Just then, Willow’s leg wrapped around Michael’s, and even over the music, I could have sworn I heard a little groaning noise coming from the tent. I felt a blush spread across my face. I absolutely didn’t get it.
The last performer of the night was a folk singer, Joan Baez. I didn’t know too much about her, other than that she had an old-fashioned kind of voice that had always annoyed me on my parents’ old records. I turned to Debbie and said, “She’s not very rock-and-roll, either, is she? Kinda like that Broadway dude.”
Debbie almost bit my head off. “Gabriel, show some respect. She’s Joan Baez. She’s my idol. She played with Dr. Martin Luther King at the March on Washington. She was fighting for civil rights when we were still learning to spell.”
I was stunned. “Uh…” I replied intelligently. In my defense, I hadn’t even been alive when Debbie had been learning to spell, so what did she expect?
“And do you know where her husband, David, is now? Right now, while she’s standing up there onstage, pregnant, her husband is in prison for refusing to register for the draft. She’s a real American hero. So don’t mock her, all right?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know.”
After a few really political songs, with speeches in between, I built up the courage to speak again. “So, uh, do you know anybody who’s been drafted?”
“My cousin Marty. Last we heard, he was with the Hundred and First Airborne, getting dropped by helicopter right in the middle of jungle firefights.”
Wow, I had never known a single person who was in the army. Even though I had lived through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they hadn’t really touched my life. I didn’t know what to say.
“And my other cousin, Frankie. He came home last year pretty messed up. He has three Purple Hearts. From what my aunt told my mom, he got shot in one leg trying to save his buddy, but then the guy died anyway. Then when Frankie recovered, he got sent back to his unit, and the boy in front of him stepped on a mine. A piece of the kid’s helmet sliced into Frankie’s arm and cut an artery. He needed something like sixty stitches, but the army sent him back out to fight again. The third Purple Heart, nobody will even tell me about. I heard my parents whispering once, and I almost got the feeling he might’ve shot himself to avoid going back out into the jungle again. All I know is, since he got back, he doesn’t do anything but sit in his old room and listen to the Doors. It’s really sad.”
I wondered what the draft meant for my father, and for millions of kids just like him all across the country. It occurred to me that, in a way, my dad was an Arlo Guthrie, but Vietnam was his disease: He was going through high school, studying or not studying, trying or not trying, without knowing whether he would just get drafted and sent to Vietnam at the end anyway. How many of the guys around me were worried about the draft at that very moment? How many had already fought in the war and come back? How many would flee to Canada, or go to jail, rather than report for duty? How many would die?
Of course, I wondered again whether it would be better or worse for a man to know his fate. With a whisper, I could release my dad from worrying about getting drafted, but if I could get him to believe I could really see the future, then I’d have to tell him about his brother. It was a pretty classic no-win situation.
Joan Baez sang a duet with some guy then, and they made a big deal out of dedicating it to someone. I was too lost in thought to catch the dedication, though. “Wow,” Debbie said, “it’s pretty funny that they’re singing a song for that idiot Ronald Reagan.”
“You mean President Reagan?” I asked.
“Don’t even joke around like that,” she said. “It’s bad enough he’s the governor of California. I can’t even stand to imagine he could ever get elected president.”
A few songs later, Joan handed her guitar off to somebody, stood alone in a spotlight, and sang a totally a capella version of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” that felt like a magic spell. I could feel a silent awakening all around me. David woke up and sat upright; Michael and Willow stuck their heads out of the tent. I know I said her voice had always bugged me, but suddenly, hearing it here, I understood. I don’t know how to explain it, except to tell you this: When Joan Baez sang about a sweet chariot coming to carry her home, half a million people felt like we were riding right along with her.
Michael put one arm around David and one around Willow. As soon as the song ended, he said, “I’m glad we’re here together. Remember this, okay? Just promise me you’ll remember this.”
Joan put her guitar back on and started singing “We Shall Overcome,” the last song of the first night of Woodstock. Debbie lit a match and squinted at her watch. “Hey,” she whispered, “it’s almost two in the morning!”
At the edges of the dim matchstick glow, I could just make out the smiles on the faces all around our little circle. Out of nowhere, I suddenly felt a tear running down my own cheek as the match blew out. Without a word being said, Debbie curled into my shoulder to sleep, and I lay there thinking about Michael … and the sixty-two days he had left.
MORNING SUNRISE
SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 1969
It rained on and off during the night, so by the time I woke up, our blankets had begun to sink and slide in the mud. The right side of me was tangled up with Debbie, and would have felt somewhat warm and snuggly if her head hadn’t cut off all the circulation in that arm. Also, that hip was throbbing where the hood ornament had nailed me the day before, and her knee was somehow curled up against that exact spot. Meanwhile, my left side was hanging off the blanket, and that hand and foot were sucked into little mini-vortexes of gritty, slick mud.
It wasn’t one of my comfier wake-ups, although Debbie would have felt kind of sweet against me if I hadn’t been numb, tingly, and throbbing all at once.
Oh, and I had to pee like a madman.
Escape was a necessity. I lay there for a moment, attempting to gather my wits. I got a whiff of the air around me, and noted two things. First, half a million smoking, drinking, partying people getting rained on all night in a titanically huge cow pasture, between long rows of portable toilets, creates a fairly stupendous odor—picture what it would smell like if the Goodyear Blimp dropped thousands of tons of manure inches in front of your face just as you climbed out the bathroom window of the world’s most revolting greasy fast-food restaurant. Behind a garbage dump. Next door to a smokers’ convention. Second, Tina’s orange juice-scented puke cut right through the general funk with a power all its own.
It wasn’t even dawn yet, but I could see by the faint, diffuse light around me that nobody around me was awake. I got my arm and leg free from Debbie’s—which was like playing Twister with two completely immovable limbs—as gently as I could. She snorted, but didn’t open her eyes. Debbie was kind of a sweet snorter.
David was on the other side of Debbie, sandwiched between her and a face-planted Tina. Not only did I have to escape, but I had to drag him with me. Whatever attempts he had made to rinse his shirt the night before had been rendered completely ineffective by his sleeping arrangements. Even in the dim half-light, I could see that he and his date were both centered in a dried pool of recycled citrus.
I remembered from the Woodstock movie that there was a big pond somewhere downhill behind the stage, where people had gone skinny-dipping throughout the weekend. I figured David and I could grab some soap, and maybe some tooth-brushing supplies. Then, if we hurried, we could get down to the water and clean ourselves off before most other people were even awake.
Because there was one thing I was sure of: I had to make sure my dad’s clothes got super-duper clean before he started looking around for his spare outfit and realized it was on me. I’m not even a big fan of orange juice when it’s new.
I tapped David on the shoulder and whispered in his ear to explain the plan. He nodded after a moment and stumbled to his feet. His pants and shirt made a sickly swick! noise as they peeled away from the blanket. Then he grabbed his bac
kpack, and we started walking down toward the stage. If I remembered correctly, we would have to walk around behind the stage and pass into a little wooded area to reach the water.
Progress was slow, and we definitely caused a few sleepy people to cry, “Hey, watch it, mannnnn!” However, we made it onto the road that edged around the stage, passed under the huge wooden walkway that the musicians traveled to get onstage, and found our way down to the water. Sure enough, we were the only people there.
It was a little bit lighter at this point, so that I could get a decent look at David. He needed more than a little splashing-off action. Aside from his involuntary vitamin C rinse, he was also so covered with mud from head to toe that he resembled an extra from a zombie movie. Glancing down at my own clothing, I realized that being pinned down by Debbie all night had kept me partially clean; only my left side had the zombie makeover look. Still, we were a hot mess.
I started taking off my shirt. What had to happen next was horrifying, but unavoidable. We were going to have to take it all off and do some major scrubbing if we were going to survive this weekend—and we were going to have to do it fast, before the world’s biggest nude swim party started up again for the day.
“David,” I said, “do you have any soap, or shampoo, or something?”
“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Michael’s an Eagle Scout. He packed a whole survival kit. We’ve got soap, shampoo, baking soda for emergency toothpaste.…”
“Okay, perfect, let’s strip and scrub.”
He looked at me kind of funny, almost like I had woken him up at six a.m. after a wild party night, dragged him to a secluded pond, and ordered him to strip. “What?”
“We have to strip and get clean.”
“Strip?”
I sighed. I reminded myself that he didn’t know we were going to be in the middle of one of the world’s most infamous nude movie scenes if we didn’t hurry. “Yes. Listen: I’m wearing your only spare clothes, right?”
He nodded.
“Well, look at them.”
He did.
“And it was incredibly nice of you to lend them to me, but … uh … they’re pretty messed up now, and even if you did want them back like this, I don’t have anything to change into. So I have to get them clean, right?”
He nodded again. I noticed I could see the white of his teeth now. The sun was going to break out over the trees any minute.
“And take a look at your clothing. Do you remember what Tina did to your shirt last night?”
He looked down and his face squinched up. He remembered.
“So, all I’m saying is we have to take off all these clothes and scrub them with whatever you’ve got, and we’ve got to do it fast, before a ton of other people come wandering down here with the same idea. What do you say?”
David didn’t answer. He just shucked off his sneakers, and grabbed the bar of soap in one hand. I took off my sneakers, pants, and underwear, bundled all of my clothes under one arm, and picked up the shampoo bottle. Then I walked into the shallows of the pond. David followed.
Skinny-dipping is pretty darn awkward, especially with just one other guy, because honestly, there is no good place to look. We both stared very intently at our clothes as we scrubbed at top speed, which worked pretty well except when we had to pass the soap. At those moments, we just sort of laughed sheepishly.
Still, it felt amazing to get clean.
Just as the sun started hitting the tips of the trees, I got a good look at my bruised hip. It was pretty crazy: I had a perfect imprint of the Cadillac ornament branded into my skin. It occurred to me that I might have that mark forever.
Swell. There’s nothing like a big old tattoo of an old-people car symbol to drive the babes wild.
When David and I had gotten both ourselves and our clothes clean, I forgot about the bruise for one glorious moment of pure, radiant joy. My plan had worked. We had gotten cleaned up, and had the whole pond to ourselves. The warm sun struck me full in the face as I strode forth from the water. I dropped my clothing in the reeds onshore and stood with my eyes closed for a while, enjoying the feeling of being all alone with the brand-new day. I even spread my arms to enjoy the rays.
That was when a female voice shouted, from about three feet in front of me, “Far out! Skinny-diiiiipppp!!!!!!!”
I opened my eyes, and saw first tens, then hundreds of teenagers swarming past me, ripping off their clothes as they went. At first, I wanted to die of embarrassment, but then I burst out laughing as a realization swept over me.
Yes, thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Now you know my place in history. I, Richard Gabriel Barber, started the skinny-dipping at Woodstock.
David and I walked back up the hill past the stage and found that Willow and Michael hadn’t emerged from the tent yet. Tina was sitting up, hugging her knees and staring off into space. Debbie was standing next to her, scanning the horizon in all directions. She laughed when she saw us.
“Hey,” she said, “we just got back from brushing our teeth at the pumps. What happened to you? You’re soaked!” she said.
“We went for a little morning clean-up swim,” I said. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You swam in your clothes?” she asked, grinning mischievously.
“Nope,” I said, grinning back.
“In that case,” she said, “you definitely should have woken me up. We could have had fun.”
Ahhh, I thought, I love the sixties. “Are you hungry?” I asked her.
“Starved. Why?”
David said, “Well, some girls by the water told us about a place over the hill that’s serving breakfast to anyone who wants some.”
“Wait,” Debbie said, “there were other girls swimming naked down there?”
“Ummm…” I said. “Not exactly. We got out, and then they got in.”
“So they just saw you naked.”
I nodded.
“And then you saw them naked.”
I stayed very, very still.
“And you talked to them?”
“He didn’t,” David said. “I did.”
Hey, I thought. That’s the first time my father has ever stuck up for me. It felt good.
Debbie, David, and I stood and stared at each other awkwardly for a moment, until Tina piped up. “Hey,” she asked my dad, “aren’t you that guy that kept laughing last night?”
He nodded.
She reached over and smacked him on the leg. “Well, thanks for keeping me grounded. You really helped. Now, did someone say something about breakfast? For some reason, I have the weirdest craving for orange juice!”
TWO WORLDS
SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 1969
The forest was amazing, like a whole alternate universe. There were trails everywhere, with signs like Groovy Way and High Way. People had set up booths, some of which were selling arts and crafts, and some of which were selling a mind-blowing variety of drugs right out in the open. I was so used to life in the 2010s that I kept waiting for a zillion federal agents to come rappelling down out of the trees, Taser everyone in sight, and throw us all into the back of a bunch of black vans. Of course, I had also been arrested the day before, which might have added to my paranoia, but still … times had definitely changed.
We asked a bunch of people we passed where we could find the food kitchen, and they directed us out into a clearing where long lines of sleepy-looking people were waiting. The lines moved pretty well, though, and soon we each had our very own paper cups of granola and juice. We sat down under some trees and munched away as we watched the strange woodland goings-on. Just in our little field of vision, a nude guy was leading a hundred or so people in a morning yoga class; some other dude was chasing a real live goat around and around a tree; and a bunch of dirty, naked toddlers were laughing and running through a playground.
“Check out those kids,” Tina said. “Imagine if your parents were cool enough to take you to something like this.”
“Yeah,” Debbie sa
id, “then we could have told them the truth about where we are this weekend!”
“Oh, man,” David said. “My parents know where I am. They just don’t care … as long as I’m not in the house bugging them! For them, this is a party weekend.”
We all just sat there for a while, munching loudly, until Tina looked at me and asked, “What about you, Gabriel?”
“Uh, it’s kind of hard to explain, but … well, one of my parents knows where I am. Kind of. I mean, not entirely. Exactly. I— I guess I’m trying to say, my parents wouldn’t exactly approve if they totally knew.”
“Thanks for clearing that up, Gabriel,” Debbie said. “Funny, I thought you were the honest type.”
“I am,” I said. Usually, I thought. “It’s just … I really had to be here. Seriously, I felt like I had no choice. It was my destiny. I can deal with the consequences later. Haven’t you ever just had to do something?”
“Yeah, this!” Debbie said. She crumpled her granola cup, threw it aside, and kissed me full on the mouth. David and Tina applauded. Wow, I thought. This isn’t the kind of thing that randomly happens to me. Blondes really do have more fun! I couldn’t decide whether to get really into it and ask for seconds, die of embarrassment, or propose a nice late-morning swim.
Ultimately, I went with the swim. Debbie had been right. Skinny-dipping was a lot more interesting with her along.
The whole middle of the day alternated between rain and shine, but we all had a great time anyway. Eventually, Michael and Willow woke up, just in time to serve us a late lunch and watch the afternoon’s bands.