Dad lowered his newspaper, his eyes smoldering.
“Joanne was with some boy,” Dan rattled on. “I caught her before anything happened.”
“What boy?” asked Mom suspiciously.
I had to think fast. “It was Paul Mathers. You know, Mom. From orchestra? He sits in the percussion section with me. He’s real good on guitar, too. We were just singing.”
Mom narrowed her eyes, trying to decide if she believed me.
“It was a hippie,” insisted Dan. “He had long hair.”
“Long hair is in style,” I said, blushing hotly.
“Style! Look at yourself, Joanne! Anyone would mistake you for a hippie,” said Mom. “I never knew sewing you those bell-bottoms would lead to this getup!”
Most of the kids I knew got to pick out their own clothes. Lisa Girardi had her own Macy’s charge card and could choose the tiniest bikini, while my mom made my bathing suit. What good was a two-piece that showed only two inches of skin between the top and bottom? I would never be able to show cleavage, not in my mother’s lifetime.
Dad had lost interest in the family crisis and returned to his newspaper.
Mom bent over him, her hand on her hip. “What are you going to do about this, Dick? Are you going to let your daughter run wild?”
“Stay out of the park, Joanne,” said the newspaper.
“What?” Golden Gate Park was my neighborhood playground. I had visited every traveling exhibit at the de Young Museum, bought cups of flower-shaped orange crackers at the Japanese Tea Garden, and listened to free concerts at the Music Concourse. I had been allowed to skate, ride my bike, play on the playground, and feed the ducks since I was eight, just as long as I went with someone and didn’t talk to strangers. “But, Daddy! You let me go to the park even when I was a little kid.”
“That was before this hippie infestation.” Dad lowered his newspaper, which signaled he meant business. “You heard me, Joanne. Stay out of the park.”
Dan’s derisive laugh attracted Dad’s attention. “And you! Tomorrow you’ll change the oil in both cars.”
“Dad! I got work!”
“Better get up early,” said the newspaper.
Dan was terrible with cars. He couldn’t even mend a flat tire without Pete’s help. The last time he had tried to change the oil, it had all poured onto his face. Now who had the last laugh?
That night I lay awake, wondering how I would ever face Martin again. What did he think of me now? Would I really conform to society, as he’d predicted? Would I turn into my mother, with a telephone extension cord tail and rubber-gloved paws, and have a bald, fat husband who hid behind newspapers and thought fruit baskets were the ultimate gift?
I broke into a little fantasy then, what I called a think, about a long time in the future, when I would be old and wise and twenty-five and playing an all-Beethoven recital at Carnegie Hall, and by then Martin would be a famous folk rocker who also happened to be performing in NYC. I would find out his hotel and send him a ticket to my recital, and he would hear me play and come backstage, and we would fall into each other’s arms. He would whisper in my ear, “I always knew you were special,” and we would become boyfriend and girlfriend and get married and have two-point-two kids. All girls fantasized about marrying their crush, even if he happened to be Paul McCartney or, like me all my freshman year, Peter Tork of the Monkees.
Chapter
Eight
Mom canceled out on my parents’ Thursday-night dance lesson and they ate dinner at home, so she could “keep an eye on” me. I had to have a specific reason to leave the house, and simply going to buy gum wasn’t good enough. I stayed home and bided my time, knowing my mother would eventually lose interest in her assertive vigilance, as she had in the past. I practiced the piano, read, watched some TV, and got together with Rena a few times. In my room, the door slightly ajar since Mom didn’t allow it closed, I lay on my bed with Snoopy curled up on my stomach, listening to records and having “thinks” about Martin. By then I had acquired my own copy of the Purple Cockroach’s “Evolution! Revolution!” and nearly wore it out. I also listened to the Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow, the Beatles’ new Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Simon and Garfunkel’s Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, and Judy Collins’s Wildflowers, including “Michael from Mountains,” a song that reminded me of Martin. It’s about a sweet, enigmatic guy who brings a girl sweets and accompanies her on walks in streets and parks. She wants to know all about him, but she never does because “his mountains call.”
The next Thursday my parents planned to go out to dinner and to their dance lesson as usual. I was past the embarrassment of Dan insulting Martin and dragging me out of the park. After my parents left the house, I forced myself to sit at the piano and at least go through the motions of practicing, and sure enough, twenty minutes later they returned home because my mother “forgot something.”
After they left a second time, I slipped out of the house and ran down Masonic to catch the trolley on Haight. The white fog rolled in from the ocean, and the cold wind was damp with sea spray, typical August weather. As I climbed the steep walkway of 614 Beach Street, I could hear the Purple Cockroach rehearsing in the basement. It seemed like they never stopped. I knocked on the door, and a guy I’d never seen before answered.
When I asked for Martin, he answered, “He’s in his room. Upstairs, second door on the right.”
I followed the guy through the house, but just before the staircase, he abruptly walked into a candlelit, incense-scented room with mattresses and pillows covering the floor and India-print bedspreads billowing from the ceiling. It was a meditation room, occupied by three people sitting cross-legged and chanting “Om.”
I mounted the staircase and reached the upper landing. Light seeped from beneath the closed second door on the right. From the room came phrases from Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant, along with feminine giggles and Martin’s ringing laugh. Did he have lots of friends who were girls like me? Did he have an actual girlfriend and was I about to meet her? I feared the worst, imaging them in bed together, naked, doing it. How mortifying to interrupt that! I stood frozen in the hallway, wondering if I should leave, but after a few moments of listening to my heart pound, I decided Guthrie’s long-winded story about getting arrested for littering did not seem like make-out music. I knocked quietly.
“Peace to all who enter here,” said Martin.
Tentatively, I pushed open the door.
“Joni! Come in!” Martin smiled up at me and patted a spot of carpet. When I sat next to him, he said, “Morning Girl, Joni.”
Morning Girl said, “May the baby Jesus shut your mouth and open your mind,” whatever that meant. She didn’t look much older than me, with big boobs in a flimsy top and no bra. She had full lips, and her pupils were wide disks of brown. Obviously she was stoned and so was Martin, but he seemed pretty much his usual self, while the girl looked totally wasted. She turned to Martin and said, “A maple bar is definitely a donut.”
Martin shook his head. “No hole.”
Arlo Guthrie said, “I wanna kill, kill. I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth.”
“And a cinnamon roll,” said Morning Girl. “That’s a donut.”
“No hole,” said Martin. “What do you think, Joni?”
I shrugged. Being straight around stoned people was like going to a swim party on your period and having to sit on a lawn chair fully clothed while everyone else was in the pool having fun. What were Martin and Morning Girl to each other? I glanced over at his twin bed. It didn’t seem big enough for two. He had a chest of drawers, a wooden crate used as a nightstand, and planks of wood set on cement blocks to serve as a bookcase. One entire wall was papered with posters of Avalon and Fillmore dances with psychedelic, bubbly printing, illustrated with biplanes, buffaloes, and Mr. Zig-Zag from the cigarette papers.
“Even donut holes are donuts,” said Morning Girl.
“Donut
holes are donuts with existential angst.”
Morning Girl arched her neck in a silent laugh, the tip of her tongue flicking her lips. She looked so sexy I wanted to strangle her. Did I ever look sexy to Martin, or for that matter, to any guy?
Martin nudged my knee with his. “Wanna get high, Joni?”
“No.”
“You told me you did.”
“Not now.” Not with this stupid girl babbling drivel. I had come there to have Martin to myself. I read all the titles of the books stacked on his makeshift nightstand: the Tao Te Ching, Games People Play, the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Siddhartha, and Franny and Zooey.
“Were you homeschooled?” I asked Martin.
“Oh, is that what you call it? I thought Vivian and Max just forgot to send us to school.”
I leaned into him, eager to know more. “Where are your parents now?”
“Oh, they’re no place.”
“Do you mean they’ve passed away?”
Martin released an exasperated puff of air. “Vivian is a drunk and Max is plain crazy, so I’d say that’s no place.” He rolled back his eyes, listening intently. From a distant room came the tiny squalls of a baby. “I hear Jericho.”
“I know,” Morning Girl said despondently.
This stoned girl was a mother? Could Martin possibly be the father? He’d told me he was never having kids.
Martin placed his hand on my knee. “Sorry, Joni. What were we talking about?”
“Donuts!” Morning Girl raised her arms exuberantly. “Oh, oh, I’d love a donut right now. I got the raging munchies.” Then something I’d never seen happened: two round wet disks appeared at the front of her gauzy top. It took me a couple of seconds to realize what it was. She looked down at herself. “Oops. Guess Jericho’s got the munchies, too. I’ll go get him.” She jumped up and dashed out the door.
“Does she live here?” I asked.
“Yeah. I’m kinda surprised to see you. I thought after what happened at the park your parents wouldn’t let you come over anymore.”
Not that they ever had. “I’m sorry my brother called you those names.”
He shrugged. “Does he eat a lot of red meat?”
“He’s always been like that. Trying to get me in trouble.”
“That’s a drag. Your brother should be your best friend.”
“Not even my sister is. We’re not anything alike.”
“You would have to be in some ways, because the same parents raised you both.”
It irked me that Martin thought he knew me better than I knew myself. I pointed toward the door. “Does the father live here?”
“What father? Oh, Jericho’s? I don’t think anyone knows who that is, not even Morning Girl. We met her in Hashbury, living on the street, and she asked if we knew of a place she could crash, and Gus kinda dug her, and now he digs the whole domesticity trip of having Jericho around, so I guess she’s kinda his old lady.”
“She shouldn’t be taking drugs if she has a baby,” I blurted, more angrily than I intended.
“It’s only a little weed. She’s free to do what she wants. Shit, Joni, I didn’t know you were so uptight and judging.”
My face burned with the sting of his words. I had risked getting grounded for life to come see him and in return I’d gotten a scolding. I wasn’t hip enough for him, I guess. Well, tough. I was leaving before Stupid Girl had a chance to return with her baby to expose her big, fat tit in front of me and Martin both. “That little baby’s not free of cold and hunger and neglect if she’s living on the street with him.”
“I told you they live here. We all take care of Jericho. What are you so pissed off about?”
Still he was defending Morning Girl! I scrambled to my feet, or at least tried to. He had caught my forearm when I rose to my knees.
“Don’t go away mad, Joni.”
I tried to get up, and he bore down, almost as if we were wrestling. I glared at him and bit off one word at a time. “Every child has the right to know who his father is.”
Astonishment washed over his face. His eyes widened and his lips parted as if to speak. From his mouth came, not words, but a kiss. It was not a music camp kiss. It was long and deep, as if he were drinking me up, and without me remembering how it happened, we ended up lying down, pressed together, and when we heard the door creak open neither of us moved apart.
“Hey, Marty,” said Gus, “sit in on bass, will ya? Bread is ripped on acid, and I really wanna get ‘Cold Sterling Fog’ worked out tonight.”
I was relieved to be facing away from the door, but Martin propped himself on an elbow to say, “Can’t you see I have a guest?”
“She’s a Roach fan, right? She can listen.” Gus walked away as if he assumed we’d follow.
Martin looked into my face and stroked my hair. He ran his thumb over one eyebrow and held his forefinger so that my lashes flicked against it. It made me smile.
“Ah, I guess I gotta keep Gus happy. Wanna come?”
I’d rather kiss and kiss and kiss. “Sure,” I said.
The basement of the house was a Victorian ballroom that had seen better days, the molding near the ceiling crumbling and the hardwood floors scuffed and gouged. Still, it made a great rehearsal studio for a rock band, housing a massive drum set, amplifiers stacked in towers, and electrical cords snaking in all directions. There they all were, the Purple Cockroach, just like they were pictured on their record sleeve. The drummer was Dave Hall, a skinny guy with a long, silky ponytail, muttonchop sideburns, and wire-rimmed granny glasses. Byron Atkins, a beefy tattooed guy, who looked more like a Hells Angel than a musician, was on rhythm guitar, and of course Gus played lead. I took a seat on the sagging sofa next to Phil Oberhofer, who went by Bread, because, I found out later, he often asked his housemates, “Got any bread?” like a live-in panhandler.
As the band tuned, I thought how this was a fantasy come true, watching Roach, up close and personal. I couldn’t wait to tell Rena. As Martin flipped the strap of the bass over his head, I thought how far out it would be if he took Bread’s place in the band permanently, and then I got all insecure, thinking then he’d be too important for me.
They started up, the music and feedback so loud that the walls shook. Martin played bass like a bored but obedient child, thumping out the accurate notes in a steady beat but adding nothing to them. Gus did a decent job singing lead on the verse, but when the rest of the band joined him in harmony on the chorus, they came apart and ground to a halt. After the third time, I wondered if any of them noticed that the rhythm guitar was dropping a beat.
Finally, Byron did play the correct number of beats, perhaps by accident, and they made it through the song. Bread, who had been sitting on his spine, perked up and began clapping and howling.
“What do you think?” asked Gus.
“Uh . . . me?” I asked.
“She knows it’s crap,” interjected Martin. “She plays Beethoven.”
Gus glared at him. Plainly he hadn’t missed how unenthusiastically Martin was participating. “We’re not trying to duplicate Beethoven here.”
“It’s good!” I said, “but you could try substituting the submediant in the last measure of the third phrase of the chorus.”
“The what?” asked Gus.
“A minor,” I clarified.
“Where, again?”
“The fourth measure of the third . . . I mean, on the word ‘cold.’ ”
“Oh,” said Gus.
It worked out. Everyone was satisfied. During the next song, I glanced at my watch three times in five minutes, knowing it was time to go. I was hoping Martin would walk me across the street to the trolley stop, but when I stood to leave, he merely splayed two fingers and mouthed, “Peace.” I spent the whole ride home in a “Cold Sterling Fog” of my own, reliving that kiss.
For one whole week the Kiss weighed heavy on my mind. It both thrilled me and scared me. I thought my next visit with Martin would be a good time to introduce Rena
to him. It turned out that Roach wasn’t rehearsing, so Rena didn’t get to meet them. Martin was a charming host, serving his chamomile tea and some whole wheat honey cookies he’d made. Rena dominated the conversation, talking about “the theater,” and Martin was responsive, telling her what he knew about Max getting his plays produced.
When it was time to leave, Martin hugged us both good-bye, which made me jealous. Whenever I went anywhere with Rena, it was obvious that guys found her more attractive than me. I worried that Martin would become more interested in her. On our trolley ride home, I discovered I had nothing to worry about.
“He knows a lot, all right,” said Rena, “but he’s not as cute as you think.”
“What? He’s the cutest guy I ever saw.”
“You must be in love.”
“I’m not, either,” I said, feeling the heated blush on my face.
“You said I’d get to meet Roach.”
“Is it my fault they weren’t around?”
“You said he’d get us high.”
“All I said was he offered me grass my last visit.”
Rena crossed her arms tightly and stared out the window. In a moment she turned back to me. “I’m worried about you, Joanne. I’m worried this hippie guy will get you pregnant and dash your dreams of Carnegie Hall.”
“Reenie, you sound like my mother! I don’t sleep with him.”
“Eventually you’ll have to. He’ll force himself on you.”
“Oh, he will not!”
“You’re so naïve, Joanne. Haven’t you read Peyton Place? Guys have to make love, while it doesn’t much matter to girls one way or the other.” Rena always spoke with authority about sex, when in fact she had no more experience than I. “I was crazy to go in that house with you. It’s lucky we weren’t both raped.”
“Cripes, Rena. I can’t believe how paranoid you’re acting.”
“What a waste. I could have been memorizing my lines.”
“All six of them?” I asked.
We rode in silence the rest of the way.
The next Thursday, when I called at the house on Beach Street, Byron answered the door and told me Martin wasn’t there. The following Thursday, no one answered my knock. The third week I didn’t get off the trolley. I had lost my nerve.
My Beautiful Hippie Page 7