by Tom Wolfe
RIGHT HERE?
“ … in this warehouse, and this is where we’re going to do it. We’re going to have the Graduation here and it’s going to be our scene. We have a certain number of people we want to get close to us, and they’re going to be here and it’s going to be better than anything we could have done at Winterland …”
WHISTLING
“ … Here we’re on our own grounds, and we can do what we want, for our own scene, and we don’t have to do any more politicking or compromising. We’ll do it our own way and we’ll be the Bay Area’s Superheroes …”
LAST HOLE IN THE SAPLING SKY
“ … One reason it didn’t come off was that it was too big and too hot and they all got frightened. They all want to be eagles, but they don’t want to act like eagles, so we’re going to have to do it ourselves. We tried to do it the other way, but they weren’t interested … So we’re going to keep it down to those people who are going to make it as tight a scene as we can get. They are the kind of people who, if they’ve got anything to say, it will spread out from them, and they can say it straight, and it will spread out from them and there will be no stopping it. And that’s the essential fantasy. We’re moving it all in here, into the Rat Shack.”
INTO THE RAT SHACK
Then Kesey’s voice picks up and he starts assigning tasks: Page in charge of setting up a stage and chairs. Roy Seburn to decorate the place with a lot of cloth hangings. Faye and Gretch to get food and drink. Hermit to seal up all the holes in the walls. Zonk to draw up and post the guest list …
THE FEW!
The fantasy is to compile an invitation list and contact them all, far and wide, now, this afternoon and tonight, by telephone, messenger, whatever it takes, and everybody starts thinking of those people close in enough to
THE WHOLE FREAKING ADVENTURE
to invite to this last roundup … What a thought! …
DO YOU REMEMBER
all the Pranksters who have wandered far and wide, like June the Goon, Marge the Barge, Sensuous X, Anonymous, Norman Hartweg—
“Hire an ambulance to bring him from Ann Arbor!” Christ, all the memories … the Perry Lane people … Sandy Lehmann-Haupt—
BECAUSE, NEVERTHELESS, HE WAS THERE WHEN
the pudding whipped up creamy—
“Hugh Romney!”
“Bonnie Jean!”
And Paul Sawyer and Rachel Rightbred … and all the wild screwy people who got on the bus on the golden track wherever and whither—
“Mary Microgram!”
“That little guy who wrote the pot poem!”—and they write that down—
“That guy with the ears, that weirdo!” says Babbs—and they write that down—
“That couple in Portland!”—and they write that down—
“That pretty Indian boy on Haight Street!”—and they write that down—
“The Mad Chemist!”
YEAH! OH SHIT, DO YOU REMEMBER
“Big Nig!”
GIMME THE RENT
“Culley!”
“Owsley!”
SURVIVAL
“That guy in jail!”
“The Who Cares Girl!”
RA-A-A-A-AY
“Ray!”
“Pancho Pillow!”
“J. Edgar Hoover!”—and they write that down—
SEE THE VERY HUNTED COONS
“Gaylord!”
“Jim Fish!”
“Agent Number One!”
¡MARICONES!
“Cosmo!”
Cos-mo
Oh shit what a flow from eons ago in La Honda across the length and the breadth and the sleek and the Rat and it all comes flooding and bubbling back like a crest if they can just sit up on it and ride and ride and ride and ride here in the gloom and beat back those little crab lice in frogmen’s suits six little neoprene rubber armlets for each little crab louse leg creeping about camouflaged like tiny scars in the brain the focking debacle infestation, the morose thought clumped somewhere in every brain until out through the starveling self-shuck fiesta euphoria Page brings it out front and out loud in the scabid sinkhole of the Warehouse, the ancient Shellube voice of please-don’t-shit-me:
“It’s great to be a part of the greatest jackoff in history.”
NEVERTHEFREAKINGLESS! THE NEXT NIGHT, HALLOWEEN, the magic long-awaited hour … I can hardly believe it, the Pranksters have transformed the place. You have to hand it to them, they must have worked like Turks. It’s still a pestilence among buildings, you understand, this Warehouse, but there’s verve in the air, Rat splendor. The most splendid thing is a huge orange-and-white parachute, an enormous thing, just the silk, not the strings and all, hooked to the ceiling at the apex, and billowed out to the far corners of the ceiling like some majestic canopy out of a Louis XV lawn revel in the Orangerie at Versailles. It glistens! Grand luxe! The very same parachute, it turns out, that Astronauts use on reentry for the splashdown … Hmmmmm … Yes … Quite a sight! The Pranksters have turned into the Flag People again, in their American Flag coveralls. Mountain Girl sits at the Sixth Street side in Flag coveralls checking guests against the invitation list which is posted up on the door in Paul Foster God Rotor script. Mountain Girl opens the Can’t Bust ’Em coveralls and suckles Sunshine as the few, the faithful … the many! … come flapping by … Their faces are painted in Art Nouveau swirls, their Napoleon hats are painted, masks painted, hair dyed weird, embroidered Chinese pajamas, dresses made out of American flags, Flash Gordon diaphanous polyethylene, supermarket Saran Wrap, India-print coverlets shawls Cossack coats sleeveless fur coats piping frogging Bourbon hash embroidery serapes sarongs saris headbands bows batons vests frock coats clerical magisterial scholar’s robes stripes strips flaps thongs Hookah boots harem boots Mexicali boots Durango boots elf boots Knight boots Mod boots Day-Glo Wellingtons Flagellation boots beads medallions amulets totems polished bones pigeon skulls bat skeletons frog thoraxes dog femurs lemur tibia kneecap of a coyote … A hell of a circus, in short, a whole carnival banner, a panopticon. Hell’s Angels pulling in, in their colors, the death’s-head jackets, full dress, beards combed and trimmed, Terry the Tramp, Pete the Drag Racer, Ralph of Oakland, plus their girls … miniskirts and raspberry stockings … Chocolate George … Chaos! Shitfire! Chocolate George doesn’t see his name on the list and his girl keeps saying, “What’s the matter, George, can’t we get in?” until Mountain Girl gives a bullshit laugh and waves them in. A kid about ten pops out of the door onto Sixth Street and yells, “Who’s smoking grass around here?”—in the most demanding voice you ever heard … aggressive little devil. There’s even a nursery set up inside the door and they keep making the Hermit stay the hell out of there. Kesey is off to one side in a Flag People coverall, looking around, not saying much, listening to a big Angel from Oakland who has on a polka-dot shirt and a polka-dot tie under his Angels’ jacket—“I wore a shirt and tie, Ken, on account of it’s Halloween”—rock ‘n’ roll playing over the loudspeakers, which are all over the place, on the sides, on the ceiling, right up in the summit of the parachute canopy even … microphones, cameras, TV cameras … Yes … The Few and the Faithful!—all the same, the word of the hoopla in the scabid old Warehouse is around town like a chic piece of information. Irresistible, of course … Three TV stations have cameramen there, four radio stations with microphones and tape machines. Herbert Gold the novelist with an aftershave smile on. Ingrid Bergman’s daughter, Pia Lindstrom … Oh, sweet adrenal edge! This is where it’s at! what—could this be … the new wave? … Where? in comes the Women’s Wear Daily correspondent in San Francisco, Albert Morch, a brassy little character with a Rolleiflex around his neck … Caterine Milinaire of Vogue with a miniature camera in a chain-mail evening purse, standing amid Angels, heads, and the Probation Generation like a Bulfinch princess … Larry Dietz the magazine writer from Los Angeles … And me … Kesey looking around and saying nothing and … wondering … Hmmmmm … The Few and the Faithful and the whole hulking
world. It’s a regular beano, all right. But, Mother! These costumes aren’t for a Halloween party but for the liberation of dead souls … churchly vestiture, in truth …
Are we blind? … Oblation … Consecration … Communion … Well … The Anonymous Artists of America climbing up onto the stage … They’re like freaking faeries out of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, dueling shirts and long gowns of phosphorescent pastels like the world never saw before, Day-Glo death masks beaming out in front of the instruments. The music suddenly submerges the room from a million speakers … a soprano tornado of it … all-electric, plus the Buchla electronic music machine screaming like a logical lunatic …
Out into the middle, under the great parachute canopy and the spotlights, sailing across the mungery carpet … Doris Delay of the Pranksters in Flag People coveralls and Terry the Tramp of Hell’s Angels in an Ozark razorback stovepipe hat dark glasses Angel beard, a huge brown-and-black striped sweater like a raccoon, the Angels’ sleeveless jacket and the death’s head, blue jeans, motorcycle boots … Christ, here’s a coming-out party for you, Doris Delay and Terry the Tramp … stomping and flailing about in a regular hoedown … but formal in a wacky way. They dance for about a minute and then the others rush out, a storm of them, couples in acid-head fancy dress, dancing to the rock ‘n’ roll, only they’re dancing clean out of their gourds, they leap, they flail their arms up in the air, they throw their heads back, they gyrate and levitate … they’re in a state … they’re ecstatic … Gary Goldhill looks on from the side. He has on a huge lake-red Chinese pajama top with a gold dragon embroidered on it. He’s spooked about the Warehouse … Musty! … Insane! … Friends or spirits? Well—Earth can be Heaven & Hell and he takes the plunge … and reaches into his pants pocket and swallows a potion …
Already a few enraptured grins breaking out in the crowd … Rapt wet-lipped bliss … They glisten, their eyes are wide open like plastic nodules. The Telepathic Kid is so high, grinning so wet and glistening, he looks like one great psychic orgasm getting ready to unfold exfoliate into … a calla lily … and a blond kid with a white Nehru coat on and a big silver pendant hanging down over his chest kneeling before the rock ‘n’ roll band with his hands brought up like in prayer and a grin of such pure acid bliss on his face that his teeth sizzle … a pot full of boiling pearls … The Pranksters, Babbs and Gretch and Page and others, take to the bandstand, all electrified, and they start beaming out the most weird loud Chinese science-fiction music and cranking up the Buchla electronic music machine until it maneuvers itself into the most incalculable sonic corner, the last turn in the soldered circuit maze, and lets out a pure topologically measured scream. Ultima-time, with heavy-duty wiring, the works. Kesey stands off to one side still, in the shadows, at … Control Central, only now he has the Flag People coveralls off and is bare chested, wearing only white leotards, a white satin cape tied at the neck, and a red, white, and blue sash running diagonally across his chest. It’s … Captain America! The Flash! Captain Marvel! the Superhero, in a word …
At the height of the frenzy suddenly the lights go out, the sound goes out, all replaced by a single spotlight hitting the center of the floor. Kesey’s brother Chuck is up in the rafters working the lights. You can hear Babbs’s and Hassler’s voices over microphones in the dark, rapping back and forth in a shuck manner: “Do you think they’d clear out of the center if we asked them, Hassler?” … “Sure, they’re gonna clear out the center faster than you can say clear out the center” … But everyone just mills around, caught in the blackout. Babbs says: “If they don’t clear out the center, then they’re a bunch of assholes” … Well, let’s try the direct approach! They clear out of the ellipse where the spot beams down, and Kesey comes in out of the darkness. He’s taken the cape and the sash off, however. Too freaking much, I guess. He’s just wearing the white ballet tights and his wrestler’s build. A pair of jockey shorts show faintly under the leotards—just the right touch … here in the Rat Shack … He has a hand microphone up to his mouth … . Kesey in the leotards with the pool of light in front of him and the heads all packed in around the loop of light in the darkness … . It’s good and theatrical … in a weird weird way … Some of the heads get the point immediately. Without a sound, they start tossing things into the pool of light, sugar cubes, capsules, cigarette papers, a couple of joints, beads, amulets, headbands, all the charms and totems of psychedelphia into the pool of light. It’s … an altar … Kesey starts talking over the microphone in the upcountry drawl …
“When we were down in Mexico, we learned a lot about waves. We spent six months down there learning about waves. Even in the dark you can feel the waves …”
It’s a wrench, that voice, what is it? up to now—a party, a frenzy. All of a sudden it’s on a whole other level … of some sort … we can’t figure it out. The TV crews are trying to edge up close and jockey for position. Is this where he tells the kids to turn off LSD? … Which is what—we came for … Waves?
“I believe that man is changing … in a radical basic way … The waves are building, and every time they build, they’re stronger. Our concept of reality is changing. It’s been happening here in San Francisco … I believe there’s a whole new generation of kids. They walk different … I can hear it in the music … It used to go … life—death, life—death … but now it’s … death—life … death—life …”
The TV crewmen are trying to hand their microphones to heads near Kesey. They want them to hold them near him to pick up the words better. They implore the heads, they half order them in stage whispers. The heads are disgusted. They just stare at them. Kesey shoots a few whammies their way … These bastards and their … positioning … they only want to use you for a little while … They’re punctures in the dirigible, flatulent murmurs in the heart, they’re—the TV crews are pissed, too. Snotty dope-head kids! … Coverage is a pain in the ass here in Edge City. Can’t do with it, can’t do without it—a grand hassle in the making—
“ … For a year we’ve been in the Garden of Eden. Acid opened the door to it. It was the Garden of Eden and Innocence and a ball. Acid opens that door and you enter and you stay awhile …”
At which precise point—mysteries of the synch! yes—four policemen great dark-blue figures come walking in through the door on the Sixth Street side. The word starts firing around the crowd in the dark: Cops! Cops! … One last monster raid to finish off the debacle! There is a hell of a scurrying in the darkness, bodies hitting the walls of the garage, like gigantic fancy-dress rats looking for holes … Get the hell out of here! … It’s the Probation Generation, of course, all the kids who are out on probation under firm admonition not to associate with known dope users … they’re practically digging through the concrete floor … The four policemen keep walking in at a slow gait, looking this way and that. Cassady is on a microphone way behind Kesey now, up on the stage, in fact, beginning to rap about the cops coming in: “Four custom-tailored constables, you understand, looking for pearl heads among the swineherds …”
“The cops are here?” says Kesey. He sounds startled.
“The constabulary cops …”
“They come in waves, too,” says Kesey, “they’re a pattern that repeats” … Yah! …
By now the cops have just stopped on the edge of the crowd in the darkness, just looking around.
“There’s cops and there’s policemen,” Kesey says. “The cop says, ‘Don’t do that. That’s forbidden and that’s all there is to that.’ The policeman says, ‘You can do that, but if you go too far, you’re going to hurt yourself.’ The policeman is the double line in the middle of the road. I’m talking about inside of us.”
A spot suddenly comes on, hitting Cassady in a little cone of light. “It’s like Ken once said,” says Cassady. “If you ignore a cop for twenty years, then he’s not there any more …”
“Haw!—Haw!—Haw!”—Hell’s Angels in the corner—the four cops just survey the camp meeting, then start turning around to
leave. Cassady keeps on rapping:
“Yes! Violence, you understand … There’s not going to be any violence here. If we wanted some violence we have some fellows here who could furnish it …”
“Haw!—Haw!—Yah!—Yagggggh!—A good cop is a dead cop!”
“A good cop is a dead cop!”
But the cops just walk on out, rocking at the same slow gait, brushing through a clump of Hell’s Angels like they weren’t there. The cops are gone, but they punctured the atmosphere again. Kesey tries to build it up, in the same soft tones, but it’s tough going. He plunges in with the vision, the vision of Beyond Acid, how he saw the lines of light across the bay in Manzanillo, the line of grass …
“ … and I’d smoked some grass, some Acapulco Gold, as a matter of fact …”
Cheers go up in the dark, Acapulco Gold! Oh shit we’re esoteric heads and we know the creamiest of all the marijuana. But it’s a freaking puncture. Kesey plunges through the whole vision: the line of acid, the circle demanding completion, the little lights across the bay … It’s metaphorical, allegorical, brains are getting messed up left and right … The rock ‘n’ roll, the frenzy, the TV cameras, the darkness, the cops, and now … this … It keeps ricocheting from level to level. Shit! what is Kesey … doing … Finally the line with the hook on it—completing the circle without going all the way. He’s telling them the whole thing, but—what is …
“We’ve been going through that door and staying awhile and then going back out through that same door. But until we start going that far … and then going beyond … we’re not going to get anywhere, we’re not going to experience anything new …”
They’re uncomfortable, they’re stuffing their shirts in and pulling them out, too many rips in the balloon, and brains messed up … and the freaking TV jackals stabbing microphones around like tape-recording the hanging of Lenny Bruce—
“Let’s find out where we are. Let’s move it around. Let’s dance on it.”
