Hippie House (25 page)

Late one sticky afternoon we walked along the highway on our way to the Dairy Queen. Hetty's radio hung from a wide leather belt around her waist. From the tinny speaker we heard that Louis Armstrong, the great trumpet player, had died.

“Never heard of him,” Hetty said.

Megan kicked an empty DQ cup in the ditch. “Sure you have. You know, the guy whose eyes pop out when he plays.” And while Hetty and I watched, Megan blew her cheeks up to the size of cantaloupes while her eyes looked about ready to pop out of her head.

Hetty and I laughed.

A few weeks later, as we sat on the spillway dabbling our feet in the water, watching Dad's white Chinese geese cruise lazily across the surface, the radio told us that two of the crew of Apollo 15 had gone driving on the moon.

“Hey, look at that land rover.” Eric sat forward as we watched the broadcast on TV that evening. “It's like something out of a science-fiction movie. And look at those pictures of the astronauts. They're even in color. This is incredible. Can you believe it—while we're sitting here, those guys are actually up there driving around on the moon?”

Eric worked on the highway that summer as a flagman. He, Jimmy and Miles all got on as part of the crew. They made good money, and after only a few weeks of standing on the hot tarmac in the blazing July sun, they were as deeply tanned as Uncle Pat.

“Look at this,” Eric said, stopping to wave a piece of paper in my doorway. “Four more paychecks and I'll be able to buy a secondhand MG.”

“Oh yeah?” I said, somewhat distantly. I was not really paying attention. I was more concerned with my reflection in the mirror as I sat cross-legged on my bed. I'd had my braces removed the day before and I was still fascinated by my ability to speak without the metallic glint.

Eric noticed there was something different. “There's something weird about you.”

I smiled brightly. “My braces—I got them off.”

“No, that isn't it.”

“Yeah, it is. You're just not used to it.”

“No, it's—what's that black blob next to your mouth?”

I looked in the mirror again. I touched the mark just above the corner of my mouth. “It's not a black blob. It's a beauty mark. Megan drew it on to go with my new teeth. She said it made me look like Marilyn Monroe.”

Eric frowned. “Trust me, you don't look like Marilyn Monroe. You look more like you were chewing a pen and it squirted all over your face.”

MAURY WAS ONE OF THE
promoters behind a rock music festival held on the first weekend in August. In the weeks leading up to the festival, whenever we wandered into his store he was on the phone, organizing permits and bands. It was a good thing. It focused his energy. Eric had told me that Maury was becoming seriously disillusioned—not only with what was happening around Pike Creek, although that certainly couldn't have helped, but also with the waning anti-war efforts. With the escalating brutality and force used when there was a protest or march. We'd all seen the news reports; there had been 12,000 people arrested at a single protest in Washington, D.C., in May alone.

The festival was on a scorchingly hot weekend in the Hockley Valley. On the Thursday before it began, festivalgoers started drifting through town. Clouds of pot wafted from cars when the doors opened, and mickeys of lemon gin peeked from the back pockets of cutoff jeans. Hitchhikers wearing backpacks and bandanas strolled into Pike Creek. A few, carrying guitars, stopped for a while to busk in front of the IGA. Until Mrs. Gillespie lodged a complaint, that is, and Constable Wagner was obligated to wander down and suggest that they move on.

On Friday afternoon, Hetty and I were standing at the main intersection in Pike Creek, gnawing on Fudgesicles as we waited
to cross the street. Two very cool guys emerged from the Market. One of them carried a bag of ice, which he stashed in a small cooler strapped to the back of his motorcycle parked at the curb. He threw a leg over the bike and was settling onto the seat when he spotted us. “Hey,” he grinned, “do you chicks want a ride to the park?”

Hetty raised her eyebrows. She glanced at me, then looked behind us. She wasn't entirely sure if he was talking to us. She must have thought, as I did, that we'd been standing in the way of someone much older, someone—much hotter than us.

“Yeah, you two ladies. You're going out to the valley, aren't you? The Hawk is playing tonight. Hop on and we'll give you a lift.”

Hetty pulled the Fudgesicle from her mouth. “Uh, we can't—”

The guy who had spoken adjusted his shades. He was obviously waiting, along with me, for Hetty to follow what she said with a reason. We can't go because—we have an appointment. We have to check with our parents. We plan to wash our hair tonight. Two girls have been viciously murdered around here and we never go anywhere with guys on motorcycles with dark glasses and long hair.

“Uh,” Hetty repeated, “we have to be home by six.” Chocolate melted rapidly off her Fudgesicle onto the sidewalk.

He now inspected us a little more closely. His eyes dropped to the dots of brown ice cream splashing around her bare feet. Perhaps realizing his mistake, he started his engine. “Well, too bad. It's going to be a blast. If you change your mind, maybe we'll see you out there.”

They roared off, leaving Hetty and me feeling about six years old and knowing we had to find a way to go.

Hetty discovered that Mandy Green and Doug McCrae were headed out to the festival on Saturday afternoon. Doug offered to give us a lift; he said there would be plenty of room in the back
of his dad's truck. I got Mom to drop us off at Mandy's house in town. She was not so sure I should be going to a rock festival. She'd seen pictures of what they were like on TV. Everyone was just so, well—uninhibited! But I was somehow able to convince her that Hetty and Mandy were allowed to go without any problem, so she caved in.

When Doug arrived at Mandy's, we climbed into the back of the open pickup. Doug started out on the highway. Traveling at sixty miles an hour, the wind twisted our hair into a million tiny knots but did nothing to cool us off, and our cotton shirts remained stuck to our chests with sweat.

Traffic was heavy at the festival site and we had no choice but to park half a mile away along a gravel road. After pulling our backpacks from the back of the truck, we trailed behind the long line of people swinging baskets and thermoses, clutching sunhats and leading dogs as they headed toward the festival gate. Once we were inside, we were met with waves of color; people occupied nearly every square foot of grass on the gradual slope that formed a natural amphitheater in front of the stage.

Doug pointed out a bare patch of ground toward the middle of the slope. We followed him, hopping over sprawled limbs, treading carefully around heads and jumping out of the way of the flailing arms of dancers as we made our way across the grounds. He stopped. “This okay?”

The small patch had looked much more significant from far away—like the missing piece of a puzzle. It now looked like the piece was only slightly out of place. But we didn't have much choice. Mandy spread out a blanket as far as the space allowed, staking our own small festival space.

Once we were settled, I leaned back on my elbows on the blanket. The sky was flawless and the sun was warm on my face. Hetty poured a lemonade. Doug lit a joint, took a drag and passed it to Mandy. She did the same and passed it to me.

Hetty cocked an eyebrow, wondering what I was going to do. This was more Doug and Mandy's thing than ours. But, hey, it was an incredibly mellow day. I took a toke, held it in my lungs and passed the joint to Hetty. Lying back on the blanket, I fought to suppress the tickle in my throat. It was no use. “Allergies,” I quickly invented, sitting up, coughing out the word. “It's the goldenrod. It always gets to me like that.”

Only Hetty seemed to notice. She giggled and also took a drag. She nudged me with her toes. “Hey, maybe we'll bump into those guys we saw outside the market yesterday.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but they probably won't recognize us without our Fudgesicles.”

She laughed again, remembering how juvenile we must have looked clutching our ice cream as we walked in our bare feet down the sidewalk in Pike Creek. I sat up when Hetty brought out the lunch Ruby had packed.

“Cool, butter tarts!” Doug took two, scoffing the first one in two bites.

Through the smoke hovering in layers above the crowd, I spotted Eric standing with Jimmy and Miles to the left of the stage. They were talking to some guys I didn't know—two of them sat in the back of an open van surrounded by sound equipment, so I assumed they must have been members of another band. Malcolm wandered on his own a short distance away from them. He was talking, carrying on what looked like a pretty animated conversation—although from where I sat it sure didn't look like there was anyone close enough to hear. He drifted into the crowd, where I lost track of him and then forgot about him. I guess I became distracted by other things going on at the time.

Behind us, Ross Nash and Lyle St. Vincent leaned against the fence at the back of the field. They didn't mingle. At least not with anyone sitting on the grass. Instead they chewed toothpicks while admiring the motorcycles of several other guys who I had
never seen before. These guys wore black jeans and cleated boots like Lyle and Ross. I didn't get why Ross and Lyle were there. They didn't even like music. At least, I knew they didn't like this kind of rock music. Watching them, I found something disturbing in the way they didn't sit down, the way they just leaned there with one foot up against the fence like they were waiting to take their turn at something.

Someone from behind the stage batted an inflatable beach ball above the crowd. It was kept aloft until it was inadvertently whacked over the fence. Less than a minute later the ball mysteriously bounced back again; Constable Wagner's head appeared and he grinned from the other side of the fence.

The only one hurrying anywhere was Maury, who was running around, carrying a clipboard, as he organized the lineup. He spoke with musicians clad in sunglasses, punctuating his words with the pipe in his hand.

Hetty and I watched two bands before we got up and wandered around. We discovered a sprinkler set up for people to cool off. Adam Brown and some other people we knew from school had thrown down a piece of plastic and were skidding across the wet surface. We both gave it a few tries until Hetty slipped and fell, bruising her butt.

It was when we returned to our spot that I first noticed the mood had changed. Ross and his friends were louder. One of them didn't like the length of the last drum solo and made a point of telling the band. He laughed stupidly when the guitarist broke a string. I guessed the bottle of Jack Daniels I'd seen them passing around had made a few circuits by then. Doug began packing the food back into Hetty's backpack. He seemed uneasy.

“What's wrong?” Mandy asked.

“Those guys with Nash, they're looking for trouble.”

She glanced behind her. “We'll move as soon as we see an open spot.”

Hetty stood up. “There!” She pointed to an area closer to the stage. “Oh, no, sorry, the beach ball was in the way. I thought it was open.” She sat down again.

We didn't have a chance to say anything else because a new band had taken the stage. “Give me an F!” the lead singer shouted into the microphone.

People all around us responded with an enthusiastic “F” that probably could have been heard on Mars.

With the exception of a single gruff voice that came from the direction of the gate. “Hey—shove your F!”

This was followed by a small ripple of deep-throated guffaws.

Hetty and I, along with most people in the crowd, turned. It was the mouthier of Ross Nash's motorcycle acquaintances. He was sitting on his bike with his arms crossed.

The singer did his best to ignore him. “Give me a U!” he yelled.

The band was gearing up for “I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag,” a Vietnam War protest song by Country Joe and the Fish.

The crowd responded with a whopping “U” when, over by the gate again, “You suck!” the heckler shouted.

“Shut up, greaseball!” hollered someone from the crowd.

There were several more shouts, then a scuffle. When we could figure out what had happened, we realized a fight had broken out between a big bouncer type and one of Ross Nash's friends. The sound of the punches was what I remember most. It was horrible to realize the soft thuds were actually knuckles pummeling flesh.

Both sides had people quick to come to their assistance. All I recall of the next ten minutes was a bottle flying over my head and smashing against the side of the concession stand, Hetty's fingernails digging into my arm and her yanking me toward the front gate. We were rushing for it when Eric stopped me.

“Have you seen Malcolm?” He was breathless.

“I—yeah, about twenty minutes ago. He was walking around the stage not far from you.”

“That's it? You didn't see him come this way?”

“No.”

“Alright. Get out of here. You and Hetty, right now.” Eric gave me a little shove on the back and took off.

We weren't the only ones looking for a way out. The mood changed drastically within a matter of minutes and the mellow crowd erupted into a chaotic, panicked rush. A bottleneck of people quickly built up to get through the gate as the fight not only continued, but grew. Police sirens screamed and suddenly uniformed men were spilling into the park. It all happened mind-numbingly fast.

Hetty and I were close to the entrance when I spotted Malcolm—Malcolm, with his long hair and shabby jean jacket, was grabbed roughly by two uniformed men. Despite holding his hands up to indicate he was innocent of whatever they might think he was guilty of, they forced him to face the fence. Malcolm attempted to turn around. He was prevented by one officer while the other frisked him for drugs.