People In Motion

Chapter 16 of Carnival

Carnival

Chapter 16

People In Motion

“Do you--do you realize where we are?” Janet asked.

Kevin looked up, shooing away that execrable, anti-homogeneity Voice.

“Where?”

She indicated a west-running street sign. “Look! Haight Street!”

Kevin pulled out his San Francisco street map and scanned it excitedly. “Why, according to my map, we’re only about a mile from the center of the universe!”

Janet waltzed her bike up to his. Together they spread Kevin’s map over their handlebars. The paper was so crumpled and ridged he had difficulty pinpointing their location. After ripping it down the middle he gave up trying to smooth it.

“Look!” he said. “Here we are, on the corner of Haight and, um, Gough Street. We follow Haight under that overpass, going…west; we go west until we hit Ashbury Street. Haight Street and Ashbury Street!”

Janet looked at him sultrily, from between narrowed eyelids. Her nostrils were flared. “Haight-Ashbury,” she breathed.

“Can you believe it? Aren’t you excited?”

“Of course I am. I’m excited for you.”

“It’s…” Kevin mumbled, it’s like a dream.” He grabbed her hand. They looked long and hard at one another. At last Kevin cried, “Let’s go!”

So they pedaled down the street, and blent right in; two more straggling teenagers in the going groove. This asphalt river flowed straight and true to the Holy Corner; to the spot Eddie had described as the terminus of all streets. Already Kevin sensed an exalted change in the denizens about him: their hair appeared to be longer and totally neglected, their clothes downright ragged. They all seemed to be in deep hallucinogen trances, wandering aimlessly, gathering in lethargic groups along the river’s banks. Fascinated, he quickly made his way downstream.

“Wait!” Janet called. “Wait up, Kevin!”

With a start he realized he’d been pedaling hard, neglectful of the girl. It was the first time she’d lost her grip on his heart, and it scared him. He looked back. He’d gained almost a block on her. Kevin, shaking his head, imagined himself spending the rest of his life searching these unfamiliar streets. She looked so pretty and childlike struggling to narrow the distance between them. He felt like kicking himself.

“I’m sorry,” she said, breathing hard. “I can’t ride that fast.”

He stood straddling his bike’s frame, his mouth hanging open.

Janet mimicked the look, eyes crossed and tongue lolling. “Well? What are we waiting for?”

Kevin’s face relit. “Look!” he cried. “There’s Webster Street. C’mon. Not too far now.” He called off the streets as they were crossed, his heart swelling anew.

And so at long last they’d reached their Mecca, and found themselves. There their selves stood, panting, at the corner of Haight and Ashbury, drinking it all in. The area was crawling with young people in wild dress, and with children in no dress at all. The tenements lining Haight Street were marred by graffiti urging the rapid and indiscriminate consumption of drugs both hard and mild, and the immediate disbanding of all American military forces. Garbage was heaped in the gutters. The air reeked with the smells of sewage and incense and burning marijuana.

But Kevin noticed all this peripherally. His stare was fastened on a single signpost on the intersection’s northeast corner. He slowly walked his bike toward this signpost, taking measured, pious steps. When he reached the pole he tenderly wrapped his fingers round its hot, coarse surface, a recently discarded wad of chewing gum adhering to his palm.

Janet spoke close to his ear, “I wish I’d brought my Brownie. This is a moment to always remember.”

Kevin regarded her from on high, his eyes translucent.

“Wow!” Janet said. “Do you ever look spaced-out!”

He pulled himself together, took a deep breath and let it out with a long sigh. “I feel like I’ve lived here all my life. I feel like I belong here.”

“You look like you belong here.”

Kevin lit his last joint. “Let’s meet The People!” They sauntered up the sidewalk, steering their bikes carefully, and Kevin, in the grip of his emotions, impulsively wrapped his left arm around Janet’s slender waist. She pulled free immediately, then giggled and let her head rest against his shoulder. He squeezed her body against his, and, carried away, planted a sloppy swashbuckling kiss full on her lips. A sudden lancing pain pinched his eyes and passed. She gripped his hand and they skipped along, laughing, flashing the peace sign at everyone they saw. Kevin’s heart was hammering like a blown transmission.

The sidewalks were jammed with characters of every possible description, the air tumultuous with their mingled conversations. Street poets spewed their antiauthoritarian doggerel to constantly splintering groups. A chubby girl of twenty, completely naked, perched atop an overturned city trash bin, laughing gaily and pelting pedestrians with begonias. Farther down the street stood two bemused beat policemen, grinning helplessly amid a throng of chanting, pot smoking youngsters. Kevin flashed the peace sign at the officers and they smiled. Silly with the moment, he went so far as to offer a hit off his joint. The officers looked at him uncertainly, then one shook his head and smiled. Kevin shrugged and grinned idiotically, smoke squirting from his nostrils. He and Janet waved goodbye and both officers flashed the peace sign.

“This,” Kevin cried, “this is just too much. It’s just like what Eddie said; greater than I ever imagined.”

“What?” Janet laughed. She was having trouble staying by his side and hearing him. The knot of their hands was constantly broken and reformed as they made their way through the crowd. The din of voices was astounding.

“I said I love you!” he shouted, snatching her hand again.

“What? Oh, look, look.” And he was desperately holding on as she wove her way to a tenement porch cluttered with wine bottles and grinning teenagers. A banner decorated with scribbled hearts and peace symbols announced THIS IS THE SUMMER OF LOVE from above a boarded-over door. On the stoop a stoned girl was holding a frazzled Afghan, its once-beautiful coat choked by filth and mange. The beast stank from six feet away, and the smell was no laughing matter. The intensity of the stench left no doubt about the advanced nature of the animal’s condition, and the miasma had infected the unknowing flower children on the porch; it was in their clothing, their hair, in their lungs as they breathed. The dog’s tiny yellow eyes were bright and staring, but at a scene the flower children were blind to. The hound was wearing a silly homemade hat hanging low over his long muzzle. Patches reading LOVE and PEACE were sewn into the hat’s crown. A sweater had been converted to fit the dog, and he wore it now with sweltering ignominy. There was a pouch sewn on the sweater’s chest like a marsupium, and in this pouch an equally mangy alley cat was secured by lengths of colored twine, only its head and forepaws free to languish in the light and confusion. Every now and then the Afghan would give the cat a rasping lick, occasionally receiving a lick in return. The poor cat had miniature sunglasses, with peace symbols painted on the lenses, strapped to its head.

“Oh!” Janet cried breathlessly. “Aren’t they darling!”

The spaced-out girl looked at them with a warm, hallucinogenic smile. “Peace,” she said.

“Peace!” they responded.

“This is proof that animals can live in harmony,” the girl said, scratching the quarter-sized ringworm patches practically covering her forearm. She gestured globally, indicating the street to be a working model of humankind in its entirety. “Out here’s proof the whole world can live in harmony. Can you dig that?”

“I can dig it,” Kevin said.

Janet was in loving genuflection, holding the dog’s head while scratching the cat behind its ears, murmuring affectionate gibberish, kissing the animals as they licked her chin. She looked up with small tears streaking her face, at the several teenagers crowding around her and the dog.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” she bubbled. The youngsters all agreed it was simply marvelous, contagious tears popping from their eyes and rolling down their pinched, grinning faces.

The dog’s owner wiped her eyes with the back of a scabbed hand. “He’s a hip and loving dog because he’s a high dog.” She lit a pipe, its bowl full of hashish, and filled her mouth with smoke. The Afghan appeared to know what was coming, for he lowered his head and closed his eyes. The girl tugged at his scrawny neck, but the animal wouldn’t budge. She finally took hold of his muzzle and forcibly turned his head, blowing the smoke directly into his quivering face. She repeated the process three times and released her hold. The beast drooped his head wolfishly, strings of unhealthy-looking saliva hanging from black gums.

“He likes it,” the girl said. “We stoke his head every time we get high.”

“Who wouldn’t like it,” Kevin said.

“There’s a word for it, for what’s happening here,” the girl went on. “It’s called symbiosis. And he’s digging it. It’s almost like I can tell what he’s thinking. It’s like he’s tripping on all this heavy scene and wondering why his ancestors ran around scarfing each other up, when they could have been cool and grooved.”

“Yeah,” Kevin said, inspired. “Maybe,” he elaborated, “maybe in the future all the wild animals will get hip and become peaceful. Maybe someday they’ll all turn into, like, vegetarians, and stop bumming each other’s trips.”

“Oh, that would be heavy,” the stoned girl crooned. “And it can happen. It’s happening here!”

Suddenly the Afghan shook from head to tail. He snapped at something imaginary in the air, retched and sneezed convulsively. The cat tried to bail, but only became further entangled in twine. “He’s cool!” somebody cried. “He just needs another hit!” As Kevin and Janet proceeded down the sidewalk they watched two of the youngsters on the steps helping the girl hold the dog still while she administered ever-increasing doses of smoke into the creature’s grimacing face.

They stopped to admire a group of musicians at the entrance to an alley blocked off by a police car. Lavishly ornamented blacks tapped and palmed conga drums to the abbreviated gyrations of a toothless old woman rattling a green tambourine. There were flautists and harmonica players, half a dozen guitarists. A painted young woman wearing only a pair of police hats wiggled her way among the musicians, her arms thrown back, her head lolling. The two capless policemen sat on the hood of their squad car, nodding and clapping their hands to the reggae-like music.

A battered tin can was displayed on a coffee table just inside the ring of onlookers. A sign taped to this table read: DONATIONS. HELP THE CLAYTON ST. FREE CLINIC HELP OTHERS. GOD BLESS YOU. LOVE AND PEACE. Occasionally a figure would step from the audience to drop in a few coins. Kevin impulsively took a ten dollar bill from his wallet, held it up for the makeshift band to see, and let it fall in the can.

“Outtasight, brother!” called a guitarist, quickly echoed by the other musicians. There was scattered applause, a flurry of hooters just for Kevin, a brief ascension in donations.

“Kevin!” Janet near-whispered, as they continued along the sidewalk. “How can you just give away so much money?”

“What the hell,” he replied. “That was for Eddie.” He took her hands. “Janet, money doesn’t mean anything anymore. What’s money? Money’s s**t. It’s like there’s a revolution going on! Everything, I mean everything’s gonna change! The new world won’t be built on money. It’s gonna be built on love and sharing.”

“Right,” said a haggard young ruffian who had witnessed Kevin’s charity and followed them. “I can dig what you’re saying, man, and the Haight is where it’s all happening. You’re really beautiful, man, and your girl’s beautiful, and the whole f*****g world’s beautiful. But it’s like I got to eat, man, and so does my old lady and our kid. If you can lay a little bread on me, man, I’d sure appreciate it.” As he extended his hand Kevin saw a skeletal arm pocked with the telltale scars of hypodermic injections.

Kevin glumly reached into his change pocket and fished out his remaining coins; maybe two bucks. “That was all the bills I had,” he lied, “but you can have what change I’ve got.”

The panhandler scraped the coins off Kevin’s palm with a rigid claw. “Thanks, man,” he said suspiciously, mentally balancing his chances of snatching Kevin’s wallet. He looked at Kevin’s face out of dark and sunken eyes. “That’s all you got, man?” When Kevin nodded he whirled and elbowed his way through the crowd to the shadows of a tenement.

“Peace!” Janet called after him. She pressed herself against Kevin. “That was sweet of you. That poor man and his family will be able to eat now. You’re so right. Love and sharing are all that matter.”

Kevin grunted evasively. “I wasn’t telling the whole truth,” he confessed after a moment. “I’ve still got plenty of cash in my wallet. But we’ve got to eat, don’t we? And how about dope? We’ve just got to stay high. And speaking of dope--”

He was cut off by a wild shriek from another stoop, where a seated group was holding hands in a tight circle round a disheveled woman in her late forties. The woman’s makeup was streaked, her blouse torn.

“Oh, my God!” she was screaming. “Help me, it’s coming, it’s everywhere, Jesus God it’s beautiful, help me, help me!” Her face was a fluid mask, running the emotional gamut from weeping bliss to raving horror. The people around her were a gently bobbing wreath, attempting to console her. “Yes;” they were saying, their voices deep and chilly. “Yes, we’re friends. Help you. Yes. You’re beautiful…yes.”

“It’s the acid!” the woman screamed. “It’s God. IT’S GOD!” Her voice lashed Kevin’s nerves. He wanted to pull Janet away, but the sidewalk’s human tide had encountered an obstruction somewhere out there. So they were forced to remain where they were, helplessly watching the woman thrash about. Kevin, reminded of his own harsh experiences on LSD, had an idea of what she was going through. “Help me!” she shrieked, her head flopping and rolling on a neck suddenly shorn of muscle control. “God, it’s beautiful, it’s beau-tiful--it’s the acid, the acid.” She began raking her long nails down her face. “Somebody help me!”

“Yes…” the circlers sang, “yes…it’s fine, you’re fine…the acid is God…yes. It’s the acid. The acid’s fine…you are God…God is fine…”

Kevin’s face began to melt. He needed to run, and fast. There came a pair of spine-jarring crashes. Without having to look down, he realized that bolts had just been hammered through his feet. Kevin seized a man’s shoulder and spun him round. “Hey, man, why doesn’t somebody help her? Can’t you see she’s freaking out?”

“Yes…” the man replied eerily, “…don’t worry, everything’s fine…I’m fine and you’re fine…acid is God.”

Kevin let go the shoulder as if the man had bubonic plague. He looked into eyes that were glassy whirlpools and tore his feet from the sidewalk. “Let’s get out of here!”

“…Yes…” Janet said. Kevin grabbed her wrist and side-armed a path through the crowd. Much subdued, they walked their bikes along the sidewalk, their eyes downcast, hearing the mumbles of motionless characters loitering in storefronts. It was the sidewalk come-on of dealers. “Mescaline?” the voices would offer, popping into the mind like memories. “Speed? Acid?” Kevin shook his head with gathering urgency. “Crystal, man?” “Hey hey, got some dynamite Primo here.” “Dust…hey man, dust over here.” “Barbs?”

Eventually Kevin became too depressed to continue. “Sorry,” he mumbled, “but my head’s getting all bummed out.”

“That’s okay. I know just how you feel.” Janet found a few vacant trash-covered steps in front of a boarded-over door. They sat down wearily.

“Everything’s groovy,” Kevin said. “It’s just that those acid trippers brought me down a little.”

“There, there.”

“We just need to rest a while.”

“Sure,” Janet said. “We can watch it all from here.”

There was an awful lot to watch. Colorful paraders bore pickets demanding America leave Vietnam alone. Homosexual couples, hand in hand, promenaded with smiles of triumph. In the middle of the street a group of protesters was openly burning draft cards. Hell’s Angels members rode plowing through the thickest groups, kicking, heedless of cries of protest and pain. Everywhere there were youngsters, some barely into their teens, guzzling beer and wine, popping pills and smoking grass.

And dancing down the sidewalk came a constantly halting procession both colorful and familiar. Above the primitive thump-and-clatter of their tambourines Kevin could hear them chanting:

“Hare Krsna Hare Krsna

Krsna Krsna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama

Rama Rama Hare Hare.”

He grabbed Janet’s hand. “Time to go.”

They walked their bikes across the jammed street and began moving down the opposing sidewalk, still proceeding west. Janet was handed a stick of incense by a devotee who had splintered from the procession. She lit it gaily, sniffed the smoke with simple, childish pleasure. She waved it in front of Kevin’s gloomy face. The scent was frankincense. “Oh cheer up,” she said sternly, her mood shifting swiftly to the dangerous level. “We come all this way, and I have to listen to a zillion boring lectures all about San Francisco, and about how happy you’re going to be, and then you start moping around like some goddamn--”

“Keep your voice down,” Kevin begged. “Everybody’s starting to stare.”

“Don’t you f*****g tell me what to do, buddy! Who the f**k do you think you are! And get your fat f*****g hands off me--” for Kevin had gently gripped her shoulders “--before I start screaming rape.”

“Oh no,” Kevin said with rising alarm. “Don’t do that. Please don’t do that! I’m sorry. Really I am. Look at me; I’m smiling, see? I’m smiling. Please don’t yell.”

“Rape!” Janet screamed. “Rape! Rape! rape rape--” She fell against him, beating her fists on his chest, heaving with sobs. At last she gasped, “I wanted so much to have a good time. Why did you have to spoil it for me?”

He put his arm around her, gently patted her shoulder. Women, he thought, sure are funny creatures. Regular yo-yos; up one minute, down the next. But he enjoyed the feel of her in his arms, felt very protective.

Janet ran a hand down to his waist. Then below. Then…Kevin gulped. “Rape,” she giggled in his ear.

Kevin pulled away as gently as he could. “Not here!” he whispered. “Please. People might--”

Janet shoved him hard, her face wild. “You fat a*****e! Don’t you f*****g tell me what to do!” She took a swing at him, but he caught her tiny fist and pulled her back against his chest. She began to cry again. Quietly now. Faces in the crowd grinned knowingly. “Why did you have to be such a grouch?”

“I’m just…sorry,” he whispered. He didn’t know how to play it. What would Bogart do? Shake her roughly, tell her to can the kid stuff? “I’m sorry, Janet,” he repeated. “I don’t know what came over me. I need to get my head straight, that’s all. I just wish we still had some pot.”

One sweet pretty beam, and the sun was gone. Kevin, suddenly in a vacuum, clutched her bike to his. As Janet was swallowed by the crowd he searched desperately; raising himself with his toes, catching sight of her as she stopped couples and nuzzled into groups, losing her again. When he caught her at rest, she was engaged in a gesturing conversation with another girl. At last she made her way back, guided by his calls. The relief he felt at hearing her voice was like plunging into cool water on a scorching day.

“Ooh! I did it, I did it! She’s a really sweet girl, and she says she knows where we can score a lid for ten dollars. Aren’t you proud of me?”

“Sure,” Kevin said as they walked their bikes, “only I wish you wouldn’t run off like that. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

The girl Janet had befriended was sitting on a low wall, as unstably as Humpty Dumpty. Only seventeen, and she appeared about to give birth to quintuplets. Except for the great globe of her lower torso the girl was frightfully skinny; simply an enormous round melon with two stick-arms and two stick-legs, and a dirty, bug-eyed doll face framed by electric strands of grimy blond hair.

“Peace,” Kevin said. “I’m Kevin, and I guess you’ve met Janet.”

“Yeah, peace, yeah,” the girl responded in a husky voice. “I’m Jennifer. Y’know: ‘Jennifer Juniper’. If you guys wanna lid we gotta walk down a coupla blocks to Grattan Street. Just gimme a sec’ here, and I’ll be right with you.” She eased herself off the wall, aided by Janet. Kevin could now see she was very tiny; scarcely four and a half feet tall. He and Janet formed a protective wedge with their front wheels as she waddled down the sidewalk between them, puffing and groaning. She had them turn south on Cole.

Janet’s eyes caught Kevin’s. “Do you live here, Jenny?”

“Yeah. I been living in the Haight for almost a year. It was really a gas at first, but by parents quit sending me checks a coupla months ago, and the pigs caught up with my old man, Harvey, who was AWOL. Lemme tell you,” she swallowed, “I been feeling really s****y since I got knocked up this last time. It’s got me thinking about making some serious life changes. All this rap about acid and chromosome damage is screwing with my head, so I’ve decided to just stick with booze and downers.” Her expression went deathly pale. “Being pregnant in the Haight,” she gasped, “can be a real drag. ’Scuse me a sec’.” Jennifer stopped and leaned against a fire hydrant, pressing a hand to her side.

Janet steadied her by the shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she gasped. “Yeah, I’m fine. Jesus, this kid’s gonna be a whopper.”

Kevin thought a spell before observing, “It’s like a real bummer that your old man got kidnapped by the pigs. If what my friend Eddie told me is true, they never let their victims see the baby.”

“Whoa!” Jennifer laughed, wincing. “He’s not the papa, that’s for sure; not Harvey. Ever since I first met the guy he was either too loaded or too paranoid to get a hard-on. I dunno who knocked me up this time, man. Hell, ever since this free love business began I’ve spent more time on my back than on my feet. I’ll just be glad when it’s over. Pregnancy’s a drag, but labor’s a real b***h. I guess I’ll name it Peace if it’s a dude, or Love if it’s a chick. Here’s my pad.” They halted facing a lot overgrown with weeds. All that remained of the house was the foundation, but in the rear leaned a ramshackle, squat, one-story little building built like a bomb shelter. At first glance Kevin saw only the broad double doors of a garage. As they walked up the dirt drive he noticed a cottage porch jutting from the rear. “It’s not really my pad,” Jennifer said. “Me and some other heads share it. You’ll like them; they’re groovy people. You better stash your bikes behind these bushes; around here derailleurs get ripped off quicker than dealers.” It looked like a safe place, but Kevin locked their bikes to a gas line just the same.

The wood garage doors were old and splintered. Rusted hinges mirrored Jennifer’s groans as she tugged. She paused just inside, wincing and hugging her ribs. The interior was illuminated by candles placed haphazardly, and by a pencil-thin beam of daylight emanating from the rear, where apparently the wall had been broken through.

The sudden wave of bright daylight must have dazzled the garage’s occupants for the moment the doors were open. Perhaps a dozen pairs of eyes gleamed at their entrance like rats, and then Jennifer had closed the doors and Kevin’s eyes began adjusting to the dark. The floor was mostly taken up by mattresses and blankets and rags of clothing. A few backpacks and a single crutch were propped against the left-hand wall. The air was heavy with incense smoke, and the walls were covered, as in Perky’s house, with posters of rock stars and multicolored graphics. The rats themselves stuck to the old pattern: long unwashed hair and beards; dressed for the most part in rags and beads. But there were a few hapless souls who helped make the room look like a disaster ward: a white-haired old man either dumped or collapsed in the space between a mattress and the rear wall; a filthy Mexican girl breast-feeding a naked infant; a boy with one arm and one leg in casts; a teenaged boy, his face in darkness, shivering on one of the yellowed mattresses and staring up fearfully. There was no music, and when the sudden shock of daylight had worn off Kevin could hear their voices begin to stir anew, like wind through leaves.

Jennifer started the introductions. “Hi, guys. This here’s Janet and Kevin. And this is Booger and Lalena and Funkho and--oh, hell, you guys just make yourselves at home and get to know each other. Sahib’s got the pot; he’s probably in the back. You guys wait here. Sahib doesn’t dig it when I bring in strangers to score; I guess he likes to check ’em out first.” Jennifer waddled into the cottage like a fat mother hen, disappearing into the black recesses of what, from the flickering of candlelight on old stainless steel, appeared to be a kitchen conversion. Now, Kevin could further bring down the humblest room. He looked to Janet for comfort, but she deserted him for the nursing girl, begging to hold the baby. “Oh, he’s so darling!” Kevin heard her cooing, “but the poor dear looks so sick.” Soon they were involved in a girlish banter that knows no language barrier, and Kevin found himself looking down at the shivering boy. He remembered the name, offered his hand in greeting.

“Um…what’s happening, Booger?” He zoned right out. “My name’s…um…my name’s Kevin.”

Booger hugged himself, shuddering violently. His eyes seemed to barely reflect the candlelight. “Are you--are you the police?”

“The pig?” Kevin laughed. “No! Of course not.” The room, except for the girls’ exchange, went deathly silent at Kevin’s bark of laughter. Then the baby screamed and, one by one, the voices pattered anew. Kevin’s laugh, even to himself, rang false and harsh. “No,” he said in a quieter voice, “I’m just visiting. I only dropped by to try and score some pot.”

Booger gripped himself tighter and dropped his head to his knees. Kevin had to move even closer to hear the boy squeeze out his words. “You’re…” he managed, “not the police…God, I’m glad you’re not the…police.”

Kevin was moved enough to sit beside the boy, to place a comforting hand on his bony shoulder. He felt a shudder run up his arm.

“Please…don’t touch me.”

“Okay, Booger.” Kevin removed his hand. “I can see you’re sick. Is there anything…anything I can do?”

Booger shook his head sharply, once each way. He straightened his back, his neck muscles taut, and stared at a point midway between the top of the garage door and the ceiling. Kevin suddenly saw himself as a huge intruder all in shadow, so he picked up a sputtering green candle set in a coffee can. Booger turned to face him with an agonized tremor, and Kevin recoiled at the sight of Booger’s face. The wing of one nostril was eaten away. The left side of his forehead was terribly distended, his hair spare and brittle-looking. Booger’s teeth were in miserable shape, his gums bleeding freely from the act of speaking. His face was little more than a skull mask with a thin covering of gray flesh, the cheeks hollow, the eyes sunken. The boy’s left iris was of a much paler hue than the right, and appeared twice as large. Kevin instinctively looked away, just as Jennifer reentered the room and spoke his name.

Sahib was a huge man of forty, sporting an incorrigible beard and dark snakes of hair rapidly going white. Rimless spectacles with lenses thick as Coke bottles perched on the sad bridge of a broken nose with a gleaming bulbous tip. He was heartily overweight and blissfully sanguine, dressed in modified Army fatigues and a bright Mexican serape. Sahib, with his maple complexion and mischievous round eyes, certainly appeared to be of Indian extraction. In the early days of his turning the garage into a sort of hospice, some of the first arrivals, ignorant of the appellation sahib as applying respectfully to Europeans of rank in Colonial India, had supposed it meant something more akin to swami, and the name had stuck. Sahib liked to spoof sobriety, so the contrasts he displayed suited him fine.

Now a small and compactly built man, with hair bleached almost white, stalked into the garage and peered angrily over Sahib’s shoulder, saying, “So you’re looking for a lid, huh? Who sent you?”

“Nobody sent us,” Kevin replied uncertainly. “We’re just passing through and need some weed.”

“Yeah? Where you from?”

“We rode up from L.A.”

“Ah, Christ,” the blond man said. “Another one.” He shook his head disgustedly. “Go ahead, Sahib. Sell him a lid. But this is the last time.” And he stormed out, slamming the garage doors behind him.

“Who, might I ask,” Janet wondered coldly, “was that?”

“That,” said Sahib pleasantly, “was Spacer, our high-strung connection.” He dismissed the subject with a flick of his wrist, saying, “Booger, me lad. You’re very tired, son. You can barely keep your eyes open. Don’t you think you should sleep now?” He took Booger by the shoulders and gently helped him to his feet. “You come sleep in Sahib’s room, where it’s quiet and cool.”

Shuddering hard, Booger let his head rest on the big man’s shoulder as he was led from the room. In a moment Sahib returned, and in his hand was an ounce bag of marijuana. He sat cross-legged on the floor and rolled a sample joint.

“So what’s wrong with Booger?” Kevin whispered. “I’ve never seen anybody so…sick.”

Sahib shrugged and said brusquely, “F**k if I know.” He caught himself. “Forgive me. Perhaps effendi Spacer’s current bout with paranoia has begun to get under my less than impermeable skin.” He looked pensively at the dark opening leading into the mysteries in the rear, and after a moment said, “The boy was like that when we found him. Only not so advanced.” He handed the joint to Kevin. “Oh, we tried to get the little guy to the hospital--believe me, we tried--but for some reason he’s become so conditioned to this marvelous abode that he’ll react most violently at the first suspicion of being moved. I have a friend who’s a practicing diagnostician at Litteman General. He came by to check Boog’ out as a favor and said he was damned if he knew what was wrong. Anyway, from what we’ve learned from the boy, this is the closest he’s ever come to having a home. So we just keep him warm and tell him stories, feed him the best we can. If we put him out on the street he’d die like a dog. Oh well, Mr. B has a date with Mr. D soon enough. Even a fool can see that.” He smiled broadly, his eyes twinkling behind the thick lenses. “Just another victim of dat heartless ol’ wilderness out dere,” he said grandly. “They come and they go, the Boogers of this world, and there are plenty more on the way to take the place of those who fall. Though why so many of ’em are turning up in San Francisco beats the hell out of me. Funny. But you should see some of the unfortunates this shoddy little dwelling has entertained. Big kids, little kids, young and old,” he sang, “and how many of ’em will be successful? How many will raise healthy families? How many will even be sure of a roof and a hot meal? Ah, well. Ours not to reason why. That’s for theologians and psychoanalysts and the doctors of various sciences; all striving to learn what makes Johnny run, or, as in trooper Booger’s case, run down. Bad chemicals, you wonder? Rotten parents, perhaps? No education? Who can say, who can say…” Sahib allowed his voice to trail off theatrically. He blinked at the figures around him, wondering if he was losing his audience. When he saw the mesmerized expressions he gleefully hunkered down to become the campfire storyteller, but, perhaps because he’d fallen victim to his own pessimistic turn of patter, his true morbid nature found vent instead. Sahib’s soul now discovered gravity; he became the prey of his own “bad chemicals”, and ran down. The garage was morgue-quiet. Sahib looked inward, at a gaudy stage in an empty house, and, speaking as much to himself as to his company, brazened out the mess of his dark spirit’s debut.

“Every time the adrenaline starts to flow I get this spooky feeling I’m being manipulated. You guys know where I’m coming from? It’s like each of us has some gung-ho freak perched on his back, and these freaks just keep f*****g with our heads and kicking us in the ribs. We’re all half out of our minds with anxiety, but something’s got us boxed in, something won’t let us breathe. And we wanna go, man, we wanna go, because if the tension gets any higher we’re all gonna chew right through our bits. But wait a minute. What’s in it for us? And if we’re so damned afraid of the finish why are we so desperate to break out of our gates? It’s almost as if we’re being used, y’know? Consumed. It’s as if we’re being goaded into busting our butts for…what? To keep our silly asses at each other’s throats? Spoiler alert! The joke’s on us all, my intent and starry-eyed little friends. Because all along it’s actually the merry-go-round that’s been running the riders, and because…because something just ain’t kosher in the cosmos, kiddies.”

Sahib stopped mid-thought. He’d clearly become agitated. He’d thought “I suffer” for so long that articulating “We suffer” was not so much about a feeling of relief as helping to define the common quarry. Now he was no longer the prey. He was a man again. He smelled figurative blood, and for a moment imagined the scent was shared by his company. Then just as abruptly he said:

“F**k it!

“I tell you, life’s a gag, man, a joke; a silly little diversion in the endless labor of creation. And I’m not saying it’s not a good joke. I bust a gut every time I think about it. But it’s like this is a running joke, you dig? It just goes on and on and on. Okay, so maybe I’m not smart enough to see any glorious purpose, and maybe I’m not deep enough to know whether it’s a deity or a demon running the show, but before I go, man, before I go, I just gotta get my hands on Whatever’s in charge and say, ‘Hey, F****r! I’m hip to sick jokes, okay? And I’ll take the fall as lamely as the next second-billionth banana. But don’t leave me hanging! Man oh man oh man, just what the hell’s the punch line’?”

Sahib absently fingered the hem of his serape, painfully aware he’d exposed his nonchalance to be as much a facade as his attire. He handed his visitor a book of matches, speaking as though he were addressing one of the idle rich, “You would perhaps consent to sharing some of your herb with the poor souls about you?” Upon Kevin’s nod Sahib was rejuvenated. He raised his arms like a choirmaster. “Gather round, boys and girls, gather round. Let us join hands and bask in the generosity of a fellow refugee, this blessed young man from L.A., from the Big Machine.” Kevin heard the shadows sliding and shuffling closer. He fired up the joint, took a hit and passed it to Sahib, who drew on it deeply and lovingly, savoring every aspect of the experience. The joint lasted twice round the circle. Then they all held hands around Sahib, who looked on them collectively with a jolly and genuinely compassionate expression. “Friends,” he began. “…No, that’s not entirely fitting. Brothers and sisters.

“Brothers and sisters, we are linked here at the dawning of a new age in the history of civilization as we understand it. On the surface things might not appear as hunky-dory as they are, I assure you, in reality. What with all the s**t that goes down, it’s not easy to perceive what looks like a lousy and useless life as the celebration it really is. We must always remember this is only the surface we see. Forget all that silly dark crap I was saying. Any fool can see that the source of universal light is love, and that your generation is bringing it home. Now I know this is all old hat, but, if you’ll excuse my somewhat irritating penchant for longwindedness, I’d like to take this opportunity to make a few predictions, if I may. Firstly, I see before the turn of the century a complete revision of the old standards. Power, which we all know goes hand in hand with money, will lose its flavor, its relish, once it is made evident that love and community are beyond price. There will be more power manifested in a small group forming a loving chain, as we are now, than in all the cabinets, police forces, and administrative institutions in the whole wide wonderful world. Money will eventually become obsolete, unfit even to wipe our precious little asses with, for in our new society no amount of cash will buy…respect. The pariahs of today are the elite of tomorrow. And you wanna know something? There’s no monopoly on light. Love is gently burning in each of us, just waiting to express itself, to penetrate the darkness as the break of day bleeds back the night. Everybody, I mean everybody, is just about to burst with love and--what the devil?” For there was a revving of motorcycles at the front of the drive.

“I’ll see,” Kevin said, grabbing Janet’s hand. Together they crept to the double doors and peered out. What he saw froze his blood. Three motorcycles bearing huge Hell’s Angels members were storming the garage. Before he could shout a warning the lead cycle crashed straight into the right-hand door, tearing it from its hinges. Chaos ran through the garage like wildfire as the rats scurried squealing and hobbling through the break in the wall. Janet was screaming and screaming and screaming. Kevin clamped a hand over her mouth, the breath whistling between his teeth as she gnawed his fingers. Neither had been hurt by the falling door, which had lost momentum against the garage wall before sliding on top of them. Through a crack in the wood Kevin now saw an enormous hairy man in sunglasses, spiked helmet, and full Hell’s Angels regalia, dismount and heave his bike back on its stand. His partners crunched in behind him, leaving their hogs just outside.

Sahib, still sitting cross-legged, blinked up at them. “Greetings, gents. Don’t be bashful. Come right in.”

The burly Angel grabbed Sahib by the front of his Army shirt and hauled him to his feet. “Where’s Spacer?”

“That,” said Sahib, squirming a little, “is anybody’s guess. However I can assure you he is most certainly not down the front of my shirt, nor is he anywhere on these premises. He left, in fact, scarcely ten minutes ago.”

“You’re a liar!” the huge biker roared. He shook Sahib like a dusty rug. “We know he’s got our skag. Where does he keep it?”

“I never heard anything about it,” Sahib gasped. He coughed horribly, but the biker only twisted harder. “He didn’t,” Sahib choked, “he didn’t say--he didn’t say anything to me about--Vishnu, you’re hurting me!”

“You’re a lying m**********r!” the biker roared. He drew back his fist, aimed, and smashed Sahib in the nose so hard the older man’s glasses disintegrated. The Angel picked him up and hammered him in the face again, took him by the hair in both fists and hurled him down. “You’re a liar!” the biker hollered. “You’re a motherfucking liar, you motherfucking liar!” He began stomping furiously on Sahib’s head with his heavy motorcycle boots.

Kevin flinched at every bloody crunch of boots. Being a hero was out of the question. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he and Janet would also be stomped if they were discovered, and discovery seemed imminent, for Janet was struggling fiercely beneath him. She seemed bent on chewing clear through his hand.

Now the Angel picked Sahib up for the last time, grabbed him by the hair and throat, repeatedly smashed his bloody face into the wall, bellowing all the while, “You’re a liar!”

Jennifer, who had swooned, came running up, beating at the biker with her tiny fists and wailing piteously. Without breaking his rhythm the Angel elbowed her in the belly as hard as he could.

He hurled Sahib down again, stomped him for good measure, and stormed back to his bike. He pulled an enormous chain off the sissy bar, turned around and began flogging Sahib, who was quite insensible, with all his might. At last he finished and got to work on the walls, whipping the chain around like a lariat. He brought it down hard on the thin wooden partition shielding Kevin and Janet from death, wound it back around the spiked sissy bar and kick-started his motorcycle. He deliberately ran over Sahib’s legs before roaring out the doorway and down the drive to the street. There was the double kick and roar of his two accomplices’ cycles, the sound of garbage cans kicked over, a squeal of pain from a bystander, apparently also kicked over.

Kevin carefully poked out his head. He pushed away the door and wiggled free. “Sahib?” he heard himself whisper, unbelieving. There was blood everywhere. He crept over and slumped against the streaked and bespattered wall, cradled Sahib’s broken neck in the crook of his arm. Janet crawled out behind him, saw what had happened and promptly went into hysterics.

Kevin ignored her. “Sahib?” he repeated.

After a long moment Sahib’s bloody eyes opened.

“How do you…” Kevin stammered, “how do you feel?”

Sahib stared up through a veil of blood. “How do I feel?” he gasped. “How do I feel? I…why, just fine, thank you very much. Never better.” He blinked, and a long shudder rolled from his thighs to his shoulders and passed through Kevin. The boy’s feet trembled and his toes cramped. He watched Sahib’s facial muscles leap and subside erratically. Sahib shuddered throughout his final exhalation; a long, ghostly moan that was a shivering legato descent from tenor through basso profundo. Then Sahib turned to stone.

And the garage was swarming with properly concerned people off the street. Kevin felt vomit rising, and a fury so great it drove him howling to his feet. As if cued, Spacer stepped back into the picture, pushed his way to Kevin’s side and looked down.

“What happened?” he demanded.

Kevin turned on him with eyes blazing. “Some f*****g bikers killed Sahib,” he sputtered, his whole body shaking. “Because of you, prick! They wanted their smack, and when Sahib covered for you they f*****g killed him!”

Spacer grabbed Kevin’s shoulders. His eyes looked like they’d blow out of their sockets. He looked down at Sahib’s smashed and gory body, then back up at Kevin. “Oh my God!” he cried, and covered his eyes with a hand. He looked back up, desperately. “They didn’t find my stash, did they, man? Tell me! DID THEY FIND MY STASH?” He tore himself away, burst into the kitchen area, and returned in a minute with an expression of immense relief. “Listen,” he said reasonably, “I think you two better split. The pigs ought to be here in no time, and the less people involved, the better.”

Kevin’s mouth worked soundlessly. A woman who’d come in to help moaned and began retching, just as the distant wailing of a siren underscored Spacer’s forecast. Kevin shoved his way to Janet, grabbed a hold of her arm.

“You m**********r!” she screamed, cracking him on the side of the head with a heavy glass ashtray. “You son of a b***h!”

There was a sudden outburst from the crowd and a pressing of bodies. An authoritative voice began hollering for the instant dispersal of all persons capable of voluntary locomotion. From outside came the trilling of a beat cop’s whistle. The siren seemed closer. Kevin shook his head and brought Janet down with a flying tackle. He threw her over his shoulder and barged around the side of the garage to their bikes, trying to ignore the teeth at his back. When he set her down he was all ready for another bruise. But she was sobbing quietly. Kevin shook her by the shoulders.

“Get a hold of yourself, d****t! The pigs are coming. Now calm down!”

She caught herself mid-sob and looked at him strangely, her complexion pale.

“Are you all right?” Kevin demanded.

She shook her head yes, her mouth puckered as if she’d just sucked on a lemon.

“Are you sure?”

She shook her head no. Then she was bent at the waist, vomiting, choking, vomiting some more, and Kevin was holding her up while trying to focus on the street.

The moment she was done he bent down and shakily unlocked their bikes. He had to practically lift her and set her on her seat, but then they were pedaling down the drive. They turned onto the street just as a police cruiser pulled up, lights flashing and siren fading. Kevin made Janet ride double time. Soon they had turned the corner back onto Cole Street, where the flower children were dancing without a care in the world, singing of peace and religion, of love and hope. Kevin wanted to scatter them like tenpins.