Song Across Water

Copyright August, 2016 by Brian W Fullerton

All characters in this book are fiction and resemble no real person

Cover art by Margaret Hanson

ISBN 9781483592855

Four Owls Press

Table of Contents

Cover

Title

Copyright

I. The Willamette River

II. Vancouver Harbor

III. Bow River

IV. Okanagan Lake

V. Thetis Island

VI. Saltspring Island

VII. Tristan Island

VIII. Quadra Island

IX. Read Island

X. Malcolm Island

XI. Maurelle Island

XII. The Willamette River

XIII. Big Summit Prairie

Part I

The Willamette River

Chapter 1

Returning across campus from his morning classes Martin Birkett lingered at the student union plaza where a crowd of students listened to a speaker with a bullhorn. The Student Union’s windows curved behind the speaker and two young men standing next to him as he shouted. We as individuals must all make a decision whether to support America’s empire building agenda or make a personal decision to resist the institutions and policies of the federal government that deprive us of our right to self determination. The draft is a militaristic and totalitarian arm of federal policy that wants to destroy our freedom. And by our complacency we are simply ignoring these infringements on our liberty and our personal values. Do you really want to go to Vietnam, face impoverished peasants, and kill them because a career officer tells you it is the right thing to do when you know in your hearts it is wrong and against all the values of human decency? So we want to show our convictions by putting our lives on the line and face the illegal laws of our unjust system. Each of us is going to hold up our draft cards. The three men held their draft cards above their heads. These cards symbolize the control the federal government has over every man standing here. Do you want some faceless bureaucratic institution making important decisions for you? Or do you want to make your own decisions and choose what you want to do with your life without the interference of criminal capitalists that only want to get rich off the war and gain more power over our lives? The crowd cheered. So now we are going to act. We are going to put our lives and our bodies on the line and act according to our conscience. If there is anybody out there who wants to join us please step forward. Martin thought of the draft card in his wallet but knew he wasn’t involved in these questions about the draft. He had a college deferment, he always got good grades, and his goals were set out and confirmed by his success the last two years at Community College.

The speaker held up his draft card. We may be in jail soon, we may acquire criminal records but denying the federal government’s need for more bodies to fight an unjust war is more important for each of us. The crowd cheered as the speaker prolonged the dramatic moment by using a lighter to burn each card. Now we are going to march to the army recruiting center downtown and we want you all to join us. The speaker led followed by a dozen students chanting Hell no we won’t go.

Martin moved toward the Student Union and turned hearing someone call him. Martin, Martin Birkett. Martin looked up at a man with a full blond beard that made his face broad and masculine. His thick hair hung below his ears.

Don’t you remember me, its Bruce, you know from the lodge last summer? Martin remembered Bruce as quiet and self-confident from three years in the navy. Bruce had challenged a braggart to drink a full bottle of whiskey at one sitting. Then later staggering drunk had lit his clothes on fire in the middle of the men’s dormitory before leaving the job.

Bruce wore a green army fatigue jacket, blue jeans, and black combat boots. He smiled while they shook hands. Martin had been his only friend at the lodge barracks last summer and Martin wondered if he should encourage the connection. Listen why don’t you come over to my place this afternoon after three and we can talk. I’ve got some great smoke that will blow your mind. I’m just a freshman and have to take these boring survey courses. I guess you’re a junior this year. Wish I was farther along but at least Uncle Sam’s paying my way.

Martin sensed danger when Bruce referred to marijuana. Boy those guys burning their draft cards are really committed, Martin said. I was surprised they actually went through with it.

Ah they just want to make a dramatic show and think being a martyr is romantic when all that will happen is they’ll get beat up in jail and have to live with a record for the rest of their lives. Bruce looked away. Anyway I’ve got to get to freshman English, what a bore.

Martin wrote Bruce’s address in his pocket notebook. Hey you’re only a few blocks from my place. I’ve got my novel class until four and I’ll be over.

Martin walked into the Student Union and the conversation, the bustling crowd, the jukebox blaring a Doors song hit him like a warm sun coming from behind a grey cloud and made him smile. Students sat at round tables crowded together in the circular room and the low light from an overcast morning shone in through the windows that opened out onto the plaza, and the university’s ivy covered buildings. Martin didn’t find a place to sit mostly because he didn’t have any close friends at the university. Fall term had just started and he had spent the last two years studying at a small junior college and had lived at home commuting daily to his classes. Still he liked the upbeat energy, the attractive girls, and the loud music yet he walked past up wide marble steps into the building’s quieter upper reaches. Walking down the hallway past tall windows he looked out to the east at the maples and beech with orange and red leaves and watched the students walking briskly down sidewalks toward dorm buildings clustered around a central square.

Martin approached the room he had discovered while exploring the university those first days at college. A varnished wood door opened into a quiet room with dark green-papered walls and wood wainscoting bordering a thick carpet. Students sat upright or sprawled on couches and stuffed chairs that lined the walls and filled the room. Martin sunk into the inviting corner of a couch and opened a book just to pretend he was studying but glanced around the room watching the students, especially the girls, noticing their trim figures and young faces as they bent to books and took notes. He liked the reading room’s comfort and style as if by sitting there he was a part of the university’s honored and classic traditions.

Across from him on a wall hung an oil portrait of the university’s past president and a few trophies stood on low dark wood cabinets between the furniture. No music played and in the silence students concentrated on their studies. He felt guilty for not taking the time to review his notes for the novel class. Instead he sunk lower in the couch and the image of the draft card burners and their demonstration came to his mind.

He had followed the campus demonstrations on his parent’s television before moving into his room near the university. But sitting in the quiet reading room those issues seemed insignificant. With his two years of college success behind him his future looked assured. Throughout his education he had always been a successful student and scored A’s and B’s. There were no reasons to think he wouldn’t succeed at the university though the classes were more competitive and held to a high standard. It was an exciting prospect to read great literature and study under learned professors. Martin wanted to be a teacher like his mother and his sister and his many aunts and uncles. All he had to do to get his teaching certificate was to do well in the course requirements. There was no reason to get involved in anti war activities. Besides political demonstrating didn’t interest him. He preferred quiet rooms like the reading room or the college library conducive to thinking about old traditions or studying classic literature near packed bookshelves

Martin glanced across at a black haired girl with her legs tucked under her sitting on a couch. Her clear face and skin and large dark eyes quickened his pulse for a moment but he turned away and thought about Bruce Montgomery. Should he get involved with someone who had made such a scene last summer at the lodge? And what about marijuana? He didn’t want to do anything illegal or get arrested. What would his parent’s think? After all they were paying for his tuition and room. He had only made enough money the last summer for his new clothes and shoes that he needed to look like a fashionable student. The ornate clock on the wall reminded him it was time to get back to his room, have something to eat, and get to his next class. Martin reluctantly left the quiet room and took a back stairway to avoid the crowd in the main student union.

Outside he zipped up his new tan jacket and walked around the student union building and headed west on sidewalks covered in fallen maple leaves from trees lining the main street. No longer intimidated by the venerable ivy covered halls fronting the street Martin relished attending lectures on Shakespeare, Philosophy, and English history inside. Across the wide lawns past a courtyard the art museum and the library rose in solid testament to serious study. Wind blew leaves along the sidewalk and students walked singly or in clusters either in animated conversation or with serious faces. City buses disgorged students that hurried toward the classrooms or small restaurants, clothing stores, and bookstores lining Campus Row just beyond the college boundary. Sorority and fraternity buildings sat back from lawns in the next block. Martin instinctively criticized these status symbols with their Greek letters and social pretentions. They were expensive and reeked of good ole boy familiarity. Passing several blocks of old two and three story buildings made into apartments and rooms Martin began looking for Bruce Montgomery’s building.

Checking the address he stopped in front of a remodeled house that looked more like a professional office than apartments for students. Excited and curious about the visit, Martin wondered which apartment Bruce lived in. Two blocks beyond he turned into his apartment house, a bulky old dark maroon building with sagging steps leading up to a covered porch. A tall gangly cherry tree lifted its mostly bare limbs along house past a second story window, the only window into his room, the first away from his parent’s house.

The front door had an antique etched glass window and faded white curtains that swished as he shut the door. A stairway covered in a worn carpet rose from a hallway and a rancid grease smell filled the house. Martin took two steps at a time up the stairs, passed the small bathroom in the upper hall, and opened the green door to his room.

A narrow bed sat against the plain-papered wall just below the window and the bed’s foot sat inside a closet. Martin put his books down next to a portable typewriter sitting on a small table near the door. Only four feet separated the bed’s head from the end wall where Martin had erected two shelves on cement blocks. Books lined the bottom shelf and his stereo with its two speakers and a small hotplate and pot sat on the upper shelf. A grocery bag leaning against the wall held bread, peanut butter, jam, cookies, and cans of stew and soup.

Martin opened bread and peanut butter and made a sandwich. He switched on the stereo listening to Handle’s Water Music while he finished the sandwich and made another. He opened a paperback of Plato’s Republic rereading the chapter on the soul’s immortality and thought about writing a paper for his philosophy class.

After eating he opened his guitar case and set up a music stand, switched off the stereo before taking up the guitar and playing a Bach piece with a measured beat enjoying his mastery of the instrument and the music’s flowing arpeggios. After ending the piece he strummed the chords for This Land is Your Land and softly sang the lyrics.

With the guitar stored in its case Martin looked at the notes for his novel class. They were reading Hardy’s Jude the Obscure. Martin loved the high drama and the realistic descriptions of the English countryside but he didn’t yet know how the professor felt about the book. Was it too melodramatic and improbable? Or did romantic incidents actually happen like that in real life? He had already read the novel through once and wanted to reread the book before writing a paper. Essays and research papers were his best chance for A’s.

Martin gathered his books and notebooks for the novel class put them in the leather briefcase his mother had given him, took a look around the tiny room, and locked the door.

#

Rain marked the sidewalk and wind gusts brought orange and yellow maple leaves twirling down around the students leaving campus. Martin sweated in the damp air unsure if his fast walking or the coming visit with Bruce caused his body heat. Inside the unlocked entry door new molding, fresh paint, and new carpet smell attested to the building’s recent renovations. The carpeted stairs never creaked on the way to Bruce’s second story room.

I wondered if your apartment was on the front, Martin said when Bruce opened the door.

I wanted to get the best place I could with the money from my GI Bill. You want coffee, it’s already made?

Floor to ceiling bookcases surrounded a desk and a lamp shone near a stuffed chair at the left of the bookcases. A clean light blue carpet covered the floor and a modern stereo sat on fruit boxes near another smaller stuffed chair. Martin sat on a hard backed folding chair and noticed several other folding chairs against the wall. Soulful saxophone jazz played in the background.

Bruce emerged from the kitchen alcove and handed Martin the coffee and sat in his stuffed chair, carefully setting his coffee on a side table, and pulled out and lit an unfiltered Camel cigarette.

Martin complemented Bruce on his room and Bruce said he liked to be comfortable. He lived with his girlfriend Chloe who was at her job as a secretary for a college professor.

Bruce began talking about his military experience in the navy. He sat in his chair sipping coffee, smoking cigarettes, smiling with his full red lips surrounded by his blond beard. His combat boots sat next to the front door and he had on leather moccasins.

He considered himself justified for going into the navy out of high school because of his life on the family chicken farm outside Salem. His Dad was antisocial and independent and studied Marxism relentlessly. Bruce had Marxist theory pounded into him until he was sick of it and he never got to participate in after school activities because the old man made him work in the chicken houses. But he got a real education in the navy. He wanted to separate from his parent’s influence and figured going into the military would allow him to get the GI bill, pay for his own college, and be independent.

Martin felt a pang of guilt knowing his parents paid for most of his expenses.

Bruce refilled their coffee cups and turned the record over. Oh I ran into lowlifes in the Navy that just wanted to get drunk or chase women during their free time. Fortunately for me I made friends with an older guy, a lifer that spent his time reading and talking about ideas and books. Old Lonny Wilson, quite the complicated guy. He was a confirmed alcoholic but he was also an intellectual who was afraid to live on his own. He needed the secure military routine to protect him for his own ideas. Lonny was a critic of society and got me to read books that exposed the corporate state and the military industrial complex. We used to talk for hours about C. Wright Mills, and Marcuse. Of course I saw through his hypocrisy. He wanted to destroy the establishment but was afraid to break away from it and be an independent man. Anyway I had my share of women as well when we stopped in Asian ports. But a women doesn’t have the same attraction when you know five other guys have fucked her before you get a chance. Bruce ended with a chuckle that opened into a laugh.

But I know to get by in this world you need a degree. It’s like passing an obstacle course or a get out of jail free card. I certainly don’t want to be a farmer like my dad; too much goddamned work. So I had the grades to get accepted at the U of O and am taking the survey courses I need for a political science and history major. He paused as if he wanted to give Martin a chance to talk. Aren’t you from around here?

Martin was shy next to Bruce’s assertive monologue and broad experience. He made a few simple comments about living up the McKenzie River with his folks and finally getting an apartment two blocks away. He said he wanted to get a teaching certificate.

Bruce walked into the curtained bedroom and returned with a wooden box that had an oriental dragon inscribed across the top. Hey you want to smoke some ganja? I just happen to have some good Sensimillon. That means it’s just the female plant and the buds have no seeds. Of course most of the time I just get less potent shake from Mexico with seeds. Have you every smoked weed before?

Martin said no and examined and smelled the green plant material sparkling with resin. Don’t you worry about getting arrested just for having it in your apartment?

Oh I don’t worry too much because so many people use it. The cops generally leave you alone unless they’re trying to bust somebody with a trumped up charge for dealing.

Bruce took out a small board with raised edges and crushed a bud between his fingers then using an ace of spades playing card formed the pieces into a pile. I sell a little weed on the side just to pay for my own smoke. I can get you some if you want. It’s twenty bucks for a lid or baggie of Mexican. It’s the going rate around here and I test to make sure it’s good smoke before I sell any.

Martin watched as Bruce rolled up the crushed bud in rolling papers and licking it said it was a joint. He lit the cigarette and inhaled holding the smoke in then blew it out in a long exhale.

Martin took the cigarette and inhaled the earthy smoke and immediately began coughing With Bruce’s coaching Martin eventually inhaled without coughing. He immediately heard the music more clearly as if the jazz group’s musical line and syncopation was clear and distinct. Everything in the room looked bright and even plain objects took on significance with defined detail. He told Bruce he felt disoriented as if he were out of control, out of his normal safe awareness.

Oh you’ll feel paranoid for a while and anxious or even afraid of what you’re seeing. But it’s just a heightened sense of reality. All you have to do is go with the flow.

Neon green outlined Bruce’s bearded face making Martin giggle then laugh. Unlike his usual reticence he started talking. So there were those riots last summer in Detroit and other cities like Newark, New Jersey. They seem somehow to support the anti war demonstrations, or are they separate?

Bruce put away his wooden box and opened the large front windows. Martin smelled the outdoors and was surprised he could hear the rain.

Bruce settled back in his chair and lit another camel. Of course the student protests against authority and even the anti war demonstrations all come from a long history of marches and rallies for black rights. Hey, the black ghettos are awful places with poverty, criminal gangs, and disease. Those people just got so pissed off at the repression and segregation and the fact they had no political power that they just exploded and wanted to destroy everything in sight. I can understand those feelings. But they need to get organized and form political cadres to influence congressional legislation. Instead they’ve veered away from that idea and now the Black Panthers and black militarism are gaining popularity. If they think they can fight federal armies that protect capitalist corporations they are completely wrong. Hey the black leaders need to study Marx and Mills before they take on the government. What they need is some leaders with organizational skills to raise money and front some real alternative political candidates.

Martin had never considered these explanations for last summer’s urban riots. He had watched the television coverage and the national-guard troops and the tanks rumbling through the burning ghetto streets. But why did the government react so forcefully to put down the riots?

"It all has to do with the corporate state. The government and corporations are really interconnected and protect each other. We little guys are just pawns in their game of trying to make us consume more of what we don’t need. If that arrangement is threatened by anybody the corporate elite just bring in their hired guns, which are the riot police, the army, and the legal system and put it down with whatever force is necessary. That’s why there’s so much press given to black violence. They want consumers to ignore the ideas behind the demonstrations and just be scared of the so-called black menace.

Martin was excited by Bruce’s ideas and wanted to talk to him about other subjects. And the hippies, aren’t they also questioning authority and the American dream?

Bruce lit another cigarette. Oh I read about the hippies in San Francisco and their so-called summer of love. Those people that dress up like circus acts, and profess to have a higher consciousness are actually doing what some of their guru’s tell them to do, drop out. They take hard drugs like LSD and amphetamines and claim they reach some sort of higher realization. All they’re doing is just avoiding the larger trends in the political and social system. They don’t seem to care that multi-national corporations and the military are controlling the agenda for everybody’s lives. It’s not that I’m necessarily against hippies but I think they miss the point when they don’t try to organize politically with central leaders and a manifesto of what they believe in. Instead the movement seems to follow the wild antics of rock musicians that just want to get stoned all the time and say hedonism is the way to go for any thinking person.

The only real answer for change in this country is to study Marx for a basic understanding of the historic social and economic forces and then have real discussions about Trotsky’s ideas for non-violent gradual reform that will ultimately result in beneficial political change. But oh no, hippies want to parade their weirdness around town and act like freaks just to get a reaction out of conventional society. Of course it’s just hypocrisy. Because they all live off the system either from handouts from mommy and daddy or by ripping off the very establishment they criticize. Could so called hippies exist without conventional society?

Martin was surprised at Bruce’s energetic criticism of the hippie movement and for the first time he had his own ideas but didn’t want to assert them. What about the folk singing movement? The singers and musicians that used understated traditional music forms to sing about their resistance to the status quo. In fact Martin longed to get back to his apartment to play his guitar.

Bruce got up to change the record and Martin noticed the marijuana effects subsiding. "Of course writers have been discussing these topics for years. Have you read Brave New World? Huxley’s criticism of a future world that is dominated by social engineering, free sex, and mass consumption seems to have come true in some ways. But I think he misses the role of the military, which Orwell spoke to in 1984. Haven’t you read that either? Man you need to do some catching up." Bruce pulled a copy out of his bookshelf and also looked until he found a copy of C. Wright Mills The Power Elite. "I’d give you One Dimensional Man but Marcuse can be very obscure unless you’ve read some Marx and German philosophy."

Martin held the books in his hand and stammered a thank you.

The door opened and a girl dressed in a tight black shift that emphasized her full breasts and wide hips walked into the room, set down her bag, and sat on Bruce’s lap. Wearing black leotards Chloe had on bright red lipstick and wore her blond hair short. She kissed Bruce on the lips. Hey man I’ll bet you’re already high. Light me up so I can run with you. She had a sexy low voice. After a drag on the lit joint she jumped up to stand in front of Martin. Hey man, are you hanging out for a while? I’ll need some time with my man after I have some wine, you dig? She twirled around the room with childish energy finally coming out of the kitchen with a cigarette and a glass of red wine and sat in the smaller easy chair near the stereo. Don’t you just love that sax? And that cat on the vibes is really in a groove. Isn’t my lover out of sight? She looked over at Bruce and knocked off her cigarette ash into a clean red enameled tray. I’m working for the man but old professor Willard isn’t bad as long as I can fend off his passes. She giggled and sipped her wine.

Martin laughed at her exuberance and high energy.

Hey Chloe this is Martin a friend of mine.

I’m sure man. I guess Bruce told you I help pay for this place and I just love living with my lover boy. You’ll have to come back in the evening sometime and have spaghetti with us. I’ll invite some chics over and you can get close to them. She seemed to be ushering him out so Martin put the books in his leather briefcase and went to the door. Bruce stayed seated in his chair with a bemused look on his face and as he shut the door and started downstairs Martin wondered if the two were headed to bed.

Martin tested the brief case’s weight and walked through the rain listening to the cars pass on the wet pavement. The jazz from Bruce’s room ran through his mind and his friend’s ideas demanded separation and understanding. His room looked small and plain compared to Bruce’s place. Was Bruce’s connection something to fear or was it an opening he wanted to explore? He looked at his briefcase filled with books he was supposed to study and instead put on a Bob Dylan’s John Wesley Harding album and listened to the lyrics. He lay back on the bed with his feet inside the closet and thought about getting his room.

He had looked at several apartments near the university advertised in the newspaper and they were all designed with bright kitchens and bathrooms but didn’t have any style. His parents had offered to pay for his apartment as well as his tuition but he also knew they were intent on saving money. When he found the room in the old house he immediately realized its romantic possibilities. He could be the poor student living in a garret devoting himself to his studies in ascetic deprivation. But would his parents approve of such a minimalist life? Without consulting them he had put down a deposit on the room and drove his mother’s car across town and up the winding road to his parent’s house built on a bank above the McKenzie River.

After a lifetime trying to acquire the markers of success, Bill Birkett had finally acquired the ideal house with its waterfront view and a ranch house design that said status and class in its every detail. Along the way Bill Burkett had retained his farm land, bought several rental duplexes, and held down a union job with a national beverage distributor as a dispatcher. Martin’s older brother, Paul, was married and working for the same company as his father.

That late summer afternoon Martin sat with his parents at the kitchen table and looked out the wide window at the river coursing with white water rapids through the rock channel below. Bill Birkett was a big man with broad shoulders, six feet four, and had a short crew cut with salt and pepper hair. Margery Birkett, a full time grade school teacher, had put on weight in her middle age and though she spoke with civility she had independent views and a bite to her criticism. Martin told them he found a room he thought would work. He described it in positive terms and didn’t exactly say how small it was. When he told them it had no kitchen or inside bathroom they both questioned whether he should get such a primitive place. But Martin countered with its low rent.

Bill Birkett said in his deep voice, Now just because you’ll be staying in your own room doesn’t mean you can lose sight of your goals and plans. I hope you know how much sending you to college is costing us. You can’t spend your time carousing with kids and drinking beer. Then there are all those radicals around the universities now. Those kids that look like freaks with their long hair and beards smoking pot and demonstrating against the government. They ought to put the lot of them in jail. You’ve got to keep your focus on your studies, and forget about chasing girls. You’ll have to stay responsible and remember why you’re at the university. He lit a cigarette and turned away from the table as if he had done his duty by making his speech.

But dad haven’t I got good grades at the junior college for the last two years and I didn’t go on many dates. I’ve always done what you wanted and never got into trouble. What makes you think I’ll change at the university?

Bill Burkett turned back to the table. Well all those kids are demonstrating and rejecting our way of life. Remember I went to war in Europe just so you could have the opportunity and freedom to go to college. And I know how easy it is to fail. Didn’t your older brother fail at his college career? Of course I got him a good job with Western Beverage and now he seems set for life but it’s so easy to be distracted and lose sight of why you’re at the university.

Martin’s mother tried to placate her husband. Now Bill, Martin has done so well at the Community College we wanted to give him more freedom to live in his own apartment, and to pick it out himself. And we are sure you picked out a good room. I suppose you can put in a hot plate and it’s not so bad having a bathroom in the hall. Why when I was in college living in a co-op house with thirty girls we shared everything including a bathroom. I just worry that you won’t have enough to eat. Of course we’ll come to visit you and you can come home weekends to wash your clothes if you don’t have time to use a laundromat at the university.

Bill Birkett looked away and lit another cigarette. Martin sensed his dad still criticized him for living in his own apartment. Look dad I don’t care about the demonstrators and the hippies. I just want to graduate and get a teaching certificate. I’ll wear clean clothes and keep my hair cut, and I won’t have time to spend demonstrating. I don’t have to worry about going in the military until after I graduate and by then the Vietnam War might be over. I’ll just keep my deferment for now.

Well I don’t know why those long haired radicals want to destroy the system that’s allowed them to even go to college. Haven’t I done well and even spent four years in the army with real fighting and never got to go to college? Haven’t I worked steady for the last thirty years on our farm and then at Western Beverage? How can they criticize what I did with my life?

Now Bill, Margery said, There’s no use getting worked up over the past. You know Martin isn’t wild. We just want to make sure you get everything you need to succeed, Martin. And I think it’s wonderful that you want to be a teacher. I’ve found a lot of meaning in teaching for the last twelve years.

Bill Birkett stubbed out his cigarette. I’ll let your mother work out the details. After all what I say doesn’t seem to matter much around here anyway. But by god you better toe the line up there or we’ll cut off your money. He heaved his bulk up and strode tiredly into the living room where he sat heavily in his recliner, lit another cigarette, and began reading the paper. Margery nodded her head and Martin followed her through the kitchen and downstairs into the full basement where he had an enclosed room.

Standing next to her in his room she looked small and frail in her bright cardigan and her sensible work shoes. He saw new lines on her face he hadn’t noticed before. You’ll be ok dear. But don’t get an apartment that’s too small just to save money. I want you to be comfortable so you can focus on your studies. Always remember we’re proud of you for wanting to be a teacher. She turned to the window and Martin could see her shoulder’s shaking. He put his arm around her.

You know what it’s like living with your dad. He’s hard but it’s because he had such an unhappy childhood. After his father left the family Bill was sent out to a foster family because his mother couldn’t afford to raise all her kids. Don’t be too critical of him. He’s had to work hard to get where he is today and you kids are something he appreciates and loves. He just doesn’t know how to show it.

Mom, I won’t let you or Dad down. All I want is to finish college and get a teaching certificate. I’m not going to let anything interfere with that dream.

Margery Burkett pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes. Remember how we used to work together cleaning up the rhododendrons below the house? They looked out the window at the terraced rhododendron bushes that led down the bank to the river. Oh there are so many things I love about you son. You’re such a talented musician, and so smart. I hope nothing interferes with what you want. Life can be so unpredictable.

#

Martin got up from the narrow bed to get a sweater. He turned off the stereo and took out his bound journal and began writing.

I feel guilty knowing my parents would object to my smoking marijuana with Bruce Montgomery. Do I have to lie to them about what I do? Is it really that big of a deal? It’s not that much different than having a beer. No, some authority has made marijuana illegal even though it’s fun to smoke. The truth is that’s a small thing. The real issue is Bruce’s ideas that indict the middle class way of life. Could I ever be as knowledgeable as he is? But I must continue studying, I must buckle down and read more, review my class notes, prepare for the tests and the papers I have to write.

He closed the journal and heard the cars passing outside on the wet street. He opened the guitar case and took up the blonde faced instrument and began playing melancholy minor chords listening to the strings, wondering what his future would bring

Chapter 2

Martin spent the next two months dedicated to his studies, getting in a good position to pass his winter term exams at the university. During his studies he found time to read C Wright Mills and 1984 and on a rainy day just before finals met Bruce on campus and returned to his apartment after their afternoon classes. Bruce assumed his usual position in the stuffed chair and Martin sat in the hard backed folding chair.

I liked Mill’s writing style, Martin said. He wasn’t pedantic or obscure and I understood his definition of the power structure dominated by the interlocking relationships of corporate executives, mass media conglomerates, and government officials. Of course, the middle classes have been duped with the promise of a better life when in fact they are simply being trained like monkeys to consume products they don’t need. But the thing I don’t understand is what is his antidote, what does he want thinking people to do? Sure he defines the economic and social forces and the oppressive bureaucracy but I don’t see how to combat these all powerful corporations that according to him control all aspects of our lives.

Well I didn’t give you Marcuse because I knew how hard it is to wade through his writing style. But one of Marcuse’s ideas is the great refusal: the abrupt rejection of the status quo and the dedication to a new way of thinking and acting. I don’t know exactly what he means, but for me the idea says you don’t have to have the same goals or pursue the same values as your parents’ generation.

Unsure of Marcuse’s great refusal Martin considered the idea involved rejecting previously held values and goals. Did that mean completely discarding one’s current values and beliefs?

You know Marcuse took some of his ideas from Orwell, Bruce continued Especially the concept of the power elite using euphemisms to disguise the truth of their policies. Orwell called it double speak. Like the military calling an all out attack an incursion, and mass killing of peasants, pacification. It’s an attempt to hide their actions real meaning by distorting definitions. For Marcuse that extended to the mass media manipulating information as a way of indoctrinating and propagandizing for a particular effect. Usually that propaganda includes the logical consumption of unwanted possessions just so you could be a real person, get love, have sex, eat fast food, all the things you don’t need but are trained to want through mass media advertising.

Martin stayed through the afternoon talking to Bruce about the ideas in Orwell and Marcuse. Martin was particularly excited by the idea that in Orwell’s 1984 the state in the guise of big brother forbade any introspective journal writing. He thought journal writing was a place to be scrupulously honest and understood why an oppressive state relying on thought control to manipulate the populace would outlaw journal writing. The idea inspired him to write in his unlined journal after his classes.

The fall term ended with Martin getting a few A’s and the rest B’s. The grades confirmed his belief that he could manage the elevated class work at the college level. Christmas at home on the McKenzie River was a reserved affair with Martin secretly criticizing all the hype to buy more presents and ignore the reality that the country was napalming peasants in Vietnam.

His parents gave him practical gifts and a wristwatch that his mother said would come in handy during his college classes. Martin stayed in his room reading or walked along the country road by the river thinking about the new ideas he had discussed with Bruce.

Martin remained committed to gaining a teaching certificate and he tackled the requirement for a foreign language choosing French. Going into his first term of college French, Martin felt apprehensive. He had never done well in high school Spanish and after his first classes he realized French would be his toughest class at the university. Good grades came easier in his literature, philosophy, English history, and education courses but French eluded him.

By February a new event excited the campus. The Vietnamese guerillas had organized a major attack throughout South Vietnam embarrassing the US military and showing their strength. Called the Tet Offensive, many people reassessed American involvement in the war and this brought a new subject to discuss in the Student Union. Bruce asked Martin over for a talk at his place in the evening.

Martin had not met Bruce’s friends and was interested in the four young men sitting in folding chairs passing around a joint. Sitting down with the others, Martin shared the joint that only increased his anticipation. Bruce sat in his easy chair acting every bit the final authority.

A tall boy with stringy black hair to his shoulders, wearing heavy black glasses, holding a cup of coffee and with his legs sprawled out in front of him began. Hey this war started with lies to begin with. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident has all the earmarks of a trumped up operation the American’s used as an excuse to escalate with more soldiers and more firepower. The whole war has been illegal from the beginning because the Americans didn’t support the Geneva Accords of 1954. After the French were defeated, the Vietnamese were supposed to vote on whether they wanted Ho Chi Minh or Diem. Of course the mass of the population would have voted for Ho because he was for land reforms and peasant empowerment. But the US wanted to contain Ho’s brand of communism so they supported Diem and paid for his puppet armies.

Bruce smoked a camel. The US didn’t learn from the French how hard it is to defeat a guerilla army inspired by Marxist thought. After all Ho had studied in Russia and was a student of Marx and Lenin. He followed Trotsky’s ideas for a while and attempted to get his nation recognized through diplomacy but turned more to Leninist armed revolutionary tactics once he saw the Geneva Accords ignored.

A frail looking boy with heavy glasses, wearing a Jewish scull cap spoke up. You seem to ignore the recent events that are of equal or even larger significance. The Jewish state defeated the Arab aggressors in the recent Five Days War. We must all support the Jewish right to create a state in its homeland. It is as important now days to be a Zionist as it is to criticize American imperialism in Vietnam. Just remember the US has to support Jewish independence as well. You can criticize American’s Asian war but don’t criticize the American military support of Israel.

Oh Manny, you seem to think the British and then American support of the Jewish state is justified just because Hitler persecuted the Jews, the boy with the long black hair called Rick said. What about the Palestinians who lived there before Israel wanted to take their land? It sounds a lot like the persecution and genocide of American Indians when the American’s wanted their land for manifest destiny. You can’t substitute rhetoric and phony idealism for what’s right.

Hey Israel was recognized by the United Nations. It’s a legitimate state. His complaints were ignored as the group became more animated and started yelling at each other.

The conversation stopped as Bruce began. Look at the march on the Pentagon last fall. Did it achieve anything besides media coverage? The government just brought out its troops and arrested all those kids that thought they were going to levitate the pentagon. What a joke. What’s the use of getting beat up and arrested for no reason? The left needs to form a political party that can actually compete against the entrenched system and start some real reforms. All this violence like the Black Panthers advocate won’t get anywhere. I know I was in the navy and there’s no way a bunch of unorganized kids can combat the armies of the entrenched capitalist state.

Another boy spoke up. Well maybe McCarthy offers another antiwar voice for the presidency. I don’t think Johnson looks too good right now.

Rick tossed his stringy black hair. Or Robert Kennedy could win but I doubt McCarthy has much hope, he’s too much of an intellectual and besides he’s ugly.

Ah Kennedy is two faced. Didn’t he support the fifties communist witch-hunts? Besides he’s another of those entrenched eastern aristocrats too connected with the capitalists.

Enthralled by the quick repartee, Martin forgot his reticence. What about Thoreau? He said we should observe nature and learn from its universal laws. Maybe we’re too caught up in urban conflicts and should move out of town.

Thoreau and his transcendentalists were just not motivated for social change, Bruce said. They wanted everybody to live like hermits in the woods, compose perfect essays, and forget about the larger social and political movements. After all how did Thoreau live at Walden? He scrounged off his friends and parents with no conscience. Not much of a role model.

Martin left Bruce’s apartment with many ideas in his head and back in his room listened to a jazz album Bruce had loaned him and thought about all the intense ideas appearing in his life.

Though he attended class Martin couldn’t focus on the lectures. Instead of studying in the evening he listened to records or played the guitar wondering about his changing priorities. Bruce had given him Kapleau’s Three Pillars of Zen, which he studied and tried to meditate, but his mind kept wandering to the heady events talked about in Bruce’s evening gatherings. Bruce convinced Martin to spend ten dollars of his meager expense money to buy a lid of the rough Mexican marijuana and Martin opened his window in his room to smoke an awkwardly rolled joint then feeling the effects of the high wrote long tirades in his journal that seemed to wander off into symbolic dream like passages. He would take up his guitar and spend hours playing minor chords imagining himself as a radical protestor. Then the next morning he would feel guilty for not studying French.

By the start of spring term he attended another gathering at Bruce’s apartment. Only Rick and another young men were present.

Man, the blacks sure got pissed when Martin Luther King got assassinated, Rick said. The rioting made Watts look like a grade school recess. They destroyed everything they could in Chicago and Baltimore.

In his matter of fact tone Bruce answered, "Sure and look at the response of the government. They brought out Army and National Guard troops in every city and killed rioters. There’s no way the authorities are going to allow the blacks to take over the cities. Besides King’s non-violence, and peaceful marches against segregation were winding down. He just didn’t have the support he used to. The riots just gave the Black Panthers more support.

But that’s not the best example, the other boy said. Look at the riots at Columbia in New York. The police brutality there showed that the authorities wouldn’t stand for any student demonstrations either. This time the violence wasn’t against blacks but white middle class kids. You’ve got to expect this kind of repression by a scared power elite. The capitalists won’t allow any political movement they can’t dominate and coerce."

That’s what I’m talking about, Bruce said. The military or the police won’t stand for any questioning of their authority. Those white radicals are ignoring the real boundaries of their revolutionary agenda. Now that Johnson has refused to run for president maybe we can get in an anti war president that will institute some progressive reforms. We might even start a third party based completely on socialist ideas.

The other two boys left and Martin wanted to talk to Bruce about his thoughts on Kapleau’s the Three Pillars of Zen. But Bruce put him off saying he had to study. Martin asked him for another lid of marijuana even though his stash at his room was only half gone. Bruce brought out a baggy but said Martin should slow down. Smoking too much grass can space you out. But Martin discounted his warning because he wanted Bruce to consider him a loyal member of his radical discussion group. Besides he liked the high.

Martin let his hair grow longer though it fell barely to his collar. He wanted to identify with the few long hairs on campus. He would get high in his room with the tall window open and then wander the streets seeing everything in his stoned perception. One of his evening walks took him downtown where he looked at neon lights and laughed at advertisements in windows for televisions and at manikins dressed in conservative clothes. He found his way to a small store front coffee house and once inside sat at a rough wood table, ordered coffee, and listened to amateur musicians singing and playing and realized he could play there too. An older man sat on stage reciting free verse about traveling around the country and as he listened Martin realized he was becoming a counter culture intellectual. Back at his apartment he put on a Bob Dylan album, lit a candle, and watched the light flickering on the ceiling.

Martin made few friends and was too shy to ask girls on dates. Instead he stayed in his room or went to lectures though he began to skip a few classes every week, especially French. He knew he would get a D or an F in French but didn’t care, it didn’t seem important in the face of all the student demonstrations happening and the growing realization he was becoming a part of the radical youth movement that criticized everything his parents stood for. He wrote long journal entries questioning his teaching goal. Was that plan just conforming to his parent’s middle class values? And then he began to worry about getting drafted if his grades fell too low. He would try French for another term then drop it if he couldn’t get a good grade. All he had to do was keep up his grades for a deferment even if the classes didn’t satisfy the requirements for a teacher’s certificate.

By the end of May Martin wanted to see Robert Kennedy who was coming to speak on campus. Students and adults crowded Hayward Field stadium on a sun lit afternoon. Kennedy spoke at a platform set up on the fifty-yard line and Martin admired the man’s handsome good looks, his idealistic phrases, and cheered with the crowd.

Though McCarthy won the Oregon primary Martin thought Kennedy could win in the fall presidential election and bring some stability and sanity to national politics. It turned out Martin’s grades for the term weren’t good. He did get a D in French, the rest were C’s except for a B in Shakespeare. No problem Martin reasoned. He still had a high enough GPA to keep his deferment and avoid getting drafted.

Martin noticed when he met Bruce on campus all he got was a cursory nod of recognition and he hadn’t gotten invited to his room for several weeks. Martin was out of marijuana and one Saturday went to Bruce’s apartment at eight in the morning. He knocked on the door and could hear Bruce groan.

What do you want?

Martin kept his voice low I need some more smoke.

Bruce came to the door in a robe and brought him inside. "What the hell are you doing? You can’t be saying things like that out in the hall. I’m trying to keep a low profile? Besides there’s rumors going around someone is informing on my supplier and his dealers. Some people think it’s you. And its true you seem to act very weird when you get stoned as if you were paranoid or something. You just sit back and watch and never say anything whenever you’re at my place.

But Bruce you’ve got me all wrong. I’m quiet because I’m listening and don’t feel I know enough to say anything. Yes I get paranoid when I smoke weed but I’m no narc.

I don’t know whether you’re a narc or not but I can’t have you coming over anymore and I’m not going to sell you anymore weed. Now get out and let me sleep."

Martin was devastated. How could he lose the one friend he had and the discussions at his apartment? Who could he talk with about books, ideas, and politics especially now that he had started thinking differently about his life? Depressed and unable to find meaning in his studies, Martin decided to attend summer term. Maybe he could earn higher grades by taking fewer classes in subjects he loved. His most exciting course was an upper division class in Hemingway that he relished from the first day. But his confusion and isolation intensified when the news surfaced that Robert Kennedy was assassinated. The national news seemed to crowd in on his attempts to find direction. How could these revered men like Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy be killed when they were symbols of so much hope and moderation between the polarized factions in the country? Distraught and lonely Martin saw all the things he hoped for being destroyed and he had absolutely no control over the events. Unable to concentrate on his studies he lay on his bed thinking about Bruce’s accusations, and his alienation from the students he saw every day.

After practicing a set of four folk songs Martin signed up to play at the coffee house downtown. He displayed his guitar technique and used an unemotional voice to carry the lyrics and message in the songs. Two musicians joined him at his table after his set. A tall thin girl dressed in tight blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a sequined vest flirted with him as he they talked. It was new to be recognized for his music by these performers. The girl claimed she wasn’t from Eugene, and had no place to stay. She didn’t have to worry about her college grades or student conduct and he encouraged her to come to his room. They walked in the night each carrying a guitar case and once inside his room she took off her boots and sat cross-legged on the bed and talked about another planet where people could read minds and her every thought was immediately understood. But it was scary because she could also understand everybody else’s thoughts even if they were critical or violent. Finally Martin sat with her and they began to kiss. She asked why he wanted to make love to her? She wasn’t pretty or interesting to a college boy. But he insisted and continued to caress her until she finally undressed and he saw her thin legs and flat chest, and still wanted her. They stayed awake the entire night talking and smoking cigarettes.

She insisted on dressing at first light and refused his breakfast offer. Instead he walked her down stairs and watched her walk away carrying her guitar and wearing cowboy boots and the sequined vest.

Martin immersed himself in the Hemingway class and read The Sun Also Rises two times and after class wandered the campus and town imagining himself emasculated like Jake Barns. He thought he was an existential hero who must accept life was flat, dark, and uncaring and that he had to expect pain, loneliness, and despair to accept the real world. But he was out of marijuana, didn’t want to approach Bruce, and despite the sun and summer’s warmth he was cold and disgusted inside. He loved to forget his conflicts and read Hemingway’s spare direct prose and tried to copy Hemingway’s style in his journal describing a walk through city streets. After reading A Farewell to Arms Martin wrote a long rambling paper on Frederick Henry’s character and his search for meaning in life. And yet Henry points out that there is no meaning, only unexpected and unexplained sudden tragedy and constant pain and the most heroic response is to keep one’s counsel, be stoic and make choices based on personal values. Martin rewrote the paper several times on his portable typewriter and the professor gave him an A and commented that Martin understood the book’s main theme. The Professor gave the class a reading list that included, Kafka’s Metamorphosis, and Camus’ The Plague. Martin also read Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Heller’s Catch 22.

Cuckoo’s Nest had a strong impact especially when Martin learned that Kesey was from the local area and had gone to the University of Oregon. Martin identified with both the Indian and the heroic Randal McMurphy and understood that the insane asylum was a symbol for a society that wanted to limit and destroy anyone’s attempt to be free and have an open passion and excitement for life.

But it was Kafka’s Metamorphosis that struck Martin as describing his situation. He was disconnected from his family and the people around him, as if like Gregor Samsa he had turned into a giant bug that no one understood or loved. He received an F in another attempt at French in summer school.

By summer term’s end he waited with other students in the TV room at the Student Union for reports from the Democratic convention where young people demonstrated against Humphrey’s foregone selection as the Democratic candidate for President. Humphrey wanted to continue the Vietnam War and also believed in putting down student unrest and revolt. The TV coverage showed Chicago police violently opposing the young protestors. The tear gas attacks, the military presence, and the indiscriminate attacks on reporters reinforced Martin’s anger about America’s war policy.

In his room Martin brooded and knew he no longer supported the American Dream, the goals of his parents, and even his own teaching goal. Yet he was still connected to his parent’s financial support, and he saw no alternative but to stay a student within the college institution with its rules and requirements.

For fall term, Martin enrolled in as few classes as possible just to retain his status as a full time student. But before he went to his first class the big news on campus blaring from the college newspaper was a bombing at the local Marine National Guard training center across town where several vehicles were destroyed. Martin wondered if he would join with a radical organization and commit violence against authority and the national war policies? But he knew no radicals on campus and was afraid to get involved.

A few days after fall term started someone bombed and burned