by Tom Wolfe
“There was much activity in the large room. People were dancing and the band was playing—but I couldn’t hear them. I can’t remember a note of the music, because the vibrations were so intense. I am music-oriented—sing, play instruments, etc.—which is why this seems unusual to me. I stood close to the band and let the vibrations engulf me. They started in my toes and every inch of me was quivering with them … they made a journey through my nervous system (I remember picturing myself as one of the charts we had studied in biology which shows the nerve network), traveling each tiny path, finally reaching the top of my head, where they exploded in glorious patterns of color and line … perhaps like a Steinberg cartoon? … I remember intense colors, but always with black lines … not exactly patterns, but with some outlines and definitions.
“The strobe light broke midway … I think they blew something in it … but that was a relief, because I had been drawn to it but it disturbed the part of me that was trying to hang onto reality … playing with time-sense was something I’d never done … and I found it irresistible but frightening.
“The Kool-Aid had been served at ten or so. Almost from the first the doorway was crowded with people walking in and out, and policemen. There were, throughout the evening, at least six different groups of police … starting with the Compton City police, then the Highway Patrol, sheriffs deputies, L.A.P.D. and the vice/narco squad. I seem to remember them in groups of five or six, standing just inside the doorway, watching, sometimes talking to passers-by, but making no hostile gestures or threatening statements. It seems now that they must have realized that whatever was going on was more than could be coped with … and a jail full of 150 people on acid was infinitely undesirable … so they’d look, comment, go away, and others would come … this continued through the night.
“Dignitaries from the neighborhood attended … I’d guess around midnight, but I’ve no sense of the time of any of this, until 6 A.M. or so, when I finally sat down (I had walked, danced or stood from 10 P.M. on, not wanting to sit down … for what reason I can’t imagine). There were two or three women, about seven men. One of the men was dressed in a white suit and had a Shriner’s cap on—I thought he was Elijah Muhammed. They smiled, watched, talked with some of the people … stayed for about half an hour, and left, wishing us a happy evening. No Kool-Aid was in evidence at that time, of course … it had been removed quickly. The neighborhood people were Negro, naturally. They seemed to have no idea of the party as being anything but a gathering of young people, and appeared to be pleased to welcome us to the neighborhood. I remember one of the women was carrying a child and many people stooped to play with him … probably a two-year-old boy.
“The caretaker of the building was present for the whole time. It seems he’d go back to the office part and sleep for a while, or maybe just get away from the noise and the chaos … but periodically would check to see that everything was all right. He was friendly, happy, but very, very confused at the strange activities.
“Mostly I’d call the Acid Test a master production. Everything was very carefully meshed and calculated to produce the LSD effect, so that I have no idea where the production stopped and my own head took over. The films being shown were so vivid, with patterns and details of flowers and trees and often just color surrounded by black lines and fast-moving scenery and details of hands and such … again, I avoided getting hung up watching them …
“People were standing outside … it was a cold, clear night … someone panicked, got in his car and drove away, burning rubber … I wanted to go back to my house, but knew that driving would be insane. Bonnie (who was Hugh Romney’s lady) was standing alone … we touched hands and smiled, knowing, caring … Furthur was parked in the street. I went alone and sat in the bus, and heard and felt the spirits of the people who lived in it … we (the bus and I) went on a journey through time, and I knew them so well … I went back inside and found the man whose face was painted half gold and half silver, with a bushy head of curly hair, who had seemed earlier to be frightening and strange”—
—this was Paul Foster—“and looked at him and understood. The costumes of the Merry Pranksters had seemed bizarre, and now they were beautiful and right. I recalled a poster which we’d had on the ceiling of the Free Press when our offices were under the Fifth Estate … it’s a poster for a production of ‘The Beard’ and has ‘Grah roor ograrh … lion lioness … oh grahr …’ (like that) printed on it … and for that moment I understood exactly what was being said.
“A great flash of insight came to me. I’ve forgotten it now, but there was one instant when everything fell into place and made sense, and I said aloud, ‘Oh, of course!’ … why didn’t I see all this before, why couldn’t I have realized all these things and not resisted them so much. That didn’t last, and hasn’t recurred.
“There was a witch who was very kind and sent out the best warm and lovely vibrations. She was wearing red velvet and she’s an older lady, really a witch in the best possible way. I was glad she was there, and she was smiling and understanding and enjoying, mothering those few who were not reacting well.
“There was one girl who was wrestling with God. She was with friends, and I think she was all right after a few hours. There was one man who became completely withdrawn … I want to say catatonic, because we tried to bring him out of it, and could not make contact at all … he was sort of a friend of mine, and I had some responsibility for getting him back to town … he had a previous history of mental hospitals, lack of contact with reality, etc., and when I realized what had happened, I begged him not to drink the Kool-Aid, but he did … and it was very bad. These are the only two people I know of who did have bad experiences, but I’m sure I wasn’t in contact with everyone.
“I told you about the tape recording (‘Who CARES? … I don’t carc …’) and how it was used again at the next one. Show biz.”
—Show biz—yesssss—and nooooo—Clair was soaring on LSD, wondering what was happening to herself and whether she was going mad, and so forth, and the most crazed scream rang out:
“Who cares!”
And then: “Ray! … Ra-a-a-a-ay! … Who cares!”
Not even such a manic scream could have been heard over the general roar and rush of the Test ordinarily, over the Grateful Dead wailing, or certainly not with such clarity, except for the fact that it was being picked up by a microphone and amplified out of huge theater horns—
“Who cares!”
That was just the thing for somebody like Clair to hear, Clair who thought she was going mad—the sound of a woman freaking out, blowing her mind, all of it amplified as if it were tearing out of every gut in the place and up through every brain. So Clair’s protector and impromptu guide put his arms around her again and told her, “It’s a tape they made. It’s just a put-on. Hugh Romney made it.” Well, that seemed plausible. Hugh was an actor and a great satirist and put-on artist and prankster … In fact, between screams, there was Hugh’s voice sure enough, coming over the microphone:
“Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a cop who’s come apart in the next room! Will somebody go in there and put that cop back together again!”
“Ray! Ra-a-a-a-ay! … It’s too perfect!”
Then Romney’s voice coming back in: “Does anybody have any tranquilizers? There’s somebody having a little trouble in the next room.”
The next room was the anteroom off the big hall that Clair had started out in. There was a girl in there sitting on the floor and freaking out in the most complete way. Just the thing for acid veterans. These things happen, what you need is—and Pranksters and other hierophants of the acid world heard about the girl sitting in there and screaming. Who cares! and freaking out. Norman Hartweg and Romney came in there, and here was a fairly pretty girl, if only her face wasn’t so contorted, with one crippled leg, shrieking Who cares! and Ra-a-a-a-ay. Ray, the very Ray himself, and Romney looks at Ray and sees the picture at once. Ray is a big guy with a crewcut and a T-shirt and a
sleeveless jacket or vest or something on, which shows his muscles very well. He looks like some sailor who fell in with a bunch of hippies and now he wonders what in the fock has happened—
“Ray!”
The worst possible guy in the world to deal with the Who Cares Girl. This is a job for experts, and we have them here, some of the greatest acid experts in the world, Romney, Norman, the Hassler—he comes in—and here comes Babbs—and they’re all gathered around her in a bunch—Attention!—remember Rachel Rightbred!—and it came to pass!—and they give her the freakout expertise:
“ … don’t fight it …”
“ … go with it …”
“ … neither accept nor deny …”
“ … go with the flow …”
“ … we’re with you …”
“ … you’re in the hands of experts …”
—experts—and the Pranksters are there rapping over her, riff after riff of words—and then Romney got hold of some Thorazine, a tranquilizer that is good at aborting bad LSD trips and he says, “Here, take this—”
—take this—the Who Cares Girl and Ray look at this costumed freak amid a group of costumed freaks, all zonked, trying to hand her a capsule of God knows what—diabolism—and Ray throws the Thorazine away and the Who Cares Girl throws it away, the capsules go skidding across the floor, and the Who Cares Girl goes:
harruummmppparummmparrrrumppparruuuuuuumparum pauharuharummmpa mumbling along, drifting in and out of the freakout, giggling for a stretch and they say ah she’s coming out of it and then:
“Who cares! … Ray! … Ra-a-a-a-ay! … Oh, what’s the use! … Sex! … Ray! Sex! … Who cares!”
That phrase!—it sticks in Romney’s head. He can’t get it out. Her scream shrieks over the hall, because now Babbs has brought up the microphone and holds it near her, right in front of Ray, solicitously, like this will do it. Ray’s head sprockets around inanely. Babbs is getting it all over the microphone to make it part of the test—not an isolated event—but All-one, anachoretic freakout—Who cares! Romney looks at Babbs and Who cares!—well, Babbs cares, with one part of him, but with another his devotion is to the Test, to the Archives, a freakout for the Archives, freaked out on tape in the Archives, Who Cares in the Prankster Archives, and the cry wails over the hall, into every brain, including Clair’s—
Romney can’t get this insane cry out of his head, Who cares, and it becomes the Who Cares Test for him, and he is back at the microphone, with his mission now, his voice furrowing into the microphone:
“Listen, this girl’s brains are coming out! and who cares? This girl’s coming apart! and who cares? This girl’s breaking up into crispy chips! and who cares? This girl’s caked in the dust, nylon wall-to-wall on her eyeballs! and who cares?”
—and it was very clear. Everybody who cared would do something, pour on the Energy if nothing else, bleed Dimensional Kreemo for her, if they truly cared. It became a test for Romney, he could feel it, to find the depths of how much he cared—
Who cares! she shrieks
He cares! he feels it, and feels himself growing—
—while the tapes reel it all in.
FINALLY, EVEN AT THE WATTS TEST THEY WEAR DOWN, AND those who are not into the pudding begin to drift off, and the Prankster diehards and a few discoverers like Clair Brush are still there, and Norman can tell it is coming, the magic hour, and Hassler gets up in a blue pageboy costume and does a funny beautiful slow dance to the music that is just perfect … and Page is working behind him with the projectors, the film projectors and the slide projectors, and he sets up a really kind of gorgeous collage, moving projections on top of still projections … and the Pranksters sit amazed and delighted and he makes slow changes, abstract patterns and projections from the slides and … it all fits together … everything …
About 6 A.M., more cops, narcos now, six in plainclothes—and one of the diehard three-o’clock discoverers walks up to them and announces with a look of total acid-stoned glistening sincerity:
“Listen, I’ve got more Awareness, more … Awareness, in my little fingernail … My Awareness is so superior to yours that … uh …”—obviously from the glistening strain on his face, there is no metaphor, no conceit, that can be concocted in the English language that is enormous enough to express just how superior, and so his face falls back into a sweet sincere look, slightly played out, and he says: “How about getting us some cigarettes? We’re all out.”
Strangely, one of them did and returned very quickly with a carton of Kools, which he passed around. Around 9 A.M. only the Pranksters, Clair and a few others are still around—and more cops—and finally they say to Babbs that he ought to get everybody out now, the L.A. sun is up, the good spades of Watts are going to work … and the Pranksters troop out into the L.A. sunlight, the Devil with an orange face with silver stars, a tall wild-haired guy with half his face silver and half gold, Day-Glo crazies trooping out into the sunlight at 9 A.M. out of the chilled Pandemonium hatchery …
And Clair Brush: “It seems that’s about it … I’ve rambled incredibly … Did it last? Am I different? I can’t remember. It seems so, but I am not sure. When I get under black light, or a strobe, it comes back vividly …
“Del Close told me later I was wandering around looking ‘wonderful … in the sense of full of wonder.’ That’s the best description I can imagine.
“I’ve taken LSD twice since then. Each time was different and much less dramatic, more personal, milder. The only strong similarity is the physical effect, which, for me, consists of contractions quite like labor pains and a quivering of the nerve-endings … anticipatory … for prolonged periods, the feelings of being on the verge of orgasm without any contact at all … these things occurred all three times. Otherwise, all have been different.
“Take it again? Oh, probably someday … but no urgency, no desire to run to my friendly corner pusher. I think the best way is to take it with a lover, but someone you’re willing to have live in your head for a long, long time. Not too many of those around. It’s a closeness not easily dismissed.
“All, all. Enough, I hope.”
ABOUT 1 P.M. THE PHONE STARTS RINGING IN ROMNEY’S apartment, waking him up: “Romney, you guys ought to be shot! …” “Seven people committed!” … “Freaked out!” … “Atrocity!” And finally one from the L.A. police:
“Are you Romney? Listen, we got some two-tone dude down here—”
Oh, the Di-men-sion-al Kree-mo … That would be Paul Foster. Four, five, six hundred people had been in that madhouse all night long having a goddamned orgy for themselves—and the cops couldn’t lay a hand on them. So—in the sour-milk L.A. sunlight of 9 A.M. they had seen this gangling character rocking away from the building like a Druid, half his face gold, the other half silver, so they busted the mother, for being … well … drunk in public, or something equally likely. But by 1 P.M. they wish to hell somebody would come pick up this two-tone dude …
Christ, man! It’s too much for us even! We wash our hands of this ::::: Atrocity :::::
::::: what … exactly have we done? and :::::
::::: even to some Pranksters, the anti-Babbs faction, the Test was a debacle. They doubted the ethics of springing the acid in the Kool-Aid, on the one hand, and thought the treatment of the Who Cares Girl, piping her freakout over the speakers, was cruel. Shortly after they got back to L.A. from La Jolla, the Schism broke out true and rife, out front. This was a great little Morbio Inferiore all its own, the Life Magazine Divide.
The Watts Test in L.A., coming on top of the Trips Festival in San Francisco, had caused the fast-rising psychedelic thing to explode right out of the underground in a way nobody had dreamed of. Leary and Alpert and their experiments had had plenty of publicity, but that seemed like a fairly isolated thing with a couple of Harvard docs at the helm and being pretty solemn-faced and esoteric about it, all in all. This new San Francisco-L.A. LSD thing, with wacked-out kids and delirious rock ’n’ roll, made it se
em like the dread LSD had caught on like an infection among the youth—which, in fact, it had. Very few realized that it had all emanated from one electric source: Kesey and the Merry Pranksters.
A team from Life magazine turned up, led by a photographer, Larry Schiller, who was on to the LSD world and had taken the pictures at the Hollywood Test. They interviewed the Pranksters and took pictures and said they were going to do a big spread on the acid scene and, they hoped, put the Pranksters on the cover. So they hailed the bus on over to a big photo studio and Schiller convened them all. Then—Babbs refused to go in. But the rest of them, Norman, Hagen, Cassady, a whole flock of them, went on in, and Schiller took a lot of pictures. To Norman it seemed square. For one thing, the guy was working in black and white, and the most obvious thing about the Pranksters was color, Day-Glo, the brighter the better, the more vibrations the better. Then Schiller had them all sit down in a group, against a black background, and in the middle they had Cassady stand up and wave his arms up and down like a crow. He took the pictures in strobe, and this would make Cassady look like he had multi-arms, like the great god Shiva. This strobe thing was at the time new in psychedelic photography, and the mass media would never tire of it. Recreates the acid experience, etc. Then Schiller told certain people to stay around for individual shots, colorful characters like Cassady, and Paul Foster with his wild mutton chops and Importancy Coat, and Norman, maybe because he had a beard. The usual … The others went on outside where Babbs was. Finally they all left, the ones who had stayed for the individual shots, and when they got outside, the bus was gone. Clean gone. Babbs, Mountain Girl, Zonker, Walker, and the others—split.