The Amphitheatre was immense, and I must have circled it eight times before I found out where those sadistic Democratic planners had hidden the john. By then my kidneys could have served as a transplant for a reservoir. I could hear Connally still sanctifying the Unit Rule as I entered the lavatory.
Inside there were forty men lined up at the forty urinals with another forty waiting behind them. Every one of them was wearing a Texas delegate’s badge. I decided it was Connally and not my faulty bladder after all. The Texas delegation flushed in unison, and the plumbing sounded out “The Yellow Rose of Texas”!
When I got back to the balcony, I told my toilet-minded companion about it. He made some notes and thanked me. Then we settled back for what seemed like a further eternity of hot wind blowing in from Texas.
I let it whip past my ears without listening. Concentrating on my reason for being there, I cased the balcony around us. My eyes kept returning to one blonde chick in particular who was sitting two rows behind us and off to the right. Many of the young people had left the balcony, drifting away by ones and twos, bored by the‘ tedious speech. More than half the seats were empty now. But this blonde—disapproval of Connally’s stand written clear on her face--was sticking it out.
She was thin, slim-hipped, and the leather miniskirt she wore showed off her long legs to advantage. The matching leather vest over her bosom couldn’t conceal breasts that were really too large for her slender frame. It was a nice body, even if somewhat skimpy, but it was her face which I found most intriguing.
She’d made a conscious effort to play down its prettiness. The total lack of makeup, the ultrashort and uneven cut of her blonde hair, the unattractive wire frame of the glasses she wore, even the tight set of her lips as if to emphasize their thinness—-all added up to a desire to make the face look even narrower than it was, to make it seem pinched and haggard, and intellectual and serious. Yet the effort failed. She couldn’t hide the natural vivacity sensual contour of her features. The green eyes twinkled with humor behind the glasses. The pink tongue sneaked out from behind the lips and silently opted for flesh over intellect. Red crept into the cheeks and denied them the paleness of profundity. Her mind may have cast her in an asexual part for the convention, but her basic femininity betrayed the role.
The betrayal became complete after Connally finally talked himself out and the convention took up the matter of the seating of the disputed Georgia delegation. With the taking of the vote to approve the compromise which split the delegation between the forces of Julian Bond and Lester Maddox, the gallery came alive. Sparsely filled now, it nevertheless erupted into a mighty roar, a thrilling chant:
“JULIAN BOND! JULIAN BOND! JULIAN BOND!”
The blonde was on her feet, face flushed, eyes sparkling, too-heavy breasts bouncing as she pounded her fist against her hand and yelled out the name which would become the symbol of what little righteousness there was to be found in the convention. Her intellect had fled before her passion now. And her fervor made her truly beautiful.
“JULIAN BOND! JULIAN BOND! JULIAN BOND!”
The convention was adjourned. Still the gallery shouted. Finally Bond left the floor. The shouts died out. I told Austin I’d catch up with him later and jockeyed to follow the blonde down the stairs. Outside the hall, I maneuvered so that we were pressed together in the crush of the crowd gathering in Bond’s wake. It wasn’t hard to strike up a conversation with her. All I did was mention Bond’s name and she responded.
She looked hungry. I asked if she’d join me for a bite to eat, and she accepted quickly and gratefully. I took her into the Stockyard Inn adjacent to the Amphitheatre and worked at building up our rapport through a steak dinner. She ate ravenously. Afterward, with the crowd dissipated, we caught a lift from one of the McCarthy campaign’s volunteer drivers and headed for the lake shore area.
Forbidden to sleep in the parks, many of the homeless hippies had spread themselves out thinly on the beaches. By not congregating in one spot, quite a few of them were able to snatch some sleep there. Periodically the cops might clear one of the beach areas, but it was impossible to keep the protestors off all of them. So we went to where the blonde had stashed her sleeping bag.
By now I’d learned her name was Jessica, that she was twenty years old, and that she was a bona fide flower child from Denver, Colorado. She had the word “Love” tattooed on her right thigh to prove it. She freely admitted she smoked pot, but was disapproving of other drug experiences. She offered to share her sleeping bag with me as naturally as if she were offering me a cup of coffee.
There were a few other sleeping bags strewn about the area, and occasionally one or two people strolled by, but for the most part it was quiet. Jessica slipped out of her clothes and into the sleeping bag without the slightest hint of self-consciousness. I followed her example, and our naked bodies entwined like crossed fingers in a mitten.
Jessica’s slim body was supple and warm. She accepted my kiss without protest and responded like she’d been expecting it. The nipples of her breasts dug into my chest. The knee of one of her long legs slid up to grip my hip. Her groin fluttered against me and my sex organ swelled to meet it.
But duty dictated an alternate course of action. I had palmed a small pocket flashlight in one hand, and now I slid down the length of her slim body to use it. I had to find out if she was a “true blonde.” Naturally enough, Jessica thought I was up to something else entirely. She squealed her approval. “Ohé l dig that more than anything,” she sighed, her fingers tangling in my hair.
It was very dark in the recesses of the sleeping bag, and even with the help of the pocket flashlight I had difficulty locating the target. It took a moment or two, and that time turned out to be crucial. Above me, Jessica’s face in the moonlight, protruding out of the sleeping bag all by itself, had attracted company. Intent on the job at hand, I could only dimly hear the voice of the newcomer and Jessica’s voice answering him.
“Maria. She of the cropped hair!” His voice was rich, throaty, masculine. It was the sort of voice calculated to intrigue a woman.
Jessica was intrigued. “My name is Jessica, not Maria,” she answered.
“Nevertheless, I shall call you Maria-—Maria of the cropped hair -- and you may call me Roberto.”
“Roberto? Is that your name?”
“No. But names don’t matter. With Maria of the cropped hair and a sleeping bag, it would be disrespectful to the late Ernest Hemingway to call myself anything but Roberto.”
“Oh, I see.” Jessica laughed. “You want to play For Whom the Bell Tolls Chicago style. You’re hip to the parallels between the Spanish Revolution and the struggle in Chicago. Is that it?”
“It is. And I need human warmth and understanding. The battle is too much with me. There must be an interlude. May I share your sleeping bag?”
“Well, since you’ve already taken off your clothes, I can hardly let you stand out there nude in the cold night air. But I should warn you that it’s liable to be crowded.”
“Two is always company, never a crowd.”
“But three is a crowd,” Jessica told him. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She giggled.
A man’s foot kicked me in the nose. Damn her! She could have been more specific with him. She needn’t have been so hospitable. He really didn’t know I was there. If she’d told him straight out, maybe he’d have gone away.
But she hadn’t, and he hadn’t. Now he straightened out in the sleeping bag so that I was forced to hunch up on the other side with Jessica between us. Shamelessly, Jessica’s hand was still pressing on my head, trying to guide me to the target. Cursing silently, I continued my investigations.