I walked out of the Seattle bus terminal in the early morning. I saw a Kharmann Ghia pull up and a guy, about twenty-five, twenty-six, carrying a guitar case gets out. The driver, a girl a bit younger, kisses him goodbye and gets back behind the wheel. I rush over and poke my head in the window and say the first thing that comes to mind. "Is that guy a folk singer?" A dumb question, to be sure, but I had to think fast and, also, I'd had a lot of good luck with folksingers in my journeys. She's a bit taken aback but replies, "Uh...yeah. He is."

"Oh...well, uh, yeah I just wondered. I see he's got a guitar so I just wondered. He your husband?"

"No. He's my brother. You just get off a bus?"

"Yeah, just a few minutes ago. I just came down from Vancouver."

"Uh...listen...would you like some breakfast? I could make you something to eat."

"Sure. That would be great."

"Alright. Get in."

It's summer. 1963. I'm nineteen years old, on my way to San Francisco. I'd started out hitchhiking but got turned back at the border. I had to bum a ride back to Vancouver and get on a bus. The border cops knew I was going to San Francisco, which I stupidly told them, so I had to get a roundtrip San Francisco ticket, which I planned to get refunded in Seattle. Sure enough, when they get on the bus at the border to check every one out, they call out my name. "Brian Nash..Nach... (mumble) aboard?" Checked my ticket and I was cool. In Seattle I get off the bus. It may be June or July. Sun shining. Glorious day.

Depending on where you stand, or sit, when surveying the unfolding of my life it may appear in any number of different ways. One might witness an endless chain of failures. On the other hand, from a different point of view, it very well may appear as an endless chain of failures. But not to me. I don't care what anyone thinks. Whatever's happened, happened. And whatever I've done, I've done. (Brilliant, huh?) I've just as much right to publish memoirs as anyone. Why's Henry Miller more interesting than me? I'll tell you why. He can write. That's it. He's just better at lying about sex than I am. And if I'd lived exactly the same life as I have lived, only in Paris, everyone would be clamouring to buy my books. I think. My problem is honesty. I can't lie. Otherwise I'd be a bigger hit at parties, in bars, and with certain types of women. For example, twenty-eight years ago Ivy Carpenter offered me a jean jacket that had belonged to Lenny Bruce. I don't remember why I turned it down. Maybe it didn't fit me or maybe it was white. I didn't wear white denim. But the thing is I often, over the years, told people that I almost had Lenny Bruce's jacket. This news was usually received with about as much interest as what grades of sandpaper I had at home. It finally occurred to me:
why not just say my jacket used to belong to Lenny Bruce? People would be entertained for about fifty seconds and no harm done. But I could never bring myself to lie about it. So what I started doing was telling the original dull story and then added what I've just said about trying to lie about it. This is why Henry Miller is a better storyteller, but I'm way deeper, philosophically.

I climbed in the passenger seat of that sexy Ghia, tossing my pack over into the back. We drove for no more than ten or fifteen minutes before we got to her house. On the way I learned that her name was Jane Bow, she had a very young daughter, about three years old, named Eve, and a husband. I always find it so amazing when I read memoirs. The details of a life that are so richly rendered. Moods, conversations, meals, how everyone looked and what they wore. And almost by definition a published autobiography must describe the life of one who has done a lot over a long period. Memoirs are usually composed by old people. How do they remember so much? I'm only fifty and have hardly done anything and yet those incidents in my life that I treasure as meaningful, illuminating, or even just interesting, are vague myths, obscured by time. I remember so little about them. Do those authors lie? Make stuff up to fill in the blanks? In fact, aren't myths lies that tell the Truth? Isn't it more revealing to make up a good story than to simply itemize facts?

Why would a young woman, no older than twenty-three or four, probably less, married, and the mother of a baby girl, pick up a strange guy at a bus station and take home to fix him a meal? I admit, at nineteen I was a pretty sweet kid. I looked like a bum, with long scraggly hair and beard, dirty clothes, stinky running shoes and grungy teeth. But I was sweet, and my talk was pleasant. Despite my bold play in front of the depot, I was shy, innocent. I think, also, in spite of of my ratty attire, I was somewhat handsome back then, more or less. Why else would even a dame like Booby have fallen for me at the Spanish Club? But, still, Jane was no dope. Why'd she do it?