25 - 28 May 1966

	Run For Your Life Starring Ben Gazzara Homepage Paul Bryan's Journal 25 - 28 May 1966
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25 - 28 May 1966 ("Strangers at the Door")

Based on the surreal nature of the events in Strangers at the Door, we have surmised that even the producers of the series intended this to be a dream episode.

Chronology of Events				Journal Entry
Strangers at the Door Somewhere near his home town in California, when a garage man tells Paul that his car can't be repaired, he sells it to the mechanic for $50, and is advised that the only way to get out of the place is to hop a freight. Paul does this, and is then thrown out of the boxcar with another hobo - a young man who, in no way seems the part. They walk the track for hours, and then, thirsty, they steal watermelons, but a farmer shoots at them, and though they get away, he catches up with them at the place where they made camp for the night. Pointing a gun at them, he says that he's taking them to the sheriff, and that they'll serve a year for the theft of the 50-cent melons. Paul says that the farmer won't kill a man over that amount, and walks away, the young hobo following him. After another long session of walking the track, they come on a water pump. At the house is an old woman in a rocking chair, recently bereaved and not right in her mind. Someone drives up, and takes the woman away. The young hobo takes some corn, and they eat this over a campfire, talking about life and the lack of love in his life. At this point, he becomes so irritated that he hits Paul. Following another long trek up the track, they come to a farm yard and meet a boy and his older sister. She makes sandwiches for them, and offers them hospitality, but the young hobo wants to move on immediately. She's told him about jobs available in a nearby factory, and appears to like him. Eventually they come to a water tower, and manage to cut into the pipes and drink and bathe to their heart's content. At a campfire that evening, the young hobo talks about the girl and the job she mentioned, but says that he's always been on his own, and intends to stay that way. Another tramp approaches them, and Paul welcomes him, though his companion does not. When they fall asleep, the tramp tries to take the young hobo's bottle of whisky, and when Paul intervenes, he is stabbed by the tramp.				Monte Carlo - Paris - San Francisco, Wednesday, May 25 Most of our stuff already packed, we were able to make a quick exit for the airport in the morning - except for one little hitch. Charlotte again. As Ramon had said, the vindictive and malicious monster was altered into a woman in love. I keep wondering if I did the right thing to tell her where Ramon had gone. After a quick visit to the Paris apartment, we caught this near-empty flight back. There was so much to talk about - the week in Monaco, Pete and June, the team, the car, Rachel, Ramon, reminiscing about Korea, wondering if we'd connect with Hardy and Elizabeth in Tahiti, and a thousand other things. Then, Armand. Though I'd met him twice in San Francisco, and knew that he and Kate never ceased to be in constant contact by phone and letter, just like the diagnosis, Armand was a subject that we simply never talked about - until today. Then Katie dozed off. Later After a long while, I fell asleep myself, and had a nightmare surely born out of my insecurity at the weekend, and sensing the shortness of my shadow beside Armand's which seemed to go on into infinity. In the dream I was driving to Almeria when my rental car broke down. The local garage men (both figures I remember from childhood) said they couldn't fix it, and I sold it to them for $50. Not only was their no bus or train station, it appeared that the place didn't even have a phone, and I became convinced it was impossible to get back to a road that led out of town (even though I recognized the location to be within hiking distance from my great aunt's house outside Pacific Grove). In this dream, the only option open to me was to hitch a freight with a bunch of hobos. That thing about feeling like a tramp obviously came from actual thoughts and doubts I'd had all week about the way I've been living - and giving away the car must have had something to do with the conviction I kept feeling that I should walk away from the Mastin, instead of taking my owner's privilege to be test driver. When I jumped a box car, the four men in it froze me out. I recognized them all as top Formula 1 drivers, though they didn't really look anything like the actual men. Only one finally spoke to me. His name was Brett, Pete's middle name, and the others grabbed his bottle of whisky, then threw us off the train. Maybe that was something from the moment that we both spun off in practice last week. It was probably all the salty stuff I was munching along with the airline's champagne, but the dream then went into a long thirst segment. Stealing a watermelon, finding a farmyard pump, and then even breaking into the pipes of a water tower, and being doused. We walked the railroad track, on and on, like this long flight. The watermelon farmer pointed a gun on us, and threatened to shoot, but I just walked away. How much I could read into that - as well as my remark to the man that I couldn't afford to spend time in jail. Though we actually seemed to be walking for hours to reach the place from which we started - as dreams are - we came to a farm, and found an old lady on the porch. She was a Negro woman, but I recognized her as my grandfather's sister by the rocking chair in which she dozed. Just the way Rosa had found her first romantic happiness over a decade after Nonno brought her over in middle age from Sicily following my father's death, this woman was holding a letter proposing marriage, the same way Michael Gerber had asked her to marry him when they were both in their sixties. But the ramshackle place was nothing like the attractive house I'd bought for my mother and aunt after the family home got too big to look after. Maybe it was that remark my mother made when she moved to Marin, that Rosa and Michael would let the house fall into ruin. But just as my aunt was never the same after Michael's passing, this woman was also in a deep state of grief. Then there was a long talk at a campfire - about love and the lack of it in Brett's life. I'd be now - and always was - the last to criticize the way Pete lives - his reluctance, even at 38 to settle down with a woman he's been mad for nearly a decade and a half, but all those unexpressed thoughts somehow stumbled into the dream. In the end, Brett hit me, and I felt all week that Pete wanted to do something like that to get all the frustration out of his system. Then there was a sister and brother with a cow who offered assistance. Meant to be June and her brother Dennis, the cattle rancher? Though I'm sure that June herself will never give up a nomadic life, trouble-shooting for her father's businesses around the world, that suggestion that Brett get a job in a local factory is easily a reflection of Junie's own longing for Pete to give up his roaming. Lots of double-meaning conversation around another campfire, talk of love, giving up a wandering life, not being able to do anything outside picking …. What was that Pete had said after the Monaco race? That he knew nothing but racing? I'd had too much champagne, and when Pete had said there was probably one year of racing left in him, I replied that he could become a top racing attorney overnight if he only went back and finished his law degree. There was this Moment between us. I thought he was going to throw his champagne at me, and Clive intervened, saying that the track would have its claim on Pete for a long while to come. At that point in the dream I was stabbed, but although it was Katie's hat pin that actually pierced my skin, I didn't wake up, but called on Brett to get help. He told me there wasn't any. At that point I felt more sick by the thought than in pain, and Brett suddenly changed his tune, and told me that I'd be all right. Then Katie was waking me, asking what was wrong. She then fell asleep again, but I think I'm now awake for good.
Paul spends the day in San Francisco, and he and Kate get a late afternoon flight to Hawaii.				San Francisco - en route to Honolulu, Thursday, May 26 Must admit that I was rather dubious when Kate cleared out the remaining personal things from my house before renting it and moved them to her apartment which had been empty at the time. I'd been confused. But how handy it was to get into San Francisco, and have fresh clothes to pick up for the trip to Japan. Marcella came over this morning with mail that had arrived since the packet she'd sent to Monaco, and in the middle of it was a most exciting piece of news! Johnny Deedrick is getting married in Kyoto on the 18th, and has asked me to be his best man. If he goes through with it, I'll be amazed. Running around town all day, and just managed to get all errands run before we had to leave for the airport for the flight to Honolulu.
Kate sprains her ankle, upsetting their plans to leave the next day for Tahiti.				Sand Bay, Friday, May 27 Had such a beautiful sleep in the fragrant air with the sound of the waves lapping against the shore, and woke up thinking that life couldn't get better than this. Lovely morning, fabulous seafood lunch, and then Katie, the most graceful woman I've ever met, tripped and twisted her ankle when Violet's little dog suddenly ran out in front of her. Nothing broken, but she's in considerable pain, and can't begin to stand on the foot. We're starting to rethink now what we should do. I want to stay here - who wouldn't? - but Kate thinks that I should go ahead with our plans, and fly to Tahiti tomorrow. I'd rather skip Tahiti for another time, and then go straight from here to Tokyo, but don't want to rile Katie up when she's feeling so badly.
Paul takes off on his own for Tahiti.				en route to Papeete, Saturday, May 28 Against my better judgment, I've left Katie at Violet's, and that alone has put me in a downer. Traveling to this most romantic place in the world on my own. Maybe she meant this as a test for me. Would I casually fall in with some woman or be thinking of her only? Or maybe she was having second thoughts anyway about going to Tahiti. I know that Armand owns an island there, and he and Kate would spend a few weeks there every year when they were together. Maybe it would be too much of a reminder.

29 May - 2 June 1966 ("Time of the Sharks")