Something like Vicky
Before I leave this period of my first revisit to Berkeley after graduation I’ll recount a few incidents that still play brightly in my thoughts, as significant episodes in my life.
Her name was Vicky, (still is if she’s still alive, which I hope). I met her one rainy afternoon at the bar of the Plough. She was blond, straight mid-length hair, petite, about twenty, extremely pretty, talkative and had a tom-boy demeanor in her gestures and speech. After some small talk I invited her upstairs to do some lines. As we were sitting on the couch and by now chatting away, Bones comes in, pulls me aside and tells me this girl is really big trouble and shouldn’t be here. I didn’t ask why but told him I’d take her outside.
The rain had stopped and we were both pretty high so we began walking the streets and talking. I hinted at what Bones had told me and she said she had an abusive, heroin addict boyfriend, (I’d even briefly met him once as she described him, at the Plough. They lived just down the street). He beat her up and anyone else who got close to her. He was a large brute with tattoos and had done time. She said this had happened again recently and she needed ‘to just get away’.
It began to drizzle again so we went into a dark, hole-in-the-wall bar near University avenue, where we nursed a few beers and did more lines in the bathrooms. She told me her whole life story and I told her mine. We were captivated by each other’s narratives, ‘tête a tête’, staring into each other’s eyes when the barman told us it was time to close.
It was two a.m. She told me it was too late for her to go home. She would be beaten. We walked the streets some more, pensive. We must have walked a hundred blocks that night in dark and misty weather, with no one else on the streets, but we were not weary or despondent at all. We were elated with each other’s newfound company and high on speed. What struck us both was that we were very much alike in many ways, character traits and even size, like brother and sister. In a better world, had we met earlier, we would have been one of those couples everyone agrees make a perfect match. The only place with lights on at three a.m. was the I-hop on University. We went in and ordered pancakes; our hair all wet from the dew. We talked more intimately, holding hands by now and made plans.
I had a very close college friend, Hiram C., living in his very small hometown of Lemoore, (population 500) located in the very center of the central valley, the middle of nowhere surrounded by miles and miles of fields. I’d visited there once before in college days, an old farmhouse he had all to himself. So I told her I could take her there where we’d be welcome. We could hide and never be found again. She agreed.
It was now near dawn. We walked back the twenty blocks to the Plough where I snuck in and grabbed my backpack and some clothes. We went the four blocks to her place, (strange that I’d never met her before but I think her boyfriend rarely let her out) snuck out some clothes in a bag and off we set, hitch-hiking, a long walk to the freeway but then easy rides with the morning traffic on a now bright and glorious dawn.
Vicky, your presence comes alive in my memory with just the mention of your name. The beauty of your face is unforgettable. But your boyish charm comes back with even stronger emotions, as it was so rare. The three days I spent with you were richer than a thousand others in my mind’s eye. We were mirror images to each other and felt it. We acted and thought on the same wavelength. You reminded me of Jane from my boyhood days, when we would each grab an apple from one of the two trees in her yard and enjoy them in the sunshine, then go catch frogs by the creek, catch them and let them go, gently, and watch them swim away in the water (not like Kevin who’d always smash them against a rock), then on to some other game with a glance, running side by side with pure joy and laughter, true companions.
You reminded me of Geena, sitting beside me in Rich’s basement on a Friday night, sitting together, sharing a joint and discussing the latest Janis Joplin album while listening to it, perfect equals, even in the number of beers we drank, and happily recognizing the similarities in our tastes in music. Or Kim nineteen years later in Puerto Rico.
Every other woman I’ve loved was for the inexplicable allure of their female manners and attributes, worlds apart and alien to me. The breaching of this gulf made for passionate love, which never lasted long, and equally passionate fights, our two minds so different, at cross-purposes, it made our attempts at talk often unintelligible to one another, all reconciliations happening only under the sheets with body language.
I wonder what it would have been like to partner with any one of these boyish sprites, so alike in mind to me and shape even, all of you being flat-chested and narrow-hipped. Perhaps sex would have been uninteresting, and far less satisfying then the long, intimate talks we’d have in bed. But our closeness, our partnership, our friendship might have lasted a lifetime.
The trip to Lemoore would take about four hours by car. We made it there in five. Whenever you hitch-hike with such a pretty girl the rides come fast and easy. Hiram was at work but he told me before that he never locked his door. There was no need, no crime, everyone knew everyone. When he came home he found us fast asleep on his waterbed.
Glad to see me (or any rare visitor) in these distant parts, we spent a merry evening eating and catching up. He told us we could stay as long as we wanted. He’d recently scored a great job in Hanford running the computers at the Armstrong tire factory, excellent pay but long hours, as they kept breaking down and he had a rare talent in repairing them, and had to stay till he did, as thousands of dollars were lost each minute the assembly line stopped. The one good thing about this job of his was that his pay increased rapidly as they realized his value.
So we had the days to ourselves, nothing to do but look out at cornfields, or take the two mile walk into town hand in hand along an eerily deserted dirt road to the one coffee shop where we’d sit and chat, while the local customers would stare at us as if we were aliens.
By evening we’d smoke pot with Hiram, listen to his huge music library and talk. We talked of life. There was no television in his house, probably no reception. It was rustic simplicity.
After the third night Vicky told me she wanted to go back. She’d had the time she needed to think things through and thanked me for it. She wanted to return and settle matters and leave her junkie boyfriend. I knew she wasn’t hooked because she had no tracks on her pure white arms, and for the three days with me, she was sober. I even checked her purse. There was nothing there to hide. And you can always tell if a person is using such drugs by their narrow pupils and looking away when they talk to you, trying to hide it. But I did think it odd that she lived with a drug addict and wasn’t one herself. We cuddled and talked for hours and slept in each other’s arms but we didn’t have sex. She wanted to but had a disease I might catch. She told me this with tears in her eyes when I made advances the second night in bed, (the first we were so tired we passed out like a light, after being up the night before). She said she’d do anything to satisfy me but I told her that wasn’t important, just her embrace.
We hitch-hiked back to Berkeley on the fourth morning. I left her at her doorstep with a hug and never saw or heard of her again. I really hope she went back to her mother in the East as she solemnly promised me the night before. Then again, telling a junkie you’re leaving him for good is like talking to a loaded gun, pointed at your forehead.
I know descriptions can do little to paint a face. Everyone forms a different image. I’ve seen hundreds of pictures of blond, teenage models but none match her. There’s something about the girl on ‘The Cars’ debut album that catches her smile. But still it’s not quite her. If I ever find a likeness, I’ll post it.
