“Yage? You have yage in there?” I ask. ”You know who William Burroughs is?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“Have you read The Yage Letters?”
“No.”
“It’s a collection of letters that Burroughs sent to Ginsberg while he was searching for yage in the jungles of, uh, Colombia .”
“Yeah, I’ve heard about it.”
“He said yage was like witnessing the first day of creation.”
I’m in the kitchen of a wealthy friend, Henry, and I’m standing before his magic refrigerator. He started the first Haight-Ashbury coffeehouse and later the biggest and one of the earliest head shops, and his refrigerator is legendary for its drug exotica. I bought a rare African mushroom from there a few months ago.
We’re casual not close friends. I’ve partied here at his remodeled Victorian on a hill above the Haight. My best friend’s ol’ lady is one of his employees, and Henry is desperately, hopelessly, pathetically in love with her.
“You can have it if you want,” Henry adds.
“You’re giving it away?”
“Yeah, I’m not sure how good it is. I’ve had it for a while.”
I’ve never known him to give away drugs. But then I realize he’s showing off for the two comely chicks I brought along. Julie and Colleen are clerks at the San Rafael Post Office, where I’m a carrier. I’ve also brought my roommate, Doug, an assembler of automatic pool-cleaners and a bassist. We’ve come to score some super hash I’ve heard about.
“Yeah, God, Henry, thanks so much, that’s… that’s so generous…” I say and look over at the chicks.
I invited them along in part to impress them and this is pretty impressive. To me anyway. They’ve got blank expressions. But my luck with them is about to get much better.
“Sure, you’re welcome,” Henry says. “But you don’t have to get it now. You can take it when you leave. You wanna use the sauna?”
EUREKA ! That’s what I was hoping for. I look at the chicks and then at Doug whose eyes are twinkling.
“You want to?” I ask the chicks.
“Yeah, sure,” says perky red-headed Julie. “Sounds… groovy.”
She looks at Colleen who is less sure and who says “Yeah…o.k.…sure...”
“O.k.,” I say leading the way down the hall to the sauna at the back of the house. “Thanks again Henry!”
The chicks are pretty young, about seven years younger than me, and, though eighteen would be a fairly old virgin in the early Seventies, I’ll learn later that both are. It occurs to me now they may not realize they’re going to have to be naked. Saunas are not common at this time. So when we reach the dressing room, I immediately start unbuttoning my shirt, and, if they didn’t already know it, they get the message.
Conspicuous silence as we undress. There is an awkward moment for Colleen before she begins, but Julie is naked before Doug and I. And he and I don’t even pretend not to look. She has globular breasts with nipples like pink cookies, and below, a shout of orange bush.
She absorbs a jolt of our awe, then, flattered, blushing, asks “In here?” while gesturing toward the door to the sauna.
“Yeah,” I say, dazed.
She opens the heavy door and, after a quick glance at our dicks, goes in. Colleen meanwhile has misplaced her shirt and stumbles over clutter looking for it. She wants to place it on top of her jeans and panties.
Doug is short, pale, and skinny with a dark shaggy Beatle-cut and goatee, and right now, he has a grin radiant with idiot glee. But he’s not sure which chick he’s supposed to be with. Neither am I. I invited him along as a favor to him and to take care of whichever one I didn’t want. I don’t know which that is because I haven’t dated either. Right now we’re just friendly co-workers getting together one night after work. Doug nods toward the sauna silently asking if he should follow Julie. I nod yes.
I’m feeling a host’s responsibility to watch over Colleen. We’re all quite stoned on a sample of Henry’s high-quality hash. She eventually puts her shirt on her jeans then I lead her into the sauna. Her breasts are small whip-cream waves with brown-dot nipples and her bush a brown wisp. Her butt is too broad.
We sit together, me, Colleen, Doug, and Julie, silent in the smothering heat, not completely sure what to do besides sweat. It’s time for the host to step in.
“Oh yeah,” I say and stand. “If you’re interested, he’s got all these ointments and oils. That’s what those bottles are on that shelf. He sells that stuff in his store. It’s for…rubbing on…”
I fall silent, suddenly realizing the sexual potential. But I can’t focus on that too hard. Doug and I are already fighting erections.
“And those heated rocks over there… Have you been in a sauna before?” I ask the chicks.
They reluctantly shake their heads.
“Oh, well, if you want it hotter, you put the water in that bucket on those heated rocks. Or if it’s too hot, you pour the water on yourself.”
Fortunately, the wood bench is a little short for the four of us and I have an excuse for pressing against Colleen when I sit back down. I can now finally see beyond her nudity. She is confused and uncomfortable. I have recently ended a three year relationship, and that ol’ lady and I had a term for my sudden, inescapable psychological dislocations (paralyzing flashbacks to disastrous speed trips of ‘67). We called it“tuning out.” You can’t connect with your surroundings no matter what you try and eventually, in my case, panic and paranoia set in. I recognize that Colleen is tuned out from the hash.
If she doesn’t have a body of Julie’s quality, she does have what I noticed earlier tonight is an extraordinary face. Though she is naked, I’m stealing glances at the face. She is beautiful, that is immediately obvious, but tonight I entered the nuances and subtleties of her features. First are the eyes, huge brown doe-eyes, incredibly expressive. Her olive skin is flawless. Her teeth, even and glowing. Her lips, Jeanne Moreau’s. All framed in fine, lank chestnut hair parted in the middle and hanging to mid back.
When she laughs hard, pain shows in an indentation of her left eyebrow.
“Where’s the bathroom?” Doug asks.
“Huh? …” I say. “Oh, uh…” Colleen turns toward me so I have to leave the face. I concentrate to remember and then say, “Oh, that way.” I point. “End of the hall and left.”
Doug gets up and leaves, letting in a chill, and I am alone with the chicks. But so what? What do I do next? I’m too hot, so I get up, step over to the bucket, scoop the wooden ladle full of water and pour it on my back. I pour another ladleful over my head. Then I return the ladle to the bucket and turn around to face the chicks, who are staring at my dick.
Julie raises her eyes and smiles at me, eager, inviting. Colleen turns away scowling. That does it. I’m going after Julie. I gesture toward the shelf and start to ask if she would like me to rub-on an ointment but Doug reenters and sits next to her. I pause, hand in the air, considering.
Then Colleen stands and says, “I don’t feel good,” and rushes out the door.
Julie watches her, concerned, and seems on the verge of following her when I say, “I’ll see if she’s alright.”
I sigh with exasperation and go out. Colleen is going into the bathroom as I enter the changing room. I’m suddenly cold and think about going back into the sauna but realize I should give Doug his chance with Julie. So I stand and wait and shiver. The toilet flushes and eventually Colleen comes out.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“Not so good. I threw up,” she says and reaches for her panties.
“Oh,” I say and feel foolish when I ask out of desperation, “Wanna go back into the sauna?”
“No, I better not,” she says, stepping into the panties.
I realized the evening was over and, disgruntled, went back into the sauna and told them about Colleen. I also told them to take their time, then, like the dutiful host, I went back out to keep Colleen company. Doug and Julie emerged minutes later and I distractedly dressed while Julie hid away that body.
Later, when he and I were driving home alone in my VW bug, Doug laughed about my confusion when we dropped the chicks off. Standing in the parking lot between our cars, saying good night, I knew a hug was in order and evidently my head comically went back and forth and back and forth. Julie ended the indecision by leaping into my arms, kissing me on the lips, then hugging me. When she released me, I turned to Colleen… who was already walking to the driver’s side of her Volvo. She said thanks and good night.
I was pissed. But only until I remembered I had yage, Burroughs’grail drug.
For a few nights I jerked off to fantasies of Julie, but within weeks I was in love with Colleen, desperately, hopelessly, pathetically. For five years. Actually, though love may have been mixed in there somewhere, it was more like a pathological obsession. When the pain exceeded the hope and I was desperate to escape, I facetiously described it to friends as a “fetishistic attachment.” She was the long-missing high school steady, among other things. Throughout the whole ordeal, I was detached, analytical, and helpless.
Was it an addiction as bad as junk? Of course not. Though, at least with junk, you have the option of kicking.
Shortly after that night in the sauna, I took a long-planned vacation trip alone to visit friends on the East Coast. That was when I accidentally scored a half hour alone with Burroughs. And the yage made it possible.
