CHAPTER ONE

(SOUNDTRACK: The last 60 seconds of audio from the descent of the Apollo 11 lunar landing module, finishing with the famous "Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.")

July 20th, 1969. I was 16 and like most of the world, I spent that night glued to the TV. That, in and of itself, was nothing special, I'd spent most of the previous 16 years in that position.

But this was different. This was big. So big that my family was actually together. The Eagle landed late afternoon our time, in Washington DC. It would be another six hours before Neil Armstrong would emerge from the LEM and go walking on the moon.

I sat there, waiting, with my parents, my sister Diane and brother David - both home from college. Tuned in not the definitive Walter Cronkite on CBS, but to David Brinkley on NBC, because he was my father's favorite. For the same reason Dad drank Pepsi instead of Coke and bought a Lincoln instead of a Cadillac - because that's the kind of Republican rebel he was.

Every half hour or so my other brother, Douglas, would pop in, see Brinkley still sitting there filling time, and pop back out to his bedroom enclave at the rear the house.

Then, just before 11 PM, NASA announced they were go for the EVA - the moonwalk. My Mom shouted - "Douglas, they're coming out!" and Doug came rushing into the room and sat down next to me on the floor.

We all stared wide eyed at the big new RCA color console that my father had bought just for the occasion. By the way, he was furious when he saw the first pictures. "They can put a man on the moon, but they can't do it in color!?" He may have been the first to use that.

Then it happened. Armstrong climbed out of the hatch, hopped down the ladder and took "the step". You could feel the entire world watching.Words can not describe the joy and wonder that hung in the air at that instant.

But I wasn't feeling it. I stared at that lone figure on TV and felt something else, something words could describe - "That guy's screwed. He'll never top this, it's not scientifically possible. He's peaking, right in front of the whole world!"

I didn't say it out loud. Even at the time it struck me as a weird way to see things, but I couldn't help it. For some reason I felt bad, and 20 minutes later when Buzz Aldrin came out to join him, I felt worse - "Oh, great. He's screwed too. Not only that, for the rest of his life he gets to take shit for being the second guy ."

We watched the two astronauts set up various equipment and plant the flag, and all the while, I fixated on the impending let down of a life they'd be stuck with in a matter of days: parades, politicians . . . and pancake breakfasts at the Kiwanis Club. They're screwed."

When Dad started pontificating about how this was the beginning of the future, and how lucky we were to be living in these remarkable times, and "in this great country" Doug had had enough. He stood up and bid us all goodnight. But as he left the room, he stopped in the hallway at an angle where only I could see him and motioned for me to follow, then turned and headed off.

I sat there long enough so it wouldn't look suspicious, then said my own goodnights. I could hardly wait to find out what Doug was up to. If he had something to show me, it was probably good.

Douglas was my closest sibling, both emotionally and age-wise, born just 51 weeks and a day day before me. And by this point in time everyone thought he was crazy. Literally.

By the age of 15, he'd been committed twice to teen psychiatric wards after suicide attempts. He took an overdose of sleeping pills the first time, and almost succeeded. Then maybe 6 months later, he climbed out under Chain Bridge - one of the older bridges spanning the Potomac. "All hopped up on drugs", my father said. It took the police two hours to talk him down.

I never thought Doug was crazy, though. Especially not after the bridge episode, when he made some kind of deal with my parents where he promised he'd quit trying to kill himself, if they'd stop forcing him into situations that made him want to. Like sending him to private prep schools.

And he never came close to being commited again, either. In return, Doug got to attend an "experimental" high school, and also convinced my folks that if they wanted him to spend more time at home, all they had to do was help him get a really good stereo system for his room. Sort of like a signing bonus.

When I got to his room, before I could knock, Doug whispered for me to come in. Then, as soon as I was in: "Shut the door"

Doug's room was a whole different world from the rest of the house. Some time after his second trip to the psyche ward, he and his best friend Brad had gotten into the teachings of an Indian mystic named Meher Baba - that they'd read about on the back of a Who album, The result, style-wise, could best be described as hippie hindu: beaded curtains, batik lanterns, votive candles, and Beatles posters, with the smell of incense always hanging in the air.

"Feel like celebrating, Chris? I just happen to have some very special marijuana. You've smoked, haven't you?"

No, I hadn't.

"I always thought it'd be up to me to get you high."

I'd always thought so, too. Frankly, I'd been hoping it would happen sooner.

Doug reached into his pocket and pulled out a small alabaster pipe and a square of tinfoil, which contained two clumps of what remains to this day the only truly red marijuana I've ever seen.

He pinched off a bud and put it in the pipe, then motioned for me to join him by the open window.

"Take a deep breath in, and try to hold it. Then exhale through your nose"

Naturally, I instantly coughed up the first hit. But thanks to Doug's tuteledge I managed to hold in the second, exhaling perfectly through my nose and out the window.

Then Doug sat me on an oversized pillow he'd placed in the center of his mock persian rug.

"I've got something I want you to listen to."

Doug loved turning me on to his musical discoveries. Most of what I knew about music, I learned from the stuff bleeding through his wall into my room. This time, he put on "Mad Dogs and Engishmen" - the new live album from Joe Cocker.

The music was terrific. But the sound was amazing. Doug had located six speakers around the room, creating a "listening zone" - the pillow - where each instrument seemed to separate from the others: I could hear the drums directly behind me. Hammond B-3 downstage and to the left. The horn section, stage right. And Cocker's voice was dead center, coming out of the middle of my head.

It was so clear. And so cool, I couldn't remember the last time I'd voluntarily paid that much attention to anything.

Then just as the music ended, from nowhere, I heard myself blurt out the one thing I really wanted to ask him:

"Hey, Doug. Why would you try to kill yourself?"

For a second, I thought I'd blown the moment. But it didn't phase Doug:

"That was the most incredibly stupid thing I've ever done. The instant I woke up in the hospital, Chris, I was so embarrassed. Huge mistake."

"Well then...what about the second time?"

"Chain Bridge? I wasn't trying to kill myself. I just wanted them to think I was. You know my friend Stewart, the guy I met in the psyche ward the first time? He'd just been recommited, in pretty bad shape, and they weren't going to let me go see him. So I figured fuck 'em - I'll just get myself thrown in again."

I was blown away. Even if I could come up with a stunt like that, I'd never have the balls to go thru with it. I'd be way too afraid I'd fall off, thus triggering Stewart's suicide. Both of us dying perfectly pointless deaths.

But Doug didn't fall off. He climbed right out there with no fear, spent the next two hours messing with the cops, and got himself re-committed.

There was just one small hitch. They sent him to a different hospital. Stewart got out in time to visit him.

Even so, it worked out for Doug in the long run. Not only was he able to negotiate the whole school/stereo deal. But by being on the record now as having tried to kill himself twice, he'd inadvertantly saved himself from the Vietnam draft.
For some reason, the military won't even consider recruits with a history of psychological problems. You'd think a special forces unit made up just of suicidals . . . could come in handy.

When I finally got to bed that night, it felt like every synapse in my brain was firing at once. For the first time in my memory, I began thinking seriously about the future, and my future. It sounds strange, but until then it never seemed relevant.
I'd grown up in Washington DC during the height of the Cold War. I'd spent most of my childhood counting on being vaporized in a nuclear attack.
They put sirens all over the city, had us practicing 'civil defense' drills at elementary school. "Run, duck, and cover kids. Dive under your desk. Remember, when you see the bright flash, don't panic! Just duck and cover." They never did explain how our desks were supposed to fend off the flesh-melting thermonuclear shockwave.

And it's not that I was terrified or depressed by any of this. I just accepted it as fact:
"Chris, what are you going to be when you grow up?"
"Why, charred remains of course. "
Planning my "future" looked like a complete waste of time.

As a result, I'd basically phoned in my childhood. That's easy enough when you're the youngest of four, and with Doug in the picture ... as long as I wasn't dangling over the Potomac, my parents were thrilled. I did well enough in school to keep anyone from hassling me - and filled the rest of my time with tv and snack food. It was my plan of no plans, and I thought I'd beaten the system.

But after everything that had transpired that night, my 'plan of no plans' was feeling like it had some major holes in it. For starters, the question of humanity's future ... had just been answered. It's a "Go". Even my blowhard Dad got that one right.

Which left me the question of my future. In less than a year, I'd be graduating from high school. Which in 1969 meant one of two choices: college or Vietnam. That's a tough one. Terrific. I'd just "no-planned" myself into my parents' wet dream. I was college-bound, in every sense of the word. Next thing I knew, I'd be in Law School and joining Dad's firm.

Oh, God! Annihilation was looking sweeter and sweeter. And to think that a few hours ago, I was feeling sorry for Neil and Buzz. At least they got to walk on the moon I hadn't even left home yet, and I was screwed.

On the other hand, if what I'd witnessed on TV earlier was possible, anything was. Doug was living proof. He'd been dealt virtually the same hand as me, but he'd managed a clean getaway. He didn't have to do anything. I had to start thinking more like Doug. I wasn't about to attempt a suicide, real or fake. But I had to start looking for some way out. Even the tiniest crack. Fuck giant leaps, at this point I'd be happy with one small step.

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