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But it did ache. Right down to my marrow. I longed to pitch against the top hitters in the world again, to play in front of large crowds, to bask in all that attention and feel the heat of a big-time pennant race. All right, they got me. I was addicted to major league baseball and needed to satisfy my jones.

I also knew that if I did not take a break from Montreal soon, I would end up the following year bankrupt. Or dead. Or both. Goo goo goo joob.

2

SMALL WORLD

One summer evening during the late sixties, I saw Jim Morrison perform with the Doors at the Fillmore West. I had not experienced drugs yet, but no one in that theater needed them to hallucinate. Just walking through the audience gave us an immediate contact high, like being nonsmokers at a cocktail party. A cannabis haze, wispy as a spider web, hung over the crowd, strobe lights raked our eyes, and sparks literally ignited under our shoes— some psychedelic gremlin had sprinkled the floor with phosphorous.

The colorful thrashing amoebas and sinuous collages of the Joshua Light Show played on a screen behind the band. Ray Manzarek on organ, Robbie Krieger on lead guitar, and John Densmore on drums revealed themselves as powerful performers, always on the attack. The music they played rolled over you in a violent, reckless rush, yet every note resonated so cleanly. A stampede you could dance to. But it was Morrison who riveted our attention.

His voice sounded shot. Little more than a rasp, really. It would not have mattered if the son of a bitch failed to hold a note. This was all about presence. From the moment he slinked to center stage, Morrison assumed the robes of the Lizard King holding court. Slouching at the mike, his body a metronome swaying back and forth to rhythms only he could hear, Morrison wielded every dark, poetic lyric like a razor, slicing past the clichéd, the sentimental to uncover some brutal truth about love, hurt, death, and orgasm we dared not confront on our own. Even his pauses sounded eloquent. So filled, so pained.

Morrison intrigued me that night. In the days following the concert I read everything about him I could find. In one interview, he described how the spirit of a long-dead Apache warrior had entered his body during a soul-searching trek through the Gila Wilderness. That was only a warm-up. A few days after the possession, Jim saw God walking through the area’s cliff dwellings.

At the time, my religious affiliations were vague. How would you describe me? Lapsed Catholic, definitely. Disorganized Buddhist, perhaps. Seemed everyone in California claimed to be a Buddhist during the sixties, though few people I met could actually tell you anything about the practice beyond the chanting. The Hare Krishnas almost sank their hooks into me, but ultimately I rejected them. Not because of their theology, which sounded fairly hip. Fashion dictated my decision. I liked the saffron togas but hated the haircuts and the wooden clogs.

If you had to assign a label to me, optimistic skeptic might have fit best. That is why I vowed to one day retrace Morrison’s steps to find out if the Deity still made personal appearances. Something that tangible could transform me into a true believer. And what if an Indian spirit entered my body during this exploration? Bonus.

I would not visit the Gila Wilderness until February 1983. Pam and I were chugging through New Mexico in the Volkswagen bus on our way to Scottsdale, Arizona, for spring training with the Phoenix Giants, the top farm club in the San Francisco Giants’ minor-league system. Phoenix owner Marty Stone had invited me for a tryout. Marty was forty-eight, a multimillionaire in the international publishing industry. We had first met when he pitched batting practice for the Red Sox in Fenway Park during the seventies. This was one tycoon who did not fit any corporate stereotypes. He ate health food, drank organic coffee, read Zen journals, and owned a rustic hunting lodge in