Ginger was a “true blonde”!
No doubt about it. The evidence was right under my nose. It was pure platinum.
As I untangled myself, I took advantage of the opportunity to check for the needle marks of the drug addict. There were none. Ginger may have taken a few trips, but there was no sign that she was on the hype.
She got to her feet, panting. It was an impressive sight. “You cats are the limit!” she said, more surprised than angry. “A pair of voyeurs! But what were you so up-tight about? If you wanted to watch, all you had to do was say so. I wouldn’t have minded. The human body is a beautiful thing. It should be looked at.”
“But then think what I would have missed.” I couldn’t resist making the point.
“Hell, you wouldn’t have missed anything if you’d just been honest about it. Orgasm releases tension for me. It watching makes you less up-tight, I don’t mind. I just don’t like all this sneaking around corners. That makes it seem like it’s dirty when it’s not.”
“I’m sorry.” I apologized. Austin mumbled an echoing apology.
“It’s like you make it bad by putting a value judgment on it. ‘Thou shalt have no unauthorized orgasms,’ or some such silly rule. Why can’t people just be natural?”
While she’d been talking, I’d been mentally ticking off the requirements listed by the Sheikh. She seemed to have them all. Now the question was whether or not she was willing. But there was another point that Austin and I hadn’t really considered. Now, as Ginger, still wet and naked, marched brazenly into the other room and flung herself into the armchair, her continuing conversation brought the point into focus.
Austin and I had followed her. We sat down and listened.
“You know why you’re embarrassed about sex and the human body?” she was saying. “Because you’ve been conditioned by the media, that’s why. And you know who determines that conditioning? The Establishment!” Her voice rang with loathing as she spoke the last two words.
A faint suspicion clicked in my mind. “Maybe that’s true,” I said carefully. “But what can you do about the Establishment?”
“Burn it! Blow it up! Drown it! Strangle it with its own red tape! Work from without and from within to destroy it!”
“You mean violently?” I asked innocently.
“Hell yes! You can’t build without destruction. Confrontation is the only viable politics.”
“But won’t some innocent people get hurt in that kind of action?”
“You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.”
“Peace and love,” I reminded her.
“Oh, sure. But don’t tell me. Tell Daley.”
“Or don’t tell him,” I offered. “Let him find out by example. Put LSD in the water system, like Abby Hoffman16 said the other day, and you’ll pacify all Chicago. That right?”
“Right!” Ginger’s head bobbed in vigorous agreement. “The politics of the put-on. Right?”
“You’ve got it.” Her breasts bobbed along with her head.
“Yeah. Well, that’s very interesting.” I yawned ostentatiously. “But I’m afraid it’s past my bedtime, so I hope you two will excuse me.”
Austin looked from me to the voluptuously naked Ginger, and his face lit up. He patted me on the back all the way to the door as he saw me out. I drew him into the hall with me and motioned to him to shut the door so Ginger wouldn’t hear.
“She’s out,” I told him curtly.
“What? Why? She’s perfect. She fits all the specifications.”
“All but one.”
“What do you mean?” Austin was puzzled.
“She’s not a hippie.”
“Not a hippie? You’re nuts. Just listen to her.”
“I have been. That’s what I mean. She’s not a hippie. She’s a Yippie.”
“I don’t get it. What’s the difference?”
“Hippies are for peace and love,” I explained. “That’s primary. Hippies are always nonviolent. They really try to follow the Judeo-Christian ethic and turn the other cheek. Hippies are apolitical by definition. They drop out. Yippies believe in confrontation, in joining the battle, in the politics of the absurd as a means of tearing down the Establishment. Many of them are members of the Youth International Party, which is a sort of American version of the Dutch Provos17 .”
“It sounds to me like you’re splitting hairs.”
“I’m not. You enlist Ginger for the Sheikh’s harem, and in my opinion you’ll end up with a disqualification and lose the whole shooting match. I’m here because you value my advice.” I threw him the clincher. “Well, my advice is to forget Ginger and look for another girl.”
“Well, all right,” he said reluctantly. “But I guess it’s okay if I keep her around for tonight, huh?”
“Have a ball,” I told him permissively. “That is if you can get her to stop proselytizing long enough to have one."
I Went back to my room and went to bed. It had been a long day. The next one would be even longer.
It was early in the morning when Austin’s call woke me, but he informed me that he’d been up for awhile and busy. Sleepily, I asked him what he’d been busy doing. He told me he’d been in contact with a VIP friend of his who owned a chain of newspapers and that the friend had agreed to accredit us as correspondents to the convention, which was set to begin that evening.
“Why should we go to the convention?” I wondered.
“Because Ginger tells me that a lot of hippie kids have wangled passes to the balcony through McCarthy Headquarters.”
“You sure they’re hippies? Not Yippies?”
“Yep. I checked her out on that very closely. These kids aren’t going there to disrupt or anything like that. They just want to root for the seating of the Julian Bond18 delegation and the adoption of the minority peace plank on Vietnam. As a matter of fact, Ginger was pretty vehement at the way they were screened to keep the Yippies out. There’ll be some McCarthy kids there, but there’ll also be some genuine hippies according to her.”
“But what do we need press accreditation for? Why not just get us passes to the balcony?”
“Because they’re worth their weight in gold. I don’t have that much pull with the Democratic National Committee. This was the only way I could get us in.”
However, even with his pull, it turned out to be not at all simple. Our press credentials were in order, but having them validated by the National Committee was something else again. It took us all day, and even then we almost strangled on the red tape.
Finally we succeeded, but we were both dead by the time we dragged ourselves out to the International Amphitheatre for the opening of the Convention. We were held up at the gate, waiting at the end of a long line of people while the Secret Service frisked poet Allen Ginsberg19 . First they went through his russet bag. Then they reached under his floor-length cloak, to make sure he wasn’t packing an antitank gun there, I suppose. Ginsberg went “Om-m-m- m” at the groping hand of the SS man. The Fed looked interested.
Inside finally, I thought I recognized a political personage from back home in New York. “Aren’t you Paul O’Dwyer20 ?” I inquired.
“Oy, vey, hev you got the wrong man!” was the reply.
Austin and I went up to the balcony, and we were lucky enough to find seats. For the next hour we listened to Governor Connally of Texas rumbling about the sanctity of the Unit Rule21 over the loudspeaker. His speech activated my bladder. I told Austin I’d be right back and went in search of the men’s room.