Remain in Love Read online

  Did I forget to mention drugs? This was the sixties, after all. While I was truly frightened of heroin and downers from what I had heard about them, I had no fear of marijuana, hashish, LSD, mescaline, and speed. I had one friend whose father was a physician and came to school one day with a bag of what he called black beauties. He said he had swiped them from his father’s doctor’s bag. These capsules brought on euphoria and what felt like boundless energy that lasted at least twelve hours. Then came the crash, which was no fun at all. We learned that a couple of Rolling Rock beers would take the edge off of that crash pretty well. Marijuana seemed like a harmless giggle compared to black beauties and sometimes we would try both at the same time. Acid was the king, though.

  After reading Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception and various accounts in Life magazine, I couldn’t wait to try LSD. One of the first times I tried it was with a friend who was visiting from out of town. We were enjoying the new feelings we were experiencing and laughing uncontrollably when I realized that it was time for the family dinner. Thanksgiving dinner! My friend and I gathered at the table with my parents, brother, and sister, doing our best to maintain our composure, but when my father began to carve the turkey we both dissolved into giggles. This was not a bad trip—it was a wacky trip! I remember my father looking at us with real curiosity as if to say, “What the hell is so damned funny?” My mother knew something was up, too, but what? We forced ourselves to eat to avoid detection. By the time the pumpkin pie was served, we were fully hallucinating and loving the texture of the pie.

  I had a friend who would drive a hundred miles to Kent State University to score the best acid and bring it back to us. Why did we, who had every advantage in life, feel the need to take LSD or any other drug? In my case, it was simply a desire for new and exciting experiences. In spite of my good fortune in life, at the age of seventeen I felt like I was missing out on something—something intangible. I didn’t just want to get high, I wanted to experience the deeper feelings and connections made by the great artists and musicians, and hoped that psychedelics would open my eyes to a secret, more enlightened world. I believe that they did.

  Not long before my graduation from Shady Side, I went to a party at an older friend’s apartment in a blue-collar neighborhood called Bloomfield. There were maybe twenty high school kids of both sexes there. We were smoking grass and listening to the new Jimi Hendrix album, Band of Gypsys, when suddenly a team of plainclothes cops crashed the party. They made all of us line up while they proceeded to search our friend’s apartment from top to bottom. I think they patted down and searched every guy there except me. I don’t know why they didn’t search me, but it was a good thing because I had a big lump of hash in my pocket. The cops expressed their disappointment to one another that they didn’t find any “hard stuff.” Then they marched us outside, where two paddy wagons were waiting: one for the boys and one for the girls. We were taken to jail, to individual holding cells. After stewing for a while, we were each allowed one phone call. I called my father and woke him up to tell him the situation. Everyone else’s parents came to get them right away, but my dad said he was going back to sleep and would come and get me sometime the next day. I tried to sleep on the cold steel platform that served as a bed, but I was terrified and sleep did not come. One of the cops said if my father didn’t come soon they would move me to the big jail, put me in a uniform, and shave my head. I also imagined that I would be expelled from school just before graduation. It was a bad night.

  The next day, which was Sunday, my father came downtown to get me after church. On the ride home he said that I was lucky that there would be no charges against me but that my friends who hosted the party would be charged with “operating a disorderly house.” This was a charge that was normally issued against houses of prostitution, but had been expanded to include teenage pot parties. If my school ever found out about this, they didn’t say so. My friends and I all graduated as planned. I received an award as the most improved student. The joy and relief I felt standing in my blue blazer and white duck trousers on graduation day was immense. Now came the real test: Could I make it as an artist or would I have to pursue some more traditional profession? I was the first member of my family to make this leap, but I would not be the last.

  5

  KENTUCKY LOVE

  I have always loved Kentucky. All of my mother’s family lived there and I especially enjoyed visiting my grandparents in Mason County. We would visit them often because my mother remained very close to her parents. They were very sweet and kind to us children. I can remember one Christmas when my grandfather, Pappy, who was the mayor of his tiny hometown of Washington, dressed up as Santa Claus and rode the town’s brand-new fire engine down Main Street in the snow with the siren blaring, before handing out presents to all the little children at the Volunteer Fire Department.

  The summers were even better. I helped Pappy by doing house painting on his own house and also on some rental houses he owned. There are few things hotter than painting a tin roof in Kentucky in July except for cutting and housing tobacco and baling hay in August. I did that, too, out at my friend Kippy Parker’s family farm in Mays Lick.

  Kentucky people really knew how to live. There was always some kind of party or picnic to go to and there were so many pretty girls. Before I got my driver’s license, my cousin Holton Cartmell would pick me up in his Ford Model A to take me on double dates. We would take our dates to Bisotti’s, the drive-in hamburger joint with curbside service across the river in Ohio. People cruised around and around Bisotti’s until it was time to see the movie at the Drive-In Theater. This is where I learned what “making out” was all about. After a few dates, I thought I knew it all until a cute girl visiting from out of town stuck her tongue in my ear. I hadn’t expected that but I liked it!

  Sometimes Holton would pick me up in a different car, take me out onto Route 68, and ask, “You want to catch a quick hundred?” Then he would stomp on the accelerator with all the windows down, and watch the speedometer until we hit a hundred miles per hour. Then he would gradually slow down to the speed limit and light a cigarette.

  * * *

  The first girl I dated in Kentucky was called Annie. She was really pretty and popular and would invite me to go with her to parties and sock hops; the latter took place in the high school gym, and you had to take your shoes off so you wouldn’t scuff up the basketball court. Annie had two sisters, a very sexy older one named Sissy and an adorable younger one called Whoopsie. Whoopsie was an early fan of Cher and wore stylish bell-bottoms just like Cher did. I think she sewed them herself. There were also dances for teenagers at the country club, where we’d get dressed up and do “The Alligator” or “The Dog” after drinking a few illicit beers or shots of bourbon. A band called The Torquays from Lexington performed. They wore uniforms similar to Paul Revere & the Raiders, and they really knew how to put on a show.

  Another fun thing we did was to go to the Germantown Fair, where they had a horse show, a mule show, a baby show, and all kinds of livestock on display. There were tractor pulls, pie-eating contests, and freak shows. There was a big tent full of hoochie-coochie girls who would stand in front of the tent and give you a little preview before the show. This was a real honest-to-goodness country fair, not the tamed-down version you’re likely to see today.

  The highlight of the fair came just after sunset when “Dick Clark’s Cavalcade of Stars” hit the stage. The band I remember best was called The Yellow Payges.

  They were a stylish, long-haired, Beatle-esque rock band. They were excellent, but I wondered what they thought about playing at this little country fair in Germantown, Kentucky. Whatever they thought, they didn’t let it affect their performance. The girls in the audience were wild for them.

  When I went back to boarding school, Annie and I wrote letters to each other every week, but eventually she got interested in another guy who lived in the same town. Who could blame her? Long-distance relationships are h
ard, especially when you’re only fifteen. I was sad but not devastated.

  The next time I visited Kentucky, I was introduced to a very petite, stylish, and good-looking girl named Sandi. We hit it off—and I mean really hit it off—right away. We’d go on double dates with my friend Sam Dryden, who’d pick us up in one of his muscle cars. My cousin Holton had enlisted and gone to Vietnam, but his brother David became a good friend. We cruised the drive-in restaurant, went skinny-dipping in ponds and swimming pools, and talked about what we wanted to do with our lives. Sandi introduced me to Lex Browning. Lex played guitar and dug a lot of the same bands that I did. We’d go to his place and play records and smoke joints of wild marijuana we found growing in forgotten corners of farmers’ fields. It wasn’t very strong, but it was plentiful and if you smoked enough of it you felt really nice. Almost everybody smoked cigarettes, too. Kentucky was tobacco country. I remember bumper stickers that said “Smoking Is Good for You!” You could buy a pack of cigarettes at the drive-through window of the Working Man’s Friend Tavern for nineteen cents. They would also sell you a six-pack of beer if you were old enough to drive.

  By the time I turned sixteen and got my driver’s license, I would drive from Pittsburgh to Kentucky, a distance of three hundred miles, to visit my grandparents and see Sandi and my other friends. I had the idea to apply for a summer job working at Browning Manufacturing, which was owned by Lex’s family. They were the largest employer in the town of Maysville. Sandi’s father was an executive there, too. Browning’s made electrical transmission parts. I made an appointment with Sandi’s dad for an interview. He gave me an application to fill out and next thing I knew I was working in the factory. There were three eight-hour shifts; I started on the one that began at 7:00 A.M. My grandmother would get up early, make me a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, and toasted salt-rising bread, and send me off with a tomato and pimento cheese sandwich in a brown paper bag.

  Factory work was like nothing I’d experienced before. It was my first real job. For starters, I’d never heard people use the f-word in every single sentence before. I’d never operated machinery before, either. On this job I was making electrical transmission parts on a huge lathe from iron castings of different dimensions. Some were only a few inches in diameter and some were a couple of feet in diameter and all sizes in between. The lathe would cut and form the casting into something resembling a pulley called a sheave. As the iron casting was cut, the metal was cooled by a stream of water that created a lot of steam. It was like an industrial steambath on the factory floor. After eight hours of this, I would punch the time clock and go home, take a bath, and go visit Sandi and make out. It wasn’t an easy job, in fact it was very hard work, but the pay was good and some of the other workers took a liking to me. They were patient with me, even though I wasn’t able to make as many pieces a day as I was expected to. It’s fair to say that these older guys were amused by me trying to keep up with them.

  One weekend, Lex and I drove out to the Blue Licks State Park, where the last battle of the American Revolution was fought, and took some acid. The weather was perfect. We read all of the plaques around the park describing the battle. The battle was fought on August 19, 1782, long after General Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown; the news of the British surrender had not reached Kentucky yet. Daniel Boone was among the pioneers fighting the British there; his son Israel was killed along with sixty-five other revolutionaries. As our trip started to peak, we wandered through the ancient forest of tall trees and sparkling streams and fossil-covered limestone boulders. We followed the trails worn down by immense herds of buffalo that traveled here for the natural salt licks. We spent a good deal of time laughing our heads off until our sides hurt. By the time the sun set, we were finally okay to drive home, listening to “Proud Mary,” “Honky Tonk Women,” and “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” on the FM radio.

  My summers in Kentucky were wonderfully free. My grandparents were happy to look after me and pleased to see that I was making friends and having a good time.

  They allowed me to come and go as I pleased. On Sundays, I went with them to the Presbyterian Church next door. Who knew that Tina and I would later be married there?

  After church, we would drive out to the Thoroughbred Grill in Mays Lick, where my grandparents would catch up with their friends. It seemed like everybody knew each other. We’d order fried chicken, fresh tomato salad, corn pudding, and tall glasses of sweet tea with a sprig of mint. For dessert we’d have transparent puddings, a local dessert tart made of baked sugar, butter, egg whites, and a little vanilla.

  I brought Tina down to Washington to meet my grandmother in the summer of 1973. When we arrived and I introduced Tina to Mammy, I could tell they immediately liked each other. When I gave Mammy a hug and a kiss on the cheek, she said in her lilting Southern accent, “Why Chris, you’re hot as fire! Come on in and have an iced tea and let’s us talk.” Tina loved the sound of her voice and has often reminded me of this and of her first visit to Kentucky. It’s the kind of place you want to come back to, and we did.

  6

  RISD

  I was very happy and excited to arrive at the Rhode Island School of Design. I was ready for action. Art! Girls! Parties! Fun! As far as I was concerned, RISD had it all. My parents drove me from Pittsburgh to Providence. After I checked in and registered, my mother and father helped me unpack my clothes and my stereo system from their Ford Country Squire station wagon with the faux wood paneling on the side, and carry them up the stairs to my assigned room in Nickerson Hall. It was a fairly new building, a simple contemporary redbrick design that fit well with the existing historic colonial architecture of what was known as College Hill in Providence. My room was on the fourth floor in the back with a little balcony overlooking a small green tree-lined field. I immediately felt at home and picked one bed for myself on the right-hand side of the room. My roommate, a guy named Hugh Roberts from Pottstown, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia, had not arrived yet.

  After we lugged all my things up four flights of stairs, and my mother kindly unpacked my clothes and put them neatly in the dresser and closet, there came that emotional moment when you have to say goodbye to your parents who are so proud of you—and who are footing the bill for everything. I hugged and kissed them and was going to say goodbye right there, but then decided to walk them back to the car and see them off on the long drive back to Pittsburgh. My father handed me enough cash to open a small bank account and they were off.

  That night, after dinner in the refectory, I did a little exploring with some of the guys who lived on the same floor of the dorm. Chris Morse, from Rockland, Maine, was tall, lanky, and hilarious. He smoked a briar pipe, wore a tweed jacket, and had a beard and ponytail. His wisdom teeth had just been removed and his cheeks were still puffy. Geoff Stevens, from Chicago was skinny as a beanpole with wire-rimmed glasses, and Rico Eastman, from Maryland was small in stature but big of heart. We wandered all over College Hill and marveled at the street names: Benefit Street. Angell Street. Hope Street. It was a balmy evening and somebody passed a joint around. We were just rambling and getting to know each other. Chris Morse turned us on to the humor of the comedy duo Bert & I. He knew all their routines by heart in that crazy downeast Maine accent of theirs. Ayuh. When we got back to the dorm that first night, my roommate had still not arrived. It had been a long day and I fell asleep thinking about a very petite and pretty girl I had seen that afternoon while we were checking in. I heard her say her name was Andi.

  In the morning, after breakfast, we walked down the hill to Memorial Hall to have our photo ID picture taken. The photographer was an androgynous creature named Karen Achenbach. She was very tall, slim, unusually attractive, and dressed in a red satin cowboy shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. When she looked at me, she winked and told me to look at the camera lens, not at her. The photo she took would be used not only for my student ID but also in printed form for what was called the RISD Facebook. The facebook was distributed
to faculty members so that they could match a face to a name if necessary, but also fell into the hands of a few curious students. There were a lot of beautiful young people at RISD, so it was very interesting.

  The rest of the day was filled with orientation meetings and such. Every freshman at RISD was enrolled in a group of courses called Freshman Foundation. This included Life Drawing, 2D Design, 3D Design, and Art History. There were no exceptions. You had to know the basics.

  Outside the refectory before dinner that night, there were some cool upperclassmen checking out all the new talent. I don’t think predatory is the correct way to describe them, but they were definitely curious and horny. You could feel them checking you out and sizing you up and wondering if you were straight or gay. Any gay freshmen were likely to still be in the closet. It usually wasn’t until sophomore year that they came out.