Chapter 41: My Country 'Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Tyranny
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| Jeff Brown in 1970 ________________ |
February 1969
(Sioux City)
What answer?
I never received any letter from him dated January 20.
I couldn’t even finish his letter, I was s-o-o-o mad.
I confronted Mo and Dee Dee, and we got into this huge fight.
They’ve been stealing my letters and censoring my phone calls. Maybe that’s why
I haven’t heard from Pam and Eleanor, either. They denied taking any letters
and intercepting my phone calls, but I know better. Those old coots are a
two-person Gestapo! I hate them! How could they do this to me? Mo thinks I’m
the biggest whore in town.
“Why would you want to shack up with all those guys?” she asks. “You’ll
have all the time in the world for that necessary evil once you’re married.”
Those two Nazi guards are watching over me; they want to mold me into a dental
hygienist and darling little housewife.
I called my dear, sweet mother to see if I could come back to L.A. ꟷ she
told me to go to hell. Bitch. It’s all well and good for her to drink until
she’s stupid and screw around like a jackal. What a hypocrite. Why can’t these
people stop hassling me? I want to do my thing, without everyone imposing their
morals on me. But it looks like L.A. is out of the question; my mother thinks
I’m a nut, and Auntie hates my guts. I went to my room and threw things around,
just to make my point.
Mo and Dee are making me see this psychiatrist. I hate her, too; she’s on
their side, and I have no intentions of telling her anything personal.
She’ll just blab back to them. They’re wasting their money. Now they
want me to go to college. What a joke. It’s waste of time and money; I don’t
need Auntie’s college fund ꟷ she should find a kid who wants it. I hated high
school, and I doubt if I’d like college much better.
I’m still clean off acid. The flashbacks keep coming back, but now I get
a warning: a splitting headache. I hope the flashbacks and headaches eventually
go away. I read somewhere that acid doesn’t leave your body for at least two
years. I still do whites and grass, but not very often. Bennies are hard to get
here, though Isabelle turned me onto some fantastic Acapulco Gold a few days
ago. But I’m getting tired of drugs. Weed makes me sleepy and stupid and
hungry.
I babysat Aunt Colleen’s kids the other night; I need all the money I can
get so I can blow this town. After Colleen and Lyle got home, Mo called,
worried about how I would get home; it’s only a block away. It’s a good thing
she never saw me wandering the streets of L.A.
*
Last night, I
went to the Loft with Susie and her boyfriend, but Dan stood me up, story of my
life. No big deal. I didn’t like him much anyway ꟷ he was a bit of a creep.
Besides, I don’t like juicing with strange guys; they buy you a few Colt 45's,
and they think they can ball you. Know what? We had a good time without him.
Why can’t guys just be friends with girls sometimes? I like having male
friends, but I don’t like the sexual games.
Like with Tom, who I met at Foster’s Freeze, just after Stoney split for
New York; he invited me over to see his pad. I told him my sob story, about
being all alone. Tom offered me a place to stay, but that’s not what I wanted ꟷ
I already had a place to crash. I wanted someone who’d listen, a friend. But
then it was too late to hitch back to Ivar Street, so Tom said I could stay
over ꟷ permanently, if I wanted. That meant only one thing, and I wasn’t
interested.
“I have the clap,” I said. That seems to cool a lot of guys off.
“I’ll risk it,” he said. “I’m really horny.”
God, what a character. When I made it clear I wasn’t going to ball him,
he cooled off. He was actually pretty nice about it, and I stayed the night.
Tom’s a cute guy, but we had known each other for only two days and had nothing
in common. He liked classical music, like Madame Butterfly, and I like
The Doors.
Even Stoney and I didn’t make love until after we’d been living together
for about a week.
*
A couple of
nights ago, after reading an article about the Amish, I had a dream that Jeff
lived in an Amish community ꟷ makes me think about Pennsylvania and what it
might be like. What does happen in East Berlin, Pennsylvania, anyway?
Makes me think of the Berlin Wall, and how life behind it is regulated ꟷ much
like my life now.
Jeff’s writing a 1,000-page book about a 28-year old guy on a super ego
trip who’s still a virgin. Cool. I haven’t written anything since high school,
just three awful novels, two about the Beatles and other rock and roll singers.
The third novel is so-so, about a beautiful, smart 17-year-old girl who gets
involved in an international spy incident with a German man, based on my old
pen pal Hans.
Jeff mentioned Miami and the Siege of Chicago, by Norman Mailer. I was kind of out of it during the election,
with L.A., Stoney, and all that acid, but it sounds like a good book, one worth
reading. I like the way Jeff describes Mailer’s style: “He chops up pages out
of the dictionary into bite-size chunks and pours them onto to a table and
comes up with a work of genius.” I’ve never heard a book described like that;
this Mailer must be one heavy dude.
I haven’t read anything important lately; my head’s too screwed up. Just
a short story in Aunt Colleen’s True Story, a tear-jerker about a woman who runs an ad in her local newspaper: “Wanted ꟷ Live-in
Lover.”
Mo interrupts my reading, something about a pile of dirty dishes to be
done.
“Fuck you!” I scream downstairs and throw some more stuff around. Nag,
nag, nag.
After I settle down, I finish reading Jeff’s letter. He can’t get me off
his mind and wants me to come out to Pennsylvania.
How heavy is that?
He signed off: “Your loving Big Brother and fretting Also-Ran.”
Stoney was never so poetic.
I don’t need to hitchhike to the East Coast. I have more than enough
money to take Greyhound. But Mo and Dee Dee say if I go, don’t bother coming
back, ever. As far as they’re concerned, they’ll write me off, forget
they ever had a granddaughter named Jennifer. That’s really unfair, making me
choose between freedom and them. Maybe they would eventually come around, but I
seriously doubt it ꟷ they are so rigid.
Maybe Jeff’s right: we should create our own country and the hell with
the U.S. and its Establishment values. Secede from the union and get rid of all
the narks, parents, employers, and any uncool people.
I once met a guy who had the perfect plan for taking over the country and
populating it with freaks; he would take a quart of pure liquid LSD, and
go from city to city, dumping a tablespoon in each reservoir. Eventually,
everyone in every major city would be tripping and grooving; it would be easy,
then, to conquer the country, place freaks in positions of power, and exile all
the uptight people to one place, like North Dakota. Maybe it would be easier
take over a small state; Jeff suggests Iowa might be a good place to hijack.
No way! I want to split so fast, leaving the black Iowa dirt from my
shoes behind.
*
I might
consider living with Jeff out of wedlock. Shacking up, as Mo calls it. Why not?
If Jeff and I love each other, it only seems natural that we would want to
spend our lives together. We wouldn’t be committed legally, but emotionally we
would take our decision very seriously.
As Dylan says, the times are a-changin’.
Evidently, Sioux City hasn’t heard the news yet.
*
I’m bummed.
Mom wrote and bawled me out. What gives her the right? She’s nothing but
a juice-freak, married four or five times, abandoning two out of her
four kids. I’ll never forgive her for what she did to Robin and me. Why the
fuck should I listen to anything she has to say?
Mo and I got into a big hairy fight again ꟷ as usual. She thinks she can
stop me from leaving, but Dee Dee gave me permission, although not his approval
ꟷ that’s another matter. Mo can be such a bitch. When Tricia ꟷ she got married
last summer ꟷ called to get my address, Mo wouldn’t give it to her.
When Tricia asked why, Mo said, “Because I just don’t want you writing
her.”
That kind of shit is for the birds. Tricia isn’t even a hippie, just an
ordinary girl who wanted to write to an old high school pal. If she had her
way, Mo would chase away all my friends, and lock me up in a tower, and
watch me wither of loneliness. I am lonely, which is why letters from
Jeff are so important.
*
I heard from
Pam. Jimmie, Eleanor’s old man and major drug dealer, was busted and is still
in jail. A lot of the other dealers have split, which is why, I think, Stoney
left L.A. It frightens me ꟷ although I never dealt ꟷ well, maybe a little, but
no more.
Just before I left the scene, a girl just breaking into dealing asked me
to list the different types of acid, and what was good, what wasn’t. I rattled
off the names I knew: Purple Haze, Blue Moons, White Lightning, Orange and
Strawberry barrels, Blue Cheer, STP (super acid), Rainbow, and Sunshine. How do
I know what’s good or bad? Someone would give me a tab, and I’d pop it. How
else do you determine quality of street acid? And this girl’s younger than me.
When Dee Dee was in L.A., I pointed out a street woman to him. “Trash Can
Tilly,” named so because she spends her days rooting through the garbage cans
around town, looking for food and junk. She’s harmless enough, maybe a little
nutty, but everyone likes her.
Dee Dee freaked out; he said, “You’re going to end up like that, if
you’re not careful.”
I hope not.
A lot of characters hang out at Wallich’s Music City, like “Wild Man
Fischer” and Caesar, permanent fixtures on the strip.
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“My Country ‘Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Tyranny,” © copyright 2013 - present, by Jennifer Semple Siegel, may not be reprinted or reposted without the express permission of the author. Published in Memoir Madness: Driven to Involuntary Commitment
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