Mary Beth
Over the next two months we had four or five more large, late night parties, ending when the speed ran low. I remember one was so large that we had three bands playing at the same time, one in the living room, one on the roof deck behind the kitchen and one in the hallway outside our apartment.
Because we were right on the border of the ghetto of Oakland the police never bothered us. Even back then there were areas they simply would not patrol. The other tenants of the building (there were five other units, two upstairs and three downstairs) never complained. Across from us lived two lesbians who rarely showed themselves in the hall and never spoke to us. Only once did the old, black landlady come up and complain. But she liked Bones so much, as he often talked and joked with her, that it was a halfhearted attempt. The amazing thing was, with so many strangers involved, and drugs, we never had a bad scene or altercation at any one of the parties. I remember one time two very scary large black fellows showed up around four a.m., wearing sunglasses. They had brought conga drums with them and joined in the jam. Everyone seemed to respect what we were doing, along with our generosity. We even had Will Scarlet from the band Hot Tuna show up for a few and play harmonica. Even though he’d sworn off drugs he accepted a line I offered him one night in front of everybody, out of deference. He invited me to a party of sorts at his house around this time. It was a group of hippies, mostly women, sitting in a large circle on the floor of his large living room, drinking beers or whatever, discussing issues. One woman brought up the point that we should all be vegetarians. She was sitting next to me. I refuted her by pulling up my lip and pointing out my incisor teeth, a palpable, contradictory argument which won the moment.
After each party people would show up the next morning to help clean up. Red haired Russ, the poet and an enthusiastic participant at all our parties would even crash on the floor behind the couch that night to be there for the cleanup. Our parties were famous, the talk of the town.
The morning after our second party as we were just starting to clean up around noon, we found we had another red-haired guest. She was short and petite, light-skinned and looked about eighteen. She surprised all of us as she stepped out from the closet, fully dressed, rubbing her eyes. She told us her name was Mary Beth and that she’d slept there because she had no other place to stay and no money. Neither of us had noticed her the night before. She was very cute, so Bones and I told her she could stay with us as long as she wanted. But in the next few days we both perceived that her mind was not quite all there. Whatever her age, she had a child’s face and the mind of a five-year-old. She would sleep with Bones in his loft one night and me in the middle room the next. We didn’t even ask her. She just fell into this pattern voluntarily, slipping into his bed or mine, often hours before we retired, as we did lines and talked to guests around the coffee table till four a.m. We took care of her, fed her and entertained her, but it was no easy chore. The rule we came up with was that the night you slept with her, you had her in your hands the whole next day. And by this I mean holding her hand when outside, as she might wander away at any moment, for no reason and not even aware of where she was. She was a lamb in a forest full of wolves.
Here’s an example: One morning (it was my turn) I took her to a breakfast spot across from a Walmart near Shattuck avenue. She had no conversation except on the most mundane particulars, exactly as if you were with a five year old. After eating she asked if we could visit the store. We wander around and stop at the photography counter. She asks the clerk to see a Polaroid camera. He hands her one then she asks about the film, how it works, how to load it and use it. He brings her a roll, shows her how to load it and then she takes the camera from his hands and begins snapping pictures, one after another. I end up buying her the camera and film and dragging her out of the store in a hasty, embarrassed retreat. I’d take her to the Med. and she’d sit quiet for a half hour, sipping her coffee until done, gazing about. Then I’d walk her around campus. She was like Alice in Wonderland as I guided her by the hand, naming the buildings, explaining what each was for, while she didn’t seem to grasp a tenth of what I said. Then early back to the bar, where she was safe and I eager for the next day when she’d be Bones’ responsibility.
We had another large party a week later and at this one, keeping her in my sights, I had to grab my friend Amira by the arm to help stop two black youths, a few feet away, from stuffing some kind of pills down her throat. She’d been sitting on a lounge chair talking to them for a while. I remember sticking my fingers in her mouth and pulling them out. The next day Bones and I had a talk. She was too much for us to take care of. We riffled through her purse and found a Chicago number and called. It was her father. Bones told him the situation, he seemed indecisive but Bones said she had to go. The next day we borrowed a car, drove her across the Bay, bought her the plane ticket and put her on it. He was grateful in a return call and I think he reimbursed us. She was lucky to have wandered into our hands, such a leaf in the wind, somehow landing in that dark neighborhood.
The few times we asked her how she ended up in our pad, she had no clear answer, except that she came in and went to sleep in the closet. That’s all she knew. We guessed she must have found it right upon arrival. Even Russ couldn’t recall seeing her there. She was so feeble minded I wondered if she should be in some care facility or had recently escaped one. She sometimes became chatty, sitting at our coffee table with five or six others, but it would have nothing to do with what the rest of us were talking about. We’d be doing lines right in front of her and she wouldn’t ask for one. She never asked for anything. The only time we did give her one she started rambling so much we realized our mistake. In the bar I’d order her a water, while Amira made us dinner and set the plates in front of us. Then she’d eat. Other than that she had no volition. Even in bed she’d just lay there.
But we treated her kindly, as one of us, and so did our guests. She had no change of clothes so I asked Suzanne and she brought some over. Most men would have exploited such a human mannequin. That she gave me no venereal disease, seemed to preclude any such past history, after three nights together. Some might say we took advantage of her. Show me any young man of twenty three who refuses the hugs of a naked, beautiful, silent girl, waiting in their bed. The fact that we sent her a long ways home after a week, at our expense, proves our basic humanity. On the other hand, so as not to depict ourselves as paragons of virtue, we were scoring so often with other, saner, women at the time, she was kind of in the way.
