The Story So Far:
Get a head start on the new story by acclaimed writer Román Leão, mastermind of the mind-bending novels, Inside a Broken Clock, and Burn Your Starry Crown. This time, Leão looks back at the end of the idealism and social experimentation of the ’60s.
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MEMORANDUM FOR: THE RECORDSUBJECT: Project MKULTRA, Subproject 3 REDACTED CD/TSS APPROVED:REDACTEDChief, CD/TSS APPROVED FOR OBLIGATION OF FUNDS:REDACTED Research Director Date: 11 November, 1971 Carol Davidson parked the 1963 Volkswagen Beetle she had been saddled with on Bartlett Street, around the corner from the Agency’s clandestine office on Mission. Driving the drafty German “people’s car” always…
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Joaninha pulled her 1982 Honda Accord up to the high curb in front of the Boonville Mercantile and killed the engine. The weary mid-size sedan, however, had its own ideas and continued to diesel as if it was having an epileptic fit as the young woman gathered up the items that had rattled out of…
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The Kid zipped up the nylon track bag he had just stuffed with everything he would need to conduct the interviews to complete his Senior film project. He had just spent the morning checking out one of the college’s brand new Sony DCR-VX1000 video cameras upon penalty of painful death. He had also mortgaged his…
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With Shane’s solid presence gone from the scene, the concrete bunker seemed to close in on the pair left alone for the first time since they left the airport. “So…” Rosenda began before being cut off by a recalcitrant Cole. “Look,” the fallen star looked down at his bare feet, “I’ve been a right twit,…
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A heavy drizzle spattered the Lincoln as it rolled through the damp San Francisco night. Karoline Rosenda was silent and still except for periodically twisting around in her seat to check on their charge. Be OK! Be OK! Echoed over and over in her thoughts like a fire alarm, but she wisely kept it to…
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That must have been some really good coke. It what seemed like no time at all, Zongo and I had hacked our way through the heavy stuff and were starting to see moonlight coming through the other side. The night was dead quiet except for what I took for the hypnotic crashing of the surf…
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I guess every community has its own creation myths; stories that bring members together in shared tradition while allowing new people to understand in a deeper way where the group was coming from. Girassol was no different. My favorite one was when Charlie almost shot Zongo and Enrique as they first popped out of the forest.…
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I had been surfing the late afternoon break at Manchester, north of the lighthouse, and the sun was starting to drop behind the mountain. The great whites off the coast have been known to come in to feed when it gets dark, so I rode one last wave all the way to the beach, collected…
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It had been a couple of years since I’d been back north, but I thought I knew every place there was to know. In fact, that’s one of the things that made me want to leave in the first place. I had directions and a map to Garissol from Mrs. Chaves, but they didn’t really…
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I don’t like to fly, let me just put that out there. The day I met Zongo, I was a wreck, having just got off the flight from McKinleyville. We hit some pretty gnarly turbulence over the coastal range and I was doing my deep meditation most of the time to keep from freaking out.…
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I first discovered the old Girassol Ranch by accident. When I finally bought my chopper, I talked my way into doing some fire spotting for the Department of Forestry. It had the added benefit of giving me an excuse to be be flying back and forth over the back forty when it was harvest time,…
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“So there we were, at the Canadian border, five of us in a van crammed with instruments and two pounds of the best Humboldt County weed you could imagine,” Cole entertained a captive audience of very stoned fans with tales of adventure and debauchery on the road. “Chalky was the one driving as he hadn’t…
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The black ’65 Lincoln Continental idled at the curb of the decrepit Victorian on Webster St. in the Lower Haight. Dry weeds reached out from a parched patch of dirt as if straining to see their sorry reflection in the perfectly polished chrome hubcaps. The driver, an Irishman named Bearach Shane, just Bear to friends…
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You have to remember that these were the days when record companies, even small ones like Celestial, literally had money to burn. Z had set me up with a car and driver in order to shuttle Lucious Cole around with the all-important caveat that he make all three of the Winterland gigs. He didn’t care…
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I met Bravo as soon as I hit ground. We did up the last of my Colombian marching powder and I caught a ride with him up to Mrs. Chaves’ property. The Mendo coast was different in those days. A lot slower, if you can imagine. I think there may have been one stoplight on…
Román Leão 