All rights belong to author P.T. Paul. Any use of the chapter excerpts below, without written consent from the author, is prohibited.

Chapter 7 Who Spilled Charlie excerpt

“Hi,” Shey said to it, as it bumped against her, insistently, until she picked it up. She had never met an urn before, and wasn’t sure of the etiquette. Because she was a little bit stoned and a little bit drunk, such things took on much more importance, so she debated on how to continue.

“I’m Shey,” She introduced herself, “and I understand that you’re Charlie.”

Shey hesitated, unsure of what came next in person-to-urn small talk.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she finally blurted, and was immediately mortified.

“I don’t mean that it’s nice to meet you like THIS,” she corrected, pointing to the urn with her right hand, as she held it in her left.

“I mean, it would have been nice to meet you BEFORE… this,” Chagrined, Shey closed her eyes and bowed her head, beating the urn against her forehead, as if it were part of her apology, or her prayer, or her mantra, “sorry” – thap – “sorry” – thap – “sorry” - THUNK. Shea froze. She raised her head and stared at the urn. She bumped it against her drawn-up knees – THUNK. Panic seemed the only rational response.

“OH MY GOD! I am so, so sorry,” she rubbed the urn as she spoke, “I didn’t mean any disrespect, but I’ve never met anyone like this before, and I don’t know what’s correct. I… I… I… hope I haven’t upset you, or broken you, or anything… thrown you off-balance, or out of alignment, or mixed you up. Oh my God, have I disturbed you? I mean, your spirit? Or your essence? Is it in there with you? Is that what went THUNK?” Shey was in tears, stroking the urn and wiping it with the edge of her towel. She inspected the urn, checking for damage to the exterior, still talking out loud.

“Oh dear God, what am I going to do? How can I tell if I damaged it? Does this thing open? If it isn’t sealed, I can just open it for a moment and check inside. No one would ever know. I’ll close it right back up. No one will ever know. No harm done.” She tugged at the lid, prying at the seal with her fingernails as the warm tide advanced around her, covering her feet, and climbing her legs.

“Dammit!” Shey spat, as she broke a fingernail, “is this thing hermetically sealed or something?” She turned it, gripped it from another angle, and wrestled with it, as the water advanced to her abdomen.

“Why won’t you OPEN?” Shey hissed, as she gripped the urn between her knees, grabbed the knob of the lid with both hands, gritted her teeth, and yanked. At that moment, a large wave broke on top of her, sending her backwards as the urn came apart. Ashes drenched her face, along with seawater, something fell down the bodice of her bathing suit, and the two halves of the urn went flying over her shoulders, smacking into Tess where she lay on the blanket, snoring. Shey screamed, covered in ashes and sea foam, then choked, swallowed, and screamed, again. Tess screamed, grabbed the two halves of the urn and threw them toward the ocean.

“What the Hell’s going on?” Rich yelled, as he and Jerry drove the prow of the canoe into the sand. He jumped out, grabbed the frame of the canoe, and held it while Jerry climbed ashore. They both dragged it up on the sand, panting.

“Charlie?” Jerry whispered, as he scooped up the lid of the urn in one hand and the body of it in the other. Tess stood, shivering, tears running down her face, muttering, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” over and over again.

“What happened?” Rich asked, as he studied the empty urn in Jerry’s hands.

“It was an accident,” Tess blubbered, sniffling.

“What did you do?” Jerry asked, holding the two halves of the urn.

“I didn’t mean to!” Tess swiped her arm across her face.

“You didn’t mean to what?” Jerry held the two parts of the urn in front of him, staring at them as if they were a puzzle he must solve.

“I spilled Charlie,” Tess sputtered, and broke down in sobs.

“Well, it’s the best we can do…” Rich said, as he fired up the doobie, “under the circumstances.” He tapped the ashes in the urn that sat open in the middle of their small circle, then passed the marijuana cigarette to Jerry, who took a long drag before he responded.

“These things happen,” Jerry mumbled, exhaling a cloud and tapping the ashes into the urn, “Charlie would understand.”

“I’m so sorry… so, so, sorry…” Tess had cried herself out, but continued to apologize as she took her toke, tapped the ashes in the urn, and passed the cigarette to Shey.

“It’s not your fault,” Shey muttered, surprised at her almost-confession, “I mean… it was an accident.” She pretended to take a drag, tapped non-existent ashes into the urn, and passed the cigarette to Rich.

“It’s not so bad, is it?” Rich mumbled through clenched teeth, holding in the smoke for a moment before he exhaled and passed the doobie to Jerry,” it’s the thought that counts.”

All rights belong to author P.T. Paul. Any use of the chapter excerpts below, without written consent from the author, is prohibited.

Chapter 9 Hell, No excerpt

“What’s going on?” 

 “It’s a protest,” he called over his shoulder as he hurried away.

 “What kind of protest?”  Shey yelled after him, but he had disappeared into the throng that flooded into the narrow gap between the monolithic stone buildings, and disappeared out of sight behind them.  Without thought, she joined the throng, was swept away by it, and found herself in the middle of a sea of students in the deep, wide well of green between the administration building and the classrooms.  People raised their right hands with their fists clenched, chanting in unison, “Hell, no – we won’t go.”  The cool breeze snapped an American flag waved by a tall, muscular brunette young man who grinned widely while chanting along with the crowd.  Blazing cinders leapt from a rusted oil drum flicking red tongues of flame into the air as it was fed sticks and cardboard by two energetic young men, while a small band of tie dyed, flower garlanded students with bare feet wove their arms around each other and swayed, singing “All we are saying is give peace a chance,” over and over and over again.  The air was cool and aromatic, a mélange of nicotine, pot, incense, and wood smoke from the blazing drum, which made Shey cough when it blew into her face.

 Shey stood, mesmerized, as a small group of young men climbed onto the wooden pallets on which the flaming drum stood, and raised their hands to quiet the crowd.  First one, then another and another raised a small white card over their heads, yelling, “What do we want?”

 “No more war!” the crowd responded, their own fists marking each beat.

 “When do we want it?” each young man yelled and threw their card into the barrel, as the crowd screamed, “NOW!”

 For the next few minutes, a steady stream of young men mounted the stage, repeating the mantra and casting their cards into the flames, as the crowd roared its approval.  Last of all, a tall, sullen young man in a flannel shirt and blue jeans climbed onto the stage, and Shey held her breath as Rich repeated the mantra and cast his card into the barrel.  Stunned, she stared at him as he left the stage and parted the crowd, walking straight toward her.  Behind him, a slight, pale student appeared next to the barrel, with a bullhorn in his hands, calling out to the crowd, “Well it’s one, two, three, what are we fightin’ for?”

 “Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn!” shouted back the crowd, as Rich wove his way toward Shey, grinning broadly.  In her eyes, he suddenly had become bigger than life – a hero performing a cowardly act, the embodiment of the rebelliousness that founded the country refusing to fight for it, a walking testament to the freedom bought with the blood of thousands of soldiers.  He sang “next stop is Viet Nam,” shaking his head in denial of that charge.

All rights belong to author P.T. Paul. Any use of the chapter excerpts below, without written consent from the author, is prohibited.

Chapter 14 Mushrooms excerpt

Grace Slick’s forceful vocals compelled her to close her eyes and spin like a dervish in a fit of religious ecstasy, which nearly got her expelled from the library audio booth. Instead, she went “Further” as Ken Kesey demanded, connecting the dots between Kesey, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, the Hell’s Angels, and a government drug study at Menlo Park Veterans Hospital testing LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, and amphetamine IT-290.  By the time Shey finished her research Odyssey, she almost felt like a resident of “the world capital of madness” as Hunter S. Thompson had referred to Kesey’s La Honda home, where Kesey conducted “Acid Tests” on his visitors – often without their knowledge.  Most importantly to her, she had identified the young man in the photograph on Morrell’s desk, the one with his arm around the shoulders of a younger version of her professor, the two of them in their caps and gowns in front of Denny Chimes, a young Professor Morrell and the man Richard Nixon had labeled “the most dangerous man in America” – Timothy Francis Leary. 

 She had been surprised at her professor’s friendship with the man who had been “silenced” at West Point for his refusal to resign when asked to do so by the Honor Committee.  But Leary had actually been acquitted by court-martial for his numerous demerits and “failing to be forthright” about a serious bout of drinking.  When he finally agreed to resign and the Honor Committee revised its position, Leary had received an honorable discharge.  He had served his country in World War II as a sergeant in the Medical Corps, only to be later fired by Harvard for failing to conduct his scheduled classes.  This did not seem like the kind of person that Shey’s beloved professor would consider a friend – but then she was learning that Morrell was not the person she had thought him to be.

 “Shit happens.”

 That phrase still reverberated in Shey’s head.  It had struck her full-on, right in the kisser, when she had met with Morrell after the riot to inform him that her “herd mentality” study had gone up in a cloud of draft cards and cannabis smoke, her survey sheets scattered and trampled in the stampede that had closed down the campus, upended her opinion of Rich, and scrambled her own self-esteem.  In the space of a few hours, she had gone from anger to terror to adoration back to terror and finally to disgust, as Rich had run his mind game on her and she had bought it hook, line, and sinker.  It had been a revelation and a disaster, and Shey was mortified every time she thought about it.  Most horrifying was the memory of how she had immediately, inexplicably fallen head over heels in love with Rich when he had held a small piece of paper over a blazing trash barrel, a symbolic act that had sliced straight through her logical mind and triggered a response she never knew she had inside her, a response that had swept her up in the very phenomenon she had attempted to study, that had proved her premise in the most embarrassing way imaginable, and had revealed her own undeniable humanity to herself.  The proof of the pudding was in that acrid taste that rose in the back of her throat every time she remembered that day.

 “Shit happens.” …

…“Doin’ a great job, there, kiddo!  Keep up the good work!”  Rich and Jerry darted around the pasture, Jerry lugging a child’s Strawberry Shortcake plastic beach pail and brandishing the matching plastic shovel, Rich swinging a Scooby Doo pail and shovel, both of them laughing like madmen.  Like dragonflies, they darted, descended, dug, dashed. Giggled. Gaffawed. Tess wandered along the side of the highway on the far side of the fence, her head down, her back to Shey.  Shey’s legs began to tremble.

 “He’s gonna charge!” Shey whimpered, willing herself to be still, to remember her comparative religion class, in which they discussed the various Hindu religious deities and the representations of these deities in nature, particularly in the guise of a bull.  She tried to think reverent thoughts to calm the bull, and herself, but all she could think about was how much the bull’s long beige velvet ears hung down on either side of his face like Susan Dey’s blond locks, and suddenly she wanted to toss her hair like Laurie Partridge, toss her hair and laugh, then climb on the family bus and ride off into the sunset, singing “The Rain, The Park and Other Things,” which made no sense, because the Cowsills recorded that song, not the Partridge Family, except that it did make sense in a way because Shey was facing a bull, the female version of which was a cow, and the Partridge Family was inspired by the Cowsills.

 “HUMMMPHHHHH.”  The bull obviously was not amused.  It lifted its right hoof, flipped it forward, drew it back slowly, scarring the ground.  Rich and Jerry staged a momentary bull pie fight a dozen yards away. Their yells made the bull flick its ears and lower its head.  Shey suddenly needed to pee.

 “Uhhhh…” Shey tried to remember the sound that she had made in comparative religion class, the sound the monks made when they meditated, the sound of reverence and worship.

 “Uhhhmm…” she knew that was close, but not exactly right.  The bull flicked his velvet ears forward, lifted his hoof.  Tess began to sing, so far away now that Shey could not make out the tune, and she danced to the melody, moving further and further away, occasionally picking sunflowers from the fencerow.  Shey trembled, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

 “Ummm…” The bull lifted its head slightly, lowered its hoof.  Shey forced herself to be still, to be still and just breathe, to breathe long and deep from the diaphragm, to draw in the air in one gulp, then breathe it out slowly.  She made a sound when she did this.  She made THE sound.

 “Ommmmmmm…” The bull lowered its head, placed its hoof flat on the ground. Shey relaxed her shoulders, straightened her spine. With each inhalation she grew a little taller, felt her fear fall away.

 “Ommmmmm…” Shey breathed out her fear, breathed in calm.  The bull flinched its shaggy coat, flicked its velvet ears, shifted its weight.

 “Ommmmmm…” Shey closed her eyes.  Cleared her mind.  Breathed in the grass, the bull, the bull poop on her shoe, the honeysuckle on the far fence, the salt of the nearby Gulf of Mexico, the rain lurking out in some dark cloud riding the Gulf Stream above and away.  The birds, the boys, Tess, the bull, everything and everyone became silent.  Shey opened her eyes.

All rights belong to author P.T. Paul. Any use of the chapter excerpts below, without written consent from the author, is prohibited.

Chapter 16 Riot excerpt

Still, the tear gas canister kept coming, tumbling end over end, spewing its toxic black cloud in Shey’s face, dragging behind it a wad of screaming students rolling up the hallway from the cafeteria of C.F. Vigor High School, toward the double front doors.  Shey squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her palms against them, but once again the tear gas canister smashed into the side of her favorite teachers’ head and spun away toward her friend Bruce, who darted sideways and ducked into a classroom, slamming the door behind him.  The hair on her arms stood at attention as the memory washed over her like a rogue wave, drowning her in visions of childhood friends climbing out of classroom windows, policemen in riot gear storming through the double front doors, blood splashing across four foot tall banners that featured a black and green snarling wolf’s head urging her to “Fight, Fight, Fight!”  Once again, she gagged on fear and tear gas as she ran from her high school into the parking lot, passing National Guardsmen, news personalities from channels five, ten, and fifteen, parents screaming their children’s names, and emergency medical personnel wearing gas masks.  Once again, she found Jax’s car in the parking lot and leaned against it while she threw up on the asphalt, tears streaming down her face, her throat raw from screaming. 

 Shey leaned on the rolled top of the mahogany pew, her knees resting on the kneeling bench, and took a deep breath of the cool, dry, slightly aromatic air inside the Greek Orthodox Church at the Malbis Plantation.  She had come here, across the bay, to escape the demons that plagued her. But even as she pushed away the memory of the riot, others crowded into her consciousness, memories perhaps less intense and upsetting only because they did not involve lead pipes smuggled in wide-legged pants, pistols rolled up in Varsity jackets, fingernail files sharpened and lurking in purses, and four-foot lengths of heavy chain wrapped around the waist, concealed by a bulky jacket.  …

…Shey had buried these memories, tried to forget faces streaked with blood, faces scalded by tear gas, faces barely able to contain eyes as wide as eyes can open when searching for safety where none exists.  She had tried, but they came rushing back when her day had tumbled down into chaos, when everything she thought she knew had come into question, and she had run here seeking sanctuary from memories, from guilt, from sorrow.