John grinned. “See ya, David. See ya, Tina. I guess that’s my cue. Anyway, I’m starving. I gotta get something to eat from the hospitality area before Janis here eats all the bagels!”
“Awww!” Tina said.
“What’s wrong?” John asked. I thought for sure Tina was going to beg him for an autograph, or bug him to take us backstage with him, or do something else that would totally ruin the moment.
Instead, her eyes literally filled with huge tears that sparkled in the glaring, generator-fueled lights, and she said, “You’re so nice. I’ll miss you.”
John Sebastian slung his guitar behind his back so it was out of the way, leaned down over the cot, and kissed Tina on the top of her head. Then he stood back up and froze for a moment, like he was pondering something really, really heavy.
Finally, he unfroze and said, “Hey, Janis? Do we have time for just one more song? Something to warm up your throat a little before your set?”
She took a huge pull on her cigarette and then gulped down a swig from her bottle. “Well, shit, ’Bastian. I have to sing for ’bout a million people tonight.” She took a deep breath and wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve. “So I guess it doesn’t make any difference if I sing for a few more. Hey, why don’t we try out that new song we were messing around with backstage?”
John started strumming on his guitar, and Janis’s voice filled the tent: “Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waitin’ for a train…”
* * *
After the song and a round of good-byes, Debbie, Tina, David, and I were left sitting on the cots in amazement, going, “Was that really—” “Did they really just—” “Did she—”
Then we would all burst out giggling.
The nurse must have gotten tired of watching this pattern repeat itself over and over, because eventually she said, “Yes, that was really Janis Joplin, and yes, she really sang a duet with the real John Sebastian, just for the four of you. Plus one lucky nurse.”
We all smiled like fools. I had been pretty sure I wasn’t completely hallucinating, and my trip seemed to be mostly over, but it was nice to hear some confirmation from someone who was sober. Unless, of course, I was imagining everything the nurse said, too.
“Anyway,” she continued, “that was a nice ending to your weekend adventures, don’t you think? In the morning, when the helicopters are flying again and we can get David and Tina out of here, they’ll fly out with a great last memory of the concert.”
BAD MOON RISING
AFTER MIDNIGHT, SUNDAY, AUGUST 17, 1969
I jumped up from the cot. “What?” I shouted. “You can’t send them away before the concert’s over!”
“Sure I can. They have deep, stitched-up wounds on their feet, no shoes, and miles of litter-strewn mud to cross in every direction. Do you want your friends’ cuts to get infected?”
“N-no, but—”
“Listen, Junior, this is serious stuff. I’m an emergency room nurse. I’ve seen people lose legs because they didn’t take care of injuries on their feet. This is a farm field—that means cows and horses, pigs, manure. You can’t even imagine the nasty little bacteria that are swimming around in the muck out there.”
“But—please. This is my friend’s last chance to spend with his big brother before … um…”
“Before what?”
Geez. I couldn’t exactly tell her. She wouldn’t believe the word of a drugged fifteen-year-old, and even if she would, I couldn’t say anything in front of David. “Nothing. It’s just that this concert means a lot to my friend. Okay, what if I give him my shoes? I’ll go barefoot back to our blankets, and then I’ll put on his shoes there. Mine are cleaner, and we’re the same size, anyway. It’s just one more day, right? We have soap and everything. What if we promise we’ll go to the pumps and wash his feet twice tomorrow?”
She stared me down with a tough-nurse glare. “Let me get this straight: You want to walk barefoot back on the same exact path that you know your friends just got cut up on?”
Well, when she put it that way it didn’t sound terribly appealing, but I didn’t see much choice. I gulped, crossed my fingers behind my back for luck, and nodded. “If you’ll let us stay.”
Debbie said, “Me, too. I’m the exact same size as Tina, and I would get cut for her any day. She’d do it for me in a heartbeat.”
The nurse sighed. “This is crazy. If I weren’t a volunteer, I’d get fired for this. Here’s what I’m going to do.… We have a few pairs of sandals some kids left behind earlier today when they got choppered out of here. I’ll give each of you a pair of sandals to wear so you don’t get cut up, too. And I’m going to give your friends some penicillin pills to take. David and Tina, is either one of you allergic to antibiotics?”
They both shook their heads.
“Are you sure?”
They both shook them again.
“In that case, will each of you swear to me you’ll take one of these every eight hours for the next ten days?”
They both nodded.
The nurse scurried over to a huge pile of cardboard boxes in the corner and started sorting through them, muttering, “Can’t believe I’m doing this…” When she came back, she handed a pair of sandals each to Debbie and me, and a vial of pills each to David and Tina. Debbie and I gave our sneakers to our friends, who put them on gingerly and stood up very carefully.
As we all turned to leave, I said, “Is that it? Can we go now?”
The nurse said, “One more thing. Do you know my name?”
Tina frowned and said, “No, I don’t think you ever told us.”
The nurse smiled. “Excellent. Now get out of here. And try to have fun while you still have all your limbs!”
Walking through several inches of mud in oversize sandals was an interesting experience, made even more so by the sounds of Creedence Clearwater Revival playing from the stage, the random flashes of psychedelic light that were still occasionally flashing across my vision, and Tina’s cries of “Ouch!” every few steps.
“Should we go back and ask the nurse about the helicopter option?” Debbie asked her.
“No way, Deb! I am not missing Jimi Hendrix. He is the grooviest man alive!”
And I was running out of time to meet him.
David told us Michael and Willow would be frantically worried when we got back to the blankets, but actually they were unnaturally calm. We found them sitting perfectly still with their hands wrapped around their knees, watching the end of Creedence’s set.
David knelt in front of his brother and said, “Michael, I’m so sorry! You told us to stay right here, but we ate the brownies, and then Tina saw these pretty lights floating through the air, so we decided to follow them, and, uh, I got a little spaced out for a while … and then some other stuff happened, and we ended up in this tent place, and we met John Sebastian and Janis Joplin. And oh yeah, I got some stitches in my foot. And a shot. But everything’s cool, man. The nurse said I was good to go. Okay? Hello? Mikey? Are you mad? Aren’t you speaking to me?”
Michael turned his head toward David in such super-slow motion that he reminded me of a praying mantis, or some kind of gigantic, long-extinct plant-eating dinosaur. “You … met … Janis Joplin?” he asked. It looked as though formulating the question had taken a massive mental effort. “That’s … groovy. Right, Willow?”
Willow gave us the same reptilian once-over and whispered, “Groovy. Come … sit with us.”
At first I wasn’t sure what was wrong with them. They weren’t acting like anybody else I had talked to at Woodstock. It was almost like they had brain damage. Then I thought about what my father had said to me in the prison cell: My brother died because of Woodstock. And what my mother had said to me in our kitchen: The boy had apparently been experimenting with heroin for two months or so.
That was when I knew. My uncle Mike had just taken his first dose of heroin. Worse, he and Willow had tricked us. They had given us the mushroom brownies, knowing that we’d
be too high for a few hours to do anything that would stop them from scoring.
And I still didn’t understand why.
We all sat down, and David and the girls immediately launched into an extended retelling of our adventure. None of them seemed to notice that Michael and Willow were practically nodding out on their laps the whole time, but I did. Tears ran down my face, and I was glad for the dark. All I could think was, Stupid, stupid, stupid. The guy has eight more Saturdays left on earth, and your only job was to stick with him and prevent this from happening. Instead, you got distracted by babes and brownies.
Creedence launched into one of my all-time favorite songs, “Bad Moon Rising,” and a chill shot through me. I thought, I love this band, I love this song, and I will never want to hear either of them again as long as I live.
I lay on my side for a while, turned away from everybody else, and tried really hard to think of something useful to say or do. But I was incredibly tired, my uncle had just done exactly what I had hoped to stop him from doing, and I still hadn’t even come close to meeting Jimi Hendrix. Nothing was working, and friendly, cheerful David was going to grow up and turn into the exact same bitter father I had always known.
At some point, I must have started to doze off, but a hand on my shoulder jolted me awake. I sat upright, and my face banged into Willow’s. “Hey, sleeping angel Gabriel,” she slurred, “you’ll miss Janisssss.”
How could they all sit around talking like nothing was wrong? That was the craziest thing about Woodstock, I guess: The drugs really did seem like a good idea at the time. Everyone was having fun, right? I had seen and heard enough to know how protective Michael was of David, but he had thought nothing of getting David wasted and then leaving him in a field amid half a million drugged-up strangers. And, hey, for most of these people, most of the time, on any given drug trip everything would turn out all right. As far as I could remember, only one person at the whole festival had died of an overdose.
I got another chill. I was pretty sure the guy had died on Saturday night, from heroin. For all I knew, he was dying, somewhere out there in the darkness, at that exact moment.
Anyway, over time, a lot of these people’s lives were going to be absolutely wrecked by drugs and alcohol. They didn’t know it, but I sure did. I thought about the bands at Woodstock. The toll was going to be devastating:
• Multiple members of Canned Heat; Tim Hardin; Janis Joplin; two members of the Who; and of course, Jimi Hendrix would all die young from overdoses or drug- and alcohol-related misadventures.
• Sly Stone; various members of the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young band; the lead singer of the Grateful Dead; and Johnny Winter, among others, would go through years of substance abuse and mess up their lives and careers.
And, of course, there were several people on this very blanket whose futures were being demolished as we spoke.
I sat up and wiped my eyes. “Willow, are you feeling all right?” I asked.
“I feel sssuper-greaterrific,” she said.
I did not find that comforting.
“Hey, Gabriel, thanks for bringing my little brother back, man,” Michael said. It was so dark now that I couldn’t really see anybody, but he still sounded just about as spacey as Willow did.
“I didn’t really do anything. Debbie and I just walked around until we accidentally found David and Tina. It was no big deal.”
Tina said, “It was a big deal. You gave us your shoes. If not for you two, I wouldn’t even be here right now. I would have had to stay in that tent. I would have missed Jimi Hendrix!”
I said, “But we had to give you our shoes. I mean, I couldn’t have come back here without David. He’s my ride home, right? And I don’t want to leave early, either. So, uh, it’s not like I was being some big hero or something. And neither was Debbie.”
Suddenly, an elbow jabbed into my ribs. “Hey, I resent that! I happen to think I am an excellent hero. Heroine. Hero-ish type of person,” Debbie said. Then she added, “Okay, I’m kidding. He’s right. We didn’t do anything any of you wouldn’t have done. And it wasn’t heroic, either. It was kind of selfish, if you really think about it. Tina has my bus ticket, so I have to stick with her. If I didn’t want to leave early, I had to fork over my shoes.”
Tina said, “God, Debbie. You are a selfish bitch!” Then she burst out laughing.
David spoke next, and something in his tone raised the hair on the back of my neck. “Gabriel, you’re honest. I don’t think I’ve ever really met anybody honest before. Most people try to take credit for things, whether they deserve it or not. But I think you’re nicer than you think you are. You didn’t have to come looking for me. You could have just stayed here and, uh, played with Debbie.”
Willow said, “Wait a minute, Davey. Mikey is always honest with you.”
“No, he’s not. He protects me. You both do, and I appreciate it. But that’s not the same as telling me the truth. Anyway, thanks, Gabriel. That’s all I’m trying to say.”
My eyes welled up. I hadn’t been honest. I hadn’t been honest with any of these people, although I was trying really hard to be kind and unselfish. As Janis Joplin came onstage and her band fired up their first song, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time my father had thanked me sincerely for helping him unselfishly. In fact, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t remember a time I had helped him unselfishly.
I racked my brain until my head hurt, but I came up blank all around.
UNCLE SAM BLUES
SUNDAY, AUGUST 17, 1969
“David was right. You are honest. That’s why we have to have this talk.”
It was maybe four in the morning, and somewhere far in the distance behind us, Sly and the Family Stone were playing “Dance to the Music”—you know, that epic song from the end of Shrek. The crowd was absolutely roaring, and I kind of wished I could be back on the blankets, snuggled up with Debbie. Even in the middle of this insane situation, things had been getting intense with her a few songs ago. Then, out of the blue, Willow had started poking me and giggling.
“Come on, Lover Angel Boy! Michael and Willow need you for a little while. It’s Walking Time!”
Believe me, those had not been welcome words, and Debbie had tried to get me to stay. In fact, she had been extremely convincing.
And yet, here I was, stumbling along in the pitch blackness with Michael’s arm draped over one shoulder and Willow’s over the other. We had told Debbie, David, and Tina we would be back soon, and then found our way out to the main path we had followed into the concert. Now I was pretty sure the woods were on our right, and we were heading over the hill toward the highway.
“What are we doing?” I asked.
Willow said, “I’m sorry, Gabey. I know you were having all kinds of fun back there. But this is important. Mikey needs to tell you something. Something Davey is not allowed to know.”
Michael yanked us all off to the right, into the trees. We went crashing through underbrush for maybe thirty feet, and then he stopped short. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness just enough that I could see we were in a little clearing. I could also see that we were all alone.
It felt strange to be in such a secluded place after being packed in among hundreds of thousands of screaming rock fans all weekend. The music seemed a million miles away. Michael whispered, “Sit down.”
Willow whispered back, “Aye, aye.”
I said, “Why are you talking like a pirate, Willow?”
Willow said, “I don’t know. Why is Mikey whispering?”
I said, “This is really serious, isn’t it, Michael?”
Michael said, “Yessss, but … it’s all groovy now, man. Everything is going to work out fine. You just have to swear on your life you won’t tell my brother what I am about to tell you.”
“Until when?”
Michael sucked in his breath so sharply it whistled through his teeth. “For as long as I’m alive. Or my father. You have to swear that as long as my father is
alive, or I am, you won’t tell David my secret.”
“All right, Michael. I swear on my life. You can trust me with your secret. Now what is it? I need to know.”
“It’s the letter, man. Uncle Sam wants me. I got drafted. I’m supposed to go to Vietnam. Ain’t that a bitch?”
Vietnam. Of course. That explained everything—why Michael had suddenly gotten so touchy when his brother had mentioned the war, why he had been treating this like some special last big weekend, and why he didn’t want David to know. David would be destroyed by this.
“So,” I said, “what are you going to do?”
“Well, I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to fight in this old man’s war. First of all, I don’t believe in it, and second, I can’t leave David in my parents’ house without me around to look after him. I mean, sometimes they don’t even feed the kid—and that’s when I am here.”
“So, uh, you could go to Canada, right? Or you could tell the government you don’t want to shoot anybody. You could be a—what’s it called—a—”
“Conscientious objector. Nope, I can’t do either of those.”
“Why not?”
Michael sighed. Willow put her arm around him, cradled his head to her breast, and said, “His dad, Gabey. The old man fought in France in the Second World War. Came home completely ruined in the head, you know? But don’t let Mr. Barber hear you say that. Anyway, one night, right after the letter came, Michael said something like, ‘What would you think if I got drafted and became a conscientious objector?’ His dad had had a few drinks, right? And he looked Mikey right in the eye and said, ‘I’d rather be the father of a dead soldier than a live coward.’”
Are You Experienced? Page 11