by Randy Mixter
“I agree with Sarah,” Alex replied. “I am just a visitor here and, while I admire many aspects of your culture, I am not behind protests or confrontations. Too many men my age have given their lives for me to taint their memory by saying they are doing wrong.”
He too stood up, standing next to Sarah.
“My father risked his life in a war so we would have peace. The men of Vietnam are doing the same. They never asked to be there, but they fight nonetheless, not because they want to, but because they need to. They have the courage of their convictions.”
“If you want to end the war, if you want peace on earth, then, by all means, shout it out. Spread the word of peace, but do it in a way that honors those who fight for it.”
“You once stood for a world free of violence. Do it again.”
Alex looked around the room. All eyes were on him.
“I will not criticize your beliefs. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but you might want to consider a career change. I’d suggest opening a pillow shop.”
Alex took Sarah’s hand. “Have a nice day,” he said, noticing that the couple in the back of the room was again ignoring him.
They walked out of the room of incense and candles and into the brightness of the day. Once on the sidewalk, both stopped and looked out on a busy Haight Street.
“The world somehow feels so new and full of promise.” Sarah said as she deeply breathed in a light wind still fresh from the bay.
She took the crown of flowers out of her hair and tweaked a white bud, near the point of blossom, from it.
She handed it to him. “You’ve earned this.”
“And this,” she said, as she gave Alex the type of kiss he once rarely received during the hours of daylight.
OF THE PAST
“I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn in there,” Sarah said as they walked back to the house. “I get defensive pretty quickly. It’s a throwback to the past year or so.”
“You never told me what happened back then.” Alex said.
Sarah began walking slower.
“Nothing to tell really. I tried to organize some peace movements, just to get things rolling. It started off well. People were interested in what I had to say. We had some rallies, some parades.” She stopped on the sidewalk and gathered her thoughts.
“I know you’ve heard it before, but those were the glory days of Haight-Ashbury. There were no talks of protests, confrontations, or riots. We had peaceful demonstrations. We didn’t go after the soldiers who fought the war. We went after the politicians who put them there.”
“Things went south when it was determined by a few of the elder statesmen, Nathan Barlow included, that I was too young and inexperienced to shepherd so many into a new world order. I was, for all intents and purposes, given my walking papers.”
Sarah took his hand and they continued down Haight Street.
“Many still wanted me to stay. Some begged me to persevere, but I lost interest, not in the cause but in the process. I became an outsider looking in. I saw the movement slip from a unified cause to one of many factions, each with their own ideas of leadership. I saw my dream of peace collapse under the weight of arrogance.”
Sarah was leading him by the hand away from Haight Street, toward the Golden Gate Park. There was a feeling of revelations in the air. He suspected a secret or two might soon be revealed. He followed her into the park.
“I never suspected I would become a pawn in a power struggle.”
They were close to the park. From somewhere in the distance, Alex heard a radio playing ‘Light My Fire’ by The Doors.
“For the longest time I gave myself to selfish pleasures, helping the Diggers and the Free Clinic,” Sarah said, as they drew close to the hill.
“I started dancing to relieve the tension I was feeling at the time. I thought it would be a good outlet for my frustrations.”
She paused long enough for Alex to put his arm around her shoulder. She reached up, took his hand and kissed it.
“I always played the same song when I danced for my parents. It was the song I learned to dance to, and I was afraid to try another. God, they must have hated that song. They never showed it though. Do you want me to hum some of it for you?”
“No need,” he answered. “I’m familiar with the song.”
He expected her to ask how, but she continued talking.
“When I dance for my parents on the hill, I play that song in my head. It gives me a sense of inner peace.”
She kissed his hand again and rubbed it across her cheek.
Sarah turned to face him. “Have I ever told you I love you?”
From the corner of his eye, Alex saw people approaching. They had been discovered.
“No, you never have,” he said, as his heart pounded in his chest.
“I do love you, Alex, more than you’ll ever know. No matter what happens in the days and weeks to come, you must remember that.”
They gathered around her, first a few and then more with each passing minute, until their place on the hill was swarming with men, women, and children.
She looked at Alex in her happy sad way, and then mouthed, “I love you” once again before turning toward her audience.
All of those in attendance seemed mesmerized by Sarah’s words. Some held hands, others closed their eyes, and a few watched her intently, absorbing her every word.
These were her disciples and one day they would go to places near and far to spread the message they heard here today. One day they would tell their children of a girl in a white dress, with flowers in her hair, who told stories of hope in a time of war. Her name was Sarah and this is what she said.
AUGUST
Chick walked cautiously around the chicken, giving it a wide berth. It was not known where it came from, or who brought it into the house. One morning it was just there, prancing about in the foyer.
Cowboy called it Oswald because the chicken had the hesitant walk of his uncle of the same name after a few beers. When brought to his attention that chickens are not male, Cowboy pleaded his case to the house in such an effective manner, including a reenactment of Uncle Oswald under the influence, that all agreed Oswald was an appropriate moniker.
Oswald enjoyed having the run of the house and developed a taste for Jezebel’s cat food. It was a common sight to see both the cat and the chicken eating from the same bowl at the same time. It eventually became the norm at their dinnertime to call the names of both animals and see who came first, the chicken or the cat.
The houseguests realized Oswald was accident-prone during her first week of residence, when she fell victim on a regular basis to Cowboy’s stairway hole.
At least once a day, a houseguest would extract her from the hole where she laid half in and half out. Thankfully, she did not put up much of a fuss while in the opening. Oswald simply sat there awaiting rescue. The chicken’s tendency to chance upon, and get stuck in, the only hole in the house on a daily basis only served to confirm Cowboy’s name choice.
“My Uncle Oswald would sometimes do the same thing in his farm’s outhouse,” Cowboy proudly said.
Chick, however, did not trust the animal.
“It could be a plant by the feds,” he whispered to anyone who would listen. “Did anyone bother to check under its feathers for listening devices?”
A wiretapped chicken was the least of Chick’s problems during the first two weeks in August.
The month had barely begun when Belladonna broke the news to him that she was pregnant. Chick was certain she was mistaken and maybe just severely constipated, until Belladonna reminded him that they had indulged in unprotected sex on a regular basis for well over four months.
Despite all the evidence, Chick was still determined to place blame elsewhere. Cowboy, Skip, Benny, and Sandman were made to swear, under the threat of marijuana restrictions; they had no part in the shaping of Belladonna’s current predicament.
Belladonna, for her part, could not
have been happier. After she was certain of her condition, she made the announcement at the dinner table. Everyone, with the possible exception of Chick, seemed delighted by the news. The girls hugged Belladonna and the guys slapped Chick’s back and shook his hand.
After dinner, the women of the house escorted her into the box filled tranquility room where the conversation revolved around children and families.
The men, on the other hand, did not broach Chick on the subject as they lounged on the front porch. He was throwing off bad vibes about the whole soon-to-be-father experience and, despite their vows; he still did not trust his friends as far as sex was concerned.
Chick took a long pull from his hand rolled reefer. “Cowboy, I swear if that baby comes out either wearing a hat or limping, I’m going to track you down. Same goes for you Sandman, if it sleeps a lot.”
Sandman immediately spoke up. “Not fair, Chick,” he protested. “Babies sleep all the time.”
“He’s got a point, Chick,” Benny broke in, while puffing on his own smoke. “Babies do sleep all the time. It would be unfair to say it’s Sandman’s baby just because it sleeps frequently.”
“Here’s an idea,” Chick said, while rubbing his temples. “Why don’t you all just shut up and leave me be.”
Around the same time in the month, Matt and Celeste began sharing a bed. Celeste, with Matt’s help, hung a sheet from the ceiling, of the couples’ bedroom, to the floor, sectioning off part of the room. Upon assuring their privacy, they made it official by picking up a used twin mattress from the Digger’s free store.
They would admit later that carrying it from the store to the house was a major embarrassment. The young people of the community, for the most part, doled out words of encouragement as they passed. The mattress, however, had the opposite effect on the older residents of the area. After several verbal admonishments on the protocols of public decorum, they both felt the early signs of guilt.
“I don’t know about you,” Matt said to Celeste as they neared their house, “but I feel a bit ashamed.”
“So do I,” Celeste replied, and then giggled in a way that always turned Matt on.
“Maybe we should try it now, in case it’s defective and needs to be returned,” he said.
“What if we did that, here on the sidewalk, in front of your friends and neighbors, and it turned out you were the one who was defective and needed to be returned,” she responded.
“Good point,” Matt said, as he hoisted the cumbersome thing across his back, in preparation of the trek up the front steps.
As the month progressed, Skip and Benny thought the time was right to demonstrate to Alex the fine art of thumbing a ride.
“It’s not as easy as it looks,” Skip told Alex, as the three walked toward Haight Street in the late morning of the third week of August.
“Yeah,” Benny added. “There’s a trick to it.”
“Does it have to do with the positioning of the thumb?” Alex wondered.
“I’m not saying yes, and I’m not saying no,” Benny replied. “You’ll have to wait until we get there.”
“Can I ask where we’re thumbing to?” Alex said as they turned the corner on to Haight Street.
“We haven’t decided yet,” Skip said without the slightest hesitation.
They reached Haight Street during the lunch hour. The vehicle traffic was heavy and moving slowly.
“Wherever we go,” Alex said, “I need to be back by dinner time.”
“We are always back by dinner time,” the two said in one voice.
“The first thing you want to do is borrow a girl for a couple of minutes.” Benny said while looking at Skip.
“That’s my job,” Skip said proudly. “Be right back.”
It did not take long for Skip to return with a young, dazed looking, girl in tow.
“Now comes the tricky part,” Benny acknowledged as he walked up to the girl.
“I need you to sit on the curb with your head in your hands and pretend like you’re crying.”
“Okay,” the girl said and moved to the curb.
“I gave her some change,” Benny said to Alex when he saw his inquisitive look.
“Here’s our story,” Skip said as he gathered Alex and Benny around him.
“We went to the zoo earlier and my girlfriend left her purse somewhere between the monkey cage and the reptile house. She is much too upset to look for it herself, so the three of us are going to retrieve it. What do you think?”
Benny took to the lie immediately. “We haven’t done that one in a while. Let’s go.”
“Wait a second,” Alex said. “That might get us there, but we still need to thumb back.”
Skip and Benny looked at Alex as if he were a child.
“We don’t thumb back,” Skip said in a rather condescending voice. “We ask the driver to wait for us.”
“Hold on a minute.” Alex shook his head. His thoughts were becoming muddled. It did not help that the girl was already sitting on the curb, head in hand, bawling like a baby.
“Sometimes they even help us look,” Benny said before Alex could get another word out.
“Of course we separate, so Skip and I can groove on the animals.”
“I think I’m going to pass,” Alex said. “But thanks for the thumbing tips anyway.”
“Your loss,” Benny answered as they hit the street. “See you at the dinner table.”
Alex walked by the girl, then stopped and returned to her. He bent down and tapped her on the shoulder. When she looked up, he gave her a ten-dollar bill from his pocket.
“You have a promising career as an actress, if you choose it,” he said to her.
She smiled brightly and thanked him before her head went again between her hands and the sobbing continued.
Sandman and Cactus Girl decided to tie the knot. Sandman freely admitted to anyone within hearing distance that he had fallen in love with Cactus Girl and her two daughters, Aisha and Blossom. More importantly, the girls loved Sandman. He took them to the playground at the Golden Gate Park every afternoon after they had finished their home studies. On bad weather days, he would play games with them inside the house, the most popular being ’chase and try to catch Oswald’.
He loved them so much that he told Chick one evening, toward the end of August, he was no longer doing drugs, though he might join Alex and Matt for a beer or two on occasion.
The news did not particularly surprise Chick. He had heard the same words earlier in the month from Belladonna when she realized her pregnancy.
The wedding ceremony took place in the park at the base of Hippie Hill on the last Sunday in August.
A priest was recruited from a church on Stanyan Street. Chick agreed to be best man and wore his best billowy shirt, patched jeans, and sandals to the event. Sarah was a bridesmaid, dressed in white of course.
Alex winked at her as she escorted the bride-to-be through the houseguests and friends who lined each side of the grassy path.
Aisha and Blossom led the procession, flinging rose petals from the baskets in their hands.
A musician, who knew both Chick and Sandman, played a flute in the background as the priest performed the vows. Those standing close enough heard the soon to be husband and wife say their birth names during the ‘I do’s’. It was the way we both wanted it, they said after the ceremony.
That night Matt and Celeste vacated the couples bedroom and slept separately, in other rooms, in honor of the newlyweds. Someone had written ‘Honeymoon Suite’ on a paper and taped it next to the room’s beaded entrance.
Later, much later in fact, after the entire house had gone to bed, Belladonna moved close to a drowsy Chick. She hugged him tightly beneath the covers.
“That’s what I want,” she whispered in his ear.
On the last day of the month, Chick walked with Alex to the Western Union on Haight Street. It was a Thursday and he needed to send his weekly article to the paper. He also needed to talk to Chick abou
t Sarah.
In the last several days, she had become withdrawn. When he would question her about it, she would shrug him off, saying it was nothing.
Alex knew better. People were leaving the area in droves. Many still listened to her talk in the park each day, but even those numbers were dwindling. Some would speak to her in private, out of his earshot. He suspected they were attempting to persuade her to join them in their exodus.
“I’m afraid of losing her, Chick,” he said after they had entered Haight Street.
“Whenever I mention her coming home with me, she changes the subject or tells me we will talk about it later.”
Chick stopped him gently, with a hand to his arm, the same arm that had healed completely from his brush with a car.
“A friend of mine told me once that it was okay to forget the music as long as you remembered the song. At the time, I thought that made no sense, but I gave those words a safe haven in my mind nonetheless. Then one morning I was walking through the community and it came to me just like that.”
Chick spread his arms wide. “Look around you. This is the music, the beauty of a summer morning on a crowded street. Some walk by wearing jeans and tie-dyed shirts, others in sport coats and ties, briefcases in hand. A baby cries, a child laughs. It’s music, champ, all these sights and sounds of everyday life. It’s the music of an ordinary day.”
Chick closed his eyes and breathed deeply. When he opened them, he was smiling. “Think of this summer as a record album. You like most of the music, but one song stands out.”
“Take the Beatles album for example. I like all the music on it, but the song I will always remember is A Day in the Life.”
He grasped Alex’s arm. “You will forget this. One day you won’t remember this morning, and a great many things you did here will slip from your memory. That music will be gone forever, but you will remember one song. It’s an easy song to remember. It has a one word title.”
It was difficult to follow Chick’s reasoning at any given time, but this line of thought made a little sense. As he stood, amidst the noise and commotion of the Haight, he knew the music was all about him. In that music, a symphony of the summer of love, one song, above all the others, stayed with him. A melody of such beauty that time held no reign over it.