A Nation of Mystics

by Pamela Johnson

  Part of her searching was a symptom of her romantic side. She was reading a lot of Ginsberg and Kerouac and Burroughs and believed that thoughtful, artistic people felt pain more intensely, their awareness honed by the experience of breaking taboos. Sleeping with Jim had broken a taboo and had caused pain. But she had learned something from her months with him. To grow, to create something valuable, to know herself further, she needed more experience. Isn’t that what Jim had suggested?

  For the first time in her life, she was truly free, to come, to go, to do anything she wanted, to test the limits, no longer bound by an all-girl Catholic high school, by parents, by a university, by cultural mores, by traditions of right and wrong. Everyone around her was experimenting with new lifestyles and ways of living with others. As Felix had explained, in the Haight, there were no rules.

  Realizing that there were but a few weeks of summer left before returning to school, she looked to every new happening as a path to knowledge, a way to continue to define herself. Her sexual affairs were several, and she was grateful that her loose liaisons made no demands. Refusing to discriminate, she believed each man could teach her something, and in the process, gained some skill and lost many of her inhibitions.

  An unexpected aspect of Kathy’s easy manner in meeting people was her unintentional involvement in Richard’s business. Without knowing it, her talents had made her a valuable silent partner. In the weeks that followed, she introduced Richard and Alex to David, much to Kevin’s chagrin, because David could sell them the same high quality pot and hash. When she introduced Richard to Raphael, who could produce truckloads of good kilos, Richard began selling weed to both Kevin and David. And if Kevin was out of acid, Kathy only needed to hitch the Bay Bridge to Berkeley to pick it up from someone else.

  She would meet people on the street or in the park or at someone’s apartment and with disarming, open intimacy, teach them about the Haight, share the ideas of this new world, exchange travel tales, and learn exactly what they wanted to cop. She began setting up meetings for them with Richard, and after a sale, they’d return for more product, often becoming regular customers. She laughed at Richard’s suggestion that he pay her a percentage for her contacts and was unaware that he had decided to put the money aside for her. He and Alex would use it to increase their investment capital, but when she returned to school, the money would be hers.

  What she would not do was use those sacraments—psilocybin, mescaline, and the most powerful of the mind manifestors, LSD—for fear they would touch her vulnerability. The cracks in her perfect façade included not only memories of Jim, but also the sporadic and upsetting phone calls she made to her frantic and hostile parents, their conversations filled with tears, threats of mental institutions, bribes to come home, and discourses on the dangers of Communism, the sin of unmarried sex, the risk of chromosome damage from LSD, and the filthy and bizarre clothing of hippies. Kathy believed that acid might be a long, twelve-hour revelation for which she was not yet ready. After listening to people talk about their trips, the one certain thing she knew was that she did not want to meet God at that moment. None of Marcie’s promptings or impatience brought her any closer to tripping. She didn’t have anyone like Richard, she explained, but when she did, she’d drop, and Marcie would be the first to know.

  So she continued to move without a good deal of thinking, closing her ears to any advice and taking her own hard path. Instead, she took Bob Dylan’s words to heart and never looked back.

  A cold wind whipped up by the fog forced Kathy to button her jacket as she walked down Haight Street, calling greetings to people she knew, talking now and then to strangers, as she always did.

  “Want to get high, little girl?” one of them asked. “Want to try some smack?”

  The man was leaning against the wall like hawkers did every day. This was not the first time she’d been offered smack—heroin. Any drug could be found on the street. A certain history, artistry, surrounded heroin—William Burroughs, Charlie Parker, Billie Holliday, Alan Ginsburg, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan.

  What might it be like to live Alan Ginsburg’s Howl and run through the lone, dim streets of pain searching for answers? she wondered.

  At this moment, some curiosity as to what all those artists saw in heroin enticed her. Summer was half over and her time in the Haight—maybe her very freedom—was slipping by. If heroin had been meaningful for others she respected, why not see what it was about? Why not get a little more experience? Maybe even become the kind of woman Jim would find interesting.

  Ralph was like scores of others she had met, wearing a scuffed black motorcycle jacket, hair dark and unwashed, maybe a little older, a little less alert. He led her to an apartment just off Fillmore Street, showed her how to measure an amount of the dirty white powder into a spoon, add water, and hold it over a flame while the powder dissolved. A tiny wad of cotton was dropped into the mixture to serve as a filter, the tip of the needle placed on the cotton, and the liquid drawn into the glass dropper. Ralph held the works between his thumb and forefinger, tapping the glass to bring bubbles to the top, his hands trembling in anticipation.

  Ralph obviously wanted to be the one to hit her, wanted to be the one to stick the needle in her arm. But he had told her the rules of the game: Hitting was something she had to learn for herself. He showed her how to tie a cord around her arm so that, when it was released, it would fall away, allowing the blood to take the dose to the rest of the body; how to pump her hand so that her veins stood out, then gently tap the syringe through the skin. When blood showed inside the syringe at the bottom of the glass, you were in the vein. Time to release the cord and squeeze gently on the plunger.

  “Hey … this isn’t bad,” she mumbled, feeling her body slowly relax. A cloud drifted over her, soft; she was floating, all the trials and struggles gone—Jim, Felix, her parents, worry over money and school—all gone—just soft mellow abandon and a slight nausea.

  Kathy stayed with Ralph for two days, never leaving his apartment, never wondering if she’d be missed. With a habit that needed satisfying, Ralph was hitting more often than she was. People came and went—some to shoot up, others leaving money or delivering more heroin, a few trading a radio or a camera for a folded white paper bindle.

  Somewhere in those two days, Kathy admitted that she loved the ritual, the ceremony of preparing the fix. After three or four hits, she realized that hitting was like fucking, only you did it with yourself. The needle was the penis; that was your old man. But this way, you could have it anytime you wanted—your choice. Mixing and putting the syringe together was foreplay, wonderful anticipation. You could play with yourself, pulling blood in and out of your arm through the needle, finally to climax when you squeezed and the dose hit your brain, then withdraw the needle and be at peace. Needle freak. She had heard the words on the street, and now she understood.

  Ralph helped her prepare an outfit for herself in a small box—a glass syringe, a bulbous nipple, thread for tightening the nipple onto the syringe, a cotton filter, and some old needles. The box lay tucked away in her pocket, to be taken out whenever he offered her any of the brown powder.

  Toward the end of the second day, Kathy felt for the first time that she wanted a hit. Nothing overpowering, just felt it would be nice. When she asked for it, Ralph gave her a look and measured an amount a little larger than her earlier tastes. “This’ll get you off.”

  The dose sent her to sit next to the toilet, thinking she might vomit. She didn’t, but she spent hours sitting on the bathroom floor, quietly musing things over, chastising herself for uncharitable thoughts about the people who visited Ralph’s apartment. They were different from the people she’d met at Richard’s, slow and with nothing much to say. She tried telling herself they were only getting high, just as she was.

  Kathy closed her eyes. That wasn’t true; this was a different scene. She wasn’t so sure what getting high really meant anymore. The people who arrived with items for sale didn’t s
tay long or give much, had no plans, and cared for nothing other than what they could purchase.

  Sometime early on the next morning, she thought again how nice it would be to shoot up, to feel the needle in her arm, but this time, Ralph’s response slapped her out of lassitude, his grin one of smug eagerness. “Well, I don’t know. Whatcha’ gonna do for me—huh, girl?”

  Right. What was she going to do for him? Her eyes traveled the squalid room and focused on his face. There was nothing between them, no love, not even good feeling—nothing except her own selfishness. She was only there to take.

  “Sorry, Ralph,” she said sadly, disgusted with herself, feeling unclean, dirty. “There’s nothing I can do for you. I’m sorry.” She picked up her jacket and headed for the door.

  “You’ll be back.” He lay back in his chair, smirking, watching her leave.

  Kathy returned to the Ashbury Street flat that night, avoiding everyone’s questions about where she’d been, very much ashamed. Not wanting to explain anything the next day, she was gone before anyone else awoke. Restless, she walked the streets, searching again. In the back of her mind, Jim Morrison’s song about the little girl being lost played over and over. She tried to push it away, but it hung there.

  “Acid, smack, speed, lids,” one of the hawkers called his wares.

  Speed. That’s what I want. Didn’t Richard say speed brought you up? And I’m certainly tired of down. “How much for the speed?”

  “I got $10 or $20 packets of crystal.”

  “Oh … powder?” Kathy reached into her pocket, feeling. Yes, it was still there. The box Ralph had made for her.

  “Don’t you know how to do this?” the vendor asked. “Come on. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

  His name was Johnny; he was young and soft-spoken. Kathy’s pocket was full of miscellaneous change, and by piecing it together, she managed $10, the first drug she’d bought herself since coming to the Haight.

  Johnny led her to his communal flat on Fell Street, and Kathy prepared everything as she had been taught, substituting meth for heroin, except, Johnny explained, you don’t cook meth. It simply dissolves in water. Gently, she tapped the needle into her arm. Instead of the cloud descending around her, she felt as if she were holding her face to the sun. The bright light filled her brain, melting her vision into golden yellow heat.

  “What … did … you … give … me …” she asked slowly, falling heavily to the couch.

  Busy mixing his own dose, Johnny was at first unaware of her question, but a glance at her face, and he was at the couch feeling for her pulse. “Take it easy,” he said calmly. “You just overamped. You should come out of it in a minute or two.”

  One hand on her shoulder, Johnny held the other on her wrist, trying to feel her pulse rate without alarming her further. Tiny drops of water beaded along her upper lip and forehead. Johnny counted her pulse beats for fifteen seconds, then her eyes cleared. He waited until she stabilized a bit more before releasing her wrist.

  “Boy, you sure must be sensitive to drugs,” he told her with relief. “You really didn’t do that much.”

  Kathy was feeling better, clearer with each passing second. “You’re right. Ever since I got here, I’ve been in one tight squeeze or another, not knowing when to stop, just doing everything I can … almost … not quite everything. I keep meeting people and they keep giving me something to get high on. Not that I’m complaining—I really like getting high. It’s a lot better than being straight. I guess I’ve always liked getting high. Even when I was a kid, I’d like to twirl round and round getting dizzy. Then I’d fall down, watching the craziness of everything …” Kathy rambled on, feeling alert, more cheerful.

  “Now this is a lot better than heroin. You can think. Talk. Do things. You don’t have to sit by a toilet …” She laughed, beginning to move around the room. “Lord, this place is a mess. Maybe I’ll just tidy up for you …” and she was off—cleaning, straightening, her body demanding action, pushing her into the frantic energy the drug created.

  Eight hours later, the run down began. Kathy’s throat was hoarse, the inside of her cheeks chewed raw, her teeth sore from clenching and grinding.

  “We’d better do some more,” Johnny told her. “I’ll make it up to the guy later.”

  Johnny’s roommates arrived, and a party spirit filled the flat; Johnny was generous with what wasn’t his. Kathy shared her works with a girl and gave her extra needle to one of Johnny’s friends to complete a fit he wanted to make. For thirty-six hours, they shot up when the need pressed, without food or sleep, just sips of water. Kathy had gone from cleaning the house to writing. So many thoughts needed preservation. With no paper in the flat, she wrote on toilet paper with a felt-tipped pen, until she had gone through two rolls.

  By the morning of the third day, the party had definitely turned sour. The meth was finished, and the slow comedown was inevitable. Burnt, stretched beyond the limit, Kathy prayed for sleep, a long sleep that would heal a raw mouth and arms bruised from missed veins. But the drug fought her, pushed her even as she tried to lie quietly, her body twitching, sometimes an arm or leg jumping convulsively. Adding to frazzled nerves, Johnny began to complain about the debt he owed, bickering ceaselessly with his friend about sharing the debt. The girl she’d been so happy to meet was still talking nonstop, but Kathy could give each comment three or four possible interpretations.

  Which one does she mean?

  She shut her eyes in disgust against the scenes of the past days, until finally, desperately needing quiet and wondering what she was truly seeking, she dug deep into her coat’s lining for her last fifty-dollar bill, the money that was to take her and Marcie back home. Feeling responsible, as if by this experiment she’d caused discord in a place where there should have been friendship and peace, she laid her fit and the bill on the table. The room was suddenly quiet, all eyes on the money.

  “Johnny, I’m splitting.”

  She closed the door against the new argument building between Johnny and his friend about how to use the money, whether to pay for the used meth or to take out the heroin so the comedown would be easier. Sick at heart, hating herself, she started toward the flat, the blocks endless, her feet dragging, hoping no one would be there. If she couldn’t face herself, how was she to face anyone else?

  On Fell Street, dozens of people were hitchhiking. Some were going only a few blocks; others, across the Bay to Berkeley. New York said one of the signs. Houston. Vancouver. L.A. People were traveling in twos and threes.

  Suddenly, the fog broke overhead, and the sunlight brought a warm touch to her skin. A lone hitcher stood on the corner nearby.

  “Good luck,” she called on impulse, smiling, wishing him well, holding up two fingers in a peace sign. “How long have you been here?”

  “Not long. Getting a ride here isn’t the hard part. It’s rural America that’s tough.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Tucson. Want to come? It would be a lot easier hitching with a girl.”

  Kathy didn’t need to think long. She had the clothes on her back, her sandals, and her jacket—plenty.

  She kept one foot on the curb so she couldn’t get busted for hitching in the street, a thumb pointing east, and within ten minutes, they had their first ride. Fresno, the driver said. Settled in the backseat, Kathy’s thumbing partner took out an egg salad sandwich and a quart of orange juice. The inside of her mouth was raw. The citrus burned. Chewing was slow. But it felt good to be on the move again.

  As they left Oakland, the summer heat became dry and intense, and at some point along the endless miles of valley, she fell asleep, the car bumping rhythmically along the freeway, her ears tuned to the soft hum of the car’s engine.

  KATHY

  TUCSON, ARIZONA

  JULY 1967

  Nothing disturbed Kathy as she slept all the way to Fresno—not the feel of the road, the sound of the engine, the stops, or the hot valley sun burning across her outstr
etched arm. Even when they reached their destination, it took hard shaking to wake her.

  “Come on,” her hitching partner called. “The man wants to get on his way.”

  “Sorry about that,” she muttered, trying to clear her head.

  Her partner looked closely at her, and Kathy feared he could see that she was crashing, and crashing hard. But once on the side of the freeway entrance, she ignored his scrutiny and was all smiles, dancing to music only she could hear, her silhouette darkening against the fading sun.

  “What’s your name?” she asked. “I’m Kathy.”

  “My name’s Larry. Looks like you’re well rested now, Kathy.”

  “I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” she laughed, ignoring the irritation in his voice. “I was just so tired. Hey, a ride!” Kathy ran up to meet the car, spoke a few words to the driver, and called, “He’s going all the way to Tucson—nonstop. He wants someone to help with the driving.”

  “Let’s go,” Larry nodded.

  Five minutes on the road and Kathy was asleep again. The next thing she knew, Larry was calling her name and again shaking her shoulder. “Tucson,” he told her puzzled look.

  “Oh … thanks for the ride,” she mumbled to the driver, pushing her way out of the car, realizing she’d slept through the night and certainly hadn’t helped drive. She stepped down onto a sandy road on the outskirts of the city, looking around, without the faintest idea of where she was or the time, only knew that a row of commercial buildings stood to one side of the highway exit and the sun was well up.

  Larry picked up his canvas pack and started walking toward a nearby restaurant. “Do you have any money?” he asked.