Joanne, Kerry, Lindsey and I had decided to escape the good old US of A and make a break for sunnier climbs. We had chosen the Caribbean since it had hundreds of islands on which we could get lost and live the good life. We had worked our butts off for that end too. The girls had all gotten jobs in the tenderloin as "B" Girls at a topless bar where they danced half naked half the time for $50 a night and hustled drinks the other half the time for 10% plus tips. Joanne consistently mode over $100 a night, no taxes taken out and Kerry and Lindsey just under that, they worked six nights a week from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. I went to school on the GI Bill for $400 a month and did most of the cooking and cleaning for us. Since our bills were minimal it only took about four months before we had quite a few thousand in cash each saved up. Of course, if we hadn't partied so much it wouldn't have taken half as long, but life is short and you’ve got to have a little fun. We decided to go at the end of the summer because there was way too much going on in the City to leave before then and the weather was always good until the end of August.
First week of September we packed up and said good bye to all of our friends who told us "You'll be back as soon as your bread runs out."
We turned the 25th St. commune over to Pat, who was staying and TB Sheets, our favorite dope dealer. Then we hopped on a plane bound first for New Orleans then San Juan. Since we got a free stop over in the Crescent City we thought that we would take advantage of it and check out the most famous party city in the whole US with it's 24 hour a day bars and blues. As soon as we departed the air-conditioned terminal the heat and humidity hit us. Being from a desert state we'd never experienced anything like this before. Even though the temp was only a little over 90, the humidity was too. Holy Moly, the sweat just poured off of us. Hell, it was even hard to breathe. Our clothes stuck to us like glue and we thought we're not even in the tropics yet. Oh well, suck it in and tough it out, let's see what this city has to offer us in the way of fun and entertainment, in other words, where's the dope.
Right away we had good fortune, a cute little southern hippie babe who had just dropped some friends at the airport, picked us up on her way back to the city. We chatted on the ride in and when she found out that we were gen-u-wine San Francisco freeks with dope of our persons, said that we could stay at her place that night and that she would show us all the hip spots in town and introduce us around. This sounded like a good plan to us and we readily agreed. The first thing that we noticed when we got into the city was how old everything looked. It all had a seedy decaying quality about it and there was a damp musky smell in the air. Being from the west where almost nothing is over a hundred years old this was new to us. When we arrived at the girls place she told us that she rented the upper story of this big two story house. It had peeling paint and crumbling plaster in the outside but inside it was really nice with comfortable furniture, brightly painted rooms and plants everywhere. She told us that she lived here alone. We ask how she could afford it.
She said it was only $75 a month.
Wow, a place like this in San Francisco would be at least twice that much.
We smoked some dope and hung out with her until evening. Then she took us out to a red beans and rice joint for dinner which was really cheap.
We asked her if everything was this inexpensive here and she said that as far as she knew it was. In fact, it was the only place in America where using the phone still cost only a nickel. She the took us around to meet some of her friends, all southern hippies who all wanted to know if all of the tales of doping, drinking and debauchery about Frisco they had heard were true. Fuckin’ A they were and more! So we told them some tales of our own. They were delighted. They said that they would make it out there some day to the land of sex and drugs and rock and roll. It was Saturday night and The Warehouse was happening they told us. So let's go!
The Warehouse was just that, a big barn like structure down by the docks that some hippies had rented and turned into a New Orleans Filmore. You would park or take the trolley to a vacant lot on the St. Charles line, then a big old hippie school bus would take you to the docks and drop you off at the Warehouse where you'd pay $3 to enter. Inside was psychedelic lighting, a big dance floor and a small stage, with a concession stand off to one side, just like the old Filmore. Tonight’s venue was a local band, followed by ZZ Top (without beards who we had never heard of at the time) and Taj Mahal (who was in his tuba period). The locals and ZZ rocked out and Taj was good as always. After the show we all went back to her place and did a bit more dope then crashed. Next morning she informed us that it was her policy to let people stay only one night at her house. We would have to leave today, but she would show us where some cheap hotels close to Bourbon St. and the French Quarter were, a fabled place that we wanted to check out.
After checking into the hotel we took a walk around the Quarter. We were very disappointed. Drinks were expensive and watery, the music was only average and the pigs hassled us where ever we went for absolutely no reason other than we were hippies, "Move along or you're goin’ to jail!" Unbelievable! It was time to move along all right, all the way to San Juan.
San Juan was a bust too. We spent only two days there. Too bad too, because it looked like it was a happening place. The folks were lively, it wasn't too expensive and the city was filled with music, but everyone spoke Spanish which none of us knew. Also, as we were coming out of our hotel the first day the manager told us that our dress was not appropriate. We couldn't believe it, we all had on shorts and tank tops. The manager said that either arrested by the cops or accosted by the locals. We knew right then this place was way too Catholic for us.
The day after we left by plane for the US Virgins where English was spoken. Little did we know that it wasn't the same English that we were use to and that it would take us a good week before we could understand what the hell the locals were saying. We got to St. Thomas, which was way too expensive and straight for us so next morning we hopped on a boat bound for Tortula, a British Virgin and the fun began
A black taxi driver met us at the dock. We piled in and told him we wanted the cheapest hotel on the island. He grinned at the white boy and his three vanilla ice cream babes and said, "You got it, Mon.” and drove us to the town’s hotel/bar/restaurant/ whorehouse. The madam, a young black woman, took one look at us and gave us a small room with four beds and a fan in it for $5 a night. What a deal! What we didn't know was how good we'd be for her business. So the partying started. The first night we hung out in the bar with the madam and her half dozen girls, all black. About 10 p.m. the guys, all black, started coming in for a drink, a dance and a quickie. The food was really good and fairly cheap, you got a choice of chicken or catch of the day which was either fresh fish or lobster, served with white rice and HOT peppers, YUM! The music was loud and lively, either live or juke and the drinks were cheap and strong but with little ice. We had already found out that rum was $3 a half gallon while cokes (or beer) were 50 cents apiece with ice exorbitantly priced. Guys came and went and by midnight the joint was jumpin’. The first night the men pretty much left us honky’s alone, they just watched us and talked among themselves. The next day all that would change. Things started slowing down by 2 a.m. and was pretty much dead an hour later. The madam closed up just after 3. We went to bed thinking this was the place to be and slept until almost noon.
The next morning we got up and smoked a hooter then had a couple Heineken Pils each for breakfast. Eddie, out taxi driver, came in and asked to talk to me alone. We went in my room and Eddie asked me, "How much, Mon?"
I asked him back "How much for what?"
He says, "To spend a short time with one of your girls.”
I laughed as Eddie explained to me that it was the consensus of the male population on the island that since we were living at the whorehouse then I was a pimp and the girls were my stable. We had come to Roadtown to make a little money. They even had made up a name for us “Jesus Christ and his 3 wives“ because I looked like a white Jesus to them. I explained to Eddie that I was with Lindsey but that the other two girls were sexually liberated San Francisco hippie chicks who loved to party. And if they took a fancy to you they would screw you to death for no more that the price of a dinner, a few drinks and a little marijuana. However, you had to be cool with them or no matter who you were or what you did, you wouldn't get anywhere with them. Eddie asked if they liked black men. I laughed again and said they liked any man who was nice to them, who could get it up and keep it up. Eddie smiled and thought about what I had said to him then patted me on my knee saying, "All right Mon! I'll pass the word." Then he got up and left.
I told the girls about what Eddie had said and Joanne said jokingly, "Hell, we're gonna fuck them all anyway, so we mise well make a little money out of the deal."
We all laughed at that.
After that we always had a steady stream of male visitors. Some the girls liked, some they didn't. Some they'd spent a short time with and some they'd spend a couple days with. They're money was going to last them a long time because while Lindsey and I had to pay for everything, Joanne and Kerry paid for almost nothing. Any time they wanted something, it was theirs just for the asking. We partied every night with the local young male population and had a ball.
We'd get up around noon, smoke a joint, drink our two Hienies then go to the beach with one or more of J & K's boyfriends de jour in their Mini-Mokes, a very small Jeep like vehicle that was lots of fun to drive. The beaches of Tortula were weird though. You could swim in some in those crystal clear warm gulf waters but you couldn't lay on the sand because the sand fleas would instantly bite the hell out of you. Or you could lie on the beach on others but had to stay out of the water due to the jellyfish which stung like fire if you even got close to one. In the afternoon we'd have lunch: Catch of the day with rice and peppers. Then we’d sip gin and tonics until dusk when we'd have a supper the same as lunch then switch to rum and cokes and party with a dozen or so of the locals who'd take us all over the island.
Our favorite place to go was to the movies, which were out of doors. The screen was a white wall, there were no seats, they weren’t needed. The projector looked like it was as old as the films that were shown which were all from the 30's, 40's and early 50's, most in black and white, some with sound, some not and they were all action films with gladiator ones as the favorites. The best part was the audience’s total participation. It was always on its feet so there was lots of action among the crowd. During the love scenes they'd be making kissing sound, swooning into each other’s arms and making goo-goo eyes at one another. In the fight scenes there's be a mock battle among the audience with lots of fake fighting and cheering, but it the villains that got the best reaction. They’d boo and hiss, jump up and down shouting at the bad guy. If it looked like he was going to win, they’d throw whatever they had at the screen, food, beer bottles, soda cans or glasses. The movies were horrible old things but it didn't matter, a fine time was had by all.
As long as we stay on the British Virgins I noticed that the black folks were really friendly but the whites totally ignored us. I asked Eddie, now our best friend why this was and he said, "Because Mon, you're with us. If when you first came here and had gone to a white hotel and started hanging out with the white folks then the only thing you get out of us would be a "Yas Suh or No Suh". We don't mix with them and they don't mix with us."
I asked him why that was.
He said, "It's been that way since time began. They own everything and we do all the work, and they pay us nothing. They look down on us as ignorant darkies and we hate them for it. I know it ain't right, but that's how it is."
I said, “Well, if you guys do all of the work why don't you just go on strike and shut the economy down.”
Eddie said, "Shit boy, if we done that, there'd be colored folks hanging from every tree, then the government would sent in the troops and make us go back to work at gun point.”
I said that I thought that this was part of Britain.
Eddie darkened telling me, "They ain't nothing but a bunch of uppity white folk too."
Later I would get in trouble for talking this kind of talk..
We stayed on Tortula over a month partying our lives away. We stayed at the whorehouse the whole time too. We had been offered houses but they always came with strings attached. Finally an older black man from Virgin Gorda said that he had a house that he and his wife would share with us. We'd get two bedrooms, use of the living room, kitchen and have a bathroom of our own for $100 a month. We all talked it over and decided to try it for a month. We could always come back over to Tortola if things got too dead, it was only a short boast ride away but Virgin Gorda was real nice and we liked it a lot.
It wasn't the party place that Tortula was, but it was beautiful. It's a very small island with a super expensive resort at one end and a bunch of huge granite rocks that form crystal clear pools at the other. It’s so small that you can walk everywhere. There was only one bar on the island (not counting the resort) so everyone hung out there though the black and whites did not mix company. Again, since we hung out with the black folks, the white British colonial snobs shunned us, which was fine by us. They were all a bunch of tight assed bastards that didn't know how to party anyway.
After we had been there a few weeks and had gotten to know every one, well, all the blacks and a couple of the white fishermen, I started talking strike to them while drinking at the bar. Since they did 99% of all the work on the island and they were pretty much self sufficient, why didn't they just close down Little Dix until they got a better wage. At the time they were being paid less that a dollar an hour. Since it was just drunk talk anyway, the blacks listened and agreed then forgot about it, but the whites didn't.
One night about a week later, a young white fisherman said "Let me buy a you a drink so we can talk.”
I said sounded good to me and we went over to a table to be alone. He told me, "There's some people here who don't like the way you've been stirring up the coloreds with that strike talk."
I gave him the evil eye.
He continued, "It ain't me, I'm just a guy with a message for you.”
What message?
"I was told to tell you that either you can quit talking that way or you will have to leave the island."
And if I don't?
"Then somebody's” looking me straight in the eye "is going to get hurt. And nobody wants that, now do they? Just leave, and take those whores with you so we can get back to normal around here."
I told him I’d think about.
He says, "Well, don't think about it too long." got up and left.
When I told the girls about it they said, "Fuck it. Let's just split." so we booked a flight to St. Croix, back in the US Virgins.
We got to St. Croix and it was a real place with a regular city not dependent on resorts. I immediately liked it and why we left there so quickly I really don't know. We all could have gotten jobs and a place to live there, and we still had enough bucks to tied us over until then but we only stayed there two weeks which it was one big drunken debauchery, maybe that's why we left. We got a hotel for the first night but the very next day Joanne and Kerry on a trip around the city met a 17 year old boy named Gary. He told them that his parents had gone to the mainland and wouldn't be back for two weeks, and we all could stay at his house until they got back. We checked out of the hotel and into Gary’s. He was living there with his two other brothers, Ted 18, and Dean 15. When we came in the door Gary told his brothers about letting us stay there. Dean was all for it while Ted said he'd see how it went. Well the very first night set up the entire next two weeks, and it went like this.
We went to the store to pick up supplies, which included a gallon jug of gold rum, a case of cokes and a big bag of ice. By supper we were all fairly toasted. Joanne had already fucked Gary. And Kerry and Dean were eyeing one another greedily. After supper Ted's girlfriend Nicole, came over and after a polite chat and a strong rum and coke they retired to Ted's bedroom. We thought this was pretty anti-social so after a few more rum and cokes we joined them, breaking up their make out session, but they didn't seem to mind.
One of the boys said, "let's play strip poker" and everyone agreed.
A deck of cards was found and a hand was dealt. Nicole, Ted, Gary and Dean all bet a sock, Kerry, Joanne, Lindsey and me all bet everything we had. I forget who won but we all lost and so had to forfeit all of our clothes. Nicole and the boys saw this and after a moment’s hesitation stripped down to their birthday suits too, then the real fun began because as the old saying goes, “Candy's dandy, liquor's quicker, but rum will make ya cum.” I don't remember who did what to whom but I do remember Nicole saying that she would only "do it" with Ted and that he had better only to "do it" with her which he did, until after she went home anyway. Then I believe he "did it" with all the girls, but we were all drunk as skunks by then and rum does cause memory loss.
The next two weeks were about the same, eating, drinking, screwing and sleeping. We saw almost nothing of St. Croix. Some nights Nicole came over, some she didn't but I don't think that she ever did "do it" with anybody other than Ted. Although I can't say for sure because she was naked and in bed with the rest of us and sometimes things do get mixed up especially when the rum is flowing. A day before Mom and Dad were to arrive home we helped the boys clean the place up then they took us to the airport and for no reason I can think of we got on a plane to St. Marteen.
St. Marteen is a small island that's half Dutch and half something else. We stayed there a couple weeks partying with the locals, but again I can't remember much about it. We rented out half of someone’s house again and I do remember that the black and whites did party there together and that the beaches were beautiful. But by then we had been we had been drinking copious quantities of rum for about three months and it got to be decision time. Because booze like smack you can only play around with so long then it's either: Are you hooked or not? When you get up in the morning and have to take that drink then it's time to quit and none of that tapering off bullshit either, it's cold turkey all the way. We decided Martinique would be a good place to try it at but like all French islands, it's very beautiful but also very expensive. Lindsey and I decided to go back to New Orleans, get jobs and an apartment on the bread we had left, and to dry out. Joanne and Kerry decided to stay on Martinique as they both still had lots of scooties left. We said "See ya in the funnies." and split up Jesus Christ and his 3 Wives.
Lindsey and me flew into New Orleans and immediately found a one bed room apartment that was part of a big old house full of freeks a block off of the St. Charles line near Tulane U for $60 a month. Lindsey got a job as a secretary and I got one working in a lumberyard. They only paid minimum wage but everything was cheap there and living in New Orleans was pretty bitchen as long as we stayed out of the French Quarter where the cops were true pigs. The only problem I had was with a neighbor, a straight woman with a baby who complained to the cops about everything the freeks did.
One day, right after moving in I was sitting nude in the kitchen listening to the radio when there was a knocking at my door. I opened it and there were two cops. They asked why I was naked and I told them that I was a nudist and never put on clothes unless I had to. They informed me that my neighbor had complained about the music and my being naked. I asked how she knew I was naked since the curtains were pulled and they said that she had peeked in and saw me. I told the cops to go tell her that if she ever complained about me again that I would sign a complaint against her for being a peeping tom. They laughed and said that they would tell her but for me to keep the music down, then left. She never complained about me again. The only other thing negative that happened was that some of the restaurants refused to serve hippies but fuck them, we just took our money elsewhere.
About a month later Joanne and Kerry showed up, they too had had enough of the islands. They found an apartment just by asking the mailman where some empty ones were. They both got jobs as Go-Go dancers at a club called Uncle Sam's. It only paid minimum but they got real good tips.
We all partied together with the southern freeks but not as hardy as on the islands and we stayed away from hard liquor. We had learned our lesson. Well, for awhile anyway. We all had a real good time way down south. New Orleans was one happening city.
In the spring Lindsey and I decided to hitch hike back to The City, San FranCheeseCo. Joanne and Kerry who were making good money decide to stay until it got hot before joining us.
We said "See ya later." and one morning Lindsey and me hit the road where we had a generally good time especially in Texas.
For some reason Texas has a bad reputation with freeks, but I have hitched there quite a number of times, all parts of the state too and have always found Texans, both hip and straight, to be friendly and giving. Even the cops were glad to give you a ride out of to the edge of town. I have been hassled a lot more in “liberal" California than in "conservative" Texas.
In fact, while we were hitching through Fort Stockton, two Christian women stopped and asked us if we believed in Jesus Christ. We said that we believed he lived and even said all that neat stuff but that he wasn't any more the Son of God than any of us were. The ladies said that it didn't matter if we believed or not, but that they had a Gift from God for us. It was a free gift and we owed them nothing for it. It was a bus ticket to anywhere we wanted to go. We thanked them but told them that we really didn't need it. We liked to hitch hike. But they were very insistent so we said, "Okay how about Tucson." which wasn't too far but would get us over the mountain and into the desert.
They took us to the depot, bought us the tickets and told us that Jesus Loved us whether we believed in Him or not then left. It was the kindest thing any Christian has ever done for me in my entire life.
We hitched the rest of the way to the City and moved back into 25 St., which coincidentally, had a room about to be open. Pat would become a RN after years of on again, off again schooling and was going to get her own place because she was going to be working graveyard at St. Lukes. She told us that we could stay in her with her until she moved out so we spent over a month together. In the meantime we got to know the new crew that had moved into the commune with TB Sheets while we had been gone. In the summer Joanne and Kerry got back to the City and got a flat together that they would share for years. I lived with them on and off whenever I passed through the City, but by the next year Lindsey and I would no longer be together as a couple, and there would never again be Jesus Christ and his 3 Wives.