She remembered the $50 she’d left in Johnny’s flat—everything she’d had. “No.”
“I’m going to call my house and get someone to come out and get us. Let’s get something to eat while we’re waiting.”
“Thanks for doing all the driving,” Kathy said apologetically, hurrying to catch up, her legs shaky. “I’m sorry. I guess I just crashed.”
“Yeah, crashed,” he muttered, continuing his quick pace ahead of her.
On the blue door of the small, white-stucco restaurant, the sign read Abierto. A bell rang when Larry pushed open the door, and he chose a corner table painted blue and decorated with hand-painted flowers.
“I’ll be right back,” Kathy mumbled, heading for the washroom.
The small room held a toilet and a clean sink, but only one faucet had water. Cold. It would have to do. She picked up the soap to wash, glanced into the mirror … and caught her breath.
“My God!” she breathed to an astonished reflection.
Greasy, matted hair. Gaunt, pale face. Cheekbones protruding sharply. Thin, bruised arms. Filthy T-shirt. Jeans loose and hanging on her hips. She weighed maybe one hundred pounds. The cold water felt good on her face and arms, and she tried using her fingers to brush the knots out of her hair. Hoping for some color, she bit her lips and pinched her cheeks, all the while watching her hands shake. Only then did she realize it had been days since she’d eaten properly.
Did I really spend days writing on toilet paper?
She dropped her head into her hands, too mortified to look at herself any longer.
All I need to do is eat, she assured herself. A little food, and I’ll be okay. Maybe stop shaking.
She tried smiling as she slid into a chair at the table. A cup of coffee waited, steaming in its cup. She grabbed greedily for it, but before her fingers touched the white ceramic mug, Larry reached for her arm.
“You don’t want to put that in your body, do you?”
Stunned, she said, “I’m dead tired.”
“Yeah? Well, maybe it’s time to clean out the garbage.”
Kathy eyed him warily. She was famished, terribly thirsty, and growing angry. “Who are you to know what’s good for me?”
He pointed to the needle tracks on her arms. “Speed, right?”
Kathy lowered her eyes, some of the fight gone. “I guess that’s why I’m so tired. I was up for three days.”
“I figured you were crashing.”
“How would you know?” she asked defensively.
“I’ve been there. Not with needles. Pills. A long time ago. You think you need more speed?”
“No.”
“Then why drink the coffee?”
Kathy brusquely pushed the cup away, coffee sloshing over the sides and onto the table, hating his patronizing tone.
“Did you bring your fit with you?” he asked.
A startling image of the box with its needles and syringe flashed before her eyes. “I gave it away. The needles were an experiment that didn’t work.”
“Good. I don’t want that kind of energy in my house. Okay, that’s settled.”
Settled? What was settled?
“Have you had Mexican food before?”
“No,” she answered harshly, uptight as hell.
His brow furrowed at her tone, and he gave her a steady look. “You didn’t look like a three-day binge when I first saw you on the street,” he answered just as irritably. “I wouldn’t have asked you to come if I’d known.”
“Look, let’s get something straight,” she snapped. “I did that speed run once. I didn’t know what it was then. I do now. It’s a bad trip—the worst. I don’t want to hear about it again. Understand?” She bit her lip. If she weren’t so hungry, she’d leave. She could do that anyway right after breakfast.
Who needs to be lectured by some dude who sounds like he’s from New York?
“I ordered for you. Is that alright?”
“Seems to me you like doing the ordering,” she mumbled.
For a moment, he simply looked at her, and Kathy could tell he was deciding whether to argue further. Instead, he said, “I’m gonna go make that phone call to get us a ride.”
The food was hot—sweet peppers with cheese and egg and rice and beans. The flavors seduced her, and as she slowly ate, she felt her vitality returning. Larry became more talkative, telling her of his origins in New York, his travels in Mexico, and his love of the desert where he’d made his home in its harsh solitude and beauty.
He could pass for Indian, Kathy thought, scrutinizing him. If he kept his mouth shut.
His skin was dark from the summer sun, his hair straight, shoulder length, and deep black, an angular jaw, high cheekbones, black eyes, slanted and alert.
He returned her gaze as she studied him, listened as she explained about her political involvement in Louisiana, why she’d come to San Francisco, and what she planned to do in the fall.
“What were you doing in the Haight?” she asked.
“Visiting friends in the peace movement. They’re starting a yoga school in San Francisco.” Somewhat begrudgingly, he offered an apology. “I, uh … I need to say that maybe I overreacted. We’ve all experimented. I’m … I’m glad you’re here.”
Kathy, easy and already on the road to being herself again, answered, “Thanks, Larry.” And casually putting a hand on his arm, said, “So am I.”
By the time Larry’s ride arrived, it was late afternoon. The driver’s name was Jose, and he worked on a ranch with Larry. He eyed Kathy, threw Larry’s pack in the back of an old pickup, and laughing, began sharing news in Spanish. Dark, red-brown in color, Jose was true Indian. Tall, dark haired, he had high cheekbones and night-black eyes that sparkled with perpetual laughter. He and Larry wore the same jeans and cowboy boots—men so similar, they could have passed for brothers.
The sun was low on the horizon when Kathy took a seat between them in the cab. The highway they drove led south, away from the city. Through the car window, she watched the shifting pictures, the desert full of images that were new to her. Tall saguaros flashed golden in the last rays of the sun, the sand turning to dusky brick red, the hue deepening as the sun dropped. The sky became a flaming torch of gold, then crimson, until the horizon line burned to thin glowing embers. The air turned cooler. Stars appeared, one by one, in a vivid purple sky.
“Here’s our road,” Larry told her as the vehicle slowed down. “Over there, those lights—that’s the ranch house.”
When Kathy stepped out of the truck, she breathed deeply. The sky was immense, crowded with stars, stretching so wide that she could not hold it in a single glance. Sounds rustled in the brush. From a distance came the cry of a hunting owl.
“Now I understand why you love it,” she whispered, standing close to Larry. “It’s beautiful.”
He put his arm around her shoulders. “Come on inside.”
The entranceway of the thick-walled stucco home opened to a sunken living room with unfinished beamed ceilings and a massive stone fireplace. Above the room was a second story of bedrooms, framed with an open balcony to the tall living room. Navajo rugs covered the walls, some in patterns of ascending stairs, others with a diamond-shaped design. One rug of contrasting lines of black and white looked very old and worn. Kathy reached out a hand and ran it along the old wool.
“A chief’s blanket, from about 1890,” Larry said, standing at her side. “Considering what the Navajo have been through, we’re lucky it still exists.”
“Larry!” a woman’s voice called from the balcony.
Larry looked up quickly and shot Jose a fierce, questioning glance.
“I forgot.” Jose shrugged his shoulders, humor flashing in his eyes.
“Carolyn.” Larry walked to where he could see her. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m back. I thought we should talk.”
“Come on downstairs, will you?”
Running down the stairs, Carolyn saw Kathy and stopped, unsur
e, her smile fading.
About twenty years old, Carolyn looked as if she had stepped from a Beach Boys sun and surf poster. Long, blond hair, blue eyes framed in thick lashes, a smile that spoke of years of adolescent braces, and tanned skin made all the darker by a white embroidered Mexican dress.
“Carolyn … this is Kathy. She hitched back from the Haight with me.”
“Hi,” Kathy said to her, but Carolyn simply continued to stare.
“Excuse us for a minute,” Larry said to Kathy, and taking Carolyn’s arm, walked her out the front door.
“I did forget she was here,” Jose explained. “Maybe it was seeing you with Larry.”
Kathy circled the room, examining this new world with its blankets and woven baskets, its small wooden dolls dressed in ceremonial costume, until finally, her eyes drifted back to Jose who stood watching her.
“Who is she, anyway?” Kathy asked.
“His ex-old lady. Walked out on him about a month ago. Was going to live with a buddy of ours—Steve. Seems she’s changed her mind.”
Kathy was suddenly feeling tired again, craving sleep. She fell onto the comfortable, scuffed sofa, still glancing around the room, occasionally back to Jose. The door opened, and Larry walked in alone.
“About Carolyn,” he said quietly. “It’s something I have to finish. I have to see where it goes.”
“You don’t owe me any explanations. I had no idea where I’d be going when I left with you. I just needed to get away. I think you know why.”
“You always this tough?”
Kathy stopped short. Her eyes widened.
Tough? No one had ever called her tough.
“Let me show you where you can sleep,” he said.
“Larry, I just wanted to say thanks.” Gently, her fingers brushed his cheek. “Thanks for caring. You could have simply left me on the road, but you didn’t.”
A wave of regret touched him with her fingers—no time to know her.
“And can I take a shower?” she asked. “I’ve been in these clothes for a week. I’m not going to ask what I smell like.”
KATHY
THE TUCSON RANCH HOUSE, SOUTHERN ARIZONA
JULY 1967
Sixteen hours later, Kathy woke to a scorching Arizona summer afternoon. On a chair, she found an embroidered Mexican peasant blouse and a bright, long skirt in lightweight material. Her jeans had been washed and folded. Choosing the skirt and blouse, she dressed, stood in front of the mirror, and examined herself. The circles were gone, her face was still pale, but at least her hair was clean. In the last months, it had grown past her shoulder blades. She grinned at her reflection, then walked into the hallway and toward the sound of voices in the kitchen. Her bare feet were cool and quiet on the tile floor when she announced, “Good morning.”
The air was thick with the smell of marijuana. Jose jumped at the sound of her voice, quickly shuffling newspapers around the table. His glance was for Larry, his eyes holding a big question mark.
“It’s okay,” Larry told him. “Afternoon, Kathy.” He passed her the joint, gave her a thorough new scan, and seemed to like what he saw.
Jose shrugged and moved the newspapers to reveal the hundreds of white tablets he’d been counting.
“Oh! Those again!” Kathy laughed, passing the joint back to Larry. “I can’t seem to get away from them! Did you carry those from the Haight? You might have told me.”
“Those again?”
“They’re everywhere. Must be thousands. Do you have anything to drink?” she asked.
Jose said something to Larry in Spanish.
“Uh, check the refrigerator,” Larry told her. “There’s all kinds of things to eat, too. Help yourself to anything.”
The thought of food reminded her she was starved, but when she entered the kitchen, it was unlike any Kathy had seen before. She walked around it, touching and smelling. Whole grain unsliced bread and tortillas. Baskets of jicama and chayote. Live alfalfa and lentil sprouts in jars in the window. Ropes of dried red peppers and braided garlic. Dried fruit, nuts and seeds, grains and beans, all in jars on open shelves.
Jose was still counting tabs when she sat down, carrying a breakfast of bread and cheese and apple juice.
“My girlfriend, Marcie, loves that acid. White Lightning.”
“How about you? What do you think?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never taken acid.”
“Why not?”
“I guess I’ve never been in the right place at the right time. With the right person. But Marcie’s in love. She and her old man just trip out. By the way, where’s Carolyn?”
“She went back to Laguna to pack her things and move back in. Where did you see thousands of these tabs?”
“The people in my house are moving lots of them. How much did you pay for yours?” She laughed apologetically at her audacity.
“A dollar sixty a tab,” Larry gambled. “We’ll double our price by selling them here. We won’t be making a dime or quarter on each tab as we would selling them in the Haight.”
“How many do you have there? About five hundred? I could get that quantity for 90¢ a cap if you wanted.”
“Did you add a dime for yourself?”
“Come on, Larry. I don’t need a dime.”
“How are you going to get home?”
“Alright, then. A dollar a hit.”
Again, Jose said something to him in Spanish. Larry looked over at her. “Can you sell keys?”
“Maybe. What’s the price?”
“Twenty-five dollars for twenty or more. Here, taste this again.” He passed her the joint he was smoking.
So that’s the trip here—weed. The taste’s good, and it’s stony. Richard can probably move it.
“Let me make a phone call,” she decided. “I’ll tell you what I can do.”
“Okay, but don’t make it from the house. We can’t have long distance numbers on the bill. Jose will take you down to the local grocery store. There’s a phone there.”
On the next day, Kathy drove with Jose to the coin phone, and after emptying the pocketful of change Larry had given her into the machine, she reached Richard at the house. When she heard him say he had $1,000 that was hers, saved from her connections and introductions, Kathy was speechless. Had she heard correctly? A thousand dollars? What had she done? She had simply turned Richard on to everyone she knew.
“Are you kidding me?”
“I’m wiring $600 to the will call window at the main post office in Tucson,” Richard yelled over the poor connection. “You’ll have to buy your ticket home.”
“Come back by Sunday,” Marcie shouted from the background. “Try to make the Grateful Dead concert.”
Still stunned, Kathy walked slowly back to where Jose waited in the old, blue truck, with its rounded bumpers, thinking that if the money were hers, she would use it to help the family secure this new connection.
On the ride home, Jose began to share his story with her, how he and Larry had met at a pacifist training school in Big Sur, California, how he had encouraged Larry to return with him to the desert, how they had chosen a place to rent near the Mexican border, its porous boundary sure to work in their favor.
As they turned into the driveway, Kathy murmured, “Larry sure wasn’t kidding when he said July temperatures could reach as high as 110 degrees during the day.”
“I’d say it’s pretty close,” Jose grinned. “You’ll get used to it.”
“All I can think about is falling into the pool.”
Pulling up to the house, Jose saw the new pickup in the driveway. “Hey, Miguel and Rosie are back from Santa Fe! They’re the rest of the family. Come and meet them.”
Kathy first saw them from a distance, swimming naked in the pool, long hair floating around their bodies in the water. Rosie swam to the side, sprang from the water like Venus rising, and padded, completely unaffected by her nudity, toward Kathy, her hand outstretched, water dripping from her dark hair and eyelashe
s. Kathy had never seen a woman casually walking around naked—certainly not with men around. In the startled moment, she recalled all her years of locked bathrooms at home, towels discreetly wrapped around herself in the dorm, the panic she had felt when she’d first started going braless. She glanced sideways at Jose and saw his eyes laughing at her confusion.
“Come swim with us,” Rosie invited.
“Thanks. Maybe later. I, uh … I have to talk to Larry for a few minutes.”
Rosie dove easily back into the pool, and Kathy turned to the house, Jose following, his eyes still aflame. Inside, he motioned her to the narrow staircase leading to a lower floor. The room ran the length of the first floor; long ago, someone had turned useless space into a family room with a long wet bar. Built inside the wet bar were shelves with rows and rows of bricks wrapped in plain brown paper.
“Make your phone call?” Larry asked passing her a lit joint.
“I’m getting the money sent tomorrow. I’d like to buy twenty keys and see how quickly they go.”
“Are you going to fly them back?”
“I think that would be easiest. You have a couple of suitcases I can use?”
“Sure. Take a look at what you’re buying.”
Larry picked up one of the kilos, unwrapped it, and held it up to her. Taking it, she sniffed the herb the way Richard had taught her, tasted it to see if it was sugared or wet with cola to make it heavier, and looked closely for seeds and stems. Crushing one edge, she broke a little into the palm of her hand. “Can I roll this up?”
Amused, Larry opened a drawer and took out rolling papers.
Quickly, tightly, like a pro, she rolled and tasted. Then, rushing with the stone, she gave Larry a brilliant smile and slowly announced, “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
Spacing, her eyes drifted to a picture of an Indian medicine man hanging behind the bar.
Larry followed her gaze. “A Curtis print,” he explained. “He took a lot of photographs of Indians at the turn of the century.”
“You look a lot like that man,” she observed. “Your hair held back by a headband. Dark brown skin. Strong body …”
“Kathy, you want to take some acid? With me? And with yourself. Everything you need is right here: The desert, the privacy of the ranch, friends. Miguel and Rosie just dropped. Jose and I were going to drop after talking to you.”
A Nation of Mystics Page 19
