Side Roads and Dandelions, Page 3

  ~~ Chapter Three

  Tears continued to flow in spite of her constant personal remonstrations as Allison maneuvered the VW bus through the sparse Sunday morning traffic traveling south on the bypass that carried her around the city of St. Louis. Three hundred miles of monotonous interstate highway remained before she arrived at her first destination, Memphis, Tennessee, the lifelong home of Dr. Ernest Bartholomew Calhoun III, one of the original group-of-four that fled the bay area together in the same VW bus that dreadful May 17, 1969. Only back then, he insisted upon being addressed as Mustafa, the name given to him by the other members of the Black Panther group he joined when he arrived in Oakland in late 1968.

  Distracted by her incessant weeping, Allison tried to stop crying several times to no avail during the hour and a half since she left home. She missed her family already, but for some unexplained reason she knew she had to do this. Her wonderful, absolutely amazing and undoubtedly shaken husband had stood beside the road waving goodbye as the oddly painted box-like vehicle she drove away in receded into the distance. When she informed him yesterday of her need to return to San Francisco to take part in the anti-war movement, he made no attempt to stop her. She knew this newest quest of hers caused him to worry, but he refused to make her decision more difficult. All he inquired of her was how she planned to get there, and when she told him she intended to drive the VW bus, he began to busy himself getting her chosen mode of transportation ready for departure. She held herself together until right when she was leaving. Scott leaned into the VW, gave her a long kiss followed by a frightened smile and said, “Remember, sometimes side roads become wide roads. That’s the way life is – things change. I love you. I’ll be here waiting for you.”

  She hadn’t realized before then that he had picked up on the occasional side roads references she made from time to time. This, too, related to her 1969 adventure, and again, it was Sam who originally made the astute observation that contrary to what most young people think, the lifestyles that make the greatest number of people happy and content, don’t take place on the super highways or in the fast lanes. They are constructed one day at a time, one brick at a time, one relationship at a time on the side roads, at places where people take time to think and care about what happens around them and notice the majestic, or more often, the simple wonders of creation. On the side roads, he said, is where people have a chance to make their stand and cease Blowin’ in the Wind.

  “Too bad Sam won’t be coming back with us,” said Allison aloud with a note of disappointment underlying her comment. She called the Chicago area number she found on the Internet after only a few minutes search yesterday afternoon. His number was easy to find even though they hadn’t spoken in over fifteen years when Allison gave him a call during a stopover in Chicago while flying home from a meeting in New York City. She had hoped to have lunch with him, but he was tied up with important legal work as an attorney specializing in putting together stock offerings for corporations wanting to go public. She found it hard to believe that a diehard, outspoken radical like Sam went to work for corporate America, or the enemy as he called them way back when.

  Samuel Preston McCarthy, one year older than Allison and no relation to Senator Eugene McCarthy who ran for President in 1968, was born of the Chicago North Shore blue bloods and lived a privileged life absent of material want. You certainly couldn’t tell that by his appearance back then. Like most of his peers, he wore the same faded jeans with holes in the knees until they fell off in tatters. For a shirt, he put on anything that wouldn’t interfere with his buckskin coat adorned with leather tassels hanging down from both sleeves and across the breast and shoulders. He absolutely loved that coat. Allison suspected this the first night they carried him into the professor’s house, bloody and almost unconscious from being beaten by the deputies in Berkeley. She saw how worried he was about getting his own blood on his precious coat. Other than his unkempt shoulder length brown hair, the other article of note was a necklace of multi-colored beads that he always wore. She also remembered that he smoked everything he could, legal and illegal as often as he could.

  What a difference a few decades make, she thought derisively. Let a guy get a hot bath and access to a trust fund and you can never tell what will happen to him. She called his answering service a second time late yesterday afternoon in desperation, afraid he may have forgotten who she was. She told the lady that Mr. McCarthy should contact Allison Yarbrough Carter by that evening if he wanted to have the opportunity to speak with one of the Dandelions before she headed back to the field of battle.

  After she got off the phone and thought about the message to be relayed, she fully expected that the dumbfounded lady taking the message threw it in the trash as quickly as she got Allison off the line. Who in their right mind would relay a message that a dandelion urgently needed to talk to someone?

  Allison had already written this effort off as a failure when right before 10 p.m. last evening the phone rang. It was Sam. He apologized profusely and blamed his tardiness on another of his stock deals. A lot of last minute details needed to be worked out before the corporation he represented went public for millions of dollars. He was obviously quite smitten by his legal prowess. Nevertheless, he had made time for a quick call to his old friend, Allison, to find out what she meant by her message about someone getting into a fight with some weeds? “Are you okay?” he asked.

  In all honesty, she expected this kind of response from Sam. What he said thirty-four years ago probably meant nothing to him now, given how much he had changed. Too bad, she thought, it sure meant a lot to me. She could not count the times his words of simple wisdom, passed out so offhandedly during the long return trip east in 1969 had helped her out in times of personal turmoil and uncertainty. She never for one second over the intervening years forgot his side roads metaphor. Nor had she forgotten his and Bobby’s extemporaneous analysis of their personal situation in relation to that of the unappreciated and often despised dandelions in the fields. People really ought to listen to themselves more often, she reasoned. No telling what they might learn -- good and bad.

  After the opening pleasantries, their conversation went something like, “Sam would you perchance recall that day so long ago when we stood together for the last time at the railway station in downtown St. Louis?”

  Sam hesitated, “I kind of recall a sentimental moment if I’m not mistaken. I remember that we felt very fortunate to have gotten far away from a completely insane situation. Am I right?”

  Allison felt relieved that he remembered what for her turned out to be one of the most revered moments in her life. She had thought about the group’s parting moments often over the years. “I’m very pleased to hear that, Sam. Now, do you also recall what you said about us being like the dandelions in the fields? You and Bobby came up with the idea on the way back.”

  Several seconds elapsed before he spoke. “No…no, I don’t. I’m afraid it’s been too long. Maybe you can refresh my memory for me?”

  Disappointed at his response, Allison proceeded. “I’m sorry to hear that, Sam. Then you probably don’t recall asking us to promise to call the others if any one of us ever went back again. ‘The Dandelions should go back together,’ you said. Does that ring a bell?”

  This time the pause lasted longer. “I’m so sorry, Allison, but nothing comes to mind. You must have a wonderful memory to recall that stuff from so long ago.”

  Allison’s disappointment was complete, and she didn’t know what to say next. Her hopes had been so great. “Sam, I’m sorry to have bothered you with this. I know how busy you are, so -”

  Sam cut her off. “Are you planning to go back there, Allison? Are you going back because of what happened in 1969? But why? What can be done about that now? As I said, it happened so long ago.”

  Allison believed she detected a tone of genuine concern in Sam’s voice. “I am going back, Sam. The country’s about to go crazy again, and I can’t sit here and do nothin
g. Just today one hundred and fifty thousand protesters hit the streets in San Francisco. I’m leaving tomorrow in the same VW bus that brought us home in 1969. I wanted to make good on my promise to let you know what my intentions are, that’s all.”

  Sam’s next question mirrored her own earlier self-examination. “Why San Francisco? They’re marching in places all over the country.”

  “I don’t have a good answer for that, Sam,” said Allison. “I simply know I have to go back there, now.” Allison waited for a response but none was forthcoming so she continued, “But again as you say, it’s been a long time. I’m happy that you have moved on so successfully with your life. I guess some of us have a harder time forget-”

  Sam interrupted, “Are you taking the same route back? It’s probably mostly interstate highway now. I expect there are very few side roads left by this time. That’s unfortunate.”

  Allison detected a tone in his voice, possibly disappointment even. But at least he remembered about the side roads, she thought. “Not until Oklahoma City,” replied Allison, “but after that it will be the same route all the way, excepting that now there will probably be no more side roads. Now it’s interstate highway, and such is life, huh?”

  “Such is life,” agreed Sam.

  “Goodbye, Sam,” said Allison.

  “Good luck, Allison,” came the reply.

  The line went silent as did Allison for a long while after she hung up the phone. “Well,” she reflected, “at least he remembered about the side roads.”

  Now there were three: Ernest, Bobby, and her. Actually, she was the only one for sure. She called and spoke briefly with Ernest yesterday. Remembering how stubborn he could be, she only told him she was coming through Memphis and needed to talk with him. She intended to enlist him to her cause when they got face to face. As for Bobby, no one answered the phone any of the dozen times she called his listed phone number in Oklahoma yesterday. She planned to stop by his farm located within twenty miles of the interstate route that would take her from Memphis through Oklahoma City and then on to California. He must be around there somewhere, she reasoned. Farmers usually didn’t go far with all the animal husbandry chores they have to perform.

  The Dr. Ernest Calhoun she planned to meet in Memphis in a few hours, the man she had gotten to know much better on several occasions during the intervening years, bore slight, if any, resemblance to the belligerent, anti-social gang member she first met in Berkeley on the night of May 15, 1969. Black leather coat, black beret, dark sunglasses, and a constant scowl conveyed an attitude of unmistakable militancy. She couldn’t believe it when the professor, who went out that night to aid and rescue many of the thousands of students and protestors as they ran and hid for safety, brought back to his home a full-fledged member of the infamous Black Panther Party. She knew the professor had a reputation for dropping acid occasionally but right then, she had thought, was really not the time. The entire town was occupied with the governor’s storm troopers as well as every police officer in the entire bay area. The last thing Allison needed was another pissed off individual with a gun. Thousands of angry armed men in uniforms roamed the Berkeley campus as well as the surrounding community. The bloody bandage on the side of her face caused by the butt of a National Guardsman’s rifle bore witness to the validity of her concerns.

  For the first 24 hours, Ernest, or Mustafa as he insisted on being addressed at the time, said not one single word to anyone nor, to the best of Allison’s knowledge, did he close his eyes to sleep. Allison was afraid to move lest their Black Panther guest reveal the hand he kept in his coat pocket, displaying the gun she expected he carried. If not for the sedatives administered to her by the professor, which caused her to sleep, she would have preferred to take her chances back on the streets. Based upon what she had heard about the Black Panthers that was not altogether a bad idea. Black Panthers did not carry guns to impress people. They carried them to shoot people. In 1968 and 1969, the papers reported numerous battles between the police and the Black Panthers. A lot of people died when they started shooting, and not all of them were Black Panthers or the police.

  Knowing the man as she did now, it didn’t seem real. Over the years, his physical growth had gone sideways. In other words, he’d added about one hundred-forty pounds to his previous one hundred-forty pounds without growing one inch in height. The man loved to eat, and the kinds of food they prepared in Memphis suited his unsophisticated pallet. He could look one of his patients, or a friend, right in the eye with a straight face and tell them to quit eating so much, so often. When someone made reference to his substantial girth, he informed them they didn’t know what they were talking about as his ancestors were portly and lived to a ripe old age. What he didn’t mention was that a ripe old age for his ancestors was about forty-five.

  Ernest was one of the most pleasant spoken and fair-minded people she ever met in her entire life. Her life would not have been as rich without the pleasure of having Ernest as a friend. She was eternally grateful that she did not abandon the professor’s house that night and go back out on the streets. If she had, Allison expected the roving gangs of uniformed officials would have undoubtedly gotten another shot at her in the most literal sense and from which she was now sure, she would not have survived, and just as importantly, Ernest would not have become her friend.