Under Lucille’s guidance, Gala could have become either Blanche DuBois or a steel magnolia. She hadn’t her kid brother’s curiosity or genius, but all the pomp and gentility of an Atlanta debutante. She owed much of her identity to her stepmom, and wept hard.
“Gala was very distressed at her loss,” said Pickard.
A moment passed before he added the afterthought: “That was the last time I ever saw my sister.”
In an Aug. 31, 1980, story published in the Austin American-Statesman headlined “LSD Rears Its Acidic Heads for Dizzying Second Austin Engagement,” staff writer Jim Shahin reported a local angle to what had become a national story:
In New York and San Francisco, LSD—or “acid” as it is commonly known—has become fashionable again.
No one is certain of the reasons for the LSD revival, but the theory most often advanced is that San Francisco manufacturers jailed in the early 1970s are being released.
“It appears that the first part of last year several major manufacturers got out of jail and since then we’ve been seeing a lot of it,” said Lt. Pete Taylor, head of the narcotics division of the Austin Police. “As far as we can tell, it’s all coming from San Francisco.”
“I did pass through Austin briefly, but it’s a little foggy,” said Pickard, his memory fuzzy on details.
Talitha Stills remembered clearly enough. Pickard landed in an Austin commune for quite a spell, probably in pursuit of a woman. It might have been during the summer of 1980, though no specific record linked Leonard to Austin’s reinvigorated acid market.
One thing is certain: Leonard was preoccupied with mobile labs and legal matters. Perhaps that was why he couldn’t get back home for his father’s funeral.
Earlier in the year, months ahead of Lucille’s passing, he’d been scouting Athens, home of the University of Georgia. It seemed a good place to land following his California jail time, but a change of address didn’t keep trouble at bay. According to the police blotter in nearby Gainesville, he was arrested on Feb. 7 for meth possession.
“In Gainesville, I was detained for an unknown substance found during a routine traffic stop and search. Analysis indicated it was 3,4,5-trimethoxybenzaldehyde, an exotic and legal precursor for many legal compounds.” As droll postscript, he added: “It’s also a precursor for mescaline.”
The police had to turn him loose, but Leonard remained indignant.
“I would never dream of making methamphetamine!” he said. “It’s been a tragedy since its inception. I class it slightly under heroin and fentanyl in terms of the aggregate harm it’s done to humanity.” Mescaline, on the other hand. . . .
Four months later, and just days before his stepmother’s death, Pickard was again arrested—this time in the Orlando suburb of Deland, Florida. The charge was MDA distribution, but again, police got the chemistry wrong. MDMA was not yet illegal. They had to let him go.
By year’s end, it was clear that returning to his Southern roots had been a mistake. He’d skated past the courts and stayed out of jail, but his growing arrest record now resembled that of a bona fide scofflaw, not a misunderstood prodigy. He headed back to California and academic sanctuary.
“From remote places in the deserts and mountains, I tended to circle back to Stanford, auditing classes and other activities for many years.”
From Leonard’s perspective, the oak-studded campus with its Ivy League pretensions, world-class faculty, and nouveau riche roots was now his home.
“Gloryville!” he crowed. “The Quad. Afternoon coffee at Tressider Student Union. Hoover Tower. Memorial Chapel. The wonderful book store and the UGLY (undergrad library). Yes!”
For most of the remainder of the decade, Pickard hunkered down in Palo Alto and kept his nose clean. He traveled from time to time, but maintained a Stanford post office box. He learned to keep his hair neatly trimmed, dressed down, and drew no attention to himself.
In 1984, his faithful VW microbus finally gave up the ghost.
“She’d been through quite a few rebuilds,” he said. “I loved the old thing. I had one of the first mobile phones in the early days when only pimps and physicians used them. A great black box the size of a briefcase on the floor, three channels for all of San Francisco, and a party line. Rotary dial.”
Wheels or no wheels, he continued his travels. In September of 1986, he was stopped in Atlanta with a pair of brass knuckles in his luggage.
“The knuckles were a memento from my grandfather, who was among other capacities deputized in the county during the 1920s,” Pickard explained. “I had no interest in them otherwise. Packed into my suitcase and forgotten until the X-ray exposed them at the Atlanta airport. Paid a $100 bond and it was dismissed.”
Mark Dowie, a founding publisher of Mother Jones magazine, fell in with Pickard’s crowd. Dowie befriended the introspective nerd with the Chris Hemsworth good looks. They were both runners and jogged together frequently, usually through the Point Reyes forest along Bear Creek trail near Dowie’s beach front home. Dowie found Pickard disarmingly wry and wickedly wise, but outwardly as threatening as a dandy perpetually enroute to the faculty club. Pickard never discussed what he did for a living.
“He was, in a way, part of the love generation,” said Dowie. “He really believed LSD and its derivatives could produce a better culture.”
Pickard’s long run of leniency at the hands of the law ended abruptly two years later, but not before his first close encounter with a chemical hero and his future role model.
“I was at Stanford in ’86 doing coursework when I ran into a perplexing technical problem,” recalled Pickard. “I wrote to Sasha and he invited me up to one of his lectures.”
At the time, Alexander Shulgin taught social chemistry as part of the public health
