Sand in the Wind (76 page)

“You gotta expect a bum trip every once in a while.
  
.
 
.
 
. No. Even then it was nice. It’s all a game when you’re a little kid, nothing too important, choosing a red lollipop or a yellow one. Even if you choose wrong, the worst thing that can happen is your old man slapping you around. Then you can start all over again.”

“You used to get slapped around for choosing the wrong lollipop?” Childs asked.

“You know what I mean.
  
.
 
.
 
. One day you realize that it isn’t a game anymore, that it hasn’t been for a long time. Things begin to count. You have to make choices you can’t make twice. You start trying to figure things out so you don’t choose wrong
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
because if you do you gotta live with it.
  
.
 
.
 
. You can’t get punished and start all over again.”

“Like joining the Marine Corps,” Childs commented.

“No
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
yeah, that’s right, for you yes.”

“And not you?” Chalice asked.

“No. I had to. It wasn’t much of a choice.”

“You could have gone to the induction physical on acid or something,” Chalice pointed out.

“No chance. That’s why I
had
to go into the Marine Corps.
  
.
 
.
 
. At first drugs were nice, but it got so I was eating them like candy, not even knowing what they were, or caring even. It got so drugs were all there was — which ain’t bad when you’re on them. But when you come down, you
really
come down.

“If it was just me, I never would have realized what was happening. But then I started looking at the friends I’d made. They were so fucked-up I couldn’t even stand them unless I was spaced out too. I almost went bat-shit when I couldn’t get any more dope, but I was glad too. That was the only way I could stop. If —”

“Wait a minute,” Childs cut in. “What’s that got to do with joining the Marine Corps?”

“I had to join because I got arrested for drugs.”

“But you just said you went off drugs.”

“That’s the amazing part. I —”

“Oh great. Let’s hear the amazing part.”

“See I was still hanging around Berkeley, but I’d been off drugs for about two weeks when I got arrested for selling grass. If I had —”

“How’d you get caught?” Chalice asked.

“That’s just it. The whole thing was a frame-up.”

“You got a lawyer, didn’t you?”

“Hell yeah. I got one of those public defenders. He’d just graduated Berkeley — honors and everything. Man, you wouldn’t believe how freaked out this dude was. I think it might have been his first case. He comes up to me all excited like I saved his life or somethin’, telling me not to worry because he had it all figured out. I said, ‘Great,’ and started explaining how the two narcs framed me. He stops me and says: ‘Don’t even worry about that. I’ve got it all figured out.’ And I said, ‘But how you gonna prove it’s a frame job if you don’t know all the facts?’ And he said, ‘
We're not!
’ And I said, ‘
What?
’ And he said, ‘You’re gonna plead guilty.’ This really threw me. I got all excited, but he told me not to worry about it, that he had it all figured out. And I told him to figure it out again without me pleading guilty. That’s when he started explaining about how the law was unconstitutional and how he was gonna file all sorts of suits and how someday my case was gonna be just as famous as Marberry vs. Madison and all those other cases in the history books. And I explained to the dude about how I wanted to get out of jail, not make history. But that didn’t phase him. He kept on trying to get me to plead guilty. Just when I thought he was ready to give up, he said okay, I could plead no lo contendre or something. That means no contest, and after five minutes of legal bullshit I realized it meant guilty, only spelled differently. Boy, was —”

“When’s this story gonna end?” Childs cut in.

But Chalice said, “Shut up, man. I’m interested.”

“Okay, to make it short he finally gave up and let me plead innocent because it didn’t make that much difference anyway — ‘
the principle was the same.
’ So when my trial came up I pleaded innocent and he had all kinds of notes and looked real confident and I figured everything was gonna be all right. Then the first narc took the stand. He starts telling all kinds of ridiculous lies, and I’m writing ‘he’s lying’ all over this yellow pad and shoving it in front of my lawyer and he’s nodding his head real confident like. But when it was his turn to cross-examine, he said, ‘
No ques
tions, your honor.
’ I almost shit! And while the second narc is getting on the stand I’m telling my lawyer he’s crazy and everything, and all he says is, ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it all figured out.’ I told the dude I’d just about had it with the way he had everything figured out, but he said they’d never take my word against two narcs anyway.
  
.
 
.
 
. Maybe he was right, but I almost went batshit when the second narc starts lying his ass off too.

“So then the judge tells the defense to call its witnesses, and of course we didn’t have any, and I’m sitting there nervous as hell, all ready to get carted off to jail. But then my lawyer gets up and starts talking. I gotta hand it to that dude, it was the coolest speech I ever heard in my life — all about the rights of the individual, oppression of the state, trying to legislate morals, and something about capitalism too. Just listening to the dude calmed me down. It was like watching Perry Mason on TV, only a hundred times better. It didn’t even seem like I was the one on trial. The whole rest of the trial I just leaned back in my chair and took it all in. Even when the verdict was ready, and the judge said, ‘Will the defendant please rise and face the jury,’ I just sat there looking around calm as can be. Then the judge said it again and my lawyer poked me in the ribs. Man, I was shocked as shit when I saw that judge staring at
me.
But it wasn’t until I was standing up looking that jury foreman in the eye that it really hit me —
I was the defendant!
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
That’s
when I knew it was all over.

“That fucked-up lawyer of mine was more surprised than I was when the sonofabitch said, ‘Guilty.’ He looked like somebody was chokin’ him to death. And when I heard the jerk mumble, ‘I knew we should of pleaded guilty,’ I almost
did
choke him to death.”

Childs cut in, “I’m gonna choke
you
to death if you don’t finish this fucked-up story and tell us what it has to do with joining the Marine Corps.”

“Take it easy, man. I’m getting to it.”

“I’ll believe it when you do.”

“Well it turned out the judge wasn’t such a bastard after all. Because it was my first offense, he said I could go in the service instead of going to jail. Believe it or not, that sounded pretty good at the time. I was probably about to get drafted anyway. My lawyer starts raving about how we’re gonna appeal and everything, so the judge has a conference with him. I couldn’t hear much of it, but I think he asked, ‘What are you trying to do to this kid?’ But my trusty lawyer wouldn’t have any of it. He starts giving his speech all over again while I’m standing there wondering if it’s all just a bad trip. The judge finally holds up his hand to shut him up, then looks at me and says, ‘Jail or the service?’ And
here the fuck I am.
”

“Took you a hell of a long time to get here,” Childs commented.

“But why the Marine Corps?” Chalice asked.

“The Crotch was the only one that would take me. That’s why a lot of guys join. There were about ten of us in my PI platoon alone. One guy had been arrested a dozen times. When you fill out the forms, the recruiters tell you to say you’ve never been arrested. By the time they find out you lied, you’re already halfway through Parris Island. And if you haven’t been in any trouble since you’ve been in, they usually let you stay.”

“I bet you wished you
were
in jail when you got to PI.”

“Naw, that place was just like home — three fathers yelling at me instead of one.
  
.
 
.
 
. The fucking truth is I needed something like the Marine Corps — people ordering me around, no time to think, no
choices
to make. One thing about drugs is they fucking disorient you. You don’t know whether you’re up or down. They take all the fucking order out of your life — which ain’t as good as it sounds. That’s why the Crotch wasn’t such a bad thing. I mean I didn’t need
this much
fucking discipline, but I needed some of it. Besides, like Tony 5 said, I’ve met some of the best motherfuckers I’ve ever known in the Crotch, better than Berkeley.
  
.
 
.
 
. They seemed cool at first, but then they started looking phonier and phonier, always screaming about revolution, calling everybody a fascist. You should of heard some of the speeches, all the same bullshit, as bad as Johnson or any of those politicians.
  
.
 
.
 
. I gotta admit I’ve never seen so many intelligent people in one place, but they’re even better at fooling themselves than a bunch of holy rollers. Berzerkley’s the only place I’ve ever been where political fantasies are more important than sexual fantasies.”

“I thought you liked the freaks,” Chalice asked.

“I did
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
but they weren’t real, not like the guys you meet in the Crotch.”

“You call this
real?
”

“No — well yeah. I know it’s like we’re playing cowboys sometimes, but at least we know it. They don’t.”

“But they don’t go around killing people,” Chalice argued.

“That’s what he means,” Childs cut in.

Forsythe ignored Childs and said, “I’m not sure they wouldn’t if they could. When they call themselves revolutionaries, they really believe it. They think the whole world is gonna change if they just keep pulling mass temper tantrums.”

“But they don’t go around killing people,” Chalice insisted.

“No, not like us, not as many. But a lot of them don’t mind getting people killed. One time we had this demonstration that turned into a riot. I did my part —knocked a cop on his ass with a brick. We trashed his ass. I’d seen those pigs do the same thing to us, so it didn’t bug me a bit.…
Then
they started shooting.
  
.
 
.
 
. The guy right next to me got killed. I couldn’t believe it. Two days later we had this memorial service for him. I’d never seen so many people on the same street. They started giving speeches about how the pigs were out to kill us, how he was an unarmed demonstrator. We all got real excited, yelling, ‘Off the pigs! Off the pigs!’ Pretty soon we had another riot going — smashing windows, beating up cops. I never felt so great. Then I saw this cop backing away from us. He was scared shitless, more scared than I was, everybody yelling, ‘Off the pigs!
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
’ The cops started shooting again, and another one of us got killed.”

“Sounds great,” Childs commented.

Forsythe ignored him and continued. ”We got up another big funeral, even bigger than the first. When they started giving speeches again, blaming the cops and trying to start another riot, that’s when I realized they wanted the same thing to happen again, to get even more people for their next riot. Sure it was the pigs that shot him, but they wanted it to happen. They didn’t care how many of us got killed, screaming as if they had nothing to do with it.
  
.
 
.
 
. Most of the freaks were all right. It was just the speechmakers. From then on I stayed away from the screamers and stuck to dope. I —”

“How do you know you won’t go back to drugs when you get out of the Crotch?” Chalice asked.

“No chance, not like before. Dope can make the world a lot nicer, but too much of it makes things worse.”

“What are you gonna do when you get out?” Hamilton asked.

“I want to go to Europe, see —”

Chalice cut him off by saying, “That’s what I was planning!
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
But most of my friends have already gone.”

“You and me, we can go together.”

“Great!
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
But you get out way before I do.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

“No shit?”

“Sure, Professor. I’ll wait for you.”

“That’ll be cool. We can go halves on a Volkswagen camper with our separation pay.”

“Yeah.
  
.
 
.
 
. Maybe motorcycles ’ud be even cooler.”

Hamilton said in a left-out tone, “Sounds like it’d be fun.”

“You can come with us,” Forsythe replied.

“
Yeah!
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
But I’d have to check with my girl.”

“I know what that means,” Childs cut in.

“How about you?” Chalice asked.

“I’ve already been there. Europe’s just as fucked up as any other place.” Still excited, Forsythe turned back to Chalice. “I knew a dude in Berzerkley, best motherfucker I met there, he used to tell me all about when he was in Europe. He had a project: to get laid in every big city on the continent. Name any city and he could tell you where the whorehouses were: Paris, start at the Eiffel Tower, go down Rue de Whatshisfuck, make a left at Rue Joan of Arc or something, then a right; Hamburg, anywhere, they’re all whores; Zurich, corner of Jeckyl and Hyde; Stockholm, you —” Excited far more by Forsythe’s tone than the idea itself, Chalice cut him off. “
Great!
Maybe we can take him along.”