by Bob Spitz
• • •
With the assistance of a citizens’ band radio and mobile security checkpoint patrols, Wes Pomeroy had managed to route himself and Roberts along the back roads around Bethel and into Monticello by 8:15 A.M.
The city’s business district looked much like the main street in Bethel—lined with teen-agers, who skipped in and out of stores searching for camping supplies and nonperishable food. There had been some early reports of price gouging, and, as was expected, there were those smaller establishments who pocketed two dollars for a loaf of bread or a quart of milk. But most of the merchants were grateful for the surge of sales and went out of their way to help the kids pack their purchases properly for travel. There were also those who stood by signs reading “Free water” and gave away sandwiches to anyone who was hungry.
Pomeroy and Roberts located the local FBI office within minutes, and waited in a claustrophobic anteroom until one of the agents there was free to see them.
“I’m not going to tolerate this kind of muscle,” Wes repeatedly mumbled to John. “No sir. Can’t allow ourselves to be pushed around by crooks. By God, these guys are going to pay for this. They’re criminals. Have to keep an eye on them.”
Roberts listened somewhat uneasily to Pomeroy’s lament, recognizing that “this was clearly a man in mourning for his security.”
“We’ll make sure they don’t get away with this. Can’t tolerate this conduct. Have to control these jokers.”
Roberts found that the FBI agents “were like something out of the television series.” They were very cordial, and listened to the promoter’s story with polite concern.
“Why did you come to us?” the special agent in charge of the office asked Pomeroy.
“Well, there’s two things I’d like you to do. One: Move fast enough to cool these guys off. Two: Cut off their attempted extortion.”
“I’m not sure we can move as fast as you’d like, sir,” the special agent said, “but be assured that we’ll investigate your accusations and determine if there’s any cause for prosecuting Food For Love. Our advice to you at this point is to go through the weekend with these people. If you lose their services, we can’t help you get food to the audience. Meanwhile, we’ll run a check on them—Joerger, Howard, Baxter, and Weingrad—and see if we come up with anything. You never can tell. One of them might be wanted for something else. Stay in touch with us, let us know what develops, and we’ll try to get you some kind of an answer as soon as possible.”
According to Pomeroy, Roberts was emotionally shaken by his encounter with the FBI. “In all my life, I never once thought I’d be dealing with criminals,” he explained to the chief of security as they wound their way back to the site. “I mean—the FBI. I actually had to go to the FBI! It’s unreal. They were never anything more to me than actors in a movie or in spy novels. Now, I’ve got to rely on them to help pull us out of this nasty business. I can’t believe I’ve gotten myself involved in something as shady as this. How do you see it, Wes? Is there anything the FBI can do to bail us out?”
“You bet there is,” he said, as if it were beyond question. “You’ll probably have to wait until after the festival is over to take any action against our would-be concessionaires, but, for now, you can rest assured that it’s all been laid out, and the Bureau’s got it. If those guys try to hurt you, their ass is really in a sling.”
• • •
Bill Abruzzi, dressed comfortably in a Lacoste T-shirt and Bermuda shorts, left the medical trailer shortly after 9:15 A.M. After stopping off briefly by the side of the stage to say a few words to Michael Lang, he took the increasingly popular shopper’s route through the woods (careful not to appear overly interested in the drug trade along the way), and found his way into one of the Hog Farm medical complexes in the northeast corner of the campgrounds.
Attendance in Big Pink was already limited to Standing Room Only, brimming over with flaccid bodies on an assortment of bad trips.
“This place is a travel agent’s nightmare,” an emaciated, bare-chested member of the commune, who appeared to have taken charge of the facility, told Abruzzi. “I wouldn’t go as far as to say we’re doing a ‘healthy’ business, but . . .”
“It’s an old joke.”
“Right, man. Sorry to offend you. Anyway, the folks you see here are off in some other universe for a while, but they’ll be comin’ back down to earth in a couple hours or so. The acid floatin’ around the scene is pretty good stuff. We checked it out ourselves.” He grinned foolishly.
“That’s nice to know.” Abruzzi played along, deferring to his instinctive judgment. “As long as it’s not laced with something harmful, there shouldn’t be too many complications.”
“Nah—the rat-shit guys haven’t started dealing yet. They like to sleep late. Most of ’em are night cats.”
“Uh-huh. Anyway—it’s more crowded up here than I thought it would be. Do you fellas need any help?”
The young man’s face tightened with obvious distrust. “You mean trained help, don’t you?” he sneered. “Whitecoats whose job it’ll be to peek over our shoulders and keep an eye on the goods—isn’t that what you’re tryin’ out on us, Doc? Why didn’t you just come out and say that in the first place instead of comin’ on as some kinda friend of the freaks.” He raised his chin in defiance, and, for a moment, Abruzzi thought the hippie was going to spit in his face.
“Take it easy, will you?” Abruzzi said too loudly, taking a step backward. The boy lowered his chin, and Abruzzi felt a bit embarrassed for revealing his trepidation. “You’ve got it all wrong, pal. I didn’t come here to get myself into a political discussion with you people. And, anyway, you’d probably be shocked to learn we’re coming from the same place. I only wanted to know if I could give you a hand or some extra space in my trailer, although, God knows, I’m about as overcrowded as you are. I’m not trying to step on anybody’s toes. But we’ve got an interrelated job, and it’s my responsibility to set up some kind of system in conjunction with you if we’re going to survive the weekend.”
“Hey, man—we know what we’re doing. We’ve had a lot of experience with kids on bummers and we can run our own show.”
“I don’t want to . . .”
“You doctor guys—what makes you think we give a shit about your training, anyway? We don’t trust the fuckin’ medical profession, man.”
“That’s odd.” Abruzzi snorted a laugh. “Three weeks ago, when one of your babies crawled into the commune’s campfire, you ran to a doctor’s house in Middletown and begged him to examine it right away. What happened, friend? Did you people do a sudden about-face on doctors? You treat people with respect only when and if you can get something out of them. Look, why don’t you cut the crap? You run your trip, I’ll run mine. But we’ve got to establish some bond of trust between us because we’re going to face some real crises.”
The Hog Farmer, caught in his own moral crisis, ran a hand along the side of his face while he considered Abruzzi’s proposal. “What’re your terms, man?”
“What do you mean—terms?”
“You know, the conditions under which we’re supposed to get along.”
“No terms, no conditions,” Abruzzi said. “Look, I’ve heard nothing but good things from people who have seen you work with kids. From what they have told me, you’re supergood at dealing with bad trips and talking people down from them. I was relieved to hear that you’d be working here, because, frankly, I don’t know anything about that type of specialized counseling. You’re the experts. So how about if I send you the kids who are having a bad time of it from some drug, and I’ll personally guarantee that nobody from my staff will interfere with that part of the operation. In turn, you refer me all of the medical cases. There’s no reason why we should compete. How does that sound to you?”
The young man continued to sandpaper the side of his face with the back
of his hand. Then, he abruptly turned his back on the doctor and walked away without giving him an answer.
That’s really clever, Abruzzi thought, staring after the insolent Hog Farmer without bothering to give chase. These kids aren’t going to accomplish a damned thing by going out of their way to insult the members of the Establishment who agree with their philosophy. He had no idea what it was they wanted him to prove; he’d tried a number of approaches to gain their confidence, and nothing worked. He hadn’t even come close. Peaceful coexistence seemed to be outside their convenient definition of brotherhood. They’d both suffer for it.
Abruzzi wandered around Big Pink for another twenty minutes, staring into the blank faces of teen-agers suffering through grotesque hallucinations. As many as sixteen youngsters at one time were treated during his first visit to the tent. Many of them, lying face down on the damp hospital cots, buckled in agony or defenselessly screamed while a member of the Hog Farm attempted to flip them over and bathe their foreheads with cold compresses. Others tossed on the ground until they could be restrained and helped onto a bed. But all of them eventually received what Abruzzi considered to be “superb paraprofessional treatment,” mostly from Hog Farm family members.
He would have enjoyed working alongside the commune in this project. They’d have offset each other’s deficiencies, and it would have provided him with an immense and invaluable indoctrination into the applied science of hallucinogenic drug treatment. The trouble was, there didn’t seem to be any way of communicating with the Hog Farm. So be it. He was resigned to figuring out some way to work around them as best he could, and would keep his fingers crossed that the acid remained clean.
Abruzzi checked his watch and found that it was almost 10:30. He’d told Rikki Sanderson he’d be back by then to go over administrative procedure and to instruct her in the fundamental psychology of crowd medicine.
As he turned to leave, a girl dressed in a doeskin Indian dress and sandals grabbed his elbow, spun him around to face her, and stared up at him expectantly. Her pale blue eyes were dilated, and she pursed her mouth, as if wanting to speak but finding herself unable to get a sound out.
“Here,” he said, taking her by the arm, “let me find somebody who can help you.”
She began to giggle like an infant. “You got it wrong, man. I’m not one of the loonies. At least, not yet.” She fingered a strand of colored beads around her frail neck. “I got a message for you if you’re the great medicine man they been talkin’ about.”
Abruzzi introduced himself and asked the girl exactly who had sent her to find him.
“Paul, man. He said to tell you: ‘It’s cool.’”
“Paul?”
“Yeah. You know, man, Paul” She brought both hands to either side of her face as if to frame a definitive picture of the enigma, Paul. Abruzzi shook his head in bewilderment. “And—oh yeah, he said to tell you: ‘No terms and no conditions.’”
At last, Abruzzi said to himself, they had struck up a simple, unofficial bargain. He and the Hog Farm—it wasn’t the most ideal medical partnership, but, nonetheless, it was an understanding by which they could coexist. He was relieved, and he walked back through the woods with a discernible bounce, back to his own “scene,” feeling as though, in some fragmented way, he had cornered the market on healing.
• • •
Mel Lawrence checked in with security a few minutes past noon and informed Lee Mackler that everything at the site had passed inspection with flying colors and was just about ready to go.
Bill Hanley’s men had just completed their sound check, adjusting each microphone and speaker, correcting each buzz and hiss, replacing every faulty wire and cable, until the acoustics were, to his ears, as near to being impeccable as was humanly possible. The recording engineers—Lee Osborne and Eddie Kramer—were stationed in the paneled sound truck on the side of the stage and had started the tapes rolling to capture a couple reels of “crowd noises” hours before the show began. Even Bill Hanley’s fossilized deadpan was cocked in mild amusement. “I’d like to see that stuffy Bahs-ton bastard split his sides laughing just once,” Lawrence remarked. “Except I’ve heard a rumor that his chuckling is prerecorded at 33-1/3 rpm and played back at 45 to simulate human laughter.”
The performers’ pavilion looked like “a gourmet chuckwagon,” Mel said, with its long cafeteria-style tables decorated with an array of colored tablecloths that rivaled Jacob’s coat. A wall of tarnished coffee urns, antique refrigerators, and griddles lined the back of the tent where the celebrities were to be served their favorite dishes. Chef David Levine had rejected a number of “unpretentious” menus suggested by the staff as being too bland in favor of the ultimate in superstar cuisine: Woodstock Ventures had provided him with 400 pounds of prime steak, and Levine agreed to prepare performers’ individual requests to order.
“We’re having a bit of a problem getting electricity into the pavilion,” Lawrence said, “but that should be corrected within the hour. It doesn’t matter right now, anyway. We’re having a helluva time getting performers through the traffic.”
“What about Sweetwater? You mean to tell me they’re not there yet?” Lee asked.
“Not here yet? They’re not even checked in at the Holiday Inn. Last thing we heard, a roadie called to say the band was en route upstate, but that was last night and we haven’t gotten another report since. Their equipment hasn’t arrived either.”
“For Chrissake, Mel, the show’s only three hours off.”
“Relax, babe. Lang’s delivered the motto a half-dozen times already: ‘Don’t worry, man—we’ve got it covered,’” he mimicked. “The kid’s as cool as ever. I gotta believe he either knows what he’s doing, or he’s certified insane. Hey, listen, I’d love to chat, but I’ve got company. Two hundred fifty thousand of my closest friends dropped in for coffee, and I’ve got to take the croissants out of the oven. Is Roberts around? I’ve gotta do another number on the poor guy.”
“Yeah, he’s right here,” she said. “Go easy on him, Mel, will you? His morale is not exactly what I’d call buoyant. It hasn’t been the easiest of weeks for young John.”
“Well, then you’d better have a medic standing by. I’ve gotta sing the blues again, and my voice is enough to shatter glass.”
Roberts got on the line a moment later. His voice sounded scratchy and slow, as if he had pulled a week’s worth of all-nighters for a final exam only to learn that he’d studied the wrong material. “Who died, Mel?” he quipped.
“Hey, John baby—don’t worry, man. We’re disposing of the corpse before anyone finds out.”
“Mel—have a heart! Only good news. Okay?”
“I wish I could, kid,” he said seriously. “But I’m afraid we’ve got ourselves another humdinger of a decision to make.” He explained to Roberts how, earlier that morning, he stood outside his trailer and watched as a gang of hippies shook what was left of the retaining fence around the site. They rode the poles back and forth until a portion of the fence buckled, and then drew imaginary straws to decide who would lead the march inside. “Then they started streaming in there like troops who had come to liberate political prisoners. And I saw people climbing the fence in other areas, too. Look, man, it’s dangerous. Someone might really get hurt pulling shit like that. 1 know that, deep down inside, you’re still counting on the fences to inspire ticket sales, but it’s no use. I’d like your permission to take the fences down.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone while Roberts contemplated the request.
“All right, Mel,” he relented, “if that’s the situation, let’s do it.”
“Thanks, man. I know how difficult that was for you, and I really appreciate it. But just for the record—it’s already been done. As usual, you made the right decision.”
2
An audience of “long-haired boy gypsies, their pretty ‘old l
adies’ in pilgrim dress, the hip students, and the young rock rebels” had invented infinite ways of entertaining themselves with show time still a few hours off. By 2:30 Friday afternoon, under a magnificent sun-drenched sky, the long-awaited music, which had initially attracted most of them to White Lake, indeed became secondary to their ritual of self-abandon.
Participants of every size and shape twined through the packed amphitheatre; some danced to the accompaniment of strolling troubadors, others whistled as they hopped from blanket to blanket, hugging strangers, shaking hands.
“Peace, man. Where you from?” was the question of the day. The responses were as wondrous, and often incomprehensible, to the inquirer as the scene in which they were moving. Pittsburgh, Boise, Oklahoma City, Seattle, Bangor, Burlington, Miami, Des Moines, St. Paul, San Mateo, Montreal, Austin, Louisville, Omaha—the map of hometowns extended as far as one was willing to take it. “Far out, man. Howja manage to get here? I’ve never been out there; how ’bout tellin’ me about what it’s like?”
Undying friendships were established on a moment’s notice and consummated with the exchange of an ounce of grass or a handful of multicolored pills. “Here, take some of these, man. They’ll help you stay on your feet through the night.” Eight-track tapes were traded, copied, edited, or overdubbed to suit the most definitive collector’s requirements.
“My cousin from Miami knows Stephen Stills, and he said he’s a card-carrying’ freak, man.”
“No shit! Hey, Tinker—this guy’s cousin hangs out with Stills! C’mere, you gotta meet this cat.”
An entire collection of American flags was burned to rousing cheers from the onlookers. A photograph of Richard Nixon was tossed onto one of the red, white, and blue bonfires “to really give that fire somethin’ to burn about.”
“Hell, he’s a lot better than ol’ Lyndon B. Johnson, man.”
“Here’s to of Lyndon B.!” A boy in overalls arched his back and threw both his middle fingers into the air.
