PAGAN
LOVE AND WILDING HEARTS
14. Neolithic Love
The Park soon saw—or heard—my Triumph and me rolling often on the rutted road.
Motorcycles and their owners aren’t always highly regarded in alternative culture
circles. They are considered loud and frivolous and un-ecological among other things. No
one else on the land had one. Was a wild biker taking up residence among them? To me,
motorcycles were economical transportation, much more so than automobiles. Plus they were
fantastic fun. There you have it. It’s not like I wore chains or shot-up peanut
butter or ate cats or anything. But some folks were skeptical. Shemp for instance.
One day I putted onto the land. I waved hello to the folks in the little A-frame at the
front gate and headed down the straightaway towards the farmer’s house where the
primitive road curved and entered our domain. It had been raining and even hailing all day
long and I had just ridden fifty miles through it. My hands were red and frozen as I
gripped the handle bars. I felt I had accomplished something. I felt rejuvenated, tough. I
was happy. I do not drive fast, especially on muddy rutted roads. That would be crazy. But
when you’re riding a motorcycle on roads like that you have to maintain a certain
speed—you can’t go too slow either or you will lay it on its side for sure; so
that’s how it was. Anyone on the road
could hear me approaching and move a little ways off to one side to avoid getting
splattered. That’s a natural thing to do. Plus
I moved the bike far to the opposite side of the people I passed. I sure didn’t want
to get any of my brothers or sisters muddy. So I was rolling right along, not too fast,
not too slow; frigid and rigid—anxious to get home to my teepee and my campfire and
some dry clothes. I was passing someone.
All of a sudden about the loudest voice I’ve ever heard roars into my ear and
startles me so badly I almost dropped my bike right then and there:
“—SLOW THAT THING DOWN, PAN!!!!!!! THERE’S CHILDREN AROUND
It was Shemp.
A few days later I was able to crawl up behind her in about the same place on the road and
offer her a ride. (I had my motorcycle with me... HaHa... Like I wasn’t like crawling
on all fours, wanting to ride her or nothing like that...Hahahaha) Asking this preeminent
vegetarian sister if she wanted a ride on my monster motorcycle... I wasn’t sure what
she’d do... She hesitated and thought about it for a moment and then she slipped on
behind me. She told me she’d never been on one before. I gave her a very slow ride
into the park. I’m pretty sure she liked it liked it liked it.
Of course my brothers loved my new machine. It was kind of hard to handle for anyone not
used to large bikes but I tried to share it a little, at first anyway. But when Denny
Bartelson tried it out he was off the road and head over heals in the trees before
he’d gone a hundred feet. Luckily neither he nor the machine were hurt. Then Tom
Henig took it out, but he laid it down too; so that was the end of that. Thereafter I
firmed up my resolve that a brother not be required to share everything and I turned down
all requests to let anyone take my bike for a little spin.
But I rode. The entire North Country was wide open to me.
Hitherto
I had been enclosed in a small realm, unable to really discover the mysteries beyond the
horizons. Now I had no boundaries. The border guards checked my papers and flagged me
through into Quebec. I’ve always loved Quebec—having hitched there twice in
‘69 where I had some of the best times of my life—but this time things would be
slightly different.
A hitchhiker is
greeted one way and has limited possibilities—but now I was riding in on a big
Triumph motorcycle so where I went and who I met and how long I stayed were all up to me.
I felt like a king on wheels. I met the country folk. Few of them spoke English and I
couldn’t speak their French language either but I found that usually their hearts
spanned that gap with buoyant kindness. And when I returned home to EPP I had the feeling
some of the heart and soul that prison had torn out of me -- had been restored.
***
There was a
matter of one thing that had not been restored; one thing which troubled me
greatly—because it gave me nightmares of spending the rest of my life in prison. It
was the matter of Gush-gush. Sometimes I
wanted to go confront those high class rats and get my dog back... Man! I told myself I
wasn’t that crazy. But I worried that I was. And then I knew I wasn’t. And all
in the same breath. Back and forth. I had to do something to get me some peace or mind.
The way
presented itself in the form of an ad in a local paper: St. Bernard puppies for sale for
seventy-five dollars. I rode my Triumph over to the place and the lady dropped the price
to fifty dollars, thirty dollars now and she’d trust me for the other twenty—and
I packed the critter onto the tank of my Triumph and we journeyed rather haphazardly back
to EPP.
I named him
Demetreous because I couldn’t think of the name I wanted to name him. It was on the
tip of my tongue but I couldn’t get it. I
wanted to name him Demosthenes after the old Greek who carried the lamp searching for a
man who spoke the truth. It had something to do with the way I was thinking about the
Hermit card, number Nine in the major arcana of the Tarot. The Hermit was my personal
signifier-card since it represents Virgo. Anyway, I got the name wrong and called him
Demetrious and that was that.
People
can’t help but love St Bernards. The brothers and sisters at EPP loved him too. Oh,
there was the normal repartee’ about making a soup out of him that would feed
everyone—a feast; But I knew they were joking (unlike the last time I went through
those images back in Taos...)
The biggest
gripe I heard concerned the fact I had paid fifty dollars for him. Practically everyone at
EPP was of the opinion that dogs should not be sold. They also believed dogs should not be
owned. And that created some small problems. Demetrious ran free on the land with all the
other dogs and I became aware that certain individuals were feeding him choice tidbits in
hopes that he would soon prefer their company and they could argue with me that he should
have a right to choose who he wants to live with. But things worked out. Pretty soon
everyone knew he was mine and there was no more problem. I doubt if anyone else could have
afforded to feed him... Man! He went through the puppy chow!
Demetrious was a
big gentle pillow-puppy. Even Rajah got along with him. He got used to riding on the
motorcycle and that was good for a lot of laughs. All I’d have to do was call him and
he’d jump up on the tank, all fifty pounds of him. He liked going for rides. Some
people
But I still wanted to find a permanent lady-friend, a sister to share my life. And when it
came to that -- this ridiculous hound was a sorry substitute. On the other hand, on more
than one occasion he went out and fetched a pretty lady home to me—so you could say
he was a valuable dog
***
Rick and Marsha
lived in a good-sized cabin. They didn’t have any kids yet but were working on it the
larger portion of every day. Not that we knew it was really going on like that but Marsha
was so fine a young woman that Rick would have had to have been a fool not to. She looked
like a wild mink who had been transformed into a woman by some eccentric fairy. Especially
her eyes; they were kind of narrow; not like other eyes I’ve ever seen; aways alert
and watchful yet slow to dissolve scenes. She walked like a mink, too. Rick was a very New
England type fellow. His accent had the most classical inflections; he almost sounded like
one of Kennedy’s poor relations. Marsha’s distinct accent was pure Vermonter. Her parents just lived an hour’s drive south
of the land.
Rick and Marsha
were a productive couple. He replaced his roof and built out-buildings and planted gardens
and crops and she baked breads and canned vegetables and sewed clothes. Their home looked
great inside and out and was often a favorite gathering place for all kinds of EPP
business meetings and drinking parties many of which lasted all night long or even for
several days.
Marsha had a
sister named Christine who showed up on the land once in awhile—and who finally
became something closer to my heart’s desire. After all it’s one thing to have a
fling with a chic for an hour and then go home to a lonely room and it’s quite
another thing to have a pleasant supper together and jump in the sack and make love until
you fall asleep and wake up in the middle of the night and do it again and go to sleep and
wake up in the morning with birds singing and coffee on the campfire and do it again and
make breakfast and eat and do it again and go for a ride on the motorcycle to a waterfall
and a field of golden grass and do it again and come home and fix supper and go to bed and
do it again. There’s a heck of a difference.
Christine and me
really had a good thing going; she was as anxious to get it on as I was. Another thing
that was nice was that she was just as beautiful as her sister Marsha; she had the same
eyes and the same walk.
We must have had
about two weeks like that and then she had to go home to be with her parent’s for
some reason; school I think. I drove her home on the Triumph and met her father who
didn’t seem to like me very much. I think he thought I was the reason his daughter
was getting bowlegged.
Whatever; with
Christine gone my sense of aloneness returned more pungent than ever and I filled that
whenever possible with sisters who strayed into my den. I don’t remember all their
names. Once I did, but it’s been nineteen years and now looking back I just remember
some of the fun and only a name here and there.
I turned
twenty-six years old at the end of August of 1973 and I wondered what I would do with my
life. Winter would overtake this paradise of EPP before long and I was warned by everyone
that the teepee would not be suitable. The last person who had tried it had caught
pneumonia and almost died. No other ready-made structure was available at that time. I
could always build one and I was encouraged to do so by several people but that sounded
like a tall project and the year was almost shot: so—what to do?
Well, I got to
figuring if I had a good van I could live in that all winter. Denny had lived in his
Mercury before he built his molehill. A
sister named Pat had lived in her car with two kids for a year. Many others had lived in
their cars and vans on the land all year round. So I looked and found a 1957 Chevy Apache
van for $150 and bought it. I put in a pair of bucket seats and was pleased to realize my
Triumph motorcycle fit perfectly in the rear with plenty of room to spare for gear and
sleeping. So there was another advantage to having the truck—1 knew I could vanish
from EPP in a flash if any kind of shit hit the fan; I could just pack up and drive on
down the highway and set up my life unscathed elsewhere. It’s a good feeling to have
an out; an emergency exit. Wisdom is gold.
One evening I
was driving the Apache home from the store and I noticed two young women with backpacks
walking onto the land. I picked them up and chatted with them as we drove along
discovering as I had guessed that they were just arriving for the first time. They also
said they wouldn’t be staying long which I considered unfortunate because I was
hoping to get to know them and it looked like I might not get the opportunity if they were
just to take a quick look around and then split. I
told them they could stay in my teepee for the night if they liked and they accepted my
invitation gladly. I asked them if they would like to drink a little wine and smoke some
homegrown and they applauded the idea with maximum enthusiasm. So, I turned around and
picked up two bottles of Mateus from the store and we bee-lined for my hippy hacienda.
We snuggled
around my campfire, one of either side of me, smoking my homegrown and drinking the
Mateus. We fixed a good supper, too. The weather was quite hot and after supper we
stripped out of our clothes for massages. The massages got a little carried away and the
two girls and I passed into the next stage of heaven known as fucking our brains out. In
the morning when we awoke they were surprised that I was ready for more—but it was an
idea they found entirely splendid—although they confessed they’d never done
anything like it before in their lives; but being good friends with each other as they
were, it was one more fine adventure to share. Sex is good clean fun and threesomes are
extraordinary.
Somewhere around
mid-morning they thanked me for my hospitality and the good times and saddled up their
backpacks to continue their wandering around America. I gave them a nice large bag of good
pot to take with them and drove them out to the highway. We parted with hugs.
It's like
Neolithic Love to be so unconstrained. Our ancient ancestors had no aversion to
making love with several people. Our species needed to thrive. Human beings were a lot
like cats, they all got into a pile to keep warm. That is why we get along with cats so
well. We are basically a species that really loves love. It is a wonder we don't purrr. I
have made love with two women many times. They have to be basically nice people I think,
or you will have double the problems. It's a pretty rare luxury these days. But once upon
a time it was very natural in the human race. When it happens between real people, people
with poetry in their hearts and imagination and a sense of humor—that’s the
stuff that makes love a glorious experience.
There was a guy
on the land who had two wives—I don’t remember his name... He had a real
attitude problem and the two ladies weren’t very nice either. --Which is why I hardly
got to know them. I heard some of the folks tell stories of their rudeness and even
violence. True or not, I don’t know. They were rude to me on only one occasion and I
ignored them after that. I only bring this up to make the point that a threesome
isn’t the same thing to everyone.
A black sister
came onto the land. I wish I remembered her name, but I didn’t know her very long. I
thought she was beautiful but unfortunately some of the alcoholics were destitute of
manners when it came to a sister of her race which made me ashamed of mine. Because she
was just a young girl and very brave to have ventured out into that no-man’s land
where black sisters and brothers were kind of rare. I wanted to meet her anyway but when I
saw her suffering from their abuse I sort of rescued her and brought her home. She was a
beauty. They were plain stupid fools not to realize it. I was lucky that she was just a
normal sister when it was all said and done, and horny too. We made love for two days. Then she went home.
I was going to
pull out and I told her so she’d know and could help get the rhythm right. I try not
to get sisters pregnant. But she leaned back and looked at me and whispered imperatively, “—Don’t
you dare pull out, don’t you dare....” So I didn’t. In fact I came five
times that morning. As we slept in the
afternoon I noticed Christine walk into the teepee and look down at us. I opened one eye
and smiled and waved at her without moving. The Goddess lay sprawled across me asleep.
Christine softly told me she had just got back to the land and that she’d see me
later. Then she left the teepee and I went back to sweet dreamland.
The Goddess left
the next day. She gave me an address but I lost it. Christine and me got back together but
it could not last. She was tied too tightly to her parent’s apron strings and only
came out to EPP for a couple days at a time. But whenever she came onto the land she
always came over to my teepee and carefully checked to see if I was alone—and if I
was she stayed. She liked to come in unannounced late at night and slip silently into my
blankets without waking me. I loved it when she surprised me like that. Sometimes she
slipped under the covers and gave me head to wake me up.
Wild!
