This is one of my Trail Tales. Here are entry 1, entry 2, and entry 3.
Our first ride that morning, the fifth one of our journey to Seattle, was a young man commuting to work. Evidently his job did not involve heavy machinery because the smell of reefer exited the car as soon as we opened the doors. Along the short ride he offered us a small bag of marijuana. We refused at first but when he insisted we took the bag just to save the argument.
He dropped us off at another seedy portion of Los Angeles. The entrance ramp was heavily littered. The first thing we did was place the marijuana bag into an empty milk carton and then set up for our hitching routine. Then we set up on the apron for hitching.
By this time we had our routine down. Zwiebel rested by our mound of three backpacks, three sleeping bags, two grocery bags full of food, one suitcase, one two-burner Coleman stove, and one can of Coleman fuel while Savitt and I put together an act to attract the interests and charity of motorists. The act included some Vaudeville-style dancing that at least solicited smiles, if not rides.
Thanks to a light regulating traffic at the foot of the ramp, we coincided our acts so as to play to an immobile audience, which allowed us full use of the ramp to put on a good show. When a spurt of traffic came up the ramp we would terminate the act and look imploringly from the apron. Savitt and I were doing one such act, with Zwiebel dozing by the mound, when an LAPD car arrived at the traffic light. We continued on with the comforting knowledge that hitching was legal on the entrance ramps to Interstate highways in California.
When the light turned we stepped onto the apron just as the police cruiser screeched away from the light and screeched to a halt right in front of us. Two police men bolted out of the cruiser with clubs in hands and directed Savitt and I to “spread ‘em” while leaning on the hood of their car. This was sufficient enough activity to arouse Zwiebel from his nap and, with a puzzled look on his face, decided he better come over to join us.
“We don’t want you!” an officer snapped, and Zwiebel quickly sat back down again.
The other officer had by this time got on the radio to determine which states had Wanted posters up for the nefarious team of Savitt and I. Not having the slightest idea what dastardly deed we had committed I finally asked, with quavering voice:
“What did we do wrong, sir?”
“You stepped over the white line!” the officer barked back as he rummaged through our wallets.
Luckily, this occurred about fifteen years before the infamous Rodney King incident, or I might have soiled my undergarment. My concerns were great enough as I imagined the officers searching through our three backpacks, three sleeping bags, two grocery bags full of food, one suitcase, one two-burner Coleman stove, and our Coleman fuel, and then searching through all the litter on the apron until they came upon the small bag of marijuana stuffed inside a milk carton.
What prevented a long ordeal was the stealthy movements of a young, long-haired adult male not more than a hundred feet away. Either this character was more stoned than our last ride, or he definitely had something to hide and, in his peculiar slithering movements from telephone pole to telephone pole, attracted plenty of attention. The cops quickly wrote up a warning for us, which they then tossed among all the other litter on the apron instead of handing over. It landed not far from the milk carton with the stashed marijuana. They gave us some right neighborly advice before hopping back in their cruiser to track down their new target.
“You better watch yourselves, people around here aren’t friendly.”
Our next ride was a college student going to Sacramento by way of Berkeley. He had a station wagon, which was a nice change. He offered to give us a ride on the conditions that: 1) we help pay for gas; and 2) we helped him with moving some stuff. We were more than glad to do this, of course, for a ride that brought us all the way from Los Angeles to Sacramento. However, we could not help but observe the irony that we had gone from being paid to travel from Connecticut to Phoenix, to now paying for rides. Good thing that our next ride would prove to be our best.
Tags: Trail Tales