Summer of Love, a Time Travel

by Lisa Mason

  When she asked him about his ring and why he keeps whispering to it, he stalled at first, then told her the ring is a computer and a calculator. Typical Chi shuck. Susan knows computers are as big as a whole room. And calculators? Ruby’s calculating machine is as bulky as a sack of potatoes and just about as heavy. He says he’s calculating the probabilities, searching for a Prime Probability. He reminds her of Professor Zoom, searching for his Final Expression. Only Chi’s Prime Probability has nothing to do with God. It has everything to do with demons.

  The girl with her face. A Devolved Entity Manifested from the Other Now? A demon? A demon that wants to kill her? It’s like the rumors of concentration camps. It’s so weird she can’t believe it, and so plausible she can’t afford to disbelieve it.

  But what can she do about it?

  “Don’t die,” Chi tells her grimly. “Be ready, always. You’ve got to survive, Starbright. Survive the Summer of Love.”

  Cool. But it isn’t cops-and-robbers, a tangible thing she can stab with a knife or shoot with a gun. The demons are pollutants, Chi tells her, unpredictable and uncontrollable. Poison blowing in the wind.

  Don’t die. Survive. Be ready, always. It’s terrifying and exhausting. Anyway, she is going to die someday. That’s one thing she’s come to understand and accept over the Summer of Love. But how can she be ready, always? Ready how? Ready for what?

  “What is the demon trying to do when it comes near me?” she asked.

  “Didn’t it pull you toward the edge of the cliff?”

  “Yes, it did,” she said slowly.

  “And didn’t it try to push you toward the dog-killer in front of the Psychedelic Shop?”

  “Yes!”

  “It’s trying to touch you.”

  More Chi shuck. He’s weird about touching and not touching. He never touches anyone or anything if he can help it, not without punching his hand through one of those weird plastic wraps he calls a prophylak. She’s so used to him flailing his hand around, she hardly notices anymore. He’s a lot like the stoner mystics on Haight Street, Chi and his hand thing. When he touches her, he’s usually got a prophylak on. She gets a kick out of seizing his bare hand and watching him squirm.

  “What will happen if the demon touches me?”

  “The demon is antimatter,” he said. As if that explained everything.

  “So?”

  “Well! The demon is your double in the Other Now. If the demon touches you, it’ll trigger matter-antimatter annihilation and destroy spacetime as we know it. Destroy our timeline. Not to mention you and me.”

  God! This revelation both frightened and angered her, like the time she first found out about the atomic bomb. She didn’t make the atomic bomb. She didn’t ask to be chased by a demon.

  “What should I do if the demon gets close?” she said, panicking.

  “I’ll counter its energy with the maser. The blue and green beams deflected the demons’ movements in front of the Psychedelic Shop. But if the demon gets close enough to touch you, I’ll use the purple beam. I hope I don’t need to use it but believe me, I won’t think twice.”

  “What will the purple beam do?” As if she knows what he’s talking about.

  “Theoretically, the purple beam will force the demon back into its own reality. Don’t worry about it, Starbright.”

  Theoretically? Don’t worry about it? His tone was as ominous as when her parents talked about the arms race and the balance of terror. She shut up about the purple beam.

  “Why me?” she asked at last. The question has haunted her since the night they drove up to Morning Star Ranch.

  “Because you’re important,” he simply said. “In your Now. And in mine.”

  That was cool. Ruby said the same thing. But Chi didn’t mean it the way Ruby did. In her Now and in his? But everyone’s important somehow, aren’t they? The question keeps haunting her. Why me?

  It’s hard to know what to believe.

  Like the rumors on this foggy morning.

  There’s a rumor that STP really is Serenity, Tranquility, and Peace and the Establishment media is just making up scare stories saying STP will drive you crazy.

  There’s a rumor that brushing your teeth with clover prevents cavities, but no one has figured out how to get the grass stains off.

  There’s a rumor that the corpse of the dog beaten to death in front of the Psychedelic Shop was dematerialized by space aliens. There could be some truth to this, since the legal action committee that was supposed to challenge police brutality has dematerialized, too.

  There’s a rumor that the Swedish have invented a pill that gives a woman a morning-after abortion but the FDA won’t let the pill into the United States.

  There are rumors that black people are rioting in the Bronx, Harlem, Miami, Toledo, Memphis, and Cairo, Illinois. There are rumors that the police are going to use the riots to kill thousands of black people in the ghettos.

  The riots in Newark, New Jersey and Detroit, Michigan are not rumors, they are real. Stokely Carmichael says the black people are going to fight to the death.

  Charlie, with his necklace of chicken leg bones and carved wood ankh, strolls up to Susan and Cyn. “The Haight-Ashbury’s gonna burn tonight, baby. Get off the street by ten.”

  Cowboy, Leo Gorgon’s pal, jogs by and drops a Communication Company mimeograph into Susan’s lap. The mimeograph feels thick, as if the paper has fur, and stinks of chemicals.

  Susan reads:

  BROTHERS: AN IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR YOUR SAFETY AND SURVIVAL

  Sorry to bring you down, but this is about the riots our black brothers have planned for the city tonight. There isn’t much hope they won’t occur.

  We can expect vast looting, which means that people will be treating all stores as free stores. Some people will be setting fires, usually after a store has been emptied. Police and later National Guard and federal troops will come into all riot areas by the thousands, armed with rifles, machine guns, and tanks. Curfew means if they see you, they will bust you, and if you run, they will shoot you.

  There’s more, but Susan doesn’t have the heart to read it. She tosses the mimeograph on the grass. Chi picks it up and tucks it in his pocket.

  “Uh-oh, here comes the Baptist,” says Cyn. She chews her thumbnail, gnawing a strip of nail free from one side, seizing the strip in her teeth, and pulling it across her thumb. Cyn’s fingertips are a bloody mess.

  Susan can’t watch. She wishes she could slap Cyn, but she doesn’t know her well enough. Cyn is moody. One minute she’ll be talking to you like a normal person, then the next she’s staring off into space or yelling, getting tearful and angry about something but you’re not sure what. Cyn would be really beautiful if she weren’t so dirty and down-and-out. News photographers are forever stealing snapshots of her white-blond hair, angelic face, big dark eyes. Susan doesn’t think Cyn will make it back to Texas, but that’s okay. Cyn says her mom is crazy.

  Four black dudes in leather jackets and bandannas tied around enormous ‘fros stroll up Oak Street. The Baptist spots Cyn, waves his comrades over. Chi leaps to his feet, frowning, but they leave Susan alone, acknowledging his claim to her. They surround Cyn.

  “C’mere, li’l bitch,” the Baptist says. His hands twitch, suggesting the violence in them. The Baptist forces Cyn behind a tree and shoves her to her knees.

  Susan draws a woman’s face on the sidewalk to go with the eyes. The three dudes stand around the tree, tense and watchful. She wishes Chi would do something to help Cyn, but he just stands there, guarding her. She hears the Baptist’s zipper. There’s nothing she can do.

  The Baptist struts from behind the tree, grinning and zipping up his jeans. He and his comrades laugh and saunter away.

  Cyn crawls out onto the grass on her hands and knees. She retches and wipes her mouth on the back of her frail hand.

  A cop car turns the corner at Cole Street.

  Cyn rises. In one swift feral motion, she’s gone.

&n
bsp; The cop car speeds across Oak Street, sliding over to the curb where Susan sits.

  “Chi!” she cries.

  He grabs her box of pastels and her purse, seizes her elbow, and hauls her to her feet.

  They dart behind the trees and dash through the park. Whatever you do, flower child, don’t get busted by the Man.

  *

  Susan sees the van on the other side of the Panhandle. The funky Volkswagen van painted with blue clouds. Before she can take off with Chi into the park again, the man’s voice reaches out and hooks her.

  “Seek new life, new civilizations.” Just the facts, ma’am, and a chuckle like the pull of a saw through wood. “Trixie, hey Trixie, which way, Trixie?”

  “My name is Starbright, Harold.”

  “Don’t call me names.”

  “Don’t call me Trixie.”

  “Where the hell have you been keeping yourself, Starbright?”

  Professor Zoom crooks his elbow around her neck and gives her a nutcracker hug. His eyes are shiny for a moment. He’s painted circles of black, blue, yellow, and red around each eye like an archery target. His lank hair extrudes in a deranged halo. If it’s possible for him to be thinner, he is. Instead of baggy, grass-stained jeans, he wears tight hip-huggers with flaring bellbottoms that emphasize his spidery thighs.

  “Hey, Professor Zoom.” She plants a peck on his sunken cheek. He is, after all, the first person who ever sensibly discussed death with her. “You look wild. I’ve missed you.”

  “Emotions are the lowest form of consciousness. Beware the lurching lunatic, the churning robot gone berserk.”

  Susan leans out of his hug and studies him. “Did you find the Final Expression to your Equation? Does God equal a hit of blotter?”

  He looks away, wistful. “Alas, anon, I need fuel to stoke the fires of genius. And the cupboard is bare. We endure difficult times.” He looks at her keenly. “There’s a serious shortage of acid these days, in case you haven’t noticed. I’m dropping yellow flats, blue dots, that speed crap. Even psychedelic dreams. Man, that’s desperation.”

  “What are psychedelic dreams?”

  “Mostly smack, sweet pretty pussy.” His keen look hardens. “Got any acid?”

  “No, I don’t trip anymore. And don’t call me a pussy, Professor Zoom.” Susan cranes her neck at the van. She doesn’t see Stella or Fawn. A new crowd of caterpillar-eyed girls poses around the van. They look tougher, dirtier, meaner than the old crowd, tending more toward leather and chains than velvet and lace.

  “Say hey, Professor Zoom. Check it out. My foxy lady. It is my foxy lady, isn’t it? My little flower child.”

  The mountain man, oh Stan.

  “You’re looking real fine.” He reaches for her, bends to kiss her.

  She flinches away, like any sensible person should from the edge of a sharp knife.

  He stands there, looking her up and down in his teasing way. If he’s troubled by her recoil, he gives no sign. But he doesn’t try to reach for her again. He doesn’t try to kiss her.

  She’s relieved and wounded at the same time. It’s really stupid, but she wishes he would try to kiss her, anyway.

  Kid, she can just hear Ruby say, don’t you take crap from anyone. She pulls herself up tall the way Ruby does when she means business.

  “I need to get my hundred dollars back, Stan,” she says, looking straight into his eyes. Exercising her new view of eyes over the eyes that once mesmerized her.

  “Flower child, I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I mean the hundred dollars I lent you for the dragon’s blood deal.”

  He doesn’t respond to that. Instead he says, “Dirty David said he saw you at that shyster’s office. He said you were asking about some kind of legal aid. Is that true, Starbright?” His eyes shine with concern. Or maybe paranoia.

  She wavers before his misdirection, but not for long. “The hundred-dollar bill you took from me. Did you know that Stovepipe and the Lizard are looking for you? They told me the dragon’s blood was no good. They told me it was rat poison. They want their seven grand back, Stan.”

  “Are you in some kind of trouble?” He doesn’t waver, either. His eyes grow hard, his tone harder. “Or are you turning state’s evidence on me?”

  She’s appalled. He won’t even listen. All he cares about is his trip.

  “I told them I don’t have any seven grand, but you do,” she persists, refusing to back down. “Me, I just want my hundred dollars.”

  Chi stands to the side like he usually does. But when Susan walks away and Stan starts to follow, Chi steps in his path. Not in a biker-bully way, but he steps deliberately, sternly, proclaiming with an unsmiling face that Stan is not to follow her. Chi may be skinnier than Stan, but he’s taller. And younger. Much younger. Scowling, Stan stops.

  Susan catches her breath. Chi, the five-hundred-year-old wonder, guarding her path!

  She sprints to the Double Barrel van and peers in the open back door. Chi steps up behind her, peering in, too.

  Lady May sits hunched and cross-legged in the van. The glittery pink boa she clips in her hair flashes in the thin light. She wears the same leather vest over nothing but her skin and jeans. Stringy cords of muscle entwine the bones of her bare arms. A leather band is wound around her left arm below her lightning bolt tattoo. She grips one end in her teeth, the other in her right fist. She pulls the band so tightly, Susan can see the leather cut into the spare flesh of Lady May’s arm.

  A girl sits in front of Lady May with her back turned to Susan. Dark spiky hair cut as short as a boy’s, she also sits cross-legged, her thighs jutting out like delicate wings. She wears a halter top tied over her bony spine. She is doing something, fiddling with something, that Lady May watches with ravenous eyes. The van reeks of struck matches, white Lebanese pollen, and plum incense.

  Lady May looks up and sees Susan and Chi at the door. “Sst!” Bending over, her bare waist rail-thin, hissing and glittery-eyed with her wild mop of hair, Lady May reminds Susan of a snake. Like in Rudyard Kipling’s “Riki-Tiki-Tavi.” A rainbow-scaled cobra with her hood spread, ready to strike.

  The dark-haired girl takes whatever she’s got in her hands, calmly slides it under the blanket beside her, and blows out the match. She half-turns, and Susan sees her profile, her lips pursed over the trail of smoke. The curve of her cheek, her unmistakable pert nose.

  “Penny Lane!” Susan shrieks.

  Nance Payne hops out of the van.

  “Starbright!” she screams.

  She flings her arms around Susan. They hug, jump up and down, dance, rock back and forth, pull each other’s hair, pound each other’s shoulders. Susan smooches Nance’s cheek. Nance plants a kiss right on Susan’s mouth.

  Nance, oh Nance!

  Nance the elf at seven on her bike with training wheels and red-white-and-blue streamers for the Fourth of July. Bell and Payne, they landed in the back of the first and third rows, cribbed answers and passed notes back and forth declaring their love. Nance the daredevil at eight, stealing Milk Duds when they went to see The Time Machine at the Cedar Center Theater. Nance the explorer at nine, digging a tunnel through the snowdrift that a plow left behind, wiggling through like a fearless mole. Nance the madcap at eleven, climbing the old oak tree in Cheryl Long’s front yard, the first to jump from the big branch fifteen feet up, laughing when she broke her ankle and Susan had to half-carry her home. Nance the rebel at thirteen, showing up at Cheryl’s birthday party dressed all in black, Let’s Boogie Boogie tucked under her arm. Nance the hip chick, cajoling a joint out of her cousin Don. And Nance the whirling dervish in Daddy’s recreation room, twirling and bobbing to Rubber Soul blasting on the stereo, shimmying her skinny hips like a belly dancer.

  “Star light, star bright,” Susan sings, “first star I see tonight—”

  “Wish I may, wish I might,” Nance sings, “have the wish I wish—”

  “Toooo-night,” they sing together.

  Like Jiminy Cr
icket in Pinocchio. They scream and shriek and laugh and hug again.

  “You grew your hair, Starbright,” Nance says.

  “You cut your hair, Penny Lane,” Susan says.

  Nance wipes tears off Susan’s cheeks.

  And then she winks.

  Susan knows exactly what the wink means. It means they do not blow each other’s cover, even now, standing in the Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love, two thousand miles and two thousand lifetimes away from Cleveland. Without hesitation, they use the street names Nance chose for them. They’re playing the game, just like they always have.

  Susan sees how proud Nance is that she’s playing the game. Like the time they took the Rapid Transit downtown. They’d just seen A Hard Day’s Night and drifted into a long, loud conversation in thick British accents that were completely phony. Pretty soon they’d fooled a proper old lady in the next seat. Stewdents abroohd, ohff to discovah Amudica. They charmed that sweet lady into taking them to high tea at Stouffer’s Restaurant where the desserts are so good. And not once did they blow each other’s cover. They screamed about it for weeks. “Nawncee.” “Yes, Suzahnah.” “May I have anothah crrrumpet?” “Of cawse, my dahling.”

  Oh, dig it, it was so cool, pretending to be someone else with a different life. An exciting life in a faraway place. Since they were little kids wishing on the first star of the evening, they both understood this: the most exciting game in life is to reinvent yourself.

  “Like wow,” Nance says, checking her out. A blush of pleasure blooms in Susan’s cheeks. “You look groovy, sweetheart.” She pronounces it shweethaut. “Getting rah-thah slim, ahn’t we?”

  “Gosh, Penny Lane,” Susan says. “You’re Twiggier than ever.”

  It’s true. Nance has always had a tight athletic body, though she gorged on burgers and ice cream. Never once did Nance ridicule Susan for developing breasts and hips. Nance sided with her when Susan’s mother forced her on the hard-boiled egg diet. Nance has always stood up for Susan against the whole world.