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So, I don’t know how I happened to think of it today, but I’ve been meaning to tell you about one time in early 1975, must have been, when I was twenty-five years old and Fran and I were living in Highland Park, in L.A. She was in school, first-year law at USC. I’d stayed behind, the previous fall, in Indiana, to finish my last few courses for my bachelor’s, and when I got to California, I started looking for work, camera work, in movies, I hoped, or television. Nothing much was coming of my efforts, so I enrolled in a night course, Christian Communications I think it was called, that I thought might get me some contacts and maybe some practical knowledge. Instructor for this class was C.B. Wismar. I don’t remember now if we had classroom work, or readings, or what, but what we did have was a lot of really fun field trips. All in the Family, Johnny Carson, Equus, a screening of the Short Features candidates for the Academy Awards, those are ones I remember. Evening classes, and weekends. This was a class with Christ College Irvine, which I don’t think even had a campus yet that year.
We didn’t have a car at that time, Fran and I, in early ’75. We got to places by bus, bicycle, and by the kindness of friends. Or by thumb. We hitchhiked sometimes, it’s true, across Los Angeles, and all the way, once, to San Francisco and back again on Christmas break. Great time to be out there on the Coast. End of an era, we might say.
So. The time I want to tell you about was the night I went to Burbank, to see Johnny Carson. Just me. Fran went along to some of those so-called classes, but this particular night she was studying, and I think I probably took the bus to NBC Studios, but I knew the buses later on would be like once an hour, so I took along a little backpack and a rolled up white cardboard sign, with “Pasadena!” in fat black marker across it, large enough for a driver to read by headlights in a glimpse on a freeway on-ramp.
The Tonight Show taping was great. I remember only one thing about it, none of the guests, nothing much about Mr. Carson, none of the jokes, nothing but just this one thing, and that was how worn and glum Ed McMahon looked whenever he wasn’t on camera. When Mr. McMahon slumped, I felt energized and comforted.
When the show was over, I asked around, looking for a ride home with C.B. or a classmate, but didn’t find one. The day was done, the night was dark when I hiked the several blocks to the entrance of a freeway, the Ventura, I suppose it must have been. The night was chilly, too. Stars shone overhead. I was not really going to Pasadena, but anyone going from Burbank to Pasadena would have to go up the Harbor Freeway to get there and would pass the exit I did want to go to.
I brought my sign out, and held it up for approaching drivers to see. Home was only about twelve miles away, but getting a good ride was a bit of a long shot for a lone, long-haired, bearded guy at that time of the evening. And yet, only a couple of cars had gone past me when the driver of the next one, a little two-seater, an MG or Triumph, probably, accelerated by and then hit her brakes hard and skidded to the side of the lane. As I trotted up to the vehicle, she swung the right-side door wide open, and she hollered, “I don’t know if you want to go with me—I’m only goin’ to South Avenue 52!” Dark-haired white lady, nice smile, a cigarette glowing in her right hand, on the gearshift knob.
“Perfect!” I said. “That is exactly where I want to go! I live on South Avenue 54!”
“Farrr out!” said the lady.
I got in the car, put my sign in my pack, and set my pack on the floor between my feet.
“Been waiting long?” asked the lady. She was a little older than I, I’d guess. Nice looking. Plump. A little plump. Cheery.
“Nope. Coupla minutes is all. This is perfect! Thanks for stopping!”
“Farrr out!” said the lady once more. And then she asked, “Do you chant?”
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Do you chant? Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō, y’know? I figured you must chant to get a ride so fast.”
“Chant? I don’t know what that is.”
So she chanted again. “Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō. Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō. Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō.” And, with her cigarette gripped in her lips, she reached over, across my knees, and unlatched the glove box and felt for a little stack of cards like business cards and plucked one off and handed it to me.
In English print and in Japanese characters the card had the name and address of a Buddhist temple. Centered on the card, by the waxing and waning lights along the freeway, I could make out a single line: Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō.
“Say it again,” I said.
“Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō. Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō. Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō,” she chanted. “You can get anything you want, by chanting,” she said.
“Anything I want?” I asked.
“Yes, pretty much,” she said.
“Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō. Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō. Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō,” I chanted. “Can I chant for a Cadillac?” It was a stupid thing to say. First thing out of my head.
“A Cadillac?” She smiled. “Yeah, I guess. Maybe. I don’t know. Try it sometime. Try it for something else.”
I had no use for a Cadillac. The lady took me, in a Triumph or a little MG, right to my door, at Two Five Five South Avenue Fifty-Four. Chant it with me: Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō. Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō. The lady took me right to our door, at Two Five Five South Avenue Fifty-Four.
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