Wasted Year: The Last Hippies of Ole Miss

by Douglas Gray

  ~ ~ ~

  Friday, February 25

  Even waiting until after 9:00 p.m. doesn’t help. Garrett, Rose, Andrew, Cindy and I still discover a line stretching under the rain outside the Rebel Buddha. But Garrett spots an empty space in the parking lot and pulls in. We share a joint and play alphabet games. We’ve gone through lists of cities, dead movie stars, cigarette brands, and rockers (individual artists preferred).

  “What’s next?” Cindy asks, after naming Frank Zappa.

  “Stars and constellations,” I suggest.

  “Characters from the Old Testament,” Garrett urges.

  “State representatives from Nebraska,” Andrew offers.

  “Renaissance cartographers.”

  “Fungi phyla.”

  “Demigods from Tahitian mythology.”

  “Diseases of the lower intestine.”

  “Siberian rivers.”

  “Phobias.”

  “That’s fun,” Rose pops in, seizing the moment. “Arachnophobia. Garrett?”

  “Barophobia. Daniel?”

  “Caligynephobia,” I say. “Cindy?”

  “One moment,” Andrew interrupts. “Caligynephobia? What is it? How do we know you didn’t just make that up?”

  “Fear of beautiful women. Kalli, beautiful, plus gyne, woman. It helps to know Greek.”

  “It also helps actually to be afraid of beautiful women,” Garrett says.

  “Am not,” I say.

  “You’ve started out terrified of every pretty woman you ever met,” he replies. “Melissa. Dr. Goodleigh. Joan. Phyllis. Susan. That girl who sat across the aisle from you in Fulton Chapel during Botany class.”

  “Look, the line is gone,” Cindy says. “We came here to eat. Remember?”

  Once inside, we still have to wait 15 minutes for a table. Good as the food is, the customers are complaining that service has slowed to a crawl. Ho’s routine includes a hash break around 8:30, after which she’s far too mellow to care whether or not people get their orders.

  Tucked away in one corner, at a cozy table for two, sit Dr. Sutherland and Mrs. Sutherland, their dinners half eaten, holding hands, laughing like a young couple. Sutherland’s returned from the land of the clinically depressed.

  “I’ve definitely got to get on that machine,” I vow to myself.

  A gorgeous Chinese waitress in a silk mandarin dress beckons us forward with a crook of her finger and leads our group to a newly-unoccupied table.

  “How are ya’ll doing this rainy evening?” she asks, in the creamiest of southern accents. Her skin is like Belleek, lips a tiny rosebud, lashes long and curled.

  “Not from the mainland, I assume,” Andrew replies.

  She laughs. “Hell, no. I’m from Greenville. What can I get ya’ll to drink?”

  Orders go round for tea, Cokes, water.

  “What about you, sugar?” she asks me.

  But I find myself unable to answer.

  “He’ll have tea,” Garrett answers for me. “Caligynephobia strikes again,” he adds after she leaves.

  ~ ~ ~

  Saturday, February 26

  Dr. Evans refreshes my drink. We’re in his study, discussing the Barefoot case. “So you still haven’t read the story that started all of this?” he asks.

  “I haven’t really read much of anything in English since coming back. You’ve read it, I suppose.”

  “Of course. Amy showed it to me as soon as it was submitted. ‘The Highlands.’ Damn good work, though I warned her that it was going to upset some people.”

  “Because of the obscenity?”

  “Because of its premise. A virus spreads across North America that leaves adult men impotent. But the black population is immune. So now the white women are seeking out black men for sex.”

  “So you’re saying that Barefoot was censored because of race.”

  “Of course. Are you new around these parts? Everything’s still about race, though the Lyceum wants to claim otherwise. It’s a cute story they invented about some elderly maiden typesetter swooning away over naughty words, but I guarantee that’s not what happened.”

  Dr. Evans takes the chair opposite me and fiddles with his pipe. His lighter is apparently broken, because he strikes a kitchen match, filling the room with a tinge of sulfur. The room is quiet, except for the sound of rain on the window.

  “I spoke with your lawyer,” he goes on. “She’s a honey, isn’t she? I’ve given the question a lot of thought. Frankly, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying my semester off, not having to deal with all the bullshit on campus, not having to deal with French. Not having to pretend to think highly of Alcott – not even having to meet him, in fact.”

  “Amy is more than willing to attend to him.”

  Dr. Evans blows a plume of smoke into the air. “Rumor is that she’s sleeping with him. Not that you can trust campus rumors. Still, the man does have a reputation, despite his claptrap about morality.”

  I feel oddly uncomfortable over this revelation. “So you’ve decided?” I prompt.

  “It’s too tempting to pass up. I’ll join you in the suit,” he says. “I can bring the AAUP to the table. With the ACLU already on board, we have some pretty formidable allies. Who knows what other assistance might surface if I can persuade the author himself to join the case.”

  “Jerome Baker. Do you know him?” I ask.

  “Only by name. Which is kind of odd, when you think about it. Every would-be writer in the county turns up at my office at some point, manuscript in hand. But here’s a young man writing a little gem of a story, and I’ve never even met him.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Sunday, February 27

  “Dagnabbit, pa,” Dan Blocker says to Lorne Greene. Garrett whoops and passes the bong around, counterclockwise: Cindy, Andrew, Clamor, me, and Rose. We’ve finished another tv dinner party and are slouched on floor and furniture among empty tinfoil trays.

  The show ends and the credits come up, accompanied by the Bonanza theme song.

  “That’s great music to have sex to,” Rose advises the rest of us. “If you haven’t tried it, you’ve missed something. Listen to that rhythm.”

  “I like the Lone Ranger theme, too,” Cindy says.

  “It’s the William Tell Overture, actually,” Andrew adds.

  “Route 66,” I suggest.

  “That’s a lot of fun, too,” Rose agrees.

  “Peter Gunn.”

  “Rawhide.”

  “F Troop!” Garrett cries. “Gilligan’s Island! Green Acres! I Love Lucy!”

  “No,” Andrew cautions. “Please don’t!”

  But he’s too late. We’ve already launched into a five-part harmony of the I Love Lucy theme, making enough racket that James descends the stairs to glower at us.

  “Garrett,” he says, when we’re done, “have you told Rose yet how you won the VW bus?”

  The mood of the room shifts, Garrett turns somber, the laughter hushes.

  “We all agreed,” Andrew cautions, “not to speak of that.”

  “I think she’d like to know,” James says, with a shrug. “What went down that night. What kind of secrets her boyfriend is hiding.”

  Rose turns to Garrett with a smile. “Secrets?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “You’re being modest,” James says. “It was certainly not nothing. No, you won fair and square.”

  “Let it go,” Andrew cautions.

  James shrugs again and turns to leave the room. In doing so, he spots Clamor. “Go upstairs and take your clothes off,” he says.

  Clamor rocks back. She gazes up at him, mute.

  “Go take your clothes off, I said. It’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?”

  Andrew is on his feet now, trying to maneuver James out of the room. Cindy and Rose shout at him, but he’s persistent.

  “Why the hell are you always hanging around here? It can’t be for the intellectual stimulation. You want me to fuck you.”

  Clamor covers
her face with both hands, shamed.

  “This is your big chance,” James says. “Going once. Going twice. No? Okay, your loss, baby.”

  I’ve suddenly had enough of James.

  My legs and my feet move under me. I spring, and a moment later have him pinned against the wall, my forearm crushing his windpipe.

  “Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.”

  James throws his weight against me and manages to knock me off my feet with a kick to my ankles. I fall, but carry him down with me. We’re on the floor, grappling for the advantage.

  Cindy screams.

  James is quicker and stronger, but somehow I still manage to pin him to the floor. My fist is balled, raised in the air, aimed at his face.

  “Apologize, bastard!”

  Andrew seizes my arm, pulls me off, and swings me across the floor. James tries to leap after me, but Garrett and Andrew together hold him back.

  “Stop this!”

  Rose and Cindy converge on me, hands on my shoulders to keep me from lunging onto him again. A stunned calm settles over the room. I rise to my feet. James follows. We stare at each other.

  “Apologize to her.”

  “I want you out of my house, Medway.”

  He turns and steps calmly back up the stairs. I glance about the room, from one concerned face to the next, and realize that Clamor is gone.

  The front door is open, and she’s vanished into the night and the rain.

  ~ ~ ~

  Monday, February 28

  I’m recounting the events of last evening to Dr. Valencia.

  “A display of anger,” he says. “We’re making progress. I believe this may be the first honest emotion you’ve expressed in this office.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You’re not being an insufferable smartass today. By the way, that’s my clinical diagnosis of your condition: Insufferable Smartass. I’m writing a monograph on you.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  Rain lashes his office window, gale force.

  “But now you’re showing genuine anger, over a young woman. You have a weakness for them, but this one’s not a potential sweetheart. Does she remind you of your sister?”

  “I never said I have a sister.”

  “Your relations aren’t exactly obscure people. I could look them up.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Whether or not you actually have a sister is less relevant than how you feel about her.”

  “How I feel about a sister I don’t have?”

  “Or how you feel about a sister you do have.”

  “What if I don’t feel anything for a sister I don’t have?”

  “Let’s review the possibilities. You have a sister. You don’t have a sister. You feel for the sister you have. You don’t feel for her. You don’t feel for the sister you don’t have. You do feel for her.”

  “Have you invented a new kind of quantum psychology? Do you have some girl shut in a box with a radioactive isotope?”

  It’s Valencia’s turn to stare at me now, waiting.

  “Last week, I made out with a girl I can’t stand,” I offer. This is a red herring, but he seems engaged.

  “Of course you did. Tell me about it.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Tuesday, February 29

  The Lafayette County courtroom is packed with wet spectators. Only the judge, the bailiff and the court reporter – the three people who didn’t have to make their way through the torrent outside – are dry.

  Clamor, Raven Bright and the other witches sit with Jenny at a long table facing the judge. The city attorney and an assistant are positioned at another table across the aisle. Since this isn’t a jury trial, Judge Everett has dispensed with opening statements, which is a shame. I was looking forward to watching Jenny sashay in one of her tailored suits she usually wears for court appearances, the ones that show off her splendid hips.

  A theatrical peal of thunder rattles the courthouse windows as the city attorney calls Deputy Hacker to the stand. I crane my head to watch, but from my vantage point at the back of the gallery, I can’t seem to find Sheriff Claprood anywhere.

  Hacker recites the oath and takes his seat with a smug confidence. “I’m Deputy Sheriff Roy Hacker,” he says, prompted to state his name and occupation. “I suspect most people in this room know me pretty well, one way or another.”

  The city attorney asks him to recount, for the court, the events from the afternoon of February 2, 1972. He presents a short narrative of his patrol route that day, culminating with a call from this dispatcher about a disturbance on the Square.

  “What did you discover upon your arrival?”

  “A bunch of weirdoes with drums committing an unlawful assembly and disrupting the peace. They claimed it was a religious ceremony, but it wasn’t like any kind of thing honest folks have ever seen.”

  “Do you see the group in question here in this courtroom?”

  “Certainly. They’re sitting right there, with their attorney.”

  “Let the record that the witness has indicated the defendants. Deputy, what did you do when you arrived at the scene?”

  “I ordered them to disperse.”

  “You gave them the opportunity to disperse?”

  “I did. They refused. That was when I placed them under arrest.”

  “Your witness, counselor,” the city attorney says to Jenny.

  Jenny rises and crosses the floor to the witness stand, striding like Justice herself to confront Hacker.

  “Deputy, do you recall any other conversation you had with the defendants that day? Something of a philosophical nature?”

  Hacker pulls a wry face and scratches at the stubble on his chin. “Philosophical? Not that I recall.”

  “Let me be more specific. Did you have a discussion about the nature of law enforcement in regard to religious practices?”

  “I’m a simple man. I don’t usually delve into such subjects. My papa taught me it was impolite to talk religion with other folks.”

  “But didn’t you remark that if these young women had been, say, Christian missionaries, you would have allowed their assembly to continue?”

  He scratches his chin again, gives her a sideways stare, his canny country boy face. “Well certainly. Oxford’s a Christian town. Devil worshipers don’t belong here.”

  Jenny turns to Judge Everett with a smile, and repeats the very words she used at the end of our Mickey Mouse trial: “Your Honor, I rest my case.”

  Everett’s gavel strikes before the city attorney can rise to object. “Case dismissed. The defendants are released. Bailiff, clear the room. Attorneys, in my chamber.”

  A crush of citizenry exits the court and crowds the doorways, the stairs and the halls. Then outside. If anything, the rain seems to have grown stronger, forcing us all to assemble on the north and south porches, each porch dividing into two conflicting factions: those who are furious over the trial’s outcome, and those who are celebrating it.

  Jenny emerges, surrounded by reporters. She’s cheered by one side, heckled by the other. Opponents are shouting at each other. A scuffle erupts in the center of the crowd.

  We should all get out of here, but the rain is pouring down in curtains, so thick I can’t even see the shops across the street anymore. Water pounds in sheets over the sides of the rain gutters that can no longer cope with the volume. The sidewalks around the building are already under several inches of flowing water, more dangerous with every minute that passes.

  We’re all stranded together, bitter enemies on a sinking island, ready to grapple and pull each other under the flood.

  The witches emerge. A sudden quiet settles over the mob, which parts by an unconscious but unanimous decision to clear a path from the door to the porch steps. I find myself in a front row as the witches leave the building, process through the crowd and walk, ankle deep in water, onto the pavement.

  Clamor is the last in line. Raven Bright and the others glare at us
with triumph, but Clamor herself seems frightened, unsteady in her gait. I call to her, take her hand, and pull her out of the procession.

  She’s shivering.

  The five remaining witches stand together in the rain and face the crowd. Raven Bright steps forward to issue a proclamation.

  “We have decided to forgive you,” she says, with a voice that rings and echoes under the portico. “This town has done penance enough.”

  They have no drums today, but they strike a rhythm by clapping their hands in unison, then their hips and thighs as they dance in a circle, counterclockwise. Some members of the audience pick up the beat, clapping with them, but most simply stare in bewilderment.

  Raven tosses her head back like a maenad on one of the Museum’s amphorae and shrieks a cry toward the clouds. The others follow with a chant in a language I’ve never imagined, Raven punctuating their litany with sporadic shrieks every fifteen seconds or so.

  This weird scene continues for several minutes – I’m not checking my watch, so I don’t know how many. It may be my imagination, but the rain seems to be letting up. All at once, the witches stop. The ceremony has ended.

  “The curse is lifted,” Raven announces. “Go home. There’s nothing more to see here.”

  They turn away and vanish into the downpour. The crowd mills about, confused for a time until, one by one, individuals begin darting across the crosswalk and under the eaves of the shops, retreating from a rain that has definitely started to taper off.

  As the crowd on the porch thins, Andrew and Cindy spot us. Clamor is still shivering.

  “Take her home,” I say. “Get her warm, give her something to calm down.”

  “No,” Clamor objects. “I don’t want to see James.”

  “Not to worry,” Andrew says. “He’s popped off again, left yesterday for the east coast. Won’t be back for weeks.”

  “What about you?” Cindy asks me.

  “I’m going to hang around, see if anything else happens.”

  I cross over to the Ohm and join Garrett at the porch window, where he’s been watching this whole freak scene outside the courthouse. We share a joint and I keep an eye on the Square.

  By two o’clock, a few glimmers of sunlight are breaking through the clouds, though a light drizzle continues. An hour later, even that has stopped. The usual retinue of old men gathers at the park benches with checkerboards and newspapers. Afternoon traffic circles about them, counterclockwise, as usual.

  I leave the shop when I spot Hacker join the men for conversation and a smoke. He’s in civvies now, dungarees and a plaid shirt under a blue windbreaker.