"How does it feel to be on your own just like a rolling stone." Highway 61 Revisited

I hook up with a couple of biker boyz named Heinz and Free. We set off, thumbs out, lookin’ for a ride to freedom. Heinz was stocky, as German men tend to be, with long wavy brown hair and intense blue eyes. Leather, head to toe. Free was the most handsome boy I’d ever met. Like Joe Dellasandro in the Warhol films. Major arm candy.
The first ride took us to the cornfields of Minnesota. Trucker chewed tobacco and caressed my thigh the whole way. I didn’t care as long as I could put a lot of miles between myself and the place I called home.
Second ride was a red convertible. I watched the truck drivers watch me. I wore a tie dyed tank top and my tits had a mind of their own.
I sat suicide.
We slept under bridges and ate soup pantry soup. It was the scariest time I ever felt alive. Like I could die at any moment. It was the best way to live.
Lots of country music later, we landed on Oak Boulevard in San Francisco. Across the street, in the Panhandle, Janis used to play with the Holding Company from the back of a pick-up truck. Before she died from being famous.

My summer waitress friend said they really do wear flowers in their hair. But all the flower children had fled for the communes in Oregon. Back to the land, I’m thinking. And welfare.
When we get there, they take me, but not my biker boyz. I guess chicks do a lot of things better than boyz do. We’re kind of like dish towels. Get ‘em dirty then leave 'em hanging out to dry.
Broke my heart to see Heinz and Free cut loose. Talk about a rock and a hard place.
Matron of the house was a British belly dancer named Patty. She had straight strawberry blonde hair, an alkaline nose and no belly. She layed out the rules. We cooked huge pots of spaghetti and ate dinner together like a family.
I got a job as a waitress. Instant jingles in my pocket.
I walk up Haight- Ashbury, huggin’ my new puppy inside my fatigue jacket.
I wait my turn at a free clinic catering to hippies, drug addicts and old people. I ask them to check me for lice and STD’s. I plop down on a black vinyl chair and my eyes rest on a huge black man with tantric eyes.
“You starin’ at me?” he snarled.
As I shook my head no, he threw his hot black coffee in my face.
Next day, waitress girl and I cross the street to the Panhandle. I set my puppy down to pee on the earth. Suddenly he darts out on Oak Boulevard. I watch as he tumbles under a bunch of cars like a pinball machine. I pick him up still breathing. Blood pours from his mouth and his ass. We bury him under an olive tree and I cry all night.
Otis is here but not talking to my head. I stumble out of a dream and have a beer and the New York Times for breakfast.
I realize that I have a short fuse and that Otis is the only one who will stay and turn my lights off.
I meet a beautiful black man named Andre who draws photo-realism. He talks muffled ghetto and I’m always wondering what he’s saying but don’t dare to ask.
He’s probably got five of me on the side. I fall for him anyway. I follow him everywhere.
But he’s too big for me. He’s a lonesome pissed off soldier that I can’t save.
I hawk a job as an artist’s model for 15 bucks an hour. They like me because I have a good rib cage and a round belly and I pose like a dancer. I fall asleep while they’re drawing me and my limbs fuzz off my body.
I work with a girl named Adrienne who’s skinny and fractured and gorgeous. She has major issues. Something about a father who was a bit too touchy feely. Gurlz never get over that. When fathers look at their daughters like a whore, trouble brews.
After she jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, they found her body floating near Alcatraz Island.