Those were freer times back then. Everybody did their own thing, and we respected that. I was crashing in a pad with a bunch of people and they were groovy; everybody put in a little for rent and we came and went when we wanted. The day I'm talking about was a gorgeous spring morning, a little before noon, and I felt like hitchhiking up to the mountains. We used to do stuff like that, get an idea and go do it, and we weren't afraid of our fellow human beings. I didn't think to bring anything to eat or drink, didn't tell anybody where I was going. I didn't think about what I was wearing, just a t-shirt and the same old worn-out jeans covered with patches as always, some old cowboy boots and a straw hat. No underwear, no sunscreen, no jacket or sweatshirt in case it got cold, I figured if I needed something while I was out, karma would bring it to me.
I walked out of the house into the sunshine and stuck out my thumb on Quarry Road. It was good conditions to get picked up: plenty of traffic, stop light half a block away, sure enough a guy stopped in about three minutes.
"Where ya going, man?"
"Mount Rankin, I guess," I said.
"You guess?"
"Yeah well that's where I'm planning to go."
"I'm going as far as Watson's."
"Far out, man."
The guy was a little older than me, I guess, driving a mud-splattered, rusty Catalina. He pulled out a joint and we shared it as he drove. Things were like that then. The underground radio station was playing a new Airplane song, the desert was green and happy-looking.
"Hey man, how long did it take your hair to get like that?" he asked me as we drove along.
"I don't know," I said, "Since high school, I guess. They made me cut it to graduate. Three years, almost exactly."
"Yeah, fuckin' high school," he said. "Well I gotta cut my hair or my boss would have a shit-fit. Same thing, fuckin' job, it's as bad as high school."
I guess that was his way to tell me he wasn't actually as straight as he looked. That's got to be bad, some boss telling you how you have to look. The cat was okay, we rapped about music and chicks and dope and then he dropped me off at Watson's.
I don't why it was called Watson's, or why it had a name at all. It was just a crossroads out past the last neighborhood, kind of the boundary between the civilization of the city and the wild uncertainty of the desert. Amsterdam Highway was a little-used two-lane that went straight to the top of Rankin, if you wanted to go that far. I figured I'd go up to Springville, hang out, hike a little, maybe get naked back in a canyon and swim in the creek, soak up some sun, hitch back before dark. I didn't really have a plan, just enjoy the day.
I stuck out my thumb and it was about one minute before three chicks in a Chevy picked me up, headed toward the mountain. Except they weren't going up, they were just going a couple of miles. Cool. They were friendly and we had a nice ride, I sat in the back with one of them and we all talked and passed around a joint. See, this is where it's at, man, everybody was feeling groovy. When they pulled over to let me out we sat and talked for a couple more minutes, no hurry. I felt like the one in the back was interested in me but, you know, there'll be another time and another chick. They tore off down a dirt road, leaving a trail of dust that hung in the dry air like fog.
It was a pretty good spot, room to pull off, easy to see, and in a few minutes a pickup truck pulled over, with some people in the back. One guy in the cab, driving; he leaned over and rolled the window down, "Where you going, man?"
"Springville, I guess," I said.
"Far out," he said. "Hop on into the back."
This is where fate took a sharp, unexpected turn. These were some old blue jeans, I guess I didn't realize how old. Maybe I'd had them since high school, a long time ago. They were covered with patches, you know, patches on top of patches basically, and I just hadn't thought about it. I threw my leg over the side of the truck and those jeans ripped from one knee to the other, through the crotch, with a sound like a power transformer blowing up, z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-p! Wide open. I pulled myself up and heard the sound and looked down to see my dick hanging out, and I looked up and there were three young women sitting there staring at me. They were not looking at my face, they were staring at my crotch.
Dig it, man, I was cool, but this was a little awkward no matter how you look at it.
I pulled myself over into the back of the truck and sat with my back against the cab. My hair didn't blow into my face too much if I was up against the front of the pickup bed. Two chicks were sitting on the wheel wells and the other was sitting across from me. They were all about my age, twenty or twenty-one, and foxes, each in her way. They were all grinning at me like their faces were going to split open. I casually tried to arrange myself so I wasn't exposed to the whole world.
"Howdy ladies," I said. "Uh, I guess my pants ripped."
"Oh?" said one. "I didn't notice. Did you, girls?"
"No." "Nope." I definitely felt like they were making fun of me. It was like they say, we're not laughing with you, we're laughing at you. But I couldn't tell.
"Did they rip bad?" asked a brunette sitting on a wheel well, a sweet chick with straight hair hanging down from a straw cowboy hat that had a curled-down brim, kind of like Pigpen or that cat in Doctor Hook.
"Yeah," I said. "They're totally trashed." The truck got back onto the highway and we were rolling along. We had not come to the grade yet, the ride was pretty level.
"Are you going to be able to fix them?" another asked me, with a hint of a New York accent.
"Not till I get back home," I said. "Probably later tonight."
They sat silently, looking me over. I had my hands in my lap, trying to keep the fabric covering me, but I don't know how successful I was. They had already seen the whole thing, it's not like it mattered, really. "Where are y'all going?" I asked them.
"Oh, we're going to the Spring Jubilee church camp up past Springville a little ways. We're counselors there. We are actually the officers of the Young Adults Worship Circle. President, vice president and, uh, what are you again, Sally?"
"Secretary," the one across from me said.
"Church camp, huh?" I said. "So I guess y'all are real religious and everything."
"Oh yes," the second one said. She was wearing a t-shirt that clung tightly to her body, it said "One Way" with an arrow pointing upward, weaving crookedly between a pair of big, hard tits, well you had to see this. "We are very religious."
The third one spoke up. "Extremely religious. We pray all the time and everything."
I'm looking from one to the other. I had the feeling they were trying not to laugh but of course I didn't know what the joke was, or if there was one. Maybe they were just happy. Maybe they were laughing at me accidentally exposing myself to them, or maybe they hadn't noticed, or maybe they didn't care. We were rolling along, not fast, starting to climb a little bit. I was a little high but not bad.
The first one spoke. "Let's see those pants. Maybe there's something we could do for them."
"Oh, I don't think there's anything to do. They're totally torn out."
"Maybe we can do something."
"Well," I said. "I hate to say it, but I am not wearing any underwear, and if I showed you my torn pants you're going to see the rest of me, too. You see what the problem is?"
We bumped along the road for half a minute. The New York one said, "Actually, I don't see what the problem is. God made you, and He loves you. We won't judge you, if that's what you're worried about." The others murmured agreement.
And you know what was going on, right? I'm looking at these three very foxy chicks, and the little guy started growing down there. Making the situation even worse.
"No, I'm good," I said again.
They were smiling at me. "Maybe we can help."
They started just about begging me, so, I don't know what I was thinking. "Look, ladies, I don't want to flash you, but if you want to see what happened to my jeans, well here you are." I lifted my hands and shifted my legs so the tear was visible.
It would be great to go back and see a picture of their faces at that moment. I had thought I was just swelling a little bit but in fact my dick was hard as a rock. I didn't look down but I could feel it spring up when the pressure was removed, and I could see their faces.