Paranoia, New York
An eerie silence loomed over lake thandore, disturbed only by the gentle whispering of the tiny waves as they snuck up on the mountain stream bank. “Wake the fuck up, Rip off Van Winkle”, Sara pleaded in a horse and slightly slurred voice. She looked out at the strobe like red light as it reached through the early morning sky up to the wakening sun. She shook Billy again, and this time he rolled over, assuring Sara that he was still alive. Billy sat up, and struggled to replace the taste of the stale oaky bourbon he vaguely remembered from last night with a swig of warm stale water. Spitting out the objectionable makeshift mouthwash he noticed his mouth was swollen like a ball of dirty cotton had replaced his tongue. He attempted another unsuccessful swish of warm water, and finally gave in to the fact that what he needed, was some aspirin, a shower, and to brush his teeth. But where the fuck was he? He grabbed his head between his hands, and the pain reverberated from side to side, as if he was listening to a really bad hardcore band on an even worse stereo headset. “What the fuck happened” he inquired innocently? In an unusual show of compassion, Sara explained in her most gentle voice, “You took 5 oxycontins, drank a liter of Jack Daniels, and then decided to steal that cop car”. Sara pointed to the flashing red beacon that bounced off the trunk of a black and white police car, half submerged in the water. “What the????” Billy could not even finish his sentence, trying desperately to focus and remember. “Holy shit, Sara, when did that happen? What day…where the fuck are we?”. “Well wild bill”, the sarcasm making a triumphant return, “Not too long after you chased Doreen through the park in your underwear”.

Disclaimer…any similarities to any persons living or dead is purely….possible

In the backdrop of this little utopia was a huge cauldron of sizzling hot generation gap. A war in Viet Nam, a disregard for civil rights, women’s rights, and youth rights, and police brutality all over the country had boiled to the top and threatened to spill over into the kitchens all across Centerlawn pitting sons against fathers and daughters against mothers. It was no wonder all we ever cared about was getting high. My brother was in the army and if things continue the way they are we will all be in Viet Nam in two years. Being in high school sucked, but it sure was better than being shot at. Time for some old fashioned get high. Let the search begin.
Another boring day in school, and it was time to go and look for a little “buzz.” By now almost everyone in high school was smoking pot. So much pot in fact we wondered if that was how it earned the nomenclature of “high” school. We knew that was just a joke, but the amount of marijuana around was rather substantial, and I was known as one of the more prolific puffers. I could puff a huge doobie all by myself and still be able to go to any class. Except maybe gym. Yea the “jocks”, or sports enthusiasts as was the proper term loved to pick on longhairs. They always talked like what I assume the Cro-Magnon man spoke saying well thought out repetitive jokes like “Hey, is that a girl in our gym class? Hey girlie, the girls gym is next door.” So many times I wanted to say something like “Oh I know, I share a locker with your girlfriend”, but I am much too nice a guy. Or maybe it was because they would have kicked my ass with their Charles Atlas biceps. Not wanting to get sand kicked in my eyes I opted for keeping it an inside joke. They really would kick my ass if they ever found out I had smoked pot with their girlfriends at one time or another.
Whenever I got bored, which usually only happened on school days, I engaged in a ritual that my best friend Ken and the rest of my band of merry marauders enjoyed doing. We would go in search of anyone that had a joint, or a chunk of hash, and ask them to share. More often than not, when a good friend came by they would ask us if we wanted some buzz before we even asked, because we always shared our stash, and no one really likes to smoke alone. It wasn’t really unusual for Ken and I to run into each other in school, as we had a certain few places we always hung out at that were prime hiding spots while cutting class. Today would be no different. “Hey dude, I have a fucking brilliant idea.” Ken was always the idea man, and had tons of them. “And we should start saving money for it right now.” As always, Ken immediately garnered my curiosity, and so many times he had blown me away with truly great ideas. Ken was brilliant and creative. Many of the other students laughed at him back in Jr. high, because he was the first boy in school to have really long hair. All of five foot tall, he had long flowing blond hair that was parted in the middle, and cascaded over his shoulders and half way down his back. He had a rebel soul and I was drawn to it instantly. Like most of the male students, I had started growing my hair long in part to look cool, but more importantly to piss off my Mom and Dad. Most all of us had developed a twitch from keeping our long bangs out of our eyes. We all wanted to be “moptops”, but Ken was ahead of the curve and had already grown his hair long like……well like a girl. That was also part of Kens appeal; he seemed to know ahead of everyone else what was in style before it came in style. He had gone from a long haired geek freak that was made fun of, to a respected member of the hippie rebellion ranks. Proudly I admit I had much to do with his rise to “coolness” because I was considered one of the “cool” kids since fourth grade. It wasn’t that I actually was cool, but I had an older brother and even older sister who had created reputations with the teachers. Those reputations preceded me. I was cool by association. I played football and baseball with the “older” kids, got rides in my sisters boyfriends “Surf Woody”, and just always hung out with the older kids. So my becoming Kens friend had helped him gain acceptance and move up the hipster social ranks quickly with most of my other friends. It wasn’t long until they too saw how insightful he was to popular culture and trends. Before the end of the 9th grade we were all growing our hair long, and wearing cool clothes like bell bottom pants and double breasted balloon sleeve shirts. Checks, stripes, paisley prints, the brighter the better and no worries if it doesn’t match. Now we all had real long hair, afro’s, long straight hair, super curly locks or like mine long wavy banana curls.
My first thought was to relieve the boredom so I told Ken, “Cool dude, but lets go out to La Bomba and do a bowl first. You still got that hash?” As always, Ken would come through. “Of course bro, some nice opium streaked black Afghanistan. Lets go asshole.” I hated that phrase but he always sang it like a commercial jingle and everyone laughed, so I just went with it. So off we went to the parking lot to climb into my car to smoke some hash. My little red Simca, A French sedan type car that was Frances answer to the Volkswagen, “La Bomba” is what we called the car and it was our entire groups pot smoking haven. I never locked the doors because so many of my friends used it at various times of the day, even if I wasn’t there. But this day, at this moment, no one else was around. I could tell Ken was happy about that because he really wanted to talk about his idea. Tell you the truth, I was pretty anxious as well. As he filled his chamber pipe with a small piece of black hash I needed to know. “So Ken, what’s this new idea?” Not a ground breaking or earth shattering way to ask but I got my question out.. “ Well, here’s the thing.” I heard the match strike and light up as he put the pipe to his lips and lit the hash. He spoke as he was inhaling and his voice got lower and stranger and he talked as if gasping for breath as he spoke. The interior of my little red bomb filled up with the sweet herbal haze of hash smoke. In between inhaling and holding the smoke Ken laid out his plan. We would be graduating next year, and he had no job and wasn’t going to college. I did have a job, but it was just a job, and I was most likely not attending college either. I was smart enough, but I stopped putting in an effort last year after my Dad called me a worthless communist because I got an A+ on a project about the dreaded USSR. I took the point of view that they had some redeeming values. Instead of being proud he freaked on me. What an asshole! Anyway our fates will be in the hands of our government we would more than likely be shipped off to Viet Nam. Ken thought we could save up some cash, get a video camera and supplies, and head out to Chicago. “ Jesus shit man, we can burn our draft cards and just get the fuck out of town.” His idea was to start at one end of Rt. 66, and travel to the other end in Santa Monica where we could settle in with the hippies of California. Ken had a love of guitar and film and I wanted to write. We would make a kind of documentary of the trip, Ken with his camera and me with my pen. “Bro, you can write the whole thing down in your notebook.” I took my notebook almost everywhere, convinced I was the next James Michner, or more like Ken Kesey, who wrote about the life of the Merry Pranksters. I was blown away. To me it was brilliant, the chance of a lifetime. RT 66 was so historic, a television show, the route for all the dust bowlers of the 1930’s who fled to California to escape poverty. Route 66 was the sort of scenic route people took who just wanted to migrate to Los Angeles. I mean Jesus shit, the fucking stones do a tune about it. Brilliant choice, from Chicago to Los Angeles via Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. Ken shot me his infamous shit eating grin and said, “whatcha think, lets go asshole.”

Working at a Restaurant

From the very first day of my job, I knew I had stumbled across something inexpressible in words. It was an almost spiritual transcendence, having a job and being part of something that lifted me to a higher plane. I was fortunate enough to find myself in the employ of Cavalierdi’s restaurant in the socially envious position of pot washer. Four nights after school, and Saturday nights, I was the head pot washer. But, being the envy of my high school buddies was short lived, when I discovered that the “head pot washer” wasn’t really in charge of anything other than some sudsy water, and that it involved way more than merely washing pots. I was also permitted, implored even, to use my hands to scrape and clean the organic food remnants, and other indefinable residues left on the plates by our satisfied customers. So it was that this head pot washer was cleaning everything that anyone found objectionable in the restaurant. Poised at the suds busting helm, I decided that I was going to be the best pot washer they ever had.
On this particular night I felt compelled to let everyone in the kitchen know my lofty intentions of becoming a black belt in the art of pot and pan scrubbery. When I told the chef, the absolute ruler of the kitchen, I was certain he would beam with pride. I really looked up to the chef, even though he was so old. Man that dude must have been in his 60’s. I believe he always worked hard and the years had been kind to him, although not without consequence. Deep furrows stretched into spaghetti lines across his face, and he always seemed to be deep in thought. Quite fit for an older guy, and he was deceptively strong. Crazy coot could throw 50 pound bags of potatoes halfway across the kitchen with ease. He always wore a dirty and tattered black bandana which concealed the badly receding headline and his eyebrows sported the thickest hair he had. Like caterpillars on steroids those eerie brows housed some very dark and serious eyes. Eyes that narrowed instantly at the first sign of anger. Like holy shit man it wasn’t only the eyes, but that bulging vein that stood out and threatened you personally. I prayed that wasn’t the face that was building up inside his maniacal mind. Not siree, not the anger I was about to get a full emasculating dose of. He looked me directly in the eyes, and with his most compassionate paternal demeanor, his eyes teared up, and he laughed uncontrollably. A laugh that came all the way from the balls of his feet. In between his deafening guffaws the chef attempted to tell his sous chef Andre what my intentions were, and that was met with a roar of laughter that could cause a soufflé to fall. Regardless of their snickering daggers of contemptuous

The Bamboo Blaster

Patrick was a good friend. If Ken and I weren’t best friends, then Patrick and me would have been. We knew each other since kindergarten and I don’t think we ever had a fight once. Patrick was so mellow and just a real nice guy. His hair was intensely curly and so long it stuck out across his shoulders when it wasn’t tied back. He was very perceptive and liked smoking pot even more than I did. He had an older brother who was a true hippie. He had burned his draft card and evaded the draft by moving to Canada. Before he left he gave Patrick the legendary bamboo pipe he had bought while on a trip to San Francisco. While visiting Haight Asbury Randy had come across a store that specialized in unusual pipes. He told us of chillums, water pipes, hookahs, and his pride and joy, the bamboo carburetor. It was six foot long, and hollow with a pipe bowl at one end. The person taking the hit held the other end and sucked hard, waiting patiently. The first sucking resulted in nothing, so the second sucking was the key. After catching your breath the sucking continued. While sucking a friend held the bowl end with a hand over the open end of the bamboo pole. Keeping a match lit on the pot in the bowl he allows the length of the pole to fill up with pot smoke and once full, he removes the hand that’s over the open end. The entire contents of the pole, all six foot of that beautiful enlightening smoke rushed out in less than a second as it shoots through like a carburetor. It fills your lungs with more smoke than you could possibly hold and you put your hand over your mouth and nose and try to keep it in. Smoke begins escaping out of the nose and mouth and trickles through the fingers, and you feel like its also coming out your eyeballs and ears as well. You can hold the smoke for about 10 seconds (I think the record is 14 seconds) until your lungs implode and a cloud of cannabis nimbus smoke surrounds your head as you cough for the next 10 minutes and anyone else around laughs and waits their turn. It is one of the most intense rushes ever.
Patrick had snuck the bamboo out to the backyard and filled up the bowl. “C’mon JT, I gotta get this back inside quick. We can take one toke each.” We ravaged the pot in seconds, Patrick put away his pipe and we just hung out and talked. I relayed all of the days events as Patrick laughed his ass off. “Oh man, you have no idea how much I needed that Pat. I can never thank you enough.” Patrick stared at me with a fixed stare and looked me in the eye when he said, “You can give me back the Tonka truck you stole from me back in grade school.” I stared uneasy for a half a minute until Patrick could no longer hide his goof on me. I laughed so hard my check muscles began shaking. I swear we must have laughed for an hour just talking about the old days. Even that seemed ironic, not out of high school and already talking about the old days. Oh well, time to join the real world and head off to work.
I stalled at work and got home a bit later than usual in the hopes of avoiding contact with the master of the house. Mom was up waiting for me and told me I had a meeting tomorrow with her and my guidance councilor. Dad got home late and was asleep so I would have to wait until tomorrow to find out what sort of wrath he would be imparting on my life. So far, no harm no foul. Lets hope this keeps up.

Zen and the art of Culinary Maintenance
by JT Hilltop
We all had our demons. But sometimes I felt as though I had a lion’s share of destructive self abuses. It’s not like I grew up in a dangerous town or a bad situation. Centerlawn was a sprawling, suburban paradise beach community. It was once my father’s summer retreat from the perils of his Brooklyn childhood. A sleepy Long Island town of great cultural diversity. Irish, Italian, Jewish, German, and various Latin ethnicities flocked to the small north shore town, to escape the growing fears of living in the tough neighborhoods of New York City, The Bronx, and Brooklyn. It was an innocent and pioneer like community of urban sooners and boomers. They formed close nit and diverse neighborhoods where families looked out for each other. Too close for my comfort because it made it very difficult to get away with anything. Who saw whose son smoking a cigarette, or sister with a boy much too old for her. You couldn’t flirt with the next door neighbors daughter without the entire block asking your intentions. It was always a bad situation if my Mom said, “where have you been?” Do I run the risk of telling a lie and hope no one saw me, or fess up with the strong possibility that my nosey neighbor told Mom she saw me at the mall? If only these were the tough decisions, then I may have lived a mundane life, gotten a good job, settled down, raised a family. The American dream was right in front of me like a brass ring and all I had to do was reach out and grab it. But alongside that brass ring, was a tempting seductive lure far more dangerous than any forbidden fruit.
It was a world filled with money, drugs, crime, and the promise of sex in exchange for just a piece of your soul. If you put up your innocence as a down payment you were promised thrilling high speed ride with many twists and turns. It wasn’t hard for Ken and I to choose to take that ride. Adventure was in our blood and it thrived and tickled our adrenal glands, especially when we were high. Ah yes, getting high. More than just a kick or a pastime, we had turned it into an art form. Bongs, water pipes, chamber pipes, and assorted “drug paraphernalia” at the tips of our fingers. We could get rolling papers right up the road at the stationery store, or hitchhike into the village and go to a head shop for an assortment of pipes and rolling machines. We had special names for our smokes, Panamanian Red, Acapulco Gold, Green weed, Skunk weed, wheelchair weed, and on and on. One friend even had a six foot bamboo two person pipe that filled the whole length with a one hit shot that could challenge the lungs of a fucking elephant. That was my favorite, but it didn’t come out that often. What the hell, I guess I would have had an impossible time sneaking something like that out of my room. But Patricks parents were pretty naïve and he got away with all kinds of shit. Me and Ken had to be careful, our parents were stricter than most. That’s why this hiding from the cops is so much more alluring. If the pigs catch us we will be in all kinds of shit.

Middle Age Waistband (Babar O’belly)
Sung to Baba O’Riley by The Who

Out here my waist reels
From too many meals
I can’t fit into my old jeans
Its no use to fight
Its way too tight
I need a diet of just plain beans

Don’t cry
Bout getting wide
Its on-ly middle age waistband

Sally take that ham
And toss it in the can
Shut off the oven
I can’t eat that pork shoulder
The fitness guru’s here
To help me lose my rear
I got to lose it
Before we get much older

Middle aged waistband
Its only an expanding waistband
Oh yea
Middle age waistband
We’re all wasting

Middle Age Waistband (Babar O’belly)
Sung to Baba O’Riley by The Who

Out here my waist reels
From too many meals
I can’t fit into my old jeans
Its no use to fight
Its way too tight
I need a diet of just plain beans

Don’t cry
Bout getting wide
Its on-ly middle age waistband

Sally take that ham
And toss it in the can
Shut off the oven
I can’t eat that pork shoulder
The fitness guru’s here
To help me lose my rear
I got to lose it
Before we get much older

Middle aged waistband
Its only an expanding waistband
Oh yea
Middle age waistband
We’re all wasting

                     

                         The Insidious adventures of JT Hilltop

　

                          (Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come)

　

                  

                                                              

              It was my first day in my new digs, a guest suite in the local detention center of Aiken County South Carolina. I remembered having detention in high school, a form of punishment for any of a variety of mischievous infractions.  This however, was quite a different detention.  I was given my very own guest room totally unadorned.  I suppose you could say it was decorated in minimalist style, complete with four bare walls, a stainless steel toilet and sink, a pamphlet thin mattress on a wooden platform with a polyester sheet and Government issue wool blanket, and…..well actually, that was it.  My new living arrangements for the next thirty days.  So here I am, this young suave New Yorker, locked up somewhere in the deep south where I feared I may never be heard from again.  The pace in this city, I think I heard it called Grandmaville, or Grannyville or some shit was anything but urgent.  Great, I thought to myself, here I am in Petticoat fucking Junction.  Theres Uncle Joe he’s a movin’ kinda slow! “Yikes,” I thought, “Not a familiar face anywhere and not a single person left to turn to.” Thirty days in this hell hole with no beer, no weed, not even a fucking TV to help pass the time.  Just me, myself and….and  a band of hillbilly cops.  Actually, I wasn’t completely alone. 

    Along with yours truly, and against their wills as well were five “block” mates each sizing me up. I could tell they were wondering what skyscraper it was that I  crawled out from under.  I was certain I detected a mix of  urban admiration and good ole boy Yankee hatred.  Instinctively I understood the importance of establishing the “upper hand”. I had heard some of the other….ah “Inn” mates call the guards by the term “turn-key”.  So it was time to establish my dominance with my jailors while developing my “street credentials” with my new roomies. I determined that a perfect place to start was right this very  moment by showing these local yokel criminals how we do it up north. So in my toughest NYC voice I let out an authoritative directive.  “Ay Oh, Turn-key”.  I need to make a phone call.”  I had attempted to inject just the perfect modicum of distain and rebellion as was necessary to achieve my goal. An awkward silence befell the cellblock, as a burly mean looking police officer began to stare at me with such a deadpan sarcastic glare, I almost felt jealous.   I’m from New York, where sarcasm is a second language and he had just read me a cynical short story without even uttering a single word. I began to wonder if I was taking the proper approach, or if I should rethink my options. It was then that this komodo dragon in uniform began to saunter in my direction with a slow and deliberate pace that screamed  “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”  The oily haired officer got his face as close to mine as humanly possible, and just stared at me a moment. I could feel his smoky foul breath dancing across my cheeks and I felt the lashes of his eyes as they blinked. Little hard eye hairs that could successfully brush a longhaired afghan hound.  I had a sudden and humbling movie memory penetrate my tough NYC exterior and turn me into shimmering mass of spineless amoeba. “Suey, let me hear you scream suey!” Before my ‘Deliverance’, I attempted to coax myself back from my baseless paranoia.  Oh Hell, stop thinking like that and get your shit together tough guy.  You faced bigger opponents in Spanish Harlem just three days ago.  You have spent countless hours in a Pagan Motorcycles Club bar.  You have faced off with New York City detectives. (not very successful with the detectives, but stood up none the less.  Well maybe stood up was not the right term)  I  gave my head a hair clearing shake, swallowed hard and began to feel like I was  back in charge again.  Apparently, none of this mattered to sergeant Komodo dragon. He began to speak, and I swore the voice was the same voice I recalled from that scene in the movie. “Say what boy?…. Did I hear you say turn-key you long haired New Yoke piece o’ shit?”  I couldn’t help but detect a certain note of arrogance and alarming distain in his voice.  But alas it was too late, the drama had begun. I sensed that any second now, the proverbial pig shit was headed directly in the vortex of the rotary oscillator.  And the fan was humming!  The two of us stared each other down for a minute and the silence began to burn loud in my ears.  Then as if right on cue a big shit eating “who the fuck do you think your dealing with” kind of grin broke out on his upper lip and quickly spread across his jaw until it took over his entire face. Now I am staring directly into this shit eating Cheshire smile and I can sense that it is a smile with some very serious implications. I had to think quick to get out of this predicament, to ease the tensions with my captor, while not losing face with my new room mates.  But let me back up a bit and explain how I even got here in the first place.