No U Turn. Michael Taylor

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      No U Turn

      Life After Woodstock

      Michael Taylor

      Copyright © 2011 Michael Taylor

      This is a work of fiction. Any story, reference to, or depiction that resembles real life characters, living or dead, is unintentional, and purely coincidental. All people, names, places, businesses, incidents, events and locations are the product of the author’s imagination.

      No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher.

      The Publisher makes no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any commercial damages.

      2011-10-21

      Dedication

      This book is dedicated to the real Cousin Boogie.

      He inspired this novel and served as an incongruous example for teaching my children right from wrong.

      Acknowledgements

      I may have been able to give Boogie better advice (and possibly saved him a lot of time and trouble), if only I had quoted Rita Mae Brown:

      “GOOD JUDGMENT COMES FROM EXPERIENCE, AND OFTEN EXPERIENCE COMES FROM BAD JUDGMENT.”

       o Alma Mater (Ballantine Books, New York, 2001), p.108.

      Appreciation, gratitude & kudos for the Cover Art go to:

      “Design by Cattina”

      http://www.designbycattina.com

      Colorado to California

      “Colorado? I really didn’t spend a lot of time in Colorado. Colorado for me was more of an ‘on-the-way-to’ California type of thing. I know that the second time I went out to California, I drove out there with a very good friend of mine. David Rosen. We basically worked our way across the country.

      “Our first stop was in South Carolina, and we got a part-time job for 10 days that got us enough money to get to New York. Then from there we went to Wheeling, West Virginia—where his grandmother was staying—where we had a roof over our heads and we got part-time jobs rehabbing an old house. And then we got enough money to make it to Colorado.

      “We had a friend that we went to high school with in Colorado, who was into jewelry. He was a flower child. Arnold Cohen is his name—a good guy. Arnie went to the University of Colorado at Boulder and never left. He fell in love with it. Anytime we were anywhere in the vicinity, we always had a standing invitation and we would stay with Arnie.”

      Laughing, Boogie said, “I remember David and I got a job on an assembly line in Colorado—assembling awnings for recreational vehicles—to get enough money to continue our trip out to California. That was in the summer of ‘76.”

      Hesitating, or perhaps remembering wistfully, he added, “Yeah … Colorado was beautiful.

      “The second time I went to Colorado, it was really more job-related—I was older and opening up stores for Sleep Castle. I basically went to Colorado to open up stores for them. This was in the mid-90s. So that was my second experience with Colorado. And I can tell you that from experience … Yeah, ‘Colorado-Rocky Mountain-High,’ there is something definitely to be said for that.”

      ≈ So tell me … How many times have you lived in California? ≈

      “I’ve been to California four different times. The first time I went out to California, I was actually staying with my Cousin Mike and his then fiancée—Hannah—in her dad’s house in Virginia Beach. And this was in ‘74.

      “I’d come up from Florida to visit my Cousin Mike in Norfolk, and kinda hung out on his waterbed—which he used as a love couch in the middle of his living room—while he went to work and taught students. And I tried to catch some of his overflow, ‘cause he was doing pretty good at the time! And then he hooked up with Hannah, and it became serious; and then Hannah talked to her dad and allowed me to stay there—at her dad’s house.

      “I got a job delivering auto parts to the different military bases around. Yeah, I did that for about six—, or 8 weeks. Then I got a call from a friend of mine that was out in California, telling me: Hey, he’s all set up, he’s got a great apartment, and blah, blah, blah, and he’s got a job waiting for me. Just come on out! And bring myself.

      “So, in my ‘67 Cadillac convertible—that I bought for $400—I drove out to California—L.A. Went 30 hours to Dallas and 31 hours to L.A., and I showed up on his doorstep with $20 in my pocket, no gas in the car, and found out he was sleeping on somebody’s couch!” said Boogie, stifling a laugh. “One of the girls—she was friends with one of the other girls that he was staying with—was kind enough to allow me to sleep on her couch. Leslie. That was in the ‘70s.

      “And that was at the height of the Quaalude phase … craze. We were Quaalude addicts. I mean, it was ‘peace and love, sex and rock ‘n roll,’ and drugs and more drugs. We knew that if we could get a girl to eat a couple of Quaaludes with us and hang out, we were getting laid that night; and we got laid a lot,” Boogie said with a small smirk, laughing in appreciation of the resurrected memory. “Just a wild and crazy time in California.

      “We met some crazy people. Half of them were working for this one company called Denim West, which was a blue jean, California jeans store, where they sold jeans back then in the ‘70s for sixty–, 70 dollars a pair, which was a hell of a lot of money. They were all cocaine freaks. So a combination of cocaine and Quaaludes really can mess up one’s mind a little bit. And we used to call it the ‘nervous-hilarious’—where you’re coming down from the Coke so you start eating Quaaludes to mellow it out, and the next thing you know you’re falling all over yourself, ‘cause moderation was not in our vocabulary. So we always overdid everything!

      “But, I met Katie Walston, who was Ray Walston’s daughter—My Favorite Martian—like the second night I was there in California! Me, I’m feelin’ my oats. I had had a couple of Quaaludes, so I’m hittin’ on her. And she’s a good-lookin’ redhead, and she proceeds to tell me that if she was straight, she could go for a guy like me, but she prefers women.”

      ≈ And you believed her? She was just more experienced at getting rid of unwanted passes than you were at picking up the daughters of Hollywood stars! ≈

      “So that was my first taste with the homosexual community there; which, where I lived in West Hollywood, was half gay. And we had a lot of fun with the gay guys, as they loved to party and you never had to worry about them with competition for the girls. And the girls liked them. They were good bird dogs for getting women.

      “I got a job working downtown L.A. doing some kind of inventory control for an importer, making a big $120 a week, 1974, feeling my oats, rented a place. Every Friday when I got paid, I would fill the car with gas, buy a carton of Winston cigarettes and spend the rest on Quaaludes; basically hand to mouth until the next Friday. I went from 195 pounds to 145 pounds in about three months. I looked like I came out of Dachau. That was it! Thin and beautiful.”

      ≈ Who else did you meet there? ≈

      “The most impactful person I met there was L.M., Laura Malman. We used to call her the Quaalude Queen, because that’s what she was: The Quaalude Queen! She would sit home … she was a want-to-be dancer, thin, nice body. Her puh-n’m [face] though—you could definitely find better. But a nice body. She was the gatherer of Quaaludes from several different sources. Back then, people used