The SIU Acid Queen was exotic and bizarrely out of place in the supermarket checkout line, helplessly trapped in unrelenting white fluorescent. The cashier was uneasy. “Three fifty six.”
“The chicken is still conscious,” she replied, “It’s screaming.” The cashier called security.
I followed the Acid Queen out. “Taj!”
She turned sharply. I felt her eyes pierce me all the way to the back of my head. I had inadvertently uttered the forbidden name. “Taja!,” she corrected me. “No one must ever say Taj. Ever.” My throat locked. I couldn’t even begin to apologize.
She’s leaned against the building. Her palms pressed against her head, struggling to keep her brain from exploding. “They ate my dreams. The crucial ones. Do they do that to you, too?”
Any chance I have of getting balled, depended on instant cosmic bonding. “Yeah. I had three dreams eaten just last month. Damn dream eaters.”
Taja smiled, feeling she’d found a kindred spirit. The sunset splashed against her blowing raven hair, and sunk deep into the darkness of her eyes. She’s was a creature of the night, awakening. I was in way over my head.
Anyway, the SIU Acid Queen lived in a dorm. Freshmen co-eds had to. Women had to be back in the dorm before lockdown. There were bed checks. Engaged in spiritual and sexual pursuits at my trailer, the Acid Queen missed bed check. Her punishment would include restricting her outdoor privileges to daytime only. This would be especially hard on an Acid Queen, who is a creature of the night. Daylight isn’t kind to her image.
Around the same time Taja lost her nighttime privileges, there was going to be a massive Woodstock like concert at a large state park near SIU. Hippies and radicals were pouring in from all over. At the last minute, finding themselves overrun with long haired “outside agitators,” the locals of southern Illinois pulled the permit for the concert.
Now we had thousands of very pissed hippies and radicals hanging around Carbondale, all drugged up with no place to go. Okay, pissed hippies you don’t have to watch out for. They’ll just out karma you and walk smugly away. It’s the radicals and activists you have to be scared of. They’re on a mission.
But getting back to Taja and me, into this rabidly foaming cauldron, I convinced her to hang around reality long enough to overthrow the entire concept of women’s hours by calling in the ACLU. I got us press coverage. Things mushroomed. They needed to defuse a volatile situation. Taja was called in for a private meeting with the chancellor.
She returned, unusually comfortable for one not used to visiting reality for long periods. “His aura is the same as mine. He said if I drop the case, he won’t do evil to me, and I won’t have hours anymore.” Her eyes feasted on the tabs in her hand. “Window Pane or Orange Sunshine?”
I was aghast. Well, as aghast as I could be stoned. “What about the other girls? That’s not right. No one is free till everyone is free.”
She returned to the dean. “No one is free till everyone is free.” They freed her. Expelled was the word they used. That was all the masses of angry, concertless freaks needed. It was the spark that ignited the riot. SIU closed for summer break two weeks early.
That didn’t bother The Acid Queen. “Doris Day and I share a space. She sends me messages. She knows I’m coming to see her.”
We took off for Hollywood. I was in for the summer of my life.
To Be Continued
pretty freaky pix. who is that girl with no eyes?