I could hear the original cast recording of Hair blaring through the door of my apartment as soon as I stepped off the elevator. Jesus H. Christ, I thought, what have I caused this time? Why did I tell the cats about my Ohio life in the 1970s?
I pushed the walker as fast as I could to the apartment door and worked the walker through the door. The incense smoke was thick, and my eyes began to water. Annabelle, wrapped in a paisley shawl and wearing a wreath of flowers on her head, lay idly in the cat tree. Stella lay on her back on the floor tossing a small pillow with all four feet. At the foot of the cat tree Thatch, wearing a lot of beads, sunglasses, and a headband jumped to and fro to the music.
I grabbed my cane and ran to the window and opened it wide to clear out the smoke before I went to the DVD player and turned it off.
Why did you do that? Annabelle asked in a lazy drawl. It was so . . . heavy.
Are you stoned, Annabelle? I asked,
Yes! Thatch giggled as he danced about.
Are you stoned, Thatch?
Yes! He giggled again. Stella is, too!
I sat down in the computer chair and looked at my three hippie cats in dismay. It was my fault. This severe catnip addiction began the day after I told the cats about the night I did not drop acid. I had made a passing remark about acting in community theater, and Annabelle started asking questions.
Where was this theater, Daddy? she asked. Thatch and Stella joined her on my bed where I had been lying to ease the pain in my knees.
In my hometown in Ohio, Missy.
Can we go back for a visit so I can star in something?
No, baby; that theater folded back in the seventies-
The seventies? Thatch asked. What’s that?
The 1970s, Thatch. A time around fifty years ago.
Oh, he said. That’s ancient.
So’s your old man, Thatcher, I laughed. Some days I feel really, really ancient.
I want to know more about theater in the old times, Annabelle said as she climbed on my chest.
I sat up. Well, Missy Belle, I did some acting in a local dinner theater, and after the community theater that was tied in with the local university folded, my hometown’s arts group asked Jim Martin and me to start another one.
Who’s Jim Martin? Thatch asked.
Thatch, I told you about him. He was in town a couple of years ago, and he brought you and Annabelle a gift. Remember?
I do! Annabelle interjected.
Yes, he’s a good man and a good conductor. We did several shows together, and he helped me learn to orchestrate-
He did? How? Annabelle asked.
He and his wife were two of my Ohio friends who believed in me a lot more than I believed in myself. Besides teachiing music, he conducted a community orchestra, and if I wrote an orchestration and copied out the parts, he and the orchestra would play it. He even programmed a couple of things I wrote. I owe him a lot.
I had returned to Ohio in August 1972 after a disastrous year in which I went down in flames as a college instructor because I was too immature and too unprepared. I had run home to mommy and daddy, tail between my legs, to hide in my old room at home and lick my wounds. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life, no goals, and a lot of dreams with no knowledge of how to achieve any of them. My self-esteem was lower than zero, and my parents – I know they prayed to God every night that they would wake in the morning to find I’d run away – did nothing to boost that opinion. Still, to their credit, they tolerated me for seven years before I moved to Manhattan in June 1979, and I remain grateful for their tolerance and patience. Because I was angry, scared, and lost, I wasn’t easy to be around. My younger brother Randy, who was still in middle school, was the recipient of much of my ugliness. I was terrible.
Luckily, even if my parents only tolerated my presence, I had friends in my hometown who believed in me, and I spent those seven years acting and directing community theatre that Jim Martin conducted, acting in dinner theatre, playing percussion rather badly in the community symphony, finally founding a new community theatre which just celebrated its 44th year, but still being an immature jerk and lousy employee in several jobs I was unhappy to be in, smoking a lot of pot, and having a lot of casual sex including a long relationship with a married man, Bob, who juggled me with his wife, his girlfriend Angie, and anybody he could pick up when one of us was otherwise occupied .
One day in late summer of 1978 – or was it 1977? – my friend Greg’s far-out hippie girlfriend Bernardine, who lived in Dayton, Ohio, called me.
Larry, she said, I have a friend who’s a fantastic astrologer, and I want him to do your chart.
Okay, fine with me. When do you want us to get together?
In a couple of weeks, because he’s got to do your chart before he can give you a reading. When’s your birthday?
She also asked for the time I was born and where I was born, and I gave her all that. She suggested that, as soon as her friend, Rom, had prepared my chart, I come to Dayton and spend the weekend with her and Greg. This will be fun, she said. We can all drop acid.
Bernardine was a lovely lady whom my friend Greg had met while singing in the Dayton Opera Chorus. Several years older than Greg or me, she had left her wealthy doctor husband and lived in a nice, rather untidy bungalow with her son, and she had gone whole-hog hippie. Her usual greeting was “How bright your aura is today!” I thought she was weird, but she was kind and generous, and I liked her a lot.
I had met my friend Greg when he auditioned for a community theatre production I was directing, and, like me, he was a college grad returning to his hometown while he sorted out his life. We were kindred spirits, and we spent many hours with scotch and pot trying to figure out what we would do when we grew up. When his relationship with Bernardine became intense, he moved from his parents’ house into her Dayton bungalow.
So, several weeks after her phone call, Bernardine called again. Rom’s chart was finished, so why didn’t I come up this weekend? I could drive up on Saturday morning, we’d have a picnic, then around 7:00 we’d drop acid, and Rom would come over and read my chart.
Bernardine’s son was spending the weekend with his father. The picnic outside her house was wonderful, but I remember very little about it now, except that the potato salad, made from potatoes, celery, and peas from her garden was quite tasty. When 7:00 rolled around, Greg produced the acid, and I told them I was declining but they should go ahead and indulge. The truth, which I did not tell them, was that anything harder than alcohol or pot scared me, and acid terrified me. I watched them take it, and shortly after that, Rom showed up.
He was a tall, elegant black man. I remember nothing about his appearance, but he was very calm and centered with deep voice. After some casual conversation, Greg and Bernardine went to another room, and Rom and I were left in the living room. I dragged out my portable cassette player so that I could tape the reading.
Much of what he told me I no longer remember, and I have no idea at this time where the hell that cassette might be. What I do remember is that he told me I would live in a city one the coast and I would work in the recording industry. Since at that time I was thinking about trying to make it as an actor, I thought I might end up doing audiobooks or something, but the big caveat was I was too afraid and still too insecure to think about making it as an actor or seriously relocating.
In early 1979, Eugene Sher, an actor I worked with followed his dreams of success to New York, urged ne to come to New York to direct him in a showcase. I finally got a round-trip plane ticket to New York, and all my Ohio friends said to me, if you come back, you’re an idiot. In the middle of June 1979, with the blessing of my parents and good wishes from friends, I flew to New York on a Saturday, got hired by the Drama Book Shop on Monday, and never looked back. Three years later, a film director turned me down to write a film score because I had no sound studio experience. Well, I thought, I guess I better get some! I began orchestrating and copying music for a wonderfully crazy recording producer named Ben Begley, whom I met buying his recordings for the Drama Book Shop. One day, in the studio, I realized that much of Rom’s reading had come true. Whoever would have guessed it?
As for the night I did not drop acid, I was up all night reading a book while Greg, who seemed unaffected, divided his time between chatting with me and a highly emotional and at times hysterical Bernardine. There were screams and a lot of crying jags. It was noisy. Around dawn, she calmed down, and I got some sleep. The next morning, before I left, Bernardine – who at one point had visions that our friend Jim Martin was in a fiery plane crash – said to me, You should have joined us! It was so much fun.
Is that why you screamed and wept loudly all night? I asked. It didn’t sound like fun to me.
Well, there were moments, she laughed.
I thanked her and Greg for an interesting visit, and drove home thinking, pot is fun, but I will never, ever drop acid. Never!
So, Annabelle asked me after hearing the story, was it fun being a hippie?
All three cats sat with me on the bed, fascinated by a time and lifestyle they would never experience or understand.
I was never a hippie, Annabelle, I told her. Really. I was too square and too frightened.
Frightened? Of what? Annabelle asked.
Oh, in those days too many things scared me. Living in New York released a lot of my inhibitions.
Did you ever drop aciod? Thatch asked me.
Nope, Thatch, never did. The first year I was in New York I snorted some coke with a good friend, but I don’t think I ever did that again.
Do you think we should do some pot? Thatch asked.
No, Thatcher Cat, you’d have to smoke it, and when it comes to little kitties, I wouldn’t know where to begin. And I wouldn’t want to see you burn yourself.
Stella might eat it, Annabelle told us.
Weli, I guess you could eat it in your cat food, like Alice B. Toklas brownies.
Let’s try it! Thatch enthused. Do you have any?
No, I don’t, Thatch. I wouldn’t know where to get it, and there’s none in the apartment. Nowm if we were in Ohio, my brothers would know where to find some.
Are your brothers hippies? Annabelle asked.
No, Missy, but they get around.
I thought np more about it until a day or two later Annabelle started listening to Hair and asking about life in the 70s. Looking at my Safari history on the computer, I saw she had been looking at 70’s events, hippies, Woodstock, and 70’s music. Not long after that, I found her listening to Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” and Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” while Thatch’s answer to everything was an enthusiastic “Groovy!” I thought it was funny at first, but after a week of stoned kitties, it was time for an intervention.
So, here I was, surrounded by my three devils stoned out of their minds on catnip, listening to Hair, and burning incense. I got the Dustbuster and swept up the catnip littering the floor. And, to add insult to injury, while I was removing all signs of kitty hippie life and throwing it in the garbage, the re was a knock at the door. I opened it, and the tallest of the three firemen standing there asked me if there was a fire in my apartment.
No, no fire, I told them. Thank God there’s no pot, I thought. Instead, I asked, Why do you think there’s a fire here?
One of your neighbors called 911 to report a possible fire.
I bet it’s the Man with the Bike, I thought. Instead, I said, Do you want to come in and check? I was listening to music from the 60s and 70s and in a fit of nostalgia I was burning some incense. I’m really embarrassed about this. I’m so sorry.
Well, said one of the other firemen, it’s better to check and find nothing.
Thank you, I said, but I’m really sorry you come and check it out.
It’s fine, the first one said. It gives us an excuse to stop at Barnes & Noble on the corner and browse. Stay safe. He gave me a-don’t-go-wild-on-the-pot-again look.
C’mon, guys, the third one said. Let’s go.
I closed the door and looked at the three cats sitting on the floor. Now see what you’ve caused? If I ever get evicted, it’s your fault.
You didn’t tell them we did it, Annabelle said.
No, I’m not throwing my babies under the bus.
Annabelle stared at me for a bit before she turned to Thatch. Do you know what that means?
Sometimes he makes no sense, Annabelle, Thatch observed.
He’s bringing me down. Let’s get high again.
I wondered if I could find a Catnip Anonymous group. Holy Trinity across the street had Alcoholic Anonymous meetings several nights a week, so I called to inquire about Catnip Anonymous. Nope, not at all. I had to make Annabelle, Thatch, and Stella go cold turkey. It was the Lost Weekend, and it was hell.
After my catnip addicts were no longer stoned, I heard Annabelle singing “Frank Mills” one morning. Not again! I thought. Annabelle, I asked, you’re not relapsing?
No, not at all, she said. I love, love, love this song, and I think I will use it for auditions . . . if R.U. Fémos ever gets back to the city and makes me a star. My fans are waiting!
Groovy, man! Thatch told her.
©2021, Larry Moore
Annabelle & Thatch 