Are You Experienced? (5 page)

“Shh, Mikey,” Willow whispered.

“No, I'm going to say something. This isn't right.”

“Come on, Mike. Let it go. We don't need some big hassle before we even get to the concert. You promised you were going to make this trip perfect for your brother, right?”

“Yeah, but…”

She put her packages down on the floor and hugged him from behind. “No buts. You said you wanted David to remember this trip forever.”

From behind, I could see Michael's entire frame tense up, then relax. “You're right,” he said. “This whole scene isn't worth getting wigged out over.”

Michael stepped up to the counter and paid for everything. When the lady said, “Have a nice day,” he looked like he was choking on a lemon, but he didn't say a word.

I thanked my hosts profusely as we walked to the car and packed all of our groceries into the backpacks they had brought. They loaded me down with a sleeping bag and a folded-up camping tent, and we set out along the edge of the road, following the thousands of excited teen pilgrims whose ranks extended as far as I could see into the distance. My hip ached, but I distracted myself by checking out the fashion show that was going on around me. I was actually surprised by how normal a lot of people's clothing looked to me. I mean, the majority of the kids around us were sporting jeans and T-shirts. If I had seen one of them alone back in the 2010s, I wouldn't have noticed anything astounding about the outfit. But seeing a horde of them all walking at once, several things struck me. First, in my time, an army of teens heading to a summer concert would all have been wearing shorts. Second, the T-shirts didn't all have corporate logos on them—I was so used to advertising slogans and trademarks everywhere that it was sort of a shock to see nothing but plain old solid colors and stripes.

Then there were the occasional bikers roaring by every few minutes, plus the serious hippie kids like Willow, who were wearing fringed vests, love beads, tie-dyes, bandanas on their heads, and a wide variety of other eye-popping outfits. And, speaking of eye-popping, I couldn't help but notice a remarkable lack of bra-wearing among a large percentage of the female population.

Two other things shocked me. One was that almost everybody was skinny. I know my parents are always complaining about the obesity epidemic in modern America, but wow—seeing how thin everybody was in 1969 really made me understand what they have been talking about my whole life. The other was the parade of freaky hair. You might expect long hair on guys, and that parted-in-the-middle-with-two-braids style on girls.… I had seen enough old
Brady Bunch
episodes to expect a certain basic 1960s look. But everywhere I turned, I was seeing white kids with four-inch Afros. Nothing had prepared me for the shock of
that
.

After only a few minutes of walking in the hot morning sun, I broke into a pretty good sweat that loosened me up and made my hip feel better. Right after that, Dad started in on his brother:

“How much farther do we have to go? We're not going to miss the first act, are we? Is anyone else thirsty? I'm thirsty. Hey, Michael, can we drink some Cokes? That way we won't have to carry 'em. I bet Gabriel would like a Coke. Mike, Gabriel looks thirsty. I think we learned in Boy Scouts that you're supposed to give lots of fluids to people after they get hit by a car.”

Wow, and I thought he was annoying when he was sixty.

On the other hand, the Coke tasted amazing. I wasn't sure if I was just super-duper hot, but it honestly seemed to me like it was better than twenty-first-century Coke. Plus, I was on my way to Woodstock! I was going to see Jimi freaking Hendrix play! Additionally, walking behind Willow was a whole other level of 1960s amazingness. I took a moment to apologize in my mind to Courtney for the thoughts I was having about another woman. In my defense, though, I didn't think it counted as cheating, because Courtney wasn't even going to be born for another thirty years.

Even with the sweet, sweet soda and the sweet sweetness of my uncle's girlfriend to keep me moving, I was starting to feel kind of draggy after a couple of miles, but then, out of nowhere, something beautiful happened. Somebody off in the distance in front of us started singing a song:

Just what makes that little old ant

Think he'll move that rubber tree plant

Anyone knows an ant, can't

Move a rubber tree plant

 

But he's got high hopes, he's got high hopes

He's got high apple pie, in the sky hopes

I didn't know the song, but apparently every single other person for miles in either direction did, because suddenly I was part of the world's lengthiest singalong. Each person in the huge human chain turned to the person behind and grinned.

When that song ended, there was a moment of silence, but then another song came rippling down the line:

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea.…

The singing went on for miles. After a while, we made a sharp left turn and started heading downhill on a farm road. I could smell cow manure and wet hay. Then we came over a rise and I saw a shallow valley full of people sitting around on blankets or standing in little groups talking. At the far edge of the valley I saw a line of what looked like concession stands. It was weird, because there was no stage, and most of the crowd was still walking down the road. There was also a partially built chain-link fence that looked like it was supposed to be some sort of official entrance. I knew that, at the beginning, tickets had been sold for the Woodstock festival, but then at some point, the huge crowd had just trampled the fences, and the concert had eventually been declared free for everyone. But when had that happened? My companions had tickets, but I didn't. If I got hassled, we might get separated.

When we reached the fence line, we didn't see anybody in any kind of uniform, or any turnstiles, or any other sign of officialdom, so we just did what the rest of the crowd was doing. We kept walking.

Then we came over the far edge of that valley, and saw a sight I knew would be burned into my mind forever. I was looking downhill into a natural bowl the size of several football fields in every direction. At the bottom was a big wooden stage, flanked by several super-tall lighting towers. There were also more concession stands, a line of pay phones, and a few rows of portable toilets. But what stood out—what blew my mind—was the sheer volume of humanity on display. The entire area was totally blanketed with people.

We were at Woodstock. And my uncle Mike had sixty-three days to live.

 

PIECE OF MY HEART

EARLY MORNING, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2014

 

After my mother had finished telling me her story, I asked whether I could go down to my father's den and apologize. She nodded at me ever so slightly over the lip of her teacup, and I got up and tiptoed downstairs. If I had known how many years I'd have to cross before seeing her again, I might have looked back. As it was, I just concentrated on not letting the cellar door squeak. One thing about older parents: They really hate it when doors squeak. From long years of practice, I could move around my house in the manner of a teen ninja.

I paused outside the den's door, which was closed. I put my ear right up to the wood, and when I really, really strained, I was pretty sure I could hear the faint sound of music seeping through. This was scary. First of all, my dad and I didn't do heart-to-heart talks; music was the only thing we shared. Second, we also didn't apologize to each other. Third, I had no idea what Dad was doing in there. What if he was crying or something? The idea of comforting my father was pretty ghastly.

I took a deep breath and knocked.

Nothing.

I knocked again, and this time I heard shuffling footsteps. The music stopped. Then the door opened, and there was Dad, in his dark red flannel old-guy pajamas and slippers. Behind him on the floor was a nest of stuff I hadn't seen before: photo frames, papers, old magazines and books, and even a banged-up electric guitar case. Dad sighed. “What is it, Michael?” he said. Then he caught himself, realizing he had just called me Michael. “I mean—”

“I know what you mean, Dad. I just came down to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry I lied to you and Mom, and I'm sorry I got you into a stupid situation.”

Dad ran one hand through the messy gray remains of his hair. “We'll talk about this in the morning, Richard. All right?” He started to step back and swing the door shut.

“Dad, wait,” I said. My heart lurched. This was not safe territory. “Mom told me what tonight was. To you, I mean. And I want to say … I'm sorry about that, too.”

Dad stopped moving and our eyes locked.

“Dad, I can't sleep anyway. Can you … I mean, would you like to tell me about Uncle Michael? I'm not talking about how he died. I'm talking about who he was when he was alive.”

“Rich, this isn't the time.”

“There's
never
going to be a time. In my whole life, you've mentioned his name maybe five times. I've never seen a picture of him, even though people have told me I have his looks. He was one of my closest relatives, and I don't even know who he was. Tonight is the anniversary of his death, and my parents have brought him up twice. You yelled at me about him, and so did Mom. So I figure I might as well ask now, while everybody already hates me.”

Dad's face contorted like he was attempting to fight off a case of demonic possession. Either that, or he was battling an incredibly strong urge to slam my head through the basement wall. He didn't battle quite hard enough. “Please just leave me alone. Go to bed.”

I didn't move.

“Dad, can't you just talk to me, for once?”

“This isn't about you,” he snarled.

Well, Dad,
I thought,
I can snarl, too
. “You're right. Nothing's ever about me in this family. It's always about you and Mom and whatever ghosts are waltzing around in your heads. I swear to God, it's like I'm growing up in a haunted house!”

“Ghosts?
Ghosts?
How
dare
you, Richard? How dare you talk about ghosts, when my brother died forty-five years ago today?”

“Yeah, Dad. Your brother died forty-five years ago—but
you
didn't! You just
act
like you're dead already!”

My father didn't answer; he just lunged toward me and raised his hand like he was going to smack me across the face. I braced myself, and felt my heart skip. But the blow never came. Instead, Dad slammed the door in my face. My eyes burned; I told myself it was just from being awake for so many hours straight. “Nothing like a little late-night male bonding,” I muttered, trudging away across the basement, into my dank little guitar practice room in the corner behind the boiler. I had spent half of the summer before freshman year soundproofing the walls with foam spray and egg cartons. I kept my classical guitar down there. The sound baffling wasn't super-effective, but it was good enough that I could do some quiet fingerpicking until I calmed down without my parents smashing in the door.

It took a lot of songs, but eventually my hands stopped shaking and I felt the anger ebbing out of me. By then, it had to be something like four in the morning, and I figured my father had to have gone upstairs to bed. No matter how temporarily relaxed I might have been feeling, I absolutely didn't want to run into him again.

I packed up my guitar, eased my practice room door open, and peeked around the edge across the open floor of the cellar. The coast appeared to be clear. I had to go directly past Dad's den to get to the stairs, though, and the door was ajar, which was extremely unusual. Light poured from the doorway, but no shadows were moving around in there. I tiptoed across the floor until I could see in.

I realized I was holding my breath. Yes, my father was that scary. He may never have hit me, but coldness and distance can be pretty hard in their own way. I forced myself to exhale slowly, and inhale as quietly as I had ever done anything, and then look all around the den.

No Dad.

But I did see something I had never seen before. In the far left corner of the room, a closet door that had always been closed and locked was wide open. Obviously, I should have just kept walking. I know that. I've downloaded enough horror movies after my parents were asleep to know that nothing good could possibly come of this scene.

On the other hand, I wanted to know about that guitar case … which was still right there in the middle of the floor, surrounded by Dad's piles of mementoes … all the buried treasures he had never shown me in my fifteen years of living with him. Plus, I was mad enough at my father that consequences weren't way up at the forefront of my mind. AND—speaking of hidden treasures—I was dying to see that amplifier my mom had mentioned.

There was one other factor at work: Dad never, ever stayed up this late. He hadn't even made it until midnight on New Year's Eve for as long as I could remember, so it seemed to me he had to be down for the count. So I figured it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to check out Dad's secrets.

I was too right.

The piled-up stuff was set in a semicircle, so that a person sitting on the floor could reach out and grab all of it without having to move much. I set myself down carefully in the middle, and reached for a photo album. It was dated
SUMMER 1969
in stick-on DayGlo letters.

The pictures inside were all captioned in my father's handwriting, and mostly showed him and my uncle mowing lawns together, goofing around by a pool, and playing onstage in a band. There was one picture that really struck me: Dad was standing between his brother and an amazing-looking teenage girl, both of whom had their arms around his shoulders. The caption read, “With ‘Mom' Willow and ‘Daddy' Mike.” That made me realize that the only photo of my actual grandparents in the entire book was one slightly out-of-focus snapshot of them sitting in ugly chairs, watching TV and holding cans of beer.