Stairway to Heaven
This photo, titled Into Heaven is by crackindown. Used by permission.
Stairway to Heaven
by Mickey Mills
“It was right there,” the lanky old man said as he pointed to the old brick steps twisting their way up the hillside to the unseen landing above.
“What was?” his curmudgeon friend replied.
“That song — Stairway to Heaven, was written about those steps.”
“Are you daft or something? That song was about a girl – a rock and roll groupie of some sort.”
“That’s right,” lanky continued. “As the story goes that Palmer bloke was standing down here chugging pints with his mates when he looked up towards the top and saw this woman standing under the street lamp. She wore a long flowing gown spun from gold thread and smoked cigarettes one right after the other.”
“And how do you know all this?”
“My son went to school with those blokes. He got the story straight from the singer’s mouth, so to speak. Went on to be big rock stars, they did, and made piles of cash playing guitars and dancing around on stage like Mick Jagger.”
“Whatever became of the girl?”
“I heard she opened up a diamond shop in Sky Plaza. Check it out yourself – Lucy somethin’-or-other is ‘er name.”
This is a reprint of a story I wrote in 2010
This story is pure fiction. Resemblance to well-known rock stars is absolutely on purpose.
All rights reserved. Copyright 2010-2012.
The Woodstock Issue — (short fiction)
In many aspects, being the Managing Editor/CEO of a global weekly magazine is a cushy job. You get a big office overlooking Central Park, a fat paycheck with stock options, huge bonuses and direct access to the Hollywood elite, leaders of global industry and heads of state at a moment’s notice. When it’s all over, you get a retirement package that ensures you could live out your life in splendid luxury, sipping Mai-Tais by a pool in the Caribbean or exploring Europe by train, sipping Champagne in the dining car with beautiful young models or the sparkly countess of the day. You might choose to give back to industry underlings and accept speaking engagements at corporate or government functions – at twenty-five thousand a pop. There’s no limit to what someone in this fortunate situation could to do. Charles Bellamy, Managing Editor of Tome Weekly, could only think of one thing on the day before his retirement – getting back to Woodstock.
Charles started at Tome as a college intern. He was a full time student at New York University when he first graced the halls of the weekly in the spring of 1968. He spent the next fifteen months writing copy for those small classified boxes in the back of the publication. The work was mundane and well below his ability as he carved out ads for everyday products like septic tank cleaner, custom table top pads, denture repair kits, clocks, socks, and do-it-yourself wills. Very early on he showed an aptitude for journalism, but a year later he still languished in the ad corps with the rest of his peers. His journey to the managing editor chair began in that muddy alfalfa field of upstate New York, August of Sixty-Nine.
Charles sat at his desk, gingerly turning page after fragile page of the Woodstock issue; each page, every photo, every interview and every word, carefully selected and arranged to transmit the feeling and emotion of actually being there. Charles Bellamy and Paul Collins, the photographer assigned to the concert, were the only two from the magazine who actually attended the festival. Between the Tate murders in California and the steady approach of Hurricane Camille to the Gulf Coast, staff reporters were in short supply and the magazine had chosen to only send a photographer to at least get some pictures. By the time the enormity of the event unfolded, it was too late to get anyone up there. The New York State Thruway was closed and there wasn’t a helicopter to be had. It was good fortune for Tome that a young intern traveled to the show with the photographer. Charles’s journalistic instincts took over and he promoted himself to head reporter, Woodstock Division. His press pass got him everywhere and up close with the leading musicians of the era. Charles secured his career at Tome Weekly in the pages of the Woodstock edition which hit the streets to critical success that following Labor Day. And now, forty years later, his retirement would take him back to Yasgur’s Farm for the first time since.
A loud rap on the office door startled Charles and he looked up from the magazine. “Yes?” he said loudly.
“Hey, Chief,” Paul said as he walked into the cluttered office.
“Paul!” he stood, obviously pleased at seeing his old friend and former Art Director. “What brings you down here?”
“Oh, as if you don’t know,” Paul shot back. “Don’t tell me you forgot our lunch date?”
“Uh…no, I didn’t,” he pulled out his planner to confirm. “See, right there.” He pointed to the tiny screen assuming Paul had the eyes of a hawk, Lunch w/Paul – 12:30.
“You haven’t looked at your calendar today, have you?”
Charles chuckled softly. “No, I haven’t.”
Paul glanced down at the open magazine on Charles’s big mahogany desk. It was open to page fifty-three showing three different photographs he had taken on Saturday night at Woodstock. There was the iconic photo of Janis Joplin, her big round sunglasses hanging low on her nose, sipping champagne with the guitarist and songwriter from the Grateful Dead. There was the black and white photo of Bob “The Bear” Hite, of Canned Heat, sharing a smoke with Jimi Hendrix, and in the lower right corner the color photo of Suzy, the hippie girl Charles met -and fell in love with – at Woodstock. It was not the first time Paul had caught his friend sneaking peeks at his lifelong obsession.
“Well, that explains the calendar blow off,” he said, pointing at Suzy’s picture.
“You still think I am nuts, don’t you?”
He hesitated before responding. “Charles, you could have had any woman in New York but every time you got involved with someone, the minute it got serious, you did something stupid to sabotage the relationship. Do I think you are nuts?” After a short pause he pointed back to the page and finished, “Certifiable!”
Charles looked back at the photo and said, “Maybe I am, but in all the years, no woman has ever moved me like Suzy.”
Paul rolled his eyes like a mad librarian. “I’ve watched you obsess over this woman since we got back from the show – figured over the years you’d move on, especially after all that money you spent trying to find her.”
“I know,” Charles injected. “I tried to let it go several times, but kept wondering what could have been.” He walked to the window and stared down at the treetops of Central Park. “You know I think we are soulmates.”
“You know I said the same thing about a stripper in Trenton.”
Charles snickered, “I remember her.”
He looked down at the street and motioned for Paul to join him at the window. “Step over here, I want to show you something.”
Paul looked down at the street. “What am I looking for?”
“There,” Charles pointed to the street and the tan rooftop of a new motor home. “The brown top.”
“That bus?”
“That’s not a bus, my friend. That’s my new home for the next couple of years, starting with the big forty year celebration up at the Woodstock site this weekend.”
Paul studied his friend with a look that begged the question, Have you gone mad? “You don’t really think she is going to be there, do you?
Charles sighed, “No, I don’t, but we did make a pact to meet on the fortieth anniversary. She turns sixty on Sunday.”
“You remember her birthday?”
“I remember everything.”
“You obviously didn’t smoke enough pot while you were there.”
“I didn’t smoke any while I was there,” Charles replied. “I was working.”
“So were a few thousand other people stoned out of their gourds, including me.”
“Yeah, but you were a better photographer stoned.”
Paul stepped back to the desk and flipped though a couple more pages of the magazine and asked, “Did you ever wonder what your career would have been like without the success of the Woodstock issue?”
“Many times,” he replied. “Oh, and by the way, I didn’t forget lunch. I had something brought in for us. It’s waiting downstairs in the motor home.”
“Well, let’s go. I’m starved!”
It took all of two minutes to take the elevator down to ground level and the short walk out onto the plaza. When they turned the corner and approached the RV, Paul stopped in his tracks, grabbed Charles by the arm and asked, “Are you nuts?”
He laughed and replied, “Certifiable.”
Three issues ago, the managing editor put together a WOODSTOCK REVISITED issue to commemorate the fortieth anniversary. His contribution had been an editorial titled: Have You Seen This Girl? The picture used in the article was the same Suzy photo from the original issue. The gist of the story was how a young Charles Bellamy had gone to Woodstock, met rock stars and spiritual leaders and a girl named Suzy. He wrote about how the weekend ended, both of them laying on a muddy blanket in a damp field. And then Monday morning after Hendrix played the Star Spangled Banner on that white Stratocaster, how bits and pieces of the crowd just started walking away. It was all surreal in ways that special mileposts in time seem to be. He was forever changed by the music, the moment, and the girl. A clone of the Hendrix Stratocaster hung on his office wall.
“So, what do you think?” Charles asked.
Paul stood there, a hand shielding the sun reflected off the glass windows of the cross street tower. The graphics on the side of the RV mimicked the editorial from the Woodstock Revisited edition. A black and white photo of Suzy completely covered the side of the camper in a gray shade that contrasted the earth tones of the camper’s paint scheme. A banner ran nearly the full length of the vehicle read: Have You Seen This Girl?
“I assume you did both sides,” Paul quipped.
“Of course!” Charles beamed. “If she’s there, I don’t want her to miss it.”
“Are you really expecting her to be there?”
“Forty years later after two days in the mud?” Charles paused. “Of course not. But what a story it would make if she was.”
“Yep,” Paul, staring back up at Suzy’s photo, replied. “…definitely certifiable.”
Charles gave his friend the tour of his new cross country home. It was fitted with all the technology and comforts a man of his stature could ask for. They sat at the table and ate roast beef sandwiches and sipped sparkling water as old friends and colleagues dropped by with well wishes and parting gifts during the course of the afternoon.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?” Charles asked as he shook Paul’s outstretched hand.
“I’d love to, you know, but the grandkids are coming over to water ski this weekend.” Paul leaned over and quietly added, “Besides, if this woman shows up, I’d just be in the way.”
Charles watched as Paul walked across the plaza and signaled a yellow cab. His old friend waved back as the Taxi whisked him away to Grand Central Station. He spent the rest of the day finishing his office packing chores. A dozen boxes containing the mementoes of his editorial career lined the back wall. The Fender Strat and the Woodstock Issue poster were set aside to carry down. He already had wall space in the RV reserved for those reminders.
He stood at the door and looked at the desk where he had captained the magazine for the last fifteen years. Monday would see a new CEO in the big chair and Charles Bellamy many miles distant. He turned off the light and walked away.
* * *
The fortieth anniversary concert went off without a hitch. The sold-out crowd of fifteen thousand was a handful compared to the half-million who crushed the pastures of Max Yasqur’s farm in the summer of `69. Charles Bellamy was a visible participant from the moment the show opened. His generous contribution to the Arts Center and the reunion committee did not go unnoticed or unrewarded. He was busy rubbing shoulders with classic rock stars, festival organizers, and everybody asking the same question, “Have you found her yet?”
Absent from this gala was the mind-altering LSD so prevalent at the original event. The faint smell of marijuana would occasionally peek out from a hidden user, not in your face like the Summer of Love. The Saturday celebration was unmarred by the heavy rain of forty years past. Blue skies and music was the order of the day.
Throughout the day, people would drop by carrying their own ragged Woodstock issue and ask Charles to sign the cover or just to shake his hand and thank him for keeping the dream alive. He would sign and talk, and all the time scan the crowd, from one face to the next, hoping for a glimpse of the homecoming he sought. He wondered if he would even recognize her so many years later, but nothing. By the time the show ended, there had been no glimpse and no reunion with Suzy.
* * *
The Sunday morning sun crested above the lush green hills of Bethel, announcing a new day’s arrival. The parking area was still packed with RVs and campers of all shapes and sizes, many residents still recovering from the overnight revelry and waiting for a respite in the traffic. Charles sat under the awning, sipped coffee and tapped on a keyboard with his collected thoughts about the anniversary concert and the generational shift spanning forty years. His retirement officially underway, he filled in the pages of his journal with the memories of the event and the reunion that never happened.
He was startled by the sound of rustling gravel behind him and as he was about to look back, a female voice begged, “Please don’t turn around.”
His heart jumped as he connected the voice to that Monday morning departure so many years ago. His mouth dried and his pulse quickened. He forced out the question, “Suzy?”
“That’s a good place to start,” she replied. “My name is not Suzy.”
“I figured that out when I couldn’t find anything about you over the years. I didn’t know where to start.”
“My name is Helen – Helen McAllister.”
“I know that name.”
“You should,” she replied. “Your magazine panned my last book.”
Charles thought back to the book reviews he had read over the years and focused on one in particular. “I remember. It was a book about Holistic Healing; seems like it was quite the diversion from your successful works of fiction.”
“You remember?”
“Of course I do,” he quickly replied. “There may be a dozen or so pieces in every issue from a multitude of writers, but at the end of the day, my name was on the hook for the content.”
Helen didn’t respond. She sat there, looking at the back of his head, thinking back to the last time they spoke in that muddy field. Charles started to stand and she stopped him saying, “Give me a minute before you turn around. I need you to hear what I have to say and I would never be able to say it if you were looking at me.”
Charles straightened, picked up his cup and said, “Okay, but make it quick. Don’t make me wait like this.”
“You know, I’ve followed your career since we parted. I watched you rise to the top of your profession and always wondering how I could fit into your life. I carried your memory through two failed marriages and the loss of my child in a car accident. I tried to forget you because I knew in my heart that our worlds were miles apart. And then this…”
Charles heard the rusting of paper and the pain in her voice.
“… this editorial you did a few weeks back with the headline, Have you seen this girl? And I start to think, maybe there is something. Then I get here and watch you from the crowd, glad-handing the talent and working the stage like a corporate schmoozer and my heart sinks again because I know it could never be.”
“Helen,” Charles started.
“Wait, let me finish,” she stopped him cold. “I need you to know that I am afraid and I don’t understand why, forty years later, you are chasing me like your high school prom date.”
He chuckled at the comparison. “Because, through the years, you are the only woman to ever move me like the high school prom date.”
After a pause she reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. He placed his hand on hers, touched it, amazed at her apparent strength. “Can I turn around now?” he asked.
“Okay, but let me back away.”
Charles stood and turned around to face the object of his obsession. He smiled as their eyes met. Her hair was as straight as that last time he saw her, albeit a lot whiter. Her blue eyes sparkled and her fair skin shone with a mature softness. The tie-dyed shirts of her youth had given away to a pastel blouse and maroon vest. Her white hair was tied back with a rainbow colored scarf. The morning sun glinted sharply off the steel framework of her wheelchair.
Charles took in the scene and quickly processed the situation. Without skipping a beat, he asked, “The accident you mentioned?”
“Yes,” she replied, her eyes looking down at her knees. “I’ve been in this chair ever since.”
She looked up and drew the line in the sand. “If this changes the way you feel, tell me now and I’ll be on my way.”
In the excitement of Helen’s appearance Charles hadn’t noticed the small crowd gathered along the perimeter of his campsite. An eerie silence engulfed the scene. Without missing a beat, he leaned over and gave Helen a deep kiss. He grabbed her arm, put it around his neck, and quickly lifted her into his arms and walked towards the open camper door. He whispered in her ear, “You know… you were my Woodstock issue.”
A loud cheer erupted from the crowd. Charles turned back and asked, “What’s a guy got to do to get a little privacy around here?’
A man in the crowd shouted, “Who needs privacy? This is Woodstock, man!”
~ T H E E N D ~
Read MoreEveryday Fiction 3 – The Anthology
The third Everyday Fiction anthology is now on sale. It includes four fantastic pieces of flash fiction written by my favorite writer, Debi Blood. (Only one other writer had as many.) Yours truly has three stories in this book including Trajectory, Fire on Falcon Road, and The Newly Dead of Winter. Beyond that there are 97 other works of flash fiction published last year at www.everdayfiction.com
Stairway to Heaven – (Short Fiction)
“It was right there,” the lanky old man said and pointed to the old brick steps twisting their way up the hillside to some unseen landing above.
“What was?” his curmudgeon friend quizzically asked.
“You know… that song, Stairway to Heaven, was written about those steps.” He took another sip of beer and continued, “Couldn’t keep the kids off the bloody things for years after — damned hippies!”
“Are you daft or something? That song was about a girl – a rock and roll groupie of some sort.”
“That’s right,” lanky continued. “As the story goes that Palmer boy was standing down here chugging pints with his mates when he looked up towards the top and saw this woman standing under the street lamp. She wore a long flowing gown spun from gold thread and smoked cigarettes one right after the other.”
“And how do you know all this?”
“My son went to school with those blokes. He got the story straight from the singer’s mouth, so to speak. Went on to be big rock stars, they did, and made piles of cash playing guitars and dancing around on stage like Mick Jagger.”
“And whatever became of the girl?”
“I heard she opened up a diamond shop in Sky Plaza. Check it out yourself – Lucy something-or-other is ‘er name.”
This story is pure fiction. Resemblance to well-known rock stars is absolutely on purpose.
All rights reserved.
Cap’n Crunch Attacked by Pirates
Cap'n Crunch
Reports are coming in from the Gulf of Arden that famed maritime commander, Cap’n Crunch, and his ship have been boarded by Somali Pirates and at this time are slowly sailing towards Somalia.
Cap’n Crunch, whose real name is Horatio Magellan Crunch, is nothing short of a national treasure loved by children and small adults alike.
It is unknown what the Cap’n and his ship, the Guppy, were doing in the area. There is some conjecture that they were on a covert surveil-lance mission for the CIA, but this has not been confirmed or denied by government sources. Government officials have stated that if the Cap’n and crew are harmed in any fashion that the full force of the U.S. military machine would come to bear on the pirate strongholds of Somalia.
U.S. Naval vessels are on the scene and tailing the Guppy as the pirates head back to their home port with the Cap’n and crew held somewhere below deck.
An unidentified man has reportedly contacted the State Department asking for a 500 million dollar ransom for the Cap’n and crew. A “Free Cap’n Crunch” fund has been setup at Bank of America.
Mock-up of the Guppy
Unconfirmed reports are coming out of the State Department that Count Chocula will be handing all negotiations with the pirates. As you may know, Count Chocula has been instrumental in many other high profile hostage situations before. A talented negotiator, however only able to work at night.
A contingent of extra guards have been stationed around the White House as a crowd of angry children have gathered demanding immediate government intervention.
The is a developing story – stay tuned for more on this crisis in the gulf.
Read MoreMillie (Short Fiction)
She instantly had 100% of my attention. It was not her looks, although the tie-dyed tee and long flowing skirt were visually stimulating, it was her voice and lingo that drew me in.
“Man, I want a hot cup of Peppermint Ginseng Tea with a Gingerbread Scone,” she ordered in a raspy voice reminiscent of a Janis Joplin song.
The server stood there with his order pad at the ready. “Will that be all?”
“That’ll do.”
Her wide smile exposed a perfect set of glacier white teeth. Her skin tone, almost the same white, told me she spent very little time in the sun.
A hundred questions ran through my mind. Who was she? What’s her story? Is she seeing anybody? I thought she had the most beautiful face I ever saw, not painted on looks like a fashion model, but a quiet natural glow; a soft beauty that could steal the heart of the hardest man.
And then it happened. She caught me staring. I felt my cheeks catch fire with blush. My gaze fell into my coffee so quickly I am surprised it didn’t splash. When I looked up again her eyes were fixed on me.
“You’re a Virgo, aren’t you?” she asked, her brilliant blue eyes fixed on mine.
“As a matter of fact, I am,” I replied. “But how did you know?”
She shrugged. “Lucky guess.”
“I’m not a big believer in luck.”
The server brought over her tea and food. “Anything else?”
“No, this is fine.”
She looked back over at me and asked, “Would you like to join me?”
“Sure.” I picked up my coffee and sat down across from her.
My heart was pounding like a drum. A slight point of sweat gathered on my brow. Wiping it away I asked, “Have we met before? You seem very familiar to me.”
“You would not remember,” she said. “It was a long time ago.”
I sipped my coffee and searched memories for where and when.
She offered her hand across the table. “My name is Millicent. Millicent Sullivan Dawson, but everyone calls me Millie.”
I studied her with every fabric of my being. “We’ve met somewhere, but I don’t remember. Oh, and my name is David.”
“Of course you don’t. I don’t either, but we have met several times.” She smiled and took small bites of her scone. “I already knew your name.”
“Help me out. Where do you know me from?”
“I can’t tell you. I have to show you.” Her eyes locked onto mine. “Would you be willing to go home with me? Nothing funny, but I think you would understand my reluctance to be very specific right now.”
My stomach pushed up into my throat. I nodded and said, “Sure.”
The next thirty minutes was a mixture of quiet study and small talk; getting to know each other. We discussed the minutia of our respective lives. I dropped out of college after drinking my way through the first year. And now I eke out a living, selling swimming pools to suburbanites.
She was a professional student and at thirty-three, studying for her PHD in philosophy. She came from money – old money. Best of all, she wants to take me home – so much for not believing in luck.
We left the coffee shop and she took my hand in hers. Our shoes clicked on the cobblestone sidewalk; the late afternoon sun cast long shadows ahead of us.
“I don’t live far from here.”
I wanted to talk, but my thoughts consumed me. Nothing remained that enabled me to put together any significant conversation, so I just followed her lead. She did not share my conversational hiatus. Raspy sentences rolled off her tongue without a hint of comma or separation of topic.
“Here it is.” She pulled me up a short set of steps to a heavy metal door painted red. I watched as she fumbled through her canvas bag. Finally she pulled out a large set of keys with a small collection of rings and things hooked together in a metallic bundle of chaos. Without hesitation, she singled out the right key and twisted it in the lock.
The door swung wide and I followed in behind her. She hung the keys by the door and kept walking through the hallway into another room. “Come on,” she looked back and motioned me towards her inner sanctum. “It’s in here.”
I walked into the room behind her, took a quick scan and got a good feel for exactly how eclectic Millie Dawson really was. The more I took in, the more I liked her. Her room was decorated in late sixties fluorescent and late eighties furniture. I spied a Lava Lamp and a Rubik’s Cube side by side on a table.
One wall was nothing but books. I walked over and started going through titles. She watched me with great interest. You can tell a lot about a person by the books they read. This new age hippie girl was as diverse as they come. Her library included volumes by Hemingway and Hawthorne, Jimmy Buffet and Pearl Buck, Capote and Tolstoy. The mix of century old authors stacked beside the latest contemporaries was incredible.
“You don’t strike me as a reader of classic literature,” she observed.
“I’m not really.” I straightened up and turned to face her. “But it’s pretty obvious you are.”
“I’ve been cursed that way.” She reached into a small box on the coffee table and pulled out a cigarette. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
“No,” I replied with indifference. “It’s your house and your lungs.”
Blue smoke left her lips as she blew out the match, dropping it into a ceramic ashtray shaped like a windmill. “They are French and not very strong. I don’t smoke very much. Seeing you tonight was kind of startling and I just needed something to cut the edge.”
“What’s this about? Where have we met before?”
“David, do you believe in destiny?”
“I don’t know what to believe. I think if we met before, I would remember it.” My mental rolodex was spinning like a slot machine.
“Sit down. I want to show you something.”
She pulled me down beside her on a worn blue sofa, lit an incense cone, and pulled a book out from under the table. She opened to a page held captive by a small wooden ruler and spread it out in front of me. “I ran across this a few years back when I was browsing an old book store.”
I looked at the photograph on the open page. It was a picture of a confederate soldier taken at Chickamauga in 1863. Standing to his left was a woman who looked exactly like Millicent Dawson. The soldier looked exactly like me. No, not that he looked exactly like me. It was me.
My pulse began to race and my breathing got very shallow.
“David.”
I heard her say my name but I could not seem to respond.
“Look at this.” She pulled another book from the stack. It was a very large art book. She opened to a place marked with a sheet of paper and put it in front of me. On each facing page there were copies of oil painting portraits of a 17th century couple. The caption read “Mr. and Mrs. David Sullivan, Charlestown, S.C., June 1791”
The portraits could have been of me and Millie painted just yesterday. I swallowed hard and began to search memories in places hidden by time and preservation. The dreams over the years of civil war battles and Carolina street markets began to come back with crystal clarity. The dreams always included the presence of this beautiful woman.
“What does this mean?” I asked.
“I don’t exactly know,” she replied with a slight hesitation in her voice. “I just always knew we would meet. You have been in my dreams since I was a child. Then today, when I passed the coffee shop and saw you sitting there, my heart almost jumped out of my chest. I knew instantly it was you.”
“You came in there because you saw me?”
“Yes!”
I looked back over the pictures and squeezed Millie’s hand in mine. For the first time in many years, everything made sense and the loneliness I carried as a constant companion was gone. Millie reached up and pulled my face towards hers. Our lips joined with a familiarity that transcended generations.
Later that night, before we fell asleep in each other’s arms, a simple thought floated through my consciousness. Two hundred years from now, would a beautiful woman in a distant galaxy intersect with a space traveler she fell in love with many times over since the beginning of time?
I certainly hope so.
Mickey Mills – 2011, All rights reserved
Read MoreMickey Mills
Struggling writer on the Harley Davidson of life.
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