In the early seventies, living in London, I was almost out of control. But not quite. I shared a
house (more like a mansion) with two English girls who were fashion designers and four English guys. One of them, Simon, was a tall, cool, very good looking guy. The dolly birds loved him. I’m short, uncool, funny looking and the girls didn’t appear to even see me.
Simon and I hung out a fair bit, and did insane things, legal and illegal, to earn a quid. After a riotous year we were still penniless but great mates. Our regular jobs kept us going but weren’t the “nice little earners” we were praying for. Simon was a Film Sound Editor (when he could find the work) and I did temporary accounting jobs.
Years of travelling without returning to Australia had my family extremely worried. I did write occasionally but after four years Mum and Dad had almost forgotten my name. They had also heard stories, and believed them, that I was looking worse than Keith Richard and my weight was down to fifty kg. (It wasn’t true. I was fifty six kg!). In 1973 I’d had enough of European winters and I flew back to Melbourne, leaving London and the wild, swinging scene behind me. I also left my beautiful girlfriend Megan behind, promising I’d come back. I tried hard to stay in touch with Simon but he was an unreliable, shadowy figure in some ways and I never heard from him again.
When you leave a girl behind in London, and return to mundane Melbourne, one starts getting frustrated with the uncertainty of the relationship. After less than a year I gave in and returned to London. Predominately to see Megan but also to explore Canada and the U.S. (with or without Megan). An Aussie mate, Gary C, was in the L.A. music scene. “Just get here and we’ll head down to Mexico and Central America” were his only instructions. Gary had bluer eyes than Steve McQueen and even looked like him. I planned to stand close to him so the girls might see me.
The first afternoon back in London, I was ambling across Kensington Palace Gardens with Megan, when a figure about two hundred metres away seemed to pause and stare. He then stopped and waited as we got closer. There were fourteen million people living in Greater London at that time but the watching figure was Simon. Crazy scenes of disbelief, laughter and joy, so we retired to the nearest pub (as you do) to drink to our chance reunion. It was a very short reunion as Simon left for New York, flying out the very next morning. He was doing his best to break into the US film industry. We exchanged our parents addresses with the hope and intention of always staying in touch. But we both knew it was unlikely we would ever meet again.
Megan and I drove off three days later (in the ubiquitous VW Kombi) to tour France, Spain and Morocco. We travelled for six weeks without deadlines or destinations. It was a beautiful holiday and without any disagreements but when it was all over we both knew there wasn’t enough love between us. Back in London, Megan decided to fly home to her parents in Sydney and I went west to Toronto.
In the mid-seventies Love and Flower Power had blossomed and become rampant. It seemed like the whole world had been seduced by the alternative life style. I was a borderline hippy. I just couldn’t embrace “the scene” as well as others. Perhaps I was just an apprentice hippy but I kept trying to fit in. Three weeks with friends in Toronto and Montreal in autumn was a great start but time for me to head west. Two changes of clothes in a little shoulder bag was all I carried. I was cool, Man! I certainly wasn’t some dumb backpacker getting around like a load-carrying mule. I was also the world’s best hitch hiker. I could stop a car quicker than rolling a joint. (A year later I even finished writing a forty thousand word book “How to Hitchhike with Ease” and sent it to seven publishers. Not one of them was interested. (Hitch-hikers don’t or can’t read apparently!). Across Canada (who else could name a town “Moose Jaw” or “Medicine Hat”) to Vancouver then down the West Coast through Seattle to Los Angeles. I have to admit that I was pretty excited to be in Hollywood, particularly as Blue Eyed Gary lived up the top of Laurel Canyon with all the famous names. I even found myself looking out for Crosby, Stills and some of the Eagles. Nobody seemed to walk the streets in LA back in seventy five but I did and it seemed every driver eye-balled me like I was some kind of prey. My clothes were colourful but not all that different! The Hollywood Hills are steep and I was hot even though giant eucalyptus gave me plenty of shade. When I found the little cabin-style house it was deserted. Run down and lonely. A
neighbour told me no-one had been there for at least four weeks. No notes or messages for me of course. Blue Eyed Gary was never seen or heard from again. Maybe Charles Manson murdered him?
Disneyland wasn’t my scene and LA attractions were so tacky I wanted to hide. Even the women appeared to be manufactured so I ditched the idea of Mexico and continued my drifting. Las Vegas is the only place where a male has attempted to pick me up and it occurred within thirty minutes of arriving there. There was that feeling of being preyed upon once again. Dante was his name (and what a sweet name it is!). He told me I had beautiful hands and could he buy me dinner. I wished him well and told him to leave me alone. Then I bought myself some tacos and looked at my hands with fresh eyes! Nevada. Arizona. Texas. New Mexico. Looking out through tinted windows as my life blurred passed. Pale flat roads six or eight lanes wide slicing across plains and cornfields and forests and over rivers with names I would never learn. Endless lines of Fords, Dodges and Buicks buzzing along at the speed limit. Endless traffic and endless humanity in that huge country. I felt minuscule in all that space with all those millions.
I’d been in North America over 2 months and was heading North through Idaho and Utah. I guessed I had travelled over 12,000 kilometres at this stage by bus and thumb when I reached Salt Lake City. I eventually found the bank I needed in this super-clean Mormon town and as I pushed in the big glass doors, someone was coming out, so I steppedaside. Simon, shaking and pale faced, stumbled towards me. He was in shock and actually believed I was an apparition. Two hundred and eighty million people in the U.S.A. and Simon walks out a door at the same time as me. So, for all the mathematicians,
what are the odds? Somewhere between ten million and two hundred million to one. Simon had left New York after failing to find editing work, his eyes now set firmly on Hollywood. The commune bus he was travelling on looked like something from the movie “Kool-Aid Acid Test” and had about twenty “artists” on board (including bullshit artists). Some were crazy, most just a little bit strange. The bus had broken down eighty kilometres East of Salt Lake City and the whole tribe of travellers had been waiting three days for the bus to be repaired. Simon and I found a bar which wasn’t easy in the Mormon
capital and even then the beer was light only but we had to celebrate this freaky, chance
reunion. This was a short one as well. The bus was finished the next morning and it rumbled
away with all the crazies on board praying it would hold together for them to reach LA.
Ten years galloped past and I was married, had two kids and lived on the Gold Coast. Simon was still in Los Angeles working on lots of movies. He had been divorced in his early twenties in the U.K. and had a son. We talked now and then and I was stunned to learn that he had recently re-married the same girl from sixteen years earlier. We moved addresses several times and unfortunately Simon did as well with the result we totally lost contact once again.
Occasionally, throughout the next twenty six years, I tried to locate my missing mate but without any luck. Last week I related some of this story to my daughter, Jordana. She looked at me with pity and said “I bet you a bottle of wine I can trace him on the Internet”. Two days later she had his web-site and all contact details. Unknown to me she emailed Simon. Late yesterday afternoon a pommy sounding voice with a Californian twang was on the line asking, “Hey Cobber, do you still have your face in a bucket of beer?”
He is sixty five and I’m sixty nine. We won’t lose touch again! In fact, I’m flying over to see him in a few months so we can have another “re-union”. This one will be longer than the two previous efforts. Many people have asked if there is a spiritual bond between us or some kind of astral connection. Who would know but I don’t think so. Just a shared sense of
humour and odds of ten million to one!
John A Wilson, Gold Coast, February
2013
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