CALIFORNIA CROSSROADS
I don't even remember when I started to dream about California. I think it was sometime about the middle of the summer. During spring quarter, I'd held down a part-time job at the same insurance office where I'd worked the summer before. Once school got out, I took a full-time position for the summer. But it wasn't long before I felt ready for a drastic change of scenery.
I spent much of my time that summer with Sarah, a new friend from work. We'd often go out for dinner and then go out drinking and dancing at our favorite downtown haunt, a nightclub called Faces. I slept at Sarah's a lot of nights to avoid going home and facing my parents; that relationship seemed to be worsening again.
It was at Faces one evening that I began talking to Sarah about my daydreams of traveling west. And the more I talked, the better and more realistic it all sounded.
Freedom. Sunshine. Beach boys. Fun. Freedom. My friends encouraged me — but my family didn't. I don't think anyone really took me seriously. Yet the talk continued, and California seemed closer and closer. California. That's where I needed to go to start over, to show everyone — my parents, my friends, myself — that Becky Jacobs was in control of her life. That Becky Jacobs could make it — could be someone in this world.
I borrowed money from by brother, Fred, to buy an old VW Rabbit. Then I took out a loan for five hundred dollars so I'd have some start-up money in California.
Sarah was leaving the insurance company to go back to school. She had three free weeks before her fall term started, so she decided to drive to California with me to see the country.
So on Labor Day, the two of us packed my car to the ceiling with my earthly possessions, said good-bye to our families, and headed for the westbound interstate.
We zigzagged our way cross-country — from Illinois to Wisconsin to Missouri to Colorado — staying with friends and relatives to save money. And as we traveled on our quest for sun, surfers, and happiness, the radio often blared out a rock tune I took as an omen and adopted as my personal theme song:
We've been waiting for the sun to rise and shine
Shining still to give us the will
Somehow, someday, we need just one victory and we're on our way
Prayin' for it all day and fightin' for it all night
Give us just one victory and it will be all right.
I knew when I got to California I would turn my life around. I needed "just one victory," one success, and I could prove myself once and for all. I would find that in California and I wouldn't go back to Illinois until I could return with my head held high. In fact, I made myself a vow that I would never again call home in defeat like I had after Wisconsin and college.
Our last stop before the coast was Las Vegas, where we splurged on a room at the Desert Inn. We didn't have enough money to see any of the shows, but we decided to risk a few bucks just so we could say we gambled in Vegas.
A stranger in the casino gave me a chip; I put it down on the crap table and promptly won twenty dollars. For me, that was another good omen; even luck was going my way. With my winnings I treated Sarah to a big buffet breakfast the next morning before we left on the last leg of our trip to the coast.
The first thing we did when we reached southern California that afternoon was to stop at the beach, since Sarah had never seen the Pacific. I called a cousin of mine who lived in LA and she called her friends and organized an impromptu beach party for us.
That night as the sun set in the Pacific, Sarah and I took off our shoes, waded out into the surf, and celebrated our successful transcontinental journey by singing "Just One Victory" to the stars. Then we lit a bonfire, roasted hot dogs, and I loaded up on booze until I began to feel sick.
"I gotta lie down, " I told Sarah, wishing I didn't have to miss out on the fun.
She and my cousin half-carried me over to the parking lot and helped me into the back of my cousin's pickup. I once awakened just enough to lean over the side and throw up and to see silhouettes milling around the fire on the beach. But it wasn't until I roused the next morning at my cousin's house that I felt regrets. To think I'd spent my first glorious night in California in the back of a pickup, sleeping off a drunken binge. Why did I always overdo it?
After a week of sightseeing in southern California, Sarah flew home to begin school and I headed up the coast to my ultimate destination — central California. I had an uncle and aunt who were retired and lived in Pebble Beach.
Uncle Tim had been a career military man — a lieutenant colonel when he retired. Aunt Martha was a blonde, sophisticated woman who had lived on military bases around the world.
They hadn't seen me for more than four years — back when I'd been the all-American cheerleader. They weren't prepared for the new me. I climbed out of the car to greet them wearing the same brown flannel shirt, blue-jean cutoffs, and flip-flops I'd worn most of the three-thousand-mile trip. My hair was dirty, and I had gained thirteen pounds on our thirteen-day trip from washing down fastfood hamburgers with whatever cheap brew I could drink on the way.
I sensed the last thing Aunt Martha wanted to do was hug me, but she did. And she welcomed me into her home. She and Uncle Tim even offered me a place to stay until I found work and a place to live.
Good jobs proved a lot harder to come by than I'd counted on. However, within a few days I landed a job doing data entry for a small company in Seaside. The pay wasn't as much as I'd hoped for but enough to afford a small furnished apartment. Once I had work and a place to live I finally was ready to begin a serious search for my California dream: sunshine, beach boys, fun, freedom.
California is a twenty-one state, so as a nineteen-year-old I wasn't old enough to drink. However, I heard about a military bar at a nearby military installation that would admit eighteen year olds. Friends at work said most of the clientele came from the DLI — the Defense Language Institute — where the American Armed Forces train translators — all about my age!
Booze and boys. It sounded to me like the perfect combination, and I checked the place out the very next weekend. I found plenty of beer, dancing, and highly favorable ratio of guys to girls. I quickly hit it off with two young soldiers studying at the DLI and was only mildly disappointed to discover they weren't big surfers. In fact, the first guy I met after I'd driven clear across the country dreaming of blond, surfing hunks, were from Gary, Indiana!
My Las Vegas luck was still holding out because that very night those same guys introduced me to Tina, a girl who just happened to be looking for someone with an apartment to share. She moved in with me two days later, and suddenly with someone to share the expenses, my California dream came back into focus.
The next week we invited the DLI guys to our place for a big party. And in the weeks that followed we made our apartment their home away from home — a place they were welcome to crash when they got off duty and wanted to escape the military regimen.
Through those guys and people we met at work, we soon had a big circle of friends. Within weeks our apartment was Party Central. Any night we decided to have a party, people just showed up. Often they stayed and slept on the living room floor.
One night, a couple of guys who had motorcycles stayed over. The next morning Todd, a friend of mine, suggested that the two of us go for a ride. So I got high smoking dope and we left the apartment together. A few minutes later, cruising down the highway with the wind whipping through my hair, I realized I was still wearing my flannel pajamas. I threw back my head and laughed in exhilaration. For the first time in my life I could do whatever I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it, without being hassled by anyone. I was having so much fun in the present that I seldom thought about the past or the people I'd left behind — until one fall Saturday evening.
I had some friends over and was just getting down to some serious drinking when I heard a loud commotion from outside our apartment. I stepped out on our patio and heard it again — the sound of a cheering crowd. Climbing to the top of our six-foot-high , brick privacy wall, I spotted the source of the noise.
"Hey, look at this," I called to the others. There, directly below our high, hillside apartment, was the Central California Junior College football field — and a game was just getting under way.
"We got great seats," I said. "Can somebody hand me up a beer? Or maybe a six-pack."
For the next two-and-a-half hours we perched atop our wall, drinking our beer, and cheering our heads off for the home team. None of us knew a soul down there on that field. The game was nothing more than an evening's diversion. Yet, as I watched the players collide on the field, their school colors intensified by the bright lights, and faintly heard the cheerleaders working the crowd, old memories and emotions surged up from my subconscious, where I'd kept them buried for so long. For a few moments, sitting on that wall, I was actually more than two thousand miles away. And when I "returned to California" I couldn't help but wonder, What if . . .?
When the final gun sounded and we all scrambled down off the wall to our patio, someone said, "We'll have to do this again."
"Sure," I said, but I didn't mean it. And we never did. As Christmas approached, I think Tina and I thought a lot about home. We decided not to let a lack of money dampen our Christmas spirit. Since the cost of buying a tree was prohibitive, I borrowed a hatchet. Late one night I drove with the DLI friend from work up the mountain behind the college where, under cover of darkness, we felled a small pine tree. Watching for headlights, we hurriedly stashed our tree in the back of my Rabbit and drove right home. Back in the safety of our parking lot, we laughed hilariously at our adventure for several minutes before we regained strength enough to haul my prize into the apartment.
At a craft store I purchased a pattern for making wooden ornaments to decorate our tree. Tina bought felt and we made each other stockings with our names on them. Then we filled the stockings with inexpensive items such as barrettes and socks. In defense against loneliness, we became our own little family and tried to re-create a traditional Christmas for ourselves.
On Christmas Eve we held our family celebration and invited a couple of military guys who hadn't been able to get leaves to go home. The four of us ate together and the guys stayed and sat with us by the tree as Tina and I opened our presents. Tina had received a big package from home with a number of presents. I received one present from my folks — a robe. We took turns opening and exclaiming over our gifts, periodically stopping to toast one another with a glass of wine.
I felt pretty sentimental (not to mention drunk) when Aunt Martha called and invited us to join her and Uncle Tim at their church's midnight Christmas Eve service. "Sure," I told her. Going to church would only make it seem more like Christmas.
The guys headed back to the base, and one of my cousins came by to pick up Tina and me. I saw him eyeing us uncomfortably as we giggled all the way to the church. I sobered up enough to follow the usher down the center aisle. I was about to decide he was going to seat us in the choir loft when he finally stopped just a few pews from the front and motioned us to sit beside Aunt Martha.
I remember standing to sing "Silent Night," and I recall a choir in red robes. But that's it. The service had hardly begun before I went sound asleep on Tina's shoulder. She told me later it was all she could do to keep from cracking up right there in the service.
I hate to think what Aunt Martha thought about it, but I didn't ask, and she didn't mention it the next day when she had us over for Christmas dinner.
The only thing that ever cramped our partying style was money — or lack of it. Despite Tina's contribution to expenses and a surprising raise at the office, I never seemed to have any extra money. Partying is expensive, especially if it's your party. By the time I'd stockpiled our booze, there wasn't enough cash left over to cover rent, utilities, gasoline, medical bills, and groceries.
One night in January the only food we had in the house was a can of mushrooms. We sauteed them in our last half stick of butter and ate them for supper — along with an entire bottle of good California wine. When we finished eating, Tina hurried off to the restaurant to fill in on a late shift for a friend. I collapsed on the couch to watch TV.
I was still there when the buzzer sounded. I opened the door to find my brother, Fred, standing there. He had come to pay me a surprise visit.
As a golf pro back home, he'd accepted an offer from Uncle Tim to take and extended winter golf vacation in Pebble Beach. I saw Fred eyeing the leftover mushrooms and the wine on our supper table. His veiled surprise changed to obvious awkwardness when I lit up a joint.
"Want some?" I asked as I passed him the cigarette. "It's good stuff."
"No, thanks," he replied quickly, obviously wanting nothing to do with my pot. His face conveyed his next thought, even before he voiced the words. "You've changed, Becky."
"I've grown up, Fred." He'd been away in the service the entire time I'd been in high school. To him, I was still his kid sister, the little junior high girl in braces.
I told him all about my job and about the friends I'd made since I got to California. I wanted to reassure him that I was a big girl now — someone who could take care of herself. We agreed to stay in touch and do some fun things together while he was in California.
Before he left that night to go back to my aunt and uncle's he gave me a big hug and warned in a brotherly, teasing voice, "You better be careful, Becky." I was about to reassure him one last time when he added, "You're getting a little fat, aren't you?"
Those words, coming from the big brother I'd idolized all my life, the handsome quarterback with the cheerleading girlfriend, cut me to the bone. I started a diet the very next day, but I didn't try to change the lifestyle I knew he disapproved of.
My lifestyle left me so strapped that I had no choice but to write home and ask my parents for loans to get me through the end of the month. It was about that time my big, bright California dream began to fade. I didn't particularly like my work. I had a growing dissatisfaction with my job not only because I did not get paid enough, but because I also had to put up with a few married men who hassled me at the office. That, plus the financial hole I'd gotten into, started me thinking. This is not what I had in mind when I came to California! Something has got to change — and fast.
Tina had come to California with her own dreams, but she was ready to trade them in for something bigger.
"Alaska!" she said one night. "Let's go to Alaska, Becky. The worst job up there pays better than we're making now. When summer comes we could get a three-month job on the pipeline and make a fortune!"
Normally I'd have gone along with anything — in fact, I was usually the instigator of such ideas. But not this time. In fact, the more Tina talked about Alaska during the next few days, the more uneasy I felt. I knew jobs were scarce in Alaska, and even though the high pay was enticing, I also knew that the living expenses were just as high — or higher. There was no way I was going to let myself get stranded in the Arctic circle with no alternative but to call my family and ask them to fly me home. I knew my parents couldn't afford that, and neither could I. Besides, I'd promised myself that I would never again call and ask Mom and Dad if I could come back home.
So I just listened for a few days as Tina's talk quickly changed from verbal daydreaming to serious planning. I didn't tell her I wouldn't go. I didn't want to lose her friendship. Not to mention that, without a roommate, I'd be hard-pressed to make ends meet financially. Maybe something will happen, I thought. Maybe she'll change her mind, or something else will come along. But as the days went on, I started to feel as if my California dream was collapsing around me.