[4] LORD JEFFREY ENDGAME Trip # 7 Aug 31 Solo - Tyler ’85 Amherst Mass. 5:30 AM Nothing rings true In this new gig Back at the scene of the crime Flaming crosses Under Massachusetts skies My spirit lies broken Outside my self The heat of its existence Greeting the mourning air Pushed by Huricane Gloria Or Robin Or Some nonsense like that I breathe in Escaping life Leap into the void Twist into myself Fall upward Through dreams The force Tearing my skull Exposes my mind Chips whistle off As thoughts Crystalize Explode And Scatter Unanswered meditations Trail suspended As I spin out of control I prick at them And Release a novena of lust Desire appears Fufillment calls And Regret Queen of the past Enters A tragic smile As she waves her hips Her eyes signal danger Then dissolve like alka selzter I plunge into The crown of her head We quiver into A coiled treble clef Our memories forming a staff Where we play A syncopated blues in F A wicked hurricane blows up the east coast of the United States in the fall of 1985. By the time it reaches Massachusetts the rain is depleted but the winds still blow strong. I celebrate my birthday by dropping Trip # 8 and stand in the driving winds plowing the middle of campus. I’m a 27 year old divorced wandering Rocking Rican with a questionable TV career on hold and back in a school I despise. Pardon me if life doesn’t sparkle right now. I’ve already completed my degree requirements so academically I’m free to choose what I want. I feel like the time I spend at WFSB is my senior year and the tenure at WBGU and Little Otis graduate school. But there’s no place to plug in this knowledge. At least, I can’t discover it that final year on campus other than in my room. It’s a different world, “Show me the guts because I don’t want to think here.” I do befriend a young brother from Texas named Stan Lemon and a sister from D.C.. I take Christina (you got it – just like my grandmnother’s name) on her first mushroom trip with stereotypical results. I find her staring in front of a strobe light where she turns to me and utters those famous first trip words, “It’s all so clear to me now. Everything is so clear.” “Write it down.” “I don’t need to. It’s so clear.” The next morning at breakfast I ask, “Cris, do you remember last night.” “What? What did I do?” “You told me it was all so clear. What was it?” “I don’t know. I’m not clear on anything right now.” “I told you to write it down.” Stan Lemon is a good natured young Black man uncorrupted by smoking, drinking or whoring. I have some long serious conversations with him about books, ideas and the United States. We share a couple of classes and he sparks the old flame in me to be serious academically – at least when I’m around him. In an off-handed way Stan is partially responsible for this work. Five or six years after graduation he calls me up and tells me he’s leaving the next day for two years in Africa working for the Peace Corp. He says I inspire him to seek new truths. I never know what our talks mean to him until then because that final year at Amherst is an otherwise endless parade of sarcastic, hard and maudlin evenings counting the days to graduation. 21 Acid trips those two semesters more than satisfy my curiousity for a long time about tripping. Amherst chemistry students whip up the smoothest LSD that buzzes you for twelve hours. No visuals but a lot of interesting dreamstates. I get a job at the snack bar so I can get free beer anytime I want. Meanwhile, a couple of fellow 3rd World discontents at Amherst join up with me to terrorize the campus. Oh, and there are classes too. I opt for a primo course called American Men’s Lives but cringe at the reading list. Of the nine books assigned seven are written by White men, one Black and one Native American. No Hispanic writers are featured. Not that I’m surprised. While Professor Townsend is cool (he challenges me to write the story he can use) Amherst is a closed society still clinging to old ways. One day I walk into the dining room and there’s a sign announcing a slave auction for charity. A slave auction in 1985 at the same school where Gerald Penny is allegedly murdered and Rob Ellis burns his cross. I know that flies in the countryclub set but damn. To top it off Amherst College President Peter Pouncy is the scheduled slave auctioneer. Going to tell You a story About a man I know His mind’s not swift It’s just Too slow The man wears The tweeds And The loafers Yeah But there just Ain’t nothing Under that hair Talking about Peter P My friends The slave auctioneer Of The Social Set Lord Jeffrey And The Blankets of Doom Gonna rock you here Right in this room Peter P Yeah you rock me out Peter P Yeah you rock me out With Ben Lieber The henchman yeah Doing his thing And Shocking the world I’d like to Talk to you right now But Damn Peter P You’re just too hard Peter P Yeah you rock me out Peter P Yeah you rock me out I got my eye on you bro The picture Tells the whole story You and those money bags And that big toothy smile With that strange malice In your eyes Peter P Yeah you rock me out Peter P Yeah you rock me out I actually use this verse in an English course midterm exploring thematic structures of in Henry James and Herman Melville’s work. Just changed the names to fit the charaters and place in the story’s plot development. But aside my personal creativity, ten years after arriving on campus nothing is changed. I become thoroughly disenchanted and lash out by sinking deep into the party world still permeating Amherst. Some people say we become what we hate the most. I hear that. Cheap movie sarcasm ties it all together, “What’s your name?” “Chipper.” “Of course you are.” It’s not a happy time though I manage to paint a couple of pieces plus write several songs including the Peter P track. My playmates and I go around slipping it into the jams played at Amherst house parties. I borrow a four track recorder to turn my room into a recording studio teaming up with a guitar player from Chicago. He hooks me up with this funky schooled new wave bass player. Cool White Boys like Steve Athanas. We experiment on the four track creating minimalist head funk. Running a conga through a guitar flanger on one piece I’m able to distort the percussion pattern to create a bass sound. Endlessly repeating a single phrase we create a piece of trance music where I pick wandering notes on a grand piano and program an oscillating bass drum beat. It perfectly captures where I’ m at in my head at that time. My cultural attack soon became more intense. I lost all respect for the institution after the slave auction announcement and set up of my own guerilla war with the place. First off, there’s no weed on campus to take off the edge. This is a purely coke and pharmaceuticals crowd. What to do? An African exchange student I meet has access to the trustees limousine. I convince him to drive me to Hartford so I can pick up some laundry. We drive right to Trinity College off Broad Street in Hartford and I buy a pound of regular brown bud. I’m set for the semester. “My, it is so little laundry. In Ghana you could do that in the sink. You could have had it mailed.” “Yeah, but it means a lot to me and Federal Express might not like it.” “Oh, that is very, very true. I did not know they have restrictions on clothing being sent.” “Oh yeah they do. It’s a Federal trade union tax restriction thing comercitus rediciculousos or something like that.” “Oh, that is very, very true. And you are a bad bad liar. What What!” We arrive on campus just I time for the AD card party – the annual fraternity acid Kool Aid test. Even though the frats are outlawed on campus a few manage to hold on underground. The new buzz at the card party is Ecstasy which just makes national headlines. That stuff is an eight hour orgasm but it’ll eat through your brain stem. Some orgasm, huh. The Amherst coed selling it is a piece of work. Snotty prep school type. She lives next door to me up on fraternity hill off campus. I like the Ecstasy buzz but I don’t like her attitude. Neither do two of my running buddies at the time. So, I rob her and her boyfriend at gunpoint with a stage prop and a black ski outfit. Then sell the supply back to her in segments the next semester and she never figures out it’s us. To graduation day she swears it’s some guys at U Mass who give her a hassle over the quality of what they cop from her earlier. I figure out she’s snotty because she’s a stupid preppie. Well, stupid enough to have a guy living next door to you rob you with a ski mask on and get away with it. I even go back to her room two hours later and try to cop making believe I’m shocked by what happened. (Shades of Jose Emilio.) “They really need to take a look at those admission standards. Or maybe my acting skills are way up. Whatever, let’s hang!” It’s not the only wannabe campus dealer we rob. I’m sleeping with an edgy Jewish debutante out of Maryland and juggling a German girlfriend in New York. WW III breaks out when they find out about each other. Anyway the little debutante keeps up with me in sheer debauchery. The girl is a freeze queen. During winter break she discovers that one of the slave auction committee helpers comes into two ounces of cocaine and is going to sell it for an outrageous price. I have several run ins with him since he’s an unapologetic racist and I an unrepentant bastard. In other words we’re both assholes. I figure he’s breaking the law anyway so he’s fair game. Just another biscuit head I get to play with once we figure out his hiding place – his little refigerator in an Ice Cream carton. We set off the fire alarm in his dorm at 3:30 AM by burning a pan of popcorn. The floor fills with a thick smoke. As the debutante goes out the side door in back of him I go through the first floor; walk into the geeks room and cop the blow – slipping out the rear and walking back to her place near the social dorms across campus in all the confusion. The Dean of Students office knows I’m terrorizing his black sheep and tries to reign me in. What are you going to do? We end up recuperating in a nearby hospital after polishing off that load. It’s good to get out of town anyway once beastie boy and I square off following the boost. This waspy junior Scarface works on the serving line at Valentine Dining Hall after losing his investment. Guess daddy can’t bail him out for the two grand he loses in the snow commodities exchange. He suspects I’m in on the robbery and screws around with my food. I let him know that if I’m crazy enough to rob him I’m crazy enough to take him down. Not really but when in doubt bluff. The easiest way to achieve Complete strategic surprise Is to commit an act that makes No sense at all or Is even self destructive Hey If you’re going to Play the Game Be aware There’s always A big bad freak Waiting to go off Just for the hell of it Just for the smell of it He complains to the Dean’s office and only reports the confrontation making out like it’s just over the food. After that I’m restricted to certain areas of campus or face expulsion. But for every area they restrict me from I find a new place to play. The hospital in Greenfield is a good playground to chill out and get myself fattened up for the second semester. Two weeks later I’m back on campus rocking and rolling. I get an opportunity to talk with that guy a couple of years later while working as a writer on a morning news show. Having to report to work at 4 AM, I go to sleep in the early afternoon and then hit a club or two before reporting to work. I spot him at The Palladium on 14th Street and immediately recognize the poor rat bastard. He’s drunk and obviously been sniffing. His jaw is working a hundred miles an hour while he nashes his teeth. I’m with this enforcer we call Buddah who comes up through the ranks of the Edenwald Projects Intacrime outfit. He also slings grams in the Palladium Maze. Sometimes, I ride with him while he goes on a collection run and then he takes me out to work at News 12 on Long Island. We stalk this geek in the club for an hour, dose his drink and follow him out. He’s parked on 12th Street and we pounce. After bitch slapping him around for a minute I let him have it with a stun gun and then Buddah tears his pants off with a knife. We throw his car keys in the sewer leaving him on the street handcuffed to a street sign. To add insult to injury I take off his Amherst Ring and rub it into some dog shit near his face on the pavement. The guy is so fucked up all he can keep on crying when he starts to come to is, “Who are you and why are you doing this to me?” “Well, because when the red red robin comes bob bob bobbing along …” “What?” “Motherfucker (slap) because WHEN THE RED RED ROBIN COMES BOB BOB BOBBING ALONG!” Total time of our little chat: four and a half minutes. In the end I think the Amherst Administration and I mutually agree that the Louie Thing doesn’t fit with the bogus Amherst Tradition. Or maybe I fit in too well. Trouble is, I graduate so they’re stuck with my Experience. Just don’t come around looking for an alumni contribution. I lead a strictly cash and carry existence. Or better yet, fax my agent: Sweet Dick Willie with The Candy Balls. Well, back to New York and the news game. |
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