It's a beautiful Saturday morning in San Francisco and I'm on my way to the commune on 17th and Noe. It's the biggest one in the City that I know of. They have four three story houses on the corner and they have them fixed up so that you can go from one house to another without ever having to go onto the street. I'm sure there's almost a hundred souls living in those houses because every time I go over there I meet some one new because there's people living in almost every room. The ones I do know make there living like almost everyone else I know, unemployment, welfare, food stamps and of course, dealing. That's why I'm on my way there now. They have some of the best dope at the best prices in the City especially the grass and acid.
As I come up the street I see a bunch of the commune kids standing out front looking down at something on the sidewalk. I walk up to them and say, "What's up kiddies?"
The older ones ignore me but one of the younger ones looks up at me with a real sad look in their eyes saying, "Our TV got broken."
Broken is right, it looks like someone took a sledge hammer to it. A couple of the boys are picking up pieces and seeing if they can put them back inside. They know it's hopeless but they don't want to give up.
"Trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together back together again?" I ask.
I hear a "Fuck you asshole." and figure that it's not my problem so up the stairs I go.
I see Rose in the kitchen drinking coffee and say, "Hi Rosie, where's Gray at?"
She just points to the front of the house. I walk into the living room and see Rabbit, who's kind of the head of this house sitting on the sofa toking on a number.
I join him saying, "What's shaking man?"
He passes me the doobie then says, "Not much."
We smoke a while then I ask about the TV out on the sidewalk.
He tells me, "I did that."
After another toke he continues, "We were partying late last night so I crashed here on the couch. Around 8 this morning the kids come in and turn the TV on to watch Saturday morning cartoons. It wakes me up, so I tell them that I'm trying to sleep so be cool and keep the sound down then I go back to sleep.”
“After an hour or so I hear, "I wanna watch Bugs Bunny."
"No, were watchin’ Bullwinkle." It's Jasper and Sunshine (two of the communes boys about age 9) arguing over what to watch.
I tell them to shut up and watch the fucking thing or I will turn it off cuz I'm trying to catch some z's.
But they just keep arguing, so I yell at the little bastards and that quiets them down.
Just as I falling asleep again they start fighting over the goddamn thing again. I've had enough. I get up off the couch, jerk the plug out of the wall, pick the motherfucker up and heave it out the window. It was good too that the window was open and there was nobody down on the sidewalk because I didn't look before I chucked it."
Rabbit starts chuckling, "You should have seen the looks on the little fucker’s faces, they just could not believe it. After a few seconds they all start screaming and the older ones attack me, hitting and kicking me real good too. So I whip off my belt and when I start swinging they scatter."
We look out of the window down at the kids. When some of them see us they give us the finger and yelling, "Rotten bastard!" "Murderer!" "Fuck you Rabbit!"
Rabbit just laughs saying, "They’ve been out there for over an hour trying to fix it.” Then he hollers out the window at the kids below, “Good luck!"
He then asks me, "What are you doing here so early?"
"I need an ounce, I'm out. Is Gray around?" I ask.
Rabbit says, "He's still sleeping. Give me the bread and I'll get you the weed."
I give him $10. He goes into the bedroom and comes out a minute later with the lid and hands it to me. I twist one up then light it and we smoke it looking at where the TV use to be.