Forward; Revenge of the Chainsaw Buddha
My bag was packed, I had a roast beef sandwich a couple of apples and a piece of cake from my family fridge, an old sweatshirt, a worn corduroy jacket with suede elbow patches sewn on, a compass, a sketchbook, notebook, a few pens and pencils in a little box, a Swiss army knife, A Hohner Marine Band Harmonica, (key of C), 40 dollars, my dads old Argus camera loaded with a roll of film with only 2 or 3 shots left on it, (so they better be good ones), a can of Campbell’s pork and beans, a mess kit, sleeping bag, and a copy of, Castaneda’s,’ Teachings of Don Juan”, an I Ching, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead. At around 11:30 Charlie showed up.
We did an inventory, he had a couple of tuna sandwiches, a Texaco triple A road map, some clothes, camping gear a copy of On The Road, $20 dollars and a postcard from his brother in Albuquerque bearing his return address. This was going to be a surprise visit. The picture postcard showed a desert landscape and this was pretty much the only idea we had of what it was going to be like.
We walked to the Junction Blvd. El, station, hopped the turnstile, and made our way to the entrance of the Holland Tunnel. It was there I gave Charlie 10 dollars, just so we would both have 30, and things would be even. We naively made a sign that said, “California” from a cardboard box found by the side of the road. We stuck out our thumbs.
By nightfall we had made it to somewhere in Western Pennsylvania. Walking along the road we came upon a country store. Charlie looked up at the old moon clock out front and rhymed ”A quarter to eight and still straight”… well that wouldn’t do. We split the cost of the cheapest pint of wine available, the kind that came in a pocket flask flat bottle, and to our surprise the old man behind the counter didn’t even ask to see our (false) id!, and a loaf of bread. We stepped outside on the old wooden porch of the country store into the night chill, cracked the cap on the wine and Charlie produced from his shirt pocket a tiny thin toothpick of a joint, stolen from his older brother’s stash back home in Queens, and replaced with some oregano, it already seemed a million miles and a lifetime away…. AH!… Vietnamese herb! At least the war was good for one thing.
We walked along the dark country road, and soon came upon a hilltop overlooking the highway, suddenly the word seemed so funny, the High -Way,, we laughed. I liked to call it the Free-way, and we laughed about that too. We lit a small hobo fire and warmed up the can of beans and broke out the loaf of wonder bread, eating in silence and surveying the surrounding area.. The fire died down it was misty and a chill set in. it was early April and was so cold I had to bury my head all the way down into my sleeping bag which was laid out rite on the soggy grass, we forgot to bring a ground cloth. It was damp, we didn’t mind at all, and the night was black and alive with crickets. I looked at the postcard one last time for the day and passed it back.
Later a truck passed by below us and it sounded like it was going rite over our heads. I popped my head out and saw the wet highway glistening in his brights. It seemed to stretch out forever. It was then, at that moment it occurred to me, there we were a couple of kids from the wild New York City streets, never hitched a ride any further than Rockaway Beach, but suddenly it was all behind us. The Atlantic Ocean was somewhere far behind us too, at our backs, and it seemed like the road stretched out all the way to Golden California and the blue Pacific. I knew that this was the beginning, the beginning of something huge. Something that would rule my life forever, the adventure of uncertainty, the escape from mundanity and the workaday tedium of our homes, the quest for the unknown and it’s potential, the dreams of the legendary free love and braless “California Girls”. Add the, ”I don’t give a fuck” attitude of a 17 year old rebellious city kid to the mix and you have a dangerous combination and a recipe for adventure. Onwards and into the unknown. These principles came to govern the next 50 years of my life, and at that time I had no idea to what lengths it would take me.
From the lower East side, to South East Asia, from African deserts to fertile tropical paradises, from sleeping on bus station floors, to designing and building my own tropical paradise estate, from eating a monkey the jungle tribes with my fingers to dining in palaces with Royalty, to crossing continents and oceans, by camels caravans, by car, van, rickshaw, train, ocean freighters, and first class compartments of luxury liners, and jetliners, by bicycle, motorcycle, and by foot. From being in handcuffs and chains, to sitting at the feet of Indian mystics and Tibetan Lamas, from hedonistic revelry, to ascetic fasting and meditating in a Japanese Dojo. Throughout countless global circumnavigations the concept of, “Further” came to rule my life. But who could have known in this momentary inexplicable flash, that this was only the beginning?