Summer of ‘66

by Michael Lally

13

Cal visits and decides he wants to move his
family to Jersey. Roy and Karen convince us
to take a bus trip to Portland, Maine, where Dick
Harvey takes us to the blessing of the boats of
Portuguese lobstermen, then the film of WHO’S
AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? We argue over
it for days. With my discharge money, I buy an old
Mercury to drive us back in, stopping in Province-
town, where Lee and Karen notice men eyeing my
tight pants. Lee tells us how she once slept on the
beach there and a very drunk Kerouac stumbled
over her in the night, cursing her for being on HIS
beach. We go swimming, and I let them talk me in-
to lying on the sand with them in the summer sun.

14

By nightfall, shivering with fever, my skin
starting to blister, I lie on the back seat of
the Merc, the others up front, Roy or Karen
driving, me in and out of feverish sleep. They
bring me food when they stop, and leave
me in the car when we cross a stretch of
water by ferry. I can’t pull my Beatle boots
on, or move without excruciating pain. After
it subsides, back in the city we see under-
ground flicks in a basement: HALLELUJAH
THE HILLS with future friend Taylor Mead,
John Cassavete’s SHADOWS, Michael Roe-
mer’s NOTHING BUT A MAN, and more. I
sell Roy the Merc to drive back to Iowa City in.