Destination Read Online Free PDF Page A

tagged me with bipolar disorder. I was a charmless mini-misanthrope with poor hygiene. I was an egomaniac with cystic acne. I was an acquired taste that no one ever acquired.
    I squeaked through junior high and hit high school. Adult life loomed wicked large. Fairfax HS was almost all Jewish. I stood out only as a gentile and bad-skin exemplar. I craved attention. I lacked attention-getting skills. I was a poor student, worse athlete, worse social mover still. Stock losers and teenage lepers shunned me. My loserdom did not conform to adolescent rebellion laws. Stock martyrdom bored me. I disdained the canonized alienation of disaffected kids worldwide. I wanted to promote myself as strictly unique and attract commensurate notice. I was a rebel with self-aggrandizement as cause.
    I pondered the dilemma. I hit on a solution. I joined the American Nazi Party. I debuted my führer act in the West L.A. shtetl.
    It backfired—and worked.
    It got me
some
attention. It got me recognized as a buffoon. I did not subvert the status quo at Fairfax High School. I did not derail the Jewish hegemony. I passed out hate tracts and “Boat Tickets to Africa.” I anointed myself as the seed bearer of a new master race. I announced my intent to establish a Fourth Reich in Kosher Kanyon. I defamed jigaboos and dug the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. I ragged Martin Luther Coon and hawked copies of “The Nigger’s 23rd Psalm.” I got sneered at, I got laughed at, I got pushed, I got shoved. I developed a sense of politics as vaudeville and got my ass kicked a few times. I learned how to spin narrative and elicit response. I knew that I didn’t hate Negroes or Jews—as long as they comprised a rapt audience. I harbored a warped sense of the early-mid ’60s. I nursed a writer’s feel for timing. I honed my ability to stand tall and eat punches. I learned to front my crazy shit and revel in it as unique.
    My Nazi act succeeded and tanked. It moved me, bored me, and vexed me in sync with my audience response. I lived to fantasize and assimilate storylines. Good books and TV fare subsumed my performance art. I flew with shit that clicked real in my gourd.
    It’s fall ’63. My dad’s health is fading. Poor nutrition and Lucky Strikes are playing catch-up. Bam
—The Fugitive
debuts on TV.
    It’s pure concept. There’s a small-town doctor. His marriage is fucked up. His wife’s an alcoholic shrew. A one-armed bum B&Es the doc’s pad and snuffs her. The doc gets tagged with the snuff.
    He’s tried, convicted, and sentenced to fry. Prissy Lieutenant Gerard takes him to death row. Bam—the train derails. Bam— he’s on the run forever. He’s chasing the one-armed bum. The cop’s chasing him.
    The show grabbed me. The show obsessed me. The show messed up my sleep. Dr. Kimble ran. I ran along at warp speed.
    There’s Kimble. He’s a slick cat. He’s haunted and twitchy and doomed. He’s isolated like me—but imbued with better looks and hygiene. The cop’s hounding him. The cop’s got some secret agenda. My dad thinks he’s a fruit. He’s a chicken-chasing Charlie at the Hollywood Gold Cup.
    Kimble hits numerous towns. They all look like studio lots or L.A. He’s a lightning rod. He attracts sexual discontent and ennui. The grooviest woman in town always finds him.
    Real
women. Women ripped by loneliness and hunger. Lois Nettleton, Patricia Crowley, Diana Van Der Vlis. Barbara Rush, Sandy Dennis, Madlyn Rhue, Shirley Knight. Suzanne Pleshette, Elizabeth Allen, the great June Harding—the most accomplished TV actresses of the era.
    Ooooooh, Daddy-o!!!! They were tripping up my trouser trout triumphant!!!
    Kimble was a heat-seeking missile. The women sizzled with longing. Nobody got laid. Exigent circumstances precluded it. Kimble’s sprint was one long dry hump. It was my futile drive for selfhood refracted.