. . .or come back to you. In church on Sunday, the sermon included a quote from John 15, which, in part read, "If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love. . ." The quote stuck with me. I thought about it after church, and thought how the sentiment need not apply only to God. There are a lot of people who grant their love only to those who will do as they tell them. I then thought about a story idea that has been with me 2 months short of 40 years. Let me tell you about the five hippies.
On August 9, 1969, I was camping with two fraternity brothers at a park in Big Sur, just south of Monterey, California. Having just graduated from college, we were on a last cruise down Main Street, USA, before we accepted the responsibilities of grown-up life. We had crossed the country in my new white Barracuda, which had a black stripe down the hood.
At a little after 9:00, a wreck of a station wagon came puffing into the campsite next to ours. Five young people, long-haired and sloppily dressed, came stretching out of the car. I mean my friends and I were rather long-haired and sloppily dressed, but this group out longed and slopped us. They were, in the jargon of the time, five hippies.
We were drinking beer, and one of them came over and offered to trade some "reds" for some beer. We didn't take the deal. For one thing we weren't users of "reds," which I think was slang for uppers, then, and we were almost out of beer. I think we might have given the guy one can, but I can't swear to that.
Eventually, we went to sleep, and when we got up, probably a little before 8:00, the five hippies were sleeping all over the place. They had no tent. They hadn't even checked into the campsite. They were sleeping on picnic tables, the ground and in the car. They didn't stir as we packed up and headed south toward the wonders of Los Angeles, about 300 miles away.
An hour or two after we left, there was a news report about the horrific murder of Sharon Tate, her friends, and her gardener's son in L.A., the first of the infamous Manson murders. Eventually, the radio reported that the police were looking for a group of "hippies" in connection with the crime. Of course all we could think of for awhile was if, perhaps, our hippies were those wanted hippies.
They weren't, though, we carried the idea around with us for days, finally stopping at a police station somewhere in Southern California to report our suspicions. The police didn't think much of our report. I think maybe they already had a handle on the Manson family.
Ever since then, our five hippies have haunted me. We had blamed them for this horrendous crime, given them the heinous ability to slaughter people. I really felt bad about that, and many years ago decided that I would sometime write a novel about my hippies, creating for them identities, purposes, and dreams.
I decided to combine the memories of that time with the quote from John to begin writing a novel that travels for awhile in that station wagon. Richard Brautigan wrote a really good novel called A CONFEDERATE GENERAL AT BIG SUR. I always have liked Brautigan's simple, terse, yet poetic storytelling. So I'm going to try to go for that. I'm going to call it REMAIN IN MY LOVE. I had to get started, get the idea solidified, although I won't be back to it for some time. So I made some notes, named my characters and wrote the first chapter, simply, tersely and poetically, I hope. Here it is:
We spent the night at a campsite near Big Sur. It was a warm night, fine for being outside. I tried to fall asleep on top of a picnic table with Billy curled tight against my back. We were like spoons. Sarah slept in the back of the station wagon, and Thomas slept in the front seat. Dwayne stretched out on a little circle of grass between our campsite and the next one. He lay flat on his back, his arms out wide, as if he were studying the stars.
As I tried to sleep, I could hear the Pacific Ocean crashing on the rocks at the bottom of the cliffs. Now and then, I would open my eyes and watch the three boys at the next campsite. They were sitting on top of their picnic table. Two of them smoked cigarettes. All three were drinking beer. They had a white car with a black stripe on the hood and a New York license plate. They looked like nice boys. I wondered where they were going, and whether or not they might take me along. I fell asleep wondering where the three boys from New York might take me.
When I woke up, the sun was shining through the huge trees that towered over the campsites. My world, that morning, was dappled with sunlight and shade. Dappled was a word my mom used to say. She would tell me about dappled horses. Horse with spots.
All that was left of the boys, who were supposed to take me away, was a bag with beer cans in it sitting on top of their garbage can. When we had pulled in the night before, it was after dark, after the campground was closed. Dwayne had tried to trade the boys some reds he had for beer. But the boys didn’t have enough beer left to trade, and I don’t think they wanted any reds. They didn’t look like boys who would want them. I wonder if they couldn’t see me in the dark. I wonder if that’s why they didn’t ask me to go along.
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