Summer of Love, a Time Travel (10 page)

“Forget
I said it. Believe me, you’re not in any trouble. Please tell me how I can help
you. Is something wrong?”

A
record of you, a record of you
keeps echoing in her ear.
Damn if she knows why, but she decides to trust him. His vibe is still all
right.

“Someone’s
messing around in my backyard. There’s something weird about it. I don’t want
to call the cops.”

He bends
and deftly picks up a large square of something that looks like plastic
sandwich wrap lying on the stoop. He’s been sleeping on sandwich wrap? He
shakes it like a stage magician and the plastic wrap vanishes in his hand.

“I’ll
go look.”

“Don’t
get your head blown off, you hear?”

“How
do I get back there?”

“There’s
an alley right there, next to the building. The garage is out back. The yard is
next to it, but it’s all fenced in and the gate is locked.”

“I’ll
manage.”

He
strides down the alley before she can tell him to stop. She slams the door
shut, hits the deadbolts home, races upstairs to the kitchen, and steps out on
the deck.

She
watches him down below, pushing the gate open. Beautiful. He picked the lock.
She’s not sure which makes her happier: that he’s a narc or a lockpick. He
takes something from his jacket pocket and proceeds to creep along her fence,
north to south, and back again.

Nothing.
The intruder is gone.

“You
see anything?” he calls up to her.

“No.
He—she—it; it’s gone.”

He
stands at the foot of the stairway leading up from the yard to the deck. If
she’d fallen, she could have broken her neck. He gazes up at her, his face as
pale as a peeled potato.

“Lock
the gate,” she says, “and come on up.”

She
steps inside and sits warily at her kitchen table.

In a
moment, he clatters up the stairs, steps inside, and shuts and locks the door
behind him. Polite. A respectful young man, how often do you see that these
days? He takes out an astringent-smelling tissue and swabs his fingers, his
palms, his knuckles, between and around his fingers, underneath his
fingernails, digging at the quick.

“You
jimmied the lock.”

“No,
no, it was open.”

“I
don’t think so.”

He
shrugs. “My name is Chiron Cat’s Eye in Draco and I need a place to stay.”

Ruby
sniffs. Isopropyl alcohol. Is he a needle freak? But folks like that are notoriously
nonchalant about personal cleanliness. “I can’t help you with that, sonny. Like
I told you, I live alone.”

“But
you shelter people. Runaways, and people.”

“No,
you’re mistaken. I don’t. I never have. Oh, maybe a friend now and then. Or a
lover. But I don’t rent rooms. This isn’t a crash pad. And I don’t take in
runaways. Or people.”

“But
you will.”

“
No,
I never
will.
I’m not into communes. I like my privacy. I
need
my
privacy. I’ve worked long and hard to get a place of my own. So you best be on
your way.”

“I
won’t disturb you.”

“You
got that right, you won’t disturb me. Try the Print Mint. People crash on the
floor there. Or Trip Without a Ticket on Cole Street, that’s a Digger pad.”
Ruby thinks again. “Try Huckleberry House or Glide Church or All Saints. Or
just walk down the street. There’s always a party. Someone will take you in.
But you can’t stay here.”

“I’ll
pay you rent. I’ll sleep on the floor. I’m used to sleeping on floors.”

“That’s
a lie.”

“Yeah,
you’re right. I hate sleeping on floors.” He pulls a wad of new-looking dollars
from his jacket pocket and clumsily hands them to her.

“What
are these, marked bills?”

“Straight
from the Treasury.” He chuckles. “I’ll work for you. You need someone to watch
the shop for knickknackers while you’re busy selling. Isn’t that true?”

Only
too true. Knickknackers account for a couple hundred a month flying out the
door. But what would
he
take? She studies him. “Why? Why here? Why me?”

He
smiles, and it’s a lovely smile. A Rich Kid smile with perfect, sparkling white
teeth. He shrugs. “Let’s just say I like your sign. I like your shop and I like
you. You’re different.”

“Uh-huh.”
But different is good in Ruby’s world. Different is what she’s set out to
achieve. “My pa was half Cherokee and half Irish, and my ma was Haitian black
with a splash of Southern cream. I am Ruby A. Maverick, and you may call me
Ruby.”

“You’re
beautiful, Ruby. And you are going to let me stay.”

“Uh-huh.”
She likes flattery as much as anyone, but he’s much too young for her. She’s
old enough to be his mother, she thinks for the hundredth time. Oh hell, she’s
old enough to be
everybody’s
mother. Well, not quite. But what will
people say on the street?

What
will people say.
The thought of gossip makes her smile. Let
them flap their jaws.

“I
must be crazy.”

“You
won’t regret it.”

“We
shall see.” She shakes her finger at him. “Listen up, Chiron Cat’s Eye in
Draco. No dope and no funny stuff in my house or you’re out on your ass. You
rip me off, I’ll get you busted, I swear.”

“No
dope and no funny stuff and I won’t rip you off.”

“We
shall see.” If only she could believe him.

*  
*   *

Ruby
takes Chi into her living room with its hardwood floors and Persian and Navajo
rugs. She shows off her herb and cactus planters, her teak and rosewood
furniture. Her stereo record player and reel-to-reel tape deck are connected to
speakers on both private floors. On the white stucco walls she’s mixed Op Art
and Mondrian prints with framed psychedelic posters from the Fillmore and the
Avalon Ballroom.

“Oh,
I know they’re just posters,” she says. “But one day they’ll disappear.”

Chi
stares with that odd sense of wonder. “Yes, they will. They’ll disappear and
people will only guess what the real thing once looked like.”

Cool.
He appreciates art. That’s a good sign. She finds her glass of wine, offers him
some. He declines, also a good sign. Some young dudes can’t handle the booze.

He
gingerly sits on the couch, and her cats swarm curiously all around him,
sniffing, trilling, rubbing against him the way cats do. A very,
very
good sign, that her little psychic barometers take so readily to him.

“It’s
sad, you know?” she says, settling herself in her rocking chair. “It’s all just
a hustle these days. There’s no quest for freedom anymore. Today was the
Solstice, the first day of summer. A very high holy day to the ancients. The
longest day of the year. And you know what, Chi? I say it’s all a shuck. The
Haight-Ashbury has up and died. The love is gone.”

“No!
Don’t say that, Ruby. The Haight’s not dead.”

“You
don’t know how it used to be. You could walk down the street, and someone,
anyone, would come right up and put his arms around you, and he wouldn’t be
trying to hustle you. He’d just be there, loving you. He really would. People
believed in freedom. Believed in love. There was joy.” She wants to cry or
scream, it’s so damn sad.

“Then
it’s up to you and me, Ruby, to keep the Summer of Love alive,” Chi declares.

“You
can sleep on the couch.” She strides off to find him a pillow, some blankets.

After
she settles him in, she climbs upstairs to third floor, taking her glass of Chablis.
She washes up, changes into a night gown, then collapses on her big double
featherbed, but she’s not alone for long. Her cats nestle around her.

Could
it be true? That a guy his age still believes in the New Explanation? The
vision she and her friends once believed in and built their lives around,
before things got so crazy in 1967?

Is
Chi for real?

*  
*   *

Ruby
wakes, smiling for a change. There were times, after Stan left, when she didn’t
want to face the day. Cold dawns when she lingered under the covers, curled up
like a baby.

But
not this morning. She is up ‘n’ at ‘em, in spite of the chilly fog. And she
realizes: It’s good to have someone in the house. For the first time in a long
time, she isn’t all alone.

Ruby
wraps herself in an embroidered silk robe and drifts downstairs.

Before
she heads for the kitchen to brew coffee, she peeks in at him. His boots are
neatly stashed beneath a chair hung with his posh leather jacket. Chi himself
lies on the couch beneath the blankets, very still. He smiles. Since Ruby
climbed out of bed, the cats have discovered him and taken him over, crouching
on his chest, perching on his thighs, grooming each other between his ankles.

“Morning,
Chi. Hope you like cats.” Ruby laughs. “They certainly seem to like you.”

“Oh,
we like cats,” he says. “Schrodinger’s Cat is a fundamental of probability
physics.”

We.
His
distinction of himself and his people from her is unmistakable. Plus this
probability stuff again. She doesn’t like it.

She
perches on the rocking chair. “Look here, sonny. Let’s get this straight. Files
and records. Things you think you know about me or someone like me. I got
hassled by the heat once, but I’ve never been arrested. I’m not somebody
famous. So tell me true. What exactly do you mean you’ve got a record of me?”

“Well,”
he says slowly, “there are journalists and reporters observing the scene,
right?”

“I’ll
say.”

“Okay.
So someone’s seen your shop and you, and mentioned you in an article that’s
preserved in the Archives.”

“Really?”
She doesn’t want to feel flattered, but she can feel pleasure rush to her face.

“Really,”
he says, smiling. “That’s all.”

“What
article? Where, show it to me.”

“I
don’t have hardcopy with me. It’s stored electronically.”

“You
mean like microfiche in the library?”

“Exactly!
I saw the article in the Archives—that’s an electronic library. That’s how I
know about the files. And about you.”

He
sounds too triumphant, like his lie is working out better than he hoped. He
makes it sound so innocent and plausible, Ruby is instantly suspicious. But his
explanation will have to do. For now.

“Chiron,”
she muses. “That’s the dude with the body of a horse and torso of a man.”

“The
centaur, very good. You know mythology?”

“In
my business, I know all sorts of things. And you?”

“In
my business, I know all sorts of things, too.” But his smile abruptly
disappears. He frowns, sits bolt upright. The cats scatter.

He
flings back the blankets, pulls up the leg of his jeans. There, on his skin
above the edge of expensive-looking socks, are four nasty red splotches.

“Damn
those fleas.” Ruby is embarrassed. “They’re impossible to get rid of,
especially in summer.”

“
Fleas!
”

“I’ll
get you some calamine lotion.” She dashes to the half-bath off the kitchen,
hurries back with the lotion. “I comb the catties every day and bathe them,
too, once a month. But that’s California for you. It never freezes, so the
fleas never quite go away.”

“
Fleas.
”
He scratches his ankle. “Did you know that neuvo-typhosa is transmitted by
fleas interchangeably parasitical on dogs and human beings? Ten million people
died in Asia last year.”

“Ten
million people!” And she prides herself on keeping up with the news. “No, I
didn’t know that. Imagine how the cats feel about it.”

He
fusses and fumes, scrambles for his jacket, takes out another of his astringent
tissues and scrubs at the flea bites till his skin bleeds. With a motion so
swift she has trouble following his hands, he whips off one of his necklaces,
detaches a turquoise bead, and reattaches the remaining beads. He crushes the
bead between his thumb and forefinger and sprinkles bright turquoise powder on
the bites.

She
watches, eyebrows raised. “Take it easy, sonny. A couple of flea bites won’t
kill you.”

“I
don’t know that!” he says with a look approaching panic.

Ruby
tries to help, hovering over him, thick pink lotion dripping from her
fingertips. His skin is pure white, almost luminous, like he’s lived under a
rock his whole life. The calf of his leg swells with masculine muscles, but his
skin is as smooth and hairless as the cheek of a baby girl. She can see his
veins, pulsing blue.

He
waves away her calamine lotion, extracts from another pocket a little clear
square. More of his magic plastic wrap? He lays the square over the bites. It
adheres, vanishing on his skin. He attends to himself with an air of expertise.

“Sweet
Isis,” Ruby mutters. His quick motions and the streetwise medical
self-administration are unpleasantly suggestive. “Listen, Chi, tell me true.
You’re not a junkie, are you?”