A Mirror of Before and After - CHAPTER XXII
By Frank Moore circa 1970s
“The kids kept talking about you all day after we left. They kept asking questions about you … and asking when you could come to the school. Most of them seem to have a very great interest in you … It’s almost like people have told them all their lives that they are fucked up … making them be fucked up. And when they see you, they see someone who is supposed to be fucked up like them, but who is really well adjusted. You freaked a couple of kids out … you are a lot for them to take in … Do you mind me saying that?” John asked …
“No.”
“Good. It’s good to freak them in that way because it gives me an in to them, makes them vulnerable. But the doctors and head teachers got uptight when they saw the kids not behaving according to the theories. When I told the director about you, he was shocked at my ‘lack of responsibility’ for putting the kids in such a potentially damaging situation. I am just a student in psychology working for my degree … just working there for the experience. He sees me as a foolish upstart. He forbids me to bring you to the school … and I’ll get fired if I bring any more kids here … If I get caught, too bad.”
“How about if I just show up and talk to the director?” I asked mischievously. I loved to go to places where I was banned.
“A good way to get John canned,” Moe observed. “John is needed by the kids there. They need at least one real human.”
It would have been fun outraging the stuffed shirts. But unfortunately, Moe was right. The subject changed to my life … how I got my board and pointer … how I went to college and dropped out in my last year … how I was living in a communal family in New Mexico. John became really interested in me, with only a slight trace of professionalism when he learned that not only did I smoke grass, but I had also dropped acid and other drugs that he hadn’t dared to experiment with yet.
“Frank is one of the main reasons why I dig drugs, even though I don’t take such shit myself. He can’t have as many experiences as we can … he can’t do things like racing cars or climbing mountains or riding motorcycles. He is very limited in that way. But on acid, he has experiences in his head that are equal to racing cars. And there is an element of risk in his experiences too … the main reason that people race is risking wrecking and dying … to get out of the tight squeezes alive or die a hero. The same with him. That makes life interesting.”