A Nation of Mystics - Book II: The Tribe

by Pamela Johnson

  Quickly, she raced through the house, picking up pipes, rolling papers, roaches, different plastic bags of smoking stash, cleaning out the freezer with its little bags of different colored tabs that were samples. She looked for larger boxes of tabbed grams Richard might be keeping in a closet or drawer, knew as she collected everything into a large brown shopping bag that they’d really gotten loose. Just their private stash might be considered a formidable bust.

  Her Volvo was parked on the street in front. For the moment, that was the only place she could think to put things without actually taking them to the rented stash garage. The trip outside was quick and nervous. She couldn’t stay away from the telephone for more than a minute. Trembling, she hurried back, bolting the door behind and rubbing her arms to warm them. The fog had come in, and although it was June, it was cold and windy. Once again, she looked at the clock. Almost ten-thirty.

  Damn it, Richard! Call!

  By midnight, she was frantic. The firewood in the house had burned down. There had been no phone calls from anyone—in itself freaky, as if the whole rest of the world had suddenly fallen away.

  “Kathy?” her voice was hoarse, tight on the phone.

  “What’s happened?” Kathy asked, immediately alert.

  “It’s Richard. No one’s heard from him. He’s missed all his appointments. Could you come over? Better bring Danny, too. There’s some strange stuff happening.”

  “I heard some rumors today. We’ll be right there.”

  “Could you call Debbie on your way out and tell her I haven’t heard from him?” Kevin needed to know Richard was still missing. “And could you hurry? I’m freakin’ out.”

  Within the half hour, Kathy and Danny were on the front door step, and once they were inside, Marcie somehow felt things would change. She wasn’t alone anymore. Danny brought in more logs. Kathy lit some candles, burned some incense, turned on the stereo, the energy the same as if someone was having a heavy trip. Danny took a joint from his pocket.

  “And he hasn’t called?” Kathy asked after hearing the story.

  “No one’s called.”

  “I left a message with Debbie. I’m sure Richard’s just tracking down a deal,” Kathy told her. “You know how involved these things can get. And I’m more than a little annoyed at David for coming over here and scaring you. When he knew he was hot, he should have stayed away. Where’s his head at anyway?”

  Toward morning, Marcie watched both Kathy and Danny fall asleep on the living room floor near the fire. John had woken several times in the night needing to nurse. But for her, each passing second seemed to be moving closer to some unknown disaster. Just before dawn, she heard the birds. Soon, the first dim color of day began to appear in the window. Upstairs, John stirred. He’d have to nurse again. She stood staring out the plate glass window that faced the street. Someone moved on the floor behind her. There was a small cough, the creak of the floor. Without turning around, Marcie knew Kathy was awake and walking toward her.

  “Maybe he’s in a hospital somewhere,” Marcie whispered. “Do you think we should call around?”

  Kathy didn’t say anything.

  “Or maybe he’s just stoned at someone’s house.”

  Finally turning her eyes to Kathy, Marcie cried, “I love him so much! What would I do without him?”

  The night was black. Overhead, the stars had disappeared on the other side of the thick blanket of fog that hung low on the water. Occasionally, when the sea breeze parted the gray curtain, Richard could make out the coastline lights that stretched for miles along the bay. But then the wind would die, and the lights would disappear, and all that was real was his shivering and the sound of water as the oars dipped in and out in an uneven rhythm.

  “Hey, man,” Jo-Jo said at last. “I can’t keep this up much longer.”

  “This is far enough,” the driver agreed. He leaned over to untie the gag that bound Richard’s mouth.

  “Do we throw him in now?” Jo-Jo asked eagerly.

  “Hand me that flashlight.”

  Richard squinted as the light hit his eyes.

  “You ready to talk?” the driver asked, shoving his face close to Richard’s.

  “T-t-talk?” Richard answered quickly, his voice shaking uncontrollably with cold and fear. “That’s a relief. For a w-while there I th-thought I might be in t-t-trouble.”

  The driver wasn’t amused. “I’m tellin’ you, man, don’t try messin’ with me,” he returned menacingly. “I want to know a few things. You’re breathin’ air until I do. And if you answer real good, you get to go on breathin’ a little while longer.” The flashlight cast an eerie glow on their faces. “Who’s producin’ acid?”

  Richard tried to form coherent sentences. “Producin’ acid? Lots of p-people. You know what it’s like. Everybody’s got p-p-plans. Everybody’s doin’ somethin’.”

  “He’s lyin’,” Jo-Jo rasped impatiently.

  “Shut up. We’re gettin’ our bucks.”

  “That was before, man. Before we rowed all this way.”

  “Would you sell this?” the driver asked Richard. He produced a small glass vial with a black screw top and held the flashlight to it.

  “What is it?” Richard asked, inspecting the contents of a jar that looked like fine brown sand. Or maybe cumin.

  “Like, you know, man, it’s acid. I thought you were in the acid business.”

  “B-b-brown acid?”

  “This guy calls it ‘yellow.’ Yellow crystal.”

  “All the crystal I’ve ever seen was w-w-white.”

  “So, would you buy it?”

  What answer would release the chains? Maybe he’d be safe with the truth.

  “I usually t-try what I b-b-buy.”

  Jo-Jo laughed uproariously. “Go on. Give it to him. Let him eat it.”

  Now that’s one way to die, Richard thought. I’d just get out there and keep going and never even know I was drowning.

  “This guy also wants to know if you’d sell him crystal grams from other sources,” the driver continued.

  “Not t-tabs?”

  “He wants to do it up himself. You know, stretch it out. Maybe add a bracer.”

  “Who is this guy?” Richard asked. “If he wants t-to t-talk business, why doesn’t he? Why the d-drama? Chains, b-boat …”

  “He wants you t’know he’s serious. He wants t’set an example. For you. Others.”

  “Hey, man” hissed Jo-Jo, “let’s throw him in as an example. We’ve done all this fuckin’ work to get out here. I want to see him in. I’ve never seen anyone drown before. Not up close. We can talk to the other guy. The one from last night.”

  “Look, I’ll sell to the guy,” Richard told the driver quickly. “I’ll m-make sure other p-people do, too. I have influence.”

  “Sure. Sure you will,” the driver eyed him suspiciously.

  “No, I m-mean it. After all, business is business. Right?”

  “It’d be such a fuckin’ gas to see him go over,” Jo-Jo pleaded.

  “I have a large m-market,” Richard told the driver. “It would take a long t-time for someone to fill my spot if I were removed from it.”

  “Lemme think about it. Jo-Jo, pass the bottle.”

  “I’ll pay you t-twice what they’re p-payin’ if you row back to the d-dock.”

  The voice that answered was low, cold. “Who the fuck you think you’re talkin’ to, man?” the driver muttered. He swigged at the almost empty bottle. “When I take a job, I carry it through.”

  Richard watched the deceptively slumped figure. By the light of the flashlight, he could see the moist bloodshot eyes shifting warily in their sockets, trying to come to a decision. Then the lids half closed. Richard wondered whether he might not eventually just pass out.

  “You know, Jo-Jo,” the driver finally said. “I think we ought to let him loose. He’s a friendly guy.” He turned his face away, shifted his weight on the bench, and looked back toward the pier. The boat rocked gently
with the movement. He studied the distant dock as if now he were anxious to get back there. “Let him loose, Jo-Jo. Where’s the key to those chains holding him to the boat?”

  Richard closed his eyes and let out a quivering sigh. So this was it. They’d release him from where he was chained to the rowing pin and shove him in. He could already feel the water, colder than the air. The chains would drag him down into the darkness. Quick. He breathed deeply knowing soon he would be struggling for air and that none would come.

  It won’t take long, he consoled himself. Death will come quickly. A few moments of pain and panic and my spirit will fly from me. But who will comfort Marcie? Who will know my child?

  He wanted to weep. Instead, he tried putting his life behind, making his thoughts a single meditation.

  Send your spirit through the exit at the top of the head. Move toward the Light.

  “Say, man,” Jo-Jo suddenly asked, “you have the keys?”

  “What?”

  “The keys for the chains. You got ’em?”

  “No, man. I thought you had ’em. Look in the fuckin’ bag.”

  Jo-Jo opened the large canvas sack that had originally held the chains, flashlight, and bottle, searching through it. “I’m tellin’ you they’re not here.”

  “Look again. They gotta be somewhere.”

  The dialogue startled Richard.

  Jo-Jo shifted fretfully, looking disappointed, still searching his pockets and the bottom of the boat. “Shit, man. I guess maybe I dropped them on the dock. When I emptied the bag. All that shufflin’ around getting’ in the boat.”

  “You goddamned fuckin’ asshole,” the driver slurred disgustedly. “Just … just pick up the goddamned oars and row us in. I want another bottle.”

  “But …”

  “What the fuck else we gonna do? The fuckin’ guy’s chained to the goddamned boat!”

  The oars moved heavily in Jo-Jo’s hands, and the boat moved awkwardly toward the dock. Every few minutes Richard glanced over his shoulder, watching the dock light come closer. The boat touched the pier, and with great sweeping, chaotic motions, the driver stood and wrapped the rope around the pilings. Slowly, he lifted himself to the dock, reeling left and right, searching for the keys, stepping on them, reaching to pick them up. Somehow, he managed to pull Jo-Jo to his side. All of a sudden, everything shifted.

  “What d’ya wanna pay for a set of keys, man?”

  “Name a figure,” Richard answered evenly.

  “Five grand and a Mercedes. That was a gas drivin’ around tonight. Car steers like a tank. Jo-Jo, get the pink slip from the car.”

  Richard said nothing, did nothing. There was still a long way to go before he was free of the knife and the gun. He wondered whether the man had forgotten the sharp blade in his pocket.

  “You’re gonna do some biz for us,” the man eyed him closely now. “We’re all gonna make lots of money. Tell those buddies of yours we’ll be doin’ business with them, too.”

  Then Jo-Jo was back, car registration stuffed into his front jacket pocket, jumping into the boat to work on the locks. With a clatter, the chains fell to the bottom of the boat. Richard rubbed his wrists and tried to massage blood into his hands. Suddenly he was more afraid than he’d been all evening, something brooding stood between him and this crazy man.

  “Man, you said I could throw him in.” Jo-Jo climbed up to the dock and turned to his partner, petulant.

  “We’ll sign this pink slip for you,” the driver said. “And we’ll be back to pick up those bucks. You’ll double what they paid us. Isn’t that what you promised? C’mon, Jo-Jo.”

  Richard didn’t answer, wary now. The driver stood above him, feigned a turn, then swung fast and hard with his heavy motorcycle boot. For the first time that evening Richard was ready for him, but the man was still remarkably swift. Richard managed to lean back to miss the full force of the thrust that might have split his skull. Instead the toe of the boot caught his jaw and sent him sprawling backward. Blood spurted from his lip, the stream bizarre under the dock’s light. A moment, then the pain registered in his brain, his jaw swelling immediately, throbbing. Close to vomiting from fear and cold and grief, the lights along the shoreline started to spin. The driver released the mooring line and kicked the boat, setting it adrift.

  “Man, you promised me I could throw him in,” he heard as he closed his eyes, everything spinning now, the boat floating away.

  “You lost the keys, you asshole.”

  Richard held his breath. Were they actually leaving? He was shaking uncontrollably, unbearably thirsty. He tried moving. It didn’t make any sense. None of it. His mind and thoughts were spinning like the boat in the water.

  No police, he thought. No questions. I’ve got to get home to Marcie and John. Get them out of there before these goons come back.

  Pick up the oars and row, he ordered himself. Row to another dock. A safe one where they can’t find you.

  He tried lifting his head, tried moving. The spinning wouldn’t stop. The corners of his vision got darker. Then there was no pain and no memory.

  The morning sun was high when Richard tried to open his eyes. Sunlight sent a stabbing throb to his head. His back was twisted over the seat of a rowboat. He tried turning so the light would be out of his face. Slowly, scenes from the night before came into focus. He’d almost died.

  His lips were cemented shut with dried blood. The water from the bay was cold and salty and stung, but it separated his lips. His tongue was swollen, and there was not enough saliva in his mouth to swallow. In the distance, he could see the pier. Suddenly, he leaned over the side of the boat and vomited in great, dry heaves, then dropped his head in his hands.

  When he reached the dock just after ten o’clock, he moved toward the public phone like a weary traveler making his way through a mirage.

  “Marcie,” he said softly. “I’m alright. Marcie, don’t cry, please. Don’t cry. Can you pick me up? I’m at the Berkeley Marina. They took the car …”

  Richard was sitting on the curb, waiting, when Marcie, Kathy, and Danny arrived at the dock. His left eye was swollen shut. A five-inch cut crossed his cheek. His lips were swollen and caked with dried blood. He began to tell his story on the drive toward Kathy’s house, and then again to David and Kevin, who’d rushed over. As he talked, he smoked, really paranoid, his eyes shifting, scared, infecting the room.

  “They know all about us. Where we live. What we do. We have to move, and it has to be today. Start passing the word through the scene. Everyone should tiptoe for a few weeks. Cool out. Don’t drop anything until we put a few more pieces together.”

  That night at Kathy’s, Marcie pulled off Richard’s boots and lay down next to him, unable to control hot, burning tears of both grief and relief. “When the sun came up this morning,” she whispered, “I was sure you were dead.”

  “It’s alright,” Richard hushed her, holding her tight. “Just a close call. The worst part is that something in me feels damaged. LSD’s holy. And here’s this guy beating and killing people for the bucks involved. I always felt I needed the money to keep the trip together. The money was never really mine, Marcie. It was the capital for the family—all of us—Alex, Honey, Greta, Merlin, Kathy—everyone that came through our house on Ashbury. The Tribe. But now we’re all on our own trips. We don’t even trust each other. Nothing makes any sense.”

  Suddenly, he was crying too. “I know what we’re going to do. We’re getting out of the business. We’re going up north to live with Merlin. John is going to have a chance to grow up and know his father.”

  CHRISTIAN

  BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

  JULY 1968

  On a fair morning at the beginning of July, Christian stretched out in a comfortable chair on the deck of his home, musing, a copy of the Berkeley Barb in his lap. May and June had been wild months of political protests, and July was already off to a good start.

  In May, the Campus Draft Opposition had proposed a Vie
tnam Commencement, originally scheduled for the on-campus Greek Theater. The plan was to hold a ceremony in which a solemn pledge would be made by students to avoid the draft. As the war escalated and draft deferments were harder to receive, more UC graduates faced the prospect of deployment. When Governor Ronald Reagan heard of the plan for the commencement, he wrote a letter to the regents stating that such a ceremony “would be so indecent as to border on the obscene.” Refused the Greek Theater, the commencement eventually took place in Sproul Plaza, where graduating male students took an oath to refuse the draft, and eight thousand audience members and two hundred and fifty faculty members pledged to support them.

  Five weeks later, street skirmishes erupted on campus in support of French students and workers who had been fighting pitched battles in Paris and other French cities. Students at the Sorbonne were demanding greater academic and social freedoms, as well as an end to the Vietnam War. The French revolution to bring down the government of Charles De Gaulle had led to serious street fighting, the erection of barricades throughout Paris, and eventually, a general strike with nine million participants, made up of students and workers.

  A week ago, two thousand people had spilled over from a Berkeley campus rally in support of the French strikes and blockaded Telegraph Avenue, closing it to traffic. Frightened by a boisterous and chanting crowd, the police had reacted by hurling tear-gas canisters against rock-throwing activists. Once again, as in other Telegraph Avenue demonstrations, Moe’s and Cody’s bookstores went unscathed, while Bank of America’s windows were shards of shattered glass. Berkeley mayor Wallace Johnson had declared a state of emergency and ordered a three-day curfew. In response, the activists had demanded—and received—permission to close Telegraph Avenue for a protest and rally on July 4. For the first time, a majority of nonstudents had imposed their will on the City of Berkeley and had dictated the course of political action.

  The other event that had captured Christian’s imagination in the last weeks was the exploits of the Berrigan brothers, the details in the Barb. Nine Catholic activists, including Fathers Daniel and Phillip Berrigan, had stolen into a draft board, removed files, and burned all the records with homemade napalm. As they waited for arrest, they prayed. The Catonsville Nine now awaited trial.