99 The house of ruin ain't mine no more

I went to bed. I climbed the bunk. I had tears but I had the mad flowing too. And Zac was there. The only thing I had to hold onto anymore. I was pretty damn alone. I couldn't give up what was left of me. Maybe these people weren't as fucked as I thought, but I really think they were. It's nice to want tranquility but their idea included giving up everything that made you an individual. Do what you want but let me go.

I'll change if I want to

I woke up the next morning. The cooking women were gone and I let the others go to their oatmeal. I walked up on out of there with Zac and started along the road to town. Need hypnosis to know the distance but my mind was filled with confusion. I stuck my thumb out and made it to Forest Grove.

I don't feel like spending a bunch of time looking for photos of Forest Grove in the 70's. For some reason I get nothing. There was a cafe. Perfect. Coffee and food with what money I had. Yeah. Just like they all were. A counter. Cheap decent food. A place for the town to sit and talk. Eat and read the newspaper.

Not much different in the early 70s, except for the cars.

I was shook up. What the hell? Am I really going to do this? I was tired. If this had happened in the beginning I would have just kept going by myself. But it was a long trip and I needed to just come down now. Three months of hitchhiking, drug doing, good people, bad stuff, tempting death, fooling around and a little broken heart. I was strong but not immortal. Maybe I need to admit that even though I could hold myself like a warrior, my heart was vulnerable.

The waitress and some old dude next to me could see I was messed up. "You okay, hon?" Who knows. Maybe that was a regular occurrence in this town, these times. I got up and went to the back. Pay phone on the wall. Did you ever hear Patty Hearst say "Mom, Dad." Well this was the first time in three months. Don't think I was the only one. Lots of Long Island hippies, malcontents, punks and criminals needed to go places. Sometimes you'd hear about them and sometimes you wouldn't. "I wonder what ever happened to..." I called collect.

"Mom." "Can I come home?" My mom and dad were always cool as hell. They lived their young life wild and almost encouraged it in me. The Sophie factor. Grandma Sophie was a hell of a woman. My mom loved her. Learned a lot of superstitions from her, too. Yes. Of course I could.

But we hung up because she was going to call my seemingly money bags sister. My parents had never taken a plane. I don't want to go off into other stories, I just want to finish this. But my mom didn't know how to get a plane ticket and they didn't have as much money as you think. The big gap in wage earners wasn't as wide as it is now and my dad kept having heart attacks that took up the money. My sister was paying.

I waited and called. My sister, K, was there now. They had a couple more things to figure out so I sat back down and drank more coffee. The waitress didn't mind. Oh yeah. Mom asked me if LBJ wanted a ticket too. I didn't tell her how hard I was already trying to get him to go, or anything else. Nothing else. Ok. They were going to get him a ticket too.

My sister answered the phone this time. "The flight is tomorrow. It's all arranged. go to the police station. They'll help you." "The police station?" I sunk. I didn't want to do that. Cops and free livin', free thinkers didn't exactly have a camaraderie at that time. But we didn't have the internet, cell phones, ubers or credit cards. People had to make connection, of some sort, whether they wanted to or not.

In a self induced haze I started walking over there. This is what happened... my sisters husband was a cop. They have that fraternity thing and he made the call over to their cop shop. They were waiting for me. I walked in there, a small place I remember. Nicer than New York cops.

Well, I went back to the farm. Eeew, the cops dropped me at the gate and said they'd be back tomorrow to take us to the airport. Eeew. But right now I wanted my pants for Christs sake and I'll ask one last time. And I needed to tell LBJ that I got the tickets.

I was seething, but even then sometimes I still appear laid back. Am I a stereotype? I think not. But this time I'm sure it showed. Almost immediately walked into that jerk that wouldn't give me my pants back. Gritting my damn teeth. "Where are my pants?!!!" "They're not ready." Same as he always said. Yeah. Mad. "Well, forget it." 🙄

It was after they came back from the field and I didn't dawdle and found LBJ. "Got plane tickets for tomorrow. Don't you want to get out of here?" He just paused and said "Yeah." Maybe he was tired too. But he said "The cops?" Yeah. It was a horror. Put my eyes down. "Yup. The cops."

I walked back to the place where they kept the women separate and just laid down on the bunk. Staring, crying and sleeping. Luckily Zac had food but I didn't eat again.  I didn't want to go back to New York. That filthy, dark, dirty, bleak, depressing, corrupt ramshackle of a shithole. Ugggh. I was sick. I'm honestly having chest pains thinking about it now. It was fucked.

Next morning the cops were up at the outside gate just like they said they'd be. Not a happy thing really. We walked the small dirt hill with the bags we came with. I'm pretty sure the both of us were wilder looking, lots of hair growth. But I was wearing a pair of brown corduroy pants instead of my beautiful jeans.  I'll never forget those brown pants either. I like earth colors and sometimes go with that theme. They looked good but they made a lot of noise. Funny noise.

Pretty quiet sitting in the back of the car. I don't remember how we got the ticket. You went up to the counter then, I guess, but I didn't have any ID. Did you not need it or did the cops give me a sheet of paper? I remember a friggin piece of paper flying around in front of my face. Doesn't matter.

I still had Zac. First time either of us were ever on a plane. Huh? I can't bring Zac? 😢 I loved him. This is sucking in every way. Perk that bravery up. I stood outside and saw a nice couple, the older bohemian type. Zac was the coolest cat and people loved him because he was strange and different with that extra toe. And animals don't care if you're a little weird.

I asked "Hi. Would you please take my cat?" 😔 The gal was especially nice. She pet him and said of course. I didn't look when I handed him over and gave them his food.

We walked back to the gate. Looked around one last time before we hit New York again. So that's pretty much the end of that. When we landed it was a different story... dirtier, more jaded, less hopeful. I don't want to summarize or put a moral to the trip. It's not like there are actual lessons in my story, just the only one I've got down pat. Take it all in and turn it into that movie in your head. I want to say something corny and that's holding me back. Stuff like the more scenes you film, the better the story after the final edit. 🙄 Dork.