The Forgiven

by Mike Shepherd

  The courtyard was an unexpected feature I greatly appreciated, considering the reasonable rent and popular neighborhood. It was enclosed by tall, bushy arborvitae that made it very secluded. It would be a good place to smoke a joint now and then, if I ever scored some pot – which would surely be plentiful in this city. First I’d have to meet someone I could trust enough to make a deal with, that would require my socializing in a bar or café. I considered asking Ferlinghetti, but I hesitated making that kind of demand so early in our friendship. I didn’t know if the man still smoked pot at his age.

  There were many bars and cafes in North Beach and neighboring Chinatown. One bar in particular that I began to frequent was the Vesuvio on Columbus, across Jack Kerouac Alley from City Lights – a mere block from my apartment -- where the beatniks of old, sporting goatees and black berets, mingled with new age hippies in tie-dye to live their closely-similar Bohemian lifestyles. The walls were adorned with literary memorabilia. I noticed there was a signed black and white photo of Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg.

  I got a beer at the bar and went up to the balcony, from which I had a good view of the happenings below. It was a Friday night, and the place was packed. When it was time to go down for another beer, I had to squeeze my way to the bar. I didn’t mind though, because there were plenty of women doing the same, resulting in some close body contact, and some face-to-face encounters and conversations.

  I had a friendly talk with a woman -- a red head, like me – whose breath was ripe with wine, and she smelled of weed. The alcohol I had consumed, emboldened me to inquire where I might find some of what she had apparently been smoking.

  “I’ve got a joint in my purse,” she admitted, aware that in San Francisco she probably wouldn’t get busted for such a small amount, if I happened to be a narc.

  “We can smoke it in the alley if you’d like,” she proposed.

  “Yes, I would like. But we don’t have to do it in the alley. We can go to my place. It’s just a block away.”

  “Okay,” she said without hesitation.

  We put our empty glasses down, and left the bar. Outside, away from the crowd, and the artificial courage of alcohol, we suddenly found ourselves in the sobering situation of two strangers trying to relate. We engaged in awkward small talk on the way to my place.

  “I’m Mary Jane.”

  She looked as plain as her name, with straight, dish water blond hair, thin lips and beady brown eyes.

  “Mick.”

  “Are you from San Francisco, Mick?”

  “No. Illinois. And you?”

  “Stockton originally, but I’ve lived here for ten years.”

  Then she popped the obligatory question that was so popular to ask among new age hipsters who were into astrology, like Trudy the townie had done in Carbondale when I lived there a couple of years before in 1971.

  “What’s your sign?”

  “Scorpio.”

  “Far out. Me too.”

  When we arrived at my apartment we sat on the bench in the courtyard and lit the joint. We said nothing until we got off, and Mary Jane launched into a breathless diatribe about how cool it was for two Scorpios to meet by chance, “….a cosmic coincidence” she called it, “which Scorpes are known to experience on a regular basis because of our psychic powers. As lofty a characteristic as that is, we’re also known to getting down and dirty. Each sign is related to a body part, and for us it’s the genitals. We are the sex sign.”

  I took that as a hint, and I suggested that we go inside because the night had become cool. I had some wine in the fridge, and I poured two glasses of it. I wondered how I would gracefully go about unfolding the Murphy bed without appearing to be too anxious to get it on with Mary Jane. To transition as smoothly as possible into that scenario, I proposed a toast to the passion of Scorpios, to which she responded favorably by planting a big, tongue-mingling kiss in my mouth. I spun off the couch, and in one fell swoop I unfolded the bed and pulled Mary Jane down on top of me. We quickly stripped and began to screw so fast and furiously that I couldn’t help finishing before she was satisfied. I rolled over on my back and sighed, unable to get it up again. But Mary Jane was forgiving, as most women usually were in the same situation. She kissed me on the cheek, got dressed and left, but not before she left a joint for me on the kitchen table. Feeling a little bummed out because of my poor love-making performance, I lit it up and took a couple of hits, along with a sip or two of wine, to console myself. I then lay down and gradually fell asleep.

  In the morning I went back to City Lights to shmooze with Ferlinghetti. I wanted to know what he thought about the Vietnam War. I had learned that he was a veteran of World War II who became a pacifist because he had been to Nagasaki shortly after the atomic bomb was dropped on that city, and was aghast at what he saw. When I walked in, he seemed pleased to see me again.

  “Find a place to rent yet?”

  “Yes. It’s not too far from here.”

  “You lucked out, then. It’s hard to find something in this neighborhood. Everybody wants to live around here.”

  “Yeah. I’m told this is where it’s at. By the way, Lawrence, I’ve been meaning to ask your opinion of the Vietnam War since you’re a war veteran.”

  “Well, before I answer your question, if you don’t mind, first tell me what you think about it.”

  “In the beginning I supported it, because I was concerned about the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia – you know, like in the Domino Theory. But now, after building South Vietnam up militarily and politically, we’re about to withdraw from the war at a critical time, and leave them to fend for themselves against the ever-increasing presence of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) in the south. I’m afraid the war will quickly become a lost cause.”

  “But keep in mind, it isn’t a lost cause for the North Vietnamese,” Ferlinghetti said. “As it turned out, we miscalculated their desire to unite the two Vietnams under Communism. After Ho Chi Minh waged a successful revolution against the French, culminating in 1954, he was elected president of one Vietnam, not the divided one that was mandated by the Geneva Accords following the revolution. The Accord, with U.S. support, nullified Ho’s election and divided the country along the 17th Parallel, with the stipulation that another election would take place within two years for the Vietnamese people to determine if they wanted to remain divided. Meanwhile Uncle Sam established a Western-leaning puppet government to rule the South, and the mandated election never took place. This led to another revolution spearheaded by the Viet Cong with support from the NVA.

  “Have you ever read any of Allen Ginsberg’s poetry about Vietnam?” Ferlinghetti asked.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “In his poem Wichita Vortex Sutra he says:

  McNamara made a “bad guess” chorused the reporters in 1962

  “8000 American Troops handle the Situation” Bad Guess

  in 1954, 80% of the

  Vietnamese people would’ve voted for Ho Chi Minh

  “And here I thought most of Ginsberg’s poetry was about sucking cocks,” I said, risking insulting his friend. He took it in stride.

  “Oh no. He’s much more versatile than that. You should read more of him. Which reminds me. Since you’re from Springfield, Illinois, the hometown of Vachel Lindsay, you’d probably be interested in knowing that Allen considered him to be a forerunner of the Beats, especially because of his pacifism and socialist leanings. He advocated world peace and one world government, as idealistic as that might sound. Lindsay’s poem Sew the Flags Together has a message similar to the one in John Lennon’s song, Imagine. You may have heard that he was often referred to as the ‘Prairie Troubadour,’ because he traveled about the country on foot, trading his rhymes for room and board. Like Kerouac, he was fond of being on the road. And like Kerouac, he wrote about jazz and Buddhism.

  “In fact, Ginsberg
so admired Lindsay that he wrote a poem about his suicide. Let’s see, I’ve got it here somewhere, in his collected poems. Where is it now?”

  He scanned a section of shelved books.

  “Oh, here it is.”

  Ferlinghetti thumbed through the thick book until he came to a poem simply entitled To Lindsay.

  “I’ll read you the last four lines.”

  Vachel, I see your shadow on the wall

  You’re sitting in your suspenders on the bed

  the shadow hand lifts up a Lysol bottle to your head

  your shadow falls over on the floor

  “Spooky,” I said. “But even spookier than that is a poem Lindsay himself wrote about his death, long before it occurred. I memorized it, but I won’t burden you with the entire poem, just the first couple of stanzas, if you don’t mind.”

  “No, feel free,” he said.

  I’ll haunt this town, though gone the maids and men,

  The darling few, my friends and loves today.

  My ghost returns, bearing a great sword-pen

  When far-off children of their children play.

  “Tragically ironic, isn’t it,” I said in response to Ginsberg’s poem. “That he would choose to kill himself by downing such a lethal drink when he was such a devout prohibitionist.”

  “Yes, isn’t it? That’s where Lindsay and the Beats differ dramatically. We tend to enjoy alcohol. Have you been to Vesuvio’s yet?”

  “Yes, I was there Friday night.”

  “Jack and Allen and I used to drink there a lot. In fact, they’ve got a special drink there called the Jack Kerouac. It’s a small bucket of rum, tequila and orange juice.

  “We also drank at Li Po’s Cocktail Lounge in Chinatown. It’s named for the ancient Chinese poet who loved drinking rice wine while communing with nature.

  “Do you write poetry?” Ferlinghetti asked.

  “Some.”

  “Then you should come to Vesuvio’s Saturday night for the open mic reading. I’ll be reciting a couple of mine. You’d be welcome to sit in.”

  Meanwhile, intrigued by what Ferlinghetti said about Li Po getting high on wine and writing about nature, something I did in the woods around Springfield, I spent some time during the week at City Lights brushing up on the Chinese poet. It inspired me to compose a nature poem of my own for the reading at Vesuvio’s. It employed a falling autumn leaves metaphor to ask whether we followed divine plan or free will in our everyday lives.

  When Saturday night arrived, I went to Vesuvio’s early to get primed for the reading. Ferlinghetti was drinking at the bar. I sat next to him, hoping to get some encouragement, because I hadn’t read in public before. I felt a bit intimidated in the company of a renowned Beat poet in a place where he, Ginsberg and Kerouac used to hang out. He put my mind at ease when he suggested that I just take a deep breath or two and have another drink, which he bought for me, along with one for himself. We toasted to the reading, which he began with a poem about Christ. Part of it went something like this.

  Sometime during eternity some guys show up and one of them…is a kind of carpenter

  from some square-type place like Galilee and he starts wailing and claiming he is hip

  to who made heaven and earth and that the cat who really laid it on us is his Dad

  nobody really believes them or me for that matter

  Then it was my turn. I was still a little nervous, despite the booze I had consumed, but I bravely pressed on.

  When sun shafts pierce the chilling dusk,

  and autumn breaths a smoky musk,

  I contemplate with bated breath,

  this question of the greatest depth.

  When leaves fade,

  they spin, soar, float, dying.

  Is it the whim of the wind,

  or a niched course drawn for tracing?

  Juxtaposed, the poems seemed to question the validity of Christianity and the concept of divinity. They caused quite a stir in the audience, which apparently included a believer or two. One of them, a big, intimidating man with a shaved head and a crucifix hanging on gold chain around his thick neck, angrily confronted us after the readings.

  “What are you guys, anyway, a couple of atheists?”

  “Agnostic,” I retorted, “as I indicate in my poem.”

  “Listen, man,” he said. “There are too many magical things happening in nature for there not to be divine influence!”

  Ferlinghetti joined the argument.

  “Does that magic include a man being born of an immaculate conception, and his resurrection after being crucified, when no one has ever come back to life on this planet? And if Christ was sacrificed and resurrected by God for the atonement of our sins, why is there still so much war, some of which is waged over religion – like the Crusades, and the wars in Northern Ireland and the Middle East?”

  “Because, in answer to the question you ask in your poem, even though God has a divine plan for each of us to follow – the niched course drawn for tracing you refer to in your poem, he also grants man the free will, or the whim of the wind to determine for himself whether to engage in or refrain from violence,” the man said to me. “If only we would follow the teachings of Christ, which is the preference for peace, then there’d be no wars.”

  In the end the debate ended in a stalemate, and “….the question of the greatest depth” went unanswered.

  Riding the high I got from the reading, I bid Ferlinghetti good evening and headed out to Li Po’s, which was rumored to be haunted by opium junkies who used to smoke the potent poppy resin there. Some people swore that the ghosts of the junkies still smoked it in the place.

  Before going in, I smoked a little something myself, from the joint Mary Jane had left me.

  The first thing I noticed when I went into the dimly-lit cocktail lounge, was a large, golden Buddha statue by the bar. A huge red and yellow lantern with golden tassels hung from the middle of the ceiling, and provided most of the lighting. Black – lacquered, teak wood-framed booths with red felt cushions. The booths were softly lighted by yellow-shaded sconces. Under a sheet of glass on the table of the booth I sat in, were many poems, written by Li Po, about drinking wine and communing with nature. I read one while waiting to be served.

  We drink deeply beneath dragon bamboo,

  our lamp faint, the moon cold again.

  On the sandbar, startled by drunken song

  a snowy egret lifts away past midnight

  A pretty little Asian waitress came to my booth, and I ordered a vat of rice wine. While I drank, I read another poem.

  Rinsing sorrows of a thousand forevers

  away, we linger out a hundred jars of wine,

  the clear night’s clarity filling small talk,

  a lucid moon keeping us awake. And after

  we’re drunk, we sleep in empty mountains,

  all heaven our blanket, earth our pillow.

  And then another.

  9/9, out drinking on Dragon Mountain

  I’m an exile among yellow blossoms smiling.

  Soon drunk, I watch my cap tumble in the wind,

  dance in love — a guest the moon invites.

  After smoking pot, drinking rice wine, smelling intoxicating opium smoke and listening to enchanting Oriental music coming from places unseen, in my stoned state of mind, the golden glow of the lantern dangling overhead appeared as the moon Li Po wrote about when he too was drunk.

  My head swam. I got up to leave, and the waitress caught me as I started to fall. She sat me back down in the booth, and brought me a cup of tea that she said would help to sober me up. It only made me higher as I floated out the door, but not before I learned the kind waitress’s name – Lin Lo – and a phone number where she could be reached when she wasn’t working at Li Po’s.

  He
r willingness to give me the number surprised me, but apparently she saw something in me that she liked, even though I was drunk.

  Perhaps it was because of the poem I wrote on a napkin that I gave her before I left.

  The Earth is yin, the Sun is yang,

  together they give birth to woman and man.

  though separated by millions of miles

  they’re the perfect distance between planet and star

  for life’s existence – so here we are.

  But all the while I’ve wondered why,

  is it a cosmic coincidence that defies all odds,

  or a scientific experiment conducted by the likes of God?

  I knew from experience that marijuana alleviated hangovers, so when I awoke with a bad one in the morning I smoked some more of the joint I had left over from the night before. It also made me hungry, so I went to a greasy spoon down the block for breakfast. After I ate, I found a phone booth and called Lin Lo and apologized for being so drunk at Li Po’s.

  “No problem,” she said. “Sometime Zen Buddhists get very drunk. You are like Zen Buddhist in poem you wrote. It’s very Buddhistic in nature.”

  Then out of the blue she asked me if I had ever practiced tantric yoga.

  “No.”

  “Would you like to try?” she asked.

  I had heard of tantric yoga, and knew it involved sex, so, yes, naturally, I wanted to try it.

  “Where? When?” I asked.

  “Full moon tonight. Good time to do,” was her answer.

  I immediately thought of my courtyard. It was totally private, and we’d be out in the light of the moon. I gave Lin Lo my address, and suggested a time.

  “Nine o’clock okay?”

  “Yes, fine. See you then,” she said.