As a bit of a recap, upon coming northward that glorious winter of 1971, I moved in with my brother and his great galoot of an Alaskan malamute, Aldo. Our abode was Sunrise Village, an apartment complex supposedly reserved for married couples only. Let me refer you to L'Étoile du Nord to learn more of the hilarity of that arrangement.
Those were especially good days: freedom from the religious persecution of my childhood, replaced now by weightlifting and gaining weight, Sherlock Holmes, the discovery of Hermeticism, and a passel of new friends found in my new hometown. For it truly became my hometown, more real and legitimate than from where I had emigrated. As a babe fresh from the womb seventeen years earlier, I took a few looks around (after clearing that nasty silver nitrate from my eyes) and realized, "correct parents, a decent horoscope, but wrong locale."
By autumn, my brother and I moved to our parent's cabin on Lake Tetonka. In recompense, we agreed to winterize it. He and I single-handedly installed insulation, paneled the interior, laid the linoleum in the kitchen, bathroom and reading room, applied heat-taping to the water line from the artesian well to the pump within the crawl-space, and just in general got it ship-shape for year-round habitation. Of course, we hired out having a furnace installed, along with some really swell carpeting in the living room. It turned out very nice.
I'll always remember the two of us sprawled out on that luxurious carpet, warm and cozy inside while the February gales howled without, watching Sgt. Friday rail about hippies in Dragnet on the television (with fuzzy black and white reception from Minneapolis) and laughing our asses off. See, that was one of the appeals of the Age of Aquarius and the counter-culture, just knowing that society reviled our generation no end. Calling ourselves "freaks" was a calculated decision.
While I'm at it, two other things from that era come to mind. First, that February the temperature hit minus-38, one of the most exhilarating experiences ever, reaffirming how much I loved my new state. And then, we were both so crazed for astronomy that having purchased a new telescope, we walked it out onto the ice of the frozen lake for a view of Saturn. And our warm eyelids and wind-blasted tears promptly stuck the eyepieces tight to our sockets! But we were so happy, both of us, to have found this state that that was considered a "feature" of stargazing here, not a deficit.
The following spring and summer are also ingrained in my memory, for that was when I finally discovered legitimate astrology (thanks to the enormous Llewellyn tome, Astrology A to Z, I spent two monthly allowances on), then the Golden Dawn, and then Crowley.
Despite class attendance at college (it was still a legitimate college in those days, not ostentatiously pretending to be a university after the silk purse had been made into a sow's ear), there were many off-days I could remain at home alone while my brother had to commute to work twenty miles away.
Many times he would return to a cabin reeking of incense after my various forays into Golden Dawn exercises. But he never said anything, and even ignored my evenings spent with a draftsman's ink compass and pen crafting the Qabalistic Tree of Life on parchment.
During the warmer months my occult studies were sometimes punctuated by romantic dalliances with the bronzed Christy spoken of in On Patience. My first kiss, my first hug and and "a bit more," if I may quote the butler from The Shining. Let's just leave it at, a somewhat eccentric reading-list dating back to junior high days had set me on a road less taken.
Incidentally, Christy, who was skilled on the typewriter, prepared my very first manuscript that summer, a fifty-page piece on the symbolism of the Major Arcana from the Tarot. Romance, the occult and writing were clearly in my blood from a very early age. I still have that draft, and it brings back warm memories in more ways than one. Do not read anything more than an appreciation of the Age of Aquarius in that sentence. San Francisco wasn't the only place in which to "meet some gentle people there."
A couple weeks before our memorable evening round a burning defunct elm tree, with a bit of prescience, I somehow made it to the nearest town sporting an apothecary, probably hitchhiking those seven miles. I hitchhiked a lot in those days, as did many hippies.
I'll confess a bit of nerves as I headed toward the Rexall, being somewhat naive (thanks to the Presbyterianism I was still desperately trying to shake), and of course harboring a genuine suspicion of anyone over age thirty, the very people likely to dispense what I was in quest of.
Glancing guiltily over my shoulder, especially trying to take in if anyone on the street had recognized me, I slunk in to make my clandestine purchase.
To my relief, the shop was devoid of other customers, just a very tall middle-aged woman with a bowl haircut, draped in a white smock, behind the dispensing counter at the rear.
She smiled as I approached, which calmed me a trifle; elsewhere in this town, hippies were not welcome at all. (Once my brother and I were refused service for a waffle breakfast at the restaurant half-a-block away). I could write a lot more about this burg, but suffice it to say that a deformed and squinting banjo-player with a curiously horizontal family tree would feel quite at home sitting on the pavilion here strumming away. But I digress.
From childhood on up, I've always been fairly confident in my thespian abilities. I learned at a very early age how to put over an appearance completely at odds with what was going on beneath the surface. And I've always been very good at reading non-verbal signs in others. Still, while I thought I was doing my best to appear nonchalant, I was also vaguely aware my nerves were betraying me in attempting to transact such a delicate purchase.
The pharmacist smiled a bit more. And didn't reach for the telephone or eject me post haste, which I took as a good omen.
I finally muttered, "I'd like to buy a prophylactic."
Without missing a beat, she thrust her long arm into the somewhat obscured whitewashed pharmacy cabinet (all Rexall drug stores had those) and pulled out a box of Trojan-Enz, bringing it fully into view. I palpitated, probably visibly.
"You do realize these come by the dozen only, don't you?" So she calmly announced.
My mind reeled for two reasons. First, I had but twenty-five cents in the right pocket of my hippy bell-bottoms sporting a red satin stripe down the inseam. (The left pocket was reserved for a Copenhagen tin, of course. And just so you know, in those days, a tin cost twenty-eight cents and lasted a week).
Even with my (to this day) complete lack of understanding of basic economics, it was instantly clear to me that a dozen rubbers lay only within the purview of a prince. Who knew ecstasy (or so I imagined it might be) bore so steep a price?
But more so, if these devices actually came in boxes by the dozen, then that meant what I imagined to be so incredibly special had been reduced to regularity by an unthinking public. The mind reels. I certainly had no intention of being so profligate.
In those days, Jupiter was my god, and I silently prayed to him: "Jove, just work a single instance into my budget and I will pay homage to you in perpetuity. I just want to know." The last sentence of course, coming from the Fugs' song penned by Tuli Kupferberg, has always been my guiding light. Solely to know...
Like I say, standing before the pharmacist that day, doing my best to retain composure, it's likely my expression belied some sort of discomfiture. I felt like I was making a heroin purchase worthy of
The French Connection. But lo! After a brief pause, she continued,
"Well, I tell you what. How much do you have to spend?"
I responded, "A quarter."
Opening the box, she withdrew the strip of twelve foil-encased appliances. With nimble pharmacist fingers, she deftly tore off one packet and handed it to me, her other hand outstretched to receive my twenty-five cents.
We smiled at each other, and I then realized that the older generation may not had yet outgrown understanding. With a kindly wink, she gave me a quick nod of the head as if to indicate "go and do your dirty deed." With a sly grin and wave, I zipped out.
No doubt my twenty-five cents didn't even come close to the true retail
price had it even been available in individual quantities. And tearing off one to sell me was probably a violation of some sort of FDA act. (And what became of the remaining eleven?) Looking back on it now, I also realize that rather than just giving it to me, the pharmacist was also teaching me something important by taking my only quarter.
She was a
good egg and had a very clear view
of the bigger picture. I will always remember her.
This probably all seems ludicrous to younger readers (if any such
there be here), but remember in those days willing partners all over the country
were being tried, convicted and jailed for "unnatural acts." The latter
ranged all the way from relations outside of holy matrimony to something
as trivial as the woman getting on top, or worse, enacting stimulation
more likely to produce halitosis than progeny. Unbelievably, penal
servitude even awaited married couples seeking pleasure not certain to lead to impregnation.
And of course queers were totally out of luck. Per vas nefandum, indeed...
But in fact, the episode also bore another important lesson to me. I learned, first hand, what society was up to. Personally, the supposed illicit nature of it all only added piquancy in my eyes, but it also made and still makes me angry to think the search for ecstasy is anyone else's business other than the people directly concerned.
As it turned out, after all the perspiration and fretting that day, my furtive purchase wasn't required after all, thanks to the fact the Almighty, in his infinite wisdom, provided other avenues of even greater delight. Still, with my
scientific bent and logical mind, the implications of an errant
spermatozoa were exceedingly plain to me and I intended to be prepared. Procreation was neither in my genes nor my jeans.
So instead, we two happy equals (and remember, this is some half century ago) both became joyful misdemeanants that hot August Saturday night.
Next installment: The Great Detective
