When did the room start spinning? While all around me engaged Reverend David The Candle Maker I had, as usual, kept my mouth shut and observed. But my vision was now blurred and my hearing muffled. Still, I reached for another beer - who could resist this stuff? It was courage in a bottle; it granted me a sense of self-confidence, of daring, of all the things I wished I might be.
I was horrified to realize that I was speaking. I had taken hold of some tourist at the next table and held him by the arm as I babbled incoherently into his face. As luck would have it, the poor creature broke free of my grasp and escaped out the door. No matter. I had friends, comrades, accomplices. Each of them looked to be in the same state I was in. Every one of us was talking at the same time. Maybe I did belong after all.
We staggered out into the warm summer night and wobbled along Notre Dame across the old steel land-bridge to the comfort of 1201. I passed out on the kitchen floor as contented as a pig in shit. This was my first public drunk and I liked it a lot. It would not be my last.
I woke up with my head resting on a Hoover vacuum under the kitchen table. John was sitting on a chair next to me sipping coffee and rolling cigarettes while Lindsay scribbled on a notepad. Geoff helped Jocelyn cook up a huge pan full of scrambled eggs - crashing in a stranger’s three room tenement with seven men, most of whom were not her husband, could not have been how she had dreamed of her honeymoon as a little girl - the mouth-watering aroma made me aware of how hungry I was. I sat up and welcomed my first hangover. I felt wonderful!
Last night I had been part of the party; not an observer but a participant. Regrettably, the magical confidence that I had experienced did not linger into the harsh light of day. No matter, I knew how to get it back.
John peered over his half-rolled cigarette at me like an old man. Lindsay didn’t even notice me there. Keith was helping Steve fix something on his bass in the front room. Jocelyn and Geoff went around to each person spooning out platefuls of the steaming hot eggs. Jim was sitting on an unmade bed in the adjoining bedroom reading the newspaper. He stood up and announced, “Okay. Pack it up ... We’re leaving.”
We were not enthusiastic. Last night was enchanting. We had fallen in love with Montreal. She had seduced us with her charm and had made sweet passionate love to us. We told Jim that we refused to go ... we would never leave! ... Never!
As our tiny convoy drove out of town heading east my heart was breaking. Jim reminded us that we had set out to reach Halifax and immerse our souls in the Atlantic Ocean. We couldn’t abandon our quest just because our head was turned by every pretty little town that winked at us. Reluctantly, we knew he was right. It was almost seventeen hundred more kilometers to Halifax and what we thought would be the end of our journey.
Certainly, there is a sense of great accomplishment in driving across Canada; it's seven thousand, seven hundred kilometers from Victoria BC to Saint John's NL. It is an especially difficult journey when squashed into a van full of sharp and pointy instruments even when you are together with the guys you love the most.
You gain an understanding of the vastness of the land and the diversity of the people. The laidback westerners of British Columbia, the heart of the flatlanders in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the industrious people of Ontario, the passion of the French and the English alike in Quebec, the hospitality of Maritimers in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island and the warmth of the best people on earth, the Newfies of Newfoundland.
So, when I first spotted the Atlantic Ocean, it took my breath away. I had always thought of the Atlantic as angrier than the Pacific. It didn’t look mad this day. Gentle waves lapped onto the rocks where our pilgrimage ended just north of Peggy's Cove Nova Scotia. The water stretched out to the horizon all blue and green with millions of sparkling whitecaps flashing in the sun. It was a glorious sight. John ceremoniously collected Atlantic sand into a jar to take home. Steve unceremoniously pissed into the bay ... We’d been in the van for a long time!
Most of the coastline of Nova Scotia is jagged and rocky. We made camp on the rocks near the water in Peggy’s Cove. Then we set out to establish ourselves in the nearby city of Halifax. It didn’t take long to realize that, if we were going to change the world, it was not going to initiate from Halifax. There was not really much of a scene there in those days and it was not our mission to start one. We set up in the campsite and played a set for our neighbours just so we could say that we‘d played the east coast. Then we threw everything back into Sub-A-Lub and headed for La Belle Province and our destiny in Montreal. I loved Halifax but it wasn't our time to be there. As we drove out of town we sang:
(sung to the tune of:
Yes! We Have No Bananas,
the great show tune by Frank Silver & Irving Cohn)
Yes! We have no va-scotia
We have no va-scotia today
It was late in August when we took over Clair’s apartment on Notre Dame Est. The eight of us, including Jocelyn, were living in three rooms along with two girls who were friends of Clair’s and a patriotic American youth named Frederick Dean Jefferson III who was forced to flee to Canada to avoid getting dead or worse in the jungles of Viet Nam. Frederick was an odd looking guy, kind of like one of Robert Crumb’s freaky characters in Zap Comix. But, he came from excellent stock, was highly intelligent and well educated, and he had some far-fucking-out dope.
There was no language barrier in the lessons of love that I learned in Montreal that summer. For a guy who had only dreamed of sex until four months ago I was now living huge in reality. I discovered the meaning and application of the Latin terms, cunnilingus and the treat, fellatio, I participated in scientific experiments called orgies and practiced the ancient Greek idiom, 'three-some' which translates to, 'me and two sisters'.
One time I was fooling around with this very nice college girl named Agnes but, as I had become momentarily entangled with a girl who had been sitting beside her, Geoff took Agnes by the hand and led her into his little alcove; under the amenable eye of Jocelyn of course - They had what could be called an open marriage. Agnes did not seem immediately thrilled with this idea but after Geoff got her motor running she decided that she had to have everybody in the house so she went methodically from one to the next until she had fucked us all. Strangely, this behavior by women who took it upon themselves to do-the-band became more and more commonplace as the years wore on.
Late that night I was awakened by screaming. My sleeping place was on the floor was by the bathroom door. Blurry-eyed, I could see Keith and Frederick huddled over Lindsay who was writhing on the floor holding his penis. Then I saw blood; lots of blood. Everyone was fumbling, uncomfortably to apply a toilet paper bandage to the wounded appendage. They got it under control and Lindsay sat naked on the toilet holding it gingerly in both hands. He had somehow torn it open in mid-thrust. The poor girl responsible was in hysterics sobbing about her body being dangerous and her vagina a weapon.
The danger aside, for most of that summer, there was someone having sex in some room twenty-four hours a day every day. There literally was a line-up of girls out in front on Notre Dame.
One sunny afternoon Frederick supplied us with some free LSD and John, Steve and I went with Keith to buy a little food. Keith drove Sub-A-Lub with Steve riding shotgun and John and I in the back. I stared out at the sights of Montreal. At the time it was the most exciting city in North America. It was cosmopolitan, sophisticated and vibrant. In my heightened psychedelic state, I gawked at the bustling businessmen in their fine European suits and ogled the gorgeous women in their exquisite, stylish outfits. I spotted two men strolling along the sidewalk. It was folksinger Pete Seeger with his banjo in a pack on his back and the son of legendary folk hero Woody Guthrie, Arlo Guthrie of the famous song Alice’s Restaurant. They seemed to have an aura around them.
We spent the night smoking dope and grooving to the spooky but very cool Dr. John’s Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya-Ya:
They call me Dr. John,
I'm known as the Night Tripper,
Got a satchel of gris-gris in my hand,
Got many clients that come from