1967

School was out at Berkwood. No more sleepy-eyed kids to greet at seven in the morning. Margie had taken the letter from Leslie as a big deal. Fed up with my antics, she declared a time out from our relationship, dropped out for the semester and went back to Ojai with her parents to think things out. We gave up our treasured pink palace apartment overlooking Telegraph Avenue. Everything was up in the air. Part of me panicked. Part of me relished the freedom.

A few weeks later, I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I hitchhiked from a Peace and Freedom party convention in Santa Barbara to her house in Ojai to patch things up. Her parents were cold. She was distant. We had separate rooms. I convinced her to sleep in the apple orchard with me, hoping to rekindle the fires of love. We didn’t.

I grabbed my funky Montgomery Ward sleeping bag with grizzly bears printed on the inside, my army-issue duffle bag and headed out the door, dressed in my finest movement version of hippie attire.

I wore my trusty blue denim shirt, blue jeans and scruffy cowboy boots. For flare, I replaced my worn-out World War II brown leather bomber jacket with a treasure Margie had found in a second hand store: an antique, yellowed buckskin jacket with fringe fit for wild Bill Hickok. I perched my battered straw Mississippi freedom hat on my head. It had been a gift from my jailhouse buddy, Ben Brown. It was adorned with the iconic SNCC button with its clasped black and white hands and a United Farm Workers button with Mexican Revolution hero, Pancho Villa, sporting a ten-gallon hat and crossed bandoliers. I wore a necklace I’d made on my last trip to the beach with Margie: a leather throng with shiny blue-green abalone shards and exquisite, tiny seashells. A “Free Huey” button, the Black Panther leader sitting in a chair, holding a rifle, was its centerpiece. My final touch was a leather belt with silver conchos.  A worn scabbard hung on my hip holding a hunting knife. I wasn’t exactly subtle.

As the sun rose, I stood on the freeway, my thumb out, waving a cardboard “Big Sur” sign.

By noon, I was crossing private land on a faint trail headed for my secret beach; a hidden paradise with a bubbling stream and a waterfall, tons of driftwood for fires or sculptures, and a dugout to sleep in, which we had built on our last trip there.

In a flash, I was naked smoking a joint and mesmerized by the power and beauty of my mighty mistress, the Pacific. I went into a trance, lost in the sun’s golden rays bouncing off of the emerald-green, pulsing waves that exploded into sparkling rainbows of colors. Lulled by sea birds dancing minuets across the shimmering blue sky, I relaxed and let Mother Earth wrap her sensuous arms around me. I drifted off to sleep in a cloud of collective consciousness, memories and longings.

I awoke at sunset, salty, sandy and sunburned, dreams lingering. Images, swirled with fragments of voices: “Sweetie, politics give me a headache. I’m scared your gonna’ get hurt. Can’t you quit?” Margie, the gentle deer woman, with a hurt look on her face, melted into Leslie, my elegant, intellectual enchantress, her eyes possessing me. She seemed enraptured with my bittersweet life. “Michael, I so admire your passion, your love of the people your ability to channel your pain and anger into to action.” I shook my head to clear my thoughts. It was time to look for some warm company.

I headed for Nepenthe, the happening restaurant and bar, perched on a bluff that stretched out over the Pacific. It was a cross between a moneymaking tourist trap and a hippie hangout that had good vibes. It also had, spacious grounds with plenty of bushes and trees to get high behind, spectacular views of the ocean, and a primo juke box loaded with ass-kicking tunes, from old 50s hits to the best of Motown and the latest Beatles. The management was hang lose. You could start at noon, nurse a beer and close the place down. It was definitely the place to meet my kind of folks.

My waitress, attractive in a rawboned, horsey way, with a wide mouth, square jaw, almond-shaped inquisitive, liquid brown eyes, high cheekbones and a nose a shade too big gave me a warm smile and said, “My name is Wanda. What can I do for you?”

I liked her long, sun-bleached and sandy mane, but kept my thoughts to myself.

“My name is Mike. I have a bad case of the munchies. How about a hamburger and French fries?”

Her eyes took me in. “That’s some outfit. Where you from?”

“I’m on rest and recreation. I just got a 60-day sentence for an anti-draft bust in Berkeley.  I need to mellow out.”

“Right on. I hate the fucking war. My kid brother just got drafted.”

“Have you ever been to the Esalen Hot Springs?” she asked, later that night, just before closing. “Some of us are going down after work. You want to come along? We get in free, no hassles, because we know the folks that work there.”

In the old days, when Henry Miller and the beats hung out in Big Sur, the hot pools were nature’s gift to everyone. Now it was a hip scene for rich liberals. A touchy-feely place: nude gatherings, a splash of free love. Wandering hippies were not welcome.

A little after two in the morning, five of us packed into a beat up, green Volkswagen and whizzed past the gate guard who recognized the car. As we pulled up to a large stucco building with lots of windows, I could hear Aretha Franklin blasting out her latest hit, “Respect.” My hips started moving. I was up to get down on some Motown sounds.

The room was crowded with happy folks dancing and carrying on. All ages, all shapes, a mix of staff made up of trim young dudes and delicious, longhaired beauties and an assortment of older paying guests. l just couldn’t hold back. The beat ran up and down my spine. I jumped in and joined the swinging and wiggling butts on the dance floor. My style, sharpened by months hanging out in Mississippi juke joints, stood out and I was soon dancing in and out and around a couple of sensuous women.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. Caught up in the music I just ignored it. A more insistent tap and I turned around. A guy with a smile said, “Sorry to interrupt your fun, brother, we got to talk.”

“Hey man. What’s up?”

“I don’t think you belong in here. You’re not a guest and you don’t work here.”

“Look man, I’m with Wanda. She invited me.” He looked over at Wanda who was watching the scene come down. She smiled at him and yelled, “Tony he’s okay. He’s my friend. He’s with me.”

My adrenaline was running. I asked the dude, “Where’s the bar? I need a drink”

“In the next room, brother. I’m sorry I had to hassle you, but that’s my job.”

I hit the bar just as Aretha Franklin finished her last number. A surly looking dude, a cross between a biker and a hippie, with a street-hardened face and jailhouse muscles was pouring drinks and playing the music, “Give me a double whiskey and can you play Aretha again.” He looked me over and shook his head. “Hey man, how in the hell did you get in here?”

Fuck this, I thought. “I’ve already been checked out once, so lighten up and pour me a drink.”

His jaw tightened.

“That’s it, buddy. You’re eighty-sixed.” He rushed around the bar grabbed my arm. “Out of here.”

“Cool down man. Get your fucking hands off me. Check it out before you do something stupid.”

He turned red in the face and yanked my arm roughly. His mistake. My left hook knocked him on his ass. All of a sudden, the dancing, peace-loving people turned into a lynch mob. Screams drowned out the music. “He hit the bartender!” “Get him!” “Get him out of here!” People were all over me, both the guests and the hired hands, like chickens seeing blood and pecking some poor bird to death. Outnumbered, I decided discretion was the better part of valor. No more left hooks or combinations.

But if they were going to throw me out, they were going to have to drag me out. The whole place was a bedlam.

“This is bull shit,” I yelled. “What we get for free, you’re paying for. What happened to all your love? I’m a freedom fighter. The real revolution isn’t happening here. It’s happening in the streets.” That just pissed them off more. I was spoiling their party.

As they pulled me towards the door my fist shot in the air and I shouted, “Free Huey.” A punch hit me in the eye. Someone grabbed my free arm and wrenched it behind my back. Pain shot through my shoulder. A boot smashed down on my instep.

I heard Wanda’s voice screaming, ” Are you guys crazy? Leave the poor guy alone. He’s with me.”

It was at least 100 yards up the hill. I felt like Christ carrying the cross. I wasn’t going to go down. I wasn’t going to give up. They were going to have to earn their silver pieces.

One of the kinder stooges said, “Bill, let’s not hurt this guy. He’s one of us”.

Shit, I thought. Bill. That’s Pam’s friend. Pam, who aided and abetted me when I was Berkeley’s most wanted radical, had filled me in about her on-again-off-again boyfriend, who worked there, just before I left. “Mike, look him up. He knows his way around Big Sur.” I had hoped to bump into him and maybe work my way in.

Luck of the Irish, I thought.

“Bill, I know your girlfriend, Pam. Calm your buddies down.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, ass hole.” He punched me in the ribs.

A little while later, I found myself in Wanda’s nest, a one room cabin snuggled in the pines. With a fire going, candles burning and Ravi Shankar’s gentle tones playing, two naked bodies linked in a soothing embrace. My wounds were licked with love. We blended gently. I sunk into her sweet-smelling honeypot, and we exploded together, a celebration of love and caring. We fell asleep two strangers linked by our shared dreams, touching briefly in the tapestry of life.

Wanda woke me up the next morning coming back from the store with breakfast.

“Mike you sure shook this little town up. The word’s out about last night’s Battle of Esalen. The community is buzzing. You’re either a wounded peace warrior or an aggressive troublemaker. Depends on who you talk to.”

We ate, talked about the night and a bit about ourselves. It turned out she was a UCLA drop-out, an art major, following in the footsteps of generations of artists, seeking serenity and creative stimulation in the rugged beauty of Big Sur. With a little prodding she opened up and shared her work. I was struck by her vivid surrealistic paintings, which had a touch of my favorite painter, Vincent Van Gogh.

We sat on her bed and watched a deer and two fawns quench their thirst in a fern-lined, rippling creek. Our eyes met. Our bodies followed.

Later, we headed for Nepenthe.  I decided to head for home. Wanda asked around to see if anyone was headed for Berkeley.

There was no secret about who I was. Besides my garish get up, I sported a black eye and I had a slight limp where the foot had ground into my instep.

Gradually, people came over to the table with comments like, “Brother, what a bum deal. They shouldn’t have done you like that”. “Keep on trucking. We’re with you.” Maybe they were all Wanda’s friends trying to make me feel better. I felt a deep sense of community, and fought back tears.

Wanda, God bless her, found me a ride. We hugged. Two strangers: suddenly brother and sister, lovers who touched each other’s souls and then moved on.

I didn’t have a permanent pad in Berkeley. Since Margie and I had separated, I’d been moving around with my sleeping bag from couch to couch. I ended up staying at Percy’s house. He was an energetic, fast-talking black guy, who always had good pot, never missed a demonstration, had the best Motown collection in Berkeley and threw parties at the drop of the hat.

I felt a burning need to tell the story of my Esalen experience. I sat down to write an account of two communities clashing, of conflicting ideals and of pain and love. I sent my ramblings to Max Baer, the publisher of the Berkeley Barb. He said he’d think it over.

The next morning, thoughts of Esalen had vanished.  A story in the back pages of the San Francisco Chronicle broke my heart. “Ben Brown a 19-year-old civil rights worker, had been killed by the Jackson police the day before, during a demonstration. Grief overwhelmed me. Anger exploded in my brain. “No. No!” I burst into sobs. “Not Ben.’’

A few hours later, a poem poured out of me.

The Berkley Barb published my poem, “Who was Ben Brown?”