Youth, 1974

All things are possible to the brash youth in his first foray into the world, once he gets his feet wet. Now he knows the ropes, and feels comfortable hobnobbing with the great and powerful, or with the lowly and streetwise. He walks with angels and demons, matching them stride for stride.

With psychic powers turned up high, he converses by night with Nixon, Hitler, Lucifer himself. Accosted by Steppenwolf in the guise of a Frisco wharf rat, he maintains his innocent smile. Drives Nate Thurman's Rolls, barely managing to reach the pedals; sleeps with the boss's daughter. Buys a hot little sportscar convertible, spins out on a mountain road between cliff and cliff, dances in the streets of Hollywood. An avant-garde artiste and darling of the new theatre, he appears on cable TV and wows the old ladies of the Mt. Davidson Easter Sunrise Society. He takes a breather in the Nevada desert, the Yosemite snow-swept wilds, the Tahoe ski-hills.

Oil embargo! - Step right up, he'll fill your quota of gas today. Hearst kidnapped! - he'll read it hot from the Berkeley newstand. Watergate! - he'll check out the testimony live from his air freight office, between pages of Jung and The Last Temptation of Christ.

He can apply to sell ingots for the Kaiser Steel empire, and then volunteer in the dusty courtyard of the free school to teach children arts. He can paint your bathroom or exterior siding, service your airplane or send your car through the speed-wash. When he loses his new job he can go back to his old one, find free housing with old friends.

He can spend a chill night on a wilderness ridge among lions and wolves; take the part of the police lieutenant in Arsenic and Old Lace. Truly, all things are possible . . .

***

This footloose felix is you; you are he; so to you I say, explore, young man, while you're in the West! Glory in the expansiveness of your condition, your culture and stage of life, the era in which you live. Write your poems and have a class of dancers perform them to your taste; direct the gifted generation-to-come, in ritual dramas of your selection. Dream of Allen Ginsberg, and the next day walk beside him to his poetry reading in your neighborhood. Accept the gift of stolen drugs, pop a few shamelessly, and watch as nothing happens.

Fall asleep while driving the Bay Bridge in the middle of the night - see if God cares. He does, it turns out. Why? You don't know. You spin the roulette wheel, calling Four. Four comes up. Delighted, you try Five. Five arrives. Pushing your luck, you call Six - why not? And by now more delighted than shocked with the ease of it all, you watch the ball wobble and bounce, and land - in Six. Appalled with the possibilities, you go to Reno where your buddy works, and try the wheel. The cards. The dice. Nothing's going your way. Down to your last nickel, you drop it in the slot, pull the long greasy handle. It chinks through its gears, clunks home; the little pictures whirr: and you see fifteen bucks worth of change come tumbling out at your feet. Okay, a new stake. Back to the crap table, and with three throws you walk away eighty dollars richer, in a mood to use the last of those free drink tickets.

You've come from Baltimore to Oakland: and so does the American league baseball crown. You go to watch them meet in the playoffs, predict correctly the game-winning hitter and pitcher, then in the parking lot after the game, stand in mad passionate rapture with your date, while the crowd walks past in another world.

It's all very nice with her for a while, but not going anywhere because you've already made plans to move on. Thing is, the traffic's got to be a bit too much. You're tired of pumping gas, of teaching kids for the love of art. You've had your days of revelation on the foggy cliffs beside the Golden Gate. You've trod the distant mountains now, and their call is under your skin . . .

***

And so he retreats to the still pellucid grove of academe, where his jarred senses and world-honed ego can be soothed once more in the dreamy tones of poesy, the abstract ruminations of finer-tuned souls. Here he can escape the rat race of the city, the traffic jams, the singles bars, the hucksters and mad-eyed preachers of the streets, the jive and the hustle and the double-cross.

He can find his mushrooms wild here, in the tangled Canadian bush: no matter that he still doesn't have positive identification; they pass through him without effect. Again, he is lucky; no further ahead, but neither behind. Another day passes, another year, another phase of his life. When he meets somebody this time, he begins to think it may be time to get serious. Not that she's Miss Perfect, but maybe she'll do - maybe she's good enough. Maybe good enough is good enough.

Who knows, unless you try?