Welcome to the serialisation of the novel New Hope. The story of one young man's journey from the childhood traumas of family tragedy in post-war America, to his dreams of escape and adolescent awakening while living in a sleepy small town on the California coast. His time meandering along the coast of Big Sur, and his journey of discovery through an America itself going through the cultural and social upheaval of the burgeoning counter-culture movements of the late 50s and 60s. One man's attempt to make sense of the world, of life and of himself. Always knowing and believing, that in among all the turmoil and disillusionment that he would one day find New Hope.
New Hope: Prologue
I was six when I became an only child. Living in an age of innocence, until that fateful night. It was a golden-age, as I skipped through the childhood utopian playground of post war California. A wide-eyed, snot-nosed kid, safe to roam my part of small town America. Burnished memories. My mother waltzing with an invisible Fred Astaire, around the kitchen to Rhapsody In Blue playing on the radio. My father conducting an imaginary philharmonic orchestra to Fanfare For The Common Man. His slide-rule in hand acting as makeshift baton. My older brother, Danny playing catch in the front yard with his best friend Mikey from across the street. All the while Mother mutely watching him from porch, the living image of a Rockwell painting. The fragments of childhood memory wrapped in a golden hue of Americana. All blended over time, so that I can no longer tell the real from the imagined. Memorial fragments filled in with faded photographs, pages of printed words, painted canvases and flickering celluloid. I’ve shaped and polished a youthful American Dream for myself that belies the tarnished reality it was.
There is however the play within the play, the twist in the tale, the nightmarish dark-side of that dream. A stained under-belly I could never quite rub away, however hard I tried. The mysterious disappearance, and assumedly assured death of my brother continued to haunt me. From that point in time, the golden age was over. The magnitude of how it had and still does affect me, my family, the people and places beyond was something I have only come to understand much later. As I have said, most of my earliest recollections of that time have intermingled into one long childhood blur. But there is that seminal moment standing tall among all others, the turning of the tide in my young life. I was not truly able to comprehend the enormity of what was unfolding around me that night when he simply disappeared in to the night and never came home again. I was engulfed in that moment. What was a confusing whirlpool of churning emotions, a darkly turbulent sea of confusion that would haunt my nightmares. Not until events took a turn later in life did that original trigger send me on a path of self discovery I had never imagined possible. Things became clearer, calmer. I took a journey which would cause me to revisit times and places I had long forgotten, to meet people I had never known who’d influenced me in ways I could never have imagined.
It was 1947, just after that year’s 4th of July celebrations. The faint smell of bonfires that had strung the beach still hung in the air, mixed with the aroma of spent fireworks that’d lit the night sky and spread a dazzling mirror show across the still night waters. Alternating red, white and blue bunting draped lifelessly from tree to tree in many yards. Ragged flags of spangles and bars hung limply from jutting poles of many homes, people were still in good spirits. The war was still fresh in the minds of many though, mothers still wept for lost sons, wives for their never to return husbands and children still asked when their daddy was coming home. Times were good now, we all knew it, but the sadness of recent years still tugged at the hearts and minds of the spirited nation. Hope hung on the lips of every adult. They spoke of freedom and democracy, a world being swept clean of tyranny. Of how we would share our great bounty with those torn-apart by war. How we would stand strong, side-by-side as free men, staring into an astounding age unfolding before us.
Little did we realise that our family, who’d been lucky enough to have not lost any family members to the war, was to find loss and sadness in those glorious years. My brother, Daniel, was almost a year and a half older than me, having just had his birthday. In fact he’d only missed being born on the 4th of July by a few minutes. I remember that Daniel was always pleased about that, as he didn’t want such a day to over shadow his birthday. At that youthful age he considered himself the centre of the universe, something my parents did little to discourage. For his birthday Mom and Dad had bought Daniel a Roadmaster bicycle from the Cleveland Welding Company, he’d been begging them for it since he’d seen one advertised in Life magazine that same March of ‘47. It had it all, the bright red tank, the white wall tyres, this was a bicycle with style and grace. A classic the day it rolled out of the factory. Every boy in America wanted one, and he had to have one.
My father had not long been discharged from his military service, and so wanted to spoil his eldest son. Dad had not seen any action during the war. He’d been based at Port Hueneme in Ventura county, the other side of Santa Barbara from where we’d settled after selling up in Pennsylvania and moving west to be closer to him. He’d have been 37 when he joined-up in ’42. Joined the newly formed Naval Construction Battalions known collectively as the Seabees. They were full of older guys straight out of the construction industry. The Country needed their expertise, he was needed in the war effort. He was an important cog, in the war machine fighting against the tyranny of… Blah, blah, blah… As he regularly droned on to my mother about why he made us trek from one side of the country to the other to be nearer to him. Why he’d dumped us in some small resort town on the California coast. Why we all had to make sacrifices in times of war.
Hence to Roadmaster, the pay-off, the proof the sacrifice had been worthwhile. Daniel, and I secretly, fell in love with it immediately. I’m sure he would have slept on the back porch next to it, if Mom and Dad had let him. He’d rode it constantly, from morning until he was called in for supper. He was riding it from the moment he ripped the wrapping off until he finally rode off into the night and never returned.
Early that day. I don’t remember much of that seemingly insignificant day, I wish I could, but it passed like any other does for a six year old. Blurring into one long summer daze of box-carts, bike rides, playing on the beach, digging for clams, and den building. That night however, I remember that night, I wish I couldn’t sometimes. It still sits sharp and distinct among my childhood memories. It’s the nip in the air as the wind picks up across the sand, that chills you to the bone as the tide turns and you know it’s time to head home.
Daniel had been zooming passed the house, making revving motor noises, all day. “Michael Gilpin! Get here this minute!” I heard Mikey’s mom shout. Mom twitched the drapes to one side, sniggering slightly at whatever she could see outside.
“Mom!” She turned away from the window, looking down at me. Her attention distracted.
There is however the play within the play, the twist in the tale, the nightmarish dark-side of that dream. A stained under-belly I could never quite rub away, however hard I tried. The mysterious disappearance, and assumedly assured death of my brother continued to haunt me. From that point in time, the golden age was over. The magnitude of how it had and still does affect me, my family, the people and places beyond was something I have only come to understand much later. As I have said, most of my earliest recollections of that time have intermingled into one long childhood blur. But there is that seminal moment standing tall among all others, the turning of the tide in my young life. I was not truly able to comprehend the enormity of what was unfolding around me that night when he simply disappeared in to the night and never came home again. I was engulfed in that moment. What was a confusing whirlpool of churning emotions, a darkly turbulent sea of confusion that would haunt my nightmares. Not until events took a turn later in life did that original trigger send me on a path of self discovery I had never imagined possible. Things became clearer, calmer. I took a journey which would cause me to revisit times and places I had long forgotten, to meet people I had never known who’d influenced me in ways I could never have imagined.
It was 1947, just after that year’s 4th of July celebrations. The faint smell of bonfires that had strung the beach still hung in the air, mixed with the aroma of spent fireworks that’d lit the night sky and spread a dazzling mirror show across the still night waters. Alternating red, white and blue bunting draped lifelessly from tree to tree in many yards. Ragged flags of spangles and bars hung limply from jutting poles of many homes, people were still in good spirits. The war was still fresh in the minds of many though, mothers still wept for lost sons, wives for their never to return husbands and children still asked when their daddy was coming home. Times were good now, we all knew it, but the sadness of recent years still tugged at the hearts and minds of the spirited nation. Hope hung on the lips of every adult. They spoke of freedom and democracy, a world being swept clean of tyranny. Of how we would share our great bounty with those torn-apart by war. How we would stand strong, side-by-side as free men, staring into an astounding age unfolding before us.
Little did we realise that our family, who’d been lucky enough to have not lost any family members to the war, was to find loss and sadness in those glorious years. My brother, Daniel, was almost a year and a half older than me, having just had his birthday. In fact he’d only missed being born on the 4th of July by a few minutes. I remember that Daniel was always pleased about that, as he didn’t want such a day to over shadow his birthday. At that youthful age he considered himself the centre of the universe, something my parents did little to discourage. For his birthday Mom and Dad had bought Daniel a Roadmaster bicycle from the Cleveland Welding Company, he’d been begging them for it since he’d seen one advertised in Life magazine that same March of ‘47. It had it all, the bright red tank, the white wall tyres, this was a bicycle with style and grace. A classic the day it rolled out of the factory. Every boy in America wanted one, and he had to have one.
My father had not long been discharged from his military service, and so wanted to spoil his eldest son. Dad had not seen any action during the war. He’d been based at Port Hueneme in Ventura county, the other side of Santa Barbara from where we’d settled after selling up in Pennsylvania and moving west to be closer to him. He’d have been 37 when he joined-up in ’42. Joined the newly formed Naval Construction Battalions known collectively as the Seabees. They were full of older guys straight out of the construction industry. The Country needed their expertise, he was needed in the war effort. He was an important cog, in the war machine fighting against the tyranny of… Blah, blah, blah… As he regularly droned on to my mother about why he made us trek from one side of the country to the other to be nearer to him. Why he’d dumped us in some small resort town on the California coast. Why we all had to make sacrifices in times of war.
Hence to Roadmaster, the pay-off, the proof the sacrifice had been worthwhile. Daniel, and I secretly, fell in love with it immediately. I’m sure he would have slept on the back porch next to it, if Mom and Dad had let him. He’d rode it constantly, from morning until he was called in for supper. He was riding it from the moment he ripped the wrapping off until he finally rode off into the night and never returned.
Early that day. I don’t remember much of that seemingly insignificant day, I wish I could, but it passed like any other does for a six year old. Blurring into one long summer daze of box-carts, bike rides, playing on the beach, digging for clams, and den building. That night however, I remember that night, I wish I couldn’t sometimes. It still sits sharp and distinct among my childhood memories. It’s the nip in the air as the wind picks up across the sand, that chills you to the bone as the tide turns and you know it’s time to head home.
Daniel had been zooming passed the house, making revving motor noises, all day. “Michael Gilpin! Get here this minute!” I heard Mikey’s mom shout. Mom twitched the drapes to one side, sniggering slightly at whatever she could see outside.
“Mom!” She turned away from the window, looking down at me. Her attention distracted.
As darkness descended I remember Mom glancing out of the window. It’s odd it sticks out, what perceptually seemed only a casual glimpse of nothing, took on so much significance, I felt it immediately. I know she did too. That was the thing, that was so significant, she’d not seen anything as she’d hoped and expected to. Even though Daniel could well just have been around the corner, we both felt a shift in the atmosphere. A chilled breeze broke the still dusk air, the drapes rippled once then fell gently back. There was an emptiness hanging in the air. I remember her looking at me, and briefly in that moment without a word spoken I knew what was about to happen and the building panic that lay behind her calm blue eyes. She wanted to say something, but instead got to her feet and walked over to the front door. Standing on the front steps I could hear her shout Daniel’s name into the tranquil darkening night. Dusk was now at an end, the drab garb of eventide encircled as the last of the sun’s rays lost their grip and died another day. I heard no reply, and neither did she. She came back inside, “Howie son, come with me, we need to find your brother. He’s late for supper.” Her manner was controlled yet distant. In her mind she was already out there searching for him. Looking under every bush and behind ever fence. Mom’s a worrier. The smallest things send her into what starts as a composed panic, and builds from there. You could see the lines form on her forehead. I’m sure sometimes I could see new grey hairs appearing instantly at the edge of her furrowed brow. Her worries were usually unfounded, or blown out of all proportion. I wish this was one of those occasions. The deep carved furrows and shock of greying hair would permanently age her over the next days, weeks, months and decade. I swept-up Daniel’s baseball card collection, I had spread out in front of me.
“Yes Mom,” I said getting up snapping closed the lid on the card tin, and flinging them under the sofa, out of sight. We made for the door, when she stopped
“We better leave a note for your father, he’ll be home from work soon. I don’t want him worrying where we’ve all disappeared to, do we?” She took a pad and pencil from next to the telephone on the table in the hallway and scribbled a quick note to Dad. Leaving it in a place where he would see it when he walked in the front door that evening.
We walked down the street in silence, Mother didn’t shout Daniel’s name out loud. I knew though that inside she was shouting his name over and over, cursing the boy and what she’d do to him when she got him home. Silently screaming herself horse with knotted fear. I found all this a little strange, it un-nerved me somewhat. The streets were unusually quite for this time in the evening, as we rounded the corner. All I could hear was the rumble of the distant brackish waters, the click-clack of Mom’s heels on the sidewalk, the soft padding of my bare feet beside her and the quiet thud, thud, thud, of my heart pulsing through my muted mind. The next corner we came to was the limit of Daniel’s boundary that Mom and Dad had set us both. Daniel transgressed the boundary rule constantly, as he thought that Mom and Dad only set such limits for my sake. Rules didn’t apply to Daniel, or so he thought. He was eight, all eight year olds are Superman, The Lone Ranger, Flash Gordon and Buck Rodgers all rolled into one. Eight year old boys are invincible comic book heroes. Or so they all think.
The asphalt under foot was still warm, baked by the hot summer sun all that day. We walked on in an increasingly high-strung hush, Mom looking about her, gripping my hand tighter and tighter the further away from home we got. The more she gripped and the more we walked the faster and louder my heart sounded in my head. I wanted to say something, just to block out the increasing thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thud. The harder she held the more I could feel our pulses throb in synchronised panic. I knew that my Mom’s heart was beating as hard and as fast as mine. We walked on.
I think we would have walked dumb struck all night, through the streets of Pismo Beach until sunrise, if Dad hadn’t turned up. I don’t remember hearing any other cars that night, but they must have glided passed us by as we wandered through those empty streets. I do remember hearing Dad pull up beside us, with the distinctive deep drone of his prized Pontiac. We stopped walking, looks were exchanged, and finally, finally someone spoke. “Roscoe, I can’t find Daniel, he’s missing, That boy will be the death of me.” Mom said with a voice that began to show signs of cracking, as she gulped for a steady breath. She gripped my hand harder, I tried to pull away, it was really hurting by now. Her fears translated to the crushing grip to which she subjected my small hand.
“Faith you are hurting Howard’s hand, let go.” Said Dad in his usual cool monotone. She looked down at me, noticing me for the first time since we left the house, and let go of my hand cautiously. “Both of you get in the car, we can look for him much better that way.” He said leaning across and pushing the passenger door open. “We’ll scoot passed back home first, because it’s very likely that he’s already home, wondering why we all have gone AWOL.”
“Yes, yes, you are probably right,” said Mom in a suddenly air of almost relaxed levity. “Come on Howie, jump in son, get in the front seat between your father and I.” I climbed onto the front bench seat of the car, sitting next to Dad. Mom slide in next to me, and close the door. Once again as we turned around and headed home we were in silence. This time all I could hear was the engine, and that ever constant thud, thud, thud inside my head.
The lights were still on, and it looked for all the world that the house was full of life. But it wasn’t, we were all sat in the car outside, and it soon became clear as Dad tapped on his horn, that no-one was home. A short blast of the horn and Dad said, “I’ll go and have a look, he maybe out back with that damned bike of his.”
“Yes, yes, you’re probably right Roscoe. We’ll wait here just in case though, won’t we Howie?” She said in that same, now obvious suppressed hysteria masked by the air of clambake cook-off conviviality. It was obviously done for my sake, but made me feel all the more anxious. If my parents were starting to worry, then things must be getting serious. Where was Daniel, why hadn’t he come home that evening. He’d be grounded until he was ten, when they caught up with him. Why… As it turned out did he never come home ever again? A fleeting glimpse of red streaking passed the window, would be my last memory of my brother, as he pedalled furiously into the unknown.
Dad came back down the path alone, looking not at us, but beyond us. I turned to where he was looking, to see that some of the neighbours had come out onto their porches. Most probably roused by the slightly strange sight of Dad sounding his horn, while sat outside his own house, his family sat in the car beside him. “Hi Glenn,” called Dad to our neighbour Mr. Gilpin, who lived directly opposite us. Glenn Gilpin was to say the least, a rotund man. What he lacked in stature him made up for in girth. Born and raised in Pismo, he owned a hardware store on Price Street. It’d been in the Gilpin family since his grandfather first opened the doors in 1880. He’d inherited it when his father retired because he couldn’t climb the ladders up to highest shelves. He now spent his days fishing off the pier, with the other old boys of Pismo. The shop sold every conceivable nut, bolt, screw and thingamajig. All carefully catalogued and stacked away in small brown boxes from floor to ceiling. Mr. Gilpin knew where every single one was too. And what it was used for. ‘Hey Glenn, I need a five-eighths, left-handed, whatchamacallit!’ As quick as a flash Mr. Gilpin would shimmy up his ladder, slide along some, pull out a little brown box, blow off the dust and say, ‘Yup! I got just what ya need right here.’ The store slogan was, ‘If we don’t have it, you don’t need it.’ And as far as I could tell, that was true.
“Hi Ros, what’s up?” Glenn was probably the nearest thing to a friend that Dad ever had. Dad wasn’t very good at socialising. Glenn and he would chat about machines and gizmos while mowing the lawn and washing the car on Sundays.
“It’s Daniel, Glenn. Have you seen him this evening? He’s gone riding off on that damned new bike of his, and we can’t seem to find him. He’ll be grounded for a week, when I catch up with the lad.” Only a week, I was sure that he’d get worse than that.
“No sorry Ros, I can’t say I have seen him. Mikey is in though, I’ll find out if he has seen him.” Mr. Gilpin half turned back to his house and hollered, “Mikey..! Michael..!! Get yourself out here boy.” Mikey, Daniel’s best friend from the since they started school together not long after we first moved here, came plodding out their house. Mikey was definitely moulded in his father’s image. Even at his tender age, he was already filling out the pants of an eleven year old.
“Yeah Pop?!” He stopped in his tracks, “Oh hi Mr. Lever.” He said acknowledging my father. “Hello Mrs. Lever, oh hi there Howie. What’s up Pop?” Finally acknowledging his father.
“Mikey have you seen Daniel today?”
“Sure, we’ve been riding around all day. Why where is he? Is he, are we, in some sort a trouble? We didn’t do nothing Pop, we were just riding up and down, that’s all. I promise.”
“Mikey your not in any trouble, It’s, it’s just that we can’t find Daniel. He’s been called in for supper, Mrs. Lever and Howie have been out looking for him around the neighbourhood, there seems to be no sign of him. Can you think where he could be Mikey.” Dad asked from across the street. Mikey too felt the tension among the adults that I felt, I could tell by the nervous way he looked down at the ground and fidgeted before answering.
“No sir. Mom called me in early, as I hadn’t done my chores this morning.” Mikey flushed, “Sorry Pop.”
“No matter son, we just need to know about Daniel. When and where did you last see him?” Asked his Pop, bobbing down to his son’s level so that he could catch his eye. Mikey fidgeted some more, trying not to look directly at his father. “Mikey what is it son? Out with it boy! You’re not going to get into any trouble, we just need to find Daniel. It’s real important boy.”
“I… We… I mean we rode over to the old bridge on Bello, we were looking for… There’s that old abandoned boxcar on the sidings, close to where the railroad crosses the creek. I think Daniel was going to go back and get some stuff that we found to help us with the box-cart we’re gonna build for the derby.” Mikey started to snivel, “I’m sorry Pop, I’m real sorry, we didn’t mean no harm.” A box-cart! Dad would have been so proud of his engineering son following in his footsteps, if the rest of the story had been different.
“Yes Mom,” I said getting up snapping closed the lid on the card tin, and flinging them under the sofa, out of sight. We made for the door, when she stopped
“We better leave a note for your father, he’ll be home from work soon. I don’t want him worrying where we’ve all disappeared to, do we?” She took a pad and pencil from next to the telephone on the table in the hallway and scribbled a quick note to Dad. Leaving it in a place where he would see it when he walked in the front door that evening.
We walked down the street in silence, Mother didn’t shout Daniel’s name out loud. I knew though that inside she was shouting his name over and over, cursing the boy and what she’d do to him when she got him home. Silently screaming herself horse with knotted fear. I found all this a little strange, it un-nerved me somewhat. The streets were unusually quite for this time in the evening, as we rounded the corner. All I could hear was the rumble of the distant brackish waters, the click-clack of Mom’s heels on the sidewalk, the soft padding of my bare feet beside her and the quiet thud, thud, thud, of my heart pulsing through my muted mind. The next corner we came to was the limit of Daniel’s boundary that Mom and Dad had set us both. Daniel transgressed the boundary rule constantly, as he thought that Mom and Dad only set such limits for my sake. Rules didn’t apply to Daniel, or so he thought. He was eight, all eight year olds are Superman, The Lone Ranger, Flash Gordon and Buck Rodgers all rolled into one. Eight year old boys are invincible comic book heroes. Or so they all think.
The asphalt under foot was still warm, baked by the hot summer sun all that day. We walked on in an increasingly high-strung hush, Mom looking about her, gripping my hand tighter and tighter the further away from home we got. The more she gripped and the more we walked the faster and louder my heart sounded in my head. I wanted to say something, just to block out the increasing thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thud. The harder she held the more I could feel our pulses throb in synchronised panic. I knew that my Mom’s heart was beating as hard and as fast as mine. We walked on.
I think we would have walked dumb struck all night, through the streets of Pismo Beach until sunrise, if Dad hadn’t turned up. I don’t remember hearing any other cars that night, but they must have glided passed us by as we wandered through those empty streets. I do remember hearing Dad pull up beside us, with the distinctive deep drone of his prized Pontiac. We stopped walking, looks were exchanged, and finally, finally someone spoke. “Roscoe, I can’t find Daniel, he’s missing, That boy will be the death of me.” Mom said with a voice that began to show signs of cracking, as she gulped for a steady breath. She gripped my hand harder, I tried to pull away, it was really hurting by now. Her fears translated to the crushing grip to which she subjected my small hand.
“Faith you are hurting Howard’s hand, let go.” Said Dad in his usual cool monotone. She looked down at me, noticing me for the first time since we left the house, and let go of my hand cautiously. “Both of you get in the car, we can look for him much better that way.” He said leaning across and pushing the passenger door open. “We’ll scoot passed back home first, because it’s very likely that he’s already home, wondering why we all have gone AWOL.”
“Yes, yes, you are probably right,” said Mom in a suddenly air of almost relaxed levity. “Come on Howie, jump in son, get in the front seat between your father and I.” I climbed onto the front bench seat of the car, sitting next to Dad. Mom slide in next to me, and close the door. Once again as we turned around and headed home we were in silence. This time all I could hear was the engine, and that ever constant thud, thud, thud inside my head.
The lights were still on, and it looked for all the world that the house was full of life. But it wasn’t, we were all sat in the car outside, and it soon became clear as Dad tapped on his horn, that no-one was home. A short blast of the horn and Dad said, “I’ll go and have a look, he maybe out back with that damned bike of his.”
“Yes, yes, you’re probably right Roscoe. We’ll wait here just in case though, won’t we Howie?” She said in that same, now obvious suppressed hysteria masked by the air of clambake cook-off conviviality. It was obviously done for my sake, but made me feel all the more anxious. If my parents were starting to worry, then things must be getting serious. Where was Daniel, why hadn’t he come home that evening. He’d be grounded until he was ten, when they caught up with him. Why… As it turned out did he never come home ever again? A fleeting glimpse of red streaking passed the window, would be my last memory of my brother, as he pedalled furiously into the unknown.
Dad came back down the path alone, looking not at us, but beyond us. I turned to where he was looking, to see that some of the neighbours had come out onto their porches. Most probably roused by the slightly strange sight of Dad sounding his horn, while sat outside his own house, his family sat in the car beside him. “Hi Glenn,” called Dad to our neighbour Mr. Gilpin, who lived directly opposite us. Glenn Gilpin was to say the least, a rotund man. What he lacked in stature him made up for in girth. Born and raised in Pismo, he owned a hardware store on Price Street. It’d been in the Gilpin family since his grandfather first opened the doors in 1880. He’d inherited it when his father retired because he couldn’t climb the ladders up to highest shelves. He now spent his days fishing off the pier, with the other old boys of Pismo. The shop sold every conceivable nut, bolt, screw and thingamajig. All carefully catalogued and stacked away in small brown boxes from floor to ceiling. Mr. Gilpin knew where every single one was too. And what it was used for. ‘Hey Glenn, I need a five-eighths, left-handed, whatchamacallit!’ As quick as a flash Mr. Gilpin would shimmy up his ladder, slide along some, pull out a little brown box, blow off the dust and say, ‘Yup! I got just what ya need right here.’ The store slogan was, ‘If we don’t have it, you don’t need it.’ And as far as I could tell, that was true.
“Hi Ros, what’s up?” Glenn was probably the nearest thing to a friend that Dad ever had. Dad wasn’t very good at socialising. Glenn and he would chat about machines and gizmos while mowing the lawn and washing the car on Sundays.
“It’s Daniel, Glenn. Have you seen him this evening? He’s gone riding off on that damned new bike of his, and we can’t seem to find him. He’ll be grounded for a week, when I catch up with the lad.” Only a week, I was sure that he’d get worse than that.
“No sorry Ros, I can’t say I have seen him. Mikey is in though, I’ll find out if he has seen him.” Mr. Gilpin half turned back to his house and hollered, “Mikey..! Michael..!! Get yourself out here boy.” Mikey, Daniel’s best friend from the since they started school together not long after we first moved here, came plodding out their house. Mikey was definitely moulded in his father’s image. Even at his tender age, he was already filling out the pants of an eleven year old.
“Yeah Pop?!” He stopped in his tracks, “Oh hi Mr. Lever.” He said acknowledging my father. “Hello Mrs. Lever, oh hi there Howie. What’s up Pop?” Finally acknowledging his father.
“Mikey have you seen Daniel today?”
“Sure, we’ve been riding around all day. Why where is he? Is he, are we, in some sort a trouble? We didn’t do nothing Pop, we were just riding up and down, that’s all. I promise.”
“Mikey your not in any trouble, It’s, it’s just that we can’t find Daniel. He’s been called in for supper, Mrs. Lever and Howie have been out looking for him around the neighbourhood, there seems to be no sign of him. Can you think where he could be Mikey.” Dad asked from across the street. Mikey too felt the tension among the adults that I felt, I could tell by the nervous way he looked down at the ground and fidgeted before answering.
“No sir. Mom called me in early, as I hadn’t done my chores this morning.” Mikey flushed, “Sorry Pop.”
“No matter son, we just need to know about Daniel. When and where did you last see him?” Asked his Pop, bobbing down to his son’s level so that he could catch his eye. Mikey fidgeted some more, trying not to look directly at his father. “Mikey what is it son? Out with it boy! You’re not going to get into any trouble, we just need to find Daniel. It’s real important boy.”
“I… We… I mean we rode over to the old bridge on Bello, we were looking for… There’s that old abandoned boxcar on the sidings, close to where the railroad crosses the creek. I think Daniel was going to go back and get some stuff that we found to help us with the box-cart we’re gonna build for the derby.” Mikey started to snivel, “I’m sorry Pop, I’m real sorry, we didn’t mean no harm.” A box-cart! Dad would have been so proud of his engineering son following in his footsteps, if the rest of the story had been different.
The remnants I have of what came next have been sewn together with second-hand thread. Only pieced together through overheard snatches of conversations, late at night between my parents, the Gilpins, the police and neighbourhood gossips. My father and Mr. Gilpin, both loaded Mikey into my father’s car and went to where Mikey said that he’d been playing with Daniel earlier that day. Mom and I were sent home to wait. I was put to bed before they returned home, but I do remember being awoken at some point by the sound of my mother sobbing. There were muffled voices, I recognised Dad’s voice and that of Officer Lords. I could hear Mrs. Gilpin consoling Mom, and then more sobbing. I must have fallen asleep, my mother’s anguish still heavy on my ears.
As the story that I’ve stitched together ultimately goes, they found nothing, not a shred of evidence that Daniel or his beloved Roadmaster had ever torn-up the streets of Pismo that night. Not a thing, it was as if he’d simply ridden off into the night and just kept on going. That’s what I used to imagine, that he was out there still, riding Route 1 to San Simeon through Big Sur, carrying on to Carmel, Monterey and beyond to San Francisco. Then on and on, further and further north deeper into giant redwood country. Daniel was always fascinated by the sequioa, those silent magnificent giants. Then I imagine him as he reached the Oregon boarder he’d turn around and follow the California state-line, sweeping over the ranges, deserts and valleys on his journey back south. Over the Sierra Nevada, into Death Valley, what a journey he must have taken. I know he would have wanted to visit the Wawona Tree in Yosemite National Park. The giant redwood that you could drive a car through. I can see him now pedalling for all he’s worth, freewheeling, legs stuck straight out in front of him, back arched, face skyward as he coasted through the hole cleaved through that giant of the American west. Touring America on his Roadmaster, that is what I always pictured Daniel doing. I’d imagine him riding down to Los Angeles and catching Route 66, riding through all those places in that Nat King Cole song, passing through them in the wrong order though. That’d be Daniel, doing things the wrong way round. Always against the grain, that was his way. I imagined that he was young and free, riding that Roadmaster for all he was worth. On and on to the Eastern Seaboard. He’d jump onto the Pennsyvania Turnpike, on his final leg, before coming to New Jersey just a short hop to the rolling ocean that is the Atlantic. There was never any proof to say that he wasn’t, not a shred, and so that was how it stayed. Daniel my brother never aged, his Roadmaster was always new with its shiny paint job. He never got a flat tyre, he never got tired. On and on, day and night, through baking desert sun and hail the size of golf balls. On and on his road trip would be, graceful in his flight across the country, even during the most horrendous of twisters that picked him up, spun him around and deposited gently him back on the road facing the east still. On he’d continue, on and on, forever young in my thoughts. That was always Daniel to me. In living memory, and in created fantasy, my brother was the epitome of the free spirit, the American Dream, the ever youthful rebel.
Copyright 2014
As the story that I’ve stitched together ultimately goes, they found nothing, not a shred of evidence that Daniel or his beloved Roadmaster had ever torn-up the streets of Pismo that night. Not a thing, it was as if he’d simply ridden off into the night and just kept on going. That’s what I used to imagine, that he was out there still, riding Route 1 to San Simeon through Big Sur, carrying on to Carmel, Monterey and beyond to San Francisco. Then on and on, further and further north deeper into giant redwood country. Daniel was always fascinated by the sequioa, those silent magnificent giants. Then I imagine him as he reached the Oregon boarder he’d turn around and follow the California state-line, sweeping over the ranges, deserts and valleys on his journey back south. Over the Sierra Nevada, into Death Valley, what a journey he must have taken. I know he would have wanted to visit the Wawona Tree in Yosemite National Park. The giant redwood that you could drive a car through. I can see him now pedalling for all he’s worth, freewheeling, legs stuck straight out in front of him, back arched, face skyward as he coasted through the hole cleaved through that giant of the American west. Touring America on his Roadmaster, that is what I always pictured Daniel doing. I’d imagine him riding down to Los Angeles and catching Route 66, riding through all those places in that Nat King Cole song, passing through them in the wrong order though. That’d be Daniel, doing things the wrong way round. Always against the grain, that was his way. I imagined that he was young and free, riding that Roadmaster for all he was worth. On and on to the Eastern Seaboard. He’d jump onto the Pennsyvania Turnpike, on his final leg, before coming to New Jersey just a short hop to the rolling ocean that is the Atlantic. There was never any proof to say that he wasn’t, not a shred, and so that was how it stayed. Daniel my brother never aged, his Roadmaster was always new with its shiny paint job. He never got a flat tyre, he never got tired. On and on, day and night, through baking desert sun and hail the size of golf balls. On and on his road trip would be, graceful in his flight across the country, even during the most horrendous of twisters that picked him up, spun him around and deposited gently him back on the road facing the east still. On he’d continue, on and on, forever young in my thoughts. That was always Daniel to me. In living memory, and in created fantasy, my brother was the epitome of the free spirit, the American Dream, the ever youthful rebel.
Copyright 2014