PHISH TALES PART 4

Troy walked north west down shakedown towards the concert venue. As he grew closer to the venue, food vendors became more and more frequent. The path grew wider and individuals selling beer and things were on this end doing their trade closer to the music. You could hear the show as if you were inside at the end of the path. There at the end of the path was a lawn section sized expanse of grass leading up to the ticket takers for the outdoor arena. People were camped out all over this outside of the arena lawn, listening to the music just as loud as it would have been from a general admission seat. The difference was not being able to see the stage.
Hours seemed to pass like minutes as he explored all of the avenues the circus had brought to town. At the end of the show, the crowd could be heard roaring over the village. Thousands of people who wanted an encore, thousands of people who even after the encore would flood into the camp to party more.
Moments later the crowd let out. As the stream of people coursed onto the arena gate lawn, a walking drum circle broke out. The drummers were leading the way into the first night of camp to the crowd breaking lose from Phil and Dylan. It was incredible, and soon Troy was entirely relaxed. The world was spinning and sucking him in with hopes and dreams beyond compare. He followed the crowd of hundreds into the camp, and stood on the outskirts where the circle would beat on well into the early morning. Fireworks were going off everywhere, this continuing as well into the early morning hours. It was a tribal reunion, and Troy wished never to leave these people, this lifestyle. This was home for all he had ever expected it to be.
Late in the night, he grew dim and so walked back to the tent offered to him the day before by the girl. He climbed inside and found it empty. When he woke in the morning it was still just him.
On the corner of the campgrounds where the cornfields began there was a breakfast he saw, emerging from his tent. The campers had a huge awning stretched out with a table of fresh coffee, tea, fruits, breads and pastries set out. He heard a girl chime out to passing campers “come on over, make yourself at home, have some breakfast!”
Troy did just that. After breakfast, he went to the shower area and washed up, brushed his teeth. Returning to the tent, the girl was there.
“Hi! How was your show?”
“Great! Yours?”
“Great! Did you get in?”
“No, I didn’t have a ticket.”
The girl looked puzzled for a moment and then said “Well, come on, you gotta get yourself inside tonight, you hear?” as if it were as easy as done.
“See you later.”
Throughout the rest of the day, Troy visited as many camps as he could. Eating, drinking, talking and hanging around in the beautiful sunny summer day until the dusk came and the show was on. This night he resolved to try for a ticket. For several hours he walked all over with one finger pointing toward the sky, but to no avail he did not get in.
Before the show was over, he was already very tired from being very drunk in the afternoon and once again retired to the girls’ tent. Once again, he spent the night with a ten man tent to himself.
When the morning came, he returned to where they had been having a buffet breakfast the day prior, and found that the spread was an open bar. He began to drink. Shortly before noon he blacked out. Later on that evening he crawled into the tent again, this time to find another guy passed out in there on the right half of the tent. He took the left, and passed out.
When he came to it was evening already. The girl whose tent it was stood outside putting on fresh clothing.
“We thought you was dead!”
“I am.” He replied.
She laughed and told him that she was glad he was feeling better.
Troy walked on, still in a haze. He no more than reached the next row of tents when someone walked up to him and shoved a five strip of blotter acid into his hand.
The man was swaying from drunkenness and said “here.”
Troy smiled to himself about complaining of not being awake, and popped the acid directly into his mouth thinking of Keyes quote “For Gods Sake, Wake...”
Troy walked down shakedown, faces looming at him from the crowd here and there. The world looked like a house of mirrors; everyone was stretched or distorted in one way or another. The lights from the camp seemed as bright as the sun and the incense smoke like a house fire. A crowd of thousands roared, and he was led to think of Hunters disposition towards the tale of David. He followed a vibe of Dead intuition towards the arena “gate lawn”. He hear the jam and danced.
The set was incredible. “My Minds Got a Mind of Its Own into Split Open and Melt” during which he did.
“Sparkle” relieved his pain and he danced off down shakedown during “Funky Bitch.” Some kids there fed his munchies with ganga goo, tortillas and lemonade. When he returned the second set was just getting underway. Troy danced the entire set through, the first he gotten to hear of the tour, and it was the perfect set in a perfect world. When he danced he saw himself looking like Shiva, many arms flailing all over. “Gotta Jiboo,” left him at ease with his day long party then eased him into “Sand, Twist, and Fee” which felt like his very story being played. “Whats the Use” led to “Limb By Limb” by this time he WAS Shiva wildly peaking with the trip. The encore finish of Run Like an Antelope left him hooting the whole way down the path to another drum filled night. One last time he went to the tent, and this time found not only the tent empty, but the sisters’ belongings gone. He wondered drearily if she had found a guy to bunk with elsewhere. He soon worried no longer, and fell into a long dream filled sleep.
The following morning brought about more beer drinking at an all night rave which he found still going on under one of the nearby tents in the morning. He soon drank himself to a blackout again. The afternoon passed, he regained consciousness. It was dark and he was on the lawn listening to Phish again. He must not have gotten a ticket again, he was outside. But once again, he realized he had somehow acquired acid and was getting on. This time he was almost disappointed. Unsure if he could get on, as he would have had to ingested at least ten hits of high grade to be on, he doubted this would be a good night. On his way to its peak he fell in and out of awareness sitting on the grass. Then his inner eye awoke, and he found that spot from which his inner voice was but only an observer.
“In the night the lizards had come out as us and them. The tall man who blew glass for the estranged bearded one who was all alone. He was with them as they told him and me every few minutes or so, chuckling with a look of recognition that made them seem cold and mocking. They adjusted themselves into an absence of righteousness that breathed the air. Air that a policeman would breathe as the security guard did now on the back of my neck in his striped pants swishing. He was turning back around and going toward the campground I maybe had slept in not so long before. I had noticed he was going to put me in handcuffs. He thought I knew, but didn’t turn away in my mind for the next few minutes. I was now again interrupted by the wizardly old man blowing glass straight toward me with a grin. It appeared he was shushing me with flame leaping from the hot liquid substance near his lips. The bearded boy was falling over in his tallness as he had stood up, and the old mans sparks blew at him from the dragon like beard. The beard consumed his child’s play shushing, transforming it into an elder wizardly sight of wisdom. His lips still and thin held the same silly grin in the still airy night that fondled the cornfield to my right. My rights, my rights, my rights.”
“The didgeridoo man had sung once and the crowd in front of me had fallen back into the tired slumber as if his playing had been for hours. It seemed there had been hours this minute and there they lay asleep in the night. The clouds came as if in time lapse photography and they rained on us. It was all in good fun for the dancing man with the didgeridoo who played around the sleepy campfire, seemingly unfazed by the cold rain falling from the open sky. He was next to their tents and the smoldering campfire and they were all dead it seemed. Maybe that was just me. They could be the next ones whom I would never know to have been. The thought panicked me as if I had fallen into a place where only the man with the didgeridoo could exist. His deep emanating hum played in the silence of the old man with fire from his lips who now sat silently laughing and pointing at his own slumber. This was of itself an illusion, a deep truthful illusion. I had the thought as he had been standing the moment before behind the circle of people. These campfire strangers were parked next door to his glass Winnebago. They were all now suddenly gone before my eyes. The man too was gone and there I was alone in front of a campfire which had long before been out, smoldering in the twig light of the sun which was now waking me. “
“A man behind me who asked me if I was alright as he stumbled toward a tent and crashed for the remainder of the day into an eternal morning of headache that engulfed my vision.”
“I saw a woman carrying food and chips with saltiness that swaggered her staring back at my enveloped eyes. Eyes which said she mistrusted the me that was sitting there for a period that I knew could only be right now. The same different now as minutes before in the moving clock face. I had to find a way to desist in this sight, bow out right now. I had the visions of ram das in my mind and how he said it was in the chopping wood and carrying water. The highness was found in the peaceful simple ness. For them and for me I separated us for the first time in days. Yes, indeed it was in the simple ness of being that we would find the place like in Einstein’s dreams of relativity. In differentiating mirror wisdom that would feel like the time removal. That place in the dreams closer to the truth of loving you. It got slower, the illusion of time it got, until finally the time stopped and became a drag to the senses in which the eventual collapse of your time existence would collapse in itself.”
“I got up and found that the morning was now in fact a bustling of people surrounding a nearby outdoor wooden open air camp shower. There people were taking there morning waking showers. They looked so sober and happy, many of them.”
“I remembered I was not. I needed to find a place to eat. I passed through this temporary village of tents many times. They were strewn as they had been put up with just enough space to allow for the strident walkers of the morning to do their trade. The money which now my stomach pined for the eating of its insides knowing ghostly papyrus could not suffice. In the thought I died and felt the slimy shmegma of the reality check in me realize that some here had actually. How in fact did I know that I was actually alive in this world in front of me? This headache would not stop. I could not stop.”
“From the corner of my adolescent memory I had remembered my father, of the ripped pain torn in my mother out there thinking of me. I stepped lightly forward now to find relief and her hope of my survival, her job a thousand miles away.”
“A group of men stood toward the left side of the path leading to the concert arena where the band had played for their ego drowning knights of the audience. The concert arena left an air of mass awareness, lent itself to hope of success for me. It hosted the others... the entities known simply as Bob and Phil. Their names seemed to fill me with rights to this land and my right to trespass anywhere. Wherever you go you had better be beware because you can trespass anywhere. The muse formed on the tip of my tongue. Mouth curling into a self marring Cheshire cat grin it came out leaving me grinning and making the stupid grin so wide I thought I saw the gleam from my teeth light up. It reminded me of the wooden Te Statue I had seen, the grinning china man with whale like teeth that seemed to strain golgi apparatus from the air as he sucked it in.”
“The man in front of the stand by the truck where they had been loading equipment it seemed. In front of it one man was cooking. He looked up and nodded recognition and said "hey you need some breakfast?"”
“I quickly nodded and awkwardly said "yes."
He had left the front of the pan and I now knew that it was just the high that had taken me there just the high, not the low. He handed me a large five gallon plastic container and asked me to go get it filled with water. I took it without questioning and did the deed of dragging my weary carcass back the direction of the showers about a city block away through the little tribal village. It had to weigh practically nothing I thought as my mind filled it gushing cold water. As I approached the shower a young man of about my age sneered toward my patchwork pants which I had not worn yet. The ones I wasn’t wearing for him were nice and my legs were cold and that the cold water would be bitter, but such was my physical payment.”
“The night before I did the deed of lighting the match next door to the man who would now smoke my cigarette for me. I shook off the disillusioned thinking and I sneered past the cigarette I so desperately now consumed from his lips in my inner eye. I approached the shower further and he stepped directly into my path, making me aware of how large and short he was in a muscular frame. He sighed and said, hey man... You a camper here?”
I said "yeahh...uhh no, some guys asked me if I wanted breakfast and I..."
"and you need water right, yeah, man you gotta pay for it but I won’t tell no one if your are where you are. You may as well just go on down over there to the water faucet with the Mexicans and give her a fill.”
“The thought of the working Mexican water hole made me smile. His simplistic approach I guess was the smile now transforming his sneering character into that of someone else. Probably the someone he was talking to now over the water. Me. Damn I needed food. He pointed to a faucet flowing from a well tap fifty feet behind where the water for the shower was splashing. A sexy blondes shapely rear-end I hoped would come into full view as she adjusted her naked breast back into the bikini top as I walked past. The t- shirt nestled what I imagined were pretty firm breasts as she looked at a young dark Italian I assumed was her beaux. He gave me a look that said he wouldn’t care if I did what the dick in my shorts was turning to do. Fill the water and wash my ass.”
“I blushed in the purity of my poverty and found myself in line to fill the water pail. It was cold and heavy as I carried it back I noticed something else. It was heavy as shit, I mean as hell. If I could get it back. I could ask for help the smiles of people around me said but I would not ask. False pride and hidden behaviors overwhelmed me. It would figure its way into the way into the way. I felt the jeering disapproval as I dragged it back into the site of the man who had originally asked for me to fill the pail. He freshly stick out his hand and seemed more rigid than a steel pipe. A pipe dream that was now going to remove the pail from me.”
"You should have asked for help"
“I felt stupid, and then realized that I did not know "from who?"”
"Look around, brother, people, people..."
“He extended the cold hand and I shook backward as the hand came so deftly through time toward me in its caring and gentle arc it could not have been unkind. The hand instead gave an instant tug upward on the bucket and on it went in behind the four tables now lined up as a store front in front of the groups van. It was now open and revealing several large open coolers that were filled with ice and vegetables.”
“The man who had been cooking looked up at me and said that I looked hungry from the plate of eggs now fired up on his hibachi. I thought for a second he was going to shove it toward me and I swayed in relief as he disappointingly to my selfish ego did not give me his own food. He instead gave me some of the displayed food that seemed to be some kind of egg roll.”
"Here, have a Jerry Roll. Good show?"
"He’s Dream," the man said.
“From the backward sway of his voice I returned from inside my dreary lit plight of midmorning sun. The shadowy figure turned toward me and said”
“"Hi, Dream" leaning forward from the lawn chair to introduce himself with an extended hand. The sunlight that held his stick figure frame showed a grin that now stretched across his face. It seemed to hold the secret of truth from my past night without pardon. I could not imagine the wisdom of this elder.”


Troy spent the day with Larry and Dream and their crew. Larry told stories of how they had toured for more than a quarter century with The Grateful Dead. They taught Troy how to make “Jerry Rolls” and he was doing so all afternoon. “Jerry Rolls” were like egg rolls but five times bigger.
Nighttime came, and he was having fun. Dream told him that nighttime business was a blast. That night Troy stood at the front of the village eats shop, taking orders from dozens of concertgoers, which he handed on to Larry to collect payment. They were quite the team, and with every new customer, Larry made new conversation, or a new joke. He had a wonderful light sense of humor and soon Troy found himself truly laughing away the night. By the time Larry had the dollars and cents in his hand, the patron had a smile and Dream would hand then the food. It was the healthiest time of Troy’s whole tour thus far.
They worked late into the wee morning hours. Around four am they began to pack the gear into the truck, and Troy realized he was going to need to find a ride once again. Larry said they could not take him on board, however he paid him sixty dollars for his work the day before. Troy was more than satisfied. Food, fun, and about six bucks an hour in all with the breaks he had taken.Troubled by the notion of finding a ride with someone to the next show, he wondered if he could do so sober. It was decided, he might as well make an adventure of things. He strode down the deconstructing shakedown until he found one of the hood dose dealers. He offered the kid ten bucks for a puddle of liquid from an eye dropper. The kid filled Troy’s entire hand with liquid LSD, probably between fifteen and twenty hits. Troy lifted his hand to his mouth and consumed them.