Red-Dirt Marijuana: And Other Tastes (33 page)

“Really?”

He must have felt he was getting a bit too loquacious, a bit too much on the old hard-sell side, because then he just cooled it, and nodded. “That’s right,” he said, so soft and serious that it wasn’t really audible.

“How much?” I asked, finally, uncertain of any other approach.

“I’ll level with you,” he said, “I’ve got this connection—a ward attendant . . . you know, a male nurse . . . has, what you might call
access
to the hospital pharmacy . . . does a little trading with the guards on the fifth floor—that’s where the
monstro
-wigs are—‘High Five’ it’s called. That’s where Chin Lee’s at. Anyway, he’s operating at cost right now—I mean, he’ll cop as much M, or whatever other hard-shit he can, from the pharmacy, then he’ll go up to High Five and trade for the juice—you know, just fresh, straight, uncut wig-juice—go c.c.’s, that’s the regular hit, about an ounce, I guess . . . I mean, that’s what they hit the wigs for, a go c.c. syringeful, then they cap the spike and put the whole outfit in an insulated wrapper. Like it’s supposed to stay at body temperature, you dig? They’re very strict about that—about how much they tap the wig for, and about keeping it fresh and warm, that sort of thing. Which is okay, because that’s the trip—go c.c’s, ‘piping hot,’ as they say.” He gave a tired little laugh at the curious image. “Anyway the point is, he never knows in front what the
price
will be, my friend doesn’t, because he never knows what kind of M score he’ll make. I mean like if he scores for half-a-bill of M, then that’s what he charges for the split, you dig?”

To me, with my Mad Ave savvy, this seemed fairly illogical.

“Can’t he hold out on the High Five guys?” I asked, “. . . you know, tell them he only got half what he really got, and save it for later?”

He shrugged, almost unhappily. “He’s a very ethical guy,” he said, “I mean like he’s pretty weird. He’s not really interested in narcotics, just
changes.
I mean, like he lets
them
do the count on the M—they tell him how much it’s worth and that’s what he charges for the split.”

“That
is
weird,” I agreed.

“Yeah, well it’s like a new market, you know. I mean there’s no established price yet, he’s trying to develop a clientele—can you make half-a-bill?”

While I pondered, he smiled his brave tired smile, and said: “There’s one thing about the cat, being so ethical and all—he’ll never burn you.”

So in the end it was agreed, and he went off to complete the arrangements.

The effect of red-split was “as advertised” so to speak—in this case, quite gleeful. Sense-derangementwise, it was unlike acid in that it was not a question of the “Essential I” having new insights, but of becoming a different person entirely. So that in a way there was nothing very scary about it, just extremely weird, and as it turned out, somewhat mischievous (Chin Lee, incidentally, was not merely a great wig, but also a great wag). At about six in the morning I started to work on the alleged “Manchester passages.” Krassner might be cross, I thought, but what the hell, you can’t copyright an idea. Also I intended to give him full and ample credit. “Darn good exposure for Paul” I mused benignly, taking up the old magic quill.

The first few passages were fairly innocuous, the emphasis being on a style indentical to that of the work in question. Towards the end of Chapter Six, however, I really started cooking: “. . . wan, and wholly bereft, she steals away from the others, moving trancelike towards the darkened rear-compartment where the casket rests. She enters, and a whispery circle of light shrouds her bowed head as she closes the door behind her and leans against it. Slowly she raises her eyes and takes a solemn step forward. She gasps, and is literally slammed back against the door by the sheer impact of the outrageous horror confronting her: i.e., the hulking Texan silhouette at the casket, its lid half raised, and he hunching bestially, his coarse animal member thrusting into the casket, and indeed into the neck-wound itself.

“
Great God,”
she cries, “how heinous! It must be a case of . . . of . . .
NECK
-ROPHILIA!”

I finished at about ten, dexed, and made it to the office. I went directly into Fox’s cubicle (the “Lair” it was called).

“You know,” I began, lending the inflection a childlike candor, “I could be wrong but I think I’ve
got
it,” and I handled him the ms.

“Got what?” he countered dryly, “the clap?”

“You know, that Manchester thing we discussed at the last prelunch confab.” While he read, I paced about, flapped my arms in a gesture of uncertainty and humble doubt. “Oh, it may need a little tightening up, brightening up, granted, but I hope you’ll agree that the
essence
is there.”

For a while he didn’t speak, just sat with his head resting on one hand staring down at the last page. Finally he raised his eyes; his eyes were always somehow sad.

“You really
are
out of your nut, aren’t you?”

“Sorry, John,” I said. “Don’t follow.”

He looked back at the ms., moved his hands a little away from it as though it were a poisonous thing. Then he spoke with great seriousness:

“I think you ought to have your head examined.”

“My
head is
swell,” I said, and wished to elaborate, “my
head
. . .” but suddenly I felt very weary. I had evidently hit on a cow sacred even to the cynical Fox.

“Look,” he said, “I’m not a
prude
or anything like that, but this . . .”—he touched the ms. with a cough which seemed to stifle a retch— . . . “I mean,
this
is the most . . .
grotesque
. . .
obscene
. . . well, I’d rather not even discuss it. Frankly, I think you’re in very real need of psychiatric attention.”

“Do you think Hack will go for it?” I asked in perfect frankness.

Fox averted his eyes and began to drum his fingers on the desk.

“Look, uh, I’ve got quite a bit of work to do this morning, so, you know, if you don’t mind. . . .”

“Gone too far, have I, Fox? Is that it? Maybe you’re missing the point of the thing—ever consider that?”

“Listen,” said Fox stoutly, lips tightened, one finger raised in accusation, “you show this . . .
this thing
to anybody else, you’re liable to get a
big smack in the kisser!
” There was an unmistakable heat and resentment in his tone—a sort of controlled hysteria.

“How do you know I’m not from the C.I.A.?” I asked quietly. “How do
you
know this isn’t a
test?
” I gave him a shrewd narrow look of appraisal. “Isn’t it just possible, Fox, that this quasi-indignation of yours is, in point of fact, simply an
act? A farce?
A
charade?
An
act,
in short, to
save your own skin!?!
”

He had succeeded in putting me on the defensive. But now, steeped in Chink poet cunning, I had decided that an offense was the best defense, and so plunged ahead. “Isn’t it true, Fox, that in this parable you see certain underlying homosexual tendencies which you unhappily recognize in yourself? Tendencies, I say, which to confront would bring you to the very brink of, ‘fear and trembling,’ so to speak.” I was counting on the Kierkegaard allusion to bring him to his senses.

“You crazy son of a bitch,” he said flatly, rising behind his desk, hands clenching and unclenching. He actually seemed to be moving towards me in some weird menacing way. It was then I changed my tack. “Well listen,” I said, “what would you say if I told you that it wasn’t actually
me
who did that, but a Chinese poet? Probably a Commie . . . an insane Commie-fag-spade-Chinese poet. Then we could view it objectively, right?”

Fox, now crazed with his own righteous adrenalin, and somewhat encouraged by my lolling helplessly in the chair, played his indignation to the hilt.

“Okay, Buster,” he said, towering above me, “keep talking, but make it good.”

“Well, uh, let’s see now. . . .” So I begin to tell him about my experience with the red-split. And speaking in a slow, deliberate, very serious way, I managed to cool him. And then I told him about an insight I had gained into Viet Nam, Cassius Clay, Chessman, the Rosenbergs, and all sorts of interesting things. He couldn’t believe it. But, of course, no one ever really does—do they?

Terry Southern (1924–1995) was an American satirist, author, journalist, screenwriter, and educator and is considered one of the great literary minds of the second half of the twentieth century. His bestselling novels—
Candy
(1958), a spoof on pornography based on Voltaire’s
Candide
, and
The Magic Christian
(1959), a satire of the grossly rich also made into a movie starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr—established Southern as a literary and pop culture icon. Literary achievement evolved into a successful film career, with the Academy Award–nominated screenplays for
Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
(1964), which he wrote with Stanley Kubrick and Peter George, and
Easy Rider
 (1969), which he wrote with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper.

Born in Alvarado, Texas, Southern was educated at Southern Methodist University, the University of Chicago, and Northwestern, where he earned his bachelor’s degree. He served in the Army during World War II, and was part of the expatriate American café society of 1950s Paris, where he attended the Sorbonne on the GI Bill. In Paris, he befriended writers James Baldwin, James Jones, Mordecai Richler, and Christopher Logue, among others, and met the prominent French intellectuals Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus. His short story “The Accident” was published in the inaugural issue of the
Paris Review
in 1953, and he became closely identified with the magazine’s founders, Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen and George Plimpton, who became his lifelong friends. It was in Paris that Southern wrote his first novel,
Flash and Filigree
(1958), a satire of 1950s Los Angeles.

When he returned to the States, Southern moved to Greenwich Village, where he took an apartment with Aram Avakian (whom he’d met in Paris) and quickly became a major part of the artistic, literary, and music scene
populated by Larry Rivers, David Amram, Bruce Conner, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Jack Kerouac, among others
. After marrying Carol Kauffman in 1956, he settled in Geneva until 1959. There he wrote
Candy
with friend and poet Mason Hoffenberg, and
The Magic Christian
. Carol and Terry’s son, Nile, was born in 1960 after the couple moved to Connecticut, near the novelist William Styron, another lifelong friend.

Three years later, Southern was invited by Stanley Kubrick to work on his new film starring Peter Sellers, which became,
Dr. Strangelove
.
Candy
, initially banned in France and England, pushed all of America’s post-war puritanical buttons and became a bestseller. Southern’s short pieces have appeared in the
Paris Review
,
Esquire
, the
Realist
,
Harper’s Bazaar
,
Glamour
,
Argosy
,
Playboy
, and the
Nation
, among others. His journalism for
Esquire
, particularly his 1962 piece “Twirling at Ole Miss,” was credited by Tom Wolfe for beginning the New Journalism style. In 1964 Southern was one of the most famous writers in the United States, with a successful career in journalism, his novel
Candy
at number one on the
New York Times
bestseller list, and
Dr. Strangelove
a hit at the box office.

After his success with
Strangelove
, Southern worked on a series of films, including the hugely successful
Easy Rider
. Other film credits include
The Loved One
,
The Cincinnati Kid
,
Barbarella
, and
The End of the Road
. He achieved pop-culture immortality when he was featured on the famous album cover of the Beatles’
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
. However, despite working with some of the biggest names in film, music, and television, and a period in which he was making quite a lot of money (1964–1969), by 1970, Southern was plagued by financial troubles.

He published two more books:
Red-Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes
(1967), a collection of stories and other short pieces, and
Blue Movie
(1970), a bawdy satire of Hollywood. In the 1980s, Southern wrote for
Saturday Night Live,
and his final novel,
Texas Summer
, was published in 1992. In his final years, Southern lectured on screenwriting at New York University and Columbia University. He collapsed on his way to class at Columbia on October 25, 1995, and died four days later.