Chapters

CHAPTER 7

Amerika with a K

November 11, 1969

Egon von Furstenburg had given me the name of a friend in the States, Valencio, a student at Georgetown University.  I converted the ticket Nicky had left me into a roundtrip fare, slipped A Timeless Moment into my suitcase, and caught the flight from Geneva to Washington, DC, on the 11th of November 1969.          

When I arrived at Dulles Airport, Valencio was waiting for me just outside immigration.  He was a typical sleek South American with soft eyes, a drooping mustache, and the habit of carrying himself like an overgrown child.  To my surprise, he declared with a mysterious smile that we must go immedidately to the Washington Monument.  We took off in his little convertible Fiat down the long straight avenues, top down,  the winds of a new world tossing my hair.  As he drove, Valencio passed me a streaming joint.  It was only about the third or fourth time I had smoked marijuana.  Although not sure of its effect, I liked the pungent taste and wondered if pot would be a good substitute for all the pills I had been taking.

"It's a great day to arrive in America," he declared.

"Any special reason?"

He shook his head slowly and smiled knowingly.  "I guess any day is a great day to arrive in America."

"Sure, because this is where things can really change, right?"

"That's right.  You'll see," he said, once again breaking into a mischievous smile.

We pulled over and parked on the sidewalk between a couple of garishly painted vans.  Hundreds of other cars were parked close together, many of them on the sidewalk, not so different from how it was done in Europe.  I grabbed my camera and we were off into what seemed to be a massive crowd, with people mingling and meandering in all directions.  This was America, all right, everything on the grand scale I had imagined.  At nine o'clock at night I was used to seeing a lot of people in the streets, but never like this.  In Spain and France many people, even children, stay out in the street on summer nights, sometimes until two in the morning, talking, drinking coffee, and enjoying the night air -- a natural thing for Europeans to do.  But here in America I noticed immediately that the air was different.  It throbbed with an intensity and excitement I had never felt before.

"I can't believe there are so many young people here," I said to Valencio as he led me through the crowd, seemingly bent on a destination.  "It's great.  If the population of America is dominated by young people, no wonder they're way ahead over here."  I was delighted.  Here, at last, was a place where my under-thirty philosophy really made sense.           

As we moved into the depths of the crowd, I saw a lot of hippies closeup and "live" for the first time.  The young men had long hair with headbands, went bare-chested, and walked with a lanky, careless stride.  I saw in them the untamed energy of children running wild on a playground.  Many of the women were dressed in brightly colored flowing skirts of brilliant oranges and indigo blue, their macram‚ vests covering their breasts.  Flowered bandanas held back their long hair, babies riding easily in slings across their bellies.  They reminded me of gypsies I had seen in the south of France each spring.  Their casual and fearless air was even more striking than their outlandish dress.

We were out of breath by the time we reached the esplanade.  All around us was an undulating sea of humanity laid out like a crazy quilt.  The air was full of laughter, songs, shouts, and the drone of ten thousand conversations.  Valencio gestured to a group of people sitting on the grass as if he knew them.  In a strange way, it was as if everyone knew everyone else, even though this was impossible, due to the enormity of the crowd.  There were no built-in boundaries like the ones you always encountered in Europe.  I knew I could talk to anyone about anything that came into my mind, and this realization was utterly intoxicating, even though I hardly knew yet what to say.  Who knows what I'd end up saying if I stuck around here?

We sat down with the group Valencio had hailed.  Immediately, a woman with flowing blond hair, dressed in a flowery skirt and embroidered jean jacket, turned and offered me an apple.  I accepted, and when the man next to her proffered a joint, it seemed perfectly natural for us to take a toke.  I smoked, inhaling deeply, and smiled with all my warmth at these casual, open-hearted strangers.  America was just the way I had dreamed it to be, thriving with generous people, all filled with the spirit of sharing and adventure.  No one cared what your name was or where you came from, as they did in Europe.  No one here was going to ask me stupid questions about my family.

"Don't you think Nixon will have to end the war, now?" asked the girl who gave me the apple.

"I don't know, I'm a European observer.  I just got off the plane."

"Well, your timing is fantastic, sister," the young man at her side said, "Today is the Vietnam moratorium."

My English, though excellent, was by no means perfect.  I thought a moratorium must be some kind of service for all the young men who had been killed in Vietnam.  I composed my face into a somber look, and the hippie peered back at me quizically, compressing a toke in his lungs all the while.

"It's going to stop the war," he told me, exhaling his words in a pinched voice, "that's its purpose, and it's going to work.  We're all staying here until Nixon says it's over."

"Yeah, no one has ever seen so many people gathered together in this place," the girl chimed in, gesturing toward a platform far away at the edge of the crowd.  "Everyone who counts is here.  Look at the stage, there's Dylan, Joan Baez.  Ginsberg's chanting a mantra at the Pentagon.  Here, have a hash brownie.  War has to end.  It's hazardous to little children and flowers."  She smiled beatifically at me.

I was stunned.  I had never by intention attended an event like this, and the very idea of it was frightening in some ways -- and yet I felt perfectly safe.  I really loved the sense of being included in this circle of strangers and the larger gathering around us, stretching all the way up to the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial.  The people I saw in all directions looked intent and purposeful even while smiling.  Off to the left a couple was making love under a blanket by a tree.  Far away at the edge of the crowd was a podium where Bob Dylan and Joan Baez were talking with black people about freedom and peace.  Their voices rose and fell, drifting over the murmur of the crowd like foam riding swells.

Policemen were everywhere.  If all the young people in America were here, so were all the cops -- on motorcycles with helmets and clubs, even some waiting in buses in full riot gear.  I imagined Richard Nixon standing somewhere beyond them, pacing in the Rose Garden.

I remembered Egon and wished he could see me now.

After an hour or so, we were ready to leave.  Valencio said he would take me to a friend's apartment where I would be comfortable while I got oriented.  Hand in hand, we took a leisurely route through the crowd and then into the streets of Georgetown.  At the corner of 19th and O, there was a scuffle among some people disentangled from the main gathering.  Suddenly, a group of blue uniformed police were bearing down on the people ahead of us, screaming, "Get out of here! Go home! Enough is enough, get the hell out of here."

For some reason I took off and ran straight into the mel‚e of about fifty people running in all directions as the cops moved in on them with menacing gestures.  One moment, a couple was arguing with a cop, and the next everyone was shoving and shouting.  Then, a sharp hissing sound, and suddenly my eyes were burning and tearing.  Valencio was beside me, breathing hard and grabbing at my arm.

"Bastards, bastards!" he hissed with a strong Spanish accent.  "We've been tear-gassed.  We have to run."

He had to jerk me away because I felt like I was rooted to the spot, totally captivated, unable to register the meaning of his words.  I wanted to stay right there and see how everything turned out.

We fled the crowd and menacing clouds of gas.  I felt exhilarated, no longer regretting that I had not joined the students in the Latin Quarter in May '68.  Now, from my very first moment of arriving in the United States, I had become part of the movement that was demanding change. 

It was no mistake that I had arrived on this particular day, no mistake that I had been tear-gassed.  It was my christening, a commemoration of my participation in the drug revolution and peace movement in America.

By summer, John had raised enough money through his mother's connections to open a real estate office in Marbella, so the four of us set off once more across the Atlantic.  But the magic still wasn't there. 

It was at this point that I met Tommy and it all began.