Fatherhood

It was at Woodstock:  August 15, 1969, that Jeffrey was conceived.  I had driven up from Atlanta with my brother and several of his friends in a rusty old Chevy van.  We had agreed that, for free admission to the festival, we would tack posters on trees and telephone poles along our drive.  We had 500 of the white dove posters and were expected to arrive empty handed.

Of the five of us, three weren't working and had no money.  I was just shy of 19 and, like my brother's pal, Chip, quit my job at a local record store to make the trip.  The $125 I had in my jeans quickly became the foundation of our shared finances which, as I recall, totaled $267 -- a king's ransom in those days, but hardly enough to fuel five guys in a van for two weeks. 

Although there were expressways pretty much all the way there, we started out conscientiously inching along highway 41, carefully placing our posters in the most prominent places we could find.  This attention to duty was abandoned in about a day and a half.  We took to the Interstate and eventually adopted a system of pulling off every fifth exit and slapping a couple of placards on whatever was handy, then continuing on. 

The van was filled with sweet marijuana smoke for the entire trip and we performed our duties in a happy euphoric haze, punctuated with occasional bouts of paranoia.  In Kentucky, my brother was tacking a poster to a telephone pole when a local cop screeched his cruiser to a halt before him and flipped on his lights. 

'Step away from the pole, sir . . or ma'am.' He called as he stepped from the car.  My brother, like the rest of us, had shoulder length hair.  We scrambled around inside the van to hide the various parts of our stash in the most inconspicuous places:  the glove compartment, under a sweatshirt in the back, tucked into a tear in the front passenger seat.

We were ordered out of the vehicle and forced to stand with our hands raised, palms on the side of the van while he did what investigating he could.  'This is it,' I thought as he peered into the empty but very fragrant Chevy.  'My life is over.' 

He was drawling something about us following him in to the station for further questioning when his radio crackled.  'Lewis!  Lewis!' a woman cried.  'You better get your ass back here!  Luther Post's trying to hold up the filling station again and this time he's got a gun!' 

Now clearly on an adrenalin rush, Officer Lewis turned back to us.  'You-all stay right here. Don't even think about leaving or you'll never get to your party.  I'll be back to deal with you later.'  Then he dove back into his cruiser, flipped on the siren and tore down the road at astonishing speed.  The five of us, hands still on the van, glanced from side to side at each other, the smiles slowly dawning on our faces. Then there was a wild scramble as we dove into the truck, pulled a fast U-turn and raced back onto the Interstate. 

***********************************

We reached Philadelphia on Tuesday afternoon.  I remember how miserably hot and humid it was.  Between the heat, the marijuana and the rhythm of the van I was having trouble staying awake.  Thank goodness we were within striking distance of the Festival.  The problem was that we still had about 200 posters to put up. 

Chip was driving and pulled off the Interstate near the center of the city.  He had relatives nearby and knew Philadelphia fairly well.  He maneuvered the van through traffic, by Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell and on to that cramped part of town where Head Shops and Gay Bars clustered.  We parked by a natural food cafe and went in for some late lunch. 

This was a treat.  Most of our meals were taken at fast food places on the highway:  MacDonalds, Dairy Queen, Stuckeys -- which always was a challenge for Walter, the only vegetarian among us.  I remember stopping at a Burger King in Tennessee, walking in and placing our orders:  Five Whoppers with cheese, one without the meat.  You get the picture;  so sitting down in a real place with real food seemed heavenly.

I had brought in a couple of posters, hoping to put one in the window of the cafe.  As we walked through to our table, I noticed heads turning and conversation directed toward us.  Before we could order, several people had come to our table to ask about the festival and what we were doing.  They'd heard something was happening in New York, but were foggy on the details.  As we described the event, the other diners became more and more excited.  Soon it was as if we were holding a lecture in the restaurant, reading the list of bands, giving directions, answering questions. 

There were two guys who were so excited, they wanted to be part of this happening.  We gave them each 100 posters and instructed them to put them up as they hitch-hiked to Woodstock.  Our job done, our stomachs full of lentil casserole, and our well wishers wishing us well, we returned to the van and to the Highway.  We'd be in Woodstock by Wednesday.

***********************************

You've probably heard the nightmare stories about cataclysmic traffic jams and volatile crowds clambering for entry into the Festival.  That was not our experience.  We got to Woodstock on Wednesday afternoon, a day before the start and many hours before the rest of the world showed up.  We quickly staked out a prime camping spot not far from the small river that flowed through the property and set about finding the promoter who had our tickets. 

We spent the evening around a campfire with an ever swelling crowd of fellow campers.  Our circle grew larger and larger with each passing hour and it wasn't until we let the fire die that people drifted off to other venues.  Much of the conversation that night focused on drugs:  who had what, who'd trade, and so on.  We'd come with piles of pot, of course, much grown in Alan's secret basement planter boxes, and a bag of mushrooms that Chip had hand picked on a trip to the fertile cow paddies of South Georgia for that very purpose.  1969 in Atlanta was not a great time to score chemical highs.  Acid and Mescaline were still very exotic for us and we were relegated to things we could grow or harvest from Mother Earth. 

We were able to trade a little of our stash for a dozen hits of windowpane acid and rationed this new hallucinogenic delight between us.  Everyone got two hits and we kept two hidden away in the tent for emergency purposes. 

Around 3am, utterly wasted with nothing more to say, we went to sleep:  two in the van, three in the tent.  It was noon before anyone stirred.

************************************

Thursday, the first day of Woodstock, was like a snake swallowing a very large rat.  There was this immense glob of people making its way to the festival site, all at once, and hard as the snake swallowed, it was unable to cope with the sheer mass of the thing.  So, by 2pm, every road within 200 miles of the festival site was utterly jammed.  Impassable. 

Or so we heard.

What we saw was a steady swarm of people dumping into Yasgur's farm.  It was already at amazing proportions when we got up that morning and became even more amazing as the day progressed. 

Just as the swelling torrent of humanity grew on the ground, so did the massing of clouds overhead.  It started as streaks against the blue but my mid-afternoon had morphed into angry fists of grey reaching down to kiss the treetops.  We all knew we were going to get wet . . . we just didn't know when.

Music was to start at 7pm, and the first sets were to be the folkies:  Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Melanie etc. followed by Sly and the Family Stone. Rumors swirled that the most famous and mysterious resident of Woodstock (the town) was coming. Bob Dylan. It made sense.  I mean why the hell else would this event be happening out here in the middle of nowhere?  Anticipation of this never materializing coming and that of others whipped the buzzing clumps of attendees throughout the day.

Around 5 -- cocktail hour -- Chip and I took our first hits of acid.  It was the windowpane we traded for the day before.  We wanted to be flying high by the time Ravi Shankar went on. And figured that would be in five hours or so.  We joined the wave of people moving toward a good position near the stage. 

There's so much to be said about the music and the event . . . and most of it has been said over and over.  But this isn't about that, so I will gloss over most of it.  Here are some nuggets that I remember through the hurricane of colors swirling about me:

Music started an hour late

Richie Havens was electrifying.  His last song, 'Freedom,' was probably the best single performance at the event and was made better by the fact that he was asked to s-t-r-e-t-c-h until the next act arrived. 

Rain started shortly thereafter and remained throughout the weekend.

The sound system sucked . . . which was inevitable.  How do you amplify to a crowd of 450,000 in 1969?  We were still using tubes for god's sake.  It died completely on day two forcing a  multi-hour delay that ended when Jefferson Airplane came on in the early morning.

Generally the music was really bad.  It was the '60s, which was a time when the free form JAM was king, so nobody expected anybody to be 'tight.'  But this was just sloppy.  Nobody cared, though.  The thing was to BE there. 

The exception was Crosby, Stills and Nash who astonished those of us who could hear with their incredibly tight harmony. 

We're all so proud that we went.  But it really was a vision of hell.  No facilities, no food, nothing much to drink, rain, mud. Unless you were lucky or really rude you never got close enough to the stage to see or hear anything.  Everyone around you was positively mental on any number of drug combinations.  From that moment in 1969 on I quit going to large venue music events.  Today, if I can't be close enough to see the performers' eyes, I don't want to be there. 

For me, the one good thing that came out of Woodstock was Jeffrey.

************************************

When the rains finally burst upon us that first night, I lost interest in the music.  I was blissed out on chemical sensations and wandered about the site like so many other zoned out zombies.  I went down a slope toward a group of odd looking people.  They seemed to be moving statues, all the same color:  grey brown.

As I neared I realized they were covered in mud:  it was the first of many mud wallows at Woodstock.  It seemed that these people were the happiest people I'd ever seen in my life.  I longed to be close to them and to feel the ooze of mud around my tripping body.  Not wanting to ruin my outfit, I took each piece of clothing off and carefully folded it in a neat pile behind me. 

Whether I was the first to get naked or not, I don't know.  But when I turned around people were shedding their clothes like a so many butterflies shedding their caterpillar cocoons. The mud was sensual heaven, but the slide and smear of another body next to your own became utter ecstasy with the gritty lubrication.  All around me, little piles of people were forming.  I had the momentary vision of being in a hog wallow . . . which was funny, not frightening; and eased into the pile next to me.  The slippery feel of feet and hands, butts and breasts was like nothing I'd ever experienced.  It was like orgasming 50 times at once but for many long minutes. 

One by one the mud people drifted off.  Soon there were just a few in my clump.  I looked down in wonder at my huge brown erection.  Never had I seemed so big.  Perhaps some mysterious switch had occurred in that pile. 

And then, there it was: a muddy hand reaching out and around my dick.  I glanced over and our eyes met, mine and the girl who'd slithered up next to me.  At that instant I think we'd have fucked right there in the midst of this crowd had it not been for the mud.  There was an instant realization that the grit and grime of it all would make coupling nearly impossible and probably dangerous.

I took her hand from my crotch and we stood.  The rain was coming  down heavily now and I could feel my coating of slime dripping down my body.  I took her hand and we walked in a direction where I thought there might be a lake or river.  Not a single word was spoken between us.  And after a walk that led nowhere, after the downpour had removed enough mud from us to see our skin, we laid down on one of the few remaining patches of grass at Yasgur's farm and went at it like hungry animals. 

I am vaguely aware of people drifting around us, stopping for a moment then moving on.  What we were doing was as normal as anything else going on at Woodstock and I think many people thought we were just another hallucination.  The experience was an instantly foggy memory for me, one that I questioned the next day.  Did this really happen? 

'Yes!' said Chip.  It was mid afternoon the next day.  We were in the van trying to stay dry.  'I came over this little hill and there you were with this girl.  I think you'd just finished . . . you were laying there side by side in that warm, uh . . . post-coital kinda way."

I had no memory of a climax or of Chip finding us or much of anything that happened in the previous six hours. 

"I tried to bring you back here," he went on, 'but you insisted that you needed to go have sex with the tree spirits.  Finally you just wandered away.  I was there on this little hill with this totally tripped out girl.  I ended up walking her back toward the camping area until one of her friends recognized her and took her."

"She was OK?" I asked.

"Yeah;  I mean she was really fucked up, but she was ok."  Chip paused thinking.  "But here's the freaky part.  When her friend found us, she insisted on having a piece of paper and a pencil.  She had me write your name down and 'Atlanta, Georgia' on it.  When I handed the paper to her, she looked me right in the eye and said, 'I'm going to have his baby.' 

*************************************

Although I never forgot this piece of personal Woodstock history, it faded to the lower filing cabinet in my mind and was brought out only on special occasions of nostalgic remembering. I went to college, got a job, was miserable, got married, got divorced, and moved to California.  it was 1990, 21 years after Woodstock, and I had just turned 40. 

It was a year of cataclysmic but positive change for me.  I had gotten divorced, realized I was gay (and decided that was ok after all), engineered myself a promotion and a move to California.  It was in the midst of this period of reinvention that everything shifted.

I had taken a nice apartment within walking distance of several of the Gay bars on Broadway in Long Beach.  Actually I was a block away from that most venerable of Long Beach institutions, the Park Pantry Cafe, and I took many of my meals there.  I pushed myself to get more involved in my life than I'd been.  I was singing at a bar, running three times a week with a gay running club, and hanging out with more friends than I'd ever had;  oh:  and I was master of a very visible and important job at my company's headquarters.

There was a singer in town, Mona Caywood, who had quite a following among the many gay men and women who lived there.  She had a magnificent voice and engaging style, could take you from laughter to tears in about 3 minutes.  Some nights she did a set as Miss Fern, a bee-hive hairdo wearing crazy woman in a 50's party dress.  In the non-winter of '90 - '91, she did the Miss Fern show weekly at Ripples beach front bar just around the corner from my house.  I was a regular.

************************************

One Sunday night I sat at my tall cocktail table alone.  I loved Mona and would go to see her even if nobody else wanted to.  Like everyone in the place, I was shredding cocktail napkins into tiny squares to throw at her as she sang 'I Fall to Pieces,' when he walked in:  a tall young man, Tab Hunter handsome, in leather jacket and boots.  Like everyone in the place, my head bobbed up and followed him to his place at the bar. 

He was hard not to notice.  He had that good looking confidence that comes from knowing that you're turning heads.  I wondered if he was some kind of model or porn star.  Throughout the evening I shot him glances and was surprised that often I caught him glancing at me.  Surely this young beauty was not interested in a forty year old geezer like . . . me!  As Mona wailed I ordered another cocktail and tried to work up the courage to go over and say 'Hello.' 

And then I glanced over again and he was gone.  I hoped it was temporary -- a bathroom break or something -- but then the bartender cleared away his empty glass and wiped the bar clean.  Rats!  I guess he was interested in something other than a room full of show tune queens enthralled by a singer in a poodle skirt. 

The next afternoon I was sitting at the keyboard in my spare bedroom semi-studio working on a song when there came a knocking at my door.  My first thought was to ignore it -- I was word-smithing a lyric and concentration was critical --  but the knocking persisted, growing in intensity.  'Fuck!'  I blurted, slamming my hands on the keys and standing.

When I opened the door I felt a shock travel down my chest and around to my kidneys.  It was him:  the boy from the bar, standing on my doorstep with a playful grin on his face. 

'Jazz?'  he said, 'Jazz Ding?' 

'Yes?' I answered.  How the hell did he know my name?

'My name is Jeffrey . . . and I wonder if you can remember where you were on August 15th, 1969.' 

Oh Shit, I thought.  I'm in trouble.  This guys a cop or something who's tracked me down for some indiscretion or another . . . '69 . . . '69 . . . hell!  That's more than 20 years ago . . .

'No,' I answered tentatively.  'Why?' 

'Perhaps we should sit down,' he replied, gesturing toward the sofa in my living room. 

Completely mystified but somewhat calmer, I invited him in.  Being this close gave me ample opportunity to take in his movie-star good looks.  This was a fair boy, not suntanned and bleached like so many others in this Southern California gay mecca.  His dark to brown hair was bushy and thick, parted on one side with a flirtatious curl pulled down on his forehead.  Green eyes looked out over full lips, twisted into a half-grin, atop big shoulders, a perfectly slim waist and perhaps the best bubble butt I've ever seen. It flipped from side to side when he walked; sassy, like a playful pony ready for the race. Can I get fries with that shake? I thought to myself as he walked across the room and took a chair. 

'1969,' I mumbled, sitting on the couch.  'I was what?  19 or something?' 

'Something like that.'  He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head toward the opposite shoulder.  'There was a huge music event that summer . . . '

'Oh!' I nearly shouted as it came back to me.  'Woodstock!  I was at Woodstock.'  The eyes inside my head, the hidden ones that only I can see, immediately rolled up in disgust.  Great.  Now I've given it away.  He knows how old I am.  Still, maybe he likes older men;  I sure hope so . . .

'Yes, you were.' His answer was strong and a little uncomfortable.  How did this kid know that? 

'Do you remember a night when it poured rain?  You joined a group in a mud wallow?'

I hadn't thought about that for a long time, but the mention immediately brought back the feel of the slippery brown goo sliding between me and the people in that pile.  'Uh-huh?' 

'Do you remember a girl?  A pretty blond girl?  From California?' 

How could I forget?  That was one of the most memorable experiences of my hippie years. . . 'Yes? . . . I remember . . . but that was a long time ago.' 

'Exactly 21 years,' he said slowly, mysteriously, dramatically.  The world seemed to stop for a moment and turn to listen in.  Something big was about to happen and every molecule in the room sensed it. 

'Which is, coincidentally . . . exactly . . . my . . . age.' 

His eyes fixed me and held me.  it was as if he was looking through my pupils into the dusk of my brain seeing the wild machinations flying there as I scrambled to do the math.  My heart was pounding again and I felt my balls contracting . . . I couldn't breathe. 

'That girl, that pretty blond girl? . . . is my mother . . . ' his words came slowly at me like arrows moving through molasses.  They found their target at the center of my heart and I felt it rise like a fist in my throat.

'What are you saying?'  I asked, tentatively, almost terrified.  I watched as that twisted smile twisted a little higher then spread to fill his face. 

'Hello . . . Dad.'

***********************************

My silence was deafening.  I looked into his eyes and saw . . . myself;  I looked at his chin and saw . . . myself.  I looked at his hands and saw . . . myself.  Oh, Shit! I thought.  This is for real.

We spent the afternoon filling in the crater that separated us.  His mother -- whose name is Sandi -- went back to California (Berkeley) and had him in the commune where she was living.  She raised him there with the help of a dozen others until the mid-seventies when one-by-one, each of her comrades drifted away, victims of their own sadness and cynicism.  She was left with the natural food collective they had started and a five year old bundle of joy:  Jeffrey.

The collective slowly blossomed and became a chain of natural food stores throughout Alameda and surrounding counties called, 'Sandi's.'  Though they were well beyond scraping to survive, mother and son continued to live a simple life in a small house just across the line in Contra Costa County.

Sandi had never hidden the facts of his beginning from Jeffrey, simply telling him that she had made it with a very charming stranger at Woodstock and was blessed nine months later with the best thing that ever happened to her.  It was only in the last year, just as he was finishing up college, that Sandi had become more specific.

'I never asked,' he said, 'I mean I never knew to ask;  I just thought you were an anonymous stranger.  But on the day I graduated from college, she gave me an envelope with a card in it.  All it said was 'Jazz Ding, Atlanta, Ga.'"

Sandi had never tried to find me, never felt the need or desire.  To her, I was just the guy who got her pregnant.  She wanted Jeffrey, though, to have all the information she had about me if he chose to look me up. 

I'm sure some guy would be pissed about that:  living 20 years with a son you knew nothing about.  But I felt something else:  admiration.  I never knew this woman, never wanted to know her, was barely present when we conceived.  The fact that she went back to California and dealt with her situation on her own and obviously did so well was awe inspiring for me.  Sandi had to be an extraordinary person.

'I saw you last night at Ripples, right?' I asked.

'Yes.' He raised his eyebrows. 'I'd been following you around for a couple of days.  I sat in my car and watched you skate at the beach yesterday afternoon and sat at the counter at the Park Pantry last night when you had dinner with your friend.'

'Why did you wait to approach me?'

'I wanted to be sure you were someone I wanted to approach.' The grin was back.  'You could have been a jerk, a drunk or a loser . . . and what would I need that for?'

'Oh, so I passed?' 

'Yes; with colors flying.  I wanted to meet you.'

Hmmm . . . I felt my first moment of swelling parental pride:  my boy was proud of me! 

'And you followed me into Ripples . . .' I didn't want to hide anything, but felt the need to proceed with caution.  'That must have been uncomfortable for you.'

'Why?''

'Well, it's a gay bar.' I shook my head from side to side as I said that.

'Oh . . . that.' Now he was the one shaking his head. 'Listen:  I am gay;  I've always been gay; and I knew you were gay, too.'

My surprised bordered on shock. Then I felt something new:  a joy that we shared this thing, this point of view, this foundation. I felt tied to him.

'How? . . How did you know I was gay?'

'I didn't . . . until I saw you at the beach.' I tilted my head in puzzlement.  Sheepishly he replied, 'It's pretty obvious, you know?'

It was a time in my life where I was still working hard to be 'straight acting' (whatever that means).  Instead of feeling pride or even peace when ordinary people recognized me as gay, I felt naked. Of course, that impulse is completely gone now;  I always assume that everyone knows in a matter of minutes with me.  The idea that this kid had me pegged from the git go caused me to step back in my nakedness for a moment. 

Jeffrey was working up the freeway a few miles in a plastics plant.  He was part of the management team, speaking fluent Spanish to the mostly undocumented workers who ran the machinery that made the bags his company sold.  He had an apartment there (Carson), but spent the weekend with me.  As they say, we had a lot of catching up to do.

There was a moment there that first day when I pulled back.  I was this kid's father:  I had to be seen as a competent, sane authority figure.  I began to reign myself in, edit my comments, withhold more titilating bits of information.  Then I heard myself sounding like my father, talking in shoulds, preaching life lessons and so on.  It was immediately irksome.  I wanted better for my boy . . . for myself.

'Look,' I said.  'Being a father's kinda new to me, you know?  I've never had the experience before and I'm a little uncomfortable with the role.  Would you mind if we just work on being friends?'

'Oh, hell no,' he responded, 'I have no expectations to put on you.  I'm a fully functioning grown man, and I got this way without a father.  Other than the pictures we might take at the next father-son softball game, I can see no benefit in falling into those roles now.  Let's promise to be completely genuine with each other.' 

And so we swore.  I knew it would take some effort for me NOT to feel a sense of duty and responsibility for Jeffrey.  It's the only model I had.  But something else would be even more difficult:  Pride.  The Pride I felt in this person sitting across from me.  I wanted to hold him in my arms and kiss him . . . and by the end of the first day, I did.   

********************************

At the same time that I was swelling with pride, I was running away in fear.  Here was this . . . thing;  this interruption, this distraction, this detour in my life.  I was happily moving forward with my own reinvention, exploring me me me, living for nobody but me me me -- and now there was . . . him.  I wanted to embrace this new relationship, to devote major time to it -- and at the same time to put it in a neat box and then into a closet somewhere so I could trot it out when I was bored or lonely. 

My ambivalence ceased to be a factor when the apartment downstairs from me came available.  I saw the For Rent sign on the building when I left for work in the morning.  Shortly after I got home in the evening, Jeffrey was at my door telling me the good news:  he'd rented the place -- we were going to be neighbors. 

And it was ok.  No;  it was better than ok:  it was wonderful.  We became inseparable, doing almost everything together.  We joined a gay running club, began to build a shared circle of friends, went to dinner several times a week and hung out together on weekends.  He seemed to enjoy my company as much as I enjoyed his . . . and our relationship was more like the closest friendships than like fathers and sons. 

We rarely told anyone our story and most people just thought we were pals.  A game we played when we went to bars was the exception.

We were both gay, both single and we did what single gay men do:  we went to the bars regularly.  The reason was social:  we'd go to enjoy each other's company and that of any friends we met there -- but the objective, the ultimate goal, was to meet Mr. Right. 

By the way, Mr. Right is hanging out at every gay bar in America every night of the week.  You'll always find him there -- or someone your mind morphs into Mr. Right -- just waiting to meet you.  So you have to be careful or you'll wake up in the morning next to some guy who smells bad and doesn't have a job. 

*******************************

And now a lesson in creative writing.  You know how you can be writing and writing, on and on, perhaps in your diary or on your Master's Thesis or your blog -- or perhaps on the Great American Novel?  Sometimes you know where you want to take things so well that you get bored in the journey.  Not that your writing is boring;  it isn't to anyone else.  But to you -- well you've already been there and done that in your head . . . and it's hard to keep on when you know what's going to happen.

Sometimes you persevere, driving forward, keeping your focus on your elegant use of language and attention to detail.  You take the piece to completion and bask in the afterglow of a job well-done.  But other times . . . you just look at it and say:  'Could you just stab me in the eye with a pencil?' 

That's where I am with this post. 

So I'm going to use a device that I learned from Michael O'Donaghue in a piece called, 'Michael O'Donaghue Shows You How To Write Good.'  I consider Mr. O'Donaghue to be one of my writing mentors.  Many of the most important lessons I've learned about writing come directly from him.  I think so much of him that I'm going to reproduce the referenced essay as soon as I finish this post. 

So, at least for now, you'll not learn how my fatherhood/friendship with Jeffrey bloomed and flowered, how we suffered the slings and arrows of fortune and love together and how, almost unexpectedly, it all came to a mysterious and tragic end.  Perhaps at some other time I will pick this up again. But for now:

Suddenly, everyone was run over by a truck.

The End