Henry musing—what’s it gonna be? A film, poetry reading, Thai massage, a trip out west?
It was fall, a good time to take a trip. Henry savored the fall— brazen colored leaves losing chlorophyll, dying and falling off the tree, cremated in large piles, polluting the air, smelling sweet and woody.
Henry knew of a commune near Summertown, Tennessee called “The Farm,” founded by Stephen Gaskin.
Stephen a beatnik who was disenchanted with the Haight-Asbury scene in San Francisco enlists a group of like minded hippies to go on a pilgrimage out east, searching for a place to lay their straw-hats, a commune/home.
In the early seventies Stephan leads the pilgrims to the promise land— a caravan of VW Bugs, vans and trucks on a road trip, driving east from San Francisco, settling on a couple thousand acres outside of Summertown, Tennessee.
They are “Farmies,” eco-minded, anti-war, pot smoking, agro-midwives and high-tech lumber-jacks—ain’t that the shit Henry thought?
Henry would take a trip to "The Farm." He packs a small gym bag with clean t-shirts and underwear then gets dope—Mexican heroin and bottles of Robitussin.
The long bus ride from Queens to Summertown would be a dream sequence he figured, burnt leaves, worm, squirrel and rat eaten apples falling off of trees — Indian corn and skeletal scare-crows.
Henry sitting in the back of the bus, snorting heroin, drinking Robitussin mixed with Seven Up, sleepy and wasted.
Then a thirty-something Black women with a nice shape sits next to him, eye-balling him and saying, “Are you OK sugar?” He says, “I’m fine, lets party,” he hands her a plastic cup, Robitussen and Seven Up mix.
She says “My name is Donna Brown you sure are cute," he says, “I’m Henry, I’m on crazy-pay.” Saying the first thing that came to mind.
The two on a roll straight away, Donna Brown was on the run from the law and broke, Henry her golden goose.
Henry was passed out as the bus drove through Summerville, Tennessee. He would never make it to the “The Farm.”
They got off in Nashville, renting a small room, a dump in an area of Nashville called Black Bottom. The newly ordained couple mildly addicted to Heroin.
It was fall in Nashville, cool some, the two drinking all the time, eating pinto beans out of cans and half frozen hot-dogs, getting off junk, Henry knew better than to go there.
After a few weeks of daily and nightly drinking, the couple decided to go out—a night on the town in Black Bottom. They stumbled into the first bar they saw, a real dive, Santa’s Pub, elves spray painted on the cinder block facade.
Henry was the only White guy in the bar. Blues and country music on the juke-box, Donna Brown orders Tequila, drinks a few shots then walks sexy-like around the joint, flirting, Henry still sitting, anxious.
Donna Brown sits at a table with some Black men, huge men, offensive lineman huge, she talks and points at Henry. He knew what was coming, Henry slips out of Santa’s Pub through the bathroom window, leaving the bill for Donna Brown.
Back at the room he packs quickly, hits the streets and hitch-hikes out of town, thinking the bar owner and the cops might look for him at the bus station.
Once in Knoxville he catches a bus home to Queens.
Maybe the heroin and Robitusin was the wrong mix for the trip? It was the Devil's mix, a curse he thought.
Happy to be back in the city, Henry was no farmer.
No comments:
Post a Comment