The Purple Izod
Back in 1976 Honda Civics were tiny. They had little wheels. My frame backpack and guitar case were roped to the rear bumper. Every pothole sent a jolt through the trunk, and each time I had to stop myself from turning around to make sure my stuff hadn’t been jettisoned out onto route 95.
I was wedged between a guy and a girl who weren’t speaking. The boy driving and the girl in the passenger seat were taking turns explaining the situation. They’d be in Florida on vacation for two weeks, but they were cutting the trip short. They’d laughed. Yeah, we’re pretty sick of each other. The two beside me failed to see any levity in that.
I understood when they picked me up, even before the explanations, that they were desperate for distraction. Anything to offset the symmetry gone sour. And a few bucks from me for gas didn’t hurt. I’d done quite a lot of hitchhiking back then and knew how to read the energy. And I knew how to make myself useful. My instincts kicked right in. Time to be the Buddha. Time to help these poor entangled psyches find some equanimity. I fell into a role that was often triggered by such heated situations.
Halfway through North Carolina, something other than their friendships started breaking. The engine began to sputter and cough. The girl in front noticed a thin dark trail of smoke behind us. Maybe we should pull over.
The driver pulled onto the shoulder. We stood on the gravel in the cold. The driver lifted the hood and stared at the engine blankly. The girl who had been wedged against me suggested that we had to just drive on. They had to get me home in one ride as promised. I assured them I’d manage either way and they ought to consider finding a mechanic. But the thought of delay was too heinous to consider, so off we went, the smoke trailing after us gradually increasing in density.
How did I find myself in a self-destructing Civic with my unhappy novices? Let’s see. Bard College. Winter Field Period. Every January, they cut us loose for a month. Most students had somewhere to go. I had about ten dollars, a frame backpack, and a guitar in a hard-shell case.
My relationship with my adoptive parents was an old story for another time. Suffice to say I wasn’t going to be invited to spend a whole month there. So I was more or less homeless for the duration, and if that was the case I figured it’d be better someplace warm. Hitchhiking to Florida wasn’t exactly cross-country. It wasn’t some On The Road trip either. Just figured it was doable. And besides, my grandparents were spending the winter down in Miami at some “spa” of some kind. Maybe they’d put me up or something.
Like I said, I did a lot of hitchhiking in those days. It suited me. It was improvisational and I was good at it. I’ve always enjoyed meeting strangers and swapping stories. I was no Dean Moriarty but I could manage random situations and make myself convivial as needed. So southbound I went.
If you’ve ever hitchhiked you know how it goes. You might get a ride right out front of your departure point, maybe get you as far as the highway. But you might find yourself on some long entrance ramp somewhere between, say, Interstate 87 and 95. And you may wait for an hour or more there. Not a great place for even the kindhearted to pull over for you.
But by nightfall the first day I got maybe 4 long and lucky rides and had made it most of the way through North Carolina. A middle aged guy in a station wagon picked me up there.
Now this was lucky indeed as he turned out to be particularly kindhearted. He started by apologizing. He was only going about three more exits, but there was a pulloff just before his exit that would be a good place to drop me. He asked me the usual questions and I gave the usual answers. Then he grew quiet. Boy, it’s getting dark fast. He warned me that folks in South Carolina were not like here in North Carolina.
Just before his exit he gave me a look over. “Man, my wife isn’t too keen on me doing this sort of thing but I just can’t leave you out here in the dark. If you’re willing I got a pop-up trailer in my yard you could sleep in. It will be a bit cold but I got an extra sleeping bag you could use. I just gotta make a quick stop to pick up my daughter from her ice skating lessons first. What do you say? You ok with the idea?” Of course I was more than ok with the idea.
We left the highway and wound into a plain suburban neighborhood of ranch houses with shallow front lawns. He pulled up to one before long and tooted his horn twice. Sure enough a lanky girl of maybe 13 appeared. She saw me in the front and barely hesitated as she threw her skates in the back and climbed in after them. He gave the briefest of explanations as to my presence and she just laughed and said her mom was gonna love this.
We wound back out of the neighborhood more or less the way we came, and then into another that was if anything less remarkable. We stopped at a house a bit more worn than the first. Sure enough there was a pop-up trailer parked along one side of a bare patch that passed for a driveway.
It was quite the scene inside. The door opened right into a kitchen with a large long wooden table running down the middle of it. His wife gave one quizzical look then shot something between a scowl and smile over at her husband. Can’t help yourself, can you? He answered with a sheepish shrug.
I can’t recall just how many kids there were. Mostly girls, one a bit older than the one we picked up and the rest variously younger. I was told to grab a bowl and some stew out of a large pot sitting over a low flame on the stove. The stew seemed ageless with hunks of root vegetables and chunks of meats from at least four different species. The wife pointed to a folding chair at the far end of the table and suggested I sit there. I did so as various daughters filled the remaining seats.
The stew was thick and savory. Someone passed me a small plate to put bones on. I eagerly gnawed each chunk of meat I excavated from my bowl and soon had a small pile accumulating. And when they insisted I go for seconds I happily complied.
I made a few contributions to the pleasant family chatter that ensued. There was no performance required, no vetting. They asked a few polite questions about who I was and where I was going, and nodded at my brief answers without a hint of judgement. I was simply absorbed into the family circle — a stray folded in without ceremony. The pop-up wasn’t much of a barrier to the cold that night, even after doubling up my bag with the one he lent me. But the cushions made a nice pallet and I was grateful to be well fed and sheltered. He woke me up just before light the next morning and had me on the turnout on I-95 just as the sun came through the trees. We shook hands and I thanked him profusely and told him he was a lucky man indeed.
My plan, if I had one, was to get to Florida as fast as I could. But I’m not a how-far-you-going kind of hitchhiker. If they stop for me I climb right in. On the other hand, I don’t tell them how far I’m going till I know they’re ok. That way I can ask to be let off after a mile or so if they’re acting wierd. That second day I caught a couple of short rides that took me through South Carolina and half way through Georgia.
In fact, I had to use that technique on my second ride that day. If they start asking if you got a girlfriend and if you have sex with her it’s time to bail.
Then I caught the dream ride. An 18-wheeler picked me up from a rest area just south of Savannah. It was the perfect ride. He was going just past Jacksonville and wanted help staying awake. He had plenty to say, how his wife left him, how he missed his kids, what the world was coming to. I did a bit of my guru thing which seems to comfort him. Where I came up with this stuff is hard to say. Marriage, divorce, kids, custody, what did I know of any of that? But whatever I said clearly cheered him up.
We hit some traffic coming into Jacksonville. He suggested that he stop at a truck stop just after we got through the city. “Let’s get you a square meal before I drop you off, you’re way too skinny chief.” So we did just that. In a silver rail car diner he treated me to a huge chicken-fried steak. Then he insisted I try the coconut cream pie. We lingered over the remains of our meal for a while drinking coffee. Then we stepped outside and shook hands by the side of his truck and earnestly wished each other the best of luck.
I sat at the base of the 76 pylon, staring up at the blue numerals against the orange halo in a colorless sky. I had made it to Florida, but not the warm, sunny Florida I’d had in mind.
Then it started to snow.
So much for escaping winter. Jacksonville wasn’t what I’d pictured — just highway sprawl, Jesus billboards, low buildings in a diesel haze. Not a beach in sight. I zipped my jacket, strapped on my pack, grabbed my guitar, and headed for the on-ramp.
My luck seemed to be holding. I was picked up by a guy with a crew cut, wearing a short-sleeve button-down and a thin black tie. He asked where I was headed. I told him I just needed to get farther south, somewhere near the ocean. He said he was going just past Titusville.
“I can drop you near the beach. It’s just over the causeway.”
I told him that was very kind of him, and it was. We drove for maybe half an hour past signs for Titusville before leaving the highway and climbing onto a long, low bridge, water on both sides.
On the far side the land returned — low buildings, a strip of road running north and south. He turned onto A1A and drove a ways before pulling into the lot of a low beachside motor lodge.
“This place is pretty reasonable,” he said. “Enjoy your vacation. Be safe.”
I looked up at the Sea Breeze Motor Lodge sign, the neon VACANCY humming beneath it. The vibe suggested reasonable — and still twice what I had.
I shrugged into the frame pack and hefted the guitar in its case. I trudged through the lot, crossed the wooden walkover, and stepped down onto the sand.
It was darker to my left, so I turned that way. With each step I sank into the dry sand and slid backward. The guitar case dragged at my arm. The pack swayed on my back, throwing me off balance. I just wanted to lay down but I needed to find a place far enough from the lights behind me.
I found a spot well beyond the glow of the motor lodge and dropped my gear. The sand was softer here, almost comfortable. I curled up on my side, using the pack as a pillow, the guitar case lying next to me, my heavy companion. The wind picked up, carrying bits of sand that stung my cheeks. I wasn’t cold, exactly. Just uncomfortable. And awake. Was this a stupid idea? Was this how the next few weeks would go? I stared out at the dark water and felt distinctly alone.
Morning came cold and gray. I woke stiff, sand in every crease of my clothes, my neck aching from the pack. I brushed myself off as best I could, strapped everything back on, and did my hampered waddle back the way I’d come. Things looked different in daylight — the motor lodge less grim, the causeway visible in the distance.
I had no destination in mind beyond south. Just more south.
A battered blue VW Bug pulled over maybe twenty minutes in. The driver leaned across and shoved the door open. He was college-aged, sandy haired with a sunburned nose. I wrestled the frame pack into the back seat, then shoved the passenger seat forward enough to wedge the guitar case behind it. That’s when I noticed the sticker on the back window: a skull with roses.
I folded myself into the passenger seat, my knees touching the dash. “Sure am grateful,” I told him, then added, “Though I ain’t quite dead yet.”
He gave a vigorous nod, grinning. “A fellow traveler. You’re on the bus.”
We bonded over the Dead, agreed Jerry’s death had spelled their demise, and the connection was made. By the time we reached the causeway he knew my whole situation.
So you’re on a quest. Me, I’m on a supply mission for the mission. Gotta pick up a little something a few miles ahead. Sorry I can’t take you further.”
“Hey, long as I’m heading south.”
“Hey, I’m Kyle,” and he put out his hand to shake.
The handshake seemed to warrant a moment of reflection. Then with just the faintest hint of concern he said, “So like, where are you crashing at night?”
“I don’t know, on the beach I guess.”
“Man, that’s a bit harsh.” He seemed to ponder the harshness of the notion a moment. “You could crash at the Mission you know.”
I ended up meeting a lot of people through Kyle, mostly other guys, none of whose names I can remember — couldn’t even remember shortly after I heard them. They all seemed like Kyle to me.
The Kyles all lived in a big, sprawling house near the community college they all — or I guess most of them — went to. It wasn’t a mission so much as a community, or even a frat house. Just Kyles coming and going. I gave up on names altogether and called everyone Kyle, even the occasional girl who passed through. It stuck. After a while, if you spent more than a day there, you were Kyle too.
They were good to me. I got fed. Not three meals a day or anything, but randomly and often enough. I want to say I was quite welcome there, but it was more like I was completely and effortlessly tolerated. No one seemed bothered by my little encampment in the big room on the ground floor.
I don’t know the right word for a group of Kyles — a gaggle, a flock, a murder? Whatever it is, they form and dissolve. Sometimes around a joint, sometimes around a pizza, sometimes even around me as I try to pay my keep with a song. Did they like it, or was it just more of that baked-in tolerance?
And so began my novitiate at Our Kyle of the Immaculate Tolerance Mission, though I experienced it more as a kind of Zen exercise — how to be in one place when you’re not anywhere at all. I know, I’m getting off track. But that’s how it was at the Mission. Lots of tracks, this way and that. Lots of proximity and overlap — sometimes parallel, sometimes orthogonal, rarely actually connecting.
And so it went. I was on my own quite a bit, on the beach or on the big front porch, noodling on my guitar. I was doing just that one morning when a few other Kyles came out with cups of coffee. After a bit, Kyle One — the one with the VW — asked if I had seen the Botanical Garden at FIT. He said I ought to check it out while I was still around. In fact, why not take a little day trip?
Nobody seemed too excited by the idea. I had been feeling a little guilty about not having much to contribute. I had drunk their beer, eaten their food, smoked their weed, and wanted to make some gratitude manifest.
“Why don’t we make it a real trip,” I said as I gently pried out a small fold of paper I had carefully hidden just inside the sound hole of my guitar.
“Whoa there, pilgrim, what have we here?” said one of the other Kyles, showing considerably more interest even before I revealed two hits of blotter, each festooned with a dancing bear in vivid colors.
“It’s only two hits — not stupid strong — but half-hits should do us nicely. We all in?”
We were all in. We razored the two little squares into four neatly divided hits which we each placed on our tongues and swallowed without hesitation. In a short while we were all in Kyle’s bug heading out.
Within a half a hour we were back on 1A1 heading south again.
Kyle suggested taking the scenic route. We were in no rush. We went east and picked up A1A, and within half an hour we were heading south again. I watched from the back seat as narrow glimpses of the beach slid by between low buildings. The Sea Breeze Motor Lodge flashed past, the VACANCY sign dull in the daylight. It felt right to be moving south again.
A few miles later he swung us back west toward Melbourne, and the long, low causeway stretched out ahead. Just as we climbed onto the bridge back toward Melbourne, I felt the first faint buzzing under my skin. My jaw felt newly present in my face. Light winked off the water below.
I knew they were feeling it too. The jokes weren’t getting any better but they seemed funnier. Kyle commented on something that whizzed by and it sounded oddly profound. And then we arrived.
By the time we got there, the Kyles were buoyant and a little goofy, laughing at small things, remarking on everything. The garden had many paths, weaving and crossing in loose, sandy loops under a low canopy of palms and shade trees. They drifted ahead, turning this way and that, while I grew quieter and let a little space open between us. Before long I was on my own.
My vision seemed to gather itself. I moved slowly among the plants, which felt like quiet individuals — each a Kyle just slightly different from the next, simply being there with an insouciant acceptance, the all-too-familiar toleration of my presence.
And then something stood apart.
It wasn’t the tallest thing there. But I sensed it was ancient. The trunk was wrapped in a skirt of gray hanging fibers, like a beard that had given up trying. A little plaque at the base said Old Man Palm, and gave a planting date. That old? I did the math and then did it again. That old.
I stood still before it. The acid had smoothed everything down to a low hum. My mind emptied itself of words. I just looked at it. It had been standing in that exact spot through storms, through students, through whole decades of people passing under it on their way somewhere else. Like it was holding something out that I could take with me.
I finally looked up and turned to go. I saw one of the Kyle’s down the path. For a moment he seemed insubstantial, almost transparent against the foliage behind him. After that the trip eased, and I knew it was time to go, not just back to the Mission, but back on my way south.
I asked one more favor of Kyle One — to drop me on A1A right where he’d picked me up. I wasn’t in any hurry, and it felt right. He drove me back to the Sea Breeze, and we parted with vague promises to stay in touch. Again I was on my own, southbound.
The weather had turned warmer and the sky cloudless. I caught a lot of short rides from perfectly sane people — all men, of course — except the last, a middle-aged woman driving a big Buick. It was a boat of a car with a wide bench seat in front. When she dropped me off, she reached into a brown paper bag that had been sitting between us and handed me two oranges. “You look like these will do you some good.”
It wasn’t too late. I could have hitched farther, but where she dropped me was just past a long, empty stretch of beach beyond low grassy dunes. I did the usual awkward trudge back a hundred yards, dropped my gear between two dunes, and walked down toward the water with the oranges.
I sat there a long time, the sun gradually sinking behind me. I peeled the oranges slowly, eating each one section at a time. The sky darkened, and the moon rose over the water.
Once it was dark, I pulled out my sleeping bag, took off my shoes and jeans, and zipped myself in. I lay there a while, watching the moon make its slow climb above the horizon. The sand was warm beneath me. I drifted off to an untroubled sleep.
I made it to Miami the next day. It was more hiking than hitching from there. I got turned around once or twice looking for the address my grandmother had sent me, and at some point caught a short ride over the causeway. The bay opened up on both sides, and then the white hotels of Miami Beach rose ahead. After that it was more walking. I was sweating through my shirt and listing slightly to one side when I found it — the something-or-other Hotel and Spa.
I was led into an immense dining room filled with large round tables seating ten or twelve, all of them crowded with the elderly. Someone pointed out the table where my grandparents were sitting mid-meal. My grandfather got right up and pulled me into a hug. “Look who it is!” he said. “You made it, kiddo.”
My grandmother patted the empty chair beside her. “Come, sit. You must be starving.”
She had me on display before I’d even sat down. “This is my grandson — he came all the way from New York.” She beamed up at me. It was a novel expression coming from her. She turned to the woman at her side and gave her a knowing look. “He thinks he’s a musician. Look at him — like some kind of vagabond.” She patted my hand. “I told him he should be a dentist. He’s good with his hands.”
I focused on a basket of dinner rolls and started in on them with some urgency.
My grandfather slid his plate in front of me. “Eat,” he said, leaning in close. “It’s good. I’m not so hungry.”
My grandmother continued to hold court. I ate. At some point my grandfather put a gentle hand on her arm. “Frances, leave the boy alone. Let him eat.” She went on as if he hadn’t spoken.
Upstairs it was just a hotel room — two queen beds, a narrow bathroom off to the right, a dresser with a television bolted to it. Nothing grand, nothing shabby. Like a Holiday Inn, I thought. My grandmother insisted I shower before anything else. I stood under the hot water and watched the sand run off my legs.
I slept beside my grandfather that night. In the dark I remembered how he used to pick me up from the couch in Brooklyn when I fell asleep and carry me down the hall to their bed. Sweet dreams, kiddo.
In the morning I packed up. My grandmother stood near the door, arms folded.
“You could get yourself killed,” she said. “Hitchhiking like that. Meshugana!” She looked me over. “Do you have any money?”
I hesitated. I still had the ten bucks I’d left with. “Not much.”
She clucked her tongue, reached into her purse, and handed me forty dollars. “Take it.”
She offered her cheek and I kissed it.
My grandfather gave my shoulder a mild pat. “Be good, kiddo.” He paused. “Hold up.”
Without another word he pulled his shirt over his head — a purple short-sleeve Izod with a collar — and held it out to me. He stood there in a thin white undershirt, his arm extended, the shirt dangling from his hand.
“What are you doing, Lou?” my grandmother said.
I looked at the shirt, then at his thin arms covered with wispy white hair. I set my pack down, took off my coat, and pulled it on over the shirt I was wearing.
I left them standing by the door and called back, “Love you, Grandpa,” as I headed to the elevator.
I made it back almost to Jacksonville, where I spent a fraction of Grandma’s forty dollars on the cheapest motel I could find. The next day I caught a ride in a Honda Civic headed all the way to Long Island. It had tiny wheels and the promise of a ride right to my parents’ front door.
So there we were, trailing smoke up I-95, the two in front taking turns not speaking to each other and the two in back doing the same. I had settled back into my Buddha mode — calm, useful, a steady presence in an unsteady car. It seemed the least I could do.
That poor car seemed more ready to die with each passing mile. But it held together, and true to their word they dropped me in front of my parents’ house on Long Island. A thick ribbon of smoke followed them as they pulled away.
I stood there a moment with my pack on and my grandfather’s shirt under my coat. Then I went inside.
My grandfather died the following year. I never saw him again. I never got to tell him about the Civic, or the Kyles, or the Old Man Palm. Never got to thank him for the shirt.
I wore the purple Izod for the better part of ten years. It fit well. I wore it in summers and over long sleeves in winter. I put a lot of miles on that shirt.
Eventually it gave out the way even the best shirts do — fraying at the edges, then trailing long threads, then just falling to pieces. I don’t know where it got to when there wasn’t enough of it left to wear. I’ve wished I’d saved even a small piece of it. A button. Anything.
He just held it out and I took it. That’s all. That’s the whole story.