Sleeping Through the Revolution

By Wayne Luckmann

Times were not the best nor the worst during the late 1950s when Felix Fist set out for California to attend college and fulfill the dream he had always thought impossible, the only one in his extended family to even aspire toward that auspicious goal. Facing challenges, many of his own making from a limited social and cultural background, Felix responds ingenuously as a participant observer in absorbing the unexpected emerging events of the turbulent 1960s and beyond.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Squirrel Haven Publishing
• Release date: Nov 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005710781

Wayne Luckmann

Wayne Luckmann, a student of life and of ideas, writes from the basis of what he has experienced over several decades and what he has learned through observation and through close and repeated readings in literature, science, philosophy, psychology, linguistics, languages, and art. After surviving service of over forty years as tenured faculty at Green River College in Auburn, WA, and eleven years in Glendale, Arizona fostering rescued dogs and feral cats, he now resides in Bremerton, WA, his days now focused on continued reading in all his chosen subjects, continued study of the classical guitar, and dedicated attention to Works in Progress.

Book preview

Sleeping Through the Revolution

By

Wayne Luckmann

Copyright © 2020 by Wayne Luckmann

What follows is fiction: All characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this work are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used as fiction

Note that the following narrative includes some poetry that is best read using a smaller font size to maintain proper line length

Felix Fist never clearly understood why one day he suddenly began searching the Web trying to locate places where he had once lived or worked only to find those places strikingly changed over the fifty some years since he had last seen them, some of them no longer even in existence: the small private college in downtown Berkeley just off Shattuck on Kittredge and Harold Way where he first began attempting with questionable success to guide others in what most refer to as teaching doing what he had to do trying to help others understand what they might do to advance steadily in the directions of their dreams; the yellow stucco four-pump Shell service station on Shattuck with large red lettering across the yellow stucco archway just before the Oakland-Berkeley line where he had once worked off and on during those six years he attended Cal, he with relief surviving the Big U well enough to have two degrees conferred upon him and advance him in the direction of a forty-eight year career if not the direction of his dreams.

Surely he wasn’t surprised at what he found googling the Internet. Why then a feeling of disappointment, the twinge of sadness from a sense of loss with a tinge of remorse? Perhaps his recently having finished editing a memoir by someone recently defunct with whom he had shared his life while they both attended UC-Berkeley during those times of cultural change through rebellion that sometimes seemed the best of times and too often seemed the worst. His sustained, lengthy effort editing that book certainly had summoned up remembrances of things past that had elicited or revived nostalgia, a concept he had for some odd reason been delighted to learn derived from a base Indo-European root word connoting returning safely home. Why had that concept so held his attention and filled him with a sense of warmth that seemed a bit like joy? Where was any home to which he had ever returned safely?

No surprise that once having revived his memory cache not yet fully purged through the steady advance of years, Fist found himself thinking back to where and when his life-long quest began. How vivid his recall; how curious, but perhaps not so much, that he could recall that event so clearly: Late July, 1957 and Felix having just turned 20 in June, his prefrontal cortex areas not fully developed, setting out on his first almost non-stop whirlwind drive out to Long Beach, California alone using his pride and joy, a blue and white, two-door ’54 Chevy with blue vinyl seats, sit for paper and pencil placement tests for math and English and with the help of a woman advisor, perhaps as old as forty, with sharp features, dark hair, and dark-rimmed glasses register for fall semester classes at City College that began September 23, he in somewhat of a daze, for although he had always hoped and dreamed, he never had expected to attend any college anywhere, certainly not in California, of all places.

Waking in the dark before dawn with a sense of mixed excitement and mild worry after finally having slept, he, like his mother by her own admission a worrier, Felix lay in early morning light thinking about the long trip ahead as he surveyed the flowery plaster scrolls decorating the dark, high ceiling of the large room he rented for eleven dollars a week, the long, flowered curtains on tall windows of the Southside nineteenth century, two-story, antique dwelling on 11th Street in a moribund section of Milwaukee eventually razed for construction of an interstate only imagined at the time as a fantasy of the future he would actually see for himself in California. Hesitant to rise from the security of his blue blanket, Felix thought of the evening before and supper with his parents just returned from their brief trip to Florida where once Felix's father retired they thought they might live in the house they would build on the property they had bought sight unseen. How that purchase had happened Fist couldn't recall. Now there they were again back at Felix's grandmother's on 24th Street just off Greenfield Avenue where Felix's father had handed his surprised son a wad of small bills.

Here's a hundred dollars, Felix's father offered. "That's about all we have left. Maybe it will help.

It will! Thanks, Pa! Felix replied, surprised and overwhelmed, his father more than once having informed Felix without a tone of regret that he could not help when Felix had expressed his desire to attend college. I don't have a whole lot left of my pay, Felix offered in response to his father's unexpected support. A hundred dollars! That was almost a whole month’s wages, at least half! I won't get paid again until a week after I get back from California. How proud he felt in declaring again his destination to which everyone he knew aspired!

Well, you must then be careful! Felix's mother warned with a hint of accent from the country of her birth. Where you are going is yet so far, and you do not have so much time to go there, do what you must do, and get back in time for work on Monday.

A week doesn't seem enough for how far you have to go and return, Felix's father added. You sure you'll make it there and back in a week?

I have to, Pa! Felix replied with more confidence than he actually had as he gathered himself to take leave."

Well, take your time, his father advised. Don't push yourself too hard.

I won't, Felix agreed ready to move out the door.

You be careful, now! his mother ordered again.

I will, Ma, Felix promised with slight exasperation. Why did mothers always have to tell you more than once when you already knew what you had to do?

Relieved to finally be going, he descended gray enameled stairs from the kitchen through the sun porch filled with broadleaf plants to the frosted glass panel of the door, down to the concrete stoop to the concrete walk his grandfather had poured and troweled himself leading Felix along the green picket fence past rose bushes in full bloom beside the marbled cinder block foundation of the house where it reached a trellis of climbing roses spanning the green picket gate he went through past trimmed lawn to the sidewalk, the strip of lawn beside the weathered asphalt street and his silent pride and joy, that '54 blue and white Chevy with blue vinyl seats he climbed in, turned the key starting the engine that roared to life, put the transmission in Drive, pulled away from the curb, and with a sense of release and relief but with growing anticipation for what he might face ahead drove the thirteen blocks to his rented room.

How excited his youthful sense of adventure in setting out alone shortly after his 20th birthday while he had a week’s vacation from his job as an order clerk for Allis-Chalmers that after almost a century of making farm equipment now manufactured large kilns for drying lime for cement or equipment for mixing sand, gravel, and cement to produce concrete poured as foundation slabs for sprouting tract houses and nascent interstate highways. His parents having recently returned to Felix’s grandmother’s house from their brief, ill-advised, disappointing trip to view with dismay what they had discovered as their swampy property in Florida, his father handing Felix that welcomed hundred dollars in small bills, Felix grateful knowing that along with having whatever was left of his $188 monthly pay before taxes, every penny would help with the expense for fuel and whatever he thought he could afford for food on the 2500 mile trip there and the 2500 mile trip back and whatever miles he’d put on while in the Los Angeles area that was vast, some 400 square miles, as he would so often hear a decade later at the beginning of each episode of Dragnet on TV with its opening shot of Los Angeles city hall. How would he somehow manage making his way through such vast, foreign territory? The farthest west he had ever been, a day trip to Harper's Ferry, Iowa to visit an aunt of his father, Felix had stood at the edge of what he had learned in geography class were the Great Plains, he gazing in wonder at what he might find beyond the horizon.

The range of their territory and their travels usually closely prescribed and limited to rural lakes just outside the city, what exquisite excitement in setting out with such ceremony after Ma's preparation and packing of a food basket, Felix with his brothers ordered out to settle into the back seat beneath the tan cloth headliner, he wiggling onto the seat as he claimed his spot directly behind Pa, he peering out along the long, gleaming black hood of the ’41 four-door Chevy with chrome trim and wide, white-sidewall tires for which Pa had traded-in the sponge-painted '36, two-door Chevy with the plastic seat cover of brown and yellow woven basket design and straight six-cylinder engine that had always leaked water no matter what Pa had tried keeping it from overheating. The familiar weathered house and gray concrete walk and green picket garden fence above the redbrick alleyway suddenly transformed within the frame of the windshield, they were off, pulling away, the antique house and other aging houses of their neighborhood receding behind as they headed out to the city limits and beyond into unexplored, unfamiliar territory heading west.

On that longest trip out to Harper's Ferry, Iowa, a hundred and ninety-five miles and some four or five hours one way along two-lane US18, they got lost having to drive detours onto gravel backroads maneuvering around huge, yellow machinery from highway construction widening the roadway to accommodate increased traffic. On both sides the world of green from tall woodland shrubs and full-leafed trees in streaming sunlight, gravel drummed beneath the fenders, the dust from their passage roiling in thick clouds behind settling on tall summer grass swaying as they passed.

Visiting his father’s aunt at Harper’s Ferry, how closely related Fist never learned, the name of the place where she lived suggested that they were headed toward the frontier, a surmise somewhat confirmed after they arrived and Felix learned that his father’s aunt acted as telephone operator for the whole region with the switchboard actually right in her living room adding to the pioneer ambience of her two-story, balloon-frame house set out on the vast, flat grassland, her dwelling widely separate from other two-story, balloon-frame houses of the town not much more than a pioneer settlement.

That afternoon, Felix helped dig potatoes from hot, sandy soil and had them fresh for supper, their meal interrupted at frequent intervals by the ringing switchboard that his father’s aunt rose from the table to attend, her chatty exchange with the caller adding unexpected seasoning to their meal. Later, as he stood in late afternoon sunlight and ebbing warmth, beyond the parched grass of the fenceless backyard where a plot of corn rows edged the endless prairie beyond, railroad tracks spanned Felix's view from one horizon to the other. Trains passed at frequent intervals, one a long line of boxcars diminished to toy size by distance; another a fast line of toy-sized silver passenger cars with its faint horn at crossings moving swiftly through a vast grassland toward the West.

Having studied with great anticipation a roadmap of the whole United States of America and Texas he had picked up for free from a Sinclair service station the previous day, Felix woke before dawn surprised that he had slept soundly, deciding he would drive south through Illinois to pick up Route 66, that famous highway ending at the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica (how foreign sounding the name) taking him directly to Los Angeles and Long Beach. If he followed Route 66 referred to as The Mother Road he had read of in John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath published a year after Felix's birth, a book with brown leather binding and gold lettering on red background he had recently read with awe, he imagining himself writing something similar to similar acclaim, he knew that each place he came upon and passed through would become part of a grand adventure that for him would be bold and exciting given what he had perceived as his mundane, somewhat rural existence throughout a languishing adolescence in Sunfish, a small town beside a small lake of the same name some fifteen miles beyond the city where he now lived, his having been expelled from the lake cottage near the small town on the advent of his father selling their house and his parents' trip to Florida forcing him into the shelter of a rented room he hoped he would soon be leaving for California.

Following Route 66, stopping only briefly for short periods of sleep and even briefer pauses for fuel and the use of relief facilities, always amazed at finding himself where he was doing what he was doing, seeing so much country that held so much history he had read only some two or three years before in a text for a high school geography class, when he finally reached the West Coast and walked the long strand of ocean beach he had so often dreamed about, he knew he surely would be amazed by what he actually viewed, and he would have to pinch himself to make sure that all he saw was not a dream.

But before all that, because of his moribund affair with Gloria with whom he worked and because of that affair he having abandoned Nan with whom he had gone steady in high school and before he decided to leave all that behind for Long Beach, California, Felix when not working or carousing with his beer-drinking cohorts had like so many others spent his leisure time viewing films recommended by Gloria who had already seen them with her husband making Felix feel as if he were sharing them with her. Felix delighted in the adventures offered by Around the World in Eighty Days laced with the manic humor of Cantinflas. Also immersed in the drama of human struggle to survive tragic challenges depicted in the Bridge Over the River Kwai, he also felt spellbound by the somber, disturbing portrayal of multiple personality disorder in Three Faces of Eve prompting Felix to consider some of the weird things he did or the weird thoughts he had, especially about women, making him wonder sometimes whether he suffered from the same condition. Responding to the stirring conflict from people struggling to promote fair justice under the law in 12 Angry Men, Felix felt a thrill of empathy witnessing the noble struggles of ordinary individuals just like himself who had helped him forget his own troubles resulting from his moribund affair with Gloria and his continuous passive-aggressive rebellion against Pa’s stern authority.

Then on that early Saturday morning, July 1957, emerging from the large, two-story antique house on 11th Street where he had a room, Felix climbed into his '54 blue and white Chevy with blue vinyl seats and set out for California, turning right heading up Greenfield Avenue where twelve blocks up that street he had visited his grandmother's house the previous afternoon, turned left up Sunfish Avenue past where he had lived a year or two as a toddler, merged onto Forest Home passing the cemetery where many of his grandmother's family were interred, that sanctified ground having given the avenue its name, then out Forest Home becoming SR24 through Hales’ Corner, Tess' Corner, Sunfish, the small town beside the lake of the same name where he had survived his teens, passing the redbrick elementary school he had attended for two years where on Saturday mornings one winter he would recite what he had been assigned for a music lesson on the trumpet his parents had sacrificed to buy him, his father grumbling that they should have rented; then the small cottage drive-in where he had spent so many aimless, idle hours next to Sunfish Beach amusement park with its awesome roller coaster he had often ridden for thrilling excitement especially at night as it ratcheted slowly above the colored lights into the dark, reached the peak of the first seventy-five-foot drop then plunged. Passing through Big Bend where at times he feeling bold without ID had bought beer at a small grocery that made legal sales to 18-year olds, on through East Troy where he had pitched a Little League game, another of one too many he had lost. Reaching Janesville, he joined US51, a two-lane, concrete road striped with tar that took him south through Rockford, Illinois to Bloomington, the two-lane road flowing away before him through vast, green, ranging cow pastures and cornfields, small picturesque clusters of buildings seeming more like settlements with red barns, gray concrete silos (one with a large flag of the USA), and white slat board, gabled houses beneath ancient, towering oak surrounded by wide lawns reaching to the ditch and culvert along the concrete, tar-striped highway, each place he entered and passed through striking him as a wonder, their names exotic. At Springfield he had read about in his history textbook, he passed numerous signs proclaiming The Great Emancipator’s resting place.

Crossing with wonder the Mississippi he always heard so much about and had seen only once as a child on a trip to Harper's Ferry, the wide river with its vast expanse of brown water must have been or seemed almost a mile across he also had read about in a collection of Mark Twin he had received as a surprise gift one day Felix had been with Pa who had been searching downtown stores for books considered prurient if not obscene. Connecting with US50, the Lincoln Highway, first transcontinental highway, Felix struck by its grand width and bright, new concrete paving without strips of tar, the two lanes in each direction separated by islands of trees and flowering shrubs finally hooked up with Route 66 taking him into Saint Louis where he drove through what seemed an endless metropolis, he gazing open mouth at the skyline along the riverfront so grand and exposed, so unlike the closed-in feeling of the downtown area of the city he had lived in most of his life, that sense of being confined broken only those times when as a child he had climbed to the roof of the pioneer log cabin on a hill in Mitchell Park four or five blocks from his grandmother’s, or he climbed to the roof of some neighboring house he was always chased from as he had gazed in childish wonder at the staggered images of steeples and hotels and corporate towers in bright sunlight beneath billowing summer clouds. Fist wondered why Felix had always sought such high places when gazing at the wide world made him feel so small?

After driving what seemed forever through the metropolitan area of Saint Louis following Route 66, Felix passed through the Ozarks and found himself in a place he had only heard of as some vast, primitive wilderness of forest and lakes with savage inhabitants who uttered some strange version of the language he used, their speech much like what he read daily in the comic strip Lil’ Abner in the Green Sheet of the afternoon Milwaukee Journal. Then down through Tulsa, Oklahoma, the long summer day slowly becoming night, when he became confused and then lost trying to follow signs along one-way streets running in opposite directions through a downtown area the likes he had never seen blazing with colored lights, crowded with traffic and strolling pedestrians, his windows rolled down for relief from lingering heat, finally finding his way out of Tulsa and back onto Route 66, released at last from what seemed a maze of streets to open roadway, his passage at night outside Oklahoma City an equal challenge from swarms of huge locust that must have been at least twelve inches long bursting against his windshield forcing him to stop along side the road, climb out into the hot, humid night, and sweep away the heap of broken bodies from beneath his wiper blades.

Reaching the Texas Panhandle, stopping to pick up a man in his late twenties or early thirties trying to save his Navy travel pay by hitchhiking to California, they passed through Amarillo at dawn, the air so chill Felix turned on the heat, the asphalt road glistening with frost rising and falling over low hills through what appeared painted desert of pink and tan and brown with green spikey cactus sprouting red and yellow blossoms and what appeared stunted black trees he later learned were mesquite or iron wood, Felix suddenly aware that he was actually in Texas he believed he had seen in so many Saturday afternoon matinees of Hollywood westerns. Crossing the Rio Grande at Albuquerque, New Mexico, he muttering in wonder the name of the river as he passed over, finally stopping outside Gallup after driving past rows of motor hotels and restaurants where at an adobe café with hitching posts, the man he had given a ride paid for Felix’s breakfast at what seemed the exorbitant cost of a dollar for oatmeal and coffee, Felix enthralled by the café of yellow stucco displaying western décor of colored Indian blankets, knotty pinewood beams and paneling, and potted cactus. After breakfast, the man he had picked up outside Amarillo left Felix and continued on his way when Felix having not slept since the previous morning and just having eaten told the man he needed to stop for rest alongside the road, the man quickly getting another ride as Felix stretched to snooze on his blue vinyl bench seat.

Crossing the Continental Divide where rivers he had learned from his geography book now flowed west instead of east, he climbed through the towering Rockies he first saw as a pale mystic range from a long way off then majestic and grand when driving through them. His speed slowed because of the grade, Felix gazed out the open window at the towering peaks he passed, impressed at how high he had climbed, a bit anxious when he noted his temperature gauge needle edging into red and he saw frequent places along the road offering water for cooling overheated engines and escape ramps of sand on steep mountain grades to stop runaway trucks. At Needles, California, where he crossed the Colorado with relief after having survived the mountains, he breathed deeply detecting the sudden cool scent of fresh water, then reached Barstow and the Mojave desert while passing a large sign with a crudely drawn skull warning. No water for 300 miles!

Late afternoon rush hour, never having seen such heavy flow of traffic in all directions, Felix finally entered the Greater Los Angeles area at San Bernardino. Here he followed Foothill Boulevard taking him through Upland and Claremont reaching Pasadena, home of the Rosebowl he had seen only on TV. Halting at numerous stoplights along the way, his windows rolled down for ventilation and relief from the bright afternoon heat, his ’54 Chevy having only a fan for air-conditioning, his mild anxiety from driving in such traffic in a place he had never been, he felt somewhat calmed by his radio tuned to a local station blasting out the same pop tunes he had heard as he had left his home town. Rock-and-roll and the hyper-ventilated shouting of disk jockeys blaring from a multitude of vehicles with similarly loud radios, from hearing those popular tunes, Felix recalled watching the premier of American Bandstand with Dick Clark, only five years older than Felix, who almost immediately had become wildly popular among young adolescents including Felix and his cohorts. Whenever Felix could be distracted from his immediate pursuits and he on occasion viewed American Bandstand to see what all the excitement was about, he imagined himself appearing on the program the center of attention circled by all the other dancers as he performed the solo dance he had created on his own with unique movements he invented as he moved in spontaneous response to the beat and changing rhythm of the music, a technique he had developed as a child that had brought him favorable attention at an early age when he would suddenly begin responding to his father playing the concertina or accordion for visitors or for block parties or weddings, the guests always loudly delighted at seeing young Felix twist and turn through his original gyrations as he danced on and on. Sometimes, someone would pay him a dime for his performance.

Stopped at a red light that finally changed, Felix suddenly noticed vehicles with the same state license plates as his. Tempted to wave, Felix checked his youthful excitement and ignored them with equal studied indifference as he followed as best he could multiple road signs directing him through Los Angeles to Long Beach where he somehow located in Lakewood the college campus he would attend. Amazed at its size and Southwest Spanish-style architecture of white stucco buildings with red tile roofs, cloistered walkways, expansive lawns and towering brown palm trees, all that he observed even more grand than what he had seen in the college catalogue, he headed into Long Beach to locate the Loreta Walk address he had used to apply for college. Passing huge hangers of the Douglas Company beside the Long Beach airport, somehow despite his anxiety facing yet another new wonder, he found himself entering a huge traffic circle on Pacific Coast Highway.

Felix had never seen such a traffic circle or such wide streets even wider than the highways he had driven over the previous seemingly endless hours while passing through Saint Louis where the national highway divided, separated by shrubs and stands of trees, the new concrete contrasting the lush green of the divide. Now here before him vehicles streamed endlessly in both directions, he suddenly surprised by a rushing flow of circling traffic, he amazed drivers knew how to enter and exit while maintaining cruising speed only hesitating briefly to negotiate entering then quickly changing lanes to exit at one of the spikes of the circle that would lead them off onto another wide boulevard running off in each direction. Somehow executing that circle without mishap while circling it twice, Felix found himself on Pacific Coast Highway leading him into Long Beach, the names alone exciting him while passing lines of courtyard motels with tan stucco siding and neon signs beginning to flash and glow exclaiming some fanciful name promising glorious comfort and indulgence, the courtyards some with tan concrete entrance ramps crowned with towering palms of rough, brown flaking trunks topped with green, splayed fronds.

Twilight descending, the air still warm and heavy with exhaust from endless traffic, his windows rolled down and radio blaring the same popular tunes endlessly promoted, the raw, pungent odor of oil from wells on Signal Hill with its sudden dark ambience of wood-beamed derricks, the steel cross beams of huge oil tanks, the quiet slow chugging of countless engines with slowly churning green arms like giant praying mantis sucking up the thick, black deposits of decayed, ancient jungles, Felix in his '54 Chevy dropped back into the bright display of neon and tall lampposts lining Anaheim Avenue and the endless line of liquor stores or taverns glowing with colored signs promoting beer foreign to him not made in his home town famous for its own brands.

Stopping on impulse at a motel on Pacific Coast Highway, uncertain as to where he might otherwise sleep, he drove up a ramp and entered a courtyard lined with red tile roof and yellow stucco facade and tan concrete yard bathed in the glow of neon beneath darkening sky. He entered the small, warm, musty office with slatted blinds where a woman who appeared as old as his grandmother informed him he would have to pay a whole $5 allowing him a bed and a shower for one night. Shown a small room with even smaller bathroom, he noted the unfamiliar decor of yellow lamplight on stucco walls, stiff, laundered sheets on the bed, the closeness and warmth of the room with fragrances of disinfectant, soap, and carpet cleaner, the glow of neon outside creeping into the room, the yellow lamp beside the bed attracting flying insects that clung to the outside of the screen door. Yet, not wanting to feel he might disappoint the elderly woman, he decided to take the room since he felt really tired and he certainly could use a well-needed shower and the comfort of sleeping in a bed rather than the blue vinyl front seat of his ’54 Chevy.

But despite the unusual luxury of sleeping in a bed with a stiff, freshly laundered sheet up around his ears and aware of the feel of stiff, freshly laundered sheets on his naked, freshly showered flesh, Felix knew he had to save his limited resources for fuel and food. So the next morning woke by the steady sound of traffic in a place he had never been and had only imagined, he decided that after breakfast and then spending the morning taking placement exams for English and math, he would explore the area and finally find that address on Loreta Walk.

Leaving the motel, he stopped to eat breakfast seated at a long counter of a restaurant with decor he had never seen before or could have even imagined with a roof of scattered stone and tar sloping to the trim, thick lawn that seemed like green carpet watered by automatic sprinklers twirling in morning sunlight, the massive windows and stucco siding nestled by thick shrubs, towering royal palm, the large interior with décor of brown and tan booths, hanging yellow lamps, vinyl counter and table tops and seating that appeared new. Breathing in rich aromas of grilling pancakes, eggs and bacon and toast Felix felt ready to enjoy after his nearly fasting on his trip out over the past two-and-a half days, from all that he viewed, he was struck by the open, expansive, brightness of a grand scene so different from the closed, dark, gray of wood houses and concrete alleyways in an aging city he recently had left behind with its lingering 19th Century European appearance from round weathered fronts of granite block buildings in its downtown business district.

Then, of course, the difference in climate and atmosphere with morning fog from the ocean, the gathering heat and hazy sunlight contributing to the ripe odor of heavy air, a thick mix of fog and exhaust from endless roaring traffic fusing with fragrances from flowering exotic plants of bright, vivid blossoms of all hues. Fist could always readily recall Felix’s adolescent wonder at such ambience when back home the evenings and mornings during the following month would soon seem brisk after a hot, humid summer, while in Long Beach, Felix would feel dazzled by sunshine flashing off countless vehicles sending up rich exhaust, the thick atmosphere hot and stifling, yet for Felix exotic and grand and foreign, he excited finding himself actually in California.

Driving south on Pacific Coast Highway, Felix observed numerous parked cars along Huntington Beach where he saw people camping, so he considered sleeping that night on the blue vinyl bench seat in his ’54 Chevy beside the ocean, the endless pounding surf lulling him to sleep along with the pungent, salty ocean air and morning fog to which he would stiffly wake, climb out to stretch, and view with wonder the constant crashing surf, foam hissing onto the sand, the dark blue water brightening from the sun melting the fog, and Felix would find himself gazing at the vast, blue Pacific. How would he describe for others what he beheld where he stood and what he actually perceived?

Heading back to Long Beach, Felix again decided he perhaps should find the address he had used to apply for the local college. Finding the address easily enough, the small bungalow in Naples just off of Second Street appeared occupied, but when he knocked and waited, no one responded, so he climbed back into his Chevy and drove up Second through Belmont Shore, a busy area of restaurants and stores to Lexington Avenue that appeared a busy thoroughfare and might lead to the ocean, a guess he found surprisingly accurate since it led him to Ocean Blvd where he found a place to park beside the beach.

Felix stood alone on yellow sand at the edge of the vast Pacific Ocean, his feet bare after removing his shoes and socks, the legs of his pleated trousers he had worn through almost non-stop hours driving here rolled to avoid getting them soaked from the constant surf surging in a sudden wash up onto the shore in a hiss of foam and pebbles. Never had he seen such a panoramic view, the long, wide stretch of yellow sand, the vast plain of blue water, the distant tall buildings of downtown Long Beach, the towering cranes of shipping terminals, the array of large anchored Navy vessels, the distant majestic green palisades rising in a bright haze to the clear, blue sky. Oh, how he wished he could tell someone he was actually here where he now stood in warm sunshine on yellow sand delighted in observing flocks of small birds with long sharp beaks and peeping cries he had never seen as they searched the surf, suddenly scurrying from the washing foam of surging wave swooshing onto wet sand. How many of his twenty years had he dreamed of standing here, seeing what he now saw, experiencing the thrill of what he now felt? The beach almost empty, a few straggling wanderers like himself, he felt this new world was almost his alone.

Felix, he exclaimed, You did it! You finally made it!

OK. Now what? With placement tests behind him he had found surprisingly easy, his college prep classes at Prairieville High maybe having done some good, tomorrow he would register for college classes, something he had always dreamed of at the same time he had sadly resigned himself knowing he would never be allowed to fulfill that dream, Pa a blue-collar worker all his life always struggling to provide for his family during The Great Depression and then through the following years of world conflict along with Pa’s persistent agitating to organize labor. Such efforts always resulted in his being last hired, first fired even in a time of economic boon during and following the war and he having to inform Felix that he lacked sufficient resources to help his son achieve Felix’s bodacious ambition of going to college. Felix had been especially dismayed since he had spent all that effort on classes that were supposed to prepare him for college and the typing class he had taken the last semester of his senior year had done more by giving him the skill to find work typing invoices as an order clerk for two years after Prairieville High. Once registered for classes tomorrow, Felix would then have to face the challenge of a two-and-a-half day drive back to where he had started what he considered the beginning of his grand adventure that had brought him here to where he now stood at the edge of a vast continent behind him and he, at last, viewing in silence the vast, endless blue waters of the Pacific.

Standing in bright sunlight on yellow sand at the edge of the continent studying the majestic blue ocean with endless crashing surf, Felix observed another young man drawing near, perhaps almost his own age, perhaps a bit younger, he having watched the youth approach across the yellow sand from a long way off. Then the young man with dark, stylishly trimmed hair and black plastic-rimmed spectacles, flowered shirt, tan slacks and brown loafers without socks stood before him.

Where you from? the young man asked in a voice that to Felix sounded more like a girl's.

Felix trying for indifference admitted the region of his origins. What about you? Where you from? he challenged.

Almost right next door to you in Iowa? the young man confessed as if uncertain, his voice rising at the end of his statement followed by a short burst of laughter that seemed more a shriek. Clinton? Most everyone here seems to be from someplace else. Why are you here?

I'm out here to start college! Felix offered with pride.

Really? Me too! Where you going?

"City College. Where you going?"

Same place! the boy shrieked. "I live with my brother? He works as a design engineer at Douglas Company.

That the big place you pass just before the huge traffic circle on the Pacific Coast Highway? Felix felt proud displaying his growing knowledge of the new area where he would soon live.

Yeah, that's the place. He's got a apartment close to here in Belmont Shore? I used his address to apply and enroll in city college tuition free, but I’ll have to pay seven dollars for a student body card when I register.

Seven dollars! Felix silently groaned. There goes more of what he needed for almost two tanks of fuel.

That's weird! Felix exclaimed outloud. I done the same thing by using the address of someone I met back home who came out here to live with her older brother and sister and study acting. When I met her one night while cruising with some buddies from high school and we stopped for more beer, I started talking to her about wanting to go to college but that I couldn’t because I didn’t have any money, she told me about going to school out here, and she surprised the heck out of me by offering to send stuff about the college. She even sent forms and said I could use the address of her brother and sister to apply. You better believe I jumped at the chance. Otherwise, I'll be stuck in that hell hole I grew up in that's so damn boring. I bet Clinton, Iowa can't be all that exciting.

It's OK. Yeah, it’s kinda dull? So when my brother got the job out here, everyone told me I better come out here and go to school. We get along OK, I guess. Thank god we don't see too much of each other most of the time since I also have a part time job at a Chevron station that's on the corner of East Second just a block up from where I live on Quincy? But I'll be glad when school starts? Not much else to do except watch TV during the day or walk the beach or work at Morey's Chevron. So where you going to live?

I don't have a clue, Felix admitted. I just now drove out here non-stop to take placement tests and register for classes, then I have to drive all the way back, work until I get my final paycheck, sell everything I can so I can afford to buy a plane ticket, then fly out here. Let me tell you that first airplane flight should be something else!

You've never flown! the young man shrieked. I have!

Big deal! Felix thought but offered no reply outloud.

While the two young men lounged on the beach talking, both aimlessly digging into the sand with their hands and bare feet uncovering wet sand and debris, another man approached dressed in white denim cut-offs, flowered shirt, gold chain necklace, and sandals, he obviously older in his late twenties, maybe even as old as thirty.

Hey, guys! How you doin'!

The two younger men shading their eyes from the dazzling sun squinted up at him.

Yet another glorious day in paradise! the man exclaimed as he gazed through dark glasses across yellow sand and foaming surf to the steady rolling, crashing waves of the vast, blue ocean.

The young man whom Felix had just met pushed up from the sand and brushed himself off.

I have to go. I might already be late for work, he said to Felix. Maybe we'll see each other at school. I'll look for you in the Quad.

Quad? Felix asked. What you mean by Quad?

The quadrangle courtyard in the main building? You can't miss it? There's a cafeteria in one corner that always busy. Maybe I'll see you there. Then he rose, took up his shoes, and was gone.

The two who remained watched him move away across the sand.

"So, you enjoying your visit?

Works for me! Felix offered. You better believe there's nothin' like this where I come from!

And where might that be?

Midwest.

Gotta be Wisconsin.

How'd you know that!

I just know, the man offered.

Oh, yeah? How come?

Your dialect.

"Dialect?

The way you speak words.

Oh, yeah? How you know that?

I teach.

What you teach?

Language Arts.

Hey, I know that! Felix exclaimed. I always did really good in all my English classes, especially Senior English Lit. I really like poetry, I even wrote some.

Really.

Yeah! But they're not that good, Felix offered, although he thought them as good as some he had read by supposedly big name people he had read in his textbook. Maybe someday after I have some college I'll learn how to do better.

So, you're starting college.

Yeah! Felix said with pride. I took placement tests this morning that were way easier than I thought they’d be and I register for classes tomorrow. That should be something else!

At City College. Where else a likely place for someone like you to begin following his bliss.

Bliss? What you mean by that?

Follow the path you think will get you where you want to go.

Follow my bliss. I'll have to remember that.

Step boldly in the direction of your dreams, and you'll be rewarded unexpectedly in a common hour.

Hey, I've read that! Felix exclaimed. That has to be Thoreau!

You've read him.

You better believe it! He's got to be my favorite!

Great choice. Why's that?

He just is! Because of what he says! Freedom, that's what it's all about! Doing what you really want to do and not what everybody else is doing and wants you to do!

Following your bliss. Learn by going where you have to go.

Yeah. Following my bliss. That's what I'm doing, Felix offered finally quieting.

Felix sat gazing out across the vast blue plain of water thinking about what the man had said. He felt the man studying him. But that was OK. He thought he knew why the man had approached him on the beach and where all this might be going. He had let it happen before.

So what are your plans for this evening?

Don’t really have any.

You hungry? How about something to eat? My treat.

Felix studied the man. Yeah, I guess I'm about ready. Haven't had much to eat all the way out here. Just stopped for fuel, water to drink, use the restroom. Trying to save money so I can make the 2500 miles back. I made the mistake last night staying at a motel on Pacific Coast Highway. You know what! They made me pay a whole five dollars for one night! Can you believe that! So tonight I’m thinking of sleeping in my car alongside the ocean in Huntington Beach. Believe you me, that would be something else!

So how about we get something to eat at a drive-in where everybody always wants to go. It’s a popular hangout for all the California dreamers. I'm sure you'll like it. Then I thought maybe we'd cruise out to Disneyland. You interested?

"Disneyland! You kidding me! You better believe I'm interested! Boy, won't everyone be jealous when I tell them when I get back home that I've been to Disneyland!

OK, then. Let's go.

So that evening after parking Felix’s ’54 blue and white Chevy outside the man’s nearby, second-story apartment, they in the man’s ’57 Chevy Bel Air convertible ate at a drive-in the likes Felix had never seen with young women on roller skates, Felix really turned on by their really tight short shorts exposing tanned thighs and trim legs and peeks of firm bottoms and really tight tank tops, one of those hot looking young women taking their order and delivering their food in paper wraps on a metal tray they hung from the window of the car, the man cautioning the young woman not to harm the gleaming finish. After they ate, the man took Felix out to Disneyland built a couple years before, Felix, of course, gawking at everything he viewed, the man paying for everything, driving them out in his Bel Air convertible with white sidewall tires and white paneling on the tail fins, onyx black with red and silver vinyl interior that seemed even more grand than Felix’s pride and joy. The top down, Felix the focus of attention from people in other autos gazed in wonder passing through a long, seemingly endless corridor of lights and stores and restaurants and service stations and endless cross streets with four-way stoplights under the dimming afternoon sunlight to someplace called Anaheim.

Then while they toured the theme park in the warm evening, Felix couldn’t help feeling smug and excited being there, telling himself that he surely would have something to carry home to those culturally deprived unfortunates he soon would leave behind. Felix was especially amazed at viewing The World of Tomorrow with its large scale-model exhibit of towering circular and pyramid buildings, its web of freeways and interchanges and vehicles with automobiles that looked more like race cars or jet planes instead of horseless carriages wrapped in steel, those vehicles of the future more like the man’s ’57 Chevy convertible, making Felix suddenly feel as if what he considered his pride and joy now somewhat antique and a bit banged up, but that was OK since he’d be selling it soon anyway.

After driving back to Long Beach, the man inviting Felix to stay the night with him, Felix had immediately surmised from something in his manner suggested what the man wanted in exchange for what he had offered Felix. Yet, despite Felix feeling a bit disappointed at not having the adventure of sleeping beside the ocean, he agreed without hesitation to accept the man's invitation to spend the night knowing from experience that both of them at each move and each maneuver knew what would happen, what they were negotiating, what Felix was willing to allow. Besides, Felix would have to sleep in his car, and while he had considered his camping out beside the ocean part of his grand adventure, the anticipation of a shower and a bed he didn’t have to pay for instead of a blue vinyl car seat even if beside the crashing surf seemed just as appealing.

Reaching the man’s apartment, as they climbed a long flight of stairs of blue and yellow ceramic tile, the man put his arm around Felix who didn’t object, and even when the man made out the sofa bed then joined him after Felix had showered and settled, Felix relaxed as he gazed through the arch of tall, screened window at the dark fronds of palm trees splayed out against black sky flamed by fading sunset. Enjoying the balmy California night, the feel of clean sheets on his naked flesh, he without comment waited for the man to receive for what the man had paid, Felix responding almost immediately, his flesh filling, the man exclaiming at its size, Felix noting the man's skill, wondering how often the man must have done this with other young men, Felix feeling strangely objective until the man’s steady stroking with tongue and mouth compelled Felix to give himself up to the man’s skill, placing his hands on the man's head, the man’s more urgent movements bringing Felix to an intense climax and a pulsing, thrashing release that went on and on and on, wrenching him as it always did, the man continuing while Felix pulsed his potent store.

Fist sometimes wondered what the man had gained by taking into himself Felix’s copious ripe seed? Had he renewed the surprise on swallowing, discovering again that exotic flavor that had always seemed to Fist the salty tang of primordial sea from whence we all had issued? Or perhaps the man thrilled at the erotic pleasure of firm, thick flesh filling his mouth resurrecting the satisfaction he once had felt sucking his mother’s breast. Or perhaps the erotic power of seduction had filled him with a surging sense of self-satisfaction as he gulped the rich, pulsing flow. Perhaps more likely all three.

Fist stirred by recollection silently asked, Do we attract those who know how we will respond? What do they detect that leads them to 'come on to us'? Why do we offer ourselves willingly for their personal use? No surprise given our own erotic need and most of all because it felt good despite some risk adding to the sense of erotic pleasure.

When Felix quieted, the man lay beside him, asking if Felix was all right, if he had been hurt. Felix assured the man, thanking him for his skill and his concern, quietly adding that after such a full day and what he had just experienced, he was really tired. They talked briefly of their meeting again the next day later in the morning after Felix had registered for classes. Felix without thinking agreed. Then the man retired to a nearby bedroom and Felix soon slept soundly.

Waking