Walking on Thin Ice

YESTERDAY’S NEWS; TODAY’S POTENTIAL

Smith 1976

YESTERDAY’S NEWS; TODAY’S POTENTIAL

“Smith, You’re gonna be hit hard when you read your prison journal. It’s heartrending. Here you are in the first half of your journal - ‘I love Robin, everything is beautiful, la tee dah tee dah.’ And then WHAMMO! You’re hit with four other men. One thing I want to know: is this one passage in your notebook an affair?”

No. That woman I’m fucking in that motel is my wife. I was faithful from when we married to just before the end.

I even turned down free sex from other women when I was married. On Charles Street in Baltimore, the woman upstairs was real lonely. She came home, turned on her TV for companionship and would walk all over. She offered herself to me.

I was too scared to follow through. Bought grass from her. Couple times when she was gone, I crawled up the fire escape and got some grass anyway.

And, one of the secretaries from the ad agencies repeatedly offered sex. And I turned her down. Then I found out she was epileptic. I started fantasizing what it might be like to have sex with an epileptic.

See, wives don’t get this kind of information from husbands.

“Why not?”

Well, normally, when a man is with a woman, it doesn’t help the situation for the man to talk about sex he’s had with other women. It tends to bring about hostile situations.

You and I do not have a normal relationship. I know way more about you than anybody else does, and you know way more about me. You can start calling me “Waymore.”

- - -

When I was still in the tiers, I was going fug bucky. I couldn’t see a clock anywhere. I didn’t know what time it was. I like to know time so I’ll know how long before we’re walked into the little tiny cells from the big cells or when we’ll eat or when my wife would be there for a visit.

I had my wife smuggle me in a wrist watch face. I can’t remember how we transferred it, because there was a screen between her and I, but I got the watch. Sarge the large sadistic guard caught me. Took me into the office. Searched me up and down and up and down. All the time, my hands are over my head so he can pat me.

Can’t find it. Finally he checks my hands, and it’s in my right palm.

“I can’t believe you had the chutzpah to try hide a watch while Sarge was searching you.”

Once again, if you give it to him right away, you’re caught. If you try to get away, maybe you’re not caught. It’s logic. *Known* bad versus *maybe* bad.

I couldn’t see Robin for four or six weeks after that and went buggy. It really isn’t much fun to be locked up; I don’t care what the movies or the books say. But I do got some stories. And I paid for them.

summing up 1968

Sphinx - Smith by Smith (Manipulated Polaroid)

3 Jan 69…

Were I to sum up 1968 I’d say dope… first turned on January 20… kicked out of Academy Feb 22… heavy dope since… 24 hallucinogenic trips since May 18… have had a needle in my arm 23 times in 19 goes… and now I’m sposed to be straight – and I am in an unwilling way… I don’t feel like writing right now.

4 Jan 69

First smoked grass Jan 20

I tried tea, hash, glue, methedrine, amyl nitrate, LSD, heroin, Demerol, belladonna, cocaine, psylicibin, mescaline, Nembutal, THC, morphine, and innumerable amphetamine pills and sleeping pills. I became engaged – it should stand out as my biggest year of change but I feel more it has been my first completely normal year… every previous year I have either lived at home under parental guidance or in the Navy under their authority – this was the first year I’ve lived under the guidance and authority of me… consequently my apartment is decorated my way and I’ve had freedom to try drugs… it was a good year – I’ve never gotten out of debt, but I’ve had a hell of a lot of fun. Here’s my dope list I kept in my calendar I had in the Mudge Paper office. [below]

My two best trips were the 5th and the 11th… a blue flat and a white flat… colors play havoc in dope: blue and white flats, orange white and purple wedges, purple ozleys, blue barrels, Acapulco Gold, Panama Red, crystal, snow – etc.

I have a fear that I’m putting too much down on paper… this would look great in a court room – of course how can a court decide where reality and fun are divided… what about the dead body I said I kept in my apartment… and maybe they couldn’t use this because of the 5th amendment – I just hope Robin never reads it, or if she does that she truly loves me enough to understand. I like my black walls… they match me so well they require nothing from me… my whole apartment requires nothing from me because I’ve just put myself on the walls and made art things of myself and hung them from the ceilings and I can just be here and like what I see without becoming involved… I’m basically a coward… afraid of hurting people… the only I managed to break off with Janice was to tell her I got engaged… I’m useless in people relationships… gonna go… I’m leaving the radio on because it’s easier than having to choose a record for the player… there are two very definite parts to me – one is my writing self whom I really don’t understand and the other is my timid lazy self… or is this true?

s.p. cont… s.h. re… a.h. re… sn.g.3… sn.m re…
[smoke pot continuously… smoke hash repeatedly… ate hash repeatedly… snorted glue 3… snorted methydrine repeatedly…]
ml m 7… p an 5… d a 22… ml n 4 … a p 2 …
[mainlined methydrine 7… popped amyl nitrate 5… dropped acid 22… mainlined nebutal 4… ate peyote 2…]
ml d 1 … ml b … ml a 2 … s h 1 … ml h 1… d ad 2 …
[mainlined demerol 1… mainlined benzedrine… mainlined acid 2… snorted heroin 1… mainlined heroin 1… dropped acidonna 2…]
ml c 1 … s n c l … d psl … d mesl … m l nam 1 … m1 orb T 1 …
[mainlined coke 1… snorted coke 1… dropped psylicibin … dropped mescaline… mainlined nam (?) 1… mainlined obr t (?) 1…]
d – sn – smo THC 1 … m1 mor … plus innumerable pep pills, sets, and sleeping pills.
[dropped snorted smoked thc… mainlined morphine… etc]

list of lsd trips etc:
1) ½ blotter May 18 2) 1 blotter 29 May 3) 2 blotter 31 May 4) 1 blotter Jun 5
5) 1 Blue Flat Jun 14 6) 1 c 37 Jun 19 7) 2 w.l. (ml 1) Jun 21
2 p.c. + 1 w.l. (ml & p.) Jun 25 9) 1 p.c. June 30
10 3 purp c July 12 11) 1 W.F. Aug 14 12) 1 bl. Aug 22
13) 1 bl Aug 28 14) 1 bl Aug 30 15) ½ bl Sep 2
16) 1 bl Sep 9 17) mes oct 5 18) 1 wc Oct 26 19) 1 wc Nov 3
20) 2 tab Nov 15 21) 2 tab Nov 22 22) 1 tab Nov 28
23) 1 tab Dec 14

9 Dec. 1968

From Smith’s journals…

9 Dec. 1968

So few pages written, so much has happened. I got good and stoned last night… I had to. I proposed marriage to Robin yesterday… she had me backed into a corner… she broke down in tears and told me she was tired of having only a maybe in the future, that she was tired of sleeping with me, and was tired of our relationship being all me – I sat in my bedroom and thot a lot… decided I did love her as much as I’m capable, that I really couldn’t be happy with any other girl, that I didn’t want to spend my whole life alone, that it would help me financially, and that generally it was the best thing all around – still, it really got to me, the thought of being married, being tied down, of conforming, of maybe having children, being responsible for someone else, buying furniture, clothes, appliances, good god!

What about if I want to trip or smoke a little? What about my parents… I don’t feel that mom really likes Robin… what about not having a ring?… I can’t afford an engagement ring right now… and yet here I am, engaged – and I guess I’m basically pleased with it all. I’m counting heavily on marriage maturing Robin – I’m basically mature, but I still don’t feel adult – I’m 22 going on 23 and about to get married yet I don’t feel adultish. I have a vague fear that marriage is going to smother the part of me that makes me different, tht drives me to write. I wonder if Robin really wants me or just wants to get married because all her friends are getting or have gotten married… she’s only 20, she’ll be 21 4 days after the wedding which is planned for May 24th… and I’ll be 23 – what’s the rush… what is wrong with getting married when you’re 25? Why won’t women wait? If they’re not married by the time they’re 19, they think they’re old maids. I’m sposed to have Janice up tomorrow night – I don’t feel up to it. According to the wall in the men’s room in Sign of the Swan, Moby Dick is not a venereal disease… I’ll wager nothing nothing nothing I quit.