Wasted Year: The Last Hippies of Ole Miss

by Douglas Gray

  “Over, man,” he burbles. “Dissertation. Finished. Finished, finished, finished, finished. Done.”

  Blake offers me a drink from his bottle of Stolichnaya, and takes two himself when I decline.

  “I’m done,” he says. “I’m a free man at last. Now I can be drunk forever.”

  Sunday, May 28

  “He dances like a monkey!” Septic System Man marvels as we watch Blake cavort about in the clearing between his trailer and the Widow’s.

  The Herbicide Salesman plays “Turkey in the Straw” on his harmonica while the Widow claps out a rhythm. Blake swirls a clumsy circle and stares at the sun with a radiant expression of pure goofy joy, my half-emptied fifth of Jim Beam in his hand – the only thing left to drink in the trailer. He’s welcome to it.

  We pitch coins at him, which he stops to collect between steps, and feel happy to have our old besotted Blake back. Everybody’s smiling – except for Joan, who menaces us with a disapproving stare as she descends the hill toward the scene. The Salesman stops playing and the Widow stops clapping, but Blake keeps dancing anyway, reeling and spinning with arms outstretched, the happiest boy in Lafayette County. Eventually even he notices silence, catches a glimpse of Joan, stops dancing.

  “Just having a little fun,” he says with a sloppy grin.

  She’s not angry about the dancing, though. “What was this doing in the bathroom?” she asks, producing what I believe is the third chapter of his dissertation.

  “Thought I’d partake in a little light reading in the tub.”

  “That’s just stupid,” the Widow says. “You might of dropped it in the water.”

  “And then where would you be?” Joan asks.

  “Monkeys ain’t got no sense,” the Septic System Man observes.

  “I’m hiding all your work in a safe place, until you can submit it to the department tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow’s Memorial Day,” I say. “Except for the Monday exams, all the offices will be closed.”

  “Tuesday, then. First thing,” Joan says. “Promise me.”

  “I promise, baby,” Blake says, in a placating, hangdog tone.

  Joan turns to leave. We watch her march back up the hill to our trailer, stopping short as an unfamiliar pickup pulls to a slow stop alongside the porch to Duck’s place. The driver kills the engine and steps out onto the gravel drive. It’s my Latin club buddy again. He spots our little gathering and ambles down the hill to join us with a friendly “Morning!”

  “You’re just in time for the weekly prayer meeting,” I a few minutes, Blake’s going to deliver a sermon on the eight beatitudes. Then on to communion.”

  “Thank you kindly, but I can’t stay. I’ve been sent to deliver a message and unload some boxes from the truck. The new landlord is asking that everybody be gone tomorrow evening, between seven and nine.”

  “Gone?” the Widow asks. “Why gone?”

  “Or you can be here if you want, but you’ll need to stay indoors. And no looking out the windows.”

  “Why?”

  “Best get to work,” he says, dodging the question with a shrug. “Those boxes aren’t gonna’ unload themselves.”

  “Need a hand?” I offer.

  “Kind of you,” he says, “but I’m under instructions to do the job alone.”

  We watch him set about the task. The boxes are large, but apparently not heavy. He hoists them onto his shoulder easily, making a dozen or so trips from the truck to the trailer. The boxes come in many sizes, but all bear the same logo on them.

  “What’s he got in there?” the Salesman wonders aloud.

  The Widow and I both speak up at the same time: “Tupperware.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Monday, May 29

  “Where’s Dr. Goodleigh?” asks the sullen coed who arrived late for today’s final exam and who is now the last student to turn in her paper.

  We’re in Bishop Auditorium, where the Classical Mythology class has been meeting all semester. Fifty-eight students enrolled. When I took the course my junior year, there were only six students, meeting in a seminar room on the library mezzanine. Now look at it.

  “At a picnic with friends,” I say.

  “Must be nice for some people to get Memorial Day off,” the girl sniffs.

  “But think of how those brave soldiers died, just so we could have a holiday. I, personally, lost my entire family in the Franco-Prussian War.

  I toss all the blue books in a cardboard box and cross over to Bondurant, unlocking the office and leaving them on Dr. Goodleigh’s desk, per her instructions.

  It’s 11:15, and my work for the day is done. I strike out across campus – mostly deserted apart from students unlucky enough to have an exam today, and junior faculty without graduate assistants like me to proctor for them. The Union is open, so I stop in for a Coke and a frozen cheeseburger from the vending machines.

  I’m at the microwave, heating up the burger, when I overhear two jocks passing by, talking about something that just happened in the Grove. Something about a dog. Something about the Flasher.

  The Grove is a scene of subsiding chaos by the time I arrive. Two of Claprood’s squad cars are idling nearby the Alumni House, with their lights flashing, but the cops don’t seem to be doing anything besides gaping at the crowd around them, half of which seems to be already returning to what they were doing before the commotion arose – tossing Frisbees, cramming for exams, sunbathing.

  I spot the gnarly lank form of the Ranger in the direction of the Law School and, nearby, Clamor and Andrew and Cindy. Andrew is noticeably agitated. Cindy and Clamor are trying to calm him down.

  “Dr. Hirsch has been arrested,” Andrew announces, voice pitched in a note of panic. “They caught him. The finally caught him!”

  “Idiot,” I say. “How did it happen?”

  “We didn’t see it ourselves,” Cindy says. “We were over near the stage, and we heard shouting from this direction. It was all over by the time we got here.

  “He was flashing on the Law School steps, everybody nearby saw him. He’d just closed his coat back and was turning to run when some dog came out of nowhere, clamped onto his ankle and pulled him down. Then the Ranger was on him. Once the crowd closed in, he was trapped. Campus cops handcuffed him, and then the city cops arrived and carted his ass off to jail.”

  “I’ll be damned,” I say. “So it finally took Citizen to capture him.”

  “Your imaginary dog?” Clamor asks.

  “Not so imaginary after all, and obviously a good deal smarter than the local constabulary.”

  “What becomes of us, now our landlord’s in jail?” Andrew laments.

  “Come live on Campground Road,” I advise. “Our landlord’s a drug dealer, so he’ll never he’ll never see the inside of a Lafayette County jail.”

  “The Buddha,” Clamor reminds us. “Jimmy and Tiger need to know.”

  But when we reach the restaurant, the parking lot’s empty and the place is locked. The Buddha is closed.

  “I didn’t know the Chinese celebrate Memorial Day,” Cindy says.

  “They’re a very advanced culture. They probably invented it.”

  Andrew commences banging on the door, but the place certainly seems empty enough and the rest of us have just persuaded him to stop when the kitchen door swings open, revealing Ho in a pair of “Brady Bunch” pajamas, trusty meat cleaver in hand. She approaches, waving it before her in menacing swoops.

  “Tiger?” Andrew shouts through the glass. “Jimmy?”

  “No Jimmy. No Tiger. Go way!”

  Then she notices me and likely decides this is her golden opportunity to use her cleaver on me, no native speakers about to persuade her not to murder me. She starts to unlock the door. My friends think she’s letting them in. I, however, am not fooled. I turn in a sprint down University Avenue with Ho’s voice following, shouting threats.

  I don’t stop running until I reach Tyler Avenue, where I come upon Garrett and Miss Fairchild sh
aring a joint on the porch.

  Garrett turns ashen at the news I deliver. “Son of a bitch! We did try to warn him, though.”

  “I’m thinking now we should have been more direct.”

  “Best pay a visit to the sheriff’s office, ask about his bail.”

  We take the VW bus and head for the Lafayette County jail, but on the way up Van Buren we discover that at least one shop on the Square is open for business this Memorial Day Monday.

  The Nickelodeon’s having a sale – 50% off albums “Most of You Assholes Have Forgotten About,” according to the sign. Dottie’s hooked her sound system to a loudspeaker by the front door, and the street echoes to the guitar riffs of “Orange County Lumber Truck.”

  Quite a little crowd has assembled, spilling out onto the street. Just as Garrett slows to avoid the pedestrians, two faces in the throng jump out at me. “Stop!” I yell. “Pull over.”

  Garrett’s spotted them, too, and is out of the bus ahead of me, burrowing his way into the crowd, gaining the sidewalk, and corralling Tiger and Jimmy under the Nickelodeon’s canopy.

  Miss Fairchild and I watch from the street. It’s impossible to hear anything over the music, and it’s apparently hard enough for them to hear each other. Garrett’s having to shout his sad tidings to them: their boss has been arrested, sex crime, the Buddha’s bound to shut down over the scandal, and they’re ruined.

  The boys seem momentarily stunned. Jimmy looks at Tiger. Tiger looks back at Jimmy. They both look at Garrett. Jimmy collapses to his knees, vanishing momentarily from our view.

  “This looks pretty bad,” Miss Fairchild shouts into my ear.

  I’m about to reply with a shout of my own. Jimmy’s on his feet again. He’s got Garrett in a hug, pounding him on the back, and laughing. Tiger’s actually smiling. I can see the white of his teeth. I didn’t think he knew how.

  Garrett pulls free. The three of them shout at each other some more, then Jimmy slips back through the throng into the shop and returns a moment later leading Dr. Hirsch out by the hand.

  “Who is that?” Miss Fairchild shouts.

  “It’s him,” I yell back, hardly able to believe what I’m saying. “It’s Hirsch. He’s not the Flasher. He can’t be the Flasher. The Flasher’s in jail, and Hirsch is . . . here!”

  “Okay,” she calls. “If he’s not the Flasher, then who is?”

  A good question. A very good question indeed.

  ~ ~ ~

  Tuesday, May 30

  I’m alone in the Museum, sitting zazen, when Joan arrives, looking for me. Actually, she’s looking for Blake.

  “Haven’t seen him since this morning,” I report. I left him sitting in one of the Widow’s lawn chairs, drinking Irish coffee.

  “He was supposed to report to the History office at 1:00 to submit the dissertation. His entire committee was in today. They’d agreed to hold his oral defense then and there.” She glances at her watch, I at mine. “He’d be done by now.”

  “You know how unreliable he is.”

  I’ve no sooner found my hara again, after Joan leaves, than Dr. Goodleigh arrives from her afternoon Greek Architecture exam.

  “I can’t believe you boys honestly thought Fred Hirsch was the Flasher,” she announces. “Honestly, that man’s so shy I bet he’s never been naked in front of anybody, not even his doctor. Not even his mother. He was probably born in a little seersucker suit.”

  I demur, an honest mistake based on a generous helping of circumstantial evidence. The sheriff’s department has turned secretive, releasing the suspect on bond without divulging his identity. Rumors are swirling as to who it might be. We know only that it’s not Dr. Hirsch.

  “Sam Wheatley in Psychology,” Dr. Goodleigh guesses. “It’s always the psychologists who turn deviant.”

  “Dr. French,” I hazard.

  “Too much to hope for. But now you bring him up, will you be attending his reception tomorrow night?”

  “For Alcott?” I ask. “I don’t think I’m invited.”

  “It’s an open event. I myself wouldn’t miss it. You should really make an appearance. Take Becky with you.”

  There’s a significant pause in our conversation at the mention of that name. A pregnant pause.

  “You haven’t asked about the date,” I say.

  “I had Becky over for brunch on Sunday. She told me all about it. Not to be nosey, but you really should have kissed her when you two said goodnight. She was expecting it, you know.”

  “I’d had a lot to think about,” I say, defensive. “I wasn’t even sure who she was anymore that night.”

  “I tried to warn you, how wrong you were about that girl.”

  “If only I’d picked up on that.”

  “Poor Mr. Medway. Tell me, how do you plan to survive this summer without me around looking out for you?”

  ~ ~ ~

  Wednesday, May 31

  Joan stops berating Blake’s failure to meet his committee, once more today, long enough to gaze upon me in wonder as I emerge from my bedroom. Haircut on Jackson Avenue this afternoon, pressed slacks, a borrowed tie and blazer from Blake.

  “Wow, how straight.”

  “Resplendent!” Blake salutes me with a newly-opened bottle of Stolichnaya. “Tell Alcott for me that as miserable as he may be as a human being, he’s an even worse writer.”

  Jackson Browne’s “Doctor, My Eyes” is on the radio as I pull into Dr. Goodleigh driveway. Becky dances out onto the porch and gives me an unexpected peck on the cheek. I smell wine on her breath. She hops into the back seat, feet barely touching the floor, as Dr. Goodleigh emerges from the house with a tangle of Siamese seething about her ankles. There seem to be more of them than I remember.

  “Yes, two new ones,” she confirms. “Ariadne and Eurydice.”

  I’ve visited Dr. French’s home out on College Hill Road twice before, back in my undergraduate years when I was still the department’s fair-haired boy. Tonight the long circular drive is packed with cars, so I drop the ladies off and find a parking place fifty yards uproad, off on the berm.

  “Hey, Anglo-Saxon,” a voice hails as I walk back toward the house. It’s Dr. Giordano, sitting in the passenger’s seat of a car I don’t think is his, with the window rolled down. He seems to be drunk. “I never see you at lunch anymore,” he slurs. “I’ve missed our conversations.”

  “Me, too,” I admit. “Maybe over the summer.”

  “You going in there?” he asks, nodding in the direction of the house. “Don’t,” he says, without giving me a chance to reply. “Nothing in there but sons of bitches. Nothing in this town but sons of bitches. You’re not a son of a bitch, though. You’re a little bastard . . . but you’re not a son of a bitch. Go find another party, a party for little bastards. You’ll fit in better.”

  I enter anyway and wade through a sea of drunken grad students on the porch into the inner sanctum of the house. A denizen of deans and senior faculty glance at me askance as I wend my way among them, finally stumbling into a room full of cigarette smoke, pipe smoke, elbows, Bourbon vapor, ice cubes clicking in tumblers beaded with droplets of condensation, back vowels that seem to be growing longer with each step that I take into the crowd, white shirts and black neckties pierced with silver-studded tie tacks, the aging décolletage of faculty wives, every now and then the fresh firm flesh of a superannuated emeritus’ trophy wife, polished shoes, pressed dress pants with cuffs, bifocals, bad teeth and worse breath, a miasma of quiet academic desperation, surgical scars (some only recently healed) pulsing pinkly beneath layers of broadcloth and pastels, souls in thrall to long-abandoned dreams of fame. And at the end of this room, the master of these damned ceremonies himself: Edward Alcott.

  Dr. French’s eyes widen with alarm as I shamble, Caliban-like, into his inner circle, which already includes the Chancellor, Moriarty, and Dean Hopkins from Law, among other lesser beings who have been admitted into the great man’s presence. Amy, of course, pretending not to notice me.


  And – Dr. Goodleigh and Becky, who I now realize have been telepathically drawing me to this spot since I first entered the house, witting and willing agents of a predestined plan that Alcott and I should have one final encounter.

  The conversation, as I join the group, is naturally about him. His agent has distributed review copies of the new novel to the critics, and undiluted praise has already started trickling in from National Review and The Washington Post. The movie rights are already being negotiated, with talk of Dack Rambo or Ben Murphy to play the title role.

  Basking in a crescendo of praise from his chorus of admirers, Alcott pretends to have suddenly noticed me for the first time. “My young antagonist,” he booms, magnanimously raising his glass in salute. “Of everyone I’ve met in Mississippi, I think I shall remember you best.”

  “You’re much too kind.”

  “In fact,” he continues, “for my next novel, I’ve created a character modeled after you.”

  “You’ve already started on your next work?” an admirer asks, admiringly.

  “Yes, another Vietnam story. And one of the characters . . . pardon my memory, but what’s your name again, boy?”

  “Medway.”

  “A character named Medway,” he resumes. “A little shit-stinking, gook-loving hippie coward who panics under fire and gets his platoon massacred. Comes to a sorry end, tortured to death in a POW camp.”

  “Be sure to send me a copy,” I say.

  Dr. French has begun making soothing vocalizations. “Now, now. Let’s not.”

  “I just hope it will be as good the novel you’ve just finished writing. Speaking of which – ‘Ring! Ring! Ring ring!’”

  Everyone gapes as I curl my hand into the shape of a telephone receiver.

  “Excuse me,” I say, thumb to ear and pinkie finger to my lips. “I need to take this call. Hello? Who? Yes, he’s here. Okay. Yes. Okay. Sure, I’ll tell him. Goodbye,” I say and hang up.

  The Chancellor turns his benevolent gaze upon me in curiosity. “Who was it?” he asks.

  “It’s a message for you, Mr. Alcott. That was Stephen Crane on the line. He says you’ve ripped him off and he wants his Red Badge of Courage back.”

  Alcott’s punch, when it falls, is instantaneous and painful, delivered by a fist with an oversized USMC ring on one finger. I see stars, and then the ankles and shoes of French’s guests. Then darkness closes in.

  ~ ~ ~