Like People in History

by Felice Picano

  We left our spot, marking it with some blankets, and headed along the bulk of the people toward where Edgar had parked the truck. The crowd seemed to have expanded to the edge of that orchard bluff. They'd brought portable radios and reel-to-reel tape players, and dozens were dancing around each piece of electronics, unwilling for the concert to end. Others were settling in for the night. No one knew how long the overhead lights would be on, but they only threw illumination so far anyway.

  I was glad for my big Bolivian sweater, once we got to the pickup. It was chilly on the bluff. I was even more appreciative that we'd been invited to stay at Edgar and Sarah's. We all piled into the cab and back of the pickup. After fifteen minutes of rough riding, we finally hit a macadam road not completely parked over with cars for the concert. A half hour later, we arrived at Edgar and Sarah's house.

  I don't know what I'd expected: a log cabin, I suppose. Instead, it was a single-story ranch house with a guest room, and an attic space over the bedrooms open to the living and dining space. That's where we could sleep, Sarah told Michelle; a spare mattress was already up there, and she handed me some blankets.

  I washed up and climbed the ladder to the attic. Edgar and Tom also went to bed. It was chilly in the house, and I didn't undress until I'd laid out the blanket and mattress to my satisfaction; then I tore off my clothes and dove in. I lay there awhile, shivering to get warm, listening to the voices of Sarah, Francine, and Michelle as they quietly talked in the kitchen.

  Throughout the day, I'd looked at Michelle for some sign as to what my behavior toward her should be. So far, what I'd gotten had been completely contradictory. For example, and most recently, she'd not protested these sleeping arrangements—which clearly signified that she and I were together, as together as say Sarah and Edgar or Francine and Tom. Yet she sure seemed to be avoiding as long as possible coming up to be with me. During the concert itself, she'd been great, openly physical, hugging me, dancing alongside me with one arm over my shoulder. When Joni Mitchell sang, we sat together quietly, and Michelle held my hand in her lap. But how much of that, I wondered, was mood, being in with what the moment and the music seemed to dictate? I still couldn't forget how she'd been with Edgar during the trip up this afternoon: more than anything else, that seemed to say that Michelle was with me only insofar as she had a use for me.

  Didn't that pretty much sum up my relationships with women?

  From within the warmth of my makeshift bed, I tried to make words out of the female voices downstairs, thinking they might be speaking about Michelle and me and would thus provide some hint as to what I should do next, but suddenly, without any warning at all, I fell asleep.

  For all I knew, Michelle might never have come to bed at all that night. She was awake before me the following morning, down in the kitchen along with Francine and Sarah, all three of them busily cooking breakfast.

  Baking too, it turned out.

  "We were wondering if you guys would ever wake up," Michelle said. She wore a large hand-stitched apron over her skirt. She'd done something to her hair: maybe washed it, definitely put it up on her head in a style I'd never seen on her before, perhaps for the cooking, possibly in imitation of the other women. Whichever, she was unquestionably in a good mood.

  "Isn't this all great!" Michelle enthused, her statement encompassing the kitchen and the large rough-hewn table where she motioned me to sit, while she poured coffee out of a battered metal coffeepot into a large hand-thrown mug. "This is exactly where I wanted to be this weekend!"

  "Lucky thing Edgar picked us up when he did," I offered between sips.

  "Nothing like that ever happens by chance," Francine said and smiled enigmatically. Sarah, at the stove, turned around, and the three of them stood within inches of one another, The Three Graces in Homespun, looking at me with a combination of satisfaction and secretiveness.

  "It was meant to be," Sarah said. "Michelle was meant to be here."

  She said it, and the others ever so slightly bristled behind her, as though daring me to deny it. But it was far too early in the morning for me to discuss Fate, Chance, and other ontological matters, and what seemed to matter in what they were saying, while it was quite vague, nevertheless was its exclusionary aspects. Properly excluded, I sipped my coffee in silence.

  A huge breakfast, complete with homemade bread and ham steaks, distracted me more happily for the next ten minutes.

  The smell of the coffee and food awakened Tom and Edgar. We were finishing breakfast when Sarah announced: "All the food in town is sold out. All the food in the surrounding towns too."

  "There's going to be a lot of hungry people." Michelle said the obvious.

  "So we're baking bread—for the people at the concert," Francine said.

  "We're going to feed them," the three women concluded.

  "The radio broadcaster said there's already a quarter million there," Edgar said. "How much bread do you intend to bake?"

  By ten that morning, they'd baked about three dozen fat, thick loaves, which were sliced and buttered, with honey smeared on. These were put into all sorts of various sized baskets and open containers, and we three males and two of the women were assigned to help hand them out at Yasgur's farm. We figured perhaps four hundred people would each get a thick slab of fresh bread this morning.

  The early morning clarity had given way to clouds, although the sun seemed at times to burn hard through the mist, as though trying to clear it off. It was warm again, warm and muggy. So many apples had fallen into the back of Edgar's pickup from the previous afternoon's stay in the orchard that looking at them Sarah mused, "Wouldn't these go well with the bread?" Answering her own question, she began stuffing her dress and apron pockets with apples.

  We did the same, adding apples to whatever containers held the bread, picking more once we'd reached the orchard, where Edgar again parked.

  Only a few steps down from the bluff today and we were directly within the crowd. We advanced in a ragged line, trying to remain about ten feet apart. Despite the morning mugginess, people seemed in a terrifically good mood, laughing, dancing, making out under and half-out of blankets. We saw small children playing; either we'd missed them last night or they'd just arrived. There were long lines near the portable toilets, and some people had found wellheads at various spots on the property and were washing up and drinking from them. The food we'd brought might be all some kids ate today—it was vocally appreciated, and we were all in terrific high spirits as we returned to the pickup and headed back to the house for more food.

  As we were stepping into the kitchen, Michelle stopped me and quietly said, "Edgar and Sarah asked me to stay after Tom and Francine leave."

  She said it with such finality, also with such exclusivity—I wasn't to dream I was also invited to stay, not that I'd even thought about it— that, coming on top of all that business earlier in the morning about her having been meant to be there, it made me believe I was supposed to feel as though I'd been slapped, or at least hurt in some less spectacular fashion. But I didn't feel hurt at all. Instead, I felt calm, detached, glad to be separated from the action, even a little relieved despite the accompanying and distinctive sense that her decision would somehow prove to be crucial in my life.

  I was also curious.

  I wondered which of them—Edgar or Sarah—had approached Michelle and asked her to stay—Edgar first or Sarah first, and when during our quite brief visit they'd had the time to confer with each other and agree upon the ménage à trois, which couldn't, after all, have been an everyday matter. I wondered how Michelle planned on telling Leighton, who was ostensibly waiting for her back in Manhattan. Above all I wondered who would father her child: Leighton, whose astro-data was up to snuff, or Edgar, whose wasn't?

  To her I merely said, "Want me to mail your things here or what?"

  For the first time, I could actually see Michelle thinking something, literally see her face thinking, My God, all of this is so complex and that's all he can th
ink of? Of course it wasn't all I was thinking, but I certainly wasn't about to be accused of sensitivity. She sighed. "I'll let you know."

  An hour later, we were all back in the crowd distributing a second baking and a second shaking of the apple trees' bounty, when I suddenly heard a very loud, very British male voice peremptorily utter:

  "Boy! I say, boy! Would you bring that here?"

  I turned to locate the source of the voice. Uneven as the crowd was, my path had taken me close to an outer edge near the earliest assigned parking area. At first I couldn't tell who exactly had called me, then I made out a dark blond head and an arm gesticulating out of the sunroof of a large, midnight-blue limousine stopped at the crowd's edge.

  "Over this way! That's it!" He continued to encourage me and to wave me over as though I were a waiter in some vast outdoor cafe.

  As I came closer, I could see he was a Long Hair, which somewhat obviated the fact of his annoyingly commanding tone of voice and his general condescension, as well as the very large limousine he was in and his black-skinned chauffeur.... Somewhat obviated it all. It also helped that I was in a smashing mood today, a little high from all the grass in the air around me, and completely ready to be entertained.

  "What exactly do you have?" he asked. He'd pulled himself out of the sunroof to sit upon the limo's roof so that his legs hung over the side windows. It was clear now what he was: a tall, rich hippie half a decade my senior. His clothing, like the car, was expensive: the moiré silk shirt open low, down his hairless sternum, looked to be one-of-a-kind, the sequined black trousers fit his long, well-muscled legs as only custom-made garb could, the chunky, handmade jewelry on his wrists and around his neck proclaimed him a patron of the arts.

  "Bread," I said. "Homemade bread with honey and butter. And apples."

  "Sounds perfectly marvelous," he exclaimed.

  I held my basket aloft for him to reach into.

  "May I have some for my friend inside the car?" he asked.

  "Sure."

  He handed it in through the sunroof.

  "We've been on the road all morning," he explained while chewing. "Mmm. Lovely. Just got here a short while ago. Astonishing crowd, don't you think?"

  Now that I was looking at him close up, his face was attractive in that peculiarly British manner—both ugly and pretty at the same time, with far too much character, too much exaggeration of feature to be really handsome. His dark blond hair fell heavily straight to his shoulders and in thick sideburns deeply scalloped onto each cheek, to partly cover the ravages of once acned skin. Most striking was his luxuriantly lashed, almond-shaped eyes, which weren't dark, as one would expect such eyes to be, but instead exotically light blue-gray. His slender, aquiline nose and large mouth added an aristocratic touch, especially when his elastic lower lip formed a wicked, enchanting smile.

  "Ummmn," he moaned in ecstasy as he bit into the hunk of bread, and honey-butter slipped down his chin. "Don't go," he quickly added when I turned to move into the crowd,

  "Have to. There are still hungry people."

  "Are you some kind of angel?" he asked, and fixed me with those pale eyes the way a collector fixes a rare specimen onto a page of vellum.

  "Of course not." I laughed, aware I was blushing at his extravagant flattery. "Thank those three women." I tried pointing out Sarah, Francine, and Michelle handing out food in the distance. "They baked."

  "I don't care a fig about them," he said, testily. More softly, "But I would like to thank you."

  "You're welcome," I said, and since I was suddenly feeling his interest far too intently upon me, upon my body, upon my face, for comfort, I left the stopped limo and sailed into the crowd, continuing to hand out bread and apples, aware all the time of his gaze on my back.

  "I'd like to do something nice for you," he called out.

  "You don't have to," I called back. "Here," to people, "apples too! Fresh off the trees in that orchard."

  "I'd very much like to," he continued to insist.

  I now realized that the limo was alongside me. He remained atop the roof as the driver slowly drove on, stopping whenever I did.

  "Something very special," he added, and he said it so lubriciously I blushed again. I was definitely feeling uncomfortable. Yet for the life of me I didn't want him to stop insisting.

  "No, thanks!"

  "I know some folk in the bands here today," he said.

  I wasn't in the least bit surprised by this fact. I'd already guessed from his accent and car and clothing that he was connected with one of them.

  "Do you want to meet someone?" he asked.

  "Lennon and McCartney!" I shot back.

  "They're not coming. Someone else?"

  How could he know with such certainty they weren't coming? "Grace Slick?" I asked.

  "And Marty and Jorma? Certainly. Anyone else?"

  He was putting me on. I continued through the crowd, stopping to let folks rummage around for whatever they could find in my increasingly empty basket. The limo was there whenever I looked, my pal in his expensive duds washing down breakfast with a fifth of unblended Scotch.

  "How about, oh, Stephen Sills?" he tried.

  "Okay," I said, thinking that would shut him up.

  "And Graham Nash? Or Julian Gwynne?" he said, naming two of the best bass-guitar players in the business.

  "Great! Fine!" I said, amused. That he knew all of them seemed more and more unlikely.

  "Really? You'd like to meet them? Nash and Gwynne?"

  "Sure would."

  "You would? Well, come on then, isn't that basket empty yet?"

  "Almost," I admitted.

  "Then you'll come in the car here and meet Julian Gwynne?"

  "I don't know. I have to join up with my friends. We have to get back to the house for more food."

  "You'd rather do that than meet Julian Gwynne?"

  "I can do both," I temporized. The basket was empty. Only one apple left. I held it out, offering it to the general public, and suddenly felt his hand close around mine holding the apple. He lifted it to his mouth and bit into it richly with great smacking noises, apple flesh cracking, apple juices flowing down the stubble of his chin. He offered the apple to me.

  "You finish it," I said.

  "How can I tempt you if you won't even take a bite?" he asked in a tone of voice so obviously seductive it was both amusing and quite serious.

  I bit into the apple.

  "Tell you what. Come into the car now, and I'll suck your prick."

  I pulled away, but he'd foreseen I'd do that: his other arm lashed forward to hold me tight.

  "Wouldn't you like having your prick sucked?" he asked.

  I continued to pull away. His arms were really strong. No chance I'd get loose.

  "Wouldn't you like to meet Julian Gwynne and let me suck your prick?" he repeated.

  "Is he in there?" I asked, trying to get away and look into the limo.

  "He will be."

  "Well, I'd meet him. But not... you know, the other."

  "Then how about letting Julian Gwynne suck your prick?" he asked.

  Fat chance of that happening. But if he'd let go of me... "Sure. Okay!"

  "You will?" he asked.

  "I said so! Now, let go!"

  "Did you hear?" he asked into the car's open sunroof. "He said yes."

  Confused now, I asked, "Is Julian Gwynne really inside?"

  "Better than that." He still hadn't let go of my hands.

  "Who then? Who's there?"

  "Come on up," he spoke into the sunroof. "I'll collect on my bet."

  "Bet? What bet? Who's there?" I asked, trying to see who it was.

  I was still trying to figure out what he was talking about, when, of all people, Alistair Dodge popped through the limo's roof.

  "I bet him your cherry," my second cousin said. His hair was long and darker than I remembered it, and he was also expensively and hiply dressed, if otherwise unchanged from the last time I'd seen him in Bever
ly Hills.

  "I lost my cherry years ago," I said.

  "I meant your homo-sexual cherry," Alistair clarified. "Which it appears you've just now promised to Julian."

  "That was a joke," I said. "Besides, he's not even here."

  "Isn't he?" the rich hippie on the car roof asked.

  "Dear Cuz, Roger Sansarc," Alistair swung his legs over the side of the car, "allow me to introduce you to my friend, the infamous Julian Gwynne."

  "You?" I asked the hippie.

  "Me!" he said. "Come give us a kiss."

  "What are you doing here?" I asked, holding back.

  "What do you think? Playing with the band." Julian continued trying to pull me onto the roof next to him.

  "No, I meant you, Alistair?"

  He'd now slipped off the roof and, getting behind me, was helping to lift me up alongside Julian, who let go of my hands long enough to grab me around the waist.

  "I was down in D.C. with Julian when the other members of the band called and said they were coming here. So we came too."

  I had all sorts of questions I wanted to ask Alistair. But he simply walked away, looking, he said, for a place to urinate—"I'll find some bushes; I'm not waiting on line," he commented. "See you down there."

  As though on cue, the limo lurched forward, and it was all I could do to hold on as we descended bumpily toward where the stage had been set up.

  Any doubts I might have had about the rich hippie being Julian Gwynne were blown away the second we reached the performers' area, which had remained successfully fenced off from the crowd. The show's producers and the guards who worked for them knew him. The rest of his band had arrived not an hour before in the big van, and they and their girlfriends had instantly become the center of a general party which we instantly joined. I was introduced all round by Julian. I must have looked as goggle-eyed, as starry-eyed as I felt. "This your new doll?" Jimi Hendrix asked Julian at one point, and though I vigorously denied it, just being among them all I felt as though I'd died and gone to heaven.

  Alistair arrived at the party a short time later, and he too seemed to be known among the various performers. References were made by some to a lavish party he'd thrown in L.A. at which certain deeds far too perverted for mixed company had been performed by various participants, as well as another, more staidly public party, attended by seemingly everyone in the music "Biz" in London. When it became known among the hangers-on that I was Alistair's cousin, my own status rose instantly. "He's rolling in it," a girl with a pentagram painted silver over one eye assured me of Alistair. "Great-looking, money to burn, terrific connections, always has good drugs, shame he doesn't go with girls!" she concluded with a sigh.