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The old man's wandering voice rose and fell, and he paused frequently to get his breath.

«Now, when I was back in the World, and out of the service home visiting my folks, Woodstock came to the local drive-in. My little brother wanted to see it-my folks hadn't let him go when it first came out. Well, I told my dad it was a great movie, and it wouldn't hurt Billy. I talked him into letting me take Billy to see it. At the last minute, my dad decided to go along, in case it turned out to be godless commie propaganda or hardcore hippie porn, or something else that might warp Billy's soft little head.

«My dad enjoyed it, I think. Billy went to sleep in the back seat before it was over, but my dad was wide-eyed. He seemed real impressed by Hendrix, at the end, when Jimi played those vast crashing chords. That unearthly power.»

The old man shuddered, and his eyes gleamed with some long-ago pleasure. For an instant he looked a great deal younger, and I almost wished I could feel what he was feeling. He sighed, then went on with his story.

«'How's he making those sounds?' my dad asked.

«'Just the guitar.'

«'He's dead, you know,' I said, trying to continue the conversation.

«'How'd he die?'

«'O. D.'d. Anyway, that's what I heard. Got so blasted that when he threw up, he breathed it in and choked to death.'

«'Jeez.' My dad was horrified, as much, I think, by the loss of that great talent-because how could anyone listen to that music and not hear greatness-as by the ugly way he died. 'What a waste,' my dad said.

«Well, I was always argumentative. 'Yeah, I guess so,' I said. 'But live by the sword, die by the sword.'

«'What the hell does that mean, Rob?» he asked.

«'Jeez, Dad,' I said. 'I mean... Purple Haze, it's dope music. Do you think Hendrix could ever have played it that way if he'd never dropped acid? Sure, he'd still have been a good musician if he hadn't been a head, but it wouldn't have been the same music.'

«My dad's eyes got funny, as if he were a little ashamed of me, and he said, 'Do you actually think it was worth it?' He looked away and didn't say anything else. Neither did I.

«But, John, it was worth it. I think back to that little guy with the opium, who died for nothing-that was a worthless death. Hendrix got something from drugs, he got a whole body of magnificent work, work that would never have been if he'd been a good boy. Sure, he died a miserable death and I wish he hadn't. But we're all dead in the long run.»

His eyes bulged, strangely fervent, and a line of pink spittle ran down his chin. His chest heaved, his breath whisteled. His lips were tinged with blue. I thought he might die right then, but he didn't.

«What's your point?» I finally asked, after he'd recovered a little.

«My point is, my point is... John, you and I, we're dying from drugs, too. I'm like Hendrix, a little. I got something out of it: a strange and wonderful life, very different from the one I might have led, if I'd been a little more like you. I have a thousand wonderful memories....

«But you, John, what have you got? You're like that dopey little soldier boy, dying in his bunk before anything ever happened for him. I'm just saying it's not fair, for you.... The others here think you got just what you deserved. But you didn't. I'm just saying I'm sad for you.»

He looked at me with thoe fever-bright eyes, as if he really were sorry. After a bit his eyelids drooped and he seemed to focus again on his own pain. He twisted slowly on his cot, groaning a little now and then. He was actually a very considerate roommate. Most of us go screaming and crying.

Finally he fell asleep.

I looked around the hut, my gaze sliding over the familiar decrepitude. The inner walls are cast foam, a scarred dun color; the roof is corrugated iron. In our eight-by-eight home are two bunks, two upright lockers, one chair. A ventilator sighs from the center of the ceiling, delivering somewhat cleaner, cooler air, which allows us to survive long enough to do useful work. The outer walls are steel, as is the door. A small television set hangs over the seatless toilet. Odd that we are allowed this diversion-it doesn't seem to fit the death-camp aesthetic. I suppose it's an inexpensive way to keep us content in our dying.

Our one channel shows nothing but old movies of the most innocuous sort. Now I watched one about resistance fighters in the Philipines during the Second World War. The film stock had a thick amber cast, as though the story took place in some jungly golden fairyland. The sandstorm's roar made the dialogue inaudible, but I didn't turn it up.

In the movie, one of the guerillas wore a black patch over his right eye, and I was struck by the potential awkwardness of it-he would be unable to aim his carbine from the conventional right-handed stance....

But then a firefight blazed up and I saw him with his patch over the left eye, blazing away comfortably.

After the engagement he spoke angrily (by his expression) to the colonel. The patch had migrated back to the right

In the next ambush the patch again covered his left eye.

For a moment, just for a moment, I was absolutely sure that this was more than coincidental ineptitude-that here was a message, though I couldn't read its meaning.

But there was no meaning, unless it's this: they are right about us. Our tainted minds are prey to dangerous fancies; we see meaning in empty things.

I shut my eyes tight. Slow tears seeped out. After a time I turned off the television and lay down to wait.

I woke from a dream of my former life. I remembered none of the details, just a sense of receding happiness.

My life was good in many ways. I had a beautiful and intelligent wife; she made a warm and comfortable home for us. My two daughters were charmingly precocious. As Senator Carl's chief aide and speechwriter, I had meaningful and responsible work. Stewart was appointed to the Senate's «New Approaches» Committee, a congressional cannon aimed at the accelerating drug catastrophe... and a safe rallying point for ambitious politicians like Stewart.

In that first year, Stewart, on my advice, got out into the field and made himself visible. We alternated between Capitol Hill and the darkest battlefields we could find. We went on «fact-finding expeditions» before the cameras of the hottest geraldos in the business.

In Tampa we went into a crack dealer's house and found a freezer full of bodies. At some point the dealer had strangled his wife and two little boys and folded them carefully to fit. He'd hidden his stash beneath the bodies, as if he had expected it to be safer there than under the frozen broccoli or the fish sticks. We got good footage of Stewart, handsome face pale, staring down into that icy tangle of blue-black limbs, wearing an expression of unbelieving horror. For all I know, his emotion was genuine, but with Stewart you could never be sure.

In Seattle we were present for the arrest of a woman who had set up a snuff palace, where the wealthy and badly bent could get high and kill someone. Most of the victims were Central American illegals, bought from a nearby sanctuary church. I've tried to forget the sights I saw in that place.

In the South Bronx, a vacant lot mass grave, full of one dealer's business rivals.

In Detroit a downtown cult, where the sacraments were heroin and human blood.

Stewart was there. We got good footage. His influence grew daily and he was credited with devising many effective new tactics in what came to be called the Good War. The list of his achievements is really mine; Stewart never had an original idea in his life.