TALES OF BRAVE ULYSSES
It was my second year at the university. The Beatles were still a band; Jimi, Janis, and Jim were still alive; and the war was always there.
We were gathered together in our dorm room on one of those ugly gray carpets. Hunter had shoved our beds against the white cement block wall, the blankets hung to the floor and hid our dirty clothes stuffed underneath. On a small table stacked with magazines, Rolling Stone, Ramparts, The Evergreen Review, sat my ceramic Buddha, a stick of Patchouli bent before him. It threaded the air with incense. Taped just above my bed, was a black and white photo blow-up of the beat poet, Allen Ginsberg. Bearded, huddled against the cold, in the middle of some tenement street, he held a huge placard strapped to his neck with the words, ‘POT IS FUN’. Right beside him on the wall was my Donovan poster. It vibrated in red and blue. ‘Electrical Love’ was spelled out in an eye-straining melding of German Gothic letters and Egyptian Hieroglyphs. Hunter’s Spartan side of the room, displayed our ‘trophy’ high on the wall, the red, white and blue, metal, diamond-shaped, DX gas station sign; our own personal Pop Art.
My given name is Jason, but some called me Jase, others called me ‘hippie’. My hair touched my shoulders, and I wore a strand of colored beads looped down my chest and a pair of frayed bell-bottom jeans. My sandals were imported from India, a loop around my big toe and a hand-tooled strap across my arch, the leather was thin as cardboard and tough as the hide of a water buffalo. They were just about worn-out. I picked them up from a local emporium, ‘Nathan Hale’s’. A jokester told me they soaked them in buffalo urine to cure. But I didn’t care.
The skinny short kid that sat cross-legged next to me with the moon face and black hair tied back, was Warlock. He had on his fringed leather vest. We only ever knew him as Warlock. Bent over, intent, he rolled one of his perfect fat joints. He deftly creased the thin paper with his index finger, as he shook out the marijuana from the plastic baggy in a neat mounded line like he was still salting his green beans in the cafeteria. With a flick of his tongue he moistened the edge and rolled it into a thick tube with his nimble fingers and twisted the ends. He deposited it at his feet with the others. They were like munitions stacked for a coming siege.
To his left was his roommate Wolfman. It fit. He always had a ready grin of more white teeth than should be in anyone’s mouth. He held a bottle of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill, always ready to ‘party’ anytime, anywhere. They were like a ‘ freak’ Mutt and Jeff. Wolfman, the son of a Depauw English professor, was tall and lanky, his head graced with a chaos of curls, an exploded halo of brown hair. It was something like Bob Dylan’s mane at his most dissipated surreal stage, about the time of his single, I Want You, just before his motorcycle accident.
The barefoot girl beside him, with the plaited hair and crooked smile, who wore the Indian pipe bone choker was Verlaine. The legs of her bib overalls were hacked off and rolled up, mid-thigh. She didn’t shave her arm pits or her legs, fine blonde hair traced them like a golden light. She never used deodorants or perfumes of any kind. She said they were phony. She trusted in pheromones, hormonal body scents that were a natural sex attractant. A biology major on work/study, she was a true child of the earth.
Opposite me, cross-legged, sat Hunter, my roommate. His blonde hair was like a beam of light that swept across his ruddy brow above a pair of quick blue eyes. We balanced out like the sun and the moon. He was analytical and outgoing. I was artistic and moody. A first year pledge to the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, he withdrew and renounced the war and his ‘plastic’ social life, when Suzy’s brother was killed in Viet Nam. It was ironic that his dad worked for a large pharmaceutical company in Indianapolis.
Suzy was the ‘straight’ one of our bunch, frosted hair, soft features with a classic profile, hoop earrings and perfect nails. She wore a blue and white mod dress and knee-high suede boots. She rarely ‘partook of the weed’ but would share a toke if Hunter was there. I think she was still a virgin, despite my roommate’s best efforts.
Joey sat next to Suzy. Her long hair shielded her lips as she leaned over and whispered something in her ear that made her laugh. She was dressed the same as the day I first met her in my life drawing class. I looked down from my art stand and there she was, sprawled on the concrete floor in a man’s white dress shirt, the sleeves rolled-up, the tales knotted in front around her midriff. She wore faded jeans cut-off just below her hips and was barefoot. Charcoal was smeared all over her face and arms and legs. She would sketch furiously on her blackened pad. When her charcoal was gone I would pass her mine.
To my right was Verlaine’s roommate, Ingrid, with her watchful brown eyes and dark hair. She wore no bra under her loose fitting top and her jeans fringed her feet. She was from Nice, France, and had no tolerance for bullshit, Fascists or Philistines, which in her view was 90% of the world’s population. She smoked pungent French cigarettes, Gitanes, and would not let her dates ever pay her way. She reasoned it obliged her to have sex and wouldn’t hear of it.
Ah, Warlock had finished his craft. He did the honors and lit the first joint. The twisted end flared and sparked as he sucked in the seam of smoke, and held it. He passed it and Wolfman traded him the Boone’s Farm bottle.
Smoke plumed from Warlock’s nose like a dragon as he unscrewed the cap. He exhaled the rest of the smoke and took a swallow. "Finest kind!" He had just finished reading M. A. S. H. by Richard Hooker and lifted that phrase from the book . He repeated it every chance he got.
The bottle and joint made their rounds when I hopped up to jam a towel along the bottom of the door.
The jolly fat Buddha on the table, who surely knew the joys attendant in the burning of incense, smiled at me, as I lit another joss stick and placed it in the holder. I crossed to the curtained windows and the wire stand, the phonograph, it’s sides wrapped in dark, wood grain vinyl. At the end of the pencil thin tone arm was a black stereo cartridge, a new diamond tip stylus, just waiting. I shuffled through the LPs.
Ingrid wanted to hear the Velvet Underground. She held up the album with the big yellow banana sticker on the front, the tiny script on the white cover read,‘peel slowly and see’. "Please, Jason! Nico, This, I want to hear."
"Too, New York."
"Crown of Creation!" Verlaine yelled.
"Chad and Jeremy!" Suzy called out. Groans accompanied her request. Hunter rubbed a shirt in her face that missed the clean-up. She grabbed at it and beat his arm, then leaned in to kiss him.
"Big Brother," Wolfman grinned with a lupine smile, "Love my girl!"
"She lookin’ good," Joey continued, as she snapped her fingers, and swayed to the Doors’ song that was triggered inside her head. She unspooled a thin tendril of smoke from the joint, and nipped it off with her lips before she passed it on.
"Axis Bold As Love c’mon, play some Hendrix," Verlaine, demanded.
"Not just yet . " I slipped the black vinyl platter from it’s hot pink and fluorescent orange cover. "See if you can dig this!" Strange Brew kicked in from Disraeli Gears, Clapton’s guitar line was muscular and slinky . I felt someone tug at my pants leg and looked down into Ingrid’s big black pupils, the joint aglow between her lips. I collapsed on the floor beside her. She frantically waved my face close to hers as she handed the roach to Warlock. Her fingers thrust into my hair, as she grabbed the back of my head and pressed her lips to mine. She forced a thin stream of smoke into my mouth. I could hear the others’ laughter and random claps. I took it all and came up coughing.
" Finest Kind!" I heard Warlock shout.
"Far out!" Wolfman said, as he swallowed another mouthful of wine.
"I do not waste the smoke," Ingrid intoned. "I want you high with me. You like? "
I nodded, like a bobble-head doll. She kissed my cheek.
Warlock flicked his BIC and sent another bomber into flight. Joey picked up the Cream album and examined the psychedelic collage closely.
"Do you think this is art? I mean..."
"Wha–," someone said.
‘It’s getting near dawn,’ The music pulsed through the room. ‘When lights close their tired eyes.’
"It’s a reproduction. It’s not the original. It’s got to be original to have any value."
Wolfman picked at the carpet fibers and laughed.
‘I’ll soon be with you my love’
" What kind of value, monetary or intrinsic?"
"Intrinsic because it is. Monetary if I like it."
‘To give you my dawn surprise’
"Capitalism is bullshit, man."
"What about art prints? They have value and aren’t original."
Warlock rocked back and forth and slapped his thigh as he flicked his lighter, fascinated by the spurt of blue flame that throbbed to the music.
‘–waiting so long to be where I’m going...’
"Art’s anything you can get away with. Now pass that joint."
‘In the sunshine of your love.’
Verlaine splayed her toes with her outstretched fingers."Get McNamara to smoke some of this!"
‘Is there a reason for today?’
"This album cover is freaking me out!"
"There’d be no war, that’s for sure!"
"Can you dig it?"
‘Do you remember?’
" Morrison is a better poet than Dylan Thomas."
"Wha--"
"Who?"
"Bob Dylan got his name from that guy."
‘Forget the time of you, Dance–the–night–A-way’
"Is it Gallo or Gallieo?"
"What does the label say?"
"I don’t know, I peeled it off."
‘Gonna turn myself to shadow, So - I -can’t -see- your-face’
"Drink me."
"Oh, yeah? Eat me!"
Wolfman’s voice cut through."Hey man, how’d you get the sign in here?" He gestured to the wall.
"You tell it, Jase," Hunter said, his eyes unfocused. He pinched the joint like it was a live wire with the insulation frayed .
"Hunter saw this sign leaning against the back of a shed down by the tracks. It blew my mind that he wanted it for the room. I mean look at it. It’s what, seven feet long and heavy. You remember those DX gas stations, don’t you?"
"Super Boron!" Wolfman exclaimed, as if they were magic words and he would turn into Captain Marvel.
"Yeah. Right on. Anyway, they went bankrupt or were bought out or something. It was just laying there for weeks, weeds everywhere. Then one night, September, right? Fall semester?" Hunter nodded, his arm curled around Suzy’s waist. "We crept out..." Ingrid inserted a joint between my lips. I paused, and took a deep drag before I passed it on. I held the smoke in my lungs until I started to float like Underdog in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I exhaled. "And-and-and-and it was raining. Yeah, it was raining. It was a cold rain, too, cold, cold, cold and silver, like liquid silver, a silver rain that rained over us pouring, pouring, cold. The leaves--" I waggled my fingers. "were waving in the trees, on the breeze. We moved soft like shadows-soft. Quiet. Shhhh. " Hunter’s eyes flashed like jewels. He laughed at me. "We were soaked by the time we reached the sign. Yeah, our shirts were sopping and our tennies were sloshing. We reached the sign and--- Hunter..." I looked over at him again. His irises were huge like chunks of lapis lazuli. I could hear his eyelids, open, snap shut, then open, like a camera shutter. I looked away and took a swig of the Gallo, the Boone’s Farm was gone. I lowered my voice to a confessional tone. "As we were hauling the sign back, Hunter slipped in the mud and cut his leg on a sharp corner of the sign. So he was bleeding and there was mud and rain and we were soaked. We slipped and sloshed back to the dorm, past the married housing, avoiding street lights, carrying that awkward hunk of metal in our cramping hands, our muscles burning. And it was pouring, let me tell you. We got it up three flights of stairs and down the hall and into our room, and collapsed. Nobody saw us, not the R.A., nobody. We showered off the mud and slept with that sign in our room at the foot of our beds. It thrust up from the floor to the ceiling. It was immense and red and white and blue. It was too much. And there it is." I pointed to the wall.
Laughter peppered the gathering and the circle knitted tighter together as we leaned into each other, knees touched, heads rested in laps or on shoulders. I stood to turn the record over, but Hunter was there and flipped it behind his back into the air, it twirled, and he caught it, and slapped side two down on the turntable. The needle popped into the groove to the crash of drums and Clapton’s guitar line wah-wahhed out of the speakers as Tales of Brave Ulysses’
began.
‘You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever,
But you rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun.
I folded to the floor and felt Ingrid’s hands on my shoulders as she gently tipped me back so that my head was cradled in the shallow bowl of her crossed legs.
‘And the colors of the sea blind your eyes with trembling mermaids,
Her smile glowed down on me, as wide as a quarter moon, as she softly stroked my hair. Like a dutiful nurse who attended to a terminal patient she carefully held the joint to my lips when it came around.
‘...with tales of brave Ulysses: How his naked ears were tortured by the sirens sweetly singing,
The walls of the room continued to slide in closer. The ceiling lowered perceptibly.
‘Her name is Aphrodite and she rides a crimson shell, and you know you cannot leave her...’
I drifted off as the music throbbed as one song cascaded into another and album after album plopped on the turntable. Someone was at the stereo and cued up, ‘Light My Fire’ from ‘The Doors’ first album. Ingrid’s fingers traced their way through my hair, I drifted off, each note of the long instrumental passage discreet, held in air, distinct and separate, yet part of an organic whole. Then Morrison’s growl insinuated itself once more : ‘The time to hesitate is through, no time to wallow in the mire...’
"Let’s take our clothes off! Let’s get naked!" It was Warlock. His words hit the floor like a ten pound shot putt, the heavy pitted idea noisily rolled, "c’mon turn out the lights," and rolled, "Who’s up for a group grope," and rolled across the room.
Air was held in lungs. I heard the subtle shift of cloth on limbs; a cough. Ingrid’s hand was poised motionless just above my head like a raptor that balanced on canyon a thermal. The music built to a crescendo. Her fingers there just above my head.
"Axolotl," Verlaine whispered in a smoke roughened voice.
Laughter erupted like ping-pong balls dropped into a roomful of mouse traps.
Ingrid’s hand plummeted from the sky over a small frightened animal, and killed my hair.
"Oh, man, what?!" Wolfman grinned, a roach perched on a bobby pin in front of his lips. " I monitor a colony of axolotls at Jordan Hall." Verlaine laughed, and took a swallow of the wine.
"Shit!"Wolfman howled as he dropped the roach, on his thigh.
"What’s an axo-axol..." Suzy tried to finish before she broke up.
"Axolotl," Verlaine continued, "It’s like a salamander, except it lives in water all it’s sorry-ass life and has gill branches."
"Gill branches!?" Wolfman couldn’t contain himself.
" You know, gills, to breathe. She waved her fingers beside her neck . We keep them in rows of little glass bowls to breed."
"Far-freakin’-out!"Wolfman was on his back convulsed in laughter.
"Want to go see them?"
"Sure," Suzy, replied. "Can we?"
"I have a key."
"Let’s go," Hunter said as he stood, as if he was aboard a ship in rough seas.
"Let my children go," Wolfman echoed, prone on the floor.
"You’re wasted, man," Warlock said as he stood over him.
"Wolfman. It will be fun, you come," Ingrid added. "We can have some glaces on Kirkwood. Oui?"
"Glaces," I puzzled as I looked up at her. "Like ice cream?"
It was my second year at the university. The Beatles were still a band; Jimi, Janis, and Jim were still alive; and the war was always there.
We were gathered together in our dorm room on one of those ugly gray carpets. Hunter had shoved our beds against the white cement block wall, the blankets hung to the floor and hid our dirty clothes stuffed underneath. On a small table stacked with magazines, Rolling Stone, Ramparts, The Evergreen Review, sat my ceramic Buddha, a stick of Patchouli bent before him. It threaded the air with incense. Taped just above my bed, was a black and white photo blow-up of the beat poet, Allen Ginsberg. Bearded, huddled against the cold, in the middle of some tenement street, he held a huge placard strapped to his neck with the words, ‘POT IS FUN’. Right beside him on the wall was my Donovan poster. It vibrated in red and blue. ‘Electrical Love’ was spelled out in an eye-straining melding of German Gothic letters and Egyptian Hieroglyphs. Hunter’s Spartan side of the room, displayed our ‘trophy’ high on the wall, the red, white and blue, metal, diamond-shaped, DX gas station sign; our own personal Pop Art.
My given name is Jason, but some called me Jase, others called me ‘hippie’. My hair touched my shoulders, and I wore a strand of colored beads looped down my chest and a pair of frayed bell-bottom jeans. My sandals were imported from India, a loop around my big toe and a hand-tooled strap across my arch, the leather was thin as cardboard and tough as the hide of a water buffalo. They were just about worn-out. I picked them up from a local emporium, ‘Nathan Hale’s’. A jokester told me they soaked them in buffalo urine to cure. But I didn’t care.
The skinny short kid that sat cross-legged next to me with the moon face and black hair tied back, was Warlock. He had on his fringed leather vest. We only ever knew him as Warlock. Bent over, intent, he rolled one of his perfect fat joints. He deftly creased the thin paper with his index finger, as he shook out the marijuana from the plastic baggy in a neat mounded line like he was still salting his green beans in the cafeteria. With a flick of his tongue he moistened the edge and rolled it into a thick tube with his nimble fingers and twisted the ends. He deposited it at his feet with the others. They were like munitions stacked for a coming siege.
To his left was his roommate Wolfman. It fit. He always had a ready grin of more white teeth than should be in anyone’s mouth. He held a bottle of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill, always ready to ‘party’ anytime, anywhere. They were like a ‘ freak’ Mutt and Jeff. Wolfman, the son of a Depauw English professor, was tall and lanky, his head graced with a chaos of curls, an exploded halo of brown hair. It was something like Bob Dylan’s mane at his most dissipated surreal stage, about the time of his single, I Want You, just before his motorcycle accident.
The barefoot girl beside him, with the plaited hair and crooked smile, who wore the Indian pipe bone choker was Verlaine. The legs of her bib overalls were hacked off and rolled up, mid-thigh. She didn’t shave her arm pits or her legs, fine blonde hair traced them like a golden light. She never used deodorants or perfumes of any kind. She said they were phony. She trusted in pheromones, hormonal body scents that were a natural sex attractant. A biology major on work/study, she was a true child of the earth.
Opposite me, cross-legged, sat Hunter, my roommate. His blonde hair was like a beam of light that swept across his ruddy brow above a pair of quick blue eyes. We balanced out like the sun and the moon. He was analytical and outgoing. I was artistic and moody. A first year pledge to the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, he withdrew and renounced the war and his ‘plastic’ social life, when Suzy’s brother was killed in Viet Nam. It was ironic that his dad worked for a large pharmaceutical company in Indianapolis.
Suzy was the ‘straight’ one of our bunch, frosted hair, soft features with a classic profile, hoop earrings and perfect nails. She wore a blue and white mod dress and knee-high suede boots. She rarely ‘partook of the weed’ but would share a toke if Hunter was there. I think she was still a virgin, despite my roommate’s best efforts.
Joey sat next to Suzy. Her long hair shielded her lips as she leaned over and whispered something in her ear that made her laugh. She was dressed the same as the day I first met her in my life drawing class. I looked down from my art stand and there she was, sprawled on the concrete floor in a man’s white dress shirt, the sleeves rolled-up, the tales knotted in front around her midriff. She wore faded jeans cut-off just below her hips and was barefoot. Charcoal was smeared all over her face and arms and legs. She would sketch furiously on her blackened pad. When her charcoal was gone I would pass her mine.
To my right was Verlaine’s roommate, Ingrid, with her watchful brown eyes and dark hair. She wore no bra under her loose fitting top and her jeans fringed her feet. She was from Nice, France, and had no tolerance for bullshit, Fascists or Philistines, which in her view was 90% of the world’s population. She smoked pungent French cigarettes, Gitanes, and would not let her dates ever pay her way. She reasoned it obliged her to have sex and wouldn’t hear of it.
Ah, Warlock had finished his craft. He did the honors and lit the first joint. The twisted end flared and sparked as he sucked in the seam of smoke, and held it. He passed it and Wolfman traded him the Boone’s Farm bottle.
Smoke plumed from Warlock’s nose like a dragon as he unscrewed the cap. He exhaled the rest of the smoke and took a swallow. "Finest kind!" He had just finished reading M. A. S. H. by Richard Hooker and lifted that phrase from the book . He repeated it every chance he got.
The bottle and joint made their rounds when I hopped up to jam a towel along the bottom of the door.
The jolly fat Buddha on the table, who surely knew the joys attendant in the burning of incense, smiled at me, as I lit another joss stick and placed it in the holder. I crossed to the curtained windows and the wire stand, the phonograph, it’s sides wrapped in dark, wood grain vinyl. At the end of the pencil thin tone arm was a black stereo cartridge, a new diamond tip stylus, just waiting. I shuffled through the LPs.
Ingrid wanted to hear the Velvet Underground. She held up the album with the big yellow banana sticker on the front, the tiny script on the white cover read,‘peel slowly and see’. "Please, Jason! Nico, This, I want to hear."
"Too, New York."
"Crown of Creation!" Verlaine yelled.
"Chad and Jeremy!" Suzy called out. Groans accompanied her request. Hunter rubbed a shirt in her face that missed the clean-up. She grabbed at it and beat his arm, then leaned in to kiss him.
"Big Brother," Wolfman grinned with a lupine smile, "Love my girl!"
"She lookin’ good," Joey continued, as she snapped her fingers, and swayed to the Doors’ song that was triggered inside her head. She unspooled a thin tendril of smoke from the joint, and nipped it off with her lips before she passed it on.
"Axis Bold As Love c’mon, play some Hendrix," Verlaine, demanded.
"Not just yet . " I slipped the black vinyl platter from it’s hot pink and fluorescent orange cover. "See if you can dig this!" Strange Brew kicked in from Disraeli Gears, Clapton’s guitar line was muscular and slinky . I felt someone tug at my pants leg and looked down into Ingrid’s big black pupils, the joint aglow between her lips. I collapsed on the floor beside her. She frantically waved my face close to hers as she handed the roach to Warlock. Her fingers thrust into my hair, as she grabbed the back of my head and pressed her lips to mine. She forced a thin stream of smoke into my mouth. I could hear the others’ laughter and random claps. I took it all and came up coughing.
" Finest Kind!" I heard Warlock shout.
"Far out!" Wolfman said, as he swallowed another mouthful of wine.
"I do not waste the smoke," Ingrid intoned. "I want you high with me. You like? "
I nodded, like a bobble-head doll. She kissed my cheek.
Warlock flicked his BIC and sent another bomber into flight. Joey picked up the Cream album and examined the psychedelic collage closely.
"Do you think this is art? I mean..."
"Wha–," someone said.
‘It’s getting near dawn,’ The music pulsed through the room. ‘When lights close their tired eyes.’
"It’s a reproduction. It’s not the original. It’s got to be original to have any value."
Wolfman picked at the carpet fibers and laughed.
‘I’ll soon be with you my love’
" What kind of value, monetary or intrinsic?"
"Intrinsic because it is. Monetary if I like it."
‘To give you my dawn surprise’
"Capitalism is bullshit, man."
"What about art prints? They have value and aren’t original."
Warlock rocked back and forth and slapped his thigh as he flicked his lighter, fascinated by the spurt of blue flame that throbbed to the music.
‘–waiting so long to be where I’m going...’
"Art’s anything you can get away with. Now pass that joint."
‘In the sunshine of your love.’
Verlaine splayed her toes with her outstretched fingers."Get McNamara to smoke some of this!"
‘Is there a reason for today?’
"This album cover is freaking me out!"
"There’d be no war, that’s for sure!"
"Can you dig it?"
‘Do you remember?’
" Morrison is a better poet than Dylan Thomas."
"Wha--"
"Who?"
"Bob Dylan got his name from that guy."
‘Forget the time of you, Dance–the–night–A-way’
"Is it Gallo or Gallieo?"
"What does the label say?"
"I don’t know, I peeled it off."
‘Gonna turn myself to shadow, So - I -can’t -see- your-face’
"Drink me."
"Oh, yeah? Eat me!"
Wolfman’s voice cut through."Hey man, how’d you get the sign in here?" He gestured to the wall.
"You tell it, Jase," Hunter said, his eyes unfocused. He pinched the joint like it was a live wire with the insulation frayed .
"Hunter saw this sign leaning against the back of a shed down by the tracks. It blew my mind that he wanted it for the room. I mean look at it. It’s what, seven feet long and heavy. You remember those DX gas stations, don’t you?"
"Super Boron!" Wolfman exclaimed, as if they were magic words and he would turn into Captain Marvel.
"Yeah. Right on. Anyway, they went bankrupt or were bought out or something. It was just laying there for weeks, weeds everywhere. Then one night, September, right? Fall semester?" Hunter nodded, his arm curled around Suzy’s waist. "We crept out..." Ingrid inserted a joint between my lips. I paused, and took a deep drag before I passed it on. I held the smoke in my lungs until I started to float like Underdog in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I exhaled. "And-and-and-and it was raining. Yeah, it was raining. It was a cold rain, too, cold, cold, cold and silver, like liquid silver, a silver rain that rained over us pouring, pouring, cold. The leaves--" I waggled my fingers. "were waving in the trees, on the breeze. We moved soft like shadows-soft. Quiet. Shhhh. " Hunter’s eyes flashed like jewels. He laughed at me. "We were soaked by the time we reached the sign. Yeah, our shirts were sopping and our tennies were sloshing. We reached the sign and--- Hunter..." I looked over at him again. His irises were huge like chunks of lapis lazuli. I could hear his eyelids, open, snap shut, then open, like a camera shutter. I looked away and took a swig of the Gallo, the Boone’s Farm was gone. I lowered my voice to a confessional tone. "As we were hauling the sign back, Hunter slipped in the mud and cut his leg on a sharp corner of the sign. So he was bleeding and there was mud and rain and we were soaked. We slipped and sloshed back to the dorm, past the married housing, avoiding street lights, carrying that awkward hunk of metal in our cramping hands, our muscles burning. And it was pouring, let me tell you. We got it up three flights of stairs and down the hall and into our room, and collapsed. Nobody saw us, not the R.A., nobody. We showered off the mud and slept with that sign in our room at the foot of our beds. It thrust up from the floor to the ceiling. It was immense and red and white and blue. It was too much. And there it is." I pointed to the wall.
Laughter peppered the gathering and the circle knitted tighter together as we leaned into each other, knees touched, heads rested in laps or on shoulders. I stood to turn the record over, but Hunter was there and flipped it behind his back into the air, it twirled, and he caught it, and slapped side two down on the turntable. The needle popped into the groove to the crash of drums and Clapton’s guitar line wah-wahhed out of the speakers as Tales of Brave Ulysses’
began.
‘You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever,
But you rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun.
I folded to the floor and felt Ingrid’s hands on my shoulders as she gently tipped me back so that my head was cradled in the shallow bowl of her crossed legs.
‘And the colors of the sea blind your eyes with trembling mermaids,
Her smile glowed down on me, as wide as a quarter moon, as she softly stroked my hair. Like a dutiful nurse who attended to a terminal patient she carefully held the joint to my lips when it came around.
‘...with tales of brave Ulysses: How his naked ears were tortured by the sirens sweetly singing,
The walls of the room continued to slide in closer. The ceiling lowered perceptibly.
‘Her name is Aphrodite and she rides a crimson shell, and you know you cannot leave her...’
I drifted off as the music throbbed as one song cascaded into another and album after album plopped on the turntable. Someone was at the stereo and cued up, ‘Light My Fire’ from ‘The Doors’ first album. Ingrid’s fingers traced their way through my hair, I drifted off, each note of the long instrumental passage discreet, held in air, distinct and separate, yet part of an organic whole. Then Morrison’s growl insinuated itself once more : ‘The time to hesitate is through, no time to wallow in the mire...’
"Let’s take our clothes off! Let’s get naked!" It was Warlock. His words hit the floor like a ten pound shot putt, the heavy pitted idea noisily rolled, "c’mon turn out the lights," and rolled, "Who’s up for a group grope," and rolled across the room.
Air was held in lungs. I heard the subtle shift of cloth on limbs; a cough. Ingrid’s hand was poised motionless just above my head like a raptor that balanced on canyon a thermal. The music built to a crescendo. Her fingers there just above my head.
"Axolotl," Verlaine whispered in a smoke roughened voice.
Laughter erupted like ping-pong balls dropped into a roomful of mouse traps.
Ingrid’s hand plummeted from the sky over a small frightened animal, and killed my hair.
"Oh, man, what?!" Wolfman grinned, a roach perched on a bobby pin in front of his lips. " I monitor a colony of axolotls at Jordan Hall." Verlaine laughed, and took a swallow of the wine.
"Shit!"Wolfman howled as he dropped the roach, on his thigh.
"What’s an axo-axol..." Suzy tried to finish before she broke up.
"Axolotl," Verlaine continued, "It’s like a salamander, except it lives in water all it’s sorry-ass life and has gill branches."
"Gill branches!?" Wolfman couldn’t contain himself.
" You know, gills, to breathe. She waved her fingers beside her neck . We keep them in rows of little glass bowls to breed."
"Far-freakin’-out!"Wolfman was on his back convulsed in laughter.
"Want to go see them?"
"Sure," Suzy, replied. "Can we?"
"I have a key."
"Let’s go," Hunter said as he stood, as if he was aboard a ship in rough seas.
"Let my children go," Wolfman echoed, prone on the floor.
"You’re wasted, man," Warlock said as he stood over him.
"Wolfman. It will be fun, you come," Ingrid added. "We can have some glaces on Kirkwood. Oui?"
"Glaces," I puzzled as I looked up at her. "Like ice cream?"
"Ice cream, sure! You like? I like." Ingrid pushed me off her legs. My head thumped to the floor.
She pulled me up.
"Sounds good. Everybody dig that,"said, Hunter.
"Jim Morrison is like a lion." It was Joey, still absorbed in the album covers strewn across her lap.
"He’s the lizard king. He can do anything," answered Warlock. "Up, girl. Up, up!" He went over to help Wolfman.
Hunter kicked the towel from the door and unlocked it.
Verlaine grabbed Hunter’s arm, "Don’t you think you better check to see if the coast is clear?"
"The R. A. doesn’t care, as long as we keep things quiet during week nights."
"Where do you think Warlock got the weed?" I interrupted. "Seth down the hall is the biggest dealer in the dorm."
Hunter pulled the door open and our reek spilled out. A kid pink from showering with a white towel around his waist and a tooth brush thrust in his cheek, pressed against the wall and flashed a peace sign as we passed.
I bobbed over to Verlaine and hooked my arm through hers and started to recite: "Axolotl, axolotl burning bright, in the biology lab of the night, what immortal hand or eye, could frame thy sexual chemistry."
She reached out and grabbed my face and pulled it close to hers. Her eyes flicked in front of mine, "You are stoned, Jase!"
"Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful."
We piled down the three flights of stairs and banged the steel-frame doors open and rushed out into a warm, expectant, spring night, the trees tremulous with their delicate Jade green leaves.
On the lit concourse in front of the dorm a group of guys beat on an assortment of bongos, djembes and one conga drum, rhythms that kept time with our own hearts. Joey and Verlaine broke into a spontaneous dance and pulled Ingrid and Wolfman into their tribal ring.
"Jason, come join," Ingrid yelled as she held out an arm.
I grabbed her hand and Verlaine caught my other, and they pulled me into a vortex that swooped and spun, a wheel of life that thrummed with eyes that flashed, hazel-brown-brown-blue, hazel-brown-brown-blue, hair and shining teeth, laughter.
The axis of our gyre wobbled in mid-whirl, and the momentum of our bodies flung us to topple on the sidewalk. We crumpled together in a pile of mad laughter. Warlock stood back and cackled at the tangle of arms and legs.
"C’mon the axolotls await," called, Hunter, as he walked ahead. Suzy’s hand was plunged deep into the back pocket of his jeans.
All along Fee Lane, the parade of Detroit chrome gleamed beside us in one long sparkling necklace. Headlights shattered like diamonds as they burst, to twinkle over us, and ruby tail lights uncoiled behind like streamers.
" America, too many cars and too much essence," said Ingrid.
"What?" I replied.
" How do you say? Gaso-line?" She tentatively answered.
"Everyone should ride bikes like they do in China," added, Verlaine. " We could stop pollution overnight ."
"That’ll never happen," Hunter turned and said. "There is too much money to be made in oil."
"Americans use too much, share too little." Ingrid snapped a cigarette out of a blue box. "Africans starve and you go to McDonalds."
"McDonalds, yeah that sounds good," Wolfman responded.
"You’re such a fascist, Wolf," Ingrid said as she lit it and blew a reef of smoke his way.
"A food fascist! Right on!" He snapped his hand toward the night sky. "Heil, cheeseburger! Let’s get something to eat at the Union."
"You’re always worrying about your gut," Warlock replied.
"Well, if I don’t worry about it, who will?"
That cracked Warlock up. "Hey, Ingrid, what brand you smoke?"he asked.
"Gitanes."
"Never heard of them."
"They are French."
"Let me have a taste."
"You will not like." She passed him the cigarette. He took a deep suck on the end and coughed, sputtering."Y-y-you m-must have leather lungs." He handed it back.
Ingrid’s glance pinned him like a bug to a file card as she expelled the rest of the smoke through her nose .
We slipped into the shadows under the bridge, and emerged to behold the smoke from the stacks of the physical plant as they bloomed in the night like dusky flowers.
"See, we pour crap into our skies." Verlaine pointed. "Nobody gives a shit."
"Wow, check out the stars," Warlock said, his eyes locked on the sky. "they’re like sparklers! Finest kind!"
I tilted my head and gazed into a Van Gogh night of Prussian blue, the moon and planets spun around like shiny-toothed gears in heaven’s starry dynamo. I smiled.
Our chatter uncoiled like a strand of Christmas lights that we merrily strung along as we passed . 10th street was a river of cars crammed with ‘frat rats’ and townies. We ran in clusters across, as Warlock and Wolfman yelled back the obscenities hurled at us from the rolled down windows.
I cursed as I hit the curb. The sole of my left sandal flopped loose.
"What’s the matter, buddy," Hunter called.
I dangled my sandal in front of me by its broken strap.
"No shoes, no shirt, so sorry, Jase. No way will they let you in the Union."
Verlaine laughed.
"Jase, I’ve got a freaky idea!" Joey said. "Come with me. We’re going to the Art Building. I can fix you up!"
"Fix me up?"
"Trust me, it’ll be fun, just wait and see."
"Yeah, you go man," Wolfman said, "we’ll meet you in the Kiva."
"Joey, I will go with you." It was Ingrid.
"Fantastic! We won’t be long."
"Let’s cut across the track ," I said, "it’s quicker."
"Groovy," Joey called back, as Ingrid hurried ahead to join her.
"Hey, wait up!"
"Sorry, Jase, we girls need to talk."
Joey’s hips popped up and down hypnotically with every stride, like a thoroughbred being led to the paddock . Ingrid, beside her, walked self-possessed, shoulders squared, arms loose, a cigarette dangled from her fingers. Still, their conversation reached me in modulated chirps as if from two gossipy sparrows, as they faded farther ahead . One or the other would gaze back at me with a stifled laughed as the distance between us widened until the darkness fully soaked them up and I only heard the soft slap of their sandals, then nothing, but the swoosh of cars and the noises of campus night all around. I was left limping alone, the streetlights behind me casting their chiaroscuro patterns across my path. The wrought-iron arch, that spanned the walk was supported on either side by yellow brick ticket booths, secure as sentry huts, their iron-barred windows long boarded-up. I made my way around the blank-walled stands, and reached the darkened bowl of the stadium, the heat of the day still radiating off the cinder track . Then I heard their voices again, but louder, and there were other voices as well. I stopped to listen.
"C’mon, girls we just want to party. It’ll be fun."
Ingrid rattled of a string of French. I could only imagine the obscenities.
"Yeah, we’ve heard all about you hippie chicks. We just want some of that free love you’re passing out. C’mon, we’ve got some ‘Daniels’ in the car. Be nice."
"Fuck off, asshole!"
I eased off the cinder track on to the grass skirt. Closer now.
"Don’t you just love it when they talk dirty?"
"Vas te faire encule’!"
"You French? I love french chicks. Parlez vous, Francis?"
"Get lost, pigs!"
" Now that’s no way to be, honey."
The voices were just ahead, beneath the concrete stands, in the deep well of an entrance tunnel . I looked around for a weapon, a stick, a rock, then stepped on a piece of slag, of course, better than nothing. I scooped up a handful and started running, screaming, and hurled the clinkers with every stride. In the dim corridor, two rough figures wavered for a moment, then bolted under the hail from my hand.
"Run! Run!" I shouted to Ingrid and Joey, "to the art building!"
The girls slammed into the rear doors holding them open, as we all swooped inside together.
"Who, were those, assholes?"
" Who knows? Stoner pigs," Joey answered, as she swiped the hair from her eyes. "Thanks, Jase, but we could’ve handled them."
Ingrid gave me a hug and scowled. "You hit me." She rubbed her forehead, where a small goose egg was forming. "Your aim is not so good. What did you throw?"
"Some clinkers I picked-up. Sorry. I was trying to scare them away."
"Fils de pute!"
"Let’s go you two."
She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and then was off down the hall following Joey.
"What does that mean?" I called after her.
"Pardon?" she answered, " the kiss or what I said?"
"Both!"
"An endearment,"she laughed.
"I don’t believe you!" My answer echoed up the stairwell to the second floor.
The studio seemed larger and colder than during the day, the bank of windows across the room framed a glittering night outside. Joey tripped over to get her paint case from her locker.
"Roll up your pants," She commanded as she unclasped the wooden box and slid out her palette. "and lose the other sandal."
"What are you going to do?"
"What does it look like I’m going to do? I’m going to paint a new pair of sandals on your feet." She held up two tubes of paint. "What color, Sienna Brown or Burnt Umber?"
"Sienna Brown," I answered and Joey squeezed the color onto her palette.
"This is yours, Jason?" Ingrid held up a large painting of a nude from the labeled rack. "Her back, it hurt?"
I looked over. She was examining one of my recent canvases, the model was bent over grasping her ankles. "She got breaks."
"Your professor hates women as much as Degas."
"It’s just a pose. It’s about over-lapping, angles, space."
"I think he does not respect women." She looked intently at it.
"The model might even have chosen that pose herself, come to think of it."
"Hmph. Too pink, I think. The skin is too pink," she appraised.
"The studio was chilly that day. Her skin was flushed. She had goose-bumps. Ask Joey."
Joey looked up, "Jase, leave me out of your critique."
"Hey, that feels freaky!" I looked down to see her paint a wide brown band across my arch and then trace a thin line down between my toes.
"I want to paint! I want to paint!" Ingrid shoved the canvas back and rushed over. "Jason, I will paint you," Ingrid kneeled down beside Joey.
"Here," she gave Ingrid a small brush. "Stipple in a design on the bands around the arch and toe."
"Stipple?"
"Dots." Joey poked the brush in the air.
"Ah!"
Joey popped up. "Now, something for you to wear."She bounced to her locker and rummaged around, pulling out a paint smeared man’s dress shirt. "This should do. Here, try this on."
"No wait!" Ingrid jumped up. " I want to paint more."
"The sandals look great, Ingrid," Joey, smiled. "You can’t tell they’re not real."
Ingrid squeezed out more colors and grabbed a bigger brush. "Stand still, Jason. You are my canvas, no?" She swirled the brush on the palette, and daubed black paint over my nipples, then circled them with two sweeping arcs across my chest. She filled in each with ochre. "Two big yellow eyes, now, a Wavy Gravy nose and a big smile for your belly. She ‘splooched’ red paint down my sternum.
"Having fun?"
"Oui. Hold still."
I flinched as the brush clotted with cool paint dragged across my stomach. When she finished she poked the bristles into my belly button and made me laugh. I knocked the brush away. She stepped back and glanced at Joey.
"Soutine, no?"
Joey laughed. "Definitely, expressionist. Definitely, Soutine." She went to drape the spattered white shirt across my shoulders.
"No! He is not dry, yet." She leaned forward and blew her warm breath across my skin."
"We need to go, Ingrid." She dropped the shirt across my shoulders. "He’ll have to air dry. Let me clean up and stash my supplies and we can take off."
"Those were acrylics weren’t they?" I poked my arms into the sleeves.
"Wouldn’t you like to know," Joey called back with a smile from the steel sink.
"Soutine. Wait! I’m a carcass?"
"Un morceau de viande." Ingrid pressed her lips to Joey’s ear and they both laughed.
"I can do without the whispers."
Jazzed we clambered down the stairs, slipped out a side door, and crossed the slate patio. We hopped the hedge, rather than use the steps, and scooted down the grassy slope onto the sidewalk. We ran across the street to the fountain.
There she was, bronze, immense, rising; arms raised akimbo, framing her blissed-out face, her torso arced, baring twin scoops of breasts, metallic nipples erect pointed heavenward, knees locked virginal, bathed in light and spouts of water, cascading ; Aphrodite on the half-shell ringed by strange duck-billed prehistoric fish forever caught half-out of water in mid-leap. Man, my mind always riffed like Ginsberg when I was high.
"Her belly is poofy," Ingrid said disparagingly as she slipped off her sandals and rolled up her pants. She tossed me her lighter and cigarettes as she stepped in. I set them on the walk by a bush.
Joey sat on the stone rim and swivelled her long legs over the side. "It’s cool."
"Nice," Ingrid echoed.
They each exclaimed laughing as the spouts of gushing water hit them.
"Come on in!"
" I can’t. I’m a work of art!"
" Vous etes le poulet. You are ‘chicken!"
"You don’t want your masterpiece ruined do you?"
Joey gamboled through the spray and swung astride one of the rearing fish. She drew her legs up and hooked an arm languidly behind her head. Her hair coiled in snakey strands across her shoulders. "Who am I Jase? Help me out."
"What? I don’t know."
"That lit. course you took! The one, where you talked about those nymphs who hung around wells and fountains ."
"Naiads?"
"Yes! We’re the naiads of the fountain!" Joey flung her wet hair behind her.
"They’re temptresses."
"Dois-je vous tente, Jason? Do I tempt you?" Ingrid’s damp shirt clung to her front, as she leaned back and raised her arms and pressed her hands to the statue’s sculpted breasts.
"Oh, man! Don’t do this to me."
"Leche moi et saire me renier." Her voice was lilting.
"What? Cut the French, Ingrid . You’re Circe!
" Circe, the witch!" Ingrid demanded.
"Not a witch, she was more of an enchantress. She turned men into swine."
"Come in Jase, we’re wai-ting," Joey sang plashing the water with her toes.
"You’re Calypso!"
She slipped from the sculpture, the water encircling her thighs, and approached me.
" And these must be the waters of Lethe’." I swung out my arm.
"Jesus, Jase, you only got a C!" Joey wiped the wet strands from her face as she neared.
"People are waiting on us? Let’s split, before the campus cops show up."
"They can wait. And screw the fuzz!"
Ingrid splashed over, smiling.
"Give me a hand, Jase." Joey reached out.
I took her hand without even thinking. Her fingers clamped tight. Ingrid was right there and grabbed the back of my belt. I flopped into the fountain like a bull frog. Water up my nose, I flailed and slipped and stood, mouth open in a silent scream, soaked, thrilled in the suddenness of it. When I wiped the water from my eyes the girls had already slipped on their sandals and were laughing. Ingrid retrieved her cigarettes. I climbed out as the water streamed off me.
Joey pointed down, "Look at your feet?" Rivulets of brown paint sluiced off my skin and ran between my toes.
"Open your shirt,"said, Ingrid. "I want to see my beautiful art." I spread the wet cloth like wings. Ingrid rubbed her palm in a circular motion across my chest.
"DeKooning!"Joey laughed.
"Beautiful art," Ingrid murmured, as the spray roared. She hooked her arm around me and pressed her cool lips to mine.
I broke the kiss. "C’mon, the cops..." I pleaded.
Joey started to sway, singing:"Pa-ra-noia strikes deep..." She punctuated the end of every line with claps. "Into your life it will-creep, (clap-clap). It starts when you’re always afraid, (clap-clap). Step out of line, the Man come and take you away..."
A white and blue campus patrol car, as if summoned by the song, silently glided into view. Its sides gleamed like a great white metal shark. It rolled to a stop beside us.
The door swung open and a man uniformed in blue, sporting embroidered patches that glowed beneath the street lights, unfolded from the interior. He had a buzz cut. He must have been in his 30's, with a build like someone who had spent his formative years in small town stadiums under Friday night lights. I could tell we were ruining his tranquil night, spoiling his easy shift. He was not happy. He walked over to us and took in our sodden state, the water pooling around our feet, our pasted on smiles, our pupils in bloom like nocturnal flowers. From his thick black leather belt he removed a pad and started scribbling as if we had just placed an order in some cop diner and he was our conscientious waiter.
"I’m charging you with public intoxication. May I see some student I. D.?"
"Here, I have mine." Ingrid deftly slipped hers from inside her box of cigarettes. I looked on astounded and somewhat chagrined.
The officer studied it as if it contained the hidden mystery of life. He analyzed Ingrid’s face and jotted down the information and handed it back .
"The rest of you?"
"I forgot mine," Joey volunteered.
"Name?"
"Joey Vorschact."
"Spell it."
"Vorschact V- (capital V)," She glared at him. "o-r-s-c-h-a-c-t, Joahanna J" She spit it out. " (capital J)-o-a-h-a-n-n-a .
"Date of birth?
Joey’s head canted to the side as if one of the cords in her neck had snapped."Aquarius with the moon in Scorpio."
He looked at Joey hard with all the patience of Torquemada . "I want this to go easy. I can add on disorderly conduct. It’s either the Dean or the Monroe County Jail. My discretion. Date of birth?"
"February 15, 1950."
"Social security number?"
Joey was a good little girl and answered all the officer’s inquiries, phone number, home address, campus address. So did I. He checked out all our information through his dispatcher and referred it to the Dean’s Office of Student Ethics.
"All through on this end. Have a pleasant night." He had to add, "no more dips in the fountain, gang." He gave us each a citation and wedged himself back into his cruiser. He didn’t turn the ignition over until we crossed the street and started to drift toward the Student Union.
"Thank you, officer," Joey waved, as the police cruiser rolled slowly beside us. She crumpled the piece of paper and stuffed it in her pocket. Under her breath, one word, "prick ."
We walked nonchalantly, fingering the hedges as we passed, and marveled in fake wonderment at the age darkened oak doors of Woodburn Hall. I peeled off the wet shirt and twisted as much water out of it as I could before skinning it back on..
"You carry your I.D. in your cigarettes ?" Joey turned to face Ingrid, back-peddling as she walked. "Excuse me, but that is so bizarre."
" You are mad at me?"
"No, it’s just that we were left hanging with no I.Ds. But who knows, maybe you got us off the hook. The campus cops are such a joke, anyway. All they can think to do is hassle kids." Joey stopped and looped her arm around Ingrid. "They don’t even carry guns."
When we neared our destination our personal police escort accelerated down the tree-lined street, and faded into twin tail lights .
We cut across Dunn Meadow, the grass slope spread out into flat green circles beneath the street lights. The rest of the meadow receded in shadow cast by the tall Sycamores that stood near the shiny ribbon of dark water that coiled through the campus. We trooped up the cut stone stairway like knights returning to the castle from a bloody campaign. At the top of the ramparts we crowded into one wedge of the revolving door and were deposited into the noisy clatter of the cafeteria like three Marx brothers. Our long lost friends hailed us with greetings.
"Joey, Jase, Ingrid, over here!"
Amid a jumble of tables and chairs in a dim recess, familiar faces reposed like beggars at a banquet.
"Look, Jase!" Verlaine propped her leg on one of the tables, the bottom of her foot black, and wiggled her toes, "No shoes!"
"What happened to you guys?" Wolfman said with his mouth full. "Did you take a short-cut through the fountain?"
Warlock, hacked-out a laugh. "What did they do to you!? Use you for a drop-cloth? Hell, I would’ve gone if I’d known you’d be doing body painting, but I would’ve started with Joey."
She tilted her head and gave him a nasty little smile and flipped him the bird. "We rode the fishies," Joey said.
"...and got hassled by the cops," I answered. "I’m in my Jackson Pollock period. Like it?" I dropped into a chair and scooped up a piece of half-eaten pizza from a white ceramic plate and stuffed it in my mouth.
"Hey!" Wolfman, protested. "That’s mine!"
"Feed the people," I managed to choke out. I pulled some wadded bills from my pocket and threw them on the table. "So get another slice and one for me, too. Anything. And a large Dr. Pepper."
"This money is wet!" He picked it up gingerly. "Where’s it been?"
"Aphrodites’ snatch."
Verlaine, laughed so hard she spewed her herbal tea through her nose and grabbed for the napkins. Wolfman walked away in disgust.
"So, you ran into cops? Any serious shit go down?" Warlock asked.
"Campus cops," I replied.
"Oh, then no problem, right?"
"Have to go before the Dean’s ethics committee."
"Shit. They let Dow Chemical recruit on campus so they can make more Napalm, to drop on Vietnamese women and children, but you take a bath in a fountain and are brought before an ethics committee? That’s freakin’ wrong!"
"So it goes."
Joey and Ingrid returned with salads and drinks on their trays and set them down and pushed over another small square table until it’s edge collided with ours. Wolfman followed with two floppy triangles of greasy pizza and drinks.
"Are you going to eat more of that processed cheese crap?" Verlaine cringed .
"Watch me," Wolfman answered, as he fed the steaming slice into his mouth and pulled it all the way in on the conveyor belt known as his tongue.
Verlaine did a three-quarter turn away from Wolfman. "You’re disgusting."
"Finest kind," Warlock added brightly.
"Where’s Hunter and Suzy," I asked, just now noticing they were nowhere around.
"They split," Warlock answered. "Said they were going to a movie downtown. But, you know—." He leered.
"Yeah, they’ve been pretty hot and heavy."
"They are lovers?" Ingrid asked.
"More like ports in a storm," added Wolfman.
"She’s the port. Hunter is the cruiser," I corrected.
Wolfman, eyed me. "Okay, Dr. Freud. As I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted." He threw a piece of crust at my head. "Ever since her brother got killed in Viet Nam, Suzy kind of hops from bed to bed."
"From what I hear from Hunter. She’s ‘saving herself’ for marriage."
"Okay, so she goes down on every guy she meets."
"Virginity, is Bourgeosie bullshit," Ingrid blew out a stream of smoke. "a concept meant to oppress women."
"It’s no big deal," Verlaine commented. "Let her have her hangups."
"I’m moving," Joey announced, "join me Wolfman?"
He picked up his drink and flashed us his toothy grin and followed Joey to a dim corner of the cafeteria.
"So are we still going to see the Axolotl lab?"
"What’s the point? We’re all off in our own little worlds now," Verlaine shrugged.
"I’ll go."
"Super! And, Jase, there’s a favor I want to talk to you about."
Ingrid and Verlaine exchanged a look.
"Oh, okay," I responded, intrigued.
"I could care less, but I’m cool with it," said Warlock.
"I will not go," added Ingrid. "They are ugly."
"A face only a mother Axolotl could love." Verlaine took a final sip of her tea.
"Let’s go down Kirkwood first," interjected Warlock. " The Guitar Shop has a used Martin D-28 they just got in. I’ve been thinking of buying it and I want you to take a listen. See what you think."
"We can all do that, right?"
"What about Wolfman and Joey?" Verlaine asked.
I looked over. They reminded me Degas’s painting of ‘The Absinthe Drinkers’, except that Wolfman, his hand up her shirt, was massaging Joey’s back in a slow rhythmic motion, and her fingers hugged his thigh, like a blind person reading braille.
"Leave them," I answered. "They’re busy."
"Finest kind," his roommate judged.
We gathered our trays and scooted the chairs back.
Warlock called out to the preoccupied couple, "See you, guys!"
There was the merest rearrangement of their bodies in way of reply.
"Looks like they dig each other," Verlaine remarked as we punched through the revolving door.
"They will ‘get it on’," Ingrid asked.
"Oh, yeah," Warlock joined in. " If Wolf has his way."
We jumped down the stone staircase and crossed over the Jordan River out onto the green blanket of cool night grass.
"Man, this feels better," I said as my feet awoke to the green bristling earth.
"Of course. You’re more in touch with your environment," Verlaine answered, "Going barefoot is like cubing your experience of the world ."
" This I do not understand," Ingrid said, as she removed her sandals and joined us.
"Like multiplying your life by itself twice, living fully, beautifully, in the moment. So many people stifle their lives, cocoon their bodies in clothes, encase their feet in leather. They divorce themselves from their environment."
I walked ahead to catch up to Warlock.
"Why did you lay that trip on us about ‘getting naked’ back at the room? That was so uncool."
"Hell, Jase. I’ve been yanked out of so many schools, I’ve lost count. I’ve got to be fearless. Nothing lost, nothing gained. You get some action or you don’t. Whatthefuck, you know? I’ve never been to an orgy. You?"
"No."
"See! You need to hang out with me more." He slapped me on the back.
"Couldn’t you dig the girls weren’t into that? It just killed the vibe."
"What can I say? Sorry, man. I didn’t realize everybody was so uptight." Warlock motioned the girls up a rise to an inky clump of shadows nestled beneath a stand of pine trees. "Sit everyone and watch Warlock magic," he intoned in mock seriousness.
We gathered around and huddled together on the ground as he wove his hands through the air as if he was manipulating an invisible veil. He drew his arms undulating across his body, then, with a flourish, produced two fat joints pointing straight up.
Our smiles spread wings like luminous butterflies in this gorgeous night.
He crossed his legs on the nettled ground. His Bic flared, he relayed one joint to Ingrid on his left and the other to Verlaine. They criss-crossed, as we passed them round and round.
"You are a true wizard," I muttered as the twin joints vied for my attention.
We sat in silence, invisible, and let the lights and voices and skimming bicycle tires on the sidewalks whirr all around us. My knee accidently pressed Verlaine’s. The heat radiated off her body, her warm scent ladled over with the pungent organic aroma of marijuana. I took toke. Then I felt Ingrid’s hand between my thighs and exhaled.
Warlock pinched the last roach between his fingers and sighed, "Good shit, huh?"
"I am so mellow," Ingrid smiled, and her smile broke into a grin, and her grin broke into a laugh and we all caught it.
"They call me Mel-low Yel-low," she sang and we slipped into spontaneous song as we stood.
"Quite right-ly!" I warbled.
"Oh, so mel-low, yea so yel-low...", Warlock and Verlaine joined in.
We spread laughter like seeds, as we hooked arms and headed across the verdant dark of the meadow to the lights of Kirkwood Avenue. We were four Cheshire cats, nothing but smiles. Lightly we stepped upon Mother Earth’s tender blades all pointing up. They bent beneath our feet and beckoned, green shoots, that between our toes whispered, "comeon, comeon, comeon."
We waited at the curb of Indiana Avenue, at the mercy of chrome bumpers that outrageously dazzled our eyes. Then the tide of white-walled, black tires sluiced by and we ran across, the girls joyously screaming.
"Let’s stop in the Booknook,"shouted, Verlaine.
"What, to pick-up more of your Marxist literature," Warlock, replied.
"Wilhelm Reich, is not a Marxist! Don’t you believe in anything? Don’t you have any convictions?"
"Yeah. Me, myself, and I. Whatever I can get away with."
"As long as we’re going to stop, let’s go to, The Other Side." I entered the fray. " They have the new Blue Cheer album in, Vincebus Eruptum."
"We’re here because I wanted to take you to The Guitar Shop. It’s just a couple blocks."
"Godard!" Ingrid exclaimed.
For half a beat I thought she had cursed, until I followed her eyes. She was gazing across the street at the Von Lee Theatre. Under the red-tiled portico, blazoned across the glowing white marque, the word, CONTEMPT was blocked out in big black letters.
"It is a Godard film."
"Who?" Warlock asked.
"Jean Luc Godard, a very important film director. You have never heard of ‘ Nouvelle Vague’? We must see it!"
"Man, I can’t deal with this." Warlock rubbed his head. "I thought you wanted to hear the Martin? Then all this shit. You can see the movie later."
"Jason, you must see it with me. Please! I will find out times they will show it. Please!"
"Wow, I’m just not up for a movie right now."
Ingrid rushed across the street to the ticket window.
"Go see it with her, Jase," urged, Verlaine. "Fuck the axolotls."
"That’s a pleasant thought."
She shoved me. "You know what I mean. We can talk later about my ‘favor’."
"I just don’t want to read subtitles," I said as the rest of us crossed. " It’s in French. Can you dig that?"
"It’s not about the subtitles, Jase. I swear, sometimes you’re so thick."
Ingrid turned to us. "The next show is 8:45. I will see this. You do not have to, Jason, if you do not want. Still there is time for me to see you play the guitar, Warlock."
"Far out! Let’s go."
"Sorry, Ingrid. I just..."
"This is what I will do. You do your thing. Okay?"
I shrugged.
"Here, button," she grabbed my shirt. "No one wants to see your technicolor chest."
"It’s just down the block," said, Warlock, as he started ahead .
Ingrid tapped a cigarette out of her pack and lit it. She expelled the first puff like a long held frustration.
Further along, the sidewalk soon became a clotted artery congested with people out for the evening.
"Hey, Baskin and Robbins!" Warlock called out. "Let’s get some ice cream! What do you say?"
"Yeah, sure. Why not," replied Ingrid .
"It’s carageenan and whey," said, Verlaine, "nothing but fat and by-products."
"Yeah, but its cold and sweet." Warlock held the door for us as we entered . "Just what I crave right now."
The Gant crowd was cued up inside in their crisp shirts and skinny belts, with no socks to bridge the gap between their slacks and loafers. Their sorority dates had short sculpted hair and frosted lips. Their skirts were shorter than last fall. A smattering of the older generation was sprinkled around as well, like jimmies on a new flavor of ice cream. We took our numbers and waited our turn as we felt the eyes bore into us, the snickers and whispered witticisms.
"57," the pink uniformed woman finally called. I stepped forward.
"I’d like a scoop of Rocky--"
"I can’t serve you! You’re barefoot. No shoes, no service. The sign’s on the door, can’t you read!? 58!"
" Why’d you make me wait!"
"Hon, I didn’t write the law. You gotta pay attention. 58!"
" What do you want, Jason? I will purchase it for you."
"A scoop of Rocky Road and a scoop of Mint Chip in a sugar cone, thanks Ingrid." She held out her hand. "Oh, sure." I pulled out two dollars.
Verlaine and I walked out, but not before she turned around and flipped the server the bird.
"You didn’t have to do that."
"Pissed me off! Society is so screwed up. What about blind people?"
"What have they got to do with me not being served?"
" They let their seeing-eye dogs in there! Don’t dogs carry diseases and everything. And they even give the freakin’ dog a dip."
Warlock exited, slipping through the mass of people. He carried a cone with two bright pink scoops balanced on top.
"What the Hell is that?" I asked.
" Pink Bubblegum," Warlock smiled between licks. "Finest kind!"
Ingrid reappeared and handed me my cone and the change.
"What did you get?" I asked.
"Swiss Chocolate Almond. It is no good," She took a lick. "Not real Swiss chocolate."
"Let me have a taste."
" I share yours?"
"Deal."
We each held out our cones. I took a lick of hers and Ingrid bit off a big hunk of my Rocky Road and stuffed it in her mouth with sticky fingers.
"Good," she laughed, her brown eyes sparkled.
We walked on as we devoured our ice cream. When Ingrid finished, she grabbed the back of my shirt( or should I say, Joey’s) and wiped her mouth and hands.
"Je vous remercie, mon garcon."
"At your service," I responded. I could only guess at what she had said.
It was then, a girl with stringy hair and blurred eyes, wearing a blue print shift,
pushed through the crowd toward us. She held out a pale hand, cupped like a small bowl. "Spare change? I need money for an abortion." She hooked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
"Vous etes une fille stupide," Ingrid retorted. "Why did you not make your boyfriend wear condoms!"
The girl’s hand clenched like a rock and dropped to her side. She continued to walk, but stopped and turned. Her face contracted, red and hard. "Fuck you, French bitch!" She yelled back.
"You are still stupid! Stupid to get pregnant!"
The panhandler ran down the street and was lost.
" Too many girls allow men to make them fools!"
"She’s probably not even pregnant. She just needed a line to get some bread."
Warlock wiped his hands on his jeans, and entered the brightly lit music store ahead of us.
Guitars ringed the walls, their lacquered surfaces gleamed: blonde-hued folk guitars, honey warm classicals, thin curvaceous candy-colored electrics.
A young guy, in a striped shirt with tails that hung out, his hair getting long in the back, sat half-perched on a stool as he picked at a Mosrite with a sunburst-finish.
"Say, what’s happening?" A middle-aged man, with a rubber-banded pony-tail, walked over. His hand encrusted with silver and turquoise rings clasped Warlock’s wrist in greeting. "Still got your eyes on the D-28?"
"Yeah. I brought some friends along to hear its sound. Could you get it down for me?"
"Sure thing, man." He walked over to the wall and removed it and held it as if it were a newborn baby.
"This one has one nice sweet tone." He handed it to Warlock .
"Warlock clambered atop a nearby stool and arranged himself. He drew his fingers over the curve of the guitar as if he was caressing a naked woman reclining in his lap. He slid his left hand up the slender neck as he began adjusting the pegs to tune it.
The girls sat cross-legged on the floor. No one hassled them.
The pads of his fingers pressed the steel-wrapped strings to the inlaid frets on the rosewood neck. They slid with a barely audible shimmer from chord to chord, as his right hand danced across the strings above the sound hole. Notes crystalline and prismed , thrived, jeweled and tenuous in the air. His fingers spidered over the guitar neck, as he constructed an elaborate web of sound that was beautiful and sad, elegiac and heart-breaking. Unabiding loss crowded my heart again. Memories still too fresh flashed behind my eyes once more, stark slides projected on a white screen: that sky like cement; my Mustang, unrecognizable behind the tow truck; the girl I loved, a statistic, forever set in black unforgiving headlines. I turned away, as tears welled-up in my eyes, and pretended to examine envelopes of guitar strings. I swiped at my cheeks with the cuff of Joey’s sleeve clutched in my hand.
Then it was over, the last ringing tone still vibrated, a ripple audible in the air. The girls clapped and jumped up.
"Warlock, it was so beautiful, I cry," Ingrid said. She gave him a hug.
"Really good," Verlaine added, "Did you compose that?"
" No. It’s a Tom Rush tune, ‘Rockport Sunday’. It’s on his ‘Circle Game’ album. Have you ever heard it?"
Verlaine shrugged.
" Anyway, pretty groovy LP. How’d you like the tone of this thing?" He tapped the body of the guitar with his finger tips..
"Nice."
"Yeah, it’s four hundred and fifty, but I’ve got a hundred and seventy-five saved. Not much longer. Hey, Jase!" Warlock called over to me, "Did you dig it? "
I turned and answered with a rasp, "It was great."
"You are okay, Jason?"
"Sure, Ingrid."
"Well, we need to get going," Verlaine said, " if you want to see the axolotl colony."
"What? Oh, yeah. If it’s all the same with you guys, I’m going to stay here and hang out."
"Whatever turns you on. But, you still want to go, right, Jase?"
"Yeah." I wondered about the ‘favor’ Verlaine wanted from me.
"I want still to see the Godard movie. This is okay with you, Verlaine?"
"Sure, I bet a Godard film is better than a roomful of axolotls any day. It’ll give me a chance to talk with Jase."
I took Warlock aside, and whispered, "You have anymore joints?" He glanced away then palmed one to me and I slipped it into my pocket. "I’ll pay you back, man."
"Forget it." He clenched my forearm. "Brothers?"
"Brothers," I repeated, as I looked him in the eyes.
"Thick and thin, man, thick and thin."
We said our goodbyes and made our way back down Kirkwood and stopped in front of the Von Lee to part ways.
"You are sure, Jason?" Ingrid asked as she stood beneath the marquee in front of the double doors .
"I don’t think so." She turned and slipped into the dark interior and was gone.
"You need to get your head together, Jase. Let’s go."
Verlaine and I dodged the traffic and stole behind Bryan Hall. The forested section of the campus took us in and embraced us. The sounds of the city fell away replaced curiously by flute music. It was ‘Norwegian Wood’ by the Beatles. It drifted just ahead of us and above. We looked up to see a pair of bare feet dangling from a tree limb. A ‘scoop’ of girl was deposited in the crotch of a Sycamore, her long hair tangled as a squirrel’s nest, a silver flute angled across her serene face. We watched and listened to her play, as at ease as a woodland nymph.
"Music major," Verlaine smiled as we walked beneath the leafed canopy .
My feet sought a soft path as they felt their way across earth’s scattered floor. "I don’t mind acorns and twigs," I said, "or nettles and burrs. If I get stuck or cut, it’s okay with me. It’s nature, and that’s cool. But I get pissed if I step on broken glass or a pop-top."
"I dig where you’re coming from." Verlaine, stooped to pick up a twig and idly twirled it between her fingers. "People don’t care. This culture thrives on waste." Her eyes widened. She heard the river, the creek, babble to itself, as it flowed over the flat stones, as it threaded its way through the nearby trees. "Let’s wade in the Jordan!"
"It’s polluted ."
"So what, the whole planet is polluted."
I rolled up my still damp pants and slipped in behind her, the water coursed around my ankles and encircled them, cold as dead hands, it tugged me on.
"I’m glad you’re here," I said, as her pale feet, like beautiful strange fish swam ahead.
"Why?"
"I don’t like being alone."
"Alone is okay," she answered.
Our feet slid from unsteady stone to unsteady stone, our arms at our sides, the only sound, the water as it worried the rocks. The rocks clocked together with each of our steps. When Verlaine’s toes slipped on a piece of shale furred slick with moss, she laughed and almost fell, but I caught her.
"What is the favor you wanted?" I asked.
Our amphibious feet slipped onto the bank and found the asphalt path.
"I want you to do a painting of me."
"Okay, no problem."
"In the nude."
I stopped and turned. Her face floated next to me, luminous and golden. I looked into her shadowed eyes.
"You paint nude models in class, right? I want you to do a nude painting of me. It’s not any different."
"Well, it kind of is. I know you."
"You’re uptight about this aren’t you?"
"No. No way. It’s just, well--let’s walk."
" I’m not coming on to you, if that’s what you think. I’m asking you this as a personal favor. I trust you. That’s a big deal for me. It’s not easy for me to do. You understand that?"
"Yeah. I think so."
"You’re talented, Jase! You have a gift. I don’t think you’re fully aware of that. You know you are the only one I trust to do this. I’m not asking this for free, either. I’m for real. I’ll pay you."
"Verlaine, I don’t want your money."
Jase, I need to pay you, to validate it’s worth. But remember," she flashed, her lopsided grin, " I’m working two jobs, so just go easy on the price, okay?"
"Don’t worry. I’d be happy to do it. Privileged. But why, why nude?"
"I want to own something unique and beautiful in my life, something to remind me of now. I want to know every time I look at it, that at one time I was free and young with no hangups. You’ll do this for me?"
"Yeah, I’ll do it. Where?"
"My room. Ingrid is cool with it. She’ll go some place and hang out."
"Deal." I pulled the joint out of my pocket and held it up, now or never, a small pale stick in the dark. "Want to celebrate, share this-- between, what--artist and model, friends?"
"Wow. Yeah. I guess I will be your model, huh? Makes me feel special."
"Let’s go over by those bushes."
We hunkered down. I lit it and pulled a tangle of smoke into my lungs and passed it to the soft shadow crowded next to me.
"I want my pose to be like The Naked Maja . You know that painting?"
I expelled the smoke and coughed."By Goya, and it’s The Nude Maja . Yeah I know it. So you’ve thought about this."
" Yeah, a bit. I like the pose. Her body is spread out like a big Fuck You across that couch. She didn’t care what people thought. She was free, totally out there." Verlaine unraveled another long skein of smoke between her lips, then let it seep out slowly like an early morning wisp of fog. "I want you to paint me as you see me, Jase. Be honest. Paint the truth."
"Yeah, but there’s two kinds of truth. The truth I see and the truth I know." I pinched the joint and threaded its smoke into my lungs.
Verlaine laid her leg on top of mine; two crossed electric wires, the current surged, and arced; the incandescent outline of a mountain range as the sun breached the summit. I laid my hand on her bare thigh.
"Friends, Jase." She placed her hand on mine and gently rubbed the back of it before she lifted it off her leg. "I trust you, Jase. I wouldn’t have asked anyone else. I believe in you."
We sat silent and mellow, the roach dwindled down, until a big fat joke squatted between us. We couldn’t keep it contained. Our laughter burst from us, like coiled snakes that sprang from a novelty can of peanuts.
Then we were both up, and slapped the earth from our legs, and broke into song. Once again we were on our way. "Let me take you down , cos’ I’m going to, Strawberry Fields, nothing is real and nothing to get hungabout..."
We leaned into each other as we walked. The soles of our feet carried on a conversation with the earth, small talk about nothing but pebbles and sticks and leaves, until we stood at the threshold of Jordan Hall.
"Follow me," motioned Verlaine.
The beige walls reeked of chemicals and cloistered lives. We passed jars and glass-cased alcoves of grotesque specimens, bleached of all color. Then we were in a room bathed in a dim greenish light that seemed cramped only because there were rows and rows of grey steel shelves separated by narrow aisles. Upon those shelves sat glass bowls half-filled with water, and in each one a strange blunt-headed, thick-tailed, smooth-skinned creature wiggled on feeble legs; axolotls. Their red gill stems waved like pliant coral.
"It’s freezing in here." My skin prickled with goose bumps in the chill air. I crossed my arms clutched my shoulders.
"It’s 56 degrees, the temperature axolotls like. You want to know why we raise these guys? They breed quickly, so they’re ideal for experiments. We ship their eggs and embryos to researchers across the country. Look at them." Verlaine grinned. " Their whole purpose in life is to eat and fuck. Pretty sweet deal, huh?"
"Yeah. I wouldn’t kick ."
"I mean how much different are we? We live in our own little glass worlds and ‘think’ we are interacting with each other, but are we really? I mean on a meaningful level, not, ‘Hi, how are you, have a good day’. We’re bred to buy and be happy. That’s all our culture wants us to do. Buy. Be consumers. Be happy. Don’t make waves. Status quo. Dig, Jase, if we become totally self-sufficient, grow our own food, make our own clothes, don’t consume the crap they force on us; the economy collapses. Then we’re free to remake society on a more sane level. But you know what? They’d never let that happen, they’d bring out the militia first.
"Who would bring out the militia ?"
"The government, but they’re just the tool. Industry, Oil, they wouldn’t let the people out from under their thumb without a struggle."
" Wow, that’s pretty mind-blowing. You think about shit like that when you’re in here?"
"Yeah—that and posing nude." She looked at me, as her smile over took her face. "Have you had enough of this?"
"Yeah, these things give me the creeps." I motioned to the shifting, jostling creatures in the bowls.
"Not God’s favorites that’s for sure."
We exited the room and she closed and locked the door.
The cool night was warm after the dank lab. We stopped where the path diverged.
" I think I’m going to head back to Briscoe. I’m really starting to feel bummed out. Jase, know what?!" The whites of her eyes flared. "You should head back to the Von Lee. See if Ingrid is still in the movie. She really digs you. You two ought to get together."
"Maybe."
"Maybe, nothing!" She planted her hands on my shoulders and started singing in an off-key drawl, "Go to her now she calls you, you can’t refuse. When you ain’t got nothin’, you got nothin’ to lose." The Dylan song fragmented as she started to laugh. She pressed her nose to mine. "Do it, Jase!" Then like a swimmer, who had just pushed off from the edge of a dock, she waved and receded into the deep end of the evening.
I walked alone, alone along the path that led to the avenue, my shadow stretched out and snapped back like licorice as I padded toward and passed underneath each successive light. The night seemed immense, my solitary sounds magnified.
"Hippie!" I jerked, startled. A girl’s voice called from the dark; a shadowed foot bridge that spanned a crimped flow of water. I peered into the murk and could make out two figures as I approached. Twin dots of red embers danced before their faces, either faerie lights or the lit tips of cigarettes.
"Hey, Jase. What’s happening, buddy?" It was Hunter’s voice and the other must have been Suzy’s. "Sit down, man. What are you doing wandering around out here?"
"Verlaine took me to visit that axolotl colony she minds." I swung down on the bridge beside Hunter, and dangled my legs next to his.
"Wow, I totally forgot!" Suzy leaned over and said. "I wanted to see them!"
"You’re better off not having the experience."
"Where’s everybody else?" Hunter took a drag on his cigarette and the end pulsed brighter.
"They all peeled off to one place or another. I thought you two went to a movie?"
"Yeah, well, you know how that is. It was boring crap, so we left to find something else to do."
Suzy held back a laugh deep in her throat and blew out a column of smoke. "Something better." She looked at Hunter and squeezed his thigh.
"What’s all this about?" He tugged at the front of my shirt. "And what’s that smeared on your chest? Paint?" He leaned back to take me all in.
"It’s been a wild night. You wouldn’t believe."
He pulled on his cigarette. "Guess not. Where’d you get the shirt?"
"Joey."
"Nice. You look like crap. Somebody push you in the fountain, as well?"
"Pull." I corrected.
" Sounds like fun. Where were you headed?"
" I was going back to the Von Lee to see if I could find Ingrid."
"That seems promising."
"Aren’t you going to tell him?" Suzy interjected.
"Oh yeah, Jase, you can be the first to congratulate us. We’re going to get married." He clamped his arm around Suzy’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze.
The words slammed into the side of my head. "Wow, that’s a heavy trip. I thought you were going to wait until you graduated."
"Things change, buddy. At the end of this semester I’m transferring to the University of Iowa . We’ll get married over the summer and I’ll enroll in the fall."
"You’re transferring out of state?"
"Yeah, you got it. I’ll finish my studies there."
" It’s cheaper for me." Suzy said. "We’ll live off campus in an apartment. I’m sure my folks will chip in."
"Road trip, buddy! You can come visit us."
"We’ll send you an invitation when we set the date." She kissed Hunter.
"Yeah, sometime before school starts."
"You told your folks yet?"
"No, you’re the first to know. They’ll go along with it."
"My mom’s going to be thrilled once it all sinks in."
"So you guys, ready for this, marriage, I mean? Just thinking about it blows my mind."
"We love each other." She pressed her cigarette to her lips, tilted her head back and blew out a column of smoke. "That’s all you need." She laid her head on Hunter’s shoulder. "Everything else will take care of itself. "
"All you need is love, like the Beatles song, right Buddy?" Hunter squashed his cigarette butt on the side of the bridge and let it fall to the swift black water.
"Yeah, I guess that’s it." I said as I stood up. "Listen, I better split. I want to get there before the movie is over."
"What movie is it?" Hunter asked.
"Some foreign film. I think it’s called, Contempt."
"More of that French shit."
I hopped off the bridge. "Yeah, not my first choice, but she likes it."
"See, you later, Jase. By the way, I won’t be back tonight."
"I kinda thought that," I answered as I left.
Once again noise and light and movement pierced my consciousness and pushed back the dark edges of the campus. I crossed the street and passed under the red Spanish-tiled portico of the theatre.
"One for Contempt," I said to the woman behind the glass in the ticket booth.
"A dollar fifty."
She slipped me the ticket stub and I entered. The smell of hot oil permeated the small, deep-red foyer. The popcorn machine had been turned off for the night, but the glass display case with rows of bright candy boxes was still illuminated, a disinterested employee was busy cleaning up. As I pushed through the auditorium doors, I caught a whiff of mildew from the dark interior.
My pupils were blasted momentarily by the blinding screen; Brigette Bardot lying on a yellow towel under the glare of a Mediterranean sun . She was naked except for a strategically placed paperback lying open across her butt.
My eyes slowly adjusted as I drank in the rows of dark figures. I padded down the sloping aisle on the thread bare carpet, and scanned the scattered heads for some sign of recognition.
"Jason! Over here!" An insistent whisper, I dimly made out Ingrid’s figure near the back of the theatre. I slid into her row and slumped down beside her. The floor was sticky with spilled pop, so I hung my feet over the seat in front. A patron in that row turned his head to look at me then moved three seats away.
"You are a swine," she whispered.
I whispered back, "See, you are Circe. You did change me into a pig." I couldn’t tell if she smiled or not. "I’m glad you were still here. I’m glad I found you."
She patted my hand. "S-s-h-h-h. Brigette is about to leave Michel for the arrogant American producer Jack Palance. Watch."
I watched and tried to share her interest. Brigette Bardot was now wrapped in a yellow robe and had an intense conversation with a man in a dark hat as they walked down a wide stone staircase cut into the sheer rock face.
I glanced over at Ingrid’s rapt profile.
The man on the screen stopped, Bardot continued walking and disappeared behind a blinding white rock, a splash was heard off camera, she reappeared and swam naked away in an incredibly blue sea.
Her hand entwined with mine on the shared armrest. I looked down at her slender dark fingers as they squeezed and released, squeezed and released my hand.
Bardot was leaving with Jack Palance. They stood and talked beside a gas pump as his red convertible was fueled . They got in. The car pulled out into traffic and off screen a crash was heard. The camera panned and Palance and Bardot were slumped, bloody over the sides of the Alfa Romeo. They had crashed into the middle of a tanker truck. The screen went black, melancholy music swelled and FIN appeared in big white letters.
Ingrid’s hand cupped her mouth. Her eyes glistened. She just sat as the credits rolled. After the lights went up, she said,"We can go."
We edged into the aisle and made our way out to the lobby and the exit.
Once outside she lit one of her Gitanes and pinched a flake of tobacco off her tongue.
"Good movie?" I asked.
She looked at me. "Did you not think so?"
" It seemed interesting. I’m sorry I got here so late."
"Intense." She drew in another puff and exhaled. "Sad, very sad. Michel Piccoli, he played the husband, threw away Brigette and the love they shared, for money." She looked at me and waited, then said, "We go for coffee? We can talk. Sounds good?"
"Yeah. I’m sorry. Yeah, let’s! I could use some."
"You say sorry too much. We will go to The Gables. Your feet, they are still bare. Will it be a problem?"
I shoved the waist of my pants lower. My bell-bottoms swept the sidewalk . Then I tucked in my paint-spattered shirt tails and buttoned the bent collar. I brushed back my hair.
"Presentable?"
She expelled her smoke and laughed.
We crossed the street and walked the block to enter the restaurant. The crowd was sparse. We sank into a wooden booth. When the waitress came we ordered two coffees, hers with cream .
"Any Godard movie is good . He understands cinema, the power of cinema, what it can show. This one was about sell...What? ...selling out. Yes? Your soul, your art, your love. How money corrupts. Fritz Lang, do you know him? He was in it."
"He’s a director, right?"
"Yes, a very famous German director."
"Name some things he’s directed."
"He is most famous for ‘M’."
" I’ve heard of that. Peter Lorre, right?"
"Yes. In ‘Contempt’ he is to film a retelling of the Ulysses myth. But the arrogant American producer, Prokosch, wants to bring in a new script writer, Lang’s film is not commercial enough."
The waitress returned with our coffee.
"Lang in the movie is like the voice of the gods, everything he says is true. He is the uncorrupted artist." She trickled some cream in her coffee and stirred it. "He councils Michel Piccouli to not work for Prokosch, to not give up Brigette to him. But he does not listen. He wants the money. He loses her to Prokosch and she is killed." She took a sip of her coffee. "You see? Those who do not heed the gods, the gods punish."
I tipped the thick ceramic cup to my lips and set it down. "It sounds heavy. Lots of meaning. I guess I should have seen the whole thing."
"Yes. Then why come so late?"
"To see if you were still there."
"Oh? And why is this?"
I shrugged my shoulders and took a sip of the steaming brew. I felt something press against me. I looked down, her bare foot was resting against my crotch.
"Do you think my feet pretty?" she asked.
I swallowed an answer, "Yes."
"No. Say, Oui, tres." Her toes gently kneaded the front of my pants like a cat’s paw.
"Oui, tres." I replied.
"Why did you come back?"
"I don’t know. I just wanted to find you. See what you were doing."
She leaned her chin on her hand and sighed, "My ankles, you like my ankles?" She plied me with her toes.
I took in a deep breath. "Yes." My fingertips traced the delicate wings of her ankle bones.
"No. Say, Oui, tres."
"Oui, tres."
"You come to find me, that was all? Was I lost? Did Verlaine tell you to come?"
"No, of course not. Ingrid, you’re turning me on. What do you want to do, ball?"
Her foot jabbed the front of my pants, and dropped to the floor to find her sandal. "That is not the question!" Her coffee cup flew to her lips and abruptly clinked to the saucer.
"You know so much, Jason, but understand so little. You do not desire me."
" Ingrid, yes. Oui, tres."
"P-h-h-f-ft." She made a dismissive sound and took another drink. "No, I do not think so. I am just here. You want Verlaine. Is this not true?"
"No. I don’t know." I lifted the coffee cup to my lips let the dark liquid scald my tongue.
"Bullshit! You know. But this can not be. She has someone. She does not want sex from you. She has told me. She needs from you your talent, art. You can not betray this."
"Someone? Who?"
"I will not tell you. I can not. It is not your affair." She put two fingertips to my lips as if to place a kiss. "Do not talk." Her shoulders slumped. " I have desire for you. I want for you to share this feeling. I brought these," she spread three foil packaged condoms on the table, "in hope for your heart. That you would see me as I see you."
"Oh, Ingrid..."
"Impossible, now!" Her eyes moistened, she shrugged her shoulders. " We would be dogs, dogs in an alley. This I do not want. It would be as nothing. I will not be a fool. I will not do the stupid thing." Her lower lip trembled.
"Making love is not stupid." I touched the back of her hand. She turned her hand, palm up, her fingers touched my palm. "Love is something free we give to each other."
"Bullshit! Sex is not love. And love is not free. This I know. We pay."
Our coffee grew cold. I stared into the sadness that overtook her brown eyes. My words all dried up.
" I think sometimes you are afraid of life. You hold back. Maybe it is best for you. It is not best for me. I think I need to leave." She grabbed the foil packets off the table. "I must go. I have studies. You?"
"Oui," I answered. "Oui, tres."
"It was what Michel Piccouli said to Brigette in the movie."
" I’m sorry," I said, as I stood.
"You are sorry, too much." She paid her tab.
"I’ll have to see that movie from the beginning sometime." I paid.
"Oui, yes, you must."
"Maybe we can see it together?"
She smiled slightly, "One never knows."
I pushed the door open and held it for her.
"We are still friends, Jason?"
"Yes, of course, always." I placed my hand to her cheek and pressed my lips to hers. Our lips parted, then she kissed me back, hard, quick.
"I will go now. We will talk more." She stepped back and turned. I watched her walk away.
I crossed the street by the law building to lose myself to dark corners and the latticework shadows of limbs. I sought out the black pools of night to glide through on my way back to the dorm. Every word Ingrid and I had shared, I rolled over in my mind and tried to turn the grit of hurt into some sort of pearl; to rearrange them to a different outcome. I wanted the night to swallow me whole. Random songs ran through my head. People are Strange by the Doors hooked on and wouldn’t let go. I entered an ink cloaked passage between the brick buildings of old campus as I tried to forget, learn to forget.
"Hey, Hippie!"
I turned and corrugated knuckles slammed hard into my cheek bone, a white-hot sun burst behind my left eye. Color cartoon dots clustered and radiated before me, as I tried to focus. An arm roped with muscle pistoned into my stomach and I crumpled like a marionette; all its strings cut at once. My head bounced off the cement. I heard voices above me; the scuffed toes of work boots were inches from my face. "Shit, Tom! I bet this is the asshole threw the rocks at us when we tried to make it with those hippie chicks."
A hand grabbed my hair, and yanked my head back. My necklace snapped. I heard the seeds and beads as they riotously skittered and tapped away. With my one good eye I stared at a puffy pock-marked face. It spit on me. I felt the viscous fluid slide down my chin. The hand let go and my head dropped hard to the sidewalk.
"That’s the little hippie shit all right."
A boot careened off my shin. A foot came down hard on my butt, and again and despite myself, I laughed inside, and thought, ‘I’m getting my ass stomped’. More kicks and punches rained down too fast and solid. My lips skinned back and I sucked in the night. I lost count.
I heard the rasp of their boots on the pavement as they ran away. There was laughter, a horn honk in the distance, voices, then silence. A cool breeze soothed my cheek. I lay there, and did not want to move. I did not want the pain to stab further into me. I tried to will my eyes to close, not wince shut in pain. I needed to get to the dorm. I needed to climb the stairs. I needed to get to my room, my bed. I rose on one arm and pushed myself up. Joey’s shirt was ripped in half. I felt the cool air on my back. I stood on stiff legs, the pain in too many places. I took my first steps like the Frankenstein monster, my feet felt shackled with weighted boots. I made it to 10th. Street. The traffic was lenient and I hobbled across. I went the back way, stayed away from the lights. I made the long ascent up the sidewalk and counted each concrete slab to the dorm, the orange-lit parking lot, where once Hunter and I carried a sign one misty night long ago. I had my key. My bloody scraped knuckles found it in my pocket. My muscles burned, as I swung the heavy door open and tried not to cry. One step after another, I pulled myself up the stairs, one step after another up the three flights of stairs. I could make it now. I pushed through the third floor door and the need to use the restroom swam over me suddenly and urgently. I swung the restroom door open. It was so bright, too bright. I heard someone retch in one of the stalls, the sound was full and forceful, nauseating. Sloe Gin. The smell wafted toward me vile and overpowering. I unzipped at the urinal. It hurt, but I was soon through and zipped up.
I faced the blurred stranger in the mirror and threw water on the ugly red welts, the purple-yellowish bruises that already bloomed. A mean gash across my forehead was crusted with blood, my hair was matted and tangled. I rinsed again, and let the pink water swirl down the chrome drain. I glanced down at Joey’s paint-stained shirt, now spattered with my dried blood. I wondered what paint would match it, Raw Sienna, or Raw Umber. I touched my cheek and winced; Alizarin Crimson. The toilet in the stall flushed . I left, my face still wet.
There was our door that had held so much joy behind it. The metal key clicked in the lock and I turned the knob. The odors of marijuana and incense, bodies held close, still inhabited the room. I shut the door. There were scattered album covers where Joey had sat. The thick glass cafeteria ash trays that dotted the floor held the spent roaches. Still Jovial, Buddha beamed at the tiny mound of incense ash before him, even in oblivion there was bliss. I slipped Joey’s shirt tenderly from my shoulders and let it fall to the floor like a captured flag. I unzipped my pants and peeled them carefully off my thighs. They crumpled around my ankles as I stepped out of them. My bed was still shoved against the wall. I collapsed across it and pulled the coarse gray blanket over me as I gritted my teeth, and my body tensed in pain. I let my head sink into the pillow as I willed myself to relax; slip into a sleep without dreams in this empty room.
"Sounds good. Everybody dig that,"said, Hunter.
"Jim Morrison is like a lion." It was Joey, still absorbed in the album covers strewn across her lap.
"He’s the lizard king. He can do anything," answered Warlock. "Up, girl. Up, up!" He went over to help Wolfman.
Hunter kicked the towel from the door and unlocked it.
Verlaine grabbed Hunter’s arm, "Don’t you think you better check to see if the coast is clear?"
"The R. A. doesn’t care, as long as we keep things quiet during week nights."
"Where do you think Warlock got the weed?" I interrupted. "Seth down the hall is the biggest dealer in the dorm."
Hunter pulled the door open and our reek spilled out. A kid pink from showering with a white towel around his waist and a tooth brush thrust in his cheek, pressed against the wall and flashed a peace sign as we passed.
I bobbed over to Verlaine and hooked my arm through hers and started to recite: "Axolotl, axolotl burning bright, in the biology lab of the night, what immortal hand or eye, could frame thy sexual chemistry."
She reached out and grabbed my face and pulled it close to hers. Her eyes flicked in front of mine, "You are stoned, Jase!"
"Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful."
We piled down the three flights of stairs and banged the steel-frame doors open and rushed out into a warm, expectant, spring night, the trees tremulous with their delicate Jade green leaves.
On the lit concourse in front of the dorm a group of guys beat on an assortment of bongos, djembes and one conga drum, rhythms that kept time with our own hearts. Joey and Verlaine broke into a spontaneous dance and pulled Ingrid and Wolfman into their tribal ring.
"Jason, come join," Ingrid yelled as she held out an arm.
I grabbed her hand and Verlaine caught my other, and they pulled me into a vortex that swooped and spun, a wheel of life that thrummed with eyes that flashed, hazel-brown-brown-blue, hazel-brown-brown-blue, hair and shining teeth, laughter.
The axis of our gyre wobbled in mid-whirl, and the momentum of our bodies flung us to topple on the sidewalk. We crumpled together in a pile of mad laughter. Warlock stood back and cackled at the tangle of arms and legs.
"C’mon the axolotls await," called, Hunter, as he walked ahead. Suzy’s hand was plunged deep into the back pocket of his jeans.
All along Fee Lane, the parade of Detroit chrome gleamed beside us in one long sparkling necklace. Headlights shattered like diamonds as they burst, to twinkle over us, and ruby tail lights uncoiled behind like streamers.
" America, too many cars and too much essence," said Ingrid.
"What?" I replied.
" How do you say? Gaso-line?" She tentatively answered.
"Everyone should ride bikes like they do in China," added, Verlaine. " We could stop pollution overnight ."
"That’ll never happen," Hunter turned and said. "There is too much money to be made in oil."
"Americans use too much, share too little." Ingrid snapped a cigarette out of a blue box. "Africans starve and you go to McDonalds."
"McDonalds, yeah that sounds good," Wolfman responded.
"You’re such a fascist, Wolf," Ingrid said as she lit it and blew a reef of smoke his way.
"A food fascist! Right on!" He snapped his hand toward the night sky. "Heil, cheeseburger! Let’s get something to eat at the Union."
"You’re always worrying about your gut," Warlock replied.
"Well, if I don’t worry about it, who will?"
That cracked Warlock up. "Hey, Ingrid, what brand you smoke?"he asked.
"Gitanes."
"Never heard of them."
"They are French."
"Let me have a taste."
"You will not like." She passed him the cigarette. He took a deep suck on the end and coughed, sputtering."Y-y-you m-must have leather lungs." He handed it back.
Ingrid’s glance pinned him like a bug to a file card as she expelled the rest of the smoke through her nose .
We slipped into the shadows under the bridge, and emerged to behold the smoke from the stacks of the physical plant as they bloomed in the night like dusky flowers.
"See, we pour crap into our skies." Verlaine pointed. "Nobody gives a shit."
"Wow, check out the stars," Warlock said, his eyes locked on the sky. "they’re like sparklers! Finest kind!"
I tilted my head and gazed into a Van Gogh night of Prussian blue, the moon and planets spun around like shiny-toothed gears in heaven’s starry dynamo. I smiled.
Our chatter uncoiled like a strand of Christmas lights that we merrily strung along as we passed . 10th street was a river of cars crammed with ‘frat rats’ and townies. We ran in clusters across, as Warlock and Wolfman yelled back the obscenities hurled at us from the rolled down windows.
I cursed as I hit the curb. The sole of my left sandal flopped loose.
"What’s the matter, buddy," Hunter called.
I dangled my sandal in front of me by its broken strap.
"No shoes, no shirt, so sorry, Jase. No way will they let you in the Union."
Verlaine laughed.
"Jase, I’ve got a freaky idea!" Joey said. "Come with me. We’re going to the Art Building. I can fix you up!"
"Fix me up?"
"Trust me, it’ll be fun, just wait and see."
"Yeah, you go man," Wolfman said, "we’ll meet you in the Kiva."
"Joey, I will go with you." It was Ingrid.
"Fantastic! We won’t be long."
"Let’s cut across the track ," I said, "it’s quicker."
"Groovy," Joey called back, as Ingrid hurried ahead to join her.
"Hey, wait up!"
"Sorry, Jase, we girls need to talk."
Joey’s hips popped up and down hypnotically with every stride, like a thoroughbred being led to the paddock . Ingrid, beside her, walked self-possessed, shoulders squared, arms loose, a cigarette dangled from her fingers. Still, their conversation reached me in modulated chirps as if from two gossipy sparrows, as they faded farther ahead . One or the other would gaze back at me with a stifled laughed as the distance between us widened until the darkness fully soaked them up and I only heard the soft slap of their sandals, then nothing, but the swoosh of cars and the noises of campus night all around. I was left limping alone, the streetlights behind me casting their chiaroscuro patterns across my path. The wrought-iron arch, that spanned the walk was supported on either side by yellow brick ticket booths, secure as sentry huts, their iron-barred windows long boarded-up. I made my way around the blank-walled stands, and reached the darkened bowl of the stadium, the heat of the day still radiating off the cinder track . Then I heard their voices again, but louder, and there were other voices as well. I stopped to listen.
"C’mon, girls we just want to party. It’ll be fun."
Ingrid rattled of a string of French. I could only imagine the obscenities.
"Yeah, we’ve heard all about you hippie chicks. We just want some of that free love you’re passing out. C’mon, we’ve got some ‘Daniels’ in the car. Be nice."
"Fuck off, asshole!"
I eased off the cinder track on to the grass skirt. Closer now.
"Don’t you just love it when they talk dirty?"
"Vas te faire encule’!"
"You French? I love french chicks. Parlez vous, Francis?"
"Get lost, pigs!"
" Now that’s no way to be, honey."
The voices were just ahead, beneath the concrete stands, in the deep well of an entrance tunnel . I looked around for a weapon, a stick, a rock, then stepped on a piece of slag, of course, better than nothing. I scooped up a handful and started running, screaming, and hurled the clinkers with every stride. In the dim corridor, two rough figures wavered for a moment, then bolted under the hail from my hand.
"Run! Run!" I shouted to Ingrid and Joey, "to the art building!"
The girls slammed into the rear doors holding them open, as we all swooped inside together.
"Who, were those, assholes?"
" Who knows? Stoner pigs," Joey answered, as she swiped the hair from her eyes. "Thanks, Jase, but we could’ve handled them."
Ingrid gave me a hug and scowled. "You hit me." She rubbed her forehead, where a small goose egg was forming. "Your aim is not so good. What did you throw?"
"Some clinkers I picked-up. Sorry. I was trying to scare them away."
"Fils de pute!"
"Let’s go you two."
She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and then was off down the hall following Joey.
"What does that mean?" I called after her.
"Pardon?" she answered, " the kiss or what I said?"
"Both!"
"An endearment,"she laughed.
"I don’t believe you!" My answer echoed up the stairwell to the second floor.
The studio seemed larger and colder than during the day, the bank of windows across the room framed a glittering night outside. Joey tripped over to get her paint case from her locker.
"Roll up your pants," She commanded as she unclasped the wooden box and slid out her palette. "and lose the other sandal."
"What are you going to do?"
"What does it look like I’m going to do? I’m going to paint a new pair of sandals on your feet." She held up two tubes of paint. "What color, Sienna Brown or Burnt Umber?"
"Sienna Brown," I answered and Joey squeezed the color onto her palette.
"This is yours, Jason?" Ingrid held up a large painting of a nude from the labeled rack. "Her back, it hurt?"
I looked over. She was examining one of my recent canvases, the model was bent over grasping her ankles. "She got breaks."
"Your professor hates women as much as Degas."
"It’s just a pose. It’s about over-lapping, angles, space."
"I think he does not respect women." She looked intently at it.
"The model might even have chosen that pose herself, come to think of it."
"Hmph. Too pink, I think. The skin is too pink," she appraised.
"The studio was chilly that day. Her skin was flushed. She had goose-bumps. Ask Joey."
Joey looked up, "Jase, leave me out of your critique."
"Hey, that feels freaky!" I looked down to see her paint a wide brown band across my arch and then trace a thin line down between my toes.
"I want to paint! I want to paint!" Ingrid shoved the canvas back and rushed over. "Jason, I will paint you," Ingrid kneeled down beside Joey.
"Here," she gave Ingrid a small brush. "Stipple in a design on the bands around the arch and toe."
"Stipple?"
"Dots." Joey poked the brush in the air.
"Ah!"
Joey popped up. "Now, something for you to wear."She bounced to her locker and rummaged around, pulling out a paint smeared man’s dress shirt. "This should do. Here, try this on."
"No wait!" Ingrid jumped up. " I want to paint more."
"The sandals look great, Ingrid," Joey, smiled. "You can’t tell they’re not real."
Ingrid squeezed out more colors and grabbed a bigger brush. "Stand still, Jason. You are my canvas, no?" She swirled the brush on the palette, and daubed black paint over my nipples, then circled them with two sweeping arcs across my chest. She filled in each with ochre. "Two big yellow eyes, now, a Wavy Gravy nose and a big smile for your belly. She ‘splooched’ red paint down my sternum.
"Having fun?"
"Oui. Hold still."
I flinched as the brush clotted with cool paint dragged across my stomach. When she finished she poked the bristles into my belly button and made me laugh. I knocked the brush away. She stepped back and glanced at Joey.
"Soutine, no?"
Joey laughed. "Definitely, expressionist. Definitely, Soutine." She went to drape the spattered white shirt across my shoulders.
"No! He is not dry, yet." She leaned forward and blew her warm breath across my skin."
"We need to go, Ingrid." She dropped the shirt across my shoulders. "He’ll have to air dry. Let me clean up and stash my supplies and we can take off."
"Those were acrylics weren’t they?" I poked my arms into the sleeves.
"Wouldn’t you like to know," Joey called back with a smile from the steel sink.
"Soutine. Wait! I’m a carcass?"
"Un morceau de viande." Ingrid pressed her lips to Joey’s ear and they both laughed.
"I can do without the whispers."
Jazzed we clambered down the stairs, slipped out a side door, and crossed the slate patio. We hopped the hedge, rather than use the steps, and scooted down the grassy slope onto the sidewalk. We ran across the street to the fountain.
There she was, bronze, immense, rising; arms raised akimbo, framing her blissed-out face, her torso arced, baring twin scoops of breasts, metallic nipples erect pointed heavenward, knees locked virginal, bathed in light and spouts of water, cascading ; Aphrodite on the half-shell ringed by strange duck-billed prehistoric fish forever caught half-out of water in mid-leap. Man, my mind always riffed like Ginsberg when I was high.
"Her belly is poofy," Ingrid said disparagingly as she slipped off her sandals and rolled up her pants. She tossed me her lighter and cigarettes as she stepped in. I set them on the walk by a bush.
Joey sat on the stone rim and swivelled her long legs over the side. "It’s cool."
"Nice," Ingrid echoed.
They each exclaimed laughing as the spouts of gushing water hit them.
"Come on in!"
" I can’t. I’m a work of art!"
" Vous etes le poulet. You are ‘chicken!"
"You don’t want your masterpiece ruined do you?"
Joey gamboled through the spray and swung astride one of the rearing fish. She drew her legs up and hooked an arm languidly behind her head. Her hair coiled in snakey strands across her shoulders. "Who am I Jase? Help me out."
"What? I don’t know."
"That lit. course you took! The one, where you talked about those nymphs who hung around wells and fountains ."
"Naiads?"
"Yes! We’re the naiads of the fountain!" Joey flung her wet hair behind her.
"They’re temptresses."
"Dois-je vous tente, Jason? Do I tempt you?" Ingrid’s damp shirt clung to her front, as she leaned back and raised her arms and pressed her hands to the statue’s sculpted breasts.
"Oh, man! Don’t do this to me."
"Leche moi et saire me renier." Her voice was lilting.
"What? Cut the French, Ingrid . You’re Circe!
" Circe, the witch!" Ingrid demanded.
"Not a witch, she was more of an enchantress. She turned men into swine."
"Come in Jase, we’re wai-ting," Joey sang plashing the water with her toes.
"You’re Calypso!"
She slipped from the sculpture, the water encircling her thighs, and approached me.
" And these must be the waters of Lethe’." I swung out my arm.
"Jesus, Jase, you only got a C!" Joey wiped the wet strands from her face as she neared.
"People are waiting on us? Let’s split, before the campus cops show up."
"They can wait. And screw the fuzz!"
Ingrid splashed over, smiling.
"Give me a hand, Jase." Joey reached out.
I took her hand without even thinking. Her fingers clamped tight. Ingrid was right there and grabbed the back of my belt. I flopped into the fountain like a bull frog. Water up my nose, I flailed and slipped and stood, mouth open in a silent scream, soaked, thrilled in the suddenness of it. When I wiped the water from my eyes the girls had already slipped on their sandals and were laughing. Ingrid retrieved her cigarettes. I climbed out as the water streamed off me.
Joey pointed down, "Look at your feet?" Rivulets of brown paint sluiced off my skin and ran between my toes.
"Open your shirt,"said, Ingrid. "I want to see my beautiful art." I spread the wet cloth like wings. Ingrid rubbed her palm in a circular motion across my chest.
"DeKooning!"Joey laughed.
"Beautiful art," Ingrid murmured, as the spray roared. She hooked her arm around me and pressed her cool lips to mine.
I broke the kiss. "C’mon, the cops..." I pleaded.
Joey started to sway, singing:"Pa-ra-noia strikes deep..." She punctuated the end of every line with claps. "Into your life it will-creep, (clap-clap). It starts when you’re always afraid, (clap-clap). Step out of line, the Man come and take you away..."
A white and blue campus patrol car, as if summoned by the song, silently glided into view. Its sides gleamed like a great white metal shark. It rolled to a stop beside us.
The door swung open and a man uniformed in blue, sporting embroidered patches that glowed beneath the street lights, unfolded from the interior. He had a buzz cut. He must have been in his 30's, with a build like someone who had spent his formative years in small town stadiums under Friday night lights. I could tell we were ruining his tranquil night, spoiling his easy shift. He was not happy. He walked over to us and took in our sodden state, the water pooling around our feet, our pasted on smiles, our pupils in bloom like nocturnal flowers. From his thick black leather belt he removed a pad and started scribbling as if we had just placed an order in some cop diner and he was our conscientious waiter.
"I’m charging you with public intoxication. May I see some student I. D.?"
"Here, I have mine." Ingrid deftly slipped hers from inside her box of cigarettes. I looked on astounded and somewhat chagrined.
The officer studied it as if it contained the hidden mystery of life. He analyzed Ingrid’s face and jotted down the information and handed it back .
"The rest of you?"
"I forgot mine," Joey volunteered.
"Name?"
"Joey Vorschact."
"Spell it."
"Vorschact V- (capital V)," She glared at him. "o-r-s-c-h-a-c-t, Joahanna J" She spit it out. " (capital J)-o-a-h-a-n-n-a .
"Date of birth?
Joey’s head canted to the side as if one of the cords in her neck had snapped."Aquarius with the moon in Scorpio."
He looked at Joey hard with all the patience of Torquemada . "I want this to go easy. I can add on disorderly conduct. It’s either the Dean or the Monroe County Jail. My discretion. Date of birth?"
"February 15, 1950."
"Social security number?"
Joey was a good little girl and answered all the officer’s inquiries, phone number, home address, campus address. So did I. He checked out all our information through his dispatcher and referred it to the Dean’s Office of Student Ethics.
"All through on this end. Have a pleasant night." He had to add, "no more dips in the fountain, gang." He gave us each a citation and wedged himself back into his cruiser. He didn’t turn the ignition over until we crossed the street and started to drift toward the Student Union.
"Thank you, officer," Joey waved, as the police cruiser rolled slowly beside us. She crumpled the piece of paper and stuffed it in her pocket. Under her breath, one word, "prick ."
We walked nonchalantly, fingering the hedges as we passed, and marveled in fake wonderment at the age darkened oak doors of Woodburn Hall. I peeled off the wet shirt and twisted as much water out of it as I could before skinning it back on..
"You carry your I.D. in your cigarettes ?" Joey turned to face Ingrid, back-peddling as she walked. "Excuse me, but that is so bizarre."
" You are mad at me?"
"No, it’s just that we were left hanging with no I.Ds. But who knows, maybe you got us off the hook. The campus cops are such a joke, anyway. All they can think to do is hassle kids." Joey stopped and looped her arm around Ingrid. "They don’t even carry guns."
When we neared our destination our personal police escort accelerated down the tree-lined street, and faded into twin tail lights .
We cut across Dunn Meadow, the grass slope spread out into flat green circles beneath the street lights. The rest of the meadow receded in shadow cast by the tall Sycamores that stood near the shiny ribbon of dark water that coiled through the campus. We trooped up the cut stone stairway like knights returning to the castle from a bloody campaign. At the top of the ramparts we crowded into one wedge of the revolving door and were deposited into the noisy clatter of the cafeteria like three Marx brothers. Our long lost friends hailed us with greetings.
"Joey, Jase, Ingrid, over here!"
Amid a jumble of tables and chairs in a dim recess, familiar faces reposed like beggars at a banquet.
"Look, Jase!" Verlaine propped her leg on one of the tables, the bottom of her foot black, and wiggled her toes, "No shoes!"
"What happened to you guys?" Wolfman said with his mouth full. "Did you take a short-cut through the fountain?"
Warlock, hacked-out a laugh. "What did they do to you!? Use you for a drop-cloth? Hell, I would’ve gone if I’d known you’d be doing body painting, but I would’ve started with Joey."
She tilted her head and gave him a nasty little smile and flipped him the bird. "We rode the fishies," Joey said.
"...and got hassled by the cops," I answered. "I’m in my Jackson Pollock period. Like it?" I dropped into a chair and scooped up a piece of half-eaten pizza from a white ceramic plate and stuffed it in my mouth.
"Hey!" Wolfman, protested. "That’s mine!"
"Feed the people," I managed to choke out. I pulled some wadded bills from my pocket and threw them on the table. "So get another slice and one for me, too. Anything. And a large Dr. Pepper."
"This money is wet!" He picked it up gingerly. "Where’s it been?"
"Aphrodites’ snatch."
Verlaine, laughed so hard she spewed her herbal tea through her nose and grabbed for the napkins. Wolfman walked away in disgust.
"So, you ran into cops? Any serious shit go down?" Warlock asked.
"Campus cops," I replied.
"Oh, then no problem, right?"
"Have to go before the Dean’s ethics committee."
"Shit. They let Dow Chemical recruit on campus so they can make more Napalm, to drop on Vietnamese women and children, but you take a bath in a fountain and are brought before an ethics committee? That’s freakin’ wrong!"
"So it goes."
Joey and Ingrid returned with salads and drinks on their trays and set them down and pushed over another small square table until it’s edge collided with ours. Wolfman followed with two floppy triangles of greasy pizza and drinks.
"Are you going to eat more of that processed cheese crap?" Verlaine cringed .
"Watch me," Wolfman answered, as he fed the steaming slice into his mouth and pulled it all the way in on the conveyor belt known as his tongue.
Verlaine did a three-quarter turn away from Wolfman. "You’re disgusting."
"Finest kind," Warlock added brightly.
"Where’s Hunter and Suzy," I asked, just now noticing they were nowhere around.
"They split," Warlock answered. "Said they were going to a movie downtown. But, you know—." He leered.
"Yeah, they’ve been pretty hot and heavy."
"They are lovers?" Ingrid asked.
"More like ports in a storm," added Wolfman.
"She’s the port. Hunter is the cruiser," I corrected.
Wolfman, eyed me. "Okay, Dr. Freud. As I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted." He threw a piece of crust at my head. "Ever since her brother got killed in Viet Nam, Suzy kind of hops from bed to bed."
"From what I hear from Hunter. She’s ‘saving herself’ for marriage."
"Okay, so she goes down on every guy she meets."
"Virginity, is Bourgeosie bullshit," Ingrid blew out a stream of smoke. "a concept meant to oppress women."
"It’s no big deal," Verlaine commented. "Let her have her hangups."
"I’m moving," Joey announced, "join me Wolfman?"
He picked up his drink and flashed us his toothy grin and followed Joey to a dim corner of the cafeteria.
"So are we still going to see the Axolotl lab?"
"What’s the point? We’re all off in our own little worlds now," Verlaine shrugged.
"I’ll go."
"Super! And, Jase, there’s a favor I want to talk to you about."
Ingrid and Verlaine exchanged a look.
"Oh, okay," I responded, intrigued.
"I could care less, but I’m cool with it," said Warlock.
"I will not go," added Ingrid. "They are ugly."
"A face only a mother Axolotl could love." Verlaine took a final sip of her tea.
"Let’s go down Kirkwood first," interjected Warlock. " The Guitar Shop has a used Martin D-28 they just got in. I’ve been thinking of buying it and I want you to take a listen. See what you think."
"We can all do that, right?"
"What about Wolfman and Joey?" Verlaine asked.
I looked over. They reminded me Degas’s painting of ‘The Absinthe Drinkers’, except that Wolfman, his hand up her shirt, was massaging Joey’s back in a slow rhythmic motion, and her fingers hugged his thigh, like a blind person reading braille.
"Leave them," I answered. "They’re busy."
"Finest kind," his roommate judged.
We gathered our trays and scooted the chairs back.
Warlock called out to the preoccupied couple, "See you, guys!"
There was the merest rearrangement of their bodies in way of reply.
"Looks like they dig each other," Verlaine remarked as we punched through the revolving door.
"They will ‘get it on’," Ingrid asked.
"Oh, yeah," Warlock joined in. " If Wolf has his way."
We jumped down the stone staircase and crossed over the Jordan River out onto the green blanket of cool night grass.
"Man, this feels better," I said as my feet awoke to the green bristling earth.
"Of course. You’re more in touch with your environment," Verlaine answered, "Going barefoot is like cubing your experience of the world ."
" This I do not understand," Ingrid said, as she removed her sandals and joined us.
"Like multiplying your life by itself twice, living fully, beautifully, in the moment. So many people stifle their lives, cocoon their bodies in clothes, encase their feet in leather. They divorce themselves from their environment."
I walked ahead to catch up to Warlock.
"Why did you lay that trip on us about ‘getting naked’ back at the room? That was so uncool."
"Hell, Jase. I’ve been yanked out of so many schools, I’ve lost count. I’ve got to be fearless. Nothing lost, nothing gained. You get some action or you don’t. Whatthefuck, you know? I’ve never been to an orgy. You?"
"No."
"See! You need to hang out with me more." He slapped me on the back.
"Couldn’t you dig the girls weren’t into that? It just killed the vibe."
"What can I say? Sorry, man. I didn’t realize everybody was so uptight." Warlock motioned the girls up a rise to an inky clump of shadows nestled beneath a stand of pine trees. "Sit everyone and watch Warlock magic," he intoned in mock seriousness.
We gathered around and huddled together on the ground as he wove his hands through the air as if he was manipulating an invisible veil. He drew his arms undulating across his body, then, with a flourish, produced two fat joints pointing straight up.
Our smiles spread wings like luminous butterflies in this gorgeous night.
He crossed his legs on the nettled ground. His Bic flared, he relayed one joint to Ingrid on his left and the other to Verlaine. They criss-crossed, as we passed them round and round.
"You are a true wizard," I muttered as the twin joints vied for my attention.
We sat in silence, invisible, and let the lights and voices and skimming bicycle tires on the sidewalks whirr all around us. My knee accidently pressed Verlaine’s. The heat radiated off her body, her warm scent ladled over with the pungent organic aroma of marijuana. I took toke. Then I felt Ingrid’s hand between my thighs and exhaled.
Warlock pinched the last roach between his fingers and sighed, "Good shit, huh?"
"I am so mellow," Ingrid smiled, and her smile broke into a grin, and her grin broke into a laugh and we all caught it.
"They call me Mel-low Yel-low," she sang and we slipped into spontaneous song as we stood.
"Quite right-ly!" I warbled.
"Oh, so mel-low, yea so yel-low...", Warlock and Verlaine joined in.
We spread laughter like seeds, as we hooked arms and headed across the verdant dark of the meadow to the lights of Kirkwood Avenue. We were four Cheshire cats, nothing but smiles. Lightly we stepped upon Mother Earth’s tender blades all pointing up. They bent beneath our feet and beckoned, green shoots, that between our toes whispered, "comeon, comeon, comeon."
We waited at the curb of Indiana Avenue, at the mercy of chrome bumpers that outrageously dazzled our eyes. Then the tide of white-walled, black tires sluiced by and we ran across, the girls joyously screaming.
"Let’s stop in the Booknook,"shouted, Verlaine.
"What, to pick-up more of your Marxist literature," Warlock, replied.
"Wilhelm Reich, is not a Marxist! Don’t you believe in anything? Don’t you have any convictions?"
"Yeah. Me, myself, and I. Whatever I can get away with."
"As long as we’re going to stop, let’s go to, The Other Side." I entered the fray. " They have the new Blue Cheer album in, Vincebus Eruptum."
"We’re here because I wanted to take you to The Guitar Shop. It’s just a couple blocks."
"Godard!" Ingrid exclaimed.
For half a beat I thought she had cursed, until I followed her eyes. She was gazing across the street at the Von Lee Theatre. Under the red-tiled portico, blazoned across the glowing white marque, the word, CONTEMPT was blocked out in big black letters.
"It is a Godard film."
"Who?" Warlock asked.
"Jean Luc Godard, a very important film director. You have never heard of ‘ Nouvelle Vague’? We must see it!"
"Man, I can’t deal with this." Warlock rubbed his head. "I thought you wanted to hear the Martin? Then all this shit. You can see the movie later."
"Jason, you must see it with me. Please! I will find out times they will show it. Please!"
"Wow, I’m just not up for a movie right now."
Ingrid rushed across the street to the ticket window.
"Go see it with her, Jase," urged, Verlaine. "Fuck the axolotls."
"That’s a pleasant thought."
She shoved me. "You know what I mean. We can talk later about my ‘favor’."
"I just don’t want to read subtitles," I said as the rest of us crossed. " It’s in French. Can you dig that?"
"It’s not about the subtitles, Jase. I swear, sometimes you’re so thick."
Ingrid turned to us. "The next show is 8:45. I will see this. You do not have to, Jason, if you do not want. Still there is time for me to see you play the guitar, Warlock."
"Far out! Let’s go."
"Sorry, Ingrid. I just..."
"This is what I will do. You do your thing. Okay?"
I shrugged.
"Here, button," she grabbed my shirt. "No one wants to see your technicolor chest."
"It’s just down the block," said, Warlock, as he started ahead .
Ingrid tapped a cigarette out of her pack and lit it. She expelled the first puff like a long held frustration.
Further along, the sidewalk soon became a clotted artery congested with people out for the evening.
"Hey, Baskin and Robbins!" Warlock called out. "Let’s get some ice cream! What do you say?"
"Yeah, sure. Why not," replied Ingrid .
"It’s carageenan and whey," said, Verlaine, "nothing but fat and by-products."
"Yeah, but its cold and sweet." Warlock held the door for us as we entered . "Just what I crave right now."
The Gant crowd was cued up inside in their crisp shirts and skinny belts, with no socks to bridge the gap between their slacks and loafers. Their sorority dates had short sculpted hair and frosted lips. Their skirts were shorter than last fall. A smattering of the older generation was sprinkled around as well, like jimmies on a new flavor of ice cream. We took our numbers and waited our turn as we felt the eyes bore into us, the snickers and whispered witticisms.
"57," the pink uniformed woman finally called. I stepped forward.
"I’d like a scoop of Rocky--"
"I can’t serve you! You’re barefoot. No shoes, no service. The sign’s on the door, can’t you read!? 58!"
" Why’d you make me wait!"
"Hon, I didn’t write the law. You gotta pay attention. 58!"
" What do you want, Jason? I will purchase it for you."
"A scoop of Rocky Road and a scoop of Mint Chip in a sugar cone, thanks Ingrid." She held out her hand. "Oh, sure." I pulled out two dollars.
Verlaine and I walked out, but not before she turned around and flipped the server the bird.
"You didn’t have to do that."
"Pissed me off! Society is so screwed up. What about blind people?"
"What have they got to do with me not being served?"
" They let their seeing-eye dogs in there! Don’t dogs carry diseases and everything. And they even give the freakin’ dog a dip."
Warlock exited, slipping through the mass of people. He carried a cone with two bright pink scoops balanced on top.
"What the Hell is that?" I asked.
" Pink Bubblegum," Warlock smiled between licks. "Finest kind!"
Ingrid reappeared and handed me my cone and the change.
"What did you get?" I asked.
"Swiss Chocolate Almond. It is no good," She took a lick. "Not real Swiss chocolate."
"Let me have a taste."
" I share yours?"
"Deal."
We each held out our cones. I took a lick of hers and Ingrid bit off a big hunk of my Rocky Road and stuffed it in her mouth with sticky fingers.
"Good," she laughed, her brown eyes sparkled.
We walked on as we devoured our ice cream. When Ingrid finished, she grabbed the back of my shirt( or should I say, Joey’s) and wiped her mouth and hands.
"Je vous remercie, mon garcon."
"At your service," I responded. I could only guess at what she had said.
It was then, a girl with stringy hair and blurred eyes, wearing a blue print shift,
pushed through the crowd toward us. She held out a pale hand, cupped like a small bowl. "Spare change? I need money for an abortion." She hooked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
"Vous etes une fille stupide," Ingrid retorted. "Why did you not make your boyfriend wear condoms!"
The girl’s hand clenched like a rock and dropped to her side. She continued to walk, but stopped and turned. Her face contracted, red and hard. "Fuck you, French bitch!" She yelled back.
"You are still stupid! Stupid to get pregnant!"
The panhandler ran down the street and was lost.
" Too many girls allow men to make them fools!"
"She’s probably not even pregnant. She just needed a line to get some bread."
Warlock wiped his hands on his jeans, and entered the brightly lit music store ahead of us.
Guitars ringed the walls, their lacquered surfaces gleamed: blonde-hued folk guitars, honey warm classicals, thin curvaceous candy-colored electrics.
A young guy, in a striped shirt with tails that hung out, his hair getting long in the back, sat half-perched on a stool as he picked at a Mosrite with a sunburst-finish.
"Say, what’s happening?" A middle-aged man, with a rubber-banded pony-tail, walked over. His hand encrusted with silver and turquoise rings clasped Warlock’s wrist in greeting. "Still got your eyes on the D-28?"
"Yeah. I brought some friends along to hear its sound. Could you get it down for me?"
"Sure thing, man." He walked over to the wall and removed it and held it as if it were a newborn baby.
"This one has one nice sweet tone." He handed it to Warlock .
"Warlock clambered atop a nearby stool and arranged himself. He drew his fingers over the curve of the guitar as if he was caressing a naked woman reclining in his lap. He slid his left hand up the slender neck as he began adjusting the pegs to tune it.
The girls sat cross-legged on the floor. No one hassled them.
The pads of his fingers pressed the steel-wrapped strings to the inlaid frets on the rosewood neck. They slid with a barely audible shimmer from chord to chord, as his right hand danced across the strings above the sound hole. Notes crystalline and prismed , thrived, jeweled and tenuous in the air. His fingers spidered over the guitar neck, as he constructed an elaborate web of sound that was beautiful and sad, elegiac and heart-breaking. Unabiding loss crowded my heart again. Memories still too fresh flashed behind my eyes once more, stark slides projected on a white screen: that sky like cement; my Mustang, unrecognizable behind the tow truck; the girl I loved, a statistic, forever set in black unforgiving headlines. I turned away, as tears welled-up in my eyes, and pretended to examine envelopes of guitar strings. I swiped at my cheeks with the cuff of Joey’s sleeve clutched in my hand.
Then it was over, the last ringing tone still vibrated, a ripple audible in the air. The girls clapped and jumped up.
"Warlock, it was so beautiful, I cry," Ingrid said. She gave him a hug.
"Really good," Verlaine added, "Did you compose that?"
" No. It’s a Tom Rush tune, ‘Rockport Sunday’. It’s on his ‘Circle Game’ album. Have you ever heard it?"
Verlaine shrugged.
" Anyway, pretty groovy LP. How’d you like the tone of this thing?" He tapped the body of the guitar with his finger tips..
"Nice."
"Yeah, it’s four hundred and fifty, but I’ve got a hundred and seventy-five saved. Not much longer. Hey, Jase!" Warlock called over to me, "Did you dig it? "
I turned and answered with a rasp, "It was great."
"You are okay, Jason?"
"Sure, Ingrid."
"Well, we need to get going," Verlaine said, " if you want to see the axolotl colony."
"What? Oh, yeah. If it’s all the same with you guys, I’m going to stay here and hang out."
"Whatever turns you on. But, you still want to go, right, Jase?"
"Yeah." I wondered about the ‘favor’ Verlaine wanted from me.
"I want still to see the Godard movie. This is okay with you, Verlaine?"
"Sure, I bet a Godard film is better than a roomful of axolotls any day. It’ll give me a chance to talk with Jase."
I took Warlock aside, and whispered, "You have anymore joints?" He glanced away then palmed one to me and I slipped it into my pocket. "I’ll pay you back, man."
"Forget it." He clenched my forearm. "Brothers?"
"Brothers," I repeated, as I looked him in the eyes.
"Thick and thin, man, thick and thin."
We said our goodbyes and made our way back down Kirkwood and stopped in front of the Von Lee to part ways.
"You are sure, Jason?" Ingrid asked as she stood beneath the marquee in front of the double doors .
"I don’t think so." She turned and slipped into the dark interior and was gone.
"You need to get your head together, Jase. Let’s go."
Verlaine and I dodged the traffic and stole behind Bryan Hall. The forested section of the campus took us in and embraced us. The sounds of the city fell away replaced curiously by flute music. It was ‘Norwegian Wood’ by the Beatles. It drifted just ahead of us and above. We looked up to see a pair of bare feet dangling from a tree limb. A ‘scoop’ of girl was deposited in the crotch of a Sycamore, her long hair tangled as a squirrel’s nest, a silver flute angled across her serene face. We watched and listened to her play, as at ease as a woodland nymph.
"Music major," Verlaine smiled as we walked beneath the leafed canopy .
My feet sought a soft path as they felt their way across earth’s scattered floor. "I don’t mind acorns and twigs," I said, "or nettles and burrs. If I get stuck or cut, it’s okay with me. It’s nature, and that’s cool. But I get pissed if I step on broken glass or a pop-top."
"I dig where you’re coming from." Verlaine, stooped to pick up a twig and idly twirled it between her fingers. "People don’t care. This culture thrives on waste." Her eyes widened. She heard the river, the creek, babble to itself, as it flowed over the flat stones, as it threaded its way through the nearby trees. "Let’s wade in the Jordan!"
"It’s polluted ."
"So what, the whole planet is polluted."
I rolled up my still damp pants and slipped in behind her, the water coursed around my ankles and encircled them, cold as dead hands, it tugged me on.
"I’m glad you’re here," I said, as her pale feet, like beautiful strange fish swam ahead.
"Why?"
"I don’t like being alone."
"Alone is okay," she answered.
Our feet slid from unsteady stone to unsteady stone, our arms at our sides, the only sound, the water as it worried the rocks. The rocks clocked together with each of our steps. When Verlaine’s toes slipped on a piece of shale furred slick with moss, she laughed and almost fell, but I caught her.
"What is the favor you wanted?" I asked.
Our amphibious feet slipped onto the bank and found the asphalt path.
"I want you to do a painting of me."
"Okay, no problem."
"In the nude."
I stopped and turned. Her face floated next to me, luminous and golden. I looked into her shadowed eyes.
"You paint nude models in class, right? I want you to do a nude painting of me. It’s not any different."
"Well, it kind of is. I know you."
"You’re uptight about this aren’t you?"
"No. No way. It’s just, well--let’s walk."
" I’m not coming on to you, if that’s what you think. I’m asking you this as a personal favor. I trust you. That’s a big deal for me. It’s not easy for me to do. You understand that?"
"Yeah. I think so."
"You’re talented, Jase! You have a gift. I don’t think you’re fully aware of that. You know you are the only one I trust to do this. I’m not asking this for free, either. I’m for real. I’ll pay you."
"Verlaine, I don’t want your money."
Jase, I need to pay you, to validate it’s worth. But remember," she flashed, her lopsided grin, " I’m working two jobs, so just go easy on the price, okay?"
"Don’t worry. I’d be happy to do it. Privileged. But why, why nude?"
"I want to own something unique and beautiful in my life, something to remind me of now. I want to know every time I look at it, that at one time I was free and young with no hangups. You’ll do this for me?"
"Yeah, I’ll do it. Where?"
"My room. Ingrid is cool with it. She’ll go some place and hang out."
"Deal." I pulled the joint out of my pocket and held it up, now or never, a small pale stick in the dark. "Want to celebrate, share this-- between, what--artist and model, friends?"
"Wow. Yeah. I guess I will be your model, huh? Makes me feel special."
"Let’s go over by those bushes."
We hunkered down. I lit it and pulled a tangle of smoke into my lungs and passed it to the soft shadow crowded next to me.
"I want my pose to be like The Naked Maja . You know that painting?"
I expelled the smoke and coughed."By Goya, and it’s The Nude Maja . Yeah I know it. So you’ve thought about this."
" Yeah, a bit. I like the pose. Her body is spread out like a big Fuck You across that couch. She didn’t care what people thought. She was free, totally out there." Verlaine unraveled another long skein of smoke between her lips, then let it seep out slowly like an early morning wisp of fog. "I want you to paint me as you see me, Jase. Be honest. Paint the truth."
"Yeah, but there’s two kinds of truth. The truth I see and the truth I know." I pinched the joint and threaded its smoke into my lungs.
Verlaine laid her leg on top of mine; two crossed electric wires, the current surged, and arced; the incandescent outline of a mountain range as the sun breached the summit. I laid my hand on her bare thigh.
"Friends, Jase." She placed her hand on mine and gently rubbed the back of it before she lifted it off her leg. "I trust you, Jase. I wouldn’t have asked anyone else. I believe in you."
We sat silent and mellow, the roach dwindled down, until a big fat joke squatted between us. We couldn’t keep it contained. Our laughter burst from us, like coiled snakes that sprang from a novelty can of peanuts.
Then we were both up, and slapped the earth from our legs, and broke into song. Once again we were on our way. "Let me take you down , cos’ I’m going to, Strawberry Fields, nothing is real and nothing to get hungabout..."
We leaned into each other as we walked. The soles of our feet carried on a conversation with the earth, small talk about nothing but pebbles and sticks and leaves, until we stood at the threshold of Jordan Hall.
"Follow me," motioned Verlaine.
The beige walls reeked of chemicals and cloistered lives. We passed jars and glass-cased alcoves of grotesque specimens, bleached of all color. Then we were in a room bathed in a dim greenish light that seemed cramped only because there were rows and rows of grey steel shelves separated by narrow aisles. Upon those shelves sat glass bowls half-filled with water, and in each one a strange blunt-headed, thick-tailed, smooth-skinned creature wiggled on feeble legs; axolotls. Their red gill stems waved like pliant coral.
"It’s freezing in here." My skin prickled with goose bumps in the chill air. I crossed my arms clutched my shoulders.
"It’s 56 degrees, the temperature axolotls like. You want to know why we raise these guys? They breed quickly, so they’re ideal for experiments. We ship their eggs and embryos to researchers across the country. Look at them." Verlaine grinned. " Their whole purpose in life is to eat and fuck. Pretty sweet deal, huh?"
"Yeah. I wouldn’t kick ."
"I mean how much different are we? We live in our own little glass worlds and ‘think’ we are interacting with each other, but are we really? I mean on a meaningful level, not, ‘Hi, how are you, have a good day’. We’re bred to buy and be happy. That’s all our culture wants us to do. Buy. Be consumers. Be happy. Don’t make waves. Status quo. Dig, Jase, if we become totally self-sufficient, grow our own food, make our own clothes, don’t consume the crap they force on us; the economy collapses. Then we’re free to remake society on a more sane level. But you know what? They’d never let that happen, they’d bring out the militia first.
"Who would bring out the militia ?"
"The government, but they’re just the tool. Industry, Oil, they wouldn’t let the people out from under their thumb without a struggle."
" Wow, that’s pretty mind-blowing. You think about shit like that when you’re in here?"
"Yeah—that and posing nude." She looked at me, as her smile over took her face. "Have you had enough of this?"
"Yeah, these things give me the creeps." I motioned to the shifting, jostling creatures in the bowls.
"Not God’s favorites that’s for sure."
We exited the room and she closed and locked the door.
The cool night was warm after the dank lab. We stopped where the path diverged.
" I think I’m going to head back to Briscoe. I’m really starting to feel bummed out. Jase, know what?!" The whites of her eyes flared. "You should head back to the Von Lee. See if Ingrid is still in the movie. She really digs you. You two ought to get together."
"Maybe."
"Maybe, nothing!" She planted her hands on my shoulders and started singing in an off-key drawl, "Go to her now she calls you, you can’t refuse. When you ain’t got nothin’, you got nothin’ to lose." The Dylan song fragmented as she started to laugh. She pressed her nose to mine. "Do it, Jase!" Then like a swimmer, who had just pushed off from the edge of a dock, she waved and receded into the deep end of the evening.
I walked alone, alone along the path that led to the avenue, my shadow stretched out and snapped back like licorice as I padded toward and passed underneath each successive light. The night seemed immense, my solitary sounds magnified.
"Hippie!" I jerked, startled. A girl’s voice called from the dark; a shadowed foot bridge that spanned a crimped flow of water. I peered into the murk and could make out two figures as I approached. Twin dots of red embers danced before their faces, either faerie lights or the lit tips of cigarettes.
"Hey, Jase. What’s happening, buddy?" It was Hunter’s voice and the other must have been Suzy’s. "Sit down, man. What are you doing wandering around out here?"
"Verlaine took me to visit that axolotl colony she minds." I swung down on the bridge beside Hunter, and dangled my legs next to his.
"Wow, I totally forgot!" Suzy leaned over and said. "I wanted to see them!"
"You’re better off not having the experience."
"Where’s everybody else?" Hunter took a drag on his cigarette and the end pulsed brighter.
"They all peeled off to one place or another. I thought you two went to a movie?"
"Yeah, well, you know how that is. It was boring crap, so we left to find something else to do."
Suzy held back a laugh deep in her throat and blew out a column of smoke. "Something better." She looked at Hunter and squeezed his thigh.
"What’s all this about?" He tugged at the front of my shirt. "And what’s that smeared on your chest? Paint?" He leaned back to take me all in.
"It’s been a wild night. You wouldn’t believe."
He pulled on his cigarette. "Guess not. Where’d you get the shirt?"
"Joey."
"Nice. You look like crap. Somebody push you in the fountain, as well?"
"Pull." I corrected.
" Sounds like fun. Where were you headed?"
" I was going back to the Von Lee to see if I could find Ingrid."
"That seems promising."
"Aren’t you going to tell him?" Suzy interjected.
"Oh yeah, Jase, you can be the first to congratulate us. We’re going to get married." He clamped his arm around Suzy’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze.
The words slammed into the side of my head. "Wow, that’s a heavy trip. I thought you were going to wait until you graduated."
"Things change, buddy. At the end of this semester I’m transferring to the University of Iowa . We’ll get married over the summer and I’ll enroll in the fall."
"You’re transferring out of state?"
"Yeah, you got it. I’ll finish my studies there."
" It’s cheaper for me." Suzy said. "We’ll live off campus in an apartment. I’m sure my folks will chip in."
"Road trip, buddy! You can come visit us."
"We’ll send you an invitation when we set the date." She kissed Hunter.
"Yeah, sometime before school starts."
"You told your folks yet?"
"No, you’re the first to know. They’ll go along with it."
"My mom’s going to be thrilled once it all sinks in."
"So you guys, ready for this, marriage, I mean? Just thinking about it blows my mind."
"We love each other." She pressed her cigarette to her lips, tilted her head back and blew out a column of smoke. "That’s all you need." She laid her head on Hunter’s shoulder. "Everything else will take care of itself. "
"All you need is love, like the Beatles song, right Buddy?" Hunter squashed his cigarette butt on the side of the bridge and let it fall to the swift black water.
"Yeah, I guess that’s it." I said as I stood up. "Listen, I better split. I want to get there before the movie is over."
"What movie is it?" Hunter asked.
"Some foreign film. I think it’s called, Contempt."
"More of that French shit."
I hopped off the bridge. "Yeah, not my first choice, but she likes it."
"See, you later, Jase. By the way, I won’t be back tonight."
"I kinda thought that," I answered as I left.
Once again noise and light and movement pierced my consciousness and pushed back the dark edges of the campus. I crossed the street and passed under the red Spanish-tiled portico of the theatre.
"One for Contempt," I said to the woman behind the glass in the ticket booth.
"A dollar fifty."
She slipped me the ticket stub and I entered. The smell of hot oil permeated the small, deep-red foyer. The popcorn machine had been turned off for the night, but the glass display case with rows of bright candy boxes was still illuminated, a disinterested employee was busy cleaning up. As I pushed through the auditorium doors, I caught a whiff of mildew from the dark interior.
My pupils were blasted momentarily by the blinding screen; Brigette Bardot lying on a yellow towel under the glare of a Mediterranean sun . She was naked except for a strategically placed paperback lying open across her butt.
My eyes slowly adjusted as I drank in the rows of dark figures. I padded down the sloping aisle on the thread bare carpet, and scanned the scattered heads for some sign of recognition.
"Jason! Over here!" An insistent whisper, I dimly made out Ingrid’s figure near the back of the theatre. I slid into her row and slumped down beside her. The floor was sticky with spilled pop, so I hung my feet over the seat in front. A patron in that row turned his head to look at me then moved three seats away.
"You are a swine," she whispered.
I whispered back, "See, you are Circe. You did change me into a pig." I couldn’t tell if she smiled or not. "I’m glad you were still here. I’m glad I found you."
She patted my hand. "S-s-h-h-h. Brigette is about to leave Michel for the arrogant American producer Jack Palance. Watch."
I watched and tried to share her interest. Brigette Bardot was now wrapped in a yellow robe and had an intense conversation with a man in a dark hat as they walked down a wide stone staircase cut into the sheer rock face.
I glanced over at Ingrid’s rapt profile.
The man on the screen stopped, Bardot continued walking and disappeared behind a blinding white rock, a splash was heard off camera, she reappeared and swam naked away in an incredibly blue sea.
Her hand entwined with mine on the shared armrest. I looked down at her slender dark fingers as they squeezed and released, squeezed and released my hand.
Bardot was leaving with Jack Palance. They stood and talked beside a gas pump as his red convertible was fueled . They got in. The car pulled out into traffic and off screen a crash was heard. The camera panned and Palance and Bardot were slumped, bloody over the sides of the Alfa Romeo. They had crashed into the middle of a tanker truck. The screen went black, melancholy music swelled and FIN appeared in big white letters.
Ingrid’s hand cupped her mouth. Her eyes glistened. She just sat as the credits rolled. After the lights went up, she said,"We can go."
We edged into the aisle and made our way out to the lobby and the exit.
Once outside she lit one of her Gitanes and pinched a flake of tobacco off her tongue.
"Good movie?" I asked.
She looked at me. "Did you not think so?"
" It seemed interesting. I’m sorry I got here so late."
"Intense." She drew in another puff and exhaled. "Sad, very sad. Michel Piccoli, he played the husband, threw away Brigette and the love they shared, for money." She looked at me and waited, then said, "We go for coffee? We can talk. Sounds good?"
"Yeah. I’m sorry. Yeah, let’s! I could use some."
"You say sorry too much. We will go to The Gables. Your feet, they are still bare. Will it be a problem?"
I shoved the waist of my pants lower. My bell-bottoms swept the sidewalk . Then I tucked in my paint-spattered shirt tails and buttoned the bent collar. I brushed back my hair.
"Presentable?"
She expelled her smoke and laughed.
We crossed the street and walked the block to enter the restaurant. The crowd was sparse. We sank into a wooden booth. When the waitress came we ordered two coffees, hers with cream .
"Any Godard movie is good . He understands cinema, the power of cinema, what it can show. This one was about sell...What? ...selling out. Yes? Your soul, your art, your love. How money corrupts. Fritz Lang, do you know him? He was in it."
"He’s a director, right?"
"Yes, a very famous German director."
"Name some things he’s directed."
"He is most famous for ‘M’."
" I’ve heard of that. Peter Lorre, right?"
"Yes. In ‘Contempt’ he is to film a retelling of the Ulysses myth. But the arrogant American producer, Prokosch, wants to bring in a new script writer, Lang’s film is not commercial enough."
The waitress returned with our coffee.
"Lang in the movie is like the voice of the gods, everything he says is true. He is the uncorrupted artist." She trickled some cream in her coffee and stirred it. "He councils Michel Piccouli to not work for Prokosch, to not give up Brigette to him. But he does not listen. He wants the money. He loses her to Prokosch and she is killed." She took a sip of her coffee. "You see? Those who do not heed the gods, the gods punish."
I tipped the thick ceramic cup to my lips and set it down. "It sounds heavy. Lots of meaning. I guess I should have seen the whole thing."
"Yes. Then why come so late?"
"To see if you were still there."
"Oh? And why is this?"
I shrugged my shoulders and took a sip of the steaming brew. I felt something press against me. I looked down, her bare foot was resting against my crotch.
"Do you think my feet pretty?" she asked.
I swallowed an answer, "Yes."
"No. Say, Oui, tres." Her toes gently kneaded the front of my pants like a cat’s paw.
"Oui, tres." I replied.
"Why did you come back?"
"I don’t know. I just wanted to find you. See what you were doing."
She leaned her chin on her hand and sighed, "My ankles, you like my ankles?" She plied me with her toes.
I took in a deep breath. "Yes." My fingertips traced the delicate wings of her ankle bones.
"No. Say, Oui, tres."
"Oui, tres."
"You come to find me, that was all? Was I lost? Did Verlaine tell you to come?"
"No, of course not. Ingrid, you’re turning me on. What do you want to do, ball?"
Her foot jabbed the front of my pants, and dropped to the floor to find her sandal. "That is not the question!" Her coffee cup flew to her lips and abruptly clinked to the saucer.
"You know so much, Jason, but understand so little. You do not desire me."
" Ingrid, yes. Oui, tres."
"P-h-h-f-ft." She made a dismissive sound and took another drink. "No, I do not think so. I am just here. You want Verlaine. Is this not true?"
"No. I don’t know." I lifted the coffee cup to my lips let the dark liquid scald my tongue.
"Bullshit! You know. But this can not be. She has someone. She does not want sex from you. She has told me. She needs from you your talent, art. You can not betray this."
"Someone? Who?"
"I will not tell you. I can not. It is not your affair." She put two fingertips to my lips as if to place a kiss. "Do not talk." Her shoulders slumped. " I have desire for you. I want for you to share this feeling. I brought these," she spread three foil packaged condoms on the table, "in hope for your heart. That you would see me as I see you."
"Oh, Ingrid..."
"Impossible, now!" Her eyes moistened, she shrugged her shoulders. " We would be dogs, dogs in an alley. This I do not want. It would be as nothing. I will not be a fool. I will not do the stupid thing." Her lower lip trembled.
"Making love is not stupid." I touched the back of her hand. She turned her hand, palm up, her fingers touched my palm. "Love is something free we give to each other."
"Bullshit! Sex is not love. And love is not free. This I know. We pay."
Our coffee grew cold. I stared into the sadness that overtook her brown eyes. My words all dried up.
" I think sometimes you are afraid of life. You hold back. Maybe it is best for you. It is not best for me. I think I need to leave." She grabbed the foil packets off the table. "I must go. I have studies. You?"
"Oui," I answered. "Oui, tres."
"It was what Michel Piccouli said to Brigette in the movie."
" I’m sorry," I said, as I stood.
"You are sorry, too much." She paid her tab.
"I’ll have to see that movie from the beginning sometime." I paid.
"Oui, yes, you must."
"Maybe we can see it together?"
She smiled slightly, "One never knows."
I pushed the door open and held it for her.
"We are still friends, Jason?"
"Yes, of course, always." I placed my hand to her cheek and pressed my lips to hers. Our lips parted, then she kissed me back, hard, quick.
"I will go now. We will talk more." She stepped back and turned. I watched her walk away.
I crossed the street by the law building to lose myself to dark corners and the latticework shadows of limbs. I sought out the black pools of night to glide through on my way back to the dorm. Every word Ingrid and I had shared, I rolled over in my mind and tried to turn the grit of hurt into some sort of pearl; to rearrange them to a different outcome. I wanted the night to swallow me whole. Random songs ran through my head. People are Strange by the Doors hooked on and wouldn’t let go. I entered an ink cloaked passage between the brick buildings of old campus as I tried to forget, learn to forget.
"Hey, Hippie!"
I turned and corrugated knuckles slammed hard into my cheek bone, a white-hot sun burst behind my left eye. Color cartoon dots clustered and radiated before me, as I tried to focus. An arm roped with muscle pistoned into my stomach and I crumpled like a marionette; all its strings cut at once. My head bounced off the cement. I heard voices above me; the scuffed toes of work boots were inches from my face. "Shit, Tom! I bet this is the asshole threw the rocks at us when we tried to make it with those hippie chicks."
A hand grabbed my hair, and yanked my head back. My necklace snapped. I heard the seeds and beads as they riotously skittered and tapped away. With my one good eye I stared at a puffy pock-marked face. It spit on me. I felt the viscous fluid slide down my chin. The hand let go and my head dropped hard to the sidewalk.
"That’s the little hippie shit all right."
A boot careened off my shin. A foot came down hard on my butt, and again and despite myself, I laughed inside, and thought, ‘I’m getting my ass stomped’. More kicks and punches rained down too fast and solid. My lips skinned back and I sucked in the night. I lost count.
I heard the rasp of their boots on the pavement as they ran away. There was laughter, a horn honk in the distance, voices, then silence. A cool breeze soothed my cheek. I lay there, and did not want to move. I did not want the pain to stab further into me. I tried to will my eyes to close, not wince shut in pain. I needed to get to the dorm. I needed to climb the stairs. I needed to get to my room, my bed. I rose on one arm and pushed myself up. Joey’s shirt was ripped in half. I felt the cool air on my back. I stood on stiff legs, the pain in too many places. I took my first steps like the Frankenstein monster, my feet felt shackled with weighted boots. I made it to 10th. Street. The traffic was lenient and I hobbled across. I went the back way, stayed away from the lights. I made the long ascent up the sidewalk and counted each concrete slab to the dorm, the orange-lit parking lot, where once Hunter and I carried a sign one misty night long ago. I had my key. My bloody scraped knuckles found it in my pocket. My muscles burned, as I swung the heavy door open and tried not to cry. One step after another, I pulled myself up the stairs, one step after another up the three flights of stairs. I could make it now. I pushed through the third floor door and the need to use the restroom swam over me suddenly and urgently. I swung the restroom door open. It was so bright, too bright. I heard someone retch in one of the stalls, the sound was full and forceful, nauseating. Sloe Gin. The smell wafted toward me vile and overpowering. I unzipped at the urinal. It hurt, but I was soon through and zipped up.
I faced the blurred stranger in the mirror and threw water on the ugly red welts, the purple-yellowish bruises that already bloomed. A mean gash across my forehead was crusted with blood, my hair was matted and tangled. I rinsed again, and let the pink water swirl down the chrome drain. I glanced down at Joey’s paint-stained shirt, now spattered with my dried blood. I wondered what paint would match it, Raw Sienna, or Raw Umber. I touched my cheek and winced; Alizarin Crimson. The toilet in the stall flushed . I left, my face still wet.
There was our door that had held so much joy behind it. The metal key clicked in the lock and I turned the knob. The odors of marijuana and incense, bodies held close, still inhabited the room. I shut the door. There were scattered album covers where Joey had sat. The thick glass cafeteria ash trays that dotted the floor held the spent roaches. Still Jovial, Buddha beamed at the tiny mound of incense ash before him, even in oblivion there was bliss. I slipped Joey’s shirt tenderly from my shoulders and let it fall to the floor like a captured flag. I unzipped my pants and peeled them carefully off my thighs. They crumpled around my ankles as I stepped out of them. My bed was still shoved against the wall. I collapsed across it and pulled the coarse gray blanket over me as I gritted my teeth, and my body tensed in pain. I let my head sink into the pillow as I willed myself to relax; slip into a sleep without dreams in this empty room.
