Season of the Witch

by James Leo Herlihy

  “Listen, I honestly don’t care what you kids do,” she lies. “But what if somebody drives up or something?”

  Junior is already slipping out of his trunks. “If somebody drives up, we put our clothes on.”

  “Precisely,” I chime in. “John? What about you? The rest of us are going naked today.”

  “Not the rest of us!” Sheila says. “I’m checking with Martin first.”

  John, wearing T-shirt and jeans, is having a tough moment. I’m not sure he likes his own body. But wow, if he could get used to having it seen, what a boost it would be for him.

  He says, “You really want me to, Gloria?”

  “Only if you want to.” I have to be careful of a certain moon-in-Scorpio tendency to push other people into going along on my trips.

  John stands up and starts to undo his belt. He tries to appear casual as he walks out of the room taking off his T-shirt, but his face is somber. As usual, I’m tempted to worry about him, but I remind myself I’m not really his mother. And even if I am, it’s time he was weaned.

  Then Martin comes in, holding a towel in front of himself. “Morning everybody. John says we’re going naked.” He looks at me, and then at Junior, and then he takes his towel off, tosses it back into the bedroom, and comes across the room to kiss Sheila. He comes over to the stove and I pour him some coffee.

  Sheila says, “Martin, what about me? Shall I?”

  “Shall you what?” The gorgeous thing about Martin is that he really didn’t know what she was talking about. Martin’s totally natural. He’s 21, has this wonderful chestnut-colored page-boy-length hair. I always think of him as the perfect child of the universe, truly free and un-hung up. (Not entirely. Money bugs him, mainly because he doesn’t have any, and he’s always making messy little deals with his father.) (But I don’t hold money against anyone. It’s a perversion anyway. John, my beautiful friend-guru who understands practically everything, says that during the Piscean Age, the entire world operated on money—sort of like oil—and that now, in the Aquarian Age, money doesn’t really work any more and it’s lousing everything up. He says the new oil will be love, and when people get used to the plenty that technology is producing for us, they’ll stop hoarding and grabbing. Money will disappear altogether, love will take over, and everything will be fine.)

  Anyway, Martin the Almost Pure says to Sheila, “Shall you what?”

  Sheila says, “Never mind,” and takes off her bikini.

  Then poor John comes slinking back into the room, working very hard at not hiding his darling little genitals with his hands, and I find myself loving him more deeply than ever. That’s the thing with John and me. Everything he does, every breath I catch him taking, makes me love him more.

  He lies on the floor again, reading, his cute white butt all perky and shiny. Actually his body looks quite nice. The sun is doing wonders for the pimples on his back, and even the old acne scars are sort of blending in. His shoulders are not fantastic, but they’re okay, and with a few more pounds on his ribs, he’ll be fine.

  A while later, sitting on the porch swing, I look up from my writing and watch all my beloved friends and cousins in the midst of their high, happy Sunday, enjoying the freedom from threads I had the good sense to nudge them into.

  Junior. Fly-casting off the dock, but not using bait because all the fish are dead. He does it for practice.

  Martin and Sheila. Stretched out on sun chairs. Their fingertips touch and they get up, as if each of them heard the same signal, and wander down to the water together, hand in hand, a perfect Adam and Eve. But they can’t go swimming because Paradise is fucked up.

  That’s the awful thing about lakes when they die. There’s no burying them. They just go right on tempting you with their beauty, shimmering and splashing away same as ever. We hardly ever talk about its deadness any more, because of a sort of unspoken pact not to bum each other. But I know the others are always thinking about it, too.

  John, for instance.

  He’s sitting cross-legged under the weeping willow, facing out across the water. This Hesse book has him really turned on to meditation. I’m hoping he’ll learn how and show me, because I’m a lousy meditator. You’re supposed to empty your mind, but mine won’t empty. The more I try, the fuller it gets.

  And so, hoping John has discovered something he can teach me, but not wanting to disturb him, I walk softly down the grass and sit in the lotus position about twenty paces behind him.

  I study John’s naked back. Owing to his extreme skinniness, the long line of marbles running down his spine is very distinct, each marble glistening in the sun. The earth mother in me wants to cover him up. Not to hide him, but to protect him. From what? The sun? I don’t know from what.

  I close my eyes and try to empty my mind, but it seems impossible. Every thought I get rid of is replaced by ten others. Finally I decide to sit still with my eyes open and just groove on everything.

  Way out in the middle of the lake a boat passes by. Some butterflies are doing a number in the willow tree. An ant crawls on my foot and tickles my instep. I send the ant a thought telegram: Dear ant, you are welcome to walk around on me if you like, but please walk where it doesn’t tickle. Because if I brush you off you could easily get hurt. The ant gets my message, he parks on my toenail and sits perfectly still, probably trying to meditate with John and me. I’m so pleased about getting through to the ant that I close my eyes.

  And, wonder of wonders, my mind is actually empty for a few seconds. I see this beautiful light inside. It’s not blinding or anything, and I know I haven’t reached any fabulous stage of illumination, but for a moment at least, I’m not thinking about being me. I’m being me. And I’m quiet and happy. And then I hear something, but not quite with my ears. I look up, and I see John. He has moved over and is sitting down near me. My soul smiles. So does John’s. We look at one another.

  He says, “Gloria, I got something to tell you.”

  I know it’s something wonderful. My eyes say, Go ahead, John, what is it?

  And John says, out loud but softly, “Lake Erie is Jesus.”

  I don’t know what he’s talking about, but with John, I’ve learned to shut up and listen.

  “What happened was this,” he says. “I’m looking at the lake and I’m thinking, Wow, how can you be dead if you’re so fucking beautiful?” (I’m tempted to interrupt him, to tell him I was having the same thought, probably at the same moment, but I restrain myself.) “So I decide to meditate,” John continues. “I close my eyes and sit still, and in just a couple of seconds, I’m way off in the most outer outer space there is, looking back at the world. And suddenly I get this super-multi-megaton blast of clear vision, and I see Lake Erie. It’s like a powerful white light, and out of the light comes this image of Jesus in the tomb, right after He was wasted. And that’s it.”

  He stops talking and looks at me as if he expects me to understand, but I don’t. So he continues.

  “Jesus died for what? Our sins, right?”

  “Did he really? I thought you told me it was a political thing?”

  “Oh, it was! Definitely it was political. Christ was a fantastic radical. Only . . . Only now I’m getting mixed up.”

  “I should have kept quiet.”

  “No, that’s okay. I’m getting it again. Oh, now I’ve got it! Christ comes along and he says, ‘Listen, you bunch of ninnies, don’t you know you’re divine? Well, you are! You’re just like me. And I’m God, for Christ sake. And so are you. That means you got to love each other because that’s what being God is all about.’ So! What happens is the fucking state lays a wiretap on him. Caesar overhears this love rap Jesus is putting out, and he gets very uptight about it. Because naturally if you got people loving each other all over the place—you know, trusting and sharing and all the other love goodies—well then, what’s the state going to do? It’s fucked, don’t you see? It’s not needed any more, it goes out of business. Are you with me so far?”


  I nodded.

  “Okay. So they kill Jesus to shut him up. But does he really die?”

  “No.”

  “Right.”

  John falls silent. After a moment, I say, “Go on, John. I’m getting it, but I haven’t really got it yet.”

  “Um. What was I saying?”

  “Christ didn’t really die.”

  “Right. Jesus cooled. But not Christ. Christ is the idea. And the idea of love grew. It grew very very very slowly for a couple of thousand years, but it did keep growing, until, um.”

  “Until what?”

  His eyes suddenly went blank. “I don’t know. My mind’s sort of wilting. I can’t keep it together.”

  “Have you been smoking?”

  “Junior and I had a couple of tokes.”

  “Well, don’t hassle your head. I’ll write down what you said and we’ll look at it later. Okay?”

  “Okay. But I think I’m really saying something, aren’t I?”

  “Definitely!”

  Dear Gloria,

  I hope you don’t mind me writing in your notebook like this, but I didn’t want to wreck your nap just to ask your permission. Anyway, about this Christ and Lake Erie business.

  Christ’s love rap kept growing really slow for about 2000 years and then all of a sudden just quite recently, probably while you and I were kids, something like exploded. Love started to really take hold and that’s why the shit’s hitting the fan. The state is bigger than ever and there’s not just one Jesus any more. Thousands and thousands of cats, maybe millions, are going around now laying on his rap and all the Caesars are trying to shut them up. You know what I mean by Caesar. The state. And not just the USA either, but all the governments in the world. And the Jesuses aren’t just longhairs, they’re all the people who dig this love rap. I hope you can follow me now. I was a little stoned before. Excuse me for scribbling in your notebook, but you don’t care, do you? Oh, I almost forgot about Lake Erie. What I meant was Jesus died to teach us love of man, and Lake Erie died to teach us love of the earth. So long. See you when you wake up.

  Love,

  John.

  P.S. You look pretty sleeping, in case you want to know.

  On the bus, 5:45 a.m.

  Each moment of my life is some new kind of magic. For instance, at this very moment I am inside of an enormous machine, roaring across the Western Hemisphere of the planet Earth. For the last several miles, until I sat up to write this, I’ve had my head resting on the shoulder of a skinny young creature named Roy, half angel, half animal. It wasn’t very comfortable, but it was fabulously cozy. Traveling at night on a bus with a good friend next to you is a whole special thing.

  WESTERN UNION OFFICE, NEW YORK CITY, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1969

  I’m miserable. I’m ashamed. I’m frightened. I’m numb. I’m nervous. And I’m grinding my teeth from that Dexedrine of Roy’s. I could kill him for giving it to me.

  Oh, God, I don’t mean that, truly I don’t. It’s not poor beautiful Roy’s fault. Each of us is the captain of his own head. Nobody has to drop any pill he doesn’t want to drop. It’s myself I’m angry with. I know I can’t handle speed in any form and yet I took it the second he offered it. I exonerate Roy entirely. I and nobody else am the dumb shit who swallowed the wicked thing.

  Take ten deep breaths. Think of the Buddha within.

  There. I feel better now. Not a whole lot, but a little. At least I’ve stopped thinking about my fucking self long enough to pray that Roy is not lying dead in a gutter somewhere. And I’ve stopped grinding my teeth.

  Dear Roy, wherever you are, please be alive, please be brave, please survive whatever awful thing is being done to you. Please come back in one piece. Please heal me with your love.

  I can hardly bear to record what’s happened to us, but I’ve got to because if I don’t my mind will run away with me in a total, uncontrolled freak-out.

  I am sitting at the Western Union office on Third Avenue waiting for a money order from Belle Woods, Michigan. Two hours ago, I telegraphed the following lies to Mother:

  IN DIRE STRAITS COMING HOME SEND EIGHTY DOLLARS BUS-FARE

  AT ONCE I WAS WRONG ABOUT CERTAIN THINGS LOVE GLORIA

  All lies, the whole thing! Lie #1. We were not in dire straits. We weren’t even hungry. We were only broke, and not even completely. We had $19 left.

  Lie #2. We have no intention of going home.

  Lie #3. I don’t believe I was wrong about anything. I only said so because I know being right gives Mother a temporary high, which I’m counting on to induce some generosity so she’ll send more than I asked for.

  Lie #4. Love. That’s not what I was feeling at all. I was feeling cute and smart and darling. Whereas the simple fact is that I’m cheap and stupid and calculating. Two days here and we’ve flopped already. The worst aspect of our failure is not just the unearthly speed of it. We haven’t even been behaving well. Not we. I! Roy is a saint. I’m the one who’s mean. I don’t smile. I don’t feel any love. Not much anyway. Just a little for Roy. No. It’s more than a little. It’s quite a bit actually, but it’s being crowded out by panic because my bad-news bells are ringing away inside of me right now and I’m terrified for him.

  How can I keep on sitting here? It could take hours for the money to come and my composure is coming apart. Composure? Ha. I haven’t had a scrap of it since yesterday morning.

  We got off the bus feeling like a couple of zombies. We’d only slept about an hour the whole trip, but we didn’t feel tired until the bus got into New York. Then I started hallucinating beds everywhere I looked. I wanted to lie down on a bench right there in the terminal but it was hot and grim and noisy and against the law, and Roy talked me out of it.

  We went to a telephone booth and tried to find Glyczwycz in the Manhattan directory. No luck. Roy said I should try the Bronx and Queens. No luck there either. I was furious. I hadn’t expected it to be easy to locate my father, but I’m a badly spoiled chick. I want miracles. All the time. And when they don’t happen, I get pissed off, especially when I’m tired.

  We leave the bus station and find ourselves in the streets of this godawful city, dragging our bags and our little butts behind us.

  I can’t go on. This is putting me on a bummer and I refuse to do it. I’m simply not willing to wallow all over again in the misery of the past two days just for the sake of my goddam autobiography. I’ll do it in shorthand:

  New York hell. Insanity commonplace. Dog turds everywhere. Constant noise. Air filthy, causes nose and skin to itch. Traffic thick. More horns than cars.

  Roy says, Look, Witch, here’s Broadway! Witch not impressed. Obsessed with thought of bathtub. We head for East Village. Roy leads way to subway. Ha-ha. End up in Brooklyn. I refuse to cry. Waiting on platform for Astor Place train, Roy whips out two Dexedrine caps. Witch grabs one. No water fountain. Ladies’ room requires nickel. No nickels. I pop Dexy. Can’t swallow. No spit. Much choking. Full panic. Roy grabs soft drink from Puerto Rican lady. Puerto Rican lady too helpful. Each time I try swallow, she slaps my back. Train comes.

  Get off Astor Place. Walk to Third. Check in at awful hotel. Feel like fugitive in hiding. No hot water. Mattress damp. Wonder from what? Dexedrines take effect. We lie down. Try to rest. Giggle instead. Hug each other. Get excited about seeing East Village. Start out. Pass prostitute and customer in hall. Roy and I flash peace sign. Prostitute flashes it back. Our first sister in New York.

  Hideous streets suddenly seem fabulous. Roy consults Delano’s map. We start flying. Down Third toward St. Mark’s Place. Brothers and sisters everywhere. Groovy shops. Underground books. Posters. Bead shops. Head shops. Electric Circus. New York like downtown Detroit. 100 per cent business. No houses!

  Roy spots Fillmore East. We race down there. Theater closed. We stand in lobby, soak up leftover vibes from Timothy Leary, Mothers, Jefferson Airplane, Doors, etc. I get goose pimples. Roy’s mouth falls open.

  Suddenly black cat crosses our pa
th. Name is Winston.

  No more shorthand. I’ve got to slow down to do Winston justice.

  Winston is black, handsome, well built. He speaks softly, has an accent that sounds sort of calypso and turns out to be Virgin Islands. He’s elegant and cool, has penetrating, gentle eyes. Wears a suit. Never smiles. Never blinks his eyes.

  “Hello, my friends.” He nods at me, then turns to Roy. “How you doing, mon?” The word is man, but he makes it sound like a title. We fall into conversation, exchange names.

  “Witch?” he says, and his eyebrows go up. I think, Wow, on those islands, they may not dig witches. So I smile and tell him I’m a white witch and my magic is love.

  “Love.” He nods agreement. “I’m with you, mom.” Was he calling me ma’am or mother? I’ll never know. “Love,” he says, “very good thing. Peace, too.”

  Much agreeing, nodding, flashing of peace signs. Brotherhood is established. Now we get to what’s on Winston’s mind.

  “You like to score some hosh, mon?” he says to Roy.

  Roy says, “Hosh?”

  And I say, “Hash, Roy. Hashish.”

  Winston looks to the right and to the left without moving his cool head much at all. Then in an even quieter voice than usual, “I can get you top grade hosh-eesh, mon.”

  Roy’s so thrilled, he doesn’t know what to do. It’s not the hash that excites him. It’s the scoring. This would be his first dope purchase in New York. I dig it, too, but mostly I dig Roy’s digging it.

  “How much?” Roy asks.

  “It all depends. You want quantity?”

  “Yeah, quantity. But just a small quantity. Because we don’t have much bread.”

  “How much?”