66—The trip

 

 

We were already in a far different world, even though we were within spitting distance of the Boulevard and The Strip, the hills rising above us, and the sound of living things with them, but also the sound of other things, voices, and music, rock music, Grateful Dead at first, and the Cream, and Jefferson Airplane, and then others I didn’t recognize.

“Is there a concert going on?” I asked.

“Na,” Dan laughed. “Just people blasting their stereos. It goes on day and night up here. Come on. I think I remember the way inside.”

We had come a long way up from the city, and aside from the music and the strong scent of burning campfires – we seemed in a different world, the road itself framed on one side by a large continuing hill that had climbed as we had and on the other, by a perpetual hedge, a green wall three stories high with a few breaks for long drives that led into some buildings I could not see.

There was a gate in front of us, but partly off its hinges from those who had broken in long ago despite the warning signs posted on it saying, “Stay out, by order of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.”

“Well,” Dan said. “Let’s get this over with.”

He headed towards the twisted gate, and I followed, little swirling around our ankles from the wind, the rattle of old bottles making the place seem more like a hobo encampment than a nirvana of hippies. And it got worse inside, where a path led into the interior – once a stone walkway, but since overgrown, with only the perpetual footfall of people coming and going keeping in clear enough for us to pass.

Extension cords were strewn through some of the trees, running like vines might in a jungle, leading here and there to places that showed illumination, as power was drawn from some remote place, most likely from some neighboring estate to feed the intense hunger this large encampment needed. We passed side paths and could just make out tents or strange houses constructed of cardboard or other flimsy materials, piles of junk outside of each, shopping carts loaded with stuff that might have been food.

In places I saw the flicker of camp fires and people huddled around them, some played guitars and sang, most seemed to be smoking dope – at least from the whiff I got as Dan and I passed.

“What are we looking for?” I asked Dan as I struggled to keep up with his stiff pace.

“Someone I know,” he said, but did not slacken his stride. “I don’t want to chance talking to just anybody. The uniformed cops might stay away from this place, but I’m sure the narcs have infiltrated here pretty well. And then, there is a chance we might run into Billy Night Rider. As I recall, he sometimes hangs out up here or up the road with the rich rock stars.”

We passed more pathways, Dan pausing at each to peer inside, only to shake his head and continue on. I saw some people fucking out in the open.

Finally, we came to a path where Dan stopped completely, peered in, and then turned up it, with me behind him like a lost puppy. This path crossed over what had once been a decorative bridge, now overgrown for the most part with a stream below it mostly dried up, save for a narrow trickle of water down its middle. On the other side, we came more brick work, the foundation of some outlying building that might have been a guest house. I could see the larger building through the trees, a massive confusion of windows, most of which were broken, and a whole side blackened from where the flames had been a decade earlier, the scent of that ancient fire still lingering despite the years.

Near the ruins of then outlying building a small structure remained, half demolished, but with a door and some windows, and people hanging out inside.

Dan called ahead. A bald head popped out, frowned, then grinned.

“Dan! You old scoundrel, what the hell are you doing up here?” the bald headed man said, stepping out, his beard so thick it made up for the lack of hair on his head. His eyes glazed from smoking or ingesting something.

“Looking for acid,” Dan said. “Seems hard to find down below.”

“Nonexistent,” the man said. “The pigs busted a huge shipment from up north, drying up everything except smack and uppers. But as it turns out, you’re in luck. The messenger just left here, leaving us with a small stock pile of everything – at twice the cost of course, but we have some if you’re willing to foot the bill.”

“What about the fuzz?” Dan asked, looking a bit nervous.

“We’re keeping tabs on them,” the man said. “We got police band radios inside. We know where they are and when they’re coming. We even got one of the narc channels. There are a few up here. But we haven’t found out who they are. But we will, and when we do there will be all hell to pay.”

“Can we get some now?” Dan asked, glancing around. “This place gives me the creeps.”

“I’ll have to go talk to Robinhood,” the bald man said.

“Robinhood?” I asked.

“He’s the big acid dealer up here,” the bald man said. “I suspect he’s taken too much of his own goods. He truly believes this is Sherwood Forest.”

“Let’s find him,” Dan said.

“Follow me,” the bald man said. “He lives in the caves. It might take some time to find out which one. Just be careful. He likes to shoot arrows at people he doesn’t know.”

We followed the bald man who led us along a stone walkway, then to another, and finally to the mouth of what appeared to be a cave. Above it, was a bridge or a Victorian era walkway, and the cave mouth opened into a stone wall beneath it. There were other entrances, including one under a waterfall elsewhere, the bald man told us, but this was the easiest to access and the closest to where Robinhood likely hung out.

“These go on for a while,” he said. “But Robinhood only uses a couple of areas. He’s in dispute with others for control. Some of the bikers hang out at the other end, somewhere further up in Laurel Canyon.”

“Billy Night Rider?” Dan asked.

“Him and others.”

The bald man flicked on a flash light and led in us into the dark space beyond. Darkness had already settled pretty heavily over the canyons so it was not as stark as transition as it might have been during daylight hours.

The cave stank like a cave, full of those wet odors that come with stagnant water and things growing in the dark. Things scurried ahead of us beyond the beam of the flashlight, which showed only bits and pieces of the passage, odd drawings on the walls in places made by hippies, not cavemen, but made me feel as if we were traveling back in time. The floor was littered with odds and ends, wrappers and newspapers, empty soda and booze bottles, and at times, we ran across collections of junk – which marked someone’s living space, only at the moment they were not at home.

We saw nobody for the first ten minutes, as we pressed on. Then, at one point, the bald man started calling head, figuring if Robinhood heard out voices and that we were there to see him, he would be less likely to shoot at us when he saw our light.

We didn’t have to go far before we heard a response. At first, I thought it was an echo, so faint and far away. But after a moment, the voice grew nearer and stronger and more distinct, and we heard the rustle in the dark ahead of someone approaching, a character with eyes that seemed to glow, wearing a Robinhood like hat, but not the tights. He had a ragged brown beard that sparkled a little from something he had been drinking, discolored beneath his nose from too many cigarettes or joints.

“What do you want?” the figure asked, stopped suddenly, as did we.

“My friends here want to buy some acid,” the bald man said, waving his hand at me and Dan.

“What makes you think I have any,” Robinhood said. “That one looks like a narc.”

“He’s not a narc,” Dan said. “I can vouch for him.”

“And who’ll vouch for you?”

“I will,” the bald man said. “I’ve known Dan for a long time.”

“How much acid do you want?” Robinhood asked.

“A few tabs,” I said. “I’m not looking to resell any of it.”

“It’s very dry down on the Boulevard,” Dan said. “You seem to be the only person who has anything.”

“It’ll cost you,” Robinhood said, and named a price.
“That’s triple what they charge down in Hollywood,” Dan complained.

“They don’t have it, I do, take it or get the fuck away from me.”

We took it. I gave Dan the cash, and Dan gave it to the bald man, who passed it along to Robinhood, with the tabs wrapped in cellophane returning to us through the same multiple set of hands.

Then Robinhood vanished into the dark and we turned back the way we came, the light showing even more strange details of this underground world, the paintings and now a few huddled people in narrow holes to either side, all of them looking at us suspiciously as we passed.

I was relieved to reach out of doors again, although it was deep dark and much later than I had expected it to be. Louise would have been home for hours, wondering where I was.

“I don’t think you should try hitching back to Hollywood tonight,” the bald man said. “The cops might not come up here after dark unless called for emergency, but they prowl Laurel Canyon Boulevard, and they will certainly stop you if they see you. I’m heading down that way in the morning, I can ride you back.”

I didn’t like it. But I agreed. The last thing I needed was to get busted carrying the acid. Maybe the ID Free Press Bob had sold me would hold up, but I didn’t want to test it and knew the acid would get me locked up anyway – maybe long enough for the cops to run my fingerprints and find out who I really was.

The bald man led us out of the caves and along a path that could have been straight out of the Lord of the Rings, ruined bridges, discolored statues, pieces of the old house down into gullies where water ran over and around them.

I had read the books on the recommendation of Free Press Bob’s wife and could not believe we had stumbled into a place so much like it. As we walked, I fingered the foil packet Robinhood had given me containing three tiny purple pills. Without Dan or the bald man seeing me, I put one of those pills under my tongue. It tasted a little like the paste we used for cutouts in grammar school, only with a slight chemical tinge. It melted slowly. I didn’t know what to expect, recalling the long ride from Seaside Heights with my friends back in New Jersey the previous summer when they had split a capsule of mescaline and again when Louise and I had done the same with Dennis. That had taken nearly an hour to get off, and even then, it had come on gradually.

Dan claimed LSD was more powerful, and I wondered if maybe doing it here among strangers might have been a mistake. I also thought about how I felt back in the apartment, knowing Louise had come straight from one of her “shoots.”

Better here with strangers than thinking about that, I thought.

We eventually settled into a quiet glen, music distant, some of it from people playing guitars, but almost mystical.

“What do you think Louise will say when we don’t get home tonight?” I asked Dan.

He glanced at me, his eyes bright with light from the nearby campfire, not laughing, but cynical.

“Do you really care?” he asked.

“I suppose not,” I said, taking the thin blanket the bald man handed us.

“Just pick a spot to lay down,” he said. “I’ll make sure you get a ride back to the Boulevard in the morning.”

Then, he was gone. Dan and I settled near the fire which was being tended by a dingy looking hippie with military shorts, a cut off t-shirt, and an American flag headband that corralled his wild looking brown hair.  A couple of girls hovered under the trees just beyond the firelight, giggling as if high, calling for him to come join them, and he eventually did.

The night closed around us. Our world existed only within the circle of firelight, beyond which I heard music and other sounds, none of which seemed real – vague, haunting things that stirred something up inside me – and not completely in a good way, secret fears rising up in my head that I tried to tamper down, as if I tended a fire which got too hot at moments.

Someone somewhere sang an old Beatles song, nothing like the stuff the radio played these days, but that early pop stuff full of love and heart ache, and yet the voice that accompanied the guitar floated above the music, weaving through the leaves of the trees over us.

Nearer to earth, other things – creatures of some sort – crawled through the bushes and trees, their grinding step stirring up stones and stirring something darker inside of me.

“Did you hear that?” I asked Dan.

“Hear what?” Dan said through a haze of smoke, a smoldering joint dangling from his lips, the fumes weaving through his thick mustache, making him look wizard-like.

“Nothing, I guess,” I said.

“Go to sleep,” Dan said. “We’re as safe here as we’d be anywhere.”

I didn’t believe him. I felt suddenly vulnerable and exposed, scared of those things beyond the light I could near but not see, and which I knew could both see and hear me.

From the trees on the other side of the fire, the giggles of the girls had turned to moans, the grunting of animals engaged, beast-like, almost brutal, painful to hear.

I had the urge to jump up, rush over and stop them, but could no longer move my limbs, as if in that scene in Tolkien’s books where the hobbits had been swallowed by the old oak tree. I imagined the roots closing around my legs. My fingers kept feeling down to cast them off, casting off the thin blanket instead.

Back at the McCadden apartment, my trips, before this and later, always started out the same way, squiggly lines moving along the stucco ceiling like effervescent green worms. But here, there was no ceiling, just the darkness and the flame, the red glow so intense I could look nowhere else, flames that took shape against the dark, some so demon-like I cringed from them, yet others dancing so beautifully, I could not stop myself from reaching out to touch them.

“Hey!” Dan yelled, slapping my fingers down before they could reach the fire. “What the fuck are you going?”

“I just…”

“Don’t just, just go to sleep,” he said.

“I can’t.”

Dan leaned closer, his moustache wiggling, his bushy eyebrows folding down over his suspicious gaze.

“You took the stuff, didn’t you?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“For Christ’s sake!” he moaned, and leaned back away from me, rubbing his forehead with the palm of his hand. “You’re crazy. This isn’t the right time or place. At least, not for someone like you. I’m going to have to babysit you for the next few hours, so you won’t freak out of me.”

“I’ll be all right,” I said, although I already knew I wouldn’t be, already shapes of dark things started to emerge beyond the flames, from the shadows, out of the moans and groans of people who were fucking like animals, as if the world had suddenly reverted to its most primitive form, and soon I might expect the beasts to attack us with only this fire and other fires elsewhere offering any protection. I eased closer to the flames. Again, Dan slapped me back.

“What did I tell you about that,” he said. “Stay away from the fire.”

I leaned back again, clutching the thin blanket he had given me, still staring at the flickering flames, the dancing demons, and something else, shapes of familiar things, even faces, my uncles’ faces, and then a litany of other faces, some I knew from other places, some utterly strange, some even recalled from my trip west, the cab driver that took me to the Port Authority, the pawn shop dealer in Philly who had sold me the pearl handled pistol that I had in my pocket, the people on the bus, the women attendants, then darker shapes from our arrival in LA, the bums in the station, the cops on guard, the women pushing shopping carts full of crap along the sidewalks downtown, slowly these catching up to where I was now, and visions of the porno scene which I knew Louise was engaged in at that very moment, I closed my eyes against these, but I still saw the horrors against my eye lids.

Then, I found Dan shaking me.

“Stop moaning,” he said, his face again close to mine when I opened my eyes again, a nervous face now, his gaze looking around as if he expected trouble. “You keep on like that and we’ll have real trouble.”

He might have meant Billy Knight Rider, or other dangerous people who I knew waited in the shadows, waited for their opportunity to strike out at someone vulnerable – like me.

“I can’t help it,” I told Dan.

“Well, you have to stop. I don’t need you going over the edge right now. I don’t have the drugs to bring you down if you freak out, and I don’t want to have to explain if somebody calls the cops.”

The word “cops” sobered me a little.

“I’ll try,” I said, and closed my eyes again.

Nearby, someone was singing. It was a woman’s voice singing along with a guitar, a gentle voice, weaving through familiar songs sung by other people in other ways, softly soothing, so that even the flames of the fire before me when I opened my eyes again seemed to calm down, taking new shapes, more peaceful scenes. The music soothed me and took me to other places, with green hills and distant mountains, and perhaps – if I squinted hard enough – the sight of castle ruins, straight out of the remains of the Middle Ages, of Middle Earth, so, I half expected a hobbit to hobble into our circle of light, Dan becoming Gandalf or Aragorn, standing guard over me, keeping away the truly evil things that still lurked in the darkness.

The hours passed. The fire slowly died and turned into embers. Dawn rose over the tattered landscape, and the intensity of what I felt eased into something less threatening. Daylight dispelled the ghosts and demons.

Still, Dan stook guard, but as I came down I saw how weary he looked, and scared, terrified against his eyes closing, not knowing what might happen if he did.

Then, I fell asleep.

When Dan shook me awake, it was fully light, exposing just how dismal our little camp really was, as were the other enclaves.

“Time to go,” Dan said, pulling the thin blanket from me. “We got to get back down to Hollywood. I have a bad feeling about this place. If we don’t leave now, we might not get the chance.”

I stood, swayed and then with the staggering step of the living dead, I followed Dan back through the broken landscape, over the crumbling bridge, through the various now-abandoned encampments to Laurel Canyon Road, which we crossed, and then slowly made our way down again, on foot, Dan too scared to even stick his thumb out for a ride, glancing always over his shoulder for expected vision of Billy or some other Ogre, a long walk even if we were both in shape for it, but a wise one because not long later, we heard the sirens, and then saw the line of police cars making their way up from below, fortunately ignoring us, seeing us as apparently insignificant in the scheme of things.

I knew then I would never see that place again and knew that predictions for its demolition would come to pass, one more icon lost in the name of civilization. And as scared as I had been during my long night there, I knew I would miss it later, looking back from the distance and safety of time.

We actually got a lift when we reached the hills just above Hollywood – which dropped us off on Highland a block west of the McCadden apartment. When we arrived, Louise was fast asleep in the bed. Dan went into his room to crash. I made a cup of instant coffee, sat on the giant pillows around the small table that made up our dining room, sipping the hot brew as I waited for her to wake.

I knew she would be going out again for another appointment; but then I also knew I might well have an appointment of my own. I would let her go and then head back to the office and the woman who promised to tell me where to go, hoping that my showing up might change the situation, yet scared to death that it might make things worse.

On the lamb menu  

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