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Chicago, Illinois Editor's Note Mitch Myers is a writer, journalist, and storyteller whose work has been featured in publications such as Rolling Stone and The Village Voice and on NPR's All Things Considered. He also maintains the Shel Silverstein Archive in Chicago and divides him time between Chicago and Manhattan. His just-released The Boy Who Cried Freebird (Harper-Collins) is a collection of essays about popular music and American culture. His story Back to the Fillmore follows the adventures of a teenage Grateful Dead fan from 2069 who time-travels back to 1969 to see his heroes play in San Francisco. back to the fillmore The year is 2069 and Adam Coil V is celebrating his eighteenth birthday alone in his room with his computers. Adam's mother had just put one hundred and fifty bancredits into a digital dollarfund and given him his very own access code to the account. Within fifteen minutes, Adam had transferred the entire sum over to Grateful Dead Enterprises (a wholly owned subsidiary of the one and only Record Company). He then opened his personalized Dead file and examined his new purchases, which were the three latest Grateful Dead live collections, (Dick's Picks) Volumes 1498, 1499, and 1500. Adam browsed through the still images, video clips, and historical text that accompanied the postdigital sound files. Then he downloaded the information into his custom database that cross-referenced each Dead recording by date, personnel, song selection, venue, set list, and many other categories. While Adam was thrilled to bring his archive up- to-date and hear the latest Dick's Picks, he was already thinking about the next five hundred Dead recordings scheduled for release. At the same time, he was restless and bored. Despite all of the data that streamed into his computer, the days held little mystery for Adam. He rarely went outdoors since the earth's atmosphere made it impossible to breathe easily. Besides the terrible environment that kept him inside, his legs were weak from lack of exercise, and the recreational drugs provided by the WG (World Government) made him sleepy. Lately, he'd been more lethargic than usual, and he couldn't shake the sense of dull apprehension. The Grateful Dead were Adam's main escape from a dreary reality. He came from a long line of Deadheads, and while his father's own interest in the family's Dead collection had waned when Adam was just a child, Adam Coil IV still made sure to pass down the library of hard- to- find Dead relics to his only son. The inherited memorabilia from the twentieth century included live Dead recordings preserved on Maxell XLIIS hi-bias cassette tapes, vinyl LPs, vintage compact discs, ticket stubs, backstage laminates, and original poster art from the Fillmore West. Of course, these items were merely the foundation for Adam's current collection. He'd been immersing himself in Dead culture since he was eight and devoted every bancredit that came his way toward his passion. His interest in the Dead began during a childhood trip with his anthropologist grandfather, Adam Coil III, to the Terrapin Museum and Grateful Dead Memorial Library. Since then Adam had taken to collecting books made of actual paper, old-time videos, and every Dead-related recording he could find. He'd amassed thousands of essays written about the band, including rare interviews and forgotten concert reviews. Adam took after his grandfather and considered himself an authority on all things Dead.
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