Summer of Love, a Time Travel (2 page)

“Beam
me up!” cries a skinny girl in a cowboy hat.

“Om
mani padme hum,” chants a shaved-bald boy in a long, orange robe.

“Purple
haze,” warbles a guy with a big blond ‘fro.

A
transistor radio blares, “If you’re going to San Francisco. . . .”

A
flag flaps above her, a tie-dyed bed-sheet stapled to a stick. Must be twenty
kids jammed onto the flatbed. A scent-fest all their own: patchouli oil, sour
sweat, musty second-hand velvet, sexy leather.

Grass?
Sharp smoke pinches Susan’s nose. She knows that pinch. Last spring she and
Nance caught Nance’s big brother with some. Dave wouldn’t give them a hit, but
Nance’s cousin Don turned them on to a joint, which they toked, coughing and
choking, to
Rubber
Soul
. It was okay, not great. Same for the
music. That stuff about a guy threatening to kill a girl if she sees another
guy. Gross. She barely got a buzz, but Mom and Daddy would turn forty shades of
pale if they found out.

Susan
looks around. Who’s got a joint?

Some
kids are making music, ringing cowbells, clinging finger cymbals, warbling on a
flute, strumming awkward chords on an acoustic guitar. Someone sick off the
starboard bow, Captain Kirk.

Susan
clutches the leather purse her parents had given her for Christmas and a blue
canvas overnight bag. Teddy bear comforts, familiar and safe. The purse holds a
hundred-and-fifty bucks, the overnight bag another hundred-twenty and change. Her
under-the-table wages earned after school at Mr. G’s art supply store. Plus the
hundred-dollar bill for when Mr. G pressed his hand on her tummy, down low,
asking if she’d gotten her first period yet. The worst of it was, she just had.

Wouldn’t
Daddy, with his groovy new dentist’s office, flip his lid if he found out a
dirty old shopkeeper had felt up his daughter. Well. That was just one more
thing Daddy would never find out. He’d make things worse for her than for Mr.
G. She would be equally to blame, if not more so. She always was.

The
driver of the flatbed truck slammed on the brakes just as she’d stepped off the
6 Parnassus bus running a red-eye down Market Street. He called out, “Hey, you.
Chick with the bag. What’s your name?”

Susan
shivered, terrified and thrilled.
What’s her name?
She was ready with
the alias Nance had scrawled on the postcard. Clever Nance. When they were
little kids, they always wished on the first star of the evening. Like Jiminy
Cricket in
Pinocchio
.

“I’m
Starbright,” she called back.

“Far
out,” the driver said. “Climb aboard, Starbright. You’re either on the bus or
off the bus.”

On
the bus, off the bus? She didn’t understand, but she climbed aboard anyway with
an unruly, chortling horde barreling through the dawn like there’s no tomorrow.

“Baby,
we’re gonna see the sun rise.”

“Celebrate
the Solstice.”

“It’s
the start of summer, man.”

Now
they crest Twin Peaks, top of the town. The truck sputters off, and the kids all
pile out. Bongo drums quicken Susan’s pulse. Plum incense spices the scent of
sea dragons. People everywhere; so many! There must be a thousand or more milling
in the morning mist.

Susan’s
never seen anything like it!

Oh,
she and Nance used to sneak away to Coventry Street where the boys slicked down
their Beatle bangs and the girls in miniskirts showed off their hot pink tights.
Cool for Cleveland.

But
these people! Who
are
they?

People
stranger than the space aliens on
Star Trek
. The Lone Ranger stalks past
in a fringed jacket and a Stetson hat. Another man fusses with his jewelry. Not
the cuff links, tie tack, and plain gold wedding band Daddy wears. This man—a
man!—is bedecked in beads, dangling earrings, silver rings on every finger. A
banshee brushes by. No hair-spray for her, no mod-white lipstick. Omigod—and no
undergarments, either, beneath her silky sheer dress. Susan lowers her eyes;
nipples, a crotch. Other women climb the hill in buckskin shifts or Hindu
saris, feathered headdresses, gypsy scarves of red and purple.

Other
people stride through the crowd, too. Guys in mod suits balance hulking,
long-snouted movie cameras on their shoulders, jot notes on clipboards, whisper
into microphones with looping wires plugged into reel-to-reel recorders the
size of Susan’s overnight bag.

The
fringed and feathered folk ignore the cameramen with regal disdain or pose with
extravagant gestures.

An
electronic eye whirls into Susan’s face. “We’re from Hollywood, babe,” says a
guy with fluffy sideburns from ears to chin. “I’m a producer, we’re making a
flick. You wanna take off your top? Come on, let’s see some titties.”

Gross!
Susan is stunned. He’s looking at her--at
her
--like
she’s
a space
alien, too, and she’ll be watching herself on
Star Trek
reruns on TV tonight.
She hides her face with her hand. The enormity of her daring escape strikes her
for the first time—
what if Mom and Daddy see me on TV?

Her
breath catches, and she darts away from the cameras, away from the crowd,
seeking refuge in the shadows west of Twin Peaks. When she’s alone at last, she
stops, heart thudding, and glances down the hillside.

A girl
in a long, black cape stands downslope in the dim dawn light and swirling fog. Over
her head she’s drawn a large peaked hood, hiding her face and her hair.

The
moment Susan sees her, the girl stirs, turns, and looks up at her. In another
heart-thud, Susan sees it’s like looking in a mirror.

Suddenly
she’s awake, and there’s no mistake. It’s
her
. Her own face looks back at
her from beneath the hood.

The
girl smiles, teeth glinting, but it’s all wrong. Little upside-down triangles
glitter beneath her lip. Her eyes glow like red-hot coals, but a freezing
breeze blows upslope. Her cape billows, sweeping curves and sharp points like
the wings of a bat. A blackness deeper than the receding night forms an aureole
around her, as though she stands in the mouth of a cave in the hillside.

But
no, not a cave. Gleaming panels surround the girl like the hull of a machine,
pulse into view for a moment, then fade away. Weird electricity crackles, black
sparks sputter.

The
girl with her face holds a rod or a staff in her left hand. She slowly raises
it and points the knob on top at Susan.

Bitter
cold surrounds Susan. An odd force like invisible fingers pulls at her.

Pulling
her forward.

Pulling
her down.

Confused,
Susan takes a step, and the hillside falls away beneath her feet.

Oh! She
scrambles for a foothold, clawing at the dirt. Her purse bangs against her
thigh. Through sheer luck, the strap of the overnight bag snags on a sapling
tough enough to hold her. She digs in her heels, halting her fall before the
hillside angles away to nothing. Scratches, scrabbles up the slope, pure fear
propelling her. She hoists herself back onto the ledge.

The
girl watches, then steps back into the fog.

And
disappears.

God!
What was that?

Susan
gathers up her purse and bag, and runs, mouth dry and hands shaking.

Upslope,
to the dawn side, where people are gathering and chanting and laughing. Pink sunbeams
filter through the fog as the solar fireball edges up over the forests on the
eastern hills. People shriek and sigh as if they’ve never seen the sun rise
before. Cameras click and whir. A firework rocket arcs up, and flares form red
and white blossoms of light.

“Hare
Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare.”

“Oooom.”

“Wheeee!”

“Hey,
Charlie,” someone says. “Do it, Charlie.”

A mustachioed
man stands before the crowd like a makeshift priest, sporting a necklace of
chicken leg bones strung with a carved wood ankh. He beckons toward the sun and
proclaims in a voice thick with wonder and joy,

“Let
the Summer of Love begin!”

Weather Report

This
Summer, the youth of the world are making a holy pilgrimage to our city to
affirm and celebrate a new spiritual dawn. The Summer of Love is a family and a
seed-bearer.

We
carry to you this message:

Our
nation’s youth who have given birth to the Haight-Ashbury are but a small part
of a worldwide spiritual awakening. Our city has become the momentary focus of
this awakening. The reasons for this do not matter. It is a gift from God which
we take, nourish, and treasure.

The
facts are these: many thousands of young people, our children, our brothers,
and our sisters will soon arrive in this city.

They
seek
meaning
.

There
will be great celebrations all Summer long, celebrations which affirm the
universal values of Love, Peace, and Self-Knowledge.

We
call upon the world to help us celebrate the infinite holiness of Life.

“Proclamation of the
Council for a Summer of Love,”

The San Francisco
Oracle
,
Vol. 1, No. 8 (June, 1967)

“Say
hey, Professor Zoom. Check it out. Flower children,” the man says. A brash
baritone, a smoker’s throat.

His
voice slides into Susan’s uneasy dreams. She’s falling, grasping, trying to
hold on. Onto what? Her eyes pop open, then flutter shut against the sunlight.
She peeks through purple lashes.

“Seek
and ye shall find, Stan the Man,” says Professor Zoom. A somnolent chuckle, a
flat affect like Jack Webb on
Dragnet
. Just the facts, ma’am. “You
always do. The roving eye, et cetera. A jug of juice, a wad of bread, and sweet
pretty pussy.”

Laughter.
Men, not boys.

Voices
shout nearby, “Turn on the world!” Susan peeks again. A huge canvas balloon
painted like the Earth bounces high against the thin blue sky, landing and
rebounding onto people’s outstretched hands.

“Rise
and shine, wild things,” says Stan the Man. Mock daddy scold. He notices her
stirring, apparently. “Say hey, foxy lady awakes.”

“Sweet
pretty pussy in droves and droves.” Professor Zoom drifts away, chuckling like
the pull of a saw through wood. Muttering, “Verily, in droves and droves.”

Noon;
is it really noon? Must be.
The solstice sun rides high in the sky.
Susan nestles on the flatbed truck against the girl in the cowboy hat, the
shaved-bald boy, and another girl she’s never seen before curled up in a
poncho, her face buried in yellow wool. Strangers several baths short of clean.
When did she fall asleep? She can’t remember. The other kids snore on, heedless
of the flatbed’s rock-hard floor.

Susan
sits up, shivering, and checks her purse and overnight bag at once, the inside
pockets where she hid her cash. Her spine and ribs ache worse than three summers
ago when she and Nance camped out in her backyard and saw a great, glossy
raccoon prying the lid off their can of Cheerios.

A
great, glossy man bends over the flatbed, backlit by the sun’s glare. A
mountain man, chiseled and fierce. His proud chin declines a beard. His creamy
suede shirt is unbuttoned to his chest, his jeans slung low on lean hips.

“Well,
hello, flower child. The Celebration of the Summer Solstice awaits you.” He
sweeps his hand over the meadow as if granting it to her. His gray eyes flicker
all over her, sizing her up. His smile is dazzling.

Before
she can catch her breath, he turns and strides away.

Foxy
lady? Flower child?

Susan
climbs off the flatbed, crouches, wipes dust from a bumper, and peers at her
reflection distorted in the curve of chrome. Her hair is a fright-wig, her pale
face unwashed. She slaps some color in her cheeks, bites her lips. Gross.

She
can practically hear her mother clucking her tongue. Even in the best of
circumstances, nothing about Susan is ever right. Nothing is ever good enough.
That cold disapproval mixed with. . . .what? Some terrible, nameless thing her
mother holds against her, no matter how hard she tries.