The Totem Page 5

  So Dunlap took the bus. He'd stayed up drinking late the night before in Denver, waking almost too late for his morning flight to here. The plane had propellers. It hit some rough air just above the northern mountains, jolting up and down, and sick already, Dunlap had barely kept his stomach down. He'd tried some coffee. That didn't help. He tried some Alka-Seltzer, and it almost worked. Then he made a joke about a little of the dog that bit him, asking for a drink. At first the flight attendant was reluctant, early in the morning like that, but Dunlap made a point of it, and in the end he convinced her to sell him a Jim Beam on the rocks. That was just the trick. It went down sharp and made him gag, but it stayed down, and it seemed to settle his stomach. Two more sips, and he was fine. At least he thought he was, returning to his stupor of the night before. Another drink, and then his stomach let him have it. He was in the washroom, throwing up.

  He washed his face, looked in the mirror at his gray wrinkled skin, walked back, and slumped, but he was glad to have it out of him at least, and he was sleeping, even through the turbulence, as the plane struggled through the clouds and jounced down for a landing. Waiting for the bus, Dunlap went in to the men's room, washed his face again, opened up his travel bag, took out a bottle, and had another drink. He knew that he was classic: drinking all night, sick and yet in need of still another drink. All the same, he needed it, and if he did his job right, who could tell the difference? Just as long as he could function. That's what you do? Function? Just about. He had another drink. He had another on the bus, his pint bottle hidden in his jacket pocket. He sprawled, feeling sick again, staring at the seat before him, and then sitting up, he glanced at all the grassland going past. It was flat at first, but then it started rising, sloping up to foothills and then mountains, fir trees angling off as far as he could see now, rocks among them, and at one point, looking out, he saw the guardrail and a straight drop down to boulders and a section of the road that curved around a ridge down there. An object came around the lower bend. He knew it was a car, but down that far it resembled a toy, and suddenly aware of just how high he was, Dunlap felt a spinning in his brain, a rising in his stomach, and he had to look away. Either that or throw up again.

  He settled back in his seat, glancing at the people who were near him. Men in cowboy hats, women wearing gingham dresses (gingham-Lord, he thought that had gone out of style fifty years ago), old men in suspenders, all with sun-creased skin that looked a bit like leather. Two seats ahead of him, an Indian was looking at a magazine. The Indian's dark hair hung to his shoulders. He wore a pair of faded jeans, a red shirt and a beaded necklace, his boots stuck in the aisle, showing cracked seams, run-down heels, and something on one side that looked distinctly like a piece of horseshit. Dunlap watched him as he turned the page. There was something strange about the photograph. It showed a naked woman, braced, her crotch against a tree. Dunlap peered a little closer. She was dark-haired, ruddy-skinned, exactly like the man who read it. And the language, as he leaned a little closer, wasn't English. Christ, a pornographic magazine for Indians. He'd have to make a note about that. Clearly he could use it. Local color and all that. He squinted at the pear-shaped breasts upon the naked woman. Then the page was turned, and he was looking at a beaver shot. Dunlap thought of Indians and made a joke about a Little Beaver, shook his head, and took another drink.

  What kind of place was this to build a commune anyhow? he thought. Why not east or maybe on the coast? At least he had some friends there. Well, there had been many communes in those places, but none had ever been like this. Besides, he didn't choose his assignments. His bosses told him what to do, and he went out and did it. Maybe that was how they got at him for all the drinking that he did. Maybe. Still, he did his job. Or so he told himself at least. He'd have to clean the act up. That was sure. After this job, he would dry out, and he'd show them. Sure. Just as soon as this was over. He slumped so no one could see and had another drink.

  ELEVEN

  The sign said potter's field gazette. Of course, Dunlap thought. That almost slipped my mind. Gazette, for God sake. What else could it be? At least the building had a little class. It was mostly windows on both stories, shiny metal strips connecting all the panes. And clean at that, he told himself, thinking of the bus depot he had left. There were like-new imitation marble steps that led up to the all-glass door, shiny metal all around it, a shiny handle on the door. Dunlap waited for a truck to pass, then stepped off the curb, and started across the street toward the entrance.

  The door turned out to be electrically controlled, swinging open with a hiss. The reception area was spotless, bright lights in the decorator ceiling, all-white walls, shiny imitation marble on the floor. What was better, the building was air conditioned, sweat already cooling on Dunlap's forehead. He thought that this might work out, after all.

  He glanced at polished metal counters on his right and left, desks and people typing at them.

  "Yes, sir. May I help?"

  Turning, he saw a woman on his left, early twenties, thin-faced, attractive, her hair combed straight back in a pony tail. He smiled and leaned against the counter.

  "Yes, I'm looking for a-" Lord, he couldn't remember the name. Parsons. That was it. "I'm looking for Mr. Parsons."

  She stared at his wrinkled sport coat, at the sweat marks underneath its arms. Something shut off in her eyes. 'Yes, and may I have your name?"

  "Dunlap. Gordon Dunlap. I'm from New York on a story."

  Then the eyes were bright again. "Of course. He's been expecting you. Take these stairs. The first door on the right."

  She pointed toward a flight of stairs beyond the counter, and Dunlap smiled, nodding, walking toward them. She wore a silk blouse, her bra quite clear beneath it, the two top buttons of her blouse spread open. Dunlap thought about that all the time he climbed the stairs. After all the women he was used to seeing with no bra, their nipples almost poking through their tops, this was exotic. He stopped and took out a handkerchief and wiped his face. To the left he saw a corridor of offices, their doors open, people typing, talking on the phone. To the right, he noticed a wooden door, the first wood in here that he'd seen. mr. parsons. editor. Dunlap knocked and entered.

  Another woman, older, sat at a desk and studied him. 'Yes, sir?" When Dunlap told her, she said, "Of course." She went out through another door, this one wooden like the first, although the desk and chair and cabinets were metal. He waited. Everything was just as clean and shiny as downstairs. Through the windows, he could see the stores across the street. The woman came back, smiling, saying he should go in. Dunlap nodded, walking through.

  Everything was wood in there, bookshelves, desk and chairs and tables, even the walls. No, not everything. A thick rug occupied a large part of the floor, and two of the chairs were leather. The difference was the same. This was more a study than an office. More than that, a sanctum. People summoned here would be impressed. Whoever summoned them understood the principles of power.

  Parsons. He was smiling, getting up from where he sat behind the desk, coming around to shake hands. "Hello there. We expected you the middle of the week."

  "Yeah, well, something came up at the office. They wouldn't let me go till yesterday at noon." And then because he knew he'd sounded rude, "I hope I didn't inconvenience you."

  "No, not at all." Smiling again, Parsons pointed toward one of the well-stuffed leather chairs before the desk. "Have a seat. Can I get you something?"

  "Coffee would be nice."

  Parsons pressed a button on the intercom and looked at him.

  "Cream and sugar. Lots of it," Dunlap said.

  And Parsons put the order through. Then still smiling, Parsons sat back, his hands upon his lap, and waited. He was maybe fifty-five, husky, almost fat, but not exactly. Mostly he was just big-boned: massive chest and shoulders, hands as big as a heavyweight boxer's. His head seemed extra large as well. Even with his bulging stomach, he seemed very much in shape, though, his skin as fresh and smooth as athletes
in their twenties. When he'd come around to shake hands with Dunlap, he had moved as if he were a dancer or a man of half his size and weight. Dunlap was impressed. This man had a presence. More than that, he knew what he was doing. He had never once appeared to notice Dunlap's wrinkled coat and ravaged face and eyes. Clearly, though, he'd been aware of them from the start. He was not a man who did things without thinking. The way he'd fixed this office so it stood out from the others. The way he sat, his expensive suit conspicuous in a town where everyone wore cowboy clothes, his blue shirt crisp and clean, his striped tie meticulously knotted, his hands upon his lap, leaning back and smiling, as if he were at his leisure (but he wasn't). Dunlap knew he'd have to watch him.

  "Yes, well, tell me," Parsons said, still leaning back and smiling. "I know you told me on the phone. But just to help me understand, why not tell me once again?"

  Dunlap lit a cigarette. "Well, we're doing retrospectives."

  Parsons leaned ahead abruptly, pointing. "No, not here."

  Dunlap wondered what he meant. He looked around. He saw that there were no ashtrays and understood, standing up to crush the cigarette against the inside of a refuse can. "Sorry."

  "Quite all right. You couldn't know."

  "Sure." And now you're up on me, you bastard, Dunlap thought, sitting back and going on. "Like I said, we're doing retrospectives-"

  "News-world magazine?"

  "That's right."

  And Parsons nodded. "Quite a thing. A man from News-world magazine to come here."

  "Yes, well-"

  "Must be quite a story."

  Then the door opened, and the woman came in with the coffee.

  "Thank you."

  "Certainly." And she was gone.

  Dunlap tried to continue his explanation. "We've been-"

  "How's the coffee?" 'Just the way I like it." "Fine."

  And Dunlap had lost count of how much Parsons was ahead of him. "The commune," he was saying.

  Parsons looked at him. He evidently hadn't figured they would get so quickly to the point. His eyes narrowed. "That's right. I remember now. You're checking on the commune." "The commune twenty years after it was founded." "Twenty-three." "How's that?"

  "Twenty-three years since it was founded." 'Yeah, we figured that might make a point." Parsons shook his head and frowned. "I don't quite understand."

  "Well, the difference between then and now. Nineteen seventy. Dope and acid. Vietnam. Young people either going into politics or dropping out of society." "But what about the commune?" "Well, we figured we would check on how it went." "I still don't understand."

  "It's a way to measure how the country changed. All those fine young good intentions."

  Parsons made a face. "The new republic. That's the thing they called it. Free love, free food, and free spirit." Parsons made another face.

  "Yes, but never mind the 'free love' business. That's the part that people always pick at. What we want to know is what came out of all that."

  "You could have saved yourself a trip. I'll tell you what came out of all that. Nothing. That's what came of it." "Well, that's a statement in itself."

  "Hey, wait a minute," Parsons said. "Do you have that tape recorder on?"

  Dunlap nodded. "Turn if off." "But what's the matter?" "Turn the damned thing off, I said." Dunlap obeyed. "But what's the matter? Listen, radicals back then are running corporations now. Either that or writing books about how wrong they were. Entertainers who dropped out and went to China are out hoofing on the stage again. Everything has changed. It's a different world. What's so wrong to talk about that? All the communes are long gone as well. But then none of them was quite like this. None of them had so much money, so much talent and ambition, coming out here from the coast, buying all that land and setting up to start a brand new country: Brook Farm in our century."

  "Yes, and Brook Farm went to bust, and so did this," Parsons said.

  "But what's so wrong to talk about it?"

  "Look, you didn't come here just to see the difference. You came here to start that trouble once again."

  Dunlap didn't understand.

  "It's common knowledge how the town put pressure on them," Parsons said. "How the freaks came through here in their long hair and their costumes, dressed as Superman and God knows what all, turning kids to dope, standing on the corner, howling, blowing kisses. How the town refused to tolerate them, wouldn't sell them food or clothing or supplies, wouldn't even let them in the city limits, tried to find a way to get them off that land. How one rancher had his boy run off and went up there to get him, went a little crazy, pulled a gun and shot a guy. There's a lot of memory yet in town about that. There's a lot of feeling. I don't want you going around and making people ugly once again. Either that or guilty. I don't want you writing so this town looks like the nation's asshole. We had lots of that before. Writers coming in and making trouble, sympathizing with those freaks. You tell me how things have changed. Well, one thing hasn't. Reporters like an underdog, and the way the town reacted to those freaks, there wasn't any question who the reporters sided with. My guess is you'll be doing just the same."

  "But really I'm not here for that," Dunlap said. "I just want to see the difference."

  "Will you mention what went on back then? How the town reacted?"

  "Sure. I guess so. That's a part of how things changed as well."

  Parsons shrugged. "All right, then, there you have it."

  And they looked at one another, and they waited.

  The buzzer sounded on the intercom. Parsons touched a button.

  "Don't forget you chair a council meeting in an hour," a woman's voice said.

  "Thank you."

  Parsons took his hand off the intercom, leaning back.

  Christ, Dunlap thought. He isn't just the newspaper's owner and the editor and maybe owner of a half a dozen other places too. He's the god-damned mayor. Dunlap tried to think of how to smooth things. "Look," he told him. "You know just as well as I, there are two sides to a story. Back in nineteen seventy, everything was polarized. The straights and the longhairs. The hawks and the doves. One group acted one way, and the other did the opposite. The thing to do is talk to people in the town and get their version of the story, then to talk to people in the commune and get their version too."

  Parsons shrugged. "There's no one out there now."

  "What?" Dunlap straightened in surprise. "Nobody told me."

  "Maybe two or three are still there. If they are, it's news to me."

  Dunlap stared at him.

  "Of course, there are ways to track the others down," Parsons said. "The names are all on file. If you've got the time."

  Dunlap went on staring at him.

  "Look, I'll tell you what," Parsons said. "You may have gathered from that message that I don't just run this paper. I'm on the town council. If I wanted, I could make things tough for you, see that people didn't talk to you, deny you access to the paper's files, other things."

  It was the "other things" that Dunlap didn't like the sound of.

  "But I won't. For one thing, that would show up in your story too. For another, you'd just work a little harder, and you'd get your story anyhow. All the same, if I wanted, I could make things tough. Now the point is, I don't want you thinking I'm against you. The fact is that I'm not. In your place, I'd act the same as you. What I do want is a simple understanding. Anything you need is yours. Ask and I'll arrange it. You go out and do your story. Then you come back to this office, and we talk. I want the chance to make this town look good to you. These people here are fine. I'm anxious that they don't get hurt."

  Dunlap squinted.

  "No, I'm not afraid of business being hurt," Parsons said. "People out there don't stop buying cattle just because a story makes a town look bad. What I said was true. I just don't want these people hurt."

  Dunlap took a breath. "Fair enough."

  "What do you need?"

  "Well, for starters, let me in your paper's morg
ue. Then I'd like to see the records the police kept."

  "That's no problem. What else?"

  "Courthouse records. Trials and transcripts."

  "That's no problem either."

  "Then I'd like to talk to people in the town. I'll go out to the commune, too, of course."

  "Of course. I'll see that someone goes out with you."

  Dunlap shrugged. "That's all I can think of for now."

  "Well, you'd best get at it then. Just remember. Anything you need."

  "Don't worry. I'll get back to you."

  "I know you will." And Parsons stared at him as Dunlap stood to leave. One thing now was certain, Dunlap thought. This was going to be a whole lot harder than he'd expected.

  TWELVE

  Ken Kesey was the cause of it. The Merry Pranksters and that bus. That was back in 1964. Kesey had already finished One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion. With his money, he had bought some land near Palo Alto, California, gathered freaks around him, and started on a trip. That was back when LSD was legal, and the trip of course was only in his mind. Then the trip was real. He had bought a bus, had sprayed it every color of the rainbow, and then dressing like a comic strip, he had shooed his freaks on board and started for New York. On the Road a decade later, Neal Cassidy as driver, that same Cassidy who'd been with Kerouac. They had ballyhooed across the country, music blaring out of speakers on the top, channeled in upon itself so that it echoed and then echoed yet again, police cars stopping them while Pranksters jumped down-Day-Glo-colored costumes, Captain Marvel, Mandrake the Magician-setting up their movie cameras. "Yes, sir! Yes, sir! What's the trouble? Speak right toward this microphone." Well, the policemen didn't stay long, and the Pranksters got few traffic tickets, roaring on across the country, popping acid, blaring music, acting out the movie of their lives. They reached New York and headed back, and by now they were noticed, not just by the strangers they were passing but the press as well. There were numerous stories about their odyssey, acid rock and Day-Glo paint, so that when they got back to the commune, others of their kind were waiting for them, and the movie went on, only larger, more extreme. From the commune, they went to the cities, starting what they called their acid tests, light shows, flashing pictures, music coming from each corner of a hall they rented, speakers blaring, all matched with the flashing in their minds from all those Kool-Aid pitchers spiked with acid. Then Kesey was arrested for possession, not of acid but of marijuana. That took place in 1965. In 1966 he was arrested yet again, same charge, but convicted by now on the first offense and out while sentence was appealed, he had fled his second trial, heading south toward Mexico. Unlawful flight. Rumors where he was. Then back in California where he was arrested once again. In 1967 he was serving time. That was how the acid culture got its start, from Kesey and his life style bigger than his books.