Sarah Of The Moon (16 page)

“It was an excellent suggestion as it turns out,” Matt said as they resumed walking.

“She knows these things. She knows the future. Not all of it, just the parts that matter,” Chick added.

“Chick,” Matt said in an earnest manner. “Why don’t you cut back on the weed and acid, and have a couple of beers instead. It would do you a world of good.”

Matt laughed at his statement, but Alex was still deep in thought.

“Sometimes they tell me secrets of the way things will be,” Sarah told him before he went to sleep. He had chalked the remark up to a lonely girl who missed her mother and father. Now he wasn’t so sure. He would need to ask her about that later he thought, as they rounded the park and turned on to Fulton Street.

THE PANHANDLE

2402 Fulton Street was the second house
in a row of Victorian homes similar in design to the house on Ashbury. In fact, the porch, with its sagging roof and peeling paint, was nearly identical to the house they came from, a cause for concern with Chick.

“The bastards stole our porch!” he shouted.

They climbed the short flight of stairs leading to the front door.

“You guys want to come in while I get my stuff together?” Matt asked the two.

Chick and Alex waited in a large lobby area with a sofa and a couple of chairs haphazardly bordering the walls. They both sat on the sofa, happy for the opportunity to take a break.

A young woman with long straight black hair walked out of a room to their right and walked up the steps in front of them. She wore a bra and panties, nothing else.

Alex eyed her as she casually ignored them both. When she was at the top of the stairs, Alex nudged Chick.

“Did you see that?” he quietly asked.

“I saw it,” Chick said as he leaned back into the sofa and closed his eyes.

“Remember where you are. This is not Baltimore; it’s The Haight-Ashbury. We just happen to live in a house where the women have a higher sense of morality, although I believe Bella gave you a little treat a few mornings ago.”

Alex was stammering into an apology when Chick held up his hand.

“Nothing to be ashamed of. Bella is, how shall I put it, a bit of a tease. It’s a personality trait that I hold in high regard.”

Matt loped down the stairs, a duffel bag in hand.

“I see you met Serenity. Modesty is not her strong suit.”

“I guess you missed the Airplane, Chick,” Matt continued. “You would hear them if they were home.”

“It’s no big deal. I’ve talked to them before, Grace, Marty, Paul, Jorma, all fine people making great music.”

Chick reluctantly raised himself from the sofa’s cushions.

“I’m not one for the trappings of the establishment, but this,” he pointed toward the sofa, “is a fine piece of furniture. It would be a good addition to our entranceway.”

“Don’t get any ideas Chick,” Matt said. “The sofa belongs to the house, not that you would lug it back home anyway.”

“Skip and Benny would. They owe me.”

“Forget it Chick,” Matt said as they neared the door. “It belongs to the house.”

“I wonder if they’d trade some mattresses for it,” Chick murmured as he stole a final glance its way.

The walk back to the house was uneventful. All three were hungry enough to head for the Panhandle, hoping the Diggers, and their food truck, were around.

The Diggers were packing up when they arrived. Luckily, Sherry was still on the soup table. Alex assured her the two were his friends and soon all three were eating soup with extra beans.

After the meal, Chick excused himself and disappeared with two of the Diggers. Matt and Alex were content to laze in the shade of an old oak and talk about days past and present.

Sherry, who had finished mopping up the makeshift kitchen, walked up to them. “You mind if I join the two best looking guys in the Panhandle?”

“Not if you put it that way,” Matt said.

For the next hour or so, Sherry held court while Alex and Matt nodded and submitted one or two word answers. There was noticeable relief when she excused herself to go to a rally at the Golden Gate Park.

“I forgot to tell you she likes to talk,” Alex said after she was out of earshot.

“You don’t say,” Matt replied.

With Sherry gone, the conversation turned to girls.

“So what’s the deal with you and Celeste?” Alex asked his friend.

“I like her,” Matt said. “I think she’s cool.”

Alex pried on. “Have you worked out sleeping arrangements yet?”

“We decided to sleep in separate rooms for the time being. She’s with the girls. I’m in your old room with Skip, Benny, and Cowboy. Sandman and Cactus Girl share the other room. They said they would hang up a curtain for privacy if we want to join them, and maybe, at some point, we will. Right now, we’re taking it slow. How about you and Sarah?”

“We took it slow for quite a while.” Alex smiled as he spoke. “She threw out mixed signals at first. I really wasn’t sure how she felt about me. We just hung around together for some time. On Friday evening, she read the latest article I submitted to the paper. When she started reading it, we were good friends. When she finished it, we were lovers. I guess it would have happened eventually, but those pages were a catalyst for everything that followed.”

“It must have been a hell of an article,” Matt said. “I’d like to read it sometime.”

“No problem. It’s back at the house.” Alex gathered his thoughts. He wanted so badly to understand Sarah. He wanted to tell his friend that he knew Sarah as well as he had known any woman. He wanted to tell him everything was cool, that he had figured Sarah out. They were a couple with a lifetime to share. She would come with him back to Baltimore. He would find full time work, perhaps at the paper. They would live in an apartment, have children, and grow old together.

But Sarah remained a mystery. He knew too little about her. The clues she left for him were scraps meant to keep him hungry. He was in love with a mirage, maybe real, maybe an illusion. Now, on top of everything else, there was a remote possibility she was psychic.

“Sarah is Sarah. She has her beliefs, and they’re strong. They might be stronger than her feelings for me and that concerns me Matt. I’m worried when the time comes for her to decide, me or her principles, I might lose her.”

“Chick tells me you are the only guy she’s been with in her two years here. With her looks, that’s a real accomplishment.”

Alex was set to respond when his arm began to throb, a dull persistent ache determined to dominate his thinking. He rubbed his arm as gently as possible.

“Chick should have something to soothe the pain a bit,” Matt added.

“I’m off anything stronger than aspirin.”

“Sarah?”

“She doesn’t do drugs. I doubt she ever has. I don’t know how she feels about other people doing them, but I’m not taking the chance. Her respect means more to me than a quick high.”

“Maybe we could score a couple of six packs of beer on the way back. My Silver Star is usually the only I.D. I need.”

“You don’t do pot or acid either?” Alex asked.

“Nope. Had enough pot in ’Nam to last a lifetime, and I have no desire to try acid. I like being in control of my senses. Bad things can happen if you’re not in control. Look at this morning. Would you have been able to save that girl if you were high?”

“I doubt it.” Alex frowned. A thought was forming in his mind. It was a piece of the puzzle, a clue to the mystery of Sarah, but he couldn’t quite grasp it. His throbbing arm demanded all his attention.

“Let’s see about those beers,” Alex said as he stood up. “It will be dinner time soon anyhow.”

TWO OF A KIND

It turned out Matt
did not need to produce his Silver Star. His clean cut appearance was sufficient to purchase two six packs of Miller High Life bottles from Oliver’s Liquors on Haight Street. He added them to the contents of his duffle bag and the two continued back to the house.

By six o’clock, all the houseguests were present and accounted for at the dinner table. The Hope sisters had spent the afternoon at the wharf. Fish would be the main dinner course for the next day or two.

Matt and Celeste sat together across from Sarah and Alex. The Hope sisters, Cactus Girl, and Sandman occupied one end of the table; Chick, Cowboy, Skip, and Benny were at the other end. Isis sat with the children at the small adjacent table.

The conversation, as usual, centered on the day’s activities. Before any serious dialogue could begin, Chick made an announcement.

“Matt is not the only hero at the table tonight. Our friend Alex saved the life of a child today.”

All talk stopped immediately as heads turned in Alex’s direction.

“A girl had escaped the clutches of her mother and was heading for the traffic of Stanyan when our writer friend put on his superman cape and chased her down. He grabbed her right as she started to run in front of a speeding car.”

Sarah stared at Alex.

“It was no big deal,” he said.

“It was a big deal,” Matt added. The girl would have certainly been hit by the car had Alex not been there. As it was, the car swerved at the last minute, just missing Alex and the child. He was shielding the girl with his body.”

There were murmurings around the table. Maura Hope said “My God!” loud enough for all to hear.

“He was nicked on the arm by the car’s side view mirror,” Chick told the group.

Sarah said nothing, but lifted his sleeve. A nasty looking bruise had appeared on his upper arm.

“Are you okay?” she asked. He saw tears well up in her eyes.

“I’m fine,” he told her.

Suddenly the table opened up in a flurry of questions. Is the girl all right? Did the driver stop? Did you go to the hospital?

Alex let Chick and Matt field the enquiries. He was looking at Sarah. A tear ran down her cheek. He gently brushed it off with his finger. You see what you have given me. He thought the words but never said them.

That evening they walked to the Golden Gate Park by way of Haight Street. Sarah insisted on buying some salve at the Haight Street Pharmacy. Matt and Celeste joined them.

It was a beautiful Sunday night, not a cloud in the sky. The storm of the night before had polished the summer air to a clear sheen. Tomorrow would bring the last day of July. The summer of love was moving fast, uncaring of the young men and women who wanted it to last forever.

Alex was required to write four more articles through the end of August. He might be able to stretch another week or two out of Uncle Max, but that would be it. He would have six more weeks in San Francisco at the most. Of course, there was the Selective Service lurking ominously in the background. They could throw a monkey wrench into the works at any time.

At some point, he would need to broach Sarah on their future together. He would wait until the time was right, perhaps toward the end of August. By then he would hope to have a better reading on Sarah and their relationship.

The tale of Francine had made him a hero in the house. He tried to deflect the praise to Matt. “He is the real hero,” he said, “and he has a medal to prove it.” Matt tossed it right back to him. “You’re a hero too. If I could I would snap this medal in two, and give you half of it, you earned it.”

They went to their room after dinner and Sarah hugged him and kissed his bruised arm.

“I believe your lot in life is to save people,” she said as she held him tightly. “I believe that with all my heart.”

“In that case,” Alex replied, “we are two of a kind.”

“Your story to the girls tonight sounded rather familiar.” He said to her later in the evening, as they neared the park.

“I hope you don’t mind if I make you the prince from time to time.” Sarah bumped against him playfully.

“Not at all,” Alex said and took her hand.

SUNDAY ON THE WIND

“I won’t be long,”
Sarah said to him, before leaving for the hill’s crest. Alex sat with Matt and Celeste at his usual spot on the grass of Hippie Hill.

The hill, and the park in general, was alive with activity. It seemed everyone was outside this Sunday evening, enjoying the near perfect weather.

Matt picked up one of the many fliers littering the grass.
Fight for Our Freedom
in large bold letters headlined the paper.
Join us at Hippie Hill on Sunday at three. Help us take back our city. Now is the time to stamp out oppression. Believe!

Matt folded the flier into a paper airplane and flung it into the night, where it sailed a good distance down the hill.

“We’ve been trying to organize for two years now. Ask Sarah, she’ll tell you,” said Celeste. “There are simply too many factions fighting each other and they all think they’re right.”

“Sarah had the right ideas. She knew what we had to do to survive. She got some support, a good bit at first. Then the radicals came along and pushed her to the side. Had she been a man in his mid-twenties, she would have held the day.”

On the hill, others had followed Matt’s lead. Paper airplanes flew about in the night.

“She tried her best,” Celeste continued. “Her commitment was her passion. She will not tell you this, so I’ll say it for her. She could have changed things for the better, of that I am certain. The sheer arrogance of those around her brought her down.”

A paper airplane fell to the grass in front of them.

“Can you imagine it? A teenaged girl with a dream of global peace. We’ll never know how close she might have come to make it a reality.”

Celeste picked up the paper airplane and tossed it into the slightest of breezes.

“That’s the way it used to be.” She watched the plane glide on a pocket of summer air. “Soaring.”

First Sherry and now Celeste, Alex looked up the hill toward Sarah. How many others had stories to tell of his mysterious girlfriend? If he began questioning the old-timers in the community, it could get back to her. He did not want to ask her about the last two years. It seemed too personal. When she was ready to detail her past, she would tell him. Maybe he should let it go at that, or maybe he should have a longer talk with Celeste about the good old days.