A Nation of Mystics_Book II_The Tribe

by Pamela Johnson

  Ignoring the disappointed look on her face, he leaned over to John. “Give Daddy five, John.” He bent over the tiny head on the swing as his smiling son slapped his palm.

  During the following week, the park began to change, like a blank canvas touched here and there by an Impressionist’s brush—flowers in reds, yellows, pinks, and whites; shades of green from shrubbery, trees, and grass; earth tones in bark and wood. Each planter was an artist, each spade a brush. The one constant was the people, and the park transcended all barriers. Young and old worked side by side. Black hands joined white at meal preparations. Men and women performed the same tasks.

  The first hint of trouble appeared when the local residents saw that street people and travelers remained in the park after sunset to eat communal dinners and crowd around the bonfires that kept them warm against the summer fog. The neighbors resented and feared the groups who had found a home so close to their doorsteps. Complaints began to appear in the newspapers—too many of the park people were transients, dirty, unpredictable; they owned nothing and didn’t understand property values. They were urinating and defecating on the ground. Their dogs ran unleashed, barking and leaving a mess on lawns. Drums played late into the night, accompanied by shouts and singing.

  Although the list of frustrations began to grow, the issues were not addressed by anyone. A posture of compromise was not assumed by the park committees. The conflict that Andy had foretold—and wanted—began to establish itself as landed residents pushed the university for action.

  Playing arbitrator, the College of Environmental Design proposed that the university use the lot as a field station to study the sociological implications of this new experiment.

  Andy’s committee refused. Publicly, they issued a statement saying that the offer would make the park a human zoo. The treasured spontaneity of life in the park, the very aspect that drew people there, would become subject to the scientist’s critical analysis and interpretation. But they also knew that accepting the university’s offer to make the park part of the College of Environmental Design would mean admitting that the university owned the land.

  For its part, the university never questioned who owned the land. The administration simply wanted to avoid another volatile issue, and it was difficult to take a brutal stand against seed planting. However, and realistically, the chancellor understood that the seeds being planted in this ground would produce more than flowers. The park symbolized the birth of social ideas that were a threat to the very processes by which the university had prospered—those of corporate and wealthy patron endowments, the idea of private property, the establishment and promotion of a privileged and moneyed class, access to corporate jobs, retaining wealth among those who were already prosperous, the use of police to ensure the grip on power.

  Andy welcomed the struggle, because like the chancellor, he knew the argument over whether the park should exist was not the central issue. To Andy, the real issue was whether the university would allow students and citizens to usurp any of its absolute authority. The ultimate idea was to wrestle power from the giant owners of corporate America—from men like the regents of the university—and redistribute it among the people in an attempt to give them more control over their lives.

  Ultimately, the issue would be resolved around who had control of the land.

  CHRISTIAN

  BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

  APRIL 1969

  Christian pondered the light in Kathy’s eyes and passed her a joint. Distracted lately, her energy was hard and focused on the politics of the park. He took the leaflet from her and glanced over its title and listed goals.

  THE PEOPLE OF BERKELEY

  PASSIONATELY DESIRE

  HUMAN SOLIDARITY,

  CULTURAL FREEDOM, AND PEACE

  “Yes. Noble goals,” he told her. “But through what means? Kathy, I’ve been involved with the politics of civil disobedience for a long time, and it’s true I’ve been in some confrontational moments. But this has a whole different feel to it. I’m trying to put my finger on what’s bothering me about this.”

  “Christian, can’t you see what the university administrators are doing? We’ve only been there a few weeks and they’ve made the grand announcement that they’re going to begin construction of an intramural playing field on July 1. We need to hold on to that space.” Her voice was exasperated. “The park has become strategically free territory where people can meet and exchange revolutionary ideas. If we’ve got the land, we can better control the South Campus area for collectives. Put up offices where people can get free legal services. Switchboards for crash pads, free transportation, and out-of-state rides. Our artists can sell crafts on the park lawns.”

  She became more animated, using her hands as she spoke, talking fast. “And you know better than anyone else that we have to establish an area where our drug culture can expand. A place where drug information is readily available, and where we can support people through whatever trip they’re on. We have to make it clear that all drug busts are political. If the South Campus area is liberated, people will be protected from narks and burn artists. Just like in Amsterdam.”

  “What happens when the university pushes back?”

  “Andy says we hold our ground.”

  “Andy?”

  “You know. My friend. I told you about him.”

  Christian put down the leaflet and took the joint she held out to him. “I’ve been helping with the park,” he said slowly, the smoke coming from his mouth with his words. “It’s fun to get out early in the morning and work in the garden. But I know it’s illusion. Just like the sand paintings of the Tibetans. Beautiful, then deliberately destroyed to remind us of impermanence. The park will be destroyed.”

  “Come on, Christian. What’s the worst they can do? Take a bulldozer to the gardens? We’ll rebuild!”

  “There’s something else,” he said to her. “There’s … something. Not from the people doing the labor in the park, but from the committee leaders. They’re inviting tragedy.”

  “The revolution is a struggle. Andy says we will take power!”

  “Andy again? What do you think?”

  Kathy refused to give him the satisfaction of a single blink of the eye. “I think we have to try.”

  “And I think you need to watch the streets carefully. The energy’s high, volatile, almost sexual. Everyone’s waiting for the explosion, gearing up for it. Fantasies may be exciting, stimulating. But the reality of the explosion will be something else.”

  The thought bounced between them.

  Amritsar.

  He turned from her and looked away over the bay.

  RICHARD AND MARCIE

  BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

  MAY 1969

  Richard had to admit that David’s coke was good. Dynamite, David had said. And he was right. It was so good that Richard moved ounces of it to all his friends. It was good money and easy to weigh and transport.

  Gary’s Panama Red became reality at the end of the week. Kathy took twenty kilos and an ounce of coke for her house, and the people passing through it. Christian took half of her kilos but shook his head over her offers of coke. He didn’t dig it, he said. And he didn’t dig being around her when she was doing it, either.

  Every evening became a party. Winterland, the Fillmore, or the Carousel Ballroom became nightly events. Hundreds of kilos or pounds of pot, grams of acid, tabs of STP, caps of MDA and mescaline sulfate were ordered in the lobby between music sets. Ounces of coke, thousands of pills, and pounds of PCP were sold. At the ballrooms, Richard moved from circle to circle, talking to other long-haired men in tailored leather coats and boots. Prices were settled, delivery times confirmed, plans for future deals put into operation. Afterward, there were late night suppers and meetings at two or three in the morning to conclude prearranged business deals. The men would excuse themselves to count money in the privacy of a back bedroom, while the women waited patiently with their own social supplies of drugs aroun
d some fireplace. Toward morning, the unattached would choose a partner, and at dawn, people would crash hard to sleep until the next afternoon—and the next evening’s party.

  Even Marcie, who was not really enamored with cocaine and who had just weaned John, was snorting so that she could be in Richard’s time frame. She’d toot a line and go about her housework—a bit frazzled and chomping her teeth, but doing it. There was so much coke that Richard began pouring it onto any flat surface, snorting what he wanted with a hundred dollar bill and leaving the rest. After a while, thin, unused white lines were everywhere they looked. But why clean it? Eventually, they would just do it up on their way around the apartment.

  The night table next to their bed was especially dusty. In the beginning, Richard would snort from the bag and make love to her. Then he began pouring piles of coke on the night table, rubbing it with his finger over her clitoris and into her vagina, then licking until his mouth was numb and bitter. As the days wore on, his nightly erection lasted for what seemed like hours, and he would fuck and fuck away, slipping into his fantasies, speed-rapping obscenities into Marcie’s ears and dreaming with a rapid imagination. But soon, no matter what he did, it was impossible to come. On the last night of it, feeling abused and battered after hours of invention, Marcie had had enough and finally pushed him away. After that particular rejection, Richard could achieve no more than semi-flaccidness.

  Tension increased in the household, yet they continued the ritual of chopping up lines, using a bill for a straw, ignoring each other. For two days, Marcie poured out a line about every hour. For two days, she neither slept nor ate, visually hallucinating, getting off on the bright explosion in her brain with each snort, the rush of her heartbeat, only to find that in ten or fifteen minutes, the rush was gone and she wanted more.

  Toward nightfall at the end of her two-day run, she overheard snatches of one of Richard’s phone conversations. What she thought she heard startled her and sent her running around the corner to Kevin and Debbie with the news that Richard was going to have them busted. Debbie, laughing, calmed her fears, and Kevin walked her home.

  “How could you?” Richard screamed at her, after Kevin had left. “Bust Kevin? Me?”

  “But, I heard …” Marcie shook her head, not enough emotion or feeling left for tears. “I guess I’m just not sure what I heard.”

  “Marcie, don’t you know me? Wait ’til this story gets out! I won’t be able to show my face. My own old lady! There are people who’ll want to believe it!”

  “You think Kevin will say anything? I only wanted to protect him.”

  “From me? You got a thing for Kevin or something?”

  “N-n-no,” Marcie stuttered, “of course not.”

  “I have some business to discuss with Alex. It’s late, so I won’t be home tonight.”

  The door slammed heavily behind him, and Marcie, blown away by it all and crashing, looked for one of the lines around the house. The bill was rolled and in her hand, but she hardly had the energy left to lift it to her nose. She stared at the line in the dim yellow light of the cheap apartment.

  No, she thought, no more.

  Instead, she threw herself over her bed, grinding her teeth, every muscle and nerve agitated. Coke binge. Days and days and days of coke.

  Sleeping was fitful, filled with paranoid dreams of being chased, cornered, captured, only to escape, to be chased again. A few hours later, she awoke to the sound of John bouncing in his crib, patiently waiting for her. Morning. Another day. How could she face it?

  But the steady rhythmic sound of the bedsprings as John bounced, called her. John’s face was a bright, sparkling smile, his eight teeth visible, and his delight in her presence so obvious that Marcie smiled, too.

  “Morning, John,” she said softly, picking him up. His pajamas were wet and cold. “I can always get up for you, little heart.”

  Then she began to clean. Every surface was wiped of telltale dust, and all the coke in the house was put into one spot, bagged up, ready to go to the stash. A neglected John had an afternoon in the park, dinner, and a good bath. Richard neither called nor came home, but Marcie was too tired to care.

  If that’s his trip, she thought, he can have it.

  That evening, she made a vow never to touch coke again. She and John fell asleep together and slept for fifteen hours.

  Two days later, Richard returned, late, just after midnight. Marcie had already given up on him for the day. The apartment was quiet; the only light came from one lamp in the living room. He didn’t say anything. Just came in and stood by the door and looked at her as if trying to read what was in her mind.

  Marcie smiled weakly. “How’s Alex doing?”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m sorry about Kevin.” She cleared her throat. “I guess I just crossed over the line.”

  “Yeah,” his voice was a whine. “You think I’d try to bust someone? Anyone? I’d go to my grave before I did that.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” The memory of the accusation brought tears to her eyes and the tightness in her stomach grew. How had she managed to hurt him so much?

  “Is there anything to eat? I haven’t really eaten since I left. My body’s folding out from under me.”

  “Sit down. I’ll put something together.”

  The front door opened into a small living room, and the kitchen was a rectangle off to one side. Richard sat down at the table placed between the two rooms, his eyes glazed over. “Marcie, we’ve got to talk.”

  Marcie looked at him anxiously. With a hushed voice, she reminded him, “We’ll have to be quiet. John’s asleep.”

  We have a child. Will he remember? Care?

  He turned unseeing eyes upon her.

  “How long have you been up?” she asked.

  “Coupla days. Marcie, the coke … I left what I had at Alex’s. I can’t live this way. I don’t want to.”

  Marcie wanted to cry with relief, but she kept moving, wok-frying vegetables and tofu and eggs. “Look around, Richard. I cleaned yesterday. Got rid of everything except what’s in the drawer. That has to go to the stash. I can’t live like this either.”

  “Then it’s settled?” His eyes held hers steadily. “No more coke?”

  “No more coke.”

  “How much is left?”

  “A lot. Almost an ounce. It’s in the night table drawer.”

  Richard stood up and walked to the bedroom. Marcie heard the drawer open, then a few minutes later, the toilet flush. A tight smile lay across his face as he sat back down at the table. “Now we’re committed.”

  “Here,” she said, putting the food in front of him. “Eat before it gets cold.”

  Richard picked up the chopsticks next to the wooden bowl. “I had a long talk with Alex. I brought him some of David’s coke. He loved it. In fact, I learned a lot about Alex in the last forty-eight hours.” Sorrow was back in his voice. “You know, I’ve held on to this image of him as the friend I had in elementary school. High school. But he’s not that kid anymore. Deep down, I knew he’d changed, and even though I didn’t like what he’d become, I covered it with that old image. I didn’t want to ask too many questions. Maybe I was afraid of the answers. I don’t know. Maybe I thought it was too much of a hassle figuring Alex out. Or maybe I thought he was always a little weird.

  “But these past two days, we had a great time together. Know why? Because, at last, I was on his trip, he said. Wasn’t the coke wonderful? Seems he’s been doing coke every day, heavy, for over a year. Just didn’t want to tell me about it. My self-righteous attitude, you know. And when I told him about your trip with Kevin, I thought he’d bust a blood vessel. Hadn’t he told me about women? Didn’t it make perfect sense that they’d turn on you? That’s when I started thinking about us.” He put one hand over hers. “What you did didn’t make any sense at all. You’ve always been my best friend. Supported me in whatever I had to do. The coke’s been our problem. We almost gave away our love to it. I stopped
tooting and listened to Alex for a few more hours. Then I gave him my stash and came home. Where I belong.”

  “Oh, Richard, do you really know that? Do you really know that you belong to John and me?”

  “Always.”

  “What about Alex? What did he say when you gave him your bag?”

  “He just smiled at me like we’d do it again sometime. Four weeks, we’ve been strung out. Four weeks, night and day, every hour.” His arms slipped limply to his sides. He took a deep concentrated breath. “Alex doesn’t know it, but he taught me a good lesson. I don’t want to become like him.”

  “Richard, you could never be like Alex.”

  “And he’s really uptight with Peter.”

  “What’s happenin’ with Peter?”

  “Where’ve you been?” he smiled slightly. “The base. We’re still waiting for it. By the way, how’s it goin’ with David and Dove?”

  “The same. They’ve made it together for four weeks.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Well, she’s certainly not like Michelle. Doesn’t have the heart. I think she’s along for the ride. I guess that’s okay if she helps David hold his trip together. Your food. It’s getting cold.”

  He put the chopsticks down, staring into space. “I’ve been thinking. I want to go into acid production full time. I don’t need the danger of a coke junkie with a spaced old lady at my back door. I’m cutting David off. I’m going to get you that house, and when we move, David won’t know the address.”

  “But, Richard,” she said softly, unbelievably, “David’s one of our oldest friends.”

  “He’s changed. He’s made other choices. They’re poor choices, and I don’t want to be responsible for them.”

  “And Alex? What about him?”

  Richard looked away and picked up his chopsticks. “He’s still my partner.” He didn’t see her shake her head. “When do you think we can trip together again?”

  “I weaned John just before we started building the park. Anytime.”