Chapter 9. Rising Star East (pt. 2)

Wheeler Peak sat to the East

as a mystical force

powerful enough to

entice me to stay.

The pueblo consisted of three wings in a triangle open at two ends with about three to five small rooms in each wing. It sat at the end of the mesa pointing westwards past the kiva over Arroyo Hondo and far beyond the Rio Grande across a broad landscape to the distant range of Petaca Peak. Piñón pines and prickly-pear cacti along the edges of the mesa accented the mostly cleared grassy plain to the east extending miles toward the Sangre de Cristo Mountains crowned by Wheeler Peak against a wild sky of swirling clouds.

Risingstar was on one of three or four mesas; about 800 acres stretched out like fingers from the mountains. Two communes shared the mesas; the other was called The Cosmic Construction Company. The owner of the property, Michael Dragon, had a house on a field at of the northernmost finger above the Rio Honda. Mason, or the others in the commune, told me a little about Mr. Dragon and, from what I’d heard… picked up from here or there, the guy inherited some cash and used it to purchase the land and open it up to experimental communities.

Rising Star was begun in California by folks around a folk singer character named Lenny Goldberg. He’d owned a ranch he called Mahayana Ranch and, under the threat of eviction from Sonoma County, he ceded the ownership’s deed to the property to God.  The small tribe living there created a community of an array of sheds and shacks throughout the ravines and hills. They called themselves the Risingstar Commune. When the authorities forced them to leave, many of the people there picked up to try again in New Mexico. They settled on the mesa, naming themselves, Rising Star East.

I was curious about who it was that was “the leader” in New Mexico. It didn’t seem possible that there was no single leader of authority amongst the group.

“So, how does all this get organized?” I asked Mason.

He laughed, “You’ll see.” Then after a long pause he offered, “Most of our decisions affecting the whole are made by the group.”

I sensed that this was bullshit. I knew, from experience, that there is always somebody that comes up with a plan and then organizes people around that plan; that the chaos I’d witnessed at Altamont happened because there was no plan or leadership. The Hell’s Angels had a plan and leadership. A handful of them cowed three-hundred-thousand disorganized and dazed hippies.

“There are no Charlie Mansons calling the shots here, if that’s what you mean,” he explained, “we only have one rule and that rule is love.”

“So, no one gets ‘vibed”’ on or off the mesa… like Zardoz?” I worried about the way the most egalitarian societies exert power and control. I could live with it if there was such a structure but wondered how it would work if there wasn’t.

Mason grinned, “You are either ‘On the Bus or Off the Bus’, you stay or leave of your own volition.” Then Mason paused a moment and added as an aside, “Look, the guys at the parking lot contribute nothing and bum enough for a jug of wine whenever a vehicle arrives. They won’t be told to leave either. They’ll get bored and move on. You don’t look like a wino. You’ll be okay here.”

I was familiar with the Ken Kesey bus ride across America but I had misgivings nonetheless about how far one could go with this philosophy for any real results.

Mason pointed out, as sternly as Mason ever got, “Cosmic Construction Company … on that mesa,” waving his hand north… “They have an elected council. They’re trying it that way and we’re trying it this way.”

I took my time getting acquainted with the other members from the pueblo and explored the mesa finding several other living accommodations around the fringes of the property the first few weeks. There were a couple classic hogans: houses dug into the earth with few feet of adobe above ground to add height, and a wickiup: a native arrangement of saplings arched in a circle and covered with either thatched grasses or deer hides. One such wickiup was formed of saplings and covered with burlap soaked in concrete. It had a fire pit in the middle and the smoke from the fire went out through a hole at the top.

As on the streets, there were mostly young men on the fringes of the commune staying in the kiva or other temporary shelters put up before the Pueblo. Most of the women were already hooked up and I found it somewhat ironic that, even in this so-called egalitarian society, the men with the best nest seemed to draw the most attractive women. Of course, this didn’t bother me. In fact, it was refreshing to me that biological imperatives still functioned here as well as everywhere else. Men build the nest; the women decorate it, make babies and, from what would be potentially just a flop, turn it into a home. Despite of all the feminist rhetoric of the late sixties and early seventies, this is how it seemed to come down. I realized that I had to make a home for myself or go without female companionship.

Mason didn’t live anywhere near any of it yet he seemed to be one of the leaders, if you could call anyone that. I was later to find that Mason, and a wild looking woman that called herself Trina, lived in a cabin on an island in the middle of the Rio Honda a half-mile, as the crow flies, from the mesa.

Chapter 9. Rising Star East (pt.1)

It was evening by the time the road veered away from the Rio Grande and crossed the chaparral plane to Taos. Maggie drove through town to an adobe house near the highway where her friend, Magic Maya, lived. Magic Maya was nowhere around but the house was full of musicians that night playing twelve string guitars, violins, dulcimers, mandarins and an assortment of flutes and reeds in a circle on benches and chairs around a large hearth. The party had been going on for more than a day and Maggie knew most of them. We were welcome guests.

Maggie explained, “Maya does this often enough and leaves when she needs some space.”

I felt a soft joy from the sweet sounds coming from around the hearth, “It seems right to me, I like the freedom here.”

She smiled, “You will love it here Max.”

There was talk of how the communes in the area were faring after enduring their first winter in the high country around Taos. Some communes seemed to be thriving while others tended to be nothing more than crash pads for dopers. Some were quite exotic. There was one house in Taos where everyone called themselves Lords and Ladies. Every fantasy was lived out in this place.

The Hog Farm and Risingstar were the most open to newcomers. The Lama Buddhist Foundation in San Cristobel was even more interesting to me but I was told that there was no tolerance for drugs, even mind-expanding ones such as LSD or Peyote. I figured I’d be better off at the Hog Farm or Risingstar. It was a choice that seemed right. This would be another time I’d often wondered afterwards which way my life might have gone had I chosen Lama over Risingstar.

We crashed there at the house. Bottles of Red Mountain wine laced with acid, and bowls of pot, were passed around. The accompaniment of acoustic guitars and homemade flutes played wordless rhythms to the vibe of the night. It was sweet and exotic to me to lay there and listen, getting a good night’s sleep, before embarking on my adventure the next day.

That morning Maggie drove up the hill to the mesa from Arroyo Hondo, about eleven miles north of Taos. Where we were going was accessed by a one lane winding washboard and gravel road. An even narrower recently cut dirt road branched off past a geodesic dome and snaked up through a couple switchbacks towards the top. A makeshift parking lot was graded out at the end of the road where all trucks and autos were parked. No motor vehicles were allowed past that point. At the end of the mesa, a hundred feet from there, I could see a small complex of newly constructed adobes in a triangle formed around a small courtyard. The top of a teepee peeked out of a ravine beyond the mesa. Apparently, these people had been busy before winter set in.

A group of half a dozen men sat at a fire pit by the parking lot smoking pot and drinking wine. I didn’t expect to see winos up there and thought it odd they were drinking wine that early in the morning. I was further put off by a scraggly, red-bearded, hippy in a buckskin fringed jacket, and a partially concealed a Bowie knife on his belt. He approached Maggie for spare change and Norm told him to fuck off. I was pleasantly surprised when Bowie so readily obliged. Norm was a half-head shorter than this character but his boldness got him through where superior size and a huge knife didn’t count for much.

Norm was standing with his arm around Maggie’s waist so I asked, “Norm, you ain’t unpacking?”

I knew before Norm spoke that he was going with Maggie, “I’m not staying here, were goin’ to Questa.”

“Great, I kinda thought so,” I grinned. My happiness was authentic for this Spring and Autumn coupling. “Take care of him Maggie, he’s taken good care of me.”

“I will, Max,” Maggie’s piercing blue eyes locked onto mine, “I hope you find what you’re lookin’ for.”

We gave each other a warm parting and Norm and Maggie drove away.

The characters around the fire pit told me that I could stow my stuff in the Kiva just past the adobe. A kiva is a circular building where native ceremonial rite are performed in the Pueblo culture of the region. I climbed down a pole in the center of the roof, with notches hewed into it for rungs. I adjusted my eyes to the dark. A kerosene lamp lit the interior but it still took a moment to adapt my eyes to the darkness. The forms of a handful of people in the dark began taking shape. I sat and opened my pack for a bag of Bugler and rolled one for myself, offering the pouch of tobacco to one of the forms. I didn’t speak but waited for someone to start off the conversation. A fifty-gallon drum situated on the opposite side of the center circle from the ladder pole had a stove pipe joined to it providing more than adequate heat for a large space.

A shadow spoke from behind the stove, “What do you call yourself?”

I peered into the dark and made out a kind face of a blond, braided-haired man, with a beard braided likewise. Woven into the beard braids were turquoise beads. I hadn’t considered it but I figured I could call myself anything I wanted; however, I stuck to my name, “Max.”

“I’m Mason. Pick a spot and roll out your bag.”

Mason did most of the talking. I wanted to know more about the place. I asked about the pueblo and Mason told me about how the local Taos Pueblo Indians came up and taught the basics of making adobe and that our people put it up last summer. “I’ll show you the forms and where we made the mud bricks when you’re ready.”

“Who designed the kiva?” I was curious about the roof.

“It is mostly a traditional Hogan style built into the ground. Are you interested in building?”

I was looking up at the ceiling. Ten-inch diameter logs that tapered only slightly towards the center with notches cut out to lock each one crossing over the other. “Yah, I want to know about that roof. Is that a traditional roof?”

“Naw, the way those logs are positioned was Brian’s idea. I mean, we were all sittin’ around trying to figure out how to make a roof for this place. Brian took some six-inch nails and laid ‘em out the way you see those logs. He set them up and challenged anyone to put enough weight on ‘em to collapse them.”

“So that ladder doesn’t support the roof?” I liked this Mason guy and I suspected that he was probably the brain in the outfit. I couldn’t wait to meet this Brian character.

“You’ve got a good eye, Max.”

Chapter 8. Taos (& The Free-Land Movement)

The Rio Grande Gorge West of Taos

I awoke on the couch. My clothes were dry and folded. After dressing I stepped out on the porch as quietly as I could, hoping not to awaken anyone. When I got out to the highway the decision was already made which way I was to take. Santa Barbara could wait… I had to go back and find Miriam, but I didn't know why I had to find her any more than I had any idea what I'd do if I did. After all, Miriam had moved on. There was nothing in Hollywood for me but I found myself back at Franklin and Taft. At the house, Sarah and Felix didn’t want a single bed partner, so I set up a cozy little den in a closet under the stairs. I went back to work at the car wash to bring in a few bucks at minimum wage.

The house had become a metaphor for what had happened to the so-called counter-culture of the sixties. What might have started out as a wonderful experiment with communal living turned into little more than a crash-pad for addicts. The creativity that began the idea had moved on. Most evenings found me in the kitchen with a bottle of wine, disillusioned and waiting for something to happen out of the ordinary… something that might hold some promise for me. Norm convinced me that I could do better panhandling for Green Power, or selling the Free Press at stop lights, than the minimum wage I was pulling in at the car wash.

Green power was a scheme to support ventures like the Free Clinic, free meals, and shelter by utilizing the street peoples’ talent for panhandling.

In the spirit of the day, the deal was that you got an official Green Power can and split the take 50/50 with Green Power on the honor system.

Of course, Norm and his ilk never parted with any of his take but that was the concept.

When I objected, “Ain’t what you’re doing called stealing?”

Norm said, "Stealing, Fuck no. You ever hear of a place to crash or any place to eat, sponsored by green power?"

I had no answer. I laughed, “Do cans of Sego at the free church count?”

“Okay then, it ain’t stealing if you scam a con.”

There it was as clear as day. Anyone stupid enough to scam people using Norm was in for some payback.

On one of those days Norm and I were at Fairfax and Sunset hitching a ride when a white German Sheppard ambled up to me with a crushed coke can in its mouth. The dog dropped the can at my feet and looked up at me with a pair of “Do you wanna play?” eyes that were hard to refuse. I tossed the can down the sidewalk and the dog happily returned it, dropping the can at my feet dutifully. This went on for a while and people began making kind gestures and dropping coin in the Green Power can I held in my hand.

“What’s the dog’s name?” asked a nicely dressed woman who would not have ever stopped to give a dime to a hippy otherwise.

I responded immediately saying, “Jude,” I loved the Beatles tune ‘Hey Jude’, “Yah… that’s his name… could you donate for some dog food?”

Jude turned out to be a boon until Norm and I got home and opened a can of dog food. Norm had lifted a couple of steaks from the grocery store on the way back to the pad. Jude must have known... he would have nothing to do with dog food out of a can as long as there was a chance of getting his teeth into one of those steaks.

Jude stayed with us for about a week and helped us out with panhandling. I had learned to tuck a steak or two into my pants on the way home every evening for Jude and was saddened when he took off one day and never returned.

It was the day after Jude didn’t return to the house I ran into Miriam at the market. She was friendly enough as she explained, “Max, I went to a Tony and Sue get-together. I’m moving up to their ranch.”

“Oh, see you later then,” my heart broke. I’d accepted losing her to another man but this cult seemed too weird for me. I was surprised and disappointed that a street-smart girl like her would fall for it. Damn, I thought, I lost a girl, gained a dog in her place and lost a dog and her all in a couple of weeks!

One place Norm and I found profitable for panhandling was the Aquarian Theater where “Hair” was playing. It was while we were there that conversation turned to New Mexico. I was burned out with L.A. but had nowhere else to go. The word on the street was that there were rural Free Land communes in New Mexico that welcomed refugees from Urbania. My ears perked as one freaky looking hippy told of the mountains and untouched land there free to anyone who wanted to settle it.

“What do you mean?” I queried, “There’s no such thing as free land unless you are talking about homesteading… do they still do that?”

The guy toned down his claim of free land a notch, “I don’t know what you’re talking about but I do know that there are communes there that welcome people like us.”

I then asked him, “Have you been there?”

“Naw, but a friend of mine knows someone who…”

Norm came running up to me excited and gesturing, “Hey, you wouldn’t believe what just happened.”

A little annoyed at the interruption I sniped, “What happened Norm?”

“See, this limo pulls up to the curb where I was standing and this dude with a bald head gets out of the back seat and asks me if I have any change for the phone… I’m lookin’ at him and wondering why this guy needs change from me when he probably has some kind of radio thing in the limo… just then… like he was reading my mind he says, ‘Some calls gotta be made by payphone and I don’t carry change’.”

Sounds bizarre…but interesting enough, I thought that was the whole story and turned to hear more about New Mexico.

“But that ain’t the end of it. I give him a quarter and, while he makes his phone call the driver comes up to me and says; ‘Do you know who that is?’ and I say no… who is he?”

There was a pause… I was getting annoyed… New Mexico was waiting.

“The driver tells me the guy is Otto Preminger. Yah … Otto-fuckin’-Preminger!”

“Really?” I countered sarcastically. Man, I wasn’t impressed with celebrities and, besides, everyone pretended to be one in Hollyweird. I was surprised to hear Norm talking like this.

“But this is the good part…” Norm was excited and Norm wasn’t the type to get excited over nothing, “The good part is that this guy, Otto Preminger… you’ve heard of him, haven’t you?”

“Yah, I’ve heard of him.”

“Well he comes up to me and thanks me for helping him out and then he gives me this card…” He flashed the card in my face so that I could see clearly the name, Otto Preminger, printed on the front with an address scribbled on the back. “So, he says to get a few friends and show up at this lot and we’ll be guaranteed parts as extras in a movie he is making… a Western or something.”

“Yes, sounds good…”

“They pay extras good too… Union scale!”

The hippy guy added, “Count me in. Union scale is five hundred a day for extras.”

I scratched my chin, “I didn’t know Otto Preminger was still alive… did he ever make a Western?”

Norm had gotten hold of three hits of acid so we dropped it to celebrate our luck.

I had, on several occasions, wondered what would have happened had I followed through with the Otto Preminger shoot instead of dropping that tab of acid that night. You just never know where acid is going to take you. Sometimes it would be just another trip like the several before it. Other times, an acid trip would have you making decisions that would turn your life inside out and upside down.

Norm and I ended up at the Taft House tripping through the night. Sarah was drinking wine, doing reds and ranting on about how Charlie Manson and his family were “set-up by the PIGS”. She’d finally taken one too many reds and pulls off the gallon jug of Red Mountain. Then she needed to be walked all night to keep her conscious. Felix took her before dawn to the hospital emergency room and dropped her off. In those days, most people who died from overdoses did so because their friends were afraid of the repercussions with the law for just being with someone who’d OD’d. Of course, ya just didn’t want emergency vehicles or police at your house.

That was the last bit of drama I could take in ole Hollyweird. As the sun rose we headed out to the freeway onramp on Sunset & 101 and put out our thumbs. There wasn’t any discussion about it but we both knew it was New Mexico, Taos. Otto Preminger would have to do without Norm and me. Once we got past San Berdoo it was easier to see the wisdom of our choice as the desert opened-up before us. I had never been in the Southwest desert and Interstate 10 took us right smack dab through the most magnificent parts of the desert landscape. I felt a growing peace the further the highway took us from L.A. The sunset spread a crimson glow across the sky highlighting the Saguaro’s. They seemed to raise arms greeting us… welcoming us home like the prodigal sons. Conversely, they could just as well have been saying, “Halt! Stop before it’s too late.”

We rode through the night and dawn found us in Las Cruces, New Mexico, hitching a ride north on Interstate-25.

We stood at that onramp that morning for a couple hours until a canvas topped, twenty-one window, Volkswagen van pulled over, driven by a forty or fifty something, weathered skinned, blond woman (with gray roots) wearing a ton of silver and turquoise jewelry… necklaces, rings and wrist bands.

“So, where you kids goin’?’” she called out, opening the sliding side door to the back of the bus.

“Taos!” I called back.

“Well, get in. I’m goin’ beyond Taos but I have friends there and planned-on stoppin’ overnight anyway.”

The van roared off and she introduced herself. “I’m Maggie… what do they call you?”

“Hi, Maggie, I’m Norman and this is my friend, Max.”

“Do you know anyone in Taos?”

“No, never been there.” I liked the idea that she knew people in Taos.

“Do you know anything about Taos?” she had this air of knowing about her.

“What do you mean?” I tried to figure her line of questioning. I felt tense in anticipation.

“Yah, well, whew! Taos…. It’s God’s Country!”

The tension in my gut rose as I said, “I heard something about free-land and communes.”

“Free land? Hah! Yah, there are communes… New Buffalo of Easy Rider fame, Hog Farm, Rising Star, and a couple of others that amount to nothing more than communal crash-pads around town.” She named them off with a familiarity I found soothing but the tension was still there.

“What do you mean Easy Rider fame?” It was one of those movies I saw back in Waikiki.

“Yah… you know that commune they ended up at. Peter Fonda had to make a decision to stay or go?”

“Yah, it was the turning point in the flick.”

“Well, it was shot there at New Buffalo and that nude scene in the hot spring was shot at the old stage coach crossing on the Rio Grande.” She wanted to say more but I interrupted.

“No free-land then?” I really didn’t care who or what was in a movie.

“None that I know of. But a couple of the communes I mentioned are open to newcomers.”

There was something homey about Maggie. She seemed the kind of good-natured and strong women I’d grown up with in Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho. They were different from L.A. or San Francisco people, men or women. Completely absent from her attitude was any pretension towards snobbery that I found refreshing. The tension was gone now and I could relax once I heard a more realistic appraisal of the situation.

“What’s with that?” I asked, pointing to a cross with colored yarn wound or woven around it, dangling from the rear-view mirror.

“Oh, that’s a God’s Eye.” She was grinning.

“You religious?” I was comfortable asking what I would have considered an all-too-personal question otherwise.

“You mean a church or something?” Her face lit up.

Norm butted in, “Yah, like… do you smoke pot or anything? Or do you have a church you go to?’

I could tell she loved where the conversation was going and she seemed so warm and genuine with Norm… maternal.

She gestured broadly; her whole arm jangling with turquoise and silver, “This, my dear friends, is my church. We are driving through to the high altar of the most sacred country… the church of my religion.” She then let out a, “Whoopee!” that caught me off-guard.

Laughing I said, “I want what you are on lady!”

“No,” she directed her answer to Norm. “I smoked plenty up ‘til a few years ago.”

“You don’t get high?” Norm was authentically puzzled.

“I didn’t say I don’t get high… I just don’t smoke pot.” It was getting warm so she wiggled out of the fringed vest as she was driving. I noticed she had some pretty substantial boobs hanging bra-less under a tank top. I paused a moment and wondered if this were going to be one of those great rides where everybody gets laid and so on.

“…Acid, then?” Norm probed further.

She gave him a sweet smile as she answered, “No, dear… I got tired of taking the same trip over and over again.”

Norm was like a puppy tugging on a sock he couldn’t let go of, “Did you have a bad trip, a bummer, or something?”

Her gaze was off to the horizon as she spoke, “I was a black-jack dealer in Vegas. I drank after work but never on the job. It got to be a problem… Smoked pot a lot too.”

“But you quit?”

I let Norm do all the questioning but I was listening and paying attention as the open, broad, vista of the Rio Grande cutting its way through basalt cliffs spread out before the plane, back-dropped by purple-ish mountains far beyond.

“You quit just like that?”

“No… not just like that. I got my ass away from Vegas… for one thing.” I realized I was appraising her body: Firm, lithe and energetic for her age. Hell, she could even be sixty but she looked more like forty. Under the arms of her tank top I saw the fleshy white underside orb of her right breast and decided it wouldn’t be so bad to do her even though she was old enough to be my gramma.

“I got some money from an insurance settlement and bought forty acres up by Questa… north of Taos. Man, if you guys haven’t been to Taos you are in for a treat.” I heard her saying. My thoughts turned back from the perpetual horny I’d been feeling since we got in the van back in Las Cruces.

“This is the country settled by Kit Carson and over the hills that way is Lincoln County where Pat garret and Billy the Kid…” She waved her hand toward the east as we were entering Truth or Consequences.

“Was this town named after the TV show or was the TV show named after it?” I was only kidding.

“You got it. It was a spa town called Hot Springs before 1950. Ralph Edwards visited the place so they named the town after his radio show.”

“I thought it might have a more ominous meaning… like, ‘This is your last chance to water your camel.’” Norman laughed.

She pulled the van over to a drive-in burger joint on Broadway, “Speaking of watering the camel… You guys must be hungry.”

I was lost in thought, thinking how every town has a street called Broadway or Main Street and this one had both. The streets were all broad and dusty looking in a semi-arid landscape that took some getting used to for me. Still, I could see in the older buildings the images I’d grown up with from Western movies. I started singing… “Gettie-up, gettie-up… hum-boppa-hum-boppa… mao-mao… My baby loves those Western movies…”

Hamburgers dripping with grease and fries hit the spot. Norm dove into his greasy brown-paper-bag only to come up for air to ask, “I figured you for a vegetarian or something.”

“Naw, I like red meat too much to give it up.” She said, as I felt a strong stirring in my groin with her mentioning red meat. Norm was grinning too.

Seeing New Mexico and being reminded that this was the Wild West I’d imagined with my childhood heroes, Billy the Kid and Kit Carson, stirred me. So much of what it was in reality, and is today, was unknown to me except for the fact that I was born a Westerner myself and I’d come from folks who were part of that history. This thought brought me back to the God’s Eye hanging on Maggie’s rear-view mirror.

I asked as soon as we got back in the van, “What about the God’s Eye, is that an Indian thing?”

“Yes… easy enough to make, eh?”

“What about the Indians? I saw some in San Francisco when I was there…. Y’know, Alcatraz and all that? Still goin’ on as far as I know.”

“What about ‘em?”

“I mean, what I know of Indians is from what I grew up with in Spokane: Chief Joseph, the Nez Perce, Generals Howard, General Miles and so on. I had an Indian friend who was a boxer, Danny Broncho. But really, I don’t know much and Indian stuff is all over this place.” My curiosity was authentic and ran deep. I realized that I had neglected or dismissed a whole people and that the very place I’d been raised was once the land of a tribe, a people, a nation shoved aside and forgotten in the tide of history.

“Well, you know, the Taos Pueblo people have lived on the same land for centuries before Europeans got here. They consider themselves stewards of the land.” There was nothing preachy about the way she said it and I wanted to know more.

“Max and I were going to be extras in a Western by Otto Preminger but we came out here to play cowboys and Indians instead.” Norm chimed in.

I told her about Otto Preminger… or the guy who said he was. She listened to it all, how we ended up heading for New Mexico, and then said, “Well, kiddos, you came to the right place. This here place is for those who have nowhere else to go from Billy the Kid, Kit Carson to the Spaniards who came up here looking for El Dorado. You might not stay and you might not ever come back, but your heart will never leave this place if the Spirit sent you.” When she said Spirit, she waved her arm over the landscape of sage and sand spliced through by a magical hand with hills and mountains… letting go of the steering wheel as the van barreled along the highway. Crossing over and back across white lines like the way the highway crossed the Rio Grande along the way… she drove seemingly unaware that the machine had any need for her guidance.

We got to Albuquerque as the sun was setting. Maggie stopped at a motel and rented a room. I had my hopes up but she told us we could stay in the van. The three of us sat in the room, ate some piñón nuts and so on but I could see that she was more interested in Norm than me: she and Norm were touching, gently fondling and squeezing each other there on the bed. I was glad for Norm because I hadn’t seen Norm get laid through all our travels so far. I wasn’t sure whether she was in for a threesome but I knew that I wasn’t. Everything was okay with me as it was. I retired to the van and let the children play.

That morning found us traveling further north and the further north we went the more mystical the landscape became. Approaching Santa Fe, the Sangre de Cristo range hovered in the background as sacred as the blood of Christ. Being raised Catholic, the transformative power and meaning of the blood of Christ was not foreign to me.

Maggie and Norm hit it off so well the night before that Maggie wanted to spring for a lunch in Santa Fe at The Pink; an, other-era real sit-down, restaurant. The setting was old adobe and rich with atmosphere that had me transfixed; I was home at last. It warmed me as much as my companions and the anticipation of what was to come.

Chapter 7. Hollyweird! (pt. 2)

We ran into Norm at the free clinic on Fairfax. He found the house he’d been talking about before. It was on the east-side of the freeway. The Taft House had been one of the early communal family houses in Hollywood. It was owned by an older gay couple whose idea was to have a sort of tribal place where people could live together in an experimental communal fashion. It was a nice old Victorian home though the sitting room was half filled with a large canopied bed where people tripped. The dining room had a long table that easily seated a dozen people. The kitchen was small but comfortable and all the cupboards were sloppily painted by trippers with even sloppier psychedelic themes such as rainbows and unicorns.

Miriam I were offered a bedroom upstairs, shared with another couple, which had its own bath. It seemed too good to be true to be inside, with running water and all, in a bed big enough for two couples and two cots on the side.

First thing Miriam did was to run the bath water and get in the tub. The couple, Sarah and Felix, came in the bathroom and sat around her. Miriam didn’t like being watched as she bathed but let herself be appraised regardless as Sarah noted, “You have a cute body.”

“Thanks…” Miriam answered almost shyly.

I was curious… what were these two up to?

Felix added, “Your breasts are small but perfect.”

Miriam opened her mouth like she was in a dentist chair, “You wanna see my teeth too.”

They laughed. I didn’t and was going to say something about wanting some privacy when Felix asked, “… have you two ever thought about posing.”

“Posing for what?” I asked.

Sarah picked up where Felix left off, “Skin magazines.”

I knew where it was going but played dumb and looked at her incredulously, “What?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know. It’s magazines... nudies… X rated, you see?”

Miriam was curious… enthused, “How much?”

Sarah continued, “Thirty bucks an hour for women and ten bucks for men.”

Back then X-rated meant what soft-core porn is now. I was interested but had some concerns, “What about a hard-on?”

Felix laughed, “You don’t have to worry about that. As long as there is no penetration it is legal to have a semi-hard-on.”

“How about my physique? I’m no Adonis.”

Sarah laughed, “It doesn’t matter. These jerk-off rags don’t want an Adonis… except for the gay ones.”

“Yah,” Felix added, “but you look good enough for that.”

“How long can it last,” Miriam asked, “I mean how many times can I be in a magazine without being seen over and over?”

“Oh, you just wear wigs and change it up,” Sarah assured her, “I’ve been doing it for over a year now and I still get two or three calls a week.”

So, that was how Miriam got introduced to the soft-core porn industry, I opted not to do it. It wasn’t so much that I had moral scruples but I didn’t like the idea of posing up-close and nude without getting a hard-on. It didn’t seem natural to me. I decided to take whatever job I could find and leave the porn business alone.

While I was taking an evening walk on Sunset, a nice looking black girl handed a pamphlet to me promising another free dinner.

“This ain’t like that Tony and Sue deal, is it?” I pled.

She chuckled, “No, have you ever heard of Nicheren Buddhism?”

“No, I mean, I’ve heard some about Buddhism but what is this?”

“We meet and have a service where we just chant. No preaching.”

“Oh, I get it. I had a friend in the Navy who was into chanting something like Nam-yo-ho-renge-kyo.”

“Yes, that’s it. You’re welcome to join us for fellowship and dinner.”

She was an attractive girl… reminded me of Glenda and I was intrigued anyway because of the brief discussions I’d had with Dan and Linda back at Altamont. I showed up hoping I’d meet with the black girl but the chanting had already begun. I was handed a printout of the chant so I went along with it. I didn’t know what the words meant but it didn’t seem to matter. The power of the whole group chanting was amazing to me and I found myself, not only enjoying it but, sensing a deeper reality going on. After the chanting, it got what I considered somewhat silly as individuals stood to “testify” about what chanting had done for them. There was no talk about inner-peace, clarity of mind, union with whatever, or any of what Dan and Linda spoke of. One by one, young starlets and used-car dealers, stood to tell about how they got an audition for a role in a movie or sold a high-end auto after chanting for it only a few days or weeks. They did serve a dinner too. It was spaghetti with soy meatballs.

Back at the house Sarah, Felix, Miriam and I, slept together in the big bed for about a week. There was very little fooling around considering we were all in the same bed because all of us had been busy working to make ends meet and were too tired. One night, still half asleep, I felt Sarah reaching over my waist from behind. I came full awake when I heard Miriam sternly insist, “Felix! Get your hand off my tits!”

Felix moaned, “Okay… I’m cool… it’s okay.”

“No. It’s not okay!”

I was ready to have some fun but I ceded my libido to Mariam’s discomfort. I think I might have loved her that much.

The next day Miriam didn’t show up for one of her shoots and didn’t come back to the house until the afternoon after that. Norm and I had taken a job at a carwash on La Brea and thought nothing of her absence until after we got home from work. She came in the door, head hanging, with a gnarly-bearded-tall-longhaired-hippy dude.

“We have to talk,” she grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the kitchen.

“Talk about what?” I felt a stabbing pain in my gut, “You with that guy?”

“I can’t hang here…” She started to explain.

“Are you with that guy?” I drilled her.

About then That Guy came into the kitchen.

“It’s not what you think, Max?” She began to explain.

The guy chided. “You gotta let go, man…”

“Don’t fuckin’ give me that guru-jive. Let go of what?” I glared upward at the lanky hippy towering above me and challenged, “What’s it to you if I don’t!”

“We just talked…” the voice of a guilty little girl was so unlike Miriam’s.

“All night?” I was still glaring at the giant in front of me.

“Um… yes.” She offered hesitantly.

“Oh, I see.” I turned and walked out into the rain that was lightly coming down.

I felt like going somewhere… anywhere but … I thought of Santa Barbara and how much I’d liked it there. I might head there.

I’d gotten as far on the Pacific Coast Highway as Topanga Canyon Blvd. before it started to get dark and the clouds thickened to let loose with a torrential downpour. I had been standing there with my thumb out for over an hour when a man in full rain-gear walking past me stopped.

He pointed out the direction from where he’d come, “You want to get out of the rain… I have a place down over on the other side of the creek.”

I was so enjoying the Bluesieness of standing in the rain in my sorrow that I automatically responded with, “No thanks, I’m okay with the rain.”

The Rain Gear man walked to the corner of Topanga to a store and when he came back it was dumping twice as hard.

“Really, it’s okay. I’m not queer.” He stopped and gestured once more in the direction past the creek. “My wife and kid are all warm, dry and cozy, with hot soup on the stove… You’re welcome to it.” He gave me directions, described the house and slogged on in the rain towards his home.

I stood there for another hour as the rain just kept coming. It was completely dark by this time. I stopped thinking for a minute about Miriam and the cold damp place I was standing in.

I walked up to the door and knocked. One of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen opened the door. She stood there angelically with her long ringlets of golden brown hair in a full length plain cotton dress. It was a small one-room cabin with an open loft built above for a bedroom. I put on a robe offered in place of the soaking clothes that I’d been invited to hang high above a pot-bellied wood-burning stove along with my drenched coat. The daughter was a precocious girl of about four or five who immediately wanted to sit on my lap as soon as I sat down.

A pipe was passed and I was soon after handed a bowl of soup thick enough to be a stew. The rain pounded down above it all as the evening progressed with the soft conversation, the warmth of the stove, the soothing stew of a soup, and homemade bread.

 “Where are you going?” asked the wife.

“I was thinking of Santa Barbara.”

“Are you from there?” Hubby busied himself with his bowl of soup but turned to show a gentle face as he queried.

The girl chimed in, “Santa Barbara! They have a Zoo!”

“No, I’m not from there. I just want to check it out.”

“We went to the Zoo and daddy let me pet some goats.”

“Honey, let Max eat his soup.”

“Oh, I don’t mind… really.” It was so warm and kind and nice in that room I felt as though I’d died and gone to heaven.

“What made you want to leave where you were?”

“Uh, Hollywood?”

“Yeah, if that’s where you were coming from?”

So, it went like that and we talked past the time the girl fell asleep on my lap. We talked and talked about Altamont, Miriam, broken hearts, sorrow, crushed dreams, the military, the Navy, and hope and more smoke… lots of hope for the future, and hope for the little girl. I would see some very dark days in the future but I could always point to this interlude on a rainy night in a cabin at the side of PCH with a bowl of warm soup…

I thought, if there ever was one, God surely lives in these moments.