Chapter 48. The Winds of Destiny ~ a Confession at the Gates of Hell

I had been enjoying the volunteer work at Casa De Vida and I’d been meeting with some interesting people supporting the effort. Two such people were professors at City College: Dr. Troller, taught psychology and Dr. Fessler, taught courses in philosophy and logic. Both were Christians, but not at all the Bible thumping anti-intellectual, anti-Darwin, anti-science fundamentalist ilk, that I found in most of the Christian evangelical community of the area. We would meet once a week in the office with Reverend Cordova. Dr. Fessler described himself a Christian Existentialist and Dr. Troller preferred a Jungian take on things. It was good exposure for me as it was the first time I’d been able to delve into some of the ideas and questions I had ricocheting around in my head. In one of those meetings in the office at Casa De Vida, Dr. Fessler described his spiritual awakening.

“I was twenty-five and studying for my graduate degree in music. My studies were going well but I felt empty and I was floundering emotionally. I lay in my dorm room bed considering suicide. I did not believe in God as I was raised in Soviet Latvia. Still, the notion haunted me, and I wondered. Out of the deepest despair I asked God to show himself to me. As I did so I was overcome with a sense of a presence. It was a feeling of love. I cried out, ‘Is that you, Lord?’ and a light … a bright, white, blinding light of love filled the room. I never doubted the presence of God after that.”

These were days of incredible light for me also and, though I had no such dramatic spiritual experience, I felt an opening up to knowledge as though I had come out my own individual dark ages. I had discovered for the first time the simplicity of knowledge and techniques from these three men for sorting out the myth from the magic of it. And through the patience and guidance of Reverend Cordova I looked straight into the horror of my past.

“I need to tell somebody about something that happened when I was in Florida.” I sat in the Reverend’s office at Casa De Vida. This was one place where the pleasure of being open and completely honest with another human being resonated with my new-found thirst for knowledge.

Reverend Cordova leaned back in his chair behind the desk and clasped his hands behind his head. “Let ‘er rip.”

“I’ve always told people that I was in jail in Florida for dealing drugs, but the truth goes beyond that.”

“Most of the time it does.”

“Yeh, well, it was pretty nasty and I’m not so sure the Bible answers my problem sufficiently…”

“Why don’t you tell me the problem and we can work out the rest.”

“I raped a girl back there.”

The preacher had heard worse in his ministry, “Did you do time for that?”

“Naw, I was never charged… and that is why it still bothers me. I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself and I sure as hell don’t expect her to forgive me.”

“Do you believe God forgives you?”

“It is damned near irrelevant whether or not I’m forgiven… but I can’t think of any way to atone for what I did. I am enjoying life now and along with that comes an incredible guilt… like, I don’t deserve this.”

“Jesus told the woman at the well to go home and sin no more. You have to believe that Jesus already died, or atoned, for your sins.”

“It really couldn’t be that easy, could it? I mean, that poor girl has to live with what I did to her the rest of her life. Does it matter to her whether or not I’m forgiven?”

“Tell me, Max, isn’t this just another form of self-pity? Can’t you make a conscious decision to treat women with dignity from this day on? Isn’t that enough to compel you to live in God’s grace?

“Yeh, I guess so. But I have this nagging feeling that it doesn’t matter what I do with my life from that day on… that there is no forgiveness and that there is no atonement.”

Jesse leaned forward on his elbows in the middle of the desk and peered into my eyes, “I don’t see a condemned man in front of me, Max. I see a troubled young man unable to grasp the fullness of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and how to apply that sacrifice to his own life.”

“Well, I can see how it applies to sins… like taking more than my share from the cookie jar, but I can’t see how a man crucified two thousand years ago can do anything for that girl… what we did to her was… aw-shit, Reverend, it just doesn’t make any sense at all to me.” 
The room was silent. We sat there for at least ten minutes: Jesse leaning on his elbows and me sitting across from him looking at my hands on my lap until finally Jesse spoke, “Look, Max,  People always babble on about the historical Jesus. It doesn’t matter to me whether it actually happened in a historical sense; like, when, or where, it happened. What matters is what it represents in spiritual terms and once we accept it the forgiveness flows. There are things I don’t understand; but for me, even with my limited understanding, there is wisdom in believing in the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ.”

I was light-headed, and nausea was gnawing at the bottom of my gut. I got up from the chair and said, “Thanks for all you’ve done and for hearing me out, Reverend.” I walked out the door to the office and emptied my guts into a bush by the front steps to Casa De Vida. With that gesture I left Christianity. It was on friendly enough terms, but I’d had enough of the Bible and it was time for me to leave what I would afterwards refer to as “the Dark Ages.”

City College was a wonderland… a true Renaissance. Over coffee in the Campus Center Cafeteria I sat with Dr. Fessler and Dr. Troller toward the end of my first semester. Dr. Fessler wasn’t one to hedge, especially with friends, he said, “You seem to have taken to studies well enough, but your tests don’t show it.”

“I don’t know why that is. I seem to choke when I am tested but it really doesn’t matter unless I am to become an academic.”

“Not all of us are meant to be academics, Max. You might find your purpose in another calling.” Dr. Fessler was patient but had very little understanding of anyone struggling with academic studies.

‘Yeh, I know, Dr. Fessler. You know I can write papers okay but when it comes to tests I get confused. It is like when I do a syllogism… it gets all tangled up in my mind and before I know it I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

Dr. Troller listened and then after Dr. Fessler excused himself he asked, “Have you ever heard of A.D.H.D.?”

“Naw, what is it?”

“It’s stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. From what you have been saying and what I know of your past drug use, I’d say you have most of the classic symptoms.”

“Is it a permanent condition,” I’d never heard of it, “or, will I eventually outgrow it the further I get away from drugs? And what are the symptoms you see in me?”

“The way you described your ability when tested… Did you have trouble as a kid in school? Acting out, missing homework assignments, easily agitated, and couldn’t sit still?”

“Yeh, I suppose I was a character of sorts.”

“Trust me, you still are,” He laughed. “But, of course, most adolescents go through these phases. But if you can see a trend… an overall trend into adulthood it. A.D.D. could explain your use of drugs and alcohol to self-medicate.”

“Can it be treated? I mean, I hate having this confusion with finals coming up. No matter how hard I pay attention in class and no matter how hard I study…”

“In some cases, like yours, I’d say treatment might not be necessary at all. Many writers, artists, musicians, and even scientists, have learned to have creative and successful lives without even knowing they had anything like a disorder.”

“They work around it?”

“It is akin to knowing you are an addict. Once you know that you have a disorder it can help you to work around the problem… knowing your limitations.”

I wasn’t comfortable with just having limitations. I asked, “I’m wondering, is there anything about this business that can be considered an asset?”

“It makes sense that if you have reached adulthood and have had reasonable success in spite of the chaotic impulses most with ADHD are driven by… it makes sense that you would have developed some instincts and intelligence not necessarily called upon by so-called normal people. How were your mid-terms?”

“I did okay. Aced English lit, did well, as you know in Psych 101… only average in Western Civilization. And that one bugs me because I truly grasp the subject and enjoy the lectures, but I just can’t retain any of the details at test time. The same goes for Dr. Fessler’s philosophy class.”

“I wouldn’t worry yourself too much about it. City College is where we find out what we want of education. It is a time to explore and you have been doing that.”

We’d been sitting in a sort of lobby area next to the cafeteria. The art classes were held in the two rooms adjoining the sitting area. I stayed there after Dr. Troller left, considering what he had said, when one of the art classes came out to the lobby to critique the current project. It was Instructor Kent Rack’s oil painting class. I watched as the students propped their paintings against the wall, sat smoking cigarettes and chatting casually as Instructor Rack began his critique on the first painting of a still life that I felt, frankly, looked a mess.

“What I see in this painting is good composition. The forms leave room for more clarity, but I trust you are headed that way.”

He nodded towards the student whose work he was speaking of, circling some muddy messes on the canvass with chalk. “Can you tell what you have in mind for bring these forms forward more?”

The student nervously ventured a solution.

“Good, good, that is what I was hoping you’d say…”

He then went on to the next painting and proceeded to encourage and make a few positive suggestions for this one too. I could see that the professor wasn’t there to tear down or prick the sensitive ego of the young artists but rather to probe and explore the potential of each one. I watched each piece Instructor Rack went over and became drawn in by the supportive air of his critique. I decided then and there which courses I wanted to take the next semester.

It didn’t take long for me to find my place in the art classes. The smell of turpentine and oil paint permeated my clothes. I was up all night before the canvass. The more I painted the more I loved it. Most of what I painted was purely for the sake of seeing what colors… what paint could do on the naked white stretch of canvass. My spirit was being renewed and this vision inspired me to go beyond painting pretty pictures and into the essence of color as an expression of the inner soul. The guilt and shame of my past was gradually being pushed out the back door. I made room for more… more… I didn’t know more of what… just more of that creative spirit.

I moved into a studio on State Street. These studios were rented out by the bank after the Santa Barbara Medical Center moved to a newer building. The realtor who managed the building stipulated that the studios were working spaces and not to believed in. Of course, nearly everyone who rented a space, lived there in spite of the rule. I had a space with a sink in a small eight by eight room that opened into a larger space, fifteen by twenty. That room had French windows at one end and two thirds the length of the other. This made the lighting most agreeable for painting. I built a storage loft in the small room in front where I hid my mattress behind curtains. I used the sink for sponge baths but the gym at City College for showers. The address was 1421 State Street so some of the artists there called ourselves the Fourteen-twenty-one Conspiracy. It was a community of off-the-wall young artists and equally edgy entrepreneurs. A few of the young artists, men and women, and one girl, (sixteen of age) Celeste, took to sun-bathing on the roof of the building. I brought my easel and paints with me there too. I went everywhere by bike. I hauled large canvasses to classes by bicycle, holding them precariously like a main sail to catch the winds. Sailing along Loma Alta to City College I was a man possessed. It was a fresh… a lively place to be immersed in and it was probably obvious to any casual observer that I had hit my stride.

Santa Barbara has South facing beaches and she’s nestled under a range of mountains that run parallel to the coast from there. It only takes ten minutes by car or twenty minutes by bicycle to be on a trail in pristine chaparral or wading in the surf from most places in town. I reveled in the freedom I was experiencing; both academically and spiritually. This whole business I went through with the Christian faith introduced me to the concept of forgiveness, but it was the landscape of Santa Barbara that liberated my spirit and brought me peace.

I rode up into the mountains above Montecito on Cold Springs or Rattlesnake Canyon trails and sat hours at a time on more than a few occasions. The experience I had while on Waikiki Beach so long before had come back to me on one such night only this time I wasn’t tripping on acid. I went through every lie and fear that led to the horror. Where had that anger come from? That rape was compelled by a lack of power. That rape was committed out of anger over rejection. That drinking, and the use of drugs, was to fill a hole… a vacancy that was there when my soul shrank. The fuel of all of this was fear. I saw myself as I truly was. I needed help and that help was with me all along. As the full moon rose before me, I spoke out, “Why… why can’t you show yourself to me as you did Dr. Fessler? Why do I have to be satisfied with hints and feelings? Where is my white-light?”

I sat on a sandstone boulder above the creek. The sound of the water below and a wisp of a breeze wafting through the chaparral punctuated the musty aroma of the earth around me and spoke gently to my heart, “Isn’t this enough?”

“Yes, this ought to be enough.” I admitted. As soon as I had done so it was as though a blindfold had come off: No great revelation. No overwhelming sense of love in sentimental terms… just a sense of clarity. The rock was a rock being a rock. The stream was streaming. The moon was mooning. Everything was just as it was meant to be. I smiled and climbed down off the giant sandstone boulder. I remembered the monkey dream… and the mama cat… “You are home now, go to work, Max.”

So, I went to work. I managed to finish my courses at City College and continued on at UCSB. I was driven by a vision and worked single-mindedly towards carving out a career in art. Through this effort I fell in love with and married young Celeste. We set up shop together, both working part time at regular jobs while painting and sculpting. A few years later I found myself at Cottage Hospital in the delivery room with Celeste. She was in her tenth hour of labor… completely dilated. I was helpless and, even though I had been with Celeste for all the birthing classes, I had never felt so unequipped to be useful. With the coaching and breathing exercises all I had to hold on to, I watched in wonder as Celeste’s face contorted and twisted there before me. I held on, my mind racing, “This is why we’re here. This is what it is to be a man. This is what all the bother about love and commitment, honor and duty to womanhood is all about.”

None of these values were at all abstract at this point. I knew I was in for the duration no matter what and, when our beautiful daughter, Ariel, was lifted to Celeste’s breast where she suckled Mama’s tit, and I knew it was love and love would be for life.

Ariel was born wide-eyed, needing no slap on the butt - or whatever they do that they don’t do - to begin wailing and she looked right at me as if to say, “I am your penance, Dad.”

She calmed down and suckled, “you will forever be atoning for your past. Love me. Honor me. Respect me.” 

I was on that rock in the hills again. I was with the mama cat and her cubs above Taos. I was with the heart of compassion and the suffering I’d caused, and the suffering caused me was mine to own. The experience would stick this time, with no promise of heaven or threat of hell to compel me. I had finally arrived at the heart of compassion and the heart of compassion was there to nurture and protect me on this mission of life.

Recalling the line from the Spoon River Anthology; I saw that I had allowed the winds of destiny to drive my boat and tried to put meaning into my life only to end in the madness of restlessness and vague desire. Nonetheless, I had launched my boat into the sea and would no longer be afraid. The Hoss Bozz curse was obliterated and, yes, maybe it will all work out okay for me after all.

“What did you decide to name her?” the nurse practitioner interrupted my revelry.

“Kuan-yin,” The name slipped softly… almost a whisper… out of my mouth as I gazed into the infant’s eyes.

“No… no,” Celeste, exhausted, barely spoke clearly enough to be heard, “Ariel… it is Ariel… ” Mustering all her strength she protested, “the Tempest spirit, we agreed!”

“Yes, I’m sorry, it is Ariel…my mind was somewhere else there for a minute. It is Ariel… we agreed.” I smiled… it didn’t matter what she was called, she would always be Holy, the Christ, or Goddess of Compassion in my heart.

I understood in that precious moment what it was to be forgiven, and further understood that compassion calls for responsibility. The mama cat was there with her cubs. Responsibility is a commitment. Compassion isn’t how I impress God. Compassion is simply a responsibility that I return to, like my breath. Without compassion the soul suffocates. Breathe compassion and I breathe life. All of this happened a time ago and then I understood all of this and more when I changed Ariel’s first diapers. As I breathe, God breathes… these are the winds of destiny that landed me here today.

The years have been good to me and life has moved on but, every now and then, I reflect on the people who passed through my life back then. I wonder about Glenda and hope she became a veterinarian. I wonder about the guys I dropped acid with: The people who survived Altamont; Miriam; Norm; Maggie; Brian and Mason; Magic Maya, Sunflower and the girls from Georgia; Stan and Dennis; Eddy and his brothers; Mrs. Nobel and her daughters; Ray and crazy David; Joe; Bob-O; Serena; Pam, Skip, and Glen.

The ones I do know something about are missed also. The last I heard of Dick Carter was reported in the 1999 Chronicle that he retired to Modesto before Altamont speedway closed in 2008. Brazil ended up in Chile before Allende fell and his name was among the fallen with Victor Jara at the Estadio Chile. The Reverend Cordova took over his father’s ministry in Texas; Dr. Fessler passed away from a heart attack before he was fifty; Dr. Troller retired and moved on.

A Confession at Hell's Gate:

Something must be said about Daphne. I see Daphne in every woman, from Celeste to Ariel. It is not enough to know that I owe my respect and a debt I will never pay in full. There will be no redemption until I breathe my last breath. 

Mama Kachina cat still stalks me, making sure I get home with all my bullets, my rifle unused and well oiled. 

Should I ever forget this, there will be a price to pay in this life.

~ The Beginning's End ~

Chapter 47. Unborn Again

Bethel Church of God in Christ, on the 

corner of Cota and Garden, is now a Hispanic 

Congregation, but, from the 40's to 80's,

 the neighborhood was an Afro-American, 

old-school-Mississippi-style-you-

could-hear it-Rockin'-three-blocks -away-

three times every Sunday Morning from 

8 AM to 8 PM, Pentecostal Church. 

The next day I thanked Pam for all she’d done and went down to the lights at Highway 101 where I had decided to hitch a ride out of town. I had no idea where I was going to go but I was going somewhere and held a sign that read, “SOMEWHERE, ANYWHERE.” As I stood waiting for a ride, I caught a glimpse of a hat in the bushes. It was an Australian digger’s hat. The kind with one side of the brim snapped up. It fit perfectly. I checked inside the hat and found a five-dollar bill folded up in the lining. After finding the fiver I decided to go across the highway to the Sambo’s for a hamburger before hitting the road. I took a booth where I could write all the past week’s wonders in my journal and read my Bible. I had begun on a hamburger and opened the Bible when I saw that a man at the counter had been watching me. I tipped my hat and nodded a hello, thinking, perhaps the hat had caught the man’s attention. Maybe he’s the one that lost it.

The man got up from the counter, “You look like you might be a Vet.”

I hadn’t given it much thought the past year, at least since Miami, “Yeh… sure, I guess so… eh?”

“My name’s Glen, I’m a Vet. Well, sort of… Coast Guard.”

“Okay, I did four years in the Navy. Got out in ’69.” I liked the guy right away.

“I was let out two years ago… did time in the brig and Leavenworth. But that’s not why I noticed you.”

“The hat?”

“Naw, I thought you might be lookin’ for work.”

“I wouldn’t mind a regular job… with a paycheck and all.”

“Good. Is that a Bible?”

“Yeh.” I had sewn a denim cover on the Bible I’d taken from the church in Berkeley, so it wouldn’t be all that noticeable.

Glen pulled out a pen and wrote down an address on my journal.

“Show up before eight tomorrow morning and I’ll put you to work. Just ask for Glen. I’m the foreman.”

Once more, that feeling that I was right where I belonged surged through my being after the man left.

I walked to the address on Quarantina Street where a large shed with a high ceiling housed a fiber-glass laminating operation. A carpenter shop to the side was smaller but the doors were open, so I approached the one man there that early. He directed me to an office where I filled out and application while the other workers gradually filed in to their various stations. When Glen arrived, he introduced me to a few of the people and showed me where I would be working.

The place made bonded bronze panels and doors. The bronze was in powder form. It was mixed with a polymer resin and poured into a mold. These panels were attached to doors, and sent for polishing and a patina, where I would be working. Glen was hardly any kind a foreman, but he was in charge of the polishing department. The Polishing Department consisted of only one other man, Skip, before I got there. Glen, Skip, and I went to work with steel wool on the doors and then buffed them off with a pneumatic buffer afterwards. Glen applied a mixture that reacted to the bronze for the final patina and we buffed out highlights. It was the kind of work that I hadn’t done since I was on-board the ship in the Navy. Actually, it was a lot harder, but the mindless physical labor agreed with me.

Skip was the most energetic and hardest to keep up with, but we tried. He tackled each door as though he were going for the Gold in an Olympic competition. He was a stocky, blond, block of a man and, all the while he buffed away or scrubbed with the steel wool, he sang gospel songs. The man had streams of sweat pouring off his brow as he humped away on those doors. I figured the guy was possessed.

“Hey Max,” he’d say as he pushed the steel wool … “Do you know Jesus?”

It put me off at first, but I went along with him because, I had to admit, it was fun. “Yes, I know Jesus.”

“If you know Jesus like I know Jesus you’ll sing along with me!” At this juncture he would break into song, “I’ve got a mansion… up over the hillside…” as he worked away. It was infectious and made the work go by.

When the gee-dunk wagon pulled up we took our morning break. We pulled up chairs to one of the doors on horses and put our feet up on it. Skip asked, “Where are you staying?”

“I was on a boat in the harbor a few nights, but I stayed at the Mission last night.”

“Do you plan on stickin’ around?”

“Sure,” I wanted to tell Skip about the feeling I had for Santa Barbara but held off on it. “I’ve been on the Street for over a year now and would like to… well, you know.”

Almost as soon as I finished saying that, he offered, “You can use the couch at my place ‘til we get paid. Then try the Barbara Hotel or the Virginia... you can get a room at one of those.”

“Thanks, I appreciate…” I lit up a cigarette.

“Oh yeah, you can’t smoke or drink at our place… my wife won’t put up with smokin’.”

 “I’m wantin’ to quit smoking anyway…”

Glen laughed, “No, you aren’t.”

I was taken aback and a bit pissed, “What?”

Glen spoke from behind his newspaper, “If you really wanted to quit, you would have.”

"I quit a few times," I tried to explain. “But I always pick it up after a month or two.”

“Then you didn’t quit.” Glen put his head back behind the front page.

“Well, do you know any ju-jitsu that works on smoking?”

“What do you think Skip?” Glen put the paper down on his lap.

“Ask God to do it and,” Skip bit into an apple, and chewing as he spoke, he added, “… and act like He did.”

I was beginning to regret coming to work at this damned place… with these nut cases… but I wasn’t about to let them out-saint me. “Okay, later.”

“Ain’t no better time than now, brother,” Skip insisted.

“Unless that Bible you tote around is just a prop, I believe you can do it, Max.” Glen tried to be encouraging but he came off as just one more self-righteous turd who didn’t understand.

Work went well enough after that. I was grateful to have a job but resented being leaned on about smoking the first day. I just buried my head in the work and went home with Skip (only a few blocks away) where I had use of the couch. Skip’s wife, Linda, was a waifish looking girl about six months along. She didn’t look all that pleased at what Skip had dragged home. They had some sort of argument in the bedroom. The first evening I could hear a word or two through the walls, “… enough for ourselves…” and “You could’ve let me know…” and so on. I was just about ready to put my stuff back in my bag and head out the door when they came out of the bedroom.

Linda offered graciously, “Forgive me, you must want to wash-up: there’s an extra towel on the sink for you. If you want to use the shower you’ll have to wait ‘til after dinner and let the water heater do its thing,” She showed no sign of dissatisfaction with Skip.

They prayed before dinner. It reminded me of the Mormons at Altamont. I recalled well how much warmth and comfort it added to an otherwise awkward situation. Skip leaned into prayer much like he leaned into his work. I half expected him to break out in a sweat while praying an improvised medley of thanksgiving ending up with the Lord’s Prayer.

That night I lay on the couch hearing the speakers to the Jack ‘n the Box across the street screeching out greetings and taking orders at the drive-through thinking it would be nice to have a faithful wife and family… a modest living and a modest place to put one’s head. Glen and Skip were about the same age as me but seemed so much more… more grown-up. Glen was a year older and Skip was two years younger.

I also wondered about this Jesus business. Why did God have to have a name? Why did these guys insist that Jesus was the only way to God? I read the Bible and tried to decipher it like it was written in an obscure code. Jesus talked about God being his father but also called God, “Our Father". It seemed strange to me that this slipped through the censorship of church doctrine jumping through hoops to explain how three manifestations of God were one big daddy monotheistic one and all those changes over the almost seventeen hundred years since Constantine. Granted, some of the stuff seemed like it was dealing with doctrinal matters and, frankly, a long way from the spirit of other statements in the Sermon on the Mount. Christ spoke more of the spirit of the law, rather than the letter of the law, when he insisted before the Pharisees, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath; so the Son of man is lord, even of the Sabbath.”

Truthfully, all I really knew of this stuff was what I’d experienced so far. I’d needed help back on the beach in Waikiki. I got that help and forgot about it after Altamont. I found a connection in New Mexico again and forgot about it after Jamaica. I had thrown up my arms on Channing Way and Dana in Berkeley, and something happened on the beach in Santa Barbara. I could not deny this experience. How then could I hold on to this wonder… this apocalypse of my own?

The answer seemed quite simple to me at the time. Skip and Glen went to church. They went to church three times every Sundays. They went to church on Wednesdays, they went to church on Friday night, Saturday night and even choir practice on Mondays. Thursday night was left empty but Skip held prayer meetings at his place on Thursday evenings. The prayer meetings were phenomena of their own… not like anything I’d ever seen in church. We were all young men and women of mixed race… some from the church and others from the streets. We stood in a circle and held hands; then one after another started praying in tongues around the circle.  As the praying reached a crescendo people would break into what they called “dancing in the Spirit”. It was a spontaneous affair that was barely ritualistic.

Speaking in tongues was interesting. They all swore it was the spirit speaking through them. I was to notice after I'd been around a variety of congregations, the each had its own style... meaning they picked it up from each other and that was the spirit to me. The spirit of the circle... the church. Black churches had shouts and exclamations of, “Shee-ky-nah!” etc. White churches... well... you know… it was a homogenized, “la-la-la.” Saccharin ad nauseum.

The prayer group mostly came from the Bethel Church of God in Christ at the corner of Cota and Haley. The minister there was a West Texas black man named Jesse Cordova. He preached poetry from the pulpit, splicing together scripture and metaphor with the ease of a figure skater. The choir, led by Norton, rocked to his bidding as Willy (Norton’s gay lover) played a piano that was nothing less than inspired. The church was incredibly small, but it took on the dimensions of the Notre Dame… tambourines accompanying shouts of ecstatic glee echoing from the pews the fervor of the pulpit. Old women and old men… lifted up… up out of their seats and jumped… jumped for joy! It was a Holy Rollin’, tongues speakin’, Holy Ghost revival of the Spirit that was downright healing.

I could see the history of centuries of oppression… horrible oppression lifted… and all by these immigrants of the thirties to fifties Deep South lynching and murderous prejudice from places like Mississippi and Alabama. The old folks there welcomed us; young, tweaked-out, white kids, like we were their own children lost to the ravages of drugs and alcohol. I had never seen anything like it… not before or since then. I can attest to the spirit of Black Pentecostal churches… nothing seemed choreographed like the white congregations. The preaching built up to a crescendo of ecstatic syncopated African driving tambourine rhythms with or without drums and electronic amps… the rejuvenating spirit that came from the hearts of all who could let go of themselves and the spirit in the little congregation, though we too were a mixed bag of races and social class, wasn't at all like the cultish fever of "Father's” in Ukiah, where the minister was worshiped as God’s prophet in his own right. Although the Reverend Cordova was highly respected and honored, his anointing came as he preached, and otherwise, he was just another man of God and he was free to admit it... no better or worse than any other.

The mainstream churches around Santa Barbara leaned towards traditional religion defined by whatever denomination they belonged to. A new movement, however, that was sweeping through Southern California, were non-denominational congregations. It was the charismatic movement that had finally risen from the realm of snake charmers, or Oral Roberts type faith healing, to the disenfranchised middle-class. It had taken off from the poor white trash and black sectarian Pentecostal Churches of the Deep South and made inroads into white suburbia… or, in this case, sophisticated Santa Barbara.

One such congregation held its meetings at a large venue on Victoria and Chapala. I observed, “This is a Pat Boone, double-knit polyester, Charismatic Christianity, compared to the Little Richards style Rock n’ Roll Charisma of the Church of God in Christ. Folks even spoke in tongues whitely-politely. There’s no Dancing in the Spirit… at least not like the folks at the store-front churches of South-Central LA.

What they did, resembled a kind of group hypnotism… holding the hands up and waving them in unison… with perfect blow-dry hair and make-up speaking in tongues in four-part harmony. Oh… and the preaching… the choir… perfectly homogenized… saccharine buttery-speech flowed from the preacher’s lips with honey dipped sincerity… and, of course, the preacher was called Doctor and held a Doctor of Divinity from a mail-order ministry of some sort.

I took a room at the Traveler’s Hotel next to the Virginia on Haley Street. I went to work, went to church, and even sang in the choir. On my time off, I went with the others to share the message of redemption at the honor farm at the jail and Los Prietos Juvenile facility. We went down to the stop-lights on the highway on Saturday mornings, where I had found my hat with its five-dollar redemption, and we hauled hapless hitch-hiking hippie-burn-outs to a pancake breakfast hosted by the church.

Reverend Cordova decided to start a Christian drug rehab like another that had been established a year before up on Arrellaga Street, the Drug Abuse and Prevention Center. His was an old Victorian house at the corner of Haley and Chapala. He called it Casa De Vida: The House of Life. Once that was set-up everyone pitched in together to make it work. While we worked together the boys got closer to the girls and that chemistry worked its magic. During this period Skip and Linda were the only ones actually married even though they were younger than the others by a year or two. Skip was even made an Elder of the Church. The dynamic of young people pairing-off infused an energy into the enterprise that would not have been there otherwise. One by one all the available young women and men paired-off, got married and started setting up households for themselves.

I was not to be numbered among these even though I tried hard to play the role of a good Christian. I cut my hair, shaved my beard, and wore double-knit polyester suits to church. I even quit smoking. I quit because of a bad cold and cough and couldn’t smoke, more than for any other reason. After a week of that I figured I might as well white-knuckle it and quit altogether. I then went through a period of fasting and praying, hoping God would be impressed.

Giving up on impressing God, I turned my attention to finding a woman. Marriage too would mean something… progress in real terms, normalcy of some sort… but my prayers were to no avail. I knew the truth that a rapist wasn’t much of a catch. I kept that fact a secret to myself and halfway forgot about it. I began thinking God barred me from any intimacy with a woman. Beside, I didn’t know how to dress or act as a normal Christian and went overboard with it. Even in my polyester suit my appearance was more like that of an escapee from a funny farm than anything any woman would want to marry. Unlike Skip, no one was going to trust me with a position of authority in the church and I was, after all, only another flipped-out ex-acid-head laborer.

Rehab houses for burnt-out hippies were a rare item in the early seventies. The alternatives to the Salvation Army and the Rescue Mission were places run by cults such as; The People's Temple in San Francisco and Ukiah, Tony and Sue Alamos Ranches in Southern California, the Brotherhood of the Sun in the hills above Santa Barbara, the Children of God communes… and a little later, the Moonies. A plethora of pay-as-you-go programs were gradually replacing the old models of rehab. The old-models, like the Mish and the Sally, were the sing-for-your-supper missions. Their whole focus was primarily street-level wet-brain winos. Once government regulations required insurance companies to treat alcoholism and drug addiction as a disease, the pay-as-you-go rehabs became profitable. To his credit, Reverend Cordova was spiritually-evolved and wasn’t inclined to take advantage of his position and make a cult out of Casa De Vida.

 Still, all of this church business and rehab put me in line for expanding my horizons and, while at work one day, I broached the subject of education with Glen. Glen responded more enthusiastically than I had thought he would when I commented during our morning break, “I’d like to go to City College… Take some courses, you know, but I’m not sure how to go about it."

 “City College is cheap: Two bucks a semester and you’ve got G.I. Bill coming, don’t you?”

“I guess so.” I had thought of going to school, but I had no idea what it was that I wanted to study.

“Look,” Glen offered, “You don’t have to declare a major right away.”

“Well, I’d like to study something. But I can’t see how that would help me make a living.”

“You ought to do it before you find a woman to settle down with anyway,” Glen raised an eyebrow, “You haven’t been doing so well in that category, at any rate, have you?”

Chapter 46. The Dealer's a Monkey (pt. 2)

There were three Sambo's in Santa Barbara at that time. This first was on the beach and another was by the highway. They were all warm places out of the rain for people like me. The same as the I-Hop in Berkeley, there was a general agreement that, as long as you didn’t make a mess, didn’t make any demands on the waitress, and left a quarter tip, you could sit for hours over the universal ten-cent bottomless-cup of coffee. While sitting at the counter, I struck up a conversation with a woman whose name was Pam. Pam wasn’t bad looking but appeared to have gone through the mill with drugs at some previous time. We talked about spirituality, our drinking, and drugging. I felt relaxed and comfortable in the casual easy banter of one worn-out hippy talking with another. During the conversation Bob-O and Serena came in and sat with us.

“We fucking got kicked off the boat!” Serena blurted out as soon as she sat, “Becky told the owner about Bob-O and he blew his top. He kicked us off right then and there. Called me a slut and said he was fuckin’ ‘sorely disappointed’ in me.” By the time she finished she was crying.

Pam must have had some sort of maternal instinct that kicked-in because she put an arm around Serena, “Don’t worry, girl. You guys can stay at my place for a week if you need a place. I know what it’s like.”

She had a one-bedroom apartment on Kentia, off Modoc. Pam shared her bed with Serena while Bob-O and I made a bed on the living room floor. The timing of this rescue couldn’t have been better because, no sooner had we settled in for the night, when a fever knocked me out. All I could remember of it was laying down that night to go to sleep and then it all went black. Pam was a good nurse and kept me warm and drinking fluids… but I couldn’t recall much else.

During that time of blackness, I had a dream. The dream was a scenario in which I was in a dark room with a card table. A dealer sat with his back to a cue of people lined up there to take turns at some game of chance at the table. I stood in line as each player approached, took a seat, and, like blackjack, dealt two cards. The player would look at his cards… and then the dealer… Then the player became paralyzed with fear. Two attendants would then lift him, or her, by the armpits and escort the flaccid body to a door at the far right-hand corner of the room and throw them out into darkness. One after another… each man and woman before me went before the dealer with the same results. Finally, it was my turn. I was at once curious what it was that those before me saw in the dealer’s face and gripped with fear by what the cards might read. As the fear took over I fought back saying to myself, it’s only a dream.

I sat across from the dealer as the others had. I tried to look into the face of the dealer but, because of a visor and the way the light came from a single bulb hanging a half foot above us, the face was obscured. The dealer sent two cards my way, face-down.

“Look at your caardsssszzz, Maaaxxzzz.” the dealer hissed softly… almost sympathetically.

I lifted the cards but without looking at them I tried instead to get a clear look at the dealer’s face. It’s only a dream, right?

“Whatever you sssay, Maaaaxxxssszzz. Look at your cards, please.”

I then flipped the cards over. They were blank. I looked up into the face of the dealer whose face was now clear as he turned it up to the light and let out a shrieking laugh.

I tried to shout out “In the name of Jesus!” but I couldn’t get the words out. Then it was as though a dam broke as I shouted, “You’re a monkey!” I rose up out of my chair, “A fuckin’ monkey… and the cards are blank!” Turning to the others still waiting in line, I shouted, “The dealer’s a monkey! The cards are blank!”

The attendants approached from both side as I shirked off their attempts to grab me by the arms. Instead of being paralyzed with fear, outrage fueled me. I stomped my feet and shouted out loud, “You’re a monkey! And I’m free of you.”

The monkey faded away and the room opened-up to blue sky and white clouds. I was flying above the earth where a voice commanded me. “You’re home now. Get to work, Max.”

I woke up from that dream to Pam shaking me, “Who’s a monkey, Max?”

“You’re nothing but a monkey!” and then I saw her face looking all concerned. “Oh, sorry. It was a dream… just a dream.”

I told Pam about the dream over a bowl of chicken soup that she’s set on a TV tray next to the bed. I’d eaten half the bowl before I realized I was in her bed. The fever had broken, “Where’s Serena? Bob-O?”

 She looked at me, brows pinched with concern, “You don’t know about the past few days, do you?”

“No, few days? What do you mean, few days? The last I remember was going to sleep on your living room floor last night and sweating it out.”

“Last night? No, last week, Max. You don’t remember the paramedics coming for Serena?”

“No, what happened?”

“She had a seizure. I was at the grocery store. You had Bob-O locked out of the place and you’d called 911.”

“A seizure!”

“Yeah, you told me not to let Bob-O back anywhere near her… and then you passed out. I would have called 911 for you but thought better of it since they had just been here.”

She saw that I was still puzzled as to how I ended up in her bed, so she added, “I put you in my bed and stayed on the couch after I saw that you had good vitals. I didn’t know about her meds. When she told me that God healed her epilepsy I didn’t think anything of it. I am somewhat embarrassed because I was a nurse and should have known.”

“Yeah, Bob-O commanded God to do it and then had her dump her meds in the drink.”

“Her folks flew in from New Jersey and retrieved her from Saint Francis Hospital yesterday. I don’t know where Bob-O is… don’t much care after what I’ve heard.”

I understood and had no hard feelings. “Oh, Bob-O, he just got too much of that Mission Jesus stuff going… went overboard with it,” This sudden compassion surprised me, and I wondered… just wondered.

I felt at peace with myself for the first time I could recall since Florida. I was happy that Serena had been scooped-up by her folks and happy that Pam took care of me while I was out with fever. I was grateful to be alive and the thought came to me, forgiveness is the key. 

Chapter 46. The Dealer's a Monkey (pt.1)

The next morning it was raining gentle but steady and there was no gap… no blue sky at all… solid grey. Serena made a phone-call to let the boat owner know about what had happened. Becky, and her absentee boat-mate, and muscled-bound blond jock boyfriend, came down the ramp to the dock. The owner saw me standing next to Serena once he got to the marina and took one look at me, “You get out of here. Get off my boat! I am reporting you to the Harbor Patrol and I am filing a restraining order. Don’t you ever come anywhere near my boat again!”

Serena tried to explain, to no avail, that I had nothing to do with the fiasco. Becky was able to talk the owner into letting Serena stay but I was most certainly out. Becky was pleased to see me leave without trouble, but the boyfriend looked disappointed I didn’t argue. He wanted to use some of his muscle. Injun showed up as I was crossing the parking lot on the way out of there.“Hey, white boy!” He hollered “What did you do to Serena’s boat?”

I approached him hoping to explain. That was a big mistake because, no sooner had I gotten within arms-reach, he pulled a huge hunting knife out of his boot and had it poised at my gut. He had his other arm on my shoulder as he leaned toward me saying, in the lowest of audible tones; “I think you oughta take your Bible and your Christian-shit outa here before I fillet your ass. Don’t you agree?”

Serena ran up the ramp and out the gate, “No, Injun, don’t. He’s goin’!”

At that, Injun let his knife down and I walked away, glad that I was alive.

Serena and I had agreed to meet at the Rescue Mission for the six o’clock supper and service. I was homeless again and I wasn’t so sure I had a girl after all this either. I was beginning to think the promise of Santa Barbara was fading. It was just one more time I’d gotten my hopes up and let them slip away. I went up to the library where there was a fireplace and some comfortable chairs a man could sit in. If I did it right, I could take a nap. In those days camping out in the library wasn’t tolerated. You had to at least keep up the appearance of reading a book. It was a good place to think and I needed badly to think.

At the Mission that evening, I checked in to stay out of the rain and thought it peculiar that Bob-O did not. There was plenty of snoring, but the snoring didn’t keep me awake. It was that gnawing feeling that it just plain didn’t matter anymore. That morning at breakfast my worst fears were realized as I saw Bob-O and Serena come in taking a seat in the pew in front of me holding hands. Either they hadn’t seen me, or they were ignoring me. I sat next to Serena at breakfast after the service to see what was going on.

“Max, we have to talk.”

It would be the first of many times in my life that I will have I heard that fatal phrase, “We do? What’s there to say?”

“I love you Max, but something special happened between me n’ Bob-O last night?”

“Like I said, what’s there that I can say about that?”

What did I expect? After all, she fucked me the first night we met. What made me thing she could keep her knees together for me or anyone else?

“It isn’t what you think.” She gripped my hand tightly, “Please, let’s talk after breakfast. I don’t want to talk about it here.”

My brain was running in circles: around and around… thinking, “What… what the fuck! I couldn’t sleep last night and now my breakfast is ruined.”

After breakfast we sat down on the wet curb outside of the Mission door.

“This has got to be good,” I started the ball rolling.

“Max, Bob-O and I prayed last night.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, we didn’t fuck,” her assurance didn’t make me feel any better for it, “We talked and prayed. Bob-O is a man of great faith… did you know that?”

“Yeah, sure, he told me once he saw Jesus at Lake Mendocino… while sniffing glue!”

“He laid hands on me and commanded God to take my epilepsy away.” She was shedding authentic tears at this point and paid no attention at all to what I was implying.

“Oh, Bob-O tells God what to do; does he?”

“And he told me to throw my medication over the side.”

“Oh, he did, did he?

“Yes.”

“I thought you believed that crap was rot?”

“Yes.” She skewed her eyes, reaching out with her hand to turn my face to hers. “But Bob-O is different… he told me that you and… well, we, could not be together for this to work. That I must live a chaste life… like the early Christians did.”

“No more sex then.”

“No more sex, Max, I have to tap into the joy of Christ’s blessings!” She took the plastic ring off her finger and put it in my palm.

“So then, you aren’t dumping me for Bob-O… you’re dumping me for Jesus?” I chucked the ring across the street.

“Can we still be friends?” her eyes were pleading.

“Yeh, sure, why not?”

Somehow this made me feel a little better. I was coming down with a cold and a fever. I let Bob-O and Serena go their way without further ado. I wanted to tear into Bob-O but thought better of it; she would have left me for somebody someday anyway. That’s just the way it is. She probably dumped some poor bastard before I came along… maybe that guy, Injun.

I walked down to the beach… maybe for a good cry. My heart was broken and it did feel just like that arrow was stuck in it… that arrow that the little bastard cupid shoots into those Valentines. The horizon was still shrouded in clouds but there were a few places where the sun burst through. The sand was still damp, and my butt was damp too from sitting on the curb with Serena. I raised my eyes to the gray sky above me and prayed, “I give up. You want me to call you Jesus… I’ll call you Jesus. You want me to call you anything at all, I call you that. But I need something from you out of this… maybe some direction.”

I walked off the beach and crossed the road to Helena Street next to the Lobster House. As I was doing so I noticed everything seemed to have some sort of cross… especially telephone posts. About that time a Volkswagen van pulled up next to me. The driver, obviously high, yelled out, “Hey Bro, wanna get high?” and held a joint out to me.

“No thanks, not today.” And I waved him on. That was perhaps the first time I had ever turned down a joint. I felt somehow empowered by that simple gesture.

The van pulled away as the driver laughed, “It’s your loss, Bro.”