Summer's Child

Who Are You?

"Who's Mack?" That was the question of every hour by his second weekend in San Francisco.

Harry was really glad for his experiences at Woodstock, or he knew that the city would have been a huge shock for him. A huger shock. There were sights and sounds that were entirely new to him, like he was a farm boy new to the big city, even though he'd grown up going to a much bigger city.

It was different from New York. New York was huge and chaotic and frenetic. The sights and sounds were things he'd experienced since he was a boy. And they differed to San Francisco, but mostly in New York he was a just another young person, not a de facto member of the counterculture.

Which he definitely seemed to be in San Francisco. He wasn't sure if it was his arrival at Haight Ashbury, his clothes, or his hair, but there was a definite us versus them feeling in the city. One group had open arms and a spliff to share, the other gave him a once over coupled with a sneer and saw no use for him.

Harry had always been a teacher favorite, and had never been around police except when they were peacekeeping and he was a member of the crowd, usually a small member of that crowd. Pandered to and played with.

Except the officer who had come to tell him and his father about his mother's accident. Harry knew his blue eyes with the kindly crinkles. He also remembered the harsh coffee smell of his breath and its sour words. He'd been so kind to Harry and Edward but there was no chance he'd be remembered fondly, not with the news he bore.

So, all the cops after that had an advantage. They weren't telling him his mother was dead and they immediately liked Harry, as adults had all of his life.

The cops outside the flophouse he found himself in the first night hassled the hippies, Harry included. He'd thought the proverb about not trusting anybody over 30 was ridiculous until that first time he got pushed up against the wall and roughly frisked just for walking down a sidewalk. The cop had called him dirty, which he currently was, no denying it, from his long pilgrimage across country, and had made sure the stucco of the building bit into his face. It was unnecessary roughness and mean spirited for the sake of it. Harry'd be unlikely to seek out or even trust the uniform again after that, no matter the age of the officer. Strangely though, the officer and his actions had nothing on the people walking their small dogs in Golden Gate Park, where he found himself now.  If he wasn't waiting to find out who Mack was, apparently a legend in the district, he'd have left after the first well dressed, perfectly coiffed woman grabbed her purse tightly while she walked like her thighs were glued shut. He'd done nothing to any of these women, their purses were the last thing on his mind until they brought them to his attention. It was strange to him that their suspicion made him feel like he'd done something wrong. At least it was the cops job to confirm people were unarmed, which may have not been why they frisked him, but, these well heeled ladies had no reason to judge him, or those collecting around him.

Though he supposed a mass group of any kind drew eyes, especially a group of, well largely female hippies, dressed in light dresses and crochets. He didn't get it though. How could you fear a girl with flowers in her hair? What did she threaten but your view of your past, or your way of life?

He was glad other people like him were coming, he felt like this was were he fit in now, not that he'd ever really. But, power in numbers. It calmed him down. He'd wanted to split, but after 9 days, this was his first lead on Jillian and he was gonna follow it. So far all of Cherie's descriptors bore out. She was the first person who had recognized Jillian as more than a pretty girl in a photo.

That first night he and his passenger had wandered into a diner, the first one they'd seen. It was crawling with other late teens and early twenty somethings, in various states of dress and sobriety. Harry was hungry, his stomach fallow and gurgling, but his mind growled over the opportunity.