The Gratitude of a Militant Non-Driver

Years ago, when the world was younger and the peaches juicier, I received an urgent assignment from the very pretty wife of a friend. “Go forth to Los Angeles and get him to come back to me here in San Francisco.” The friend, you see, had run off to L.A. to become an actor-comedian and was refusing to come back. Ever a chevalier, I accepted the task, pocketed the $20, savored the kiss the injured lady bestowed on me and put my thumb out on Highway 1. The year was 1970, Nixon was president, the nation was at war, American cities were still smoldering from the fires of the ‘60s, the Charles Manson trial was putting our generation on the stand, and hitchhiking was the favored mode of transportation for the ecstatic and the despondent. My own motives, hovering as they did between ecstasy and despondency, were primarily poetic. I enjoyed the madness.

I arrived in L.A. on the smoggy day of a historic headline: MANSON GUILTY NIXON DECLARES. Manson himself had gotten hold of that headline and displayed it to his jurors, which nearly caused a mistrial. I was convinced, as were many other young folk then, that Manson had been framed for being a hippie and that he was being made, like Jesus, to suffer for our sins. With that thought in mind, I reached the ratty dwelling in Venice where my friend, a Hungarian with an accent thicker than mine, and his roommate, a 300-pound black guy with an afro, practiced the comedy routine that would launch them to Tinseltown glory.

This routine, of which nothing survives in memory, was just about the unfunniest thing I’d ever heard, though I tried my best to force a giggle when they drafted me to be their audience in exchange for board and tofu. My motives were mixed: I hoped to subtly discourage them, on the one hand, but not enough to cause my friend to return to his pretty wife, about whom I had certain turgid feelings myself. The atrocity of the act made it easy to do that, but after three days of suffering their practice, I couldn’t stand it anymore.

I painted a cross on my forehead with a Magic Marker, in sympathy with the Manson family, which had been appearing thus cruciformed in court, and put out my thumb. My destination was the Sunset Strip. The couple in the front seat of the first car that stopped were speechless when they saw the cross. After a painful silence, the male asked, “Are you in the Manson family?” I said grandly, “We all are, man. We all are.” Well, that was enough for them to get rid of me ASAP, only a mile from my destination.

I walked this mile grimly until I arrived at the hippie heart of Sunset, where my people loitered in their psychedelic or biker drag, looking for the apocalypse, and also sex and drugs. Two very stoned girls asked me if I was Kris Kristofferson and didn’t believe me when I said that I wasn’t. I was feeling very much at home when two black men came up and wanted to know if I was in the Manson family. With somewhat less conviction, I repeated my earlier answer, but this time it wasn’t met with silence. The dudes prepared to whop me. I sprinted off and lost them after a chase. In a gas-station bathroom where I’d taken refuge, I tried hard to wash off the cross on my head with soap and water, but it wasn’t easy. Magic Markers are nearly indelible. With the faint shadow of the cross on my head, I regained the street only to find the two stoned girls waiting patiently for me. This time I owned up to the fact that I was indeed Kris Kristofferson, whereupon they hooked their sandalwood-fragrant arms in mine and transported me to a patchouli-saturated pad in the vicinity. Needless to say, I was unsuccessful in the mission of rescuing my friend from the lure of L.A., and I hitched back to San Francisco in faux disgrace. Years passed and foolish beliefs were squished. Manson was guilty as charged. Nixon was guilty as charged. America had a long time to go before the madness subsided. But through all that, I absolutely refused to drive a car. My reasoning was based on this rock-solid premise: If I had survived the automobile-driven culture of Los Angeles in one of the craziest years of this American century, I could make it anywhere as a nondriver. Thirty years have passed, and I offer this mnemonic rose to the City of Angels. Grazie.