June 15-June 16, 1974
I made excellent time in the morning. I was on the road outside UCLA at 530 and within a few minutes had a lift to what Californians called “the 405”. Interstate 405 would take me to “the 134” and then “the 210” heading east toward San Bernardino. After San Bernardino I’d take I-15 to Victorville and then Barstow. After Barstow I-40 east for a long time.
A reasonable goal for the end of the day was Flagstaff Arizona about 500 miles from the UCLA campus. It would be great to get all the way to Albuquerque, but that was 800 miles away and a real stretch even with a 530 start.
As soon as I settled into the first ride, I wondered if my prohibition against nighttime pickups should extend to early morning lifts as well. The first driver was barely audible. His eyes were bloodshot, and he had a strung-out druggy look. The fellow mumbled that he worked the all-night shift at a radio station, but I did not believe him. It was a short drive to the interstate, and I was glad to get out of the car at “the 405”.
I had very good success from that point for a while. I scored a series of rides along 405N and then 134 and 210. I did not have to wait long between rides either. I was in San Bernardino, a 75-mile distance from UCLA, by 8 am. In San Bernardino I waited only a half hour for a ride to Victorville, and had my thumb out there by 9. I was in Victorville only another thirty minutes before a pot reeking van with bandanna festooned hippies stopped. Stoned and quiet they dropped me in Barstow by 10.
The wait in Barstow was even shorter; only ten minutes before a dead ringer for Fred Mertz picked me up. Maybe I had the cast of I Love Lucy on my mind since I’d seen Lucille Ball just a few days earlier, but this fellow really looked the part. Mertz was headed to Needles California a two-hour drive east. His recurring advice to me during our time together was to not go into the chicken business.
“You can’t make a living” he said. I muttered something like “hmm” which wasn’t enough for him. He turned his head toward me. “I mean it kid.” Then he turned back to face the road. “You have your whole life ahead of you. Forget the chicken business,” he said as if I’d told him that was my career goal. Fred didn’t say much else. Just kept making the point for 144 miles that he wished he had not gone into the chicken business. “There’s money in fruit” he said. “But like a fool I went into chickens.” I hoped my clothes did not reek from the pot. If they did, he made no comment.
This was going very well. I’d be in Needles on I-40 by noon. If I’d driven straight myself from UCLA to Needles it would have taken me until 11am. I might be back in Buffalo by the 19th or even the 18th if I continued to get lucky. Albuquerque now did not seem like an impossibility and Flagstaff only 210 miles from Needles was a given. I’d planned to take route 40 all the way through Arizona and New Mexico and begin going northeast toward St. Louis when I arrived in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City was 15 hours from Needles. I could get there by the end of the 16th. Then, easy, two more days from there to Buffalo.
When I looked at the map the day before I noticed that I would come to a cross roads at Barstow. There I could either go up to Las Vegas and keep going on 15 and then go east, or switch to the 40. The ride through Las Vegas would eventually take me on the same highways that I’d been on when I went west. I wanted something different, so I’d decided before I set out that when I got to Barstow I was going east on 40. The quick pick up in Barstow and the single ride with Mertz to Needles, made this seem, on the morning of June 15, like a wise choice.
***
I was in Needles by noon. The Chicken Farmer had a heavy foot and a heavy-duty bladder.
It was hot in Needles. Very hot. After twenty minutes standing on the ramp, I hoped to get out of town in a hurry. I had a hat, but if I had to stand in the heat for more than an hour I knew I would be steamed. I was alone so that was a good thing, but while there were cars going up the ramp heading east, nobody was stopping. There were a lot of those family campers that never stop and often glance at hikers as if we’re some form of societal toxin.
By 1 pm. I knew I had to have something to drink. I’d knocked off the water in my canteen and was becoming dangerously parched. Fortunately-- if there could be good fortune associated with standing in the desert for an hour with the temperature above 100-- there was a Denny’s a very short walk from the ramp. I left my spot, went to Denny’s and chatted up a server. She was sympathetic and kept refilling tall glasses of iced tea with plenty of ice. I had two such refills. Then I went into the rest room, soaked my hat in the sink, and resumed my vigil by the highway at 1:30 in what I learned in Denny’s was 119 degree heat.
At 230 I touched my hat and it was bone dry. It had been drenched. This was not good. I went back into Denny’s and again the sweet waitress poured me iced tea with ice. At 3 I returned to the road.
As I approached the ramp, I saw that now I was in real trouble. There was another hiker with his thumb out. Just great. He, understandably, did not look happy to see me. I asked if there had been much traffic. He waved his wrist to indicate there had been some but not a lot. I told him I’d been standing there since noon and had no bites.
My new hiking partner was surly initially, but after a while began to chat. He, Mike, was from Marblehead a suburb north of Boston and was going home. He had hoped to get back before Father’s Day, the next day. I looked at him skeptically. “I know” he said. “Not gonna happen.” Mike told me he’d been in the military and was now just hanging out thumbing around the country. I told him I was a grad student on what was a vacation of sorts. We stood out until 4 and were broiling.
I suggested we get something to eat. I’d had nothing but iced tea all day. He hadn’t eaten either. So, we went into Denny’s, slumped into a booth, and didn’t want to leave. The air conditioning felt wonderful and we both were sapped from having stood in that unrelenting desert heat. We decided to take our time eating and stretch out dinner until 5 when we figured it might start to cool down.
Over dinner Mike spoke quite a bit about his past. I found out he had dropped out of the University of Indiana as a junior right after Kent State happened. “They closed the school,” he told me. “It was a good thing for me because I was failing everything and, what with the student protesting, you could opt for an S instead of a letter grade. I got an S in everything. Apparently, a steady satisfactory student when I was anything but. My cousin graduated from Michigan top of his class, my kid sister is a genius, and my dad is a doc, but I’m not much of a student. My father was furious when I quit, but I knew I’d just goof off again and could not count on another student protest to bail me out. Got a date with Uncle Sam.”
“Vietnam?"
“No. Caught a break, I guess. Didn’t go to war. For some reason I was sent to the Arctic.”
“The Arctic?”
“The Arctic. Go figure the army. The good news was that I wasn’t being shot at. The bad news is that I was all alone in the Arctic. My job was to sit in a room by myself and work surveillance. Surveilling what is a good question. We had a station out there in the middle of nowhere and I was on watch to make sure nothing happened. And, guess what—in the middle of nowhere--, nothing happened. Occasionally there was a flight that came in and I shook hands with some people who were there to do top secret stuff. Then they went and did whatever it was that was top secret and flew out again.
“A guy living in a village would come every week with food and supplies, but otherwise nearly every day I was all alone in this tower watching nothing and reporting back that nothing had been watched.”
“Tough duty” I said.
“Believe me there were times I thought that it might have been better to be shot at, and more than a few times when I thought that taking Introduction to Sociology or whatever other nonsense I was taking at Indiana might have been worth plowing through. I was going crazy there all by myself.”
“What did you do?”
“I made up my own crazy stuff.”
“Like what?”
“Crazy stuff.” he laughed. “The best thing was that I divided my waking hours by 365.”
I gave him a look and he snorted again. “I was going crazy right. Had to do something or I would have blown my brains out or maybe taken a gun to the occasional researchers researching top secret nothing. So I took the day from 7-10 and divided it up by 365. And I made believe every day was about 2 ½ minutes long. This way I could celebrate my birthday every day. “
“I don’t follow.”
“Listen up college boy. It’s simple. Birthday is November 11th the 325th day of the year. Multiply 325 times 2.5 you get about 812.”
I’m still not following and tell him so.
“Only a lunatic can follow this completely, but try college boy. This is how I kept my sanity. If you break up the minutes of your waking day by 365, then you can celebrate your birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, fourth of July every day. Every night, 812 minutes into my day I sang happy birthday to myself. Fourth of July a little after 2 I pretended there were fireworks. Superbowl Sunday was around 8 every morning.”
He laughed again. “I know it is crazy, but I had to keep my sanity somehow. I made up my own language too. You wanna hear?”
“Sure. Why not.”
“Instead of calling something by its given name you change it so that the beginning and the end of the word were always the same. The key to my keep-from-going-crazy language was taking the last consonant of a word and putting an o after it and that would be the first syllable. The second syllable was the first consonant with the letters ack after it. So me, born Michael, I was no longer Michael but LoMack. Bread was Dobrack.”
“DoBrack, not doback?”
“You catch on pretty quick, college boy. Yeah, DoBrack. If the word begins with a double consonant you used both letters. Pen is NoPack, but plan is noplack.”
“So,” I say “you’re Michael/LoMack. And I’m Alan/NoLack.”
He made a face. “NoLack won’t work. Sounds like two real words. ‘he has ‘no lack’ of funds’. Can’t use NoLack.”
Before I could take offense he continued. “You got a nickname?”
“I do have a nickname” I said.
“Ok”
“College buddies call me Zeke. Some old girlfriends too.”
“Zeke. That’s good. Zeke. You’d be KoZack. ‘KoZack’" he said as if trying it out “’Kozak’. that’s good.”
“Glad you approve.”
“Hey, I made up the language. I make the rules” He said while chuckling.
“Fine. What if a word has only one consonant?”
“If it’s the first letter, like We, it’s wack. If it is the second letter like eel, it’s lo. If a word has no consonants like “I” or “a”, you just leave it out and figure it out from context.”
I tried it out. “Wack donack a dorack. Right? We need a ride?”
“Very good. Wack Dack. We do” He said and laughed again. “And we better get one soon. It’s hotter than lohack out there.”
***
LoMack and I went back on the ramp at about 530. It did not seem a whole lot cooler. LoMack made a suggestion.
“There’s another exit. We’re not doing anything here. Let’s go to the other exit.”
I agreed that that was worth a shot and we were able to get a lift to the other exit a bit further east. The ramp leading to the highway from the new exit was at the base of a hill. We were essentially standing to the side of a highway overpass with cars zooming past us on the road above.
We did not have much luck at this new spot either. The good news was that it was cooler, the bad news was that we were approaching dusk and we still didn’t have a ride out of Hades. I told LoMack about my not hiking at night policy.
“Suit yourself KoZack” I am staying here all night if I have to. I want to get to Marblehead before I broil. At night we will not broil. Tomorrow we will broil.”
It was not quite dark yet, so I kept standing by the ramp and began to rationalize staying and hiking at night. In my head,I trotted out a number of rationalizations. “I’m with LoMack. It is not like I am hiking alone. I will fry in Needles tomorrow. I have to get back to Buffalo by the end of the month.”
To pass the time before dusk turned to dark I started a game with LoMack. I pretended that I was an announcer giving the play by play of the cars going past us and he was the color man. Initially he was reluctant to play but he got into it after a spell.
“Here comes a Chevy. Looks like a husband and wife in the car. Don’t think there’s much of a chance, LoMack. What do you think?”
“Nothing there Kozack. No way. You can tell that the husband is a stiff.”
“With you on that Lomack. Husband looks like a stiff. Sure enough. There it goes. Whoa chance here. I see a van. You see it, Lomack?”
“I do Kozak. I do.”
“Could be hippies, LoMack. Could very well be hippies. We have a shot with hippies.”
“Don’t think so Kozak. Get a good look. You read it wrong Kozack. Little league team out for ice cream.”
“It is at that LoMack. Hope the Needles nine did mighty fine.”
“Good rhyme KoZak.”
“Still need a ride. Here’s a Buick. Whaddayathink Mr. Buick. Give a couple of fellas a lift?
LoMack got to laughing at the side of the road at our commentary. There was not much light left. I had to make a choice. Stay on the ramp with LoMack or walk to a motel not far from the exit and start again in the morning. I was about to say goodbye to LoMack and keep my don’t hike at night promise when the two of us are startled by what we see.
A car that had been driving above us on I-40 screeched to a halt, swerved wildly and then pulled over to the shoulder near the top of the ramp. The driver then proceeded to, very dangerously, back down the ramp to where we were standing. Not only might another car have started to drive up the ramp at any moment, but the car in reverse was tearing down the ramp swaying from side to side. It stopped near where we had our mouths open.
The driver popped out of the car. Big long face. High forehead. About 25. Looked like he would be bald before he reached 30. Eyes bulging.
“Peckerheads, you’re in luck.” He shouted. Then bulging eyeballs laughed. It was a weird laugh. Maniacal almost. Started off sounding like a car that can’t turn over and morphed into a machine gun cackle. “You peckerheads are in luck.” he repeated. “I’m driving all the way to Chicago.”
***
We felt lucky. But there was some uneasiness. The guy had slammed on the brakes on an Interstate and had backed down an entrance ramp. And he was jabbering nonstop like he’d had a gallon of caffeine.
We got in the car. A tiny Chevy Vega. LoMack sat in front. I went to the back.
“I’m Tim.” He says to us as he kerplunks down behind the wheel. “Tim, I am. Who’re you peckerheads?”
“LoMack” says Lomack. He points a thumb back to me. “He’s Kozak.”
“LoMack and Kozack” bellows Tim. Then again the car engine machine gun laugh. “LoMack and Kozack. Superheroes. All right. Where you going, LoMack and Kozak”
I say Buffalo. Lomack says Boston.
Tim slams his hand on the steering wheel. “I knew it. I had a feeling. This is great.” He bangs the steering wheel again. “Buffalo and Boston. You peckerheads are in luck. I’m going all the way to Chicago. All the way to Chicago. And I’m gonna be there by tomorrow night. No, we’re gonna be there by tomorrow night. Peckerheads. We’ll share the driving and go straight through.” He kept banging the steering wheel. He began to sing “Chicago. Chicago, Chicago it’s a wonderful town.”
We are up the ramp and racing down the 40 as Tim continues to race speak.
“I got thirty bucks in my wallet. A loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter. Stop just to piss, then we can’t miss.” Tim got a charge out of his rhyme and says it again. “Just stop to piss, then we can’t miss” Again the crazy laugh. “Thirty bucks in my wallet now. Thirty bucks in my wallet when I get to Chicago.”
Tim goes on to tell us rapid fire that his father thinks he is a bum which, to me, is not far from a bullseye assessment. His father has always called him a no-good bum, he says, but he is going to show up in Chicago on Father’s day with thirty bucks in his pocket and show his father that he is not a bum. Hah. He tells us that he was looking out for drivers. We, he continues rat a tat speed talking, will share the driving for the next 24 hours. Three hours on, three hours off, taking the wheel every six hours. Isn’t that beautiful? And we’ll get to Chicago by Sunday evening, still Father’s Day.
I do some math in my head. It is not impossible that we could make it to Chicago by late tomorrow night, but we would have to drive straight through with almost no breaks at all. Highly unlikely.
“I’ll drive “til midnight.” Tim continues. “Then LoMack, peckerhead number one, you take over. Then you Kozack you drive until 6. Then me, then LoMack. We take turns see?”
“Great” says LoMack. I chime in on the chorus and am happy that I am out of the heat, but this guy is a wacko.
Tim is maniacally gabbing. He talks about the down and out stretches he has had in his life but how he is now back on his feet with THIRTY BUCKS IN HIS POCKET. Besides being so flush, he tells us about all the women he has had. We are on the road for an hour at least and he still is going on and on about his sexual prowess.
“Women are crazy about me,” he says. “Can’t blame them.” Then again the machine gun laugh. “Picked up a cunt before I saw you guys. In San Bernardino. She was worthless though. Couldn’t drive. I told her that she could drive my stick then.” Again we hear this maniacal laugh.
LoMack starts talking with Tim. ‘I like the ladies too’ he says.
Great LoMack, I think, egg him on.
“You do look like an ass man LoMack.”
“Oh yeah. I once had a girlfriend who called me The Killer.”
This, Tim thinks, is a scream. “The Killer. Why did you kill her?” Again machine gun laughter. “Okay quick gonna pull over to take a piss. Then back on the road. And I keep the wheel ‘til midnight. He repeats his rhyme. “Just stop to piss, then we can’t miss.”
On the interstate Tim slams on the brakes and skids over to the shoulder. He opens the door recklessly, bounds out, runs around the front of the car waving at us, and then hops over a guardrail.
When he is away I grab LoMack by the shoulder.
“Hey Killer.” I say with heavy sarcasm on Killer. “What is wrong with you? Why are you egging him on?”
“Look he is taking us all the way to Chicago.”
“He’s a nut.”
“I know. a few screws loose, but he is taking us to Chicago.”
“Don’t egg him on Killer.”
“The Killer. After sex, she'd call me The Killer.”
I stare at him.
LoMack explains. “You said Killer. She called me The Killer, not Killer. True story.”
Again, I pause. “And just how is that significant? Killer or The Killer. Is that important?”
“Well, what she called me was The Killer, you said Killer.”
“Look LoMack there is a maniac here. Let him fizzle out, and we’ll drive through the night, but he doesn’t need your help getting going.” I pause again. “Killer.” I say still stunned.
“The Killer” corrects LoMack again. “Don’t worry Kozack. I know what I’m doing.”
I want to smack him in the back of the head, but Tim bursts back in the car.
“Killer and Kozack, Superhero Peckerheads are you ready.”
“Ready” I say, without a whole lot of enthusiasm.
***
We switch drivers at midnight according to plan. LoMack takes the wheel. I am too wired to go to sleep. After about a half an hour LoMack says to Tim that we need to stop for gas.
Tim says okay. In and out. We’ll rip off the next gas station we come to.
Did I hear that right?
“What do you mean?” I say.
“You want to pay for gas Kozack?” Machine gun laugh. “I don’t want to pay for gas. You want to pay for gas Killer? I don’t want to pay for gas.”
LoMack says he doesn’t want to pay for gas. I want to strangle him. He puts his left hand in the air so I can see it, suggesting that he is just placating Tim.
Tim doesn’t see the gesture. “Here’s what we’ll do. When we stop, I’ll go in to buy something like a candy bar. Lomack you go in also. Get a coke or something. Meanwhile Kozack you fill up the tank and go into pay, but first stop to take a leak. But don’t take a leak. Don’t even stop in the can, just go out the back door. Gotta be a back door. Me and Killer will drive around and pick you up. Easy.”
I am incredulous.
“Look” says Tim, “I’d sneak out the back, but I have a record. If they catch me I’m fucked.”
What a surprise, this maniac has a record. I want nothing to do with this.
“Okay, we’ll rip off the gas station” says LoMack. Again, he puts up his left hand to signal to me as if to say, “Don’t worry we’re not going to do this.”
I don’t want this to go any further. “Let me pay for this tank. It’s okay. I don’t want to rip off the station”
“Suit yourself” says Tim, “but we are going to have to rip off the next one unless you are going to be buying us gas all the way to Chicago.” Machine gun laugh.
I pay for the gas and grab a hold of LoMack when Tim is making a peanut butter sandwich.
“Don’t worry KoZack.” We’re not going to rob any gas station. “We just have to placate this guy. He’s going all the way to Chicago.”
“Maybe you are going all the way to Chicago, but as soon as my driving stint is over and it is light out I am out of this car.”
“We can placate him.” Says LoMack. “I’ll buy the next tank. He’s going all the way to Chicago.”
“Not with me.”
I take over the wheel at 3 and drive until nearly six. We are somewhere near the Arizona New Mexico line on I-40. I see that very soon we will be in Gallup, New Mexico. Tim takes over the wheel. Soon thereafter Tim says that we will soon need to rob a gas station. Again, Tim outlines how we will rob the station.
I tell both LoMack and Tim that I am out, that I do not want any part of robbing a gas station.
Finally, LoMack comments that he agrees. He tries to be practical. “We’ll split the gas. I’ll pay for this tank. If we get caught we could go to jail.”
Tim goes nuts. Who knows when this guy last slept for more than a half hour or what he’s snorted. “Fuck you guys. Fuck you. I’m getting to Chicago with thirty bucks in my pocket. I need one of you two guys to rob the gas station.”
“Okay”, he said to me, “Kozack, you said from the start that you did not want to do it, but how about you Lomack. You were in”
“I’m not going to rob the gas station. I’ll pay for the tank.” Says Lomack.
Again, Tim goes ballistic. He is screaming.
We are in Gallup New Mexico. I-40 becomes the main street of Gallup at this point. Tim yanks the Chevy into a gas station and bolts out. The sun is up. I grab my pack and start walking. LoMack also gets out. Tim grabs LoMack by the shirt and takes a wild swing at him and misses. LoMack darts away. Tim picks up a gas hose and plans to gas up and take off. The station isn’t open so no gas comes out. Tim throws the gas hose on the ground.
“Fuck you” he screams. “Fuck New Mexico. I don’t need you to get to Chicago. You can walk all the way to Chicago for all I care.”
Tim gets into the Vega and flies through the main drag of Gallup New Mexico. Lomack and I are standing in his wake and are spooked.
LoMack says he is getting on the road again, but he is clearly shaken. I say I need a break. We shake hands still not all together over what has just transpired. I find an old night diner on the main street to sit down and shake myself together.
From the window of my booth I see LoMack with his thumb out. I don’t see him again for half a century.
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