1988 Ford Escort Broke down

I broke down on the way to work about 3 weeks ago. After hearing some noise that seemed to match the rpm. It had died twice before finally stopping on me. For about a week it was running fairly hot, and by hot I mean pretty d*** hot. But not quite boiling over. I suspected the fuel system first, but no probs there. Second came the thermostat but found no problem with it. I noticed I had a not so full radiator. And was informed by a buddy that my head gasket could possible have blown since we ran a compression test and found cylinder's 1 and 2 were at about 40-50 psi. And 3 and 4 were less than 30 psi. No water in my oil, but havent taken too much off to check since its sitting round the back of my work, and dont want it to seem like a junkyard lol. Just checking if its an easy fix before towing it to a shop. Since I cant find many people to give me a straight answer about whats wrong, I dont trust too many mechanics looking to make profit off of it. Without knowing what im getting into. Help plz.