We are now in 1967, and I think I need to back up a little bit.
In the first part of that year, I was living in an apartment on Valencia Street in the Mission. One incident in particular that I remember was a more or less all-night party in that apartment. My sister, Patricia, was visiting. Elsa (Johanna) was there that night, a college student friend of hers, Miriam, Bob, Miriam's black boyfriend, and myself. I had my guitar out, and Miriam and I were trading songs while we drank rotgut jug wine. That was when I learned the beautiful "Shalom, Chaverim." While it was still light out, we took a walk to get some fresh air (and probably also to get more wine). We saw a man lying in the gutter on Valencia Street, probably just an old wino whose drink had got the better of him. But people were just walking by like there was nothing wrong, which really bothered us. Bob took it upon himself to step into a bar (no cellphones in those days) and call for the paramedics. I mention this for reasons that you will see momentarily.
Back in the apartment, we proceeded to get drunker and louder. We sang every song we knew, and when it was quite late we made up our own, singing "Mountain Castle Wine" as a round, in four-part harmony. At least there were four parts, but I'm not sure how harmonious it was. Finally, we crashed all over the floor. When we got up the next morning, we took turns using the one bathroom in the apartment to empty the contents of our stomachs.
A couple of days later, my landlady, a frowzy, obese redhead from Florida, read me the riot act for having brought a black man into the building. I told her how Bob had called for help for the old wino, while all the white men on the street just walked on by. Her response was, "Don't you talk about white men that way!" I'm not making this up. Nobody tells me who my friends can be, and I decided to get out of there as soon as possible. The opportunity came in May, just as the Summer of Love was about to explode.
My friend Dan showed up in town from Detroit with his one-eyed friend Al and a bag of purple LSD.
For a while they were crashing in my apartment, but I quickly made arrangements with a friend at work to rent their two-story Victorian at 72 Pierce St., near Haight and Steiner. At first it was the three of us, but we quickly grew to six people. We told the landlords that we would pay extra if we could have that many people living in the house, and they agreed to it. That was the beginning of one of the most memorable times of my life.
By August, we had been living in the communal house for three months. The Steve Miller Band also had a communal house on Pierce, a block away from us. Just to the south was Duboce Park. If we walked for twenty minutes, we would be in the "downtown" part of the Haight-Ashbury.
Anyway, Julie showed up there around that time, intending to stay with me. Within a day or two, Kirsten also showed up, telling me that her father had a private detective on her trail. She had again come with Mike and his wife, and my housemates had shown them all up to my bedroom to chill while they waited for me to come home from work. While they were chilling, they saw Julie's clothes hanging in my closet. Since they knew I wasn't a transvestite, they figured there was going to be a problem.
This was the exact "Coming to Meet" that I had glimpsed when Julie and I were doing the I Ching. I told Julie that I needed to talk to Kirsten. Outside, in the back garden, which was inhabited by our pet rabbit, I explained to Kirsten that Julie was there, and that she would have to go. She wasn't happy about it, but took it philosophically. I don't know whether she stayed or went back to SD, but I never saw her again.
(to be continued)
No comments:
Post a Comment