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I arrived in my bedroom. It was too small, hot and airless. I lifted my wallet and recognized it. There were six twenties inside, and some cards with my name on them. I went into the bathroom and stared at the face in the bright mirror. My pupils were enormous. I was wearing an orange Carnaby Street tie someone had given me that afternoon. I was afraid to urinate. I had the notion that I was composed of water and if I started I would not stop until I disappeared. I realized I needed to go to Montreal immediately, so I stuck my toothbrush in my pocket. Now I was packed. I said goodbye to only my brother, phoned a taxi, and was suddenly standing in our small local airport where a crisp woman informed me all flights to Expo '67 had been booked weeks ago. I was mesmerized by an animated group of Trinidadians playing steel drums in the foyer. They caught my despair in a dancing net which spun me towards another airline counter. It was nearly midnight and no one was there, but I leaned on a service buzzer with my elbow until an angry official burst through the door, demanding that I stop. I had his attention and managed to encourage him to plot an optional route. A shuttle flight to La Guardia, a bus to JFK airport, and when the sun came up I was floating in the clouds above Montreal. It all seemed like only moments had elapsed, and when I came down from the acid trip, I was standing on a Montreal street corner, wearing an orange tie, carrying a toothbrush in one pocket, spare change in the other. A short man with devilish eyes and a red goatee was talking to me in French. I don't know why he picked me, nor how I understood enough to follow him home to meet his wife (whom he said could speak some English) but he did and I did. Recently immigrated from France, they had rented a run-down heritage house on Rue St. Denis, and were looking for boarders to share the rent. They showed me a high-ceilinged room with a one-legged washstand and a window which looked out onto a tangle of cries-crossed washlines in the trashy adjacent courtyards. They gave me a mat and a blanket, and I slept for ten hours. That night we ate crusty bread dipped in olive oil and covered with sardines and fete cheese. I gave them all the money I had left and promised I'd pay rent as soon as I landed a job at Expo. There were no jobs
available at Expo; they'd been farmed out long ago, besides
I didn't speak a word of French. I had no money to spend at
Expo and went there only twice all summer. I came down hard
from the LSD into the gradual awareness of the tear I'd rent
into the family fabric, and the sudden nothingness into
which I'd flung myself . That summer I learned to lean heavy
on the bottle.
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SO
MUCH DEPENDS UPON A MAN
n
the summer of '67, my master's degree in my back pocket, I
caught a ride to San Francisco and went straight to the
Haight where the drugs and costumes, the jargon and chaos
ushered me right out through the back door, and sent me
hitch-hiking back home to Allentown, PA where I promptly
dropped my first LSD with my brother and his friends. Still
high, I arrived at my parents' dinner table where my father
was slicing slabs of medium rare roast beef. The meat was
bleeding and I declined. My brother's face was changing into
a comical mask and I couldn't suppress my laughter. A potato
disappeared in my mouth and my father's eyes dilated with
disapproval, then slitted like a hooded hawk. My mother
contracted a migraine and left the table suddenly. Sgt.
Pepper and Timothy Leary, Dylan and the shadow of Viet- Nam
were unleashed; there was a stranger at their
table.