Mayhem (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 1)

by J. Davis Henry

  “I’ve read about it, I mean LSD. What’s it like?”

  Greg reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a tightly folded piece of aluminum foil. He carefully lifted and unwrapped the edges revealing six sugar cubes. “Owsley acid.” Picking up one, he intoned, “Deets, the gates of the universe will open for you.”

  “I’ll try it.”

  “Wait, this stuff ain’t like smoking a joint. We could be out of it, I mean really flying, for all day, all night. It’s different every time. What’re you doing today? Got any plans?”

  “I’ve got to deliver three new drawings to the gallery, and then I’m heading over to Maureen’s.”

  “What about tomorrow?”

  “I was going to draw, I guess.”

  “Want to drop some acid instead?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “You’ll be drawing in a different dimension tomorrow, Rembrandt. Colors move, talk. Man, it’s something else. I once saw a pink dinosaur walk by me and say in an English accent, ‘How are you this fine day?’ I could see the words as well as hear them. Then he just flagged down a taxi, got into it, and rode away.”

  I burst out laughing. “Wow. Sounds cool.”

  Chapter 5

  Maureen welcomed me where we had left off the night before. Hands all over each other, I had her panties off and her skirt hitched up as we tumbled onto a couch. Just as she unzipped my jeans and started to stroke me, we heard someone unlocking the front door. Scrambling, she grabbed my hand and led me to her room.

  “It’s Lola. You met her last night.”

  “Pink curlers, nasty threatener, no sense of humor. Probably works for the FBI. That her?”

  “Yes, she can be a pain.”

  “She’s kind of foxy when she isn’t calling the cops on you.”

  “She told me she wasn’t going to be here. Nobody was. Just you and I, all evening.”

  “Can’t we just close the door?”

  “I guess so. It’s awkward though.”

  We lay on her bed. I unbuttoned her blouse. Soon her hand was pumping me up and down as I desperately sucked at her tits though her bra.

  I had just managed to unhook her and move my hand onto her bare nipple when the bedroom door flew open, and Lola stood there with Maureen’s polka-dot underwear in her hand. She opened her mouth to speak, but a gagged whimper was all she could utter at the sight of us lying in bed half-undressed, Maureen’s fingers wrapped around my hard-on. The three of us froze for a few seconds, then Lola tossed the panties towards the bed, snorted with disapproval, and slammed the door behind her.

  I lay there paralyzed in disbelief and embarrassment. Maureen burst out laughing.

  “Bullseye.” She wiggled my cock. Her undies had landed and looped right over my shaft. “Perfect throw.”

  They were silk, and she used them to bring me to orgasm.

  We talked and fondled each other for hours. Maureen spoke hesitantly about a boyfriend back home in Pennsylvania, wrestling with her conscience to let me enter her or not. I told her about my art and repeatedly obsessed over her tits. After awhile, the conversation turned to her brother Greg and his tour in Vietnam. At that, the bed romping stopped.

  “Do you think you’d go to Vietnam to fight?”

  “Never thought much about it. I don’t know. Maybe, if I had to.”

  “It’s wrong. War is immoral. Politicians with their greedy plans sending young boys to kill or be killed. For what? Greg is lucky to be home alive. And that’s where you should be—right here.”

  “I am, but y’know, you don’t hear much about this war. What the hell is it all about?”

  “Same old stupidity. Men have been fighting forever. The French were in Indochina for years. Johnson is bombing civilians and is sending more and more troops. There’s a whole bunch of soldiers, about a hundred thousand American ones, over there now.”

  “Wow, I didn’t know that.”

  “Hardly anybody does. You should come to one of the anti-war meetings here at school. There’s a protest downtown next week. Why don’t you come and sit with me tomorrow in the Student Union? We could set up a table and hand out information against the war. I’m scheduled to do it soon anyway.”

  “Sure.”

  As exhausted as I was, I still couldn’t sleep. Harsh whisperings filtered under the door from the living room. The words beatnik and peacenik were repeated a number of times with incredulous disdain. Maureen’s breath was soft and even against my shoulder, her hand on my chest, her breasts resting against me as she slept. The voices from the other room grew quiet. I lit a cigarette and lay in the dark, reflecting on my adventures with Maureen. Having had sexual intercourse only twice before, I had never slept all night in the same bed with a woman, and although deliriously happy and sated with our marathon of sucking and rubbing, I had no dream at that moment as exhilarating as the anticipation of Maureen parting her legs and me fucking her.

  Next time, she’ll want to do it.

  My mind drifted on to what she had said about the military action in Vietnam. As a kid I had fantasized about being a soldier—a hero killing all the bad guys, especially Nazis. There were always toy soldiers scattered around my bedroom—knights charging, civil war cannons booming, brave last stands. My buddies and I would spend the summers running through the woods yelling “Bang-Bang,” making bullet ricochet sounds, and exclaiming “I got you.”

  Then the agony of a memory infused with guilt that I could never rid myself of, entered my thoughts.

  About ten years before, while visiting my cousin Richard, we had been playing with his BB gun, shooting at bottles or cans, trees trunks, and into the waters of a brackish river. He spotted a jellyfish and plugged it with a BB.

  “Your turn. Shoot it. It’s still alive.”

  Without any hesitation, I took the gun, aimed for the center of the milky, alien creature, and pulled the trigger. Immediately after the muffled puff of compressed air, the pellet penetrated soundlessly into the top of the invertebrate’s bell head. But I could hear a scream resonate through every part of my own body. The animal’s tentacles spread helplessly with the current’s flow—a ghost drifting beneath the surface. Horrified and disoriented, I let the gun slip from my hands. As it splashed into the water, Richard yelled at me to get his rifle.

  I leaned over, clutched my stomach, and threw up, splattering his shoes and lower pant legs.

  He wailed and pushed me aside, waded into the water, and retrieved his weapon.

  “You sissy.” He lifted the gunstock to his shoulder and took aim at me.

  I charged into him, knocking him flat. Grabbing the gun, I swung it against a tree, battering the trunk over and over until the barrel bent and I became satisfied I had reduced the rifle to a useless hunk of metal and wood.

  Richard sat up, started to cry. My rage had no sympathy, and I flung the gun out into the river. I watched it bob up and down, wishing it would sink as the water swept it out of sight. My vomit burned inside my throat. My chest ached from the brutality of the last few minutes.

  Richard wailed, “I’m going to tell. You’re a fink.”

  I lit another cigarette, still cringing at the memory of the defenseless, gelatinous creature. Richard had told me to shoot, and I had. I would never stop regretting it. Not wanting to believe I could kill a human solely on an officer’s command, I reflected on what I would do if I was drafted. Though I had difficulty admitting it to myself, I knew I would do anything to stay alive in a jungle war zone.

  War—I didn’t want to become intimate with the destructiveness or cowardice it would bring out in me.

  I grew uncomfortable with my thoughts of guns and violence. Restless, I let my eyes wander around the room and out the window.

  On the rooftop across the street, I noticed the outline of a man standing among the ever present cluster of ante
nnae, vents, and clotheslines. A tiny flare of red revealed he was smoking. By his position and stance, I knew for certain that his attention focused on our bedroom window. A creeping suspicion in me grew into an unreal certainty of who the watcher was, but unlike the previous night at the alley, I didn’t panic at his presence.

  Two shadows—we smoked and spied each other.

  Why his interest in me? Not my drug use, not the evening’s sexual marathon. Whatever he wanted, it was more sinister, more calculated. The air outside seemed to shimmer with his menace. I knew he didn’t cringe at killing jellyfish, knew he didn’t cringe at killing humans.

  My eyes fluttered open. The smoking man could no longer be seen. Had I been sleeping? Had I dreamed up the disturbing figure?

  Although emotionally and physically drained, I dozed fitfully on and off all night, glancing out the window every time I awoke. With a naked woman by my side, I felt both protective and invincible, but when Maureen left the bed to urinate, I found myself shaking, believing some terrible power had come forth from out of the city’s darkest alley.

  Chapter 6

  Maureen and I ate a quick breakfast, offering a cheery hello to a haughty Lola. When we reached the student union building, Maureen remembered she had an appointment and blamed my hand between her legs last night for making her forget it. After a moment of flustered thinking, she told me the peace group’s information packet and flyers were in a storage closet next to the drinking fountain. She bounced down the steps, turned, and said with a mischievous grin and a sly thumb’s up, “Bullseye.”

  I rummaged through varied brochures for student events, mimeographs about club meetings, flyers for art shows, and promotional handouts for theatrical productions. Stacks of paper about special lectures lay next to lists of off-campus activities. A jumble of boxes with information about the country of Vietnam, the Pentagon, war facts, peace march schedules, and civil disobedience techniques filled a metal stand of shelves. I poked around in a bag of peace sign buttons and pinned one to my shirt.

  “Ah ha.” I scooped up a pile of blue flyers announcing a special guest speaker. There was a photograph of him at the top of the page. “Dude looks familiar.”

  After arranging the information on a table in the union lobby, I sat back and lit a cigarette. Once in a while somebody would browse through the literature, but there didn’t seem to be much interest. Thinking I should make a poster to attract people’s attention, I started doodling out some ideas.

  One student picked up a flyer and studied it. He remarked, “Oh, I see you’re having William F. Buckley speak at one of your events.”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m glad to see you’re open-minded.”

  “Well, you gotta be.”

  He walked off, and I continued with my sketching. I was working up an idea of people holding hands atop a pile of broken guns when I was startled by a sharp exclamation.

  “What the hell are you doing?” A large black man stood in front of me. “You stupid or what?” He crumpled up one of the blue flyers in his fist.

  “Ha, cool it, Stokely.” A wild-haired guy slapped Stokely’s shoulders playfully. His T-shirt portrayed a battle-worn American flag being waved by a marching clown. “This just shows you how much work has got to be done. Let’s start with lesson one. Friendship.”

  He offered his hand to me. “I’m Abbie Hoffman. This is Stokely Carmichael.”

  Stokely’s anger turned into a less threatening sneer.

  I reached out to shake hands. Abbie clasped mine in the fashion of an arm wrestler. Distracted by the non-traditional greeting, I fumbled a clumsy imitation of his hold. Stokely just nodded at me.

  “I’m Deets. What’s going on? I have a right to voice my opinions against the war. If you have a problem with it, set up your own table.” I gestured with a random arc of my hand across the lobby.

  Abbie smiled. “See, Stoke, it ain’t as bad as it looks. Deets here, has spunk. Stood right up to us hawk assholes.”

  Stokely rolled his eyes and, with a friendly smile in my direction, gave Abbie a dismissive wave. My tension eased, but my confusion didn’t.

  Abbie picked up the blue stack of papers. “Deets, take this and see that trash can over there? Well, dump this nonsense into it.”

  “This dude’s going to speak this weekend.”

  “This dude, has said enough. He’s an enemy of yours, me, Stokely here, and everyone you love.”

  “What... Who... who is he?”

  “A self-bloating idiot who, surprisingly, is listened to.”

  Stokely set his hands on the table and leaned towards me. “Now, I believe, looking at that peace button that you wear and considering your dedication to man this table, that you’re against war.”

  I stammered, “Yeah... uh... what’s going on?”

  Abbie interjected, “Stay cool, man, we’re on your side. The war has to be stopped, Johnson run out of town, kids brought back safely from Vietnam—and not in some bag riddled full of bullet holes. This asshole,” he shook the flyers in his hand, “is Bill Fuckley. He wants to stomp you into the ground and send you back to Russia while he eats all the caviar.”

  Stokely turned his palms upwards. “All true, man. Somehow you picked up the schedule of the Conservative Party or the Young Americans and got it mixed up with this legitimate stuff.” He pointed at my shirt. “Like your peace button. You got that right.”

  Abbie shook the papers again. “This guy is a CIA McCarthyite, and his speaking schedule belongs over there.” He indicated the trash with a wild wave. “The less people hear him, the better off we all are, and the war will end sooner.”

  “Oh man, now I remember. This is that blowhard fascist that’s running for mayor.”

  “You got it, brother.”

  Humiliated, I took the papers from Hoffman. Acutely aware of my walk across the lobby, I tried to decide if a casual shuffle or a determined stride would erase my embarrassment and reflect a more confident and knowledgeable activist. But still, each step seemed a fool’s.

  Finally, I reached the trash can.

  Dropping the Buckley flyers into the receptacle, I relived the moment when I watched cousin Richard’s rifle bobbing in the current, being swept away until it disappeared from sight.

  Hoffman and Carmichael sat with me and talked about a campaign to widen campus protests across the country. As students walked by, Abbie would fold up a flyer from the table into a paper airplane and toss the glider at them.

  “Johnson’s bombing every square inch of Vietnam.”

  Most of his targets picked up the plane, smoothed it out, and read the information.

  Abbie experimented with aeronautical designs, folding wings into different styles as he told me about a meeting with some protestors who were planning on burning their draft cards at the upcoming anti-war rally.

  “Hey, Deets, you want to burn your draft card?”

  “What happens if I do? Don’t I go to jail?”

  Stokely snorted indignantly. “Probably two years. Not everyone’s cut out for it, Abbie.”

  Hoffman flipped a plane, then flashed the peace sign triumphantly when it soared and looped all the way across the lobby, bending its nose on the far wall.

  “Yeah, I’m not. Not like you, Stoke. You practically live behind bars. I’m fighting for the cause from this side of the penitentiary wire. More fun, see more people, get laid. Rather live free, that’s how I see it.”

  “Two years. Wow. Well, I’d rather spend two years away from the world on my own terms. Maybe in some cave, doing my art, communing with the gods about the mess down here.”

  Abbie smiled. “Takes all kinds. Maybe between the three of us we have all the angles covered. Maybe we’ll change the world.”

  “White people.” Stokely shook his head. He stood up, a flash of anger in his manner. “If you’ve bee
n stomped on enough, you stomp back, any way you can. Catch you later. I gotta split.”

  Abbie stretched his right arm towards Stokely. The black man responded by balling up his hand. Abbie did the same and they bumped each other’s clenched fist in farewell.

  For awhile, the two of us shuffled through some papers, quoting facts and figures about the Pentagon or Southeast Asia until Abbie asked me if I had heard of the Gulf of Tonkin.

  “It’s near Vietnam.”

  “Johnson claims the North Vietnamese attacked some US boats there last year. Something happened, but my radar tells me the story is mostly bullshit. So Johnson uses this fairy tale to bomb the crap out of North Vietnam. Hitler used the same stunt when he burned down the German Bundestag. Blamed the communists, petrified everyone, and grabbed power. Fascists always blame the commies.”

  “So, man, what do you do? Travel all over the country organizing protests?”

  Abbie stared at a sheet of graphs representing defense department expenses and troop deployment numbers around the world.

  “Like a revolution fomenter?” He laughed as he said it, then shook his head in disbelief as if ridiculing himself. “Imagine it, man. Ha, talk about fomenting. Did you know that Kennedy was killed about two or three weeks after the dictator of South Vietnam was? Then about a week after Johnson takes office, he and his boys sign off on escalating the war. Man, fuckers pulled off a double coup.”

  Removing a small brown block out of his pocket, he dug at it with his fingernails, tearing it into two chunks. He stuck one in his mouth and handed me the remainder. “Eat up.”

  I examined the substance, rolling it around in the palm of my hand, not sure what I was being offered.

  “Hashish. Never had any before? Concentrated Mary Jane. A gift from our old world friends. Probably why Alexander the Great couldn’t get past the Indus. His troops were too stoned. You usually smoke the stuff in a pipe. Don’t need much. You’ll have a buzz on all day.”