A Nation of Mystics Page 2

  October classes had already started, and he’d moved forward—courses in basic requirements, math and English, but also in the subjects he loved: history and political science.

  The only thing that was left of a past Christian was trying to forget was the dream that pursued him.

  Time was already moving into late afternoon when Christian returned to the apartment after work, walked into the bedroom, and threw his leather book bag onto his bed. He looked toward the desk, with its new stack of books, but instead of opening the history syllabus and digging in as he should have, he took a seat on the floor, straightened his back in lotus, closed his eyes, and began a familiar meditation, searching for the smooth, restful surface of the mental pond.

  “Let your thoughts rise as they will,” he heard his lama’s voice say clearly.

  And he did, the morning slipping by as images, and with them, the sorting of his emotions and ideas.

  When Christian had left the apartment earlier and walked the half block to Telegraph Avenue, the dawn dream had disappeared, hidden away with all the other nightmares. In the bright daylight of a fall morning, he was once again nineteen—lively, energetic, striding down the street at a brisk pace. With a half hour before reporting for his job at Cody’s Books, he had taken an outdoor table at the Forum across the street, ordered a cappuccino, and eavesdropped. The animated talk at the tables around him had been diverse: of classes and which professor was a good lecturer; about civil rights marches in the South and the growing escalation of troops in Vietnam; of a date for a concert of folk music on Friday night. One young woman with a guitar was passionately explaining how music was no longer simply about love but, thanks to poets like Bob Dylan, had a new message. Her friend laughingly told stories about the Sexual Freedom League, which had recently appeared on campus.

  As Christian sat in lotus on the bedroom floor, letting his thoughts ebb and flow, he found himself remembering the conversations. He’d heard the concerned topics debated before, not only in coffeehouses, but also in bookstores, classrooms, student apartments, even on the streets as people met and exchanged greetings.

  Something is happening here, in America, his mind whispered.

  Born of the intolerance and injustice that had sparked the civil rights movement, of terrified children crouching under desks in fear of nuclear attack, an awareness was growing.

  The people I know, Christian thought, they’re developing a new personal ethos. Not just one person, but hundreds. Thousands. A change in the course of their lives. The ideas almost shimmer in Berkeley’s very air.

  Suddenly, the front door slammed hard.

  Matt, Christian thought and could not help but grin and open his eyes, tromping in heavily enough that I can feel the vibration of his steps through the floorboards.

  “Christian! Come out here!”

  Matt stood in the center of the living room looking down into a large paper grocery bag, his dark, straight hair cut across his forehead in ragged bangs in an imitation of the Beatles.

  “Look at this!” he cried, when Christian appeared. “Is this wild? A kilo of grass!”

  Christian’s eyes passed over the bag and rested instead on the girl standing behind Matt. She was tall, thin, and different from other girls Matt had brought to the apartment. Instead of a short bob, her hair was long and golden blond and parted in the middle. She wore no dark eye makeup or pale lipstick, no fashionable sweater, miniskirt, or boots. She stood barefoot, her sandals neatly placed together at the door. Her nipples were two piercing dots beneath a plain cotton T-shirt, and her jeans inexpensive, bell-bottomed navy surplus.

  “Hi! I’m Lisa!”

  She laughed and turned to look quickly around the front room, then back into Christian’s eyes.

  Christian stood captivated, lured by a question in her face, and suddenly, he was overwhelmed by her presence, a sense of meeting again, an old knowing with the suggestion of a new possibility between them. The sparkling eyes that regarded him were sunlight on the surface of a deep pool of emerald green. He found himself smiling into her open gaze and watched as she took in his appearance—tall, a few inches over six feet, blond, with light eyes the color of the clear autumn sky. Thoughts leapt between them, the magnetism so strong that he forced his hands into his jacket pockets to keep from reaching out to touch it.

  “Man! Look at this!” Matt insisted, thrusting the bag in front of Christian’s face. “She was just standin’ on the Ave and asked if I wanted to buy a lid. You know, like a whole ounce!”

  “I just split up with Jacob, my old man,” she giggled. “The kilo’s my parting gift. Feel free to roll one up. Whatever I have is yours. I’m not into personal property.”

  “I told Lisa she could live here,” Matt said. “She doesn’t have a place to stay. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Here? With you?” Christian looked quickly toward Lisa to gauge the truth of it and saw that her eyes were filled with teasing mirth, waiting for his answer.

  “Yeah. I asked, and she said ‘yes.’”

  Praying his disappointment was not evident, he shrugged, “Sure.” And unable to help himself, he turned back to Lisa and added, “If it’s what you both want.”

  That night, she taught them how to clean the kilo. Sixteen ounces to a pound, 2.2 pounds to a kilo. Stems and seeds—the throwaway—went onto old newspapers arranged on the floor. The leaves went into a separate pile to be weighed—ounces, half ounces, and quarter ounces—and then placed in plastic bags.

  As they worked, they smoked, time different, listening to blues and jazz and folk songs on the small record player.

  “Can anyone tell me,” Matt murmured, bits of dried leaf clinging to his hands as he worked, “why we should get to hide in this university with a 2-S deferment because we can afford tuition while the poor are forced into the military? They’re sending more men to Vietnam every day.”

  Lisa turned to him. “If you really want to do something about it, you need to join the Vietnam Day Committee. It’s Jerry Rubin’s new coalition of labor, students, and pacifists. They’re organizing draft-card burnings.”

  “I can’t imagine what it might be like to live in that war every day,” Christian nodded, slow and sensitive. “I just heard of a new chemical weapon in my political science class. Napalm. It’s a jelly-like mixture that will explode and burn anything it touches at a temperature of 2000 degrees Fahrenheit.”

  “Well, it’s all really simple,” Lisa said pointedly. “Have you heard the new slogan of the War Resisters League? ‘Wars will cease when men refuse to fight.’”

  In that headspace created by chemical sensitivity, Christian began to have an idea of the power of the plant. The space created by the smoke was visceral. In that inseparable intimacy with Lisa and Matt, he felt the war raging in Vietnam as something real, a knowledge known by his whole body, something apart from words or ideology—bombs, third-degree burns, the destruction of homes, fields, people—all real.

  In the early morning hours, already listening to Matt’s soft snore where he’d fallen asleep on the floor, Lisa moved close enough that her knee touched his, the teasing feel of her running through his leg.

  “It’s not just the politics, Christian,” she said softly. “Knowing the history of Indochina and how the war began. The economic problems between Diem’s Catholic government and the majority Buddhist population. It’s war itself, whatever the cause. War is simply wrong. It only creates more problems, more misery, more thoughts of vengeance. We must break the cycle.”

  “Yes,” Christian nodded, resting his head back against the couch, knowing the truth of it, his eyes closing. “And it’s up to us to find a solution.”

  That’s how it began, really. From that simple kilo of mediocre Mexican weed and easy sales to friends, a business developed, although at the time, they would never have thought of it as business—just new ideas, new friendships, new commitment, carried by the smoke and accompanied by plans to eradicate all the world’s evil.
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  In the weeks that followed, Christian watched with fascination as Lisa strolled down Telegraph Avenue, made a connection, and brought someone up to the apartment to buy a quarter or half ounce of grass. Although Lisa sold more than either he or Matt, she didn’t care about the money and took little from their group funds. Instead, she was more interested in searching for artists and activists to add to the mix of their friends and contacts. In late afternoon, she always sat in a circle on the living room floor with whoever was in the apartment, the swirl of smoke about her, listening to the music of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger, Sam Cooke and Buffy Sainte-Marie. And if Matt were elsewhere, she would lean close to Christian, her hair wrapped around her body, enticing, her glances filled with suggestion.

  So it was that one afternoon in mid-November, pale sunlight streaming through the window, Lisa walked into the apartment to find Christian alone. She flopped onto the couch, lit a joint from her pocket, toked, and blew a perfect smoke ring at him, giggling.

  “When do you want to meet Jacob, Christian? We’re almost out of that kilo. We can go on over there if you want and get another one.”

  Surprised, he asked, “Would you mind? Going over to Jacob’s. I mean … the two of you were once …” He searched for a word.

  “Lovers?” She grinned, teasing him. “Jacob’s cool. I still visit. I just didn’t want to be his old lady any more. He’s too heavy into bucks. Grass is a gift from God. It belongs to all of us—to God who grows it, and to the people who learn from it. We’re just somewhere in the middle, passin’ it out.”

  Christian took a seat beside her on the couch, smiled into the soft stoned look in her eyes, and took the joint she held out to him. Toking, beginning to drift, he murmured softly, almost to himself, “Everything you do is done with mindfulness, isn’t it? With intention. You understand karma, the cause and effect of actions.”

  Sitting up abruptly, her eyes widening, she asked, “How do you know about karma? I thought I was the only one reading about Indian religion.”

  “I was raised in India,” he answered without thinking.

  “India?”

  He shrugged, uncomfortable. He hadn’t meant to tell her. “My parents were missionaries. I’ve heard about karma all my life from the people in my village.”

  “Christian!” she cried. “There are holy men in India! Men who know secrets that take you closer to God. One day I want to go to study with a Master. Do you ever think about going back?”

  Flashing on the life he had known, the teachers he had once called “Guru,” Christian turned away and tried shifting his gaze to a book on the coffee table. “India belongs to my past, not to my future. So, what about Jacob?”

  “Jacob?” Now she laughed, India momentarily forgotten. “Well, Jacob turned me on to pot and acid. And groovy ways of making love.”

  “Acid?”

  “You know. LSD. Someday I’ll turn you on. You think you’re ready? Ready to learn some new ways to make love?” Still smiling, she reached out to touch his face. “Acid’s one, giant erotic experience.”

  The small caress electrified him. He caught his breath and searched for words. “Lisa, there’s something between us, but … Matt’s my best friend.”

  “I’m my own person, Christian,” she said softly, suddenly serious. “I own my body.”

  “I … we …” And, unable to stop himself, the immediate longing to share his body with her a hard, overwhelming ache, he touched her face in return. “We can’t do this to Matt. Not behind his back.”

  “I don’t belong to him,” she insisted, her voice low. “When I came here, it was to get off the street. I’m nineteen years old and I know what I want. I want to be with you. We think the same.”

  Shaking his head slightly, he rose from the couch, trying to put some distance between them. But she stood with him, moved closer. Suddenly, her arms were around his neck, her breasts against his chest, lips touching his, her tongue gently searching.

  Christian’s response was immediate, and he savored her lips, the soft feel of them, the shape of her mouth, losing himself in her scent, feeling his mind cover her, join with her, in this, his first real adult kiss. He knew little of girls. He was the only son of aging missionary parents, raised in early childhood in a small Indian village. Later, he’d attended a boys’ boarding school at a hill town of the old British Raj. All he had to rely on was one experience with a young woman, years ago, on holiday in Sri Lanka. Beyond that, Christian had not had the social experiences of Matt or Lisa, their uniquely Californian lives of teenage dances and dates, television shows and rock and roll, of experimentation.

  “Dear God,” he murmured, pulling his fingers through her hair. “I do want you. Only … it’s not right. Not like this.”

  His hand burned where it touched her throat and with unbelievable self-control, he refused to allow it to drift down her shirt.

  “It is right,” she insisted gently, lifting his hand to her breast. “What better time than right now?”

  Lust took away his breath and caught in his throat. He kissed her again, soft yielding lips open to him, the taste of smoke on her breath, but … he forced himself to stop. Took a step back. “It’s not right.”

  Startled, Lisa eyed him. He read surprise. And something more. Uncertainty. A hint of anger.

  “Alright,” she said slowly. “Maybe we’d better chill out by going over to Jacob’s. His new shipment’s just in. If you want another kilo, you’d better go get it.”

  “Lisa,” he whispered hoarsely. “Matt’s the only reason. Things would be different if you weren’t with him. If he were okay with … us. You understand?”

  “Sure, Christian. I understand.”

  Sales grew.

  Christian learned that Jacob had about twenty kilos, and they began turning a kilo’s worth of lids a week, rather than the quarter and half ounces they had been selling. Soon, Christian and Matt were making enough money to allow them to give up their part-time jobs. Then, at the beginning of December, a friend introduced them to Kevin, a dude who lived across the Bay in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco.

  Kevin was a bit older, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four. Although he was clean-shaven except for a full, dark mustache, they were startled to see that he’d grown his light brown hair out to his shoulders. About six feet tall, he wore a colorful shirt with a drawing on the back that people were beginning to recognize as a peace symbol, a figure adopted from the English nuclear disarmament sign of the fifties. Instead of a belt, a sash was tied around his waist, and in the cooler weather of November, he wore bright green socks with his sandals. Several strings of colorful beads hung from his neck, along with a curious bit of jewelry he called a roach clip. Kevin was, if anything, outrageous, and smiling a sleepy, stoned smile, he announced that he wanted a whole kilo. Kevin became their first sale outside the campus scene.

  Greater turnovers meant there were more bucks. Before, when they’d had nothing, everything was shared. Now, Matt insisted they devise ways to split the profits so that each in the partnership knew what they had earned. Suddenly, money mattered to him. A business major, he used the fledging business as an experiment in economic theory. Matt kept the books and had numerous ideas about how to use combined funds to increase profits. Each time he took out his spreadsheets, Lisa raised an eyebrow at Christian.

  In fact, the time Matt and Christian spent with others was so lucrative, their customers so insistent that they share a smoke, that they stopped attending classes. Wasn’t it far more educational—and profitable—to sit smoking together for the afternoon? After all, Matt explained, the whole point of a degree from a major university was to have options, a good job and career. What if it was possible to make more money by not attending school? And if moral and political principle were attached to the job, so much the better.

  By December, both men were forced to resign from the university, knowing they could never pass finals.

  When Matt and
Christian returned from the registrar’s office in late afternoon, the natural light in the apartment had already begun to fade. The air they carried in from outside was cold.

  “So did you do it?” Lisa asked.

  “Yeah. We’re done,” Matt managed glumly, tossing his coat to the couch and throwing his body down beside it. “We’re no longer students.”

  Lisa waved away his concern with a shake of her head and a shrug. “Really, Matt. What does school have to teach anyway? Think about it.”

  Matt stared at her, hard, as if seeing her for the first time. When he finally spoke, his voice was thick with sarcasm. “Lisa, you’re a philosophy major dropout from Santa Cruz. What do you know about reality? Don’t you get it? Now that we’re out of school we’re eligible for the draft. We no longer have student deferments.”

  “Come on, Matt,” Christian told him, setting down his book bag. “It’s not her fault we resigned. We’ll just re-enroll in January. In a few weeks.”

  “Besides,” Lisa tried, “Jacob has a load of Acapulco Gold coming in for the holidays. You’re going to be too busy to study for finals.”

  At that, Matt exploded, his face darkening. “I’m already putting together that deal with him! What the hell are you doing over at Jacob’s talking to him about that load?”

  “I see Jacob all the time. You know that.”

  “I don’t want you over there confusing things. Acting as if you speak for me. Just stay away from Jacob.”