I was in my freshman year at Northern Illinois University, and Bob and Jack came out one time to spend the weekend. We decided to head out to Starved Rock State Park for the day and started hitchhiking down Route 23. In those days, if you can believe it, three scruffy teenage boys could still get picked up for a ride, and soon we were on our way.
The early-fall day was bright and warm when we got to Starved Rock Lodge. Sure enough, we couldn't have been there half an hour, and Bob starts talking to three girls, and they agree to go hiking with us. Bob said he knew a great place to smoke a joint, so we headed out along a narrow sandy trail with a bluff on one side and a sheer drop on the other.
We quickly paired off, with Bob in front and Jack and I strung out behind. The girl Bob was with was terrified to cross a spot where part of the trail had eroded away. Bob took her hand and was guiding her while walking backwards. The next thing I knew, Bob was over the side.
The drop was seventy feet onto bare rocks. I started forward and looked down, but Bob was hanging by his left hand onto the trunk of an evergreen sapling growing from the sandstone. That a tree had taken root at just that spot, that it held Bob's weight, that he swung his arms in such a way as he fell that his hand found and grabbed at the right second, confounds Bob to this day. He firmly believes that there was divine intervention. I tell him that it was our wild angels, and besides, even if he fell, he would have gotten up and walked it off.
By the time I reached him, Bob was able to hoist a leg back up on the path, and haul himself up. Bob brushed himself off like this was an everyday occurrence. And, for better or worse, it pretty much was. We made it to a small cave, really just a scoop out of the rock. We smoked the joint and joked around and talked to the girls, and started making out a little. But as the day got later, any hopes we had about going any further, were dashed when the girls said they had to go.
We made it back to the Lodge without mishap, but before they left, the girls said to come to the town they lived in called LaSalle, which was a couple of miles away. We agreed to meet at a park that they described, at ten o'clock that night. They were going to sneak out of their houses.
We'd had nothing to eat since breakfast, and even thoughts of nubile lips, couldn't assuage our hunger. Of course, we didn't have a nickel between us. I had my doubts, and Jack wanted to head back to Northern right from Starved Rock, but Bob was dead certain that the girls would show up. We thumbed our way to LaSalle, and found the park, and sprawled out on stone steps leading up to a tall monument. It was only about 9:00, so we had an hour to wait, but it was getting cold, and we only had light jackets.
When you're a teenager, and the hormones are flowing, and there's even the possibility of illicit sex, you're not thinking with the head that sits on your shoulders. Slowly the appointed time crept around, then fifteen minutes past the time, then thirty, then forty-five. Jack and I wanted to take off, but Bob wanted to wait in case it was taking the girls longer to sneak out, still sure that they would come.
Now I can barely believe it, but we actually waited until midnight before we finally faced the inescapable conclusion that we'd been stood up. Maybe the girls were having a good laugh, maybe they really just couldn't get out of their parents' houses, maybe they chickened out, maybe they never had any intention of meeting us and didn't give it another thought. But there we were, in a strange town, cold, hungry, tired and far from home.
We were cutting through some backyards, and unbeknownst to me and Jack, Bob was rummaging around in the backs of pickups, looking for anything useful. We came out onto the sidewalk and were standing under a streetlight, and Bob was showing us a small axe he'd found. Suddenly a car came peeling around the corner and screeched to a stop right in front of us. The driver's door flew open and a short, tough looking man in his 40's, jumped out and grabbed Jack, who happened to be closest, by the front of his jacket. The guy started yelling about trespassing on his property and stealing his shit. Jack was the smallest and most unassuming of the three of us, and he was too surprised to react.
Bob and I did not have that trouble and immediately stepped in. I knocked the guy's arm off Jack and Bob shoved the guy up against his car. I don't think the guy knew how close he was to having a hatchet embedded in his skull, but he obviously reconsidered the wisdom of taking on three young hoods. He got back in his car, but shouted that he was calling the cops.
We'd been avoiding the cops all day, and we knew that any encounter with the police, with no money, no ID, and a local accusing us of trespass and theft, would not go well. After the guy pulled away, we stuck to the shadows, and quickly made our way out of town, expecting at any minute to be hit with sirens and strobes.
The roads were deserted and we were all freezing. We figured the odds of the three of us, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, getting a ride, to be nil. One of the tricks we used when hitchhiking was to have one person on the shoulder with his thumb out, and when a car stopped, to ask for a ride for him and a couple buddies. Usually the good Samaritan would pull away, but times were different, and there were enough people who would give us a lift, to make hitching a viable means of transportation.
Bob put his thumb out whenever a car went by, but they were few and far between and they went by without slowing down. Finally a car pulled over and stopped and Bob talked for a minute into the passenger window, and after a moment, waved us over. Bob climbed in the front and Jack and I bundled into the back, feeling blessed warmth wash over us. Bob was saying thanks to the driver, and in response, a deep woman's voice, husky from smoking, said, "I don't mind giving you boys a lift. LaSalle's no place to run afoul of. But if you try anything, I'll kick all your asses."
Trying anything was the farthest thing from our minds, and besides, we had no doubt that she could. Unfortunately, we were just getting warmed up when she said she was coming up to her exit. We thanked her, climbed out, and found ourselves in pitch dark in the true dead of night. There were no headlights in either direction as far as we could see, so to stay warm, we started walking. After a while we saw some lights up ahead, and at an interchange, like an oasis in the desert, was a hotel.
I don't remember if it was a Holiday Inn or a Ramada, but it was something like that, and we walked into the lobby as quietly as possible and hunkered down into some easy chairs. A night clerk watched us come in, and after a couple of minutes, he came over to us and told us we couldn't stay there if we weren't checking in. He was a young guy and he said we could get warm for a while, but then we had to go. We sat for about as long as we thought we could get away with, but Bob said he had an idea.
When we left the lobby, we went to the end of one wing of the hotel, and found an unlocked door into the hallway. We climbed to the second floor and went to sleep in the vestibule until we were awoken by the sounds of early morning risers. It was just dawning, and we made our way back to the road. We were actually picked up pretty quickly for a Sunday morning, although I don't remember much of the last leg until arriving back at the dorms.
There must be a lesson there, but God knows what it is.
No comments:
Post a Comment