50 Years Gone The Father We
Almost Knew One Jack Kerouac Out Of Merrimack River Nights-Searching For
The Father We Never Knew-Scenes In Search Of The Blue-Pink Great American West
Night- “The Old
Man’s Old Sea”
By Seth Garth, known as Charles River Blackie for no other reason that he can remember at least than he slept along those banks, the Cambridge side and some raggedy ass wino who tried to cut him under the Anderson Bridge one night called him that and it stuck. Those wino-zapped bums, piss leaky tramps and poet-king hoboes all gone to some graven spot long ago from drink, drug, or their own hubris which they never understood gone and the moniker too.
It was dawn, or maybe just those few
minutes before the dawn, those dark light minutes when the sun’s battle for the
day coming over the ocean’s eastern horizon is set. The waves splashed,
although that day not so innocently, against the waiting sand, sand beaten down
since time immemorial. This beach, this northern clime beach, the far end of
Olde Saco, Maine beach, was filled with empty clam shells waiting sandification
(if that is the name for it, that long process of grinding down to dust and
fine enough for angel bums, angel beachcomber explorations, angel teen bikini
beach blanket bingo boy –girl lolls, if not then close enough), abandoned and
mislaid lobster traps (better brush up on the law of the seas, and keep a heavy
object handy against those uncivilized enough to demand their washed-up crates back) occasional oil slicks spilled
from the trawlers (also a law of the seas issue but not chargeable except in
immense smears) working trawlers nearby (the crew hoping that the pre-dawn
coffee holds out until they get to the killing fields), the flotsam and jetsam
streamed here of a thousand ships, cargoes, careless throwaways and conscious,
very conscious dumpings (law of the seas be damned) , like the sea was just
another land-fill wanting filling.
That day though he was ready, ready
for the hundredth hundredth time to walk the walk, the ocean walk that has
defined more parts of him than heaven will ever know. Walk the walking daddy
walk, he called it now (long ago calling it high, benny high, or maybe weed
high, walking arm and arm with some sun browned-skinned honey, some ex-surfer’s
girl, slumming against the next new thing, testing the waters around the edge
of the 1960s summer of love night, down on Malibu or La Jolla oceans, walking
with the king, walking then with some sex-driven purpose, whispering that
purpose in her ear, or hopes, heard from some mad monk jazz man trying to hit
the high white note out in ‘Frisco town). As he buttoned up his slicker against
the April winds that came there more often than not he saw, saw faintly in the
distance, a figure, a fellow traveler taking his, her or its’ (don’t laugh he
had seen horses, unridden horses, trotting these beaches, although no sea
monsters except when three day benny high), maybe also hundredth hundredth walk
along the ocean sidewalk, and maybe, just maybe, for the same reason.
Today, hundredth, hundredth walk or
not, he was in a remembering mood, a high dudgeon remembering mood that always
got triggered by proximity, anywhere within fifty- mile proximity if the truth
be known, to the ocean. He had just finished up a piece of work, a small
journal small paid piece of work, a recollection really, borne of fierce
schoolboy night remembrances, that reminded him of seas, sea-sides, sea walks,
sea rocks, ocean-side carnival amusement parks placed on jutting piers as if to
mock the intrinsic interest that one would have in the sea, our homeland the
sea, and he needed to sort this out, this sea-memory desecration also for that
now familiar ten-thousandth time. He thought then that maybe he had better
begin at the beginning in order to sort things out, or try to, so he would be
finished in that hour or so that it would take him to walk this walk, this
rambling ocean walk, this no walking daddy walk (although now that he thought
about it walking daddy might have some sexual purpose behind it as well
reminding of old day ex-surfer’s girl, blankets wrapped around and fondlings in
wayward deserted beach corners, but that was for another time, that thought),
and about that time he would pass that solitary walker coming the other way and
be obliged under some law of the sea to break his train of thought and remark
on the nature of the day, the nature of the ocean, and the immense joys of
foam-flecked ocean-ness brought forth by old King Neptune to that passing
stranger.
Ah, memory, jesus, just the names,
Taffrail Road, Yardarm Lane, Captain's Walk, Quarterdeck Road, Sextant Circle,
and the Snug Harbor Elementary School tell a story all on their own. Yes, those
names, those seemingly misplaced, misbegotten names and places from the old
housing project down over in Olde Saco (called Irishtown and Frenchtown by the
locals depending on the street but generically known as the Acre to the general
public passing by), his old hometown, and where he came of age surely evoked
imagines of the sea, of long ago sailing ships, and of desperate, high stakes
battles fought off shrouded, mist-covered coasts by those hearty enough to seek
fame and fortune. And agile enough to keep it. Almost from his first wobbly,
halting baby steps down at “the projects” he had been physically drawn to the
sea, a seductive, foam-flecked siren call that had never left him.
Needless to say, with that ocean as
a backdrop, ever since he was a toddler his imagination, his sense of imagery,
his sense of the nature of the world has been driven by the sea as well. Not so
much of pirates and prizes, although those drove his early youth a bit but of
the power of nature, for good or evil. And on those long ago days, just like
now, he was dressed against the
impending inclement weather with his mustard yellow rain slicker(French’s
mustard color not Guiden’s, okay) complete with Gloucester fisherman’s rain
floppy rain hat of the same color and rubber boots, black, knee-length boots
that went squish, squish and have since before time immemorial.
Of course, anybody with any sense
knows that anyone who had even a passing attachment to a place like Olde Saco,
tucked in a bay, an Atlantic bay, had to have an almost instinctual love of the
sea; and, a fear of its furies when old Mother Nature turned her back on us.
Yes, the endless sea, our homeland the sea, the mother we never knew, the
sea... But enough of those imaginings. If being determines consciousness, and
if you love the ocean, then it does not hurt to have been brought up in Olde
Saco with its ready access to the bay and water on three sides. That said, the
focal point for any experience with the ocean in Olde Saco centered, naturally,
around its longest stretch of beach, Olde Saco Central Beach. Puny by beach
far-as-the-eye-can-see standards, Olde Saco puny by Carlsbad (California
Carlsbad) farther-than-the-eye-can-see standards say but a place to learn the
ropes of how to deal with the sea, with its pitfalls, its mysteries, it lure,
and its lore.
For those of a certain age brought
forth by the sea, including this writer, one cannot discuss Olde Saco Central
Beach properly without reference to such spots such as Aunt Jenny’s famous
landmark ice cream stand (now a woe-begotten clam shack of no repute). For
those who are clueless as to what he spoke of, or had only heard about it in
mythological terms from older relatives, or worst, had written it off as just
another ice cream joint you can only dream of such heavens although someone,
not him, not him today as he
remembranced with a broad stroke and had no time for pretty
descriptions, for literary flourishes, should really do themselves proud and
write the history, yah, the child’s view history of that establishment. And
make the theme, make the theme if you will, the bond between New England love
of ice cream and of the sea (yes, it is true, other parts of the country, other
ocean parts of the country as well, are, well, nonplussed by the ice cream
idea, and it shows in their product).
Know this for now though: many a
hot, muggy, sultry, sweaty summer evening was spent in line impatiently, and
perhaps, on occasion, beyond impatience, waiting for one of those 21 (or was it
22?) flavors to cool off with. In those days the prize went to cherry vanilla
in a sugar cone (backup: frozen pudding). He would not bore the reader with superlative terms
and “they don’t make them like they used to,” especially for those who only
know “Aunt Jenny’s ” from the later, pale imitation franchise days out on some
forsaken turnpike highway, but at that moment, that child moment, he was in
very heaven.
Nor can one forget those stumbling,
fumbling, fierce childish efforts, bare-footed against all motherly caution
about the dreaded jellyfish, pail and shovel in hand, to dig for seemingly
non-existent clams down toward the Pineville Cove end of the beach at the, in
those days, just slightly oil-slicked, sulfuric low tide. Or the smell of
charcoal-flavored hot dogs on those occasional family barbecues (when one in a
series of old jalopies that his father drove worked well enough to get the
family there) at the then just recently
constructed old Treasure Island that were some of the too few times when his
family acted as a family. Or the memory of roasted, really burnt, sticky
marshmallows sticking to the roof of his mouth.
But those thoughts and smells were
not the only ones that interested him that day. No trip down memory lane would
be complete without at least a passing reference to high school Olde Saco Central
Beach. The sea brings out many emotions: humankind's struggle against nature,
some Zen notions of oneness with the universe, the calming effect of the
thundering waves, thoughts of mortality, and so on. But it also brings out the
primordial longings for companionship. And no one longs for companionship more
than teenagers. So the draw of the ocean is not just in its cosmic appeal but
hormonal, as well. Mind you, however, he was not thinking here of the nighttime
Olde Saco Beach scene (really down at the Seal Rock end away from maddening
beach ball families, away from French- Canadian homeland tourists, away from
nosey Acre parents), the time of "parking" and the "submarine
races". His thoughts were now pure as the driven snow. Hence he thought to
confine himself to the daytime beach.
Virtually from the day he and his
friends (his corner boy friends from his high school hang-out over at Mama’s
Pizza Parlor, the one with the gigantic jukebox with huge beautiful latest rock
and roll selections and five for a quarter over on Spruce Street, not the one
on Pleasant Street which was for, for, hell, the families looking to have a
mom’s night off pizza, Jesus, no) got out of school for the summer vacation
they headed for the beach. And not just any section of that beach but the
section directly between the Pineville Yacht Club and the Pine Tree Boat Club.
Now were those corner boys situating themselves in that spot done so that they
could watch all the fine boats at anchor? Or was this the best swimming
location on the beach? Hell no, this is where they heard (and here include his
old running pal and classmate, Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley) all the
"babes" were. Information passed down from generation to generation
since, he guessed they invented teenage-ness a hundred years or so back. Those beat teens were, apparently, under the
influence of Beach Blanket Bingo or
some such teenage beach film. (For those who are again clueless this was a
grade B ‘boy meets girl’ saga the plot behind a thousand Hollywood films, except
not always on the beach.)
Well, for those who expected a
movie-like happy ending to this section of the remembrance piece, you know,
where he meets a youthful "Ms. Right" to the strains of the song Sea of Love, forget it. (That is the
original Sea of Love, by the way, not
the one used in the movie of the same name sung by Tom Waits at the end, and a
cover that you should listen to on YouTube.)
He will keep the gory details short, though. As fate would have it there may
have been "babes" aplenty down there but not for that lad. He was
just too socially awkward (read, tongue-tied) to get up the nerve to talk to
girls (female readers substitute boys here). And on reflection, if the truth
were to be known, he would not have known what to do about such a situation in
any case. No job, no money and, most importantly, no car for a date to watch
one of those legendary "submarine races." One can hardly fault the sea for that, right?
But visions of nearly one-half
century ago hardly exhaust the lure of the sea. And, speaking of visions, that
fellow sea-seeker he mentioned that he
saw a while ago, coming from the other end of the beach was starting to take
shape, it was a he, our man could tell by the walk, by the sea walk that men
put on when they are alone with their thoughts, although beyond that the
sea-seeker was too far away for him to
determine age, class (this is a very democratic beach, in most spots, with few
vulgar and almost universally disregarded no-trespassing-private property-keep
out-beware-of-dogs-police-take-notice signs), or physical description, as the
suppressed light from the cloudy morning day gets a little brighter
Funny, some
people he had known, including those he grew up with, grew up with breathing
ocean air and who started with a love of the sea much as he did, moved to
Kansas, Omaha, Peoria, Winnemucca or some such place, some such distinctly
non-ocean place and never looked back. Christ, as was well known by one and all
who knew him he got very nervous even then when, as a city boy, he went to the
country and did not have the feel of city lights to comfort him. Not as well- known was the fact, the hard
fact that he got nervous, very nervous, when he was not within driving distance
of some ocean, say that fifty miles mentioned above. So keep, please keep, your
Kansas, your Omaha, your Peoria, and your damn blessed Winnemucca and let him
be, be in places like Bar Harbor, Maine, Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia, Sanibel
Island, Florida, Carlsbad, California (hell no, not the New Mexico one ),
Mendocino, ditto California, Seattle, Washington just to name a few places on
this continent, and there are many others, and on other continents, or the
edges of other continents, as well. And stories, plenty of stories, which he
doesn’t have time to tell you now except for one that will stand in as an
exemplar for what he meant. By the way that form, that mannish form, coming
toward him was looking more like a young man by the speed of his walk, and he
too seemed to have on a favored sea dog yellow rain jacket.
Visions
of Angelica, Angelica of the homeland sea, January 1970.
I waved good-bye to Angelica, once
again, as she drove off from the ocean front campsite that we had been camping
out on, the Leo Carrillo State Park near Point Magoo about fifty miles or so
north of Los Angeles. She will now drive the road back in her green Ford Hertz
unlimited mileage, mid-size rental (paid for, as she explained one night, by
her parents whose golden age of the automobile-frenzied minds counted it as a
strike against me, a very big strike, that when I had “kidnapped” their
daughter on the 1969 blue-pink summer road west down in Steubenville, Ohio I
didn’t even have a car). She planned (on my advice) to drive back mostly on the
ocean-abutted, white-capped waves smashing against jagged ancient shore rocks,
Pacific Coast Highway down through Malibu and Santa Monica to take one last
look at the Pacific Ocean as the final point on her first look ocean trip, on
the way to LAX to take a flight back to school days Muncie, Indiana.
She will also be driving back to the
airport and getting on that miserable plane east knowing as I do since we
talked about it incessantly during her stay, that some right things, or at
least some maybe right things, like our being together last summer heading free
west and for these two January weeks in front of the sea, our homeland the sea,
before her classes started again, got caught up in the curious web of the human
drama. For no understandable reason. Hey, you already knew this if you have
ever had even that one teeny-weeny, tiny, minuscule love affair that just had
no place to go, or no time to take root, or just got caught out there in the
blue-pink night. Yah, you know that story. But let me take some minutes to tell
you this one. If it seems very familiar and you “know” the plot line well then
just move on.
To get you up to speed after
Angelica and I had been on the heartland hitchhike road (and places like
Moline, Neola, and Omaha are nothing but the heartland, good or bad), she,
well, she just got tired of it, tired of the lacks, tired of the uncertainties of
the road. Hell hell-on-wheels, I was getting tired of it myself except I was a
man on a mission. The nature of that mission is contained in the words “search
for the blue-pink great American West night” thus the particulars of that
mission need not detain us here. So in Neola, Iowa, Neola, Iowa of all places
aided by “fairy grandmother” Aunt Betty, who ran the local diner where Angelica
worked to help make us some dough to move on, and her own sense of dreams she
called it quits back in September. Aunt Betty drove us to Omaha where Angelica
took the bus back east, Indiana east from Nebraska, to hometown Muncie and I
hit Interstate 80 West headed first to Denver before the snows, or so I hoped.
Honestly, although we exchanged
addresses and telephone numbers where messages could be left, or where we could
speak to each other (her parents’ house not being one of them), and made big
plans to reunite in California in January during her school break, I didn’t
really think that once we were off the road together that those plans would pan
out.
Now I may not remember all my
reasoning at the time this far removed, the now of my telling this story many
years later, but I had had enough relationships with women to sense this one
was good, very good, while it lasted but it could not survive the parting. Not
one of those overused “absence makes the heart grow fonder” things you hear
about. And, truth to tell, because I thought that was the way things would play
out, I started getting focused back on Boston Joyell more than a little as I
walked a lot, stood at the shoulder of the hitchhike road a lot, and fitfully
got my rides on the road west.
But see this is where you think you
have something figured out just so and then it goes awry. Angelica called, left
messages, sent letters, even a telegram, to Denver (to the commune where, Jack
and Mattie, my traveling companions on the final leg west whom I had met
earlier in the spring on a different trip down to D.C., were staying). She sent
more communications in early December saying that she was still coming to Los
Angeles as well where we three stayed with a few artistic friends of Jack and
Mattie’s. Cinema-crazed artistic friends, including one budding film director
who, moreover, had great dope connections right into the heart of Mexico. This
is where they would stay while I planned to push the hitchhike road north
heading to San Francisco.
I once, in running through one of
the scenes in this hitchhike road show, oh yah, it was the Neola scene,
mentioned that in Angelica what you saw was what you got, what she said was
what she meant, and both those were good things indeed. And so if I had thought
about it a minute of course she was coming to California in January and staying
with me for her two week break, and maybe longer. So when January came she
contacted me though John and Mattie, who like I said were now staying with this
very interesting experimental film-maker, David, in the Hollywood hills and
canyons. I started back south to L.A. in order to meet her at the airport. From
there I had it planned that we would go to Point Magoo and camp out like in the
“old days” at an ocean front state park.
Needless to say, when I greeted her
at LAX we both were all smiles, I was in more than all smiles mode, because I
had been “stag” for a while and she was, well, fetching as always, or almost
always. Here though is where I noticed that the road really is not for
everyone. In Neola, and later getting on the bus back home in Omaha, poor
Angelica looked pretty haggard but at the airport, well like I said, she was
fetching.
And, guess what, she brought her
sleeping bag that we got for her in a Lexington, Kentucky Army-Navy Store when
we first seriously started on the road west. And the first thing she said about
it was, referring to a little in-joke between us, “it fits two, in a pinch.” Be
still my heart. We gathered up her stuff, did the airport exit stuff (easier in
those days) and picked up the outside shuttle to the Hertz car rental terminal.
We were jabbering away like crazy, but best of all, we were like, a little,
those first days last summer back in that old-time Steubenville truck stop
diner and cabin when I first met her.
Of course, part of the trip for her,
part of what she went as far as she could with me on the hitchhike road for,
was to get to California and see what it was all about, and what the ocean was
all about since she was a heartland girl who had never seen the ocean before.
When we got to Point Magoo she flipped out, she flipped out mostly at the idea
that we would stay, could stay, right on the beach in front of the ocean. And
just like a kid, just like I did when I was kid and saw the ocean, when she saw
the Pacific, she jumped right in. Hell, she was so excited she almost got
caught in a small riptide. I had to go drag her out. I won’t say we had fun
every minute of those weeks acting out our ocean nomadic existence, but most
minutes, and I could see that she felt the same way.
Naturally, as time drifted away
toward her return flight date we talked more and more about what the future, if
any, held in store for us. She was adamant about not going back on the road,
she was adamant as well that she wanted to finish school and make something of
herself. I had no serious defense against that practical wisdom. And,
truthfully, I wasn’t, toward the end of her stay, pushing the issue, partially
because even I could see that it made sense but also, we had had a “flare-up”
over the Boston Joyell question (I am being polite here).
But it was more than that; the flat
out, hungry truth was that I really didn’t know how to deal with a Midwestern
what you see is what you get woman like Angelica. I was more used to virtuous
Irish Catholic girls who drove me crazy as a kid getting me all twisted up
about religion, about nice girls, and about duplicity when I found out what the
real score was with this type of young girl/ woman later. I was also, and Joyell
was the epitome of this type, totally in sync (well, as much as a man can be)
with the Harvard Square folksy, intellectual, abstract idealist,
let’s-look-at-everything-from-twenty-two different angles, what is the meaning
of human relationships 24/7 kind of woman. And fatally attracted to them (and
still am). This Angelica looked at things only a couple of ways, let’s work
things out easy-like, heavens, let’s not analyze everything to the nth degree
flipped me out. Angelica was a breath of fresh air and, maybe, maybe, about ten
years later, and two divorces later to boot, I would have had that enough sense
god gave geese to hold onto her with both hands, tightly, very tightly. But I
was in my blue-pink search phase and not to be detoured.
Of course all this hard work of
trying to understand where we stood put a little crack in our reason for being
together in the first place. The search for, search for something. Maybe, for
her, it was just that life minute at the ocean and then on to regular life minutes
out in the thickets of the white picket fences. She never said it then in so
many words but that seemed to be the aim. And to be truthful, although I was
only just barely thinking about it at the time, as the social turmoil of the
times got weird, diffuse, and began to evaporate things started to lose steam I
had thoughts like that too, minute thoughts. As we were, seemingly, endlessly
taking our one-sided beatings as those in charge started a counter-offensive (a
counter-offensive still going on) people, good people, but people made of human
clay nevertheless got tired of the this and that existence, even Joyell. Joyell
of Harvard Square folksy, intellectual, abstract idealist,
let’s-look-at-everything-from-twenty-two different angles, what is the meaning
of relationships 24/7 was also weary and wary of what was next and where she
fit into “square” society. Christ, enough of that, we know, or knew, that song
too well.
A couple of days before Angelica was
to leave, and on a day when the sun seemed especially bright, especially bright
for then smog-filled Los Angeles January, and warm, not resident warm but
Boston and Muncie warm, sat like two seals sunning ourselves in the glow of
mother ocean she nudged me and asked me if I had a joint. Now Angelica liked a
little vino now and then but I can’t recall her ever doing a joint (grass,
marijuana, herb, ganja, whatever you call it in your neck of the woods). So
this is new. The problem, although not a big one in ocean-side state park 1970
Southern California, was that I was not “holding.” No problem though, a few
spots down the beach was an old well-traveled, kind of beat-up Volkswagen van
that I knew, knew just as sure as I was standing on that white sand beach, was
“holding.” I went over, asked around, and “bingo” two nice big joints came
traveling with me back to our campsite. Oh, daddy, daddy out in the be-bop
blue-pink night thank you brother van man. For just a minute, just that 1970
California minute, the righteous did inherit the earth.
Back at our camp site Angelica
awaited the outcome of my quest, although she also wanted to wait until later,
until the day’s sun started going down a bit more to go into that smoked-filled
good night. When that later came Angelica was scared/ thrilled, as she tried to
smoke the one I lit up for her and started coughing like crazy, but that was
nothing then. Everybody, at least everybody I knew, went through that same
baptism. But Jesus, did we get mellow, that stuff, as was most stuff then, was
primo, not your ragweed bull stuff that ran the rounds later. And why should it
have not been so as we were so close to the then sane Mexican border of those
days to get the good stuff.
But all of this build-up over this
dope scene is so much filler, filler in those days when if you didn’t at least
take a pipe full (inhale or not, like it or not) you were a square “squared.”
What the stuff did for Angelica, and through Angelica to me, got her to open up
a little. No, not about family, or old boyfriends, or her “this and that”
problems. No, but kind of deep, kind of deep somewhere that she maybe didn’t
know existed. Deep as I had ever heard her before. She talked about her fate,
the fate of the fates, about what was going on in the world, no, not politics;
she was organically incapable of that. Mystics stuff, getting in touch with the
sea homeland stuff, earth mother stuff too in a way. Dope-edged stuff sure but
when she compared the splashing foam-flecked waves to some cosmic force that I
forget how she put it (remember I was dope-addled as well) then for just that
moment, just that moment when the old red-balled sun started to dip to the
horizon on one of those fairly rare days when it met the ocean I swear that
Angelica knew, knew in her heart, knew in her soul even, what the blue-pink
American West dream stuff I had bombarded her with was all about. That was our
moment, and we both knew it.
So when leaving came a couple of
days later and we both knew, I think, as we packed up her things, including
that well-used sleeping bag, we had come to a parting of the roads. As I put
her stuff in the rental car she sweetly blurted out something I was also
thinking, “I’ll always remember that night we made the earth under the cabin in
Steubenville shake.” And I thought I bet she will, although she forgot the part
about the making the roof of the cabin move too. And so there I was, waving as she
drove off to her Angelica dreams. And I never saw her again.
*********
But enough of ancient thoughts, of ancient sea thoughts, and
ancient sea loves because just now he saw that previously distant figure on the
beach was none other than a young boy, a young boy of maybe six or seven, not
older he was sure. About fifty yards away he stopped, as boys and girls will
when confronted with the endless treasures of the sea, and was intently looking
at some sea object although the old geezer could not make it out from his
distance. What he could make out, make out very plainly, was that he was wearing
a mustard yellow rain slicker (French’s mustard color not Guiden’s) complete
with a Gloucester fisherman’s floppy rain hat of the same color and knee-deep
rubber boots, black, of course. As they approached each other the old geezer noticed
that the lad had that same determined sea walk that he had carried with him since
childhood. The old geezer looked at the lad intensely, the young lad looked at the
old geezer intensely, and they nodded as they passed each other. No words, no
remarks on the nature of the day, the nature of the ocean, and the joys of
ocean-ness brought forth by old King Neptune need be spoken between them. The
nod, the ocean swell, and the ocean sound as the waves crashed almost to the
sand beneath their feet, spoke for them. The torch had been passed.
