The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss (31 page)

In fact, this was true; but circumstantially it didn’t look good. After all, I had been hanging out with the others all summer. Brett was even staying in our apartment, and Lord knows I was quite happy to smoke the abundant hash. But was there direct evidence linking me to the conspiracy? Not really, and association with criminals does not necessarily make one a criminal. But I didn’t know that at the time.

In fact it became clear that they had no background information on the case. Richard got picked up later, but the authorities didn’t know Brett had been living in my apartment; they didn’t know about Lisa, who had already moved to Boulder. For them, the case began with the package they’d tracked to the Basalt post office. They produced my wallet, which they’d taken earlier, and started going through the paper scraps in it, scribbled grocery lists and phone numbers and so forth. One of those was the smoking gun: Terence’s address in Bombay! They jumped on that, and pressed me: had Terence originated the shipment? He was the one, wasn’t he? If you confirm this for us, they said, if you rat on your brother and your buddies, we’ll make sure you get released when you’re arraigned in federal court on Monday. It was obvious that Terence was on the other end of the Bombay to Aspen pipeline; who else could it be? I broke down completely, and in tears I confessed: “Yes, it’s all true!”

Looking back on this, I am still ashamed. What kind of a worm rats out his own brother? I did it then, I didn’t see any alternative, and I’m not proud of it. What can I say? I was eighteen. I was scared out of my wits. And the cops were playing me like a fiddle. I got no Miranda warning, so I when I was interrogated I was under the impression I really had no rights. The cops did their best to reinforce that belief, to make me think they were ready to lock me up for good right then and there. Had I known of my rights, I’d like to think I would have resisted and, as in the movies, thrown it back in their faces: “You’ll never make me talk, you dirty coppers.” It’s a little different when you’re a terrified kid.

Terence’s address in my wallet was the damning evidence, and I think it would have been even if I’d said nothing. Under the circumstances, I may well have confessed even if I had been read my rights. Then again, had I been able to talk to an attorney, I would have learned that the case against me was weak. The fact that I had driven to Glenwood in my own car and happened to be at the house when the bust went down was not sufficient evidence to charge me. And a good attorney would have told me that. The cops were able to assure me that I’d be released after my arraignment because they knew very well they lacked the evidence to hold me, and they would not have held me even if I’d said nothing. But they didn’t divulge that; they played on my fear and ignorance of the law to make me spill.

I spent the next two nights in the holding cell at the county jail. My parents knew I was supposed to come to Paonia that weekend, but I hadn’t been allowed to contact them, and actually I didn’t want them to know. Foolishly, I thought I could somehow conceal this from them. Knowing I’d be released on Monday, I wrote them a letter, sent from jail, assuring them all was well and that I’d be there in a couple of days. It was a total lie of course, but I thought it would buy time, which it did, a little. On Saturday, we were transported in shackles to the holding pen at the Federal Building in Denver to await our arraignment. Or I should say I was transported. I didn’t see the others until the hearing. Those twenty-four hours in the holding pen were a real education for me. People were being held on all sorts of charges, ranging from drugs to armed robbery. Some were old hands, career criminals who had been in and out of jail for much of their lives. They were a much more cynical bunch. Others were scared kids like me, in there on pot charges.

The next morning, Monday, I was led to the hearing room. My associates were already there. As we sat waiting, I could not look them in the eyes. I was consumed with guilt and shame at my supposed betrayal, about which they knew nothing. But I also saw a path to redeem myself, at least partially. The hearing opened, and I was called up first. Agent Grissom and his buddy were as good as their word, or so I thought. The judge said, “As to the case of Dennis McKenna, no charges will be filed as there is insufficient evidence to charge him.” I was enormously relieved, unaware that I would have heard those words even if I’d said nothing. Afterward, I was allowed to leave, but not until I’d watched my friends being shepherded back to their cells.

In retrospect, I have to marvel at how limited the police work was. The tools for investigation and surveillance were relatively primitive back then, before GPS and the Internet. They had no idea where we lived in Aspen, or even who we were when they made the bust. They apparently knew that a shipment was coming in, addressed to unknown persons, and they had staked out the post office, waiting for someone to claim the package. That’s where they picked up the trail. As a result, they were unaware that another one had been picked up without incident at a different post office a few days earlier. That package was still sitting in the closet at the apartment back in Aspen, waiting for Tom to collect it and sell it in Denver, as earlier arranged.

My task was clear: I somehow had to get the package in Aspen and hide it in a safe place, then show Tom its location so he could retrieve it later. I’d just been sprung; I was loose on the streets of Denver with no car and very little money. Then I had an idea. I called up a guy named Brandon I’d met a few months earlier. Brandon had a sleek sports car and a sleek girlfriend, both of which I admired. I phoned him up and explained the situation. I offered to give him some of the Good Shit if he’d drive me back to Aspen to get the stuff and then take me somewhere to hide it. He agreed; in fact, he said it would be fun.

Brandon and his girlfriend picked me up a few blocks from the Federal Building, and we headed west over the mountains. When we arrived in Aspen, I told them to park a few blocks from my former cottage and wait while I checked out the place, wary of a trap. It was late and the place was quiet. I’d sequestered a key near the entrance, so I didn’t have to break in, but I still feared I’d be arrested in some crazy scene as cops burst out of the bathroom. But I had to do it; this was my chance to help my friends, an obligation I felt most acutely since I had betrayed them, or so I thought.

No one was there; the hash, in its metal box, was still in the closet. I returned to the car, and we drove back and collected the package and took it up to the secluded lake outside of Snowmass where I’d hung out the summer before. We found a spot that looked like it would be easy to locate again, dug a hole, and buried the package—that is, after I’d cut my driver his chunk. With the deed complete, we started back over the mountains.

It was a clear, moonlit night. There was no Eisenhower Tunnel back then; to get to Denver from the Western Slope you had to cross the Continental Divide via Loveland Pass, about 12,000 feet at the summit—a spectacular place, but terribly cold at night, even in August. We had almost made it to the summit when we saw lights flashing behind us. My heart jumped. It was three in the morning, and we were the only ones on the road. This had to be it! I was sure the cops had followed us all the way to Aspen and back, ever since they’d turned me loose after the hearing. We sat petrified, hunkered down in the car, as the cop approached the driver’s side, the typical picture of a state trooper: helmet, wraparound shades (yes, shades) glinting in the moonlight, revolver in his holster, the whole bit.

“Some problem, officer?” Brandon said.

“Did you know you have a taillight out on the left side? Better have that looked at when you get back to Denver.”

“Yes, officer, why thanks, officer, no, I didn’t know,” Brandon said, “I’ll take care of it right away.”

He bid us a good night, and without even a warning ticket we drove on. I had practically fainted and was literally shaking. I was grateful that Brandon did not affect a hippie style. No long hair or wild clothes, he looked quite respectable, like a clean-cut preppie college student. I don’t know if that made a difference, but whether it was that or sheer dumb luck, we had ducked a potentially disastrous outcome.

Brandon let me off in Boulder at about six in the morning. I was completely exhausted. I went to our new apartment and woke Lisa. She already knew from Tom what had happened but was still frantic for the details. I related the whole sorry tale, from the bust in Glenwood to our mad run to Aspen and back. But I was not done. I still had to return to Snowmass with Tom so I could show him where the stuff was stashed.

For Lisa, who had wanted no part of these dealings from the start, this was the last straw. She decided to leave Boulder and return that same day to Berkeley. I agreed, though I knew it meant the end of our relationship. Indeed, I would not see her again for years.

After getting in touch with Tom, he and I decided to catch a plane back to Aspen. Our friends were still in jail waiting to be released on bail. To get the process rolling presumably meant retrieving and selling some of the hash. As we took off from Stapleton Airport sitting in the back of a chartered six-seater, Tom pulled out a tiny cellophane bag with a few crumbs of hash in it and waved it before me. I was appalled at his recklessness, but he just laughed.

Flying to Aspen took about an hour. We rented a car and headed for the lake above Snowmass where I’d buried the stash some hours earlier. We walked in on foot; there was no sign of any disturbance or ambush. I pointed out the location to Tom, and we got back to the car and drove to Glenwood. The idea was that he’d return for the package later and take it to Denver, and I assume that’s what he did.

I found my car in the parking lot, keys still in it, outside the house where we’d been caught. My parents had gotten the letter I’d sent from jail at about the same time they were reading an article in the
Daily Sentinel
about the bust. Needless to say, the conflicting accounts had created some confusion and distress. They had heard that we’d been taken to the courthouse in Denver, but not that I’d been released. Based on that, Mom and Dad had immediately driven to Denver to bail me out. By then I had already made my clandestine trip to Aspen and back, returned to Aspen with Tom on the plane, and found my way to the scene of the bust a few days earlier to get my car.

When we finally did connect, my mother was sick with worry and my father was both worried and furious. I couldn’t blame him. I told them I’d be driving back to Paonia that evening, which I did. I was completely thrashed and almost fell asleep at the wheel several times, but finally I made it to the empty house. My parents, meanwhile, were driving back from Denver.

When they arrived the next morning I’d had at least a few hours sleep. The scene was tense. My father was out of his mind with anger, and appropriately so. There was nothing I could say in my defense, so I said as little as possible. I explained what had gone down, including Terence’s connection to the mess. He was off in India somewhere; a Bombay address at least a couple of months old was the last one we had, and we weren’t sure he knew yet what had happened. It speaks amazingly well of our father that, despite his fury at the two of us, his hatred of drugs and anything to do with them, he still saw it as his duty to protect his son.

In doing so, he probably committed a felony himself. He sent two cables to Terence’s last known address: “Interpol is looking for you, get out now!” A pretty unambiguous message. Meanwhile, the others had been released and had sent Terence a more cryptic message: “Colorado Fuel and Iron gone down.” That was their code name for the operation, Colorado Fuel and Iron, named after the company founded by John C. Osgood, the builder of the Redstone Inn. In either case, the message was clear. Something had gone seriously wrong, and Terence needed to hightail it out of wherever he was.

He got both messages and immediately dropped off the radar. No one heard from him for several weeks; we had no idea where he was. It wasn’t until the end of September that a postcard finally arrived, dated three weeks previously, postmarked Benares, and signed by one HCE, a reference to a character in Joyce’s
Finnegans Wake
. This would become his nom de guerre over the next year, as he moved clandestinely from country to country, hiding out. Postcards from HCE showed up irregularly, tracking his travels, in southern India, then Thailand, then ever more remote locations in the Indonesian archipelago as he made his way to the outer islands in search of butterflies and anonymity, tracking back to Taipei, several months in Tokyo teaching English, finally ending up in Vancouver in the fall of 1970 where I was able to visit him. It was a life on the run. It might have even seemed romantic at the time, but the uncertainty of ever being able to return was worrisome.

The legal consequences from this episode have long since been settled, and Terence’s involvement in it has been public knowledge for decades. He discussed the bust in
True Hallucinations
and elsewhere; it is even mentioned in his obituary in
The New York Times
. I haven’t told the story here to depict Terence and myself as romantic outlaw renegades but rather as a cautionary tale. Like many eighteen-year-olds, I made some foolish choices, especially under pressure. Whatever my beliefs about one’s right to experience certain altered states, the bust was a searing reminder that the law is the law. And to break the law is to invite anguish not only into one’s own life but into other lives as well.

Following the bust and its aftermath, the waning days of August were fraught with tension. I had no cred left with my father, and for good reason. Both Terence and I had disappointed our parents. Our father was either a fool or far more enlightened than I could understand at the time, and I now believe it was the latter. He didn’t approve of us or of what we’d done. But according to his moral compass, you stood by your kids no matter what they did. He never disowned us, and he never cut off financial support for me, though it was perhaps really our mother he was trying to protect. We had hurt her deeply. She had been in delicate health for years, and now with all these new stresses I think Dad was concerned that she was at risk for some serious illness. As it turned out, we had no idea how serious.