(Part IV of my series on a hitchhiking trip from CA to VT and the Bread Loaf Writers' Workshop back in 1982. Chronicled here before I forget it entirely.)
Don't recall many specifics about my stay in Minneapolis—just another trip back home. I did run in an old friend, John Hazlett, who mentioned that his brother Kevin was living in New York City. He sets things up so that I could spend a week on Kevin's couch. This was significant since I had a place to stay near Chicago and a place to stay in Stamford, CT, which would be my last stop before reaching Bread Loaf. A week in NY made my schedule complete.
While home, there was a letter from Bread Loaf informing me that my first two choices to read my work, John Irving and Erica Jong, had to cancel. (Irving had to shoot the Garp movie.) I opted for John Gardner or Tim O'Brien, who I had been reading on the trip.
I made Chicago in less time than you could drive it as every ride happened before I could even set my pack down, none of the drivers stopped for gas or food, and next thing I knew I was in Glen Ellyn—a suburb right on the train tracks where Din Din had relatives who had stayed with us in San Jose.
I stayed with them over the weekend. Took the train into Chicago on Saturday, wandered around and was surprised to find a massive beach. Of course I knew the city was on Lake Michigan but I just didn't associate Chicago with beaches. There, I sat in the sand near a lovely young woman in a remarkably skimpy bikini. In time, I mustered up the courage to speak with her.
I asked her a stupid question as to the whereabouts of a street that turned out to be the very one I'd crossed to get there. She pointed out her boyfriend, shamelessly flirting with another woman at the water's edge. My new friend claimed to be a model and a fledgling actress, and offered to show me around town—to get even with her boyfriend, no doubt.
As we prepared to sneak away, the boyfriend returned, nixing that plan. I wandered aimless about town and took the 6:00 train rather than the one at midnight.
Monday morning, the woman of the house had to go into Chicago and offered me a ride. A bit unnerved by the rush-hour traffic, she ended up dumping me smack in the middle of a snarl of highways—forcing me to make a dash for the nearest ramp and legal hitchhiking ground.
A car pulled in front of me. “We gotta get you off this road, bub,” the guy said as I climbed in. “Cop just pulled someone over back there and you'd be next.”
I thanked him for looking out for me, and he left me at the top of a ramp. A more legal place to be—or so I thought. Some time passed before a police car pulled over. “You gotta be thirty feet off the road's shoulder,” the cop said.
I peered down into the ditch—some twenty feet deep—at the ramp's edge. “Nobody'll see me down there,” I said. He said he'd be back in a half-hour and I better be gone. I wasn't.
Upon his return, he pointed down the highway. “There's an oasis about a mile down the road,” he lied. Five miles, easy. Maybe closer to ten. I had to ask directions several times. I recall climbing a fence and wading through a small stream.
Finally the oasis came in sight: a huge truck stop with restaurants and always a Howard Johnson. While sizing up the trucks parked there as possible rides, I spotted a guy exiting the Howard Johnson restaurant and walking toward me. “How far are you goin'?” he asked.
“New York City,” I said.
He stopped in his tracks. “Oh, sorry,” he said and turned back.
“How far are you goin'?” I called after him.
“Atlantic City,” he replied. I kid you not.
“I think we can work something out,” I said, picking up my pack and following him to his car. He was from Green Bay and wanted to spend his 21st birthday gambling in Atlantic City. Alone. His first trip out of Green Bay. Good luck...
Most people picking up hitchhikers are looking for someone to talk to or someone to listen to. Not this guy. Not Green Bay. I started out telling him about my run-in with the cop and my trek to the oasis. Didn't even get a smile or a shake of the head. I told him of the guy with the machete and the limo ride. T thought playing poker on a Nevada highway might spark a gambling conversation. Nothing. Green Bay never said a word that didn't pertain to the business at hand. I guess I must've driven some, we never stopped except for gas.
Green Bay had no business alone in Atlantic City. I could only hope—for his sake—that he couldn't find a casino either and turned back for home.
Next up: My Nine Hour Trip from Philly to NYC
