Escape From Pelee Point
The First Time I Heard a Dylan Song.
That morning, sitting there, shaken, hungry and exhausted, in that little Detroit coffee shop, a voice rang out from the radio.
We had just escaped from Pelee Point, on the Canadian side of Lake Erie. I hitchhiked up there from Columbus with my brother. I was seventeen. He was nineteen. We were setting out on the trail of our lives and landed on this idyllic spot in the world. At least it seemed idyllic. When we got there, it was infested with flies. They blanketed everything. I couldn’t see the blue of my jeans through the flies.
Dusk was setting in. We made our way to the beach, where we planned to camp. The temperature was cooler. The flies dissipated, then disappeared as night rolled in. We made a fire and cooked burgers and hot dogs and made friends with another campsite – two guys with a little two-seat MG convertible and a cooler filled with beer. We shared our food, and they shared their beer.
We slept under the stars in our sleeping bags, with the small waves of Lake Erie lapping against the shore. We slept deep, and it was chilly when the sun came up. We lit the campfire and heated cans of iced tea. We looked over the lake. It was calm and serene. Then, the flies returned. First a few, then swarms. I could barely see through them. They blanketed everything.
Our camp-mates pulled their stuff together and vanished in their little MG. We packed our knapsacks in what seemed like an instant and fled. But we couldn’t find a single car on the road.
We barely found the road. We were looking for the ranger’s station, trying to get help, when we saw the MG coming towards us, top down. No flies on them as they streaked towards us. They stopped and the car disappeared under the flies. “Get in,” they shouted. There were only two seats, so we sat on the back, over the trunk, with our legs dangling inside the backseat, and holding on for dear life. They zoomed away and the flies cleared. As long as we were moving, we were safe. I didn’t know how far this fly-fest extended, and I was scared our friends would stop before we were clear.
We zoomed out of the park and onto the highway. The flies were gone. We could breathe. They let us off and we thanked them over and over. We hitched our way south to Detroit. I can’t recall if I already had a plane ticket or just planned to buy one at the airport, but I had a flight pegged… home to New York in just a few hours. My brother had a bus ticket back to Columbus. We were shaken and we were hungry, and I was desperately in need of coffee. We stopped in this little greasy spoon of a place for some breakfast.
Sitting at a small table, eating sunny side ups eggs and grits, and yes, on my third cup of coffee, I heard him. Sure, I must have heard him before, must’ve heard him, Peter, Paul and Mary singing him, maybe Richie Havens and even the Byrds by that time, but I never really paid attention. That morning, sitting there, shaken, hungry and exhausted, in that little Detroit coffee shop, a voice rang out from the radio. “You got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend. When I was down, you just stood there grinning.”
It wasn’t one of his more important songs, but for some reason he got me, right there. His soul grabbed me by my soul and attention was paid. You never forget a thing like that.
I didn’t own a stereo. But, as soon as I got home, I bought one with my last dollar. I still remember buying that first Dylan album – in his cap, his coat collar up, holding his guitar, with that sardonic grin.
I remember buying Freewheelin’ oh my god what an album. I bought every one of his albums I could get my hands on. I’d go down to this little record shop in the East Village on St. Marks Place and First Avenue and get every bootleg album I could find.
That morning in Detroit, he entered my soul, became part of my DNA. There aren’t many things in life like that – one special girlfriend, your innocent child looking up at you, and the soul of an artist.