Summer of Love, a Time Travel (30 page)

“Yes!”

“It’s
trying to touch you.”

More
Chi shuck. He’s weird about touching and not touching. He never touches anyone
or anything if he can help it, not without punching his hand through one of
those weird plastic wraps he calls a prophylak. She’s so used to him flailing
his hand around, she hardly notices anymore. He’s a lot like the stoner mystics
on Haight Street, Chi and his hand thing. When he touches her, he’s usually got
a prophylak on. She gets a kick out of seizing his bare hand and watching him
squirm.

“What
will happen if the demon touches me?”

“The
demon is antimatter,” he said. As if that explained everything.

“So?”

“Well!
The demon is your double in the Other Now. If the demon touches you, it’ll
trigger matter-antimatter annihilation and destroy spacetime as we know it. Destroy
our timeline. Not to mention you and me.”

God!
This revelation both frightened and angered her, like the time she first found
out about the atomic bomb.
She
didn’t make the atomic bomb.
She
didn’t ask to be chased by a demon.

“What
should I do if the demon gets close?” she said, panicking.

“I’ll
counter its energy with the maser. The blue and green beams deflected the
demons’ movements in front of the Psychedelic Shop. But if the demon gets close
enough to touch you, I’ll use the purple beam. I hope I don’t need to use it
but believe me, I won’t think twice.”

“What
will the purple beam do?” As if she knows what he’s talking about.

“Theoretically,
the purple beam will force the demon back into its own reality. Don’t worry
about it, Starbright.”

Theoretically?
Don’t worry about it? His tone was as ominous as when her parents talked about
the arms race and the balance of terror. She shut up about the purple beam.

“Why
me?” she asked at last. The question has haunted her since the night they drove
up to Morning Star Ranch.

“Because
you’re important,” he simply said. “In your Now. And in mine.”

That
was cool. Ruby said the same thing. But Chi didn’t mean it the way Ruby did. In
her Now and in his? But
everyone’s
important somehow, aren’t they? The
question keeps haunting her. Why me?

It’s
hard to know what to believe.

Like
the rumors on this foggy morning.

There’s
a rumor that STP really is Serenity, Tranquility, and Peace and the
Establishment media is just making up scare stories saying STP will drive you
crazy.

There’s
a rumor that brushing your teeth with clover prevents cavities, but no one has
figured out how to get the grass stains off.

There’s
a rumor that the corpse of the dog beaten to death in front of the Psychedelic
Shop was dematerialized by space aliens. There could be some truth to this,
since the legal action committee that was supposed to challenge police
brutality has dematerialized, too.

There’s
a rumor that the Swedish have invented a pill that gives a woman a
morning-after abortion but the FDA won’t let the pill into the United States.

There
are rumors that black people are rioting in the Bronx, Harlem, Miami, Toledo,
Memphis, and Cairo, Illinois. There are rumors that the police are going to use
the riots to kill thousands of black people in the ghettos.

The
riots in Newark, New Jersey and Detroit, Michigan are not rumors, they are
real. Stokely Carmichael says the black people are going to fight to the death.

Charlie,
with his necklace of chicken leg bones and carved wood ankh, strolls up to
Susan and Cyn. “The Haight-Ashbury’s gonna burn tonight, baby. Get off the
street by ten.”

Cowboy,
Leo Gorgon’s pal, jogs by and drops a Communication Company mimeograph into
Susan’s lap. The mimeograph feels thick, as if the paper has fur, and stinks of
chemicals.

Susan
reads:

BROTHERS: AN
IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR YOUR SAFETY AND SURVIVAL

Sorry to bring you down, but this is about
the riots our black brothers have planned for the city tonight. There isn’t
much hope they won’t occur.

We
can expect vast looting, which means that people will be treating all stores as
free stores. Some people will be setting fires, usually after a store has been
emptied. Police and later National Guard and federal troops will come into all
riot areas by the thousands, armed with rifles, machine guns, and tanks. Curfew
means if they see you, they will bust you, and if you run, they will shoot you.

There’s
more, but Susan doesn’t have the heart to read it. She tosses the mimeograph on
the grass. Chi picks it up and tucks it in his pocket.

“Uh-oh,
here comes the Baptist,” says Cyn. She chews her thumbnail, gnawing a strip of
nail free from one side, seizing the strip in her teeth, and pulling it across
her thumb. Cyn’s fingertips are a bloody mess.

Susan
can’t watch. She wishes she could slap Cyn, but she doesn’t know her well
enough. Cyn is moody. One minute she’ll be talking to you like a normal person,
then the next she’s staring off into space or yelling, getting tearful and
angry about something but you’re not sure what. Cyn would be really beautiful
if she weren’t so dirty and down-and-out. News photographers are forever
stealing snapshots of her white-blond hair, angelic face, big dark eyes. Susan
doesn’t think Cyn will make it back to Texas, but that’s okay. Cyn says her mom
is crazy.

Four
black dudes in leather jackets and bandannas tied around enormous ‘fros stroll
up Oak Street. The Baptist spots Cyn, waves his comrades over. Chi leaps to his
feet, frowning, but they leave Susan alone, acknowledging his claim to her. They
surround Cyn.

“C’mere,
li’l bitch,” the Baptist says. His hands twitch, suggesting the violence in
them. The Baptist forces Cyn behind a tree and shoves her to her knees.

Susan
draws a woman’s face on the sidewalk to go with the eyes. The three dudes stand
around the tree, tense and watchful. She wishes Chi would do something to help
Cyn, but he just stands there, guarding her. She hears the Baptist’s zipper.
There’s nothing she can do.

The
Baptist struts from behind the tree, grinning and zipping up his jeans. He and
his comrades laugh and saunter away.

Cyn
crawls out onto the grass on her hands and knees. She retches and wipes her
mouth on the back of her frail hand.

A
cop car turns the corner at Cole Street.

Cyn
rises. In one swift feral motion, she’s gone.

The
cop car speeds across Oak Street, sliding over to the curb where Susan sits.

“Chi!”
she cries.

He
grabs her box of pastels and her purse, seizes her elbow, and hauls her to her
feet.

They
dart behind the trees and dash through the park. Whatever you do, flower child,
don’t get busted by the Man.

*  
*   *

Susan
sees the van on the other side of the Panhandle. The funky Volkswagen van painted
with blue clouds. Before she can take off with Chi into the park again, the
man’s voice reaches out and hooks her.

“Seek
new life, new civilizations.” Just the facts, ma’am, and a chuckle like the
pull of a saw through wood. “Trixie, hey Trixie, which way, Trixie?”

“My
name is Starbright, Harold.”

“Don’t
call me names.”

“Don’t
call me Trixie.”

“Where
the hell have you been keeping yourself, Starbright?”

Professor
Zoom crooks his elbow around her neck and gives her a nutcracker hug. His eyes
are shiny for a moment. He’s painted circles of black, blue, yellow, and red
around each eye like an archery target. His lank hair extrudes in a deranged
halo. If it’s possible for him to be thinner, he is. Instead of baggy,
grass-stained jeans, he wears tight hip-huggers with flaring bell-bottoms that
emphasize his spidery thighs.

“Hey,
Professor Zoom.” She plants a peck on his sunken cheek. He is, after all, the
first person who ever sensibly discussed death with her. “You look wild. I’ve
missed you.”

“Emotions
are the lowest form of consciousness. Beware the lurching lunatic, the churning
robot gone berserk.”

Susan
leans out of his hug and studies him. “Did you find the Final Expression to
your Equation? Does God equal a hit of blotter?”

He
looks away, wistful. “Alas, anon, I need fuel to stoke the fires of genius. And
the cupboard is bare. We endure difficult times.” He looks at her keenly.
“There’s a serious shortage of acid these days, in case you haven’t noticed.
I’m dropping yellow flats, blue dots, that speed crap. Even psychedelic dreams.
Man, that’s desperation.”

“What
are psychedelic dreams?”

“Mostly
smack, sweet pretty pussy.” His keen look hardens. “Got any acid?”

“No,
I don’t trip anymore. And don’t call me a pussy, Professor Zoom.” Susan cranes
her neck at the van. She doesn’t see Stella or Fawn. A new crowd of
caterpillar-eyed girls poses around the van. They look tougher, dirtier, meaner
than the old crowd, tending more toward leather and chains than velvet and
lace.

“Say
hey, Professor Zoom. Check it out. My foxy lady. It
is
my foxy lady,
isn’t it? My little flower child.”

The
mountain man, oh Stan.

“You’re
looking real fine.” He reaches for her, bends to kiss her.

She
flinches away, like any sensible person should from the edge of a sharp knife.

He
stands there, looking her up and down in his teasing way. If he’s troubled by
her recoil, he gives no sign. But he doesn’t try to reach for her again. He
doesn’t try to kiss her.

She’s
relieved and wounded at the same time. It’s really stupid, but she wishes he
would try to kiss her, anyway.

Kid,
she
can just hear Ruby say,
don’t you take crap from anyone.
She pulls herself
up tall the way Ruby does when she means business.

“I
need to get my hundred dollars back, Stan,” she says, looking straight into his
eyes. Exercising her new view of eyes over the eyes that once mesmerized her.

“Flower
child, I don’t know what you mean.”

“I
mean the hundred dollars I lent you for the dragon’s blood deal.”

He
doesn’t respond to that. Instead he says, “Dirty David said he saw you at that
shyster’s office. He said you were asking about some kind of legal aid. Is that
true, Starbright?” His eyes shine with concern. Or maybe paranoia.

She
wavers before his misdirection, but not for long. “The hundred-dollar bill you
took from me. Did you know that Stovepipe and the Lizard are looking for you?
They told me the dragon’s blood was no good. They told me it was rat poison.
They want their seven grand back, Stan.”

“Are
you in some kind of trouble?” He doesn’t waver, either. His eyes grow hard, his
tone harder. “Or are you turning state’s evidence on me?”

She’s
appalled. He won’t even
listen.
All he cares about is
his
trip.

“I
told them I don’t have any seven grand, but you do,” she persists, refusing to
back down. “Me, I just want my hundred dollars.”

Chi
stands to the side like he usually does. But when Susan walks away and Stan
starts to follow, Chi steps in his path. Not in a biker-bully way, but he steps
deliberately, sternly, proclaiming with an unsmiling face that Stan is not to
follow her. Chi may be skinnier than Stan, but he’s taller. And younger. Much
younger. Scowling, Stan stops.

Susan
catches her breath. Chi, the five-hundred-year-old wonder, guarding her path!

She
sprints to the Double Barrel van and peers in the open back door. Chi steps up
behind her, peering in, too.

Lady
May sits hunched and cross-legged in the van. The glittery pink boa she clips
in her hair flashes in the thin light. She wears the same leather vest over nothing
but her skin and jeans. Stringy cords of muscle entwine the bones of her bare
arms. A leather band is wound around her left arm below her lightning bolt tattoo.
She grips one end in her teeth, the other in her right fist. She pulls the band
so tightly, Susan can see the leather cut into the spare flesh of Lady May’s
arm.

A
girl sits in front of Lady May with her back turned to Susan. Dark spiky hair
cut as short as a boy’s, she also sits cross-legged, her thighs jutting out
like delicate wings. She wears a halter top tied over her bony spine. She is
doing something, fiddling with something, that Lady May watches with ravenous
eyes. The van reeks of struck matches, white Lebanese pollen, and plum incense.

Lady
May looks up and sees Susan and Chi at the door. “Sst!” Bending over, her bare
waist rail-thin, hissing and glittery-eyed with her wild mop of hair, Lady May
reminds Susan of a snake. Like in Rudyard Kipling’s “Riki-Tiki-Tavi.” A
rainbow-scaled cobra with her hood spread, ready to strike.

The
dark-haired girl takes whatever she’s got in her hands, calmly slides it under
the blanket beside her, and blows out the match. She half-turns, and Susan sees
her profile, her lips pursed over the trail of smoke. The curve of her cheek,
her unmistakable pert nose.