March 7 – March 21 From Bloody Sunday Selma Alabama to Solitary Confinement, Jackson Mississippi

We crowded into a worn out 1950 Buick, five tired and discouraged veterans of the second battle of Selma. Two days earlier, on what became known as Bloody Sunday, the country had been shocked and outraged when primetime television coverage revealed premeditated brutal attacks on hundreds of Negroes of all ages who were engaged in nothing more than a peaceful walk from Selma to Montgomery for the right to vote. Mounted sheriff’s posse snapped bullwhips, vicious mobs swung chains and pipes, and cops bashed heads with clubs and fired teargas. When I joined the next march, I was ready to put my life on the line as we tried to cross the bridge again. But the march had turned around. Now I was headed back to the trenches in smoldering Mississippi.

I had my work cut out for me there. A week before Bloody Sunday, the Jackson Youth Movement had decided to take the bull by the horns. They planned to violate the injunction which had barred demonstrations in the City of Jackson ever since Medgar Evers, the President of the Mississippi NACCP, was brazenly gunned down in his driveway a year before.

The SNCC office in Jackson had been in a state of confusion when I arrived out of nowhere from Berkeley a short while ago. I immediately got to work manning the state-wide Watts line on the night shift, taking emergency calls from beleaguered freedom projects scattered throughout Mississippi, and painting the office by day. So when I was invited by an eager young guy named Ben Brown, and an energetic and upbeat 15-year-old girl named Aretha, to join them at a meeting of the Jackson NAACP requesting support for the upcoming challenge to the injunction, I jumped in wholeheartedly.

I was blown away by these kids. They walked, talked and slept freedom; they took what we taught in Freedom schools seriously. They were ready to fight, hoping their actions would light a spark and reawaken the movement in Jackson. Already streetwise, they decided to reach out for help, to raise bail, to provide lawyers, and to seek blessings from key pastors whose good words would broaden support into the community.

The NAACP’s endorsement was the first step.

The meeting quickly turned into a disaster. The ministers, funeral directors, businessman and teachers who made up the core of the NAACP were not expecting us. Like so many Jackson middle-class Negroes, the brutal assassination of Medgar Evers on his doorstep in front of his wife and children had a chilling and paralyzing effect on their lives. They weren’t about to put themselves on the line with a bunch of ragtag youth who were intent on challenging the white power structure.

The Chairman’s harsh and disrespectful tone and his curt dismissal of Ben’s attempt to speak: “Sit down, young man, you’re not on the agenda” along with his refusal to bend even a little and permit a short, face saving presentation, “We don’t have time tonight to take up this serious action you’re proposing”, elicited our mutterings of “Uncle Tom” and “sellout.”   Our heartfelt pleas that “we only want your endorsement, not your bodies on the line”, were met with “You’re a bunch of know nothing kids”, “You don’t have anything to lose”, “You’re playing with fire. Someone’s going to get killed.”

Tempers rose. The gavel pounded. “The meeting is adjourned.”

The Chairman rushed out the door followed by Ben trying to salvage something: “Please, all we want is a meeting.” His quarry jumped into a big shiny Buick, slamming the door in Ben’s face.

Aretha immediately challenged the Chairman by sitting down in the driveway singing, “We shall not, we shall not be moved.” Before I knew it, I was sitting beside her. I looked into the driver’s eyes as he started the motor and saw a mixture of anger and fear. He stepped on the gas. “Uh, oh” I thought, “this is way out of hand.” Quick witted and agile from my childhood days on the street and in the gym, and my army training, I grabbed Aretha. We rolled out of the way in the nick of time as the car sped by us. What an irony if my tombstone read: “RUN OVER BY A NAACP MEMBER” rather than, “BLOWN UP BY THE KLAN”.

We would be taking on the injunction by ourselves.

We managed to dig up a few cars, so 14 of us with a dozen signs headed down to the Jackson Courthouse. I thought to myself what a difference a few days make and what a contrast: Selma with Martin Luther King, a united Negro community, ministers, teachers and ordinary working folks along with hundreds of young people and supporters from across America bearing witness, the national press everywhere, and LBJ on the telephone; here in Jackson, only our brave little band of brothers and sisters. Well, it had to start somewhere.

We threw up a picket line and were joined by a few young newcomers. Ted, a lean, well-dressed, decorated Korean War veteran had volunteered to be our point person and attempt to register voters.   It was a sunny morning and the courthouse steps had its usual traffic.

It wasn’t long before we had company. A line of police appeared suddenly, followed by a converted World War II armored vehicle with a water cannon mounted on its turret – the infamous Thompson Tank named after Jackson’s mayor. No more messy fire hoses that people might dodge. Just one huge, powerful stream. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. I blinked my eyes and for a moment I saw a huge squat poisonous toad, its flickering tongue eager to gobble us up.

A burly guy in a gray suit with an officious air approached us: “Who’s in charge here?”

I stepped forward. “I am,” I had been chosen by the group the night before to be their spokesman.

“Young fella, you have no business being here with your goddamn signs. We got an injunction against any form of demonstration. Now get your ass out of here before you end up in jail,”

“Sir, do you mind identifying yourself.”

He stepped forward, grabbed my shirt and leaned closer, his bad breath matching his words: “Don’t smartass me punk. I’m the Chief of Police and you have a few seconds to get you and your nigger kids outta here.”

“This is America. We have a constitutional right to be here and peacefully picket in support of our friend’s right to register.”

“That’s it for you, boy.” He grabbed me by my sleeve, shoving me into the arms of the waiting cops. Everyone let out a yell as I disappeared into the building. I had a tight feeling in my gut. This wasn’t Berkeley and I was all by my lonesome.

Top of the Mark

The other two white civil rights workers and I were put in separate cells in a segregated high-security L shaped section. The main entrance to the cell block, with the porthole the cops and trustees used to spy on us, was right in front my cell door.

It wasn’t the Top of the Mark or the Ritz, but it was a private room in the penthouse of the tallest building in town – the City Jail perched atop the Hinds County Court House. It gave me quite a view of the Jackson skyline, with its Confederate flags waving in the wind, and of the stars each evening. I got plenty of fresh air from my open window, a bit chilly at night, but a necessity to escape the ever present stench from the toilet. My metal bunk was hard with a scrawny, lumpy, and stained mattress and a couple of threadbare blankets.

My first night I was jolted out of a sensual dream about my girlfriend Aubin by something skittering across my body. I sat up and swatted at one of the largest cockroaches I’ve ever seen. I looked around and spotted another one as big as my thumb, fat and sassy from feeding on the undigested remains of jailhouse slop, crawling out of the toilet, a metal bench set in the wall with a wooden top and an uncovered hole in the middle.

There was a big commotion the next morning. I caught a glimpse as two loudmouthed middle-aged hard-nosed white guys were thrown in the two cells next to mine.

They were quick to size up Ron, a red bearded, curly locked Jewish gnome from the Village, and Pete, a tall Ichabod Crane looking wasp from New England, as out of towners.

“You boys don’t look or sound like you all is from around here. Whatcha in for? Speedin’?”

Pete cut to the quick. “No we’re civil rights workers. We were arrested for demonstrating.”

The shit immediately hit the fan. These guys were country cousins of the mobs who had attacked men, women and children with chains, whips and cattle prods on Bloody Sunday, and of the vicious cowards who beat Reverend Reeb to death on the streets of Selma a few days later.

They could barely believe it. We were real live Yankee outside agitators.

“You oughtta be strung up by your scrawny chicken livered necks. My granpappy, my pa and me is proud Klan. We’ll cut your nuts off if we catch you messing around in our backyard.” On and on it went. I was sure glad they weren’t in the same cell with me.

Eventually things quieted down as we ignored their grisly words and they ran out of things to say.

The guy in the cell next to mine seemed to be the smarter of the two. He started talking after dinner.   I guess he was curious. “I don’t get it. Don’t ya have anything else to do, but come down here and stir up shit?”

We spent the next couple of hours talking. He and his partner were descendants of Scotch Irish immigrants, sharecroppers so desperate that they turned to robbing banks. Just plain, poor whites whose families were wiped out by the depression.

“I was busted the first time for stealing chickens from the boss man to feed my brothers and sisters. We wuz hungry. My pa was doing time for moonshining to make a little money. That’s what them government boys did for us.” He had a Bonnie and Clyde attitude. He robbed from the rich. “I hate them bankers in their fancy suits.”

I asked him why he was in the Klan and hated Negroes so much.

“Man, the Klan was a big thing growing up. Everyone was in it. We was all together, we all belonged. Weren’t no snobs. Even them rich guys were all the same in white sheets. My uncle took me to see my first nigger dangling from a tree when I was six. That’s just the way we grew up…” It boiled down to, “We have to keep them in their place, keep them away from our women.”

We started talking about Selma.

“What’s it you all want marching to Montgomery? Nothin’ gonna change.”

“Hey man, we’re marching because Negroes want to be treated like every other American. They want a vote, and to have the chance at a decent life, a job, a home, an education and a hopeful future for their kids. That’s what it’s really about. ”

He was silent for a few minutes and then whispered, “Say maybe when you start marchin’ for us poor whites, I’ll think about joinin’ you.”

I woke up early the next morning, thinking about our conversation. Images of my family’s poverty, eating stale bakery goods, chowing down on poor people’s steak sandwiches (heavy on the butter and A1 sauce, hold the steak), the cops dragging my dad out the door for bouncing a check to buy food. Someday, somehow it’s got to be better for everyone

I wondered how my brothers and sisters and mom were doing without me. The image of my twelve year old brother Bobby coming home with a bloody nose just before I left for Mississippi popped up. A gift from one of the O’Malley kids–a new family on the block, just off the boat from County Cork, nine kids, shanty Irish just like us, not a pot to piss in, screaming “nigger lover” at Bobby because mom had a Sunday barbecue for her good friend Minnie, and her co-workers and their families from the night shift on San Francisco General Hospital’s locked wards.

The words from one of the songs we sang in Selma, “We love everybody, we love all the Ku Klux in our hearts,” stuck in my throat. “It ain’t me babe” was more like it.

My response to the constant vicious heckling and threats from the crowds surrounding Browns Chapel the day after Bloody Sunday was to rip a confederate flag out of one of our tormenter’s hands, and to the glee of my gang and the outrage of the cracker hoards, set it on fire. So much for turning the other cheek.

Brother Ben      

Voices shook me out of my daydreams. I heard screaming and yelling from the Negro cellblock. “The march just left for Montgomery.” I recognized Ben’s beautiful strong voice echoing through bars. “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn us ‘round, turn us ‘round. We’re gonna keep on a walking, keep on a talking, marching up to Montgomery land.”

Voices rose, growing stronger. It sounded like every Negro in the jail was singing. I joined in.

The door to the cellblock flew open. A couple of jailers rushed in. “Shut the fuck up or your ass is in solitary.” I kept on singing. Next thing I knew, I was sitting in a windowless stuffy little black box.

I heard Ben’s voice, “Hey, you don’t have to be so rough I’m not fighting you.” The door slammed. He was in the closet next door.

“Ben, are you okay?”

“Yeah, they didn’t seem to have their hearts in it. Maybe they sense a change is in the air.”

“Man I’m glad for the company. Keep my mind off my claustrophobia. When I was 15, I woke up from a nightmare with my fist through the window. I guess I was sleepwalking and tried to punch my way out of a black hole.”

“You shoulda thought about that before you got on the freedom bandwagon, or else learned to keep your mouth shut better.”

“I’ll try to remember that next time. But I’m just like you, so here we are.”

“Mike, I can’t believe it. We kicked their racist asses. We took over the State of Alabama. Yeah, we needed the Army, the Alabama National Guard and a prime time nationally televised massacre to do it. But we did it. The Voters Rights Act passed. No more poll taxes. No more literacy tests. We have a chance now, a chance to change our lives. I ‘ve not been fighting just to pee in the same toilet as white people or sit next to some cracker having a hamburger. We got a fighting chance. We got the vote.”

“I don’t know, Ben. We have the vote up north and lots of folks still don’t have a pot to piss in. The Impressions may sing, ‘People get ready there’s a train a coming don’t need no money you just get on board.’ But in my life, when my family didn’t have the money, we couldn’t get on board. I think we all have a long fight ahead.”

“Mike, back in ‘63, we had thousands of people in the street after Medgar Evers was murdered.   We were ready to die. John Doar from the Justice Department convinced us to avoid bloodshed and disperse. SNCC staff calmed the brothers down and talked them into putting their guns away. All we have to show for it is the Thompson Tank and the fucking injunction that landed our asses in jail. Selma was a great victory.”

“Ben, I was pissed off on the bridge. I was fired up that morning in Browns Chapel when King brought us to our feet with his ringing words: ’We’re not going to let no police dogs, no whips, no chains, no tear gas turn us around. We’re marching to Montgomery.’

“When I looked around that morning and saw nuns and priests, Union leaders, students, retired folks and just ordinary folks pouring into Selma from all over the country, I felt like this was the America I loved. The America that united to defeat Fascism in World II. Mario Savio even showed up with a contingent of FSM veterans. I believed it was time to make a stand.

“It was a close call when I got there on Bloody Sunday. Lots of guys were talking about getting guns but cooler heads prevailed. Non-violence trumped the bad guys once again.”

We had been so busy up to now, never slowing down, never taking time to find out much about where anyone else came from, how we each got here. Solitary gave me and Ben plenty of time to swap stories.

“Mike, as a kid I just wouldn’t do the shuffle. That got me in trouble with the police. They got my number early. They been hassling me for years. I did alright in school. I was a pretty good half back and I sang in the choir, but I was looking for something to believe in. When the freedom riders arrived on the first bus to Jackson, I skipped school. I got hooked on freedom. I forgot about football and the choir and started reading Jet magazine and following the sit-ins. The movement is my life.”

A warm feeling flooded my body as I realized Ben and I were truly soul buddies.

“Ben, got any plans for when you get out of here?”

“I hear there’s a new group being formed – the Delta Ministry. Maybe I can get on staff. I could use some money, and it’s time to get out of Jackson.”

“Great minds think alike, Ben. George Green asked me to go to Natchez. There’s just a couple of white volunteers down there and nothing much is happening. Maybe they think I’ll shake things up.”

“Whew, Mike nothing like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Natchez is bad news. It’s a Klan town. Last fall, they burned down the Freedom House. The only minister in town who opened his church for SNCC meetings was dragged out of his home and badly whipped on his front lawn. I hate to say it, brother, but sounds like   you might be bait.”

“Ben, so many people have died, so many people have suffered, seems our blood is the price of freedom. If it’s my fate to die with my boots on, so be it.”

We heard footsteps. “Okay boys, it’s dinner time. Back to your cells.”

Jailhouse Jitters and Then Some

It was day 15 and I was the last one left. The policy was to get local folks out first from whatever bail was raised, and then SNCC staff or volunteers like me, even if someone’s family or friends from up north earmarked their bail. This made sense to me. The kids busted with me had a lot more to lose than I did. Still, I felt apprehensive being by myself. If I let my imagination run wild, it could be kind of scary. No one was here to cover my back.

Elmer, the head trustee, a wizened, bent over old white man who was missing an eye, liked to get a rise out of us from the get go with tales of the old days when the boss jailer would take a troublesome nigger out fishing and somehow come home with plenty of fish and one less problem inmate. They always mysteriously fell out of the row boat and drowned. That particularly eerie story didn’t bother me much at first because a good catch on a weekend fishing trip meant fried trout for Sunday supper. Now it started to loom heavy in my thoughts.

“Say boy,” Elmer said while picking up my dinner tray, “I hear they’re gonna ship you out to the farm because you been here too long. The Sarge says if you ain’t outta here in few days, you gonna be earning your keep picking cotton with a bunch of nigger hating crackers. The Captain out at the farm he don’t like freedom fighters either.. If he don’t give you a whippin’ hisself, he’ll let some of those white trash Ku Kluxers do the job. You gonna get your ass kicked, or some horny guys gonna get your ass one night. Ha, ha.”

I didn’t think his joking was funny. During my six months as a guard at San Quentin State Prison, I had learned a lot about jailhouse rapes and beatings. Convicts would also taunt me from their cells while I made my nightly rounds – me alone with 1,500 inmates and only a flashlight and a whistle. “Hey pretty boy, I’d sure like you for my bitch” or “You’ll be one sore assed kid when I get through with you.”

I knew my fears weren’t likely to come true with all the national attention on the South and after the murderers of Cheney, Goodman and Scherner last summer. But the spotlight on Bloody Selma hadn’t stopped the Klan from beating Reverend Reeb to death on the street just a few blocks away from where we were meeting. This was still the Land O’ Cotton – vicious and unpredictable. I remembered stories told around the Freedom House about white civil rights workers who were never quite the same after doing some time alone in Parchment Penitentiary or some other southern penal cesspool.

I woke up early the next day, uneasy about being the last of the Mohicans in a Mississippi jail. A cold breakfast of lumpy porridge and a burnt piece of stale, dry toast did nothing to raise my spirits.

Not much to do, but daydream about my girl, Aubin, a real steak sandwich, and getting out of this stinky steel closet. I thought moving around might help, so I started pacing my eight by eight pen like a caged tiger singing, “I’ll overcome fear ‘cause I want my freedom. I’ll overcome jail ‘cause I want my freedom.”

The door swung open: “Hey boy, you finally got a letter.” Elmer waved it in the air with a silly grin.

“Just give it to me and stop screwing around.”

It was in a pale blue envelope. I recognized Aubin’s handwriting. My first and only letter. It couldn’t be any better, coming from the woman I loved. I gently opened it, heart racing with excitement.

“Dear Michael,

“I hope everything’s going well with you. Jail sounds terrible. I have been doing a lot of soul-searching. As I sit in my room in Piedmont and think about you behind bars, caught up as always in some movement, I realize we live in two different worlds. You’re a good person and I respect you. But it’s just not going to work for us.

Good bye, Aubin.”

A sick feeling flooded the pit of my stomach. Tears came to my eyes. I felt like a G.I. getting a “Dear John letter” on a landing barge in the Pacific.

I drifted off into memories of our passionate relationship. I met Aubin while circulating a petition in the fraternities and sororities at U.C. Berkeley asking them to support the goals of the Free Speech Movement. She was a Kappa Kappa Gamma, the most blue-blooded of the sororities, and came from an old line, wealthy Piedmont family. I was a Zete, the fraternity equivalent of the Kappas, but the only politically active Zete, and she was also intrigued by my being from the wrong side of the tracks.

A spark immediately flew between us. After talking for a few minutes, I realized I had to leave to get more signatures before petitions were turned into the Dean in the morning.

“Aubin, I’ll see you around. I have work to do.”

She smiled, “You’re really dedicated aren’t you.”

A few weekends later we were both at a party at a fraternity brother’s sprawling mansion overlooking Carmel Beach on the Seventeen Mile Drive. I immediately fell madly in love with her, mesmerized by her soft emerald green eyes, her adorable nose, her tantalizing mouth, and her sharp mind. She was captivated by my FSM activities and my underdog background. Also, she didn’t just listen; she asked pertinent questions.

To my surprise and delight, she was lusty, fun-loving and creative in bed. We spent hours touching, looking, rubbing, exploring and exploding in each other’s mouths. To top it off, she loved to cuddle as much as I did. I was in seventh heaven, having found my true love.

Then I thought back to my last jail experience. I was the first FSM arrestee bailed out of Santa Rita because Jack Weinberg thought my clean cut appearance, my Greek fraternity/sorority connections, and the bruises I had received from the cops, and my experience as a prison guard would be newsworthy and give me credibility with the press. The campus was in an uproar when I returned. A campus-wide strike had shut down classes. I quickly moved between picket lines, rallies and meetings, telling my story. I was in front of the campus, standing on a stone pillar addressing hundreds of sign waving intense students, teaching assistants, professors and a dozen TV cameras and radio mics when I saw Aubin looking at me intensely as if I was her own war hero. My heart warmed. As soon as I answered the last reporter, I jumped off the pillar and made a beeline for my girl.

We fell into each other’s arms. First things first, I thought.

“Aubin, let’s get the hell out of here. I’ve done my job for now. She grinned, “Not so dedicated anymore.”

“The battle’s over for now, it’s time for love.”

We spent four hours in a nearby motel. No such luck this time when I return from the frontline.

What had happened? I thought back.

A month before I left for Mississippi, the Piedmont newspaper ran a story about Mario Savio’s closest lieutenant going with a prominent Piedmont debutante. Aubin’s mother went ballistic. She never liked me in the first place, but this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was banned from the house. I didn’t see the handwriting on the wall. I guess in the end, class got in our way.

A voice cut in on my meandering thoughts. “Hey Smith, looks like you won’t make it to the farm after all. A bunch of your buddies are here to bail you out.”

We all went to the best steakhouse in the Negro part of town that night. I ordered a porterhouse. It felt like old times when Dad would spend the last few dollars of Mom’s insurance check on steak dinners for all of us, while she lay in the hospital. Except this time, the movement lawyers were picking up our tab.

Then we went out dancing and drinking, hitting the juke joints, celebrating our freedom, shaking our booties, getting down.

Ben scored a big bottle of White Lightning which everyone else added to their drinks, and I belted down straight. I danced my troubles away, swaying and shaking with all sizes and shapes of beautiful black women. When the Temptations singing, “My Girl, thinking about my girl” came on the jukebox, I saw Aubin’s face. A wave of sadness swept over me which I quickly washed away with another swig of Moonshine and another ….

I came to in an empty lot surrounded by garbage. It was still dark and I had no idea where I was. I was alone and lost on the streets of Jackson. Somehow I managed to stumble back to the Freedom House. Head pounding, sick to my stomach, I fell into bed. I missed my family and was worried about what was happening to them. I remembered my little brother Bobby crying just before I left for Mississippi. “Mike please don’t go.” And Mom pleading “I need your help paying the bills. You can’t leave us.”

I curled up, more a scared little kid than a freedom fighter, and passed out.

I woke up to the sounds of Martha and the Vandellas singing “Mama said there’d be days like this, there’d be days like this my mama said.”

I sat up, the bright sunshine through the window warming my face. I said to myself with a grin, “Right on mama.”

Ben burst into the room “Get up Mike, George called. You’re leaving for Natchez today.”

Acid Summer

The bus trip back to California was long and boring, especially across Texas. The only excitement was the reaction to my SNCC button with the clasped black-and-white hands from folks in a seedy little restaurant and bar. To make a long story short, I got thrown out on my ass right there in the middle of the desert.

There was plenty of time to think. I wondered what’s been going on in Berkeley. According to my friend Dynamite, people weren’t thinking about Mississippi. They were thinking about Vietnam. My mission to raise money for the Natchez Youth Movement’s campaign to integrate the YWCA might not be so easy in view of this shift in emphasis. And I knew mom had been back in the hospital, so there was no telling what was going on at home. I felt kind of worn out, tired. A little apprehensive. Not sure where I was headed.

***

I hadn’t decided what to do first: check in on my family or check out the Berkeley scene. Since the bus dropped me off in Oakland, I took the path of least resistance. I needed a couch to crash on while I got my bearings, so I headed for Jamie’s pad on Ward Street. Jamie was a “red diaper” baby. Her father was an editor of the pro-Mao Monthly Review. I met her at the Hallinan’s a few years before. She was a member of the Dubois Club, the Communist party’s version of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). She was sexy, big-boned, with long, curly, almost kinky black hair: an exotic-faced beauty who resembled my idea of an Egyptian princess. Definitely different from the Marin County girls.

She opened her arms to me as if I was a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade returning from the Spanish Civil War.

“Mike, welcome home. Wow, you’re skinny! How was it? Sit down. You hungry? How about a joint and some food? I just got some Panama Red. Let me put on the latest Dylan record.” Jamie was the movement’s pot dealer. Into dope and music more than day-to-day organizing, she was arrested in Sproul Hall almost from tradition rather than newborn fire like me.

After dinner and another joint, Jamie changed the subject. “Mike, what was it really like down there?”

Super stoned, my tales of the South were a mix of spoken words and silent pictures. I told her about nights at The White House, the local juke joint and most popular hangout in Natchez. We’d been the only whites, surrounded by glistening black faces, jiving, talking freedom, forgetting fear, swaying together to Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come and The Supremes’ Stop In The Name Of Love. Folks patting us on our backs, saying thanks with gifts of deep fried, grease-dripping pork chop sandwiches, steamy spiced gumbo crammed with shrimp and crawdads, and shots of brain-sizzling white lightning. There’d been a glowing sense of community in a sea of white hostility.

***

Early one clear June morning I sat on the Golden Bear Café terrace across from Sproul Hall, my belly filled with crispy bacon, over-easy eggs and well done hash browns, gazing at the shimmering blue-green bay and distant Marin County hills glistening in the sun.            A friendly, familiar voice interrupted my thoughts.

“Hey, Mike I heard you were back from the South. How are you doing?” Linda Post, a tall, big-boned dirty blonde, horsey-faced but attractive with wide lips and deep emerald green eyes, beamed at me. “I’m late for class. No time to chew the fat. I’m staying up on Regent with some friends. Why don’t you drop by tonight? Here’s my phone number.” I jumped up, planted a more-than-friendly kiss on her lips.

“Sure. I’ll be there with bells on.’

I arrived at Linda’s around eight. The little brown-shingled Victorian on Regent Street was jumping

to the playful rhythms and lovesick lyrics of the Beatles.

…I think I’m gonna be sad,
I think it’s today, yeah.

…The girl that’s driving me mad
Is going away.

The next morning I woke up on a single futon in an alcove off the living room. Simple as that, I found my new temporary nest. Each night the music played on and on. Otis Redding crooning Respect, The Supremes insisting Stop In The Name of Love… and we kept dancing. Georgeanne, one of my roommates, became my de facto dance partner. Craig, her ever-vigilant, uptight, muscle-bound football player frat boyfriend, didn’t like to dance. I did.

Gradually, I became hypnotized by my partner, mesmerized by sensuous swaying hips and smoldering, seductive brown eyes. Portuguese-Irish, olive skin, long, shiny black hair; short, shapely peasant legs and pert breasts, she reminded me of my black Irish mother.

During the afternoon, when her watchdog lover was busy running laps, we got to know each other. Georgeanne was a good Catholic girl (no French kissing) from an upper-middle-class, conservative, all-white Sacramento suburb. Honor student, club joiner, office-holding school leader, she started Cal in 1962 as a psych major and member of a mediocre sorority just about the time I got out of the Army and returned to Marin Junior College, my UC springboard.

By the time we met, Georgeanne was into Buddha and the Kama Sutra, and an evangelical devotee of acid. Sensuality aside, her compassion, inner warmth, soothing voice, and raw sense of humor drew me deeper into her web.

***

Georgeanne was a treasure trove of facts, clinical trials, personal experiences, and local lore on lysergic acid. I was her attentive pupil.

The idea of acid attracted my attention. I’d been chasing Nirvana ever since my first blackout at age five from emptying cocktail glasses at my parents’ famous barbecue parties in Point Reyes. My weekend modus operandi by age 15 was to pop prescription Dexedrine to keep bopping all night—courtesy of my nurse mom’s sticky fingers—while chugga-lugging whiskey. My motto was “The higher the better, no matter what the outcome.”

“Mike if you want to change your life, drop acid. You’ll never be the same,” Georgeanne offered the mind-blowing suggestion. Well I don’t know about that, I thought.

“Look, is it fun? Is it a trippy experience?” I asked.

She shook her head, laughing. “Yeah, ultimately it’s a great high, higher than you can even imagine.”                        Frowning, I asked, “but what about bad trips? You know Denise? She jumped off the Greek Theater and ended up in the funny farm.”

Georgeanne shook her head, laughing, “She was crazy to start with! You’re kinda wild and far out there…but you’re not crazy, are you?”

My face turned red and I started to get pissed off. She smiled. “Hey, Mike, I was just kidding, take it easy. Look, it’s a powerful, mind-altering drug. In clinical trials it’s been successful in treating heavy-duty problems like alcoholism, homosexuality, impotence, compulsive behaviors, and fear of death in terminally ill patients. It’s a miracle.” Wow, I thought, I could use a little help in a couple of those areas, but that’s not what I’m looking for.

“Georgeanne, let’s get off the lecture circuit. Seriously, how does it work?”

“No one has all the answers, but acid has a profound effect on your brain. I believe it opens up your id. Sets your subconscious fears and desires free and shakes loose your ego, which keeps you in line. Unloosens your collective unconscious storehouse of memories, links to nature and your hidden soul. It seems to remove filters limiting sensory stimuli that surround us so we can function daily. Suddenly, on acid, we’re bombarded with unlimited colors and movement. Time stops, tactile sensations multiply and produce out-of-body sensations, hallucinations. Some have deep spiritual experiences.”

“Enough is enough. I’m in. Let’s do it.” I hugged her a little too long. She didn’t complain.

“Okay,” she said, excited. “Let’s get down to business. You’ll need a guide on your first trip. Someone who’s taken acid before.”

“Where will I…” She interrupted me. “Don’t worry! I volunteer.” She went on as if she had it all planned. “We have a place,” pointing to her bedroom, “that’s private. We need to pick a date when Greg’s not around. How about next Saturday?”

“Sure,” I said. “You don’t fool around, do you?”

“Here. Read this.” She handed me The Tibetan Book of the Dead. “It’ll help get you ready. Oh, and pick out three or four albums you love. Good music makes for good trips. One more thing: you should fast for 24 hours and don’t drink booze the night before. We don’t want your stomach to spoil your adventure. That’s all I can think of.”

“Okay, we’re on.” I shouted! We sealed the deal with a hot embrace.

***

Georgeanne, wearing a multicolored sari, dangling earrings, and a silky scarf, looked me over carefully.

“Mike too many clothes! You need to be loose.” The answer: gym shorts.

She glanced over my psychedelic music hit parade. A mixed bag: The Impressions, because they always set my bottom wiggling. The theme from Zorba The Greek sent shivers up my spine. Missa Criola, the mass in Spanish set to an Indian folk beat, touched the last vestiges of my Catholic soul. She nodded approval.”

“How you feeling this morning?” She sensed my apprehension.

“Oh, a little nervous.”

“Don’t worry,” she squeezed my arm gently. “Just remember: let go. No matter what happens, let go. Sometimes it’s a little scary. You’ll be fine; just don’t fight it.

I grimaced. Easier said than done for a scared little kid who survived by throwing the first punch.

Georgeanne led me to the bed. “Mike, lie down and relax.” With great reverence she whispered, “Close your eyes. Open your mouth. Have a good trip.” I felt a little object on my tongue. I swallowed and thought too late now.

Minutes went by. Nothing happened. Then slowly I felt strange sensations. My stomach rumbling, rolling up my throat and into my nose. Buzzing insects in my ears. Vibrating pinpoints pricking my skin. Shit my hands are melting. What’s going on? I jumped up. My legs were floating away. I fell to the floor, bugs crawling all over me. Where am I? Mirror mirror on the bathroom wall: find me. My face is changing. Dr. Jekyll. Dorian Gray. Weak, effeminate, simpering, girl-like. “No” I sputtered, my words gurgling away.

A touch. A voice. “Take it easy. Let go.” Arms melting into me. Me, her, mixed together, rolling on the floor. Me alone shivering. Metallic staccato sounds. Mom screaming “I’m not crazy,” Grandma cackling and spitting knives: “Put her away!” Fires burning. Grotesque devils reaching, grabbing, snatching, cackling “burn forever.” Ghoul-like misshapen priests growling, “Dirty! Dirty!” Flames exploding and a buzz saw bursting roasting skulls.

Swinging bodies hanging, hanging everywhere.

White hoods smothering choking red-hot blasts, shattering glass

Running

Ricocheting bullets clapping hands rich chocolate faces

Voices, thousands of voices:

Get on board, Get on board, People get ready

People all colors crying

Tears flowing. Salty tears. Rolling waves, choruses of energy drifting free.

Horses thundering across the sky and thousands of dads singing

Don’t fence me in…

Sinking into a dark abyss, then bursting into a throbbing tropical jungle surrounded by purring green-eyed prehistoric cats rubbing everywhere. Joined by supple swaying Aztec goddesses and wild-eyed biting angels. Drums pounding, warm spurting creamy melodies. Gods and goddesses dancing, beckoning let go, let go. Drifting, drawn deeper, animals everywhere changing shapes. Drums panting, pulsating, brown bodies, sparkling jaguars and sinuous snakes wrapping in and out, melting, reappearing as one

The Virgin Mary dancing, arms outstretched, enveloping.

Mother Earth, my Goddess swallowing me.

I am all life all creatures all men all women

Everything sparkling stars, sunsets melting, exploding together. Pure energy.

Joy. Love, love.

Seconds, minutes, hours, years, centuries later I slipped back into my body. Exhausted, my mind blown. I hugged Georgeanne and cried. Changed forever. Glints of hope. Glimpses of spirituality.

A cocky atheist no more.

***

My guide’s cat eyes and warm touch cast a spell over me. I was hooked. We became lovers. Well, everything but intercourse.

A bad experience with a drunken, older woman—she was 18 when I was the tender age of 15— in the front seat of a parked car had a profound effect on me. Her impatient shouts of “Put it in! Put it in!” with her 14-year-old cousin Barbara and my 16-year-old brother Bud in the back seat caused my virgin weenie to wilt. Her shriek, “what’s wrong with you?!” as she frantically pulled at my shrunken hard-on cinched the deal.

Georgeanne was patient. “It will work out, Mike,” she whispered tenderly. And anyway, I kept her satisfied. My talented fingers, amorous tongue, and cuddly nature had long since made up for my dick’s shortcoming.

A few days later, Wayne Collins, a redheaded, quick-witted Irish-American FSM veteran, asked if I knew anybody looking for an apartment. He was moving; I jumped on it.

The Pink Palace was actually pink and not a hallucination. A decrepit wooden building, a turn-of-the-century time warp, a San Francisco waterfront bordello from before the1906 earthquake. It stretched—or crept—from Regent Street to Telegraph Avenue. It featured a series of roofless wooden courtyards with two facing apartments off a long open passageway reached by creaky lopsided stairs. The only exceptions were my new home, which overlooked Regent, and another apartment overlooking Telegraph Avenue above the landlord Bing Wong’s bargain-priced cleaners. Bing tolerated the smell of pot, loud music, and occasional police raids. The tenants tolerated his peeping tom antics and unexpected appearances. Who could complain, for eighty dollars a month? Georgeanne loved the funky flavor. With no fanfare, we decided to live together, and celebrated with our first shared acid trip.

***

The blue green purple Free Speech Movement lettering on a white sheet stretched between two poles, suddenly shimmering, twisting, undulating snakes, devouring, all-consuming.

The room yawning stretching

Walls wrinkling expanding

Caressing choruses of Missa Criola rippling red-orange through my veins.

The moon melting into dancing streams of silver gold

Georgeanne, Indian goddess, quivering nest of shiny silky curls reaching out…beckoning…

CRACKING thunder, cruel, icy,

teeth-chattering wind-blasting, shriveling flesh

Yellow-violet-brown-green eyes mesmerizing, driving out fear.

shimmering shadows illuminating blackness

Soft purring words fluttering echoing…

Michael, Michael. Smoldering fingers guiding, stroking, flaming fires

Gently sliding pink succulent lips, pungent pulsating pulling quivering nerves singing.

Surging deeper, deeper.

vibrating sparks of ecstasy melting bodies

All men all women, all exploding across the sky

…on and on.

Centuries later, barely back in our bodies, we awoke to a gentle Van Gogh world. Wild, gentle creatures playing, mating, gazing, then wandering outside to a tapestry of stars and bursting shapes, colors. Like fawns in a new world, wide-eyed and tiptoeing, alert…savoring the sleeping street, each home a treasure radiating flowers, unique smells, distinct personalities.

Lost in a land of Oz.

***

Eons later, a voice—a slight whisper—startling, rising, demanding, intruding, confusing, cold cruel commanding words: court date today, free speech, jail judge now now, pleas, probation, not guilty todaY, plundering, ricocheting words between my head and through veins.

Catapulted across space and time: I was sitting in a mammoth cavern. Bright, penetrating lights. Everywhere, bodies half human, half beast. Familiar faces changing into screaming panthers and timid teddy bears, chairs changing to cages and back to chairs. Salivating, steel-fanged apes in blue capes, eyes glistening watching.

A black-robed buzzard perched in a granite nest, cawing shrilly, “Miiike Smith, Mi i i i ke Smith.”

Eyes glowing viciously, blood dripping from talons.

“How do you bleed?”

Drawn like a moth to a flame, standing before him, my insides becoming cold blue embers, paralyzing. Wincing, a gavel pounding my skull.

“Mr. Smith, what’s your pain?”

My heart pounding run run run. The walls waving, cracking into a halo of colors, showering sounds freedom freedom. Music wrapping around me.

“This little light of mine/I’m going to let it shine,” growing choruses, “ain’t gonna let no judge turn me around.”

Then: calmness, strength, flooding rising in me. Visions of black and white faces in the Selma sun. Students marching proudly into Sproul Hall, voices booming “We shall overcome,” their energy flowing up and down my spine.

“Your Honor, I’m proud I was arrested for what I believe in. I won’t take probation. I’m not going to stop fighting for freedom.” Turning, spirit soaring, striding down a long tunnel. A ray of sunshine shimmering, growing closer.

Then a searing, jolting, iron vice crushing my arm.

A stern, tough voice ripping, tearing. “Mike Smith, you’re under arrest for operating the FSM sound truck on December 2 without a driver’s license.”

***

Bars, guns, billy clubs, steel doors slamming, my body turning to stone, snarling rage boiling into spitting words. “I was in jail three times in Mississippi. If you lock me up I’ll go crazy.”

The voice, soft, dripping drops of feeling, a gentle touch. “It’s okay, son, it’s okay. I understand. I’ll let you go. We’ll deal with this later.”

Bursting free, humanity wrapping around me showering red white and blue flowers. Muscles shivering currents of love. My body floating free. A song flooding my ears.

I love all the PEOPLE

I love all the PEOPLE,

I love all the PEOPLE I love all the PEOPLE in my heart

***

Lying in bed after a restless August night, the thought of meeting mom’s psychiatrist at Napa State Hospital in a few hours churned in my mind. What’s this all about? Why me? What can I offer?

I wasn’t worried about mom, though she was back in the hospital for the second time since dad died in 1963. After a month’s rest, the right combination of medicines, no stress, no double shifts at San Francisco General Hospital psych ward, no eviction notices, money pressures, booze or Dexedrine, the old mom emerged. She was clear-eyed, confident, and compassionate. She was at peace for the moment, her heart of gold shining bright.

She was also unofficially running the Open Ward, helping the staff, consoling the frightened, listening to the ravings…and followed around by a bevy of goo-goo eyed admiring men… even an occasional woman. She was the undisputed Queen Bee of the loony bin.

Napa State Hospital was a world of its own: Alice in Wonderland, The Snake Pit, and the Land of Oz. To its people, the crazies of the Bay Area, it was their town with jobs, stores, events, old friends, and old enemies. A safe haven from cold mean streets. A place of contrasts: loneliness and community, straight jackets and dances, shock treatments and stolen love. Mom fit in, and in a strange way, so did I.

***

“Mike, we gotta get going if you’re going to take a trip. Your breakfast is ready.” Breakfast: half tab of Owsley pure, a snack for me and a glass of orange juice. Food and psychedelics didn’t mix. We had decided the night before that a little acid wouldn’t hurt. Just a touch to open my synapses, set loose my Jungian collective unconscious, get past the institutional bullshit and down to reality.

Georgeanne, the sober guide, and driver, would handle any unforeseen problems. She was in one of her good moods, upbeat and smiling, thank God. The acid took hold as we left, turning my world into bursts of colors. Cruising down the highway, lost in the Beatles the Byrds and the Temptations, the world wrapped in, out, and through me.

The Bay:

Sparkling blue green yellow showers of light

soaring smiling dancing whales and dolphins carrying me on their backs

vanishing in a kaleidoscope of images as I soared across the San Rafael Bridge

Floating to Sonoma:

Italian restaurants sizzling smells, fields of apples, pears, and cherries sweet tasty touches.

Boyes Hot Springs…Aqua Caliente…Fetters: warm pools, cold pools hot pools

The car stopped, a voice brought me back. “Mike, we’re here. Mike, we’re here.” Looking out the window at a weird village, the buildings weaving while creatures wandered around. It was a fairyland, strange not threatening, a gesturing streaming, wounded humanity. We went in.

The door slammed, locks snapped behind me.

Windows wire mesh, bars choking, screams, the shrill mad laughter of the wild-eyed

Playland-at-the-beach lady, her piercing voice rising louder and louder.

The hunters, stalking…jangling keys, the hunted turning into Ming’s mud people fading in

and out of the walls, crying

Georgeanne grabbed my hand. “Mike. Mike, it’s okay.” The panicky claustrophobia receded. Just in time, a door opened: escape! A smiling secretary.

“Mr. Smith, please have a seat. The doctor will see you in a moment.” Closing my eyes, “oh freedom, get all over me walking and talking…” My mind stayed on mom, mom, I’m here for mom. Fannie Lou Hamer smiling, singing, Deep in our hearts we are not afraid, and turning into mom’s Negro coworker, Honey, it’s okay. Your mom needs you. Be strong like her.

Another door sprung open. Mom’s shrink, no Glenda the Good Witch, wand in hand: a tall, green-eyed, beautiful blonde. A melodic, calming, loving voice. “Michael, good to see you. Your mom’s doing well.” Caring eyes wrapping around me. A slender hand grasping mine, a flood of warmth enveloping me. Fear melting, tears flowing, words gushing.

“Save mom, save me, save the kids. What am I going to do?”

Her arms went around me. Earth Mother. Mary Magdalene, Goddess of Love, Virgin Mary: a chorus.

“Mike, believe me, people love you.” Tremors of relief. “You’re not your dad. You can’t save your mom. You can’t save your family. It’s time for you to live your own life. It’s not healthy, trying to be your dad, and it’s not good for you. People love you. Be like Zorba the Greek. “… undo your belt and look for trouble.”

***

Like a homing pigeon, I’m headed to Corte Madera to celebrate my brother Bobby’s fifteenth birthday. He was a quiet, serious kid; shy, no girlfriends, lots of buddies, played sports. Didn’t date. Just one of the guys. A five-foot, seven-inch, sharp-eyed point guard, a team player, a great playmaker. A deadeye in practice, and like me, he, often joked in front of crowds. We were always close. He liked talking about history and current events. But since last spring, when I deserted the family for Mississippi, there was a distance between us.

I spent most of my share of the movie-pot-eat-out money from my $250 a month work study job as a PE teacher at Berkwood School on birthday gifts: a new basketball, a few clothes, a couple of sports books, and five dollars stuffed in a card. The rest went for frozen Banquet fried chicken, a small chocolate cake, and vanilla ice cream.

Jane, my 13-year-old sister and relief family caretaker, had called the week before. She was an intense, pretty girl, with a smidgen of freckles on her nose, dad’s hazel Irish eyes, and mom’s warm smile.

“Mike, mom’s not doing so well. Last night she lost it, flipped out at Ginny, started yelling, throwing things around. The neighbors called the cops. They almost took her away. Somehow she convinced them they shouldn’t bust a nurse. Mike, she’s awfully sick. She hasn’t been going to work. I’m worried.”

It sounded familiar. Some things never change, I thought. “Look, Jane, I’ll be at Bobby’s birthday party next week. I can’t do anything right now: I got a job, and school.” And a life, I thought.

Georgeanne was less than enthusiastic about our visit. “Mike, let’s keep it short. You know how it will be. Can’t you just avoid the pain, say happy birthday, drop off the presents, make up an excuse, and leave?”

My anger flashed. She’d touched a sore spot. “Knock it off. It’s my family. I can’t let my little brother down.” Something had changed in me. Maybe the worry was wearing me out.

Georgeanne hugged the passenger door, stony faced. Lightening up a little, I thought that maybe she was looking out for me. I reached over and touched her cheek. “Look, I understand where you’re coming from. Thanks for caring. The kids are counting on me. We just have to hang out for a while. We won’t stay too long.”

***

The little second-floor apartment on Pixley Avenue was just off Interstate 101. It was more like a cheap motel. It was L-shaped, two stories with a cloudy, funky swimming pool and a few beat up beach chairs. Folks staying there weren’t on a Marin County vacation. More like the end of the line, the last place for the down-and-out trying to stay in Corte Madera.

The apartment was barely two bedrooms. The largest was shared in a shift rotation: the two girls at night, mom—if she slept at all—during the day. Bobby’s room was little more than a closet. The family space was a combination living room/dining room and kitchen that barely held two people.

The last time I lived there was just after my arrest in Sproul Hall. I was selling shoes at Montgomery Wards during the Christmas season, and camping out on the living room floor, falling asleep to Johnny Carson or late-night movies. As we walked upstairs the sound of Tony Bennett belting out I Left My Heart In San Francisco made me wince. I flashed on visions of mom plastered at the Embers bar, driving everyone crazy playing Tony on the jukebox, over and over again mumbling about dad, while I tried coaxing her to come home.

Jane answered the door.

“Hi, Muchie.” She winced at her hated nickname. Maria, the last of our Mexican live-in maids, had called her Muchachita, and I shortened it.

Jane leaned toward me and whispered. “Mike, mom’s in one of her moods.” Mom sat at the table with a half-empty gin bottle, plastered, puffy-faced, and weepy. It was the same old refrain: “Oh Bud” referring to my dad, “how can I live without you?” Ginny, 11, sat wide-eyed on the couch.

Mom suddenly shifted from morose to belligerent and barked, “Mike, where the hell have you been? You too busy raising hell in Berkeley to spend time with your family?”

“Ah, come on, mom. Take it easy. Let’s have fun. It’s Bobby’s birthday.” I gave her my best smile, put down the presents, and hugged her.

Bobby, heard his name and came out of his room. “Hey Mike! How’s it going? Haven’t seen your name in the paper lately.” I hugged him and he tolerated it.

“Happy birthday, Bobby. How’s basketball?” A safe subject.

“Great! We’re in the playoffs!”

Mom’s voice seemed to get louder. “He’s gone…he’s gone. He’s not coming back. How can I live without him?” I shuddered and thought, this is too much.

“Hey kids, I got a new Beatles record.” I turned Tony off but before I could put the Beatles on, Mom shrieked.

“No, don’t you dare put on that hippy garbage. Put Dad’s song back on.”

Georgeanne squeezed my shoulder. “Mike, let’s get out of here.”

Bobby’s face froze. Ginny whimpered, and Jane pleaded. “Mike you gotta stay. Just don’t pay any attention to her. Just ignore her.”

Pissed off, mom bellowed, “Jane how dare you talk to your mother like that. And you,” focusing her anger on Georgeanne, “you little smartass, who the hell do you think you are? You’re not so special. Remember, you don’t shit violets.”

Suddenly, I heard a warm compassionate voice echoing in my head.“Mike, you’re not your dad, you can’t save your family.” Tears streamed down my face. I choked out “I’m sorry, Bobby, here are your presents. I have to get out of here.” Ginny started crying. Jane was still pleading.

“Mike, don’t go.” Bobby was withdrawn, silent.

“Don’t you dare leave,” Mom snarled. Turning, I grabbed Georgeanne and opened the front door.

The last words from mom’s mouth were, “You’re no good. The Hallinans ruined you. You’re a no-good little son-of-a bitch Communist.”

***

From far off, a strange, out-of-place sound plunged through the pleasures, limbs entwined, bodies melted into one, pulsing, pounding, purring mass. Again: sharp, insistent, different.

A knock, a penetrating, piercing knock. Unraveling minds and bodies. Struggling, pulling me back together. Again a knock. Survival. Ears quivering, sensing, smelling.

No, not the cops, but not the gentle rap of our neighbor. Something different.

The voice. Out of place, out of time, out of a misplaced history. My bother Bud.

“Mike! Are you in there? Mike, are you home?” My body turned icy cold. A primitive chorus wailing in me.

“Oh no, oh no oh no. It can’t be true.” I knew. The door blew open and black clouds swirled around Bobby and Bud. A voice ripped through me, splintering my soul.

“Mike. Mom’s dead.” My body twisted jolted gasped for air, smothered in oily waves of guilt, stung by stabbing knives. I fell to the floor, rolling rocking sobbing. Hands touched me. Voices swirled, made no sense. Warm arms around me, finally comforting, calming, crumbling, then a crazy, wrenching crescendo.

“No. No. It can’t be. I’m sorry I’m so sorry. Mom, come back. Let me hug you once more. Oooooooooooohhhhhhhh.” Bud’s voice a spear piercing my madness, stirring Celtic roots. The family, the clan, my people, they need me. A song swirled in my head. The Minstrel Boy To The Wars Has Gone.

“Mike, pull it together. The kids need you. We need you.”

Another voice. Mom’s. “I need you. You can do it. You’re a fighter.” I got up off the canvas, shook my head, tears still flowing, feelings raging. I hugged Bud and Bobby and walked out the door.