LAST STOP

“LAST STOP”

Arafin © 2007

 

I was 14 with the wits of a two year old, or so they said. Still, with a long background of taking care of myself in the outdoors, my parents did not object when I told them that I wished to go camping with Ted on the back side of Birch Hill near Fairview Dam. Upon asking me how long this adventure was intended to last, I responded three days. Upon receiving permission, I was at once jubilant that my scheme would soon be realized, and guilty that I had just lied to my parents.

I ran over to Ted’s house to tell him the news. He too had gained permission to go camping in said spot. Hurriedly we made preparations and left the next afternoon. I knew much more about living in the bush than Ted and had to explain to him almost everything about packing. He, on the other hand, having once lived in New York City when much younger, knew far more about that particular kind of wilderness.

 

It was a hot July day as we headed towards the road out of town, excited as Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn on their raft, ….. and as foolish as two rabbits headed for a fox convention. We reached a good spot to begin hitch hiking and waved our thumbs at the passing traffic. No sooner had our opposing digits pierced the air than a dirty green Oldsmobile Cutlass stopped, brakes raking fat tires against the sunbaked asphalt, screeching for mercy to be shown by the uncaring driver. We knew this car, … home made hood scoop, hand painted yellow racing stripe down the middle, and those funny skull and crossbones dice hanging from the rear view mirror. It was Steve and Keith off to Brattleboro to buy booze. We were in New Hampshire where the legal drinking age was still 21. The government of Vermont, in what was likely an unscrupulous attempt to lower the population, had declared years ago that the legal drinking age of that state would be but 18. As the filthy muscle car picked up speed and headed for the state line, Steve and Keith began querying us about our plans. These two very strange brothers, an unlikely mix of nerd, hippie, and car freak who had the reputation of being “wild”, told us in no uncertain terms that we were, …. well, … for lack of a better term, “NUTS”. No one went to NYC unless they were escorted by a column heavy armor with full air support. They said we would be eaten alive.

 

Did I mention earlier the part about our lack of common sense? I did? Well, no matter, … suffice it to say that we left Steve ad Keith’s advice behind as they dropped us on the Interstate just inside the Vermont border. They were off to buy too much cheap wine, drink themselves stupid, and race that dumbass car of theirs along winding back roads until the tires fell off. A far saner expedition than that which we now undertook. Mustering our resolve, we poked our thumbs into the waiting atmosphere like two worms on a hook being dipped into a shark tank.

 

A shiny new Lincoln stopped. The door opened from the inside. “Come on in” the warm female voice cooed. Sticking my head in the door I was struck by the overwhelming scent of patchouli, and then my eyes focused on the driver. It was two hundred pounds of hooker in a one hundred pound lavender vinyl jumpsuit. I balked, but Ted pushed me in. As we drove off we were both thankful for the air conditioning. It was getting almost as hot and sticky outside as this woman’s behind must have been inside.

 

She talked non stop. About her dog at home. About her “boyfriend”, (even we knew what THAT meant). About her car. About her feet. About each and every detail that had anything even remotely connected to HER. I guess she was just lonely and wanted someone to converse with. I am thankful now that she must have been well fed shortly before picking us up, as this creature of the underworld looked as if she consumed whatever she wished. Dropping us outside Hartford Connecticut, we bid her farewell. I think she was still talking as she drove away, or was it an echo in my thoughts?

 

Our next ride was far less hospitable, being the Connecticut equivalent of Steve and Keith, but nasty. Well, they didn’t know us, did they? I guess that was their excuse for rudeness as they insulted our clothes and stature. Not wanting to cause a fuss, and not wanting to lose out on a ride to the New York State line, we held our tongues, and these two motorheads soon fell to talking between themselves. The car was an orange Chevy Impala with quite a bit of extra attention under the hood, but lacking any and all attention in the cleanliness department. It stank of stale beer and vomit, to be precise. Hadn’t these two clowns ever heard of a car wash? I think Ted and I secretly took comfort in the obvious fact that Steve and Keith’s Olds could blow the doors off this rancid thing. Letting us out a half hour later with some parting insults, the Brothers Grim passed away into the distance.

 

Now we stood desperately for nearly two hours as whizzing traffic passed. Finally we got a ride in a bread truck, …. for about five miles. Again we stood until mid afternoon, and again a ride for only a short distance. So it was until around 5:00 PM when “Pablo” stopped. He drove an only moderately dirty Ford Econoliner van and told us he was going all the way into the city. Great! We would make it after all! Success was so easy to taste just then, but like so many things it would soon sour into something not even closely resembling positive achievement. Pablo was friendly enough, though neither Ted nor I trusted him. There was something devious behind his words and gaze. What? We would soon see. As we entered the city he began telling us that he was going to do us a favor and drop us in a really good spot. I actually remember taking encouragement from these words, wanting so much to disbelieve that he was evil. As the van quickly came to a stop and we slowly emerged as if in a dream, as the tires peeled off blue smoke and sped away, we looked around and surveyed our new surroundings. Pablo, as a cruel joke that only he could laugh at, … had dropped us in the very center of Black Harlem !!!

 

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I wish to point out that I am not and never have been racist. I also wish to point out the very obvious, that Harlem in the sixties was not a good place for two fourteen year old white boys. To say that we were scared would have been the grossest of understatements. Have you ever met with a near death experience in which your life flashed before your eyes? Well, this is what I experienced then as I stood looking in awe at the growing crowd of blacks which was staring at us. I saw my horrible death. I saw my poor parents crying in anguish as they learned that I had been beaten and stabbed in New York City, … and that I had lied to them about where I had gone. Ted urged me to walk and in a daze I complied.

 

Ted was looking for a subway station from which we could find escape from this waking nightmare of dark angry faces. We must have walked ten city blocks until we found the subway, and we must have ridden for twenty stops before another white person got on that train. It was a little old lady, and like us, she must have been spared a violent death by the sheer obviousness of her innocence and helplessness. To us she was a great comfort, although she sat at the opposite end of the car and stared at us every bit as intently as all the others. Finally and with great relief we noticed that more and more black people were exiting the train and more and more white people were getting on. Ted asked for directions and we switched at the next station and rode this new train for another fifteen minutes, leaving and ascending to the surface in the middle of Times Square. The hustle and press of humanity was too intense and Ted asked directions to Greenwich Village, the hippie section of the city. Descending again into the bowels of the Earth, we were shuffled along the pipe until we emerged at our intended destination.

 

This place was quiet, almost devoid of traffic noise. Here and there long haired hippies walked nonchalantly along rubbish strewn streets. It felt safe. It also felt nearly deserted. Suddenly we realized our hunger. We had not eaten all day and now that we began to relax, our stomachs growled like young hyenas aching for fresh carrion. Spying an ice cream parlor across the street we bolted towards the promise of cool sweet repast. Although the sun was getting low on the horizon the concrete of the buildings still retained more heat than was comfortable.

 

The ice cream parlor was of the 1950s Art Nuevo style, all rounded corners and pastel colors, lots of brushed stainless steel and vinyl padded stools along a curving counter. Standing with her back to us was a tall and very beautiful woman with a body that would stop the town clock. Her perfect bubble ass gave way to long legs covered in black fishnet stockings with the seam down the back, ending in high shiny red stilettos. Speaking in a voice like cool velvet this amazing creature asked us what we wanted, not turning to look at us and appearing to be busy preparing something for somebody else, although there were no other customers on the premises. Looking at the pictured menu above the counter, we each ordered the largest item advertised, the Super Banana Split.

 

We were transfixed by this woman with the fishnet stockings and the bright red shoes who kept her back to us as she worked on our dinner of fruit and sugar. She swayed and wiggled her perfect behind to the music issuing from the radio as she labored. “The Lovin’ Spoonful” never sounded so good. I don’t know which thing we desired more, those banana splits or her body. Nearly finishing her task, she suddenly spun around as swiftly as a cat and cupped her head in her hands, elbows resting upon the counter directly in front of us. SHE had a very prominent Adam’s Apple on HER throat and a day’s growth of dark beard. SHE was a HE !!!

 

“Do you want a CHERRY on it?”, came the question in a voice that did not fit the face, sounding too feminine yet not feminine enough.

 

Shock.

 

Dumbfoundedness.

 

Fear.

 

More shock.

 

What did we do? We did what we had to in order to survive. We replied that, yes indeed, we did want the cherry on top as long as it didn’t cost extra, and once the cherries had been applied and our dinner placed in front of us, we dove into the piles of sweet goo like pirañas latching onto unsuspecting pigs which had wandered into the upper reaches of the Amazon. Finishing with ice cream headaches and screaming teeth, we headed back out into the early evening air. Cooled now by the dessert inside us, it didn’t seem so bad. Fishnet Stockings called after us to return soon and we laughed to ourselves regarding such an unlikely prospect.

 

We found a few head shops and bought little round John Lennon style sunglasses and some beads. We were real hippies now! Look out all you other hippies with hair ten times longer than ours! We’ve arrived in the Eastern mecca of hippiedom and we mean to make our mark. OK, so what does that mean? I have no more idea now than I did then, and feeling the approach of exhaustion at Ted’s suggestion we headed for Central Park.

 

Please do not assume while reading this that we had somehow grown brains, for I assure you that we had not. Central Park, we reasoned, was as good a place as any to camp out. At this point I shall inform the reader that to camp out in Central Park went along the very same lines as camping out in middle of the Battle of Iwo Jima. To call us fools would have been paying compliment. To call us mad would have fallen far short of the mark. We were going to try to camp out in the single most mugger and rapist infested territory on this wide Earth, and we had about as much sense of the impending danger as a hot dog has before you take the first bite, let alone the last. If there had been an “Idiots of the Year” award handed out at the moment, we surely would have taken the trophy hands down.

 

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It was dusk when we arrived in Central Park, and the few bongo playing hippies still there were packing up their blankets and leaving. So were the old folks who sit on benches and feed flocks of waiting pigeons. So were the pigeons. Great, we thought. It’ll be child’s play to find a good spot to camp and soon we located a deserted area behind a little knoll and surrounded on three sides by bushes. We were wasted but still buzzing with excitement at having made it this far. Just as we were laying out our sleeping bags, along came The Hunter.

 

He was at least six foot six, rippling with muscles which poked out from beneath what looked like half a dozen colorful vests. His legs were clad only to the knee by leather shorts, worn thin in places from years of use. He carried a leather pack on his back and in his right hand he held a long staff to which were fixed myriad feathers and rags, pieces of Christmas ribbon and shoelaces, and the odd necktie. I think I spotted a bit of bra strap, too.

 

“Hello boys!” he boomed with a baritone voice that announced he was neither afraid of us or any who might be within ear shot. “What are you boys doin’? Campin’?” He looked us up and down like we were so much fresh meat, licked his fat lips, tilted his great bearded head back, and let out a rumbling tumbling laugh that resonated with as much pure unabated mirth as it did unfettered malice. We were too paralyzed to run, and again my life flashed before my eyes. As I turned towards Ted to glance a final farewell this beast or the jungle spoke again, this time so softly as to quiet the troubled waters of the raging tempest, (or calm the fears of the lamb before the slaughter).

 

“Here now, boys ….. let me show you somethin’ ”, he whispered.

 

He removed his leather pack and began taking out some very strange items. We sat transfixed, like mice about to be eaten by a large snake and unable to move. There was some piano wire, some sharp wooden stakes, some razor blades, some paper clips, some old small coil springs such as might close a screen door. After a moment or two his hands began to fly as he started to build a fiendish little device. It was a spring loaded snare trap lined with razor blades attached to the circle of piano wire. I marveled at his ingenuity as much as I marveled at the fact that I was still alive. Soon it was complete and this creature of the growing darkness covered it with dried leaves. Then, as if setting down a piece of fine and delicate art, he placed a rather new looking wallet between the hidden trap and the bushes behind. It was perfect.

Ted, for all his city smarts, completely missed the point and asked what the trap was for. “Squirrels?” he said innocently.

 

“Ahhhhhhhh, … NO boys! This trap is fo’ PEOPLE !!!”

 

Something in me stirred, some prehistoric sense of survival, … and I spoke.

 

“Well, ummm, thanks a lot for showing us this. It’s really neat. We were just resting for a bit. Now we’re going to go.” The words came from me with a sureness that grew as I spoke, amazing and terrifying to hear. Was I sealing our fates?

 

“Ahhhhhh …… yes! You go now boys! This is my huntin’ groun’ an’ you INIT!” And again he tilted his demonic head back and laughed so that the devil himself must have shuddered where he lay hiding in the depths of Hell. “NEAT !!!” he roared. “They think it’s NEAT !!!”

Ted mumbled something about needing to use a toilet. I thought I understood.

 

We left the park as darkness closed about us like a deadly veil of the underworld, choking out the last rays of light from a pitiful and distant sunset. Ted suggested the YMCA. I agreed and we soon found it, lied about our names for some reason that escapes me even now, and gratefully flopped down on the filthy single bed. There was no bedding. That was extra. The striped mattress had seen better days and it smelled funny. There were odd looking stains.

 

The next day we returned to Greenwich Village where we added much needed trinkets to our budding collection of hippie gear. We would need this stuff if we were to ever be taken seriously by the potheads, acid burnouts, and heroin addicts back home. We knew this. I even bought a striped Mexican vest with fringe. I was delighted. That thing was really going to impress people, I tell you. The fact that it was two sizes too big was neither here nor there.

 

In the afternoon our enthusiasm seemed to dwindle down to a mere spark, so we took in a film. “Thunderball” with Sean Connery. That certainly boosted our moral. Then we found a diner and ate hamburgers so tough that, had they been soaked in Downy Fabric Softener for a few hours beforehand, might not have been that bad. We walked and got lost many times, always relying on the kindness and knowledge of the denizens of that vast concrete expanse to guide us back to our base, the Y.

 

We itched from the dirt of the city and decided to take showers down the hall in the communal bathroom at the end. Still remembering the echos of The Hunter’s laugh, yet once again enjoying a building crescendo of idiot bravado, we walked triumphantly into the long stall of showers.

 

There before us stood, sat, and lay what must have been twenty old men in the throws of an orgy, …. yet as you may have guessed, there were no women present. One of them saw us and looked up, eyes gleaming, missing teeth gaping hungrily. In as much time as it takes me to write this sentence, we were back in our filthy little room, feverishly barricading the door with the dresser and one chair. We tried to move the bed, but the metal frame had been bolted to the floor. We checked the fire escape outside the window in case the men in the shower decided to break the door down. We were about fifteen floors up and the fire escape stopped two floors before the ground, and the whole thing was very rusty, but we figured we could make the twenty foot jump if we had to. Crumpled up in fetal balls at either end of the foul mattress, we slept in fits and starts until dawn. The Wolf Pack never came. At least not to our rooms.

 

The new day had bourn a miracle of sorts. We had grown tiny brains! Yes, we decided in the growing light that New York City was not quite as nice as we had imagined it. Running past the front desk we flung the key into a wastebasket and bolted past the clerk. We had paid in advance, but for some reason thought they might want to detain us in order to discover how much we had enjoyed the shower. Their conspiracy was so obvious to our withered minds that no amount of persuasion to the contrary would have been effective.

 

Now Ted knew that trains ran from the city all the way to Hartford Connecticut, and I knew that there was a train station in the city called “Penn Central”, memories from the age of seven when I had accompanied my father while he was on his way to an Army Base in Virginia for a meeting of some sort. His uniform stuck in my memory like a torch of hope as I saw a service man walking along the street in front of us. I asked directions to Penn Central and he politely obliged. We walked, and trotted, glad to know that we were going to leave on a nice safe train. No more hitching. Pablo might pick us up again and deliver us directly to The Hunter this time. As we neared the train station Ted mentioned food. Where we stood waiting to cross the street was a take out chicken place which operated round the clock in order that the citizens of The Big Apple might partake in week old greasy chicken whenever the fancy took them.

 

We purchased a chicken so hot I feared my clothes would catch on fire. Ted ordered way too much extra orange sauce in little pouches. He assured me that the sauce was the best thing a person could ever hope to ingest. The name of this establishment shall be burned into my mind forever with the searing intensity of that damned chicken scalding my hands. “Chicken a Go Go”. I kid you not.

 

We entered the train station, and tossing the hellish bird in its shining bag back and forth between us like a football, we approached the ticket counter and stated our request to take the train to Hartford. Upon being told that from Penn Central trains only ran East and West, that to get a train North or South we must go to Grand Central Station, we felt only mild disappointment. However, upon learning that the last train North would depart Grand Central in less than half an hour, our disappointment turned to panic as quickly as would the mood of a young antelope about to be left behind the herd to the fate of the lions.

 

We ascended the long staircase to daylight once again. Still playing catch with that blasted chicken, we hailed a cab. “Grand Central Station!” I cried as if pleading for my life. “We need to catch the last train to Hartford!”

 

“Never make it”, came the cold reply as Ted started to become angry.

 

I was ready for this, having seen many old movies which detailed the correct procedure in situations like these. I took out my wallet, withdrew all the money I had, save the known fare of fourteen dollars for the train, and offered it to the cabby along with the following Hollywood directive. “Step on it buddy!”

 

He laughed, took the money of course, and became a Formula One driver for the next fifteen minutes. We were thrilled by his dexterity as he maneuvered his chariot between slower moving vehicles. We were equally impressed by the vast retinue of curses he hurled like deadly spears at any who dared challenge his progress, curses which we eagerly added to our own young vocabulary of filth. Boys our age placed a great deal of importance on good swearing. We were also grateful to find a seat on which to set down the Fire Bird for a few minutes. I thought I was getting blisters on my hands. Grease holds the heat very well.

 

Thanking the driver for his success, Ted and I raced down a new flight of long stairs and dashed to the ticket counter, barging straight to the front of the long line amidst the protests of those in it, completed our transaction, and were told “track twelve five minutes ago” by the clerk eager to get rid of us. There was also some sort of description comparing us to small pieces of excrement. We ran like the wind towards track twelve, still tossing the white hot chicken back and forth. As we entered the long platform we stared in horror as the train upon which lay our salvation moved slowly towards the gaping tunnel at the end. Standing at the back of the train and swinging a green lantern with which he had signaled the engineer to move off, stood an old black man in a conductor’s uniform. He saw our faces and the expressions on them I guess, for he shouted encouragement that I am certain went against all railroad safety policies. “Come on boys! You can make it!”

 

Yes, we ran. We dodged a baggage handler who tried to stop us. We slipped past a railroad security guard too old and slow to intercept such lithe and desperate teenagers. We gained on the train as its hind quarters neared the tunnel. We exerted ourselves to the limit and then we went beyond, past that barrier of pain and exhaustion that distance runners refer to as “The Wall”. We ran for dear life, feeling certain that the Grim Reaper himself was at our heals.

 

And we made it, the old conductor catching our bags and helping us up just as the tail of this great steel dragon vanished into the abyss. He did NOT catch the chicken, however, obviously recognizing the danger of maiming his hands for life. Ted jumped on first and I tossed the damned bird to him.

 

We walked through many cars until we found two seats. They were the kind at the front end of the car which fold down and face backwards. We cared not. We were onboard. We would live to see another day.

Sitting opposite us was a very sophisticated looking older couple who had probably come down to the city for the day, he to work and she to do some shopping. He wore a three piece suit and had permanently buried his face in a copy of The Wall Street Journal. She wore a mink stole and sported a large string of real pearls. She had only a small novel with which to protect her eyes from the sight of two such grubby lads as ourselves.

 

Ted and I tore open the flaming chicken, still hot as blazes, and ate with our bare hands as our primate ancestors must have eaten raw meat fresh from the kill. It burned our mouths and throats and we made little shrieks of protest and uttered vile little words of pain too terrible for the lady in front of us to bear. She tugged at her husband’s sleeve and muttered “Harold!” in a half whisper.

 

Understand that I had been raised to be polite to my elders, and no amount of dirt mixed with hot grease was going to change that, so without thinking one whit as to the possible consequences of this particular situation, I held out a steaming drumstick dripping with too much orange sauce to the lady with the mink stole and the real pearls. “Would you like some?”, I queried with my best manners peaking out from beneath a face covered in the tale of orange sauce and dirt and a complete lack of soap and water. I must have looked a fright! Again the poor woman tugged at Harold’s sleeve and called his name, more loudly this time. No response. Harold was too far gone in the Dow. He might never come back. The woman looked at me for the briefest second, harumphed, and said in a voice like that of a horrified nun when she realizes she has inadvertently broken silence, “No thank you.” She then turned her attention back to her novel and dared not look at the filthy boys in front of her again.

 

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We reached Hartford without incident. Neither The Hunter nor the Wolf Pack from the shower at the YMCA had followed us. We walked up a steep embankment to the highway and once more poked out our thumbs. No sign of Pablo. A Volkswagen van stopped. An old gent was going all the way to White River Junction, way past Brattleboro. One ride all the way. What luck! It must have been that the penance of the hot chicken burned away all our sins and now we would experience only good fortune.

 

Hah!

 

The man behind the wheel was drunker than a sailor at a distillery open house. He was sad, too. Kept crying and losing control of the van and heading for the ditch. Ted had to grab the wheel at least fifty times. Seems this tortured soul had gone to New York City to find his son who had run away to Greenwich Village to become a hippie. He had looked for days with no luck and was now returning home empty handed to his grieving wife. I remember wondering for a second if we might have crossed paths while in that part of the city which drew so many youths like a magnet, even thought that it might cheer him up to tell him our tale of the Fishnet Stocking Ice Cream Queen who wasn’t what “she” appeared to be. Then I thought better of it and kept silent. The man drank gin from a half empty bottle as he drove and I was thankful that the old van would not exceed forty five miles per hour, being the slowest thing on the road that day.

 

We thanked our driver as he let us out in Brattleboro. He had, without asking, been kind enough to take us off the interstate and all the way to the steel arch bridge across the Connecticut River to New Hampshire. Ted and I both mused aloud if he would make it home and how would his wife would take the bad news.

 

Walking over the state line felt good. A last obstacle cleared on an impossible odyssey no one would believe. No one that is, except maybe Steve and Keith. That’s right, there they were again, coming back from another wine run to Vermont. The green Olds was still filthy, but so now were we, and thus could not complain even silently to ourselves. I looked across at Ted as we moved down the last hill into our town. We understood each other with total clarity by just that gaze. We had cheated death and won, … but BOY had we learned a lesson! That was the last time I ever lied to my parents. After that, whenever I went camping or hiking, I stayed in the forests and mountains, breathing in the clean fresh air, eating chicken that I had cooked myself over an open fire, and bathing often in the clear magical water of the rivers and streams which graced that welcoming paradise.

 

THE END