January 1981
Once there was a time when I thought I was a fairly intelligent person. I mean, sure, I'd done a lot of stupid things in my life (lots of stupid things, in fact) but I never really thought I was a clinical retard or anything. Well, deep in the desert one January night I had my Rendezvous with Reality. Any delusions I may have had were vanquished forever and the cold, stark truth, naked and unforgiving, smacked me in the face like a dead fish. I am indeed the biggest idiot in the Universe, I know that now. I am also a spaz, a coward, a scofflaw and a deadbeat, not to mention any other related adjective you can think of. It all started out quite innocently . . .
I was hitch-hiking from my parents' house in Pittsburgh to my brother's house in Phoenix. Along the way I dropped in on an old Navy buddy of mine, Bill, somewhere in Texas, a little town north of Austin. Yee haw, what a hoot! Had a blast. On Saturday night we took our lives into our own hands and, laughing in the face of danger, climbed into Bill's disintegrating old Volkswagen-- affectionately known as the Death Capsule--, drove to a bar down in Austin and watched some funny looking guy with this fuzzy little thing under his lip and a beat-to-shit old Stratocaster just tear the place apart playing the wildest blues guitar I'd ever heard in my life. I'd never heard of him before then but years later I would recognize his sound on the radio. His name was Stevie Ray Vaughan. Wow. Anyway, the next day was Super Bowl Sunday and the Oakland Raiders beat the snot out of the Philadelphia Eagles, which none of us really cared much about one way or the other except I hate everything about the city of Philadelphia so I was happy to see them lose. I drank more than my fair share of Lone Star beer and man, what a shitty beer that is. Makes you pee a lot, which most beers do, but the buzz-to-pee ratio of Lone Star is unacceptably low. So all weekend long we smoked a lot of pot, drank a lot of beer, ordered a couple pizzas and just went nuts. Had a blast. Met a cute little Texas rose but I didn't get lucky. Bummer. But still, the weekend was every bit as fun as I could've hoped for. Sleeping on a Naugahyde couch was less than ideal but I managed.
On Monday morning Bill had to go back to work and I needed to get back on the road so I twisted up a couple of joints, tied up my backpack and took one last excursion in the Death Capsule as Bill dropped me off back on the interstate. It was a rather flippant goodbye, though both of us realized this was probably going to be the last time we ever saw each other, barring me moving to Texas or him moving to . . . wherever it was I was going to end up, both of which seemed unlikely. So I shook his hand, told him to go fuck himself and started walking up the highway ramp. A poignant goodbye. Bill understood. We were buddies. He farted a big stinky one before I got out of the car.
The first car to pick me up was full of illegal aliens and I think they wanted me in the car in case they got pulled over, though I'll be damned if I have any idea what they expected me to do if they did. Twenty miles down the road I told them I'd forgotten something back in Austin and I had to go back, so they dropped me off with a chorus of "adios"'s and I hid under a bridge for a while until I knew they were long gone. Smoked a joint and watched a scorpion skitter across the ground. It occurred to me that Texas is full of scorpions and tarantulas and other kinds of disgusting creatures and the thought freaked me out enough that I decided to head back up onto the interstate and get on my way. Eek. Bugs give me the creeps, especially great big hairy ones.
One guy who picked me up was a rich Texas oilman (in a real cowboy hat and boots!) and even though he only drove me about a hundred miles we stopped at some diner and he bought me a big, sloppy, Texas-sized order of Baby Back ribs. I chowed. We drank a couple beers and he went on and on about the virtues of Texas, all about it being the driving force behind this great nation of ours and how all true Americans are Texans at heart. I didn't want to be rude but I mentioned how between Lee Harvey Oswald, that guy way up in the tower at that one university and some other guy who was recently in the news, Texas seemed to have an awful lot of snipers in it, probably due to that Texas fascination with guns. It was sorta meant as a joke and sorta not but he certainly didn't take it as such, so I apologized and changed the subject to scorpions and spiders and he suddenly brightened up. Seems he had a soft spot in his heart for tarantulas and even had a couple of 'em in an aquarium back home. "Misunderstood creatures", he smiled, but I shuddered and changed the subject again, this time to football. He, of course, was a big Dallas Cowboys fan and being from Pittsburgh I considered them as nothing more than the pile of dirt we stood on as we hoisted a couple Super Bowl trophies over our heads. So we had a friendly disagreement about that. Still, he was a very nice guy, even offered to buy me a bus ticket to Phoenix, but I told him thanks but I was actually looking forward to hitch-hiking. He dropped me off later that afternoon and the clean, brilliant sunshine felt good against my face. Life was good.
"Truckin', got my chips cashed in/ Keep truckin', like the Doo Dah Man . . ." That was me, the Doo Dah Man. As the sun grew yellow and the shadows stretched further and further across the desert floor I sat on the opposite side of the guardrail, my back to the traffic, and I smoked a joint. This is it, I thought. This is the life. No cares (except staying alive), no responsibilities (no job), the great outdoors (nowhere to sleep). Just me, alone and one with the vastness of time and sun, the mountains and wind. I now understood why so many people before me felt that whatever it was they were looking for, whatever it is life has to offer, it can be found on a lonesome road in the middle of the desert. Kerouac, Georgia O' Keefe, Jim Morrison and his weirdness, Moses, all of those guys... There's just something about it. Its timelessness and solitude, perhaps, or maybe just the overwhelming sense of mystery. It was here, it was tangible, you could feel it. No "Riders on the Storm" for me. No way. I was the Doo Dah Man.
It was such a great joint that I smoked another one.
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