Running With Pencils

It must have started with crayons. Crayola, usually the small box, but sometimes the large economy size. The crayons smelled good, but not as good as PlayDoh. Melting crayons smelled good too.

Pencils were okay, kind of boring, and when sharpened, allegedly dangerous. Be careful with that, you could put your eye out! The pencils danced between blue lines on faded gray-speckled notebook paper, letters into words into sentences into paragraphs, the user marveling that letters formed words which formed language, and that the human brain could process such things.

Pens were ballpoint or felt-tip or fountain type, multi-coloured inks flowing and exploding between journal covers in stream-of-consciousness rant. The pens illustrated the rant with peace symbols and palm trees.

Typewriters were heavy and metal and evil, causing young brains and fingers to produce clatter and noise and mind-deadening language - I knew this. I had friends who typed.

Word processors were somehow not as bad as typewriters, though either could take away the magic and rhythm of the organic flowing pen - typing somehow being out of tune with channeling.

Years ago I inked my name and drew peace symbols onto my denim-covered cardboard school binder. Dear history  instructor Becker, if you are not dead and are reading this, please return my confiscated journal from nineteen-seventy. I need the notes.

Days of Art Lite

The poster art had large, pinched block letters and swirled backgrounds, being psychedelia with social messages. I sold a few in dark alleyways. "Pssst! Ya wanna buy War Is Not Healthy For Children And Other Living Things? Comes with a free 'Lude . . ."

It was self-taught Art Lite. 

In all seriousness, I did sell original poster art in the early seventies. My art studio was a converted dining room. The antique table provided a large workspace. The room had a gothic ambiance of family antiques that had seen better days, that might devolve into Grey Gardens-esque chaos. 

At that time who would have predicted the creation of the internet (besides a few visionary science heads)? These days I'm into web design, drawing and painting - the internet being a wonderful venue in which to be seen - or unseen. In the presence of my boxy workspaces, I sometimes miss the days of the antique table in the gothic room.

Trippin'

The time was the nineteen-seventies. The place was a small town. Drug culture had insinuated itself into our little town. Stoners and slackers dealt drugs directly from their parents' homes. Parents wondered why their kids were suddenly so popular, what with friends dropping by twenty-four hours a day, for furtive visits and exchanges. Some parents eventually caught on and became pissed.

At this point, my family had two houses on adjacent lots. One had been empty. At age twelve I’d found that this was the perfect time to move in. So, here I was, at age sixteen, still there. My friends really seemed to like it, too. 

My first LSD adventure started innocently enough with a visit from a friend. She was very hip and had connections in actual cities. She appeared at my front door one afternoon, a gleam in her eye and contraband in her purse. I invited her inside. She got right to the point. 

"Here, I have something for you. Acid. Blotter acid." 

"Oh. Well, should I take the whole thing, or just snip it in half?" 

"Either way."

"Should I take it now?" 

"If you want. I have to run. Enjoy!" 

"Wait. How long does it take to feel the effects?" 

"About an hour." 

I eyed the hit of acid. As I recall, it had Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck on it. What could be the harm in this tiny piece of paper with such a sweet, familiar cartoon character on it? I put it in my mouth. I awaited the effects with major butterflies in my stomach. Instead of going out, I decided it might be best to stay home. 

As the drug took effect, I stood at my front screen door and watched people walk up and down the street. The colorful visual effects began, along with a sense of euphoria. I thought that I might burst out laughing at anytime, not cool behavior for a person who happened to be alone. Then I noticed it. The people parading up and down my street knew. They probably could have seen my dilated pupils at ten yards. Yep. They knew that something was askew and were giving me significant looks, laughing and talking about me. 

The day quickly progressed as I puttered around the house. It was the perfect level of stimulation: no people to deal with, no bothersome tasks to worry about. It was a perfect experience. Time flew. I probably saw it fly – clock faces and calendar pages swirling about my head, the essence of time a tornado dissipating out a window. My brain cells doing who knows what, I moved colorfully and euphorically through the day. 

Later that evening I got hungry, and decided to go next door to my grandparents' house to eat. In a strange act of family togetherness, I watched The Jackie Gleason Show with my grandfather. In a sketch, Gleason was alone in a lifeboat on the ocean, pondering his fate dramatically. Oh! Wait a minute! He wasn’t in the middle of the ocean after all, but practically at the shoreline. Hysterical stuff here! I experienced a new appreciation of Jackie Gleason, and had an LSD/Jackie Gleason Epiphany. 

As my grandmother offered me mystery food, she didn’t seem to notice that my pupils seemed the size of dimes. Was it my imagination, or was the food actually moving around on the plate? My grandmother's kitchen and dining nook suddenly seemed very small and garishly painted. I felt as though I was trapped in a dollhouse. I ate the food. I went back next door. I went to bed. I must have had interesting dreams that night. 

Such were the highlights of my first time, my wild trip. Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, eat your hearts out! In retrospect I'm glad that I stayed home. Wandering around, tripping in Small Town USA, would not have been prudent.

Animal House

The house was a linear, ‘shotgun’ style. Its setting was a wooded back lot, off the street. It had a pond. My friends Roberta and Cal lived there with their animals. Some were orphaned in the wild. Some were domestic animals. Over time, they had a bobcat, a fawn, a buzzard, snakes, a goat, and a pony. They also had geese, guinea hens and chickens.

playing chicken

To enter Roberta’s side door, one had to negotiate a flock of chickens. The rooster was territorial and violent. They kept a golf club propped by the door, so that visitors could repel this hyper bird, as it attacked (not fun, especially when stoned).

goat

Their goat, Patty, was a sweet, funny, sociable creature. She tended to get out of the fence, bop down to the mill, and wander inside. There would be a knock at Roberta’s door.

"Your goat is in the weave room again!" A mill man would say, a look of exasperation on his face. "Please come and get your goat!"

Why Patty the goat was attracted to industry was beyond me. The weave room was a loud, noisy, hot room full of big dangerous machinery that threatened to mangle workers at any time. In an interesting contrast, pretty fluffs of cotton floated lazily through the air; workers breathed cotton fibers.

fawn

From her large enclosure in back, Fawn would be released. Roberta would occasionally let Fawn into the house. Its tiny hooves clopped on the hardwood floors as it ran from one end of the house to the other. Fawn would slip and fall down, long spindly legs flying. What am I doing here? Fawn must have thought. It seems that just yesterday I was in the forest. Then I moved here. Now I am here and I fall down a lot. But I like it.

pony

I didn't see Pony very often. As a matter of fact, I don't think that I met Pony at all. I occasionally heard him. Pony stayed in the large sloped area under the front porch. The house was built upon an incline, and there was lots of space underneath, especially under the front porch and living room.

One Saturday afternoon, after Roberta had gotten off work, we sat around smoking joints. We watched nineteen-fifties’ sci-fi/horror flicks on Creature Feature. We ate and laughed a lot. Afternoon would segue into evening. We’d have visitors. The evenings would eventually become quiet.

"Whiney!" Pony suddenly said one night. "Whiney!" Bump, bump, bump. The noise came from underneath the living room, seemingly from directly underneath my chair. What the freak? Sensitive to noise and to things that went bump in the night, this was almost too much for my system, this alternate universe in which equine life seemingly materialized under one’s chair.

"Oh! That's just Pony! Don't be afraid." Roberta said. Pony was perhaps lonely, or just trying to get some sleep. Perhaps ponies whiney because that's their job. Perhaps we should have let Pony into the house. What'd be the problem with one more animal, after all?

Pony was fat and had a swayback. He couldn’t have had a more loving home. Perhaps he liked staying in the cool dark space under the long skinny house before coming out into the sunny fenced yard.

Later, Roberta and Cal would move in with her parents, and take some of the menagerie with them. The situation could cause tension in her parent’s fastidious home.

"Roberta, is that buzzard roosting in your closet?" Her mother would ask. Sometimes it was. Mostly it stayed in the upstairs bathroom.

I later had an amusing dream. I dreamt that I walked up the stairs at Roberta’s house. I turned right to go into the bathroom. I opened the door. There was a bear in the bathtub! It was big, mean and loud. I quickly slammed shut the bathroom door. Darned bears in the bathroom! I thought, irritated. Then I woke up.

French Quarter Hostel

I rolled into New Orleans' French Quarter during a nineteen-seventies winter, finding a youth hostel at Chartres and Dumaine, a couple of blocks from Jackson Square. Winter chill, wind and humidity made the Quarter seem dreary; at that point I didn't fully appreciate the magic of rainy days. The early spring would be lovely; the streets would bustle with colorful characters as we watched from a sagging wrought iron balcony. It felt surreal when I passed Tennessee Williams on the street --- dapper in his linen suit and Panama hat (the extreme humidity could induce Williamsesque 'spells': "I'm feeling a bit faintish, could you fetch me chilled refreshment?" )

The hotel entryway led directly up a dark flight of stairs which took a sharp left turn. There was the check-in desk (with its overweight, sexually-harassing proprietor), which preceded a maze of wide, dark hallways. At the back of the hotel was a large communal kitchen where scavengers hung out. It was big and bare, with only the basic necessities. It was a good idea to label your foodstuffs or lock them up, due to the bands of roving residents suffering from the munchies, or genuine starvation, or both. Large cast iron skillets sat on the ancient stove.

Cast iron skillets: I always found them to be interesting: organic, funky, homey, decorative, and could be handily used as a weapon (see the film Eating Raoul). Cooking in a cast iron skillet could be exciting, as cast iron gets very hot. How does one time the cooking process? Meat could be black on the outside and pink in the middle. Can you say 'trichinosis'? The Fried Breaded Stuffed Pork Chop Incident lingers in my mind. The huge pork chop stuffed, egg- washed, dredged in flour and bread crumbs, I managed to lift it, and ease it into sizzling skillet. The result was blackened on the outside and devoured by the kitchen lizards.

To the right of the kitchen was a hallway which led to many small, funky rooms. The rooms had old, leftover mix-and-match furniture. Some had fireplaces. My room was on the second floor, facingDumaine St. It had french doors that led to a wrought iron balcony. There were bathrooms down the cavernous hall. The bathroom near my room had a huge claw-foot tub; it paid to bring Comet or Ajax. Its large, bare window faced a small, neglected courtyard. 

I met lots of people here: not only at the bathroom or in the kitchen, but throughout the establishment. Appearing spaced-out, many milled about near the check-in desk and sat on the stairs. I made a few friendships; some were cemented by impromptu cross-country road trips. From New Orleans to Montana to Oregon to California to New York I went, growing and shedding new friends, like snakeskin. But the Quarter was special. 

 

Fruit, Fire & Everything

As I rode the country highway on that brisk winter day in 1974, I couldn't help but notice our speed, which was about 20 mph. 

"You know, it's just as dangerous to drive too slowly, as too fast."  

"Did you say something?"  

The car was a used one, a 1969 tan Ford Fairlane with a large red star stenciled on the driver side door. Several windows were missing. Blankets covered these gaping holes and flapped in the wind. We were beginning to feel a little conspicuous. The situation had started earlier in the day when we'd smoked a joint. We were on an adventure to someplace and in the process could probably have been considered a public menace.  

Still handling the road with great caution and precision, my friend continued to drive. We stopped at a store advertising Gas, Groceries, Liquor & Ammo. We needed only food. 

I searched for money by dumping the contents of my purse onto the car seat. Out of it fell an apple, a book, pliers, and unimaginable unidentified objects (UUOs) of all kinds, but no cash. 

"Do you smell something burning?" 

We then noticed a tiny hole in the car upholstery, from which a plume of smoke drifted. A burning marijuana seed was embedded in the seat stuffing, slowly burning its way to the floorboard. 

We tried to deal with the problem but couldn't - probably due to plummeting blood sugar. Our plight suddenly seemed unintentionally and hilariously funny. We were sitting in a strange looking semi-blanketed car, which was filling with smoke. We had little food and no money. As we collapsed with laughter, the store proprietor suddenly appeared in the parking lot and yanked open the passenger door, giving us a fright. Fortunately, I didn't fall out onto the pavement. 

"Well, ya got fruit, fire, and everything in there, doncha?" he asked. He had a way with words. His statement only intensified our near-hysteria. 

After extinquishing the fire with Coca Cola and wolfing down some old Cheetos that we'd found under the car seat, we headed towards home. 

"Hey! Aren't you driving awfully slowly?"  

"What? Did you say something?" 

Fiction: Strays

The colorful patterns were beautiful and complex; a sense of euphoria and centeredness filled her. Annette stood in the kitchen looking out the window. She gazed though the windows of the next house, windows within windows within windows, a TV screen within TV screen within TV screen universe. Her abdomen was bloated. She felt suddenly, violently nauseous. She lost her breakfast, vomiting onto the stray black and white puppy she and Matthew had recently taken in. Dog Baby's soulful eyes were fearful, he'd likely not been vomited on before. He looked up at her and wagged his tail in submission. A sense of absurdity and pathos rocked her. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She ran to the bathroom instead..

#

The shotgun style house where she stayed was one of a few on the street; the neighborhood consisted mostly of older two-story homes that had been split into duplexes. Evans Street was four blocks long and unpaved; its North end traveled an incline to a water tower. It was south of the university campus. The landlord regularly collected rent from a high turnover of transient dope-dealing hippie residents, often having the opportunity to raise the rent. "Oh my goodness" the gentlemanly landlord had exclaimed one day during a walk-through inspection, as he'd sidestepped dog feces. "I see that you have a dog."

#

Stevens Street drew runaways, young people on the way to somewhere.There were the tales, the histories: of physical and emotional abuse, of parents illegally placing teens in the state psych ward, for their transgressions of smoking pot and having sex. There were the suicides within its confines. A few privileged kids ran away on a lark and soon returned to the relative comfort of their tolerable homes. Others stayed in crash pads, pairing off and splitting and pairing off again. Some hit the road again. The houses were bare, save for mattresses on the floors, a few chairs, a table. Some residences boasted twenty-plus occupants; some occupants graduated to two-person dwellings. It paid to have connections. 

#

"What's that perfume?" Matthew asked

"Berry Musk or something . . . " Annette had used the Strawberry Musk Essence  in Maya's bathroom. He slipped his fingers under the hem of her cotton mini-dress and slowly pulled it up and over her head, tossing it aside. She wore no bra or panties. She sat on the edge of the bed. He knelt in front of her. Her moist breasts had been the size of grapefruits; they were now the size of cantalopes. His hands cradled their soft heavy drape; his mouth enclosed a raisin of a nipple. Warmth traveled her soreness.

He took his wet mouth from her sore breast and stood, proferring himself. She took it into her hand and squeezed; he moaned as she began to stroke it. She slid its belled head between her lips, over her tongue, into the back of her mouth. He quickly thrust his hips.

"Wait . . ." She pulled her mouth off him. He moved down. She spread her thighs; to his eyes her strange-fruit a seeming science fiction creature from which hostile life might suddenly spring. He imagined milk coming from her, perhaps connected by mysterious female flesh tunnels, organic underground springs. With his fingers he opened her center, moving up, tweaking pink stiffness. He pushed into her fruit-flesh, as a knife into a juicy peach, a linear invasion of fleshy concavity. 
  
 #

Annette had a pain. Her stomach hurt. In a long green hallway she sat in an uncomfortable chair.

"What's the matter with you?" Nurse Knopf stood in front of her, conducting an interview in the hallway, above the din of the crowd. Such was the ambiance of the county health department.

"I don't know. I have stomach pain."

In a green room Annette posed for an ancient x-ray machine.

"Wait. What's that around your neck?"

"Beads."

"Take them off."

"I can't."

Annette smiled. Last week her friend Maya had strung the tiny multi-colored plastic beads onto nylon string, put them around her neck, and simply knotted together the ends. There was no clasp, no release.

"What? Take them off." Nurse Knopf took a closer look, fetched scissors, and cut them off. Tiny beads popped off string, flying and rolling across the floor.

"I'll be wanting those back."

#

The ceiling was green. The table was cold under the paper. Dr. Reichmann breezed in and snapped on his disposable gloves.

"Scoot down to the end of the table!"

"RELAX!"

"So, you think you're pregnant?" He probed her cervix and palpated her abdomen. "It's likely. Call back for results."

"But I've been having periods . . ." 
  
 #

At the gas station pay phone she struggled to hear, over the slight roar of traffic.

"Your results are positive."

"Could you speak up, please? Sorry."

"YOUR RESULTS ARE POSITIVE."

Positive.

Contraceptive failure --- its subsequent discovery --- could be horrific, a Cronenberg film, that of a creature growing inside one unbeknownst: sharing the poisons of the host. She imagined its mutation, perhaps snuggled into her IUD. Hallucinogens and pregnancy did not well mix.

"Annette, do you have a pen and paper? I'm giving you a referral number for an out of state clinic. Please call immediately and talk to a counselor, okay? Time is of the essence."

She dug through her suede-fringed shoulder bag and found a scrap of paper and a pen.

#

The library was almost empty. Annette sat alone at a large oak table. She’d chosen medical tomes.  She skimmed and skipped around.

 . . . . Birth defects, also called congenital abnormalities, are physical conditions that are present at birth. Approximately three thousand types of birth defects are known. Two to three percent of all newborn infants are afflicted with birth effects.

Any major organ or part of the body can manifest birth defects. During the rapid growth of the fetus, body organs have a critical time-frame in which it is especially sensitive to outside influences. Teratogens are substances that potentially cause abnormal development of the egg in the uterus. Recreational drugs such as LSD have been associated with defects.

A hydatidiform mole occurs in 1 of every 1,500 pregnancies. A molar pregnancy occurs when cells don't correctly develop. A partial molar pregnancy includes  a non-surviving embryo. In complete molar pregnancy, a small cluster of clear blisters or pouches occurs. They do not contain an embryo, but have been known to contain human tissue . . . .    

#

Matt and Annette lay in bed, watching television and laughing. The reception was crappy.  Creature Feature  showcased 1950s and 1960s science fiction/horror flicks.  The Creature From The Black Lagoon. The Beginning Of The End. The Horror Of Party Beach. The monsters had zippers down their backs. Female characters wore bikinis: it was the kiss of death. The women were having a slumber party. Some wore baby doll pajamas, badly played guitar, and sang pseudo- folk songs. The girls heard a noise outside. One peeked out a louvered window.

"Don't open the door! Don't go out there!" Annette squealed at the television set.

"Mark my words, one day there'll be a bad flick showcase, with a hip, running commentary. Yeah! Mystery Science Movies or something. Ha!"

"DON'T open the door!"

It was too late. She opened the door. "Why, you're not Biff or Johnny!" She screamed as the clawed, green creatures overtook the room. Screams. Cut to bloody baby doll pajamas.

Relaxed by laughter, their sides hurting, Matt and Annette drifted to sleep.

#

She lay in bed on her back. Between her legs she felt movement. She threw back the covers. She reached down, touching a warm, wet form. Dark reddish-purple, the bloody form seemed a huge, pulsing bunch of grapes; it had eyes and teeth and hair, randomly spaced throughout. She awoke screaming.

"What's the matter, Annette? Another bad dream?"   

# 

Returning early from an errand, Annette walked up the steps to the small porch. She opened the screen door and tried the front door knob. The door was unlocked. She opened it and quietly walked into the front room. Not a traditional living room, it boasted an oil heater, a single bed, a small table, and a chair. She heard voices from another room. A female voice moaned. Just leave, Annette thought. Walk out the door.

She froze, as if drifting sound waves held her in place. The woman in the other room more louder moaned; her cries more quickly came. Annette opened the door and entered the second room: no one. Crossing the room, she opened the third door. Matthew lay upon his back in bed, eyes closed. A woman moved astride him. Annette faced the woman's back. The woman held Matt''s upper arms and slid up and down his cock; as she raised and forward leaned, Annette took in the view: the woman's shape, wide shoulders tapering to a thin waist, curving into full buttocks. 

She dropped her purse to the floor. The woman turned her head; heavy lidded, she looked at Annette, her long brown hair moving around her shoulders and upper back. Matthew opened his eyes; they went from unfocused to expressive.

"Annette! Join us?"

She sighed, went into the next room, and got into bed with Dog Baby.

#

It was early, still dark. Her suitcase was packed. She dressed and tiptoed to the kitchen. In a cookie jar were Matt's dope-dealing proceeds. She pulled out large wads of cash, straightened the bills, and counted.

She picked up her blue suitcase and walked out the door and down the steps of the small white house. She walked down the dusty red road and turned onto gray pavement. A skinny black and white dog wandered, its teats engorged. She walked past a red brick factory to a pop-art-nightmare of a gas station. A large gray rat darted from the front, dragging a loaf of Bunny Bread. She went to the pay phone. She called a Yellow Cab.

She entered the airport and stood in the ticket line. She found her gate and perused her destination: Stony End, New York, via American Airlines Flight 719.