Coming Back to Pat, March 1977

By October 1976, Pat and I had worked alongside each other for a little over a year. For the previous four months, we’d been housemates and – on those rare moments when the moon was in a particular phase in a particular place in the night sky – lovers. Astrologically, we were both fire signs, an unstoppable Leo (me) encountering an immovable Aries (Pat). Our relationship was characterized by a volatility that kept us on our toes and an intensity that sometimes threw me off-balance.

I was getting ready to head south to Mexico, a long trip I’d been planning for a while. And Pat was pregnant, about to begin a momentous journey of her own. The father was her boyfriend, Zap, who had beautiful long brown hair and played sax and flute in the Magic Goat Band. (Heck, if I were a woman or gay, I would’ve been into him too.) I promised Pat I’d be there to help in whatever way I could. When we shared a long goodbye hug, I told her I’d be back by April 1.

Six months later, when I crossed the border back into the States, Pat was the first person I called. I settled into a phone booth with a stack of quarters for the long-distance call, feeling nervous because it had been so long but excited to hear her voice. Other than a few cryptic postcards, I’d been incommunicado all that time, committed to living in the moment. I felt like a different person from the one who said goodbye to her in October, and I wondered if she was different too. How had motherhood changed her?

The phone call went well, a happy long-distance homecoming. I was surprised how good it felt to talk with her, but that pleasure was tempered by the news that Pat had miscarried earlier in the winter. I commiserated with her on her loss, but wondered if she also felt a little relief, freed from the challenge of becoming a single mother. Those thoughts I kept to myself. Pat told me she’d be catching a ride to California to see friends, her first visit after leaving eighteen months earlier. She gave me an address in Santa Clara, and I promised to hitch up from Tucson and meet her there in a week.

I took my time making my way up the coast. On the vernal equinox, I camped in a Big Sur hilltop meadow, waking at sunrise in a field gilded with California poppies. When Pat and I met up later that day, we wrapped each other in a warm tight hug, the kind of hug that says, “I am here, now, with you.” Her long, straight honey-blonde hair, her translucent oyster shell earrings, embroidered peasant blouse, and striped bib overalls – she was just as I remembered her. We hung out in the South Bay area for almost a week. Visiting her mom in Santa Clara was awkward because I knew their relationship was strained at best, that her move to Iowa City was primarily motivated by her desire to distance herself from her family. We went to a party at Air Castle, a house in the Santa Cruz Mountains where many of her old friends lived, and where I was able to match faces to names from her stories of living in California – Kevin Walker, Hector Tellez, Amy Prinkey, others.

On a particularly bright sunny day we walked down to the Santa Cruz boardwalk to get an up-close look at the Giant Dipper, an historic wooden roller coaster. We walked along the beach, watched surfers ride the incoming waves, and talked. She was always able to say whatever was on her mind to me, and I was learning to do the same. We spent the rest of the day with her friend Sue Martinez. Sipping chamomile tea in Sue’s garden as those two conversed, I listened to Pat describe her new life to her old friend. I met Sue’s partner, Moss G. Freely, an alias adopted as he hid from the California Draft Board. He still went by that name, for seemingly sentimental reasons, although I got the distinct feeling he hadn’t addressed his fear of consequences from his draft-dodging days.[1]

We started hitchhiking back to Iowa on a warm day in late March. Although the weather in California was pleasant, we knew a southerly route would be safer than trying to hitch through the Sierra Nevada and the Colorado Rockies that time of year. We headed east from Santa Cruz, through the dusty farming communities of Watsonville and Gilroy (“Garlic Capital of the World”), the sun beating down on Mexican migrant workers picking strawberries, raspberries, lettuce, broccoli till we reached State Highway 99, then southeast through Fresno and the San Joaquin Valley to Bakersfield.

We entertained ourselves during a long afternoon wait at a Bakersfield entrance ramp, dancing to the songs in our heads and telling each other everything about everything. I told her Mexico hitchhiking stories. Pat caught me up on the news about her and Zap, the Stone Soup Restaurant, the Governor Street House, and her first semester at the University of Iowa. We played a friendly game of “Best Concerts We’ve Seen,” which she easily won. Pat’s Janis Joplin at Fillmore West vs. my Janis Joplin at Blossom Music Center.[2] Her Jefferson Airplane at Fillmore West vs. my Beach Boys on Boston Common. Her Creedence Clearwater Revival at Fillmore West vs. my David Crosby and Graham Nash at University of Ohio. Her Monkees at The Cow Palace vs. my Dan Hick and His Hot Licks in Canton. Her Boz Scaggs at her high school vs. my Buzzy Linhart at my high school.

That night we camped near Needles, along the western banks of the Colorado River, under a stunning star-flecked desert sky that wouldn’t let us sleep. Pat told me more about her miscarriage, her sadness and disappointment at the loss. It was clear she’d been looking forward to becoming a mother. And yet, she took the miscarriage in stride, or perhaps she’d been able to regain her balance in the months since then. I tried to explain the spiritual path I’d taken during my four months traveling with Michael, and the message of love we’d shared with those we met. I wanted her to understand that although I hadn’t become a “Jesus freak,” I did feel changed, a better person, more mature, more aware of the needs of others, more comfortable with showing my feelings for them.

The next day was a much shorter hitch as we continued east on I-40 to Flagstaff, where I knew we’d have a comfortable place to crash with my old buddy Steve Rukstelis, a student at Northern Arizona University. Introducing someone from my life in Iowa City to someone from my high school days in Ohio felt pivotal, like I was connecting two distinct moments in my young life. As we headed toward Albuquerque and the southern edge of the Rockies the next morning, the weather began to shift. Cold westerlies spit snow flurries in our faces as we hitched. We tried to make as many miles as we could, hoping to stay ahead of the snow, hoping to go “where those chilly winds don’t blow.” One last ride from a trucker got us to Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle that night. We slept as well as we could in a brick pump house behind a truck stop, cuddling for warmth, waking whenever the pump’s motor started.

In the morning, a sign on the door of that truck stop restaurant was a harsh greeting: NO HITCH-HIKERS ALLOWED. So we walked across the highway to another cafe. Hearty plates of eggs, biscuits and gravy, and slightly burnt coffee got us going. We bounced over the Southern Great Plains in a Mayflower van transporting the personal possessions of five families across America to their new homes. Redbuds blooming in Oklahoma offered signs of spring and warmer weather. I said to Pat, “We’ll take a left in Oklahoma City and head north toward Wichita, following the Old Chisholm Trail.” At 3:17 p.m. according to the clock on a building near the Oklahoma State Capitol, we got off the Interstate to buy a bag of chocolate chip cookies at a Wonder Bread Thrift Store. Two more good rides got us to El Dorado, Kansas, that night. It was Pat’s twenty-fourth birthday, so we decided to splurge.

We’ve come to the lost city

of El Dorado, Kansas

close to the geographic center

of the United States –

calm heart of the funnel

The Stardust Motel sounds

romantic – next to oil fields

the squeaks and moans

of the pumpjacks seep

through cracks in the door

Doritos and bean dip

chocolate milk to go with cookies

our hands covered in corn chip dust

elephantine bed to get lost in

american tv white noise

Near the center

where it will all go down

i lie close to your sleep

loving the way you breathe

today was your birthday

I don’t remember whether we made love that night, but I think not. Our friendship was becoming too important to clutter it up with sex. The next day we reached Des Moines and stayed with my folks for the night. I had parked my pale blue VW Bug in their driveway back in October, so we got it running and drove the last 120 miles back to Iowa City. That long, arduous hitchhike to Iowa solidified the bond between us, in the way that facing adversity and overcoming it often does. We were stockpiling an archive of shared experiences and memories that would become the foundation of our friendship.

When I returned to Iowa City, I decided the most convenient landing pad would be the Governor Street House. Although there were no vacant bedrooms, the large, unfurnished, unheated attic was a viable option. Compared to sleeping outdoors most nights for the past six months, it felt almost bougie. So I set up a semi-permanent camp there, spreading out my trusty sleeping bag atop carpet remnants by the south-facing dormer window.

After spending the past ten days with Pat, visiting old haunts with her in California, hitching with her back to Iowa, I again became her housemate. It felt like we were becoming friends for life, that nothing could disrupt those bonds, that we could talk to each other about anything, that we would always be in each other’s corner. Six weeks later Pat became pregnant with her son Sierra.

Footnotes:

[1] Two months earlier, on his first day in office, President Carter fulfilled a campaign promise by offering unconditional pardons to anyone who had evaded the draft, but Moss either hadn’t heard the news or didn’t trust the president.

[2] While Blossom is a great place to hear live music, seeing Janis in San Francisco at the Fillmore West, one of the most iconic rock and roll venues, won her that round.

Coming Back to Pat, March 1977

Pat Before Me