A Long Strange Trip by Dennis Mcnally Read Free Book Online

collarbone and bruises after being blown through the windshield by a crash so violent and furious he would never be able to recall it. All he knew was that he had been seated in a car and next found himself squatting barefoot in a field. A hundred feet away he could see the car, a lump of twisted metal which closely resembled a flattened beer can, sod and dirt drilled into its roof. His shoes were underneath the front seat. No one seemed to be responding to the accident, so he eventually walked over to the hospital and reported it. A little later Gary (no one could ever recall his last name), the psychic party guest, left the Chateau and on his way home had to pull over for an ambulance. He knew immediately whom it was for.
    Since Garcia had no veteran’s benefits, he spent a long and painful night without medication reading ancient copies of
Life.
Eventually, an ambulance took him to a local clinic, where X rays ascertained nothing was too horribly smashed. Executing a swift exit before someone tried to make him pay, he laid up on a friend’s couch for a few days and healed.
    Not the least of the reasons Garcia had been attracted to Speegle was that, of his new Palo Alto crowd, Paul had developed his art the most deeply. The excitement of a new comrade and brother was replaced by grief, a slingshot that whirled Garcia into a new seriousness and gave his life a profound sense of urgency and purpose. The delayed gratification of painting lost its meaning, and he gravitated to the real-time immediacy and dynamic interplay possible in making music. This second of the deaths in his life had an enormous impact. Instead of crippling him, as had his father’s death, Speegle’s death gave him focus. His life after the accident would be a lucky bonus to be cherished. Even though there were no obvious immediate changes in his behavior, the accident marked a fundamental turning point in his life. Garcia would remain an amusing, gregarious bum, living a life as far from the nine-to-five pattern as possible. He would still be undisciplined, but now he would become obsessive. The guitar would become an extension of his hands, ears, and mind, and for years few would remember him without an instrument in his hands. Implicitly, Paul Speegle would be memorialized with every song.
    It was a normal afternoon in the spring of 1961 at St. Michael’s Alley, a coffeehouse on University Avenue in Palo Alto. Vern Gates, the owner, was tired of Jerry Garcia, Alan Trist, and their new friend Robert Hunter, their long conversations and infrequent purchases. Named after the location of the first London coffeehouse, the Alley was media bohemia for the early sixties, offering chess, a lovely and aloof young woman singing esoteric folk songs, and instant coffee sold from an elaborate brass pot. The three friends were working on a play.
    As Hunter depicted it in a contemporary but never-published
roman
à clef,
“The dialogue’s beginning to drag a little,” Trist said, “so we’ve decided to write in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius for act twelve.” Then he described how amid decadence and enough action for ten normal plays, a small black beetle at center stage would contemplate the eternal truths until, about to utter them, it would be squished by an elephant.
    “We expect to run through several beetles in rehearsals,” Garcia admitted.
    “The essential strategy will be to charge no admission but lock the doors and charge a fee to get out,” concluded Alan.
    “You all sit here and don’t buy anything,” griped Gates. “That alone costs me more than you’re all worth . . . but you not only scare away potential customers, you
drive away
any that have been paying.”
    “But look at it this way,” Jerry answered. “It’s your
business,
but it’s
our
home.”
    Alan added, “Besides, sir, the colossal scheme of things seems to dictate that we sit here, which, in due course, we do. You stand in danger of jeopardizing the whole structure of