Dan Wakefield - Home Free

Dr. Feelgood asked with a sneer if he could qualify in either of those categories and Gene said no, was there anything else the guy could give him, his work required his staying up late a lot.

Dr. Feelgood gave him a prescription for Ritalin.

Evidently that drug was newer and hadn’t been officially abused yet so Dr. Feelgood wouldn’t get in any trouble giving it out, even though it affected Gene a lot more powerfully than Dexamyl and made him more edgy and jangled.

Well hell, it got him up, that was the main thing.

Everyone agreed the party with the chicken wings was something else, but the party at the Busch Beer Garden was the one Gene would never forget. That was another of Ray Behr’s astounding inspirations. Even harder than dreaming up things to serve at parties was thinking of new places to have them in. Offbeat, camp, surprising, but most important new . And it seemed every place in the greater Los Angeles area had been used. The old dance pavilion at the deserted Santa Monica amusement park. Everybody’s beach house in Malibu. The ballroom of the old Ambassador Hotel in downtown L.A. The pool at the Marmont. Yawn. Ho hum. Jesus. Every place had been done. Short of an airlift, where could you find a new place for a party?

“Is there any way of doing something underwater?” Starkie wondered.

“No acoustics,” Ray Behr said in quick dismissal.

And then it came to him.

The Busch Beer Garden. They really had beautiful grounds and gardens, pretty little artificial lakes, and tours of the actual brewery in these jazzy little monorail cars that went up in the air beside the building so you could look down through the windows and actually see the beer being made! Not only something new but something to do in the likely event you got tired of hearing whatever Group it was perform.

The crowd was in such a good mood, what with the monorail tours and the artificial lakes to walk around and the free hot dogs and beer in big cardboard cups that said Budweiser, hardly anyone complained about the band, an undistinguished English Group called “Fly.” They hoped to be the new Beatles or Stones. Who didn’t?

Belle had come so Barnes could go to still another rock party, he couldn’t seem to tire of them. He had discovered early on there weren’t any “movie parties,” at least not of any kind of scale and interest like the music events. Movie parties were proper little sit-down dinners at married people’s houses where you talked about shit like Vietnam and the Panthers and Antonioni. Very heavy, responsible. The new Hollywood. You mentioned the word “starlets” they looked at you like you had farted. That was the old Hollywood. Bad old sex-ridden fun-filled crazy erotic old Hollywood! Shit, Barnes said, born too late again. But at least he had the luck to meet Belle, whose array of advantages included being invited to all the good music parties.

She went for his sake, and the chance to complain about the music. If “hardly anyone complained about the band” at the Busch Garden bash, Belle was the hardly. She stood there shaking her head, scornfully staring at the musicians banging and blowing away at their trade.

“Look at them. Do you realize those are grown men ?”

“Don’t mind her,” Barnes told Gene, “she’s prejudiced.”

“Worse yet,” Belle said, “I can hear .”

Barnes led her off to look at the pretty little artificial lakes.

Gene just milled for a while stopping to light up or light up someone else, seeing if anyone wanted anything, alert, looking, listening.

Two tall, statuesque women sharing a joint, one wearing a long gown with a slit to the waist on one side, the other in an old Girl Scout uniform and brown leather boots.

“Grace Slick has some nerve, naming her baby God.”

“I know. It’s so damn San Francisco.”

A man in a white jump suit and crash helmet, a girl in satin hot pants and halter.

“How about a hit of the coke, Roger?”

“We promised we wouldn’t have any more till we got back home.”

“We can always break our promise.”

In a break between sets a girl in a cowgirl outfit rushing to the Budweiser keg.

“Gimme a beer, gotta wash it down.”

“Bad frank?” the concession man asked as he drew her a beer.

“No. I just gave head to the drummer.”

Gene went up to a bored-looking woman wearing Levi’s and a “Mr. Natural” T-shirt and asked if there was any thing he could do for her.

“Yeh,” she said, “bring back the polka.”

“I’ll do all I can,” he said.

He wandered on, seeing if there might be anyone he knew at one of the round metal tables scattered around the outdoor pavilion.

He didn’t see anyone he knew but he saw someone he wished he knew.

She was alone, eating a hot dog.

She was small and dainty, with the perfect blond hair and blue eyes of a doll. She was wearing a pink angora sweater, a pleated white skirt that came just above her knees, and blue suede boots.

He wanted to eat her up. As he went toward her, he hoped she was overage. He couldn’t tell.

“May I?” he asked, pointing to an empty chair across from her.

Her mouth was full of hot dog but she nodded, her blue eyes friendly, playful.

After she swallowed she smiled and said, “Please.”

He wanted to say something clever, astounding, some bombshell of a line she’d never forget.

“You with Xanadu?” he said.

That was the company that recorded tonight’s Group.

She shook her head.

He scratched his.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” he said, “but how’d it happen?”

“I know Ray Behr,” she said.

“Really? How?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

Of course. Jesus. He was coming on like some kind of FBI jerk.

But all he could think of were these dumb questions. The thing was, he wanted to know about her, anything, he was enthralled, he couldn’t stop asking things. Her voice was lovely, high and clear, with a kind of lilt, and what sounded a little like an accent.

“Are you from England?” he asked.

She laughed.

“Encino,” she said.

Gene told himself to stop asking these jerk questions that made him look like an ass. Let it happen. So what if her presence here, like her accent, went unexplained for a while, or forever?

“Can I get you a beer?” he asked.

Her cute little nose wrinkled.

“Can’t stand the stuff,” she said.

Jesus. Maybe she was too young to drink. He could feel himself blushing.

“Isn’t it a gorgeous evening?” she said.

“Incredible,” Gene said. “Beyond belief, really.”

“I’m glad we don’t have snow.”

“No! I mean I am, too, Jesus. I spent a couple of winters back East. In Boston, actually. Terrible! Snow everywhere, you have to walk through it to get anywhere. Real bummer.”

She asked him to tell her more. About the snow. He really got into it. Once he had a subject he loosened up a little, relaxed. Actually she really was easy to talk to, friendly. She laughed easily, and her eyes were incredibly bright, alive.

They just chit-chatted along for a while, Gene trying to keep her amused, sometimes feeling guilty he might be trying to seduce some innocent teenybopper, but not guilty enough to stop. While he was rambling on she took a small white purse from her lap, almost like a little girl’s play-grown-up purse Gene thought. She took a small piece of folded Kleenex from it, and then snapped the purse shut and put it back on her lap. He didn’t ask about it, not wanting to look like an ass again, so he just kept on talking. He’d exhausted snow as a subject and moved on to fog. She unfolded the tissue, picked up an almost transparent little tab from it, and split it in half with her fingernail. She took one of the halves, put it on her tongue, and swallowed. She pushed the tissue with the other half on it toward Gene.