Youth. Chapter 2

It has been many years since that time in Morocco yet it remains vivid in my memory still. Those six months of travel from Amsterdam to Marrakesh were the high point of an adventure filled with strange, wonderful and inexplicable mysteries of the mind.
We were the avant-garde of a revolutionary international youth movement which would change the world. This movement was feared and hated by the established social order, the hatred and hostility between the youth of that day and the leaders of the social order was overwhelming, and still lives in the hearts of many to this day.
I left Morocco feeling like a spent fireworks display, like a cloud of smoke drifting away in the breeze. Although I knew there were yet many adventures ahead I also knew the finest of them was now just a memory. I did not really understand at that time that it is we who make our lives and our adventurers by our thoughts, and the words of an old Beatles song which had just appeared at that time held the key to a valuable secret. “In the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
Across the Straits of Gibraltar, in southern Spain, I witnessed such color, such beauty. Somehow I made my way to Málaga which is about 100 miles from Gibraltar on the Mediterranean Coast. As I wandered around the old town I met a young American lad barely 17 years old. I was struck by his beauty, over 6 feet tall long blond hair down over his shoulders he was slam and graceful. We became friends instantly. He had been traveling around Europe for a month by himself and was happy to find a friend. Back home in California he had problems in high school. Another student told the teacher that John was on LSD, he was taken to the principal's office and the police were called but although he was tripping his ass off he remained calm and would not admit to this heinous crime. He dropped out of school to travel. He was traveling south but decided to turnaround and go back north with me to Amsterdam. Normally hitchhiking in Spain is difficult because the Spanish people do not pick up hitchhikers especially foreigners, but with John it was no problem, most people at first glance thought he was a girl with his long hair. We would find a place where I could just conveniently be out of sight, then when someone stopped, and it was always sooner than later, we would both quickly get in., one time a man scolded John for not growing a beard.
Granada, Cartagena, Murcia, Alicante, and from Alicante we took a boat to the island of Ibiza. While John was off wandering around Alicante I hung around the boat dock and met Amy she was so young and beautiful and reminded me of Jamie. We went to a café and talked, we would have made wonderful traveling companions and no doubt fallen in love but she was heading south toward Morocco, she had just disembarked from the boat we were about to take to Ibiza. I was on a new adventure now and I could not bring myself to go back to Morocco even with this most beautiful woman, I would only be haunted by memories of a love affair which was gone forever. I thought that everywhere Amy and I would go in Morocco would only remind me of the circle of friends and the love we shared and how it all so quickly vanishes like a puff of smoke.
And then there was John who just returned from his wandering about Alicante. We were standing on the dock with our elbows resting on the iron railing looking out over the bay watching the ships; I gently held her hand with both of mine and was examining it closely as she was telling me a sad story about her affair with a man who took advantage of her. I explained to her the universal law of justice which some call it karma, I reminded her that the profit Jesus said you will reap what you sow.
“Really?” She said.
“Really.” I said
She needed someone in whom she could trust and she told me she believed I was trustworthy.
John started talking and the moment became confused, the past and future were swirling around in the present. For that moment I didn't know where I was.
“Walter, they're starting to board the ship, I will meet you on board, OK?”
“OK John, I'll be right there.”
As the ship left port I glanced back at the port of Alicante. And I wondered if I did the right thing? I walked into the sitting room and as I entered a man invited me to join him and his wife at a table. We talked, he told me a story about a movie he was producing in Hollywood, it was about a young boy who was deaf, dumb and blind but he could play a mean pinball, in fact his neck name was the “Pinball Wizard.”
He spoke well and you could tell he was intelligent. His wife was young and lovely. I wasn't surprised some months later when a great Hollywood production, a big movie about a deaf, dumb and blind kid named Tommy became a box office smash.
Ibiza is an old Mediterranean town ruled by Spain it is beautiful and romantic. John had friends in the countryside that lived in an old olive orchard. There was a beautiful adobe style home there, one of the old styles made of clay and rock.
John rented a motor cycle and he drove out to the orchard, I as a passenger. John had some LSD and we took it when we got to the orchard. The sound of the life of that island was something utterly new to me, I could hear the vibration of its life force, and it was very organic and had a life.
From Ibiza to Barcelona going up through Catalonia over the mountains into southern France. The colors in southern France are enough to drive an artist crazy. And I have never seen such beautiful women. On our way to Paris we met one of these women, she was a in her 30s she was a schoolteacher and she gave us a nice long ride and on the way she showed us great old Roman aqueduct's and told us about how they were built and what year and showed us many other things about the countryside. We walked through one town that had a sign at the entrance telling us that they had more children per capita than any other town. And I think it was true because as we walked through the streets of town many children followed us, they were of several different racial origins and all of them so young and beautiful. Not long after that a man gave us a ride to Paris.
I had been to Paris before just after the people’s revolt in the streets of Paris in May of 68. That was the beginning of a great change in Europe, a physical change, a political change; I believe even a spiritual change.
The United States was also changing in even more violent and bloody fashion. Using its National Guard to kill and maim rebellious students. Millions of young people were revolting against an evil government waging a war of genocide in Asia against millions of innocent peasants struggling desperately to escape the clutches of the beast capitalism and establish independence and a Marxist economy. There was upheaval and unrest everywhere and as usual in history Paris was taking a leading position in defining the events of the day.
By now I had been traveling for about a year. And being in Paris now for the second time provoked me to soul-searching. Vivid memories of the past two years assailed my mind. I remember the college riots and the events which led to my expulsion from the University, but it wasn't until many years later that I quite by chance learned that agents of the University had been taking pictures of the students and circling the faces of those whom they felt were a threat. That answered some of the questions I had about the way in which I was arrested. It was not during a demonstration but rather a lull in the action while Barbara Trent, one of the real leaders of the revolt and I were sitting at an outdoor table on the patio of a restaurant when out of nowhere came the state police with their entourage of cameramen and arrested me. I didn't know at the time that they had a list of people to detain.
I remembered my mother how beautiful and loving she was and my father how cold he was toward me. I no longer felt welcome at home.
Shortly after my run in with the authorities two of the leaders of the movement, Barbara and Bob Gordon were also apprehended and expelled. Barbara immediately moved to California and convinced Bob to come there. I soon followed them to California because Bob was a friend with whom I had taken several memorable acid trips with. Barbara would send him small packages of the cleanest, purist LSD ever manufactured and during these trips Bob's brilliant intellectual genius was as refreshing to my mind as pure sweet water is to a thirsty man.
We lived in Hollywood, at 707 Gardner St on the second floor of an old carriage house in back of Sonya's main house. Sonya and her husband were older people from somewhere in Europe; they rented the carriage house to Barbara and Barbara's boyfriend Duane who was also expelled from the University during the uprising. Bob was in love with Barbara but for some reason she played with him hard to get and kept Duane hanging around whom she could easily control.
In those days they had automobile delivery agencies who would let licensed drivers drive a car to a particular destination, the driver paying for the gasoline and the agency getting paid for delivering the car. I contracted with an agency to deliver a car to Hollywood California. I found 707 Gardner St. and the carriage house where my three friends lived. We had a fine reunion we smoked, drank beer and talked until the wee hours. Bob asked me if I would like to drive down to the beach and take an acid trip with him. I was all for that, in those days I would take an acid trip at the drop of a hat.
The moon created a marvelous scene of the most fantastic antics of sea and sky, the clouds performing a devastating display of perfect and continuous change in rapid motion.
There were several Mexican fishermen casting net's into the water which added a lovely touch to the glorious sunrise. Then as the sun came up the seen drastically changed, it became glaringly harsh with the daily throng of sunbathers, surfers and general public. The fishermen quickly disappeared as did Bob and I.
For some months we somehow managed to make a living. Duane worked at a place that made home and garden decoration. They made statuary, arches, fountains and various kinds of decorations. It was owned by two Italian brothers, very congenial and likable fellows. I worked for them as an apprentice sculptor. Also working for them was a master sculptor, his name was Boris and he was from Chicago. The first time I saw him was some 12 years before, the city of Chicago was erecting an outdoor chess Center on the Lakeshore near North Avenue Beach, it was nicely designed and made of poured concrete and the city commissioned Boris to carve in the structure, in a relief technique a design depicting the game of chess. I was only about 13 years old at the time I saw Boris working there, I stood there for a long time watching and thinking and wondering.
Now here in Hollywood California on Sepulveda Blvd. we meet again and I stand once more watching, and wondering.
There occurred two other incidents which etched themselves indelibly into my memory at that time. As I wandered alone around the neighborhood one day I passed by a shop, it wasn't very large, just a single story white frame structure with two large picture windows and a door in front. It was some kind of an antique shop, and there were stone sculptures inside. The place was closed, there was nobody around, and there weren't even any people on the street. I looked in the window and saw marble sculpture about 4 feet high and it looked old. It was a faun; this one had the body of a teenage boy and the legs of a goat. I became transfixed I couldn't take my eyes off, so many thoughts were passing through my mind, they were more like pictures than thoughts. The person who carved this statue was gay, and although it was so beautifully carved it had an imperfection. But to me, that imperfection added something sensual. Many years later I read a news story that said a Michelangelo sculpture, a faun, a very early work of his was discovered in Hollywood California.