The Black Coat
Don Taco
After graduating from high school, in 1971, I continued working through the summer, to put a few dollars in my pocket before heading off to college in Los Angeles. I worked at MacDonalds. Still to this day the worst job I ever had. I did once again venture into food service one year, but it was at a friendly deli, not at a place with deep fat fryers and surly customers in a hurry. In my pile of mementos, I have a note that was pinned to my timecard one day, late that summer, from the MacDonald's franchise owner himself, not from the manager. It said, "Please get your hair cut." I didn't, of course, knowing that I wouldn't be there even a week or two longer anyway. As a matter of fact, I never cut it again. I don't know what it has cost you to keep your hair neat and trimmed all these five decades, but all those pennies are still in my pocket. It was an early lesson, though, about slumlords and robber barons, and other stereotypes that were supposed to only live in the folk and protest songs of the twenties that I was exploring and learning as long ago as that. "The Man" had such a lack of respect for his peons that he couldn't be bothered to actually speak to them. He just paper-clipped a note to the timecard. I wonder if he resented spending the cost of a paperclip to preserve his rigid image of how we should look. My hair wasn't long enough to touch my ears. But it wasn't short enough for him.
That has nothing to do with the black coat, though.
The last week or two of the summer, before college started, was my vacation. And I decided to visit San Francisco, a popular tourist destination for the youth of America in those late '60s and early '70s years, much hyped in the media of those times. There was actually far more going on there than I was aware of or clued in on, but I had heard enough to imagine that I should go and take a peek. All my plan was, though, was to drive around it a bit and see what things looked like, and then putter back home. For me, it was the journey, not the destination. The drive up and back, the sleeping out under the stars, the vistas and oddities and sights to be discovered along the way were far more important than the city itself, or what was happening there.
Much earlier that year, I had come across and purchased a Yamaha 100, which could be described as a motorcycle if you were feeling generous. We tended to describe it as a sewing machine with turn signals. I had done enough repairs for it to be dependable, and I was well aware of how much better it was than having nothing. I'm the oldest of six. Our father had died of cancer. We were all bright and involved and busy, and though it was a godsend to now have two drivers, we still only had one car. The continuous and convoluted logistics of getting everyone where they needed to be were taxing. That extra option of the second, though limited, pair of wheels was valuable far beyond the cost.
But that bike wasn't street legal for the freeways. Too underpowered. So my trip was planned along the byways and backroads, most of them along the coast itself. There were places where I had to take my chances on a stretch of freeway, but for the most part, I was chugging along at a comfortable pace out in the scenery, instead of racing along with the knot of traffic that wanted to be there already.
Which was great! I got to see things, and meet people the whole trip, and could stop anywhere that caught my eye. I wasn't in a hurry. In fact, I would only drive about fifty miles at a stretch, and then stop for half an hour or so, someplace interesting, and let the motor cool down. That bike wasn't built for long distance travel, and I wanted it to have every chance at surviving. I'd stop at a little out-of-the-way market, or city park, or mom-and-pop shop, look around, and chat with people. Buy a coffee, or an apple. Ask people what I might miss nearby that I really should see. People enjoy giving advice. I got directions to a great many gardens and waterfalls, anomalies and museums, vistas and rock formations, and the like, and I visited quite a few of them, because I had nothing but time.
At one point, I was traveling along a hilly stretch of coast road, and high winds had come up, working against me. I tucked in behind a motorhome and drafted him, like race car drivers do. Somewhat dangerous, and a bit frightening, but I was moving about thirty miles per hour faster than I had been when out in the wind. In fact, about five mph faster than my top speed under ordinary circumstances. The man driving noticed I was back there, grasped why, and was very cautious about his braking, and signalled his intentions well in advance, so I wasn't at much risk. It was fun. At one small town we passed through, he stopped at a shopping center, and we chatted, and he and I and his wife went in and got ice cream cones. And I dropped mine on the asphalt, felt like a fool, and had to go back in and buy a second one. I wasted a precious nickel. Farther up the road, our paths diverged, and I waved my thanks. That part of the trip was the only time I went longer than fifty miles without stopping. I wanted to take advantage of the advantage he was offering me.
That also has nothing to do with the black coat.
At some point in the trip, I was stopped at a turn-out looking down over the ocean. Cars were passing slowly, because of the hill and the tight curve, and some were stopping briefly to enjoy the view. One old fellow in a motorhome had set up for the day, though, and was having a garage sale. No garage, just the sale. He had signs out, and had laid out his wares on tarps and blankets, and settled back with a book in his lawn chair to see what he might sell. I thought it was oddly funny. I looked over his goods, of course, but there wasn't anything I needed or wanted, and I had no way to carry it anyway. My bike had nothing even pretending to be saddlebags, and what little space on the seat wasn't occupied by me was taken up by my sleeping bag, with some few clothes and a flashlight rolled up in it.
We got to talking, of course, and like most of the folks I met, he asked where I was headed, and I explained about my trip plans. And he looked at me as if I was nuts, and asked me what the hell I was going to do if it rained? And I said that if it rained, I was going to get wet. I was very nonchalant.
I hadn't even considered rain or bad weather. It was high summer in Southern California, and there was no real risk of being rained on. And I could always stop someplace with an awning, and outwait it. But this man seemed to think I was out of my mind and taking an unacceptable risk, and he went over to his pile of goods and pulled out a black coat, some kind of rubberized fake leather, with some paint stains on it. And he insisted that I accept the coat as a gift. So I did.
But first, he took the coat, and went through his storage, and found some kind of solvent and a rag. Gasoline or kerosene or paint thinner, I don't remember what it was, but even with some scrubbing, it didn't have any real effect on dried latex paint, and so the black coat still had white paint splotched on it when he handed it to me. He seemed embarrassed about that.
For me, it was an eye-opening glimpse into human nature. That coat was clean enough to sell, but it wasn't clean enough to give away. Humans are funny.
Now it's about the black coat, but this isn't the important part yet.
That coat was decently warm, but what it was quite good at was bad wet weather. It stayed dry. I didn't wear it for fashionable trips around town, but I often wore it on hitchhiking excursions.
Time passed, and I had moved north to Isla Vista, the college ghetto at the campus about ten miles north of Santa Barbara. At that time Highway 101 still passed through downtown, one of those small-town bottlenecks that choked traffic and angered long distance drivers. This afforded the hithchikers a great place to stand and be seen. But, the locals knew that anyone headed back to campus wouldn't go that way. Instead of walking west to that spot on the road, you'd head north to an exit farther along, but where the savvy traffic went. There was lots of traffic back to the campus, and lots of hitchhikers taking advantage of it. Most folks kept a folded up piece of paper in their pocket when they went downtown. In big black felt marker letters, it said SB on one side and IV on the other, and it was immediatley obvious to the drivers that you were going where they were, and not passing through on the way to more distant destinations. You might see a dozen or more folks waiting there, but shortly they would have all gotten a ride. There was etiquette. You got in the queue, chatted with your neighbors, and waited your turn.
Now, one day, I had arrived at that freeway entrance, headed home. It was late on a very cool day, as the sun was setting, and the temperature dropping fast, as it can along the Pacific Ocean. I happened to be wearing the black coat. I might have been on the last leg of a trip from Los Angeles, where I would have worn that coat, or I might have just grabbed it and gone downtown. I don't remember.
While waiting, I spoke with the young man near me. And he had a sad tale to tell. One to make you angry. He had left Texas three days ago, and was making very good time, and been in San Diego that morning. He went into the restroom at a gas station they stopped to fill up at, and while he was relieving himself, the driver took off, with his backpack, clothes, food, other belongings, and his guitar all still in the back of the pickup truck. The guy ripped him off.
The loss of a small pack full of gear and a sleeping bag isn't major, but the theft of a guitar is inexcusable. What was really starting to get to the guy at the moment, though, was the lack of a coat.
He was headed to Santa Clara, where he had a friend, who could help him regroup, and contact home for funds, but his luck had clearly run low, and he wasn't making good time any longer. And it was getting dark and cold.
Before too long, the line had cleared, and someone stopped who was headed back to campus, and I asked him to wait a second, ran back to the guy, pulled off the black coat, and handed it to him. He couldn't believe it. And he didn't want to accept it. He told me that I couldn't give him my coat. And I told him that I certainly could. I said I was ten miles from home, I had a ride home, the coat had been given to me when I didn't need it, and it was my turn to pass it on to someone who did need it. He was still protesting as I ran over to the waiting car and jumped in. I yelled back at him that his turn to help someone would come along.
I never saw him again, of course.
I wonder where that black coat is now.
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