Third Saturday Fiction

Chapter 10. The Hippie Experience, from the novel Boystown: The Cocaine Highway

By edRogers

[The first-person narrator is James Hamilton, a 1960’s draft dodger and entrepreneur. In this chapter he’s checking out the market for a certain product in San Francisco.]

BUDDY stepped outside, turned his collar up, and headed for his bike parked at the curb. The wind blew across the city from the bay. The air was cold and damp and the chill ran up and down my spine. I shook badly as I turned to close the door, and the key fell from my hand. The last thing I thought I wound need when I left Texas for California was a coat.
    “What do you want me to do with the key?”
    “Put the key back in the box. I don’t like for it to leave the property. You never know—while we’re gone the realtor may sell the place,” he hollered by way of an explanation and some humor.
    The cold hands didn’t help. I opened the box, which, given the way my hands shook, was just short of a miracle. It took me two or three tries before I got the box back on the door. Just as the lock clicked shut, I heard the reverberating roar of the big Harley.
    I felt awkward as I came down the stairs. I had never ridden on a motorcycle. I threw my leg over the rear and settled into what I learned later was called the bitch seat. There I was, with my butt planted firmly on the seat and full of confidence that no one would ever know I was a virgin biker.
    “Are you going to put the foot stands down?” Buddy asked.
    Busted! I had no idea what he was talking about or where to look.
    “You’ve never been on a Hog before, have you?”
    “No, but I’ll bet you’ve never been on the back of a horse.” The minute I said it, I thought how stupid I sounded.
    Buddy reached back and flipped the chrome foot rests down. “Just lean with the ride, don’t fight it as we go into the turns. You know how it is riding a horse, you have to become part of the machine. You’ll be a pro in no time. There isn’t a thing to worry about.”
    I put my feet up, and Buddy laughed and hollered, “Getty up, motherfucker,” and kicked it in the ass. Instinct took over and I grabbed for Buddy. He made right turns, left turns, jumps and weaves up and down the steep hills of San Francisco. A few times, I believe I would have thrown up if not for the fear that raced through my body. Just before I lost all sense of my manhood and cried out for Buddy to stop, he slowed the big Harley-Davidson and hollered over his shoulder, “That’s as bad as it will ever get. Now that you know you’re not going to die…enjoy the ride.”
    The night was cold and I was thankful for the jacket Buddy had given me, but as the fear subsided, I began to shake once more. Buddy was right, I needed new clothes, warm ones.
    Buddy wore his full colors, leather jacket and leather pants with his ass-kicking boots. They were thick-soled, black-leathered, steel-toed construction boots. The jacket had skull and crossbones in white. The name Outcast was in a red semi-circle above the bones, and below the skull and crossbones white letters said Charter One. On the front he wore pins from motorcycle events across the country.
    I felt stupid dressed in cowboy boots and jeans until we turned onto Haight Street. There it looked like the circus was in town.
    “Welcome to the other side of the rainbow,” Buddy hollered.
    Head shops were next door to soup kitchens and free clinics and there seemed to be equal lines in front of each. Long-haired freaks with bandanas and shirts that appeared to have different buckets of paint thrown on them filled the street. The sound of music flowed from every store. Groups of two to ten people swayed and danced on the sidewalks. Next to a free clinic was an exchange store. Buddy moved people aside with his front wheel and parked at the curb. A few gave him a hard look, but none were so stupid that they said anything.
    “Come on, we’re going to get you dressed out for the scene,” he had to scream over the street noise.
    As we walked toward the store, a young girl came up to us. “Got any spare change?” She asked. She looked maybe fifteen, long brown hair that, along with her body, needed a bath. Her eyes had a lost, faraway look. It was as though this was not her world, and just someplace she was passing though.
    “Get the fuck out of here, bitch. You want money? Then start selling that pussy instead of giving it away.” Buddy pushed passed her and entered the store. I pulled out the few coins in my pocket and handed them to the girl. She took the money without a word of thanks and walked onto the next mark. I heard her ask someone else for spare change as I fought my way into the store.
    The place crawled with flower children. The mixture of pot, body odor, and some kind of sweet-smelling perfume was enough to overwhelm a person.
    “Over here, James.” Buddy stood at a table with piles of pants scattered about in no order. “What are you, about a thirty waist?”
    “Yeah, but I’m not wearing those.” Buddy held out a pair of bell-bottom jeans with peace signs and flowers sewed on the knees and ass pockets.
    “You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. Think about how you would stand out dressed like this in Texas and that’s how you look to these people.” Buddy pushed the jeans and a colorful shirt toward me. “Go put these on. I’ll find you some shoes. What size do you wear?”
    I took the clothes. Buddy was right. A draft dodger selling drugs didn’t need to attract attention. “I wear a 10-b,” I said, and headed to the dressing room.
    I came out of the store with a paper bag containing my boots and belt, with buckle. Buddy had found me a pair of slip-on loafers and an Army field jacket with a patch that read, “War is a Killing Business,” on the back. He seemed very happy with his creation.
    We stepped out onto the sidewalk. The mob of people seemed to be going everywhere at once, but never moving more than a couple feet. Even with the new clothes on, I knew I could never be a part of that scene. Hell, these were not my kind of people.
    Buddy caught my arm and pulled me next to the brick wall. “Everybody is into a handshaking thing out here.” He said it in all seriousness. “I’m going to show you only one. It’ll let you get by without looking like a nark.”
    At first I thought he was joking, but he put his hand out and I was obliged to take it. We shook hands and inverted our hands to a fist-thumb grip that slid into a finger grip. It was not unlike a lot of the handshakes I had seen back at the house with Norman.
    “What the hell is the purpose of all this shit?” I asked.
    “This is a community, look around you. They have cut themselves off from the outside world. In here they make the rules. It may be only a dream world, but if you want these people to trust you, you’ll play their game.”
    He laughed loudly, raised his arms over his head, and turned in a circle. “Enjoy it. It won’t be here long. It’s already feeding on itself.”
    The Harley rumbled down the street, and Buddy had to swerve to avoid the stoners and acid-heads that walked out into the traffic. I guess in their fucked minds, they were in a world of pastures and flowers. The girl who had hit me up for change had taken Buddy’s advice. She was in the alley giving some guy a blowjob.
    A line of bikes marked our destination. Buddy pulled into a place at the head of the line. I swung my leg off the bike as Buddy leaned it onto the kickstand.
    “Hey, Buddy. I see you picked up one of those hippie chicks already.” The remark had come from one of the bikers that stood around the doorway.
    “You wish you could pick up such a sweet piece of ass, you dickhead,” Buddy joked. Quieter he whispered to me; “Don’t pay any mind to them, James. You say something, and there’s a fight…I can’t step in.”
    “You know, Buddy, we’ve got some pretty tough motherfuckers in Texas,” I bragged. “There’s no one out here, and that includes you, that scares me. Therefore, you might want to save that warning for your boys. They fuck with me, I’ll carve enough Xs on their asses to spell, ox, fox, box, and trot.”
    “There’s no X in trot.”
    “I know, but it rhymes.”
    Buddy laughed and slapped me on the back. “We’re going to have some good times, James. That is, if someone doesn’t kill you first.”
    Buddy opened the door and music blared down the stairs. “Who the hell is that playing?” I asked
    “That’s the Dead, man. You’ve never heard of the Grateful Dead?” A bewildered Buddy couldn’t believe there was someone in the world that had never heard of his heroes.
    “What part of me living in Mexico did you not understand? One of the bars in Matamoros still has a jukebox with old 78 records in it.” I felt like the country cousin that was in the big city for the first time. I guess that was what I had become. The world I thought I left had left me.
    “You’ve got a lot of catching up to do, and this is a good place to start.” Buddy smiled and pushed me into a large open room.
    At some time in the past, the room had been the upper work area of a warehouse. There was a twenty-foot ceiling with open beans. Long bolts of colored cloth draped the beams and flowed to the floor. These bolts of cloth produced wall after wall of brightly colored curtains. The material drifted like waves with the movement of air and people. Within the reds, yellows, blues, and whites, there were splashes of purple or green.
    Beanbags were abundant, along with couches with no legs. Many chairs and tables with 12-inch legs filled the space between the colorful drapes. It was hard to tell how many people inhabited the loft. The wind moved the cloth and two nude bodies appeared for a brief moment…some smoked, some engaged in sex. The smell of grass lay thick in the air. I got a contact high as I stood in the midst of it.
    “In here, James.” Buddy pulled back a thick carpet like cloth. We stepped into an office that was both private and soundproof. It was the last thing I expected in that jungle of color.
    “Welcome to my humble abode,” said the thin black man behind the desk. “Who’s your friend? Is he the one we have to thank for the snowy weather this afternoon?”
    “He’s the one, Victor.” Buddy turned toward me. “This is James, our new benefactor.”
    The thin man wore small quarter-size purple-colored glasses and a white jacket that buttoned all the way to the neck. His shaved head made him look strange in the middle of so many long-haired people. He put his hand out. The handshake was limp and feminine. Okay, I get it, I thought, you’re queer.
    He released my hand and reached for a black cigarette holder. He made a fuss about cleaning the end of the holder as he undressed me with his eyes. “Perhaps you would like to join me later, James,” he said and lit the cigarette. He pulled smoke through the long tube and exhaled in my direction. I realized it was marijuana at the end of the black holder. He sat the joint back on the ashtray and smiled at me. “We’re all going for a steam bath at O’Neilly’s.”
    “Sorry, partner. I don’t ride in that rodeo.”
    “Oh, well, isn’t that too bad.” Victor turned his attention to Buddy. “How much of this cocaine can I expect to get my hands on?”
    “How much can you move?” I asked.
    “I’m sorry, ‘partner,’ but this business is between Buddy and myself.”
    I must have pissed Victor off. “That’s fine with me.” I headed out through the curtain and turned toward Buddy. “I’m going to look around and see what kind of trouble I can get into. I’ll catch up with you after you finish your business.”
    I walked through the flowing colors of cloth, and it was as if I had stepped into a dreamscape. Everybody I ran into was stoned. A thin white sheer fluttered in front of me, and as I reached to push it aside, a beautiful blonde with a crown of posies stepped out.
    She wore a dress that appeared to have come from the movie Cleopatra, only this one you could see through. Her young, firm breasts pushed taut against the material. Her milky white skin was flawed only by a line of freckles across her nose, and her smile was highlighted by bright red lips.
    Without a word, she took my hand and led me through the forest of colors. I really wanted to ask where the hell we were going, but the little head kept screaming: Keep your mouth shut! The thin cloth of her dress slid easily between the beautiful humps of her ass and held my attention until we reached a square with pillows and beanbags.
    “Take off your shoes,” she said.
    I bent over and pulled off my shoes. When I stood up, I met a vision of heaven. From the center of the pillows and beanbags rose the blackest, most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Her skin was dusky and smooth, a look of African royalty. There was a proudness and command about her that would quiet the beast in any man. She stood amidst the flowing colors like a nude goddess that waited to be paid homage. The blonde removed her dress and started to pull my field jacket off. Once my mind started to work again, I threw clothes right and left. The two of us, nude, waded across a sea of pillows. In the center, the two girls threw me on my back. I swear to God: at that moment I truly believed that I had died and gone to Heaven.
    The Queen of the Nile placed a breast in my mouth, and my tongue wrapped around the inch-long nipple. It was as big around as my little finger and hard as a rock. I had never experienced anything like it. Too my displeasure she removed her breast and kissed my chest. She ran her tongue over my nipples, on her way down my body. The pretty face of the blonde was above me as she sat on my chest. I felt her wetness slide over me as she moved her body back and forth. She covered my mouth with hers, and inserted a sugar cube. There was a slight bittersweet taste, but at that point I didn’t give a damn what they stuck in my mouth. The Queen took me deep down her throat and did some kind of trumping sound that was out of this world.
    The blonde burrowed her tongue so far in my ear I could feel my brain move. I thought, I’d seen and done everything, but these girls did shit I never believed possible. The smoke and heat was thick from so many bodies. At last, from overhead, I heard a low rumble that grew in speed. The airflow increased as the fans came on. The colored cloth, which hung from the ceiling, came alive and moved to the rhythm of Under the Boardwalk. The sound echoed in and out of the long sheets, which both muffled and amplified the beat.
    The bright-colored cloth began to shine and sparkle. It was no longer inanimate, but alive with a beating heart. The breasts of the blonde moved like large mounds of ice cream with strawberries on top. I reached for one of the mounds as she slid down my chest. However, the hand belonged to a stranger. The hand moved slowly through Jell-O, as if controlled by some outside force. She stood up before my hand reached her, and the beautiful Queen of the Nile stood with her. They straddled my body and as I stared at the two heavenly bodies, they began to kiss.
    I watched in bemusement as they melted into a swirling kaleidoscope of chocolate and vanilla. Their bodies were suspended in space above me and moved to the rhythm of a ghastly song. The liquid of dark-brown and white cream folded together until it became one. The long colored fingers of cloth reached out and tried to join the dance. The music was a haunting sound, a story about a house in New Orleans and a lost soul.
    Were they singing about me? I sure felt lost.
    I don’t know how or what happened, but I was in a candy factory. Long strips of colored taffy dripped from the ceiling and I lay covered in chocolate and vanilla syrup. It slid over my body and squeezed through my fingertips. I opened my mouth and tasted the better sweetness of chocolate. It lingered on my tongue and excited my senses. I buried my face in the perfumed void and ate my fill. Too soon, the chocolate swirled away and slid down my side, but it was replaced by creamy vanilla. I was like a child, who had been given all the candy in the world and told he couldn’t take any home. I consumed it all, with no thought of tomorrow.
    I closed my eyes for a second, but when I opened them, I was no longer with the girls. For some reason, they were gone and I found myself in a river of blue, red, and white currents. A purple dolphin swam by and smiled, while a green caterpillar tried to escape the river. I wanted to go back to the candy factory, but I didn’t know where it was. I turned in circles, tried to find the paradise, but the river grabbed at me, pulled me deeper into its current and I was washed away.

I AWOKE with a start. I felt both fear and loss. It was the moment when a person questioned if he or she was insane, dead or alive. My mind cried out for answers, but was lost in a dense fog.
    What had happened? Where was I?
    I jumped out of bed and ran to the curtains. I threw the heavy material open and sun poured into the room. A flashing sensation, as though someone set off several flashbulbs, greeted me. I fell backwards onto the bed. My hands covered my eyes as the pain, like a knife, pierced my consciousness. Pictures of nude women flashed across my brain and bright colors erupted like fireworks. I became sick and ran to the bathroom.
    Long dry heaves smoothed my desire to throw up. I put my head under the shower spout and turned on the cold water. Slowly the cobwebs untangled and I remembered the loft and the colored cloth everywhere. I remembered the girls, the beautiful black one and the pretty blonde. I was sure we had sex. The scene in my mind blurred between what was real and what was a dream. The greatest night of my life and I couldn’t remember shit.
    “Hell, for that matter, how had I gotten home?”
    I opened my bag, pulled out a pair of jeans, quickly put them on, and slowly walked downstairs. The curved staircase ended at the entranceway and as I reached the last step, the door opened.
    “Glad to see you alive.” Buddy didn’t say it in a joking manner.
    “What the hell happened to me last night?”
    I’m not sure what happened before I found you,” he laughed. “You were naked as a J-bird and on one hell of an acid trip by the time I made the scene.”
    “I’ve never taken acid,” I insisted.
    “You were nude, draped in colored cloth, which you had pulled from the beams, and talking crazy shit about losing your candy. You were on acid. Did anyone give you something? Maybe to drink or eat? It doesn’t take much.”
    “I met a couple chicks, the blonde put a sugar cube in my mouth.” We walked into the kitchen. The stainless steel cabinets and counters gleamed in the sunlight. I turned my eyes from the brightness and made a face of pain. A small table sat by the wall for staff and late-night snackers. I headed for one of the chairs. “That couldn’t have been LSD. They weren’t fucked up.”
    “Welcome to Sunshine 25, my friend. These assholes stay fucked up all the time, that’s why it’s hard to tell when they’re straight. You’ve got to watch yourself around those damn hippies. They’re into some real kinky shit.” Buddy opened the fridge and pulled out two beers. “You feel up to talking business?”
    “I guess so.” I took the beer, but wished it were ham and eggs. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. “What’s on your mind?”
    “The West Coast is having a dry spell. Cocaine is in big demand and in short supply. I’ve got a van headed to Texas. It’ll be at the border tomorrow. I’ve got half your money now, and by the time they pick up the shipment you’ll have it all.”
    “Buddy, if I make that call and you fuck me, I’m a dead man. I could kill you, hell I could kill your whole family, and I’d still be a dead man. Those damn Colombians would follow me to hell just to make sure I was dead.”
    “It comes down to trust. You trust me or you don’t. I’ll tell you this, James. You’ll never find a more loyal friend than me.” Buddy took a drink of his beer and sat the bottle on the counter. “What’s it going to be?”
    “Fuck it, let’s do it,” I said. “Can we get something to eat first, my damn hands are shaking so bad I can’t hold this beer bottle.”

I MADE the call and Buddy came through with the money. A bond was forged between the two of us with that deal. It had happened with Antonio. Sometimes you meet people that you trust with your life. Buddy was one of those people.
    I went back to the loft. Victor had my clothes, but I couldn’t find my twosome. I guess that was a good thing. When you bounce from heaven to hell, the joy and pain are so great it could kill you. I was thankful to have made the trip, but glad to be alive.
    I caught a flight out of San Francisco Monday morning, and disembarked at the airport in San Antonio at one that afternoon. In my bag was a set of hippie clothes and $320,000. Buddy had contracted for twenty keys of coke a week. That was forty-four pounds of cocaine. I was so high my feet didn’t touch the ground. Our share would be $312,000 per month. That’s more money than Antonio and I had made in our whole life. I caught a Greyhound to Brownsville and a cab back to Boystown. The cab turned down the dirt road and as we entered the town, I couldn’t help but think how small it seemed. The smell and sight of the dirty, dusty buildings was no longer welcoming. I had seen the other world and it was like waking up in the morning next to a beautiful woman. It was hard to compare it to home. What the hell had happened to me in California?
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Copyright © 2014 by Ed Rogers

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