Sharla snorted. "Thanks a heap."
"Well, we did, you know it. And what if we wouldn't have all spoken out about Nam? We'd still be over there now."
"I don't know," Frank said thoughtfully. "Yeah, we protested racial inequality and Nam, but we protested things like the food in the cafeteria, or because we wanted grass legalized, or because we didn't think female undergrads should have to room in Byers Hall in the summer . . . sometimes I think we protested just for the hell of it."
"Kids do that," Sharla said. "Even my second graders. Part of growing up."
Frank nodded. "Yeah, but we've been congratulating ourselves for it for twenty-five years now, and things are a helluva lot worse as a result."
"What are you talking about?" Alan said.
"Drugs, AIDS, racial problems, the environment. We have to take responsibility for what's here now. We did it."
Judy came into the room and handed him a glass of beer. "Watch it, folks. He's gonna start on the farms," she said.
Alan frowned. "Huh?"
"Yeah, I am," Frank said. "Because it's important." He turned to the others and spoke in the low, passionate voice they all remembered.
"We visited my folks last month up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where I grew up, where the Amish live. Best farmland east of the Mississippi. People I talked to from Canada said that land like that up there would be protected so nobody could build on it. And what's happening here? Developers buy up farmland faster'n hell, drop crackerbox buildings on it, call it Sequoia Acres or Village Square or some other fucking lie. And why? For the quick buck. And if we run out of farmland and have to start buying food abroad, that's just tough shit, they got theirs."
"So what are you sayin'?" Sharla said lazily. "We shoulda protested homebuilders instead of the cafeteria?"
"Not should've," said Frank, "but should. Things are worse now than they've ever been. It's not just a race or a generation, but the whole damn planet's at risk."
"Pennsylvania's not the whole planet," said Alan.
"It's indicative, that's all. My God, we've got acid rain from factory owners who don't give a shit if lakes and everything in them die, as long as they don't have to clean the crap coming out the smokestacks. We've got global warming, and nobody in business is gonna care until the ocean covers their goddam corporate headquarters—"
"You're preaching zealously again, dear," Judy said.
"You want me to ignore it, Jude?"
"It's a party, dear. Lighten the fuck up."
Frank laughed in spite of himself. "God, put a mini-skirt on her, and her mouth goes back to the sixties."
"Okay, Frank," Sharla said. "You got a point. But what do we do about it, boycott Exxon?"
Frank smiled as if he were explaining to a child. "Blow up Exxon."
~*~
In the dining room, Curly Rider grinned as he looked over the bookshelves. "Wow, Woody, this is great. You kept all these?" Woody nodded, and Curly read the titles. "The Teachings of Don Juan, Che Guevara Speaks, Quotations from Chairman Mao . . . you read 'em all?"
Woody nodded. "The political stuff was kind of boring.”
“And the Don Juan stuff was kind of stupid," said Eddie, tapping the ash from his cigarette into his empty sangria glass.
Woody nodded at the glass. "We do have ash trays.”
“Where?"
"The beer cans?"
Eddie sighed, walked over to the sideboard where an empty can of Iron City sat, and dropped his butt into it. “Jesus, we were piss elegant, weren't we?"
"Steppenwolf," Curly said quietly. "That was Keith's favorite, wasn't it? He must've tried to get me to read it a hundred times, but I never did."
Curly wandered into the living room while Eddie flipped through a stack of Rolling Stone. He held up a black and white cover photo of Joe Cocker, unshaven, hair unkempt, howling mouth open to reveal crooked teeth, his blooming paunch cut off by the orange bottom border. "A perfect picture of American youth." Eddie weighed the yellowing pile of tabloids in his hand. "I can't believe you even kept these."
"My folks have a lot of storage room." Woody smiled, remembering. "I got those all from Dale. He bought them when the three of us roomed together that one summer before he got married."
Eddie stared into the glass, empty of everything but a tiny pile of ashes. "I still miss him. Dale."
"So do I," said Woody, sitting next to Eddie.
"He was . . . kind." Eddie paused for a minute. "Did you know that we kept corresponding?"
"No." Dale had written two letters a month to Woody, right up until the week he died, but never mentioned writing to Eddie.
"That's like him. He wouldn't have wanted you to know."
Woody felt a psychic stirring, as if about to learn something he should have always known. "Know what?"
Eddie gave a quick little laugh and shook his head. "I . . . think I've had too much sangria. The devil's brew."
"It was a long time ago," Woody said. "It can't hurt anyone now. What are you saying, that Dale was bisexual?"
"No," Eddie said. "I'm saying that Dale was gay."
"But . . . Karen. I mean, he was married . . ."
"We were lovers, Woody. Just once, but that was enough."
"Holy shit," Woody said, thinking that maybe he had had too much sangria too. This wasn't registering the way he felt it should. "When?"
"That summer the three of us roomed together. You were rehearsing with the musical one afternoon. It was hot as hell, and Dale and I were here alone, we had a few beers, listened to music, got a little drunk and giddy with the heat, and one thing led to another." He sat for a moment, then pushed himself to his feet. "Maybe I need a beer instead of more sangria."
Woody followed Eddie into the bathroom, where they drew two beers. The music, the other people, seemed far away. "It was all very natural," Eddie said. "I knew where his preferences lay. But afterward he begged me to forget it. He tried to blame it on too much drink, but it wasn't that." Eddie sipped his beer, licked his lips. "We didn't stay in touch after that summer. Nothing else happened either. He tried to avoid situations where he'd be alone with me, maybe you remember."
Woody didn't, but Dale would have gone to great lengths to keep from looking as if he were snubbing anyone.
"Anyway, after his divorce he wrote to me. I was in Denver then. We struck it off again through the mail. Oh, nothing explicit, just . . . kind, considerate. Like we wanted to see each other again. But we could never link up. All his money went to grad school, and I didn't have enough to fly to Pittsburgh. And before anything could happen he was dead." Eddie smiled. "And I still miss that dear man. I might have even loved him."
His face shifted from unaccustomed tenderness to its traditional cynicism as footsteps and chatter came nearer, so that only arched eyebrows and smirking lips met Sharla and Judy as they appeared at the bathroom door.
"Are we to assume that you ladies wish to utilize the facilities?"
"No," said Judy, "but you may assume that we wish to get a couple more beers."
"All right then, girls, grab your beers and let's all go in the living room and play Thumper, or Truth, or something equally nostalgic and stupid." Woody noticed that there was not a trace of softness remaining in Eddie's voice or face.
When the four of them carried their beers back into the living room, the others were all sitting on the sofas, chairs, or floor. Candles lit the room as before, but now the black light was turned on, someone had put a Judy Collins album on the stereo, and "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" filled the room with a sound sweeter than the incense that lifted strings of smoke into the air.
"My God, who died?" Eddie said.
They laughed at their own quietness, effectively killing it. "We all got serious," Frank said. "My fault."
"Yeah," Alan said. "Frank thinks we all oughta go out and bomb Exxon gas stations and kidnap coal company executives and assassinate people who drive Cadillacs."
"It's going to happen," s
aid Frank calmly. "I'm just surprised it hasn't started already."
"Oh crap," Alan said. "Haven't we all seen what terrorism can do? And I mean, really seen it. Anybody remember Keith? Tracy?"
The room was silent except for the final chorus of the song on the stereo and the soft whisper of Sharla exhaling her cigarette smoke.
"Well," said Alan, "when you talk like that, or when you hear other people talk like that, don't forget them."
The silence came back then, thickening like fog, until Curly broke it, as if anxious to change the subject. "Hey," he said, "how many of us still smoke? Come on, let's see hands. Or butts."
"Not showin' you my butt, turkey," Sharla said, but put up her hand, as did Alan and Eddie.
"My, we've gotten pure in our old age, haven't we?" said Eddie.
"And how many used to?" Curly said, raising his own hand, as did everyone else but Judy. "Well," Curly went on, "since this is a re-creation, I always used to bum my smokes from Alan, so . . ." He put on a sheepish look, shuffled over to Alan, and put out his hand as if he expected to have it slapped.
"Once a mooch . . .” Alan said, but extended his pack to Curly who took a cigarette.
"Kents," he said. "I could always count on you, Alan.”
“Who else?" said Alan, holding out the nearly full pack.
"God damn the pusher man," said Frank. "You know, Alan, of all of us who sold out, I think you sold out the most."
"And fuck you too."
"I'm serious. Is this the guy who campaigned for Gene McCarthy? Who wanted to become a liberal politician? So he moves to Washington and in a few years he's a whore for the tobacco industry."
"Hey, look—"
"Face it, pal, you're right out of Doonesbury."
Judy gripped her husband's knee. "You'll have to forgive Frank. He tends to get a little obnoxious after a few beers."
Curly raised both hands in the air, palms up. "Hey, let's mellow out, man. Like, everything is supposed to be groovy tonight, right?"
"And I guess you think you're really ‘groovy,' Frank," Alan said, leaning toward his tormentor. "What's so revolutionary about selling band instruments? I thought you were gonna be such a great musician—"
"Oh, Alan, don't be so bitchy," Eddie said. "You either, Frank. We all sold out. Me, I wanted to be the next E. Power Biggs. But I let crass money stand in the way of my artistic vision." He looked coolly at Sharla. "And what about the former president of the Huey Newton Fan Club here, who got her teaching degree to prepare little black children for the revolution? Teaching in the whitest suburb in Cleveland."
"I taught inner city, Eddie," Sharla said. "Four years. So don't lay any guilt trip on me." Her hand trembled as she took a quick, angry drag on her cigarette.
"Sorry," Eddie said dryly. "Sharla's hereby registered as having paid her dues. She shall be presented with a gold-plated afro pick in appreciation." He looked around the room. "Anyone else want to justify their lives? How about you, Judy?" Eddie said, turning to the woman next to him. "You used to make statements with your art. So what are you saying now?"
"Plenty, Eddie. Folk art's just as valid an expression as that agitprop crap I used to do."
"Yes, but you don't even do the folk art, do you? Am I wrong, or haven't you become a capitalist gallery owner, feeding off the sweat of the workers?"
"How do you feed off sweat?" Curly said.
"Aw, this is horseshit," Alan said, standing up and pacing in the small space available. "What's this ideals crap anyway? Doesn't anybody stop to think that ideals are something that can't be met? Shit, that's why we call them ideals. But the world ain't ideal. It's hard and tough and it kicks your ass, and the more you think you're going to change it, the harder you get kicked. And the faster you learn you can't change it, the better off you are." He threw himself back down on the couch so that his legs flew up and the people on either side of him bounced.
"Alan's got a point," Frank said. "We were damn naïve about the way the world worked. We didn't realize all the compromises we'd have to—"
"Oh, shit."
They all turned and looked at Diane, sitting lotus position in the corner. "Can we just can all this crap? I can hear this on reruns of thirtysomething, you know? I came to have fun, guys. Hell, almost all of us would rather do something else. I live my life teaching kids how to bang on rhythm sticks for crissake. But for one night I just want to pretend I'm a dumb little hippie again, is that so much to ask?"
The room was silent, except for Judy Collin's sweet voice. Finally Frank spoke. "I'm sorry. You're right. We came to have fun, not to argue."
Eddie dropped his cigarette butt into a beer can and shook it. "I'm sorriest. I started it." He took a deep breath. "I suppose because my own life didn't turn out the way I wanted, I like to think that neither did anyone else's. I'm sorry, Alan. Sorry, Sharla. Judy . . .”
It was the first time Woody ever saw tears in Eddie Phelps's eyes, and the sight shook him. But the discomfort was replaced by affection as Judy gave Eddie a hug from one side, Sharla from the other. Eddie hugged them back.
"Yeah," said Curly, "it's really like being back there, if we let it be. Let's forget now, forget the hassles, the things we don't like." His voice was soothing, hypnotic, and Woody recalled Curly's acting ability. "I mean, listen to the music, look at this place, at each other, smell it, feel it. It hasn't been like this in over twenty years."
And it was true. The accusations that had filled the air were now replaced by a peace that Woody could feel from the relaxed set of his jaw down to his sandaled toes.
"Peace, love, freedom," Curly intoned, and the others smiled in spite of self-knowledge and knowledge of the world, and sat for a long time listening, sensing.
“Just one thing missing," said Curly, a sly grin sliding onto his face. "We need to get stoned."
It was a tribute to Curly's crooning influence and the magic of the night that the protests were feebly voiced. The place, the music, the memories all made the suggestion acceptable, and he went on, Woody thought, with the smoothness of the devil offering to buy souls.
"I don't do this stuff anymore," Curly said, taking a baggie and a pack of rolling papers from his pocket. "But I thought for old time's sake . . . and you can get it so easy in L.A."
"What about the nation's war on drugs?" said Sharla dryly.
Curly winked. "Hostilities can resume in the morning." He began to roll joints with unpracticed fingers. The first one fell apart, and he started again. "Been a long time."
"You brought that in," Alan said with a touch of awe, "on the plane?"
"On my person. Doesn't set off the alarm if it's not metal."
"We really shouldn't do this," said Diane. "Some of us are teachers. We get busted, we could lose our jobs."
"What's life without risk?" said Sharla, a sad little smile tightening her lips. "Just like the old days."
And it was. There was the same potential for harm. In 1969, if they had been found using marijuana, they would have been arrested, and then have had to answer to their parents, the college, and the civil authorities. It was a three-edged sword that maturity had reduced to two.
But there was the same excitement too. Life had never seemed as sharp as when they had smoked grass. There had been nothing like the gut-churning, erection-causing thrill of it, that intoxicating paranoia that gave way to a belligerent euphoria. The act alone was enough to make them high, the flaunting of rules, silent inhalations, secret blows against the empire, the way the smoke filled up the cars with their rolled-up windows, the darkened rooms of rebellious years.
"We need some different music," Frank said. "A little psychedelia. Jimi again? Or the Airplane?"
"The Doors," said Woody. "The first album." Frank found it, took it out of the sleeve. "Just let the first side repeat," Woody said.
"Break on Through" was the first song. The well-known riff began with a measure of drums, a measure of bass, a measure of guitar, and then the cold, cutting, commandin
g voice of Jim Morrison. The song played on to the end while everyone listened, and it seemed the only movement in the room was Curly rolling joints.
As the Doors began "Soul Kitchen," Diane said, "This is the one with 'Light My Fire,' isn't it?"
Others nodded, and Woody knew what they were all remembering, how it was Tracy's favorite song, and how, when Ray Manzarek's organ riff kicked in, she stopped whatever she was doing and danced, her movements cool and controlled, but her gray eyes revealing the frenzy the song unleashed in her soul. The first time they made love, here in the apartment, "Light My Fire" was playing.
"What is that stuff anyway?" Eddie asked Curly.
"Pure Panamanian, so I'm told." Curly kept rolling, stacking the twisted rolls like a tiny pile of logs. "Very good shit.”
“How many are you making?" Eddie said.
"Nine. One for each of us . . .” He paused, licked a final joint twice as large as the others, and said, more quietly, "and one in memoriam. For our friends."
"Like pouring brandy on Poe's grave," said Alan without a trace of a smile.
Curly handed a joint to each person, then picked up the ninth and held it aloft, like a priest holds the host on the paten. "Let's pass the first one. Like the old days. Pass it and remember our friends. Say their names if you want. Let's remember them."
He stood up and gave the joint to Woody. "You made it possible, Woody. You should start."
Woody took the joint, looked at it as if at an artifact of a time far more distant than the sixties, then licked his lips so the paper would not stick, delicately put the joint in his mouth, and leaned into the burning match Curly offered.
He took a deep drag, nearly retching at the bitter taste, the acrid smoke, but held it, held it in strong, reed man's lungs until he felt them burn, felt euphoric heat bubbling upward to his head, felt light and heavy and hot and cold, and closed his eyes and let the little smoke that had not entered him drift out like remnants of a dream. He wondered for what seemed like hours if he should say her name, and then he did, without even being conscious of it.
"Tracy," he said.
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