I MOVED OUT of the San Francisco apartment without letting either Barb or Ray know. I decided the environment was a little to polarized for me there, so I went over to Berkeley. I didn't have any money, although I had a few good books and three records: On the Threshhold of a Dream, by the Moody Blues, Deaf, Dumb and Blind, by Pharaoh Sanders, and Readings of James Joyce, including an original cut of Joyce reading from Finnegan's Wake.

Telegraph Avenue is lined with petty peddlers in cheap jewelry, serious arts-and-crafts people, and all kinds of hustlers on the make. I fit right in trying to sell my three records. There was another guy on the corner with several boxes full of albums going for a buck and a quarter, but I looked them over and they were in pretty sad shape. I decided to sell mine for two and a half dollars. It was a buyer's market that day; the most I could do was enjoy the people walking by.

Eventually one man, a tall black, dressed in a three-piece suit with a watch-chain strung across his vest, stopped. He examined my piddling collection, and picked up Joyce. Now, I was kind of partial to that album, and I wasn't kind of partial to that album, and I wasn't even sure I wanted to part with it. This guy wanted to buy it for 50 cents. He started telling me in this hasal tone about Joyce as if he were some expert, so I told him either to pay the money or leave. He paid me $2.50.

All during the day a couple of scraggly drifters, one with his two front teeth missing, kept coming up and asking me if I'd sold any yet. They feigned concern. I thought they were real nice guys until I finally did sell something. Then they came right out and asked me if I wanted to buy some dope.

I used my money to buy a meal and spend the night in Berkeley's only hotel, an old worn-down warehouse located in the small industrial section. It wasn't much better than sleeping in an alleyway, but it provided some shelter. Most of the people in there were drifting, just like me.

One couple came in late, and an older woman was with them. She turned out to be the mother of the girl, and she was dropping her off with her boyfriend so they could spend the night together. Here was this mother hugging her daughter and crying, "Take care of yourself, honey," then the boyfriend joins in and they all huddle together crying and smiling at the same time.

I WENT OVER to my other sister's house in Oakland the next day. I really wanted to just disappear, but decided I'd give the so-called sane world one more chance. Sharon was studying Montessori and her husband, Paul, was a social worker in the Oakland Welfare Department. They were a lot more down-to-earth than Barb and Ray--they showed their ideals through actions rather than words. I almost could have stayed there.

For a week I looked for a job, but didn't find anything. I didn't know what I wanted to do, either. I went to a Manpower office and waited for a full day in its hot back room full of down-and-outers; I checked the Berkeley campus for work, and I even took a civil-service exam. Nothing seemed to work.

I wanted, most of all, to write. One day I went to the San Francisco Library for an open seminar on writing. It was pitiful. There were all these old people who had been published once, years ago, and never had anything published since. The chairman of the group had been mugged the night before. His face was badly bruised, a patch covered his swollen eye, and his arm was slashed. I wouldn't have found out about his arm if he hadn't lifted up the bandage to show everybody the 27 stitches. I left before the meeting started.

I was on the brink then; San Francisco was driving me crazy. No school ever taught me about all this. So I stuffed my pack full of books, and went back over across the Bay Bridge to Barb's place. She gave me a check, and said I could only cash it if I would talk to Ray. I went out and got the money while she called him. When I came back to pick up my backpack, Ray was waiting. That's when we parted company.

I started hitching in the middle of Golden Gate Park with a sign that simply said, "EAST." Ninety hours later, I was back home in Niles, Michigan, trying to regain what little sanity I had left.

Nixon was re-elected president that week.