Outside the Gates of Eden

by Lewis Shiner

Cole was quiet a long time, then he said, “Alex…”

  “Yeah?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. I love you.”

  In fifty years, they’d never said those words to each other. Alex nodded. “I love you too.”

  He leaned back and closed his eyes and the suv drove on through the darkness of the new day.

  Later

  Alex woke up at 6:15 every morning, even when he forgot to set the alarm. He had a top-of-the-line Serta mattress that he’d flown in from the States, with a memory foam pad on top. Still, after six or seven hours, his joints hurt in any position he tried.

  Today, more than most days, he had a reason to get up.

  He and Madelyn had twin beds because of Alex’s tossing and turning, but their beds were next to each other for the comfort of each other’s presence. Madelyn was still asleep. Today was the start of the fall semester at the university, so she would need all the sleep she could get. He got up and dressed without waking her. He ate a bowl of oatmeal and drank a cup of coffee and went outside.

  The day was clear and cool. It was the first of September and with luck, the rains would come and go in the early afternoon. Two of the city’s wind turbines were visible from the vegetable patch outside his front door, the blades turning quickly enough to be invisible.

  At the bottom of the callejon stood a rack of yellow bicycles. Alex got one out, adjusted the seat, and rode to the mouth of the alley that started the uphill climb to the Pípila statue. He’d brought Cole there on his first trip to Guanajuato, lo these many decades ago.

  He struggled to clear his head of distractions. At noon he would meet with a delegation from Estes Park, Colorado, the latest city interested in following Guanajuato’s example. Meanwhile, the night before last, a three-way gun battle had broken out on the streets of nearby San Miguel between the federales, the ultraviolent Zeta cartel, and soldiers belonging to El Cicatriz. The federales had been eliminated, the Zetas had retreated, and Alex had received an email from Ortiz that said, «This will not affect you.»

  Alex’s hamstrings ached as he climbed the steep, winding paths, and he had to stop twice to get his breath. Neither his physical condition nor his preoccupied mental state was reason enough to turn back. He’d learned, over the years, the importance of ritual. September 1 marked the day that Cole and Sallie had arrived in Guanajuato to stay, the moment when Alex had felt that all the pieces were in place.

  He made it to the top and sat on a bench for a few minutes to recover. Then he walked over to the statue and out to the edge of the plaza, leaning on the waist-high, cast-concrete guardrail to look out over the city.

  Coming here once a year gave you a way to measure the yearly change, and every year you could see it more clearly. Where once the view was dominated by blocks of pastel color from the densely packed houses on the slopes of the hills, now it glistened with solar panels and shone green with rooftop gardens. The highest parts of the hills were terraced like some ancient Asian landscape painting. Every year you saw fewer cars, less traffic in and out of the city. The air was sweeter and the streets were cleaner.

  You needed these moments, he thought, when you could see what you’d accomplished, when you could allow yourself to feel some pride, alone with yourself and the work you’d done. When you could be grateful that Gwyn and Ava and Ethan and the baby were all here, and safe, at least for today. To bask, if only for a moment, in the warmth of the sun.

  Then it was time to go. Because, as the statue said, there were still more Alhóndigas to burn.

  *

  Madelyn had 27 students in her Literature of the Sixties class, five more than she’d had the previous spring. Walls were gradually breaking down between the university proper and the free school; the arts and literature classes had benefited the most. Some of the students, Madelyn was sure, were there out of curiosity about herself and Alex and Sallie and Cole, and the quaint ideas they’d brought with them, ideas like, “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs,” ideas that had largely faded from the rest of the planet, but were suddenly relevant again in Guanajuato.

  There was specific curiosity today about the middle-aged gringa who was auditing the class, tall and blonde and somewhat weathered, trying and failing to be inconspicuous on the back row. Ava had delegated most of her solar panel work and had more time on her hands these days. When she’d asked to take the class, Madelyn had been honored.

  Students continued to trickle in. Madelyn sipped her coffee, the first fruits of Cole’s attempt to grow the beans locally. Some issues needed to be ironed out; flavor, for one. The amazing thing was that it existed at all. The same could be said for Ava’s vision of Guanajuato, as it became more real every day.

  The bell rang and the last couple of students darted in. She took attendance, omitting Ava’s name, and introduced herself. Then she said, «When I talk about the sixties, what do you think of?» She taught the class in Spanish now; she’d added One Hundred Years of Solitude and Cortázar’s Hopscotch, and the students read the US novels in translation.

  A girl in the front row raised her hand. She wore gold jewelry and designer yoga wear that had been hugely popular in the States not that long ago. Her makeup was impeccable and her accent patrician. «My father says that the hippies were a lot of spoiled children. He says that all they did was take drugs and burn flags and have unprotected sex. He says the world went crazy for ten years, but then people came to their senses, and it’s a waste of time for me to take this class.» Everyone laughed, including Madelyn.

  When the idea of teaching had first taken her, she’d been drawn in by her love of books. She’d embraced the cliché of the ivory tower without shame; she wanted to live in an insulated world of big ideas and dazzling intellects. Somewhere along the line she’d lost her taste for abstraction; she’d come to crave the experience of ideas gripping the human mind and transforming it. El Centro had spoken to that, as had Guanajuato’s free school. And this, too, was a part of it: the future soldier she subverted with Louise Glück; the barely literate kid who suddenly glimpsed the pain in a Raymond Carver story.

  She took out her notebook. «I’m going to write that down, and on the last day of class we’ll talk about it.»

  She didn’t know how many years of this she had left in her. But this year, ah, this year. This year was going to be good.

  *

  Sallie kissed him awake. Cole opened his eyes to see the sweet-smelling waterfall of her hair cascade around his face.

  “I’m off,” she said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Okay,” he said sleepily. “You’re very beautiful this morning.”

  “Hold that thought,” she said, and kissed him again, running her fingertips down his cheek. He rolled over to watch her walk away, admiring the grace of it. She volunteered most days in the free store at the Mercado, giving away donated food. They had stolen the idea from the Diggers in Haight-Asbury. Sallie was as big a star in Mexico as anywhere and people brought in contributions just to see her smile.

  It was already after eleven and he was too hungry to think coherently. He got up and took a long piss and then went into the kitchen, barefoot in his pajama pants. He squeezed a few oranges and ate some cashew butter and dark brown bread.

  He washed the dishes and sponged off the countertop, and then he slowly climbed the stairs to the recording studio. The equipment sat out ready to use, though it had been a while. They kept the empty instrument cases in a closet by the mixing board. Cole took out one of the microphone boxes and sat on the couch. He removed the plastic lining and found the small zip-lock baggie of white powder that Álvaro had given him.

  He was again, and had been for a while, in the grip of what he called his Darkness. A while back, at Sallie’s urging, he’d tried anti-depressants. They made him feel like he was standing outside himself, and they impeded his ability to climax, which was already fading with age. He’d tapered off them after three months and been relieved to be back
in his own prickly skin. When she talked to him about it, which was not often, she couldn’t resist trying to reason with him. He had meaningful work, a beautiful house, good physical health. He was loved, and not just by her, not just by Alex and Ava, but also by the people he worked beside every day.

  She wasn’t wrong. The thing that she couldn’t understand was that she had asked one thing of life, the same thing Cole had asked, to spend it making music. She had gotten her wish and Cole had not.

  He couldn’t help seeing a parallel with his entire generation. Instead of the things they’d asked for, they’d gotten endless war in the Middle East, resurgent racial violence, the death of the middle class, environmental disaster. Even Ava’s Project Ark depended on the good will of a murderous criminal.

  And yet.

  The windows were open to a warm breeze that fluttered the curtains and carried in the smell of sun-baked pavement and loamy gardens. The sound of squabbling birds rose up from the street. He had culling to do on the terraces, and that night he and Sallie would likely make love. Maybe afterward they would take their guitars down to the Jardín de la Unión.

  He shut the baggie away in the closet. Then he put on clean work clothes and went out to see what the day might hold.

  Author’s note

  First and foremost, my undying gratitude to Richie Unterberger, the king of rock historians, without whose friendship and generosity this enterprise might well have foundered. Richie sent me music and videos, took me on a walking tour of Haight-Ashbury, answered endless questions in email, and shared transcripts of interviews he did for his definitive documents of sixties folk rock, Turn! Turn! Turn! and Eight Miles High. His recommendations of books, dvds, and cds were invaluable, and his taste, expertise, and love of this music is boundless.

  Richie also introduced me to Lyric Seidensticker, then in her early twenties, and already a leading authority on The Lovin’ Spoonful. She was also tireless in sharing the fruits of her research.

  Among the people I interviewed, extra special thanks to Susan Hardin, Tim Hardin’s widow, who shared her memories, her kind heart, and her Rolodex. Erik Jacobsen, one of the great record producers of all time, gave me wonderful stories, keen insights, and the gift of his friendship. John Sebastian is one of the warmest people I have ever interviewed, one of the most generous, and quite possibly the funniest. David Dennard, a St. Mark’s classmate, was the bass player of the Novas in the 1960s, the best band in Dallas. I came back to him again and again for details of the clubs, the bands, and the times.

  The Big D 60s group on Yahoo was a great resource, and led me to Margaret Moser, rock journalist and woman on the Austin scene, who was unsparing with her time and insider perspective.

  Dave Fisher is an entirely fictional character, though I let him take credit for some of the recording feats of the real Roy Halee, engineer on “Summer in the City” and other Spoonful songs, to whom I apologize. Morgan Conrad, head of A&R at Columbia, is also an entirely fictional character.

  For a wonderful discussion of folk music, authenticity, and politics, I recommend When We Were Good by Robert Cantwell. Dave Van Ronk’s The Mayor of MacDougal Street, assembled and edited by Elijah Wald, is a great history of the folk scene in Greenwich Village and a joy to read.

  Kate Spencer’s Art and Politics in Have Gun—Will Travel is loaded with insight and information about mid-20th century tv westerns.

  My friend George R. R. Martin provided me with invaluable detail about Bayonne, New Jersey, in the 1960s, far more than I was able to use. The Meteors are fictional; Mrs. Jay’s was real, and located next door to The Stone Pony.

  Background for the oil rig scenes comes from the wonderful and affecting memoir Roughnecks, Drillers, and Tool Pushers: Thirty-Three Years in the Oil Fields by Gerald Lynch. Thanks also to Robert Squyres, who got me onto a working oil rig decades ago as research for a novel that was never published. You never know when something is going to end up being useful after all.

  Johnny Hornet is entirely fictional. klif, Gordon McLendon, and Mike Scott are not.

  Luis Manuel García Rangel made heroic efforts to improve my Spanish, provided a walking tour of Guanajuato, and answered questions about history and geography. Mil gracias, primo.

  Wilton Barnhardt gave me an amazingly useful Rand McNally 1967 Texaco Touring Atlas, crucial encouragement, and a ferocious intellect to bounce ideas off of.

  Jim Savage, another St. Mark’s classmate and lifelong friend, turned me on to Bob Dylan back in 1965 and took me to the concert in Dallas that fall. Fifty years later, he provided details about ut registration and housing and discussed the folk music of the sixties with me.

  For general information on San Francisco, the Fillmore, and Bill Graham, nothing can beat Bill Graham Presents by Bill Graham and Robert Greenfield, a benchmark for oral histories. The best nonfiction book I read on the Summer of Love is Charles Perry’s The Haight Ashbury: A History, though I also highly recommend the novel Summer of Love by Lisa Mason, thoroughly researched and full of heart.

  Paisley Octopus, if it wasn’t obvious, is fictional. The Sons of Champlin are not, and neither is the Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto. And, for the record, Dave Fisher and I do not agree about Blue Cheer, whose early albums I still love.

  Barry Harrington, on the ground in the Bay Area, sent me books, cds, and magazine articles. He called around to track down obscure details of local history. He sent me long, funny emails offering insights about the local music and geography and people. His contribution cannot be overstated, and I am ever grateful for his friendship.

  Two books were especially helpful for technical details about the various recording studios in the novel: If These Halls Could Talk by Heather Johnson, and the fascinating Studio Stories by David Simons.

  Frank Werber is a historical character and my main source for his story is Greenback Dollar: The Incredible Rise of the Kingston Trio, by William J. Bush.

  My chronology of Woodstock is based on the Woodstock Wiki (woodstock.wikia.com), the most reliable source of information on Woodstock that I was able to find. I substituted Sallie Rachel for Melanie Safka on Friday night and The Quirq for Quill on Saturday morning. No disrespect was intended, as I am a big fan of both.

  Of the many books on the festival, my favorite is The Road to Woodstock by Michael Lang (with Holly George Warren), which is not only beautifully written, but manages to capture Lang’s remarkable spirit, which was so essential to the enduring importance of the festival. Also particularly helpful was Woodstock Revisited, a collection of eyewitness accounts, edited by Susan Reynolds.

  Special thanks go to Michael Tassi, who helped me get my hands on Project Woodstock Complete, 25 hours of music and stage announcements, the most complete audio record of the festival available at the time.

  Bob Wayne really outdid himself for this one, chauffeuring me to the town of Woodstock, to one of Levon Helm’s last Midnight Rambles, and to the site of the festival and the Woodstock Museum in Bethel. He also drove me to Liberty, where the staff of the Day’s Inn (formerly the Holiday Inn) went out of their way to open up the lounge where the Woodstock musicians hung out (long since converted to a storage area), to show me a sample room, and to answer questions.

  Bob also provided me with stacks of UK music magazines covering the sixties, including Shindig!, Mojo ’60s, and the amazing History of Rock series from Uncut, all of which were extraordinarily helpful.

  I invented Hugh Romney/Wavy Gravy’s dialog for this novel, but it’s inspired by his own books, interviews on the web, and the Wavy Gravy Movie, Saint Misbehavin’. I consider him one of the greatest heroes of the 1960s.

  For details of the student movement at ut, I relied on History of Student Activism at the University of Texas at Austin (1960-1988), a student thesis by Beverly Burr, from Spring 1988. From Burr’s thesis, I learned that my friend Jon Lebkowski had been an eyewitness to both the Waller Creek and Chuckwagon demonstrations, and he in turn provided me with lots of gre
at information and sent me to David P. Hamilton’s blog post from 2011, “1969 in Austin: The famous Chuck Wagon police riot.”

  The quotes from Raoul Vaneigem’s The Revolution of Everyday Life are based on the Donald Nicholson-Smith translation, though I used my high-school French to compare the original and tinker with them here and there. Quotes from Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle are from the 1977 Black and Red translation.

  Gary McDonald endured endless questions about cameras and editing equipment for the nyu scenes and never complained, just dug deeper and gave me more and more great stuff. Another St. Mark’s classmate, Jerry Carlson, pointed me to great info on Loisaida, including Palante, a fascinating oral history of the Young Lords.

  For information about the SoHo art scene of the 70s, I am indebted to Art on the Block by Ann Fensterstock, as well as to Jessamyn Fiore’s 112 Greene Street: The Early Years. The SoHo Memory Project (sohomemory.com) was the best of many extremely helpful websites about the era. Paula Cooper, Donald Judd, and the other artists I name-checked in the SoHo section are all real, with the exception of Callie Janus, whose paintings are my own invention.

  Of the many friends whose lives I plundered for this story, my biggest debt is to Margaret Downs-Gamble, who fully participated in the process. Her help, especially in the matters of pregnancy and childbirth, was crucial. Love and thanks also to Michael Minzer, Tricia Jumonville, and the late R. P. Alberts.

  Eden Farm and Sheriff P. J. Mackie are entirely my own creations, though the town of Wytheville is real. My good friend Bill Bischoff gave me a short course in farming, answered rafts of questions, and read the first draft of the commune section to help me get it right. Fred Brockman, ex-communard, also read the section in first draft and made many helpful suggestions, many of which I appropriated verbatim. Terry Bisson, another commune veteran, pointed me to some valuable resources, including his own Any Day Now and his friend Peter Coyote’s deeply moving Sleeping Where I Fall. Also essential was Voices from the Farm: Adventures in Community Living, edited by Rupert Fike.