
"One dollar and thirty-three cents!" said Chick.
"The hell with this," John said. "You keep drinking our money up."
"So do you," remarked Chick, "Let's put the car in back of this station, and bury the license plates, and go find a room for the night."
The boys walked down to the heart of Long Beach, bought two hotdogs between themselves, and walked along the beach; it appeared to them it was a retirement area of some kind, not much going on. As it started to get dark, it was a pretty twilight. John found a room that cost $5.00. And the hotdogs were $1.50 for two, and they had each a coke, another fifty cents. And now what had been left was one-dollar and thirty-three cents. They sat in their hotel room thinking what was next on their agenda, the afterglow of being in California for the first time had warn off of John, for Chick it was just starting to blossom.
Chick looked out the window; saw a small grocery store open, "Let's go get a quart of beer, and some crackers. I mean we are broke, we might just as well remain broke, and what's a dollar and change going to matter."
"We are damned, and you are thinking of beer, alright, you go get it, while I think of what to do, but give me twenty-cents, two dimes, I will need to make a few phone calls."
Now Chick had one dollar and thirteen cents. Went out of the one-star minus hotel, across the street, found a quart of beer for eighty-nine cents, and crackers for fifteen-cents, making it $1.14 cents, one penny less, which the good proprietor, overlooked, out of his kindness. And Chick and John had their last meal of the night, John allowing Chick the majority of the beer, John being too unsettled to drink much.
Chapter Six
Conclusion to part One
That evening, John called up his Uncle Whitey, in Los Angels, to see if they'd meet him and Chick at the bus station that his mother was going to send $140-dollars to get them back home, first thing in the morning. And Whitey, a most pleasant man, an albino, did just that, and showed them around Los Angels, and then luck was on their side, they found a friend of Whitey's going to Minnesota, and that is another story.
Bums in a Haze
Chapter Seven
The Lead
(Chick Evens narrates from his diary :) "We were not tramps, or nomads, in that we were not drifters, perhaps more on the order of bums, in that we didn't really have a home, and John did have to do some begging to get that $140-dollars from his mother, and we were not forgotten men, per near, but not quite; we were not hobos, because hobos seek work, and bums don't and although John and I wanted to, we didn't; so bums we, in that respect, bumming around, but I would have said, had you asked me at the time 'I felt as if I was on a magic carpet, things just worked out as they did.' And for the most part they did. But you couldn't have told John L. that. There was no rainbow for him, and he kept thinking about Karin, and at times even with me by his side, he felt utterly alone. And so our adventure would be cut short. But we did survive the hard times, self-induced hard times of course. And we were both seemingly were always in haze, myself, with booze, and John with anything he could find, from pills, to pot, to alcohol."
Chapter Eight
Los Angels: Uncle Whitey
(At the Greyhound bus station in Los Angels,
Sitting, while waiting for Uncle Whitey)
"I suppose we'll have to wait for your uncle, to get here, do you think he'll come?"
"He's one of the few people that no matter what we did, he'd help us, so sure, I'd bet my $140.00-dollars he'll be here." Then John hesitated, and added, "Indecently, Chick, I do feel badly about your car, even though the policeman in the Rockies was right, it was a piece of junk.
"Very funny, it got us to Long Beach though."
"I suppose, we don't know how bad things could have got, had the cop pulled the car in."
Then Uncle Whitey came in, white as a ghost, hardly could see, eyes squinting, and wavy white hair, tall and lean, with the biggest smile, Chick Evens had ever seen. Whitey looked about; saw the silhouetted of hands waving of two young men,
"Uncle Whitey!" called John.
"He's half blind Chick, and he's only in his late thirties."
"You son of a guns, how the heck you been John, haven't seen you since you were knee-high to a grasshopper!" (Then he started laughing: 'ho, ho, ho...ooo!' as if John was his lost prodigal son.)
As we stood up, he grabbed my hand, "And you're his partner, Chick, I heard you were coming with John," then he let go after a minute of shaking hands and added, "let's go have lunch, on me boys. I haven't any money to lend you but I got enough gas in the car and food in the house and a place you can lay your head for as long as you want." ('Ho, ho, ho...ha, ha, ha!' he laughed)
(Chick and John sat in the back seat, Whitey, and a third cousin, Gene, a few years older than John, sat with Whitey in the front seat, Gene had his own car and in the following days would decide to go back to Minnesota, and thus, provided the ride for John and Chick to return. But of course at this point none of that was known, and I don't want to get too far ahead in this story).
"So I heard your car blew up in Long Beach, that's a damn shame, hell-of-a-thing to happen."
Whitey hung his chin, neck and face almost over the steering wheel, as he drove, "I'm not suppose-to-be driving, but what the heck."
He looked hard at what the stoplights read, waiting for the green. "Go, Uncle Whitey, its green!" said John, near smiling.
"That's what I got to do, stop driving before I kill us all. The doctor says to take it easy as I can, that albinos never live long he says. Says I got a few years left then puff...I'm gone. Oh well, I'll just try to breathe steadily."
Then they pulled into his driveway.
(Chick Evens narrates from his diary :) "In the following days, Whitey took John and me, along with Gene on several tours around the city, up and own Sunset Boulevard, looking at the whores walking back and forth. Driving slowly, and stopping by Dean Martin's nightclub. And then up into Beverly Hills. The police stopping Gene, who was doing the driving, and questioning him why the carload of people buzzing about these premises: and Whitey simply said, "We're showing our Minnesota kin, how the rich folk live down here."
The police officer said in a mild manner, "If these folks see you circling about they'll call us gain, and if we got to come back, we'll have pull you in for suspicion, so it is best you don't not come back.")
Well, they didn't go back, but they had a number of memorable spots, or sites they saw-and they had some nice dialogue between the foursome.
It was the third day in Los Angels Gene suggested they, Chick and John, head on out into the desert to Lancaster, a small hamlet, and visit a group of young friends of his, that it was party time there, all the time there, and there would be lots of everything from grass to booze to hallucinating drugs and much more. All free of charge.
End:
Home for Thanks Giving
And beyond...
John and Chick had left in the beginning of November of 1967 for California, and returned a few days before 'Thanksgiving.' Prior to California, he had spent the spring of that year in Omaha, and prior to that a winter in Seattle, all three trips within eleven months. And in eight months to come, July of 1968, he would be going to San Francisco for one year; which he didn't know of course at this time, and after that, to Germany for ten more months, and to participate in the Vietnam War for another eight months: all within two months less than five years (December of 1966 to October 1971). And since that time, he has added, 700,000-more miles onto his past memo.
Written 6-2-2009
