My Beautiful Hippie (9 page)

“You are, too, good! I can tell you feel music deep down.” He pressed his hand against his sternum. “It just pours out.”

His praise embarrassed me. Embarrassment made me blush, and blushing embarrassed me more. I commented on the song. “I like it because it's against conformity.”

“You're against conformity?”

Wasn't that obvious by what I was wearing and what I talked about? “Well, yeah.”

“You're not going to grow up, get married, buy the car and the house with the white picket fence, and have two-point-two children?”

Of course I wanted to have a family, but way in the future. Martin was grinning at me like he had caught me in an inconsistency. “I don't know anybody with a white picket fence.”

He laughed at me, but not in a mean way.

“Well, don't you want to get married and have kids someday?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“Oh.” My heart seemed to plunge to my stomach. “Not ever?”

“Never, ever. I'm going to be as free as a bird.” He reclaimed his guitar. “Let's sing together, Joni. What will it be?”

I blurted the title of the first song that came to my mind. “ ‘Blowin' in the Wind'?”

“Beautiful. Want to take harmony or melody?”

“Melody.”

Martin didn't sing a third below me; instead, his bell-like tenor soared above my melody in an improvised, free-flowing countermelody. In her robust alto, Mary sometimes sang a part lower than Peter and Paul, and I liked the idea that the girl didn't always have to sing the high part. Our voices blended well.
I wanted to sit there forever, singing with Martin and basking in his warm glow.

“Joanne! What are you doing?” growled a gruff male voice, which I recognized before I even turned around. “Get home, now!”

Martin stopped strumming his guitar, and we both stared up at Dan, with Pete beside him.

“Why? I'm not doing anything wrong. Leave me alone.” I turned back to Martin, rolling my eyes in exasperation.

Dan attempted to lift me by the armpits, and when I bore down, he began dragging me away. I kicked at him a few times, but not wanting to make a scene in front of Martin, I stopped resisting. I stood and twisted free of Dan's grip. “You're not the boss of me.”

“Peace, brother,” said Martin.

“I'm not your brother, you filthy hippie!” yelled Dan, stooping to flex his bicep in Martin's face. “I'm
her
brother, out to protect her from degenerates like you. Stay away from my sister or I'll have to pound you!” Dan gripped my upper arm and yanked me along. I was so humiliated I couldn't bear to look back at Martin, even to say good-bye.

“Are you in trouble, Joanne,” said Dan. “Wait till I tell Mom where I found you and who you were with. Are you crazy? You could've been raped.”

“Man, I don't think so,” said Pete. “Those hippie chicks put out, like, all the time. Like, without a struggle,” he clarified. Pete was funny like that.

“That right?” asked Dan. “Maybe we could disguise ourselves as hippies, go to a love-in, and get some ourselves.” Dan always talked about sex as a dirty deed with an anonymous partner, rather than an expression of love between two people who cared for each other. “We can get some crabs or the clap. That's what those filthy hippie chicks put out.”

I stopped short, darted behind Dan, and gave him a shove. My adrenaline must've been raging, because I pushed him so hard he stumbled forward, nearly falling on his face.

“You little bitch!” He grabbed my hair, wrapped it around his fist, and gave it a painful yank. I kicked him in the shin so that he had to let go of my hair to rub his leg and hop around. He raised an open palm to slap my face, and I cringed, bracing myself for the sting, which didn't come. Pete had caught his arm midair.

“Cool it, you guys.” Pete didn't understand knock-down, drag-out sibling rivalry, having only one brother, a twenty-four-year-old Mongoloid who filled in his Flintstones coloring book and made jewelry boxes with Popsicle sticks and Elmer's glue.

Waiting for the light at Stanyan Street, I glanced behind me, fearful that Martin had followed us out of the park. What would he think of me? I glanced down at my peace button. I glared up at Dan through narrowed eyes. “I'm telling Mom you called me a bitch.”

The light changed, and we started across the street.

“Don't, Joanne.” Dan's eyes slid nervously from side to side. What he really meant was don't tell
Dad
. Not even I wished the consequences of that on Dan.

“Then don't tell Mom where you found me.”

“I got to. She sent me looking for you, and she'll want to know. I ain't gonna lie for you.”

“You don't have to tell her if she doesn't ask.”

“All right, deal.”

As we walked up Frederick Street, Dad was just driving home from work. He got out of the car to open the gate to our driveway. His tie was loosened and his face was flushed, indicating he'd had a hard day. This was going to be bad. He drove through the gate, and Dan rushed up to shut it for him. Pete raised his hand in farewell and continued up the street toward his house on West Buena Vista. Watching two Donnellys fight was scary enough; four was more than he could handle.

Usually when Dad got home, all he wanted to do was sit at the kitchen table, read the
Chronicle
, drink his beer, chuckle over
Peanuts
, and mutter “Hmmm,” “Oh, yeah?” and “Is that so?” while Mom talked a blue streak about her day. Dad had
retired “That's good” from his repertoire of comments, after saying it once caused Mom to bellow, “Dick, you're not even listening to me.”

Dan shoved me through the back door like a prison guard roughing up his charge. “You'll never guess where I found her,” he announced to our parents. “Hippie Hill!”

“Dan called me bitch!” I shouted.

Dad lowered his newspaper, his eyes smoldering.

“Joanne was with some
boy
,” Dan rattled on. “I caught her before anything happened.”

“What boy?” asked Mom suspiciously.

I had to think fast. “It was Paul Mathers. You know, Mom. From orchestra? He sits in the percussion section with me. He's real good on guitar, too. We were just singing.”

Mom narrowed her eyes, trying to decide if she believed me.

“It was a hippie,” insisted Dan. “He had long hair.”

“Long hair is in
style
,” I said, blushing hotly.

“Style! Look at yourself, Joanne! Anyone would mistake
you
for a hippie,” said Mom. “I never knew sewing you those bell-bottoms would lead to this getup!”

Most of the kids I knew got to pick out their own clothes. Lisa Girardi had her own Macy's charge card and could choose the tiniest bikini, while my mom
made
my bathing suit. What good was a two-piece that showed only two inches of skin between the top and bottom? I would never be able to show cleavage, not in my mother's lifetime.

Dad had lost interest in the family crisis and returned to his newspaper.

Mom bent over him, her hand on her hip. “What are you going to do about this, Dick? Are you going to let
your
daughter run wild?”

“Stay out of the park, Joanne,” said the newspaper.

“
What
?” Golden Gate Park was my neighborhood playground. I had visited every traveling exhibit at the de Young Museum, bought cups of flower-shaped orange crackers at the Japanese Tea Garden, and listened to free concerts at the Music
Concourse. I had been allowed to skate, ride my bike, play on the playground, and feed the ducks since I was eight, just as long as I went with someone and didn't talk to strangers. “But, Daddy! You let me go to the park even when I was a little kid.”

“That was before this hippie infestation.” Dad lowered his newspaper, which signaled he meant business. “You heard me, Joanne. Stay out of the park.”

Dan's derisive laugh attracted Dad's attention. “And you! Tomorrow you'll change the oil in both cars.”

“Dad! I got work!”

“Better get up early,” said the newspaper.

Dan was terrible with cars. He couldn't even mend a flat tire without Pete's help. The last time he had tried to change the oil, it had all poured onto his face. Now who had the last laugh?

That night I lay awake, wondering how I would ever face Martin again. What did he think of me now? Would I really conform to society, as he'd predicted? Would I turn into my mother, with a telephone extension cord tail and rubber-gloved paws, and have a bald, fat husband who hid behind newspapers and thought fruit baskets were the ultimate gift?

I broke into a little fantasy then, what I called a think, about a long time in the future, when I would be old and wise and twenty-five and playing an all-Beethoven recital at Carnegie Hall, and by then Martin would be a famous folk rocker who also happened to be performing in NYC. I would find out his hotel and send him a ticket to my recital, and he would hear me play and come backstage, and we would fall into each other's arms. He would whisper in my ear, “I always knew you were special,” and we would become boyfriend and girlfriend and get married and have two-point-two kids. All girls fantasized about marrying their crush, even if he happened to be Paul McCartney or, like me all my freshman year, Peter Tork of the Monkees.

Mom canceled out on my parents' Thursday-night dance lesson and they ate dinner at home, so she could “keep an eye on” me. I had to have a specific reason to leave the house, and simply going to buy gum wasn't good enough. I stayed home and bided my time, knowing my mother would eventually lose interest in her assertive vigilance, as she had in the past. I practiced the piano, read, watched some TV, and got together with Rena a few times. In my room, the door slightly ajar since Mom didn't allow it closed, I lay on my bed with Snoopy curled up on my stomach, listening to records and having “thinks” about Martin. By then I had acquired my own copy of the Purple Cockroach's “Evolution! Revolution!” and nearly wore it out. I also listened to the Jefferson Airplane's
Surrealistic Pillow
, the Beatles' new
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
, Simon and Garfunkel's
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme
, and Judy Collins's
Wildflowers
, including “Michael from Mountains,” a song that reminded me of Martin. It's about a sweet, enigmatic guy who brings a girl sweets and accompanies her on walks in streets and parks. She wants to know all about him, but she never does because “his mountains call.”

The next Thursday my parents planned to go out to dinner and to their dance lesson as usual. I was past the embarrassment of Dan insulting Martin and dragging me out of the park. After my parents left the house, I forced myself to sit at the piano and
at least go through the motions of practicing, and sure enough, twenty minutes later they returned home because my mother “forgot something.”

After they left a second time, I slipped out of the house and ran down Masonic to catch the trolley on Haight. The white fog rolled in from the ocean, and the cold wind was damp with sea spray, typical August weather. As I climbed the steep walkway of 614 Beach Street, I could hear the Purple Cockroach rehearsing in the basement. It seemed like they never stopped. I knocked on the door, and a guy I'd never seen before answered.

When I asked for Martin, he answered, “He's in his room. Upstairs, second door on the right.”

I followed the guy through the house, but just before the staircase, he abruptly walked into a candlelit, incense-scented room with mattresses and pillows covering the floor and India-print bedspreads billowing from the ceiling. It was a meditation room, occupied by three people sitting cross-legged and chanting “Om.”

I mounted the staircase and reached the upper landing. Light seeped from beneath the closed second door on the right. From the room came phrases from Arlo Guthrie's
Alice's Restaurant
, along with feminine giggles and Martin's ringing laugh. Did he have lots of friends who were girls like me? Did he have an actual girlfriend and was I about to meet her? I feared the worst, imaging them in bed together, naked, doing
it
. How mortifying to interrupt that! I stood frozen in the hallway, wondering if I should leave, but after a few moments of listening to my heart pound, I decided Guthrie's long-winded story about getting arrested for littering did not seem like make-out music. I knocked quietly.

“Peace to all who enter here,” said Martin.

Tentatively, I pushed open the door.

“Joni! Come in!” Martin smiled up at me and patted a spot of carpet. When I sat next to him, he said, “Morning Girl, Joni.”

Morning Girl said, “May the baby Jesus shut your mouth and open your mind,” whatever that meant. She didn't look much older than me, with big boobs in a flimsy top and no bra. She
had full lips, and her pupils were wide disks of brown. Obviously she was stoned and so was Martin, but he seemed pretty much his usual self, while the girl looked totally wasted. She turned to Martin and said, “A maple bar is definitely a donut.”