Читать книгу Black and Gold: The End of the Sixties - Mike Jr. Trial - Страница 5

Hypnotized by the Hamm’s sign’s bilious blue waters endlessly rippling, Mark sat at the bar, an untasted beer in front of him. The I.V. was quiet. Mark went to the pay phone and dropped a dime in the slot. He slowly dialed the first digit of Jennifer’s phone number, then the next, then stopped. After a while the phone clicked, his dime dropped into the change slot, and the dial tone whined. If he told her about Tim’s death, she would be very caring, but pity and condolence would not ease the restless anger he felt.

When he returned to the bar, there was a girl sitting on the barstool next to his. She gave him a hug, pushing her small breasts against him. “Remember me?”

“Debbie,” Mark said.

“You’re a skydiver. I want to learn skydiving,” she said. She had a cute smile, and brown hair cut so short it seemed boyish, but her body was attractive in a tee shirt and jeans.

“Okay,” Mark said. She started to raise her hand to order a beer when Mark stopped her. “Let’s get out of here.” He pulled her gently along, off the barstool and out the door. He was surprised to see night had fallen while he’d sat nursing a beer.

“What’s your hurry?” she said breathlessly as they hurried down the street. At his Chevy, Mark pointed to a tumbled white mass on the backseat. “That is a parachute.”

As he drove she leaned over the seat feeling the filmy nylon. Then she slid over to sit right beside him, just like high school. He put his arm around her. “I didn’t take time to repack my chute, just threw it in the back seat.”

“Isn’t it dangerous to leave it tangled up? Will it open right if it’s not…”

“I’ll straighten it out when I repack.” He parked in the big gravel parking lot behind the University Services building, shut of the engine, and tuned the radio to KAAY. There were three other cars there, lights off, spaced far apart. Debbie lit a joint and they passed it back and forth without speaking. When the joint had burned down to a roach, Mark tossed it out the window and took her in his arms and kissed her with angry passion. They clambered over the seat and into the frothy tangles of the parachute and made love. For a while, the warmth of her body eased the chill that had come into him ever since he’d heard Tim was dead.

Mark leaned over the seat and turned the radio off. Debbie got a pack of Winstons out of her purse on the front seat. Her body was white in the darkness.

“Don’t smoke back here, you can burn a hole in the nylon.”

She put the cigarette away. “Don’t talk much do you?” she said.

He stepped out of the car naked, oblivious to other cars nearby, and quickly dressed. She wriggled into her jeans and tee shirt and they sat in the front seat smoking cigarettes.

“You from St. Louis?” Debbie asked, blowing a smoke ring at the stars.

“Columbia,” he said, staring at the darkness.

She snorted, “Me too, but not for long. I’m leaving…”

“We’re all leaving,” Mark muttered. “One way or another.”

“What about skydiving? When can I...?”

Mark cut her off. “I’ve got to get going. Where’s your car parked?”

* * *

At the end of Tim’s funeral, Mark followed the others out of the old church and stood on Walnut Street blinking in the sun. The rest dispersed to their cars—friend’s of Tim’s parents, a handful of high school classmates Mark had lost touch with long ago.

The Indian summer afternoon seemed an illusion, a two-dimensional picture in sepia tones.

Tim’s house on Michaelson Drive was like its neighbors, a modest 1950’s ranch-style with a blue Buick in the carport and a neatly trimmed lawn. The street was lined with mature elm and oak trees. Impatiens lined the Bryants’ driveway. In the over-crowded living room Mark stood for a time, trying to think of something to say, but there was nothing to be said. In the church, the priest’s cant had been meaningless and Mark knew his own condolences to Tim’s parents were equally so. The stairway door stood open. He made his way down to the rec room in the basement and sat on one of the barstools at the little bar. Conversations upstairs drifted down the stairs in the tone and tempo of funerals, the dichotomy of mimicking normalcy while consoling a great loss.

Tim’s slot car track was still set up on the ping-pong table. Mark ran his finger through the dust. At the end of the table were four model car boxes. Mark opened one and took out Tim’s beautifully detailed Ford GT40. Another box held a red Mustang with white racing stripes.

He replaced them in their boxes and sat back down at the bar. The leaves on the trees outside made dappled patterns in the melancholy light coming through the high basement windows.

Tim sat on the other barstool, wearing his familiar black-framed glasses. “Remember the old slot car place over on Business 70?” he said softly.

“I remember,” Mark whispered. “We had some fun there didn’t we? Remember that model Ferrari I had back in high school?”

“Yeah.”

“That was the summer we double-dated almost every week. Diane set me up with her friend.” Mark grinned. “I remember the night we were driving around in your car. We were always in your car, you kept your Plymouth looking and running perfectly. My old Chevy, well… anyway, remember we drove over to Boonville just for something to do and got into that drag race with those guys in that ’55?”

“Yeah,” Tim said. He was staring at the pale light coming in through the basement windows. “They beat us pretty bad.”

Mark laughed. “I remember afterwards we drove up to that little park on Old Highway 63 overlooking Hinkson Creek…”

“The old makeout spot.”

“Yeah,” Mark laughed again. “My date and I were in the back seat. I had my shoes off and one foot down alongside the front seat. In the dark, Diane mistook my white sock for her white purse and tried to pick it up.”

“Those were good days,” Tim said, suddenly subdued. He ran his finger down the vinyl padding at the edge of the bar. “I always liked the long summer evenings here in Columbia, high school days. I’d get home from stocking shelves at Nowell’s, take a shower and put on Levi’s and a white tee shirt, pick up Diane for a drive-in movie or cruise around town, maybe a hamburger at McDonald’s or a root beer at Mugs Up. I wish they’d never ended.” Tim’s ghost faded into the shadows. The conversations upstairs continued in soothing whispers.

* * *

Mark’s spirits lifted when Jennifer came down the stairs of her dorm. She was beautiful. As they walked to his car arm in arm, the scent of her Chantilly took him back through all of their days together. Life was what mattered, the days and hours of our lives, not the words of priest when we die.

“Keith is playing guitar now?” Jennifer said as they drove down Ninth Street toward the Hofbrau.

Mark nodded. “He said he’d never play for money, and now he’s playing down at the Hofbrau once a week.” Mark shrugged. “But I don’t think it’s about the money, not really. His parents are pretty well off. I’m sure they’re paying his way through school. Funny thing is, he’s kind of a tightwad.”

“I remember that time he refused to pay for his date’s lunch,” Jennifer laughed. “That won’t get him many dates.”

“I think his parents bought that ratty little trailer for him, so he wouldn’t have to pay rent. What a dump.”

“It had its uses,” Jennifer said coyly.

“Yeah,” Mark grinned. “Rednecks outside drinking Old Milwaukee and throwing the cans in the yard, while we’re inside talking about Andrew Marvell’s poetry, and later, in the bedroom….”

The Hofbrau was crowded, but a booth opened up just as Mark and Jennifer walked in. They ordered bratwurst plates, a draft beer, and a Coke.

“...cups overflow with wine and well-turned words amaze…” Jennifer arched an eyebrow at Mark.

“Gerard Manley Hopkins?”

“Thomas Campion. A distant relative of mine no doubt,” she laughed.

“You look great tonight, did I tell you that?” She smiled, embarrassed. Keith made his way between the tables and stepped up on the little dais in the spotlight. His lank yellow hair disappeared in the harsh light, making him look like a balding northwoodsman in his worn jeans, plaid shirt with sleeves rolled up, and hiking shoes. He tuned his Gibson intently. There was a piece of paper taped to the inside top of his guitar case that spelled “thanks” in flower power letters. Jennifer and Mark traded looks.

But his playing was strong, complex and stylish. He covered a handful of folk-rock classics, then some bits of Reinhardt and Les Paul, and slowed the tempo down for a medley of pop tunes. After a pause he played “Suzanne” more beautifully that Mark had ever heard it.

“He could play for a living,” Jennifer told Mark as they applauded.

“But he says the chances of making a good living as a musician are miniscule. He wants a sure road to big bucks.”

Keith disappeared on break.

“He talks about a Porsche, a glossy apartment, all that stuff, but every once in a while, he’ll get this wistful tone in his voice and talk about hitting the road, playing guitar, living the free life, playing what he wants, how he wants.” Mark touched Jennifer’s hand. “I guess we all dream about unlimited freedom sometimes.” She didn’t answer.

By the time Keith started his second set, the front tables were full of girls in rapturous silence. At the end of his set, one requested he play “Suzanne” again and he slid into it, slowing it down even more. “Looks like he’s acquired a few groupies,” Jennifer whispered.

When he’d finished, the applause went on for a long time. Mark assumed he was going to do an encore, but instead he sorted through sheet music in his guitar case until he found what he was looking for. He shaded his eyes in the spotlight. “Let me read you these all too familiar lyrics. ‘Greeting, you are hereby inducted into the armed forces of the United States.’” He put the paper down gingerly and stood up slowly. “I’ve been drafted.”

The room went silent. One of the girls said softly, “For real?” He nodded, and suddenly he was surrounded by girls making solicitous sounds. Mark and Jennifer made their way out past the throng of admirers, but Mark caught his eye and told him, “Meet me tomorrow at the Heidelberg.”

On the drive back to Jennifer’s dorm, Jennifer started a quote, “…the shadow of death…sorry,” she said.

But Mark nodded. “But you’re right. Another one of us about to enter that valley.”

* * *

Thursday afternoon Dave was walking down Ninth Street mentally reliving the discussion just ended in his International Politics class. He chuckled. He’d manipulated the discussion so that he could list some of Milton Freidman’s liberal views as to what government should not do: agricultural price controls, minimum wage setting, public housing, the draft. His planning and memorization had paid off. His classmates, and even the grad student teaching the class, could think of no logical argument against his points, and best of all, Dave was sure they thought he had thought them up himself.

“Want to do some acid, man?” somebody said. There was a girl in a burgundy sweater and lush brown hair sitting on the lawn in front of Lowry Hall. She had lush brown hair and her infectious smile made her beautiful in the way plain-featured girls can be.

Caught off guard but propelled by her engaging energy that left him no choice, Dave said, “Sure.”

“Well, let’s go then.” Unasked, she linked arms with him and they walked the four blocks to Paquin Street. Completely off-balanced by this engaging girl with big hair, a big smile, and big breasts he hoped would be pressing close to him, Dave lectured her on politics and Zen. She had a small chip in the corner of one of her front teeth, which he felt was charming.

The old three story frame houses on Paquin had been partitioned into cheap apartments and had recently become the center of the counterculture in Columbia, which some viewed as a disgraceful ghetto, and others viewed as an oasis of forwarding-thinking lifestyles in conservative Columbia.

“Third floor,” Dave said, admiring her butt as they made their way up the narrow stairs to his stuffy room. Dave slid a window up. She showed him two tiny white tablets in the palm of her hand. Although Dave did not do drugs any stronger than pot, he took one and swallowed it with a slug of beer from his refrigerator. “Same trip as window pane acid, but not as many hours,” she told Dave. “I like it better. More color and less movement.”

“I’m Allison Gates,” she said. They shook hands.

“Dave Gardner.”

Talking with her was easy. Dave was taken with her big laugh, big tits, and hips a little too wide. He tried to look cool and avoid staring at her as she rolled around on the mattress pulling one book after another out of his pile of paperbacks. Her breasts were bouncing around beautifully under her cotton blouse embroidered with the tree of life, its roots spelling Katmandu.

He lit a stick of incense and sat down beside her on the mattress. The sounds of traffic and people drifted in the open window on the Indian summer breeze.

“Let me guess,” Dave said. “You’re from New Mexico.”

She laughed, clapped her hands, and then kissed him unexpectedly. “No, but I’d like to be. When I was in junior high school, back in Moberly, I used to tell my friends my parents had been living in a commune out West when I was born.”

“Moberly.” Dave did not add the dismissive remark he would have added talking with Carol. “Like to tell stories do you? Make up your life as you go along?”

“I like to live life as I go along,” she said. She sat down on his mattress, perfectly at ease, and looking very sexy in her earth-mother way. “Yeah, a farm on Route K east of Moberly.”

“What’s your major?” he asked.

“I’m not enrolled,” she said. “I just sit in on classes that seem interesting. I sat in on an Anthropology class today.”

The colors in the old wallpaper were beginning to shift as the acid started to affect his senses. “You feel it?”

“Yeah,” Allison said. “It’s neat.”

Dave grinned. “Neat?”

She leaned over and hugged him. “Don’t make fun.”

Dave held her for a moment, intoxicated by her warmth, the scent of her hair, and the warm brown of her eyes. “You are beautiful.” And so different from Carol, he thought. He knew his logic could never persuade her of anything.

She pulled back. “Don’t give me that. I’ve got a big butt, a chipped tooth, my hair is uncontrollable…”

“You’re beautiful,” he repeated slowly as the drug took him along, pulling him into her vortex.

Allison sat in zazen, eyes closed, hands on her thighs palms up—a beautiful Buddha, her curly brown hair a halo. “I was thinking about sunrises,” Allison said slowly. She opened her eyes and moved to sit across from Dave at the window, one arm on the sill. She picked up a book from his stack. “I read this book, Journey to the East. There’s this guy Leo, who’s been their guide on this journey. He asks if they’ve become friends and Leo says he doesn’t know people at all. He says knowing a dog is better. Easier.” She laughed, then stopped. “Sorry.”

Then she burst out laughing again, snorted, and they both laughed until tears were running down their cheeks.

After they caught their breath Dave said, “Nothing to be sorry about, you didn’t write the book, Hermann Hesse did.” They both started laughing again and couldn’t stop for a long time.

Allison pulled Monday Night Class from Dave’s bookshelf. “I went to hear this guy Stephen, the guy who wrote this. He travels around the country teaching people stuff.” She paused, seeing something only she could see.

A wave of color washed over Dave unexpectedly. “Colors,” he said. “Shades of lavender and purple and chartreuse. Beautiful.” The angular light on the faded wallpaper revealed a rose pattern he had not known was there. He studied the faded roses, the bare wood floor, the old Indian blanket on the mattress. The afternoon light was fading. Moving with infinite slowness he picked up a candle, set it in the plate that served as a candleholder, found some matches, and got it lit.

Allison was talking, “… stuff like loving each other…I mean really loving each other. And other stuff, like consciousness, and aura…all kinds of stuff.”

“Stephen?”

“Yeah.” A smile came slowly to her face like a sunrise. “It would be really neat to go and listen to him again.”

Dave was transfixed by the dark wainscot. There was a dent in the top of it near the door, where someone had once dropped something on it. It had been repainted several times. A collage of the people who might have lived in this room in the past flowed across his imagination.

From the open window he could hear the distant sound of a child’s voice, the closing of a car door, a crow far away. Columbia went about its business on this ordinary September evening. There is only this moment, he thought. That’s what Zen teaches us—Zen which sounds so simple, yet is so difficult to attain. He ran his finger along the dusty top of the wainscot, painted brown by some unknown hand. He saw the wood as it had looked when it was new—straight, clean and aromatic.

A branch of the oak tree touched the wall outside the room, scratching softly. “”What’s that?” Allison asked.

“My spiritual guide. The tree,” Dave said. He saw the spirit of the tree, preoccupied with the things only trees know.

Allison got out a lid of pot she found behind the stack of books and started rolling a joint.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Dave said. “I’m high already. That isn’t drug use—it’s drug abuse.”

She licked the joint closed sensually and held it up, perfectly rolled. “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.” She lit it from the candle and took a long hit.

“In the candlelight your smile looks like sunrise,” Dave said.

“I smile a lot, sorry,” Allison said tightly through a lungful of smoke. “It just happens. Like the sun coming up.”

After a while they took off their clothes and made love. When Dave woke, his head hurt and Allison was gone.