Sarah Of The Moon (11 page)

He was glad when they left. If they saw him talking to Sherry, the word might get back to Sarah. He knew Skip and Benny well enough to believe the truth would go through significant changes before reaching her ears.

The van pulled away and Sherry walked toward him.

“I’m really not one of them. I just like to help out from time to time,” she said as she sat next to him.

“We need to take care of each other here,” she added.

Sherry moved closer to Alex, close enough for him to feel the warmth of her body heat.

Unlike Sarah, she told him everything about her past, present, and her plans for the future.

They talked for what seemed like hours. At some point, as he was reminiscing about his childhood in Baltimore, Sherry put her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. He was afraid to move. His heart was beating fast and he felt he was slurring his words a little.

He was thinking she had fallen asleep when she abruptly asked him if he had a girlfriend. As she said this, her hand went to his leg, and he jerked slightly. If Sherry noticed it, she paid it no mind. Her hand stayed right where it was, occasionally squeezing his thigh.

For the briefest of seconds, Alex contemplated keeping Sarah a secret. After all, Sarah never touched him like this. Sarah never leaned her head on his shoulder or put her hand on his leg. He had the feeling that, at night on a blanket on Hippie Hill, Sherry would do more than kiss him on the forehead. He suspected she would do much more than that.

Still, Sarah had earned her girlfriend status. Despite the lack of serious romance in their relationship, she had found a comfortable place in his heart.

“I am close friends with a girl named Sarah. She lives in our house on Ashbury Street.

Sherry’s hand relaxed on his leg and her eyes opened.

“Does she wear white?”

“Yes,” he said with some apprehension in his voice.

“Does she dance at night on Hippie Hill?”

“And sometimes during the day,” he continued.

Sherry raised her head from Alex’s shoulder. Her hand left his leg.

“I didn’t know you were seeing Sarah of the moon.”

“Sarah of the moon?” Things were going south quickly, and he was not sure why.

“You must be the guy she’s been seen with lately. Everyone here thought Sarah would always keep to herself. She’s been a loner since she arrived here.”

Sherry moved around to face him. She sat cross-legged in front of him and, to Alex’s surprise, appeared more fascinated than mad.

“Has no one told you about her before?”

He shook his head no.

“She came to Haight-Ashbury in 1965. Back then, this place was more a wish than a reality. I understand she was just sixteen when she arrived. She made her mark early on, connecting with the big thinkers and shakers, Allen Cohen, George Hunter, Marty Balin, the Thelin brothers, and more.”

Sherry broke into a smile. “She took them on. A sixteen-year-old girl who had a vision, her vision, of the way things should be. For a while it worked. She was instrumental in those formative years for accomplishing the near impossible. She helped create a utopia in the heart of San Francisco.”

Sherry stared past him. Her eyes seemed to cloud over as she spoke of things that once were.

“Sarah wanted more than that. She wanted the ideas she helped plant to bloom into a flower encompassing the world. She would accept nothing less. When it did not happen, despite her best efforts, she became disillusioned.”

“In her mind, her dream of a perfect world had failed. She took it to heart and retreated to the Golden Gate Park where she found solace and peace on the top of a hill.”

Sherry placed her hand on Alex’s knee, but it felt comforting now. The electricity had abandoned the air.

“We would sometimes watch her as she danced. A beam of moonlight always found her, even on the cloudy nights.”

“As she withdrew and lapsed into silence, her legend grew. Some say she can predict the future, others claim she has the ability to read minds.”

“Has she told you about her past?”

“No, she hasn’t,” he replied honestly.

“They say her parents were killed in a car accident when she was young. The word is she lived with her uncle and his wife for a time, but she was not treated kindly.”

“Eventually she made her way to San Francisco and a family who cared for her.”

Sherry gripped his knee firmly before removing her hand. “If you ask around, you will only hear good things about her. She wanted change without the protests and altercations. Others felt differently.”

She stood up facing him. Without thinking, his eyes drifted once again to her chest. He quickly looked up at her face.

“I hope it works out with the two of you,” Sherry said once she had his attention. “I should be going now. It was nice talking to you, although I did most of it.”

“You answered some questions I had. Sarah does not talk about the past.” He smiled at her. “Thank you.”

She started to leave, then stopped and turned around. She lifted her tee shirt up to her shoulders for a brief moment before lowering it again.

“One more question answered,” she said and walked away.

ON A MID-SUMMER’S EVENING

Alex took his place on the hill
and waited for Sarah to arrive from the Free Clinic. The afternoon spent with Sherry had been enlightening in many ways. He imagined the stories of Sarah’s ability to read minds, or foretell the future, to be nonsense. The events transpiring in the early days of Haight-Ashbury were undoubtedly true and he admired Sarah for her steadfast determination and grit.

He was a bit concerned when it came to this year. Why did she give up on her goals? Was the future that bleak? As always, for every question answered there was a question unresolved. The enigma that was Sarah lived on.

He was early and did not expect her for a time and so he opened the envelope he picked up earlier from the Western Union office and unfolded the papers inside. He had waited until now to read his latest published article, hoping not to find any significant editing in the prose.

He began to read.

Article for publication July 30, 1967, submitted and received July 27.

I roamed the streets of Haight Ashbury today, questioning both young men and women on their reasons for coming to this small section of San Francisco. The responses I received were diverse and interesting. I hope that their words shed some light on the culture of the young, as it exists at the halfway point in the summer of love.

Annie, who is 16 years of age and a runaway, told me she was homeless for the first two weeks here. She slept, wrapped in a blanket, in the Golden Gate Park, or in the dark recesses of Haight Street, always mindful of patrolling police officers. She ate with the change provided from street begging and the free food supplied by the Diggers. She currently resides at a communal residence with several other young people her age or older.

When I asked her why she ran away from home, she told me her parents did not understand her. Her last sentence was a theme that repeated itself throughout many of my interviews.

I asked her how she was coping now. Annie told me that everything was ‘groovy’ at this time, and then excused herself to bum some money for dinner.

Rick and Lila were sharing a blanket on ‘Hippie Hill’. They hitchhiked here from Seattle, Washington in May of this year. Both are 19 years old. They had been dating for two years when they decided to journey to San Francisco. They admitted the lure of available drugs was the primary reason for their pilgrimage. Upon arrival, however, they became activists of a sort, befriending Allen Cohen, the editor of the San Francisco Oracle.

I asked them what they thought of the counter-culture revolution now. They looked at each other before Lila replied, and I quote:

“There is no revolution. What little organization we had fell apart when druggies, runaways, and weekend hippies saturated the place. These pretenders don’t want to change the world; they just want to get high.”

“We tried,” Rick added, before they pulled the blanket over them and hoped that I would take the hint.

Martin, who preferred I address him as Martino, is what they call an old-timer in the Haight. He arrived here in the spring of 1965 when the hippie movement was barely a whisper in the wind.

I found Martino sitting on the sidewalk in front of The Psychedelic Shop on Haight Street. Bearded and dressed as a true hippie. He wore a loose fitting patchy shirt, scruffy jeans, and suede mountain boots that covered his legs to the knee.

Martino would not divulge his age, but appeared to be in his late 20s or early 30s. I asked if he would mind telling me about the way it was back then, in Haight-Ashbury.

Before I continue, let me say that these weekly articles are about my take on the summer of love from the time I arrived in June until now. According to Martino however, the summer of love began in 1965 and has crossed over the seasons and the years to the present time.

Martino offered me the patch of sidewalk next to him and, between the constant interruptions of his many friends, told me of the old days.

He mentioned names I have become familiar with during my stay here, Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, Timothy Leary, Tom Donahue (a local DJ), and Ralph J. Gleason who was a Jazz critic for the San Francisco Chronicle before he discovered folk rock and pyschedelia.

He talked about how Marty Balin and his partners bought a pizza shop, turned it into a nightclub named it The Matrix, and brought in his group, The Jefferson Airplane as the house band.

In those days, he told me, the free spirit community stretched for miles. He recalled countless trips to Virginia City, Nevada to see a group known as The Charlatans play at the Red Dog Saloon and hanging out with the Pranksters at Kesey’s home in La Honda hills of the San Francisco peninsula.

There were no weekend hippies back then, he told me. Everyone was of the same mind and philosophy. As he described it, they simply wanted peace, for themselves and for the world. He was sincerely apologetic that they had not yet accomplished that singular goal.

He had no sooner finished the sentence than the wind blew a newspaper against him. He picked it up. It was the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle. The headline read; 376 U.S. SOLDIERS KILLED IN THE BATTLE OF DAK TO AS WAR CASUALTIES MOUNT.

Martino stared at the paper for a while before he lowered his head and closed his eyes.

“And the world rubs my face in it,” he finally said.

My final interview was with a young man who had just arrived in town. The small suitcase he carried bore the words ‘San Francisco or bust!’ and had peace symbol stickers, in a variety of sizes and colors, plastered about its surface.

I found out his name was Peter and that he was 18 years old. He hitched his way west from Duluth, Minnesota. It turned out he had received his draft notice in the mail less than a week ago. That same afternoon he had his thumb out and his suitcase in hand.

I had never talked to a draft dodger before, or at least one who admitted it, and questioned him on his decision to hit the road.

Peter told me that he was no coward. He simply wanted to wait out the Vietnam War. He would return home as soon as it ended, saying there must have been a mistake. He had never received a draft notice. He simply decided to trek to San Francisco to enjoy a summer adventure.

I told him, in a brutally honest manner, that I did not think that strategy would work and suggested he reconsider. Peter rejected that line of thought with a shrug.

“There is always Canada,” he said before begging off to grab a bite to eat.

Although I imagine there are some young men in Haight-Ashbury, like Peter, dodging the draft, I feel that most in this tight knit gathering of humanity are here to celebrate life. Would they go to war if asked? Without a doubt the answer would be no. Perhaps I am a dreamer in a harsh world, but I think the majority here are fighters for change not bloodshed. They believe, with sincerity, in a world free of strife and conflict. If that lofty goal is found to be unreachable, then most will say they tried and age in a manner of grace and compassion.

Alex Conley, July 27, 1967

It looked like the same article he submitted. Once again, he had staved off Uncle Max’s dreaded red-inked pen.

“Can I see it?” said a voice from behind him. He turned to see Sarah above him, shadowed by the evening’s sunset.

“Sure,” Alex said, handing her the papers.