On the Road to Woodstock
Somewhere in West Virginia
My bare feet rested on the dash. The wind blew the hair around my face. And our road trip was getting long. “Ugh,” I moaned, leaning my head back. “How many more hours do we have left?”
“An hour less than last time you asked me. Jeez. You sound like a little kid,” my no-longer-ex-best friend said, using her middle finger to flick her cigarette out the window. “Look at the map.”
Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined Livy Foster and I parting ways.
She was the sun, and I a planet desperate for her warmth.
But Dad forbade me to ever see her again.
She’d embraced the free love movement with gusto, Jesus was not her Lord, and Dad believed I’d end up just like her.
He was dead wrong. I never wanted to be just like her; I simply longed for her beauty.
And her confidence. And her ability to have any boy she wanted.
We had been friends again only three weeks and had already fallen back into our old patterns.
She could say jump, and I’d ask how high.
That may have been because she was nine months older and inherently cooler, but I’d idolized her for as long as I could remember.
She’d taught me everything I needed to know about becoming a woman, and I felt older whenever she was near.
Livy had betrayed me, twice, both times crushing me to the bone. Even still, having her back in my life was almost as good as having the Beatles back. Dad had banished them too.
I reached for the Sgt. Pepper’s eight-track, shoved it inside the player, and turned up the volume. So loud there’s no way we could have heard a siren. I sang the whole chorus of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” at the top of my lungs.
“That’s a reference to LSD,” Livy shouted.
With haste, I reached over and turned off the music. “What did you just say?”
“I said ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ is about LSD.”
I sat up straight, shooting her an incredulous stare. “Do you think the Beatles do that?”
“Drop acid? Of course they do that.”
I nearly passed out. The thought of my Beatles doing LSD made me choke on my own breath. As I sat with the awareness, shame crawled up my sternum. It was yet another reminder of my sheltered upbringing. I wished I could take my question back.
Livy brushed back the hair flying around her face. “They aren’t the only ones singing about it. Jimi Hendrix wrote ‘Purple Haze’ about LSD. Guarantee you there’ll be tons of it at the festival.”
As ridiculous as it sounds, the idea of drugs had never crossed my mind when I’d decided to go with her to Woodstock.
She stole a quick glance at my face. “Uh-oh. Does acid scare you?”
I swallowed. “Kind of.”
“Does pot scare you?”
I didn’t want her to think of me as an even bigger Goody Two-shoes, so I didn’t quite admit it. “Does it scare you?”
“Not a bit.”
“Have you tried pot?” I asked hesitantly, afraid to learn the truth.
Livy answered with a simple nod, then smiled like a child digging into her trick or treat bag.
Without realizing it, I gnawed on my thumbnail, pondering the revelation that Livy smoked dope. “What does it feel like . . . when you’re high?”
“It depends. On your mood. Sometimes it makes you laugh. Other times it makes you mellow. Every now and then it can make you paranoid, like somebody’s out to get ya.” She grabbed me by the arm, made a scary face.
I gaped at her. “That doesn’t sound fun at all.”
“Relax.” She patted my knee. “It doesn’t happen that often. Bob Dylan got the Beatles into grass.”
“No surprise there,” I said in a mocking tone. Everybody knew Bob Dylan smoked grass.
“You’d love it, Suzannah. You feel so damn good. So uninhibited, so alive! When it makes you laugh, it’s the most fun you’ll ever have. You have to grip your stomach with all your might because you cannot stop laughing.”
“That does sound fun,” I said, warming slightly to the idea. I gave her a sidelong glance. “You haven’t done LSD, have you?”
“No. But I’m not saying it’s out of the question.
” She tried to tuck another lock of loose hair behind her ear, but the wind wouldn’t let her.
“My boyfriend has. He says it’s euphoria.
And it makes you think you can . . . I don’t know .
. . you might think you’re Michelangelo and can paint another Sistine Chapel. ”
This surprised me. It’s not like I’d ever thought about what happens while using LSD, but as cool as that sounded, I’d never do anything that stupid. It was a drug. A powerful drug.
“He says it makes you grasp the deeper meaning of life.” She poked my knee. “You might even see God.”
“That’s a lie.”
“That’s what he says.”
I’d set her boyfriend straight if he ever tried telling me that. “What does LSD stand for?” I asked.
“No clue.” Livy paused. “I’m sure Ronny’s doing it. To cope with what he’s seen in Vietnam.”
The thought of my only brother “dropping acid” in Vietnam freaked me out. “No way. He’d never do drugs.”
Livy shrugged. “Lots of soldiers do it. They’ve gotta get the images out of their head somehow.”
That wave of panic I often got when thinking about causing Ron’s enlistment erupted like a geyser. My heart pounded against my chest. My palms dampened. I felt dizzy. Nauseous. With a lock of hair coiled around my index finger, I tugged at my scalp, whispering, “I had no idea.”
Livy shifted in her seat, then glanced over at me. “I’m not trying to be mean. But it seems like you’ve been living under a rock since the last time I saw you.”
Instead of answering, I stared out the window.
Fields, cows, barns, and billboards flew by while I pondered a response.
She was right. I had been living under a rock.
And I’d been forced to bury my singing dream underneath it with me.
Part of me wanted to scream How would you know, Livy Foster?
You didn’t even call me for three years.
But I did not want to get into a fight this early in our epic escapade.