My Beautiful Hippie

by Janet Nichols Lynch

  It was a long lunch period. I scarfed my food in about five minutes, and to keep from feeling self-conscious about sitting alone, I did my chemistry homework. After school, I didn’t wait for Rena and started home alone. There’s a saying that the women of San Francisco have the most shapely legs in the world, and as I angrily puffed up the big hill on Haight, my calves were burning!

  I heard Rena behind me, shouting, “Joanne! Wait!” When she caught up, she said breathlessly, “Don’t be mad.”

  “You can sit with whoever you want at lunch.”

  “But you’re mad, even though I saved a spot for you. Lisa isn’t even going steady with Kent anymore. She has a new boyfriend from St. Ignatius.”

  “I don’t care who Lisa dates.”

  “She’s changed! She wears bell-bottoms and love beads.”

  “I don’t care what she wears.”

  “I don’t get you, Joanne. Sitting alone is social suicide. I can’t stand it.”

  “I don’t like the in-crowd kids. I’m not going to let them hurt my feelings anymore. What’s so bad about that?”

  “You’ve changed, Jo. Ever since you started hanging around with that hippie.”

  “His name is Martin, and this has nothing to do with him.” It did, though. The way Martin built me up gave me the power to shun the in crowd. “You’ve changed, too, Rena.”

  “How?” she asked defensively.

  I lifted a shoulder and let it drop. It would be too painful to go into it. For one thing, I didn’t seem to matter to her anymore. All she talked about was herself and the theater. It had built her up in different way, giving her the power to claim a place in the in crowd.

  When I didn’t answer, Rena said, “Lisa’s not so bad.”

  Maybe she wasn’t. I let that drop, too.

  Our friendship survived, but it wasn’t the same, I felt, and Rena must’ve felt it, too. Sometimes I had lunch with the orchestra kids, but more often I ate alone. I realized if I did my homework during lunch, I’d have more time to practice at home.

  One day I looked up from my history book to see Lisa standing before me. “I heard you know Gus Abbott. His brother is your boyfriend.”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “Rena says you go there, to the house where Roach lives. Could you take me to meet them sometime?”

  I screwed up my mouth as if I was considering this. “Um, no.”

  “You probably don’t even know them.”

  “Probably not.”

  Lisa stalled, thinking of another tack, while my heart beat fast. She was used to getting what she wanted, and it took effort to resist her. She gazed across the quad and noticed Suyu sweeping her arms apart, lost in the music in her head. “Oh, my God, what is that Oriental freak doing?”

  “That’s Suyu Li. She’s a great pianist.”

  “Well, there isn’t a piano there.” Lisa cupped her mouth and shouted, “Hey, Chop Suyu, stop that weird thing you’re doing. You’re embarrassing the whole school!”

  Suyu looked over at us and put her hands in her lap. Now it was up to me to set things right. I started walking the gauntlet of all the other tables. The nerds, the jocks, the band kids, the Negroes, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Japanese, and Koreans all stared at me as I passed them, and then I was standing before Suyu.

  “Hi, Joanne.”

  “Hi, Suyu. I’m sorry about what Lisa just yelled.”

  “It’s okay. Your friend doesn’t matter to me.”

  “She’s not my friend. She just uses me.”

  “What does that mean, use you?”

  “You know, she only comes around when she wants something.”

  “Friends help each other, right?”

  “Well, yeah.” I felt heat surge up my neck, making my jacket feel too hot. It occurred to me that I only sought out Suyu when I needed help with my piano. At school we traveled in different circles. She took calculus and physics rather than orchestra and choir, and if I ever joined her and her Chinese friends, it would just seem too weird. “Well, anyways, I just want to say sorry for how rude Lisa was.”

  Suyu shrugged. “It’s nothing. She is nothing.”

  Right then Suyu taught me something that had nothing to do with piano. Lisa had power over me only because I gave it to her.

  When Christmas vacation came, I was relieved to forget about school cliques. I got to practice the piano more and to see more of Martin, my two favorite things. I also babysat.

  I never minded babysitting; I liked it. Sitting on the couch with two or three kids watching the same TV programs I did at home, Batman, I Dream of Jeannie, Hogan’s Heroes, Gilligan’s Island, playing an occasional hand of crazy eights or helping to button a dress on a doll—what was hard about that? It was good money, fifty cents an hour. After the kids went to bed I could have whatever food I wanted. There was usually a record collection or some sexy books tucked away in a bookcase, and sometimes there was even a piano.

  New Year’s Eve 1967, I was hired by the Johnsons up on East Yerba Buena. Martin was out of town, traveling as a roadie with Roach, who had a big gig in L.A. that night. After I put the kids to bed, I turned off the TV and turned on KYA to listen to the countdown of the top hundred hits of ‘67, timed so that number one would be aired at midnight. I was excited about finding out how high on the chart Roach’s “Evolution! Revolution!” would rank. Every time a song came on that wasn’t Roach, I cheered, knowing they would be that much higher on the list.

  It was a little before ten o’clock, only at hit number twenty-six, and I had just settled in the easy chair with a handful of Oreos, when I heard Mr. and Mrs. Johnson coming through the back door. I dumped the cookies in my bag, dusted off my lap, and stood to greet them. Mr. Johnson wasn’t feeling well, the old fuddy-duddy, and instead of a whopping four dollars, Mrs. Johnson handed me only two. Two bucks on New Year’s Eve! Didn’t they realize I had turned down three other jobs to sit for them?

  To make matters worse, when Mrs. Johnson drove me home, I found our house lit up and half a dozen cars in our narrow drive, reminding me that my parents were at a dinner dance at a hotel on Union Square, which included a champagne breakfast, and they wouldn’t be returning until morning. They had given Dan permission to “have a few friends over” to celebrate Jimmy Howe’s being home on leave from Vietnam. I just hoped Jimmy hadn’t brought along his ear collection to gross me out and stink up our house.

  Jimmy was a scrawny guy with red hair and freckles. I wouldn’t say he was poor, but he lived with only his mom down on Page Street, where the Victorians were run-down and the front doors opened out onto the sidewalk. His mom supported them by working as a checker at Safeway, when most moms didn’t have jobs. He’d been a year ahead of Dan and Pete in school, so they looked up to him. Jimmy wasn’t much of a student, and right out of high school his mom had gotten him a job stocking shelves at Safeway. A few months after that, he got drafted.

  “Looks like your parents are throwing a big party,” said Mrs. Johnson.

  “My brother. Night, Mrs. Johnson.”

  “Happy New Year, Joanne,” she replied as I got out of the car.

  From the street I could hear Big Brother and the Holding Company on the stereo, Janis Joplin screeching out, “Piece of My Heart.” My plan was to walk straight through the house and up the stairs to my room, so I could lie on my bed, eat my Oreos, and continue listening to the countdown.

  In the kitchen, six girls were crowded around the table, probably to avoid the war talk going on in the living room. They were dipping into a platter of Rice Krispies Treats and washing them down with shots of tequila. I wondered who was going to clean up the vomit.

  The living room was thick with smoke, which my mom would complain about later. She and Dad had quit years ago, when Dad started hacking for about an hour every morning when he got up. They must have known that Dan and a lot of his friends smoked. About four couples were dancing, while a group of guys were arguing loudly about who was going to the Super
Bowl. Dan was sprawled on the sofa, passed out, his mouth gaping open. I knew he had started drinking at noon.

  I kicked his shoe and said, “The life of the party.”

  Sitting next him, Pete said, “He’s just resting. He’ll come to in a while.” From the can he was holding, Pete poured a trickle of beer on Dan’s forehead, and Dan swatted at it, causing uproarious laughter. A girl who was perched on the arm of the sofa slid into Pete’s lap and started making out with him. End of conversation.

  I went upstairs and pushed open my door. Amid the coats and purses that had been piled on Denise’s bed, someone stirred. I thought for an embarrassing instant that I had walked in on a couple making love. But by the bathroom night-light across the hall, I could see that it was just one body, a guy, with Snoopy curled in a ball over his feet.

  He rolled over and looked at me. “Oh, hi, Joanne.”

  “Hi, Jimmy.” The guest of honor. I almost didn’t recognize him. He looked a lot older and even thinner, probably because of all that marching around in rice paddies he did and because C rations didn’t taste that good.

  “I guess this is your room, isn’t it? I came upstairs to take a leak, and this little bed looked so damn inviting.”

  “Like Goldilocks?”

  “Huh? Oh. Yes, ma’am. I’m just so damn tired. Do you mind if I rest here a few more minutes?”

  “I guess not.” I did mind, actually. I switched on the small lamp on my nightstand. “I want to listen to the KYA top hundred countdown.”

  “The what, ma’am? Oh, far out, let’s you and me listen to the countdown.”

  I kicked off my shoes, pushed some coats out of my way, and sat on my bed, propped against the pillows. I turned on my radio and out came “Incense and Peppermints” by the Strawberry Alarm Clock.

  “This is a groovy song.” Jimmy rolled onto his back, closed his eyes, and clasped his hands across his middle—the pose of a dead man in his coffin. It gave me the willies.

  “Can you hear American rock in Vietnam?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Don’t ma’am me, Jimmy. You make me feel like an old lady.”

  “Sorry, it’s my training.”

  The DJ announced, “Number twenty-two, ‘White Rabbit.’” I got excited that Roach had beat the Airplane.

  Jimmy swung his feet to the floor and patted his jacket pocket. “Mind if I smoke?”

  “Naw.”

  I was surprised when he withdrew a joint. He lit it and inhaled. He shook out the match, then looked for a place to put it. I handed him a sand candle, the best I could do for an ashtray. “Do you get high?” he asked.

  “Sometimes.” He offered me the joint and I took a hit. “So how come you’re not downstairs with Dan and those guys showing off your ears?” His eyes got wide and I laughed, partly because of the high. “You know, all those ears you whacked off the VC. Dan says you have a whole collection.”

  “Shit.” He shook his head. “I had one. Won it in a poker game and traded it for a kilo. Gettin’ high is the only way this war is bearable.”

  I giggled. “Isn’t that kinda dangerous? Like, can you shoot straight if you get into a fight?”

  “There are no fights. The truth is, ma’am, we never see old Charlie. Sniper bullets whiz by our heads, yeah. Bouncing Betty springs up on the trail, yeah. No Charlie in sight.”

  I couldn’t stop laughing. “Betty sounds like a fun girl.”

  “No, ma’am, not fun. It’s a mine equipped with a spring, so that it bounces up to midchest before detonating. When guys are blown away like that their buddies go around looking in the bushes for chunks of them to load into the body bag.”

  The laugh I was on got lodged in my throat. Was that the origin of “blown away”? One moment a GI was whole, and the next he was gone? “If you don’t fight, what do you do?”

  “Go on patrol. Search the villages for VC. There are just poor rice farmers, you know, but the villages are nearly empty. Sometimes just a few cows and chickens. Sometimes a few women, children, and old men. We pull the old men out of their huts and beat them up, trying to get them to tell us where the VC are hiding, but they never tell us nothing. You look into them sloped eyes, and you can just see they hate us. They don’t seem to get we’re saving them from the Commies. Then we burn down the village so the VC can’t use it.”

  “Where are the VC?”

  “Hiding in tunnels. Hell, they were dug in long before we got there. And it’s going to get worse before it gets better. The war is spreading to other countries.”

  “It is?”

  “Look.” He set my Beethoven and Bach statuettes side by side. He pointed to Beethoven and said, “This is North Vietnam, where the Commies are.” He tapped Bach. “This is South Vietnam, where we’re trying to keep the Commies from taking over.” He reached over and set Schumann and Chopin next to the other two composers. “Here are the countries Laos and Cambodia, Vietnam’s neighbors to the west. Since South Vietnam is so heavily armed, the VC are cutting through these two countries on the Ho Chi Minh Trail to get to the south. We’re starting to bomb there, too.”

  “How will we win?”

  Jimmy shook his head. “Unless we change the way we’re fighting this thing, I don’t think we will.”

  I fluttered my fingers toward the stairs. “That isn’t what you tell Dan and Pete and those other guys.”

  “Oh, well. I tell the college boys what they want to hear. I’m their war hero only because they want me to be. Hopefully this mess will be over by the time they’re graduated and they’ll never have to serve.”

  “Dan wants to go, real bad.”

  “I know. I hope he doesn’t. Tell him to stay in school, Joni. Keep him safe at home.”

  “I go by Joanne.”

  “Joanne,” he said.

  We fell silent, listening to the radio. Number twenty-one was “Evolution! Revolution!” Not bad, but I wished it were higher. Next came “Never My Love,” by the Association, the kind of song you listen to in the darkness with the one you love. I thought of Martin. Jimmy I didn’t think had anyone.

  When the song was over, he stretched and stood. “It’s been good talking to you, Joanne. I’ve only known you as Dan’s kid sister, but you’re a real nice girl.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I have a favor to ask. Would you write me?”

  “I . . . guess. What about?”

  “Oh, nothing special. What you watched on TV, what your mom cooked for dinner, what’s in bloom in the park. I’d be glad to hear anything about home.”

  “Sure, that’s easy.” He wrote down his address, and we hugged good-bye. “Take care of yourself, Jimmy.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Then he was gone, shuffling down the stairs in the darkness.

  Chapter

  Fifteen

  I held two tickets under Lisa Girardi’s pert, twice-whacked nose. On them was printed FILLMORE AUDITORIUM, FEBRUARY 21, THE PURPLE COCKROACH AND THE GRATEFUL DEAD. Lisa reached for them, and I whisked them behind my back. Her eyes bugged.

  “Are you taking Rena?” Her breath was milky in the cold air as we stood in front of the school just before the first bell.

  “She’s got a rehearsal.” Besides performing in The Crucible, Rena was in rehearsal with another company as the second-to-oldest sister in The Sound of Music. I didn’t know she could sing, but her mother had hired a voice coach. I hardly ever saw Rena out of school now. “Here’s the plan,” I told Lisa. “We’ll say we’re going to the school dance together that night.”

  “Not the Fillmore?”

  “We’ve got to tell our parents something. I have to leave home at six, so that means I’ll have to tell my mom I’m eating at your house.”

  Lisa’s eyes darted around. “I’ll have to ask my mom.”

  “No, dammit. That’s what I’m going to tell my mom. Don’t worry. I won’t be setting foot in your house.”

  “You don’t have to put it like that.” Lisa looked a lot different n
ow, skinny and twitchy. She’d stopped bleaching her hair, and with her wide, dark eyes peering out from behind masses of black hair, she looked like a confused child. Her new boyfriend had lots of money for drugs. Both he and Lisa were speed freaks. When I handed her the tickets, she asked, “Both of them? I thought we were going together.”

  “Nope. I’m going to sneak in with the band.”

  “You mean Roach? You’ll introduce me?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She eased her suede-fringed bag off her shoulder. “How much do I owe you?”

  “They’re comps. Martin gave them to me.”

  “Well, how much do you want me to pay you for them?”

  “Nothing. Just stick with our story, okay?”

  Lisa’s forehead creased. It was hard to stay focused when you were on bennies.

  “I’m coming to your house for dinner, and we’re going to the school dance together. If anybody asks, that’s what you tell them.”

  “Got it.” She gave me a weak smile. “Joanne? I want to give you something in return.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I want to.” She dug around in her purse for a few minutes and then laid in my palm a square of cardboard, smaller than a postage stamp. “Here.”

  It was a blotter, which had absorbed a drop of liquid containing LSD. Not knowing the manufacturer or how potent the dose, I didn’t want it, but how uncool would it be to reject acid from the most popular girl in school? My fingers closed around it, and I dropped it into my book satchel. “Thanks.”

  When I turned to leave, Lisa called after me, “I really do like you, Joanne. I know you don’t think so, but I do.”

  The night of the dance, I went over to Martin’s, where I changed into my jeans and one of his work shirts and tucked my hair under a baseball cap. We rode over to the Fillmore in the van with Roach and all their equipment. Gus was in a foul mood because they were opening for the Dead.

  “Just once I’d like it to be the other way around,” he muttered.

  I was glad about the arrangement because the Fillmore dances lasted until two and I had to leave at eleven, when high school dances ended, and of course I’d rather see the Purple Cockroach perform than the Grateful Dead.