THE UMPTEENTH COMING by Peter Nolan Smith

"This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius"

These words were sung by the cast of HAIR in 1969 and millions of hippies dropped acid to touch the sky of Aquarius.

I wanted to be one of them and the Fourth of July 1970 my friends John Gilmour, Tommy Jordan, Mark McLaughin and I scoring a couple of hundred hits of LSD from a French-Canadian hash dealer in Montreal. We dropped the Orange Sunshine after entering the USA at Canaan, New Hampshire. The backroads were lightly traveled and my VW Beetle meandered down Route 3 toward the White Mountains. The acid came on strong at the T-intersection of 110 and 3 at Groveton.

We didn't have a map and Mark asked an old farmer sitting on a lawn chair, which was the best way to Mount Washington.

"Are you in a hurry?" His accent was non-rhotic Granite State.

"We have all the time in the world." I was 18.

"That's what all young men say." He took off his straw hat and looked at the intersection. "Most travelers take 3 down to Lancaster and east on 2, but a few head over to Berlin."

Berlin was a logging town.

"Which one you take?" My voice shimmered with color, mostly green.

"Depends on where I'm going, but I like driving along the Upper Ammonoosuc River. It's very twisted."

"Thanks for the information."

Mark and I looked at each other.

"Go left," said John in the back. "Always take the road less traveled."

It was the hippie way and I beeped the horn before heading down 110.

An AM radio station from Burlington played War's SPILL THE WINE, Free's ALL RIGHT NOW, Mungo Jerry's IN THE SUMMERTIME before fading into static behind the airwave shadow of Mt. Cabot.

Berlin blurred under the blue sky and the pines wavered with the breeze. This was the North Country. The wind riffled across our ears. I drove slowly up 16 with snow gleaming atop Mount Washington.

A river ran to our right.

"Quiet." I shut off the engine and coasted down a dirt road to the bank of the Peabody River. "Me too," replied the three friends.

We were on the same plane.

The four of us got out of the bug.

The mountain stream rushing over glacial rocks to create a primordial language. Our teenage ears listened to its teachings and we obeyed the command to submerge our bodies in the torrent's lecture. Our communion with LSD immuned our flesh from the frigid winter melt. Time melted faster than butter in the sun.

"Speak, river, speak." John was all ears.

Our skin was turning blue.

I strained to understand the river's message.

A young boy in shorts appeared from the trees. He was wearing an Andre the Giant tee-shirt.

John Gilmour elbowed me.

"It's him."

"Him who?"

"Him."

“I don't who him is, but we don't need him to bring us down. What you want, kid?” Tommie was a stickler for keeping crowds small while on LSD.

"Why are you were sitting in the water?

"To hear it speak," Tommie answered without hesitation. He was a high school hockey star. On ice his skating was almost holy and Tommie was the was the most spiritual of us.

The eleven year-old stuck a finger in the river.

"I don't near nothing, but the water."

We cocked our ears to the current.

The boy in the shorts was right.

"We hear the water too."

We were on an ancient quest.

"And it's cold."

"Yes, it is cold."

We stood up with goose-bumped skin. The release from the river was a rush.

“Come out of the river.” The young boy ordered with biblical authority.

"Whatever you say.” Tommie Jordan chattered through this teeth.

Mark’s skin was death white and I shivered like I had been pulled from the Atlantic after the sinking of the Titanic. This boy had saved us from hypothermia. His coming here was no accident.

"Who are you?" I asked, blowing into my hands.

"Bobby."

"No, you're not."

"Am too."

"You're someone else." Someone famous and John's retinas opened to the max, as he whispered, "It's Jesus."

"Jesus." I might have been a non-believer, but I flashed on the 12 year-old Messiah in the Temple. Bobby was about his age.

"What are you talking about?" I was a firm non-believer.

"He's the Second Coming." John was on a vision.

"I've been here before." The boy picked up a rock and threw it into the river.

"Here before?" I asked with time repeating over and over again like a reshuffled deck of cards.

Yes." Bobby liked simple answers and before we could pose the right questions, a teenage girl in a tube top hurried from the underbrush. Red hot pants hung off her skinny ass.

"Bobby, you get over here." The redhead was about 15. Her skin was milk white.

"I wasn't doing nothing." Bobby was a member of her family.

"What I tell you about speaking to strangers." She grabbed her brother. Her tube top was no protection from our eyes.

“I wanted to know why they were sitting in the river.” Our prophet attempted to escape her clutches.

“Why? Because they’re stupid hippies.” She was teenage trouble to men and boys.

"We're not stupid hippies." I was enlightened by LSD. Bobby was Jesus. His sister was blind.

"I know stupid when I see it. You're fucked up on LSD too." The sister seized Bobby by the ear and our ‘Jesus’ squealed in defeat, as she dragged her brother away from the river.

"Don't take him away." John scrambled over the glacial rocks.

"Let him go." Mark slipped on a mossy rock into the river.

"But he's____"

"Look." John pointed through the trees.

Bobby's family was setting up a barbecue. His father regarded us with a command to keep our distance. This was their holiday destination.

Bobby had been here before, but only in this lifetime.

"So he's no Jesus."

"He was a for a minute." John laughed with the LSD.

"He's just a kid we thought was Jesus. Listen." Mark was lying in the water.

The river had resumed its music. Its song were never played on the radio. We lay in the river and sang its lyrics until our throats were parched dry as the summer grass. Drinking the river was a sacrament. We clambered from the water and sat on the rocks. Bobby's family left in the direction of North Conway. We came down under the pine trees. The night rose from the east.

"You know they're lighting off fireworks on the Charles." John loved watching the Boston Pops playing the 1812 OVERTURE. The fireworks were a wonder of pyrotechnics.

"We missed it this year."

"But not our trip." John smiled in the darkness.

The moon floated across a universe of nova stars.

"It was something else."

We spread our sleeping bags and lit a fire.

"You know there is no God." I had to say it.

"And there is no Jesus." Mark had been quiet for hours.

"But there is a Bobby." Tommie lit a joint. It was good Acapulco Gold.

"And he has a hot sister."

Our heads bobbed in agreement, because even an atheist on LSD can believe a small boy with a sister in a tube top can be Jesus.

After all acid is only a drug and this everyday is the dawn of the Age of Aquarius.