Chapter44 --Wandering the streets of Denver
We all climbed out stiff from our trip, although I felt as
if my bones rattled from the jolting they had received during the last drop
into the city. The depot stank of stale heated air, cigarette smoke, faded
alcohol and body odor. Wooden benches along the walls were decorated with the
usual collection derelicts, differing only in that most of these were white and
wore cowboy hats.
I carried off my collection of bags that included a reel to
reel tape recorder with suitcase like handle. I had hidden most of the
remaining cash in the recess where the wire went inside. The machine felt immensely
heavier on that account as I carried it and my suitcase full of clothing from
the Continental Trailways bus to the ticket counter, where a clerk informed me
the next bus for
I stuffed my tape recorder and suitcase into a locker,
figuring both would be safer there than if I carried them around with me.
I was bored and restless, even if still nervous about who
might be looking for me. I also feared to stay around the station where I knew
my uncles would look for me if they had come to this part of the planet. So I
stepped out into the cold air, pulling closed my black leather motorcycle type
jacket I had purchased on Skid Row (before I realized I wouldn’t need more than
a windbreaker while living in
Denver’s downtown had an orange glow, even in the darker
allies. These last were as Kerouac had painted them, full of trash cans,
stragglers and cobblestones. And for that reason, they intrigued me.
Despite the collection of bank-like buildings, Denver didn’t
resemble Los Angeles or New York at all. No dramatic lights flashing. So
intensity of feeling. Instead, the streets were lined with bars and vibrated
with the dull pattern of their blinking lights. The cold kept most people off
the street, though the bars saw significant traffic going in and out, cowboys
mostly, some staggering, some laughing, all seemingly looking for trouble.
I wanted a drink, but wasn’t yet old enough to purchase on.
So I kept walking.
In the dim light I saw an electronic store open, its pale
light pouring out onto the sidewalk like an advertisement.
Such places drew me to them even back east where I
frequently stood staring at all the neat gadgets I could never afford.
This time I could afford nearly anything in the window, and
spotted a small transistor radio-sized cassette tape player right away.
During the long ride from L.A. I had frequently wished for a
radio or tape player, so I stepped inside the shop to purchase the player and
some tapes. In the
The ice-covered streets of Denver hurt my feet. While I had
purchased a leather jacket in LA, anticipating the colder climate, I had
neglected to provide for my feet, so that the cold quickly seeped through the
thin canvas of my sneakers.
The Beatles music did not reflect the strangely lighted
alleys and streets, though Simon & Garfunkel did, somehow capturing the
sense of even this remote America, the alienation I felt growing in me since I
was a young boy but magnified here in Denver’s thin air, as if I had no place
anywhere and was in a constant search for something I could not identify yet
knew I must have.
I kept thinking of Kerouac’s “On the Road,” and searching
each alley way for signs of that time and place, though I knew words could
preserve things longer than they actually lasted, freezing people and scenes in
place.
My life was full of such photographs, pieces of past that
lingered in the back of my mind, but no longer a reality.
Simon & Garfunkel sang about looking for
And each step made it more and more difficult for me to
believe the tales I had read in the book, to imagine the gang of literary
exiles who had rushed into this place, making love to men and women, stealing
cars, writing poetry.
Now twenty years after their exploits, the town seemed
without culture, just go go bars and pick up trucks, and mountains that sent
cruel gusts of winds down on me as I strolled unprotected.
I knew even as I wandered here that I saw
Eventually, I made my way back to the bus terminal – a
midblock affair with a gaping garage door as an entrance and another as an
exit, and glass bricks serving as the station windows letting in light but only
a distorted vision of the street outside.
I bought a cup of coffee at the lunch counter and a bag of
potato chips, and settled onto one of the hard wooden benches as far from the
numerous drunken or crazy people who used the place to sleep. The coffee’s
steam rose testifying to the lack of heat even inside, and I sipped slowly as I
tried to get warm again – feeling not much more worthy than the unwashed masses
of men and women who lived here.
Time had passed as slowly hear as it had during the ride
here so that even with the walk through downtown I still had an hour to wait
until the next bus for Boulder.
It took me a while to realize that the police officer near
the ticket window stared at me, frowning a little as he talked with the behind
the protective bars.
Had a description of me been circulated here. The dread that
had abandoned me during the precarious trip down the mountain flooded back, and
my fingers mistakenly felt for the pearl handled pistol I had purchased in
The pistol brought me little comfort because I realized it
would only make the police more suspicious if I was searched, and add yet one
more charge to a growing list of criminal activities that included burglary,
theft, flight from justice and numerous other charges I was yet unaware of.
The officer’s attention grew more focused as I grew more
nervous, and I was about to step back onto the street where I might have the
slim hope of escaping through the alleys when my bus pulled in.
I was sweating despite the cold, and I hurried towards the
bus door even though people were still getting off.
“We’re not scheduled to leave for forty five minutes,” the
driver said, as he climbed down the stairs, his face testifying to the strain
of the ice covered roads.
“I don’t mind sitting on the bus,” I said. “It has to be
warmer than the station, and, well, less occupied.”
The driver glanced inside towards the benches populated with
drunks and homeless, grunted and motioned me on. Then made his way inside and
across the scuffed tiles towards the arched doors marked “Men’s Room.”
The cop, who had seemed intensely interested a moment earlier,
went back to his gossip, but the dread did not leave me, and I sat in one of
the seat nearest to the read as I could, figuring if I had to I could barricade
myself in the toilet section for an escape out the window.
Time passed even more slowly than before, the clock in the
station giving up its minutes with the passion of a miser.
Not until the clock had run down to five minutes before our
scheduled leaving did I remember the stuff I had left in the locker – which was
only a few feet away from where the cop still stood talking.
I could have left it. But I didn’t trust lockers and knew
that after a certain period of time, the depot people would open them and
remove the stuff.
I didn’t know how long, and would fear losing all the cash
if I went on to
By this time, the driver had come back, carrying a greasy
paper bag purchased at the grill and several containers of coffee.
“Hey, where are you going now?” he asked, as I tried to slip
passed him.
“I left something in the locker,” I said, nodding my head
towards the depot.
“All right, but you’d better hurry. We have to leave on
time. The roads to
“No problem,” I said, sounding more confident than I
actually felt, then eased down the stairs to the platform and through the door
into the depot.
I tried not to look at the cop as I crossed the wide floor.
But he stood so close to my locker I could not help but look in his direction,
and hearing my sneakers squeaking on the scuffed tiles, he looked up at me.
Again, his gaze seemed to register something, as if he
recalled some report but struggled to figure out if the person he saw coming
towards him fit what he had read.
LA hadn’t altered me a great deal. I had not tanned much
because I had spent most of the time hiding in a room. My hair still bore the
same military distinction it had achieved from my last service haircut on being
released – one of those nasty little kicks in the ass the army gives you before
final release.
The leather jacket and jeans only added to my criminal look,
but perhaps, this saved me because the photograph my family likely issued still
showed me with the long hair I had worn prior to my enlistment, and no
description would adequately make the translation.
The cop still stared, but made no movement to apprehend me,
leaving me to reach the locker and insert the key unscathed. I grabbed my
things, half carrying, half dragging those few items.
That’s when the cop called me.
“Yo, boy,” he shouted.
I stopped, so scared I could barely turn my head to see his
accusing stare.
But he merely pointed toward the scuffed tiles where I had
dropped a glove
“That yours?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said in a gush of breath I didn’t realize I had
held in until then.
“Well, you’d getter grab it up, boy,” the cop said. “It gets
damned cold up in those mountains.”
I nodded, gave a grunting thanks, grabbed the glove and
rushed off, making the door of the bus just in time as the driver was closing
it.
“You’re a strange one,” he said, but took my ticket and I
stumbled down the aisle as he backed the bus out of slot, my bags bumping into
the collection of seated strangers. I fell into the first fully vacant seat,
leaving letting the bags fall at my feet, and stared out the window at the
still talking cop until the bus pulled out onto the street and we rolled along
the ice framed streets back in the direction of the mountains where Boulder and
Louise waited for me – and possibly people my family sent to recover the money.
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