Adam's Daughter (41 page)

“Hey, man, what’s up?” Tyler said.

“Oh, Tyler. How’s it going?” Chas returned to his task of counting bundles of
Oracles
.

“New issue?” Tyler asked.

Chas grunted. Tyler reached over to pick up one of the papers.

“Hey, man, you’re screwing up the count,” Chas said.

Tyler threw it down. He sighed and looked around for someone to talk to, someone to hang out with.

“Hey, Tyler!”

Tyler spun around. It was one of the editors, Nat Musial. “C’mere, I want to talk to you.”

Other than a quick hello, Musial never bothered to talk to him. This must be about the poems I gave him, Tyler thought, with rising excitement.

Musial retrieved some papers from his desk. “These are pretty good,” Musial began. “A little bleak, but good. But we’ve got more poetry than we can handle right now.” He held them out. “I wanted to make sure you got them back.”

Tyler took them.

“No hard feelings?” Musial asked with a smile.

“No
, man, of course not.” Tyler turned to leave then stopped. “Look, Nat,” he began, “I really want to do something around here. I want to be a real part of the
Oracle
. If I can’t write, there must be something I can do.”

Musial pursed his lips. “Well, there is one thing
.”

“What? Anything! You name it!”

Musial let out a small sigh. “The rent. It’s overdue again. If you could cover it again until this issue gets —-”

“Sure! You got it!” Tyler said with a big smile. “I’ll bring it in tomorrow
.”

“Thanks, man. We really appreciate it.” Musial shifted from one foot to another. “Oh, by the way, if you haven’t got anything to do right now Chas could use an extra pair of hands on the street today.”

Tyler nodded and started to leave.

“Hey,” Musial called out.
“You wanna catch Joplin at the Fillmore tonight? I can probably sneak you in.”

Tyler knew Musial was only tossing him a bone to make up for the
rent money but it was going to be a great concert. Tyler grinned. “Yeah, thanks.”

“Great. Meet me outside at nine. Thanks again, Tyler. Don’t know what we’d do without you.”

Tyler checked in with Chas, who gave him an armload of
Oracles.
Out on the street, Tyler halfheartedly hawked the papers to the tourists, thinking about the poems stuffed in the back pocket of his jeans. They were garbage. He knew that. Musial was just bullshitting him, trying to make him feel better so he would cough up some more money. Musial was one of the few people who knew his family was rich, and this was the third time Musial had hit on him.

But what did it matter? The money was nothing to him. There was plenty of it, what with the monthly
thousand-dollar trust fund allowance. And better that it go to something worthwhile like the
Oracle
. He was glad he could help out his friends.

He thought suddenly of Kellen. She had started monitoring his allowance and was getting bossy about what he did, calling to make sure he wasn’t skipping school, telling him to stay away from the Haight. He didn’t understand it. For years, all during the times his father was sick, no one had cared what he did. It had been a succession of nannies and governesses. And now Kellen was trying to play mother.

He walked along the street, clutching the
Oracles
. He was thinking now of his mother, and as usual he could see nothing in his mind but a faceless woman. No one had ever spoken of her, certainly not his father. There were no pictures, no memories, nothing. She was like a ghost —- dead, but still weirdly alive.

Whore
. He had heard the word before he even understood what it meant. Two years ago, he had finally gotten up the courage to ask his father about her. His father, by then very ill with cancer, had said he would tell him about her someday.

Someday...then it was too late. The only thing left to do was to find her himself, but he had no idea how to begin. He didn’t even know her name.

Finally, he found out about Sally Stanford. But when he went to the stone mansion on Pine Street he found it had been converted into apartments. He stood on the sidewalk, staring up at the windows. Even now, once in a while, he still walked by it.

His mother. Did she have blue eyes like his? Was she fat or thin? Where did she go? Why did she abandon him? He was filled with hate and an aching need to love her.

Tyler squinted up toward the sun. No point in dwelling on it, he thought, no point at all. He was alone, but he could take care of himself all right. He didn’t need Kellen. He didn’t need anyone.

Tyler looked up and down the street, searching for a familiar face.
The parade trudged by, couples locked arm in arm, young men toting guitars and duffel bags, barefoot children, barking dogs. No one looked in Tyler’s direction.

Screw Kellen.
Screw everyone.

He had a plan. In five years, when he was eighteen, he’d take off and really be free.
He’d take some money and split. Get away and see the world. Maybe go off to India with Katz.

Tyler reached into his pocket and pulled out the poems. He looked at them for a moment then crumbled them into a wad and threw it into the gutter.

He could hear someone playing a tambourine. Up past Stanyan Street, on the edge of Golden Gate Park, he could see a crowd gathering. Something was going on. Something always happened in the Haight if you waited long enough.

He retrieved the joint from his pocket and lit it.
After a few minutes, Tyler was feeling fine again.

“Hey, here it is!” he called out to a passing car, holding
a copy of the
Oracle
aloft. He enjoyed the look the old lady in the Buick gave him. “Get your genuine hippie souvenir!”

Yes, he was feeling fine. And tonight, he’d be feeling even better. He’d meet Katz and his friends at the Fillmore. He’d open himself to the wholeness of being.

He tossed the
Oracles
into a trash bin and went off in the direction of the music.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

The editors
were gathered in a conference room for the final news meeting of the day. Stephen took his place at the table. Kellen wasn’t there, and he hid his disappointment by pretending to read the news budget.

“Okay, let’s get started,” said Ray, the managing editor
. “International?”

A thin man in glasses cleared his throat. “Nasser’s still threatening Israel. The War Crimes tribunal in Stockholm has found the U.S. guilty of systematic bombing of Vietnam civilians. And Russia’s showing off a new atom smasher. Got good art on that.” He tossed a wire photo on the table, but no one bothered to pick it up.

“National and state?” Ray said, without looking up.

“We have that peace march in New York, seventy thousand people showed up,” another man said. “Pretty good story from our own guy, with wire art. And a good feature from the Oakland bureau about this new Black Panther party that’s forming.”

Ray looked at the photos and handed them to the news editor. “Hate to put New York on the front, but this might be it,” he said. “Unless local can save us.”

He looked up. “Who’s supposed to be here from city desk? Where’s Kellen?”

Blank faces and shrugs.

“Let’s skip to sports,” Ray said with a frown.

“We got the Giants at the Stick tonight, with a side bar on how the wind’s been causing more problems than usual. Also, a good featch on Mickey Mantle. He’s still looking for homer number five hundred. Oh yeah...Muhammad Ali was indicted today in Houston for draft evasion.”

“What are you guys doing with that?” Ray said. “Give it to
the A section.”

Kellen
came in, muttered an apology, and slid into her seat. “We’ll come back to local later,” Ray said, glancing at her. “Let’s go on to women’s.”

The young assistant from the women’s page looked up. “We have a profile of that woman Elv
is married last week, Priscilla Beaulieu, with some nice photos.” She handed them around the table to a few lewd remarks. “And we have the Haight feature. But Kellen thinks it’s worth front page.”

All eyes turned to Kellen, and a few people looked determinedly bored. Many on the staff were getting tired of the Martian Chronicles, as the ongoing coverage of the Haight scene had come to be called. The paper had been covering the story sporadically since 1965, but finally Kellen convinced Ray it was necessary to create a small task force of reporters and editors to cover the phenomenon.

Ray gave Kellen her cue. “Okay, what’s new from the war zone? Gimme the news first, then the feature.”

Kellen glanced at her legal pad. “Muni is thinking about rerouting the buses near the Haight because of the traffic congestion.
That old bar, the Golden Cask, just reopened as a pizza place called Lee, Sam and Dick, but the city’s upset about the sign because all you can see are the initials LSD.”

“Shit. That used to be a good bar,” the sports editor
said.

“We have a bust of a
methedrine lab in Pacific Heights,” Kellen went on. “Cops are worried about a new psychedelic called STP that’s supposed to keep you stoned for three days. Half of the psychiatric beds at General are already filled with toxic drug reaction cases.”

“Is that all?” Ray asked in a beleaguered voice.

“No, we’re getting about three hundred new arrivals every day, and the Juvenile Authority is thinking of turning the gym at Poly-Tech High into an emergency shelter for runaways. And it was just announced that San Francisco now has the highest rate of venereal disease in the country.” Kellen paused. “One last thing. The board of supervisors is meeting today to approve the mayor’s resolution to officially declare hippies unwelcome in San Francisco.”

“
A little late, aren’t they?” someone muttered.

“The worst is yet to come,” Kellen said. “This week, we’ve got writers in town from the news
magazines,
Playboy, National Review
, and the
London Observer
. That movie
The Love-Ins
is coming out soon, and Dick Clark’s due in to start filming
The Love Children.
” She paused for a breath. “And now the hippies have proclaimed this the Summer of Love. We may have about seventy-five thousand people living in the Haight by fall.”

Everyone fell quiet.

“Anything light?” Ray asked.

Kellen held out a photo. “Somebody painted this fire hydrant up on Nob Hill in psychedelic colors.”

“Send the photographer back to get it in color.”

“Can’t,” Kellen said. “Fire Department already repainted it white.”

“The Maginot Line holds,” someone said.

Ray sighed. “Okay, use it. And put it on the wire.
We must feed the beast its daily meal of happy-hippie news. Speaking of which, what’s this feature you guys were talking about?”

“It’s the ‘I Was
a Hippie’ series,” Kellen said. “The reporter lived there undercover for a month, but he came back the other day and said he didn’t want to write an expose. He’s turned into a sympathizer. But we’re working on him.”

“Well,
I guess we’ll have to ride out this wretched drama,” Ray said and turned to Stephen. “Any suggestions, boss?”

Stephen gave some opinions on story play, and the meeting was adjourned. Kellen and Stephen walked out together.

“‘I Was A Hippie’?” Stephen said, smiling. “Are the readers ready for that?”

“Clark wanted to do it. I told him he was too old.”

They went back to Stephen’s office. “Mind if I hide out here for a minute?” she asked, dropping into a chair.

“You seem to like being city editor,” Stephen said.

“I do,” Kellen said, looking out at the city room. “It’s going to be hard to go back upstairs.” She paused. “I couldn’t have done it without you. You taught me a lot.”