The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America (3 page)

I can’t believe the crap people leave behind for their fellow campers. My bag soon swells with gum wrappers, plastic tableware, beer cans, soiled toilet paper, spent condoms.

Ranger Laura pulls up 45 minutes later. “I think that’s enough, Mike.”

I toss the trash in the back of her pickup.

“Have a good night,” she says. Then: “Do you have food and everything?”

“Actually, no.”

“So you’re just relying on the kindness of strangers?”

“Exactly.”

She holds a bag of carrots out to me. I take two. They look like bars of gold.

The sunflower seeds and carrots don’t satisfy. I wake the next day hungry enough to swallow my tongue. My hip is sore from the rocks pushing up through my thin sleeping pad. My neck has more knots than a tree.

I get to my feet and feel light enough to blow away. The surging ache in my head threatens to pop my eyes from their sockets. The muscles in my jaw clench involuntarily.

I hike the two miles back out to the freeway on-ramp. The sun is a monster. A helicopter circles above the lake. It’s been up there all morning. After a while, I see the county coroner’s wagon drive by, and I know somebody’s summer vacation has been cut short. I almost envy him. I really do.

Four hours pass. No one looks tempted to stop. The idea that has been lurking in the wings now takes center stage in my fevered mind and delivers its impassioned, one-word soliloquy:
Quit
.

I decide to hoof it back to town. I’ll call Anne at work and have her wire me money. I’ll hop a Greyhound back to the city. Tonight, I’ll be parked on my couch, watching
Jeopardy
, a beer in my hand. I’ll deal with the shame on a full stomach and a good night’s sleep.

Then I hear my stepmother’s voice:
We’ll see how far he gets
.

I flush with embarrassment and self-loathing. It’s true. I’m a quitter.

I’ve been a quitter all my life. I quit Little League. I quit the Boy Scouts. I quit so many colleges, I can’t remember them. I quit a construction job in Saudi Arabia after six months. I quit the Navy’s Officer Candidate School after two weeks. I quit my position as a congressional staffer after one day. I’ve quit many a good woman. And if there were a club for quitters, I’d quit that, too.

We’ll see how far he gets
.

It’s funny, the places we finally decide to make a stand. Take here, for example. A freeway on-ramp in northern California. Why here? Why now? This journey has yet to make sense. It may never make sense. But one thing’s for certain: If I turn back, I’m no better than road kill. The mileposts may only mark a fool’s progress, but I intend to see Cape Fear, or die trying. I can’t quit. I simply can’t quit this trip.

And I know I have no right to ask, but I beg you, America, please don’t quit me.

CHAPTER 4

A Toyota pickup with a camper shell pulls over, and I have to squint to make sure it’s not a mirage. I hoist my pack onto one shoulder and will my legs to carry me swiftly to the truck before the driver changes his mind. The cab is littered with McDonald’s bags, burger wrappers, coffee cups, stir sticks, and hash browns containers. The guy, Randy is his name, was down near Los Angeles, checking on some property in the desert. He’s heading home to Humboldt County.

“I’ve got a small nursery up there,” says Randy, who has red hair and a wispy mustache. “I make seventy-five dollars a week off it at the farmers’ market. My wife’s got a good job. I used to grow pot, but I got busted, so I can’t do that anymore.”

Humboldt County is famous for two things: giant redwood trees and some of the finest marijuana to have ever graced a bong. The growers were mostly hippies, content to make a quiet living. Then pot hit $6,000 a pound and everybody got in on the act, even redneck ranchers and grandmothers. A cult of greed descended on a region long known for its counterculture values. Volkswagen buses were traded in for Jeep Cherokees. Grocers openly sold the number one cash crop at checkout stands. The government answered with Operation Green Sweep, a crackdown with whirlybirds, paramilitary troops, and German shepherds. A neighbor snitched on Randy. He got 90 days, plus probation. But the feds never found the fifty grand buried on his land.

“I didn’t even have to do my time,” he says. “I got a work furlough ’cause I showed the court the business license for my nursery. They thought I had a regular job, like everybody else. They didn’t even come out and check. They’re so stupid.”

The freeway turns into a two-lane highway and winds through a river canyon. Sunlight radiates through tree limbs and glints off the hood. The air smells clean. I tell Randy how great it is up here.

“No, it’s not!” he snaps. “It’s fucked up! Politicians have ruined it. Everybody used to grow pot, but pot’s linked to hippies, and politicians hate hippies. One of every seven people in prison is in for pot. They don’t care if it’s less harmful than tobacco and alcohol. They don’t care if it’s the best medicine known to man. They don’t care if it can make good clothing. This country’s so fucked up. They know there’s a revolution coming, so they gotta keep all the young people locked up. If there’s a club for revolutionaries, I’m gonna join.” He catches his breath. “I’m an angry man, I guess you can tell.”

He pulls off at the McDonald’s in a small lumber town, and my stomach growls with anticipation. But at the drive-thru intercom, Randy barks, “Gimme a large vanilla milkshake,” and reaches for his wallet. There’s a long, sad moment before he turns to me and says, “Do you want something? Do you want a hamburger?” I say, great, and sit a little higher in the seat. Randy leans over to the squawk box and says, “And gimme two cheeseburgers and a glass of water.”

Randy sets the bag of burgers on the seat between us and pulls back onto the highway. The bag just sits there, like a third passenger. I know one of those burgers is mine, but I don’t want to be rude. Finally, Randy reaches in and tosses a burger on my lap. “There you go,” he says. “It isn’t much.”

Oh, but it is. At long last, meat! I take small bites and chew long after the food has been broken down into mush. Randy harps more on the government. I nod a lot, and say “yeah” and “hmm” and “it’s insane.” But I’m not hearing much. I’m transfixed by the burger wrapper in my hands. I study the yellow and red sheet of paper, carefully reading every word of it, as if it were literature.

We reach Garberville, in southern Humboldt County, late in the afternoon. Randy has to go west, so he stops to let me out. Dark clouds roll over the ridge. I know what’s coming.

“Does your nursery have a roof on it?”

“Yeah,” Randy says cautiously.

“Do you think I could crash there tonight?”

“It’s way out in the woods.”

“How far?”

“Twenty-six, twenty-seven miles.”

I take that as a “no” and thank Randy for the burger and the ride. I get out of the truck and almost step in a cardboard box sitting in the dirt.

How quickly perceptions can change. Three days ago, I would have said the box at my feet contained spoiled produce. Now, all I see is food. Sure, that rotten tomato and shriveled celery aren’t fit for pigs. But the head of cauliflower looks like it might be edible—after some salvage work.

I carry the cauliflower to a gas station and hose off an army of ants. The black fungus won’t wash away, though, so I crack open the head and eat it inside out. All in all, a tasty snack.

Things are looking up.

I ask a local merchant if there’s a safe place I can roll out my sleeping bag tonight. He tells me the nearby Humboldt Redwood State Park has 155,000 acres. “It’s probably illegal, though,” he adds.

“Yeah, but is it safe? I mean, are there wild animals out there?”

“We have some bears, and there are some mountain lions.”

Enough said.

I walk down the main drag. A woman with hairy legs appears from behind my pack and says, “Hi, do you need any help finding anything?”

I ask if she knows a spot to camp.

She says, “The best thing is to make friends with somebody.”

I’m about to say, “Do you want to be my friend?” but she skips ahead. “I’m in a hurry now,” she calls back. “I’ve got to coach a soccer game, but I’ll look for you later.” I know that’s the last I’ll see of her.

It hasn’t rained since spring, but the sky doesn’t look like it’s forgotten how. I spot an outdoor restaurant with covered picnic tables and figure I can sit out there tonight after it closes. At least I’d stay dry. I walk on, hoping for something better.

I hit the edge of town and turn back. A man stops me. He’s in his fifties, wearing jeans and a baseball cap that reads, “Beef.”

“You look like you need some directions.”

“No, not really. I’m just kind of wandering.”

“How far you wandering?”

“All the way to the Atlantic Ocean,” I say. “Without a penny.”

A smile fills his face. “Say no more. Follow me.”

Next thing I know, I’m standing in the studio of the local radio station, KMUD. The man, Roger, is a rancher who hosts a talk show twice a month called “Life in the Country.” He’s in a bind. One of tonight’s guests has canceled. Could I pinch hit? I tell Roger I’m always happy to do my part for public radio.

“I’m gonna have you on the air with a local firefighter who’s just back from fighting two fires in the Tahoe National Forest,” he says. “We’ll have sort of an over-the-back-fence talk.”

I’m still reeling from the sudden turn of events when I see what appears to be a man dressed as a woman stroll across the parking lot and enter the studio. His long blond hair is held in place by a white bow, and he’s wearing a pink tank top and red lipstick. Beard stubble pokes through caked makeup. What really gives him away are his arms. They’re the size of howitzers. I’m six-foot-four, and we stand eye to eye. He grips my hand and pumps it hard. He says his name is Diana. He’s tonight’s other guest.

“Roger, I’d like to keep the conversation more on firefighting,” Diana says, “rather than the cowboy logger turned cowgirl logger.”

“Okey-dokey.”

In the few minutes before we go on the air, I learn that Diana used to be called Dennis, and he’s not what he seems. He really is a she. The sex change—”gender reassignment,” in the parlance of transsexuals—was done years ago. All that remains is some electrolysis. Diana tells me that’s the worst part, but I can’t imagine anything more painful than losing the family jewels.

The three of us squeeze into the tiny sound booth. As Roger greets his listeners, I steal glances at Diana. I’ve never met a transsexual, not that I know of, anyway. Fatigue and hunger combine with the surrealism of the moment to leave me giddy. I fear I may laugh like a hyena. I consider gagging myself with a handful of foam from the soundproof wall. But Roger asks the first question, and I settle down. Though penniless, I am, after all, a professional.

Roger proves an able interviewer. He pulls my whole story from me, and then some. Callers ask about my travels to 35 countries, most of them as a journalist. I tell them how I went skiing in Bosnia during the war. How I witnessed the return of the condor to the Colombian Andes. How I found Romanian orphans living in the sewers of Bucharest. I hear myself talking and think,
How could you quit such a fascinating job?
But one thing I’ve always found frustrating about being a reporter: You’re never able to fully enter the world of your subjects. When your notepad fills up, they go back to their lives, and you return to your hotel to order room service and watch TV. On this trek, there won’t be an expense account standing between me and a fuller version of the truth.

By the end of the show, KMUD listeners have concluded that my trip is nothing short of a pilgrimage, a spiritual journey. I’m heartened by their enthusiasm, as I sometimes think of this adventure in similar terms. Then again, it’s an easy audience. This is Humboldt County, where welfare recipients are called gurus. I’ll have to wait to see how my enlightened poverty trip plays in Peoria.

Diana hasn’t said boo. With Roger’s encouragement, I’ve hogged the whole hour. It’s too bad. There’s a lot I’d like to have learned about her.

So it’s a pleasant surprise when Garberville’s only transsexual firefighter leans over and says, “Mike, if you don’t have any other plans, I’d like to take you to dinner.”

We go to an Italian-Mexican restaurant where a football game plays on a giant video screen. Roger and the producer, Mitch, join us at the table. There’s also Linda, from nearby Redway, and her eight-year-old daughter, Iona. Linda heard me on the radio and rushed to town to buy me dinner. Now that Diana’s springing, Linda insists I spend the night at her house. I happily accept, with one regret: I’ll never know how Diana intended our evening to end.

I’m glad to see I still know how to read a menu. I order lasagna, garlic bread and the salad bar. That ache camped out in my head the last three days will soon be folding its tent.

In her previous life as a man, Diana was known as a fearless firefighter and one of the region’s top loggers. As a woman, not much has changed.

“I dropped a tree the other day that was seven-foot-four at the butt,” she says. “I’m still a redneck, I’m just a little different now.”

Diana’s taco salad arrives, and she takes a bite, smearing her red lipstick. “I’ve always been maternal. My crew called me Mom even before I was a woman.”

Linda asks Diana how her family reacted to her sex change.

“My dad said it’d be easier if I was dead,” Diana says softly. Her relatives have raised cattle in the area for several generations. “With ranchers, you always want to breed up. You want your next calf to be better than the last. He looked at me and figured that I was a throwback.”

The table falls silent.

“People come up to me now and say, ‘Hey, I like to wear dresses sometimes.’ And I say, ‘Eww, how weird.’ They think I’m gay. I’m not. I’ve known I was this way since I was four. The thing is, when you go through your inner change, I can’t see it. When I go through my change, it’s there for everybody to see.”

Diana spent last winter in the San Francisco area, in group counseling with other recent transsexuals. She worked a construction job to pay the bills. One day, she was remodeling the kitchen of a wealthy family’s house. The couple saw how well she got along with their kids and invited her to move in as the nanny. She became the auntie for the whole upper-crust block, a real-life Mrs. Doubtfire, and no one was ever the wiser, not even her employers. On nights off, she went out with her six-foot-eight boyfriend.