1969 and Then Some

by Robert Wintner

  Well, it was a lovely fucking time that made a big impression and fairly captured the long and the short of it. A small society based on fundamental need and over-stimulation screwed things up. The pleasure centers got singed, and we needed fresh perspective, just like now, in a society convoluting through far more layers, electronically socializing, commenting, interacting, keeping its eyes down on tiny screens, jamming buttons to score more.

  Over the Mountains and Into the Sea

  JOHN’S RIDING SKILL was evident again, or maybe he wanted out of himself more urgently. Taking curves with abandon we raced across the foothills and over the plains for long, demanding miles through liberating hours. In the mid-summer of youth, exhilaration and rebirth are readily available. Life in abundance effused energy, stamina and lust into the mountains and up. Away from where we’d felt like Donovan’s caterpillar, our departure the same as shedding our skins, yet doubts loomed in the miles ahead. Would we reveal the butterfly within?

  I kept up as I could, into curves over my head, learning from the best teacher, experience, about engine braking and not locking up the rear wheel and dire consequence on a twisty mountain pass. Pushing the motorcycle down to lay it over as I’d seen the old French guy do in Biarritz, we finally dragged on asphalt. It felt too cold for sparks but I double clutched as well to better free the flywheel between shifts. John loosened up too, and so we flew.

  Numbing summit passes hampered clutch and brake functions as our hands froze, so we pulled over to lean forward and grasp our exhaust pipes where they came out of the engine. John had seen this technique in a war movie where the Krauts were grabbing the hot pipes of their beemers, and he thought it was bullshit, but he always wanted to try it. It cooked our gloves but restored hand flexibility for the miles remaining at altitude.

  Andorra was non-descript, a gingerbread tourist stop with many cultural items for sale. With some olives, coffee and a roll I sat on a curb to thaw and eat. John paced, watching traffic. Heading down the road we could easily monitor for them, but a town with side streets called for a keen eye to keep a red VW camper from slipping past. He couldn’t believe after so many curvy miles so fast we hadn’t caught them.

  They had to spend the night somewhere too. She couldn’t have been upset enough to drive all night. Could she? Equally rattling were prospects for Chas and Billy rounding out a new quartet. John was smitten, in pain. The only antidote: action. “Come on. They’re up ahead,” he announced, mounting up before I was half done.

  Passing from Spain to Andorra and from there into France with no passports sounds crazy in today’s world of security agents with accents patting down citizens of the United States of America, touching genitals and peeking into your skivvies for the good of the nation. But the world had not yet devolved. Passport checks and borders were relatively new, a holdover from WW II, growing in layers of complexity and control.

  Marseilles would have been forgettable with flat topography and industry, but a Midwestern kid on a motorcycle rode alongside the Mediterranean through a major industrial port with the world at last in his heart. Pumped with urgency to embrace it all as if on a deadline, every mile felt new as gift. Marseilles back then had just met gridlock, its many arteries clogged by more traffic than the arteries could handle. Not to worry, with many new arteries under construction. The red van was not to be seen. Who knew if they’d come through Andorra or taken the coast road through Barcelona? Who knew if they were headed to Florence at all? Who knew if they’d be on the coast road past Marseilles?

  In and out of town we rode with a few other motorcycles, first five, then fifteen, twelve, eighteen, brothers in the bond, some commuters but mostly adventuring youth, some American and some European. BMW, Moto Guzzi, all the British bikes, the odd Husquevarna and Royal Enfield and a few unknowns, we cruised in unison, in a common spirit of the day. The 60s had thrown off the yokes of difference and sameness, of prescribed life schedules, of convention and expectation. Palpable among us at fifty miles per hour was a common light of youth, wanderlust and spontaneous potential. Riding a motorcycle was always removed, but in those days we felt like advance couriers of the new word.

  The southern coast of France was dramatically beautiful when first glimpsed from a distance. Gritty and dirty up close, it felt dirty, bare-breasted and abused. Humanity was comfortable by then with convenient packaging discarded out the window—packaging made of plastic that would linger for ages. And cigarette butts, because the taste of springtime, come up to Marlboro country, all the way up, Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco, Chesterfield, Pall Mall, Viceroy and the rest had become filtered. So many butts in the sand allowed no footfall to avoid them. It wasn’t the Riviera imagined. The naked women seemed far away, surrendered to a starker bareness and sadder gravity.

  Then came Monaco, hub of millionaires, castles and legendary casinos. Swimming pools. Movie stars. We didn’t exactly feel like the Beverly Hillbillies, because they had a beat up old truck with Granny riding in her rocker on top. But the cultural disjunction was the same—with raccoon eyes from days on the road and grit, grease and bugs rounding the white circles behind our sunglasses, we looked unapproachable. Traveling with minimal gear is a blessed skill of young people, and we couldn’t have been lighter, making do with no change of clothes. John finally relaxed beside the teeming traffic; no way they could have beat us to this border. No fucking way, not with the hell-bent riding we’d done since Pamplona.

  The border crossing was a wide spot on the coast road with a tollbooth of sorts, where people stopped to show passports and entered Italy. Like most border crossings then, it was a formality. Anyone who could manage normal behavior for a few minutes could pass through. The sidewalk also widened on the Monaco side, though foot traffic seemed unlikely. The road on the Italian side went a few miles along a wooded shoreline with no sidewalks, no stores or stops.

  We pulled onto the widened walkway near the customs booth and parked. The hillside to the left looked painted with castles and casinos. To the right, a seductive sea shimmered under blue skies. Boats cruised or swung idly from moorings here and there. Such luxury and opulence made that glittering patch of Mediterranean as different from the Midwest as a soybean silo from a motor yacht.

  John had grown more macho in the few weeks I’d known him. He felt supported in this endeavor by his accomplishments, logging many miles and having sexual relations many times with an older woman. He’d proven his grit, and so he insisted that real riders sleep on their motorcycles—it was commonly known and practiced. What? You didn’t know that?

  I tried, propping my head on my backpack and crossing my ankles over the handlebars. A center stand would have been easier, but I wedged a sweatshirt under the left side, butt and back, to shim things up to level, kind of. At dusk a guy came around hawking sardine sandwiches for sixteen hundred fifty liras, about a buck, which seemed steep, but he had us. Chopped sardines, onions and olives in olive oil on a hard bun, its fulgent taste perfectly blended the elements of that long, forever day and life on the Med.

  Nobody could sleep, but John felt it best that we stay awake anyway. They couldn’t pass into Italy without seeing us, but they might see us and pass anyway. So we lay back and watched, wondering if they would see us and pass anyway.

  By midnight we slept. In the morning we agreed that they wouldn’t have driven in the night. If they had, they would have seen us and stopped because, after all, Jane couldn’t hate John’s guts enough to put him in a fix just for slipping her the salami and not telling her he was nineteen. Could she? Nah! We didn’t think so. In fact, she might by then have reconsidered . . .

  Well, that didn’t matter. The sun climbed higher and the day got hot, and with youthful impatience, we wondered how they’d beaten us to the border. It didn’t seem possible, but then they had a big head start, and a four-wheeler goes farther between rest stops and covers more miles in a day. Hell, you can practically nod off driving a four-wheeler and still cover a few hundred miles a day
. Because a motorcycle wears you down. The wind and sun take your energy, and so do the rain and cold. A car has a windshield and a roof—and a heater and windshield wipers and three hundred miles on an average day, maybe four hundred. On a motorcycle you have thrills and chills, leaning and scraping and road fatigue in two hundred miles or two fifty. Or three on a push. We’d pushed.

  We knew they’d beat us by mid-morning. We waited till noon to come up with a plan on impulse. Approaching the border on the Monaco side two German guys rode two up on a little one-lung scooter. Like Hans ‘n Franz, the driver looked muscularly miniscule, while the guy on back bulged big. They too no speaka too gooda de English, but they pulled over as requested to hear our story and maybe comprehend our proposal. Our charades conveyed our need—they got it. John wanted them to pass through the border station as they had planned. But instead of riding on back of Hans’ little scooter, Franz would drive the Thunderbird. Franz could do this, because the world was a simpler, better place at that time.

  I would ride my moto through the border station with Hans ‘n Franz. Once safely across into Italy, we would ride a mile or so down the road, out of sight of the border crossing, where John would meet us and take his motorcycle back from Franz. Eyebrows today would rise at this juncture, which shows how much we’ve lost. Back then the world of youth was one, unified with a common nemesis and a common goal. That language of simplicity may suggest oversimplification. And it’s true that such a concept would never work today and may never work again. And therein resided the magic, in people wanting to be free, as they should be, in peace.

  What is now a hokey, passé lyric by the Rascals from a half-century ago said it best. Back then we lived in that world. That sounds vacuous and sometimes was, but on that day, Hans ‘n Franz shared a nod. Franz said something like, Yah! I ride der grossa moto! Yah! Unt den we halten on der uder side.

  “Wait a minute,” I said to John. “What are you gonna do? Hide in my backpack?” I didn’t get it.

  “I’m gonna swim it,” John said, backing chronic macho with the man walk. I sensed a Hollywood rendition of the man walk, as seen in Von Ryan’s Express, The Great Escape or any silver screen classic starring Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen or John Levy.

  I stared in disbelief that he would risk his life in the spirit of screen magic or the spirit of finding a little paper and cardboard document or getting laid again, maybe. I laughed short. I did not restate the premise because John was two layers in and peeling to his skivvies. With no further ado it was, “Here. Take my shit.” He ambled down the stony path and rock-hopped the shoreline and jumped the fuck in. I looked left and right, fore and aft. Nobody noticed. Nobody cared. What if they did? A guy needs to go for a swim sometimes—alone in the Mediterranean. With no beach, murky water and a bunch of huge boats and people in white pants and blue blazers staring at him. He swam out a long way, what looked like a mile, and hung a left. I lashed his stuff onto the back of the Thunderbird.

  And so it came to pass that Franz got fulfilled straddling a big British moto. Hans ‘n I mounted up and followed through customs, showing passports and nodding yes and crossing in three minutes. We waited a half-mile down on the shoulder where the trees opened on a sea view. The border guards could have seen us but weren’t looking. We posed no threat. It didn’t matter. It was only a crazy, fucked up kid from LA swimming across a border because his ex-girlfriend had his passport, because she split in a hurry, pissed off that she was a grown woman of twenty-two and he was a teenager, nineteen maybe but hardly the man she’d thought him to be and bucked into midnight with.

  I don’t wonder where Jane is now, never have. But I doubt she ever humped a man more man than John Levy, who swam straight out with no hesitation till he shrank to a speck of flotsam beyond the boats. He churned on a strong, steady stroke showing no hint of heading in. Do they have sharks in the Med? Did they have sharks back then, before the Med died?

  John wasn’t going for it in the mode so popular a few years later but applying a spirit to a task, coming into manhood on practical necessity. John crossed the border with no passport.

  Hans ‘n Franz and I rode up another half-mile to the next clearing, because John was not turning toward the shore. I waved his shirt in the air, and without waving back, he turned in. He took another half hour to swim to shore and amble out, staggering and dripping. Hans ‘n Franz hung around because they loved the action, pulling a goof on a major country in the spirit of the Revolution—and on motorcycles to boot. It was the action that defined us, that bonded us as brothers, which served as a magnet to any gathering of kindred spirits in that magical time. We’d won another skirmish, and John’s celebration was brief but solid. Climbing back into his funky duds, it was black power handshakes all around and back on the road, double clutching for Florence.

  Finding a red VW van in one of Italy’s biggest cities would have felt nearly impossible, but Europe on $5 a Day listed three campgrounds in town, narrowing the search considerably. The first was small and easily scanned. “They’re not here,” John announced, dropping into gear before I could speak. The second campground was vast, a few acres on a hillside with scenic views and a creek. I scanned, wondering if it would clog on toilet paper. John tore through and in a few minutes came back. “They’re not here.”

  “Whoa!”

  “What?”

  “They’re here.” I pointed down and to the left, just yonder. In another few minutes it was sheepish blushing all around. It looked like Jane had indeed horsefucked Billy, and there was John boy again—but wait a minute.

  No, she hadn’t. Maybe Billy wanted to—hell, yes, Billy wanted to—but she couldn’t get old John out of her mind, and there he was.

  John was worse, love sick and no two ways about it. He said she’d ripped off his passport.

  She said she didn’t fucking rip off any such fucking thing.

  He dove into the red van and under one of the fold-down berths, and there it was. “Oh yeah?” What a relief, kind of.

  “I didn’t rip it off. You left it there.”

  “Yeah, well. You didn’t have to leave so fast like that.”

  “I was mad.”

  John grinned. “You mean you’re not mad anymore?”

  She didn’t grin back, but everyone saw a crack in the wall. “Not as much.” It was like she’d never be completely satisfied, but a hardy round of groin pounding right then and there might help rectify the situation. John nodded like he’d seen John Wayne do a few times and headed back into the van. Jane wagged her head and followed, mumbling about boys and their fucked up needs.

  Rianne sorted her laundry behind the van, which also seemed like a relief. “Billy and Chas out for lunch?”

  “They split.”

  I squatted nearby to better watch a small masonry cupid pouring water from a blossom. You can’t beat Florence for sculpture. “Doesn’t seem like them.”

  “We got tired of them real fast,” she said.

  “You mean they got invited to split.”

  “Not really. Jane told them to get the fuck outa the van. I think she’s in love.”

  “I guess you’re not.”

  “No. That guy was a jerk. What are you gonna do?”

  “I don’t know.” But I did know what I wasn’t going to do, which was stick my peepee into Rianne’s teetee, luscious as she looked. I hadn’t yet sorted that aspect of the romance/love/sexuality continuum either; I anticipated the distinct scent of gumdrops and man goo. She seemed weak and soiled. Maybe she wasn’t, but maybe my instincts were correct. Social disease in those days was the clap. The end. Oh, you could get syphilis and warts and some other nasty, exotic stuff, like the guys in Vietnam were bringing home, but you really had to go dredging the ditch to find that stuff. It was most often the clap and some penicillin, over and out. But still, she’d lowered her standards so hard and so fast. Chas was a dirtball, a clod and the worst kind of a loser, one with a big mouth. I wanted to nestle up to someone, but Rianne seem
ed somehow on the mend, airing out, freshening up. That’s how young men think. Given a few decades, it’s easier to process life’s foibles, like Rianne giving it up to an asshole from Oregon. I’ve done the same with as much failure of character as Rianne could ever show. I’d played Chas’s role as well, because given the time, most people play most parts.

  John and I parked between the red van and a white car that belonged to Rayanne, who camped alongside. What an amusing confusion with Rianne on the one hand and Rayanne on the other. It seemed cosmic on a molecular level, like comet dust had settled on what was meant to be. Craving sexual relations with Rayanne would be obvious for any male. I craved the chance for Rianne to hear us.

  Oh. Don’t stop.

  Those were the days. A sprightly nymphet pretty as a buxom pixie, Rayanne was a drop-dead cutie who could return a flirtation with the best of them. Oh, it was an invitation to a lovelock if ever a doubtful boy saw one. But things are rarely as simple as they should be. Rayanne held back. She didn’t want to hold back. Holding back was against her instinct and better nature. Rayanne embraced the sexual revolution and wanted in—make that back in. She’d jumped in some months ago and got knocked up and ran into trouble on a tubular pregnancy with a cist on an ovary and a complicated tumor and surgery including hysterectomy and some other removals.

  Rayanne was on the mend but still traumatized, her travels meant to rejuvenate her youth with renewed perspective on the rest of her life. Who wouldn’t love a holiday after what she’d been through? Months of anxiety and pain had left her restless as a racehorse at a starting gate.