Are You Experienced? (20 page)

Maybe, if things went right, I wouldn't have to settle for cold comfort.

“Thank you,” Jimi said.

“No problem. But, listen. If you stop taking so many pills … or if you don't drink any red wine … maybe you could—”

Jimi turned so we were facing each other head on. “Gabriel,” he said, “my future is already done. You read about it, right?”

I nodded a third time.

“But yours isn't,” he continued. “You came back here for a reason, right? I've been waiting so long for your message to me that I forgot you must be on your own mission. You said you have to save your uncle?”

I nodded yet again. But my heart was suddenly pounding. Because Jimi had just said, “My future is already done. You already read about it, right?” If that was how things worked, Uncle Mike's future was already done, too. If Jimi Hendrix was right, I wasn't at Woodstock to save anybody's life.

 

I DON'T NEED NO DOCTOR

SUNDAY, AUGUST 17, 1969

 

“Heroin, huh?” Jimi asked, very quietly.

“Yes.”

“Eight weeks?”

“From Friday. I'm pretty sure he used it for the first time last night. He has this plan to get out of going to Vietnam. He's supposed to report for his physical in October, so he's going to shoot up a bunch of times between now and then. He thinks the army doctors will see the track marks in his arm, and he'll be all high and messed up, so they'll reject him, and he won't have to go.”

“Man, doesn't he know people die behind that stuff?”

“Yeah, but he's desperate.” Lowering my voice even more, I laid out the whole scenario about my grandfather, the stuff my uncle had heard him say, and the reasons why my uncle couldn't stand to leave my brother alone in my grandparents' house.

“So he's going to overdose right around the time of the physical?”

“Yes.”

“But you haven't told him yet?”

“I haven't come right out and said it, no. Do you think I should?”

Jimi ran a hand through his hair, sat forward on the edge of the cot, leaned his elbows on his knees, and sighed. “Naw, man, you can't tell him. Either he'll think you're crazy, or he'll go crazy himself. But you aren't going to save his life. It's like with me, Gabriel: As far as you're concerned, your uncle is already dead.”

“But—”

“Listen to me, now. I wish all the time that old lady hadn't told me I was going to die. I can't stop it. I can't change anything. All she did was make sure I never had another night of peaceful dreams for whatever nights I have left. I'm twenty-six years old, Gabriel, and I already feel ancient inside. Whatever dreams your uncle has left—at least let some of them be good ones, all right?”

What do you say when a doomed genius of rock lays all that on you? I never had to figure out a reply, because just then, my father groaned. Michael said, “Gabriel, come here!” I jumped up, and so did Jimi Hendrix.

“David, can you hear me?” Michael asked.

David, who had been curled up in a tight ball, rolled onto his back and replied, “If I say yes, are you going to hit me again?”

“Oh, Davey, I'm so sorry,” my uncle said, dropping to his knees next to the cot and throwing his arms around my father's head and shoulders.

After a moment, David freed his arms from the blankets and hugged his brother back. Then he said, “Please don't leave me with Mom and Dad. Please.”

I couldn't see Michael's face, but his voice sounded like he was all choked up as he answered, “I'm trying, David.”

Jimi and I stood around awkwardly for a few minutes while the two brothers made up. Eventually, David looked past Michael and noticed that there was a full-fledged rock god standing over his cot. “Holy cow!” he shouted. “You're—”

“Don't say it, man,” Jimi said, laughing. “You'll make me blush. But yeah, I am. How're you feeling? Your friend Gabriel was pretty freaked out about you.”

“I'm all right. But wait, how did I get here? All I remember is being up on that platform thing. And it was pouring. And there was thunder. And I was really cold. And then Michael hit me—”

“I said I was sorry.”

“I know, I'm just saying what happened. Anyway, then we were climbing down the tower, and I didn't want to go any farther. So then someone started shouting in my ear.”

My heart skipped.
Oh, geez,
I thought.
What if he remembers all the crazy stuff I was yelling at him?
“Listen, David, I didn't know what I was saying up there. I was just shouting any nutty thing that came into my head to get you to, uh, you know—”

David cut me off. “It wasn't you. I remember now. It was Michael. But what he was saying didn't make any sense.” He turned and stared right into his brother's eyes as though Jimi and I weren't even there. “We need to talk later. Do you promise?”

Michael said, “I promise.”

The flap of the tent flew open, and a gust of wind blasted in. “Hey, it's a party!” a female voice exclaimed. “And this time I brought the drugs!”

The nurse shouldered her way past me, holding an alarmingly large syringe. “Wait,” Michael said, “my brother doesn't need the shot. He's awake now, see? He's not even confused or anything. Right, David?”

David was staring at the needle like it was a king cobra swaying over him. “Yeah, I'm fine! I swear. I was just, um, really tired before. But now that I've had a little nap, I'm all better. So I can just grab my clothes and be on my way if that's okay with—”

“Not so fast, buddy! I have children your age, and I wouldn't want them running around in some godforsaken muddy field, all stitched up, dosing themselves with Lord knows what—TWICE—and then getting sent out to do it all over again a third time. What would your mother say if she were here?”

“Well, what time is it?”

The nurse looked at her highly efficient-looking watch. “Around five thirty. Why?”

“Because on weekends, my mother is pretty drunk by five thirty. So she probably wouldn't say much.”

The nurse didn't know how to respond to this, so we all just stood around for a moment as the syringe wavered in the air. It seemed obvious to me that she wasn't going to give David the shot if he wasn't catatonic or raving insanely, but the likelihood of her shipping him out on a helicopter still seemed pretty darn high.

Then Jimi swung into action. He flashed a brilliant, toothy grin and said, “Ma'am, you said you have children as old as David? Really?”

“Yes, I do. Why?”

“Well, I just found it hard to believe that such a young-looking lady could possibly be the mother of teenagers, that's all.”

This had to be the oldest line in the book, even back in 1969, but the nurse actually batted her eyes and blushed. “Oh, come on, now. Quit teasing an old lady and let me figure out what to do with your friend here.”

“All right, I'll tell you what. Do you happen to know who I am, by any chance?”

“What do you mean? All I know is that you're a young man who needed a place to rest for a while. A flirtatious young man.”

Jimi laughed. “That's all true. But I'm also a musician. In fact, I'm scheduled to play at this concert later on tonight. If you'd like, I'd be glad to sign autographs for your kids if you'll just let my friend come with me now. I'll take him to one of the management trailers backstage, and he can rest in bed there. We have security and everything, so I can assure you he'll be quite comfortable.”

The nurse said, “You're one of the performers? What's your name?”

David said, “He's Jimi Hendrix! He's huge! I have a poster of him in my room! He's the whole reason I wanted to come here in the first place. And now he's right here next to me—can you believe it?”

The nurse said, “Is this boy telling the truth? Are you really Jimi Hendrix?”

Jimi nodded.

The nurse said, “I have a son and a daughter, and they both LOVE your music. They're not going to believe this! Can I get your autograph for them?”

“Anything for you, sweetheart,” Jimi said.

“Oh, my kids are going to think their mother is so far out!” the nurse said. Then she giggled. She actually giggled. “But David, you are still going to have to prove to me that you're all right. Jimi—may I call you Jimi?”

“As long as you call me.”

“Oh, stop!”

“Jimi, take your friend Gabriel over to the other side of the tent so I can ask David some questions and do a few little medical tests, all right? If everything checks out, I'll release him to your care.… God help us all. After you sign some autographs for my kids.”

Five minutes later, we were standing at the flap of the tent, about to push our way back out into the early evening. Our nurse pointed the syringe right in our faces and growled, “I had better not see you back here again. Got that?”

Michael, David, and I nodded.

Then she smiled, and her voice got kind of throaty. “Except you, Jimi. You're welcome to pop in if you, well, need anything.”

“I'll keep that in mind, ma'am,” Jimi said. You always hear about all the terrible stuff rock stars do, but I have to say, in my experience, several of them are extremely polite.

We stepped out of the tent, and I expected to be spattered with rain, but to my surprise, I could actually see the last rays of the setting sun peeking through the clouds. “Well, what now?” I asked.

We all turned to Jimi. “I kind of have to get backstage, you know? My manager probably thinks I split by now. It's going to be some kind of huge hassle if I don't make the scene.”

Without another word, he turned and started to walk away.

Michael, David, and I just stood there, crestfallen. I know this sounds lame, but when you're hanging out with a star, and he's been talking about taking you behind the scenes, everything feels kind of electric. You feel more than alive. And then, when he suddenly just walks away, you can't help feeling empty.

When Jimi was fifteen feet away or so, he turned around so fast that the fringes on his jacket whirled away from his body. Then he gave us that smile. “Hey, what's the matter, gentlemen? Are you coming or not?”

My first thought, in the excitement of the moment, was YEAH! Then Michael said, “We'd love to. But we have some girls waiting for us back at our blankets, so…”

Jimi laughed. Then he said, “Michael, man, there's always room for a few extra chicks backstage. Let's go get 'em.”

David said, “You mean, you're going to walk with us?”

Jimi said, “Sure, why not? I have legs and everything, don't I?”

“But won't the crowd, like, go crazy or something?”

“Not if you be cool, man. It's getting dark, right? So people aren't going to go all crazy about me unless we give them a reason to start staring. Now, here's what's going to happen. Michael is going to walk first. I'm going to follow. You and Gabriel are going to walk behind me like it's no big deal, all right? As long as we all act normal, so will everybody else. That's how life works. Now watch and learn. Michael?”

Michael started walking.

 

AMAZING JOURNEY

SUNDAY, AUGUST 17, 1969

 

Jimi was right: Nobody looked twice at him. In fact, when we found the girls, they didn't even notice we had brought somebody back with us; they immediately started yelling at Michael and me. Willow was the loudest. She was all like, “Mike, what in the world is going on? You come back here, grab your guitar, and go charging off into the storm again without a word of explanation. We were worried sick about you! If you think I'm going to just sit around like a trained pet while you run around having adventures, you've got another think coming! I ought to—”

This went on for a while, with a stereo contribution from Debbie, and didn't stop until Tina burst out with, “Hey, David, who's your friend? Holy shit, he looks just like Jimi Hendrix!”

Two minutes later, we were packing up our damp, muddy stuff. Fifteen minutes later, we were all holding official-looking passes, and we were standing BACKSTAGE AT WOODSTOCK. My mind kept seeing it that way, in capital letters. Every few minutes, I would think,
Hey, are you having fun BACKSTAGE AT WOODSTOCK?
Or,
Boy, the sodas sure do taste better BACKSTAGE AT WOODSTOCK!
Jimi told us that the stage had been built on a gigantic turntable so that bands could be revolved on and off quickly, but by Sunday night, the mechanism was broken, and band and crew members and their friends were standing everywhere behind the amplifiers and PA system watching each group perform. While David and I explained the past few hours' events to Tina and Debbie, and Michael whispered intensely with Willow, we watched Country Joe perform for his second time at the festival, this time with his band, the Fish. Meanwhile, Jimi was snatched away by his managers, just as he'd said he would be.

A while later, I was making out with Debbie BACKSTAGE AT WOODSTOCK when Jimi tapped me on the shoulder. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” he asked. I said yes, because really, when Jimi Hendrix asks you for a moment of your time BACKSTAGE AT WOODSTOCK, that's what you do. He grabbed Michael, too, and told David to keep an eye on all three girls at all times. “I'm serious, man,” Jimi said. “You can trust me, but some of these other rock-and-roll cats are pigs when it comes to women. Seriously.”

And with that comforting mixed metaphor, he whisked me away with my uncle, over the rickety wooden footbridge and into a trailer. “Sorry to take you away from the music, but I had to ask you a couple of things. First, a question for Gabriel. I'm supposed to be the last act of the whole festival. But now things are running so late because of the rain that they want me to go on at midnight tonight. But then I wouldn't be last anymore—you dig? And I want to close out the festival.