Party time
About this time my father contacted me for a Thanksgiving dinner in Marin, where I’d meet my future stepmother and a business partner of his, Larry K. At dinner, this man offered me a job in San Diego where he owned a small robotics company called Modular Mechanics, to start in January. I accepted on the spot and as this was Kim’s old turf he agreed to accompany me.
Of December and the Indian girl, I recall little. Dennis and Andy would drop by some evenings. Andy had collaborated with a friend on a Sherlock Holmes novel typed on one continuous roll of paper, (like ‘On the Road’) and was all excited about getting it published. He was a nice guy, had been in the military but drank way too much beer each day. After he got started there was no stopping him. He passed out on my floor one night and woke up in the middle of the night screaming, like delirium tremens.
As Christmas approached I received my package of cake and some money. As the decade was about to end Andy and Dennis decided to throw a big New Year’s party. First we went to the Grateful Dead concert I mentioned before, high on mushrooms. Then, around two a.m. to a house of about thirty people congregated and drinking, the main feature of which was an industrial sized tank (fifty-five gallons) of nitrous oxide (commonly known as laughing gas). One person stood beside it filling balloons for one and all, which, when inhaled, produced a wonderful feeling of euphoria and dizziness which lasted only a minute then vanished without a trace. But you could repeat the dose countless times with the exact same effects, and sober again a minute later. It did cause a great deal of laughter for no reason. Only one guest got carried away. He figured he could forgo the balloons and put his lips directly on the valve, the pure source as they say. This quickly froze his lips blue and he passed out for lack of oxygen. But we revived him and he was fine again in ten minutes. It didn’t stop or even slow the party.
I met a girl at that party from Texas, curly haired, glasses, about my size, with a strong Texas accent and sporting white, glittery cowboy boots. We proceeded from talking to kissing to my house and to the single bed, where we ate some bennies to stay awake. She had a home flight later that day and I drove her to the airport. She called me several times in the following weeks, begging me to come to Texas and live with her, but I’d just started my new job in San Diego and I liked it. But for that I would have gone to her, another case of our lives being shaped by random, chance circumstances.
