Summer of Love, a Time Travel (35 page)

He
seizes her hand, takes the hammer away, and hurls it on the sidewalk. The
hammer crashes headfirst, gouging out the center of Chi’s carved heart.

“Damn
you, Leo,” she says. But she lets him kiss her, rough and exciting. He smells
of sex and patchouli oil.

She
pulls away. She never wears that scent.

“Ready
for the revolution?” Gorgon grins and hands her a Communication Company
mimeograph.

Ruby
reads:

Within
the black people’s mind, they will be fighting a revolution. If you hamper them
in any way, you will be their enemy. During the riot, the only help they want
from you is your gun.

“You
write this, Leo?” she asks, sweet as poison.

He
nods proudly. “Me an’ Cowboy musta passed out a thousand.”

“Cowboy
gave me one this morning,” Starbright says.

“Got
all this on good authority, did you?” Ruby says to Leo.

“Well.”
He hesitates. “It’s what we heard, anyway.”

“Do
you have any notion what you’re doing?” She finds herself shouting. “You are
starting
rumors!
”

“But
it’s true! The Fillmore’s gonna blow tonight.”

“Says
who?
Who asked
you?
”

“Wow,”
Starbright says, staring at the veve on the sidewalk. “What is
that?
”

Before
Ruby can tell her about Legba and voodoo veves, Papa Al, the burly hipster who
volunteers at the Free Clinic, comes tearing around the corner of Haight and
Clayton. They all turn and stare as Papa Al clatters up the clinic’s stairs,
bursts in the door and bursts back out with four scruffy boys in tow. One boy
wears a cast on his wrist.

“We
need more troops!” Papa Al shouts, hustling the boys before him. The boys
scatter in every direction, footsteps ringing in the empty street. “Go get me more
troops!”

“What’s
happening, Papa Al?” Ruby calls to him.

“I
seen dozens of spades, man! Hundreds of spades with shoppin’ bags full a’
knives!”

“Knives!
Where?”

“Comin’
from the Fillmore, man! Comin’
here!
”

Dr.
David Smith races down the stairs. “Papa Al,” he says reasonably, “those kids
are my patients.”

“We
need more troops,” Papa Al shouts.

“You
think people will get hurt?” Dr. Smith glances anxiously around.

“I
guarantee it. An’ I’m gonna be the dude doin’ some of the hurtin’.” Papa Al
yanks a thirty-eight caliber revolver out of his waistband with one hand, a
Colt forty-five with the other.

He
pushes past Dr. Smith and sprints up the stairs again, waving the guns. In a
flash, he’s out, dragging two young men. Each wields a fire ax. Papa Al
positions them at each side of the door where they stand, wide-eyed and tense,
axes held high like Roman guards in a B movie.

Papa
Al takes a stand halfway up the stairs, brandishing his guns.

Now
Teddy Bear, Papa Al’s sidekick, races around the corner.

“I
seen carloads of spades with machine guns!” he yells. “They’re comin’ at us!”

Ruby
retrieves her hammer and the last of the planks, and hurries inside the shop.
Starbright, Chi, and Gorgon follow. Ruby triple-locks the front door and
hammers two planks, crisscrossed, on the inside. She peers through her
peephole.

The
street is so dark and silent and empty, Ruby finds herself missing the carnival
crowd she used to curse.

Grandmother Says: Lu
(Treading On The Tail Of The Tiger)

The
Image:
The sky above, the lake below. This is the placement of
the elements. When vapor lifts from the lake, however, it rises to the sky and
makes rain.

The
tiger has a temper when he is hungry.

The
Oracle:
One who is humble seeking advancement among the powerful
is permitted to rise when the principle of placement of the elements is
observed. Advance through the accomplishment of worthy goals, righting of
injustices, strength, quality, and perseverance.

Beware,
however, if the lake rises above the sky. Beware if the tiger turns to bite.

Hexagram 10,
The I
Ching
or Book of Changes

Dig
it:

The
underground is buzzing with rumors, only some of which Ruby knows are true. At
the International Congress on the Dialectics of Liberation in London, Stokely
Carmichael announced that color is a state of mind. If black people choose to
act like whitey, he said, they should be shot like any whitey.

Rumor
has it that Jimi Hendrix’s father is black and his mother is full-blooded
Cherokee. Jimi told reporters, “I don’t feel black. I just feel the music.”

Would
Stokely Carmichael shoot Jimi Hendrix? Ruby wonders. Would Stokely Carmichael shoot
her?

The
Black Panthers are exciting and handsome in their berets, leather jackets, and
bandoliers of bullets crisscrossed over their strapping chests. They excite the
white revolutionary boys. The latest fashion statement on Haight Street is
berets, leather jackets, and bandoliers of bullets crisscrossed over strapping
chests.

Who
is telling all these young men to finish school, become doctors and lawyers,
set up businesses, run for political office? Study history? Build up their
community, not tear things down? Martin Luther King. That’s it.

Gorgon
strides out the kitchen door and clatters down the stairs. He says he’s pulling
his truck all the way up Ruby’s driveway, getting off the street. Starbright
huddles on the couch in the living room, surrounded by the cats, and anxiously
studies the Communication Company mimeograph.

“Confusing,
isn’t it?” Ruby says.

The
kid nods.

Ruby
sits next to her. “Don’t be confused. This riot thing? This talk of shooting
whitey, and the revolutionary boys running around, all excited by the prospect
of a street fight? The whole damn thing is a shuck. 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 I’m telling you, it’s a shuck.”

But
Starbright’s big brown eyes brim with fear. Fear and confusion.

Ruby
pats her hand. “This is just the sort of stupidity that the personal revolution
would not abide. Violence and aggression are Establishment games. The
revolutionaries will tell you love is weak, but they’re wrong. Isn’t that true,
man from Mars?” Ruby says to Chi. “Things will be different in the future. Violence
and aggression won’t make it anymore. We’ll achieve a society based on merit
and opportunity. People will be recognized for their intelligence and talent,
hard work and good will. For their hearts. For love, whether you’re black, white,
green, or tangerine. Right, am I right, Chi?”

“Sometimes,”
Chi says quietly. “Sometimes not.”

Gorgon
clatters up the back stairs, hauling a tin of gasoline.

“Where
do you think you’re going with that?” Ruby demands.

Gorgon
says nothing. He roots around in the trash can under the kitchen counter, pulls
out four empty wine bottles. “Your love shuck is crap.”

“Maybe
and maybe not. Violence is definitely crap.”

He
goes to the half-bath, pulls a pillowcase from her linen closet, and rips it
into strips. “You can’t change nothin’ without tearin’ it down.”

“Leo!”
Ruby screams, scattering the cats.

But
he’s gone. Out the kitchen door and clattering up the fire escape to the roof.

Ruby
dashes after him, Chi and the kid close behind.

The Aries
moon is a scythe in the sky. From the roof, Ruby can see Papa Al and Teddy Bear
huddled on the stairs of the Free Clinic. Terrified patients in pajamas cluster
at the door. The two Roman guards lean their axes on the stoop, but their
stance is tense.

“What’s
goin’ on, man?” Gorgon calls down to them, leaning over the gutter and gingerbread
trim. He’s filling empty bottles with gasoline, stuffing strips of pillowcase
in the necks. He spills a box of matches on the rooftop.

“We
called Chocolate George,” Teddy Bear yells up. “The Hells Angels say they’re
comin’ over to kick some ass, man!”

Ruby
takes Starbright’s hand and protectively presses her away from the edge of the
roof.

A
shimmer of ebony deeper than the night sky ripples across the rooftop. The
gutter begins to rattle, as if an earthquake is striking.

“Chi,”
Ruby calls in a ragged whisper. He crouches by her side at once. “What’s
happening? The energy is getting strange, can’t you see it?”

“Yes.”
He whispers, “Katie,” to his magic ring and cups the lavender light in the palm
of his hand. The light flickers eerily in the darkness. “Ruby,” he finally
says. “I’ve calculated three times. There’s no record of a race riot in the
Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love.”

“What
do you mean? What are you saying?”

He
whispers, “Katie, off,” and the lavender light disappears. “The riot is a
probability, but not a Prime Probability. It doesn’t have to happen. You and me
and Starbright, we’re observing. We can make a difference.”

Ruby
stares at him, his face impossibly pale and baby-smooth. He used to look so
innocent to her. Not anymore. Not so innocent and not so familiar.
Who are
you,
she thinks for the thousandth time.
What are you, Chiron Cat’s Eye
in Draco?
In a white-rabbit flip of reality, it occurs to her that the
elegant lad really
is
a t-porter from 2467. This suddenly makes more
sense to her than what is happening on Haight Street tonight.

It
doesn’t have to happen.

She
nods, then stalks across the roof to Gorgon and his four Molotov cocktails
arranged before him in a semicircle.

A
huge, hollow-eyed skull presses out of the whole wall of the house across the
street, then disappears. Waves throb through the wall as if the old stucco is
made of liquid.

Ruby
hears Starbright gasp behind her, glances back. Chi circles his arms around the
kid. She struggles away, but he won’t let her go. Good.

“Leo,”
Ruby says, but she can’t catch his eye. He stares down at the street. “Who you
gonna fire-bomb, huh? Your black brothers? Isn’t that what you revolutionary
boys call them?”

“No,”
he says, stroking the neck of a bottle. “These are for the pigs.”

“The
pigs, uh-huh. What good does that do your black brothers if you fire-bomb the
police? What good does it do for
them?
”

He
refuses to look at her, but he’s breathing hard. “You capitalist pig, with your
witch crap an’ your love shuck.” He spits. “What do you know about the revolution?”

She
seizes his elbow. “I know this, sonny. I know it isn’t
your
revolution.”

He
still won’t look at her.

“
You’re
not the one who will get hurt by this!”

He
turns and looks at her, at last.

“You
accuse me of selling out. You call me an opportunist. But that’s exactly what
you
are, Leo. No, you don’t care about money. Money isn’t kicks for you. The
revolution
is kicks for you.”

His
eyes flash fire and madness. A gust sweeps across the rooftop, scattering
gravel.

“Just
kicks,
damn you!”

With
an inarticulate yell, Gorgon plucks the rags out of the bottles and smashes the
bottles on the rooftop. He clatters down the stairs, leaving the stink of
gasoline behind. Black glass shimmers in the Aries moonlight.

*  
*   *

Gorgon’s
truck is gone by the time Ruby, Chi, and the kid climb down the fire escape to
the deck. She lets everyone in the kitchen door.

It’s
over. Sweet Isis, her time with him is over just as strangely as it began. It’s
not likely she’ll ever see Gorgon again but, if she does, he’ll be just some
dude she knew during the Summer of Love. They will pass by on the street like
strangers.