WELCOME TO CLOVIS, NEW MEXICO
How my love of Buddy Holly landed me in jail!
Well, we ran out of cocaine before we got to New Mexico and she split,
So I was alone and thumbing at night outside some small town in Texas when I saw a billboard that said YOU ARE ENTERING KLAN COUNTRY, with a guy on horse in KKK robes holding a burning torch. tt was getting dark, so I decided I shouldn't keep hitching once it got dark. If I didn't get a ride I'd wait for the sun to start hitching again.
A car with 4 short haired guys pulled over and said for me to get in so I did. The driver said he was glad to see me, because there were two cars filled with drunk rednecks with baseball bats looking for the hippie hitchhiking. I asked why, and they told me they were going to "do me in". Sure enough, within minutes one car filled with guys zoomed by honking their horn and screaming their war chant.
This was serious.
As we drove the guys gave me the money out of their pockets and I realized they had given me enough for bus fare to Clovis. I asked if they could take me to the bus station in the next town and they said there was a Greyhound bus stop there so I relaxed. It turned out the guys in the car had all tried to grow their hair long and had been beaten up and forced to get haircuts- by the local cops!
We got to the bus station without incident and I said goodbye and thanks to them for saving my life, walked in with 7 hours to spare before the bus and crashed on a seat.
When I woke up the bus was a half hour away and I got ready to board. I got on board and immediately spotted three hippies, I went to the back where they were and struck up a conversation. They were all headed to Clovis, too, and the girl with long brown hair was with them and she was single. The plan was they would get a hotel room to split and I was invited. From hitchhiking to bus riding and hotel arrivin' certainly seemed a major change from being beaten up with baseball bats. The girl and I hit it off and talked all the way to Clovis.
There was only one hotel in town we discovered and started walking from the station to the hotel where I had already called dibbs on first shower. We were at the corner across from the hotel and I couldn't wait to get inside and four police cars pulled up in front of us with their sirens on.
I looked behind me to see what the commotion was all about and realized- we were the commotion. Before I knew it, each of us was separated and placed into the cars. I would never see them again.
There was a problem. I was 15. That meant I could be sent to juvenile detention, but at midnight, which was 2 1/2 hours away, I turned 16 and by Georgia law could be on my own. I had to wait until midnight.
Two cops had me in a room asking me what I was doing in Clovis. I told them but they didn't seem to know how to respond. How could a hippie like Buddy Holly music? One cop picked up my 96 pound frame and casually tossed me against the wall while the other cop played good cop asking me to tell them what they needed to know. I refused to answer half of their questions waiting for the clock to tick.
Being slammed around, threatened, cajoled for 2 1/2 hours was not easy. However I guess I learned I could stand up to police pressure and brutality. This would serve me well when I would move to Chicago and join the anti-war movement.
Finally laying on the floor I looked up and saw the clock read 12:10 am. I was now 16. Actually I had been by Georgia time for an hour. I wanted to make sure. I gave my dad's number and they called, only to discover they had let me go awhile ago. I was no runaway.
The rage that they had displayed for over two hours gave way to shocked, stunned silence. I had stood up to them for over two hours and did not break.
I had turned 16 in jail.
One said they would have to run a computer check on me to make sure I wasn't wanted anywhere and they took me to a cell. Next to my cell was a girl who told me she had been caught after curfew a third time and was being sent to juvenile for the next 6 years! I realized I had two close calls within 24 hours. I still had my lucky quarter as the cops hadn't taken my money away from me, the only money I had when I left Atlanta to head to New Orleans. A quarter!
For 2 1/2 days I sat in jail waiting to be cleared, finally a cop came out and took me to his car without a word. When I got in my backpack was in the seat next to him. We drove in silence to the expressway, he got out with my knapsack and dumped its contents all over the side of the street. He then opened my side of the car and let me out, saying, "Tell all your hippie friends not to come to Clovis, New Mexico". He sauntered back to the drivers side and took off.
You have been told.
