Summer of Love, a Time Travel by Lisa Mason Read Free Book Online Page B

never invited by the hip community,
the hip community has nothing to do with the Number One song on the Hit
Parade—why, the hip community sets up crash pads in churches and garages and the
backs of stores. The hip community cooks food and gives it away. The hip
community sets up a free medical clinic and free switchboards and free boxes on
the street and free entertainment in the park. The hip community sets up a job
co-op and a merchants’ association to employ the poor li’l refugees fleeing
AnyTown, U.S.A.
    Why,
exactly, are the kids fleeing?
    WE
SHALL SEE.
    The
hip community does all these things at its own private and lean expense. But
GEE it’s strange. HEAVENS, it’s awful puzzling. The media want to know, what do
these crazed folks DO? Why, they dance. They sing. They read odd books. They
paint odd pictures. They ponder odd philosophies. They run shops and cafes and
newspapers.
    HOW
SHOCKING. They are attempting to create a NEW COMMUNITY.
    And
after the Man spies on them and pries into their lives and J-Edgar-Hoovers them
till it’s not funny, ALL OF A SUDDEN the hip community doesn’t want to hang out
with the media anymore. To the Post and Time and Life, the
hip community says BUZZ OFF.
    And
that’s NOT NICE.
    So
the media want to know—since the hip community stands for nothing—WHY OH WHY are
kids from all over America stampeding to join a pack of lawless, immoral,
fornicating, stoned, dirty, lazy freaks?
    Uh-huh.
And you don’t know half the story.
    “No,
sonny, the Mystic Eye does not sell Zig-Zag,” Ruby tells the scruffy
teenybopper. “You want rolling papers, you go around the corner to the
Psychedelic Shop.”
    She
struggles to make change out of a buck from the teenybopper’s purchase of an
incense stick for thirty-nine cents. Damn Stan the Man. Holding onto her
calculating machine like he once held onto her common sense. Her heart-hostage
days. Not anymore. He won’t shuck her, running that game. Won’t get her back in
his bed, either.
    She
keeps one eye on the red-haired dude who charges in the door, the other on the
teenybopper whose hands are little too nimble. Twenty minutes till closing on a
Wednesday night, another twelve-hour workday for her, and the cash drawer is
jammed with loot. The Solstice Celebration brought quite a crowd, not to
mention Jimi Hendrix and the Jefferson Airplane are playing the Fillmore.
Mercury is transiting Gemini, and the street is jumping.
    “No freakin’
Zig-Zag? What kinda hellhole is dis, anyway?” The teenybopper swaggers in front
of his hoodlum friends. Is he walking the walk, talking the talk? His bangs
straggle in his eyes, he hasn’t washed in a week, and his voice is gravelly
from way too many tokes. He thinks he’s cool, rapping trash.
    At
thirty-five, Ruby is old enough to be his mother and big enough to tan his
hide. Bend the little jerk over her knee and whack his butt till he cries.
    Leo
Gorgon, lounging at the counter, takes in the scene. “Hey, Ruby,” he says in a
fake-nice voice.”How come you don’t sell freakin’ Zig-Zag?”
    She
bestows upon him a withering glance. “This shop, my shop, is the Mystic
Eye.” She leans across the counter, lowering herself nose-level to the
teenybopper. “We’re into magic, sonny. Real magic.” She expertly palms
his quarter, pulls the coin from his ear.
    His
hoodlum friends stare. Their bloodshot eyes bug out.
    “Like,
wow!”
    “You
see that? ”
    “Aw,
hell,” the teenybopper says. Mr. Know-It-All. “So she’s got tha’ power. Lotsa
people do. I saw that dude”--he juts his chin at Gorgon--“pull flowers
right outta thin air on the corner of Stanyan.”
    Gorgon
rolls his eyes and snorts. Like, what a shuck, Ruby, moonstoning flower
children with parlor tricks. Right. He’s a fakir and she’s a witch. Why should
they talk when they could communicate telepathically?
    Ruby
shrugs. What does this Digger dude want with her? The Diggers have done
some good works, sure. They’ve