Peyote was not immune. Young men and old crisscrossed the lower forty eight with medicine boxes full of goods that might interest the innocent and the simple.  When the Roadmen, chiefs of the ceremony, went to the ‘gardens' they would often find huge piles of the cactus pulled up by the roots and boiled to pulp, the process for extracting the mescalin to put into gelcaps and sell at concerts and all night parties. When Peyote is harvested it is cut close to the ground so others may take its place. If done properly two will grow in the place of one. Pulling it by the roots killed it and depleted the fields. The ‘hip' people dealt this drug and others like it with guarantees of elevated spiritual blood count. The takers were usually the conspicuously rich dilatants in suburbs where bordom was  endemic and relief was just a tablet away. It was definitely a bull market on mind alterations. And the high priests of the economic temple mounts were the  sons and brothers of the streets who said, I been rich and I been poor, and I am here to tell ya that rich is better.

        The songs coming from the shed grew louder as the time grew shorter. My Sky was now into a monotone chant that ran: "keep on tryin', keep on tryin', keep on tryin' for a way to Zion keep your foot on the Road." The saw was a tinny rasping on the nerves of the three inside and when it quit, O"Boogey rose to see what progress the carpenter had made. He entered the shed on silent feet and stood amazed at the piece of art the peyote boy had wrought in a few hours. John had expected a plain wooden chair-like box, something tight and made with spirit. What he saw was a mahogany chair with a lid that swung open on fine brass hinges. It would have sold as a piece of furniture in any store. The thing had precisely mitered  joints. My Sky had carved every symbol he knew from every religion and sect he could remember in a Tree of Life form on the lid. There were tiny marks on the side that if John had seen with a magnifying glass would have spelled out the Lord's Prayer in Spanish. Carved flowers cascaded down the back.

        "What a shame to have to burn such a piece!" he exclaimed.

        "No, man! Really! If you didn't use it the way you said, I'd have to burn it myself. It was BUILT to do that! It's what you wanted. Right?"

        "More. Much more." the monk muttered as he inspected the symbols on the lid. "Now all we need is a place to have the ceremony."

        "I got that one figured out too. Come on. Lets get the body."

        "The body. Yes. Well---he isn't completely dead yet."

        "Come again with that?" said the carpenter, his eyes bulging from the strain of so much psychic stimulation. "Dead is dead, man!"

        "Let's go see." John avoided looking at My Sky.

        "Right. Go see. Far out."

        It took the four of them to hustle the coffin into Case's van and it still had to stick part way out the back door. The drive back to the Seeksing's was very quiet. Each man had his own images of death with which to deal and three of them were nervous about  the coming encounter. Connor had crammed himself into a space between the coffin and the driver's seat. No way was he going to miss this scene.

        As the smoking van sputtered across the bridge Case was mumbling to himself. O'Boogey listened with all his power but could only pick up a few words.

        "Truck.----need---call first--truck--tiny---need--"

        John turned and looked at My Sky. "You said you had it figured out. How is that?"

        "We'll take him to Nevada. It's pretty wild there and Kicking Dog will probably let us do the thing at his place. It's sort of out away from everything, on the side of a hill. We can do it there. He's cool about most of this stuff."

        "Stuff?" the monk asked, "explain please. I don't understand."

        My Sky was still very much in the grip of the vegetable spirit and was having a rough time concentrating. Visions of Buddhas and angels mingled with the city lights brought back his time in New York when he had made a salad out of some green peyotes thinking that would disguise the flavor and all he got was an immense amount of peyote mayonnaise. He had eaten all of it because one did not throw out something as holy as that, even though it was nastiest thing he had ever had in his mouth. Three days he walked the streets of New York City, fending off rats as big as dogs and trying not to step on the little blue buffalo that swarmed from the doorways. The carpenter sang as they drove.

        "Hey ya na, hey ya na, way na hey ya na hey nay  yo way---" He finally snapped that someone was talking to him. "Wha--oh--yeah. What, man?"

        O'Boogey sighed. These hippies were hard to contact sometimes, even when they were in your face. "You spoke of one called Kicking Dog? And stuff?"

        "Yeah! Cool idea! Kicking Dog will probably let us---"

        "You said that. I want to know what kind of ‘stuff' this---Kicking Dog is cool about. And why is he called by so strange a name?"

        Connor spoke up from behind the seat. "He's an old drive-in punk from the fifties who homesteads some land on the eastern face of the Sierras, Nevada side, you know. He's got about eight dogs that are at least half wolf and the only way he can get their attention to train them is by getting into the middle of the pack and kicking the crap outa ‘em." He was as stoned as the rest from the waves of peyote influenced dementia that came from My Sky. "One of ‘em, Honey Bitch, the momma, wasn't about to take his lead so Kicking Dog one day took a length of chain and whipped her a few times until she acknowledged him as the leader of the pack. So--that's it. How he got his name, you know?"

        John listened with patience to this long improbable story. What he was hearing was a change in Connor's speech patterns. From the lilt of the hoypaloy to the gristle of the hippie. From ‘surely' to ‘yeah man! Too much! Far out! What a wiggy deal!", the stilted coolness of restriction to the loose lipped coolness of absolute liberty. Too little to too much. Interesting phenomena, thought the monk, and mentally made a mark beside his name. In emergency he might be very helpful.

        "He's cool, man. Don't worry. He'll do it." and he resumed his hypnotic chanting. That was all John was going to get from him so he settled back and detached from the whole business. A technique came to mind that allowed one to tap into the dreams of others. He made secret signs with his fingers and breathed deeply. Through a green mist he could make out the dim shapes of little blue buffalo scurrying about the floor of the van. O'Boogey smiled. He loved a good action film.

        Case suddenly swerved to the curb and stomped on the brakes, throwing the men into each other.

        "Wow! Hey man! Be cool!" shouted My Sky who began to laugh at the absurdity of what he had just said.

        "Sorry, man, but, you know, I been thinking all the way over---are all you guys gonna go with us? Especially if we go to Nevada, man. We gonna need a truck, you know? Something bigger than this and I don't think Judy will make it to Kicking Dog's place. Especially if his old lady is there and---jeesh! We need a truck!" His eyes were whirling and he was drooling. John started to ask if he was alright and who Judy was when My Sky broke in.

        "Contact high, man. Case has always been sensitive to medicine, especially if it's eaten by someone else. He's ok. Just a contact high. O, and Judy is what he calls his van."

        Interesting, John thought. This ‘medicine' gives the power to read minds.

        "No, man. It was just obvious, you know?" and My Sky went back to his chant.

        Connor squirmed out of his position behind the drivers seat. "I can drive, if you want. Here. Trade places." The two looked at each other and began to giggle. It was very much like the laughter between the Seeksing and O'Boogey. John shook his head to clear it. There was a blue buffalo voiding its bowels on Connor's shoulder. I am high too, he thought, and began to giggle with the others. If a cop had come by he would have arrested them all, probably for being on the streets totally insane.

        "Sure man! Be my guest" snorted Case and a big wad of snot flew from his nose onto the mirror. That sent the group into paroxysms of laughter that came so hard and fast that the belly rebelled. Case and Connor climbed all over each other exchanging places. It was keystone cops time. Connor was laughing so hard that  John and My Sky had to pull him over the top of the seat. Case fell down by the coffin and spent the next five minutes weeping from joy. My Sky resumed his chanting but at the top of his lungs. Connor wiped his eyes and leaned forward as though that would make the van go faster. He had driven in some pretty scary places in cars so fast it made him puke from fear so this was nothing. Then it occurred to him that he had no idea where he was and he said as much.

        "Hey, be cool man." My Sky patted his back. "I once was driving from Jorma's place in Santa Clara---you know, I know that town like my own hand--and, like, all of a sudden I was in Kansas, man! I had never been in Kansas and I was lost. Wow, weird trip! I just parked for an hour until I came back to Santa Clara. Be cool. it will come to you."  

        "Tiny's place. Take the Embarcadero and turn at--at--you know, Tiny's place? We need his truck." Case's voice came up from the back and confused Connor completely.

        "Where you at, man? Who is that? Case?"

        The hippie's face appeared at his right shoulder. "Yeah, like it's cool, man. We go to Tiny's and borrow his truck." Connor stared at the wheel and bent his head to look at the pedals. "It's the one on the right. The long one. Makes the car go fast."

        That was so funny to the four that laughter replaced breathing again, but Connor managed to put the van into gear and they started off jerking and smoking, a drunken greasy bomb lumbering with too much good humor into the early morning traffic.   

***

        When someone is named Tiny the thought immediately comes to mind of someone over six foot weighing in at over two hundred fifty pounds. This was not the Tiny they were seeking. This Tiny was six foot seven and topped three hundred eighty pounds. He had been a point man with the San Francisco Hells Angels and was as mean and reckless a rider as any in the State. The Frisco Angels were all older men, guys with jobs and houses and kids and an old lady, in that order. They would go on a run now and then but mostly they worked on their bikes and reminisced about the great Hollister run and the days when their names were spoken with respect and fear. One thing from the present had made its way into the club mind and become a civilizing factor. Lysergic acid diethylamide. LSD dreams of glory and power, guided by some of the most astute gurus of the hippie underground. The stuff of after-life. The papers and other media were no longer lovers of old tales of asphalt passion and reporters were increasingly going  to Sonny and the wild bunch in Oakland for excitement. San Francisco was old news and nothing frightens a reporter more than a story dripping with yesterdays blood. Tiny was not particularly anxious about that even though he, like the rest of that aging Chapter, felt they were the originals and should be asked to show the way into the bright lights, big city. He worked on his bike, drank copious quantities of local beer, and fought with his old lady. Of course we know what kind of old lady that was. Sweet, petite and good enough to eat, with a good right hook that would poleaxe a horse. There was nothing in Tiny's life that he loved more and wanted to kill more often than Cecelia Youngstown. An ex-debutant from a wealthy Boston Christian Science family, Cici had met Tiny during one of their infrequent runs to Tule Lake, the time the cops got so paranoid they set up road blocks three miles outside of town and manned them with every local bully-boy with a firearm. Alone any one of them would have messed their shorts if they had met the least fearsome Angel. Together they were John Wayne and the Charge at Feather River. One hundred twenty six rifles, sidearms, crossbows and one very effective sling that could send a steel ball through a quarter inch board. The Angels and related groupies circled around and around, popping wheelies and holding races up and down the highway but in the end, just went home. Tiny had a gas problem and had stopped at a Fill-n-Go to see to it when Cici came out of the garage. She was a sight. Grease on her peaches and cream face, fingernails filled with the grime of the ‘49 Packard she was rebuilding, and a shirt and jeans so tight she might have been dressed with a paint roller. A brush of a greasy hand across a sweaty brow leaving a long dark streak across her forehead and Tiny was in love. He came back, wrote reckless letters in a trembling hand, and once even sent a dozen carnations, that being the extent of his funds at the time.

        They began the courtship with a furious bang. She dared him to ride the two of them into the Sierras in the winter without clothes. He contracted the severest case of pneumonia the hospital had seen in years. He dared her to pose for photos naked on the bike and he sold them to a biker magazine which paid handsomely. It was touch and go for awhile with the betting three to one in Cici's favor. The newspaper photos of Cici having Tiny's zodiac sign tattooed on her beautiful behind was the clincher. Bets paid off at fifteen to one but the only sport that had placed one on Tiny was Tiny. He made enough to pay for a kickass blowout of a wedding in Sacramento. Everyone who was anyone on the road was there. Two hundred forty cases of whiskey and near half a thousand kegs of beer later the happy couple went flying down the highway to an undisclosed location for a honeymoon. What no one would ever know was that Tiny and Cici had never hit the sheets together. That was her one demand. No negotiation. If Tiny really loved her, he would not press the issue. He would wait. And he did. But once they had made that scene the babies began. Twins by the next summer, one more before Cici's twenty first birthday and another the following year. It was a trial for Tiny who had a grunge job at an outlaw garage and came home with about half what they needed for subsistence living. That was fine for the old days, Cici shouted, but what about the kids? What do they wear, let alone eat! That was when Tiny and Randi and some of the others formed their ‘security' company for rock concerts and outlaw movies. No matter, though, that he was now bringing home triple the dollars even on a bad night, Cici would never let him rest. She drove him to rages that caused damage to some very good musical equipment. Tiny stayed out of the house as much as he thought was prudent. That was where the heroes found him, putting the finishing torque on some wheel nuts and up to his ears in grease. Unfortunately he and Cici had just concluded the vocal part of another fight. She had threatened him with a steak knife and he had broken the wall with a blow from one side-of-beef fist. It was not a good day and it was about to get worse.

        "Hey, Tiny, man, what's happenin'! You remember me? Case, man. Like, what's up?" Case had fallen into a job as a gopher for the Stones tour one year and he and Tiny got loaded together many times behind the speaker stands. The hippie thought that gave him license for familiarity with the giant outlaw. Most of the time Tiny just let it go but not today.

        "Yeah! I remember you, you little prick. Get the fuck outta here. Who the fuck you got there, some more of your fancy dancer friends from the park? Get the fuck out!" He brandished a wrench and Case backed up.

        "Wait an minute, hey, Tiny, come on, man. It's just me and these are some friends, yeah, but not from the park. Thats--" The hippie made motions to O'Boogey and My Sky, neither of whom were particularly intimidated by the huge biker but neither were they wishing for any physical contact.

        "What do I care about your shit eating friends? Get the fuck away from me!"

        "Uh--Tiny, man, we need a truck for something important and we were wondering if you---"

        "MY truck? Shit! You wanna borrow MY truck? You got a death wish or something?"

        "Hey, man, come on. I didn't--"

        Case shut his mouth when Tiny made a swiping move at him. John shifted into a defensive stance. My Sky rolled his eyes up and shook his head. He rolled a cigarette from the grungy pouch of Bull Durham that always stuck out of his shirt pocket.

        Connor remained, standing behind the van's open door. He had a past with Tiny and he thought it the better part of valor to cower than to remind the biker of his existence.

        The advance people for a big time eastern band had come to Connor for aid in some of the details of their Bay area debut and one of those was security. He immediately thought of the Angels and phoned Tiny to set up a business meeting at The Whale Works, a communal type bar where all classes and levels of society mixed. The biker showed up with three friends, all of them bent by weed and beer. It was impossible for Connor to get across to them the situation and the danger from the crowd because the moment a challenge was mentioned three chests became drums for three calloused fists, booming like mountain gorillas in heat. They grunted and shouted obscenities at the waitress who was the wrong woman to try to abuse because she had that at home, being married to one of San Francisco's finest. She gave back as good as she got and then some, being a college English major specializing in colloquialisms and their effect on societies in flux.

        "You stupid fuckin' bitch! Get us some beer!" The four looked at each other, laughing at their command of the situation. The waitress came over  and gently placed both hands on the table. Her smile was ineffably sweet, a sign to those that knew her that it was time to close up and go home. The bartender saw it and began fishing about under the bar for his club.

        "Zelda! Now you watch it, hear! Zelda! Goddamit---"

        She was busy making hormonal puddles out of the four offenders and Connor too. He brought them, he would have to pay the frieght. She bent low so her lovely breasts were almost showing the nipples. Tiny's eyes bulged, five mouths were open like hatchlings waiting for a worm.

         "You boys seem to be pretty tough," she said softly. " But, you know, to me you are nothing more than churlish clay-brained common-kissing boar bladders without the sense God gaved a rutabaga. Why don't you goatish loggerheaded half-faced fen-sucked bum-baileys go find someplace else to play, hmmm?" Still sweet, still soft spoken. The bikers began to choke. Connor was in tears trying to hold in his laughter.

        "Wha tha fuck?"

        "Man, did you hear tha--"

        "Shit!--- Hey!-- What the fuck is a bum-bailey?"

        Connor tapped Tiny on the arm and said, "gotta go fellas. This is more trouble than we want."

        Tiny roared at that. "No fuckin tramp of a waitress is gonna get away with that! Trouble? You wanna see trouble?" and he lifted the table from the floor, which was no mean feat as it had been bolted down, and threw it at the woman who just laughed and moved to the side. It landed on a pair of odd looking men who seemed to be dressed as nuns. They stood up with much wringing of wrists, shrieks and scowls.

        "God! I just detest rough trade!" one said as he brushed off the remnants of a bowl of corn chips and cheese.

        "Oh my! Your clothes are covered! That's so sad! " said the other and he wet a knapkin to help with the cleaning.

        "You fairies got a problem with that?" scowled Tiny.

        "Fairies!" shrieked the first one, "Fairies? Well!" and he picked up a butter knife like a wand. "Vanish, bitch!" and he threw it at the biker. He must have had some training because it struck Tiny point on in the chest where his heart was thundering for battle. He grunted and stared down with amazement.

        "Cocksuckers! You ---"

        He got no farther. The two delicate looking men with ruffles and lace lifted their legs like dogs to a hydrant. Instead of peeing on the four they each executed incredible swift flowing kicks to Connor and the other Angel sitting on the outside. Connor went down with a dislocated jaw and the biker went out like a candle after Mass. Tiny was shaking with a rage he liked, the kind that meant it was the old days and anything went. He picked up the ashtray to hurl it but was caught in the side by a chair thrown by Zelda's husband, the biggest cop anyone had ever seen. Smiley Jack John, they called him, and indeed he was smiling as he backhanded another of the bikers into a temporary coma. Zelda was screaming archaic invective the whole time and trying to stab the remaining Angel in the eye with a salad fork.

        "You craven fly-bitten foot-licker! Beslobbering beef-witted giglet of shit! Mewling pottle-deep measle-witted puke! You---" Smiley tried to stop her because the object of her fury was now on the floor covered with blood that streamed from a punctured eyebrow. She whirled in her madness and made for the offending hand.

        "Hold it, babe! Hang on, now. It's me! Hey!" The giant cop was laughing now, booming with good humor, which was just as well for the bikers who were scrambling for the door. Smiley glanced their way and, redoubling his deep rumbling laughter, let them go. He figured they had been punished far more by a slip of a woman coming down like that than any court could possibly have done. They made it  to their machines where they daubed their wounds with greasy rags, sending death signals to Connor who had jammed his jaw back in place.

        "You hang out here much, mother fucker? I ever see you again---" Connor did not wait to find out what. He darted into the noon hour traffic and was gone.

        Those last words were loud in Connor's mind as he prayed his clothes were providing him camouflage against the psychodelic paint job on the van. His eyes were clenched shut to dim the scene. This could not be happening.

        "You hang out here much, mother fucker?"

        The voice seemed so real, so close. Connor smiled in relief when he realized it was just his mind talking. He opened his eyes and nearly swallowed his tongue. Tiny had moved with the grace of a dancer and stood now in front of the trembling hustler. There was the wrench still in his hand and a sneer on his lips. He moved closer. Connor tried to move back but he was against the side of the van. He groped for the handle of the sliding door, found it, and pulled. Case had locked it two years before and it had not functioned since. Connor pulled, pushed, a sob ripped from his heaving chest. Tiny stood with his massive arms folded. The hustler could not believe it. The biker was smiling.

        "The LSD, man. It was the acid. I forgave you, motherfucker! A long time ago! What a pussy! Hey, Case---he got any clean shorts? I smell sometin' funny." He roared at his humor, a laughter an elephant would have if they laughed. A bull elephant impressing a female. Which Tiny was trying to do.

        Connor found himself in a whirlwind of a bearhug. What the hell---, he thought and tried to smile back.

        "Yeah, man. Cool. I'm real glad, you don't know how glad. But, like man, could you put me down? You're breaking me in half!"

        "I know', Tiny said, "I wanted you to see what you were missing if I was still mad." Shit! Thought Connor, that was close!

        "Well! The studly mansey is getting close to the freaks now, huh?"

        It was Ceci. Beautiful beyond hope, small as a girl and bearing a wit that could wither steel flowers, Cici had watched the proceedings from the kitchen window. If it were known, she was as unhappy fighting with Tiny as he was. She wanted to rush into his arms and have it over. Her constitution would have none of it, however, and she never displayed an emotion she could not control. Cecelia was the only person on the planet who actually frightened the biker. It was a fear that comes with the potential loss of something so precious it cannot be replaced. He turned with Connor still crushed to his chest. He grinned a little-boy grin and it changed his whole being.

        "Well---baby, they need--help. You know? And I been lookin' for Connor for- --"

        "I know, you big stupid! Haven't I had to listen for hours how you were going to hurt him? Torture him? Tear off parts and feed them to him?"

        Tiny took up the tune he knew was being played for the squirming hustler.

        "You mean how I was going to rip his skin to shreds and pour salt in the wound?"

        "That too, but I was thinking more of the dislocation of all his joints then forcing him to run."

        "I remember, yeah! That would have been a trip! But I forgave him and---do you forgive me baby?---" There was no whining tone in the request, no begging. Just a plea like the lonesome whistle of a train in the dark.

        "Next time I'll have your liver for lunch!"

        "Not with onions, baby. You know how they give you gas. Fuckin A, you fart like a mule when you eat onions!"

        "Stick it in your ear, Tiny!"

        "Fuck you too, baby!!" Like a child throwing down a toy when he sees a better one, Tiny dropped Connor and grabbed Cici. She squealed in stage anger, then giggled and pulled his head between her breasts.

        "Tell your playmates goodbye, Tiny." She looked at the group. "We gonna be busy for a couple of hours. See ya."

        "Couple of hours? Yeah, yeah, cool. We'll be back."

        And Tiny, the Hells Angel, carried Cici, Boston debutant, across the threshold like a lord carries his lady to their wedding chamber. As the group turned to leave Tiny called to them.

        "I don't know what you motherfuckers want with it but---the truck is in good shape. Don't bring it back if you fuck it up. Naw, if you do that, keep it. And move out of the country!" Overcome once more by the weight of his cleverness, he tossed a key to Case and  the two disappeared into the house.