1. Barney's Beanery

1. Barney’s Beanery, October 1969

“I love the places that I’ve never been,” she said. Farmgirl stared out the window like a puppy. “There it is!” I knew where it was; I’d grown up in L.A. Barney’s Beanery, Santa Monica Blvd., the beginning or the end of Route 66. We took a booth by the pool table. There was a book of matches in the ashtray that said, “Fagots Stay Out.”

Two guys who looked like Jim Morrison were playing Eight Ball and arguing; the first was the young Jim; the other, the fat one with the beard. I liked them both. I had a chili-size and Hadley, Farmgirl, had a Coke and an order of fries with a side of gravy. As the waitress walked away she said, “Gravy is so much better than ketchup it’s not even worth talking about.”

Why Do I Have This? Chicago?

When the Morrisons left, Farmgirl jumped up to grab the table. She stood at the register with a dollar bill and got quarters from a scroungy old guy who shaved his gray whiskers but missed spots, like a poorly mown lawn. She pushed her quarter into the slot and the balls tunneled down. She set them up, shuffled them about, put the eight ball in the middle and broke the rack; two stripes went into each of the far pockets. “You playin’?” she said, “I’m eating,” I said. I enjoyed a chili-size, and this was a particularly good one. The carny atmosphere, the multi-colored booths and license plates, the jukebox playing “Crystal Blue Persuasion,” all lent themselves to how delicious it was. Chili is short for chili con carne, by the way, which is Spanish for meat with chilis. Does it say chili con carne con frijoles? No, and at Barney’s Beanery, despite the eponymous name, the waitress, an older woman named Alice, knew to ask. Maybe I have a no-bean face.

Farmgirl said, “Scared?” as she sank another stripe in the side pocket.

“Of you? Kinda.”

“Hey bud,” she said, “Fagots Stay Out.”

I picked up the matchbook. “Mine says, ‘No Bitches.”

For hundreds of miles, from the Grand Canyon to be specific, she’d been focused on the sea. She’d never seen the ocean, yet there were stops to make along the way, or out of the way; the places she’d never been, and Barney’s Beanery was the roadhouse – you kept your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel. Maybe Morrison would be there, the real one. Maybe Janis Joplin. Across the way was a topless bar and the Alta Cienega, a sordid little motel where Morrison lived before he moved up into the canyon, before he moved to Love Street.

She wanted to watch the sunset over the ocean and I figured we ought to go. I called over the waitress as Hadley sank the eight ball. I thought we’d drive down the Strip by the Whiskey and the billboards, so we turned west onto Sunset off La Cienega by the Chateau Marmont. We stopped in the parking lot by a hot dog stand in an old Union Pacific railway car. She wanted to take pictures.

Up the hill was one of those rock billboards that line the Strip: three guys sitting on an old couch; one of them was David Crosby. It was half done. There was a man was up on the gantry in white overalls. He had brushes coming out of his back pocket and he was splattered with paint. It was odd, there was a young boy sitting atop the billboard’s scaffolding drinking from a paper cup and a straw. Every once in a while, the man stepped back and observed his work. He’d say something, and the boy would look at him. He was about 12, and he sat with a leg up. He wore jean cutoffs and a striped t-shirt. He looked like California.

A gust of wind blew a white paper bag from the scaffolding. It fell and twisted in an eddy, then rose again, the boy watching it. Napkins flew from out of the bag taking their own path. Hadley took a picture, the white sack and napkins floating through the air, the young boy watching, the man painting and the Chateau Marmont rising over it all like a castle.

We rode down Sunset past the Beverly Hills Hotel and the mansions, the V-dub hugging the twisty thoroughfare. The sun was sinking toward the horizon and we raced on to catch it, winding down the boulevard to the sea. We parked at Will Rogers beach and the cool of the afternoon settled into the sand. Hadley ran from the VW. “It’s so cool and…” she didn’t finish her sentence, she was so filled with joy. The sky went orange, then purple then black. On the radio was The Shangri-Las: “Oh no, oh no; Oh no no no no no.” Farmgirl took my hand. She sang, “Remember, walking in the sand,” then she pointed to the first star.