Chapter 41. Berzerkeley Blues

The Activism of Peoples Park
was already becoming a thing of
a romanticized past.

I wanted to get back to San Francisco because I thought that perhaps my place was the City. Santa Barbara seemed nice enough, but I wanted badly to be back where it all had begun for me.

My mind echoed the thought, “Yeah, Max, I hope you find it.”

I made-up a sign that said San Francisco and tucked a bottle of white port into the inside pocket of my Air Force long-coat and waited for that ride

Depression colored the rides from Santa Barbara on up the coast to the Bay Area. The first ride took me as far as a little north of San Luis Obispo. The driver bought lunch at the Madonna Inn and dropped me off on the north side of ‘The Bump’ (Kerouac-speak for the Cuesta Grade) at the Santa Margarita junction. From there I made it to Salinas and then caught a ride that was going all the way to Martinez, but I thought better of hitching from there and had the driver drop me off at the University Avenue off-ramp in Berkeley. I had no compelling reason to go into Berkeley. However, the idea of crossing over the Bay Bridge and getting dropped off in San Francisco in the middle of the night was less compelling. Walking up University Avenue I immediately regretted not taking the ride all the way to Martinez because of the unrelenting drizzle and chill in the air. The entire atmospheric conditions that night underlined a heavy gloom that escalated the further I hiked up the Avenue.

It was after ten PM and there wasn’t much going on along University Avenue. A House of Pancakes was open, and I knew I could get a place to sit a few hours. I had enough cash for the cost of a thermos of coffee and a short stack. At the door, a scruffy faced ‘Road Dog’ stood panhandling. I barely heard him as I passed a few feet from him, “Spare some change for a fellow traveler.”

“Sure, I think I have enough left over after I get a short stack.”

“Great, all I need is seventy-five cents and I can get one too.”

This began another friendship that would sustain me a little further. People had come and gone in my journeys and I never would see any of them again… Miriam, Norman, Stan, Ted, and Ray.

As we took a booth, I asked, “What do they call you?”

“Bob-O.”

“I’m Max, Bob-O.”

We hardly spoke a word for three hours. The waitress was used to Street People coming in to get out of the cold and she didn’t bother them if they didn’t ask too much of her until her shift came to a close. Bob-O and I were pros at this.

“You’ll have to pay your checks now because my shift is over,” she glowered, almost expecting trouble. I paid up and I could see that she was relieved there would be no hassle. It was worth it to her that we were no bother even though we hadn’t left much of a tip.

“Where you goin’ now, Bob-O?”

“The Student Union building is a good place to crash an hour or so. I think I’ll go there.”

“I don’t know much about Berkeley. Do you mind if I tag along?”

“Yeh, sure, I can show you around.”

We were off to Sproul Plaza and sat where students going onto campus to their first classes of the day passed us by. Sproul Plaza, the place that was where the birth of the Free Speech movement began. I’d expected it to be more majestic, or dramatic looking, but it was little more than any other common entrance to the campus. It was six AM and there was already someone on the retaining wall shouting out his love for Jesus while Hari Krishnas beat their drums, danced, and chanted by, and on up Bancroft Way. Even though the genii of idealistic optimism had left me a long time ago, I felt the energy of the place, and the sparking of hope, political activism, and spiritual regeneration. We entered the Student Union Building where I saw several seats with Street People curled up and sleeping (they weren’t called homeless back then). I picked a couple of seats out for myself and slept almost until noon when Bob-O woke me with a nudge.

Bob-O’s voice had an urgency to it, “Hey, wake up or you’ll miss lunch”.

We made our way over to the Lutheran Church at Haste and College, where a line was cued for a hot lunch served daily in the basement there.

Sitting at a long table, I listened to one of the Street People gripe about the food and wondered what it would have taken for him to show some gratitude. I watched the people serving up the beans and rice and was reminded of the camaraderie of fellowship of the bean table in Coconut Grove and the folks at Risingstar in Taos. I missed that easy-going compassion.

The guy was slopping up his dish and grumbling, “Shit, this is the worst crap I’ve ever had. See those people serving this slop… they all smile and dish this shit out day after day… people from all over Berkeley donate all kinds of good food and these people smile and take it home… yeah, they give us beans and rice while they eat steaks and ice cream.”

I humored him, “Really? Ice cream! Wow, I could go for that.”

“We can hang out during the day at the Drop-in Center on Telegraph.” Bob-O interrupted. “It’s a good place to get clothes and if you are looking for work…”

“Great, I gotta get off the street. It is getting to me.” I had an urge to go to a job, punch a time-card, pay rent on a place and regroup… a real job and a real place out of the drizzle.

“What do you want a job for?” The ungrateful one elbowed him, “You just want to be a part of the system… like those people serving us beans… workin’ for the man.”

“Yeah, and taking home ice cream and steaks!” I chortled, “No wonder they seem so happy.”

The guy shut up after that.

The Drop-in Center was in the back of an old house. It was a room with couches and a not much more. There were a few offices adjacent to the room and I hung on a couch for a few hours. Street people came and went, but there were some regular characters. I had seen some of them at lunch. One pair of guys fancied themselves as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They wore the hats and fringed buckskin jackets. Chico had a black hat with a silver hat band and he insisted everyone call him Sundance though most called him Chico. I hadn’t seen the movie at that time, but figured it must have been good because these two lived the characters. They even had a wild-child girl they shared between them they called Etta. Her name was Juanita, but Chico, Sundance that is, insisted everyone call her Etta.

I was sitting on the couch half-ignoring the antics of the trio’s banter when Juanita plopped down next to me. She had been dancing to imaginary music in the middle of the room but aimed her attention at me, “C’mon, where’s your spunk boy.” She plopped down next to me,  “Give me a kiss!”

I could smell the wine on her breath, but I gave her a peck on the cheek while checking out of the corner of my eye whether Chico was paying attention.

“That ain’t no kiss!” She grabbed the back of my head and pulled my face to hers.

I gave her my cheek.

“Ain’t you never kissed a girl before? I want some open-mouth tongue!”

“Etta!” Chico butted in, “Knock it off, bitch! I’ll slap the shit out of ya.”

He stood over her and glared down at me as though hoping I would rise to the challenge.

Chico wanted a showdown but the staff member who had been hiding in his office the whole time came out into the room, “Alright, you guys have so much energy, why don’t you do something around here?”

Chico spun around drawing a pair of imaginary pistols, “Like what?”

“Put away your guns, Sundance. Here’s a broom and dust pan.”

“We gotta go,” Chico grabbed Etta by the hand and yanked her off the couch. They went out the door.

I got up and took the broom, “I’m looking for work if you hear of anything.”

“Yeah, that’s what they all say.”

I couldn’t figure what the guy’s problem was, but I could see I wouldn’t get the help I needed here. I swept the floor, emptied the trash and headed for the door.

I was almost outside when he called out to me, “Come back tomorrow, I get calls now and then, we might have something.”

Another hang-out place was in the basement of a church on Dana Street was called the Free Clinic. It had a large room with several couches, coffee tables and easy-chairs, in a part of the lobby that was referred to as the Rap Center. Two large paintings adorned the walls. One was of the hot-air balloon that hovered over Altamont Speedway from the year before. The other was a huge Mandala of concentric circles of silhouettes of suburban houses. The same folks I’d seen at lunch and the Drop-in Center came and went. Sundance and Cassidy were there with Etta. Etta was getting something for her pregnancy. Chico was very protective of her as I overheard him telling Butch, “I want to make sure the kid has a good home. I’ll take care of the kid even if you’re the papa.”

“That’s very generous of you, Sundance, but I can take care of the kid.”

“It’s settled then, we’ll both take care of the kid.” Chico slapped hands in a high-five with Butch.

So true to the role, I reflected. I’m going to have to see that movie first chance I get.

It was in places such as the Rap Center and Drop-in Center that people picked up on whatever the buzz was going on around town. If the university was trying to raze a condemned house, the buzz would go around that there was a party at such and such address. Mysteriously, it could be counted on, that there would be free acid everywhere guaranteeing Street People would show up. Just as predictable, the police busted up the party, and unceremoniously escorted people off the property, and some graduated on to jail. The incident would be picked up in the Berkeley Barb as an occupation or liberation of the property… another Peoples Park demonstration broken up by the “Pigs”.

However, barely perceptible, the demographics of Berkeley had been shifting. The middleclass was moving out to the suburbs. Students were more concerned with grades and classes as the war in Vietnam also shifted, slowly crept, towards a resolution by the end of 1970. The political radicals were gaining legitimate strength would soon be electing mayors and city councils. Street People were getting to be less of an asset and more of a nuisance. Still, places such as the Free Clinic and Rap Center served to keep Street People available for actions deemed less affective and necessary but still utilized out of old habits that die hard. One such incident was so absurd it would have been hilarious had it not been so tragic.

On such party was announced at a house as previously described. There was an acid-rock garage band playing Doors and Jefferson Airplane covers on a makeshift stage. The band stopped for a bare-chested character all war-painted up in the best Jerry Reuben or Abby Hoffmann fashion. As he started his pitch, Juanita, a.k.a. a very drunk Etta, was so pissed that the music stopped, she slammed into the placebo warrior and knocked him over shouting, “You ain’t no Injun! I’m a mother fuckin’ Injun! You got no right to wear the war-paint! You’re just a wanna-be injun…  white boy!”

It was tragic because it was the truth meeting infantile posturing. Truth and politics; i.e., infantile posturing, don’t mix and, when they do try to, it’s always a betrayal of one sort or another.

None of the activist types knew what to do. It wouldn’t be right to shut up a real oppressed minority or red-blooded drunken Native American. They stood there in a circle around her and tried to talk her down, but she wouldn’t have any of it. I left as the police were pulling up and that was about as much as I wanted of Berzerkeley politics.

There were other incidents carrying more gravity going on in Berkeley around the same time. Another one happened at a school auditorium on Russell Street that shook me to the core because it reminded me of the murderous chaos of Altamont. It occurred at what was supposed to be a free concert with several bands playing for a coalition of anti-war groups… or something like that.

I didn’t want to have anything to do with a free concert, but I went just to see what was going on. The crowd there was so dense one couldn’t dance or move to the music much at all. There was a set of three double doors that opened into the auditorium. Something, a movement at the doors, caught my eye. I was already getting my ass towards the doors when a commotion broke out at the entrance. I could vaguely make out through the crowd what was happening. Then I saw it: Two cadres of very black men dressed in black turtlenecks, black slacks tucked in their boots like paratroopers, and black berets, filed in the doors on the right and left. They had night sticks or saps and began wading, as an organized phalanx, into the crowd, swinging their batons ruthlessly, and indiscriminately beating down all in front of them; boys or girls, old or young. Then, as though on a signal, they yelled out in unison, “Black Power! White Devils! You are part of the solution or part of the problem! Black Power!” and exited as suddenly as they appeared… a black phantom.

I got out of the auditorium and hit Telegraph Avenue. Kubrick’s Spartacus was playing at the Student Union Building and I wanted to catch it… perhaps have a safe few hours to nap. On the way, approaching Durant, my eyes were focused on where I was stepping while entering the covered construction site sidewalk because I realized I’d been stepping on a sticky dark-red substance that was covered with Panther posters. Already a tight squeeze, the narrow corridor was lined with a row of young black men in black turtlenecks, black slacks tucked into their boots like paratroopers, and black berets, standing in military parade-rest. I stopped a second to ask the nearest one what had happened, but my eyes met a cold steel glare. I had no desire to question what went down. One man at the far end of the file broke ranks and said loud enough for me to hear, “Another hippy drug dealer is off our streets.”

The Student Union Building was buzzing with electricity as Spartacus was about to play on TV. The whole business with the Black Panthers on the streets and in the auditorium, did not bode well for any public gathering but every chair and couch was taken in the TV viewing area on the second floor. Young idealistic eyes were glued, and ears tuned, to the images and dialogue as witnessed by the cheers and jeers, clinched fists and chants of, "Power to the people!" I wondered what these kids would do if faced with real oppression and wondered further what they would do if the state, they so wished to smash, were to come down with any force at all on them? Yearnings of youth aroused by the musings of Kirk Douglass and Tony Curtis over liberty from the Roman State… flashbacks of the cowardice and spineless resistance to the Hells Angels of the Altamont Speedway fiasco, reverberated in my mind and contrasted with the bravado and clenched fist salutes, of these kids living out a fantasy. Had I not just left an auditorium where a handful of organized and militant thugs had randomly displayed what brute force could do at will amongst them?

Night time came along, and I made myself a safe place on the roof over the hall where we had lunch at the Lutheran Church. Bob-O and I stretched out our sleeping bags on folding aluminum lounge-chairs under the eaves of an overhang.

“Hey Bob-O…”

“Yeah?”

“I need to get out of town where there’s water and green trees… you know, away from this crap.”

“I know a place up North, Lake Mendocino.”

“I’d like to go there.” I mumbled as I drifted off to sleep thinking of warmer dryer places with hot meals and good company.