New Year's Eve, 1968:

The window opens to the freeway. As the sun slips behind a hill, I lean forward and breathe in. The air, still unseasonably warm, foreshadows a chill, the specter of the diminishing year only hours away.

Stoney and I’ve been living together since early December at 2001 Ivar Street–we call it our space odyssey, but it’s just a drab, stucco apartment building next to the freeway. The end of the line for a few acid heads, speed freaks, heroin addicts, prostitutes, and crazies with guns. At first, living here was kind of fun, but now I’m getting tired of dealing with these marginal people.

I’m scared.

I’m afraid of getting killed by Rowdy, an old freak with no front teeth, who always packs an iron in his bell bottoms. I’m afraid that spade chick downstairs will end up stabbed or shot to death. I’ve never seen so many mean-looking dudes going in and out of her apartment. Maybe I shouldn’t care what happens to her, but I do. I’m not that stoned. Death is too final, too real.

Ever since he dropped acid last week, Stoney’s been acting kind of weird. Thirteen tabs of STP. I thought he was going die; he slipped into unconsciousness, face twitching like an epileptic’s, head puffed out like a balloon. I was afraid to call the medics, there was so much dope in the place–still is–so I watched until he opened his eyes. I can’t put my finger on it, but he hasn’t been the same since. He keeps talking weird shit, like spreading his wings and flying out our second-story window.

He really scares me.

I hear there’s going be a big blowout at the Mission Hotel tonight. Free dope. You name it, someone’ll have it. As we leave for the party, Stoney’s face’s still puffy, his eyes dull. Like, maybe his intelligence was sucked out of his head–like a yolk from its shell. We haven’t made love, and at first, we made love all the time. He busted me almost three weeks ago, December 10, 1968. We’d just moved in together. Imagine: me, an 18-year-old virgin. At first, I thought Stoney loved me, he wanted me all the time. Then he started shooting Horse and dropping tons of acid and whatever else he could get his hands on. It doesn’t matter what he drinks, smokes, drops, snorts, or shoots, just so he’s on another plane. Now he’s just another broken down freak, gone out of control. As I watch him zip up his jeans, I sense we are through.

"What is ever going to become of us?" I ask.

He looks up at me, his eyes half closed, his mouth hanging open, drool running out of the corners, and he says, "Huh?"

I want to throw up.

Maybe I’ll meet some friends at the party–too bad Jeff Brown has gone back to Pennsylvania, but maybe Ratt, Ellen, or Cal will be there. I could use a good friend about now, a shoulder to cry on.

God knows I can’t depend on Stoney anymore.

We hitch a ride to the Mission Hotel. A straight couple from San Jose picks us up. The wife tries luring me away from Stoney, promising me a hot meal and warm bed. Salvation from my life of degradation. Sure. Like I really want to spend New Year’s Eve with Perry Como and his wife. She thinks I’m only 14, and I don’t tell her otherwise. If I keep my mouth shut, maybe she’ll give me some bread. Sure enough, just before we hop out of the car, the woman slips me 20 bucks.

"Get yourself some help," she whispers.

I stash the money into my pocket, mentally calculating how much weed it’ll buy.

The Mission’s a broken down joint, but it’s happening tonight. Every room’s filled with at least four people. The two-dollar rooms are five bucks ‘cause of New Year’s, but we know just about every freak here–I’ll find a place to party and crash.

Stoney’s on his own.

On the first floor, we stop off in a room full of heroin addicts shooting up; I leave as Stoney ties off a rubber strap around his arm, makes a fist, and taps for a vein. He’ll be out for the rest of the night. I make my rounds to each room, taking a toke here and a toke there, keeping my eyes open for some familiar faces. On the second floor, I find Cal, Ellen, and Julius Caesar, an old freak who wears a Roman soldier costume stolen from 20th Century Fox, and we sit on the bed, rapping. I tell them I’m sick and tired of all the dope and heroin addicts crashing at the pad, and I just want to go home, maybe even back to Iowa.

New Year's Day, 1969, around midnight:

We’re still rapping as smoke fills the room–I start coughing, gagging and panicking. The damn place is on fire!

"Let’s get out of here!" I scream at my friends as they disappear into the smoke."Where are you? Help me, I’ve gotta get out!" But no one answers, just the screams of people in panic.

Somewhere, I find my last bit of strength, and I jump off the bed and run blindly around the room. But I can’t see anything now; the room is dense with gray smoke, the kind that stings your eyes. I’ve got to get out! I don’t want to die!

I’m near a window; I stick my head out and take a deep breath. The clammy air feels good, but fires spread fast, like that Chicago fire that killed 99 school kids when I was seven. Later, the firefighters went into the school building afterwards; some of the little kids were stiff in their desks, still holding their pencils above charred pieces of paper; I see into the future, my charred body in this room piled on this old, grungy bed–I can’t die like this, I have to get out of here.

I have to jump.

The concrete slab below seems so far away–how many bones will I break? Maybe I’ll even die.

People scream and cry as they grope their way through the hallway. I start out the window, but halfway out, something clicks in my head–maybe it’s that guardian angel I forgot about–I decide to take my chances in the hall.

As I grope toward the door, I trip over Caesar. I kick him. "Get the hell up!" He groans and raises himself up, so I figure he’ll be okay, and why should I care anyway? My so-called friends left me here to die. Cowards.

In the hall, blinded by smoke, I drag my fingertips along the wall as I navigate toward the stairs, but I can’t get any air into my lungs. Stumbling down the stairs, I hold my breath. The walls don’t feel hot. Where are the flames? Suddenly, I’m outside in the cold L.A. air, and I can’t get enough of it into my lungs, and my chest heaves back and forth. My lungs, hurting like hell, fill with air; I hack and cough, and everyone’s coughing up their guts. Outside, on the street, Stoney is passed out, flat on his back, and Oh-my-God-he’s-dead, but he moans and groans. Caesar, Ellen, and Cal stand over him, cajoling him to get up–how did he get out, drugged up like that?

"You made it," Ellen says, as if my making it out alive were of minor consequence.

Cops, hundreds of them in gas masks, rush into the Mission Hotel, their guns drawn.

"What the fuck?"

The Preacher Man, who, an hour ago, was shooting up heroin with Stoney, says, "Tear gas, Jennifer. A goddam police raid. Can you imagine such stupid shit?"

I’m relieved no one’s burned up, but then I’m goddam pissed off because of the window. I would’ve jumped out the goddam window, the goddam fucking window....

 

Jennifer Semple Siegel

 

 

Back to Fresh Photos--Part Four