Chapter 45 – A New Assignment

Ripped Off!

He’s in Eugene by himself now. Karen left a while ago to spend a few days in Deadwood. She took Ariana with her. It’s lonely here without them, especially without Ariana, but he needs time and space for his work; and Karen wants to visit with friends out there anyway.
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The phone rings and it’s Karen. She’s very upset. Someone has broken into their place and has stolen her stereo speakers. He should have known better after Berkeley, but he thought that Deadwood would be less of a ripoff scene.

He’s sorry they were ripped off, but he’s relieved that that’s all it was. When Karen first called, he thought something had happened to Ariana. He was about to freak out.

He already knew that Deadwood was a ripoff for him. His energy has been ripped off constantly since he first got there, by folks too unconscious and too afraid of him – just because they would have had to wake up and face themselves if they were to let him be close to them.

Maybe he sensed that something like this would happen. Maybe that’s why he has already brought almost all of his things here. Maybe he was wise not to trust Deadwood with anything of himself, not even on the material plane.
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It’s several days later now and he’s out in Deadwood with Karen. The police have already been here and gone. There are no clues. They ask around, and he gets the feeling that everyone’s knows who did it but no one is willing to say. An oldtime family living up another valley nearby is finally mentioned, but they’re told not to bother, that they’ll never be able to prove anything on them. They stick together and always have alibis.

Karen still doesn’t want to completely leave Deadwood, feels that everything of value has already been stolen, that whatever’s left will be safe here now. He hears her, but, when he leaves, he takes everything of his with him to Eugene, except for the furniture that they own in common. If it weren’t for Karen and her attachment, he would never come back to Deadwood. Goodbye and good riddance.
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The Bear Dream

He dreams that he’s in this house with a friend. A wild and dangerous bear is outside, wanting to come inside. They stand behind the door, and, when he opens it, the bear comes charging in. Then they leave by the door themselves, shutting it after them. Now the bear is inside as she wished, and they’re outside with the whole world before them. They head down the road now, feeling loose and free. They’re running, and now he’s a young boy again, heading for certain and wonderful adventure.
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As the dream begins, he’s inside the house, inside the psychic structure that he calls ego-centered consciousness, that part of himself that structures reality. He’s with a friend, with a friendly aspect of himself, probably with that part of himself that enjoys working with people as a therapist and teacher again. An unfriendly and possibly dangerous aspect of himself, represented by the bear, is outside, wanting to be in consciousness too.

His strategy here is interesting. Rather than keep the bear from “huffing and puffing and blowing his house in,” as the three little pigs tried, he accepts the bear’s need to be recognized, to be on the inside of things, to be a part of consciousness. By letting her in, he accepts her and all that she represents. By accepting all that she represents – by accepting the danger, and the potential for growth too, of such wild and untamable instincts and feelings – he satisfies his need for renewal, for being loose and free in his life again.

His way of letting the bear in and then leaving is a reversal of the usual way and much more productive of growth and awareness. He doesn’t keep the bear side of himself out and constrict himself into an ever decreasing inner space as the bear’s frustration and rage grows. Instead, he takes it in, accepting it as he has accepted all other aspects of himself, giving it free rein in his consciousness.

This way is best for him too, lets him be free, reborn, a boy again, with a day full of adventure calling him. By accepting her into himself, by letting her be a part of his consciousness, he’s coming to terms with her on the run, so to speak, as he goes out into this new world of Eugene and beyond.
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Also, the dream reflects his recent decision to stop trying to defend himself by staying in Deadwood, but rather to let the bear in and leave for Eugene. Too bad Karen didn’t think of this before she was ripped off.
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Doc Webb

Doc Webb is a hippie dentist working out of Eugene. He comes out to Deadwood sometimes to work there too. He didn’t get to know Doc very well when he was still living in Deadwood. But now, seeing him in Eugene, they are fast becoming friends. For one thing, Doc is one of the few men he knows who’s near to his age.

Doc has a school bus, fitted out like a dental office – with a dental chair and all the drills, even an X-ray machine. He has a wood stove in the little waiting room in the rear. He travels all around southern Oregon, stopping often at each of the many smaller communities like Deadwood. He works in Eugene too.

He’s a real person, not into making more than his share. He does dentistry because he’s good at it, not because of the money. He charges very little for his work.
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He went out to Doc’s place in the country south of Eugene last week for a root canal, and it cost him very little for all the time and energy that Doc put into it. He works differently than any dentist he has ever known. He didn’t give him anything for the pain when he did his root canal. This way, Doc said, he would be able to tell, by the pain he would feel, when his probe touched bottom so to speak. Most dentists just keep X-raying over and over again to get it right. His way though, was both safer and less expensive for him.

When Doc was working on him at his place, without other folks around, they got to know each other and found out that they were both seriously into acid. Doc invited him and Karen to come down and trip with him at his place someday. He really likes Doc. He was a helicopter pilot in Korea and really doesn’t trust the government. Doc tells him that he has enough explosives buried on his land to blow up all the roads to his place in case the government comes after him. He has a lot of guns and ammo too. He’s another acid original.
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Back in Eugene, he asks Karen if she would like to visit Doc and his partner Meadow soon, maybe do some acid with them. Karen’s still nursing Ariana some, and not sure about acid yet, but she wants to go down and decide from there.

Karen already knows Doc from Eugene. She thinks he’s sort of heavy, but respects him for being so helpful for so many folks. Before they pulled their energy out of Deadwood, he and Karen had a vision of Doc living in Deadwood. They hoped he would move there and be the community dentist. They had been thinking about getting a doctor to live there too.
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Acid Rescue

Soon after this, they go down to Doc’s farm. They drive up the long dirt driveway to his house, feeling the isolation here. He hears some coyotes in the distance, welcoming him, telling him that he’s home. Doc and Meadow have invited another couple, Ron and Sue, to be with them. They’re here already. Ron and Sue haven’t done acid in over seven years. Karen has already decided not to do acid. She isn’t ready yet. She wants to be with Ariana, to be able to nurse her without worrying about getting her high too.
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They all eat some of his acid. Doc’s one of these trippers who likes to be entertained and always has a lot happening around him. He has two movie projectors pointed at a cloth hanging down in the middle of the room. He has music tapes synchronized to the films they’ll see – a whole music and light show for them. Doc really knows what he’s doing. The music and the images combine with the acid to take all of them way out. He soon becomes very high.

At one time, he looks over and sees Doc fixing the projectors. They’re both stopped, and yet, when he turns around, the images are still moving on the cloth screen. He realizes then that Doc’s a wizard. He realizes that the images are really coming out of their heads. They’re all projecting their inner images onto the screen. They are the projectors themselves.
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Later, as the music rises to a triumphant peak, He sees on the screen the image of a helicopter letting down a long rope ladder to rescue someone far below on the ground. He realizes it’s for him, that he’s being rescued by a secret acid family. He’s being taken to a secret retreat where he can relax and wake up. He’s being pulled out of the raging battle, rescued so he can be briefed for a new mission.

He wonders if everyone here but him is already awake. He wonders if they’re all members of this secret acid family called Acid Rescue. Whatever, he has been rescued and is now returning to who he truly is.

He understands that a field agent for Acid Rescue, as he has been, has to lose his or her acid memories and truly believe in his or her ordinary cover identity. Otherwise, it would be impossible to exist in the world of straight consciousness. Only when a field agent is tripping, does he or she suspect the truth. He realizes that he has been like Superman having to actually believe that he’s Clark Kent – and then being astounded to find out that he’s really more than that. He’s crying with all these incredibly strong feelings. He’s finally home and free.
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He’s told that his assignment has been to go into Berkeley and Deadwood and Eugene and all those places on the road and turn others onto acid and its way. He’s told that this assignment is over now, that soon he won’t have to struggle anymore to keep Sam and his old bike running. He can let go of his old trips soon. They show him his future, and he realizes that he won’t be with Karen either. He’s told that he’ll like his new assignment a great deal better, that it’ll be dangerous and exciting, yet what he has always striven for.

Spirit, through the music and the film images, is telling him all of this. He’s certain too that it’s all true. It’s as if he has known this before, has always known this.
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He understands that Acid Rescue is an organization dedicated to the preservation of the race. He’s given a vision now. He sees the U.S.S Enterprise, of Star Trek fame. He sees that all the officers have somehow gone insane and are taking the Enterprise into the nearest sun, to destroy it and all of them in the raging nuclear fires within. He sees that, although he’s just a lowly crew member, his work is to join with others who are also awake and take control back from these crazy officers, so they can save ourselves and the Enterprise – save Planet Earth really.

He sees that Acid Rescue is the only group of people in the world who know of this potential fate and who are actively fighting against it all the time. Acid Rescue is made up of everyone seriously into acid, everyone who has already woke up with acid and have dedicated their lives to saving the world. At any one time, the duty officers are all of them who are currently tripping high dose.

He realizes that their personal identities aren’t important at all, that he’s just a body for the acid group head to use, for Spirit to use. Their bodies can be filled with one personality after another – all springing into being from the Mandala that they truly are – in order to do whatever the acid vision sees and requires of them. He wonders who or what he’ll become now, or if, perhaps, he can be his body with no identity at all. He would like that best of all.
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Later, when he shares his experience with the others, no one knows what he’s talking about. No one takes him seriously. He realizes that this was all between acid and himself. Whatever was happening, he knows that he’s going through a major change, and soon. The experience tonight was so powerful that he can’t see it as having only an inner meaning. It was also talking about the world. Maybe he’s the only one here tonight who got it. Maybe he’s the only one ready and free enough to understand.
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Chapter 46 – Betrayal

Jonathan Returns

Jonathan is back for the holidays. This time he can offer Jonathan a place to stay in town, although there’s not much more space or privacy. Jon’s sleeping in the living room for now. They’re happy to be together again but somewhat shy after their months apart.
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He agreed with Pamela to pay for the return flight. He was sure he would have the money, but right now he only has forty-five dollars. He did well this past week. He did good work, but that was all the money he made. He doesn’t have nearly enough to send Jon back and buy groceries too. He doesn’t expect any more money either before Jon is supposed to leave – all his regular clients are gone for the holidays.

They’re putting out a really good flyer next week, and he’s open to any work that comes his way from it. He’s realizing though, that it’s almost the winter solstice and he’s very tired from the year.

He decides to stay in Eugene to see if tbeir flyers bring in any work, while Karen takes Jonathan and Ariana out with her to Deadwood for a visit. Jonathan knows the Goertzen kids from Berkeley and is looking forward to seeing them again. While they are gone, he gets the handbills up – a poem that he and Karen wrote about the winter solstice and advice for this time of the year. One guy calls and comes for a headcheck. That’s all.
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He doesn’t want to make Jonathan stay just because he’s broke. He’ll have to call Pamela soon. He doesn’t want to – he’s exhausted now and almost sick. He’s reading Lame Deer and his old notes to keep his spirits up.

When Jonathan comes back with Karen and Ariana, he tells him his dilemma. He says that he’s going to have to call his mother now. But Jonathan asks if he can stay, says that he and Karen are getting along much better now and he really wants to live with him.

He’s overjoyed by Jon’s decision and tells him that he can stay. Jon calls his mother then and tells her that he won’t be coming home to her. He expects her to fight him and be angry at him, but when Jonathan comes out of Karen’s room, where he’s been talking to her privately, he’s smiling and says that it’s okay. She understands his need to be with his father now that he’s becoming a man.
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That night, Jonathan has a dream in which he and other boys are standing in a line. An older and powerful man is walking down the line, touching each boy’s penis, as if to endow each boy with masculinity. He’s awed to be part of the ritual that Jonathan’s going through. He’s excited to be his father and to be with him at this time in his life.
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Just Before the Dark

He still somewhat unsure about Deadwood, about whether he wants to be there at all, living on the land. He can’t really see how to integrate the person he is there with the person he is here in Eugene doing his healing work.
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He dreams that he’s out there with a group of folks. One of them, Chuck Bader – acting like Dylan’s “Big Jim” – announces that he has a connection with some wealthy, straight friends who will give the community a place to use as a library and reading room. He says that his friends are not into drugs though, and the folks living here will have to obey certain rules and not smoke pot in the building at all.

He hears this and wants to be open to what Chuck is offering. He wants to agree with Chuck and the others, but he feels it should be just them building their community, with no wealthy, outside help. He doesn’t trust anything given to them with strings attached.

When he wakes out of this dream, he realizes that this is what is bothering him most about Deadwood. The folks there aren’t into community as he is. They’re lazy and afraid and are willing to give up their collective trip, willing to be co-opted, rather than rely on themselves. He decides to leave Deadwood completely, to give up on the community there. He and Jonathan are going out there later today to take everything out of their place and bring it back here.
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Karen and Ariana are in Santa Fe now, visiting Karen’s mother. Karen wanted her mother to finally see Ariana. They decided to meet in Santa Fe instead of here or back east. They’ve been gone for several days already now and won’t be back here for a few more. He can’t get in touch with Karen to ask her about Deadwood. But he decides to go ahead and move everything of hers out of there too.

He and Jonathan have a good time on the ride out and back. He’s worried though, that Jonathan’s smoking too much grass. He suspects this is maybe a big part of why he came back here. He’s stoned almost all the time now, even when he’s in his new school here in Eugene.

He feels good to be finally out of Deadwood. He has put so much energy into trying to succeed there, both as an individual and as a member of a strong and viable community. It hasn’t worked out though. He decides that he’ll just be himself now, doing his own healing work here in Eugene.
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Shock

He’s excited to see Karen when she first comes back, but for some reason she’s very closed off and distant. He asks if she had a good time with her mother, and she says it was okay. He asks if she’s bothered that he and Jonathan moved all her stuff from Deadwood. She says she wishes they had waited for her but that it doesn’t matter. For some reason, he starts to be scared.

He gives her slack, leaves her alone with herself for a few more days. This morning though, when he consults the I Ching, he receives the Hexagram, Shock. He becomes even more scared. He knocks on her door – she isn’t even sleeping with him now. She says to come in, and he asks her straight out what’s bothering her and what does she wants to tell him.

She tells him that she had an affair while she was in Santa Fe, with Carl who was Don’s partner when they were there in 1972. She says that she’s leaving him, wants to live at Alpha Farm or somewhere like it with other women and be alone in her van the rest of the time. These are the very fantasies that she had back in the orchards just before Ariana was conceived. Apparently she hadn’t really made up her mind, had stayed unconscious then, and had really chosen to live out all her fantasies – beginning with having a child by him.

He’s very upset. He tells her that he wishes that they hadn’t had a child together, that she has spoiled it by acting out her desire. He tells her that he wishes she had really known what she had wanted back in the orchards. He’s feeling really sad for Ariana too. He’s sad that she will have to go through what Jonathan is going through now.

Karen has betrayed him again. He should have left her the very first time she cheated on him, way back at the music festival in Idyllwild. He wonders if he’ll ever find a woman he can trust. He closes his heart to Karen forever now. He can only take so much.
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He’s very upset and needs to be alone. Jonathan doesn’t understand this at all. Jon knows that he and Karen are separating. He knows this with his head, but he doesn’t know what he’s feeling in his heart at all. He needs to be alone to lick his wounds and to grieve, but the more he tries to be alone, the more Jonathan needs him, the more he tries to get his attention. He realizes that he has to do something drastic, and soon, before he hurts Jonathan out of his own hurt. He’s going to drop acid tomorrow and accept the death of his marriage – and hopefully begin his life again.

Acid Rescue told him, out at Doc’s that time, that he wouldn’t be with Karen for much longer. Acid told him that he would have a new identity and begin a new life. It just didn’t tell him that it would hurt so much.