Living With the Dead

This is an excerpt from the book "Living With the Dead" by Rock Scully,
the Grateful Deads' long-time manager.

August, whenever. One of those really hot days in Oregon. They do have them, you know. It reminds me of that day in '72 we spent at a benefit for Ken Kesey's brother's creamery at the University of Oregon, in the woods on the Long Tom River. Hottest day in Oregon's history. It was so hot the redwoods were sweating. Twenty-five thousand people were coming through the woods, taking their clothes off. Half the crowd with tops off, the others stark naked. Garcia got hit with heat prostration and passed out onstage. Bobby Weir was puking. People were dropping like flies, ambulances screaming through the woods. The only islands of relief from the unrelenting heat were under the parachutes on old telephone poles (or one of Ken's gin and tonics).

Today is even hotter. 110 in the shade. We're on our way back to the motel in a VW Bug, Garcia, Page Browning, and myself and a G-tank of nitrous oxide slung in the backseat. We're breathing gas and driving at the same time, which is really a no-no, and, due to some, uh, distraction the Bug skids off the road and turns over on its side. As it does so the fucking top flies off the G-tank in the backseat and immediately the entire inside of the car freezes up- this is in 110 degree weather.

We get out of there just in time! Or we would have been found frozen inside like an exhibit: "Three hippies in a VW Bug, late twentieth century." They'd put us next to the Woolly Mammoth from Siberia in the Museum of Natural History.

Once outside everybody's going, "CLOSE THE DOOR, close the fuckin' door, SAVE THE GAS!" Volkswagens are supposed to float in water, the idea being when you close the doors, the car is airtight. The Bug fills up with nitrous oxide in seconds. It is frozen solid, a furry ball of frost in the middle of a hot summer night. It's so frosty you can write your name in the ice! Which Page has the presence of mind to do. He writes: "WILD THING, I LOVE YOU!"

A few minutes later the highway patrol shows up just as I'm pissing on the door lock to get it open. The frozen Bug is all fuzzy with frost like it just came out of the freezer.

"And what happened here exactly?" the highway patrolman asks. I'm not saying a word. I let Page do the talking.

"Waaall," says Page, "as a matter of fact we have no explanation for it, officer. It's like spontaneous combustion or somethin'. It's a goddamn mystery."

Jerry senses this is not a good tack and picks up the slack, beginning with a supposedly rationalist approach: "Oh, officer, we must have hit an icy spot." Right.

"An icy spot!" says the incredulous cop. I'm standing behind the good officer trying to signal Garcia to cool it. He's still trying to explain a completely iced-up VW Bug in a heat wave.

"We don't have any idea how it happened, officer. Just came round the corner, slid off the road on this, um, vestage of ice." The patrolman walks up and down the road. Of course you can't see this icy spot, but we're all obviously sober. We're coming down fast.

Eventually he leaves, scratching his head and muttering: "Damndest thing I ever saw..." We're pissed off that all the gas is sealed in the car and we don't have a clue how to suck it up. Do you open the window a crack? Can you fill a balloon from a Volkswagen full of nitrous oxide? Let it melt is what were gonna do!

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