Silk Road: The Journey

By Kenneth Canatsey

In a bohemian odyssey set in the 1960s, a young man just out of college backpacks around the world, sampling hash, sex, and illumination as the Vietnam War rages. . . . A rich, exotic journey that will leave you reaching for your passport. Kirkus Review


It is 1966, and the narrator and his roommate are leaving their California college town in order to hitchhike to New York City and join their friends who are already there. So begins what will become a 20,000 mile journey of loss and redemption.

Silk Road: The Journey is a tale of travel, adventure, and a young man's coming of age, evolving under unexpected and, at times, the most unusual of circumstances. Here, the changing landscape becomes an active - although not always benign - participant in the story. Above all, the novel is a chronicle of impermanence, in which the narrative - on one level a series of adventures in which places and events change, and bonds between people are formed, developed and severed becomes, on a deeper level, an examination of transience, as the protagonist searches for meaning and permanence to the farthest ends of the earth, but is able to find it only when he returns home.

A spirited, free-wheeling and ultimately sobering story of irreverent and reckless youth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514405352

Kenneth Canatsey

Before retiring in 2009, the author was a RN Case Manager at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in West Los Angeles. He has previously published three books of poetry with Mellen Press: The Daimon Call: a travel journey in verse and other poems (1999); Blessed Be the Anawim (2002); and A Bilingual Edition of Poems by St. John of the Cross: Spiritual Songs and Ballads (2003).

Book preview

Part One

In the Beginning

He who can convince you to believe absurdities

can lead you to commit atrocities.

Voltaire

Chapter 1

Graduation—Jeb and I hit the Road

It was the winter of 1966 and Jeb, my roommate, and I had just graduated from UC Santa Barbara. We were both ripe for a change: For my part, I’d come to feel hemmed in by the sleepy little college town of Goleta, and by Southern California in general. I took to hiking in the nearby foothills, along the tall bluffs that rim the shore, occasionally venturing into the chaparral of the coastal mountains and valleys where among the rocks a cool spring might be waiting. But wherever I went, the scenery grew over-familiar and wearying, and there was always a freeway and the hum of traffic somewhere over the next hill, while hidden from view a slow corrosive drip of ennui and anhedonia coursed through my veins.

Fortunately our friends—Mark Muenster, Cal Hill, and Gary Leybak (mellow little Gary, whose claim to fame was that he rolled the best joints in the West—fat and lumpy, and extraordinarily well-sealed)—had all gone to New York in the summer and were waiting for us to join them. Jeb and I packed our gear, stood by the road and stuck out our thumbs, while the unknown, and a new beginning—filled with more than I could possibly have known, then, or imagined—lay before us.

At first it was uneventful, and we made good time until we got to New Mexico. Then we got bogged down. Zero rides. We’d been standing for hours on the outskirts of some desolate little town, the sunlight fading into dusk, when a car finally pulled over and stopped. It was a station wagon crammed full of belongings—except for where the driver sat, and one empty seat beside him. He leaned over, rolled down the window, and said, Do one of you want a ride? I’m sorry, but I only have room for one.

Where are you going? asked Jeb.

I’m going to New York.

I was about to tell him no thanks, the two of us are going to stick together, but Jeb butted in first. Really? That’s where we’re going! Suddenly, he was hopping up and down, unable to contain his excitement.

Well, would you like to come with me? the stranger repeated. Or do you want to wait for another ride?

No! No! One of us will go with you! yelped Jeb. Let’s flip a coin, Natty.

So we flipped a coin, and as fate would have it, he won. After hastily leaving me with some phone numbers, he threw his pack into the back and slid in, shutting the door and bidding me farewell through the open window.

I’ll see you in New York! were his parting words, and off they went.

There I was, standing all alone on the shoulder of the road with my thumb out, watching the sun set behind the barren hills, and cars speeding past without stopping—not even slowing. It was getting cold and dark and no one would pick me up. Discouraged and dejected, I gave it up and walked back to a roadside diner we had passed several hours earlier. I went inside, sat down at the counter, and ordered from the waitress. As I was waiting for the food, I became aware of someone sitting at a table by the door, watching me. Stealing a glance, I saw a big, middle-aged man in a short-sleeved shirt opened casually at the collar, with a gray crew-cut and an impassive, inscrutable face. When I finished eating, I got up to leave. The man got up also and followed me outside, stopping me on the porch.

Hi, my name’s Lester, he said. What’s yours?

Ken.

Where are you going? he asked.

New York.

You don’t say! That’s where I’m going. Would you like to ride with me? He gestured toward a dusty black Oldsmobile sedan, about ten years old, parked next to the porch where we were standing. That’s my car.

Okay, I said doubtfully, apprehensive about what I was getting myself into. There was something about him I didn’t trust, something indefinite but vaguely forbidding that I couldn’t put my finger on. Still, I didn’t want to be stranded in the desert—at least I’d be on the move again. So I got into the car and he backed it out and nosed it onto the highway.

By now it was dark. Except for two narrow beams of light the headlamps made on the road, there was nothing we could see outside but endless night and empty wasteland. Inside were the green lights of the dashboard, and my companion’s rough-hewn profile dimly visible in the gloom. The only sound was the steady drone of the motor.

Where’re you from? he asked, looking straight ahead with a deadpan affect.

Santa Barbara.

That your home?

It’s where I went to college.

I could tell you were a college boy, he said condescendingly.

I’m from Seattle, myself, he continued. "Two nights ago, I was sitting at the kitchen table with my wife and she told me she was in love with another man. We had a fight. Oh, did we have a fight! I got up, turned my back on her, and walked right out the door. And I been driving nonstop ever since. Hadn’t even taken my foot off the pedal until I stopped back at that dinner to eat and ran into you."

But was this the whole story? Beneath his deadpan demeanor he was so intense—like a chunk of concentrated uranium throwing off toxic rays! Was he running from something? Had he committed a crime? Maybe—God forbid—he’d murdered his wife! But whatever it was, I was trapped now. Until I could untangle myself I was stuck with him. I tried not to think about it.

You know, he said, I noticed you the moment you walked into that restaurant. You looked so pitiful, so down in the dumps! What’s the matter?

Nothing, I said. But then I decided to tell him.

I see. So he ran out on you. He was silent for a moment. Well, we’re heading to the same place—New York. So we ought to stick together. Right?

Yes.

Right! And if we’re sticking together, it should follow that what’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine. Do you agree? He glanced at me with a wizened eye.

But if he’d meant to sooth me with this line of reasoning, he failed spectacularly. As a matter of fact, it had the opposite effect: he sounded like a con man. Yet I said nothing; something told me not to rile him. Better to let him think we’re in perfect agreement. At least for now.

We drove all night and reached El Paso as the sun was rising, where he turned off at a roadside motel. He apparently knew beforehand exactly where he wanted to stop. He’d taken this journey before: how many times who could say? We rented a room and slept until noon.

A hot, dry desert wind was blowing when we awoke and stepped outside. We ate a late breakfast at the café next door, where a slender, satin-skinned Mexican girl served us bacon and eggs and hash browns. She was so quiet and demure, I had a hard time keeping my eyes off her. But I was shy and I think she was too, and anyway we had miles to go and had best be on our way. We paid for our meals, gassed up the car outside, and resumed our journey through the desert, which gradually changed to grazing land, and then to arable farmland, broken here and there by dusty, dreary little towns, and listless-looking sundrenched road stops.

At a certain point he let me drive, after warning me to watch for the Texas Rangers. But the responsibility he’d laid on me became nerve-wracking when—suddenly and without warning—he exploded in rage.

Slow down! Slow down! He hollered into my ear, and with his long leg reached across the floor board to slam his foot down on the brakes. "The Texas Rangers will arrest us if you drive even one mile over the speed limit. And if they stop us, they’d as soon shoot us as put us in jail! They’re mean—real mean. Trigger happy, too! They don’t need a reason to shoot. They’d as soon shoot as talk."

This scene or its simulacrum played out—to my dismay—several times more that day.

It was late at night when we pulled off the road, somewhere in the vicinity of San Antonio. Knowing precisely where to go, he directed me to drive down a dirt byway that passed over some railroad tracks and on into a grove of trees, where we came to a stop. Then he instructed me to change sides with him. It was a moonless night, and the overhanging trees shut out the starlight and accentuated the darkness. He uncapped a bottle of whiskey, took a guzzle, and passed it to me. But I just held it in my lap for a respectable interval and passed it back without indulging. Meanwhile, he was reminiscing about a 13-year-old girl he knew who’d begged her parents to let her see a Beatles concert with her friends. Afterwards, she’d confessed in confidence to her mother that she’d cummed in her panties watching them perform.

"’I couldn’t help it, mummy, they’re so cute! Please don’t tell daddy!’ she begged. ‘Don’t tell anyone!’

Isn’t that something? he chortled. "That nice, sweet little girl cummed in her panties, and then said, ‘I didn’t mean to, mummy, but they’re so cute!’" He mimicked her in a falsetto voice and chortled some more.

Suddenly he turned to me. You know, you’re awfully quiet.

I am?

Yes, you are. He took another swig of bourbon. It’s like you’re in a prison, and the prison is yourself. He thought about this for a moment. That’s it. he repeated with portentous clarity, glancing over at me. You’re in a prison, and the prison is yourself!

I didn’t answer. I figured keeping quiet was the best strategy. Who knows what might antagonize him? After all, it was just the two of us alone in those dark, remote, unfamiliar woods. What was I to do? Funny how fast everything’s suddenly become so uncertain, so obscurely threatening! Maybe he’s right, I do feel trapped—especially right here and now, with him! Still, I’ll get myself free sometime. I just have to wait until the time is right.

We slept the night in the car, and the next day drove to Houston where we rented a room from an elderly couple. It was an old, white clapboard house with a porch in front, and a small addition around back for us. After settling in, we drove to a seedy sector of town where, following his advice, I cleaned myself up by getting a haircut. Then we walked down the street to a corner market where he bought some potatoes, onions, carrots, a slab of marbled red meat, and another bottle of Jim Beam.

When we got back to the house, he chopped up the vegetables, laid the steak in a roasting pan he found in the rack, added the vegetables and some salt and pepper from the cupboard, and slid it all into the oven. This accomplished, he sat down at the kitchen table and poured himself a glass of whiskey, while I rested on my chosen bed in a corner nook and read a paperback book I’d brought along for the journey. After several hours of slow baking over a low flame, the delicious aroma of a well-done beef stew wafted through the room. But when he bent over the stove and pulled the pan out, he dropped it and spilled hot grease on his fingers and over the linoleum floor.

GODDAMNIT! he yelped, licking his scalded fingers like a wounded cur. He reached for a towel and stooped to wipe up the slop: he was already tipsy. Then he had me set the table and we sat down to eat. But before we could finish he proposed a plan for the evening: It’s Saturday night. Let’s go downtown and tour the bars.

And so it was that over a pitcher of cold beer, sitting at a table in the midst of a crowded, noisy Country Western honky-tonk—sawdust on the floor, live band blaring onstage, couples in cowboy boots dancing, and liquor flowing—he told me he’d changed his mind. He wasn’t going to go to New York, after all: he’d decided to stay in Houston and find some woman friend of his.

This was a shock. And how am I supposed to get to New York now? I brooded. I guess I’ll just have to start hitchhiking again!

But I’ll sell you my Oldsmobile if you want it, he continued, as if reading my mind.

For how much?

Eighty dollars.

That’s a good price! I thought.

That is, if you throw that pocket watch of yours into the bargain.

It was my late grandfather’s gold watch that had caught his practiced eye. My mother had given it to me as a graduation present. Although I was unsure of its precise value, it was, without doubt, a cherished family heirloom. Still, the main thing now was to get to New York, and hitchhiking had proved much too uncertain. It was a deal!

Then and there, he signed the car over to me on a piece of paper he fetched from the bartender. Then he handed me the keys, and soon after slipped away into the crowd, saying he was going to find his woman friend. I finished my beer and returned to the rented room for a sound night’s sleep. I never saw him again.

Late the next morning, I awoke with a dry mouth and a thumping headache and went outside to start the car. The sky was overcast. I slid into the driver’s seat, turned the key, and heard the ignition click, followed by silence. I tried again—and again—and again!—and the same thing happened. The engine refused to start! At that moment all my hopes of getting out of Texas, moving on, and going to New York, were in dire danger of complete collapse!—smashed upon the cruel, unforgiving rocks of Fate and Circumstance!

I hadn’t a clue what to do next, but I got out, opened the hood, and inspected the engine. Maybe I should try tightening the battery cables, I decided. I wiggled them. They seemed a little loose. So I went up to the house, intending to ask the owner for a wrench and a pair of pliers.

I stepped onto the porch and rang the doorbell. Suddenly, I heard the old man yelling, Get off my porch! Through the door’s glass panels, I saw him swinging a pistol over his head as he shouted again: Get off my porch or I’ll shoot!

I backed off. When I was clear of the porch he came outside and announced, That fella’ you’re with is a convict. He looked suspicious, so I called the police and they checked his records and told me he’d worked on the penal farm! (Though the way he pronounced it, slurring over the syllables, I thought he said pea farm.)

Well he’s gone, so you don’t have to worry about him anymore, I said. And I’m leaving too, if I can get this car started.

I don’t know about that. For all I know you’re a convict like him, and the two of you are in cahoots!

No I’m not! I protested. I just graduated from college and I’m on my way to New York to look for work!

Oh yeah, he snorted. Well what if I don’t believe you?

But his wife, who was more sensible, and not as excitable, took pity on me and scolded him. Harold, you’re drunk! Stop waving that gun around! Put it down and help the young man!

Then the two of them got into a fight, and he locked her out of the house! She began sobbing, banging on the door and pleading, Harry! Harry! Let me in!

In the meantime it started to rain. I groaned, and seeing things were hopeless, went back to the car and dozed off in the front seat. When I awoke, the porch was empty. Once more, I tried to start the car. This time, when I turned the key, the engine responded at once! I stepped on the pedal and it coughed once or twice, then settled into a smooth, even hum. I put the car into gear and backed slowly out of the driveway.

Chapter 2

Into the Storm

I drove onto Highway 10 heading east and didn’t look back or stop until I got to New Orleans. The wind had picked up and was buffeting the car in gusts, causing it to abruptly veer to the left, and dark storm clouds and lightening menaced the horizon. I was headed straight into the center of the storm and it looked foreboding. Is this going to be one of those hurricanes? I fretted. I was the only one on the highway and the radio didn’t work, so I couldn’t get a weather report. But it looked like all the locals knew what was coming and had battened down the hatches and retreated to safety. Briefly, I considered turning around and heading back to Houston—but I quickly dismissed that idea. What would I do there? For me, the only possible road was the road forward.

The highway left the coast and continued on through miles of pinewoods. The winds died down and the clouds unleashed their pent-up waters in torrential sheets. The road went over a rusty steel- girder bridge that crossed high above the gray, murky waters separating Texas and Louisiana. I kept on going.

When I got to New Orleans, I decided to exit the freeway and drive to the French Quarter. But I couldn’t see much, just plantation shutters and wrought iron balconies—I peered up at them through the wiper blades and rain-streaked windshield—but not a living soul was in sight. Realizing that I was wasting time, I returned to the highway and continued east. Soon I was on a causeway crossing the swampy southeast corner of Lake Pontchartrain. I passed an occasional skiff tied to an unpainted, dilapidated wood shack built on stilts over the rising water, but still did not see a living creature.

I headed north, driving through Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee, where I picked up a hitchhiker at night and dropped him off outside a convenience store in the ongoing downpour. Somewhere in the Appalachians I pulled to the side of the road and slept in my gray overcoat, and the next day roared on into Virginia. It had stopped raining and the sun had come out. But now snow covered the ground and the temperature was in the thirties. In Roanoke, I finally stopped and found a room for rent. I was almost broke—what with all the delays, buying the car, and paying for gas—but with a little determination I found a job delivering phone books. I soon saw, however, that I wasn’t earning a thing, and after anxiously spending another night in a rented room obsessing about what I was going to do next, I swallowed my pride and went to the Salvation Army for some free shelter.

Chapter 3

How I Meet Orlando and Visit his Hometown

I checked in at the desk, was assigned a bunk and locker, and put away my gear. When I walked into the communal bathroom to wash up, I saw a familiar face peering into the mirror while shaving over one of a half-dozen sinks standing against the wall. Drawing closer, I realized with shock that it was Orlando—from UCSB! Boy, were we ever glad to see each other! Although we had been little more than acquaintances in college, we hugged each other like long lost brothers! I told him I was on my way to New York, and he said he was heading there too. But first, he had to visit his parents in North Carolina, and he asked me if I would give him a ride there. I was only too happy to do so, and the next day we set off, like two kids on a spring romp.

The sun was shining as we drove down the mountain into the foothills, and then onto the warm, flat Carolina plains. Happy and exuberant, we jabbered constantly—speculating, pontificating, laughing and giggling—with the windows rolled down and our hair blowing in the breeze. Orlando was tall and skinny and swarthy, with long black hair, and he looked as close as anyone I’d ever seen to an actual, genuine gypsy. We drove into Raleigh, his hometown, and pulled into the driveway of a modest-looking one-story house. I followed him inside and waited in the vestibule beside our luggage while he hugged his parents; then he introduced me. Being the uninvited visitor, I didn’t know what to expect, but they fixed a cot with warm woolen blankets for me right next to the fireplace, while Orlando, naturally, slept in his own room.

The next day we set out to visit two of his girlfriends from high school. Orlando drove us down a dirt road outside of town while I admired the scenery, and in particular the rich, red earth which I always associated with the South—maybe because of Gone with the Wind, and that scene where Scarlet picks up a handful of red dirt and movingly tells Ashley that this is what gives her life meaning. But, after he spurns her advances, she angrily throws it against the side of the woodshed!

Before long, however, my daydreaming was abruptly interrupted when Orlando got the Oldsmobile stuck in a mud-puddle, right next to a steep embankment! The more he raced the engine the more the wheels spun, digging us deeper into the mud.

When we got out and looked, it was clear that the rear wheels had sunk in deep, and we didn’t have a shovel. Fortunately, we found several weathered boards lying nearby which we used as shovels. As we were struggling to free the car, a portly old Negro with a grizzled grey beard, straw hat and cane, came ambling over the hill. When he saw us scampering about with those planks of wood—some which we were using to dig, others which we placed under the wheels—he let loose a stream of deep, gravelly laughter which didn’t stop. I guess we did look pretty ridiculous! He sat down on a rock and watched, referring to us in the third person and chuckling: "Now this is a show I won’t never forget! Hee! Hee! Hee! Hee! These here is the funniest crackers I ever done seen!"

Finally, things looked about right. I got inside, put the car in gear, and carefully accelerated—and it worked! The tires ran straight along over the planks, and we were free of the mud hole and once more on terra firma. Orlando jumped into the passenger seat, and off we went.

We could hear the girls squealing with excitement as we approached the unpainted, two-story clapboard house, standing alone at the top of a rise. They had seen us coming and came running out to greet us. Then they introduced us to their mother who came up behind them—a slender, graying, worn-out looking woman who smiled and wiped her hand on her apron before offering it to us, saying she’d been cooking, before taking us upstairs to a sparsely furnished parlor on the second floor.

I was meeting southern girls for the first time, and beneath their chatter, giggling and flirting, I sensed a lively, innocent charm. One was a short, loquacious brunette; the other, her sister, was slender, auburn-haired, and shy—we two were the quieter of the foursome. Besides, I couldn’t keep up very well with the patter going on between Orlando and his friend, which was mostly the who did what back when with whomever, and what they were doing now kind of stuff. Orlando and the girl kept it up without a break: he was, I was learning, seldom at a loss for words.

When we returned that evening, he had a long talk with his parents—one of those generational talks that so often take place during dinner and continue indeterminately into the wee hours of the night when the lights are low; talks which rarely, if ever, succeed in resolving the issues at hand, or reconciling impetuous youth with the cautious, callused wisdom of age. Orlando’s parents wanted him to remain in Raleigh, now that he’d graduated from college and returned home. He refused, even when his father suggested he get a job with his uncle, a plumber.

You wouldn’t have to do any of the dirty work. You could work in the office, he proposed. But Orlando was having none of it.

Then what are you going to do, son?

Like I told you before, I’m going to New York, he said with steadfast resolve; and this nettled his parents very much.

New York is the devil’s city! his father (a Baptist preacher) scoffed. His mother sat anxiously in the background and said nothing.

Don’t worry, I’ll look after him, I put in gallantly.

He winced, and turning to me gravely, replied, "You may be a nice young man. But I don’t know that, because I don’t know you. And I don’t know what kind of influence you’re having on my son! I advise you to stay out of this: this is a matter between him and me."

Chastened, I zipped up my lips and obeyed.

Looking at them both, though, I couldn’t help but notice how different in appearance they were. It wasn’t just that Orlando had long hair while his father was nearly bald. Orlando was tall and sleek, his father stocky and sturdy. And both parents were a shade or two lighter than their tall, gangly son. These were fleeting perceptions, however, and they didn’t lead to any settled conclusions.

Finally, after a lot of tugging back and forth, Orlando’s father—realizing that he couldn’t prevent his son from leaving—gave him, if not his blessing, (definitely not his blessing!) at least the permission to go.

And go we did, the very next morning, heading north.

Chapter 4

Orlando the Evangelist

Before leaving town, Orlando wanted to visit the local Baptist Church for Sunday services. We arrived early on a gloomy, drizzly morning and hung out at the Denny’s next door, which in fact shared the downstairs of the same building. We slid into a corner booth and ordered coffee, and being slightly dopey from lack of sleep, openly marveled at the brown and white swirly patterns that formed in our cups when we added creamer.

I wasn’t all that enthusiastic about going to church, however: my most basic instincts told me to avoid sanctimonious religions. It was alien to the world as I knew it and experienced it. Moreover, my father had verbally prided himself on being an atheist; and my mother, whose chief enjoyment in life was working in her garden, said that Nature was her god. However, when we were adolescents, they unaccountably told my brother and me that we must start attending church. And our response was, Why?

Because of what the neighbors think.

The neighbors? What neighbors? But to this they didn’t respond.

Of all the lame-brained reasons they could come up with, I’d be hard-pressed to think of a dumber one than that! But we were unable to talk them out of it. They refused to budge. However, since they had no sectarian preferences themselves, they let us decide where to go. After church shopping at the local Episcopalian and Presbyterian assemblies, we both picked the Presbyterian Church—the services were shorter, with less rigmarole and fuss. Nevertheless, I stopped attending several months later—following my older brother’s example—and unable to swallow all the incredible things the nice ladies taught us in Sunday school. I can still remember the pastor’s censorious look, and the disapproving tone of his voice, when I told him my decision.

Now, attending Orlando’s boyhood church, I found it just as uninspiring, and the tub-thumping zeal left me cold. Only after the service, while talking to two Christian girls, did things get at all interesting. When Orlando told them we came from California, their eyes lit-up with fascination and they plied us with questions: What’s it like there? You surfed? On a board! Gee, I can’t even imagine what that’s like!

As we were driving off, I told my friend I couldn’t relate: Too much funny dogma and phony zeal. Too much incredible creed! Jesus is alive and well and lives in you? What does that mean? In principle, he said, he agreed, but he pointed out that they were searching for enlightenment just as we were, and he suggested a little tolerance would broaden my understanding. To satisfy him, I agreed; but I also quietly decided to avoid such people as much as humanly possible.

We stopped to see the University of Virginia on our way north—a beautiful, lush green campus in the spring, no doubt; but we were there in the dead of winter when the trees were black and skeletal, and the grass yellow and patchy after the snow. Still, the red-brick buildings, limestone columns and shady porticos made a fine impression, their classical restraint, balance, and proportion advancing a convincing argument in brick, mortar and stone for hallowed tradition and hoary learning.

It wasn’t long, however, before Orlando planted himself on the steps of the library and began button-holing the students who were going in and out—and to my amazement and discomfort he began espousing the virtues of LSD to anyone who would listen! He soon attracted a crowd of curious onlookers who began asking him some rather pointed and skeptical questions. But Orlando wasn’t fazed—indeed, he was clearly in his element, his own personal comfort zone. And in his hip, sixtyish way he must have resembled that ardent Apostle, the Apostle Paul, except that Orlando was an Apostle of Chemical Enlightenment—dedicated to converting unbelievers to his faith.

I’m spreading seeds, he assured me afterward, rather complacently.

Continuing on we passed Washington, DC, and I spotted the Capitol dome in the distance, gleaming in the sunlight. I pointed it out to Orlando, who was driving, and he lowered his head to peer through the passenger-side window.

Oh yeah, the Capitol, he drawled. Where those negative, narrow-minded old fossils concoct their war games. They should drop some LSD—that would bust their minds wide open!

We both giggled, it was such an outrageous and unlikely thought.

At Gettysburg we stopped to see the hallowed battlefield, and were the only visitors in sight. We parked the car, walked to a grassy knoll, and lolled about beneath some trees near a couple of bronze cannons, chewing on blades of grass and sunning ourselves. After soaking up the distant gore and glory of this now perfectly peaceful patch of ground—our callow minds incapable of truly comprehending the awful carnage that took place here a hundred and three years before us—we were rested and refreshed, stimulated by our brush with history, and ready to move on.

On the last leg of our journey we passed a sign on the right that read, Camden, New Jersey. Home of Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman—the great American poet! Whom I practically worshiped since reading him for the first time in high school. (Or perhaps I ought to simply say Great American, leaving off the poet part so as not to box him in. Place him right up there where he belongs with the likes of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant. Who says only crusty old generals and scheming politicians deserve the patriotic honorific!)

The question of the moment, however, was whether we should we detour to see his humble home? We didn’t, but I privately paid my respects to this uniquely American democratic genius: Sometimes intentions alone must suffice.

It wasn’t long before we were speeding through the Holland Tunnel in rush-hour traffic—headlights glaring and horns honking all around us—feeling the energy from a sudden burst of adrenaline—before emerging into the bright Manhattan sunlight, as if literally into another, more lofty and exalted world. But we were scarcely out of the tunnel and waiting on an incline, when the light changed, and the engine flooded and stalled and refused to start again. A line of cars formed behind us, horns honking, and those who could detoured around us, staring at us and scowling.

Suddenly, to our great relief, a tow-truck pulled up directly in front of us. A grinning man in green overalls jumped out, and with a jaunty air applied his cables to Big Betty’s battery (for so we had taken to calling her). And once again her tired but faithful motor started!

Chapter 5

Discovering the Island of Everything

We drove straight to the East Village and found Cal’s address on Third Street, between First and Second Avenue. The building was a six-floor walk-up and his place was on the third floor; but no one was in, so we had to think of something to do to kill time.

Let’s take the subway up to Harlem, said Orlando.

We left Big Betty parked on the street and took the subway uptown—dimly lighted and noisy, bumping and lurching and grinding its wheels, periodically emitting sparks, flashes of light, and the acrid odor of ozone. When we got off and ascended the steps to the street, I couldn’t help feeling uneasy, for we were the only white guys in sight. But that didn’t seem to concern Orlando one bit—if anything, it energized him! We passed a bar whose large plate-glass window faced the street, and he peered inside. A man sitting on a bar stool saw us and motioned us to come in, and Orlando said, Come on, let’s go!

We entered and sat down next to him, and while we waited for the bartender to draw our beers from the tap, Orlando struck up an animated conversation with the stranger. They started off weighing the comparative merits of the Yankees and the Red Socks, progressed to praises for the Harlem Globetrotters, and soon veered into hosannas to Harlem and its denizens, with special approbation given to the down-to-earth, amiable folksiness and vibrant spirituality of black folk. Although these were not subjects on which I had much of substance to contribute, the two of them were in verbose agreement on virtually every point. After a few beers, when it was time to leave, Orlando got the fellow’s phone number, and saying goodbye they embraced each other. On our way back to the Village, as he enthused about his new-found friend and a host of tangential topics, we shouted to each other over the screech and clank and thunder of the underground.

It was twilight when we got back to Cal’s flat. From the street, we saw a light within what we judged to be his room and called out his name. He stuck his bushy head through the window and grinned and shouted, Come on up! We bounded up the stairs and gave each other a bear-hug as soon as he opened the door—after all, it had been six months since I’d last seen my best friend in college. Then we brought each other up to speed on the latest news. I told him how Jeb had left me stranded in New Mexico, and Cal told me that he’d stayed in New York for less than two weeks before returning to California.

Is that all? I exclaimed, as if to say, where’s his spirit of adventure? But in truth I was glad he wasn’t there: it spared us both from what would have been an unpleasant reckoning, with all the rash, unguarded words that only abrade and wound, and stoke deeper, bitterer resentments to harbor for the future.

Then Cal invited us to his favorite restaurant for a supper of Haitian cuisine. It turned out to be a dingy hole-in-the-wall two and a half blocks from his flat. Proudly, he introduced us to the owner of the establishment, a bearded, burly middle-aged man who mumbled a few indecipherable words when Cal introduced us. At Cal’s suggestion, we each bought ourselves a plateful of rice and beans for one dollar, and poured ourselves lukewarm tap water from a plastic pitcher, which was fastened by a chain to the counter.

Somebody stole his other pitcher last week and he had to buy new one, explained Cal when I asked about the chain. However, the pitcher didn’t look new, being as scratched and opaque as the plastic cups stacked beside it. He must have picked it up from a thrift store, I reckoned.

He said he ate here every day because it was a great way to save money. He had recently spent two years in the Peace Corps, in the Dominican Republic, and this drab little place clearly brought back fond memories. He once told me how he’d hitched a ride from Santo Domingo to Port-a-Prince in a military plane, and recalled the little shacks he’d seen below, amongst plots of mango, manioc and plantains, as he looked out the cargo bay. Haiti’s farmers, he said, were eking out a living at a level only a notch or two above that of their scrawny, undernourished livestock. The poverty had changed him—opened his mind, shaped his social conscience, and sharpened his sensitivity to injustice—as well as engendered a deep and abiding attitude of political cynicism: for he looked at things deeply, connected the dots, and drew the inescapable conclusions.

When we returned to his apartment, he invited us to stay with him until we found a place of our own. The rent was $70 a month and we could split it three ways. Although his furnishings were sparse and tawdry by any standards, for us they were good enough, especially when having more would be an unattainable luxury. Cal said he had found his furniture in the street, and he suggested we do the same because people threw stuff out all the time. Soon I was on the lookout for a sofa for the living room.

It wasn’t long before I found a couch in pine-green fabric, half a block away sitting on the curb, and with Orlando’s help carried it back to our apartment. Now, I could lounge on its cushions and read and write—and snooze—in comfort, instead of on the hardwood floor. There were some stains and a tear in the fabric, but otherwise it wasn’t that shabby.

After a few weeks, however, it began emitting a stench that, far from going away as I’d hoped, became more pungent with every passing day, until finally it was impossible to ignore. I inspected the rear where there was a small hole in the muslin. Curious, I fetched a ruler and began poking into its innards until it struck something soft, yet solid, with a bit of give to it. Now what could this be? I asked myself. Whatever it was, I was unable to retrieve it without another tool, so I went to the kitchen and got a large spoon from the drawer, and by manipulating the spoon and the ruler together, was able to bring up to the light of day the remains of … a small,