Chapter 12
In the police car, the two officers were wide-eyed at Candy's half-nakedness, as she still carried her skirt and pants in a dripping ball.
"Okay, sister, cover it up!" said one of them brusquely.
"Good Night!" said Candy. "My things are soaking wet! How can I put these on?"
Dr. Johns, who had been securely pinioned in the corner of the back seat, suddenly lunged forward.
"Perfect!" he cried. "Perfect! Her tubes are perfect!"
"You've got a screw loose, buddy!" said one of the cops, giving the doctor a terrific blow on the head with his night-stick.
The car was plummeting down MacDougal Street, sirens wailing, so that Candy had to shout to make herself heard.
"Stop that! You can't hit him like that. Let me see your credentials... I don't believe you're even police officers!"
"Here's a credential for you, momma!" said the officer in the back seat with her, and he tore open his fly and forced her hand inside. Candy flailed at him wildly with her free hand, half rising and falling against the driver in her desperation to escape the obscenity.
"Look out!" yelled the driver, for the girl had half obscured his view and interfered with his control of the machine-but it was too late, for at that moment a truck pulled out of a side street directly into their path.
"Christ! Christ!" shouted the driver, swerving the patrol car sharply, and with an agonizing scream of brakes the car careened hopelessly sideways past the truck, righted itself momentarily and then crashed headlong into the San Remo bar.
There were two hundred and seventy-five homosexuals in the bar at that particular moment, and they thought it was a raid. About half of them rushed insanely about trying to get out the doors, and the other half began beating in capering senseless frenzy on the car and the policemen.
"They're perverts!" shouted one policeman, "we'll have to blast our way out!"
In the confusion that followed, Candy found herself being pulled away from the scene by an unknown man.
"Quickly, quickly," he kept saying in an urgent whisper, and it was apparent he was helping her escape from the authorities. They were soon to Third Street, rushing down it toward Sixth Avenue.
"Oh it's simply a nightmare!" Candy was saying as she ran along beside him, modestly trying to conceal her sweet nakedness. Then they were at the avenue and the strange man assisted her into a cab.
"The Cracker Foundation," he said to the driver, "and hurry!"
"Right!" said the driver, craning forward over the back seat for a moment, trying to see through the half light of the cab into Candy's little honey-pot.
"I'm putting on my things!" exclaimed the girl, "wet or not! Good Grief!" And she began to get into them, the man beside her helping with the pants.
"Thanks," said Candy, feeling a good deal more secure once she had them on again, "and thanks for the rescue! Good Gosh, I thought we were going to jail!"
"So you were, my dear," said the man. He was a very fat man with a tremendous shock of white hair. "Now let us introduce ourselves," he went on, extending his hand, "my name is Pete Uspy."
"My name is Candy Christian," said the girl, "how do you do."
"Glad to be acquainted with you," said Pete Uspy. He had a sort of Russian accent. "Yes, you were going to the jail all right, that much is certain. Now we've got to get you out of this town. Tonight."
"Out of town?" said Candy, "Good Grief, what have I done?"
"Ho," said Pete Uspy, putting one hand to his great brow, "who can say? All of that is mere mirage anyway. The point is this, that these authorities, whoever they were, policemen or whatever you wish to call them-is only a name-have the material viewpoint only and so would have put you physically in the jail. That much is certain."
There was something in Pete Uspy's manner which reminded Candy of Professor Mephesto, despite the former's atrocious accent, and she felt a confidence and rapport warming inside her.
"Yes, they certainly weren't very spiritual," she agreed.
"Certainly not," said Pete Uspy. "They had no spiritual advancement whatever!"
"I'll say," said Candy. She began trying to smooth out her skirt, which was wrinkled and still quite wet. "Ugh, these things are all icky," she said, "I don't know whether to keep them on or not!"
"No matter," said Pete Uspy, "is mere appearance. We are almost to the Foundation."
The cab pulled up in front of a large brownstone on the 73rd Street and stopped.
"Here you are," said the driver.
"Good," said Pete Uspy, "here is the Foundation. Come, we must go inside it."
He got out and paid the driver and helped Candy out.
"Good Night, I hate to go in like this," she said, "I must look a sight."
"No, is very good," said Pete Uspy, "is material pathos. The Crackers are fond of this. Come."
He led the way up the steps and into a large foyer. A receptionist was there and he went directly to her.
"This girl is in need," he said, "and she wishes to help others. Have you material work for her?"
"Well," said the receptionist, "we have that crew in Minnesota. They could certainly use help out there."
"Just what I was thinking," said Pete Uspy. "She must go at once. Tonight." He seemed to have a strange hypnotic power over the receptionist.
"Yes, of course," she said, looking into his eyes. "I will arrange for the transportation."
"Good," said Pete Uspy, "we will wait here." And he led the girl to an alcove in the foyer, where several chairs and a table were placed.
"Are you familiar with the Cracker work?" he asked when they were seated.
"Oh yes, of course," said Candy, "they're pacifists... I know that much anyway."
"Ah yes, they are pacifists, but also they do much work in helping others. They have fine spiritual advancement, and you will find great camaraderie among them. It will be much fun for you."
"Yes, I am interested in their work," said Candy, "but I don't see how I can go there now. I mean, Good Grief, what about my apartment and all my things?" She was thinking too now of Derek.
"You must go," said Pete Uspy, "it is the only means of escaping the physical jail. Then when this affair has blown over, you will come back. Only a few days perhaps. Give me the keys to your apartment. I will see to it."
"I don't know," said the girl reluctantly, "I should at least go by there and pack some things." She felt her sopping skirt again. "These things are so icky, you have no idea."
"The Cracker people will give you something dry to wear," Pete Uspy promised. "A simple cloth shift."
"I like simple clothes," Candy admitted, nodding.
"Yes, clothes do not matter; it is folly to judge the pork chop by its wrapper."
"Is that a Cracker saying?" Candy asked.
"No, that is a Chinese proverb-I have taken it from the book of the I Ching."
"I love the Chinese," said Candy, "I think they are the most spiritually advanced of all people-the man in the street, I mean to say."
"The China-man in the street!" said Pete Uspy, chuckling. "Very good."
"Chinese cooking is very good, isn't it?" said Candy. "I can make several Chinese dishes." She wanted to name some of them for him and perhaps arrange for him to have dinner with her and Derek, but Pete Uspy said:
"Now, we have little time. The car will be here in a moment to take you to the airport. They will tell you what to do and, in fact, someone will be at the plane to meet you in Minnesota. When you get to the camp, you will find a friend of mine there among the common workers-he will help you. His wisdom is infinite and he is the great spiritual teacher of our times."
"Good Gosh," said Candy, "you mean I really must go? Tonight?"
"Oh yes, that much is certain-you cannot risk going to jail. It would greatly damage your spiritual advancement. For me it does not matter, I see through the mirage. But for you, a beautiful sensitive girl, it would be terrible. They would do terrible things to you, undress you and everything."
"Good Heavens!"
"Yes, so you see we must fight fire with fire. They wish to confine you in physical form, we will escape in that form!"
"Gosh," said Candy, "I don't know what to say."
"He who knows need not speak; he who speaks does not know," said Pete Uspy. "Give me the keys."
Candy fished them uncertainly out of her bag. She was wondering if she shouldn't tell him about Derek, and leave a message of some sort; but then she decided she would write a letter of explanation as soon as she reached the Cracker camp.
"The small one is the mailbox-key," said the girl, handing them over. "I'll be writing to someone there... a friend of mine. Will you give him the letter when he comes to see me? His name is Derek."
"Of course," said Pete Uspy, "that shall be as you wish. Now we must get you a dry shift."
He got up and went again to the receptionist's desk, where he spoke briefly to the attentive woman. Then he returned to Candy.
"Good," he said, "she will give you dry."
"Oh that's wonderful", said Candy.
Pete Uspy remained standing.
"Now I must go," he said. "I have much work before me this night."
"How will I know your friend at the camp?" the girl asked anxiously.
"Ho," said Pete Uspy, "you will know him-he will know you. That much is certain. Do not worry. I will contact him that you are coming."
"Well," said Candy, standing and shaking hands, "thanks for everything."
Pete Uspy shrugged.
"Is nothing," he said, "is mere appearance."
"Well, you did save me from the jail and all those other things," Candy insisted.
"That is my pleasure," said Pete Uspy. "Now I say good night to you. Write to me before you return."
"Oh yes I will," said Candy, "I'll write as soon as I get there!"
"Good," said Pete Uspy, turning to go, "good night, and bon voyage!"
"Good night," said Candy, feeling again that tinge of wistful regret she always felt when she parted with anyone. She stood for a moment looking after him, before she was aware that the receptionist was trying to get her attention from the desk. She went over.
"Here is something dry and serviceable for you to wear," said the receptionist, handing the girl a folded garment. "You can change in the dressing room behind that alcove." She indicated with a nod a small door nearby.
"Thank you very much," said Candy cheerfully, and she crossed over to the dressing-room door and went inside. She began to feel a growing excitement about her work with the Cracker group. Inside the dressing room, she slipped off her skirt and pants.
"These prissy little pants are still wet!" she said, squeezing them into a tiny ball and giving them a kiss. Then she took off her sweater and brassiere and put on the simple garment, a sort of formless sack-cloth shift with three buttons at the top. There was a mirror in the dressing room and she studied her appearance in it. She loved the simple garment. It must have been such a garb as this, she reflected, that Joan of Arc had worn to her execution. She began to feel quite like a saint. Wrapping her other clothes in a bundle, she went into the foyer again and to the receptionist's desk, presenting herself there as though to be inspected.
"It looks very nice," said the receptionist.
Candy did a little pirouette of joy, twirling the skirt just above her sweet knees.
"Oh I feel younger than I have for years!" she cried. "And alive, really alive for the first time in my life!"
She handed the bundle of clothes to the receptionist.
"Here," she said, "I won't be needing these! Give them to someone... to some very old person, to someone still living in the Stone Age!"
She was ecstatically happy in her new garb. It was made of a heavy sort of canvas sack- cloth, shaped somewhat like an inverted funnel, and came almost to her ankles.
"Now tell me all about the Crackers!" she gayly demanded.
"Well," said the receptionist, "I'm afraid there isn't time for me to tell you, I see your transportation to the airport has just arrived out front. But here..." She took some booklets and folders out of her desk and gave them to Candy, "you can browse through these on the plane."
"Oh wonderful!" said the girl, glancing through them. She was going to read a bit aloud, but the receptionist took her up again.
"I think you'd better go now," she said, "so you'll be in good time for your plane."
"All right," said Candy with real cheer, "thanks so much for everything, for having me, and... for everything!"
She leaned forward and kissed the receptionist.
"Goodbye," said the receptionist, "and good luck!"
"Goodbye," said Candy, running a few steps, then turning to wave, "goodbye, goodbye!"
Then she hurried on, calling out ahead of her to the car in front of the Foundation:
"Wait for me! Here I come!"