It is my second year at the university. The Beatles are still together. Jimi, Janis, and Jim are alive. The war is always there and politicians busy talking about the ‘domino effect’ in South East Asia, pay little attention to the ‘domino effect’ happening at home among their own kids.
We are all here sitting in a circle on one of those ugly grey dorm room carpets, my bed and Hunter’s shoved to the concrete block wall. The blankets hang to the floor, our dirty clothes stuffed underneath. On a small table next to them a ceramic Buddha incense burner sits serene, magazines stacked beside it, ‘Rolling Stone’, ‘Crawdaddy’, ‘The Evergreen Review’, ‘Ramparts’. Taped just above my bed, a grey photo blow-up of the beat poet, Allen Ginsberg, black-bearded, huddled against the cold, in the middle of some tenement street, a placard with the words writ large, ‘POT IS FUN’ strapped to his neck. My Donovan poster vibrates in red and blue, ‘Electrical Love’ spelled out in an eye-straining melding of German Gothic lettering and Egyptian Hieroglyph. On Hunter’s spartan side of the room, high on the wall, our ‘trophy’, the diamond-shaped metal DX sign.
I’m the one with the hair down to my shoulders, no shirt, beads around my neck, red, white and blue bell-bottoms, the widest I could find. I’m wearing my water buffalo sandals imported from India, loop around the big toe, leather strap across the arch and a sole thin as cardboard. I liberated them from a local emporium, ‘Nathan Hale’s’. I hear they soak them in buffalo urine to cure, but who knows. The skinny short kid with the black hair and headband sitting, cross-legged, next to me, wearing the leather vest, is Warlock. He’s rolling one of his
1
perfect fat joints, deftly creasing the thin papers with his index fingers, shaking the marijuana out of the plastic baggy in a neat mounded line like he is still salting his green beans in the cafeteria. With a flick of his tongue he moistens the paper and rolls it with his nimble pale fingers twisting the ends. He deposits it at his feet in a stacked pyramid with the others, like munitions for a coming siege. Next to him is Wolfman. Some of us by this time have given each other nicknames, mine is ‘Hippie’, figures, huh, or ‘ Jase’, short for Jason. Wolfman is Warlock’s roommate. They are like a ‘ freak’ Mutt and Jeff. Wolfman has a curly halo of brown hair that graces his head. It’s 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. Wolfman is tan and lanky, the son of a Depauw English professor, with a ready grin of more white teeth than should be in anyone’s mouth. He’s holding a bottle of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill; ready to ‘party’ anytime, anywhere. The girl with the round face and beaming smile, twin braids and Indian hair-pipe bone choker is Verlaine. She’s wearing bib overalls with the legs hacked off and rolled up. Her feet are bare. She doesn’t shave her arm pits or legs, no deodorant or perfume either. But that’s cool. She’s a biology major on work/study and is always going on about pheromones, hormonal body odors and how they are a natural sex attractant; a real earth child. Personally I think the fine golden hair down her legs is sexy. She could care less. The guy next to her with the Nordic blonde hair and blue mongol eyes is my roommate, Hunter. We balance out like the sun and the moon. He is impulsive. I am thoughtful. Once a Beta Theta Pi pledge, now his ass hangs out of his Goodwill jeans. He dropped out of the fraternity, ditching his slacks and carving his penney loafers into crude sandals when Suzy’s brother was killed in Viet Nam. It’s ironic that his dad works for Eli Lilly in Indianapolis. Suzy is by his side, the ‘straight’ one of our bunch,
2
but will share a toke if it’s passed her way. I think she is still a virgin. She has frosted hair, a classic profile and perfect nails. She’s the only one wearing a dress, but dig those knee-high suede boots. Joey is dressed the same as the day I met her. She has long brown hair, high cheek bones and Bardot lips, but is kind of flat-chested. One day in my life drawing class I looked down from my art stand and there she was sprawled on the concrete floor, barefoot, wearing thigh-high cut-offs and a man’s white dress shirt, tales tied around her midriff, sleeves rolled-up. She was scratching away on her blackened pad, charcoal smeared all over her face and arms and legs. More intriguing to watch than the model, I gave her my charcoal when hers was gone. Then there is Ingrid with the Etruscan face and page boy cut, wearing a red and white striped boat neck top and jeans that fringe her feet with two inches of unraveled threads. She comes from Geneva, Switzerland and has no tolerance for bullshit, Fascists or Philistines, which in her world view is 90% of the population. She smokes cigarettes without filters and will not let her dates treat. She considers it a down payment for sex. She rooms with Verlaine.
Ah, Warlock is finished at his craft and lighting up. The twisted end flares red and sparks as he draws in the sweet smoke, and breath held, passes it to Wolfman. Wolfman trades him the Boone’s Farm.
Smoke plumes from Warlock’s nose like a dragon as he screws off the cap and takes a swallow. "Finest kind," he breathes out. He’s just finished reading M. A. S. H. by Richard Hooker and lifted that phrase from the book . He repeats it every chance he gets.
The bottle and joint are making their rounds as I hop up to jam a towel along the bottom of the door and light the joss stick, Patchouli, watched over by the jolly fat Buddha on the table who surely knows the joys attendant in the burning of incense. I cross to the curtained window
Ah, Warlock is finished at his craft and lighting up. The twisted end flares red and sparks as he draws in the sweet smoke, and breath held, passes it to Wolfman. Wolfman trades him the Boone’s Farm.
Smoke plumes from Warlock’s nose like a dragon as he screws off the cap and takes a swallow. "Finest kind," he breathes out. He’s just finished reading M. A. S. H. by Richard Hooker and lifted that phrase from the book . He repeats it every chance he gets.
The bottle and joint are making their rounds as I hop up to jam a towel along the bottom of the door and light the joss stick, Patchouli, watched over by the jolly fat Buddha on the table who surely knows the joys attendant in the burning of incense. I cross to the curtained window
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and the little black wire stand. There sits the phonograph, it’s sides wrapped in a dark wood grain vinyl. At the end of it’s pencil thin tone arm is a black stereo cartridge with a new diamond tip stylus, just waiting. I start shuffling through the LPs.
Ingrid wants to hear the Velvet Underground. She holds up the white album with the big yellow peelable banana on the cover and the tiny script ‘peel slowly and see’. "Please! I want to hear Nico."
"Too, New York," I respond.
"Crown of Creation!"
"Chad and Jeremy," Suzy says. Groans accompany this.
Hunter throws a shirt at her that missed the clean-up. She flips him the finger and leans into him with a kiss.
"Big Brother," Wolfman grins with a dolphin smile, "Love my girl!"
"‘She lookin’ good’," Joey quotes, muttering, swaying to the Doors’ song that’s been triggered inside her head. "‘Five to one, baby, one in five no one here gets out alive, now, you get yours, baby, I get mine’--" She unspools a thin tendril of smoke from the joint, nipping it off and passing it on.
"Axis, c’mon, Hendrix," Verlaine, says.
"Not just yet . " I slip the black vinyl platter from it’s hot pink and fluorescent orange cover. "See if you can dig this!" ‘Strange Brew’ kicks in from ‘Disraeli Gears’, Clapton’s guitar line muscular and slinky . I feel someone tugging at my pants leg. I collapse to the floor by Ingrid. She frantically waves my face close to hers as she passes the roach to Warlock. Thrusting her fingers into my hair, she grabs the back of my head and presses my lips to hers
Ingrid wants to hear the Velvet Underground. She holds up the white album with the big yellow peelable banana on the cover and the tiny script ‘peel slowly and see’. "Please! I want to hear Nico."
"Too, New York," I respond.
"Crown of Creation!"
"Chad and Jeremy," Suzy says. Groans accompany this.
Hunter throws a shirt at her that missed the clean-up. She flips him the finger and leans into him with a kiss.
"Big Brother," Wolfman grins with a dolphin smile, "Love my girl!"
"‘She lookin’ good’," Joey quotes, muttering, swaying to the Doors’ song that’s been triggered inside her head. "‘Five to one, baby, one in five no one here gets out alive, now, you get yours, baby, I get mine’--" She unspools a thin tendril of smoke from the joint, nipping it off and passing it on.
"Axis, c’mon, Hendrix," Verlaine, says.
"Not just yet . " I slip the black vinyl platter from it’s hot pink and fluorescent orange cover. "See if you can dig this!" ‘Strange Brew’ kicks in from ‘Disraeli Gears’, Clapton’s guitar line muscular and slinky . I feel someone tugging at my pants leg. I collapse to the floor by Ingrid. She frantically waves my face close to hers as she passes the roach to Warlock. Thrusting her fingers into my hair, she grabs the back of my head and presses my lips to hers
4
exhaling a thin stream of smoke into my mouth amid random laughter and claps.
" Finest Kind!"
"Far out," Wolfman says, swallowing a mouthful of wine.
"I do not waste the smoke," Ingrid intones. "It is good?"
I nod, like a bobble- head doll.
Warlock sends another bomber into flight and keeps his fingers dextrous with the Zig-Zags. Joey picks up the Cream album and bends over it examining the psychedelic collage closely.
"Do you think this is art? I mean..."
"Wha--"
‘It’s getting near dawn,’ The music pulses through the room. ‘When lights close their tired eyes.’
"It’s a reproduction. It’s not the original."
Wolfman is picking at the carpet fibers.
‘I’ll soon be with you my love’
" But it still has value, doesn’t it?"
"So is it art?"
‘To give you my dawn surprise’
"Art prints are considered art."
Warlock is rocking back and forth flicking his BIC lighter fascinated by the wavering blue flame that throbs to the music.
‘–waiting so long to be where I’m going...’
5
"Isn’t art anything you can get away with?"
‘In the sunshine of your love.’
Verlaine is splaying her toes with her outstretched fingers.
"Get McNamara to smoke some of this"
‘Is there a reason for today?’
"So artwork on an album is a print? So, it’s limited edition art?"
‘Do you remember?’
"So is Jim Morrison a poet like Dylan Thomas?"
"Wha--"
‘Forget the time of you, Dance–the–night–A-way’
"Is it Gallo or Gallieo?"
"I don’t know what does the label say?"
‘Gonna turn myself to shadow, So - I -can’t -see- your-face’
"Drink me."
"Oh, yeah? Eat me!"
An alphabet soup of conversation swirls through the room as Wolfman’s voice cuts through."Hey man, how’d you get the sign in here?" He gestures to the wall. "I don’t remember that."
"There’s not much you do remember, Wolf," Warlock kids.
"You tell the story, Jase," Hunter says, as he pinches the joint like it’s 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 ‘ mother’ heavy.
6
You remember those DX gas stations?"
"Super Boron," Wolfman exclaims as if they are magic words and a white rabbit will pop forth in mid-air.
"Yeah. Right on. Anyway, they went bankrupt. Like who would want it back, weeds growing everywhere. Then one night, what about, September?" Hunter nods. "We crept out..." Ingrid hands me the joint and I pause in my narrative to take a deep drag before passing it on. I hold it in and start floating like Underdog in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade before I exhale. "And-and-and-and it was raining, a September rain, a cold rain, silver, like liquid silver, a rain that reigned over us pouring, pouring. The leaves--" I waggle my fingers. "were jiggling in the trees. We moved soft like shadows-soft." We were soaked by the time we reached the sign, yeah, we reached the sign and--- Hunter..." I look over at him. His irises are as big and blue as chunks of lapis lazuli. I can hear his eyelids snap, open-shut-open, like camera shutters. I look away and take a swig of the Gallo, the Boone’s Farm is gone, and lower my voice to a confessional tone. "Hunter slipped in the mud and cut his leg. There was blood and mud and rain and we were soaked. And we slipped and sloshed back to the dorm like a river of two-" I hold up two fingers. " in the rain and blood and mud. Everyone was amazed and astonished back at the dorm at the sign of the sign. And we showered and slept and the sign was immense and red and-and-and—wh- white and blue in the morning and it was in our room."
Laughter peppers the gathering and the circle knits tighter as we lean into each other, all shoulders and knees. I stand to turn the record over, but Hunter is there and flips it behind his back, into the air, twirls, and catches it, slapping side two down on the turntable. The needle pops in the groove to the crash of drums and Clapton’s guitar line wah-wahs out of the speakers as ‘Tales of Brave Ulysses’ begins.
"Super Boron," Wolfman exclaims as if they are magic words and a white rabbit will pop forth in mid-air.
"Yeah. Right on. Anyway, they went bankrupt. Like who would want it back, weeds growing everywhere. Then one night, what about, September?" Hunter nods. "We crept out..." Ingrid hands me the joint and I pause in my narrative to take a deep drag before passing it on. I hold it in and start floating like Underdog in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade before I exhale. "And-and-and-and it was raining, a September rain, a cold rain, silver, like liquid silver, a rain that reigned over us pouring, pouring. The leaves--" I waggle my fingers. "were jiggling in the trees. We moved soft like shadows-soft." We were soaked by the time we reached the sign, yeah, we reached the sign and--- Hunter..." I look over at him. His irises are as big and blue as chunks of lapis lazuli. I can hear his eyelids snap, open-shut-open, like camera shutters. I look away and take a swig of the Gallo, the Boone’s Farm is gone, and lower my voice to a confessional tone. "Hunter slipped in the mud and cut his leg. There was blood and mud and rain and we were soaked. And we slipped and sloshed back to the dorm like a river of two-" I hold up two fingers. " in the rain and blood and mud. Everyone was amazed and astonished back at the dorm at the sign of the sign. And we showered and slept and the sign was immense and red and-and-and—wh- white and blue in the morning and it was in our room."
Laughter peppers the gathering and the circle knits tighter as we lean into each other, all shoulders and knees. I stand to turn the record over, but Hunter is there and flips it behind his back, into the air, twirls, and catches it, slapping side two down on the turntable. The needle pops in the groove to the crash of drums and Clapton’s guitar line wah-wahs out of the speakers as ‘Tales of Brave Ulysses’ begins.
7
‘You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever,
But you rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun.
I fold to the floor and feel Ingrid’s hands on my shoulders tipping me back to cradle my head in the shallow bowl of her crossed legs.
‘And the colors of the sea blind your eyes with trembling mermaids,
I look up to see her smile glowing down on me, a quarter moon, as she softly strokes my hair. Like a dutiful nurse attending to a terminal patient she carefully holds the joint to my lips when it comes round.
‘...with tales of brave Ulysses: How his naked ears were tortured by the sirens sweetly singing,
The walls of the room continue to slide in closer. The ceiling lowers perceptibly.
‘Her name is Aphrodite and she rides a crimson shell, and you know you cannot leave her...’
I drift off to the throbbing music as one song cascades into another and album after album plops to the turntable. Time bends and someone else is at the stereo cuing up, ‘Light My Fire’ from ‘The Doors’ first album. With her fingers tracing their way through my hair, I drift off , each note of the long instrumental passage is discreet, held in air, distinct and separate, yet part of an organic whole. Then as Morrison’s growl recommences: ‘The time to hesitate is through, no time to wallow in the mire...’
"Let’s take our clothes off and get naked!" It’s Warlock. His words hit the floor like a ten pound shot putt, a large pitted steel ball noisily rolling, "c’mon turn out the lights," and rolling " Let’s have a group grope," and rolling across the room.
I hear air held in lungs, the subtle shift of cloth on limbs; a cough.
8
Ingrid’s hand is poised motionless just above my head like a raptor balancing on canyon thermals. A Peregrine Falcon. The music is building to a crescendo. A Goshawk. In a seemingly empty room. A Golden Eagle.
"Axolotyl," I croak with my smoke roughened voice.
Relieved laughter erupts like ping-pong balls dropped into a roomful of mouse traps.
Ingrid’s hand plummets from the sky over a small frightened animal, and kills my hair.
"Oh, man, what?!" Wolfman grins, a roach perched on a bobby pin held in front of his lips.
" I monitor a colony of axolotls at Jordan Hall." Verlaine laughs, taking a welcome swallow of the wine in her dry mouth.
"Shit!"Wolfman howls as he drops the roach, searing his thigh.
Warlock’s words come to rest in a dim corner, forgotten.
" What’s an axo-axol..." Suzy tries to finish before breaking up.
"Axolotl," Verlaine continues, "It’s like a salamander, except it lives in water all it’s sorry-ass life and has gill branches."
"Gill branches!?" Wolfman can’t contain himself.
" You know, gills, to breathe. She puts her hands to her neck and flaps them. We keep them in rows of little glass bowls to breed."
"Far-freakin’-out!"Wolfman is on his back convulsed in laughter.
"Want to go see them?"
"Sure," Suzy, replies. "Can we?"
"I have a key."
"Axolotyl," I croak with my smoke roughened voice.
Relieved laughter erupts like ping-pong balls dropped into a roomful of mouse traps.
Ingrid’s hand plummets from the sky over a small frightened animal, and kills my hair.
"Oh, man, what?!" Wolfman grins, a roach perched on a bobby pin held in front of his lips.
" I monitor a colony of axolotls at Jordan Hall." Verlaine laughs, taking a welcome swallow of the wine in her dry mouth.
"Shit!"Wolfman howls as he drops the roach, searing his thigh.
Warlock’s words come to rest in a dim corner, forgotten.
" What’s an axo-axol..." Suzy tries to finish before breaking up.
"Axolotl," Verlaine continues, "It’s like a salamander, except it lives in water all it’s sorry-ass life and has gill branches."
"Gill branches!?" Wolfman can’t contain himself.
" You know, gills, to breathe. She puts her hands to her neck and flaps them. We keep them in rows of little glass bowls to breed."
"Far-freakin’-out!"Wolfman is on his back convulsed in laughter.
"Want to go see them?"
"Sure," Suzy, replies. "Can we?"
"I have a key."
9
"Let’s go," Hunter says standing as if he is aboard a ship in rough seas.
"Let my children go," Wolfman echoes, prone on the floor.
"You’re wasted, man," Warlock tells him.
"Come, Wolfman. It will be fun," Ingrid says. "We can get some ices, too."
"Ices," I puzzle looking up at her. "Like ice cream?"
"Ice cream, sure! You like? I like." Ingrid pushes me off her legs and stands. My head thumps to the floor.
"Sounds good. Everybody dig that,"says, Hunter.
"Jim Morrison is like a lion, don’t you think," asks Joey, still absorbed in the album covers strewn across her lap.
"He’s the lizard king. He can do anything," answers Warlock, "Let’s split!"
Warlock helps Wolfman stand. Hunter kicks the towel from the door and unlocks it.
Verlaine grabs Hunter’s arm, "Don’t you think you better check to see if the coast is clear?"
"Where do you think Warlock got the weed? Our R.A. is the biggest dealer in the dorm."
Hunter pulls the door open and our reek spills into the hall. A pink kid fresh from the showers with a white towel wrapped around his waist and a tooth brush stuck at a cocky angle in his mouth smiles and flashes us the peace sign as we pass.
I bob over to Verlaine and hook my arm through hers and start to recite: "Axolotl, axolotl burning bright, in the biology lab of the night, what immortal hand or eye, could frame thy sexual chemistry."
10
She grabs my face and pulls it close to hers, looks deep into my eyes, "You are stoned, Jase."
"Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful."
We pile down the three flights of stairs and slam the steel-framed doors open rushing into a warm spring night, expectant, the trees tremulous and bourgeoning with their Jade green leaves.
On the lit concourse in front of the dorm a group of guys are beating on an assortment of bongos, djembes and one conga drum, rhythms that keep in time with our own hearts. Joey and Verlaine break into spontaneous dance and pull Ingrid and Wolfman into their tribal ring.
"Hippie, come join," Ingrid calls holding out an arm.
I grab her hand and Verlaine catches my other, and I am pulled into a swooping spinning vortex, a wheel of life thrumming with flashing eyes, hazel-brown-brown-blue, hazel-brown-brown-blue, hair and shining teeth, laughter.
"C’mon the axolotls await," Calls Hunter, walking away, Suzy’s hand ensconced in the rear pocket of his jeans.
Stopping our mad gyre in mid-whirl, the momentum of our bodies flings us onto the sidewalk and we crumple together in a pile laughing. Warlock helps untangle arms and legs and we continue on our way.
Cars’ headlights burst twinkling like mini-suns as they rake over us, red lights uncoiling behind them are serpentine tails. The parade of Detroit chrome gleams by in one long sparkling necklace down Fee Lane.
" America, too many cars and too much petrol," says Ingrid.
11
"Everyone needs to ride a bike like they do in China," Verlaine, adds, " We could stop pollution overnight ."
"That’ll never happen. There is too much money to be made selling gas," Hunter says.
"You Americans use too much, share too little. Africans starve and you go to McDonalds."
"McDonalds, yeah that sounds good," Wolfman responds.
"You’re such a fascist, Wolf," Ingrid says as she lights a cigarette.
"A food fascist! Right on!" He punches the sky with his raised fist. " Let’s get food at the Union. Kirkwood is too far."
"We’ll get you fed, man, don’t worry," Warlock replies. "Hey, Ingrid, what brand you smoke?"
"Gitane."
"Let me have a taste?"
"You won’t like, it." She passes him the cigarette. He draws in a lungful and is immediately coughing and sputtering.
"Y-y-you m-must have leather lungs." He passes it back.
Ingrid says nothing but glances at him with a dismissive look, expelling the smoke through her nose .
We slip into the shadows under the bridge and emerge to behold the smoke from the physical plant stacks blooming into the night like dusky flowers.
"See, we pour crap into our skies." Verlaine points.
"Wow, check out the stars tonight," Warlock interjects, "they’re like sparklers! Finest kind!"
12
I tilt my head back and gaze full into a Van Gogh night of Prussian Blue, the stars and moon spinning around like shiny-toothed gears in heaven’s starry dynamo.
Our chatter uncoils like strands of Christmas lights that we merrily string along as we go. We soon reach 10th street, a fast-moving river of cars crammed with ‘frat rats’ and townies screaming from rolled down windows. We run in clusters across the street, some of us yelling back in reply to obscenities shouted at us.
I let loose an oath as I hit the curb.
"What’s the matter, buddy," Hunter asks.
"My sandal broke." I dangle the left one in front of me by it’s strap.
"No shoes, no shirt, so sorry, Jase. No way will they let you in the Union ." He winks at Suzy.
"Jase, I’ve got a freaky idea! Come with me. Let’s go to the Art Building," Joey says. "I can fix you up."
"Yeah, you go man," Wolfman adds, the rest of us will meet you in the Kiva."
"Joey, I will go with you," says Ingrid.
"Fantastic, we won’t be long."
"Let’s cut across the track field ," I add , "it’s quicker."
"Groovy," Joey responds, as Ingrid jogs ahead to join her.
"Hey, wait up!"
"Sorry, Jase, we girls have to talk.."
Joey’s hips hypnotically pop up and down with every stride, like a thoroughbred being led to the paddock .
13
Ingrid walks beside her, self-contained, shoulders squared, arms loose, cigarette dangling from her hand. Their conversation reaches me in modulated chirps as if from two gossipy sparrows, as they strike on farther ahead . Periodically, one or the other gazes back at me and giggles. The distance between us widens until the night soaks them up and I only hear the soft slap of their sandals, then nothing, but the swoosh of cars behind me and the chirping of crickets ahead . I am left limping alone with streetlights and night shadows casting their chiaroscuro patterns across my path. I pass the yellow brick ticket booths, secure as sentry huts, their iron-barred windows long boarded-up and walk under the wrought iron arch entrance. I make my way around the high-walled stands, reaching the darkened stadium. Crossing the track, I can feel the heat of the day still radiating off the asphalt. Then ahead I hear their voices again, but there are other voices as well. I stop and I listen.
"C’mon we just want to party."
"Vas pisser dans les fleurs!"
"Yeah, we’ve heard about you hippie chicks. We just want to share in some of that free love."
"Fuck off, asshole!"
"Don’t you just love it when they talk dirty?"
"Vas te faire encule’!"
"I love french chicks."
"Get lost, pigs!"
" Now that’s no way to be, honey."
The voices are just beyond, beneath the concrete stands, in the deep well of the opposite entrance tunnel .
"C’mon we just want to party."
"Vas pisser dans les fleurs!"
"Yeah, we’ve heard about you hippie chicks. We just want to share in some of that free love."
"Fuck off, asshole!"
"Don’t you just love it when they talk dirty?"
"Vas te faire encule’!"
"I love french chicks."
"Get lost, pigs!"
" Now that’s no way to be, honey."
The voices are just beyond, beneath the concrete stands, in the deep well of the opposite entrance tunnel .
14
I look around for a weapon, a stick, a rock, nothing. Then I step on some cinders on the track shoulder. Better than nothing, I scoop up a handful of slag and start running, screaming, flinging the clinkers with every stride. In the dim corridor two faces waver before me, like pale balloons, then take off running.
"Run! Run to the art building," I call to Ingrid and Joey.
The girls are there ahead of me and hold the door, as I swoop inside.
"Who, were those, assholes?"
"Stoner pigs," Joey answers, swiping at her hair. We could’ve handled them, Jase. But, thanks." She gives me a quick hug. "Let’s go up to the studio."
"You hit me," Ingrid scowls, rubbing her forehead, a small goose egg forming. " What were you throwing?"
"Cinders I found. Sorry. I was trying to scare them away."
"Fils de pute!" She gives me a peck on the cheek and then is off down the hall following Joey.
"What does that mean," I call after her.
"What," she answers, " the kiss or the words?"
"Both!"
"It’s an endearment,"she laughs slyly.
We enter the studio, larger and colder than during the day, the bank of windows across the room framing the glittering night outside. Joey goes over to get her paint case.
"Roll up your pant leg." She unclasps the wooden box and slides out her palette. "What color are your sandals, Sienna Brown or Burnt Umber?"
"Run! Run to the art building," I call to Ingrid and Joey.
The girls are there ahead of me and hold the door, as I swoop inside.
"Who, were those, assholes?"
"Stoner pigs," Joey answers, swiping at her hair. We could’ve handled them, Jase. But, thanks." She gives me a quick hug. "Let’s go up to the studio."
"You hit me," Ingrid scowls, rubbing her forehead, a small goose egg forming. " What were you throwing?"
"Cinders I found. Sorry. I was trying to scare them away."
"Fils de pute!" She gives me a peck on the cheek and then is off down the hall following Joey.
"What does that mean," I call after her.
"What," she answers, " the kiss or the words?"
"Both!"
"It’s an endearment,"she laughs slyly.
We enter the studio, larger and colder than during the day, the bank of windows across the room framing the glittering night outside. Joey goes over to get her paint case.
"Roll up your pant leg." She unclasps the wooden box and slides out her palette. "What color are your sandals, Sienna Brown or Burnt Umber?"
15
"Sienna Brown," I answer as Joey squeezes the color onto her palette.
"Are these yours, Hippie," Ingrid asks, as she pulls out one of my nude canvases from the labeled rack.
"Yeah."
She looks at it appraisingly. "Too pink. The skin is too pink."
"She did that pose after doing cartwheels in the hall on break. Her skin was flushed. Ask Joey."
"Leave me out of your critique, Jase."
"Hey, that feels freaky!" I look down to see Joey painting a wide brown band across my arch and tracing a thin line down to my toe.
"Oh, let me paint too!" Ingrid shoves the canvas back and hurries over. "I worship you, Hippie," Ingrid says in jest, sliding beside Joey.
"Here," she gives Ingrid a small brush. "Stipple in a design on the bands."
"Stipple?"
"Dots." Joey pokes the brush in the air.
"Ah!"
She goes over to her locker and pulls out a paint smeared white shirt. "This should do. Here try this on."
"No wait!" Ingrid jumps up. " I want to paint more."
"The sandal looks great now, Ingrid. You can’t tell it’s not real."
She hurriedly squeezes out more colors and grabs a bigger brush. "Stand still. I will paint you," she says. Daubing the brush on the palette, she begins painting big purple circles on my chest with horizontal curved lines above and below for eyelids. She drags the brush through yellow and flicks vertical marks for lashes. "Now, a red Wavy Gravy nose and a big smile on your belly."
16
I flinch as the brush clotted with the cool paint traverses my skin.
Joey giggles and drapes the spattered white shirt across my shoulders. " Real, Picasso, Ingrid! C’mon let me stash my supplies and we can take off."
Jazzed we clamber down the stairs and slip out a side door. Crossing the slate patio, we hop the hedge, scooting down the grassy slope and onto the sidewalk. We run across the street to the fountain.
There she is, 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.
"Her belly is poofy," Ingrid says disparagingly as she slips off her sandals and rolls up her pants. She throws me her lighter and cigarettes and she steps in. I carefully set them on the walk.
Joey, sitting on the stone rim, swivels her long legs over the side. "It’s warm," she says.
"Nice," Ingrid echoes.
They each exclaim laughing as the spouts of gushing water hit them.
"Come on in!"
" I can’t. I’m a work of art! You don’t want me to spoil it, do you?"
" Do not be ‘chicken!"
Joey is gamboling through the spray and swings astride one of the rearing fish. She draws her legs up and hooks an arm languidly behind her head. Her hair coils in snakey strands on her shoulders. "Who am I Jase? Help me out."
17
"What? I don’t know."
"That lit. course you took! The one, where you talked about those enchanting women who hung around lakes and ponds ."
"Naiads?"
"Yeah, that’s them!"
"They’re temptresses," I add sotto voce.
"Do we tempt you, Hippie?" Ingrid, her damp shirt clinging to her front, leans back and raises her arms to press her hands on the statue’s sculpted breasts.
"Oh, man! Don’t do this to me."
"Leche moi et saire me renier." Her voice, lilting.
"What? Cut the french, Ingrid . If you want to play temptress, I’ll cast you as Circe!
"Come in Jase, we’re wai-ting," Joey sings plashing the water with her toes.
"And you’re Calypso! And these must be the waters of Lethe’." I swing my arm out. "Have you forgotten, people are waiting on us? Let’s split, before the campus cops come."
"Screw the fuzz!"
" Circe, the witch," Ingrid demands.
"Not a witch more an enchantress. But she still turned men into swine."
Ingrid splashes over, "That’s me! And I love it!"
"Give me a hand, Jase."
I take Joey’s hand without even thinking and it clamps tight. Ingrid is right there by her side and grabs the back of my fat belt. I flop into the fountain like a bull frog. Flailing, I stand, eyes wide, mouth open, gushing in a silent scream, soaked, thrilled in the suddenness of it.
18
The girls already are slipping on their sandals, laughing. Ingrid retrieves her cigarettes. I climb out, water streaming off me.
Joey points downward, "Look at your foot?" Rivulets of brown paint sluice off my skin running between my toes.
"Open your shirt,"says, Ingrid. I want to see my beautiful art now." I spread the wet cloth like wings and Ingrid takes her palm and rubs it in a circular motion across and down my chest.
"DeKooning,"Joey laughs.
"Beautiful art," Ingrid murmurs by the waters’ roar as she hooks her arm around my neck and smashes her cool lips to mine.
I pull back, "C’mon, the cops..." I plead.
Joey starts swaying, singing:"Pa-ra-noia strikes deep," punctuating 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..." (clap-clap)
She twirls around. A white and blue campus patrol car silently glides into view, gleaming beneath the lights, a great white metal shark. It rolls to a stop right beside us.
The door swings open and an intimidating figure uniformed in blue and sporting glowing embroidered patches unfolds from the interior. He has a buzz cut, must be in his 30's, with a build like someone who has spent his formative years in small town stadiums under Friday night lights.
19
We are ruining his tranquil night, spoiling his easy shift. He is not happy. He walks over to us, takes in our sodden state, the water pooling around our feet, our pupils blooming like nocturnal flowers and our pasted on smiles. From his thick black leather belt he removes a pad and starts scribbling as if we 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 slips hers from the wrapper on her pack of cigarettes. We look on astounded and somewhat chagrined.
The officer studies it as if it contains the hidden mystery of life, looks at Ingrid, jots down the information and hands it back .
"The rest of you?"
"I forgot mine," Joey volunteers.
"Name?"
"Joey Vorschact."
"Spell it."
"Vorschact V- (capital V)," She glares at him. "o-r-s-c-h-a-c-t, Joahanna J" She spits it out. " (capital J)-o-a-h-a-n-n-a .
"Date of birth?
Joey’s head cants to the side as if one of the cords in her neck holding it upright just snapped."Aquarius with the moon in Scorpio."
He looks at Joey 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?"
"I’m charging you with public intoxication. May I see some student I. D.?"
"Here, I have mine." Ingrid deftly slips hers from the wrapper on her pack of cigarettes. We look on astounded and somewhat chagrined.
The officer studies it as if it contains the hidden mystery of life, looks at Ingrid, jots down the information and hands it back .
"The rest of you?"
"I forgot mine," Joey volunteers.
"Name?"
"Joey Vorschact."
"Spell it."
"Vorschact V- (capital V)," She glares at him. "o-r-s-c-h-a-c-t, Joahanna J" She spits it out. " (capital J)-o-a-h-a-n-n-a .
"Date of birth?
Joey’s head cants to the side as if one of the cords in her neck holding it upright just snapped."Aquarius with the moon in Scorpio."
He looks at Joey 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?"
20
"February 15, 1950.
"Social security number?"
Joey is a good little girl and answers all the officer’s inquiries, phone number, home address, campus address, and so do I. He checks out all our information through his dispatcher and refers it to the Dean’s Office of Student Ethics.
"Have a pleasant night." He gives us each a citation and gets back in his cruiser but doesn’t turn the ignition over until we cross the street and start to drift away walking toward the Student Union.
"Thank you, officer," Joey waves, the police cruiser rolling slow beside us. She crumples the piece of paper and stuffs it in her pocket, then under her breath, "prick."
We walk nonchalant, fingering the hedges as we pass, marveling in fake wonderment at the age darkened oak doors of Woodburn Hall. I peel off the wet shirt and twist as much water out of it as I can before putting it back on..
"Why do you carry your I.D.,Ingrid?" Joey turns round to face her, back-peddling as she walks. " Are you going to cash a check at this hour? The campus cops are such a joke. All they can think to do is to hassle kids. They don’t even carry guns."
"In Europe it is different. You are mad at me?"
"No, it’s just that we were left hanging with no I.Ds. But I think you got us off the hook." Joey turns back around and loops her arms across our shoulders as we continue walking. When we near our destination our personal police escort accelerates and disappears down the tree-lined street .
21
We cut across Dunn Meadow, the grass sloping down, spreading out in wide yellow-green circles beneath the street lights. The rest of the meadow recedes to shadows cast by pine trees standing near the shiny ribbon of dark water known as the Jordan River. We troop up the stone stairway like knights returning to the castle from a particularly bloody campaign. Crowding into one wedge of the revolving door we are deposited into the noisy clattering cafeteria like the three Marx brothers. Our long lost friends shower us with greetings.
"Joey, Jase, Ingrid, over here!"
Amid a jumble of tables and chairs in a dim recess, familiar faces repose like beggars at a banquet.
"Look, Jase!" Verlaine props her leg up on one of the tables, wiggling her toes, the bottom of her foot, black as coal, "No shoes!"
I pull my lone sandal off and fling it at her as she ducks laughing.
"What happened to you guys? Did you take a short-cut through the fountain?"
"We rode the fishies," Joey answers.
"and got hassled by the cops," I add.
" Jase," Warlock, pipes up, "looks like Jackson Pollock used you for a drop cloth! And your chest, it’s all messed up."
"I’m in my rainbow period," I answer, dropping into a chair. I scoop up a piece of half-finished pizza from a white ceramic plate and stuff it into my mouth.
"Hey, Wolfman, protests. That was mine!"
"Feed the people," I manage to choke out. I pull some wadded up bills from my pocket and throw them on the table. "Get some more and get me some too. Anything. And a large Dr. Pepper."
22
"This money is wet!" He picks it up gingerly. "Where’s it been?"
"Aphrodites’ snatch."
Verlaine, laughs so hard she spews her herbal tea through her nose and grabs for the napkins. Wolfman walks away in disgust.
"Cops, sounds serious," Warlock says.
"Campus cops," I reply.
"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 up before an ethics committee? That’s freakin’ wrong!"
"So it goes."
Joey and Ingrid return with salads and drinks and set them down pushing over another small square table until it’s edge collides with ours. Wolfman follows with our two floppy triangles of greasy pizza and the drinks.
"Are you going to eat that processed cheese crap?" Verlaine cringes .
"Watch me," Wolfman answers as he starts feeding the steaming slice into his mouth pulled along on the conveyor belt called his tongue.
Verlaine does a three-quarter turn in her chair away from Wolfman. "You’re disgusting."
"Finest kind," Warlock adds brightly.
"Where’s Hunter and Suzy," I ask, noticing they are nowhere around.
23
"They split," Warlock answers. Said they were going to a movie downtown. But, you know—."
"Yeah, they’ve been pretty hot and heavy."
"They are lovers," Ingrid asks.
"More like ports in a storm," adds Wolfman. "Ever since her brother ‘bought it’ in Nam, Suzy kind of hops from bed to bed."
"From what I’ve heard from Hunter. ‘She’s saving herself for marriage’".
"Yeah, but she does everything else in between."
"Virginity, It’s a Bourgeosie bullshit concept meant to oppress women."
"Big deal," Verlaine comments. "Let her have her hangups."
"I’m moving," Joey announces, " join me Wolfman?"
He takes his drink and follows 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 shrugs.
"I’ll go."
"You’ve already seen it Jase. But there is a favor I want to talk to you about, so yeah."
"I’m up for it," says Warlock.
"I have never seen one," adds Ingrid, "Are they ugly?"
"A face only a mother Axolotl could love, right Verlaine?"
"Let’s go down Kirkwood first, man," interjects 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."
24
"We can all do that, right?"
"What about Wolfman and Joey," Verlaine asks.
We look over. They remind me of nothing so much as Degas’s painting of ‘The Absinthe Drinkers’, except that Wolfman is massaging her back in a slow rhythmic motion as Joey’s fingers slide over his upper thigh like a blind person reading a braille text.
"Leave them," I answer.
We gather our trays and scoot our chairs back, Warlock calls out, "See you, guys!"
There is the merest rearrangement of their bodies in way of reply.
"Looks like they dig each other," Verlaine remarks as we punch through the revolving door.
"They will ‘get it on’," Ingrid asks.
"Oh, yeah," Warlock joins in. " If Wolf has his way."
We jump down the stone staircase and cross over the Jordan River out onto the green blanket of soft grass.
"Man, this feels better," I say as my feet awake to the cool bristling earth.
"Barefoot you’re more in touch with your environment," Verlaine adds, "It’s like cubing your life."
" This I do not understand," Ingrid says, removing her sandals and hurrying to catch up with us.
"Like multiplying your life by itself twice, living fully, beautifully, in the moment. So many people stifle their lives, bodies shrouded in clothes, feet encased in leather, divorced from their environment."
25
I walk ahead with Warlock.
"Man, why did you lay that trip on us about ‘getting naked’ back in the room? That was so uncool."
"You don’t know until you ask. I could groove on it."
"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 everyone was so uptight."
"Hey, head over here!" Warlock calls motioning the girls up a rise to an inky clump of shadows nestled amid the trees. "Sit everyone and watch Warlock magic."
We gather around and huddle together on the ground as he weaves his hands through the air as if he is manipulating an invisible veil. He draws his arms undulating across his body like snakes, then, with a flourish, in his hands, produces, pointing straight up: two joints. "Voila!"
Our smiles spread their wings like pale butterflies in this gorgeous night.
He squats down on the nettled ground crossing his legs. His Bic flares and he draws in three small puffs before relaying the joint to Ingrid.
"You are a true wizard," I murmur as it comes around to me.
We sit in silence, invisible, letting the lights and voices and skimming bicycle tires on the sidewalks whirr around us. My knee presses against Verlaine’s and I feel the heat radiating off her body like secret rays. Her good warm scent ladled over with the pungent organic aroma of marijuana makes my veins thrum like bass strings.
Warlock expels the final breath from the last joint. "Good shit, huh."
"I am real mellow," Ingrid giggles. And her laugh is like a sixty second cold , we all catch it.
26
"They call me Mel-low Yel-low," she sings and everyone breaks into spontaneous song as we stand, "Quite right-ly! Oh, so mel-low, yea so yel-low..." More laughter as we hook arms and head across the verdant dark to the lights of Kirkwood Avenue. We are four Cheshire cats that have just smoked one bitchin’ canary. Lightly we step on Mother Earth’s tender blades all pointing up toward us. They bend beneath our feet like beckoning green fingers whispering comeon comeon comeon.
Waiting at the curb on the brink of Indiana Avenue, we are at the mercy of chrome bumpers outrageously dazzling our eyes. Then the black rubber white-walled tide recedes and we run across, the girls screaming in joy.
"Let’s stop in the Booknook,"says, Verlaine.
"What, to pick-up some more of your Marxist literature," Warlock, replies.
"Wilhelm Reich, is not a Marxist!"
"So you say."
"Anyone up for ‘The Other Side’?" I enter the fray. " They have the Blue Cheer album in, ‘Vincebus Eruptum’."
C’mon, don’t bug out! The Guitar Shop is just a couple blocks."
"Godard!" Ingrid shouts.
For half a beat I don’t know whether she’s cursing or speaking in tongues, until I follow her eyes. She’s gazing across the street at the Von Lee Theatre. Under the red-tiled portico, blazoned across the white marque, the word, CONTEMPT is spread in big black block letters.
"It is a Godard film."
"Who," Warlock asks.
27
"Jean Luc Godard, a very important french director. Have you never heard of ‘ Nouvelle Vague’. We must see it!"
"C’mon, don’t you want to hear the Martin. You can see the movie later."
"Hippie, Jase. See it with me. Please! I will find out times they will show it. Please!"
"Wow, I’m just not up for it right now."
Ingrid crosses the busy street to the ticket window.
"Go see it with her, Jase," urges, Verlaine.
"I don’t want to read subtitles," I say as we cross. " It’s in french. Can you dig that?"
"It’s not about subtitles, man."
"The next show is not until 8:45," Ingrid turns and says to us. " I will see this. You do not have to, Jase, if you do not want to. There is time for me to see you play the guitar, Warlock."
"Sorry, Ingrid. I just..." She cuts me off.
"This is what I want to do. You do your own thing."
"It’s just down the block. Let’s go," Warlock says, and starts walking, leading us.
Ingrid taps a cigarette out of the pack and lights up, expelling the first puff from her lungs like a long held deep sigh.
Further down, the sidewalk becomes a clotted artery congested with people.
"Hey, Baskin and Robbins!" I call out. " Let’s get some ice cream. What do you say?"
"Yeah, sure. Why not," replies Ingrid .
"It’s carageenan and whey," says, Verlaine, "nothing good for your body."
"Yeah, but its cold and sweet," Warlock adds, holding the door open for us, "just what I crave right about now."
28
The Gant crowd is cued up inside in their crisp shirts and skinny belts with no socks to bridge the gap between their slacks and loafers. The sorority dates have pale frosted lips and shorter skirts than last fall. Their short flippy hair is sprayed to attention. A smattering of the older generation is sprinkled around as well, like jimmies on a new flavor of ice cream. We take numbers and wait our turn feeling the eyes boring into us, the snickers and whispered witticisms.
"57," the pink uniformed woman calls. I step 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 Hippie, I’ll get it for you."
"A scoop of Rocky Road and a scoop of Mint Chip in a sugar cone, thanks Ingrid."
Verlaine and I walk out, but not before she turns around and flips the bird.
"You didn’t have to do that."
"Piss 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’ paws carry diseases and everything. And they even give the freakin’ dog a dip."
Warlock exits the store, slipping through the mass of people. He’s carrying a cone with two bright pink scoops balanced on top.
"What the Hell is that," I ask.
29
" Pink Bubblegum," Warlock smiles, between slurps, "Finest kind!"
Ingrid reappears and hands me my cone. "38 cents." She holds her hand out.
"What do you have," I ask, as I dig for change.
"Swiss Chocolate Almond, no good. Not real Swiss chocolate."
"Let me have a taste."
" I share yours?"
"Deal."
I take a lick of hers. Ingrid bites off a big hunk of my Rocky Road and hurriedly stuffs it in her mouth with sticky fingers, laughing.
"Good," she smiles, her brown eyes sparkling.
We walk on devouring our ice cream. When Ingrid finishes she grabs the back of my shirt( or should I say, Joey’s) and wipes her hands on the shirt tail. "At your service," I respond.
A girl approaches us with stringy hair and blurred eyes wearing a blue print shift.
She holds out a delicate hand, cupped like a small bowl."Can you spare some change? I need money for an abortion." She distractedly hooks a loose strand behind her ear.
"Stupid girl," Ingrid retorts. "Why didn’t you make your boyfriend wear condoms!"
The girl’s hand contracts into a ridged white rock that drops to her side. She continues walking, but stops and turns. Her face wrinkles like a dried apple, red, hard and mean. She yells back, "Fuck you, Bitch!"
"You are still stupid, stupid to get pregnant!" The panhandler is lost in the crowd.
" Too many girls allow men to make fools of them!"
"She’s probably not even pregnant. Just needed a line to get some bread."
30
Wiping his hands on his jeans, Warlock enters the brightly lit music store ahead of us .
Guitars ring the walls, their lacquered surfaces gleaming: blonde-hued folk guitars; honey warm classicals; skinny curvaceous candy-colored electrics.
A young guy, in a broad-striped shirt with the tails hanging out, his hair getting ‘good’ in the back, is half-perched on a stool picking at a Mosrite with a sunburst-finish.
"Say, man, what’s happening?" A middle-aged man with a pony-tail rubber-banded in the back walks over. His hand encrusted with silver and turquoise rings clasps Warlock’s wrist in greeting. "Still got your eyes on the D-28?"
"Yeah, I brought some friends to hear how it sounds. Could you get it down for me?"
"Sure thing, man." He goes over to the wall and removes it, holding it as if it were a newborn baby.
"This one has one nice sweet tone." He hands it to Warlock .
"Warlock clambers atop a nearby stool and arranges himself. He draws his fingers over the curve of the guitar as if he is caressing a naked woman reclining in his lap. Sliding his left hand up the slender neck he begins adjusting the pegs to tune it.
The girls sit cross-legged on the floor. This is groovy. No one hassles us.
The pads of his fingers press the steel-wrapped strings to the inlaid frets on the rosewood neck. They slide with a barely audible shimmer of sound from chord to chord, as his right hand dances across the strings above the sound hole. Notes suspend, crystalline and prismed, a chandelier of sounds, held jeweled and tenuous. Fingers spider over the guitar neck, quickening, like an arachnid constructing the most elaborate of webs. The sound is beautiful and sad, elegiac and heart-breaking.
31
Loss and remembrance crowd my heart. Memories still too fresh flash behind my eyes like slides projected on a pure white screen: a sky like cement; a blue car I drove, now unrecognizable behind a tow truck; the girl I loved encrypted forever in black unforgiving headlines. I turn away, as tears well-up in my eyes, pretending to examine envelopes of guitar strings. I swipe my cheeks with the cuff of Joey’s shirt sleeve clutched in my hand.
Then it is over, the last ringing tone still vibrating, a ripple audible in air. The girls clap and jump up.
"Warlock, it is so beautiful, I cry," Ingrid says. She goes to him and gives him a hug.
"You really surprise me," Verlaine adds, "Did you compose that?"
" Nah. It’s a Tom Rush tune, ‘Rockport Sunday’, off his ‘Circle Game’ album. Ever hear of it?"
Verlaine returns a blank stare and a shrug.
" Anyway, pretty groovy LP. How’d you like the tone of this thing?" He taps the body of the guitar with his finger tips..
"It blew me away."
"Yeah, it’s four hundred and fifty, but I’ve got a hundred and seventy-five saved. Not much longer. Hey man," Warlock calls over to me, "Did you dig it? "
I turn and answer with a rasp, "It was great."
"You okay, Hippie?"
"Sure, Ingrid."
"Well, let’s get going," Verlaine says, " 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. I can dig that. You still want to go Jase?"
Then it is over, the last ringing tone still vibrating, a ripple audible in air. The girls clap and jump up.
"Warlock, it is so beautiful, I cry," Ingrid says. She goes to him and gives him a hug.
"You really surprise me," Verlaine adds, "Did you compose that?"
" Nah. It’s a Tom Rush tune, ‘Rockport Sunday’, off his ‘Circle Game’ album. Ever hear of it?"
Verlaine returns a blank stare and a shrug.
" Anyway, pretty groovy LP. How’d you like the tone of this thing?" He taps the body of the guitar with his finger tips..
"It blew me away."
"Yeah, it’s four hundred and fifty, but I’ve got a hundred and seventy-five saved. Not much longer. Hey man," Warlock calls over to me, "Did you dig it? "
I turn and answer with a rasp, "It was great."
"You okay, Hippie?"
"Sure, Ingrid."
"Well, let’s get going," Verlaine says, " 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. I can dig that. You still want to go Jase?"
32
"Yeah, why not."
"I want still to see the Godard movie. This is okay with you, Verlaine?"
"I’m sure a Godard film is better than a roomful of axolotls any day. It’ll give me a chance to talk to Jase."
I take Warlock aside, and whisper, "You have anymore joints?"He glances away then palms one to me and I slip it into my pocket. "I’ll pay you back, man."
We say our goodbyes and make our way back down Kirkwood stopping in front of the Von Lee to part ways.
"Are you sure, Jase," Ingrid asks standing in front of the twin doors beneath the marque .
"I don’t think so."She slips into the dark interior and is gone.
Verlaine and I dodge the traffic and steal behind Bryan Hall. The forested section of the campus takes us in and embraces us. The sounds of the city fall away replaced curiously by flute music. It drifts just ahead of us and above. We come upon bare dangling feet, look up to discover a ‘scoop’ of girl deposited in the crotch of a Sycamore. Her long hair is as tangled as a squirrel’s nest, a silver flute angled across her serene face. She is fingering ‘Norwegian Wood’ by the Beatles. We watch and listen to her play as at ease as a woodland dryad.
"Music major." Verlaine’s face lights a smile as we walk beneath the leafed canopy .
My feet seek a soft path like blind things feeling their way across earth’s scattered floor. "I don’t mind acorns and twigs," I say to her, "or the nettles and burrs. If I get stuck or cut, it’s okay. It’s nature, that’s cool."
"I dig where you’re coming from," she affirms.
"But I get pissed if I step on broken glass or a pop-top."
33
Verlaine, stoops to pick up a twig and idly twirls it between her fingers. "You’ve got that right! People don’t care. This culture thrives on waste." Her eyes widen. She hears the river babbling to itself, flowing over the flat stones, as it threads through the nearby trees."Let’s wade in the Jordan!"
"It’s polluted ."
"So what, the whole planet is polluted."
I go along, rolling up my still damp pants and slip in, the waters coursing around me encircling my ankles cold as dead hands tugging me on.
"I’m glad you’re here." I turn and say, her pale feet like beautiful strange fish swimming toward me.
"Why?"
"I don’t like being alone."
"Alone is okay," she answers.
Our feet slide from unsteady stone to unsteady stone our arms at the ready at our sides, the only sounds, the water worrying the rocks, the rocks clocking together with each of our steps. Verlaine almost slips and falls on a piece of shale furred and slick with moss, but I catch her. "What is the favor you wanted?"
Our amphibious feet crawl out on the bank and find the asphalt path.
"I want you to do a painting for me."
"What kind of painting, of what?"
"Jase, I want you to paint my portrait." She stops. " I want you to paint me in the nude."
I stop and turn. Her face is like a lunar eclipse floating next to me, luminous and golden.
34
I seek the dark caves of her shadowed eyes just beneath her brow.
"Well, you paint nude models, right? I want you to do a nude painting of me. It’s not that much different.You’re not uptight about this are you?"
"No. No way. It’s just--let’s walk."
" The body’s beautiful, right? It’s natural. I’m for real, Jase! I’m not coming on to you. I’m asking you this as a personal favor because 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, man! You have a gift. I don’t think you are fully aware of that. You are the only one that I trust do this. I’m not asking this for free. I’ll pay you."
"Verlaine, I don’t want your money. I’d be happy to do it. Privileged."
"I want to own one unique and beautiful thing in my life, Jase. I need to pay you, to make it valid to me. But just remember," she flashes, her lopsided grin, " I’m working two jobs and just scraping by, so just go easy, okay?"
" Okay. But why nude?"
" I want to know every time I look at it, that once in my life I was free and young and had no hangups."
"Yeah, I’ll do it. Where?"
"My room. Ingrid is cool with it. She’ll go some place and hang out."
I pull the joint out of my pocket and hold it up, pale blue in the night. "Want to celebrate, share this-- between, what--artist and model?"
"Wow. Far out. I guess I will be your model, huh? Makes me feel kind of special."
"Well, you paint nude models, right? I want you to do a nude painting of me. It’s not that much different.You’re not uptight about this are you?"
"No. No way. It’s just--let’s walk."
" The body’s beautiful, right? It’s natural. I’m for real, Jase! I’m not coming on to you. I’m asking you this as a personal favor because 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, man! You have a gift. I don’t think you are fully aware of that. You are the only one that I trust do this. I’m not asking this for free. I’ll pay you."
"Verlaine, I don’t want your money. I’d be happy to do it. Privileged."
"I want to own one unique and beautiful thing in my life, Jase. I need to pay you, to make it valid to me. But just remember," she flashes, her lopsided grin, " I’m working two jobs and just scraping by, so just go easy, okay?"
" Okay. But why nude?"
" I want to know every time I look at it, that once in my life I was free and young and had no hangups."
"Yeah, I’ll do it. Where?"
"My room. Ingrid is cool with it. She’ll go some place and hang out."
I pull the joint out of my pocket and hold it up, pale blue in the night. "Want to celebrate, share this-- between, what--artist and model?"
"Wow. Far out. I guess I will be your model, huh? Makes me feel kind of special."
35
"Let’s go over by those bushes."
We hunker down. I light up and pull a tangle of smoke into my lungs and pass it to the soft shadow next to me.
"I want my pose to be like ‘The Naked Maja’. You know that painting?"
I expel the smoke and cough."‘The Nude Maja’ by Goya, yeah I know it. It caused quite a scandal in its time."
" I just 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 unravels another long skein of smoke and tucks it into her lungs, letting it seep out slowly like early morning ground fog. "Just paint what you see, Jase. Be honest. Paint the truth."
"Yeah, but there’s always and ever two kinds of truth. The kind you know and the kind you feel." I pinch the joint and thread it’s smoke into my lungs.
Verlaine lays her leg on top of mine; two electric wires cross, the current surging, arcing, like the incandescent outline of a mountain range, the sun breaching the summit. I lay my hand on her bare thigh and stroke it.
"It’s not that way, Jase." She places her hand on mine and gently lifts it off then removes her leg. "I need to believe in you."
We sit silent and mellow, the roach dwindling down until a big fat joke comes and squats between us. We cannot share it with others and cannot keep it contained. We burst forth in giggles, like snakes springing from a prank can of peanuts.
Then we’re both up,, slapping the earth from our pants, breaking into song, as once again we’re on our way. "‘Let me take you down , ‘cos I’m going to Strawberry Fields, nothing is real and nothing to get hungabout’..."
36
As we walk the soles of our feet carry on a conversation with the earth, small talk about nothing but pebbles and sticks and leaves, until we stand at the threshold of Jordan Hall.
"Follow me," the narrow beige halls reek of chemicals and cloistered lives. In jars and glass-cased alcoves grotesque specimens, bleached of all color, line the walls. Then we are in a room bathed in a low greenish light that seems cramped only because there are rows and rows of grey steel shelves, separated by aisles, and upon those shelves rows of glass bowls half-filled with water and in each one of those glass bowls a strange blunt-headed, thick-tailed, smooth-skinned creature with feeble legs and red gills that wave like pliant coral; axolotls. My skin prickles with goose bumps.
"It’s freezing in here." I cross my arms clutching my shoulders.
"It’s 56 degrees, the temperature the 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. Their whole purpose in life is to eat and fuck. Pretty sweet deal, huh?"
"Yeah, I guess so," I grin.
"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 happy. Don’t make waves. Status quo. Dig, Jase, we become totally self-sufficient, grow our own food, make our own clothes, don’t rely on fossil fuel, don’t consume the crap they force on us; the economy collapses. We’re free! Then they bring out the militia.
37
"Who brings out the militia ?"
"The government, but they’re just the tool. Big Oil, for one. They won’t let the people out from under their thumb without a fight."
" Wow, that’s pretty mind-blowing. You think about shit like that when you’re in here?"
"Yeah—that and posing nude." Her smile surprises her face. She turns to me. "You have enough of this?"
"Yeah, these things give me the creeps." I motion to the shifting jostling creatures in the bowls.
"Not God’s favorites for sure."
We exit the room and she closes and locks the door.
The cool night is warming after the dank lab. She stops where the path diverges.
" 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 flare like a solar storm. " 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 plants her hands on my shoulders and starts 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 fragments as she starts chuckling, like an exhaust puttering out of gas. She presses her nose to mine. "Do it, Jase." Then like a swimmer pushing off from the edge of a dock, she recedes into the deep end of the evening.
I walk alone back along the path that leads to the Avenue, my shadow stretching out and snapping back like licorice taffy as I walk toward and pass beneath each successive light. The night seems magnified, my solitary sounds echo to my ears.
38
"Hippie!" And I jerk, startled. A girl’s voice calls from the edge of darkness; a shadowed foot bridge that spans a crimped flow of water. I peer into the murk and can make out two figures as I approach. Twin dots of red embers dance before their faces, either faerie lights or the lit tips of cigarettes.
"Hey, Jase. What’s happening?" It’s Hunter’s voice and the other must have been Suzy’s. "Sit down, man. What are you doing wandering around out here?"
"Verlaine and I went back to look at that stupid axolotl colony." I swing down on the bridge next to Hunter, dangle my legs next to his.
"Wow, I totally forgot!" Suzy’s voice. "I wanted to see them!"
"Where’s everybody else?" Hunter takes a drag on his cigarette and the end pulses 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 better to do."
Suzy holds back a laugh deep in her throat and blows out a column of dark grey smoke. "Yeah, we found something better to do."
"What has happened to you anyway?" He leans back to take me all in and tugs at my sleeve. " Where’d you get the shirt? Joey? Nice. It looks like crap. And it’s damp, somebody push you into the fountain?"
"Pull." I correct him.
" And what’s that smeared on your chest?"
39
"Paint. It’s been a wild night. You wouldn’t believe."
"Yeah, I can tell."
" I’m on my way back to the Von Lee to see if I can find Ingrid."
"That sounds promising."
"Aren’t you going to tell him?" Suzy interjects.
"Oh yeah, Jase, be the first to congratulate us. We’re going to get married." He clamps his arm around Suzy’s shoulders and gives a squeeze.
His words slam 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. 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 says. "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 looks over at Hunter.
"Yeah, sometime before school starts."
"You told your folks yet?"
"No, you’re the first. They’ll go along with it. They’re cool."
"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."
40
"We love each other." She presses her cigarette to her lips, tilts her head back and sends the stream of smoke on it’s way. " That’s all you need." She lays her head on Hunter’s shoulder. "Everything else will take care of itself. We already know how to live on our own. "
"All you need is love, like the Beatles song, right Buddy?" Hunter squashes his cigarette butt on the side of the bridge and lets it fall into the swift black water.
"Yeah, I guess that’s it." I say standing up. " Listen, I gotta split, before the movie is over."
"What movie is she at," Hunter asks.
"‘Contempt’."
"Oh, that french shit."
I hop off the bridge. "Yeah, not my first choice."
"See, ya later, buddy. By the way, I won’t be back tonight."
"I kinda thought that," I answer as I walk off.
The night seeps away as once again noise and light and movement pierce my consciousness pushing back the dark glades. I cross the street and walk under the red Spanish-tiled portico of the theatre.
"One for ‘Contempt’," I say to the woman behind the glass in the ticket booth.
"A dollar fifty."
She slips me the ticket stub and I enter the small dark red foyer that clings with the smell of popcorn and mildew. Passing through the thick curtains over the doorway, my enlarging pupils drink in the rows of dark figures. I pad down the sloping aisle on the thread bare carpet, scanning the scattered occupants for some sign of recognition. I’m distracted by the illumined glare of a Meditteranean sun. Up on the screen Brigette Bardot is lying naked on a yellow towel except for a strategically placed paperback lying open across her ass.
41
"Hippie! Jase! Over here!" An insistent whisper and I turn to see Ingrid sitting near the back of the theatre. I slide into the row. The floor is sticky with spilled pop, and what is that I touch with my toes, I don’t want to know. I slump down beside her and hang my feet over the seat in front of me. A patron in the next row turns his head then moves three seats away.
"You are a swine," she whispers.
I whisper back, "Charmed I’m sure, Circe." I can’t tell if she’s smiling. " I’m just glad I could find you."
"S-s-h-h-h. Brigette is about to leave Michel for the arrogant American producer Prokosch."
I watch the screen and try to share her interest. Bardot is now wrapped in a yellow robe having an intense conversation with a man in a dark hat as they walk down a wide brick staircase cut into sheer rock face. I glance over at Ingrid’s rapt profile. The man on the screen stops, Bardot continues walking, disappearing behind a blinding white rock, a splash is heard off camera, and she reappears swimming naked away in an incredibly blue sea. Our hands entwine on the shared armrest, seemingly unaware. I look down at her slender dark fingers as they squeeze and release, squeeze and release mine. Now Bardot is leaving with Jack Palance. They stand talking beside a gas pump as his red convertible is being fueled . They get in. The car pulls out into traffic and a crash is heard. The camera pans and Palance and Bardot are slumped bloody over the sides of the red Alfa Romeo. They have crashed into the middle of a tanker truck. The screen goes black, melancholy music swells and FIN appears in big white letters.
42
Ingrid places the back of her hand across her mouth.
After a moment,"We can go,"she says.
We slip into the aisle with the others making their way up the incline to the lobby and the exit.
Once outside she lights a cigarette, pinches a flake of tobacco off her tongue and exhales the first satisfying puff.
"Good movie," I ask. " I’m sorry I got here so late. It seemed interesting."
"Intense." She draws in another deep lung-full of smoke. Expels it. "Sad. Very sad. Michel Piccoli, who played her husband, threw away Brigette and the intense love they shared for money." She looks at me and shares my eyes. "We go for coffee? We can talk. Sounds good?"
"Yeah. I could use some."
"We go to the Gables. Push your pants down more so they do not see your bare feet."
I pull the waist of my pants lower, tuck in the tails of Joey’s paint-spattered shirt, button the bent collar, and push my hair back. She laughs.
We cross the street and walk the two blocks and enter the restaurant. The crowd is sparse. We sink into a wooden booth. When the waitress comes we order two coffees, hers with cream .
"Any Godard movie is good . This one was about making movies. Fritz Lang was in it. Do you know him?"
"He’s a director, right?"
"Yes, a very famous German director."
"Name some things he’s directed."
"He is most famous for ‘M’."
After a moment,"We can go,"she says.
We slip into the aisle with the others making their way up the incline to the lobby and the exit.
Once outside she lights a cigarette, pinches a flake of tobacco off her tongue and exhales the first satisfying puff.
"Good movie," I ask. " I’m sorry I got here so late. It seemed interesting."
"Intense." She draws in another deep lung-full of smoke. Expels it. "Sad. Very sad. Michel Piccoli, who played her husband, threw away Brigette and the intense love they shared for money." She looks at me and shares my eyes. "We go for coffee? We can talk. Sounds good?"
"Yeah. I could use some."
"We go to the Gables. Push your pants down more so they do not see your bare feet."
I pull the waist of my pants lower, tuck in the tails of Joey’s paint-spattered shirt, button the bent collar, and push my hair back. She laughs.
We cross the street and walk the two blocks and enter the restaurant. The crowd is sparse. We sink into a wooden booth. When the waitress comes we order two coffees, hers with cream .
"Any Godard movie is good . This one was about making movies. Fritz Lang was in it. Do you know him?"
"He’s a director, right?"
"Yes, a very famous German director."
"Name some things he’s directed."
"He is most famous for ‘M’."
43
" I’ve heard of that. Peter Lorre, right?"
"Yes. In ‘Contempt’ he is filming a retelling of the Ulysses myth and the arrogant American producer, Prokosch, wants to bring in a new script writer because Lang’s film isn’t commercial enough."
The waitress returns with our coffees.
"Lang in the movie is like the voice of the gods, everything he says is true. He is the uncorrupted artist. 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 takes a sip of her coffee. "You see? Those who do not heed the gods, the gods punish."
I tip 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 at the movie."
"Oh?" The waitress refreshes our coffees. "And so?"
I shrug my shoulders and take a sip of the steaming brew. I feel something touch me and look down, her bare foot is resting against my crotch.
"Do you think my feet are pretty," she asks.
I swallow and answer, "Yes."
"No. Say Oui." Her heel is gently kneading into me like a cat’s paw.
"Oui," I reply.
"Say, Oui, tres."
"Oui, tres." I take in a deep breath.
44
She leans her chin on her hand, "My ankles, do you like my ankles?" She plies me with her toes.
"Yes." My fingertips trace the delicate wings of her ankle bones.
"No. Say, ‘Oui, tres."
"Oui, tres."
"My knees. You like?"
"Ingrid, do you want to ball?"
Her foot pushes off from the front of my pants, and finds her sandal on the floor, her hand falls to the table. "That is not the question," she says abruptly, taking a drink from her coffee.
"You know so much, Jase, but understand so little. Who do you want to ball?"
"You, Ingrid."
"P-h-h-f-ft." She makes a dismissive sound like steam escaping and takes a drink. "No, I do not think so. I am just here. You want to ball Verlaine. Is this not true?"
"I don’t know." I lift the cup to my lips let the dark liquid scald my tongue. I set it down.
"Bullshit. You know. But this can not be. She trusts you. She does not want sex from you. She has told me. She needs from you your talent, your gift; art. You can not betray this. How can I explain. Do you know Latin?"
"I took Spanish in high school."
"Hippocrates once said,‘Ars longa, vita brevis’, ‘Life is short, art forever’. Verlaine knows this. I can not give you the reason."
"But what is this, I don’t..." I catch myself.
"I can not tell you. Do not talk." She puts two fingertips to my lips as if placing a kiss.
45
"I have desire for you. I want so for you to have feeling for me. I brought these," she spreads three foil packaged condoms on the table, "in hope for your heart. That you would see your way, to want me for me,"
"Oh, Ingrid..."
"Impossible." Her eyes moisten, she shrugs 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 is trembling.
"Making love is not stupid." I touch the back of her hand with my fingers and she turns her hand palm up her fingers seeking my palm. "Love is something free we give to each other."
" You are talking sex, not love. And love is not free. This is bullshit. I know. We pay."
Our coffee grows cold. I stare into the sadness of her brown eyes. My words all dry 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 need to leave now. She wipes the foil packets off the table. I must go. I have studies. You?"
"Oui," I answer, "Oui, tres."
"It is what Michel Piccouli says to Brigette in the movie."
I stand and pull the front tails of my shirt out.
"Sorry," she says.
"It happens."
We pay separately.
"I’ll have to see your movie from the beginning sometime."
"Oui, yes, you must."
"Oh, Ingrid..."
"Impossible." Her eyes moisten, she shrugs 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 is trembling.
"Making love is not stupid." I touch the back of her hand with my fingers and she turns her hand palm up her fingers seeking my palm. "Love is something free we give to each other."
" You are talking sex, not love. And love is not free. This is bullshit. I know. We pay."
Our coffee grows cold. I stare into the sadness of her brown eyes. My words all dry 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 need to leave now. She wipes the foil packets off the table. I must go. I have studies. You?"
"Oui," I answer, "Oui, tres."
"It is what Michel Piccouli says to Brigette in the movie."
I stand and pull the front tails of my shirt out.
"Sorry," she says.
"It happens."
We pay separately.
"I’ll have to see your movie from the beginning sometime."
"Oui, yes, you must."
46
"Maybe with you?"
"One never knows."
I push the door open and hold it for her.
"We are still friends, Jase?"
"Yes, of course, always."
I put my hand to her cheek and press my lips to hers. Our lips part, then she kisses me back, hard, quick.
She steps back. "I go now. I will see you." She becomes another face in the crowd on the sidewalk.
I cross the street by the law building and lose myself to dark corners and latticework shadows of limbs. I seek out black pools of night to glide through on my way back to the dorm. Every word Ingrid and I shared, I roll over in my mind trying to turn the grit of hurt into some sort of pearl, rearrange them to a different outcome. I want the night to swallow me whole. Random lyrics run through my head. ‘People are Strange’ by the Doors hooks on and won’t let go. I enter a cloaked alleyway between two tall brick buildings trying to forget, learn to forget.
"Hey, Hippie!"
I turn and corrugated knuckles slam hard into my cheek bone, a white-hot sun explodes behind my left eye. Color cartoon dots cluster and radiate, cluster and radiate, as I try to focus. An arm pistons into my stomach and I crumple like a marionette, all my strings severed. My head hits the cement with a bounce. I hear voices above me, the scuffed toes of work boots inches from my face.
"Shit, Tom! Isn’t this the asshole threw the rocks at us when we tried to make it with those hippie chicks?"
47
A hand grabs my hair, yanks my head back. My necklace snaps. I hear the seeds and beads riotously skittering and tapping away. With my one good eye I’m staring at a puffy pock-marked face. It spits on me, the viscous fluid slides down my chin, the hand lets go and my head drops hard to the sidewalk.
"That’s the little hippie shit all right."
A boot careens off my shin. A foot comes down hard on my ass, and again and despite myself, I laugh inside, think, so this is getting your ass stomped. More kicks and punches rain down too fast and solid. My lips skin back and I suck in the night. I lose count. Then I hear the rasp of boots on pavement, running fast, fading away; a horn honks, distant laughter, voices, silence. A cool breeze soothes my cheek. I lie here, not wanting to move, not wanting the pain to stab further into me. Trying to will my eyes to close, not wince shut in pain, to slip into sleep. But I need to get to the dorm, need to climb the stairs, need to get to my room, my bed. I rise on one arm, push myself up. Joey’s shirt is torn. I feel the air on my back. I stand on stiff legs, the pain in too many places. I take first steps like the Frankenstein monster, my feet shackled with weighted boots. The traffic is lenient and I hobble across. I go the back way, stay out of the lights, make the long ascent up the sidewalk, count 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 have my key. My bloody scraped knuckles find it in my pocket. With burning muscles, I swing the heavy door open trying not to cry. One step after another up the stairs, one step after another up the stairs, three flights. I can make it now. Pushing open the third floor door the need to use the restroom comes over me suddenly and urgently. I swing the restroom door open. It is so bright, too bright. I unzip at the urinal. Someone is retching in one of the stalls, the sound is full and forceful, nauseating. Sloe Gin. The smell wafts over vile and overpowering. I’m through; flush and zip up.
48
I face the blurred stranger in the mirror and throw water on the ugly red welts, the purple-yellowish bruises already blooming. A mean gash across my forehead is crusted with blood, my hair matted and tangled. I rinse again, let the pink water swirl down the chrome drain. I glance down at Joey’s paint-stained shirt, too white, still hanging on me, but now spattered with my dried blood. I idly wonder what paint color it would match, Raw Sienna, or Raw Umber. I touch my cheek and wince, Alizarin Crimson. The toilet in the stall flushes. My face dripping, I leave.
There is our door that holds so much behind it. The metal key clicks in the lock and I turn the brushed steel knob. The odors of marijuana and incense, bodies held close, still inhabit the room. I shut the door. There are the scattered album covers where Joey sat. The glass cafeteria ash trays dot the floor holding spent roaches. Jovial Buddha beams at the tiny mound of incense ash before him, even in oblivion there is bliss for him. I slip Joey’s shirt from my shoulders and let it fall to the floor like a captured flag. I unbutton and unzip my pants and peel them off my thighs, let them crumple around my ankles and step out of them. My bed is still shoved against the wall. I collapse across the coarse grey blanket and grit my teeth, my body tenses in pain. I pull the pillow to my head, will myself to relax, slip into a sleep without dreams in this empty room.
There is our door that holds so much behind it. The metal key clicks in the lock and I turn the brushed steel knob. The odors of marijuana and incense, bodies held close, still inhabit the room. I shut the door. There are the scattered album covers where Joey sat. The glass cafeteria ash trays dot the floor holding spent roaches. Jovial Buddha beams at the tiny mound of incense ash before him, even in oblivion there is bliss for him. I slip Joey’s shirt from my shoulders and let it fall to the floor like a captured flag. I unbutton and unzip my pants and peel them off my thighs, let them crumple around my ankles and step out of them. My bed is still shoved against the wall. I collapse across the coarse grey blanket and grit my teeth, my body tenses in pain. I pull the pillow to my head, will myself to relax, slip into a sleep without dreams in this empty room.
THE END
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