Read The Purple Decades Online
Authors: Tom Wolfe
The Purple Decades (26 page)
“Lotta fuckin' trash, man,” says another one, and so on.
Suddenly Golden Mouth is speaking straight to Zonker: “What's all this trash doing in the water, man?”
Zonker is very nonplused, partly because the whole day has turned orange on him, because of the acidâorange trunks, orange water, orange sky, orange menacing spades.
“Boy, what you doing here!” Golden Mouth says very sharp all of a sudden. Orange and big and orange hulking fat back big as an orange mantra ray. “Boy, you know what we gonna do? We gonna cut yo' little balls off. We gonna take you up on that beach and
wail
with you!”
wail
with you!”
“Heh-hehhhhhhhhhhhh!” The others start this wailing moaning laugh.
For some reason, however, this makes Zonker smile. He can feel it spreading across his face, like a big orange slice of orange sugar-jelly candy and he is suspended there treading water and grinning while the Golden Mouth flashes and flashes and flashes.
Then the Golden Mouth says, “Well, it sure is
some kinda trash
,” and starts laughing, only amiably this time, and they all laugh, and Zonker laughs and swims back to shore.
some kinda trash
,” and starts laughing, only amiably this time, and they all laugh, and Zonker laughs and swims back to shore.
By this time a big crowd of Negroes has gathered around the mad bus. Funky music is blasting off the speakers, a Jimmy Smith record. Zonker gets on the bus. It seems like thousands of Negroes are dancing around the bus, doing rock dances and the dirty boogie. Everything is orange and then he looks at the writhing mass of Negroes, out every window, nothing but writhing Negroes mashed in around the bus and writhing, and it all starts turning from orange to brown. Zonker starts getting the feeling he is inside an enormous intestine and it is going into peristaltic contractions. He can feel the whole trip turning into a horrible bummer. Even Kesey, who isn't afraid of anything, looks worried. “We better get out of here,” Kesey says. But squeezed out? âin bummer brown peristaltic contractions? Luckily for Zonker, maybe for everyone, the white cops turn up at that point and break up the crowd and tell the white crazies to drive on, this is a segregated beach, and for once they don't pile out and try to break up the Cop Movie. They go with the Cop Movie and get their movie out of there.
Â
On into the flatlands of Mississippi and Alabama, Biloxi, Mobile, U.S. Route 90, the flatlands and the fields and the heat doesn't let up ever. They are heading for Florida. Sandy hasn't slept in days : : : : :how many:::::like total insomnia and everything is
bending
in curvy curdling lines. Sun and flatlands. So damned hotâand everything is getting torn into opposites. The dead-still heat-stroked summertime deep Southlandâand Sandy's heart racing at a constant tachycardia and his brain racing and reeling out and so essential to â¦
keep moving,
Cassady!
⦠but there are two Cassadys. One minute Cassady looks 58 and crazyâ
speed!
âand the next, 28 and peacefulâ
acid
âand Sandy can tell the peaceful Cassady in an instant, because his nose becomes ⦠long and smooth and almost patrician, whereas the wild Cassady looks beat-up. And Kesey
âalways Kesey!
Sandy looks ⦠and Kesey is old and haggard and his face is lopsided ⦠and then Sandy looks and Kesey is young, serene, and his face is lineless, and round and smooth as a baby's as he sits for hours on end reading comic books, absorbed in the plunging purple Steve Ditko shadows of Dr. Strange attired in capes and chiaroscuro, saying: “How could they have known that this gem was merely a device to bridge DIMENSIONS! It was a means to enter the dread PURPLE DIMENSIONâfrom our own world!” Sandy may wander ⦠off the bus, but it remains all Kesey. Dr. Strange! Always seeing two Keseys. Kesey the Prankster and Kesey the organizer. Going through the steams of southern
Alabama in late June and Kesey rises up from out of the comic books and becomes Captain Flag. He puts on a pink kilt, like a miniskirt, and pink socks and patent-leather shoes and pink sunglasses and wraps an American flag around his head like a big turban and holds it in place with an arrow through the back of it and gets up on top of the bus roaring through Alabama and starts playing the flute at people passing by. The Alabamans drawn into the PINK DIMENSION do a double-freak take for sure and it is
Too Much!
as George Walker always says, too mullyfogging much. They pull into a gas station in Mobile and half the Pranksters jump out of the bus, blazing red and white stripes and throwing red rubber balls around in a crazed way like a manic ballet of slick Servicenter flutter decoration while the guy fills up the tank, and he looks from them to Captain Flag to the bus itself, and after he collects for the gas he looks through the window at Cassady in the driver's seat and shakes his head and says:
bending
in curvy curdling lines. Sun and flatlands. So damned hotâand everything is getting torn into opposites. The dead-still heat-stroked summertime deep Southlandâand Sandy's heart racing at a constant tachycardia and his brain racing and reeling out and so essential to â¦
keep moving,
Cassady!
⦠but there are two Cassadys. One minute Cassady looks 58 and crazyâ
speed!
âand the next, 28 and peacefulâ
acid
âand Sandy can tell the peaceful Cassady in an instant, because his nose becomes ⦠long and smooth and almost patrician, whereas the wild Cassady looks beat-up. And Kesey
âalways Kesey!
Sandy looks ⦠and Kesey is old and haggard and his face is lopsided ⦠and then Sandy looks and Kesey is young, serene, and his face is lineless, and round and smooth as a baby's as he sits for hours on end reading comic books, absorbed in the plunging purple Steve Ditko shadows of Dr. Strange attired in capes and chiaroscuro, saying: “How could they have known that this gem was merely a device to bridge DIMENSIONS! It was a means to enter the dread PURPLE DIMENSIONâfrom our own world!” Sandy may wander ⦠off the bus, but it remains all Kesey. Dr. Strange! Always seeing two Keseys. Kesey the Prankster and Kesey the organizer. Going through the steams of southern
Alabama in late June and Kesey rises up from out of the comic books and becomes Captain Flag. He puts on a pink kilt, like a miniskirt, and pink socks and patent-leather shoes and pink sunglasses and wraps an American flag around his head like a big turban and holds it in place with an arrow through the back of it and gets up on top of the bus roaring through Alabama and starts playing the flute at people passing by. The Alabamans drawn into the PINK DIMENSION do a double-freak take for sure and it is
Too Much!
as George Walker always says, too mullyfogging much. They pull into a gas station in Mobile and half the Pranksters jump out of the bus, blazing red and white stripes and throwing red rubber balls around in a crazed way like a manic ballet of slick Servicenter flutter decoration while the guy fills up the tank, and he looks from them to Captain Flag to the bus itself, and after he collects for the gas he looks through the window at Cassady in the driver's seat and shakes his head and says:
“No wonder you're so nigger-heavy in California.”
FORNIA-FORNIA-FORNIA-FORNIA-FORNIA-FORNIA-FORNIA-FORNIA as it is picked up inside the bus in variable lag, and that breaks everybody up.
That was when it was good ⦠grinding on through Alabama, and then suddenly, to Sandy, Kesey is old and haggard and the organizer. Sandy can see him descending the ladder down from the roof of the bus and glowering at him, and he knowsâintersubjectivity!âthat Kesey is thinking, You're too detached, Sandy, you're not out front, you may be sitting right here grinding and roaring through Alabama but you're ⦠off the bus ⦠And he approaches Sandy, hunched over under the low ceiling of the bus, and to Sandy he looks like an ape with his mighty arms dangling, like The Incredible Hulk, and suddenly Sandy jumps up and crouches into an ape position, dangling his arms and mimicking himâand Kesey breaks into a big grin and throws his arms around Sandy and hugs himâ
He approves! Kesey approves of me! At last I have
responded
to something, brought it all out front, even if it is resentment,
done
something, done my thingâand in that very action, just as he taught, it is gone, the resentment ⦠and I am back on the bus again, synched in â¦
responded
to something, brought it all out front, even if it is resentment,
done
something, done my thingâand in that very action, just as he taught, it is gone, the resentment ⦠and I am back on the bus again, synched in â¦
Always Kesey ! And in that surge of euphoriaâ
Kesey approves!
âSandy knew that Kesey was the key to whatever was going right and whatever was going wrong on this trip, and nobody, not one of them who ever took this trip, got in this movie, would ever have even the will to walk up to Kesey and announce irrevocably: I am off the bus. It would be like saying, I am off this ⦠Unspoken Thing we are into â¦
Kesey approves!
âSandy knew that Kesey was the key to whatever was going right and whatever was going wrong on this trip, and nobody, not one of them who ever took this trip, got in this movie, would ever have even the will to walk up to Kesey and announce irrevocably: I am off the bus. It would be like saying, I am off this ⦠Unspoken Thing we are into â¦
Pensacola, Florida. 110 degrees. A friend of Babbs has a little house near the ocean, and they pull in there, but the ocean doesn't help at all. The heat makes waves in the air, like over a radiator. Most of the Pranksters are in the house or out in the yard. Some of the girls are outside the bus barbecuing some meat. Sandy is by himself inside the bus, in the shade. The insomnia is killing him. He has got to get some sleep or keep moving. He can't stand it in here stranded in between with his heart pounding. He goes to the refrigerator and takes out the orange juice. The acid in New Orleans, the 75 micrograms, wasn't enough. It's like he hasn't had a good high the whole trip, nothing ⦠blissful. So he hooks down a big slug of Unauthorized Acid and sits back.
He would like something nice and peaceful, closed in softly alone on the bus. He puts on a set of earphones. The left earphone is hooked into a microphone inside the house and picks up Kesey's Cousin Dale playing the piano. Dale, for all his country ways, has studied music a long time and plays well and the notes come in like liquid drops of amethyst vibrating endlessly in the ⦠acid ⦠atmosphere and it is very nice. The right earphone is hooked into a microphone picking up the sounds outside the house, mainly the barbecue fires crackling. So Dale concerto and fire crackle in these big padded earphones closed in about his head ⦠only the sounds are somehow sliding out of control. There is no synch. It is as if the two are fighting for his head. The barbecue crackles and bubbles in his head and the amethyst droplets crystallize into broken glass, and then tin, a tin piano. The earphones seem to get bigger and bigger, huge padded shells about to enclose his whole head, his face, his noseâamok sound overpowering him, as if it is all going to end right here inside this padded globe â
panic
âhe leaps up from the seat, bolts a few feet with the earphones still clamped on his skull, then rips them off and jumps out of the busâPranksters everywhere in the afternoon sun in red and white striped shirts. Babbs has the power and is directing the movie and is trying to shoot somethingâAcid Piper. Sandy looks about. Nobody he can tell it to, that he has taken acid by himself and it is turning into a bummer, he can't bring this out front ⦠He runs into the house, the walls keep jumping up so goddamn close and all the angles are under extreme stress, as if they could break. Jane Burton is sitting alone in the house, feeling bilious. Jane is the only person he can tell.
panic
âhe leaps up from the seat, bolts a few feet with the earphones still clamped on his skull, then rips them off and jumps out of the busâPranksters everywhere in the afternoon sun in red and white striped shirts. Babbs has the power and is directing the movie and is trying to shoot somethingâAcid Piper. Sandy looks about. Nobody he can tell it to, that he has taken acid by himself and it is turning into a bummer, he can't bring this out front ⦠He runs into the house, the walls keep jumping up so goddamn close and all the angles are under extreme stress, as if they could break. Jane Burton is sitting alone in the house, feeling bilious. Jane is the only person he can tell.
“Jane,” he says, “I took some acid ⦠and it's really weird ⦔ But it is such an effort to talk â¦
The heat waves are solidifying in the air like the waves in a child's marble and the perspectives are all berserk, walls rushing up then
sinking way back like a Titian banquet hall. And the heatâSandy has to do something to pull himself together, so he takes a shower. He undresses and gets in the shower and ⦠flute music, Babbs! flute music comes spraying out of the nozzle and the heat is inside of him, it is like he can look down and see it burning there and he looks down, two bare legs, a torso rising up at him and like he is just noticing them for the first time. They exist apart from, like another human being's, such odd turns and angles they take amid the flute streams, swells and bony processes, like he has never seen any of this before, this flesh, this stranger. He groks over thatâonly it isn't a stranger, it is his ⦠mother ⦠and suddenly he is back in this body, only it is his mother's bodyâand then his father'sâhe has become his mother and his father. No difference between I and Thou inside this shower of flutes on the Florida littoral. He wrenches the water off, and it stops, the flute. He is himself againâhide from the panicâno,
gotcha
âand he pulls on his clothes and goes back out in the living room. Jane is still sitting there. Talk, christ, to somebodyâJane!âbut the room goes into the
zooms,
wild lurches of perspective, a whole side of the room zooming right up in front of his face, then zooming back to where it wasâJane!âJane in front of his face, a foot away, then way back over there on the sofa, then zooming up again, all of it rocketing back and forth in the hulking heatâ“Sandy!”âsomebody is in the house looking for him, Hagen? who is it?âseems Babbs wants him in the movie. Red-and-white striped Pranksters burning in the sun. Seems Babbs has an idea for a section of the movie. In this scene Babbs is the Pied Piper, tootling on a flute, and all the red and white striped children are running after him in colorful dances. They hand Sandy a Prankster shirt, which he doesn't want. It is miles too big. It hangs on him in this sick loose way like he is desiccating in the sun. Into the sunâthe shirt starts flashing under his face in the sun in explosive beams of sunball red and sunball silver-white as if he is moving through an aura of violent beams. Babbs gives him his cue and he starts doing a crazy dance out by a clothesline while the camera whirrs away. He can feel the crazy look come over his face and feel his eyeballs turning up and white with just vague flashes of red and silver-white exploding in under his eyelids ⦠and the freaking heat, dancing like a crazy in the sun, and he goes reeling off to one side.
sinking way back like a Titian banquet hall. And the heatâSandy has to do something to pull himself together, so he takes a shower. He undresses and gets in the shower and ⦠flute music, Babbs! flute music comes spraying out of the nozzle and the heat is inside of him, it is like he can look down and see it burning there and he looks down, two bare legs, a torso rising up at him and like he is just noticing them for the first time. They exist apart from, like another human being's, such odd turns and angles they take amid the flute streams, swells and bony processes, like he has never seen any of this before, this flesh, this stranger. He groks over thatâonly it isn't a stranger, it is his ⦠mother ⦠and suddenly he is back in this body, only it is his mother's bodyâand then his father'sâhe has become his mother and his father. No difference between I and Thou inside this shower of flutes on the Florida littoral. He wrenches the water off, and it stops, the flute. He is himself againâhide from the panicâno,
gotcha
âand he pulls on his clothes and goes back out in the living room. Jane is still sitting there. Talk, christ, to somebodyâJane!âbut the room goes into the
zooms,
wild lurches of perspective, a whole side of the room zooming right up in front of his face, then zooming back to where it wasâJane!âJane in front of his face, a foot away, then way back over there on the sofa, then zooming up again, all of it rocketing back and forth in the hulking heatâ“Sandy!”âsomebody is in the house looking for him, Hagen? who is it?âseems Babbs wants him in the movie. Red-and-white striped Pranksters burning in the sun. Seems Babbs has an idea for a section of the movie. In this scene Babbs is the Pied Piper, tootling on a flute, and all the red and white striped children are running after him in colorful dances. They hand Sandy a Prankster shirt, which he doesn't want. It is miles too big. It hangs on him in this sick loose way like he is desiccating in the sun. Into the sunâthe shirt starts flashing under his face in the sun in explosive beams of sunball red and sunball silver-white as if he is moving through an aura of violent beams. Babbs gives him his cue and he starts doing a crazy dance out by a clothesline while the camera whirrs away. He can feel the crazy look come over his face and feel his eyeballs turning up and white with just vague flashes of red and silver-white exploding in under his eyelids ⦠and the freaking heat, dancing like a crazy in the sun, and he goes reeling off to one side.
It becomes very important that nobody know he has taken Unauthorized Acid. He can trust Jane ⦠This is not very out front, but he must remain very cool. Chuck Kesey is marching around the yard blowing a tuba, going
boop boop a boop boop
very deep and loud, then he comes by Sandy and looks at him and smiles over the mouthpiece and goes
bup bup a bup bup,
very tender and soft andâintersubjectivity!
âhe knows and
understands
âand that is nice because Chuck is one of the nicest people in the world and Sandy can trust him. If only he can remain cool â¦
boop boop a boop boop
very deep and loud, then he comes by Sandy and looks at him and smiles over the mouthpiece and goes
bup bup a bup bup,
very tender and soft andâintersubjectivity!
âhe knows and
understands
âand that is nice because Chuck is one of the nicest people in the world and Sandy can trust him. If only he can remain cool â¦
There is a half pound of grass in a tin can by the bus and Sandy gets down on all fours to help and starts digging his playing in the sun, and he somehow kicks over the can and the grass spills all over this silty brown dirt. Everybody is upset and Hagen gets down to try to separate the grass from the dirt, and Sandy gets down on all fours to help and starts digging his fingers into the dirt to try to dig out the grass, only as he starts digging, the dirt gets browner and browner as he digs, and he starts grooving over the brownness of it, so brown, so deep, so rich, until he is digging way past the grass, on down into the ground, and Hagen says,
“Hey! What the hell's the matter with you?”
And Sandy knows he should just come out with it and say, I'm stoned, man, and this brown is a groove, and then it would be all out front and over with. But he can't bring himself to do it, he can't bring himself all the way out front. Instead, it gets worse.
Kesey comes over with a football and a spray can of Day-Glo. He wants Sandy to spray it Day-Glo, and then he and Babbs and some others are going to take it out near the water at dusk and pass the Day-Glo ball around, and Sandy starts spraying it, only it's all one thing, the ball and Kesey's arm, and he is spraying Kesey's arm in the most dedicated, cool way, and Kesey says:
“Hey! What the hell's the matter with youâ”
And as soon as he says it, he
knows
, which is suddenly very bad.
knows
, which is suddenly very bad.
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