* * *
Let us return to the men scrambling behind or alongside （in my father’s case） Quinn Davies, their guide. The introduction to grass took place at the trailhead, where Quinn passed around a small pipe, refilling it several times. Most people didn’t get high on their first exposure （this was good old-fashioned pot, mind you, full of stems and seeds, long before the days of hydroponic sinsemilla）。 Quinn wanted to get this first smoke out of the way, to prime his pals—Ben Hobart in particular—for getting well and truly wasted later on.
A river flashes in and out of view far below, like a snake sliding among leaves. As they climb, the men’s stumbling and guffawing yields to huffing, wheezing, and struggle. All four smoke cigarettes, and none exercise the way we think of it now. Even Ben Hobart, one of those preternaturally fit guys who can eat anything, is breathing too hard for speech by the time they crest the hill and glimpse A-Frame, as the house is known. Tucked in a redwood clearing and built from the cleared redwood, A-Frame is the sort of whimsical wood-and-glass structure that will become a cliché of 1970s California architecture. But to these men, it looks like an apparition from a fairy tale: Is it real? What kinds of people live here? Compounding the eeriness is Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence” welling from hi-fi speakers facing outward on the redwood deck. A-Frame’s mastermind, Tor, has somehow managed to wire a house in the middle of a forest, approachable only on foot.
Hello, darkness, my old friend…
A hush of awe engulfs the four as they approach. Lou falls back, letting Quinn lead the way into a soaring cathedral of space whose vast triangular windows reach all the way to its pointed ceiling. The scent of redwood is overpowering. Quinn introduces Tor, an austere eminence in his forties with long prematurely white hair. Tor’s “old lady,” Bari, is a warmer zaftig presence. An assortment of young people mill about the main room and deck, showing no interest in the new arrivals.
This odd setup leaves our three newcomers unsure what to do with themselves. Lou, who can’t tolerate feeling like a hanger-on, is abruptly angry with Quinn, who speaks quietly and privately with Tor. What the hell kind of greeting is this? Nowadays, a man ill at ease in his surroundings will pull out his phone, request the Wi-Fi password, and rejoin a virtual sphere where his identity is instantly reaffirmed. Let us all take a moment to consider deeply what isolation was customary before these times arrived! The only possible escape for Lou and his friends involves retracing their steps through the forest without breadcrumbs to guide them. So Lou paces around A-Frame in a way he cannot seem to help （though he feels its disruption）， barking occasional questions at Tor, who sits aloft on a tall wooden chair that looks irritatingly thronelike: “Nice place, Tor. What sort of work do you do? Must’ve been hell getting pipes laid this far out…”
Lou opens doors and peers inside redwood-smelling nooks that are what pass for rooms in this kooky place. He’s stopped cold in one room by the sight of a dark-haired girl sitting naked on the floor, cross-legged under a small window, her eyes shut. Tree-filtered light dapples her flesh and the dark spread of her pubic hair. Her eyes open slowly at the intrusion. Lou chokes out, “Beg pardon, I’m awfully sorry,” and slinks away.
The desultory group begins, at last, to congregate around Tor in preparation for getting high. The Yardbirds are playing, but the world of their music is too far from Lou’s own world for him to enjoy it. Still, he welcomes the sense of incipient coherence, a fresh structure of meaning. Tor has a knack for orchestrating such moments. Intimate of Kerouac, occasional lover of Cassady, future provider of LSD for Kesey, Wavy, Stone, and the rest, Tor is one of those essential figures who catalyze action in other people and then fade into nonexistence without making it into the history.
By my count, there are seventeen revelers: Tor and Bari, our four, the naked girl Lou was surprised by, now clothed in a loose flowered dress and meeting his gaze without embarrassment, and sundry others who look to be in their late teens and early twenties, who live in A-Frame’s several outbuildings and farm Tor’s marijuana crop.
Lou vastly prefers Tor’s totemlike bong to the diminutive pipe he smoked with Quinn. Over the course of an hour’s communal smoking and music changes, the group wafts into a state of blinkered absorption that is unprecedented for Lou, Tim, and Ben, who until now have known only booze as a means of consciousness alteration. Basic exchanges elongate like time-lapse fruits ripening and dropping into outstretched hands.