A Nation of Mystics

by Pamela Johnson

  Others he had known hadn’t made the leap. Some were still experimenting, simply trying to get out there, carelessly using whatever drugs were around, indifferent to psychic trauma or damage to their bodies and uninterested in the politics of growth. He told himself that they were still figuring it out, learning in their own good time. But the truth was, he no longer wanted their energy in his life.

  The business, too, was shifting, the drug world segmenting. Where once there was one group of people selling everything, seeing what worked, testing the markets they had, now people were beginning to specialize.

  Some had drifted to pot, to the easy, constant sales, polishing their Spanish skills and dealing on both sides of the border.

  All the crystal acid he was buying was coming out of Berkeley. Richard suspected that such a highly technical job needed skilled, educated people who were interested in ideas, spiritual paths, and the political work spread from the body of the university.

  Certain former acquaintances had drifted toward heroin, taking a hit in the morning and another after work, few of their associates suspecting they were users. Others into junk, had made rip-offs a way of life to support a habit.

  The worst was the meth scene because, by now, everyone knew it was a bad trip. Meth was easy to make and sell, and those dealing it weren’t about increasing awareness, but about the money that could be easily made.

  “We’re taking those thousand tabs with us when we go on the road for the holidays,” Tony said, cutting into Richard’s thoughts. “Thanks for putting the order together, brother.”

  “Let me show you the new tabs.”

  Richard opened a paper bag and removed a clear, red plastic box. Inside, Tony could make out the little barrel-shaped wedges.

  “What color are they?” Tony asked, squinting to look through the plastic.

  Richard pulled off the lid and held the box to the light.

  “Merry Christmas,” he smiled.

  MARCIE, KATHY, AND RICHARD

  WINTERLAND BALLROOM, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

  NEW YEAR’S EVE, DECEMBER 1967

  Somewhere on the Golden Gate Bridge, Kathy began to come on to the acid she and Larry had dropped at Richard’s thirty minutes before. Color began to blend, the lights to glitter, and time to fall away. Kathy looked up at Larry, giggling. By the time they arrived at Winterland Ballroom for the New Year’s Eve party, she didn’t want to be standing in a crowd and felt anxious to sit down, her legs unsteady and rubbery beneath her. Richard gave the doorman the tickets and pushed everyone past the gate.

  “Richard!”

  Mary Ann signaled to him from where she stood next to the lobby door. “God, you’re right on time,” she said, hugging him.

  “On time? Are you kidding? We’re over an hour late. I was supposed to get seats, remember?”

  “We got here early enough to get a good block of seats. Mark’s already here. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of space. Let’s get in there. The music’s about to start.”

  A constant flow of people pushed into and out of the darkened auditorium. Following single file through the crowd, they found their way to bleacher seats directly at the center of the room and against the wall.

  “Back there,” Mary Ann shouted, pointing. Her children, Levi, Abigail, and Ansel—eight, six, and four years old—had cordoned off a section, running back and forth, making sure it remained available for the tribe.

  Mark saw Richard and his family climbing the short flight of stairs to the seats and waved. “How’s it goin’, man? Happy New Year!” he called, shaking Richard’s hand.

  “Great! Fuckin’ good acid, man. Where’s that comin’ from?”

  “The same people who did the White Lightning. I’m glad they’re selling crystal now.”

  “So am I.” Richard held up the baggie with the red and green speckled tabs, reached in, ate one, and held the bag out to Mark. “Those ten grams of crystal are just about gone. Get me ten more, will you?”

  Mark nodded, took a tab and swallowed.

  “Did you hear about the tabbing machine messing up some of the television sets in the area?” Richard asked, laughing and absently passing the bag so that it traveled the entire length of the bleacher section. “Electricity draw. Someone complained …”

  Kathy was really coming on. Almost tired, she closed her eyes, patterns flowed, getting more pronounced, unfolding like quick-reel motion pictures of blooming flowers. Picture after picture crossed her lids while she waited, knowing at the back of her mind that the pulsating would level off. Then there would be the great open clarity she could direct, instead of being at the mercy of the impulsive color and pattern shifts.

  Next to her, another body. Michelle. Kathy looked into her face and felt the sadness. Since early evening, David had been seriously flirting with a number of women, ignoring a pregnant old lady.

  “He’ll be here just as soon as the acid comes on,” Kathy murmured in her ear. “It’s the alcohol. It’ll be okay.”

  Then Kathy leaned back into Larry, carried away by her visions and the feel of Larry’s hands moving slowly over her body.

  Bill Graham stepped to the mike. “Ladies and Gentlemen! The Quicksilver Messenger Service.”

  Lifted by the music, Kathy opened her eyes. She tried sorting stimulation—each note a color, each sound an echoing vibration, each vibration touching a different part of her sensory system. Laughing, she started to move with the music, rubbed against Larry, and then reached out for Marcie. She wanted to hold her sister, love her, dance with her.

  Instead, she heard Michelle ask Marcie, “Want some coke? It adds color to the pot. We could dance better.”

  “I suppose so. Have you got any?”

  “Yes. Just take a tiny little bit. It’ll get rid of the champagne cloud.”

  Although Marcie had not been drinking, she took the proffered mirror from Michelle and snorted a very thin line with a rolled bill and sniffed up.

  “Hey, you’re right,” she said. “This is really nice. I’ve never had such a small amount before. Clarity with some color. Psychedelic. Not a big burnout downer, where you can’t move anything but your mouth. Greta, you want some coke. Just a little?”

  Greta looked at it, considered, then rubbed her hand over the child growing inside her. She shook her head, “No thanks. I’m fine right where I’m at.”

  The evening had moved closer to midnight, and Big Brother and the Holding Company had just left the stage. Kathy turned to Debbie and said, “I don’t think Jefferson Airplane are going to come on until after twelve o’clock. Want to go to the ladies room?”

  They climbed down the bleacher stairs, then, holding hands, they joined the single-file line weaving through the crowd and leading into the lobby. About halfway there, someone in the center of the auditorium screamed and started to search for a way out of the crowd, pushing. Like a pebble thrown into a pond, the crowd moved away from the shoving and screaming in concentric circles, themselves moving against anyone in the way, sending a ripple, first of concern, then of fear. The waves continued, some beginning to push back. Kathy and Debbie caught in the line, stoned and sensitive, felt the squeeze. Pressed hard against a wall of solid bodies, they gasped for breath, Kathy desperately holding to Debbie in hopes of staying together in the darkness.

  Someone on stage grabbed the microphone. “Peace, brothers and sisters. Everything’s fine,” the voice said with calmness. The edge of tension lifted from the crowd. Soft music flowed over the speakers. A man stepped down from the stage and led away the drug-confused screamer. The room settled. The weaving line thinned out and started moving again. Kathy and Debbie moved with it toward the light of the lobby, hurrying across the lit room, bizarre with its brightness, into the semi-privacy of the ladies room, where they threw themselves against a wall and shook.

  “Will we be able to get back?” Debbie asked.

  “I’m not sure. All I know is that acid and violence do not mix,” Kathy answered, her breathing beco
ming more regular, diamonds and flashes penetrating her vision. “I need to use the toilet.”

  “Can I borrow your hairbrush?” Debbie asked.

  At the mirror, Debbie shyly searched her face. Her lips were dark red from hours of biting them in an attempt to ease her acid smile. Her eyes were large and dilated. With shaking hands, the brush went up and into her straight, sandy brown hair, tangled from dancing and heavy with the residue of oil and sweat from the acid cleanse. She straightened the dress, noted that her nipples were still hard and piercing the lacy gown. From her bag, she took a vial of patchouli oil and dabbed it between her breasts, behind her ears, and onto her wrists.

  By the time Kathy returned, Debbie looked brushed and straightened, and she was ready with a little bottle of coke in one hand and the hairbrush in the other.

  “Here,” she said. “I have to pee. We’ll have to hurry or we’ll miss midnight. Let’s do a little bit of this coke so we can fight our way back through the crowd.”

  “Okay,” Kathy said, oblivious to the hungry stares of the women around them. “Let me hold on to it, will you? I want to give Larry some so we’re still in the same head space.”

  Returning to their seats was easier, although they felt the energy soar as everyone tried to make their final moves before the midnight countdown.

  “Larry!” Kathy threw her arms around him. “We nearly didn’t make it back. Here,” she passed him the mini bottle of coke. “I took a small snort in the bathroom.”

  Just as Larry held the tiny spoon to his nose and sniffed quickly, the lights in the auditorium flashed on. Behind the stage, sparklers and fireworks lit shining letters: A New Year of Peace, it read. A peace symbol blazed yellow-white. Doves were released from cages to fly around the high ceilings. Two horses appeared, one white, the other black, guides holding to the reins and weaving the animals slowly through the shouting crowd. Riding bareback on the white horse was a beautiful black man, naked, with a garland of flowers in his hair, ribbons flowing down his back. On the black horse sat a white man, naked and garlanded, holding up his arms to a crowd that roared its approval. Confetti and streamers appeared, the air sparkling snowdrops of color. Next to Larry, Merlin threw handfuls of joints, his personal confetti. Kathy saw them fly in slow motion, floating, mixed with hundreds of others that were offered in a gesture of peace to the New Year.

  Leaning over Larry, she kissed him passionately. “Happy New Year!” she cried, and he returned her kiss, running his hands over her body, wildly, leaving her abashed.

  Kevin and Debbie reached for Richard and Marcie to form a circle of four. Mark and Teresa joined them, Mary Ann, Keith, and the children, and soon the group was reaching out for other friends and tribal members, the circle growing larger.

  “Ladies and gentlemen—a very Happy New Year!” Bill Graham called over the microphone.

  A moment later, the first musical notes came through the air, slowly, picking up speed, faster, furious, catching the excitement of the moment, spiraling up and up by the energy in the room, pulling everyone with them, a funnel of emotion, sound, color, and feeling. The lights dimmed again. Once more, the audience was in the dark, facing the melding colors and lights of the stage, taken away by a fast single-note guitar run, the notes flowing up and down the scale, pulling soul and spirit a little higher with each passing second.

  “Fuckin’ outrageous,” Kathy whispered to Larry, awestruck.

  “Let’s dance!” Larry grabbed her, calling to Marcie and Richard. “Let’s dance!”

  They joined the throbbing, swaying crowd, hands held high above their heads, while the Airplane sent notes to touch the tips of their fingers. Wild ecstasy, the crowd mingling, merging, dancing with strangers. Laughing, hand grasping, head shaking, hair flowing revelry, went on through the night, into the morning’s wee hours, all caught in the endless moment of each other.

  A Year of Peace the lights had sputtered. The thought echoed through the crowd-mind. Surely, this would be the year the war ended. The young soldiers would come home from Vietnam. Villages would plant crops again. Children would no longer be burned with napalm. Racial hatreds would cease. Surely, this year, the spiritual awakening of the world would continue in earnest. The sacraments would teach the needed wisdom. Higher consciousness would overcome the power grab of the military and the materialism of the corporations. 1968—surely, this would be a miraculous year.

  By dawn, the auditorium had thinned considerably. At the sound of the last note and at the last smile and wave from the stage, the lights in the auditorium went on. Long tables were set up in the center of the room, trays of breakfast foods laid out.

  “Why don’t we go out to the beach for a while?” Richard suggested.

  Kevin shook his head. “We’re going home. Happy New Year, man. We’ll see you later on today.”

  “Good night all,” Debbie waved.

  “Yeah, us too,” said Alex. “I just want to lie down and space.”

  Larry looked at Kathy. She nodded. “We’ll go to the beach.”

  Along the water, the first gray light brushed the sky. The psychedelic patterns had mellowed. The cool, clear dawn breeze helped to clear Kathy’s head. She walked along the beach, holding her shoes in her hand, listening to the sound of the surf, her arm linked through Larry’s. Peace. All was in balance. The world was beauty, entirely right in its movement.

  Richard held Marcie close as they strolled the sand, his arm tight around her shoulders, her essence woven with his own, remembering the first morning they had come here together six months earlier. That had been another world: the summer of the Haight, the Summer of Love. Then, he had sold hundred-cap lots of acid; now, he was selling tabs by the tens of thousands. And in the year to come, he imagined a newly discovered alchemist who would turn a lowly fungus growing on rye into the glittering crystal that would open the Third Eye.

  “Richard,” Marcie whispered as he pulled her all the tighter. “It’s all so beautiful.”

  How long, he wondered? How long can I continue before they have me? Before the Man’s knocking at my door? How long before being separated from Marcie?

  He stopped and took a deep breath, and looking out over the water, was overwhelmed by the boundlessness of the ocean, a peek at the soul of God.

  Great Spirit, he prayed silently, let me be an instrument of Light. Give us some time. All I ask is a little time so that we can get the world turned around before it’s too late.

  Then, lifting his arm to wave Kathy and Larry toward them, he started back to the car and the possibilities of the new year.

  APPENDIX A

  LIST OF CHARACTERS

  Albert Wright

  Chemist, child genius, student at California Institute of Technology, Doug’s partner

  Alex

  Richard’s grammar school friend and current partner, dealer in Haight-Ashbury, Honey’s old man

  Alison (Ali)

  Wade’s old lady

  Amy

  Julie’s friend in Laguna Beach, Christian’s old lady

  Barry Hume

  Anthropology graduate student, UC Berkeley; member of Dr. Miller’s expeditionary team

  Benjamin Miller

  Professor and botanist at the University of California, Berkeley

  Bert Jones

  Member of the ROTC at Berkeley, Max Wilkes’s fraternity brother

  Bert Parker

  Lance Bormann’s new law partner

  Bob

  Member of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, surfer, and dealer in Laguna Beach

  Bremer, Supervisor Dolph

  Northern California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement

  Carolyn

  Larry’s old lady in Tucson

  Christian Brooks

  UC Berkeley history student, son of Christian missionaries in India; Amy’s old man, dealer

  David

  Dealer in Haight-Ashbury, likes coke and women

  Dean Putnam

  Jerry’s father, botanist a
t the University of California, Berkeley

  Debbie

  Kevin’s old lady, skilled in embroidery and clothing design

  Dharma

  Surfboard craftsman, motorcycle mechanic, dealer in Laguna Beach and Topanga Canyon

  Doug

  Chemist, student at California Institute of Technology, Albert Wright’s partner

  Felix Ringer

  Lead guitarist for Electric Reason

  Greta

  Merlin’s old lady in the Haight-Ashbury

  Hanson, Lieutenant Frank

  Berkeley Police, Narcotics Department

  Honey

  Alex’s old lady in the Haight-Ashbury

  Jacob

  Lisa’s ex-old man, a dealer in Berkeley

  Jennifer

  Joe O’Brian’s secretary, partner, and old lady

  Jerry Putnam

  Botany student at UC Berkeley; Myles’s best friend, partner, and colleague on the expedition to Gabon, Africa

  Jim Barnes

  President of the Student Liberal Federation at Louisiana State University, political activist, Kathy’s first love

  Joe O’Brian

  Private investigator working closely with Lance Bormann, former Free Speech Movement activist

  Jose

  Larry’s friend from pacifist training, business partner, dealer in Tucson

  Julie