Traveling North

My dreams of returning to Thailand have been short-circuited by the need for money. My good friend, Richie Boy, called and asked for me to open his new diamond store in Manhattan's Plaza Hotel. I had $20 in my pocket. My only answer was 'yes'. So it's back to suits and ties after six years of leisure. Of course $20 isn't enough to buy a suit, so I traveled north to Boston, where the possessions of my previous life are in storage beneath the stairs in my sister's basement.

There's only one way for a man with $20 to get north and that was hitchhike. I took the subway up to Pelham Parkway and stuck out a sign saying BOSTON. Two minutes later I had a ride to Providence. The young driver was heading back to school. I told him a few stories about the Orient; Sophies in Phnom Penh, Soi 6 in Pattaya, the Eden in Bangkok as well as walking around the Potala in Lhasa and swimming in the Ganges. He kept looking over at me, as if I were a mad man. He dropped me on the highway and I chanced getting a ride before the cops arrested me for hitchhiking. I waited three minutes. A middle-aged man braked sharply. He was driving a Lexus.

"I haven't seen a hitchhiker in years."

"I guess they were extinct until I came back."

"Good to see you."

We spoke about the March on Washington in 1970. He had been dead set against the war then and was now.

And he gave me a ride all the way to my sister's house. She had him in for a glass of wine. It was almost like 1969 except I'm more hobo than a hippie now.