I made it to Sunset Boulevard without further incident. Driving west down the Strip was slow going, but I liked the streets filled with hippies, head shops, and discos. There was what they were calling a cultural revolution going on among the youth of America. They wanted to drop out and end the war, make love for its own sake, and forget the prejudices of the past. These long-haired, dope-smoking, often unemployed wanderers gave me insight into what my country, my country might be.

There was an extra added benefit driving by the hippie hoi polloi that day. The young people ogled my fancy ride. Some of them, most of whom were white, gave me the black power fist and even mouthed, “Right on, brother.”

I liked that car way too much.

The crowds ended after five or six blocks, and I was speeding along the boulevard, now lined with mansions and big trees, vast green lawns and no pedestrians to speak of. The speed limit picked up and hardly anyone noticed my car because I was going deeper and deeper into the land of wealth.

After about three miles there was a northbound, nameless turnoff that became a dirt road in six or seven minutes. That slender lane went another seven or eight miles with a solitary yellow Rolls-Royce its only traffic.

After twenty minutes or so of deep ruts and hairpin turns over wooden bridges across dry streambeds and past a pond or two, I pulled up to a high iron gate. A man came out from a bamboo hut set before the barrier. He was maybe five nine, hirsute, with ocean-blue eyes and swarthy skin that had been kissed by the long-suffering sun of Sicilian history. Under curly black hair and a generous mustache one might have thought him to be in his forties, but I knew that Cosmo Longo had just turned thirty-two on May third.

The sentry broke into a big smile and walked toward me as I exited the car.

“Easy!” he announced to the woods and earth, sky and a far-off sliver of the Pacific Ocean that could be seen between two westerly crags.

“Cosmo. How you doin’ today?”

The Southern Italian immigrant wore heavy black trousers with a button-up fly and a white T-shirt, the fabric of which was quite a bit thicker than its American cousins. His bare feet were bigger than most shoes.

“Carving a crucifix for my aunt in Cefalù.” He pulled out the moderate-size red garnet stone that he was slowly fashioning into the religious icon. It was both ornate and primitive, something reminiscent of another homeland, one I had never known.

“Beautiful,” I said.

The manly sentry grinned and nodded; then he said, “She got here about fifteen minutes ago.”