Memories of

DROP CITY

The First Hippie Commune of the 1960s and the Summer of Love

A Memoir

by John Curl

Part 1: CURLY'S EXPERIMENT

Part 2: THE ROAD TO DROP CITY

Part 3: THE SUMMER BEFORE LOVE

Part 4: BACK TO DROP CITY

Part 5: GETTING THE WORD OUT

Part 6: THE JOY FESTIVAL

Part 7: LIVING THE REVOLUTION

Part 8: THE COUNTERCULTURE

PART 6

Chapter 15

THE DROPPER BAND

Just like people do anywhere, we discussed news and politics at Drop City. But it was hard to get information out there, except the pablum offered in the mass media, and sometimes we didn’t listen to that at all. Mainstream news reporting was lame in New York and San Francisco, where you had to search to find alternative views and ideas, but compared with rural Colorado, the coast media were paragons of openness and scholarship. Here the media were almost air tight. The main radio stations we got at Drop City were broadcast nationally from Denver, Chicago, or Kansas City, and were very straight. Public policy debate was the right vs. the far right. I relied for news more on talking to people who passed through.

Much to my relief, local people were more open than the media. Their thoughts were much broader, although they often couldn’t express it, since the media had defined the acceptable limits of debate in a very narrow way.

Curly and I were in the back room of the Trinidad Safeway, picking up moldy cheese, when the dairy guy asked me, “Is it true that you kids out there are all communists?”

Curly and I exchanged a silent glance. “We’re not communists,” Curly replied. “We’re commuuunists. Communalists.”

“The produce man says you’re something like one of them kibbutzes in Israel.”

“Yeah, a little. We’re always kibbitzing.”

“Did you see those pictures on TV of all those Chinese school kids parading their principal through the street wearing a dunce cap?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you kids out there think about stuff like that?”

“Everybody has different opinions.”

“How about you?”

“It’s hard to know what’s really happening from what they show on TV,” I said.

“Those pictures could mean anything,” Curly jumped in. “Before you believe what those TV guys say about China, listen to what the Chinese say about themselves.”

“How can I?” the dairy guy said. “They never let them speak for themselves.”

“Exactly.”

The dairy guy shook his head. “Man, when I was in high school, we’d have given anything to do that to our principal. That dumb sucker dedicated his whole life to breaking kids’ spirits.”

Curly and I looked at each other and laughed.

When we saw pictures like that on TV at Drop City we all cheered. Aspects of the Cultural Revolution at first looked like a Chinese form of our own cultural revolution. But we all became disturbed when the pictures got increasingly violent.

Through the underground press we began to hear more and more about the “liberated zones” of Viet Nam, the areas controlled by the National Liberation Front, where the old regime and the US Army had been expelled. These zones were supposedly organized by the peasants themselves for their own survival. We had an image of self-organized communalism, which may or may not have had any truth, but it resonated with the self-organized “liberated zone” that we were trying to eke out in the belly of the beast.

* * *

By the time we moved the kitchen over to the new complex, there were a number of new people sleeping on various floors around Drop City. With such a space crunch, Alteresio and Crayola didn’t feel that they could spread out into the upstairs dome. So Patt and I decided to stay in the top of the hole, and we passed on the old kitchen to a new family.

Fletcher Oak and Nancy Maple moved into the old kitchen with their two young boys, Beech and Juniper, and their dog Ransom. Oak, whose hair stuck out like a bristlecone pine, was a photographer and, like Curly, ran around poking his cameras in everybody’s face. Nancy was another fine artist. Ransom was the best dog at Drop City, with a lot of character and smarts, though he kept coming home with porcupine quills sticking out of his nose and mouth, howling pitifully. Fletcher became buddies with Jim Quim, another new guy, on the diminutive side, who seriously liked his dope, studied horticulture, and always wore a red XL tee shirt swimming around his knees.

Fletcher’s friend Diggy Meg arrived with her young son and daughter, Lupine and Gloria, and jammed into the old kitchen with the others. She had known Fletcher in Chicago, where she’d been a piano teacher until her marriage fell apart. She jumped right in, sewing and crafting beautiful objects out of junk.

Our kid population was now up to nine and they were quite a pack. Drop City was starting to feel like a big family place. Lupine and Beech, eight and nine years old, hung out together, and so did Gloria and Juniper, both almost two and usually naked. Kaitlin was somewhat a loner, as was Snoop. Alteresio and Crayola’s girls, Elizabeth and Toby, four and five, played mainly with each other. But sometimes the whole gang would run like a pack around Drop City together, into some wild mischief or fantasy.

As the Joy Festival approached, the trickle of visitors became a stream, then a flood. Large numbers poured in every day, many on their way to San Francisco for the Summer of Love. Most just passed through or stayed the night, but many stuck around for the Festival, and some moved in. Drop City became truly chaotic. The hippie explosion was about to hit the national mass media.

Crayola announced she and the girls were going to stay with her parents near Boulder until after the Festival; it was getting too crazy for her. She said they’d be back when things calmed down. Alteresio and she stuffed the station wagon with their things and took off. We were sad to see her go, Jo most of all.

When Alteresio got back he said that Crayola and the girls were not going to return. As soon as she was gone, it had become clear to her that Drop City was not where she wanted to settle down. Alteresio mulled around at loose ends for a couple of days, then announced he was leaving to join them and start a “destruction company” in Boulder, tearing down structures, which he considered himself good at. He threw his paintings, rifle, clothes, and junk in a pickup. His last words, out the truck window, shiny black hair in his eyes, sardonic smile twisting his lips, was, “It sure don’t take long to get hip.”

Curly and Drop Lady were affected and saddened by Alteresio and Crayola’s leaving, although the rest of us took it in stride. I think it meant to them that Drop City was never going to become the quiet family place they wanted, although Alteresio’s crazy side wasn’t exactly quiet. They had already been saddened by the rapid departure of Curly’s mommeleh. Now Curly and Jo seemed more serious and subdued. They talked and joked less.

The previous fall I would never have guessed that Rabbit and Poly would still be in Drop City at this point, and Alteresio and Crayola would be the ones to go.

As we made plans and preparations for the Joy Festival, Curly and Drop Lady seemed to be bracing themselves for an onslaught. “Now it’s too late,” Curly kept repeating. “It’s too late.” They grew increasingly wary and distant.

As soon as Alteresio was gone, Ed the Fed, Jim Quim, and Diggy Meg and her kids moved into the bottom of the hole, partitioning it off.

* * *

One day I walked into the complex and there was Marigold cutting carrots with Patt at the table between the two stoves. I bit my lip and went over.

“How’ve you been?”

“Going through too many changes, as always.” The corners of Marigold’s mouth rose and sank like a comic and tragic mask. “This jerk I was in love with couldn’t make up his mind. Same old story. Just more of the same. My life is a broken record. I’ve been boring Patt with all the details.”

“I don’t mind listening,” Patt said.

Marigold set down her knife and began a fragmented account of how some guy in Boulder she’d been staying with kicked her out. Meanwhile, Ed the Fed stole up behind her and dug a finger into each of her love handles. She almost jumped out of her skin and sent pieces of carrot flying.

“That’s in return for what you did to me this morning,” he laughed.

“You are mean! Aren’t I paranoid enough already?”

“What did you do to him?”

“I just put my cold feet on his stomach.”

“While I was asleep.”

“Okay, now we’re even. But you should sweep up the carrots.”

“You dropped them.”

“You made me.”

Marigold had arrived late the night before and had already found a space in the hole.

I really liked her, but she made me uncomfortable. Patt and I had become very attached, and neither of us wanted to complicate things at this point. Our relationship was complicated enough by itself. Being in such close quarters made things touchy.

* * *

With all the new people arriving, we had to face the over-population problem. The kitchen became a shambles and there was always a line for the bathrooms. We finally held a meeting and decided that there had to be a population limit, which we set at thirty-five, even though there were already over fifty people at Drop City. Beyond that limit, there would be a three-day maximum for guests sleeping in the complex (that wouldn’t apply to the Festival). If anybody was going to stay longer than that, they had to be asked to do it, at least by one person. The loophole was that the population limit wouldn’t apply to anyone who came in as a lover of a Dropper. We didn’t really believe that any rule could prevent love. Since that was the way most new people connected, it meant that almost everybody was excluded from the so-called rule. Most everybody would briefly couple, then break up and each would take a new partner. The rule made for a lot more brief, casual fucking.

Feather Tom, Silly Michelle, Little Joe, Gypsy David, Baby Michael Bippl, Moron Normal, the Hebe Sisters, Jasper Button, John the Hair, Mother, Danu, Riceman Bill, Trees, Boston John, Bernadette, Brenda, Aurora, Zowie, Meher Charlie, Big Bill, Mantis, Kentucky Jeethro, Pabla and her multicultural rainbow of children. The list went on and on. Each had a story, each was coming from somewhere and going somewhere.

Silly Michelle had sparkling dark eyes, a sweet smile and a talent for cooking; she made tasty meals out of nothing. She always seemed to be agreeable but then went off and did whatever she wanted. Like Marigold, Silly Michelle was an escapee from a family who attacked her for refusing to be just like them.

John the Hair had crazy, kinky locks that stuck out the sides like two big halos, and laughed a lot. Jasper Button always seemed to be fighting depression, except when he was with John the Hair telling visitors that they were from another planet. People always professed disbelief. They’d say they could prove it, because they had no belly buttons. They’d both lift their shirts and show their smooth stomachs. Many visitors ran. Both of their navels had been ruptured at birth then sewn so there was almost no visible scar. Each was the only person the other had ever met without a navel; it bound them together as brothers of a sort.

Feather Tom had trouble speaking. He couldn’t get things out. He didn’t expect anybody to be listening or understanding. He stammered and stuttered. He cut his hair in a spiral and wore a little Robin Hood hat with a feather. He sewed a foxtail onto the back of his pants. He stood on one foot for hours, the other foot against his thigh, knee stuck out, whittling or playing a wooden flute and smiling a lot. If you didn’t know him you might think he was an idiot, but Feather Tom was really very sharp. He just kept his thoughts to himself.

Ed the Fed, Marigold, Silly Michelle, Diggy Meg, Jasper Button, John the Hair, and Feather Tom became a little circle. One day they seemed to couple off in a certain way, but the next day they seemed to be coupled differently. Nobody asked too many questions.

Soon the hole was subdivided with so many partitions that it looked like a catacomb.

Feather Tom, Diggy Meg, and Marigold organized a crafts brigade to make stuff to sell at the Festival. Tom taught others how to carve flutes and make drums and jew’s harps; Diggy Meg and Marigold organized a group making earrings and tie-dying tee shirts. Our resident artists busily prepared their works for display in the theater dome.

* * *

Ed the Fed was somewhat a loner at first; he didn’t connect for very long with Marigold or any of the other women who floated in and out of Drop City. I understood why one day when I drove with him and Patt in the red Chevy truck to Trinidad. On the way back Patt and I began bickering because I’d refused to stop at some store. I finally pulled over to the side of the road and walked into the desert.

When I got back, Fed was standing outside the truck, fuming at having been drawn into our fight. “Damn it, man, why do you get so mad at her?”

“She’s driving me crazy.”

“Don’t take her seriously! She’s a girl!”

Ed the Fed however, got his own comeuppance when he became involved with a woman named Mother, who forced him to take her very seriously.

Mother acted tough and wild, at least in public. She didn’t have any middle gears, so was always running around bumping into things. She was from Connecticut but had just spent a couple of years in New York City, until she got blown out. We called her Mother because she told stories about her affiliation on the Lower East Side with the group known as the Mother Fuckers, somewhere between a social club and a street gang. Fed and Mother made a very unlikely couple, but so did Patt and I. When they first got together Fed walked around for a week with a big smile on his face. Then they spent a week fighting. One day when Mother, Patt, and Marigold were all hopelessly beating him in scrabble, Fed cried, “Wipe those obnoxious smirks off your faces,” threw the board into the air, and drove off. A few days later we got a card from him from New Mexico. Ed the Fed had decided to cool out and work with Bear there for a while. While he was gone, Mother picked up with a dude in leather and rode off on the back of a Harley hog, shouting, “I’ll be back for the Joy Festival!”

* * *

Baby Michael Bippl was about twice the size of Moron Normal. Bippl, with wild curly black hair, appeared one day in the kitchen complex, made himself comfortable on the worn red velvet couch and tuned his guitar for an hour. By the time he was done a half dozen Droppers had started banging on drums and pots, blowing recorders and flutes. Finally Bippl began to strum chords, in the midst of the Dropper Band cacophony, and started to sing, loud and a bit flat.

After the craziness died down, I asked him, “Would you play that song again, so I can hear the words.”

“Can’t take the chance. I wrote that song. You might steal it.”

Next thing I knew, Bippl was staying in the hole. Away from his guitar Bippl was a badly coordinated guy, always hitting his thumb with a hammer and tripping over his shoelaces. He had the biggest infantile streak in Drop City, which was saying a lot, so he also became known as Baby Michael. He shed all awkwardness, however, when he fingered his guitar pick. After he loosened up, he took to sitting for hours on end strumming new and interesting creations. He was actually quite an inventive song writer.

Moron Normal, a little guy who spoke like a speed freak, his jaw so frozen he could barely pop the words out, set up a lean-to in the middle of the kitchen complex. I told him to take it down and about our three-day maximum policy for visitors in the complex. “Has anybody asked you to stay?”

He stammered, “I don’t remember.”

“Then you have to leave.”

“If you don’t like it maybe you’re the one who has to leave.”

Soon both Bippl and Moron were sleeping in the hole, and became the gatekeepers.

The Hebe sisters, one obese and the other a skeleton, were zinged-out basket cases too dazed to do any work. All the Dropper guys ran away when they saw them coming, except Moron and Bippl. For a couple of days Moron had a Hebe on each arm. The next day Bippl had them both and looked drowning, while Moron stammered how glad he was to be rid of them.

Then Cloudy arrived, Diggy Meg’s sister, quite a few notches classier than the Hebes. Before nightfall, Bippl had kicked both Hebes out of his bed. They were fuming, but found a place in the pile sleeping in the TV room in the complex. Bippl floated around after Cloudy like a hungry shadow, grinning.

Danu was the oldest guy at Drop City, in his fifties, with tie-dyed rainbow shirts, horizontally striped baggy pants, long locks on the sides but a little thin on top, a lot of jewelry and amulets. He spent most of his time reading Eastern mystical texts, taking drugs, and having sex with the youngest girls he could find. He didn’t shake hands but poured his palm into yours like molten rubber. A year before he had been a US Navy lieutenant, a career officer with a wife and two kids.

Gypsy David, from a Pittsburgh ghetto, liked a lot of dope and loud music, and yelled when anybody annoyed him. He blasted rock and blues records continuously in the complex, night and day, with the volume as high as it would go. Gypsy David couldn’t understand why anybody would want quiet. After a while this started a turf war. When somebody from the quiet faction, like myself, couldn’t stand it, we’d walk over and pull the plug. Then Gypsy David or another Dropper from the loud music faction would blast it on again.

Riceman Bill, ascetically macrobiotic, constantly chatted about nutrition, consciousness, brown rice, and vegetables. His concern with food stemmed in part from health problems, and in part from his being hungry all the time. A few days after he and his wife arrived, she split, leaving him in Drop City with their little son Doodle. Riceman was very sad for a while, then one day I heard him singing as he was digging a hole, “Every little breeze seems to whisper Tureeze...” He had hooked up with a girl named Trees, a new arrival. Trees had a sweet tooth and a taste for luxuries, and constantly tatted about New York French restaurants. Opposites do attract.

Meher Charlie, another Chicagoan, a jazz guitarist, got his name because he always carried around a picture of Meher Baba, the old Indian sage-saint who had taken a vow of silence twenty years earlier. Under the picture was written, “I was that one, I was this one, and now I am Meher Baba. Don’t Worry, Be Happy: I love you more than you love yourself.” Baba’s followers claimed that before he died he would break his silence and utter just one word, which would either enlighten the world or end it. In Meher Charlie’s picture, Meher Baba was cross-eyed and wore a bushy handlebar mustache. Meher Charlie loved the idea of a world savior looking so goofy.

Meher Charlie sawed a mean guitar, often plugged into an amplifier, and became the defacto leader of the Dropper band. Anybody could be in the band. You didn’t have to know the slightest thing about music. All you had to do was grab a flute, drum, harmonica, ocarina, kazoo, or whatever noisemaker was handy and start blowing or banging away. It was the most amazing freeform cacophony. Everybody had a good time except people listening with sensitive musicians’ ears, like Patt. Coming from a musical family she was appalled by the noise.

But Meher Charlie led the group in actually playing familiar songs. Baby Michael Bippl, our other guitarist, rarely sat in with the Dropper Band when Meher Charlie was holding court because Bippl was too perfectionist and critical to play well with others.

Meher Charlie wrote a song that kind of became the Drop City anthem. He called it the Drop City Blues. It had no fixed verses and wasn’t really a blues. It was only a refrain which the Dropper Band played over and over again, interspersed with freeform craziness:

Ooo-eee baby / Ooo-ooo-eee / Doo-bop-shabam / Drop Ci-tee

The Dropper band never got tired of playing it, though it passed beyond wearisome to most listeners. The musicians always seemed to be enjoying themselves but there was something mournful in the sound that made me think of regret for a lost paradise. Here at Drop City we were trying for Paradise Regained, but in reality it was still Paradise Lost, by the beautiful banks of the Purgatoire. We finally heard that Meher Baba had died without speaking.

* * *

Usually the only time I saw Rabbit now was at meals and beating down the sun, which he did every evening with a group of the new people. He mostly hung out with new people. I kept expecting Rabbit to spout some epithet in front of Gypsy David and get creamed, but Gypsy and Rabbit actually became kind of buds, and would beat down the sun together. Anyway, Gypsy was loose with epithets too, and called him Honkey Rabbit.

Clard painted crystals on his boots. Lard was reading a Dr. Strange comic. We were in the cartop dome. “Rabbit still says he’s leaving,” Clard intoned, “but meanwhile he’s made himself into a second center. A lot of the new people revolve around him.”

“He sure goes through them awfully fast,” I said.

Lard looked up from his comic. “Rabbit just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand what Drop City is all about.”

Clard’s eyes narrowed. “What it’s all about to us. He gets it, but Drop City is just about something different to him. And to a lot of the new people, who’ll still be here after he leaves.”

* * *

The news media in Denver, Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Boulder, and Trinidad had all done pieces on Drop City, some pro, some con, which had been picked up by various papers around the country, but until now our reputation as an underground cultural center was still not that widespread.

A couple of weeks before the Festival a reporter and photographer from Time magazine appeared. Rabbit, ecstatic and triumphant, led them around like a drum major. Curly and Drop Lady hid out. The people from Time said they were planning a cover story on hippies, and we would be a feature.

A few days later, the mayor of Trinidad, the guy who ran the barber shop, came out to Drop City. The news about Time magazine had flashed around Trinidad, and we were suddenly important local celebrities. The mayor turned out to be a pretty regular guy, and invited us to build a float and participate in the upcoming annual Independence Day parade, of which he was to be the grand marshal.

* * *

Chapter 16

A VISIT FROM THE MAN

A week before the Festival, Giovanni, my old friend from New York, showed up at Drop City. In a letter he’d said he might come out, but I hadn’t really expected him. He rarely traveled since it took him away from his beloved piano. A sensitive guy with long beautiful fingers, he supported himself accompanying and teaching, and spent most of his time practicing classical pieces.

We were standing outside the back door of the complex. “Have you seen Ernesto or Kugo?” I asked.

“In the street a few times. I was never really that close with either one, you know. Kugo’s just the same. He’s back with his wife. I think she’s supporting him. Ernesto’s involved with some radical group. I met him in Thompkins Square park. He tried to sell me this political newspaper, then just gave it to me. I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. It was all in this Marxist jargon.”

“I thought he went off to medical school.”

He shrugged. “He said he was working in some hospital as an orderly.”

“Ernesto? You must have got it wrong.”

“I don’t think so. He said he’d dropped out.”

“There’s got to be more to the story. How’s Otis?”

Giovanni grimaced. “I didn’t see much of him all last summer and fall. He had hepatitis B. He was pissed off at me. We kept having this off and on relationship, breaking up and getting back together again. It was terrible. We’d fight, so I’d feel bad and go cruising, and that would make it worse. I kept picking up tricks who knew him and then went and told him. He did the same thing of course but he considered that what he did was different. At the time I thought it was black and white power games, but now I don’t know. I got really depressed. I was burned out on that world. Anonymous sex is like water there. I wanted to settle down. But at that point Otis got involved with this Chinese bodybuilder. Anyway, Otis went over to his apartment one day and he’d been murdered.”

“Murdered?”

“You don’t want to know how. It was ugly. They never found out who did it. It looked like a trick. It shook Otis to the core. And me too. Really sobered us up. We’re close again now. Not as lovers. That’s over. Look, do me a favor, don’t tell anybody here about any of this, okay?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t.”

“I mean, don’t even mention that I’m gay. If I want somebody to know I’ll tell them myself.”

“Most people here don’t gossip. At least not much.”

He had been openly gay in New York, at least among my old circle of friends.

“Ishmael!” Marigold stood in the complex doorway. “Could you help me dump a tub of water?”

“Sure.” I followed her inside, and Giovanni came with me. Marigold often asked me to do things for her, a little coquettishly. We had an unspoken bond, a little secret. “Marigold, this is an old friend of mine, Giovanni. He’s a pianist.”

“I used to play too,” she said.

“Really? What do you like?”

“Chopin. Mozart.”

The next thing I knew, Giovanni was sharing her cubby in the hole. She was the first woman I’d ever seen him with. They seemed to glow, like young couples do when they’re first exploring each other. I’d have thought Giovanni an unlikely candidate for a Dropper, inasmuch as he had a solitary disposition, we didn’t have a piano, and he had never worked with his hands, except to tune pianos. Now to my surprise, he joined in our work crews and seemed to be getting into the community swing. He fit in as someone who was a spiritual seeker, with few worldly attachments beyond his piano. He had been a divinity student and had taken up with Subud, a form of Sufi which, in a group meeting called a latihan, practiced a kind of direct spiritual experience. One of his few prized possessions at Drop City was a book by the medieval Sufi Ibn Arabi, which Meher Charlie immediately borrowed. The two of them hit it off over their shared Eastern spiritual interests, although Giovanni detested the noise of the Dropper band.

* * *

Marigold told me that one of the new guys in the hole, Kentucky Jeethro, had a rifle and a pistol. That really bothered me. First Rabbit’s and Alteresio’s hunting rifles, and now this.

At first I thought Kentucky Jeethro was gay, because his hair and beard were bleached and dark at the roots, but he quickly hooked up with a girl named Mantis.

I asked him about the guns.

“Where I come from,” he said, in his thick Southern accent, “everybody carries arms. Don’t worry. I don’t keep ‘em loaded.”

Jeethro and Rabbit went hunting together once or twice, but soon Jeethro was going hunting alone, almost every day. He also had traps, and did trapping. The next thing I knew he was cooking up a raccoon in the kitchen. Over the next week, all kinds of critters appeared in the kitchen: possums, porcupines, squirrels, even lizards. Even Rabbit was disturbed.

Drop Lady opened the freezer. Her jaw dropped at the sight of the line-up of small birds. She shook her finger at Jeetho. “This has got to stop.”

“If I can’t trap and hunt,” Jeethro complained. “I might as well leave.”

But, like Rabbit before him, Jeethro stayed.

One day a vehicle roared past my dome. I hurried out and saw him and Mantis riding in circles about the property on a new little motor scooter. Everybody was taking rides on it, whizzing around, falling off.

“Who does it belong to?”

“Us.”

“Great. Where did it come from?”

“I bought it.” Jeethro skidded off down the road.

Clard was standing there, looking glum. “The money to buy that scooter came from our bank account. He cleaned us out.”

Jeethro had been put on the account only days before. The communal bank account instantly became defunct. Nobody was willing to put any more money into it.

A couple of days later a sheriff’s car pulled into the driveway. Out of the window, the deputy, a Chicano, said, “We got a call from those FBI up in Denver. They’re sending down one of their guys to check you out again. Now we don’t want no trouble out here.”

Later that day Lard came up to me and said, “Jeethro’s gone. He and Mantis took off on the scooter. He’s a deserter from the Marines. I gave him the name of my underground contact in Albuquerque, the one who helped me get my 4F. They’ll slip him into Canada.”

I was stunned. Then I understood his bleached hair.

At dawn the next morning Ed the Fed banged on my door. “The FBI’s here.”

I jumped into my pants. Outside the complex door near the hole, stood the same FBI agent in the same tweedy suit, bow tie, and narrow-brimmed felt hat, holding his pencil and pad, talking to Curly and Clard. A few Droppers were walking toward them, while others stood watching from around the property.

The FBI agent spun to meet me. “Don’t ever come up behind me! You might get hurt!” He backed to the complex wall and watched Droppers converging in front of him. He waved his arms. “Freeze! That’s close enough! All of you, go about your business. Nobody leaves the property.” He glanced up to the parking lot, where the deputy sheriff stood near his car, arms folded, shaking his head.

The Droppers mostly sat down on the ground and watched.

“I’m here looking for felons. I’ve got descriptions. I need to get a good look at everybody here. Have them file down here four at a time.”

Curly walked away. “I don’t want no part of this.”

The complex back door opened, and out poured Giovanni, Fletcher Oak with his camera up to his eye, Jim Quim, Riceman, and Marigold.

“Don’t point that thing at me! You’re going to get it confiscated!”

“Afraid it’ll steal your soul?”

He stuck a finger in Giovanni’s face. “Let’s see your ID!”

“I don’t carry ID.” Giovanni didn’t drive.

“Who are you?”

“I was that one, I was this one, and now I’m Giovanni.”

“Come here.”

“No.”

The FBI man lunged at Giovanni. “You’re going with me!” He twisted his arm behind his back and began marching him up to the cars, while Giovanni yelled, “YOU’RE HURTING ME,” and a group of us followed, all talking at the same time.

“Leave him alone!”

“He hasn’t done anything!”

Marigold nipped at the agent’s heels, yapping, “Take me too. Take me too.”

Gypsy David peeked out of the hole then quickly ducked back in.

I realized that Giovanni was about the same height as Kentucky Jeethro, and both had wavy hair and dark eyes.

We got to the parking lot, where the deputy was still shaking his head. The FBI man handcuffed Giovanni, pushed him into the back of his car, shut the door, and turned to us.

“Is he under arrest?” I asked.

“First we’ll find out who he is.” He nodded to the deputy, and drove away.

The deputy sheriff said, “Sorry, boys. I’m real sorry this is happening.”

“Where’s he bringing him?” Clard asked.

“To the county jail. A couple of you can come down and wait, if that suits you.”

About ten of us squeezed into the Karmann Ghia and the red pickup, and followed the deputy into town.

At the jail Giovanni was tucked away in a holding cell in back. After a half hour the FBI agent came out. “I need to see all of your IDs.” We each showed him something and, with a sour expression, he took notes on his little pad.

“Why did you arrest Giovanni?”

“He’s detained,” He corrected. “He wouldn’t identify himself.”

“We could have told you who he is. He’s Giovanni.”

“Your telling me is not enough. If he doesn’t carry ID, how do I know if he’s this Giovanni or some other Giovanni or he’s just making up that name?”

“All names are just made up. He’s not some other Giovanni, he’s our Giovanni. You’ll just have to take our word for it.”

“Maybe he’s got you fooled.”

“How do we know you’re an FBI agent? Maybe you’ve got us fooled.”

“I’ll show you my badge.” He pulled out his wallet and held up the badge pinned on top of a plastic encased card. “Signed by J. Edgar Hoover.”

“I can buy something just like that in the Five and Ten.” I bent forward to peruse it.

He pulled it away and stuck it back in his pocket. “I assure you it’s real.”

“What if I don’t believe you?”

“You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

The sheriff called him aside, they disappeared into the back room, then returned with Giovanni, in a foul mood.

“If you walk around without ID, you’re just asking for trouble.”

“I was that one, I was this one. Now I’m a Sufi and Sufis don’t carry ID.”

We all took a deep breath and jumped back into final preparations for the Festival, now worrying about whether the FBI would stage a bust. We weren’t so worried about the sheriff, as he obviously didn’t like the FBI either. We decided to tell everybody that our policy was no dope on the property.

* * *

Chapter 17

THE JOY FESTIVAL

On the first day of the Festival, the Dropper band played perpetual cacophony; the air throbbed with drumming; the theater dome was a continuous exhibition and light show, with the Ultimate Painting spinning and flashing; people were meeting people, everybody talking at once. By noon most people were too stoned to think. At the south end was the crafts fair, with Feather Tom, Diggy Meg, Marigold, and the others in booths. The kitchen was endlessly cooking and serving up food. At one o’clock the Amarillo Dukes, a Texas motorcycle club, roared into the parking lot, heavy in leather, silver studs and dirty hair, smelling like old beer. Mother, Ed the Fed’s old girlfriend, was with them, a new dragon tattooed on her back. The Hog Farm, a traveling commune led by the clown later known as Wavy Gravy, appeared in three psychedelic painted busses and parked in the line of tie-dye paisley vehicles on the shoulder of the road.

Karanga and Hickson, the friends of Bear who had come up with him from around Albuquerque to help erect the complex, announced they had just founded Drop South, a new commune near Placitas, along with their girlfriends and a few other people. Another group, who had been at the Santa Fe gallery event, said they’d purchased land in Arroyo Hondo, near Taos, and were forming another commune there named New Buffalo.

“Remember me? Nani. I met you here last year.”

“Of course.” She was as vivacious as ever. “Where have you been?”

“Oklahoma, mostly. This is my husband Barrigon.”

He was tall and striking.

“Now we’re back in Colorado,” she went on, “living on the Ute rez, over on the western slope near Ignacio. Have you been at Drop City all this time?”

“Spent last summer in San Francisco, but since then I’ve been here. Have you been drawing?”

“A little. And Barrigon’s a poet.”

“Do you have anything with you? There’s going to be reading on the hill after dinner. Everybody’s invited to read.”

“We can’t stay,” he replied. “We can’t be around drugs.”

Nani said, “Barrigon’s a sundancer. If you’re ever in Ignacio, stop by.”

Later Rabbit, Max F. from the New Buffalo group, myself, and a few others read poetry on the hill. At dusk Rabbit led a group with drums beating down the sun; at the final instant of sunset, he yelled, “Cacahuate!” In the evening we watched films by Curly, Fletcher and Alteresio.

Marigold ran into the complex. “Tim’s here!”

Behind her flooded a troupe of Droppers and guests surrounding an unmistakable face. Everybody was talking at the same time. It really was Timothy Leary. He and a younger man and woman had just flown into Trinidad from Boston in a little plane.

The others were Billy Hitch, patron of the psychedelic revolution, and his wife. Hitch was owner of Millbrook, a large house on some Northeastern land, site of Leary’s and Alpert’s early LSD experiments. Hitch had piloted the one-engine plane and landed in the cow field Trinidad called an airport. Millbrook was a legend in the earliest days of psychedelia, before Drop City.

As the evening wore on, Leary suggested that a few of us go off alone. I hadn’t seen much of Curly or Jo all day. I found them in their dome, with the curtains drawn, and invited them to join us. Leary and his companions came up to my dome along with Rabbit, Poly, Clard, Lard, and some others. We smoked Leary’s weed, some of the most excellent I had ever tasted, as we discussed the communal and psychedelic movements and revolution. Neither Curly nor Jo ever appeared.

Inevitably, we got around to comparing Millbrook and Drop City. I had heard that Millbrook was semi-communal, a little like an ashram and a little like a crash pad; they let people stay there as long as they were cool.

Leary said, “The big difference is the mass movement hadn’t started back then. We certainly never shared all our money in Millbrook.” Leary and Hitch exchanged a little smile.

“Also,” I said, “Drop City is leaderless.”

“If was Drop City was really leaderless, it wouldn’t have happened,” Rabbit interjected.

“Leaderless,” Poly added, “is just a way of talking.”

“What I mean is, nobody’s boss here,” I clarified.

“Millbrook couldn’t have happened without Tim and Dick,” Hitch cut in.

“And without you, Billy,” Leary said, red-eyed and a little slurry. “We were the leaders, not because we forced ourselves on anybody, but because we were making it happen.”

“That’s right,” Rabbit snapped. “Groups just dumb things down to the lowest common denominator. What have the so-called masses ever contributed to civilization except mediocrity?”

I shrugged. “They are civilization.”

Clard intoned, “The people who run the world love to claim that everything is accomplished by the Great Man. But they’re just the ones who push themselves up to the head of the parade.”

“The Ultimate Painting,” Lard jumped in, “is a collective work, and it’s not mediocre.”

“Let’s not fool ourselves,” Rabbit threw back. “You and Clard were behind it.”

Leary shook his head. “Individual creative genius makes things happen in this world. All those cults of socialist leaders are just Plato’s old Philosopher Kings in disguise. What could be more individualistic than that? And in the name of collectivism! I don’t have any tolerance for all this glorification of the masses. Propaganda. Without leaders, without this little group here tonight, none of this would have happened.”

“Don’t you think that the psychedelic revolution would have happened without you, Tim? ” Clard replied.

“We didn’t invent psychedelics,” Leary said. “We struck the match at the right moment. Somebody else might have done it, but they didn’t. This is the cusp of a great transition, a raising of human consciousness. What we see out there is a reflection of our minds and brains. Society is a collective illusion. We’re only at the beginning of the revolution, many people have roles to play. I’m in contact with numerous revolutionary groups around the country. The war’s bringing down the old system. It doesn’t work any more. But what are we going to replace it with? I’m not talking just about society providing people with food and a place to live and medical care. The real goal is liberating the human spirit. And all the socialist doctrines in the world are worth nothing unless they do that. Here you’re living as if the real revolution—the revolution of the spirit—has already been won. If enough people do this, in numerous Drop Cities, all helping during the transition, it’ll really happen.”

After a couple of more hours they took their leave, spent the night in Rabbit’s dome, and flew off the next morning.

* * *

On the second day of the Festival the Dropper band played perpetual cacophony. The air throbbed with drumming. The theater dome was a continuous exhibition and light show, with the Ultimate Painting spinning and flashing. People were meeting people, everybody talking at once; most were too stoned to think. The kitchen was continuously cooking and serving up food. A rumor flashed around that Bob Dylan had come and left, but nobody I spoke to claimed to have actually seen him. A lot of locals showed up, including our elderly neighbors, the reform candidate, the egg man, the two Chicano cousins who had visited with their girlfriends, but with their wives and kids this time. Ed the Fed and Mother got into a fight.

I was in the complex, playing flute with the Dropper band, when I heard a familiar voice.

“Windowpane?” Winston Warlock was walking around handing out hits. At his side was Dawnrider, her arm around Marigold.

I was totally blown away, “Where’d you disappear to that night at the Garbo?”

“When Tiny—you remember that four hundred pound black dude—when he OD’d in the hall in front of our place, we couldn’t even open our door to get past him, we knew the pigs would be in our faces, so we grabbed all our shit and took off down the fire escape. Wound up in Morningstar.”

“Bountiful Eden,” Dawnrider added. “Just what we needed, to bliss out in the woods for a few months.”

Marigold pulled my sleeve. “Cori is here too. Have you seen her?”

“Cori?” I gasped.

“This is the first time the three of us are together since high school in East Lansing,” Dawnrider said. “I’m sure I told you: Marigold, Cori, and I were inseparable back then. I’m so excited.”

Giovanni, Meher Charlie, Gypsy David, Moron Normal, Carlos, and Jim Quim burst in, laughing hysterically, and set a big metal bell almost three feet high in the middle of the floor.

“Where’d that come from?”

“The school across the street,” Giovanni laughed. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

Gypsy David stretched his arms. “We climbed up into that tower over the entranceway, unbolted that sucker, and hauled it down. It is made of some heavy shit; must weigh two hundred pounds; almost dropped it.”

“Are you all out of your minds?”

“Flying on some savage LSD. Want a hit?” Gypsy held out a tab.

“No. Do you want us all to get arrested?”

“Don’t get uptight, man,” Jim Quim said. “Nobody’s going to care.”

“You can’t steal the school bell.”

“We didn’t steal it. We just took it.”

“Explain that to the sheriff.”

“I’ve never stolen anything before.” Giovanni laughed. “We’re so bad!”

“You’ve got to put it back.”

“Why?”

“They’re going to bust us!”

“You don’t understand!” Meher Charlie explained. “Everything’s one!”

I heard my name called. It was Cori, with my old New York friend Ernesto.

"This place is wild," he said.

We hugged. "Why didn’t you write me that you were coming?"

"It was a last minute thing. Cori and I have both gone through a lot of changes since last year," Ernesto said. "We’re on our way to San Francisco. I wish I could eat but I’m too wired. We haven’t had a real meal since Kansas City. We’ve been driving straight."

"Patt, I love your hair," Cori said.

"This is so exciting," Marigold bubbled, "The three of us together. Oh, remember when they kicked us off boosters?"

"Recollect this one?" Dawnrider launched into a cheer. Marigold and Cori joined her, dancing a little routine that ended in a leaping shout. The three of them cracked up, arms around each other, all prattling at the same time.

"What are you going to do in San Francisco?" I asked Ernesto.

"Political stuff. If that doesn’t work, maybe buy some land somewhere and start a commune."

"What happened to medical school?"

Marigold, Cori, and Dawnrider danced around the complex.

"Dropped out. I might go back someday. I couldn’t relate to what was going on there. Some of those med students are so oblivious. I’d rather be an orderly cleaning up somebody’s shit right now instead of a brain surgeon. I’ve been working as a medic at demonstrations. Do you have a medical station here?"

"We’ve got some bandaids."

"I’ll set one up. All we need is a sign."

"We met Odessa in San Francisco last summer," Patt said.

"Things are cool between us now," Ernesto went on. "She and Jake invited us to stay with them in San Francisco. But I’m kind of worried about her. He’s a Guevarista, you know."

"A what?"

"You know, a follower of Che. He’s into what they call Bringing the war home. Guerrilla warfare."

Marigold, Cori, and Dawnrider rejoined us, giggling and panting. Cori draped her arm limply across Ernesto’s shoulder.

"Jake’s into guerrilla warfare?” I gasped. “He seemed totally nonviolent to me. Aside from his being a Viet Nam vet, of course."

"Maybe he doesn’t talk that way to you."

“We think some of his friends are police agents," Cori said.

Ernesto bit his lip. “Don’t say that. This guerrilla business is just going to get people killed. It’s not progressive in any way. Not here. In the Third World, in most of Latin America maybe it’s correct, but here in the US things are different."

“Right,” Cori said. “It’s not progressive.”

"When did you become so political, Cori?" Patt said.

"I was always political. But I used to think that meant fucking." She wrapped her long polished nails around Ernesto’s ponytail and tugged it.

"By the way," Ernesto said to me, "I was pissed at first when Odessa told me about her and you, but then I realized I was being hypocritical since Mandy and I got together too."

"You what?"

"When you two broke up temporarily a couple of years ago. Then last spring when Odessa started seeing Jake, we got together a few times again. I’m not mad at you any more about Odessa. Or about Cori." He glanced at her. “I hope you’re not mad at me.”

Cori smiled sheepishly. "You’re not upset that I told Ernesto, are you?"

Patt glared at us all and walked away.

Cori looked bewildered. " I just wanted to clear the air."

I caught up with Patt and said, "All that was before I met you."

She bit her lip. "You’re not honest."

Just then the Dropper Band started to play a wild cacophony.

"I’m trying to be. Let’s put it aside until after the Festival. Please. Let’s have a good time."

Jack C, Max F, Rabbit, I and a half dozen others read poetry on the hill. At dusk a group with drums beat down the sun. In the evening we gathered and watched films by DiJulio, Curly, Fletcher, and Rabbit’s suck flick. The Conqueroo blues band played some real hot licks, alternating sets with the Wishbone; the theater dome throbbed with crazy dancing. The Amarillo Dukes got into a bar fight in Trinidad and the sheriff ran them out of town.

In the dark, Giovanni, Meher Charlie, Gypsy David, Moron Normal, Carlos, and Jim Quim stealthily climbed into the tower over the El Moro school entranceway and bolted the bell back in place.

* * *

On the third day of the Festival, the Dropper band played perpetual cacophony; the air throbbed with drumming; the Theater dome was a continuous exhibition and light show, with the Ultimate Painting spinning and flashing. People were meeting people, everybody talking at once; Luke Cool gave a great talk on zomes and domes. By noon most people were too stoned to think. The kitchen served up huge amounts of food. "General Wastemoreland," a satirist in a crazy army suit with missiles bristling off his hat, spat a staccato monologue. A lot more locals wandered around, including the Italian rancher next door, the librarian, his honor the barber-mayor, the mailman and the Safeway dairy guy. A guy in an Uncle Sam outfit who claimed to be running for president walked about making preposterous speeches, accompanied by his brother Bardo, who rolled his glassy eyes and wandered around mumbling, "Get rid of the guys, fuck the girls."

"I hit the wall with Marigold." Giovanni pulled me away, a pained expression on his face, down toward the cottonwood tree.

"What do you mean?"

"She’s the first woman in a very long time who’s moved me. I told her things about myself.” He had trouble getting it out. “I thought she opened her soul to me too. I feel like I’ve been in a car crash. I have to leave. I feel so humiliated. "

"Try to cool it out. If you two want to be together, you’ll find a way."

"You can’t understand. You’re not gay."

A while later I saw Marigold holding hands with Feather Tom.

I was standing near the center of the complex when Patt came up to me, eyes burning. "I hope you’re satisfied."

"With what?"

"Look around you! It’s a disaster. We’ll never get this mess cleaned up." She rarely showed anger like this.

"We’ll clean it up."

"We were barely holding on by a thread before. Now we’re over the top. You don’t know who’s going to walk into your own kitchen. This is a disaster. Drop City will never recover."

"Why are you being so negative? Relax. Have a good time. This is just a party."

"This is not just a party. I’m not having a good time. I hate this. It’s insane. These are our lives. I can’t live like this."

"Like what?"

"It’s directionless. Exposed. Always in the center of some craziness, always on some brink. Always worrying that some maniac is going to walk in and attack us, always worrying about our next meal."

"That’s just the human condition."

"Most people don’t seek it out! Most people don’t glamorize it!"

"I don’t glamorize it!"

Clard grabbed my elbow. “Have you seen Uncle Sam? Do you know where he is?”

"Yeah, he’s a hoot. I saw him a while ago with Rabbit."

“Well, his brother’s running around molesting all the women. They just released him from the nuthouse. Curly’s got him cornered in the TV room. We’re trying to find Uncle Sam."

I’d seen almost none of Curly and Drop Lady during the entire Festival. The curtains had remained drawn in their dome.

Clard and I hurried over to Rabbit’s dome. The door opened a crack and Rabbit’s eye peered out.

"Is Uncle Sam in there?"

Rabbit reached into his shit and flashed a crumpled brown paper bag. "Take a gander at these babies! A hundred hits of psilocybin. High class stuff. Peace and joy." He opened the bag and poured little oval tablets into his palm, but some fell to the floor, bouncing in every direction. "Flying fuck!" Rabbit hunkered down. People were sprawled all over the floor laughing and chattering while Uncle Sam stood in the middle of the dome, gesticulating and spouting campaign promises.

Clard grabbed Uncle Sam’s arm. "Your brother’s bothering the women."

"What’s the little rascal up to now?"

“You’ve got to get him out of here.”

“He’s just being friendly. He’s harmless. The poor guy’s been locked away for nine months. This is a big thing for him."

"What did they lock him up for?" I asked.

“He doesn’t mean it. If he can’t fit in here, where can he fit in? He just needs practice interacting. He’s going to be my attorney general.”

"Move your foot," Rabbit said. "You’re stepping on a tab."

I decided to go help Curly while Clard tried to reason with Uncle Sam.

Curly and Bardo were on the sofa in the TV room, Curly talking in a low voice and Bardo ranting, while Lard and Denton stood nearby watching. It went on for a long time. After a while Denton and Lard quietly cut. I kept expecting Clard to pop in with Uncle Sam, but time passed and they didn’t appear. Curly and Bardo had their heads close together, so I didn’t grasp most of what they were saying. Through the thin wall of the room I could hear the Festival raging.

At least an hour passed, maybe two. Curly kept listening as Bardo rambled on. I could see Bardo warming to him. Bardo would get agitated at times and raise his voice, but then Curly would slip in a few words, Bardo would look surprised and smile, then be calmer for a while. I was amazed at Curly’s patience and composure.

Curly turned to me and whispered, "Take over man. I got to go take a leak."

"What should I do?"

"Just listen. Every once in a while, remind him about flowers. We got to be sponges."

"What?"

“That’s how the Russians beat Napoleon." He stood.

"Where you going?" Bardo exclaimed tensely.

"Relax, man. I’ll be right back."

I slid over to Curly’s place on the couch. I was alone with him.

Bardo stared intensely at me. "They really stick it to me. They keep sticking it to me. They don’t know who they’re messing with."

"What’s your favorite color?" I asked.

"Fuck the girls," he said. "Get rid of the guys. Right? Right?"

"I mostly used to like green. Now I like blue too. And yellow."

"I like yellow. I like red too."

Curly finally got back, with Uncle Sam in tow.

"How you feeling, baby bro?"

"We’re here talking. I like talking."

"We’ve got to go."

"We only just got here. Have I done something wrong?"

"You haven’t done anything wrong. We just got to go."

As we watched them drive off, Curly said, "We all got to learn to be sponges."

At dusk, Jack C, Max F, Rabbit, Diane Di, myself, and a big group of others read poetry on the hill. A crowd beat down the sun. We watched films by Les B and Charlie Di and Curly and Fletcher, as well as Rabbit’s suck flick again, and a bunch of other films. The Conqueroo blues band got even hotter, alternating with Rangewar. The theater dome throbbed with crazy dancing all night.

At a late hour, Patt and I were finally alone. She made some comment about me and Odessa and Cori.

I touched her hand. "Let’s not fight."

"I can’t stand this. I’m moving back to New York and finishing school." She reached under the bed, pulled out her bag, and began throwing things into it.

"Do you really want to do this?" I said.

She continued packing.

"Don’t do this," I said.

"I’ve got to get on with my life."

"I thought you wanted to be with me."

"I don’t have time to vegetate. I want to have a good job. I want a family. I want kids."

"Give it one more chance. Let’s try to have a baby together."

"When? Someday?"

"Now."

"Are you serious?" She suddenly stopped.

I didn’t know if I was, but said, "Yes."

Patt sat down on the bed. "I don’t know if I’m ready for that. I’ll have to think about it."

She didn’t unpack her bag, but pushed it partially packed under the bed.

* * *

By noon on the final day of the Festival most people were too stoned to think; the kitchen served huge amounts of food; the crafts fair was sold out.

As dusk neared, most of the Droppers gathered in the complex. We didn’t say much. The Dropper band had stopped playing. It was finally quiet. The place was a total shambles, but everybody was too tuckered out to even try to clean up. If the FBI agent planted finks at the Joy Festival, they never surfaced.

I stood outside, enjoying the quiet of the fading light. Curly came up to me, carrying Mae naked. "Me and Jo are leaving. We’re splitting Drop City. We’ve had it. It hasn’t worked out for us. Do you want our dome?"

“Are you serious?”

“This has been coming on for a long time.”

Maybe I should have expected it, but I was shocked. “Where will you go?”

“Right now, back to Lawrence. Later, I don’t know.”

“Why?”

Curly shrugged. “These four days were the last nails in our coffin. The last kick in our butt.”

“Was the Festival that terrible for you? It was just a stupid party.”

“To us it symbolized all the evil things we didn’t want Drop City to become. It was Rabbit’s going away present to us.”

“Most of the rest of us wanted the Festival too. Rabbit will be gone soon. We can regroup.”

“I been hearing that for a long time. And it’s probably true. Rabbit will leave now that he’s got us all wrung out. But now this is a real different place. It’s not the right situation for Mae to grow up in now. It’s never going to be that. Not the way it’s turned out. Jo saw that a long time ago.”

“What happened to the great Drop City experiment?”

“Well, I haven’t talked about it for quite a while, if you’ve noticed.”

“You mean, for you it’s failed? Or was it doomed from the beginning?”

“The experiment’s not over yet. Keep it going. You and Clard and Lard can take it over. Don’t let our leaving get you discouraged, man. It doesn’t need me. It’s better off without me. You and Patt can be me and Jo as good as we can.”

“No thanks. Denton and Leeda are the ones who are going to wind up being you two, if they go ahead and start a new community with Rabbit and Poly.”

“This is all part of the experiment anyway. If it needed me and Jo to work, it would have been a failure right from the start.” He held the baby up in the air and bounced her, giggling and drooling. Pee gushed out of her and onto Curly’s shirt. He laughed and stood there dripping with pee. “I wish we were half as advanced as her. Ain’t she a miracle?”

I felt kicked in the stomach. Curly and Jo, along with Clard, had dreamed so many of the ideas that the early Drop City stood for. Yet Curly was right: the ideas behind Drop City, and the place itself, had to stand or fall separately from them.

I heard Rabbit beginning to beat down the sun. I joined him and the others on the hill. As the sun’s last rays passed beyond the peaks, Rabbit yelled, “CACAHUATE!” The clouds glowed then slowly darkened. We sat silently in the starlight.

* * *

Next: Part 7: LIVING THE REVOLUTION

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