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By Root 1440 0

and said, "Are you hitting on me?" I said, "Yeah." I could see that when I said that at least I drew a kind of response from her. She was flattered. But the more I talked to her the more it seemed to me she didn't really want to get into another relationship. And I could tell she was very wired up in what she was doing in Synanon. She started talking about the school. She worked with the kids. When someone is involved with children they're really involved. The whole situation suddenly seemed very frustrating, and I thought for a minute that maybe I should just forget it and look for somebody else, but I kept looking at her lying there in that bathing suit. She had small breasts, but they were nicely shaped. At one point she turned and for a second I caught sight of a nipple, and it was hard, and that immediately turned me on. I thought, "I've got to have her."

I asked her what she had done on the outside, and she told me she'd been a photographer doing album covers and publicity pictures. I said, "Jazz groups?" "No, rock groups." And so from the little bit she told me and from what I'd seen of her I realized she'd been into that phony Hollywood trip. Maybe she thought I was the same kind of people. I leveled with her: I told her I'd really come to the end of the line, that if I left Synanon I would die. I told her about the things that were wrong with me physically. I wanted to prepare her for my scar. I told her that the only way I could make it was to have someone to care for, that all my life I'd been looking for a woman to love me. I don't know if she really trusted or believed me, but I think she started to think I was alright.

I enjoyed talking to her. I got a warm feeling from it, and I told her so. I told her how I felt about Synanon. I said I felt I was being held prisoner. I couldn't even go for a walk. She said, "Why don't you ask one of the guys in your tribe to go for a walk with you?" I said, "I don't like the guys in my tribe. I don't like guys." She said, "Well, I don't think you'd have any trouble getting some of these young girls to walk with you." She was about twenty-five. There was a bunch of eighteen- and nineteen-year-old girls who would giggle and flirt with me. A lot of the older guys had young chicks like these who admired them and were impressed by their reputations as big dopefiends. I said, "I don't want any young girls." I told her that she could take me for a walk if she would. I told her again, "I am hitting on you." She said, "Well, I don't think you can just go with someone without getting to know them. You've got to be friends first." I said, "Well, let's be friends!" She looked at me and smiled for the first time, smiling with me instead of at me. At first, when I'd thought of having a girl, it had been purely for sex. Now I realized it was much more than that, and the prospect really became exhilarating. I said, "When can we go for a walk?" She said, "I'm busy today." I said, "How about tomorrow?" She said, "Okay, I'll take you for a walk tomorrow." I said, "What time?" She started reciting all the things she had to do. Oh, my God! I said, "When do you ever have time for yourself?" She said, "Well, you have to stay involved. That's the trouble with you. You just sit around thinking about what you'd be doing if you were on the street and mope and feel sorry for yourself. You can't make it that way. You've got to be involved and do things for other people. The kids are such a gas. It's a lot of responsibility taking care of them, and then there's the newcomers in my tribe-I'm a dorm head-and ... " Oh, Jesus!

That night as I went home I saw Synanon in a new light. The people on the bus nodded and said hello. The bus driver said hello. I got off the bus and walked into the Clump, and people I passed on the walkway said hello. I went into the coffee shop. Usually, if I couldn't find a place to sit alone, I'd get my cup and walk and stand as if I was looking for somebody outside, you know. Everyone else just sat anywhere. I always resented that. If someone sat down next to me I'd say, "What's