Alex

This story of an initiation begins with the white middle-class teen-age narrator meeting charismatic black ageless Alex who speaks in enigmas and conundrums and lives as a vagrant in San Francisco's Beat Generation bohemia. Convinced that Alex possesses the key to superior awareness the boy seeks his guidance. Come with me kid. I'll take care of you Alex replies. Accepting this fatherly invitation intent on learning from Alex the boy drops out. The hardships of hunger tobacco and cheap wine soon make themselves felt. Having become a stranger to his former self he experiences ecstatic revelation: So this is what Alex is all about! Ecstasy! Perfect awareness cannot be retained. The boy seeks in vain to reconnect. Despairing he repeatedly leaves Alex; but discontent with a life become meaningless irresistibly draws him back until increasing signs of Alex's mental alienation overwhelm him and he finally abandons Alex haunted by a sense of loss.