My Beautiful Hippie (10 page)

Martin shook his head. “No hole.”

Arlo Guthrie said, “I wanna kill, kill. I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth.”

“And a cinnamon roll,” said Morning Girl. “That's a donut.”

“No hole,” said Martin. “What do you think, Joni?”

I shrugged. Being straight around stoned people was like going to a swim party on your period and having to sit on a lawn chair fully clothed while everyone else was in the pool having fun. What were Martin and Morning Girl to each other? I glanced over at his twin bed. It didn't seem big enough for two. He had a chest of drawers, a wooden crate used as a nightstand, and planks of wood set on cement blocks to serve as a bookcase. One entire wall was papered with posters of Avalon and Fillmore dances with psychedelic, bubbly printing, illustrated with biplanes, buffaloes, and Mr. Zig-Zag from the cigarette papers.

“Even donut holes are donuts,” said Morning Girl.

“Donut holes are donuts with existential angst.”

Morning Girl arched her neck in a silent laugh, the tip of her tongue flicking her lips. She looked so sexy I wanted to strangle her. Did I ever look sexy to Martin, or for that matter, to any guy?

Martin nudged my knee with his. “Wanna get high, Joni?”

“No.”

“You told me you did.”

“Not now.” Not with this stupid girl babbling drivel. I had come there to have Martin to myself. I read all the titles of the books stacked on his makeshift nightstand: the Tao Te Ching,
Games People Play
, the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Siddhartha
, and
Franny and Zooey
.

“Were you homeschooled?” I asked Martin.

“Oh, is that what you call it? I thought Vivian and Max just forgot to send us to school.”

I leaned into him, eager to know more. “Where are your parents now?”

“Oh, they're no place.”

“Do you mean they've passed away?”

Martin released an exasperated puff of air. “Vivian is a drunk and Max is plain crazy, so I'd say that's no place.” He rolled back his eyes, listening intently. From a distant room came the tiny squalls of a baby. “I hear Jericho.”

“I know,” Morning Girl said despondently.

This stoned girl was a
mother
? Could Martin possibly be the
father
? He'd told me he was never having kids.

Martin placed his hand on my knee. “Sorry, Joni. What were we talking about?”

“Donuts!” Morning Girl raised her arms exuberantly. “Oh, oh, I'd love a donut right now. I got the raging munchies.” Then something I'd never seen happened: two round wet disks appeared at the front of her gauzy top. It took me a couple of seconds to realize what it was. She looked down at herself. “Oops. Guess Jericho's got the munchies, too. I'll go get him.” She jumped up and dashed out the door.

“Does she live here?” I asked.

“Yeah. I'm kinda surprised to see you. I thought after what happened at the park your parents wouldn't let you come over anymore.”

Not that they ever had. “I'm sorry my brother called you those names.”

He shrugged. “Does he eat a lot of red meat?”

“He's always been like that. Trying to get me in trouble.”

“That's a drag. Your brother should be your best friend.”

“Not even my sister is. We're not anything alike.”

“You would have to be in some ways, because the same parents raised you both.”

It irked me that Martin thought he knew me better than I knew myself. I pointed toward the door. “Does the father live here?”

“What father? Oh, Jericho's? I don't think anyone knows
who that is, not even Morning Girl. We met her in Hashbury, living on the street, and she asked if we knew of a place she could crash, and Gus kinda dug her, and now he digs the whole domesticity trip of having Jericho around, so I guess she's kinda his old lady.”

“She shouldn't be taking drugs if she has a baby,” I blurted, more angrily than I intended.

“It's only a little weed. She's free to do what she wants. Shit, Joni, I didn't know you were so uptight and judging.”

My face burned with the sting of his words. I had risked getting grounded for life to come see him and in return I'd gotten a scolding. I wasn't hip enough for him, I guess. Well, tough. I was leaving before Stupid Girl had a chance to return with her baby to expose her big, fat tit in front of me and Martin both. “That little baby's not free of cold and hunger and neglect if she's living on the street with him.”

“I told you they live here. We all take care of Jericho. What are you so pissed off about?”

Still he was defending Morning Girl! I scrambled to my feet, or at least tried to. He had caught my forearm when I rose to my knees.

“Don't go away mad, Joni.”

I tried to get up, and he bore down, almost as if we were wrestling. I glared at him and bit off one word at a time. “Every child has the right to know who his father is.”

Astonishment washed over his face. His eyes widened and his lips parted as if to speak. From his mouth came, not words, but a kiss. It was not a music camp kiss. It was long and deep, as if he were drinking me up, and without me remembering how it happened, we ended up lying down, pressed together, and when we heard the door creak open neither of us moved apart.

“Hey, Marty,” said Gus, “sit in on bass, will ya? Bread is ripped on acid, and I really wanna get ‘Cold Sterling Fog' worked out tonight.”

I was relieved to be facing away from the door, but Martin propped himself on an elbow to say, “Can't you see I have a guest?”

“She's a Roach fan, right? She can listen.” Gus walked away as if he assumed we'd follow.

Martin looked into my face and stroked my hair. He ran his thumb over one eyebrow and held his forefinger so that my lashes flicked against it. It made me smile.

“Ah, I guess I gotta keep Gus happy. Wanna come?”

I'd rather kiss and kiss and kiss. “Sure,” I said.

The basement of the house was a Victorian ballroom that had seen better days, the molding near the ceiling crumbling and the hardwood floors scuffed and gouged. Still, it made a great rehearsal studio for a rock band, housing a massive drum set, amplifiers stacked in towers, and electrical cords snaking in all directions. There they all were, the Purple Cockroach, just like they were pictured on their record sleeve. The drummer was Dave Hall, a skinny guy with a long, silky ponytail, muttonchop sideburns, and wire-rimmed granny glasses. Byron Atkins, a beefy tattooed guy, who looked more like a Hells Angel than a musician, was on rhythm guitar, and of course Gus played lead. I took a seat on the sagging sofa next to Phil Oberhofer, who went by Bread, because, I found out later, he often asked his housemates, “Got any bread?” like a live-in panhandler.

As the band tuned, I thought how this was a fantasy come true, watching Roach, up close and personal. I couldn't wait to tell Rena. As Martin flipped the strap of the bass over his head, I thought how far out it would be if he took Bread's place in the band permanently, and then I got all insecure, thinking then he'd be too important for me.

They started up, the music and feedback so loud that the walls shook. Martin played bass like a bored but obedient child, thumping out the accurate notes in a steady beat but adding nothing to them. Gus did a decent job singing lead on the verse, but when the rest of the band joined him in harmony on the chorus, they came apart and ground to a halt. After the third time, I wondered if any of them noticed that the rhythm guitar was dropping a beat.

Finally, Byron did play the correct number of beats, perhaps
by accident, and they made it through the song. Bread, who had been sitting on his spine, perked up and began clapping and howling.

“What do you think?” asked Gus.

“Uh . . . me?” I asked.

“She knows it's crap,” interjected Martin. “She plays Beethoven.”

Gus glared at him. Plainly he hadn't missed how unenthusiastically Martin was participating. “We're not trying to duplicate Beethoven here.”

“It's good!” I said, “but you could try substituting the submediant in the last measure of the third phrase of the chorus.”

“The what?” asked Gus.

“A minor,” I clarified.

“Where, again?”

“The fourth measure of the third . . . I mean, on the word ‘cold.' ”

“Oh,” said Gus.

It worked out. Everyone was satisfied. During the next song, I glanced at my watch three times in five minutes, knowing it was time to go. I was hoping Martin would walk me across the street to the trolley stop, but when I stood to leave, he merely splayed two fingers and mouthed, “Peace.” I spent the whole ride home in a “Cold Sterling Fog” of my own, reliving that kiss.

For one whole week the Kiss weighed heavy on my mind. It both thrilled me and scared me. I thought my next visit with Martin would be a good time to introduce Rena to him. It turned out that Roach wasn't rehearsing, so Rena didn't get to meet them. Martin was a charming host, serving his chamomile tea and some whole wheat honey cookies he'd made. Rena dominated the conversation, talking about “the theater,” and Martin was responsive, telling her what he knew about Max getting his plays produced.

When it was time to leave, Martin hugged us both good-bye, which made me jealous. Whenever I went anywhere with Rena,
it was obvious that guys found her more attractive than me. I worried that Martin would become more interested in her. On our trolley ride home, I discovered I had nothing to worry about.

“He knows a lot, all right,” said Rena, “but he's not as cute as you think.”

“What? He's the cutest guy I ever saw.”

“You must be in love.”

“I'm not, either,” I said, feeling the heated blush on my face.

“You
said
I'd get to meet Roach.”

“Is it my fault they weren't around?”

“You
said
he'd get us high.”

“All I said was he offered me grass my last visit.”

Rena crossed her arms tightly and stared out the window. In a moment she turned back to me. “I'm worried about you, Joanne. I'm worried this hippie guy will get you pregnant and dash your dreams of Carnegie Hall.”

“Reenie, you sound like my mother! I don't
sleep
with him.”

“Eventually you'll have to. He'll force himself on you.”

“Oh, he will not!”

“You're so naïve, Joanne. Haven't you read
Peyton Place
? Guys
have
to make love, while it doesn't much matter to girls one way or the other.” Rena always spoke with authority about sex, when in fact she had no more experience than I. “I was crazy to go in that house with you. It's lucky we weren't both raped.”

“Cripes, Rena. I can't believe how paranoid you're acting.”

“What a waste. I could have been memorizing my lines.”

“All six of them?” I asked.

We rode in silence the rest of the way.

The next Thursday, when I called at the house on Beach Street, Byron answered the door and told me Martin wasn't there. The following Thursday, no one answered my knock. The third week I didn't get off the trolley. I had lost my nerve.

The Summer of Love was over. Many of the runaways returned home and college kids went back to school. There were still free rock concerts in the Panhandle and plenty of hippies
tucked away in low-rent apartments and partitioned Victorians, but the streets emptied out and the vibes in the Haight mellowed.

The first day of my junior year at Alamo High was so warm that most of the kids ate outside. Rena and I tried walking by the in-crowd table as if it weren't there, but then Lisa Girardi called out, “Hey, Rena, I heard you got a part at ACT.”

“Yeah.” Rena talked on and on about
The Crucible
until I got tired of standing there and walked off without her. All the other tables were taken up by all the other cliques. Besides the in crowd, there were a lot of other groups: the band kids, the jocks, the nerds, the weirdos, the Negroes, the Chinese, the Koreans, the Mexicans, and the Puerto Ricans.

Off in the far corner of the quad, Suyu Li sat at a small square table by herself, practicing the piano away from the keyboard, her arms flying outward, her head bobbing to the music in her mind. This was a technique I had heard Dr. Harold prescribed, but I'd never have the nerve to do it in public. I settled on an empty bench under a eucalyptus tree, unzipped my lunch pail, and tore the waxed paper off my bologna sandwich. My mother always packed my lunch in my lunch pail, even though anyone who wasn't a pariah bought lunch at the cafeteria or carried a brown bag, which they tossed away.

Rena stalked up and sat down next to me. “Thanks for waiting for me.”

“I was hungry.”

“There were places at their table. We could've sat with them.”

“This spot is nice.”

“Yeah, for lepers.” Rena unrolled the top of her lunch sack and withdrew a mouthwatering, deli-style pastrami sandwich. “Ugh, squid tubes and ostrich eggs again.” She dropped the sandwich back into the bag and rolled it up again.

Eventually our conversation drifted to my favorite topic, Martin's burning kiss. “It's been weeks now,” I said, “and I still think about it all the time, wondering what it meant.”

“Girls always know what a kiss means,” Rena observed. “It
means love or at least a caring that might lead to love. Boys don't know. They kiss out of a biological urge, like a knee jerk.”

“Girls have biological urges,” I argued tentatively.

“Yeah, but only with guys they want to be with.”

“Couldn't biological urges in boys be caused by girls they want to be with?”

Rena thought this over carefully, chewing the inside of her cheek. “Yeah, but only as a matter of coincidence.”