Ah, but I had other priorities. I ignored him and headed for the refrigerator.
Gary rushed ahead of me, trying to play the host. “I don’t have much, but you can have some cereal if you want it. I’ve got fresh milk. You like Apple Jacks?”
“I love Apple Jacks,” I said, truthfully. Right then, I would have loved anything. Around food, I was hungry. Very hungry. Walking, I hadn’t been. I stuck that in my memories as another significant change.
I ate the remainder of his Apple Jacks, and drank a half-gallon of milk besides. The crap, little more than sugar and artificial flavoring, tasted like the best food I had ever eaten in my life, dissolving on my tongue in little bursts of sweetness I could feel all the way down to my toes.
I almost cried then, just for the sheer pleasure of eating. Why hadn’t I realized I was so hungry? I had no idea.
I began to appreciate his kindness. He wasn’t my enemy, unless he got in my way. He wasn’t in my tribe. Or was he? Or did it not matter?
I left him, about a half hour later, after polishing off his brand new bag of chips after I finished the Apple Jacks, and a couple of bottles of Coke.
“Hey, don’t split. You can crash here for a while, if you want.” His innocent eyes behind those round glasses filled with concern.
“Thanks. But I need to go.” My mission was to infiltrate the Students for a Democratic Society, also known of as the SDS for no reason I could fathom, and find their leaders. I had no idea what a hippie leader might wear or look like – a crown heisted from a town dump, bedazzled with peace signs perhaps – but this guy wasn’t one.
He paused for a minute. “Suzie, I don’t want to be crowding your space. But, you might want to ease up on the dope. You dig?”
Did I dig? I had no idea if I ‘dug’ or not. He stared at my gaunt face and my hollow eyes, and decided I was addicted to drugs. He wanted to save me from myself.
The idea of this innocent normal trying to tangle with my problems was way too surreal. I had the urge to tell him how big and bad the monkey was on my back, and watch him die of a heart attack on the spot.
So, “I dig,” I said, echoing him, “but I have to go.”
His simple room was off on a side street. I turned from there to a larger street, and, after a couple of blocks, from there to the Haight.
On the Haight, I realized I had entered a different world.
Hell, a different universe.
I thought I understood the world. I had lived for years as a suburban housewife, and then as an Arm, and I had seen sides of life I had never imagined as a child.
However, I had never seen anything like this, even when I hunted down here during my murderous California mayhem spree, during the start of the hippie thing last year. There hadn’t been so many of them a year ago!
I started my trek around lunchtime, or so my nose said. I found men and women everywhere, mostly young, no more than kids. The mod styles I remembered among the young were gone; these kids wore other clothes, now.
The girls wore their hair long and straight and parted in the middle. Some of them held it tied back with simple ties around their heads. Most of them wore no make-up at all. Their clothes were loose and flowing, with blousy sleeves and odd colors. Oddest of all, many of the women wore pants. Actual pants, as if a woman wearing pants was the most normal thing in the world. Their blue jeans often came only halfway up their hips, and flared at the bottom, like pants that were almost trying to be skirts.
As odd as I thought the women, the men were odder. I had grown used to the longer hair, strange as it was to someone who, in a past life, had been married to a Korean War vet. Bobby had worn his hair almost down to his shoulders. However, many of these men carried it to extremes. I had thought Gary was bizarre when I saw him, but he was normal here. Some men wore hair down their backs, as long as a woman’s hair. Impossible. Men with long braided ponytails? Impossible.
Worse, most of the men wore jewelry, beads and peace symbols, and strange designs on their clothes. Many wore long sideburns, or mustaches, or full beards. Strange symbols marked their clothes, and there was a feel to all of them, men and women, that they had paid almost nothing for what they wore. I noticed no elegant edge of designer style, but an almost aggressive poverty, as if they were proud of not having money for good clothes.
I hoped us Transforms weren’t behind this change. We had enough baggage as it was.
I walked down the sidewalks of the street, looking around me in amazement. I saw a woman pass me going the other way in a skirt almost touching the ground. My eyes followed another pair of women in their odd pants, wearing sandals and not even noticing the cold. They smelled of pot, and of other odd smells, incense, other drugs, and strange foods I didn’t recognize.
There were normal people scattered among the hippie children, coming to eat lunch at the cafes, and shop at the strange stores. Some seemed to be here simply as tourists. I saw one man as he looked at me, and then heard him mutter disapprovingly to his wife “Can you imagine what kind of father would let his daughter come to that?”
I lifted his wallet as I passed him. I didn’t appreciate his attitude.
A man sat on a newspaper on the sidewalk, with a guitar, singing about ‘if I had a hammer’. His guitar case lay open at his feet, and sometimes people threw money into it. I did too.
Farther on, I found two men and a woman shouting furiously, and collecting money for some protest against the War. They had covered the nearby wall with posters I couldn’t read. They proclaimed some oriental named Ho Chi Mihn as their hero, and had his face pasted on a bunch of posters. Wasn’t he the political boss of North Viet Nam? Or was that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi?
I dodged around a sidewalk café, busy even in the cold weather. Beyond the café I found a tiny art gallery, with baskets of prints in bright colors set out on the sidewalk. Across the street, a music café was just opening its doors, and putting out placards for some band of longhaired men supposed to be playing there tonight. A guy tried to hassle me, trying to get me to sample some expensive opiate. I got peeved, and my predator turned on. For all I know, he’s still running.
I needed to get to work. I listened to my instincts and waited for omens, and my eyes settled on a small boutique several doors down from the tiny art gallery. I crossed through the slow cars and entered into the boutique.
“Peace,” the woman behind the counter said, in greetings. She was another of the mold, long straight hair, and pants that only came halfway up her hips. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, and her eyes widened when she saw me.
“Peace,” I said back. ‘When in Rome’ and all. “Can you help me pick out some fresh clothes?”
“Oh, sure,” she said, rushing over from behind the counter.
When I left the Haight, I wore a blouse that looked like several scarves all sewn together, hip-hugging bell-bottomed blue jeans, sandals, beads, and a peace sign. My short hair was tied back with a braided cord with beads knotted in, and except for my short hair, I looked like every other nineteen year old flower child in the entire city.
With a final, odd impulse that was half cynicism, and half rejection of everything I was, I bought a flower from a streetside flower stand, and pushed it through the tie that bound my hair. A flower child. Perfect.
At the bus station in central San Francisco, the first bus I found went north. The boutique lady had used the word ‘north’ a lot when I had gently asked about the SDS, and I took this as an omen.
I went north.
---
I drifted. I lifted wallets when I needed money, and did a robbery once or twice. I went where the busses took me. I listened to the wind, and the conversations, and finally realized this SDS thing wasn’t at all common or public. In the process, I became a flower child for real.
I spent my time with the flower children, those young innocents, full of dreams and illusions, and learned their language. They accepted me when I drifted through, and didn’t care when
I drifted out again. I crashed on floors and mooched meals. I smoked pot and took LSD and heroin and speed, none of which affected me at all (save, I think, for about twenty seconds worth of an acid trip that reminded me of my screwy dreams). I spent my days surrounded by their music, and learned to like the Buffalo Springfield, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead and the Doors. I never did learn to like The Who or The Yardbirds – far too pretentious for me. I slept with whoever caught my eye. At night I would sneak into local gyms and do my exercises, cleaning up after myself and sneaking out again, leaving no one the wiser. I didn’t need to do anywhere near as much as in my previous life. Sometimes I would find a park in the darkness and just run and run and run. I loved the cool darkness and the air on my skin, a pleasant change from the cramped sweat of a gym. Running felt right to me, now, as if I had to do a lot of running. I didn’t make much if any progress on my mission. I did spend more time than ever thinking about my former housewife life, and how I would have despised these people. I didn’t despise them now. I had changed.
I hunted when the time came. I put on gloves and stole a car, keeping the vehicle only long enough for the hunt. My kill was a sloppy thing. I didn’t take the extreme care that secrecy required, and the police recognized they had an Arm kill on their hands. By then, I had moved on.
I also became morbid. I spent long silent hours thinking about Bobby. I saw him in so many of these young men. I remembered the little sigh he would give as he bent to my will. I remembered how much he depended on me. I remembered coming to him right after a kill and the hours of rollicking fun we would have in bed while filled with juice and lust. I wondered what he looked like when he died. Had he strangled as he hung there, or had he managed to break his neck with a fall? Who found him? Did they take care of his body?
I also spent time thinking about Chicago. Why did I care so much about a city? I didn’t know, but I did miss the place. I wanted the gray days and the cold filthy snow that collected by the roads as the winter wore on. I wanted the tall buildings and the wind and the pizza and Mayor Daley and the mob. I wanted the cold gray waters of Lake Michigan and the sound of the ships as they came into the docks. I wanted all those crazy confrontations with the Chimeras, though this time, I wanted to win them all.
I wanted all the people that I had left behind, the Tiens, Greg, my two thugs and the mailman and the real estate agent. I wanted Pete Sanchek in my hands, to teach him the meaning of pain.
While high on juice, I thought of the good things I had owned. While low, the demons came out. Memories of the old bad endless pinball chase dreams. The Chimeras and their Monster harems. The leering face of McIntyre as he broke me to his will. The shadow of Focus Biggioni. The unstoppable craving for juice.
I frightened many of those gentle children when I woke up screaming in the night.
My mission got a boost when I drifted into a traveling band of anti-war activists. This group, of four men and one woman, rambled aimlessly from one college campus to another in their Volkswagen Bus, organizing and supporting anti-war groups and protests. I ended up with them through a bedtime encounter with one of the men, Sharky. They called him Sharky for his card-playing skills, and also for his skills in arranging protests. He had about three-quarters of a law degree and was good at manipulating the system. I stayed with them because the bus, all painted in bold colored flowers, asterisks and peace signs, smelled like home to me. No, I had no idea what that meant, but I did wonder who had shot at the back of a simple VW bus once upon a time.
A Vietnam veteran by the name of Red Mitchell, an actual SDS member, led the group. He was the one with the people skills. He talked leaders of small campus organizations into actually taking action. He convinced people to commit to the cause. He convinced people committed to the cause to give more. When Sharky brought me in, he didn’t look happy.
“Do you actually have something useful to contribute, or are you just going to fuck Sharky and take up space?” he said, cold and abrupt.
I didn’t answer. He turned away from the flyers he sorted through and glared at me. His harsh greeting would chase off the timid. He expected his attitude to fluster me.
I just shrugged. “I might.”
“Which, contribute, fuck Sharky, or take up space?”
“All three. Do you have anything I can do?”
“Depends. What can you do?”
I just shrugged again.
Red studied me, matching gazes with me for a long moment. I held his eyes. He nodded.
“You write?”
“Can’t read or write worth shit,” I said.
“Will you work?”
“I’ll work.”
“You’re on.”
I gave my name as Suzie Patterson again, but the group tended to nicknames. In short order, I found myself tagged with the appalling nickname of ‘Killer’. It had started out as ‘Mankiller’, and Sharky had given it to me after sleeping with me, but the group quickly dropped the ‘man’ part and just called me ‘Killer’. It was supposed to be a little bit funny. I was a nineteen-year-old girl. I certainly hadn’t killed anyone.
I didn’t find the nickname funny.
They commented on my muscles. I thought them tiny, no more than those of a top end male gym rat bodybuilder, but on a woman, my muscles were off. I had even acquired a thin layer of fat under my skin. Wearing the proper clothes, I passed as a woman without having to muck up people’s minds. I told them that in my previous materialist-patriarchal lifestyle, before I had joined the true proletariat, I had worked as an exploited female mud wrestler. Allegorically, all true.
Before my rebirth, I would have never considered hanging around with Marxists. Shooting them, sure. Not hanging around with them. Right now, I no longer cared about such issues.
I dyed my hair dark brown two days after leaving San Francisco. I didn’t worry much about disguises beyond that; the wanted posters of me were from the CDC, and as Keaton said, in them I looked like someone ready to punch out Beasts with my bare hands. In any case, no one said anything.
A couple of them did say something about my disappearances, as I went out at night to exercise and to hunt. I stared at them and let the coldness show. They didn’t ask again.
I stayed with them for a couple weeks, attempting to make progress on my mission, not long, though it seemed like forever. I slept with everyone in the group, including once with the woman, Ellie. All the men had been talking about how great I was in bed, and she got curious. She thought I was great in bed as well. I didn’t bother telling them they sucked in bed, normals all.
I worked. I ran mimeograph machines, handed out flyers and pinned signs up on walls. I spied, eavesdropped, and started to put a mental picture together about how the SDS was and wasn’t organized. I also backed up Red when things got touchy. Red said he liked having me standing behind him. He said I should practice my stare, because I made people nervous.
“It’s almost like you’re capable of anything. You look at people like that, and they can’t help thinking, ‘maybe she really would kill me’. Makes people nervous, which can be damned useful. Although,” he said, “I’d appreciate it more if you wouldn’t use it on us.”
I just shrugged.
I enjoyed my time with Red’s group. I did a heck of a job on their group dynamics, though. Before I came, Ellie slept with Red, and everyone else got theirs on the side. When I came, I slept with all of them, my instinctive way of making them mine without having to tag them. After about a week, Ellie started expanding her horizons as well. After I slept with her, she even started to listen to me about my Arm-tinged viewpoint of a woman’s place in the world: on top.
When I came on board, they all assumed I would be junior-most, deferring to the more senior members of the group. Within days, all but Red deferred to me without thinking. I never challenged Red’s authority, but then, I didn’t plan to stay long.
As soon as I picked up their lingo, I couldn’t resist an
d gave a speech. I spoke in front of about a hundred college students, shouting about the evils of war and the promise of student revolts, such as the student revolts going on in Paris as I spoke. My speech got the students cheering and riled up, earning me far more attention than they gave any of the other speakers. After that bad omen, I decided things had gone far enough. Public speaking was a little too out there for the California Spree Killer.
That night, we stayed with friends of Red’s in a local co-op. The members of the co-op gathered round us to talk to us and plan and rant about the war, giving me compliments on the speech and telling me “Right on!” There was food and pot and company.
Eventually, everyone went to bed except Red and me. The lights had dimmed in the common room and the place had turned quiet. Red offered me a joint. I took a toke. I didn’t get anything out of the weed, alas, although smoking pot did make a good excuse for getting the munchies. Yes, I still ate more than a normal, but only about half of what I had eaten in my previous life as an Arm.
“Good speech,” he told me, leaning back in his chair. “You have a real talent for that.”
I nodded, but didn’t say anything.
Red’s voice was lazy. “You remind me of someone. I’ve been trying to think of it ever since you joined us, and it finally came to me.”
“Hmm?”
“You remind me of a guy back when I was in the ‘Nam. Some guy just passing through, but he was with the Green Berets, one of those guys they sent in when they wanted dirty deeds done in the dark. He had this big old knife he used, and he’d go off with his buddies, and some Viet Cong types just wouldn’t wake up in the morning.
“Now why would a nineteen-year-old girl remind me of somebody like that?” He shrugged and took another toke himself.
“You have the same stare he did,” he said. “You look right through a person as if he was a piece of meat. As if you could as easily kill him as talk to him.” He paused. “The stare is damned disconcerting coming from a girl.”
The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Six Page 6