1971: The year I received my MFA
in Playwriting from the University of Oregon, P and I had more income
than we knew what to do with. Very unusual for grad students! She had
managed to get back her complete scholarship, and I had three sources
of income, any one of which we could have lived on. I was a Teaching
Assistant (which I would continue to be until she finished her PhD in
a few years), I had Cold War GI Bill benefits, and I had received a
fat Shubert Playwriting Fellowship. We kept a lot of the English
department in spaghetti and beer and still managed to save thousands
of dollars.
We decided to live on some of it that
summer, camping hither and yon across the country at whim. We had
only one obligation: I had to appear in Virden, Canada, to be best
man at my office mate’s wedding.
Otherwise, we went where we felt
like and ended up roaming between Oregon and Nova Scotia, in an
unforgettable trip I later wrote up for Northwest Magazine, which was
published as “Travels With Ruby.” Ruby was the 1965 VW Bug that
my dad had given me as a UCLA graduation present.
Here are a few highlights from the
trip.
Ichthyosaur National Monument.
We are camping in the Nevada desert. I’m looking at the map over
morning camp stove coffee. A long dirt road leads to something called
the Ichthyosaur National Monument. What the hell’s an ichthyosaur?
A prehistoric fish, says P. Bright lady. Hey, let’s go there!
We unpack in a small camp ground, the
only ones there. There’s a large building, which turns out to be a
whore house, and a small building, which turns out to be a forest
ranger. We drink beer with the madam at the house and the ranger and
get the story of this strange place.
It’s a corporate party pad. This
explains the air field behind the building. Small corporate jets
bring in their executives and reward them with prostitutes for a
weekend. In fact, says S, the madam or bartender or whatever she
calls herself, there’s a big party this weekend.
Otherwise the only others who hang
around here are collectors. They dig in the hills for bottles, old
coins. In fact, we saw a few on the drive in.
S had so many stories, we decide to
stay an extra day, leaving before the jets arrive. We don’t feel up
to all that. But S impresses me so much that years later, I name the
bartender in a play after her.
The Northern Lights. This was
the highlight of the wedding in Canada. Neither of us have seen such
spectacular displays. One night I lay on my back on the street,
gazing up at the show. It almost makes you religious.
I also enjoy drinking with the father
of the bride at the Canadian Legion.
Shreveport. We visit my Army
buddy B. He lives in an upper middle class housing development on the
outskirts of town. All black tenants. His friends and neighbors are
shocked that we are white. He never mentioned this in his many
stories about our exploits in the Army.
P is a little taken aback by B’s
recklessness, as I am. He has a beer in his crotch whenever he
drives. We stay a few days, survive all the partying, and from B’s
wife I get some excellent gumbo cooking tips in my volunteer role of
assistant cook.
New Jersey. My blue collar
relatives welcome us warmly but their kids are a little more honest.
I have a big bushy beard. P wears no makeup. At one point a little
girl, a distant cousin, comes up and asks inquisitively, Are you
hippies?
Potted Head. The best sandwich
in Nova Scotia. We call it head cheese in the states. A lunch on a
cliff with the ocean spray keeping us cool becomes the emblematic
moment of my joy with P, what I take to be mutual joy, but after the
strange and bitter breakup, she’ll have nothing to do with any fond
memories between us. It’s as if her heterosexual self, or even her
bi self, never existed.
However, many years later, she will
tell my brother that the only good thing in her marriage to me was
this: the sex was spectacular. That actually throws me for a loop, as
I explain in my short film, Deconstructing Sally. But given
this, why the hell doesn’t she use the memory to cherish some of
the past? Why throw out the baby with the bath water? Can't she even admit she helped me become a writer?
Booze To Go. A sweltering
afternoon. We are driving through a small town in the Midwest. I see
a sign at a bar: Drinks to go window. No way. I drive into the alley
and up to the window. What will you have? We leave with a tray of gin
and tonics. Utopia! as far as we’re concerned this hot day.
European football. Another hot
day. This one in the southwest. Another small town, Main Street. We
find a tavern for a beer -- and it is packed, almost standing room
only, with young men and women. College students, it turns out,
mostly foreign students, rooting for some big soccer game on the
tube. This may be my first introduction to the passion many have for
European “futbol”. I never saw anything like it.
We have a few beers, enjoy the people
watching, and get back on the road.
A concert. Before leaving
relatives in New Jersey, a cousin who has heard our music and become
a fan, talks us into giving a concert in the public park. Ends up the
whole town shows up. Not much entertainment around there. P performs
and I perform -- we did very few songs together! -- and someone tapes
it. Later copies get made. All the relatives get one.
We don’t do many songs together
because I don’t like to screw up P’s lovely voice. We already had
our own body of songs when we met, and we only added two or three
things to do together, mostly group singing things where her lead
doesn’t matter.
Northwest Magazine. “Travels
With Ruby” becomes a cover story. But the painting of Ruby on the
cover is wrong, they have a 1966 not a 1965, there was a subtle
change in the engine door.
I’m an “inner circle” writer at
the magazine as long as JB is editor. After I’m a regular, he
rejects nothing. At most he will request a rewrite. He publishes
things that shouldn’t be published, in retrospect, but he wants to
keep me happy for the big projects that come around. Once I am guest
editor for an entire issue devoted to Easy Rider. Another time to an
issue devoted to Society and Old Age. It’s a great relationship for
me -- and a frustrating one for the young writers trying to break in,
as I once was, as I remember being frustrated before I sold my first
article to JB.
The camping trip of 1971 lasted over
two months. A once in a lifetime experience.