Summer of Love, a Time Travel (15 page)

Chi
grits his teeth. He has no intention of being thrown in the laughing academy.
Or getting ripped off by the Man. Gentle scholarly disputes and context mean
nothing, now that he finds himself smack dab in a Hot Dim Spot in the middle of
the Crisis.

Because
the past—his past—is disappearing.

And
the future?

He
shudders to think of the future.

*  
*   *

Chi hikes
down Clayton Street, walking the loop. He’s walked the loop every day for the
past ten days in the peak of the afternoon. He hikes across Clayton, up Haight,
east to Broderick, crosses west to Golden Gate Park, across to and down Stanyan,
and back again.

For ten
long days, he’s searched for the girl in the CBS News holoid.

And
watched for demons.

First
stop? The Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic across the street. Another faded
Victorian house typical of the neighborhood, the front stairs are packed with
people. A queue straggles down the sidewalk.

Chi
checks them out: beaded hipsters, bikers in leather, vacant-eyed teenyboppers,
bums on the nod. And children. So many young women, scarcely more than children
themselves, with their dirty babies.

Chi
stares at the young mothers with disapproval. They’re not even licensed.
President Alexander, who first mandated prequalification of parents and
licensing of children, would not be happy to see this. Not happy at all.

Chi
climbs the stairs into the clinic, taking care not to touch anyone. He slides a
prophylak from his pocket, folds it over the door handle, opens the door, and
drops the prophylak in a waste basket.

Dropping
the prophylak always makes him queasy. What about Tenet Seven of the
Grandmother Principle? What about leaving evidence of a modern technology in
the past?

Well.
This grade of PermaPlast will decompose into vegetable compounds in twenty
years. For now, it looks like nothing more than a wad of petroleum-based
plastic wrap. The SOL Project Directors authorized him to dispose of prophylaks,
when necessary. Still, Chi has learned his lessons only too well. He retrieves the
prophylak, tucks it in his pocket.

He
climbs more stairs inside and confronts a sign:

Chi
has made friends with Dr. Dernberg and Nurse Peggy, Dr. Reddick and Miss
Laurel. They’re necessary acquaintances, whom he keeps as distant as possible. For
one thing, he has no authorization to affect these people. For another, he’s
always embarrassed at the inferior position of women during the Summer of Love,
how women are demeaned in so many ways. Chi is as embarrassed as these people
would have been appalled to witness the whipping of slaves a century ago.

Here,
it’s Dr. Dernberg and Nurse Peggy. Dr. Reddick and Miss Laurel. The Great Men
and the smart girls who do most of the work.

“Hi,
hon,” Miss Laurel says. “Find your cousin yet?” When Chi shakes his head, she
says, “Let me see her picture again.”

Chi
pulls out the blurry print downloaded from the CBS News holoid.

The
clinic staff looks him up and down. He’s still something of a curiosity. When
he first came in, Dr. Reddick exclaimed over his pallor and slender build. The
doctor tried—forcefully—to persuade Chi to submit to a blood test. Chi had
refused, resorting to Ruby’s speculation about him. “I’m a hemophiliac,” he said,
“don’t worry about me.” His explanation seemed to work, even with these
sharp-eyed doctors.

Still,
they stare at him every time he visits.

“Oh,
isn’t she cute!” Miss Laurel exclaims.

Papa
Al and Teddy Bear wander over and peer at the print. Two burly bearded hipsters
in their thirties, they serve as volunteer staff. Every time Chi visits the
clinic, they’re there. Chi has no idea what they do to pay their rent, when
they’re not volunteering. They make his cosmicist giftdays seem like no
sacrifice at all.

Papa
Al and Teddy Bear don’t try to slap hands with Chi anymore. He always refuses.

Touch
nothing, touch no one.
That’s Chi’s mantra. The clinic crawls
with contagion and ailments that don’t exist in his Day: mumps and yellow fever
and hepatitis B. Any of a thousand ancient bacteria harmless to these people
could kill him.

“Nope,
I haven’t seen her,” says Miss Laurel. “How about you guys?”

Papa
Al peers closer. “Not yet, man.”

“We’ll
let you know, kid,” says Teddy Bear.

Miss
Laurel holds out the print. “Sorry, Chi.”

When
Chi doesn’t take the print, Miss Laurel lays it on her desk. He fumbles in his
pocket for another prophylak, wraps that around the print, and tucks the whole
package in his jacket pocket. Miss Laurel watches his performance with bemused
interest. Lucky for Chi everybody’s a little strange during the Summer of Love.

Dr.
Smith waves to Chi from across the room. He’s sniffling and blotchy-faced
today. Founder of the clinic, David Smith is a curly-haired
twenty-eight-year-old with a sensitive mouth and sympathetic eyes. “We think
it’s measles,” he calls to Chi. “I’ve seen twenty cases today, not counting me.
I think we’re working on an epidemic, don’t you, Peg?”

Nurse
Peggy glances up from her desk, red-eyed and puffy-faced. “Whew,” she sniffles.
“All this bad boy takes is a sneeze. We’ll keep an eye out for your cousin,
Chi.”

Chi
clatters back down the stairs, recoiling from people’s faces, their breaths.
Such a ripe and ready contagion—measles! All it takes is a sneeze. His skin
crawls.

Two
girls sitting on the sidewalk outside the clinic pet a dog crouched between
them, pass a joint back and forth, pick at calluses on their bare feet, and
pluck potato chips from a bag, licking salt and grease off their fingers.

Chi’s
stomach turns over. Ignorant! Oblivious! Disgusting! He reminds himself: we had
to shield ourselves from the sky before the radiation vaccine. We had to shield
ourselves because of
them.
Because of what they and their descendants did
to our world.

Chi
studies the people queued up in front of the clinic. No one here remotely
resembles the girl in the CBS News holoid.

Onward.

To
Haight Street, the thumping heart of it all.

The
Archivists classified the Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love as an
authentic, spontaneous, integrative, interactive social setting instigating
random activity outside the private family life of suburban America and focused
on scheduled or impromptu celebratory activities calculated to encourage people
to get a little crazy.

In
other words, a street scene.

Chi
has studied other authentic street scenes in the Archives. Paris during the
Surrealists’ Ball, Rio during Carnival, New Orleans during Mardi Gras, New York
City during Renaissance Day, Beijing during People’s Independence Day, the
Vivas’ Spring of Life Festival after the brown ages were declared over. Authentic
street scenes are romantic to view in holoid, exhilarating to jack into in telespace.

But
the street scene Chi confronts now? In person? It’s a bustling, hustling,
babbling, twittering, tinkling, pounding, stinking lunacy. It’s nothing but
trouble walking down Haight Street.

Why
are all these people here? What do they want?

Chi
passes a sign spray-painted on a shop wall:

A
cacophony assaults his ears: flutes, whistles, tambourines, bongo drums, voices
singing and laughing, bells and finger cymbals chiming, cars honking their
horns. A chopper guns its engine, spewing petroleum fumes. In an upstairs flat,
a party rages. Two guys prop stereo speakers on the window sills and blast
music into the street.

Two
girls in bikini tops and denim cutoffs step onto the narrow fire escape outside
the window and gyrate to the beat. “Turn on,” they shout. “Turn on, tune in,
drop out!”

“I’d
walk a mile for a camel!” someone shouts.

A
procession marches past. Four pallbearers carry a coffin draped in black. They
wear black gowns and papier-mache masks depicting a dog, a ram, a bear, and a
rat. “Hear ye, hear ye, money is dead!” they intone. Three kids in fake beards
follow, banging garbage can lids with drumsticks.

A
man trails behind them in a black cap with mouse ears, a black clown’s nose,
sunglasses with round black lenses, a black leotard and tights, and a long
black cape. In his right hand he carries a wand topped with a skull. In his
left, a large brass bell, which he rings in a somber rhythm.

A
flatbed truck jammed with devotees of some religion Chi can’t identify rolls
slowly down the street. The devotees chant, beat drums, clang finger cymbals.
Two barefoot women dance before the truck as it advances, flinging daisies from
baskets they carry. Chi spies a bright spot of blood on a dancer’s bare toe.

A
girl glides by in a dress so sheer Chi can see her nipples
and
her
crotch. A man in leather pants does a double take, whips around, and follows
her.

The
mouse magician promenades in the opposite direction.

Chi
cranes his neck. Any television cameras? No, just journalists and photographers
today. Too bad.

He
smiles at the astonishing variety of hats and head-gear: bowlers, Stetsons,
Edwardian top hats, military helmets, Greek fishermen’s caps, a Victorian
lady’s bonnet like a bowl of drooping velvet blooms, Moroccan fezzes, a Sioux
headdress worthy of a museum, gypsy scarves, headbands of leather or suede,
fresh flowers woven into garlands and entwined in all that hair.

Where
else has Chi seen such delight in the wearing of headgear? Among his peers, of
course. Bella Venus would adore this. If only she could see the scene for
herself!

And
a sadness strikes Chi as he stands in the crowd, searching the faces. A strange
sense of longing. A sense of the innocence of this celebration, this God Day,
which he knows will pass as swiftly as the summer itself.

Of
course, these times aren’t innocent at all. A wasteful military adventure rages
in Southeast Asia that will come to no good end. Ignorance, fear, prejudice,
and bigotry abound. Women are abused worldwide. The sex and drug practices in
which these people revel will cause problems for years to come, challenging
even the most compassionate.

Still,
he finds himself watching this authentic, spontaneous, integrative, interactive
social setting outside the private residence with a feeling he can only call
sentimental.

And
with frustration. Can he admit it? The festive mood is contagious. He taps his
toe to the music. He longs to swig from a wine bottle and yell the slogan from
his
Now, “Jack up, link in, space out!” He longs to seize a pretty woman and dance
in the street.

No,
no, no. He can’t do it.

A
girl drawing in chalk on the sidewalk abandons her art and moves from her spot
in front of the Psychedelic Shop. Chi claims the spot. He deftly pulls out and
positions a prophylak. His clothes are bacteria-resistant, but he still feels
squeamish about sitting on the filthy concrete without protection. He blows on
the PermaPlast, trying to hasten the damn thing’s descent, which takes its time
floating down. But there are so many strange people doing so many strange
things, no one pays him any attention. He gingerly sits and leans against the
shop front.