THE NATURAL STRANGER :: BOOK 2, "MAD DOG in a SILVER FOG" :: CHAPTER 4, EPISODE 2

 

A SNAKE in the GRASS!

 

Now about Wayne and Margie... she was the one who supported him, as if you haven't grokked, Egg... Margaret Bowen slaved for Levi Strauss, that jeans company as wouldn't let you wear jeans on the job, while Wayne inched towards his Master's degree in world mythologies. Both had been VISTA volunteers... Margaret quit after Wayne was kicked out for hair... but someone in Kentucky had improperly recorded the termination and, despite his sluggard's credit load, he'd kept his deferment. Wheels!

Wheels... Kara Nan, yesterday, speaking just above whispers, brought an embarrassed-looking (but sober) scarecrow forward. "I hope you won't mind," she said, "I invited the Captain. He's not allowed to leave the hotel, pending hearings, and he's lonely."

Wayne's other guests at the gas man and pigs' ear soup buffet, besides Jean Arana, Vlad and Dennis, included a straight couple, Lyn and Tom, still in business drag from working in a downtown record store. Pushers of Pet Clark, Mitch Miller and Andy Williams out the front door to the masses, smuggling the cool stuff out back... "half price, man, guaranteed"... one of the squarest, most dishonest heads in Haightdom... Tom, in his blazer and pucy, psychedelic tie.

"Hey, like... that's a snake!" Tom straightened up. Wayne kept his stash in a glass reptilarium with a harmless corn snake that looked poisonous enough to frighten runaways and moochers until the day it got carried off by snake-bandits.

"Snake won't hurt you... if you're fast!" Wayne said, as he and Jeff cleaned dope on an old rent receipt.

"Guys I know tried to dry out their stash in the oven," Jeff replied, one of his Berkeley stories. "But they were tired and crashed, and it burns up with a hell of a lot of powerful smoke... one sticks his head in the oven and the others come in and think it's a suicide. They put everything that they had into the oven to absorb that smoke... jello, some dry, leftover rice, cut apples..." he shakes his head at the memory of waste.

"That sort of thing... I'd never do!" Wayne vows over the bubble and boil of the pigs' ear soup.

  

TOMORROW:

"MY SIN!"

Browse the dope aisles... Cheech, Chong and Leary, Harrelson hemp apologia, Tom deQuincy and assorted recipes and relics from bygone days before such books are made thoughtcrimes. Maybe, even, High Times in the magazine section...

At: ?