Sarah Of The Moon (12 page)

She sat next to him and read. As she neared the end of the piece, she read slower. Her lips moved as she followed the words in the final paragraph.

“I’d like to keep this if I may,” she said softly, still looking at the submission.

“Sure,” he said once again.

She folded the papers up and placed it in the bosom of her dress, then turned toward him. For a time she searched his eyes as though something might be hiding behind them. Then she bent forward, closed her eyes, and kissed him on the lips. He closed his eyes too. For the longest time they stayed like that, as the sun behind them advanced toward the earth.

A KIND PLACE TO VISIT

As far as Alex was concerned,
the kiss in the park that night made it official. They were now boyfriend and girlfriend. It was Alex and Sarah, two hearts, each bearing their name, with an arrow running through them. The drawing was in his binder and, as soon as he borrowed a kitchen knife, the image would be on the porch railing.

They held hands walking back to the house, sat together on the porch step, and talked until the chill of a wind blowing off the bay drove them indoors.

The house was silent as they stood shivering in the lobby.

“I could have used your jacket tonight,” she said.

“Me too,” he replied, wishing he could think of something else to say for he feared the night was about to end, and he did not want it to.

She brought her arms to his shoulders and locked her fingers behind his neck.

“In the morning I’ll talk to Chick about new sleeping arrangements. Is that okay with you?”

“Yes,” he added, maybe a bit too quickly.

“It’s settled then.”

Her hands drew him close to her, close enough for another kiss.

“Goodnight,” she whispered in his ear. She turned and went up the steps.

He walked outside to the railing and gripped it with both hands. He saw Cowboy, hands in his pockets, walking toward the house.

“Hey brother.” Cowboy addressed him as he accessed the porch. “It’s getting kind of chilly out here.”

“I know.” Alex said to him, officially setting a personal record for one or two word replies.

The next morning, while the house slept, he secured a knife from the kitchen and carved two hearts in the porch railing. He etched an A in one and an S in the other, with an arrow piercing both.

After admiring his workmanship with pride, Alex placed the knife safely back in its drawer. His arts and crafts project complete; he decided to walk the neighborhood. It was a beautiful sunny summer morning and his disposition matched the weather.

Tonight, with any luck, he and Sarah would be sharing the same bed. At least he hoped that was the meaning of her words last night. What else could they have meant? And what about the privacy issue? Sleeping together in the same room with Cowboy, Skip, and Benny would not be an option.

It was a nasty habit of his to over think things, and he was doing it again. He elected to put his faith in Sarah, let things play out in a normal fashion, and enjoy his early morning stroll.

He planned to visit the Golden Gate Park first then head over to Haight Street before returning to the house for a late bowl of corn flakes. If he crossed paths with a person of interest, someone who would add some spice to his next article, all the better.

He was looking for a different point of view. His writings were beginning to have a sameness about them. The convictions of the leaders and the followers of this community had been well documented by him and others. One article involving an outsider looking in would be a refreshing change of pace.

A short time later, as Alex skirted the many blankets and bodies on Hippie Hill, fate, in the guise of dumb luck, intervened.

He sat on the grass, in the empty space where he often sat with Sarah. From his perch near the hill’s summit, he was able to see the vast array of humanity spread out on the grass.

Unlike the afternoons and evenings in the park, the mornings were peacefully quiet. The young men and women who claimed the park for overnight shelter were bundled in their blankets, either sleeping or too drowsy to rise.

Here, the last mist of the morning sought refuge from the rising sun, veiling the joggers, bicyclists, and dog walkers at the hill’s base.

Alex was content to watch the sun to burn off the stubborn haze. He pulled the watch from his pants pocket. It was almost nine o’clock, plenty of time to rest before moving on to Haight Street.

The minutes passed as he thought of Sarah. He had arrived in San Francisco nearly a month ago, sent by his employer to write stories relevant to the summer of love. Or maybe his dream of Sarah wished him here. Maybe this enchantress in white, who some called Sarah of the moon, brought him to this place. She had said “soon” in the dream, and it had come to pass.

“Mind if I join you?” a voice said from close by. “You look like you could use some company.”

Alex turned to see a young man standing above him. He wore jeans and sandals. His shirt was Army issue and had seen better days. He recognized both insignias on his sleeve. The upper patch, profiling an eagle, designated his unit, the 101st Airborne Division. The patch beneath showed his rank as corporal. The name above his breast pocket read Paxton. His hair was short enough for Alex to believe it was not a borrowed shirt.

“Have a seat,” Alex said, pointing to the ground next to him. “The grass may still be a little damp.”

“I’m used to that,” the young man said as he sat down.

He held out his hand. “Matt Paxton’s the name.”

“Alex Conley.” And they shook.

“Your hair is almost as short as mine. I’m going to guess you haven’t been here long,” Paxton said.

“Almost a month, and believe it or not I have yet to shave.”

“Beats the hell out of shaving every morning with cold water and a dull razor.”

Alex looked at him. His expression was cheerful but his eyes had the hollow look of someone who had seen true horror, up close and personal. His father once told him that a soldier’s eyes tell all the stories of war. Matt Paxton’s eyes spoke volumes.

Paxton’s sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. On his left forearm, a couple of inches past his wrist, was a pockmarked scar. He had seen a similar marking on his father’s shoulder where a bullet had pierced the skin.

“Vietnam?” Alex asked.

There was a moment’s hesitation before he spoke. “July, 1966 to May, 1967.”

“I didn’t serve a full year because I was shot outside of Da Nang in a convoy ambush. It was my second purple heart. They took pity on me.”

Alex studied his face. His father only talked of the war when applying it as a learning tool. His recollections usually ended with the words, “and let that be a lesson to you.” He wanted to know more about the war in Vietnam but not at the expense of a battle-scarred man. He decided to ask and accept any response, good or bad.

“So how was it over there?”

Matt was quick to answer. “Not good.” He looked over at Alex. “What’s your draft status? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t received my draft notice yet,” Alex replied.

“And when you do?”

“I’ll go in. It’s expected of me.”

“Your father?”

Alex nodded his head. “He was in the Army for twenty-two years. He fought in World War II, wounded twice and a silver star.”

Matt reached into his pocket and pulled out a red white and blue ribbon, attached to it was a star. “Same here.”

For the next two hours, they talked mostly about their fathers. As it turned out, Matt’s father was also a World War II veteran.

“He was at Normandy on D Day,” Matt said. “I found that out through my mother. My father didn’t talk about his time in the army.” Matt lowered his head and his voice.

“He screamed sometimes at night. My mother told me it was from nightmares of the war. I would hear her comforting him in the next room. Its okay, she would say. You’re home now, you’re safe.”

“The morning I left for Vietnam, he took me off to the side and talked to me about wars and those who fought them. I should have talked to you more about my experiences in the war, he told me. Then he said something I’ll never forget.” Matt raised his head as two laughing children ran by.

“If you are ever afraid to close your eyes, talk to me, he said. Together we can fight anything hiding in the darkness.”

The laughing children ran by them again.

“We talked a lot when I came home, and not long after that my father stopped screaming at night.”

The subject of Vietnam came up many times in the course of the conversation. Matt detailed the circumstances and reasons for his three awards, all the results of firefights in the central and northern provinces of the country.

He had barely recovered from wounds sustained in a ferocious battle in the Da Nang province when his thirty eight-vehicle convoy encountered a company of North Vietnamese regulars during a daylight supply run to Phu Loc.

Although outnumbered three to one, and taking fire from both sides of the road, they held their own against a determined enemy. At one point during the battle, the enemy surrounded a truck carrying fifty crates of weapons, compromising it.

Matt and two other soldiers charged from their position near the convoy’s rear and secured the truck, saving the three soldiers in the truck’s cab from a certain death, and denying the enemy a large supply M-16 rifles and M-60 machine guns.

Matt took a bullet in his arm and in his leg. His two friends were not as fortunate. One took a shot to the forehead, the other to the chest, dead center, where his flack jacket’s two sides tied together.

All three received the Silver Star for their actions. Matt’s friends were buried in uniform, their medals attached, with full military honors.

Matt’s tour in Vietnam effectively ended the day of the ambush, two months and two days early. Ninety-eight Army infantry successfully fought back an enemy force estimated at three hundred fifty strong. Seventeen were killed in action and twenty-six wounded. The enemy sustained casualties in the hundreds, although accurate figures were not available due to the severity of the called-in F-4 Phantom napalm strikes on the tree lines bordering the road.

Matt processed out of the service in Oakland, and then took a bus across the bay bridge to his home in the South Bay section of San Francisco.

Though ridiculed and cursed at the airport, he wore his uniform on the bus, where no one sat next to him and the words ‘baby killer’ and ‘murderer’ echoed through the stale hostile air.

After that bus ride home, he never wore the full uniform again. Two weeks later, on a Saturday morning, he rode another bus to Haight Ashbury. For this trip, he donned a pair of jeans, sandals, and his olive drab fatigue shirt from Vietnam. No one said a harsh word to him throughout the entire journey. It was apparently okay to wear part of a uniform, just not the entire thing.

“We did what we were told to do in ’Nam. We looked out for our buddies and counted the days until we were short.”

Two barefoot girls walked in front of them. Neither looked older than sixteen. Both stared in their direction and giggled as they passed. Alex and Matt smiled back.

“Every man I served with was a hero in my book,” Matt continued. “No matter the risk or the danger, we fought for ourselves, our buddies, and our country.”

He picked a dandelion from the grass, studying it between his fingers before flicking it away.

“In this small part of the city, no one judges me on my actions during the war. No one accuses me of crimes I did not commit.”

With the grace of a man who never stumbled in his convictions, he raised the Silver Star until it sparkled like a jewel in the sun.

“The minute I stepped off the bus here, this fellowship of free spirits embraced me. But more importantly, they understood me.”

A morning breeze caught the medal, spinning it slowly.

“There are no judgments in this community. On my first day in Haight-Ashbury, a girl our age came to me and cried on my shoulder. I had never seen her before. When she raised her head, she looked at me and said
Thank you for coming home,
and then she walked away.”

He stared at the Silver Star. “She will never know how much those words meant to me.”

Matt put the medal back in his pocket.

“I’ve been coming to Haight-Ashbury at every opportunity ever since. Its good therapy and I have met other veterans here who feel the same way. They had also experienced verbal abuse when they returned from Vietnam. One told me a woman spit on him as he crossed the airport terminal in uniform.”

“It’s ironic, isn’t it?” he continued. “They are called non-conformists and radicals, but yet they understand what we encountered over there.”

Matt looked at Alex. “If you do go to Vietnam and make it back safely, know this, the war never ends. It will be a part of you for the rest of your life. Be proud for what you did. Be proud that you stood your ground and fought for those you loved, and maybe the country you loved too. Nobody can take that from you. Oh, they’ll try, but you will always have your pride.”

Nearby, a mother knelt beside her daughter. The mother seemed barely old enough to have a child who appeared to be five or six years of age.

They both were dressed alike in sundresses of every color of the rainbow. The daughter carried a bouquet of freshly picked flowers. Her mother whispered in her ear and pointed in the direction of Alex and Matt.

The girl of five or six approached them, studying the flowers in her hand. By the time she stood in front of the two, she had picked a couple from the group. She silently handed one to Matt, and then the other to Alex.

“Thank you,’” Alex said in all sincerity. “I rarely get one of these without working for it.”

Matt thanked her too before she giggled and ran back to her mother, where, hand in hand, they descended the hill.

Matt brought the flower to his nose and inhaled deeply.

“It’s a kind place to visit,” he said.

THE HOLLOW