413. Picture of Hippies in a Closet…?

May 26, 2026

Q. I’ve been looking for a picture from the magazine forever. I believe it was some hippies hiding in a closet with bullet holes? I’m not totally sure but I think that’s it. I work at a jazz bar in Columbus, OH that has been around for 62 years. P.J. O’Rourke was a regular in the ’70s, and always popped by when he was in town. We used to have that picture framed up at the bar, and I’ve just been buying random issues for the last 10 years hoping to find it. I believe it was a full page illustration, some time during P.J.’s stint there (73-78?). Thanks for any help.

A. I was about to give up and post the unanswered question here on the Answers page. Your skewed recollection threw me at first, but it suddenly hit me what it was you were looking for. It was an illustration by Andy Lackow covering a two-page spread for the Editorial page in the March 1977 (“Science and Technology”) issue. The illustration shows a cutaway view of two apartments with a wall between them. In the room on the righthand page is a hippy, stoned out of his mind, seated in the Lotus position. On the lefthand page, a middle-aged guy stands in the middle of the room, littered with empty beer cans, guns and ammo on the bed, and he’s just fired a gun into the wall between the two apartments. The full story is relayed in the Editorial (by P.J.), an extended anecdote about a guy in Ohio he calls Uncle Mike (the guy firing the gun). No closets. Only one hippy. But close enough.

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