Impossible Vacation

by Spalding Gray

  “No, no,” she said, “it was just because of Bobby Giraffe that Ankh paced so much, and I couldn’t stand her pacing. She’d get nervous or pissed off at Bobby and would go into this frantic pacing back and forth, and I thought if I changed her name to Ankh, she might begin to move in a more graceful figure eight.” At the moment I thought of saying, “Why not change her name to V-8 Juice?” but I held my tongue. I thought only Shanti would have appreciated it. “Anyway,” Mustang said, “it worked.”

  And now, without laughter, like a weird dancer, Ankh, who was once Bernice, got up and demonstrated her figure-eight movement right there in the kitchen, while Mustang applauded and Shanti glowed, tearing small pieces of the pot holder off in his hand.

  Well, I liked the story, but I was still a little nervous and had a feeling that I would be more relaxed with Shanti if the two of us could be alone. I stood up and stretched and felt the marijuana rush throughout my whole body; and then, without saying a word, because I figured they’d understand this kind of behavior, I just walked right out to the living room, and Shanti followed, just as I hoped he would. Shanti followed me like he’d been waiting for this move all afternoon. As soon as we got in the living room, Shanti plunked himself right down on the Castro convertible couch. As soon as his bum hit the couch a big, fuzzy puff of dust came up around him, and filled the shafts of sunlight leaking through the Venetian blinds. He laughed for no reason at all, or because of the dust. I laughed at him sitting there in that yellow dust, on that big gold-speckled couch, looking up at me as if to ask, “Well, what’s next?”

  I intuitively knew that whatever was coming next had to be physical, exuberant, and overflowing in that Dionysian sort of way. I reached down and took the pillow that Shanti was sitting on and lifted him up from the couch real high and held him there, as if he were flying on a magic carpet, then I let go of the pillow and dropped him.

  Shanti squealed and let out with a wild laugh as he and the pillow hit the floor and bounced; and then, making an immediate recovery, Shanti jumped back on the pillow and cried out, “Do it again!” And so I did. I did it again, and I did it again and again and again. I decided I would do it until Shanti no longer cried “Do it again!” I made up my mind right away to try to totally satisfy him so that perhaps for once in his life at an early age, he would know the condition of complete indulgence and satisfaction. He would have no leftover longings; at least for this day he’d be cured of the longing for the event that never happened. Shanti would be king for a day, and I made up my mind that I would be his servant as long as it took me to fully satisfy him with this new magic-flying-pillow routine. And all the time I lifted him and dropped him, Ankh and Mustang looked on from the kitchen with strange expressions on their faces, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, “Oh wow!” and sometimes just zonked out and staring, until at last Shanti rolled off the pillow and said, “I want a Popsicle.” So we were off to the next indulgence.

  Mustang called after us as we escaped together out the front door, calling, “Bring me a pack of Camel Regulars.”

  Shanti and I climbed into Big Pink and we were off to the local deli, with Shanti giving me directions. I drove the Chevy at a creeping fifteen miles an hour while Shanti tuned the radio in to Frank Sinatra singing “My Way,” and the whole world fell into place.

  Shanti and I took our time in the deli. He picked up and examined every kind of sweet item in his reach, while I slowly examined all the different beers until I found my favorite, Anchor Steam. Then at last, when we were both completely satisfied by our individual choices, we made our way to the counter for the Camels, and I paid for it all. Shanti had a packet of Black Jack gum, a roll of Necco wafers, and an orange Popsicle. I had a six-pack of Anchor Steam and Mustang’s Camels.

  When I got in Big Pink, with Shanti close beside me, I really just wanted to run away with him. I wanted to kidnap him. I’d never had a feeling like that before. I was totally in love with this little kid. Everything he did refreshed me, delighted me, and brought me new life. But I didn’t kidnap him. Instead I drove him back to the house he called home.

  As we pulled up in front of the house some adult attitude came over me and I turned to Shanti, who was glowing at my side. A strange, older, responsible voice, something like my father’s, came out of me and said, “Aren’t you going to thank me, Shanti?” Shanti stopped glowing for a moment. My heart sank. He turned to me and held up each newly bought item, each slightly eaten newly bought item, and with orange Popsicle stain around his mouth and loose Necco Wafers raining everywhere, he said in an equally cool imitation adult voice, as he held up each item one at a time in my face, “Thank you for this, thank you for this, thank you for this, thank you, thank you, thank you.” Then, returning to the glowing child again, he worked to try to open the car door, that big, resistant car door; and in the midst of it all he turned to me and said, “Oh my God! It’s like an elephant!”

  Inside the house Ankh was walking in her figure eight while Mustang was cleaning and straining a large quantity of marijuana. I gave her the Camels and said goodbye, and as soon as I said that I could see Shanti wither out of the corner of my eye, so I added, “But I will come again. I will see you all soon again, and that includes you too, Shanti.”

  “Oh yes,” Mustang said. “Even better, let’s all have a big picnic together tomorrow. Shanti and I know the best nude beach in town, don’t we, Shanti?” she said, drawing him into her, so that the two of them now looked like one organism. Shanti, smiling out from between her legs, nodded yes.

  I opened an Anchor Steam and sipped it while I drove. The marijuana had made my head very busy, almost too busy for such a simple, beautiful setting. I kept thinking I had all the answers and kept searching the glove compartment for a pen and a piece of scrap paper to jot them down, but no luck; so I had to memorize them, and every time I thought I had a grasp on one, it would float by me like the boxes I saw floating downstream when I was on LSD. I was watching all these boxes flowing downstream again as I drove Big Pink and sipped Anchor Steam and thought, Oh, I’ve come to the last place at last. I’ve come to the best place: Santa Cruz.

  WHEN I RETURNED the next day, Shanti ran to Big Pink like a delighted puppet being drawn on a string, and Mustang followed him, looking like some perverse and demented suburban housewife, struggling out of her little tract house with her beach bag filled with towels and picnic items. Shanti slid in the car, beside me, still glowing as much as the day before, and immediately started tuning the radio.

  It was miraculous how quickly we were out of town and bulleting north on Highway I through rough brown hills and rolling fields of high dried grass with the giant Pacific Ocean sweeping and swelling on our left. The air smelled sweet and good. No suburbia to contend with, just open country on the edge of town. Shanti was still beside me tuning the radio, and Mustang looked fine.

  Fifteen minutes out of town we passed a bunch of parked cars, four-wheel vehicles, jeeps and vans, and Mustang told me to pull over. We parked, stepped over some old dusty railroad tracks, and started down a very steep dirt slope which led, at last, after much slipping and sliding, to a beautiful little nook, a beautiful sandy beach tucked away in a horseshoe of rock cliffs that rose up over a hundred feet.

  The beach was busy but not too full. Naked people romped and cavorted here and there, making the place look like a cartoon of itself. In between those hundred-foot-high cliffs and that vast ocean which no one was swimming in, everyone seemed very small and vulnerable, especially Shanti, who ran hopping and skipping ahead of Mustang and me. We passed a nude volleyball game, which was rather odd because of the way the men and women were jiggling. They were very tan; the older ones looked all leathery, as though their skin had been cured by a local tanner. There was nothing erotic about such well-tanned flesh lit by the bright, flat light of that California sun. All the mystery was burned away, leaving only biology. What a surprise, and what a blessed relief, I thought, to be able to relax with nudity and not be dr
iven crazy by the grass-is-always-greener complex.

  We settled down out of the wind, up against the cliffs between the volleyball game and a group of naked young people who were all sitting in a big circle playing flutes, recorders, guitars, and bongo drums. With the exception of two very hairy men who were playing an incessantly annoying game of paddleball at the ocean’s edge, the place seemed like Paradise.

  As soon as we spread our towels and blankets and settled down in our spot, Mustang and Shanti got completely undressed, and I just followed, feeling at first a little odd and embarrassed disrobing in front of these two strangers. But at the same time I welcomed the chance to be able to check out Mustang’s body before I made any amorous advances. She was not what I would call robust in any way, not like those others, the ones playing flutes and beating balls back and forth. But Mustang’s skin resembled the others’ in that it had that deep, dark tan, as though she had gone native and her skin had changed its pigment permanently. It was not one of those glamorous tans you might encounter on Fifth Avenue at the end of March. Her skin was more weathered, like that of a fisherman or farmer, someone who made their living working out of doors. There was something shriveled and prunelike about her body. She looked like she needed a little puffing up, a little inflation. Her midsection looked more like a stomach than a belly, and her ass, like mine, was rather flat, but I tried not to scrutinize her. I tried to accept her for what she was, as I took small fleeting glances out of the corner of my eye. After all, I thought, she had given birth to a perfect son, and there he was dancing and glowing beside us like a little pink cherub flown down out of a clear, cloudless California sky. Shanti’s body was like a delicious bowl of ripe fruit in motion, all the little perfect curves and fullnesses spouting and sprouting and fitting so perfectly together. He was a gem. There was no doubt about it. He looked like the model of undifferentiated id as he grabbed a piece of driftwood and spun around with it. Mustang called out to him “Be careful,” and then “Shanti, please come over here now to me and let me put some suntan lotion on you.” Then, turning to me as if she had to make an explanation, Mustang said, “Shanti is one of those fair ones who burn so easily.”

  I watched her put the suntan cream all over Shanti’s body and thought how lucky she was to be able to touch him all over in a pragmatic, loving way, that simple mothering way. For a moment I found myself in such a complete state of empathetic ecstasy that I thought I could feel my body as Shanti’s body as well as Mustang’s hands as my hands. After she finished, Shanti was off, running down the beach by the great beating edge of the sea and then he ran further down the beach to make new friends or to make contacts with old friends.

  Mustang rolled onto her stomach and I did the same, still a bit ashamed of my exposed front. The warm sun on my naked backside felt fantastic. I could feel it piercing my skin, and except for the rather awkward silence between us I would have been relaxed enough to just doze off and sleep. Then Mustang said, “Shanti is really a very social kid. He’s never lonely. I think he may grow up to be the mayor of Santa Cruz—that is, if we stay long enough.”

  I made an un-thought-out, awkward response. I asked, “How long have you had him?”

  Mustang looked at me with an arch smirk and said, “Had who?”

  And I said, “Shanti.”

  Mustang just looked at me like I was crazy, and said, “Ever since he came out of me six years ago.” Then we both laughed, and after the laughter died down, I said, “But what happened to his father?” I guess the absence of Shanti’s father had helped to foster the fantasy I had of him as a cherub fallen down out of a cloudless California sky.

  “Well, that,” Mustang said, as she cupped her hands around a match to light yet another Camel, “that is a rather long story.”

  “Oh,” I said, “please tell it. I love long stories.” I was suddenly very happy that Mustang had a story to tell because I had been not at all sure what we would do on that naked beach all day without anything to talk about. I was kind of afraid that Mustang would offer me some marijuana and I wouldn’t be able to refuse it. But she didn’t light a joint. She sucked on her Camel instead, and, resting on her stomach, she turned her head slightly toward me and with her wise, sardonic smirk that said, “So you think you really want to hear it? All right, Mr. Brewster, here goes—here goes the story,” she told it to me. And I lay there listening, knowing that I’d most likely enjoy the story more than I would have relished the actual events from which it grew.

  Mustang told me how she had grown up as Ellen Heath in what she referred to as “a normal situation” in Columbus, Ohio, where she also got married and had three children. Then her husband read an article about free love in Time magazine and he began to experiment. This made her think she should too, and she ended up having an affair with her milkman, who also introduced her to LSD. After their first acid trip together she ran off to Washington State with him. They’d both realized on that first acid trip that the whole problem with their lives was that they were landlocked, and had to get to the sea, so they drove straight for it and came out on the Washington Coast. After they got there, they joined a commune where they lived in teepees and all practiced a far-out ritual called “King and Queen for a Day.” Each week someone was chosen to be king or queen and they could rule the whole commune with whatever their fantasy was for that day. So Ellen, on her “queen for a day” day, would administer windowpane acid to the whole commune and then they would head out into the sea in rowboats pretending they were headed for the Bermuda Triangle.

  After a while the commune broke up and the milkman headed off to Hawaii to harvest marijuana and Ellen, not yet Mustang, folded up her teepee and hitchhiked down to Santa Cruz, putting her teepee on the top of cars or in the back of pickup trucks. In Santa Cruz she met up with her brother, whom she hadn’t seen in years. Shortly after their reunion her brother got involved in some sort of hit-and-run accident and decided to change his name. Seeing in the morning paper that the coldest place in the United States the previous day was Cheyenne, Wyoming, he changed his name to Cheyenne Shivers. That made Ellen decide to change her name as well; and wanting, as she said, to explore her “male energy,” she changed her name to Edison Shivers. So it was Cheyenne and Edison, brother and sister. Shortly after the name change Cheyenne died in a motorcycle accident, and Edison wanted to change her name again but had no idea what it should be. Then one night while she was dancing to the music of Wilson Pickett, he played “Mustang Sally,” and she knew that her new name had been given to her.

  After the commune broke up, Mustang found that she was really missing her children she had left behind in Ohio, and knowing that she could never return to Columbus, she decided to have a love child in Santa Cruz. She found what she thought was the right father, a great blond hunk of a surfer, and promptly got pregnant. Everything was going fine until one day he came home and said he had heard that the singer Taj Mahal made his wife ask his permission before she spoke to another man. The father of Mustang’s child said he liked that idea, he thought it was cool; so Mustang threw him out and had their love child on her own, and named him Om Shanti Karma.

  And boom, I landed back on the beach, her story was over, just like that, just like she had taken me for a ride on her magic flying paisley carpet and then dropped me back down here on the beach, all solid and warm, just here. The only difference was I didn’t say “Do it again.” So here we were, very much here, and I wanted nothing more than to go run and romp with Shanti, and I told Mustang that and she made signs of understanding. I jumped up and felt the warm wind play all over me, and walked without shame in the sun, walked toward Shanti where he was playing a little bongo drum with all the other naked natives who sat in their sacred circle at the bottom of the great rock cliff. Seeing me approach, Shanti ran toward me and I swept him up in my arms and felt his glorious suntan-lotioned body slip and nuzzle against mine as we fit together like perfect pieces in a puzzle and I carried him squealing to the ocean’s edge. We s
tood there together in the cold rushing foam with sea gulls screaming overhead, screams that mingled with Shanti’s squeals, and I pressed his glorious young warm body close into mine until we almost melded. The only thing that separated us was the thought that it could be better, that perhaps we could be even closer. Then suddenly I was Mom and Shanti was me and we were on the edge of that other ocean so long ago and I knew then that it was Shanti I wanted and not Mustang. I wanted to be the mother of this child, and for a moment I was.

  SOMETHING WAS COMPLETED in me that day on the beach with Shanti. After that I felt it was time to go, before I fell in too deep, got obsessive and couldn’t live without that peaches-and-cream boy. I knew I couldn’t love his mother the way I loved him, and that would soon become a problem, I was sure.

  Also, I longed for some social order that would pull me out of that long and syrupy season of fantasy, that long fall from the top of the earth to the bottom. Meg and the old familiar East Coast represented that grounded reality for me. And I was running out of money. If I was going to get back east I needed to do it now.

  Wally had a friend who needed a car driven across to New York. I volunteered. I had never driven myself across America before and was ready to give it a try. We worked out the details and I went to pick up my transport, a black 1967 Volkswagen Karmann-Ghia.

  I called Mustang to tell her I was leaving and wanted to come over to say goodbye to Shanti and her before I took off. She didn’t seem surprised and just responded with that sort of laid-back, go-with-the-flow, if-that’s-the-way-it-is-babe-then-sure-go-with-it tone in her voice. She asked me for my time and place of birth because she wanted to do me up a little farewell present. And I was amazed that I remembered the information: June 5, 1941, 1:51 a.m., Providence, Rhode Island.