Big Sur my astrology it says that I am made to be
Where the rugged mountain meets the water
And so while stars shine brightly from up above
The fog rolls in through a redwood grove
And to my dying fire, I think I'll add a log

1971

He didn't think about it until a few years after she'd left him that day at the beach.

It was 1971 when Bobby finally made the connection between the shooting of actor Jack Reynolds and his own chance meeting with Manson at Big Sur back in the early August of 69.

Sat round a camp fire on a star filled night after surfing night waves with a group of fellow beach drifters, Bobby suddenly remembered the whole episode which returned to him like a hyper vivid flashback as he smoked a joint.

"Oh shit."

"What is it Bobby?" his current girlfriend Sandy asked him.

"Just something came to my my mind. You know, just like when a wave hits you."

Sandy smiled at Bobby and further added to his train of thought.

"Yeah, it's like the mind is an ocean, don't you think? Things eventually float back up to the surface or get washed up on the shore."

Bobby, completely stoned but strangely lucid, leaned back against the smooth rock and continued to gaze up at the sky, zoning out and remembering that strange encounter with the man who had massacred the hopes and dreams of a generation.

August, 1969

Bobby had been searching for some new beaches to surf and fancied Big Sur as the place he would find what he was looking for. He'd heard from fellow surfing buddies that it had one of the most beautiful coastlines, not just in California but in the entire world, with towering seaside cliffs and surrounding redwood forests.

"Try Willow Creek if you need some of that raw energy," his friend Matt had advised him before he set off. "And don't be put off by those kelp covered boulders close to shore. Willow has the best break on the coast if you ask me."

His old lady had her younger sister staying for a few days back at the commune they'd been currently living in and so he saw it as a good opportunity to get away and return to his one true love.

The sea.

It took his breath away to finally see Big Sur with its pounding waves smashing against the coastal escarpment that bridged the halfway point between Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara. He remembered his parents driving him and sister through Big Sur when they were young but somehow he always ended up either asleep in the back of the car or reading his beloved Mad magazine comics. These were long before the days when Bobby learnt how to surf or became attracted to girls.  

Now he was a young man obsessed with surfing, he had a newfound appreciation of his environment which was so essential to his overall well being.

This was the first time he truly appreciated the magnificence of Big Sur and he was definitely awake now, driving along the vertigo inducing Bixby Creek bridge with the windows down and the sea air hitting his face as he sang along to the radio.

"Yeah, I heard a funny thing
Somebody said to me
You know that I could be in love with almost everyone
I think that people are
The greatest fun
And I will be alone again tonight my dear"

Parking just above the cliffs high above Willow Creek, Bobby looked down at the epic scene below, in awe of nature with its beautiful chaos.

Nature here seemed to directly match the internal excitement he was feeling inside his own mind and body. He couldn't wait to surf the waves below so as to properly acquaint himself with the place.

In this sense it was like meeting a new love. How long it would last or how often he would return to these locations was uncertain.

He wondered how long he and Patricia would remain together. They were such an unlikely couple in so many ways.

"Places are just like lovers," he said to himself, musing on the concept that had just struck him. If he had been better with words he might have been a poet, but he wasn't so instead he just surfed and help shape boards under the tutelage of his occasional boss, Dennis, the surfing equivalent of an old sea dog.

Dennis had claimed he was writing his own book in the style of Hemingway but Bobby suspected it was just another one of the many ideas in his head that would never see the light of day.

Clutching his own hand made board, Bobby headed down the winding cliff path to the beach, energised by the perfect turquoise sea swirling against the rocks.

I hear you singing in the wire
I can hear you through the whine
And the Wichita lineman
Is still on the line

Having spent most of the day surfing at Willow Creek, Bobby slept in his van for a few hours, enjoying the warmth of the sun against the fresh sea salt wetness of his body. Was there a better feeling on earth than being dried by the sun after being in the sea? He didn't think so.

Even Glenn Campbell's Wichita Lineman on the radio didn't bother him as he let his body recover from his oceanic exertions.

KNOCK! KNOCK!

A bony sounding hand rapped against the back window of his camper.

Bobby bolted upright from his resting position.

"Yo!"

Faced with the intense stare of a wild haired man through the sand covered window, Bobby opened the back of his vehicle to see what the stranger wanted.

"What's up man?"

"I thought I was alone then I heard music coming from your van and I realised it was the exact same song playing on my radio as it is on yours. Between the two of us we'd make a full stereo system don't cha think?"

"I guess," said Bobby still groggy from his post surf half-sleep.

"Here. You want a beer?"

The wild haired man tossed him a can which Bobby caught as clean as a wide receiver.

"That's mighty kind of you. Name's Bobby."

"Charlie."

The two men shook hands as they both sat down on throne-like rocks overlooking the beach.

Snapping back the ring pull of his beer, Charlie looked at Bobby and toasted their chance encounter.

"Here's to strangers and dangers!"

"Sure. I'll drink to that."

As the late afternoon sun blinded Bobby's vision of the stranger, he heard just the voice which both whispered and growled as the mind behind the words appeared hyperactive, full of crazy thoughts and random concepts.

"I was just thinking this is how it should always be. Just bouncing from one place to the other, from one person to the next without no exact plan as such, just letting the universe do its thing. A bit like a pin ball machine."

Bobby nodded in general agreement.

"It's the ones that have plans you got to watch out for is what I reckon," said Bobby, squinting to see if the stranger agreed with him.

"I got plans. I just don't tell anyone about them. Meantime, I make like a tumbleweed, drifting here, drifting there. Gotta keep moving. A moving target."

The young surfer didn't quite know what to make of the evident contradictions in Charlie's way of thinking but took another glug of beer to see if it might help him understand him better.

"What brought you out here?"

“I've been itching with that feeling of needing to escape, I drove here with no real destination in mind. I spent the night in my truck, and yesterday, I visited this Esalen place I heard about to enjoy the mineral baths."

"Eslaen?"

"Yeah, man. It's a magnet for mystics, healers and holy poets. Oh yeah. And me!"

Charlie started laughing in a child like way, like one of those Warner Brother cartoon characters.

"You don't fit those categories?"

"No sir."

"What are you then?"

The piercing sunlight abated for a brief moment as Bobby suddenly saw the man staring back at him clearly.

"Kid, I'm the devil."

Bobby shrugged unable to take him seriously.

"Don't shrug like you don't think I'm telling you the truth."

"So, what was it like?" he asked Charlie, hoping to return the stranger to a more sane line of enquiry.

"What was what like?"

Charlie was visibly wrong footed by Bobby's question.

"Esalen?"

"Oh man, it was totally relaxing. I felt refreshed when I left. Like I'd been baptised with holy water."

"So even the devil can get baptised now?"

Charlie jumped to his feet, irritated by Bobby's casual interrogation.

"Sure he does. Even the devil can be saved or a saviour, don't cha know."

Bobby couldn't make out the vibe of the man at all. His character seemed difficult to pin down. Maybe he just needed to be stoned to understand him better he thought to himself. One thing was for certain though - the beer just wasn't cutting it in helping meet him on a level.

"Esalen. I'll have to check it out."

"Anyway, since leaving the institute, I been just taking my time, enjoying the ocean view, smoking a few joints and keeping an eye out for any pretty things along my way. I'm like a magpie y'know? Always looking for shiny objects."

"You wanna smoke something now?" Bobby asked Charlie, who raised a thumb to indicate his approval.

Comfortable though Bobby was with the stranger, he felt like maybe sharing a joint would relax them both further and enable a better understanding of one another.

"You want me to roll one? Or you?"

"No. You go ahead and roll."

Charlie set about rolling the joint as Charlie sang along to the song on the car radio.

Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lie
Everything you think, do and say
Is in the pill you took today
In the year 4545
You ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes
You won't find a thing to chew
Nobody's gonna look at you

Bobby kept one eye on Charlie as the bright sun cast his long shadow across the timeless rocks. In that eerie moment Bobby felt Charlie might well be the devil as he said.

1971

"Where did you just go?"

Sandy snapped her fingers to catch Bobby's attention.

Bobby, disorientated, returned to the present moment, relieved to no longer be reliving that strange scene on the rocks at Big Sur with the man who had now captured the imagination of America with his satanic gang.

"Just lost in time."

"Well why don't you come get lost in my arms instead," offered Sandy as Bobby happily took her up on her invitation, content that somehow his own personal destiny had led him to this place and not darker paths that others had been taken down.

As the glowing embers of the camp fire dimmed, the distant waves created a soothing lullaby whilst he and Sandy made out under the stars.