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This one's for the Deadheads....

One more excerpt from Free.  This one's especially for all my fellow tourheads...ah, don't it bring you back...

There’s nothing like the parking lot of a Grateful Dead show. It’s a whole culture of its own, above and beyond the rest of the world, boasting its own food, dialect, attire, values and mores; an intricate tapestry of people from all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life. Music wafts from everywhere: Dead, Phish, Bob Marley, and various other groups that can range from classic rock to new age, from jazz to alternative. Odors linger in the air: pungent tomato sauce for spaghetti or chili, buttery grilled cheese, the ever-popular veggie burrito.

The cars lined up in rows vary by make and model, although there are a lot of VW buses, campers, vans and RVs. They are decorated with stickers and slogans, and tapestries hang from windows. License plates claim a multitude of states, from North to South, from East to West, although tonight there will be more from New Jersey than anywhere else. I haven’t seen Chuck’s bus yet, but I know they’re here because they passed us yesterday on the road. Eric and Mark had agreed to go to will-call every hour on the hour until they found each other. Eric left to meet him about forty-five minutes ago.  I’m going to hook up with him at 6:00 in front of the venue, to let him know if I found a ticket or not.

Right now I’m on Shakedown Street, which is the name given to the strip of the lot dedicated to vendors. You can buy just about anything here:  food, clothing, jewelry, artwork, stickers, beer, soda, books, pipes. Vending is illegal, and sometimes security will give vendors a hard time and confiscate their stuff. This sucks— it’s like the cops swooping down and taking away your paycheck. But mostly those of us selling legal merchandise are left alone. I find it’s safer to walk around with my hemp, rather than setting up shop on the strip. Besides, I get bored sitting in one place for so long.

I haven’t sold anything yet, but I’m not worried; it’s early, and most of the townies aren’t here yet. Most of the people here already are other vendors, and we don’t buy much except for food and beer, or other necessities. It’s the people who live here who want to buy stuff, kind of like tourists in Mexico or someplace like that, except that here the products are coming to them instead of the other way around. I expect to make at least fifty dollars tonight, but if I’m lucky I’ll make closer to a hundred before I stop to try and score a ticket. I want to have enough money to buy one if I have to; this is the kickoff of summer tour, and I definitely want in the show tonight. I also want to find a ride to the next show, which is much easier when you have gas money to kick down. But right now I’m just kind of wandering, looking for people I know.

I decide to cross the venue to the other parking lot, just to check it out. Later on this area will be filled with people—people in line waiting to get into the show, and others selling and searching for tickets. A lot of people, myself included, will be looking for a “miracle,” or a free ticket. There are various ways of doing this, but the most popular is to walk around with your finger in the air to show that you want one ticket, and announce that you need a miracle. Hopefully, sooner or later someone will give you a ticket into the show—no strings attached. It’s a phenomenon that I have witnessed at no other  groups’ concerts—not that I’ve really been to many other groups’ concerts—and I’m not sure why there are so many free tickets floating around. But I’d estimate that I have gotten into about sixty percent of the shows I’ve seen absolutely free, and about twenty percent for half price or less. I haven’t paid full price for very many shows at all, which is good, because they can be pretty spendy.

There are other ways to get into shows for free. Sometimes people slip by with counterfeit tickets, or stubs from previous shows, but that’s pretty rare. I know a girl who swears she can get in by “making herself invisible” and walking right past the people at the gates. That has never worked for me, and to be honest, the night she demonstrated it to me it didn’t work for her, either. Sometimes someone inside the venue will open an unused door, letting whoever happens to be on the outside in, but that’s a matter of being in the right place at the right time. It happened to me last spring in Canada. As I walked alongside the venue, the door just flew open, and I ran up the stairs into the show and disappeared into the crowd before security even knew what was happening. But you can’t count on that. I’ve had the most success by far with miracles.

Of course, when all else fails, you can try to break into the show by going over or under a fence or by rushing the gates. Last year at Deer Creek I got caught up in a mob of gate-crashers. I found myself running for a chain-link fence and climbing like mad, security hot on our tails. I was almost to the top, my heart pounding quickly with fear and exhilaration, when the whole fence toppled backwards under our weight. I barely got out from under it and away before the guard caught me. Thinking about it later, I realized how stupid it was; how easily someone could have been hurt. On top of that, it was an act of vandalism—we tore that gate down! But at the time I was so caught up on getting into the show that none of that even occurred to me.

The other parking lot is virtually empty. I haven’t seen any of the kids I know from tour. Some of them probably blew it off because it was New Jersey, and just about everybody seems to hate Jersey. I don’t mind it—at least not here in the parking lot of Giants Stadium. The only place I won’t go to see a show is Iowa, and I don’t think I have to worry about the Dead playing there anytime soon. 

I’m walking around the venue just to check it out—I’ve never been here before—when a man approaches me. “Need any tickets?” he asks. He’s looking around nervously, like he’s selling crack or nuclear weapons or something.

I smile engagingly. “I need a miracle.” He is wearing a T-shirt and jeans, with short hair and a mustache. He looks like a shyster, like your typical scalper, and I’m not expecting him to give me a ticket. But he looks at me for a second and then pulls one out of his pocket.

“What the hell, kid, maybe you’re good luck,” he says as he hands it to me.

I can barely believe it—it’s not even 3:00 p.m. yet, and I already have a ticket! I thank him, and he smiles and says, “No problem. Enjoy the show,” as he walks off. Goes to show, you can’t judge a book by its cover.

Another excerpt from Free

At my friend Neelie's request, and in honor of my upcoming trip to New Orleans, here's another excerpt from my novel.  Free will be released July 4!

New Orleans is hot. A thick, wet hot. The kind of heat that follows you everywhere and clings to your skin beneath your clothes; that enfolds itself around you like a blanket. I don’t mind. I was sick of the cold in Chicago, sick of layering clothes on top of each other to keep warm. I’m wearing a tank top and cut-off shorts right now, sitting on some rocks by the Mississippi River. It’s pretty here. There are big boats with names like Mississippi Queen and Belle of New Orleans sitting on the river expectantly, waiting for their turn to go somewhere.

I’ve been all over the country, but never anywhere like this. The houses all look European and Gothic, with wrought iron gates and bars on the windows. People do tarot readings in the streets. There are strip clubs, sex shows, bars, bars, and more bars, ghost and vampire tours, aboveground cemeteries. In the Garden District there are huge mansions painted in pastel colors and lavish with ornate fixings. The streetcars run clanging down the street. It is a town of mystery, of rituals and secrets, and yet people are open and friendly. It’s a phenomenon I haven’t quite figured out yet.

We’re living with some of Arkansas Joe’s friends, in a run-down building right outside the French Quarter. It’s not the greatest place to live, but it’ll do for now. It was a last-minute decision to come here. I ran into Joe right before Eric came back, and he said he couldn’t wait any longer; he was leaving in a week. I told him I was coming. We left two days after Eric returned. He was bewildered and quietly angry. He kept wanting to know why I was leaving. I wished I could tell him. I still don’t know why myself.

Arkansas Joe’s friends have a table at the French Market, and I sell some of my jewelry there. I also do hair wraps in Jackson Square, where the tarot and palm readers are, and sometimes down here by the river. I don’t have a permit, but I haven’t been caught yet. This is my favorite place to do hair wraps. I like being near the water. There was no water in Iowa, but lately I’ve been spoiled. Joe does cemetery tours for a living. It’s not a real job. He waits around the cemeteries for tourists to come by, and then he offers to take them around the cemetery and tell them about it. I guess tourists visit the cemeteries because the aboveground burials are so unique. I’ve heard a lot of reasons why they bury their dead above ground, but I think it’s because the land is so swampy that bodies would wash away. He doesn’t charge a fee, just requests a donation. He usually gets them. I asked him how he learned so much about the cemeteries. He laughed and said he makes it up.

I think of Eric a lot. I miss him. Maybe I’ll send him a postcard or something.

There are a lot of homeless kids in New Orleans, which is no different than Portland, San Francisco, or anyplace else I’ve been. Even Chicago had its street kids huddled together down by the Alley at Belmont and Clark. The kids here sit along the narrow, cobblestone streets of the French Quarter and ask the tourists for money or food. Joe knows a lot of them. I’ve seen a couple that I knew from tour, all dazed and out of it, strung out on dope. They asked me for some, and when I told them I didn’t use, they walked away without a word.

No matter what day of the week it is, Bourbon Street is a party at night, alit in neon and crowded with people. People drift in and out of the bars, taking their beverages outside with them because you can drink on the street. Music pours from every building, and people stagger through the streets, laughing, fighting. Girls lift their shirts and show their breasts for the ninety-nine cent beads the guys throw off the balconies, and guys stagger in and out of the Barely Legal or Topless/Bottomless clubs. I think Kathi would love it here. In the morning they hose the streets down, because they smell like garbage and urine.

We live right outside the French Quarter in a bad neighborhood. There are housing projects across the street from our apartment. New Orleans is the murder capital of the world, I guess. I don’t care. It adds to the mystique. So do the rats; giant rats roaming down the cobblestone streets, as big as cats. They scare me more than the bad neighborhoods do. A card reader once told me they were the spirits of the dead. I don’t usually believe in that stuff, but who knows? New Orleans is like that. 

“Hi ya, Free,” a voice calls behind me. I jump, startled. It’s Maria, one of the tarot readers from Jackson Square. I had been thinking such creepy thoughts that she caught me off guard. She laughs. “Did I scare you?”

“Startled me a little,” I admit. “Are you done working?”

“Taking a break,” she says. “Toby’s covering for me. There aren't a lot of people out today.” Toby is an artist. He paints pictures of people for money.

“Can Toby read cards?” I ask.

“He’s getting there,” Maria says. Maria has dark, thick hair; dark, thick skin; and black eyes set deep under dark, thick eyebrows. She looks like a fortune-teller, so a lot of people pick her to read their cards. She doesn’t wear drape-y capes or flowing skirts like some of the psychic readers. She’s wearing shorts and a T-shirt. She says she makes more money than anyone else there, and that most of her customers come back. She says it’s because she’s really psychic. “I’ve been teaching him. You should learn, Free. It’s a good way to make extra money.”

I shrug. “I don’t think I’d be good at it. I’m not psychic at all.”

“You never know,” Maria says, smiling. “You want a reading?”

“I can’t pay for it,” I protest.

“I know,” Maria says, “but it’s good for business when people see me reading instead of just sitting there. I’m sick to death of reading for Toby and Jeannette all the time.” Jeannette is a palm reader who works next to Maria. “Come on back with me. It might be good for you.”

“Okay,” I say, getting to my feet. We walk over the train tracks and across the street. There are usually a lot of people in this part of the Quarter, but today is kind of quiet. Toby is sitting at Maria’s table, studying the cards. He looks like he’s really concentrating. Toby always seems to be in his own little world. He’s the skinniest person I’ve ever met, and his face is full of acne. He has pretty eyes, but they’re hard to notice through all of his pimples. He looks up as we approach. “Hey, Free, hey Maria,” he says slowly. Toby always talks slowly.

“I’m going to give Free a reading,” Maria tells him. He nods but doesn’t move, so Maria says, “Can I sit, Tobe?”

“Oh,” he says, getting out of the seat, “Sorry.” He ambles back to his chair and drawing pad. He’s really spaced out, but he’s the best artist I know. His drawings look like photographs.

Maria sits down and motions for me to sit. She hands me the cards. “Shuffle them, and focus on your energy as it diffuses through the cards.” I have no idea what she is talking about, so I just nod and shuffle. Maria closes her eyes and breathes deeply, and it is suddenly silent except for the ripping sound of the cards as I shuffle. Just as I’m starting to feel a little nervous she says, “When you feel complete, cut the cards with your left hand, twice to the left.” She makes a quick gesture with her hand. Her eyes are still closed, and she still breathes deeply. I shuffle one more time and then cut the deck like she showed me. Maria opens her eyes and smiles, and I feel a little better. She picks up the piles and puts them back on top of each other. Then she lays down three cards in a row. The backs are blue and there are some symbols or something on them—cups and swords and things.

“This is a simple reading,” she says. “Past, present, future.” She flips over the first card, which shows a figure on a horse. “The Knight of Swords.” Her brow furrows as she studies the card, and then she looks directly at me. “This represents a man in your past. Maybe more than one man.  He’s intellectual and logical. Sometimes he’s detached and emotionless, sometimes he’s angry. It could just be energy from your past that you need to let go of. Maybe you need more emotion in your life. Maybe it’s you.” She looks at me expectantly. I don’t know what to say, so I just nod. She flips the next card. “Present.” A man is in a boat on the water. His back is to us. “Six of Swords,” she says. “You’re presently leaving something behind or giving something up. Maybe him.” She points to the Knight of Swords, and I think of Eric. Did I tell Maria about him? I can’t remember.

Maria is staring at me again, so I say, “That makes sense,” even though I’m not sure that it does. She seems encouraged. She flips the last card over. It shows people falling from a building that was struck by lightning. Maria frowns. “Hmmm…” she says slowly. She seems to be considering.

“What is it?” I ask nervously.

Toby peers over. “The Tower!” he says. He somehow sounds excited even though he is still speaking slowly. “That’s the worst card in the deck. Something bad is gonna happen to you, Free.”

“Toby!” Maria turns to him. “That’s no way to read cards! You have to remain positive.” She looks back at me. “The Tower is never welcome, but it still can be positive and necessary. This means that your life is going to change drastically, but what grows from the ruins can be even better.”

I nod nervously. Drastic? Ruins? I don’t like this. I wish I’d never let Maria do this for me. It didn’t even drum up any business; there’s still no one around. Maria can tell I’m upset. “Don’t worry, Free. Your life probably needs a change, don’t you think? And really, what do you have to lose?”

It’s true. I have nobody and nothing. What could happen that’s so terrible? I decide to stop worrying about it, although Toby’s reaction keeps playing in my mind.