Season of the Witch Read online

  “Cruel cruel cruel.”

  “What’s so cruel about a girl wanting to meet her own father?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. No matter how much she makes her mother suffer. Anyway, I haven’t the faintest idea how to reach him. Being a Communist, he’s probably changed his name a dozen times by now. So there’s simply nothing to go by.”

  “Do you mean to tell me you couldn’t locate him if you wanted to?”

  “Suppose you tell me how?”

  “Let’s skip it. I’ll just hang up. Okay?”

  “No, no. We won’t skip it. I won’t have you thinking I could lie to you. Now you just tell me, Gloria, how would I go about locating the man? You don’t think City College of New York would hire a man who admitted to having once been a member of the Communist party, do you?” (Thank you, Mother dear! Until you blurted it out, I hadn’t known it was City College!) “His name was in the papers and everything. Don’t you suppose the FBI knows what it’s doing? So of course he had to change his name. If he hasn’t been deported altogether. Which is really quite likely. He’s probably back in Poland somewhere by now. In fact, I’m sure he is. Yes, I’m sure he’s been deported. So you see, darling, you’re looking for a man who for all practical purposes has ceased to exist. That means you’re not thinking very clearly, doesn’t it? And do you know why? It’s because your hostility toward your mother is clouding your brain. Truly, sweetheart, and I’m not angry either, I’m just pointing this out, because I know how you love candor.”

  I decided to play it her way. “Thanks, Mother. You’re right. I do appreciate having things like that pointed out. But listen, and I know I’m probably not thinking too clearly, even now that you’ve straightened me out, but what if a person were to go to the History Department at City College, and just ask around? Don’t you suppose she could gather some sort of a clue?”

  There was a long silence on the Belle Woods end of the telephone, a silence my moon-in-Scorpio self bathed in luxuriously while Mrs. Random recovered her aplomb. And I knew exactly what she’d say. Her first words would be Very well, Gloria. And they were.

  “Very well, Gloria.” Her voice was dark with tragedy, pain, and assorted bullshit. “Persist,” she said. “Persist in your hatred of your mother. Look up this man. Stir up the past. Make as much pain as you can for me. Perhaps that’s the kind of person you want to be. And if it is, I can’t stop you. Just know that whatever you do, and however you hurt me, I’ll still love you. You can’t stand that, Gloria, can you? The hardest thing you have to bear in this world is that your mother really loves you. If it weren’t for that, you’d be free to become just a wanton little bitch who takes her high IQ that God gave her and her wonderful flair for words, and uses them to cut people up with. Is that what you really want to be, Gloria?”

  While Mother was delivering her neat little thumbnail portrait of me, John started tugging at my elbow. It was time to get on the bus. Somehow I managed to round out the phone call with a minimum of hassle and followed John to the departure gate. But all the while my mind was playing a movie for me:

  I arrive in New York, trot right up to City College, sit in on one of Professor Glyczwycz’s classes. At first glance, it’s perfectly clear he’s a Great Man, Turned On, Wise, Open, Terribly Big in the Movement. And for extras, he’s got longish salt-and-pepper hair and a thick walrus mustache. After class I introduce myself. Big shock, much fainting. We hug. He thinks I’m terrific, just the kind of daughter he’d always hoped for. I go home with him, to this big, sort of empty bachelor’s apartment and cook a meal for him. It turns out heaven, pure Julia Child. He’s bowled over. Within a week, I become indispensable. John and I both move in and the three of us become a family, go to peace marches together, etc., etc.

  Something wonderful just happened. No one watching would have seen a thing, and yet it was spectacular. I just looked at John and really saw him. The whole thing, inside out, in the round. He’s glorious. Every once in a while I get a blast like this, and it reminds me why I adore him so.

  At the moment, he’s scared. Sitting here next to the window pulling his eyebrows and biting his nails. No, I guess he’s working on the cuticles, the nails are already gone. This trip is his first big manhood test thing and he’s afraid he might blow it. My earth-mother urges are overwhelming. I want to hold him and say, Shoo shoo, baby, everything’ll be great. But of course I wouldn’t dare. And yet I can actually see him worrying and it touches me so I can hardly bear it. Everything about him does. Unfortunately we don’t turn each other on sexually, not even when we’re lying around naked together. I suppose that’s just as well. No sex, no hangups. I shouldn’t phrase it so negatively though, because the thing we have together is wildly positive. Between the two of us there’s this colossal flow of soul energy that keeps us both super-UP, and we’re both totally committed to the belief that we simply must as a matter of conscience stay high as much of the time as possible. John and I are convinced that people who go around unhigh are the ones who are crapping up the world. John is definitely not one of them. He is entirely sweet. He is pure light. Once when I was tripping I saw his aura, and it’s just about 99 per cent angel-colored.

  I function as the female principle in his life. When I look at him, I reflect him. He sees mirrored in me how totally marvelous he is in all ways. Gradually he’ll come to know himself fully, and then his mind will stop over-amping. He’s always worrying about things that will take care of themselves. For instance, right now he’s trying to outsmart Manhattan before we even get there by memorizing the map Delano gave him. Delano drew directions all over it with magic markers, circling in Tompkins Square Park, Fillmore East, etc. John had all the north and south streets committed to memory before we left Detroit, and now he’s working on Greenwich Village.

  Thinking about sex and hangups just now, I flashed on Delano. He’s been an angel this week, helping John and me make our getaway. And he doesn’t have that much time to spare either. Getting out an underground newspaper every two weeks is a full-time job, especially with the cops hassling him all the time and constant money problems, but he came through like a real brother. What I want to know is why he had to spoil it all by getting me excited. Ever since we “broke up” (stupid, infuriating phrase!), everything’s been lovely and relaxed between us. I’m never uptight with him, and I don’t make him uptight. We’re just brothers. But this afternoon, he wanted to make love. I knew he did. He kept trying to turn me on with his eyes, deliberately looking at my neck in that lingering way that makes me want to faint. Also, there must be something aphrodisiac about having a newspaper office in the dining room of an old tumbledown house. I always have to remind myself not to get turned on by the smell of it. And of course when the editor and publisher happens to be not only a Leo but a lion with a beautiful tawny mane and enormous gentle hands . . .

  Enough. Later for Delano. I’m on my way to New York, and right outside my window there’s a glorious sunset.

  John and I just had a conversation.

  I said, “John, remember ‘America,’ that Simon and Garfunkel song? That’s us, John. ‘Michigan seems like a dream to me now.’”

  “Oh, wow, you’re not gonna believe this,” he said. “But I’ve been hearing that exact song in my head, and look! There’s the moon rising over an open field!”

  It was. It was right there, rising over an open field. We both got enormous goose pimples from the magic of it, and then John said, “My God, there’s a man with a gabardine suit; do you suppose he’s a spy?” John and I can riff like this for hours, our heads are always in the same place.

  Anyway, this whole Simon and Garfunkel thing makes me want desperately to cry, but I’m trying to wait till Pittsburgh so I can do it in the ladies’ room. We get 45 minutes there, and I’m going to spend the whole time bawling. I’m not sure about what. I think it’s just because I love us so much. I love John and me, and I love all our brothers and sisters, the ones we’ll meet and the ones we won’t, all r
iding around on Greyhound buses searching for America out the window and looking for cigarettes in their raincoat pockets while the moon rises over open fields, and wondering all the while if there’ll be cops waiting at the next stop. When I look at John, with his bad skin and his hideous but gorgeous hair that doesn’t look right being long, and his scared little chin and his big gray wide-open eyes, and his long pale boy’s neck with the Adam’s apple, and that awful Army coat, when I look at him, I see all of us, all the people who have to be true and real no matter what, and it just makes me very happy to know we’re so fucking beautiful. But I will not cry in front of John. Tears freak him out.

  Midnight

  By the time we got to Pittsburgh, I was too sleepy to cry, so we decided to get out and look the place over. Nothing much to report, it’s more or less like Detroit. There must have been a thousand freaks pouring out of Easy Rider and a lot of them smiled at us. Then John got the worries again, he was afraid the driver would leave without us, so we got some coffee in cartons and came back to the bus and sat here drinking it. Now I’m wide awake again.

  If I ever do write a book about my life, and I certainly intend to someday, these notebooks really will come in handy. The Life and Loves of Gloria Random. Maybe by then I’ll have changed my name to Glyczwycz. Even if I don’t find my father in New York, I’d like to be called that. Then when I become fabulously famous, he’ll hear about me and the name will make his ears perk up. Maybe it should be Gloria Glyczwycz Random, so everybody in Belle Woods will know it’s me, too. Mother of course will break out in purple polka-dot hives, but I can’t help that.

  In chapter one, I’ll explain to the reader that even though my legal surname has a lovely bona fide WASP ring to it, I am a Jewess by blood, sired out of wedlock by a Polish Communist, and that I choose to mention this fact at the outset in spite of the embarrassment it may cause in certain quarters, so that my real father, wherever he is, will see what pride I take in my heritage.

  But of course that doesn’t ring true. Too bad I’m not more skilled in kidding myself. All I’m really interested in doing is rattling Mother’s rafters by exposing her. What a delicious temptation! All her friends would devour every word of it. How the telephones would buzz with that first chapter! My dear, have you heard? Irene Random’s daughter is not only a Jew, but a Jew bastard to boot! . . . On publication day, Mother would have a collapse and be forced to call in her special emergency pal, Maude Dangerfield, to take over arrangements for the funeral of her reputation.

  But I could never do it.

  Could I?

  This is a perfect example of my sun in Pisces in direct conflict with my moon in Scorpio. Gloria Pisces Me has compassion for her mother, knowing how sad the poor bitch really is, still secretly in love with her gorgeous Polack lover. Gloria Pisces Me even suspects that whatever happened between them must have had some really powerhouse depth to it, and that Hank Glyczwycz is really a great and wonderful man. Because whenever Mother talks about him, which is never by choice, there’s no hatred in her voice or in her face. Only nervousness. And a kind of fake disdain. She tries to make him seem inconsequential, as if he were nothing more than a minor blunder of her girlhood. “You know, darling, he wasn’t much, just a pushy little refugee with all sorts of pretensions, a typical Communist.” “But was he awful?” I asked. “I mean did he beat you or bore you or sit around picking his toes, or what?” But Mother won’t be pressed. She just gets up and walks away.

  So. Gloria Pisces Me would bet her eyes Mother still thinks longingly of their nights together. And at the same time Gloria moon-in-Scorpio Me is just as certain the only reason she wouldn’t marry him was because he was poor and had every prospect in the world of staying that way. She could have got used to the idea of becoming Mrs. Glyczwycz, and somehow she’d have swallowed the Jewish part, but never ever ever would she have borne doing her own housework and giving herself home permanents. For some weird mixed-up Karmic reason my mother’s fate was to be born a poor Irish Catholic from Corktown, birth a Jew bastard, and then become a rich WASP who spends her afternoons under dryers and chasing down bargains in antique stores.

  I dislike my moon-in-Scorpio self for holding all this against her. I try to remember how she must suffer for not having had the balls to marry the man she adored. But it doesn’t work. Because no matter what I tell myself, there are all these other evidences of Mother’s balls all over the place. And they’re not tiny. They’re the size of avocados and you can practically hear them klunk against each other when she walks.

  So maybe she didn’t love him. Maybe she slept with him for some other reason. Curiosity, say. Because I’m not really sure she has any deeper feelings. Maybe her ego does, but not her heart. Heart feelings are just things she mimics because she’s heard about them and knows how useful they are. Like money and credit cards and membership in clubs. Feelings can be flashed around on the power market. I could sit here and document this conviction, but the subject of my mother is bringing me down. I think I’ll have some more career fantasies instead.

  What if I leave off the Random altogether and just call myself Gloria Glyczwycz? No one would ever be able to pronounce it, but I could always induce my publishers to print a pronunciation guide right on the dust jacket.

  THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF GLORIA GLYCZWYCZ (pronounced Gliz-Witch)

  Wow! I have just stumbled upon the fantastic nom de plume of all time. Gliz Witch. What a great name! Better yet, I’ll turn it around, Witch Gliz. People are always telling me I’m a witch, so why shouldn’t I be called that? John and I have decided to take new names for our new lives anyway. He has to, but that’s not our real reason. We want names that suit our souls.

  The Gliz part isn’t too great, but it’ll do.

  Miss Gliz, what are your views on the revolution?

  I can always ask Dick Cavett or Johnny Carson or whomever to call me by my first name.

  Just call me Witch, Johnny.

  What a tender, lovely name!

  Hi, Witch!

  Witch, could you come here, please?

  I love you, Witch.

  I just tried it out on John.

  “John,” I said, “I’ve got my new name.”

  “Really? You’ve got your new name already?”

  “Mm. Are you ready to hear it?”

  “But I haven’t got mine yet!” He looked like he was going to panic, so I gently reminded him we had all the time in the world. Then I told him.

  “It’s Witch. Witch Gliz.” I watched while it moved into his head. Then, when I saw his eyes open in a certain way, I knew I had a big hit on my hands.

  He repeated it. “Witch Gliz?”

  “Mm-hm. Glyczwycz, spelled phonetically, syllables reversed. What do you think?”

  “After your real father, right?”

  “Right. Can you dig it?”

  “Far out! But what if you meet him and don’t dig him? Then you’ll have to change your name again.”

  “Not a chance. I know I’ll dig him.”

  “Witch Gliz. Hm. Are you going to have it that way on your books and all?”

  “I’m not sure yet, but I thought you’d help me decide.”

  “Okay. Say it again and then keep still and I’ll see what it does to my head.”

  I repeated it very clearly, and now John is thinking about it.

  But I’m not. I’m thinking about John.

  For his sake, I can’t help wishing he weren’t gay. I’ve heard that it can be a real hassle when you’re not good-looking. And John isn’t. His beauty is inner and most gay people seem to go for shoulders and good complexions. Not just gay people of course. Everyone does. Still, it doesn’t seem fair. I’m hoping in New York he’ll find a whole different scene, some really tuned-in types who have their heads together enough to appreciate Who He Is. John’s truly fabulous assets are also the reasons I worry about him. It’s very difficult to be 19 by the calendar, 45 in mental powers, 10,000 years old in the soul, and yet have a 9
-year-old’s overall ability to cope with this really psychotic mess the Piscean age has made of the world. Actually though, he’s grown up tremendously in the last two years, ever since I turned him on to pot.

  Which was June 4, 1967. I remember the date because I got turned on myself about two hours earlier, and there are certain dates a girl just never forgets.

  (I wonder where I got all this speed? I’m writing like there’s no tomorrow and digging it totally. I think I’ll write all the way to New York! Why not? I’m free! I can do as I please!)

  After a school dance, Arthur Hunnicut, this fairly groovy senior took me out to Belle Isle and we parked. Nothing memorable about the circumstances. He just turned me on and that was it. We didn’t make out or anything. (I forget why. I guess his MG was too small or something.) But the main thing that stands out in my memory is the grass and this wild grin it gave me. I was smiling all the way down to my navel. (And that’s not poetry either. The navel is exactly where a marijuana smile originates.) Anyway, I couldn’t wait to turn John on, so I talked Arthur out of three joints and when he took me home, I went right next door to John’s.

  He was down in his lair watching the 11 o’clock news on TV. John’s lair is the Ultimate Pad (or was—all. that’s behind us now, alas!), full of super sound equipment—plus a real lion’s skin with a real head and tail. It would take me an hour to list all the groovy things John had in that basement. Dr. McFadden has money oozing out of him like sweat. He doesn’t really dig John, so he used to buy him all sorts of things to make up for it. Actually, I don’t mean to knock Dr. McF. He wasn’t really square, just a nothing. A boxy little psychoanalyst who Knew Everything and Did Everything Right. John’s turning out such a mess, by straight standards, was an awful puzzlement for Dr. McF. Here was John with a high IQ, flunking everything in sight—a perfect diet and pimples out to here, etc. Everything fucked up. Usually he blamed John’s mother, who was tall and skinny and beautiful and alcoholic. (Aquarius, I think. Aquarians sometimes tend to get bored and go to pieces when things don’t go right.) When John was eight, she was hauled off to a place and died a few months later. John and I think she set fire to her room, but we haven’t got the full story. Anyway, she cooled.