by W.H. Harrod
~~ Chapter Fifteen
The overcast skies that thwarted the group’s efforts to recapture some of the magic of their youth gave way to an ever-brightening sun as the morning wore on. After a pit stop at another giant truck stop west of Albuquerque, the solemn band of pilgrims became uncharacteristically reticent. Sam regained control of the steering wheel, and as part of his self-appointed duties as pilot, he endeavored to engage his comrades in light conversation. They resisted his efforts, no matter how benign the subjects he offered for their conversational enjoyment.
When Bobby checked the map and mentioned that the town of Casa Blanca, where they gassed up, was one of the original side road towns they came through in ‘69, Allison told him she wasn’t interested. When he told her the town of Bluewater, thirty-eight miles farther was also one of the old side road towns, still she wasn’t interested. Bobby finally got the hint and shut up.
“Life goes on, Allison,” said Sam hoping to renew her interest in the journey.
Now occupying the front passenger seat again, Allison slowly turned her head away from the side window and responded to Sam’s cliché. “Yours won’t if you keep pestering me. I had no idea that you were such a fount of triviality. Do you really know the difference between an overcast sky and an obscured sky? If you do, why do you know that? Who told you that ninety percent was the amount of cloud cover that was required before it could officially be called overcast? And -”
Allison halted. She saw the hurt look on Sam’s face. She knew he only wanted to help.
“I’m sorry. I’m acting like a child. You guys can’t help it because you’re not sentimental…Oh damn! Now I’m a sexist idiot. I’ve got to shut up before I say more stupid stuff. It will be okay. I promise. I love you guys. Just give me a little time to find my brain, and I’ll be all right. I had no idea I would be so disappointed, that’s all.”
Ernest spoke up from the rear of the bus. “I’m disappointed myself. I hadn’t really thought much about it until I got there with you folks and started remembering how beautiful it was the first time. Things do change and life does go on. Though I can say to you with complete honesty that not having to jump into that ice cold river again and subject my home boys to that torture is one big relief.”
“Man, I’m with you on that one, brother!” said Bobby who also expressed his relief.
“Me too,” added Sam. “I was gonna do it, but I sure didn’t want to.”
“I’m with you on that one, too,” chimed in Bobby. “I didn’t want to do it either.”
“I was praying neither of you guys would do it so I wouldn’t have to do it,” exclaimed Ernest. “Maybe I’m to blame for the overcast skies. Maybe my prayers were answered. I suppose that makes it my fault.”
Allison followed the conversation from one to another. When Ernest finally summed it up she let out a whoop and massaged her brow in disbelief. “I take it back, you guys are Neanderthals. Your brains are in your crotches. You are bereft of sentiment.”
Ernest started laughing, then Sam, then Bobby, and finally, Allison. It was going to be all right. Ernest was right, things do change and life does go on.
“How are we on the time schedule?” asked Sam. “Can we still make it in time?”
Allison got out her notes plus the map and did some quick calculations. “We have about eleven hundred miles to go. The deadline is Wednesday night at midnight so that means we have about thirty-nine hours left. We should have sufficient time if we don’t dally too much.”
“I, for one, promise to do my best not to be a dallier,” said Sam. “Actually, there is only one place that I really have an interest in stopping for any length of time between here and the bay area.”
“What place would that be?” asked Allison.
“I’m not going to tell you if you can’t guess it,” Sam answered, “but you should remember it when we get there.”
As the mood inside the bus lightened, the group rode on in silence. With each mile the characteristics of the terrain became more desert like. No longer were there farms and barns with grain bins. Nothing existed now but expansive vistas of scrub bushes and cactus plants. This was not a place you would enjoy breaking down on the side of a highway in the heat of a long summer’s day. Thankfully, it was only March, and they could keep going absent an air conditioner without too much discomfort.
Allison’s mothering instincts returned with her improved attitude. “Bobby, how are you feeling? You look and sound so much better.”
Bobby reacted as if he had not expected to become the topic of conversation. “I’m feeling much better, thank you. It usually takes awhile for me to get the booze out of my system. By tomorrow I should be feeling strong enough to help with the driving.”
Ernest put on his doctor hat and joined the conversation. “You said it usually took awhile to get the booze out of your system. Does that mean you binge drink?”
Bobby answered in the same spirit the questions were being asked. “I usually go a period between binges, but in the last couple of years the drinking periods have come more often. The way it’s going, pretty soon it’ll be one continuous drunk.”
“Have you tried to stop?” asked Ernest. “Have you gone to your doctor, or have you tried AA?”
“Yes, on both of those,” said Bobby.
“Apparently, they didn’t help you,” said Ernest.
“I wouldn’t say that. They both offered ways to help me quit drinking, but there is one thing they can’t give you, and that’s the desire to stay sober. Nothing works if you don’t want to stay sober in the first place. One ol’ boy at the AA told me AA is for people who want it, not people who need it.”
“You don’t want it then?” asked Allison.
“Guess not,” said Bobby. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be trying to use that gun you threw away to put a bullet through my brain.”
“What now?” asked Ernest.
“Oh, I expect I’ll enjoy these few days with you folks and maybe try to do something worthwhile during the time I have left, and when I get back to Oklahoma I’ll eventually get around to going out into that shallow pond and finding that gun again.”
The unemotional, matter-of-fact way Bobby delivered this information frightened Allison. How could an individual accept their demise with such complacency?
“What if you can find that reason, Bobby?” said Allison. “What if we can someway help you find that reason?”
“Then we ought to be heading to Dallas, Texas, cause that’s where you’ll find the only reasons that mean anything to me,” he said without hesitation.
Allison’s long career in social work was about to pay off. She had learned long ago to pay attention to everything her clients said. She discovered that often it was the innocent, unsolicited statements that gave her insights into the real problems.
“What did your wife say to you when she left? ‘If the real Bobby ever comes home from Vietnam, tell him his family is waiting for him in Dallas?’ Wasn’t that it?” asked Allison.
Bobby and Allison looked at one another and neither spoke.
“What did she mean by that, do you think? Why didn’t Bobby come home from Vietnam?” asked Allison.
Ernest listened intently, and when he saw how deftly Allison dissected the situation and smacked Bobby in the head with the truth, he glanced towards Sam as if to say, This lady is good.
“Think about this Bobby, and we’ll talk more as we go along. Be advised that I refuse to accept your going back to that pond as the only valid option available.” With that Allison turned around to leave Bobby alone with his own thoughts.
Both Sam and Ernest busied themselves with other matters in hopes of not becoming the next one to have to undergo one of Allison’s cursory mental evaluations.
Miles passed without conversation. Bobby looked to be deep within his own thoughts following the earlier conversation about his life. Ernest, on the other hand, had pulled out a recently published medical book and acted as if he were
intent upon ingesting its contents. Sam, meanwhile, kept his own counsel while directing their vehicle to a safe landing somewhere over the far horizon.
Things were going pretty well, thought Allison. Everyone seemed to have settled in and found a place. The first part of the journey may have been a little hectic but as far as she could see, the rest of the trip would go a lot smoother.
“You know what I’d like to know? I’d like to know what in the hell we’re doing here?” asked Sam unexpectedly.
Allison moaned and put her face into her hands as she contrasted Sam’s statement with her now completely bogus assessment of their progress. Weariness showed across her face.
“What is that supposed to mean?” she pleaded.
“It just now came to me,” he said. “Since I joined up with this rolling grade school version of the Merry Pranksters, I’ve been troubled by something, and it just now came to me what it was.”
“Pray enlighten us,” said Allison.
“Doesn’t it seem kind of funny that we haven’t devoted fifteen minutes to talking about the reason we are supposedly going back to San Francisco? Doesn’t it appear a bit odd that we’ve talked about each other, our lives, our families, and even swimming naked, but we haven’t talked about the coming war? Why is that, do you think?”
Allison’s expression said it all. Sam’s question made sense. Why hadn’t they talked about the reason they supposedly abandoned the comfort and security – excepting Bobby, of course – of their homes and communities and departed on such an uncertain adventure, especially, at this advanced stage of their lives?
Sam waited for someone to respond, but not one of his riders made an attempt to reply. All of them looked to be thinking about what he said if furrowed brows were an accurate indication of personal reflection.
Sam took up the slack. “No offense, Bobby, but we know you weren’t thinking about the coming war before you were hijacked from the farm. Ernest, I bet you haven’t given this matter a lot of thought either. Some things don’t change that much, and if you were really into this anti-war rhetoric, you would be knocking heads by now. Allison, now I believe you are into this pretty deeply. You’ve no doubt followed its development and you probably have files full of clippings that attest to your perseverance. If the subject comes up, you’re into it with both feet, but it’s not the only thought on your mind.”
Sam waited for someone to argue against his assertions.
Allison spoke first. “What about you Sam? Why are you here?”
“Touché,” said Sam smiling. “Excellent question! The only thing that comes to mind is that I’m a certified lunatic. I don’t want to sound elitist as I’m sure all of you perform valuable services in your homes and communities, but I got up and walked away from the biggest IPO deal my firm has ever been involved with. It’s scheduled to go to the market in less than three weeks, and I’m responsible for ensuring that it does. Hundreds of millions of dollars depend upon me having my ducks in a row before then. My partners are probably meeting right now to force me out of the firm for complete dereliction of duty. For all I know, my career is finished.”
“As to the coming war, I’ve done my research, and I have some fairly solid evidence as to what’s going on. To tell you the truth, I’m not convinced that most of the people we will meet up with out here, if we ever get there, really know what’s going on. If they did, it wouldn’t surprise me if many of them packed the hell up and went back home, real fast.”
“What’s an IPO?” asked Bobby.
“It stands for Initial Public Offering, Bobby. When a corporation decides it’s ready to play with the big boys, they come to firms like mine. We help them go to the public trough for the funds that will allow them to grow and prosper. Maybe you’ve read something lately about some kids who came up with a new Internet idea and decided to sell it to the astute investing public. They named their company Blurgglecom and offered stock for sale through an IPO and made a billion dollars for themselves. The fact that the company barely makes a profit is of no consequence. Such is the renewed confidence of millions of investors who have conveniently forgotten about the trillions of dollars they lost only a few years back when the same market crashed because of the small but, ultimately, not so incidental fact that most of the companies that people dumped their money into never made a profit. That’s what I do.”
“Oh,” said Bobby, satisfied with the response.
“I will repeat my question. What the hell is going on here? Why are we really here? Why am I here? I hope you guys can come up with better responses than I can, or we’re probably screwed.”
Allison turned to the two passengers in the back seat to get their response to Sam’s impromptu charges. What did they have to say?
“I’m not going first,” said Ernest forcefully as Allison’s gaze met with his.
“I pass,” said Bobby as Allison turned towards him.
It would be up to Allison to answer Sam’s question and defend the group’s seemingly rash decision to bolt for the coast. She took her time in formulating her response as Sam waited patiently.
Contrary to what the other passengers in the bus were probably thinking, Allison wasn’t put off by Sam’s outburst. This is what Sam did and it’s why he was needed. He helped get at the truth of things. Whatever the outcome of the upcoming discussions, they would be better informed and better prepared to deal with the situations confronting them during the coming days. What she needed to do now was be unemotional and maintain the group’s focus.
“Excellent question, Sam,” said Allison. “Why are we here?”
“Just hold it right there lady. I didn’t just roll out of a Psyche 101 class with a failing grade. I know what you’re up to. I might be crazier than hell, but I’m not stupid. Don’t try to turn this back around in my direction. Just answer the question, please.” Sam showed his determination to prevail.
“You’re right. I owe you an honest response to your question. You’ve risked much to join me on what many, I’m sure, would call a fool’s errand. I assure you I have no intentions of treating your support and your sacrifices lightly. Absent the presence of you three people, I probably would have turned back before now, if I had gotten up the nerve to come at all. What I can tell you is that feelings long dormant within me have reawakened of late. Not that I have been a zombie all these years, but now something else has happened. The closest I have been able to come to identifying my feelings is when I reflect back on our brief but life-altering adventure in 1969.”
Allison halted to collect her thoughts. The words that followed were going to be vital in determining the ultimate success or failure of their mission.
“Would you be terribly disappointed if I admitted to you that I have questions and reservations similar to yours?” she said to Sam. “You mentioned thinking you must be crazy. When I think about what we are doing in the context of acceptable rational adult behavior, it makes little sense. But yet, I’m here, and you’re here. I wonder if we don’t share the same nagging feelings of discomfort in the pit of our stomachs. All around your life, and my life, there is evidence of an abundance of all the things this society holds forth as necessary for the good life. Money in excess of what’s required to survive, material items in excess of those that are mission essential, a representative form of democracy that is still the envy of most of the world, freedom to worship or not to worship, freedom of movement, freedom of dissent, freedom from discrimination, and so forth. Yet, I know in my aging bones something is wrong, wrong in my life. Something I haven’t done that I should have. Wrong in the direction our society is choosing to go -- that I have somehow become a part of. Wrong in the way we have begun to view the rest of the world only as a source for raw materials or worse as potential threats to our existence. Something is wrong, and a small but very persistent voice in the pit of my soul is shouting that I can find the answers to many, if not all of my questions, in the streets of San Francisco along with thousands of other confused
and questioning human beings. If you’re looking for more justification than that for sabotaging your career, I can’t help you. If you’re like me, you can no longer abide the status quo. You’re here because you need to make changes, and we were taught in the ‘60s that change starts in the streets. For us, I believe those streets are in San Francisco.”