Dealing or The Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues Read online

  “Oh.” He mulled that one over. “Yeah. Hold on.”

  Then there was a silence. I stared around my room and lit a cigarette and blinked in the smoke.

  “Hello?” Dazed voice.

  “Hello, Sukie?”

  “Who is this?” Really dazed.

  “Sukie, what’s going on out there?”

  “What?” She was beginning to wake up. “Who is this?”

  I thought I heard some sound in the background. Some sound in the room. “Are you alone?”

  “Goddamn it,” she said. “Who is this?”

  “Peter,” I said.

  She laughed. Three thousand miles away, I heard that laugh, and it made me smile. “Oh, Peter,” she said. “It’s seven-thirty in the morning.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  There was a yawn at the other end, then, “How was your exam?”

  That made me happy. She’d remembered I was going back to take an exam.

  “Terrible. I thought about you the whole time.”

  “What kind of an exam was it?”

  “Economics.”

  “Peter, that’s not good, you thought about me during an economics exam?” And after another yawn: “What did you think?”

  Hmm, what did I think? That was a drag over the telephone. “Oh, you know.”

  There was a pause. A short pause while she woke up still more. “You wanted to know if I was alone,” she said, her voice low and amused.

  “No,” I said, “you weren’t awake. I asked how you were.”

  “I’m not alone, Peter,” she said. “When you called I was in bed with eight puppies.”

  “I didn’t ask you whether you were alone,” I said.

  She gave a low laugh. “Peter, you’re sweet, do you know that?”

  Well, that was it. Like walking out on a limb, and finally the limb snaps. I looked around the room, the goddamned dreary room, and I said, “Listen, I want to see you.”

  She laughed again. “I want to see you, too.”

  And then in a sudden rush I said, “Then why don’t you come out here?”

  “To Cambridge?”

  “Sure.”

  “How, Peter?”

  “I don’t know. There must be some way.”

  She asked me then if I had any money. I didn’t. I asked her. She didn’t. Swell.

  “Swell,” I said.

  It was quiet on the line. A kind of depressing quiet.

  “Maybe,” I said, “I can figure out some way to come out there.” But I knew it wasn’t true. In a few weeks I would have to start studying for finals. She must have known it wasn’t true, too, because she sounded sleepy again when she said, “All right, Pete.”

  “No, really. I’ll figure something out.”

  “I know. I believe you.”

  And I guess in a way she did. Finally she said she was costing me money, and I said the hell with the money, but I couldn’t really afford to say that, so I hung up and realized that I was very tired and that I wanted to sleep for a long time.

  30

  I DIDN’T WAKE UP UNTIL lunchtime the next day. I am a man of few vices, one of them most unquestionably being the time I spend with my eyes closed. But as soon as I was up I was remembering Sukie, and the phone call, and all she’d said.

  I caught up with John in the dining hall, and joined him over a plate of sawdust and beans.

  John looked up and smiled. “Peter,” he said. “How’s the head today?”

  “Fine. How’re the eats?”

  “Awful,” said John. “I didn’t expect to see you for quite a while. Heard you had a little trouble with that economics exam yesterday.”

  “Trouble?” I tried to look surprised.

  “Heard you barely finished.”

  I sighed. I thought he’d been talking about the Senior Tutor. I get messages from the Senior Tutor three times a year: after fall-term hour exams, after mid-terms, and after spring-term hour exams. I was expecting one any day now, but at least it hadn’t arrived yet.

  “No, that was no trouble,” I said. “Just had better things to think about.”

  John laughed, and then frowned at his potatoes.

  “Jesus,” he said, “what the hell is that?” He held a clump aloft for all to admire.

  Somebody said, “A hairpin.”

  “A hairpin, Jesus,” John said. “I could get lockjaw or something from eating this crap. Look at it, it’s rusty.”

  I’d had enough to eat right then. “Heard from Musty?” I asked.

  John looked up sharply. “Any reason why I should’ve?”

  I had to play this one right. I didn’t want to keep anything from John but then again I didn’t want him to fuck me up, which he undoubtedly would if he had time to do so. All I said was, “No. Nothing special.”

  John dropped his potatoes and lit up a smoke. “Okay,” he said, “what’s the big secret?”

  “No secret.”

  “Well, then, what’s all this garbage about Musty? C’mon, Peter, I’ve known you too long to just think you’re wondering out loud when you drop something like that.”

  “Like what? Christ, you’re as paranoid as all these other creeps.” I spread an arm out to encompass the dining hall, which was filled with guys studying over their meals. “You’ve just got a different angle on the paranoia, that’s all.”

  “Uh-huh.” John nodded grimly. He blew some smoke in my direction. “Then who were you calling after the exam yesterday? Not Musty, by any chance?”

  I had to laugh. John managed to have a finger on anything that went down.

  “No, not Musty. I was talking to a chick.”

  John put his smoke out and laughed heavily. “A chick, eh? Not a California honey, by any chance? Yes?” He sat back and sipped at his coffee. “Far out,” he said, “far fucking out.”

  “What’s far out?”

  “Nothing. It just makes sense, why you’ve been blowing your mind ever since you got back here two days ago. And me thinking it was the climate.” He laughed again. “Far fucking out.” He looked suddenly serious and leaned over to me, across the table. “What’d she tell you about Musty?”

  “I told you already. Nothing.”

  “Then what’s this riff all about?”

  “I was just wondering if you had any more trips lined up, in the near future.”

  “California trips?”

  “No, mescaline trips.”

  “What’s wrong with you, you got blue balls after a couple of days around this lady?”

  “You might say that. You might just say I want to see her. What difference does that make? You got any trips lined up, or don’t you?”

  John searched his coat for another butt. “Not in the near future. Not till after exams, I’d say.” He cocked his head and said, “But even if I had a run lined up, you wouldn’t be able to do it …” letting the statement wander off into a question. I knew what he was asking.

  “Aw, hell,” I said, “I could probably work something out.”

  John took a long drag on his smoke and nodded. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s good to hear you say that, Pete, ’cause I wouldn’t want you going around with some kind of wild misconception in your head about me letting a chick run the dope in.”

  I searched around for another smoke and thought that one over. I’d known he would say that—John never let chicks in on his deals. It was a completely bullshit prejudice, because chicks were cooler for a run, if anything, than a long-haired dude could ever be. Most big dealers on the Coast, in fact, used only chicks—but I wasn’t on the Coast and I wasn’t talking to a Coast dealer. I was talking to John.

  “Supposing,” I began, “supposing you couldn’t get anyone around here to do the run? Would you consider letting her do it then?”

  John looked pained. “Peter,” he said, “you don’t seem to understand. You know how I feel but you don’t seem to understand. Well, I’ll tell it to you all over again.” He
paused and then said, very deliberately and carefully, “Chicks … fuck … up.” He looked at me.

  “I was just wondering.”

  “Well, you can stop wondering.”

  “Even if you couldn’t get anyone around here, and you had a run set up and a courier was all you needed, you wouldn’t let her do it?”

  John was quiet when he said, “Never. Never, never, never. I’d change the run, I’d can the run—Christ, I’d even do it myself. But I’d never count on a chick to get anything through. Chicks fuck up.”

  I shrugged, and stood up. There wasn’t anything else to say. I knew that if Musty called in a few days and told John that he only had a day or two to get somebody out to San Francisco to make a quick run before he split for Oregon, John would bust his ass to get somebody. What I’d been hoping was that John would at least admit the possibility of letting Sukie be that somebody. But he wouldn’t, so I had to get to her. There was no other way.

  31

  I NEEDED A HUNDRED AND sixty bucks to get to the Coast on a plane. I wouldn’t have needed anything to hitch, but I didn’t have the time for that. So it was all or nothing, and after a few minutes in front of the Student Union Jobs board I began to think it was going to be nothing. I could get two-fifty an hour translating Sanskrit into German for Professor Popcock, which wasn’t exactly my field, or I could get two-eighty bartending on weekends. But I’d already turned down a few of the bartending boys’ jobs in order to make the run, and they took an exceedingly dim view of those who didn’t exercise the right to work when it was waved in their faces. I could go in there bleeding right now, on my knees, begging for a gig, and they’d tell me to beat it. That left a kitchen job as the only real alternative, at one-eighty an hour, which would be two fifty-hour weeks, and I was just about to run down and sign up when I noticed a little note saying that students couldn’t work more than twenty hours a week. Far out, that was about all I had to say.

  I went out into the courtyard to take a walk and think.

  Once outside, I met Herbie, who was going to the library. I walked along with him, and asked him how I could make a lot of money in a short time. He said, “Eye Tee Gee.”

  “What?”

  “Get yourself twenty shares of ITG. In six weeks, you’ll be rich.”

  “What?”

  “ITG,” he said patiently. He had learned, in his seventeen years, to be patient. “Over the counter. It’s really taking off.”

  “How much is twenty shares?”

  “Two hundred dollars,” Herbie said.

  I said I didn’t have it.

  And Herbie, to my dismay, said he didn’t know any other way.

  “Are you sure?”

  Herbie sighed. “Peter,” he said, “you’re talking about legal bread, right?”

  “Yeah. Legal bread.”

  “Well, that’s a problem, making money fast and legally,” Herbie said, as if it was something I really should have learned a long time ago.

  32

  I WANDERED AROUND THE NEXT two days, looking for jobs and asking people what they knew, but nothing turned up. I was just starting to think that hitchhiking wasn’t such a bad idea when I got the note from the Senior Tutor. That was the end. I knew what he’d want. He’d want to tell me that I’d screwed the economics exam—probably royally—and that if I continued to screw things he wasn’t going to be able to help me very much, except to plead my case before the Ad Board and try to keep them from booting me out. Which was cool, his concern and all, but that wasn’t really what went down at a meeting with the Senior Tutor. Those meetings consisted mainly of him telling you how much he worried about you and your work and your habits, which was a drag, and they always ended with him asking you a lot of nosy questions he didn’t really want the answers to, but somehow felt compelled to ask. His field was the minor poets of the eighteenth century, that was the kind of dude he was. Well, the hell with it. I had to go and see him.

  He met me at the door of his study, and escorted me to a padded chair with an arm under my elbow.

  “Well, Harkness.”

  “Sir.”

  “Well, sit down.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I sat down. As I did he turned away from me, to look out the window. All I could see of him were his hands, which twisted and turned as he built up steam for our little chat. Finally he turned again to face me.

  “Harkness, you probably know why I’ve called you in today.”

  “Sir.”

  “I said, you probably know why I’ve called you in.”

  “Yes, sir. I have a fairly good idea.”

  “A fairly good idea. Ah-ha.” He went over to his desk and began to fill his pipe. The Senior Tutor had a way of repeating things that you’d said as if they were meant to be funny. It was not very amusing.

  “And what would that fairly good idea be, may I ask?”

  “I suppose that I screwed that economics exam yesterday.”

  “You suppose that you—ah-ha, yes. You mean to say that you suppose that you did poorly on the exam.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You did poorly, Harkness, you did very poorly.” Pausing to light his pipe. “You flunked it, as a matter of fact.”

  “Sir.”

  “I said you flunked it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well,” he said, looking up from behind billows of smoke. “Is that all you have to say?”

  “What else is there to say?” I said. “What’s done is done.”

  He smiled benevolently at that. It was one of his favorite sayings. “Well, yes,” he said. “Now I assume that you know what your failure means?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “It means that your period of academic probation will not end this spring, but will continue next fall. Until the end of the fall term,” he explained.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  Having finished with that, the Tutor seemed suddenly relieved. He sat down in front of me on the edge of his desk, as if to show me how he was letting his hair down. Business was done, and now it was time for an intimate chat.

  “Now, Harkness,” he said. “I’ve been looking through your folder. While I’ve been waiting for you, you see, just glancing through. But I must say that I don’t understand your case at all. Not at all.”

  “Sir?”

  “I’ve been looking at your high school records, both scholastic and athletic. And your recommendations. And the comments of your freshman proctor and advisers, that sort of thing.”

  “Sir.”

  “And I don’t understand it at all. You’re not performing up to expectations, Harkness. You know that, of course.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes. Well, I was wondering if you could give me any clues as to why. From all the indications of your record, you should have been a sort of Harvard Frank Merriwell.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Bloated ass-hole.

  “I’ve been wondering if there are any problems you might be having. Personal problems, family problems, financial problems? That I might assist you in straightening out?” He looked at me, but I tried to look blank. “After all,” he said expansively, “that’s what I’m here for.”

  “No, sir,” I said. “I don’t think there are. But thank you anyway.” Nosy bastard.

  “Well, Harkness,” he went on, “I was wondering, because I’ve noticed a certain trend in your behavioral development, if I may say so. For example, you came here all All-American in football, and yet you quit after the first half of the season.”

  “Well, sir,” I said, “if you knew the coach, I think—”

  “Now, now,” he said, holding up his pipe, “just let me finish. You quit playing football, and shortly after that your grades dropped. The next year, last year that is, you were involved in one of the radical student political organizations that we tolerate here on campus. And you achieved some prominence in that endeavor. But you quit that too. Now, during this year, you haven’t pursued any organize
d activities that I know of, so you haven’t quit anything. But it doesn’t seem to me that you’ve been doing anything, either, Harkness, if you will permit me to say so.”

  “Sir,” I said. Nothing more. The imbecile.

  “Well,” he said, “do you have anything to say?”

  “In my defense, sir?” I cocked my head.

  “Oh, come now, Harkness,” he said, getting off his desk, “that’s distorting my meaning quite deliberately, don’t you think? I’m not trying to accuse you of anything, I’m trying to help you.”

  “Thank you, sir. But I don’t think I need anyone’s help right now but my own.”

  “As you wish,” he said.

  “Thank you, sir,” again.

  “Well,” he said, “hope you do better next round. And if anything comes up, don’t hesitate to come and see me. My secretary will make an appointment for you.” Edging me to the door.

  “Thank you, sir,” again.

  “It’s normally a week or so from the appointment to the meeting, but if you feel that you have something important to discuss, we could make it a day or two, you know.”

  “Thank you, sir,” again.

  He opened the door, looked out at his secretary and the crowded sitting room, and then closed it.

  “There is just one more thing I should like to say to you, Harkness. As regards your record.”

  “Sir.” Here we go again. The old fart could never find a last word that really suited him, so he just dribbled on endlessly.

  “Sit down, Harkness, sit down.” He filled his pipe and snuggled into his chair. “It’s not exactly my field,” he began, “but I’ve made a quite extensive study of the man and his work. And I think that, in some ways, my conclusions about him can be applied to you, as well.”

  “Sir?” I said. What was this routine?

  “De Quincey,” he said, “Thomas De Quincey. Are you familiar with his work?” Puffing on his pipe fatuously.

  “Only vaguely,” I said, thinking, Of course I am, moron.

  “Yes,” he went on, as though he would’ve been disappointed if I’d said anything else. “A very interesting fellow, De Quincey was.” He paused and looked at me. “Is, I should say, in light of your case.”