Soundtrack: Ball of Confusion---The Temptations
Next had been Jake DiAngelis; that had been a little tougher. She'd been sorely tempted by the come-on from this intriguing campus idol, but when it became pretty clear to her that Jake's interest was merely momentary, the proverbial one-night stand, Pat had given him the brush off.
It had started at the party sometime after midnight. She'd been standing around discussing politics with Luis Gonzales and Carl Schofield; Carl was in the middle of one of his mindless lefty diatribes when Jake approached them.
"No man, it's the military-industrial complex," Carl was declaiming in response to something Luis had said. "If you trace the origins of every military action of the past thirty years, at least, probably way more, you'll see business interests profiting and business interests stoking the fires."
"That's simplistic bullshit, man," Luis interrupted angrily. "Poverty is the root cause of what's going down in this country and around the world and always has been. As long as there's these huge gaps between the rich and the poor, you're gonna’ see fighting... in the jungles and here in the streets."
Pat was faintly amused by this argument between these two campus rads but, at the same time, she was very aware of Jake's presence, just off to her left. She decided to show off a bit. "O.K., O.K., guys. I see both your points, but what I want to know is: what are you going to do to change things? Analysis is cool, but action based on analysis —praxis — is necessary."
Luis turned on her, almost violently. "Praxis? Get real woman, the poor don't even know what that means. They got no way of acting except revolution. And, if it be 'bougie' chicks like you gonna try to make changes, it ain't gonna work any betta' than it did in Russia with their high class intellectual revolutionaries." Luis' machismo always seemed to get the better of both his analysis and his spoken English in these arguments with Pat, or Patreesia, as he called her.
"I'll tell you what action we're going to take," Carl retorted, emphatically, beginning to tick off a laundry list of radical campus offensives. "We're gonna’ shut down the war industries. We're gonna’ block them from doing campus recruiting. We're gonna’ get Rot Cee off campus and embarrass the trustees who are on war industry Boards of Directors. We're gonna’ boycott consumer goods these industries sell. We're gonna..."
At that moment Jake broke in, laughing uproariously at this last bombastic salvo from Carl. "L'il boy. You ain' gonna’ do shit! Even if you did get rid of Rot-cee and campus recruiters, which you ain' gonna’ do, it wouldn't make a shit of difference. You're just jackin' yourself off, that's all." Pat and the others looked up at Jake, his athletic frame blocking the light from shining on their little group.
Although Pat fundamentally agreed with Jake, she thought his words unnecessarily cruel, so she riposted, "Jake, don't you think that's a little harsh? I mean, at least Carl's heart is in the right place, even if his tactics are a bit naive. And I don't hear you proposing to do anything about the mess we're in."
Luis sniggered, apparently appreciating her deft put down of both Jake and Carl with one remark. Carl didn't even seem to notice her comment, so furious was he at Jake's disparaging and overpowering blast.
"Fuck you, man. Who ast you? Who the fuck, ast you?" Carl stomped off.
"Wow, that cat has a short fuse," Jake said. "I was just pushing his buttons a little."
"Yeah, well, you hit the right ones alright," Luis observed. "But seriously, Jake, what are you doing to help the poor? I mean, I dig your paintings and all, but how is painting poverty gonna' 'leviate it?"
"Well, as of last week, it alleviated mine. I sold a couple of paintings to the U for their private collection. That increased my checking account a couple thousand percent from overdrawn to enough money to rent a loft in the City, starting to-mor-row!" Jake laughed.
"Hah, hah, Jake. Very funny," Pat said with carefully measured sarcasm. "I'm curious to know how you're going to deal with seeing poverty every day, face-to-face, when you live in the City. I don't think it's going to be that easy for you because deep down inside, I know you're too sensitive a soul to ignore the plight of your fellow man, especially when he lives down the hall from you or on the grate up the block from you or amidst the trash behind your building. I know you, Jake. You're going to do something about all of this, and unlike what Luis seems to think, I believe your painting is likely to be the vehicle for your action. If I could afford it, I'd buy that one you already did of Dr. King and the other Civil Rights martyrs and I'd donate it to the public library, right here in U-Town, a constant reminder to these self-satisfied ivory-tower philosophers and their precious white families!"
Pat paused to let her little lecture to Jake sink in, but it didn’t appear that he’d heard a word she said. He seemed to be staring at something across the room, but when she tried to follow his gaze, all she saw was a bunch of kids dancing drunkenly.
“Jake?” she ventured, but she got no response. His eyes had a kind of glazed-over look, as if he were far away, in some kind of dream world. What was up with him, she wondered. Did I say something that offended him? He seemed unreachable. Then, suddenly, he reached out and with one powerful arm encircled her waist and with the other pulled her roughly out onto the dance floor.
“Let’s boogie!” he growled ferociously
Ordinarily, Patricia would have resisted such manhandling, but now, instead, she found herself swept up by Jake's physicality, by the masculine force field that seemed to surround him, and by the music that enveloped them both. It was as though the music were a vast and powerful sea whose energy-filled waves were moving her to its own rhythm. She was aware neither of being guided by Jake's arms nor of acting on her own volition. She could barely make out the words of the song, so overwhelming was the energy that surrounded her, carried her, turned her, lifted her, and swung her through the air.
The music engulfed her, its fluid energy entering her every orifice — tickling, tantalizing, stimulating. Her ears throbbed with the beat; her mouth watered with a sudden inexplicable hunger; her nose quivered with anticipation for she knew not what; and down below — a hot moist wind seemed to be blowing across her genitals, causing her to shudder with pleasure. Even her anus, usually sphincter-tight, felt loose, as if some powerful force had opened her gastro-intestinal tract from top to bottom, allowing the liquid music to flow through it. For a moment, her brain kicked in with a troubling question: had someone spiked the punch with LSD? No, she didn’t think so. Neither her brain nor her vision seemed to be affected; it was just her body, which felt strangely and completely sexual.
This was totally unlike her, at least unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. Jake’s strong arms flung her out into space and then drew her back into his muscular and sweaty body. He grasped both her hands and spun her violently, pinning her arms to her sides. She felt utterly helpless, as though she were bound in a straight-jacket. Jake was now in complete control of her body; he rocked her back and forth, right and left. She glanced back at him, hoping for a smile or some other sign of normalcy, but his eyes were blazing crazily. Her sense of total vulnerability left her feeling simultaneously afraid and — hard to admit it — totally turned on. Again, she turned to look at his face, desperate to make some kind of ordinary emotional connection to this man whose body was enveloping hers, but his eyes were closed tightly and his tongue hung loosely from his mouth. He seemed truly to be in another world. Yet, now she could feel his hardness, as he pressed his crotch against her rear-end, bumping and grinding in time with the music, bumping and grinding as though they lay naked in bed together, and despite herself, her body responded in kind, pushing her butt rhythmically against that hard bulge she knew to be his aroused penis. Oh, my! Pat, what is going on with you?
Go to a related scene
New Year's Eve 1968: Jake, Scene 10 "Dance!"
It had started at the party sometime after midnight. She'd been standing around discussing politics with Luis Gonzales and Carl Schofield; Carl was in the middle of one of his mindless lefty diatribes when Jake approached them.
"No man, it's the military-industrial complex," Carl was declaiming in response to something Luis had said. "If you trace the origins of every military action of the past thirty years, at least, probably way more, you'll see business interests profiting and business interests stoking the fires."
"That's simplistic bullshit, man," Luis interrupted angrily. "Poverty is the root cause of what's going down in this country and around the world and always has been. As long as there's these huge gaps between the rich and the poor, you're gonna’ see fighting... in the jungles and here in the streets."
Pat was faintly amused by this argument between these two campus rads but, at the same time, she was very aware of Jake's presence, just off to her left. She decided to show off a bit. "O.K., O.K., guys. I see both your points, but what I want to know is: what are you going to do to change things? Analysis is cool, but action based on analysis —praxis — is necessary."
Luis turned on her, almost violently. "Praxis? Get real woman, the poor don't even know what that means. They got no way of acting except revolution. And, if it be 'bougie' chicks like you gonna try to make changes, it ain't gonna work any betta' than it did in Russia with their high class intellectual revolutionaries." Luis' machismo always seemed to get the better of both his analysis and his spoken English in these arguments with Pat, or Patreesia, as he called her.
"I'll tell you what action we're going to take," Carl retorted, emphatically, beginning to tick off a laundry list of radical campus offensives. "We're gonna’ shut down the war industries. We're gonna’ block them from doing campus recruiting. We're gonna’ get Rot Cee off campus and embarrass the trustees who are on war industry Boards of Directors. We're gonna’ boycott consumer goods these industries sell. We're gonna..."
At that moment Jake broke in, laughing uproariously at this last bombastic salvo from Carl. "L'il boy. You ain' gonna’ do shit! Even if you did get rid of Rot-cee and campus recruiters, which you ain' gonna’ do, it wouldn't make a shit of difference. You're just jackin' yourself off, that's all." Pat and the others looked up at Jake, his athletic frame blocking the light from shining on their little group.
Although Pat fundamentally agreed with Jake, she thought his words unnecessarily cruel, so she riposted, "Jake, don't you think that's a little harsh? I mean, at least Carl's heart is in the right place, even if his tactics are a bit naive. And I don't hear you proposing to do anything about the mess we're in."
Luis sniggered, apparently appreciating her deft put down of both Jake and Carl with one remark. Carl didn't even seem to notice her comment, so furious was he at Jake's disparaging and overpowering blast.
"Fuck you, man. Who ast you? Who the fuck, ast you?" Carl stomped off.
"Wow, that cat has a short fuse," Jake said. "I was just pushing his buttons a little."
"Yeah, well, you hit the right ones alright," Luis observed. "But seriously, Jake, what are you doing to help the poor? I mean, I dig your paintings and all, but how is painting poverty gonna' 'leviate it?"
"Well, as of last week, it alleviated mine. I sold a couple of paintings to the U for their private collection. That increased my checking account a couple thousand percent from overdrawn to enough money to rent a loft in the City, starting to-mor-row!" Jake laughed.
"Hah, hah, Jake. Very funny," Pat said with carefully measured sarcasm. "I'm curious to know how you're going to deal with seeing poverty every day, face-to-face, when you live in the City. I don't think it's going to be that easy for you because deep down inside, I know you're too sensitive a soul to ignore the plight of your fellow man, especially when he lives down the hall from you or on the grate up the block from you or amidst the trash behind your building. I know you, Jake. You're going to do something about all of this, and unlike what Luis seems to think, I believe your painting is likely to be the vehicle for your action. If I could afford it, I'd buy that one you already did of Dr. King and the other Civil Rights martyrs and I'd donate it to the public library, right here in U-Town, a constant reminder to these self-satisfied ivory-tower philosophers and their precious white families!"
Pat paused to let her little lecture to Jake sink in, but it didn’t appear that he’d heard a word she said. He seemed to be staring at something across the room, but when she tried to follow his gaze, all she saw was a bunch of kids dancing drunkenly.
[Soundtrack Soundtrack shifts to: Respect---Aretha Franklin]
“Jake?” she ventured, but she got no response. His eyes had a kind of glazed-over look, as if he were far away, in some kind of dream world. What was up with him, she wondered. Did I say something that offended him? He seemed unreachable. Then, suddenly, he reached out and with one powerful arm encircled her waist and with the other pulled her roughly out onto the dance floor.
“Let’s boogie!” he growled ferociously
Ordinarily, Patricia would have resisted such manhandling, but now, instead, she found herself swept up by Jake's physicality, by the masculine force field that seemed to surround him, and by the music that enveloped them both. It was as though the music were a vast and powerful sea whose energy-filled waves were moving her to its own rhythm. She was aware neither of being guided by Jake's arms nor of acting on her own volition. She could barely make out the words of the song, so overwhelming was the energy that surrounded her, carried her, turned her, lifted her, and swung her through the air.
The music engulfed her, its fluid energy entering her every orifice — tickling, tantalizing, stimulating. Her ears throbbed with the beat; her mouth watered with a sudden inexplicable hunger; her nose quivered with anticipation for she knew not what; and down below — a hot moist wind seemed to be blowing across her genitals, causing her to shudder with pleasure. Even her anus, usually sphincter-tight, felt loose, as if some powerful force had opened her gastro-intestinal tract from top to bottom, allowing the liquid music to flow through it. For a moment, her brain kicked in with a troubling question: had someone spiked the punch with LSD? No, she didn’t think so. Neither her brain nor her vision seemed to be affected; it was just her body, which felt strangely and completely sexual.
This was totally unlike her, at least unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. Jake’s strong arms flung her out into space and then drew her back into his muscular and sweaty body. He grasped both her hands and spun her violently, pinning her arms to her sides. She felt utterly helpless, as though she were bound in a straight-jacket. Jake was now in complete control of her body; he rocked her back and forth, right and left. She glanced back at him, hoping for a smile or some other sign of normalcy, but his eyes were blazing crazily. Her sense of total vulnerability left her feeling simultaneously afraid and — hard to admit it — totally turned on. Again, she turned to look at his face, desperate to make some kind of ordinary emotional connection to this man whose body was enveloping hers, but his eyes were closed tightly and his tongue hung loosely from his mouth. He seemed truly to be in another world. Yet, now she could feel his hardness, as he pressed his crotch against her rear-end, bumping and grinding in time with the music, bumping and grinding as though they lay naked in bed together, and despite herself, her body responded in kind, pushing her butt rhythmically against that hard bulge she knew to be his aroused penis. Oh, my! Pat, what is going on with you?
Just as suddenly as Pat had been enveloped by this sea of music, it evaporated, leaving her feeling dry-mouthed and limp. Her ears were no longer throbbing and her swaying legs and hips came to a stop. Cautiously, she extricated her arms from Jake’s grasp, which had appeared to weaken at about the same time she felt a change in her own energy. In place of Aretha’s infectious song, she heard the syrupy voices and harmonies of some surfer group.
[Soundtrack shifts to: Don’t Worry Baby---The Beach Boys]
Pat looked over at Jake who was still dancing, by himself now, as though engulfed in some other music than the insipid tune that was actually playing. His eyes were closed and an odd smile played across his face. This was one weird guy!
"Jake! Jake! Jake!" He didn't seem to be able to hear her."Jake! Jake! Jake! Hey, the music's changed. I can't dance to this stuff," Pat yelled, now shaking him. Jake seemed to come out of his trance a little, just enough to mutter something Pat couldn't quite make out."Hey Jake, I'm thirsty. Let's grab something to eat and drink in the kitchen, O.K.?" she asked, as she dragged him toward the kitchen door.
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New Year's Eve 1968: Jake, Scene 10 "Dance!"
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