Are You Experienced? (14 page)

At the time, though, it felt perfect. It also looked awe inspiring. I could see a stream of golden notes fluttering forth from David's mouth, intertwining with a river of reddish ones flowing from mine, and then mingling with a beautiful blue sea of words and chords coming from John and his guitar.

At the end of the song, John said, “Are you two friends with these two?” We all nodded in eerie unison, like trained seals. He grinned. “And I'm guessing you all shared dessert not too long ago?” We all nodded again, although I felt kind of sheepish, like I was getting busted. But he just grinned even wider and said, “Welcome to Woodstock, friends!”

Debbie said, “Um, Mr. Sebastian? Sir? Uh, your rock-star-ship?”

“Call me John.”

“Your Johnship? How come you're playing here? I mean, it's really far out and all, but…”

“I've been playing here on and off all day, sweetheart. Mostly, I've been singing songs for kids who've been trying to come down off bad trips, you know? It really helps 'em to mellow out. You should have been here a few hours ago. Rick Danko from the Band was here jamming, too. It was a real sweet scene.”

“That's amazing!” I said. I know you always hear about famous people stopping in at hospitals, hitting home runs for little Timmy with cancer and stuff like that, but when you're actually right there with the rock star, it's still kind of crazy.

David reached out and touched John's knee. “Hey, man. I just want to say thanks. The stitches kind of hurt, but it didn't bother me so much or anything with you here.”

John smiled and said, “You're welcome.”

Just then, a mousy-looking short woman with long, frizzy hair came rushing in, wearing a flowing, tie-dyed outfit and a million beads and bracelets. She was holding a lit cigarette and waving a bottle of Southern Comfort whiskey at John with the same hand. “Sebastian,” she rasped, “I knew I'd find you here. Why isn't your scrawny Yankee ass backstage? Sly Stone is going crazy! He said you promised you'd check out his hair before he goes onstage, and he ain't leaving the trailer until you do!”

John grinned. “See ya, David. See ya, Tina. I guess that's my cue. Anyway, I'm starving. I gotta get something to eat from the hospitality area before Janis here eats all the bagels!”

“Awww!” Tina said.

“What's wrong?” John asked. I thought for sure Tina was going to beg him for an autograph, or bug him to take us backstage with him, or do something else that would totally ruin the moment.

Instead, her eyes literally filled with huge tears that sparkled in the glaring, generator-fueled lights, and she said, “You're so nice. I'll miss you.”

John Sebastian slung his guitar behind his back so it was out of the way, leaned down over the cot, and kissed Tina on the top of her head. Then he stood back up and froze for a moment, like he was pondering something really, really heavy.

Finally, he unfroze and said, “Hey, Janis? Do we have time for just one more song? Something to warm up your throat a little before your set?”

She took a huge pull on her cigarette and then gulped down a swig from her bottle. “Well, shit, 'Bastian. I have to sing for 'bout a million people tonight.” She took a deep breath and wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve. “So I guess it doesn't make any difference if I sing for a few more. Hey, why don't we try out that new song we were messing around with backstage?”

John started strumming on his guitar, and Janis's voice filled the tent: “Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waitin' for a train…”

*   *   *

After the song and a round of good-byes, Debbie, Tina, David, and I were left sitting on the cots in amazement, going, “Was that really—” “Did they really just—” “Did she—”

Then we would all burst out giggling.

The nurse must have gotten tired of watching this pattern repeat itself over and over, because eventually she said, “Yes, that was really Janis Joplin, and yes, she really sang a duet with the real John Sebastian, just for the four of you. Plus one lucky nurse.”

We all smiled like fools. I had been pretty sure I wasn't completely hallucinating, and my trip seemed to be mostly over, but it was nice to hear some confirmation from someone who was sober. Unless, of course, I was imagining everything the nurse said, too.

“Anyway,” she continued, “that was a nice ending to your weekend adventures, don't you think? In the morning, when the helicopters are flying again and we can get David and Tina out of here, they'll fly out with a great last memory of the concert.”

 

BAD MOON RISING

AFTER MIDNIGHT, SUNDAY, AUGUST 17, 1969

 

I jumped up from the cot. “What?” I shouted. “You can't send them away before the concert's over!”

“Sure I can. They have deep, stitched-up wounds on their feet, no shoes, and miles of litter-strewn mud to cross in every direction. Do you want your friends' cuts to get infected?”

“N-no, but—”

“Listen, Junior, this is serious stuff. I'm an emergency room nurse. I've seen people lose legs because they didn't take care of injuries on their feet. This is a farm field—that means cows and horses, pigs, manure. You can't even imagine the nasty little bacteria that are swimming around in the muck out there.”

“But—please. This is my friend's last chance to spend with his big brother before … um…”

“Before what?”

Geez. I couldn't exactly tell her. She wouldn't believe the word of a drugged fifteen-year-old, and even if she would, I couldn't say anything in front of David. “Nothing. It's just that this concert means a lot to my friend. Okay, what if I give him my shoes? I'll go barefoot back to our blankets, and then I'll put on his shoes there. Mine are cleaner, and we're the same size, anyway. It's just one more day, right? We have soap and everything. What if we promise we'll go to the pumps and wash his feet twice tomorrow?”

She stared me down with a tough-nurse glare. “Let me get this straight: You want to walk barefoot back on the same exact path that you know your friends just got cut up on?”

Well, when she put it that way it didn't sound terribly appealing, but I didn't see much choice. I gulped, crossed my fingers behind my back for luck, and nodded. “If you'll let us stay.”

Debbie said, “Me, too. I'm the exact same size as Tina, and I would get cut for her any day. She'd do it for me in a heartbeat.”

The nurse sighed. “This is crazy. If I weren't a volunteer, I'd get fired for this. Here's what I'm going to do.… We have a few pairs of sandals some kids left behind earlier today when they got choppered out of here. I'll give each of you a pair of sandals to wear so you don't get cut up, too. And I'm going to give your friends some penicillin pills to take. David and Tina, is either one of you allergic to antibiotics?”

They both shook their heads.

“Are you sure?”

They both shook them again.

“In that case, will each of you swear to me you'll take one of these every eight hours for the next ten days?”

They both nodded.

The nurse scurried over to a huge pile of cardboard boxes in the corner and started sorting through them, muttering, “Can't believe I'm doing this…” When she came back, she handed a pair of sandals each to Debbie and me, and a vial of pills each to David and Tina. Debbie and I gave our sneakers to our friends, who put them on gingerly and stood up very carefully.

As we all turned to leave, I said, “Is that it? Can we go now?”

The nurse said, “One more thing. Do you know my name?”

Tina frowned and said, “No, I don't think you ever told us.”

The nurse smiled. “Excellent. Now get out of here. And try to have fun while you still have all your limbs!”

Walking through several inches of mud in oversize sandals was an interesting experience, made even more so by the sounds of Creedence Clearwater Revival playing from the stage, the random flashes of psychedelic light that were still occasionally flashing across my vision, and Tina's cries of “Ouch!” every few steps.

“Should we go back and ask the nurse about the helicopter option?” Debbie asked her.

“No way, Deb! I am not missing Jimi Hendrix. He is the grooviest man alive!”

And I was running out of time to meet him.

David told us Michael and Willow would be frantically worried when we got back to the blankets, but actually they were unnaturally calm. We found them sitting perfectly still with their hands wrapped around their knees, watching the end of Creedence's set.

David knelt in front of his brother and said, “Michael, I'm so sorry! You told us to stay right here, but we ate the brownies, and then Tina saw these pretty lights floating through the air, so we decided to follow them, and, uh, I got a little spaced out for a while … and then some other stuff happened, and we ended up in this tent place, and we met John Sebastian and Janis Joplin. And oh yeah, I got some stitches in my foot. And a shot. But everything's cool, man. The nurse said I was good to go. Okay? Hello? Mikey? Are you mad? Aren't you speaking to me?”

Michael turned his head toward David in such super-slow motion that he reminded me of a praying mantis, or some kind of gigantic, long-extinct plant-eating dinosaur. “You … met … Janis Joplin?” he asked. It looked as though formulating the question had taken a massive mental effort. “That's … groovy. Right, Willow?”

Willow gave us the same reptilian once-over and whispered, “Groovy. Come … sit with us.”

At first I wasn't sure what was wrong with them. They weren't acting like anybody else I had talked to at Woodstock. It was almost like they had brain damage. Then I thought about what my father had said to me in the prison cell:
My brother died because of Woodstock
. And what my mother had said to me in our kitchen:
The boy had apparently been experimenting with heroin for two months or so
.

That was when I knew. My uncle Mike had just taken his first dose of heroin. Worse, he and Willow had tricked us. They had given us the mushroom brownies, knowing that we'd be too high for a few hours to do anything that would stop them from scoring.

And I still didn't understand why.

We all sat down, and David and the girls immediately launched into an extended retelling of our adventure. None of them seemed to notice that Michael and Willow were practically nodding out on their laps the whole time, but I did. Tears ran down my face, and I was glad for the dark. All I could think was,
Stupid, stupid, stupid. The guy has eight more Saturdays left on earth, and your only job was to stick with him and prevent this from happening. Instead, you got distracted by babes and brownies
.

Creedence launched into one of my all-time favorite songs, “Bad Moon Rising,” and a chill shot through me. I thought,
I love this band, I love this song, and I will never want to hear either of them again as long as I live
.

I lay on my side for a while, turned away from everybody else, and tried really hard to think of something useful to say or do. But I was incredibly tired, my uncle had just done exactly what I had hoped to stop him from doing, and I still hadn't even come close to meeting Jimi Hendrix. Nothing was working, and friendly, cheerful David was going to grow up and turn into the exact same bitter father I had always known.

At some point, I must have started to doze off, but a hand on my shoulder jolted me awake. I sat upright, and my face banged into Willow's. “Hey, sleeping angel Gabriel,” she slurred, “you'll miss Janisssss.”

How could they all sit around talking like nothing was wrong? That was the craziest thing about Woodstock, I guess: The drugs really did seem like a good idea at the time. Everyone was having fun, right? I had seen and heard enough to know how protective Michael was of David, but he had thought nothing of getting David wasted and then leaving him in a field amid half a million drugged-up strangers. And, hey, for most of these people, most of the time, on any given drug trip everything would turn out all right. As far as I could remember, only one person at the whole festival had died of an overdose.

I got another chill. I was pretty sure the guy had died on Saturday night, from heroin. For all I knew, he was dying, somewhere out there in the darkness, at that exact moment.

Anyway, over time, a lot of these people's lives were going to be absolutely wrecked by drugs and alcohol. They didn't know it, but I sure did. I thought about the bands at Woodstock. The toll was going to be devastating:

• Multiple members of Canned Heat; Tim Hardin; Janis Joplin; two members of the Who; and of course, Jimi Hendrix would all die young from overdoses or drug- and alcohol-related misadventures.

• Sly Stone; various members of the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young band; the lead singer of the Grateful Dead; and Johnny Winter, among others, would go through years of substance abuse and mess up their lives and careers.

And, of course, there were several people on this very blanket whose futures were being demolished as we spoke.

I sat up and wiped my eyes. “Willow, are you feeling all right?” I asked.

“I feel sssuper-greaterrific,” she said.

I did not find that comforting.

“Hey, Gabriel, thanks for bringing my little brother back, man,” Michael said. It was so dark now that I couldn't really see anybody, but he still sounded just about as spacey as Willow did.

“I didn't really do anything. Debbie and I just walked around until we accidentally found David and Tina. It was no big deal.”

Tina said, “It was a big deal. You gave us your shoes. If not for you two, I wouldn't even be here right now. I would have had to stay in that tent. I would have missed Jimi Hendrix!”

I said, “But we had to give you our shoes. I mean, I couldn't have come back here without David. He's my ride home, right? And I don't want to leave early, either. So, uh, it's not like I was being some big hero or something. And neither was Debbie.”