PAGAN LOVE AND WILDING HEARTS

22. Providence

        I needed some kind of friend to help me through this ordeal. Every single person I had met in that town had treated me like slime. There was a little phrase that I used to say to myself that always helped me, something I had learned back in 1969 when I went though my first religious experience. Some very spiritual people I knew at that time were often heard saying the phrase, “God Provides”. I also began saying it myself whenever times were especially rough. It meant that the Creator of the Universe was Compassionate and loved us and would provide for us. We just need to believe it. Sometimes I saw God as a Male Creator; other times I saw Her as the Womb of Eternity, Great Goddess... Whatever God or Goddess might be it was surely far beyond me. But I believed in my heart that the Angel of Providence would watch and make things come out right. So, worried as I was at this time of my life, I looked into my heart and said over and over again “God Provides. God Provides. God Provides… Goddess Provides..."

Almost immediately afterwards I met two young women who shared an apartment together. They invited me up and treated me good. One of the women said she was eighteen years old. Her parents owned a local shop. Huge pillows were their only furniture and they had two big boxes full of great records that we listened to for several hours. And we smoked up some good local bud that they had handy. I told them about communes and far away places and we really enjoyed each other’s company.  They were probably the only people in the whole town who even knew who “Crosby, Stills and Nash” were, or who had ever even heard of “The Jefferson Airplane” or “The Moody Blues” or “Joe Cocker” or “Joni Mitchell”. They were the only people in the whole town who had shown enough consideration to invite me into their homes, or who allowed me to take a shower, or who felt bad about what the police and the other townsfolk had been doing to me. Their friendly home was a haven I needed badly.

        Regretfully, they couldn’t let me sleep there overnight though, because their parents lived nearby and might drop in at any time—they said it would be real dangerous for me if they were to discover me in there... So that night I found a hidden place in the woods to sleep.

        I returned to visit the two young women again the next day. One of them had a boyfriend over. The other one sat with me. We looked at the two lovebirds across the room, and then we looked at each other and just like one-two-three we did what came naturally and kissed.  Just kissed. After what I had been through it was nice to have a girl running her fingers through my hair and being nice to me. I didn’t even think anything much more than that about it. But I needed some air. I didn’t feel very comfortable being in a kissing situation with this girl in such a bad town as this one was. The open air would feel better. I asker her if she would like to take a walk. She said she would.

        We looked around for someplace pretty, with flowers and trees. The streets of Crossville were hectic and ugly to me. I didn’t care for the idea of strolling down them and neither did she. She knew of a place where there was grass and trees. We walked over there. We sat in a field next to a bush and talked. We kissed a couple times.

        Then I heard a car’s engine going along the country road. I looked to see what it was and there was a police patrol car driving along the back road real slow. He passed by and was gone. That was entirely too peculiar. I had a little discussion with the girl; and asked her how old she was. She answered she was seventeen. I told her I had a feeling there was a cop looking for us, a strong feeling. I told her if I had known she was seventeen I wouldn’t have kissed her, because the conventions of this world see it as wrong. She said not to worry. She wouldn’t tell anyone we had kissed. I told her we would be smarter if thereafter we didn’t spend any further time together, as I could see it might lead to trouble. So that was that. We got up and started walking back to the road.

The cop car suddenly appeared, backing up along the road at high speed and came to a screeching halt. The officer jumped out with his gun drawn and ordered us to separate. He had the girl come to the car first and spoke a few words to her. Then he had me come up. He handcuffed me and put us both in the car, her in the front seat, me in the back. He ordered us not to speak to each other and drove straight to the jail. He told me I was in big trouble and not to say a word or he might kill me.

The chief of police informed me I was being charged with statutory rape.

He asked me if I wanted to confess? I told him all I’d done with the girl was talked. I said she told me she was eighteen anyway. He said she was seventeen, and that ain’t old enough. But I reminded him nothing had happened. He said he’d see about that.

A jailer came and got me and took me upstairs to the third floor and put me in a cell with a tall redneck. The fellow was about six foot two and he was wearing a blue jail uniform and heavy boots. He stood gaping at me and then he started yelling to the guard that he’d better get this hippy piece of shit out of his cellblock. He said I stunk like I hadn’t had a bath in my entire life. He asked me when was the last time I had taken a bath? He didn’t listen to anything I said. He said I was going to take a shower right then and there and pointed to a tall plastic cubicle over against the wall. He said either I took a shower on my own or he was going to give me one himself. I told him I’d take one later. He roared at me to do it NOW! No way. He demanded that I get out of my clothes. I refused. He punched me in the face.

        I backed away and screamed for the guard. He punched me again and told me to shut up. I fell to the cement floor. He began kicking me in the face. I covered my face and he kicked me in the nuts and the kidneys and the stomach and the spine, again and again and again. I was screaming for the guards with all the air in my lungs. He jumped up high in the air and came down and landed with both feet square on the side of my skull—all two-hundred pounds of him on one side, cement floor on the other. He jumped again and again and again. I thought my skull was going to bust wide open like a watermellon. I don’t know why it didn’t. He finally stopped because he was out of breath.

        I tried to move away from him. He picked me up and pushed me into the shower and turned on the water. He started ripping off my clothes, calling me a filthy little queer and raging that he wasn’t going to take any shit from me. I braced myself against the shower wall and placed my foot against his chest and pushed him back out. But he was soon at me again. When he came at me I landed one punch on the side of his face.  That only made him madder. He tore into me good then.

        I noticed an open window on the other side of the bars which opened high above the main street. I knew there were townspeople walking around down there. I began screaming towards the window that I was being murdered.

        The redneck continued beating on my face with his fists. Finally he stopped for breath again and stumbled over to his cell. He returned with a long pair of metal scissors. He said he was going to give me a haircut. I screamed again from where I lay on the floor. His eyes looked like the end-result of twenty generations of incestuous Tennessee mountain inbreeding. Leaning on the bars and breathing hard and starring at me with those terrible eyes he told me he had been rotting in that jail cell for a solid year and that he had a release date coming up. He said he wasn’t going to let a hippy punk ruin that for him.

        Then he raised up the scissors and stabbed them into his own arm -- and blood gushed out everywhere. Still starring at me he silently wrapped a tee shirt around his wound and then he turned and slowly walked over to the cell door and hollered for the guard. Within thirty seconds the guard was at the bars asking what he wanted. He pointed at me and told the guard I had gone into his cell and started messing with his stuff and when he tried to stop me I had picked up his scissors and stabbed him so he’d had no choice but to fuck me up. I screamed over his words that he was lying, that he was trying to kill me. I begged the jailer to please get me out of there.

        The guard looked at me and dryly stated it appeared I had gotten myself into two big messes in one day and that it was probable I would also be booked for attempted murder now. Then he turned and walked back down stairs. The redneck grinned broadly at me and laughed and said,

        “Looks like you betta fukin’ hope I kill you! It’d be a dam sight betta fo you than rottin’ away for yeers in this-here cell and I do believe I’ve got that garunteeed fer yer future. How you like thet you little punk?”

        With that he punched me in the face again with a quick hook and dropped me to the floor. He stood looking at me for a moment; then, holding onto the bars with both hands, he swung his feet high into the air and brought them down with extra pendulum force towards my head. I moved just in the nick of time and his feet glanced off my skull, causing him to slip and fall to the floor. Madder than ever he got up and came at me kicking.

        We heard jailer’s keys jangling and heavy footsteps on stairs. The redneck stopped his onslaught and backed off as two jailers came into sight. Wheezing hard the redneck cautioned me,

        “You betta shut thet fukin’ mouth of yers. You coz me any trouble and. wut you got so far ain’t nuttin’ compared to wut yu gunna git!”

        The two jailers unlocked the cell door and took me downstairs. I tried telling them what had just happened to me. They weren’t in the slightest bit interested. They just said they didn’t want to hear my whining and told me to shut up. They took me to an empty little office room and sat me in a chair and left me alone.

        I had a chance then to survey my damage. I wasn’t as bad as I had assumed. I guess I was tougher than I ever knew—considering that was a fair amount of abuse I took from that retarded redneck human mutation. I was bleeding in a few places but I had no bones broken. My face was swollen but amazingly, my skull wasn’t broken. I was worried about having a concussion or torn scalp but I seemed to be all right. I did have the worst headache of my life though.

        Pretty soon the Chief of police came in and asked why I had stabbed the prisoner upstairs. I told him what had really happened and pleaded with him not to put me back in with that maniac again. I told the chief the guy had promised to kill me. The chief didn’t much look like he cared whether that happened or not. He said I could tell him whatever I liked but it was up to a judge to decide which of us was telling the truth—but it looked to him like the evidence was stacked against me. He leaned back in his chair and asked me if I wanted to confess yet to the statutory rape. I said that hadn’t happened. He said it was too damn bad I wasn’t smart enough to know what was good for me and tell him the truth. He said it looked like I had a hard fucking road ahead of me. He got up and left me in the room alone again.

        He was gone for over an hour. Apparently he was in the next room with the girl and her parents hashing the situation over. Finally he came back and told me that the girl’s parents were not filing any charges against me and that the girl had basically corroborated my story. But he said if he still believed a crime had been committed he could still prosecute me, regardless of the girl’s parents. As to the stabbing he said it was basically my word against the redneck’s and vice-versa—so, there was no case there either.

        He made me an offer: If I paid the bail on the disturbing the peace citation and left town immediately, all further charges would be dismissed. He said if I wanted to do that I’d better take advantage of his offer right away because if all these matters were brought up in a courtroom in a few days, the judge would most likely see things quite differently.

        I knew he was right about that. Forty-seven dollars would buy my freedom. I told him I was broke. He asked if I had any relatives who would come up with the money. I said maybe my mother would send some. He showed me to a phone. Fortunately my mom was home and she answered. I was as dead serious as I had ever been in my life and she could tell it by the horror in my voice. I told her that if she didn’t send me the forty-seven dollars the redneck was going to kill me. I told her about him jumping on my head and kicking me and I told her about the scissors. The cop sat leaning back in his chair listening. I told her how the cops hadn’t come when I screamed and screamed. He looked uncomfortable. I let her talk to him. He gave her the address where to Western Union the money. She said she’d send it right away.

        Afterwards he took me back up to the third floor. He told the redneck he didn’t want any trouble from either of us. After he left the redneck glared at me. I told him I was getting out in an hour. He said he doubted it but that it better happen—because if I stayed in the cell with him overnight he was going to kill me for sure. He was cooler though. I went to my cell and avoided him. Several hours passed.

        At last the cops came and got me and brought me downstairs. Sixty dollars had arrived. I gave the jailer forty-seven and walked out the front door. It was late afternoon. I picked up my sleeping bag from where it was stashed and walked a ways out of town and ducked into some trees and waited out the night.

***

        In the morning when the sky was still more black than blue I headed over to the main street and kept my eyes open. I saw a young man come out of a house and get into an old pick up. I ran up beside him and told him I had an emergency situation I needed his help if possible, please. I must have looked a sight with black eyes and swollen face and cuts and abrasions. He cautiously asked me what I needed. I told him I needed someone with a truck to haul my motorcycle out onto the Interstate because the cops had told me I had to leave town today—or else—and since my bike wouldn’t run, either I found some way to get it to the Interstate where I could hitchhike it to safety or I’d have to leave it behind—and I sure didn’t want to do that. And since hitchhiking was illegal on the Interstate I’d have to hurry up and do my hitchhiking real early in the day before the local police got on shift and started patrolling the highways.

        Thoughtfully he said maybe he could help me out. He told me he had a bad back so he couldn’t help me lift the heavy motorcycle into the truck—but he had a fifty foot long one inch thick rope that we could use to pull the bike. I knew the angel of Providence was weaving me an escape.

        We drove to where the motorcycle was stashed. I wheeled it out onto the highway and tied the rope from the handlebars to his bumper. It was about three miles to the Interstate. He towed me too fast—I almost crashed on a couple corners—but we got to the Interstate.

        We were still in the city limits though. I asked him if he would please tow me a little further up the Interstate where I’d be out of reach of local authorities, but he said he was already late for work, and besides—that sounded real illegal. He said he sure didn’t need another ticket himself. I asked him if I could please have the rope. He seemed astonished; he looked me in the eyes. I met his eyes. He said:

        “—take it...”

        He left.

        I stood there beside my bike on the Interstate. If a cop came along I was fucked. There’s no way towing a motorcycle with a rope on an Interstate is legal. I stood there. It must have been five o’clock in the morning, maybe six. Not one car passed in fifteen minutes, not one!.

        I began pushing the bike along the roadside. Half mile later I heard a sound—I turned and looked. A motorcycle was coming up on me at seventy miles per hour. I waved my arms. He passed me. But then he slowed down and returned to see what I needed. Bikers stick together like that sometimes.  I told him the cops had had me in jail—and unless he towed me out of the city limits they were going to impound my bike—and maybe take me to jail again. I spoke fast and used more words, but he got the point. I held out the rope. He said he’d never towed another bike before... Who has? He said he’d try. We hitched the rope up and started off.   He towed me thirty miles.

        We saw a cop going the other direction and it looked like he might be slowing down and that scared the guy. He didn’t want no ticket.  He pulled over at an off-ramp and we disconnected. I told him I would be forever grateful. He said “—don’t mention it...” and roared away.

        I pushed my Triumph down the off-ramp as fast as I could. At the bottom there was a gas station and I pushed it to the pumps. I looked up at the Interstate overpass and saw the cop cruising west now, looking all around. I filled up the tank with gas.

        I asked the attendant if there was anyone around who worked on motorcycles. He told me about a place not too far away. I pushed the bike there and waited until it opened. The shop was open early. I explained to the repairman about how I’d come so close to losing my bike, how I’d just barely gotten out of Crossville with my life; how the cops had made life hell for me.

        He looked at the cuts and bruises on my face and laughed and said that about sounded like the Crossville he knew.

        I told him I had exactly twelve dollars left. Could he please help me get my bike running right so I could ride it to safety before they swooped down and fucked with me again? I told him I’d be glad to send him more money later... We rolled in the bike and he took a look. He said the valves were out of adjustment. Half an hour later he charged me eight dollars and wished me good luck. The Triumph was rumbling in perfect tune when I left his shop and headed out on the Interstate.

        I didn’t stop for anything but gas all the way across Tennessee.   When I got to Memphis I drove down the beautiful streets but nothing tempted me to stop. Tennessee felt like quicksand.

        When I crossed the bridge into the wasteland of Arkansas I finally stopped and turned in my seat to take one last look across the river at the state of Tennessee. I was so tired I felt like I could fall off my bike but I wouldn’t let myself stop and sleep right there… I envisioned Tennessee police cars racing across the bridge and finding me asleep and dragging me back screaming into that hell. It was a veritable living nightmare.

        So I forced myself to stay awake long enough to ride ten more miles down the highway where I pulled into some trees and fell like a sack of potatoes into my mummy-bag and slept like a baby.

        The next morning I awoke to fresh country air and sweet birdsong. My Triumph stood waiting beside me—a proud forest green sentinel against the sky. I stretched in the zest of a life redeemed, and an immense wave of thankfulness passed over me with shudders and tears. Oh God!

God knows how thankful I was to still have my life and my freedom and my Triumph motorcycle.    

And the angel of Providence; she also knows.