A Lotus Grows in the Mud

by Goldie Hawn

  Shrieking with excitement, we five dancers jump into our separate vehicles for the five-hour drive to Vegas. I’m the only one with a traveling companion: Lambchop, a toy poodle I impulsively blew two hundred bucks on in a pet store just before I left New York. It is August 1965.

  “The Desert Inn, right?” I ask as we start up our engines and lean out the windows, calling to each other from across the lot. My ’59 Chevy convertible with the cool fins and the permanent squeak coughs to life and almost drowns me out.

  “That’s right, Goldie,” Sandy yells from her ’58 Cadillac, which, like mine, has seen better days. “Just stay on the 15 Freeway across the desert until you see the pretty lights.” She floors her accelerator and races off with a squeal of tires. Horns honking, the others follow close behind, and I hurry to bring up the rear.

  I haven’t a clue where we are going. I have only been in California a few months, and I still feel like a foreigner amid the flower-power, anti–Vietnam War, hippie culture. I am sharing an apartment with a family near the famous NBC Studios in Burbank and am about to embark on a new adventure.

  The sun is shining, the radio is playing “I Got You Babe” by Sonny and Cher, and I am back to being a gypsy in the chorus line again. Sitting in my long, low, sexy Chevy, with Lambchop in the passenger seat, we are off to Vegas. Honking at the girls in front and laughing, I know I made the right move in heading west. Everything feels fresh and bright and new here. It is a place of opportunity, not a city of broken dreams.

  Singing along to the music on our radios, our little caravan snakes along Sunset Boulevard, past the Beverly Hills Hotel, Dino’s Lodge from 77 Sunset Strip and Ciro’s Restaurant. Waving and whistling at the tanned young men who stop and stare, we felt life couldn’t be sweeter.

  Rounding a corner at the famous Chateau Marmont Hotel, our cars nearly bump into one another when we come face-to-face with a sharp reminder of reality. Marching down the middle of the street toward us is an antiwar protest denouncing President Johnson for sending a further fifty thousand troops to Vietnam.

  DON’T SEND OUR BOYS TO THEIR DEATHS, reads one banner. Long-haired hippies trail past us, handing out single roses with the message “Make love not war.” I take a rose and watch them shyly as they march slowly past in their combat jackets and multicolored headbands, not really understanding the politics of their protest or the intensity of their emotions. I was never one for rallies; I missed all that because I was too busy working. Every time I heard that somebody I knew from high school or Takoma Park had died in Vietnam, I would cry. I knew I wanted Americans out of there, but I didn’t really know why.

  The marchers march past, and I wedge my red rose between the cigarette lighter and the ashtray, as a silent reminder to myself. “Every day I’m going to make myself think about our boys fighting out in Vietnam,” I tell myself aloud. “Losing their lives in what seems to be a senseless war.”

  We head for the California freeway that wends its way through the eastern Mojave Desert, and I watch the scenery shifting all around me. The tall buildings give way to smaller ones; the shops and houses become fewer; and there is gradually more countryside. Soon, I find myself surrounded by rolling hills, parched brown by the summer sun, a few palm trees dotting the horizon. The wind is in my hair, the radio is now playing “Mr. Tambourine Man” by the Byrds, and I feel so free.

  Looking around, I realize that this is the extraordinary landscape I flew over when I first came in from the east. This is what inspired me to write about God. These are the undulating mounds of earth and rocks that form voluptuous contours from the air. I’ve never seen spaces like this before, such vast uninhabited areas colored gold. I have lived a tiny little life on the East Coast where the mountains are so old that they’ve turned into bald hills. I thought the trees that grew over my house were big. I’ve never seen barrenness like this, peppered only by cacti or Joshua trees, and I am mystified.

  With hardly any other cars on the road, and the late afternoon sun beginning its slow descent over the spectacular mountains that form the horizon, I have rarely seen anything more beautiful.

  Passing road signs to places like Sidewinder Mountain, Coyote Lake, Devil’s Playground and Ghost Town of Calico, I whoop and holler to Lambchop, who is perched up against the rear window, the wind ruffling his curly brown fur.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  My car starts to pull violently to the left just past a place called Barstow. A strange vibration beneath my feet shakes the car, and it is accompanied by an even stranger sound.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  Switching off the radio, I can hear the odd noise at the back as my vehicle weaves right and left. The car becomes increasingly wobbly, and I struggle with the huge steering wheel. Leaning on my horn and flashing my lights, I try to alert the girls in front of me, but they are all too busy singing along to their radios, hair flying.

  “Hey! Guys! Help! Help!” I yell, trying to keep up despite the terrible noise my vehicle is now making as bits of rubber fly off the rear tire. “Hey! Please! Wait!” I wave at them frantically out my window, hoping one of them will spot me in her rearview mirror. To my horror, I watch as all four cars disappear over the horizon.

  I pull the car over to the soft shoulder in a billowing cloud of dust. There isn’t a vehicle or a building as far as the eye can see. As I turn off the engine and step out, I have never heard such silence. I am completely alone in this desolate spot, just Lambchop and me.

  Getting out to check the damage, I discover my rear tire in shreds. Damn it! A blowout. Why me?

  With just a critical tilt of his head, I can almost hear Lambchop saying, This is a fine fix you got us into, Mom.

  Glaring back at him, I say, “Well, I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do. How are we going to get out of this?”

  Lambchop rests his head on his paws and closes his eyes.

  I sit dejectedly on the fins at the back of my car, ready to wave down anyone who passes. I am sporting pink hip-hugger capris, a midriff top and orange flip-flops. It is ages before I see anyone, but then a pickup appears on the horizon like a mirage, shimmering in the heat. Jumping up on the trunk of my car in case he doesn’t see me, I put both arms in the air and wave dementedly.

  “Hey! Hey there!” I yell, “I need help. I have a flat tire!”

  The driver of the pickup truck gives me a shrug of his shoulders and speeds on by.

  “You horse’s ass!” I yell after him, the worst cussword I can think of. I watch as it takes his truck a full ten minutes to become a dot and follow my friends over the horizon.

  The sun is sinking fast and the sky is changing to purple. In the lessening light, the landscape takes on a different perspective. It feels gloomier somehow, sinister even. Each new minute brings down another layer of mauve gauze. The wind picks up, and every minute the air seems to be losing its comforting yellow heat. Looking forlornly at my soundly sleeping dog, I start to feel scared.

  To my intense relief, another car appears on the horizon twenty minutes later, coming from the direction of Las Vegas. “Perhaps the guy had a change of heart,” I tell Lambchop hopefully. “God, I hope he didn’t hear me swearing at him.” I pause and scratch my head. “Or perhaps he did, and he’s come back to rape and murder me, before scattering the pieces of my dismembered body all over the desert!” Scooping Lambchop protectively into my arms, I stand apprehensively at the side of the road.

  I only exhale when I realize this is a different car, driven—thank the Lord—by a presentable young man in smart clothes. He slows down and pulls onto the side of the road just beyond my beleaguered vehicle.

  “Are you in some kind of trouble, miss?” he asks me, his accent unfamiliar.

  “Yes, I am,” I reply. “I have a flat, and I’m afraid I don’t know how to change it.”

  Peeling off his jacket, he pulls out some tools from his trunk and brings them back to my car. He rolls up his shirtsleeves and reveals a pair of well-shaped arms. I sig
h with relief. After taking off my old tire, he looks up at me and asks, “Do you have a spare?”

  “Gee, I don’t know,” I say. “Where would it be?”

  He laughs at me and opens my trunk. “In here,” he says, effortlessly lifting out an old spare, getting dirt all over his shirt.

  “I’m so sorry about your clothes.”

  “It’s not that that I’m bothered about,” he says, smiling up at me wistfully. “I’m going on a date with my girlfriend tonight, and now I’m gonna be late.”

  “Oh no!” I cry, thinking of the poor girl waiting for her handsome young beau in his finest clothes and with his bunch of flowers on the front seat. “I’m so sorry.”

  My sweet Good Samaritan not only changes my tire, he then offers to follow me back the way he came to a small town called Harvard a few miles farther on, where someone should be able to replace my flat.

  “Oh, it’s okay, really, you don’t have to do that,” I say apologetically.

  “Yes, ma’am, I do,” he replies. “This spare isn’t in great shape either, and you could be stuck with another flat just a few miles up the road. Harvard’s just up the way a piece.”

  I feel terrible, and my face must show it because he adds, “Don’t worry, I can call my girlfriend from the gas station and explain.”

  Listening to him making the call, I can tell that his girlfriend isn’t happy.

  “Oh, hi, honey. Well, I had to stop and help a girl just out of Barstow, she had a flat…No, no, not that kind of a girl…Well, she was stuck on the freeway…I know, I know…Listen…No, she’s not that pretty.”

  Watching him, my arms crossed, I think, Hmm, but I am interesting-looking.

  “You should be all right now,” he tells me when he hangs up the phone, his face flushed red.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” I reply, reaching up and pecking him lightly on the cheek. “I hope I didn’t get you into too much trouble.”

  “Aw, no.” He grins and his cheeks go the color of watermelon.

  “Bye, then.” I wave with a smile, and off he goes.

  After paying the gas station attendant an exorbitant sum for his labors, I ask, “Which way to Vegas?”

  “Straight up the 15 through the bottom end of Death Valley for about a hundred and fifty miles,” he says, without humor. “You’ll see a sign and you turn off there.”

  “Wait, wait. Stop. Death Valley? Is that, like, a scary place?”

  “Can be,” he says, without elaborating.

  By the time I get back in my car with Lambchop, it is almost seven o’clock and getting dark. Death Valley? A hundred and fifty miles? Perfect. I trundle along at sixty miles an hour, the road stretching ahead of me relentlessly. The soft hills around me become jagged outcroppings of rock, and the landscape becomes very bleak. The temperature plummets, and I reach round to my suitcase and pull out a sweater I knitted. Soon, there is hardly any light at all, just the pale moon over the mountains, which, silhouetted in black, are eerie and menacing.

  I have no concept of how long I have been driving or how far I have to go. It feels like I will be on this solitary road crossing the desert forever, hemmed in by a tunnel of dark shapes looming on either side of me. Only a handful of vehicles pass me or come at me from the other way. Each time one does, I sit rigidly in my seat, checking the rearview mirror to make sure I’m not being followed by an ax murderer.

  I am soon desperate to pee, but I don’t want to stop by the side of the road in case of snakes or crazy men. Up ahead, I see a truck stop, and I pull in gratefully. Running from my car with Lambchop in my arms, I use the grimy facilities as quickly as I can and run back, locking and then relocking the car door and checking behind me all the while.

  Lambchop settles onto my lap to sleep, giving me a welcome sense of calm. I wish I could just stay where I am for a while, in this pool of light from a single bulb swaying in the night breeze. “Maybe if we slid down in our seat, nobody would notice us, and we could wait until morning,” I whisper into Lambchop’s ear. He looks up into my eyes and I look down into his, but I know we have to keep going. Starting the engine, I yank the shift into drive and pull away as Lambchop jumps into the back.

  Just a few yards up the road, I falter. Standing by the side of the road is a dark shadow. It is the figure of a man with a duffel bag and some sort of hat on his head. He is lit by the moon. When my headlights fully illuminate him, he turns toward me, raises his arm and sticks out his thumb.

  What should I do? Should I pick him up? It would be nice not to be alone. Maybe I shouldn’t. Would I be safer with someone else in the car? Or am I asking for trouble? The closer I get, the more I agonize. Getting closer still, I see he is a soldier, and I stand on the brakes.

  “Hi there,” he says with a smile as he pokes his head through the open passenger window. “Could you give me a lift?” The lights on my dashboard illuminate his face. He is about my age, with an open face and a beautiful smile.

  “Yeah, where are you headed?”

  “I’m going home,” he says.

  “Going home, huh? Great. Jump in.”

  He opens the door and folds his six-foot frame into my car, filling the space with his broad shoulders. I breathe a sigh of relief. A soldier is escorting me through Death Valley.

  “So, where’s home?”

  “Good Springs. It’s about sixty miles this side of Vegas.”

  “Vegas? That’s where I’m going. Have you ever been there?”

  He laughs. “Yes I have, ma’am. Too many times.”

  “Uh-oh, what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing,” he chuckles. “What are you doing in Vegas?”

  “I’m a dancer.” Seeing his surprise, I add hastily, “Top on.”

  We both laugh.

  “Where are you dancing?”

  “The Desert Inn. I’m doing five shows a night for three months. If I ever get there, that is.” There is a pause, then I ask him, “Are you on leave or something?”

  He nods. “I’m going to surprise my mom. She doesn’t know I’m back.”

  “Back from where?”

  “Vietnam.”

  I stammer my reply. “V-Vietnam? You’ve been in Vietnam?” I think of all those banners, the grim statistics in the papers about how many people are being killed every day, and how young the U.S. soldiers are—average age, nineteen.

  “Yup,” he replies without missing a beat. “I’m a Green Beret.”

  “Wow! That’s pretty heavy. You must be, well, God, a Green Beret…” I look up at the beret with renewed respect. Seeing me staring, he pulls it from his head to reveal a closely shaved scalp.

  “I’ve got a week’s leave,” he says. “I didn’t tell Mom. It’s her fiftieth birthday next week. My name is Stu, by the way.”

  “Oh, hi, Stu,” I reply with a giggle. “I’m Goldie. And this is my dog, Lambchop.”

  He turns to look at my sleeping poodle and smiles.

  “So, what happens at the end of your leave?” I ask.

  Staring straight ahead at the empty road winding off into the desert night, he says, in a small voice, “I have to go back.”

  “Go back?” I gasp, but I stop myself from saying more. We drive in silence for several miles, both lost in our own worlds.

  “Are you hungry?” he asks suddenly.

  “I’m a dancer.” I grin. “We’re always hungry.”

  “Then turn off up ahead. There’s a good little diner in a mall just along the next road.”

  Over an ice-cream sundae that Stu can barely believe I will finish, I tell him about my childhood in Takoma Park, my dream to be happy and a few of my more salutary experiences in New York.

  He tucks into a chocolate fudge sundae and listens intently to every word I have to say. “Boy, this is good. I sure miss this,” he says, enjoying every mouthful.

  “Gee, listen to me chattering on,” I say, suddenly embarrassed. “You must think me very shallow compared to what’s happening in your life.
I mean, you’re a real live soldier, in a war and everything.”

  Stu laughs. “Yeah, but I’ve never met a real live Vegas showgirl before. Who knows, maybe you’ll be a star one day. When I’m back in Vietnam, I’ll think of you dancing your butt off to ‘Mustang Sally’ in your little fringed costume and it will remind me of home.”

  I look in his eyes and wonder if he will ever make it home again.

  “What’s it like in Vietnam?” I ask finally, almost afraid of the answer.

  He stares at his big hands for a moment before answering. “Ugly…I’ve lost a lot of good friends.”

  Reaching out, I take his hand in mine and squeeze it. No words are necessary. Pulling myself together, I tell him proudly, “I have a friend who’s a captain in the Army out in Vietnam.”

  “You do?” he replies, relieved by the shift in mood.

  “Yes.” I nod. “His name is Michael Waghelstein. He was at Montgomery Blair High School with me in Silver Spring, Maryland, and then they called him up. He is a good Jewish boy and a great student with not a fighting bone in his body. Hey, would you please say hi from little Goldie Hawn if ever you meet him?”

  Stu laughs. “Yes, I will.” Grabbing his beret, he slides out of our booth. “Come on, now. It’s getting late. Time to go.”

  We travel in silence for the next hour. The landscape is lunar, with just a few little pockets of humanity clustered around the odd truck stop. We pass Baker and Soda Lake, Clark Mountain and Jean. My heart sinks when I see the town sign to Good Springs, and Stu points out where to turn off.

  “You can drop me on this corner,” he says. “I live just down that street.”

  Bringing the car to a halt, I peer beyond him into the darkness and see a series of unremarkable low-rise houses flanking a road with nothing else along it.

  Stu turns to look at me for a moment, and I think he is going to say something. Maybe he’s having second thoughts? Maybe he wants me to drive straight on to Las Vegas and help him go AWOL. Why don’t we just run away together and forget all about the things we were supposed to be doing? I can almost hear him say. But whatever he is thinking privately he decides not to share.