The Way to Woodstock

By Deanna Northrup

Mark liked to tell his friends and acquaintances about his experiences at Woodstock – the once-in-a-lifetime, not to be missed tribute to youth, drugs and rock and roll. The party of the century. He told them about the time he spent in the freak-out tent from drinking acid spiked Kool-aid, about all the chicks dancing topless in the rain, and about the pigs hassling him on the way out east. It was great party talk. The only problem – he was not there.

His brother, Dean, had read about it in Rolling Stone and talked about going all that summer – the summer of ’69. It was an exciting time. There was a vibration in the air that you could almost see and it wasn’t entirely acid flashbacks or the speed everyone was popping like crazy. It was freedom and youth and promise; it was like certain summers mornings in childhood when the day lays open before you like a picture book and you know it’s all good and it’s never going to end. Because things were so good at home now – a job at the hospital where people liked him and an apartment shared with Dean – Mark had not been all that caught up in Dean’s enthusiasm about going to Woodstock, but he didn’t want to miss out on an adventure. He’d never been anywhere and this was a road trip to New York and the world’s biggest rock concert. Mark scheduled the days off from the cafeteria and Dean arranged for a ride with a friend, Craig Steggel.

They left Thursday morning and stopped in Iowa City to pick up Jim Floor, a student at the university and Craig’s step-brother. Dean made jokes about Jim’s name while Mark stared at the dignified brick buildings on the campus as the car moved slowly across the Iowa River and up the hill toward the Old Capital. The green park around the gold-domed building was teeming with young people and Mark couldn’t take his eyes off them. They looked so happy and peaceful, sitting on blankets in small groups or milling around casually. Even after the car moved off the campus there were people walking on the sidewalks and cutting across the street carelessly, confident that no errant car could disrupt their privileged lives. Jim told them school was starting next week and everyone had moved in early to get settled. On the way to the interstate they passed the Greek houses and Mark wondered what it would be like to live in one of those big houses, to be a college student.

“How do you like the university?” he asked Jim, just making conversation. Mark knew he could never go to college. He was a high school drop-out.

The conversation turned to their route. They got on Interstate 80 and headed east, planning to drive in shifts, straight through. Mark knew how to drive but had not had much experience and could not get his license, without a driver’s education class, until he turned eighteen in a year. He was looking forward to having his turn anyway, for the practice. When they stopped at rest stops they took turns going into the restroom so someone could stay with the car because Craig didn’t want to turn it off. Whenever he did he had to get a hammer out of the trunk and tap on the starter while someone turned the ignition. The car was an Opal Cadet, a small red German car that Mark had never heard of. Dean loved the idea of foreign cars. He said they were made better than American cars. Craig said parts were expensive and hard to find.

They followed 80 to the Chicago area and the biggest traffic jam Mark had ever seen – even on TV. It took an hour to go twenty miles, but they smoked some dope to kill time and told crazy stories about some of the freaks they knew; most of them were trying to make their way to Woodstock. They would probably run into them there.

About an hour after the traffic opened up, they had to pull onto the shoulder to get out and relieve themselves because they missed a rest stop and the car died as it was idling. This time, no amount of pounding on the starter would make it work and they couldn’t pop the clutch because it was an automatic. They sat down in a spot of shade in front of the car, lamenting about the heat, until an old tan station wagon, packed tight with long-hairs, pulled over in front of them and backed up. The two doors on the passenger side opened while it was still moving and a couple of skinny hippies oozed out as soon as it stopped. After another guy got out, a girl appeared and pulled the back door down so three young girls could pop out, squealing delightedly to be freed. They looked fifteen, maybe sixteen, and all were wearing men’s white athletic style undershirts like dresses, hanging to mid-thigh. Their pink nipples showed through the thin cotton. One had big breasts the sides bulging out from the deep cut armholes of the shirt. Mark had looked down their gold-brown legs to their dusty, dirty little feet and wondered if he dared stand up. He was only seventeen. Why did he feel so much older than these girls? Soon, the driver and another guy got out and they all stood around between the cars. Dean produced a joint and they each had a toke and talked about Woodstock. Then Craig pulled a chain out of his trunk and attached it from the wagon to the Opal and their new friends pulled them to the next town and into the parking lot of an auto parts store. The groups parted boisterously, promising to meet up at Woodstock.

The parts store was already closed. They wandered around downtown, looking through window displays into darkened stores, until they found an open café and sat for hours nursing French fries and Cokes. Then they went back to the car and got high and slept, leaning against the doors with their heads hanging out the windows, breathing the dusty-wet smell of heavy dew on a sultry night.

The sound of a car door closing on the other side of the building woke them in the morning. The doughy face of the guy behind the counter didn’t seem to go with his burly frame but they could only see him from the chest up until he walked back into the stacks to get another reference book. Then Mark could see that his butt was broad and plump like an old woman and he moved like a fat man – his weight shifting from side to side as he walked. Yet, his wide shoulders and sturdy neck said that he had once been an imposing figure. Mark felt disdain for him, for letting himself go to the point that four young long-hairs would make him so nervous. The man had glanced around when they walked in, as if looking for reinforcement. Had he thought they were going to rob him? Steal auto parts?

The man acted like he had never heard of an Opal Cadet. No, he did not carry Opal parts. Yes, this is the only parts store in town. He would check and see if it could be ordered.

They waited inside, wandering the aisles, pretending to be interested in car accessories, while the man made a couple of phone calls. The air was cooled by a whirring, rumbling unit suspended from the ceiling high above them, and it smelled of car polish and rubber and motor oil. It was nice cooling off but they were all anxious to be on their way, hoping it would not take too long to replace the starter. They stared at the parts man with slack mouths when he told them he could have the part on Monday. Now he felt like he had the upper hand. “What do you expect? It’s a foreign car.” For an additional twenty dollars he could drive to Chicago himself and pick it up, but not until after the store closed at noon on Saturday. That was a lot of money but they all agreed to pitch in. They spent Friday hanging out at a bowling alley the parts man directed them to, eating oniony hot dogs. When they went back to the car to try and get some sleep, Dean broke out the Darvons he had planned to sell at Woodstock.

A local cop cruised around the parking lot and then stopped and got out and shined his flashlight around the inside of the car. He told them to get out and produce identification, then he looked them up and down.

“Iowa, huh,” he said, scrutinizing their IDs. “Where ya headed?”

“What’s your business here?” he asked, after they told him they were on their way to New York. When they had explained their starter dilemma there was a long pause while he stared into the void behind them, like he expected more hippies to materialize. Moist air moved up over the pavement from the dark, low land and cooled Mark’s bare ankles, a curious contrast to the radiant heat of the pavement beneath his feet.

“We have laws against vagrancy here,” the cop said suddenly, as though he had just remembered it. “You boys behave yourselves and move along, come Saturday, we’ll be okay. But if anything unusual happens in this town, I’ll know where to look.”

After he got back into the squad car he looked at them again and said, “I’ll be watching you.” Back lit by the parking lot light, his head glowed white around the outside, but his face was in shadow, so his words seemed to be coming from nowhere, like an edict from God.

 

Saturday was spent waiting, first for the parts man to close up shop and leave, and then for him to return with the starter so they could get back on the road. The more they talked about what they were missing, the more tragic it became. They couldn’t even listen to the radio for reports about the concert because they didn’t want to drain the car battery.

Jim hoped to get there in time to see Ravi Shankar perform, “When you trip to the sitar you can see the music.”

“I want to see The Who, their drummer drums so hard his hands bleed,” Craig said.

“As long as I get there in time to see Johnny Winter,” Dean said. “He’s scheduled for Sunday.” Mark was partial to Blood, Sweat and Tears and CCR.

When the car got too hot, they opened the doors wide and lay with their heads inside on the tweedy red seats and their lower bodies out, ankles resting on the window frames and feet burning in the sun. The heat on his feet aroused Mark and he thought about the little hippie girls, imagined running into them at Woodstock, maybe having a four-way. Now and then, a life-saving breeze riffled through the car. They dozed, and woke feeling groggy and drugged, to find the sun low in the sky and still no sign of the parts man. They all began to cuss and Dean looked as though he might cry. They were starved, but wouldn’t leave the car, wouldn’t give up, even though they must have known it was already too late.

When the parts man finally arrived he was jolly and apologetic, insisting it was the traffic that had held him up, not the booze they could smell radiating from him like a toxic chemical. He got a spotlight from the store and held it as Craig and Dean attached the starter without talking. Jim and Mark sat in the diminishing daylight glowering at the man, who seemed not to notice at all. They piled into the car and as it started to move, Mark watched the man walk back to his car. There was a spring in his step that wasn’t there the day before, like he was a different man.

With very little argument, Craig drove back to 80 and headed west, toward home. In the psychedelic light of sunset, the bronze hills on the horizon looked as smooth and dry as sand dunes on the Painted Desert. Not that Mark had ever seen the Painted Desert, but he had seen the National Geographic pictures in school. He had just traveled hundreds of miles to go nowhere, but he felt as though he had been somewhere and it felt pretty good. He closed his eyes and imagined he was going to keep going, out of Illinois, through Iowa and Nebraska, and all the way to the desert. ______________________________________________________________

Deanna Northrup holds an MFA in Writing from Spaulding University. Her novel Trail of Crumbs was a top 100 finalist for the 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Her short fiction, poetry, book reviews and essays can be found in current or recent editions of Amarillo Bay, The Copperfield Review, Kennesaw Review, O Tempora! Magazine and The First Line.