I-5 ran south out of Sacramento. The temperature in the Central Valley was much hotter on the other side of the Sierras and AK blasted the Torino’s AC.

As a car owner AK wanted to return the Ford in the same condition as we had received it in Boston, so halfway to Lodi we hit a car wash to clean America’s dust, grime, and insects off the station wagon.

Afterward the Torino shone in the California sun and we checked it without finding a single scratch from the long trip across country.

AK drove the station wagon a little over 55. The California Highway Patrol had a well-earned reputation for busting anyone outside their notion of a good American whether they be an Okie, a Mexican, a hobo or hippies like AK and me.

I instinctively turned around several times.

Pam wasn’t in the backseat.

Both she and her Joni Mitchell tape were on a bus to Mendocino

The whisper of her rose attar fragrance clung to the car and AK asked, “So what was Harry like?”

“It doesn’t matter what he’s like.” Pam was heading to meet her boyfriend.

“I want to know.” AK wanted the whole picture.

“He was super-straight and thought the world of himself.” Even my ex-girlfriend couldn’t see what Pam saw in Harry, who was a staunch Nixon supporter. “I couldn’t stand him and he felt the same way about me.”

“So maybe it won’t work out with him?” AK couldn’t get her out of his mind.

“I doubt it. He’s a doctor, which is every mother’s dream son-in-law.”

“And musicians are on the other end of that spectrum?” The pianist was starting a gig with an R&B band in the fall.

“Which was one step up from me.” My employment prospects were dim in this economy. “And not to change the subject, but you already have a girlfriend.”

“She understands I’m on the road.” Annie and AK had been lovers since college.

She wanted kids.

AK was after a musical career in funk.

The New Yorker wasn’t close to being black, except when he played the electric piano, then he gave ray Charles a run for his money.

“Meaning what?” I rubbed my shoulder, trying to remember, if I had fallen down last night in Reno.

“That three thousand miles is a long way from home.” AK considered himself on parole from his relationship. “We made good time.”

“Boston to California in six days. It was a good trip.”

“And it isn’t over yet.” We had the summer ahead of us.

AK started singing BORN TO BE WILD by Steppenwolf. He had a solid voice.

“Looking for adventure and whatever comes our way.”

I joined him on the chorus. The song had been an anthem for the road ever since EASY RIDER. AK laughed at my singing.

“What’s wrong?”

“Just that you sing like Tony Bennett.”

The backhanded comparison was almost a compliment and I sang I LEFT MY HEART IN SAN FRANCISCO, substituting Pam for heart.

Now it was my time to laugh.

“Very funny.”

“I thought so.”

“Not me.”

AK exited the interstate at Route 12. The fertile vineyards were weighty with the grapes of 1974. Lodi was wine country.

We crossed railroad tracks determining which side was the better part of town. AK held the owner’s directions in his left hand. The main street was busy with holiday shoppers. Everyone was white. The streets were laid out on a grid and the houses had tidy lawns. Lodi looked like a fine place for an ex-Marine to live.

“You recovered from last night.”

“A little bit.” It had been my birthday and this morning I had woken along the bank of the Truckee River with no money in my wallet, thinking that I had blown my vacation stake at a blackjack table in Reno. AK had hidden my travelers’ checks and cash until Sacramento.

“You know not telling me that my money wasn’t gone was mean.”

“Like I said when he dropped off Pam. It was for your own good.”

“And you were right.”

“Was I that bad?” My hangover answered my question, but AK filled in the blanks.

“After you lost most of your winnings, I gave you another $300 and hid the rest. You threatened to beat me up, if I didn’t give you the cash. Pam lent you $20 once you blew the three hundred. I paid her back from your money.” AK didn’t have to pull any punches. We had lived next to each other in Boston for over a year. I knew him and he knew me. “After she crashed in the car, you got ugly.”

“How ugly?” The sky was the limit, if I had been drinking Jack Daniels.

“Ugly enough to make a train take a dirt road.” AK flicked up the left turn signal.

East Oak Street lay a few blocks to the north.

It was a nice neighborhood. Kids played on the cut grass and parents readied for the holiday barbecue.

“The security guards tossed you out of the casino around midnight and you tried to storm the front door. The bouncers were nice enough not to call the police, but they did rough you up.”

“That explains my shoulder.” I hadn’t fallen, but been thrown to the ground by experts.

“One more thing.” AK turned onto a street lined with neat and tidy houses.

“What?”

”You were yelling that you wanted the police to arrest the casino owners for stealing your birthday.

“Funny?” Humor depended as much on delivery as timing.

“More pathetic than funny at the time, but funnier today.” AK braked by the curb.

The stucco bungalow was topped by a brick-red tiled roof. The windows were framed by sky-blue shutters. Two orange trees provided shade and fruit. The other houses on the street had cut theirs down.

Jake was watering his lawn in pressed khaki trousers and an immaculate white tee-shirt

His blonde wife was on her knees trimming the flowers . She wasn’t wearing a black dress like back in Jamaica Plains. The ex-Marine turned off the hose and waved to us with a smile. He was happy to see his car in one piece. Californians loved their automobiles.

Even migrants from Massachusetts like Jake.

“All good things must come to an end.” AK shut off the engine and opened the door. I got out of the car, wishing we were driving north to Alaska. I loved the road more than the destinations.

“I wasn’t expecting you for another day.” He inspected the Torino for dents or scratches.

“We made better time than we thought.” I regretted not driving slower and not stopping to hike in the Rockies and drinking too much in Reno.

“Car looks good.”

“We washed and waxed it thirty minutes ago.” AK had done most of the work.

“Where’s Pam?” Few men forgot our companion.

The blonde nursing student from DC reversed the flow of time to the best days of the Summer of Love.

“She caught a bus in Sacramento for Mendocino, but said to tell you thanks.”

“If it wasn’t for her, I would have never let you two take the car.”

AK and I existed on other sides of the Generation Gap from Jake, who was younger than my father.

“Nothing personal, but I don’t have much use for hippies.”

“Not insult taken.”

“Where did you stop last night? Reno?” There was only one pass over the Sierras.

“For a little while.”

“Have any luck?”

“A little bit of good and a little more of bad once the waitress served me drinks. Her name was Kim and she had long legs.”

She had a nice smile too.

“My waitress was named Cheryl.” The owner of the Torino sympathized with my loss. “Unlucky at cards. Lucky at love.”

“I hope so.” I would have preferred so-so in both.

“Jake, leave those two boys alone,” his blonde wife snapped with scissors in hand. “They drove your car all the way cross country. Is it okay?”

He leaned his head into the car. The station wagon smelled brand-new after the deluxe treatment at the car wash.

“Sorry, old habits are hard to kick.” The apology was more for his wife’s ears than ours. “How she run?”

“I drove 55 most of the way.” AK pulled the drive-away company’s contract from his wallet.

“And you?” The ex-Marine kicked the tires.

“I opened it up once in Utah.” My father had examined the tires of his Olds 88 in the same way. Men their age must have learned this trick from their fathers.

“How fast?” Men understood driving fast in the West, where the distance between point A and point B had more zeros than back East.

“I buried the needle, so I can’t really tell. Maybe 125.” I grabbed my bags from the back of the station wagon.

“Good man. My personal best was 126.” Jake pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and finalized the contract by signing his name.

“Looks like you didn’t hit nothing, so we’re good.”

“Never came close.” There had been no trees in the meridian strip the time I fell asleep at the wheel in Illinois.

“Have any problem from the law?” Jake had better things to do than chase us for a $25 speeding ticker from Iowa.

“None, we were good citizens.” I doubted if he smelled the weed on AK. “But there was one small thing.”

“How small?” He braced for the bad news.

“A couple of times when we stopped for gas, people thought Pam was Patti Hearst.”

“Are they blind? Patti Hearst can’t hold a torch to Pam.”

“I know, but it happened more than once.” I had never been mistaken for anyone famous, infamous or unknown.

“Jake, don’t you have any manners? Would you boys care for something to eat?” His wife was keeping up a brave front. Her mourning period was camouflaged by a pained smile.

“We don’t want to be a bother,” said AK politely.

I hadn’t eaten anything, but birthday cake this morning and said, “We’re hippies. We love free food.”

“Then come on inside.”

His wife returned to tending to her flowers and Jake escorted us inside the house. The simple decor was particular to white suburbs throughout America. AK and I felt right at home. Our parents had similar taste.

Family photos, medals, and basketball awards were arranged by decades within a tall glass display case.

Jake was a handsome groom in his dress whites. His wife could have doubled for Marilyn Monroe’s sister. A young man with short hair held a basketball in his hands.

“Who’s the hoopster?” AK had been the starting point guard for his high school team on Long Island.
Smoking pot had increased his dislike of the authoritarian coach at the cost of playing minutes and he had finally been thrown off the team for insubordination. This hadn’t ruined his love of the game and he still drove to the basket with two points on his mind.

“My son Mark was the star forward for the Lodi Flames, averaging 13 points a game and 5 rebounds a game. I dreamed about him going to college, but he enlisted in the Marines after graduation. I pulled strings to keep him in-country, but he wanted to see the Show.” Jake’s weakening voice forecasted the climax to this story. “He died last year outside of Da Nang in a car crash.”

“Sorry.” I had graduated a year before his son.

College students in New England didn’t go to the Show.

“I blamed you protesters for his death.”

“Us?”

“Yes, that damned Richard Nixon promised in 1968 that he was bringing our troops home, but he lied and you people cared more about the Vietnamese than your own.” Jake touched the glass panel before his son’s photo, as if his hand could communicate the dead. “If only you protested more, the war would have ended and my son would be alive.”

“We wanted the War to end for everyone.” I had come out against our involvement in Southeast Asia in 1969. “My friend died from lightning in the Delta. His name was Kenny.”

I had liked his sister.

“His war ended the same as it did for my son.” Mark’s father entered the kitchen and went to the refrigerator.

“Sorry.” Jake was right, because our chants of ‘Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh Ho Chi Minh is going to win’ had outnumbered the shouts for ‘Bring the troops home’.

“So am I, but I was a career Marine. My son was aiming to follow my footsteps, and in his last letter he wrote that he hoped his son would be ‘Semper Fi’ when he came of age.” Jake inhaled a deep breath and exhaled a sibilant sigh, then took out a package of ground beef, tomatoes, onions, and buns.

“He had a son?”

“A boy named Jake.” The ex-marine shivered with the mention of this silver lining. “He’ll be three this weekend. I was pissed at him for knocking up his girlfriend back then. I’m of a different mind now.”

“Times change.” AK nodded in agreement.

“That they do.” Jake gritted his teeth.

His sadness was dammed behind a wall of “Semper Fi’. I put my hand on his shoulder. He fought off a sniff.

“I hope you hippie boys aren’t vegetarians, because I make the best burgers in Lodi.”

Jake led us onto the rear deck. He lit up the barbecue. The smell of charred meat whetted my appetite.

The ex-Marine opened a bottle of Zinfandel. AK had a glass. I had two.

At 22 the speed of recovery from a hangover depended on solutions. His burger was very good. Jake’s wife joined us for the second bottle and AK played his African thumb piano. They were delighted by the magical plinking of flesh on metal resonating in the wooden box.

His wife packed us cold-cut sandwiches and kissed us on the cheek. She must have driven the postman crazy.

“You really going to hitchhike now?” Jake was driving us to I-5.

“I’m going to San Diego.” AK was in a hurry to get to the beach. He loved the ocean.

“I-5 will take you there. What about you?” Jake started the station wagon and gave it the gas. The last fill-up had been premium.

“I’m thinking about heading over to the coast to take the Pacific Coast Highway south.” It was good to be in the Torino, even if it was for one last time.

“No way to hitchhike there from here, unless you like the hiking part of hitchhiking.” Jake waved to his wife. He wouldn’t be gone long. “Better you take a bus into the City. The PCH is right down the end of Golden Gate Park. One more thing.”

Jake gave each of us $20 and another $20 to AK.

“Give that to Pam when you see her. You did a good job.”

Jake drove AK to the freeway entrance. My friend got out of the Torino. He had about six hours of daylight.

“See you in San Diego.” AK took up position a few feet in front of the sign forbidding pedestrian or hitchhikers.

We waited for him to get a ride.

“Sorry about unloading on you back there.”

“About your son?”

“Yes.”

“You weren’t wrong. People across the country are forgetting about the War and even worse about those lost to the War.”

“Nobody likes a loser.”

“Your son wasn’t a loser.” Neither was my friend Kenny. “They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“I’m not ready to think that way yet.”

“I know.” I doubted, if Jake would ever have a day without thinking about his son. “But you have Jake Jr. Jr.”

“And he’s the future now.” His son was with him too, but Jake was too hurt to see him.

A Cadillac stopped for AK. AK threw a black power fist in the air and jumped in the big car.

“A good friend?” Jake headed back into town. My bus was in twenty minutes.

“The best.” I would be broke without him.

“You have a good summer and call us, if you come this way again.”

“I will.”

Jake drove off home. I went inside the terminal and bought a newspaper.

President Nixon had agreed to turn over the Watergate transcripts. He wasn’t long for the White House. The Red Sox had beaten the Twins last night. Their record was 25-21. I had no hopes for them getting to the World Series. They were a young team.

The driver called for passengers to San Francisco. I got on the bus. We pulled out on time and I was alone for the first time in days, but it didn’t feel bad, just the way it was supposed to be on the road.