Orlando,
Howard and I were sitting
on the twin beds in my place,
smoking, up a storm.
A
room
on
the front corner of
the top floor. I split the cost with Al Wheeler since the college had
to pay for the new dorms and forced everyone to rent a room. Al had
rented a place off campus, so our dorm room became a private room for
me. Anyway, we had the obligatory towel rolled and stuffed in place
at the base of the door to
prevent the hallway from getting too smelly and
with
vice
grips holding the lock handle, even a master key couldn't open the
door from the outside. Al Wheeler had turned me on to the Derek and
the Dominoes album, “Layla”, and it was cranking away. With
Mescaline jammed down into my bedpost, some great Panama Red bagged
and taped up under the sink, and a
couple of hits of LSD
flattened into the lining of a blanket...I was well supplied to
weather any storm life could conger up, or
possibly go to jail for a very ong time.
A loud knock on the door told me that George of the Jungle, a townie
known mainly for his pot sales, had arrived as expected. Unlatching
the vice grips, I got down on my knees and cracked open the door,
looking up from floor level just to goof on George. But it wasn’t
George. Dean Hayes was standing there smiling down at me as clouds of
smoke rolled out of the open door and gave our beloved Dean of Men
a big smelly, welcoming hug.
Standing
up straight with shock and almost faint with paranoia, I stepped
aside as Dr Hayes walked into the room and sat down on one of the
twin beds, shoulder to shoulder, between Orlando and Howard. I had
never known him to visit any of the student rooms or even having been
in any of the dorm buildings before. Dr Hayes sat calmly, almost
Buddha like in his demeanor, between a very stoned Orlando and our
wild-eyed mute playmate, Howard. An obscenely bright knife of light
from the still slightly cracked door cut through lazy clouds of
exhaled ganja in my dimly lit room. We all sat silent, watching the
smoke clouds drift in the light like huge gray jellyfish undulating
in and out of dark shadows. Dr Hayes broke the silence with unrelated
pleasantries. Mumbled responses followed embarrassing silences.
That
was it. And then the good doctor got up and left the room. Yes ladies
and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building. To go get the cops and
have us thrown in some Godforsaken Athens Alabama jailhouse? To
prepare the expulsion papers for an obvious bunch of losers? No, the
nervous passage of time told us that he just left our room, no more,
no less. But his visit had made quite an impression.
Although
I never had Dr Hayes for any classes, my understanding was that he
was well traveled. Whispers of exotic experiences in Morocco were
probably spun by students who wanted to add to his mystique but
helped me put his visit into perspective none the less. Expulsion
would have served no purpose. The fact that we were young guys
smoking pot in 1969 in an extremely conservative area of the country
was just an ironic twist of fate. A broader, wiser world view added a
balance that we were too young to appreciate.
Later
that year, just before my own graduation, Dr Hayes offered me a job
as his assistant. I think he wanted some team members from outside of
the cultural island that was Athens in the late 1960’s. He was
seeking balance, as eventually, we all did.
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