Wasted Year: The Last Hippies of Ole Miss

by Douglas Gray

  Garrett tugs at my sleeve, drawing me back from the front row, back out of the kitchen and into the parlor.

  “Watch yourself, Medway,” James calls out. “When the revolution comes, it’s going to roll right over you!”

  ~ ~ ~

  Wednesday, May 17

  A new band called “America” is on the radio singing about a horse with no name as I swing into campus. No parking spaces left on Magnolia Drive, so I move on to the coliseum parking lot and walk the gauntlet between the boys loitering on the front porches of their frat houses along Coliseum Drive, provoking ridicule, threats and accusations of treason from everyone who spots me on my way to Bondurant.

  I should have thought to put on a jacket or something over my t-shirt.

  Little Becky is, once again, engaged in profound discussion about women’s liberation with Dr. Goodleigh when I arrive at the Museum. Both stop to gape at my attire.

  “I hope you’re not thinking of wearing that to the hearing,” Dr. Goodleigh says, referring to my red Chairman Mao t-shirt, the one Ashley left behind last autumn.

  “It’s the only clean thing I could find,” I explain. “My dirty stuff is in the car. Thought I’d stop by the laundromat on my way home tonight.”

  “Where did you get that shirt?” Becky asks.

  “Don’t know,” I lie, and then, to change the subject, add, “Hey, did you read in yesterday’s Mississippian about movie night in the Grove next week? Open-air showing of 2001, under the stars. A good time will be had by all.”

  “Space Odyssey? I’ve never seen it,” Becky says.

  “Greatest movie ever made,” I assure her.

  “The slowest movie ever made,” Dr. Goodleigh comments. “The night I saw it, half the audience at the Ritz was convinced that the projector had stalled.”

  “But highly entertaining if you’re stoned out of your mind, as I intend to be,” I say.

  This is the moment, I realize. My big chance. I’ve stumbled into it.

  “Would you like to see it with me?” I ask Becky. “We could make an evening of it – dinner at the Buddha, 2001, banana cream pie and coffee at the Beacon afterward. A night of golden memories.”

  I catch a glance from Dr. Goodleigh, a look I don’t understand.

  “What night?” Becky asks.

  “A week from this coming Friday.”

  “I think I’m free.”

  “It’s a date, then.”

  “Yes, it’s a date.”

  Later, after Becky leaves, Dr. Goodleigh positions herself in the door to the Museum, leaning against the frame, arms crossed, regarding me. I glance up from Herodotus and discover her there.

  “You finally did it,” she says.

  “Finally did it,” I agree. “Are you proud of me?”

  “Chinese food, a free movie, and pie at the Beacon? How romantic. Come, come. The girl’s worth more than that.”

  “I’m a just a poor graduate student. And about to get even poorer. My only solace is that Mr. Duck’s skipped town, so I probably won’t have to pay rent for a while.”

  “At least promise you won’t wear that shirt again, on your date or any other time. In fact, you’re making me nervous having it on in the Museum. I’m afraid a lynch mob’s going to converge on us. Take the afternoon off – go do your laundry.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Thursday, May 18

  The Clarksdale courtroom for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals feels like a place that only ever existed in the imagination of Harper Lee. But instead of old Atticus Finch up front, arguing his case before the judge, we have something entirely more toothsome to behold today: Jenny Tyson looking like Artemis in a pinstripe suit.

  Judge Watters has been as old-fashioned courtly toward her as he’s been short with Bill Cook, the University’s lanky, watery-eyed attorney who so far isn’t having a very good day.

  First comes the fiasco of Mr. Patrick’s testimony, the now well-told tale of how poor old Mrs. Enger had a fainting spell over the language she was expected to typeset, and how he himself – Patrick – had stopped the presses then and there, alarmed over the danger that rampant obscenity posed to the spiritual well being of the Ole Miss community.

  Jenny cross-examines, asking Mr. Patrick if he recalls her visit to his office last February. He seems to recollect it. Does he recall showing her a certain item that he retrieved from the office safe?

  “An item?” he asks.

  “An item.”

  He scratches his jaw, now recollecting that he had in fact displayed a finished copy of Barefoot for her to inspect.

  “So you do have finished copies?”

  “Sure, 250 of them. The full run, crowding up our safe.”

  “So you didn’t actually stop the presses over Mrs. Enger’s complaints?”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “You just testified that you’d stopped the presses. Yet somehow the entire run found its way into your safe.”

  “I must have misspoke.”

  Dean Moriarty takes the stand to present the administration’s tired old in loco parentis argument, which essentially boils down to the University’s sacred duty to protect students from the inherent dangers of receiving an education.

  He’s decided to play the role of a good-humored folk philosopher decrying the strange ways of today’s “young-uns” – as he keep calling us. The longer he’s on the stand, the more exaggerated his vowels become, until they’re almost as long as this morning’s car ride from Oxford.

  “The role of the administration is to keep peace on campus so the children can learn, like their mommas and daddies sent ‘em to,” he explains, pleased with himself. “Times like these, when we’ve got so many outside agitators to deal with, our job of protectin’ is especially important. We don’t let elephants go dancing in the hen yard.”

  In her cross examination, Jenny plays to the Dean’s vanity, flirts with him a little, and lures him into over-extending his metaphor. After a few questions he’s managed to compare Ole Miss students to poultry whose eggs may be gathered or heads may be chopped off and their carcasses dipped into scalding water at the discretion of the administration.

  “But what about the civil liberties of the chickens?” she asks.

  “Well, . . . I don’t believe chickens have civil liberties,” he answers. “I’m sorry – how did we get to talking about chickens?”

  Bill Cook appears battered but hopeful as he calls Edward Alcott, the University’s star witness, to the stand. The man doesn’t disappoint. Even Judge Watters seems impressed as Alcott establishes his credentials to serve as an expert in American letters, sage of contemporary literature, and judge over the quicksilver quality of a work’s socially redeeming value. His own judgment in the case: that the story in question is the obscene rambling of a disordered, sociopathic revolutionary and must be censored for the safety of the community and the reputation of the University.

  “Mr. Alcott,” Jenny purrs as she approaches the stand, “you are widely acclaimed as one of the century’s greatest war novelists. I understand you have also seen combat.”

  “I was with McArthur at the Battle Inchon,” he answers, “and subsequently during the liberation of Seoul.”

  “Never having served in the military, personally, I’ve always wondered about what happens on the ground during the heat of battle. Do soldiers ever curse?”

  “Curse?”

  “Curse. Speak the kind of words that you’ve read in the magazine.”

  He answers with a patronizing gaze. “Yes, miss, you hang around a platoon of Marines long enough and you’re likely to hear some language that would bring a blush to your cheek.”

  “They use terminology referring to fornication?”

  “Yes.”

  “And defecation as well, I presume?”

  “Yes.”

  “And yet,” Jenny pursues, “for all their realism – critics have applauded you for the realism of your work – none of your novels use that kind of lan
guage.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Is that because you don’t want your readers to know that American soldiers are, by and large, obscene sociopaths?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I mean, here they are going into battle, carrying the American flag before them, and all they can think about is fornication and defecation? That sounds unhinged, if you ask me.”

  “Of course they’re not thinking of those things,” Alcott spits. “Are you a simpleton? They’re thinking about the battle. They’re thinking about staying alive and protecting their comrades.”

  “Really? But how can that be? You’ve testified that anyone who repeatedly uses that kind of language can only be a sociopath who can think of nothing but sex and . . . .”

  “I was talking about writers, not soldiers,” he interrupts. “Soldiers can curse as much as they want. I guess they’ve earned that right. Not writers, though – especially not hippies and beatniks who think they’re entitled to the same privileges as decent people. Not your scum like Kerouac and Ferlinghetti and that faggot Ginsberg and that wife-killer Burroughs. Burroughs! Son of a bitch. I punched him once, you know. Gave him a bloody nose. He had it coming. No, by god, not writers. Especially not student writers. Especially not punk Ole Miss hippie scum who aren’t even bright enough to get into a real college.”

  Jenny has no further questions. Bill Cook, flustered over having their star witness insult the University from the stand, seems relieved to announce that his case rests.

  Jenny calls Dr. Evans to the stand. He casually overturns every one of Alcott’s propositions on morality in literature. I catch a glimpse of the novelist out of the corner of my eye. He’s fidgeting, probably in an effort not to leap to the front of the court and give Dr. Evans a manly thrashing.

  Bill Cook declines to cross-examine, seeming eager to get the trial over with.

  I’m next. Jenny pauses to shuffle some papers at her table after I’ve taken the stand. The delay gives me a minute to search through the crowd of faces in the courtroom, looking for Becky. I see Alcott, Moriarty, and Dr. Evans, of course. Dr. French has tucked himself away in a back corner. I spot Miss Fairchild jotting notes in a pad, Garrett seated beside her. My eyes momentarily meet the eyes of Amy Madigan, but we quickly break contact. Lots of people I don’t know. But I don’t find Becky, and for a moment the day feels like a loss.

  My job on the witness stand is easy. As Barefoot’s poetry editor, I testify that the administration’s censorship affects not just one single author but every student whose work appeared in the magazine, students who have had no complaints brought against them.

  My time on the stand is likely to be brief. Jenny feeds me her questions and hands me over to Bill Cook. I fully expect to be passed over, like Dr. Evans was, and am surprised to find Mr. Cook approaching me. With something that looks like a grin.

  I don’t like this.

  “So you served as poetry editor for the magazine.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And I understand you’ve published some poetry yourself – not in amateur student magazines, but in national publications. And won some awards? Is that correct?”

  “That was a few years back,” I answer.

  “But despite your youth, you would qualify as what people would call a ‘real’ poet. Even members of the administration who don’t think very highly of you personally concede that you’re talented.”

  “That’s very forbearing of them.”

  “So as a real poet, tell me this: do you think any of the poetry in your magazine is any good?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Do you think it has any socially redeeming value? That’s the question. Does it deserve to be published? Here, let me give you a specific example.” Cook produces a copy of the magazine and reads one of Becky’s poems:

  Winter remembered

  walking under a willow

  that weeps crystal tears.

  “Ten words,” he says. “Ten words occupying a single sheet of expensive card stock. I don’t see anything socially redeeming in that. I see a waste of paper.”

  “It’s a haiku,” I answer. “They’re supposed to be short, 17 syllables. The empty margins surrounding it are part of the poem – the Zen of it, you might say. A reminder of the emptiness that frames every utterance.”

  “It’s nonsense,” Cook replies. “Utter nonsense. Walking under a weeping willow?” he asks, voice brimming with wonderment. “How is that even possible? How can that be considered good poetry?”

  “Actually,” I explain, “the young lady who wrote that is very short. I imagine she might be able to walk under a weeping willow if she wanted to. The funny thing is, though, that you’ve picked out the only poet in the magazine with any talent at all.”

  “The others are worse?”

  “She’s got talent. The others are terrible.”

  “Their poetry is terrible,” Cook repeats.

  “Lord, yes. Just awful. But it was the best we had to choose from. You should have read some of the stuff we rejected. It would have tempted you to gouge your own eyeballs out, so you’d never have to read another line.”

  “Would you say these poems have socially redeeming value?”

  “A few maybe, but most of them are crap. Fortunately, the future of civilization doesn’t rest on student literary magazines.”

  “Then why,” Cook suddenly thunders, “should the University be expected to fund this magazine, to pay for a publication that by your own admission has little to no socially redeeming value and that – as we’ve heard from witness after witness – falls outside the college community’s standard of decency?”

  Jenny has risen. “Your Honor, I object. The witness isn’t qualified to address the legal issues of that question.”

  Judge Watters turns to me, and our eyes meet directly for the first time in the trial. He holds my gaze for a long moment, as a wry expression crosses his face.

  “Objection noted, counselor,” the Judge replies. “But I’d like to hear what he has to say. You may answer the question.”

  “Let me repeat,” Cook says. “Can you provide any justification of why the University should fund a magazine that it considers to be obscene and that you, as editor and as plaintiff in this case, acknowledge has no socially redeeming merit?”

  “I can’t,” I admit. “And if the University had actually paid the printing costs, you’d likely have a pretty good argument.”

  “What?” Judge Watters interrupts, before Cook has had a chance to ask. “What did you just say?”

  “I said that if the college had paid for the magazine, they’d probably have the right to impound it. But they didn’t pay for it. I did.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes, your Honor. Dr. French, the chair of the English department, had already decided to cancel the print job, but somehow word hadn’t reached the Print Shop. So I went down and paid with my own money. I paid cash, directly to Mr. Patrick. I’m sure he remembers.”

  Suddenly, in the moment of stunned silence that’s fallen over the courtroom, Mr. Patrick has risen to his feet. “You told me you were sent by the English department!”

  Bill Cook and Jenny both begin to object. Judge Watters silences them with a forefinger slashed throat-wise in the air.

  “Is this true?” he demands of Mr. Patrick. “Did he personally pay cash for the printing job?”

  “He said he was sent by the English department. It was a deception.”

  Judge Watters turns to me.

  “No, sir, I never claimed that. I simply said I had come to pay the expenses. Mr. Patrick was suspicious, so I suggested that he should make a call to Dr. French to see whether or not I was authorized to do so. Dr. French certainly would have told him that I wasn’t. But Mr. Patrick decided to trust me.”

  “You little bastard!” Mr. Patrick shouts.

  Jenny rises again. “I object to my witness being called a little bastard.”

  Judge Wa
tters smiles. “Over-ruled. He is sort of a little bastard, isn’t he? Tell me, young man, why haven’t you mentioned this transaction before today?”

  “Well, Your Honor, the truth of the matter is that I’d totally forgotten about it until Mr. Cook here raised the question about why the school should pay. That’s when I recollected that they hadn’t paid.”

  “You’d forgotten.”

  “It slipped my mind. I’ve had a lot to think about since then.”

  “Did you happen to get a receipt for this transaction?”

  “Yes, sir. I didn’t bring it with me, but it’s in my trailer, back in Oxford. I have a witness, too, a young lady who was with me that day.”

  Judge Watters slams the gavel before anyone can utter another syllable. “This court is adjourned until such time as an authenticated receipt is produced and an affidavit from the witness is sworn.

  “Whereupon, I will likely direct the University to release the impounded publication to its lawful owner who . . .” he casts a stern look my way, “. . . I hope never to see in my courtroom again. Young man, you may step down!”

  “All rise!” the bailiff calls out as Judge Watters departs.

  We all rise.

  ~ ~ ~

  Friday, May 19

  I haven’t been this drunk since the night of bar-hopping with James Dickey. It’s Dr. Evans’ victory party for everyone involved in the magazine. We won a stunning victory in Judge Watters’ court. He hasn’t issued a ruling yet, but Jenny assures us that we’ve prevailed. The suit is all but over.

  Everyone’s here, even Miss Fairchild, come down from Memphis. Her coverage of yesterday’s hearing in this morning’s Commercial Appeal has already created a stir, with the University demanding apologies, corrections and retractions over reporting that made them look like buffoons, liars and bullies, and her own bosses divided equally over whether to fire her or promote her to the city desk.

  Garrett, meanwhile, has ended his long journalistic silence with his own piece of court reporting that sounds like H.L. Mencken on an acid trip. He reads it to us, to the delighted shrieks of the partiers.

  “I’m really beginning to think,” Miss Fairchild confides drunkenly to me over the noise, “that Garrett’s future may lie in Gonzo journalism.”

  “Gonzo?” I ask.

  “Gonzo,” she slurs. “There’s this book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Guy named Hunter Thompson.” She spills a dollop of 7-layer drip from a Frito onto my shirt sleeve, tries to daub it away with a paper napkin, and then gets distracted by her daiquiri.