Then the earnest student activist — Earnestine, Willie dubbed her — stood up and introduced Dr. Timothy Leary.
The guy next to Willie went bonkers. He shrieked, “Tune In! Turn On! Drop Out!” over and over again in an entirely arrhythmic attempt to get a chant going. Willie looked around to see if anyone else was noticing the guy, and he saw one person, sitting on the far end of the Sproul steps, who seemed to be staring at him — or was he staring at Willie? Willie couldn’t decide before the guy casually turned his eyes back to the podium. He looked familiar. Where had he seen him before? The mustache . . . then he remembered, it was the same guy who had been on the library jitney the previous day. The clerk. Had he recognized Willie, or just ignored him? Probably he was just unfondly remembering the heavy breathing coming from the back seat, Willie thought. Willie had a moment’s panic that the guy would come up to him and Robin and mention something about the bus ride. He thought of the meltdown fight that would ensue between him and Robin, the long-day-into-night-into-early-morning deconstruction of the whole history of their on-again-off-again, open-closed, don’t-ask-don’t-tell relationship.
But then, he realized, it wouldn’t matter much if the guy told her. Robin already seemed to know.
Dr. Timothy Leary stepped up to the podium, all electric gray hair and bright eyes. Willie had always thought of Leary as a crackpot, but his speech quickly had him hooked.
Throughout human history, Leary said, people from the ancient Greeks to Native Americans have used psychoactive drugs as a sacrament — which he defined as that which bridges the gap between the human and the divine — in their religious practice. Leary said he was not religious, but his scientist self saw, in the emergence of psychedelics as a force in Western culture, a turning point in human evolution.
The brain, he explained quickly, was a biological computer network of cells firing at five billion signals a second among thirty billion brain cells. Each cell can communicate with more than twenty-five hundred other cells; that makes for more possible synaptic connections in a single brain than there are molecules in the universe. Most of those cells, and the neural pathways between them, are unused. Where they are used, they tend, like ruts in a dirt road, to be the same routes traveled over and over again, like the one that tells us to walk to the refrigerator when we want a snack. “Imprinting,” he called it.
But psychoactive drugs like LSD and psilocybin, which act on the higher levels of the nervous system, seem to break down existing imprints temporarily, allowing new ones to be created. In that open state of no imprints, of tabula rasa, it’s common to experience ego loss: that moment of simultaneous wholeness, oneness, and nothingness that is the ultimate goal of all Eastern religions: enlightenment, the realization of Nirvana; the transcendence of space-time. The knowing of God.
Leary cited his triple-blind, monitored studies at Harvard. Seventy-three percent of a wide range of subjects found their LSD trips either very pleasant or “ecstatic.” Ninety-five percent felt it was a life-changing experience for the better. Could even Jesus claim that kind of success rate?
But the Reagan administration doesn’t want you to be able to have that positive, life-changing experience, Leary said. They’re conservative, and conservatives by definition don’t want your life to change. They like you just the way you are. Quietly working, paying taxes, keeping the hive running like good worker bees. Nothing wrong with that, Leary said to Willie’s surprise, human society needs worker bees to keep the hive alive, and if everyone suddenly started re-imprinting their brain’s programming, started writing poetry and music and painting mandalas, well, then, who would be left to mind the store? But in any organized society, he argued, there must also be the ten percent of smart people who design the widgets sold in the store. And there must also be the five percent or less of genuinely creative people who come up with ideas beyond widgets, ideas no one’s ever thought of; the true geniuses who move civilization forward, the ones whose biological computers blaze enough new neural trails to paint the Mona Lisa, discover relativity, or invent television. And for them — and Leary looked out at the Sproul Plaza crowd, a few hundred of the smartest people in the country — well, just who the hell does Carlton Turner, the little worker bee, think he is, telling you what you should or should not ingest?
The crowd cheered wildly. The guy next to him screamed, “Make love on drugs, not war!” and Willie smiled with just a wee bit of pride. Maybe, he thought, just maybe, he was one of the ten percent, or even the five percent, and if he could just open those pathways and access the unused, unfired synapses in his brain, then perhaps he could write that paper, become something, somebody, the writer, poet, actor, playwright, the Renaissance man, the William Shakespeare he was meant to be. As the cheering began to die out, Willie began to chant: “Make love on drugs, not war! Make love on drugs, not war!” at first low and then more loudly, and others around him started chanting, too, until it spread through the crowd. He looked at Robin; she was smiling at him but also shaking her head in mock disapproval. He shrugged, like the Grinch’s dog, Max, when he finds himself riding, rather than pulling, the sleigh; and finally Robin joined in, too.
It was while the chanting was at its peak that Willie noticed Dashka coming down the steps from Sproul Hall and walking into the crowd. She took up a position at the edge of the throng. Willie was pretty sure she had glanced at him as she turned to watch Leary, but if so she didn’t acknowledge him. In fact, she looked a little distracted. He might almost say shaken. Of course, he thought, she sees me with Robin. She’d definitely want to steer clear.
Then Willie noticed that just behind Dashka, a sandy-haired Berkeley campus police officer was staring directly at him.
He saw me start the chant.
Willie looked quickly away and stopped chanting. Topping the crowd, Dr. Timothy Leary launched into a diatribe against Reagan and the Drug Enforcement Agency and their tactics. He told everyone to be careful because with mandatory minimums and plea bargains only given to informants, you never know who’s looking to fink on you. Your junkie cousin? Your alcoholic mother? A scared kid getting brainwashed by Nancy’s Just Say No campaign?
And he warned against using the wrong drugs, the wrong way: alcohol, he said, acts on the animal, aggressive portion of the brain. Pot and hashish are “hedonic,” great for sensory stimulation, food, sex, and music, but ultimately stupefying rather than enlightening. And even psychedelics, if taken in a negative environment, will produce negative results. There are, he said, two reasons to take drugs: to tune out, or to tune in. You must choose to tune in.
And then he made a big announcement, the commercial justification for appearing at the rally that day: a plug. He was going to debate the great issues of the day on an upcoming tour with Watergate coconspirator G. Gordon Liddy.
The crowd cocked its collective head like a confused spaniel.
After some smattered cheering and polite applause, someone off to their left, another lone voice, screamed, “Liddy’s a fascist!” and then began to chant: “Death to the DEA! Death to the Pres! Death to the DEA! Death to the Pres!” Willie craned his neck to see: it was Jeremy. A lot of people, Willie included, were perplexed, not just by the poor scansion of the chant, but because they couldn’t understand why a Berkeley radical would have a problem with a free press. But then, when the drug case next to Willie started chanting along — further mangling the rhythm of the rhythmless chant — everyone figured it out. Death to the Pres. Incitement to assassinate. Nobody else joined in.
Robin started toward Jeremy angrily, saying, “Jeremy, no — ” but when she reached out toward him he knocked her arm away. She was caught off balance and fell to the pavement as the crowd stepped back. People started shouting, “Hey! Hey!” as Willie instinctively lunged at Jeremy, who was red-faced, eyes blazing black as he stood menacingly over Robin. “Leave me ALONE, Robin! Freedom of fucking SPEECH!”
Willie grabbed him and pulled him backward. Jeremy screamed in Willie’s
face, “Let me GO, asshole, your freedom ends at my fucking ARM!” Someone else said, “Okay, easy, easy!” and tried to grab Jeremy from behind; Jeremy spun on him with a flailing haymaker that caught the guy with an audible crack in the nose. He crumpled to the ground, blood gushing onto his face. Jeremy turned back toward Robin, but Willie pushed him away with a shove to the chest — then felt a strong, chubby hand closing around his own biceps. Willie struggled at first, but then saw that it was the sandy-haired cop. A second cop grabbed Jeremy, and led the two of them away. Willie looked over his shoulder to see Robin being helped to her feet by the crowd, her shocked face receding as she watched him go.
As Jeremy and Willie were led through the crowd, no one said anything. There were no outraged cries. Nobody pushed their noses up toward their forehead and began to oink. Only Jeremy complained, struggling and whining to the campus cop, “Ow, you’re hurting me! That’s police brutality, man!”
Willie and Jeremy were locked up in separate cells in a small private jail underneath Sproul Hall. At first Willie thought it would be kinda cool. He’d be able to tell his grandkids that he had been arrested and dragged off to jail after a protest on the steps of Sproul Hall.
But then as the adrenaline wore off he began to wonder: would this arrest go on his permanent record? What kind of power did the campus police have? Would this be referred to the real police? What could they charge him with? The chant was surely protected by the First Amendment. He hadn’t hurt anyone. But did the cops know that? They saw him shove Jeremy. What if they thought he’d been the one who broke the guy’s nose? That would be assault. Then he thought about the duffel bag, back in Robin’s apartment, filled with contraband. Is there any way they could find it? Do they routinely get search warrants for arrested campus radicals and their girlfriends to see if they’re making Molotov cocktails in their student hovels? Or, even if he was released, what if between here and the Renaissance Faire he was arrested by the jackbooted storm troopers of Reagan’s DEA? Would this bust count as some sort of first offense? Fuck, what’s the mandatory minimum for SECOND offenses?
The incarceration was obviously having its intended effect on Willie.
But it was having an even greater effect on Jeremy.
Willie began to hear a low murmur from the holding cell next to his, a meandering melody anchored by the drumbeat footsteps of Jeremy pacing with increasing agitation.
After a few minutes the murmur became punctuated by fortissimo bursts of “shit!” “assholes!” and “fascists!” What was it Leary had said, about taking acid in a negative environment?
As the outbursts got louder and more frequent, the sandy-haired cop who had apprehended Willie walked past his cell to Jeremy’s. Willie could hear the cop saying, “Okay, let’s settle down, son. Be glad you’re not in the city jail.”
But Jeremy was freaking out.
“This isn’t me, man! It is not me, I’m not expressing myself here. This is Robin’s plan, all Robin’s plan: do nothing and send me down the fucking river for it. You should’ve arrested her. Tell the city jail to arrest HER! She painted me, she grabbed me. Arrest her! Robin Rose, vice president of the Committee to Fuck Reagan, southwest corner of Webster and Benvenue . . . arrest HER!!! Talk to HER about John Hinckley and shooting the President!”
“Settle down,” the cop said. “Don’t worry, we’ll look into it.”
Willie’s stomach dropped to his feet.
They wouldn’t. Jeremy was obviously frying on acid. But what if they did look into it? If they just dropped by to talk to Robin?
His duffel bag was still sitting on the sofa.
Hi, is everything okay?
Just wanted to talk to you about your friend Jeremy, and the rally this morning.
Sure. Would you like to come in?
Thank you, miss.
Just let me move this bag.
Was the zipper open? He pictured the bag gaping, the coffee can tumbling out, hitting the floor, and popping open, just like his backpack and the hash pipe in front of Dashka. He pictured Robin’s shock; he pictured her in the city jail; he felt her anger, and her hatred.
For the first time, alone with time to think in his posh cell, he understood what the protest he’d been arrested for was all about. It was about people whose only crime was eating a fungus that made you feel at one with the universe, or smoking an herb that made for good sex — or merely knowing someone who did, someone who maybe left a duffel bag on your couch — and being thrown in jail. Not people like Jeremy, who actually threatened or perpetrated violence; people who opposed violence, like himself. Or like Robin. Again, he thought of her in jail. He thought of Todd, and André, in jail. He thought of Jojo, and Dashka, all his friends who got high, in jail. And then he thought of all the other friends who committed “crimes” regularly — buggery, sodomy, obscenity, consensual “statutory rape.” And it made him angry. What would it be next, religion? Could they someday decide to chop off his own head in Sproul Plaza, for being an agnostic? Yes, he decided. They could. And it pissed him off.
He thought again of Robin, in jail.
He had to get the duffel bag out of the apartment. Now. He couldn’t tell Robin, she’d rightfully be furious. He had to get out of this cell. And to do that he’d have to swallow a gigantic lump of pride.
“Excuse me,” Willie said to the cop who was now standing at a counter, filing paperwork as Jeremy continued to yammer senselessly. “Can I make my one phone call?”
The cop glanced over his shoulder, and went back to his work. “This isn’t the movies. We’ll let you go as soon as we’ve processed the paperwork.”
“It’s urgent. And it’s just an on-campus call. To my dad.” Then after a calculated pause, Willie added, oh-so-innocently, “He’s a professor here?”
The cop looked over at Willie, weighing.
Ten minutes later, Alan Greenberg strode into the small police office, elbow patches blazing.
“Nice move, Willie. Very thoughtful.”
Willie turned. “Thanks for coming, Dad.”
“If this is some sort of revenge scenario — ”
“It has nothing to do with the other day. It was an accident. I was trying to break up a fight.”
“And yet it seems, once again, that you need my assistance.”
Willie took a deep breath. He knew when he dialed the phone that this wouldn’t be easy. “Yes, I do. But it’s really not for me. There’s something I have to do for Robin.”
Alan considered for a moment, and then said, “I like Robin.” He pushed his spectacles up on his nose and sighed. “One condition. I bail you out, you come visit me and your mother — ”
Alan caught himself and recited Willie’s correction along with him:
“She’s not my mother.”
“I know, I know,” Alan muttered. “But she’d love to see you.”
“Okay, I’ll come over. Today. Just give me an hour.”
Alan nodded to the cop, who opened the cell door and let Willie out.
As he left, he heard Jeremy, ranting quietly to himself, “Death to the Pres! Death to the Pres!”
Willie never saw Jeremy again.
Chapter Nineteen
Nearly all playwrights are “political” on some level, and many are explicitly so. If Shakespeare grew up as part of a politically oppressed minority, it seems not unreasonable — although it is unfashionable under the academic tyranny that is New Criticism — to look for evidence that the experience influenced his work. If Shakespeare was raised as a dissident Catholic, this scholar feels compelled to ask: was he also, ab initio, a dissident Catholic writer?
William emerged from — or more exactly, was thrown out of — Charlecote in a daze, but in surprisingly little pain. He walked holding his shoulder, with a slight limp, bowlegged, and in absolute wonder at having been set free by no less than the Earl of Leicester himself.
It was early morning. Lucy had kept him imprisoned overnight. He had no idea where Rosaline might be.
The last he had seen, Lucy’s gamekeeper was escorting her firmly toward Charlecote’s western gate. William limped away from the looming grey house and crossed the bridge over the river Dene that was a tributary of the Avon, but not without stopping first to wash and drink. He reached the gate and its two guards.
“Where is thy beaver skin, poacher?” one said as William passed, and the other laughed.
He turned right onto the main road and trudged on for another four long miles toward Stratford. The sky was overcast, the air wintry cold. The countryside was quiet but for the occasional squawk of a startled crow rising up from the grass as William passed.
After two hours, he reached the magnificent arched bridge built by Hugh Clopton that was and still is the eastern approach to Stratford-upon-Avon. He crossed it, passed by the open green space between the road and the Avon that served as a community archery range, and found himself looking up Bridge Street, with its row of houses down the middle.
William wanted to find Rosaline — to make sure she was still in one piece and unravished. A tall tankard of ale wouldn’t hurt, either; William was parched. The town’s two main inns flanked the entrance to Bridge Street: the Bear, on the left, was Catholic; the Swan, on the right, Protestant. William usually trod the middle road, up the hill to the Angel (Ralph Cawdrey, proprietor), where the only requisite belief was that Ralph’s brew was actually drinkable.
Rosaline’s cousin, Davy Jones, was Protestant, but William was disinclined to throw himself into enemy territory just now so he ducked into the Bear to ask if anyone had seen her or knew her whereabouts. There was a very small company gathered, it being late morning on a Saturday. At a table near the back he was surprised to see Arthur and George Cawdrey. There were two other figures, but William, coming in from the glare of the day, couldn’t make out their faces in the darkened corner.
“How now, brothers Cawdrey?” William said. “Is your father’s brew so ill that you must drink the competitor’s brew betimes?”
They didn’t reply, and seemed strangely grim-faced as William approached. “I seek Rosaline, the kinswoman of Davy Jones — ”
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