Long Hair

4

 

It was late in the afternoon and the cafeteria was empty enough so that they could have one of the padded booths. They each sat behind a white, institutional mug with steam wafting up.

“Actually, I have a confession to make,” he said. “I did meet Watts but. . . I blew it with him.”

“How?”

He was scrambling to shade it, tilt it in favor of himself, but he was too keyed up, and instead an outburst of suicidal candor escaped him.

“I got defensive and provoked an argument.”

He was surprised and delighted to see her grinning.

“He wasn’t very, uh, elevated,” he went on. “In fact, he had a hangover.”

She chuckled.

“He really wanted to seem hip, so he kept talking about his drug experiences. I thought he was phoney, and I didn’t try to hide it. He didn’t like me much.”

She threw her head back and laughed uproariously.

“That’s great! That’s fantastic! That’s just what I would have done,” she said, shaking her head at such a coincidence.

She liked him. He saw it in her eyes and relaxed.

After a pause, she asked gingerly, “Why did you go to the hospital?”

“Oh, I took too much speed, about six times normal, and I freaked out. Got real paranoid and catatonic. I was glad to be there after a while. Nice quiet place to come down in.”
About an hour later, they slouched in contented silence, digesting biographical data. She lived with her parents in workingclass San Bruno . Until she escaped to the livingroom couch in early adolescence, she shared a bedroom with an older schizophrenic and sedated sister. So she grew up in a one-patient mental hospital, and as a result, her own stability was so fragile that, despite her hipness, she was terrified of all drugs, even alcohol.

He broke a silence by asking the question, as casually as he could while trembling, “You have an ol’ man?”

She searched his eyes quickly and answered, “No.”

In her eyes, he caught a glint of anger, as if she was threatened. In his eyes, she saw eager desire, and softened.

“I had an ol’ man, sort of, for awhile. I’m not into that anymore. I don’t like to feel all freaked out over somebody. I don’t need that. I’m really into serenity.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I feel the same way,” he said, and then leaned forward on his elbows, over clasped hands. “But I also like ecstasy.” She flashed a warning glare, a step-back order, and he leaned back, but added, “You can have both ya know.”

“No,” she said, then turned toward the window, now opaque with night, and stared into her thoughts. “No. . . I don’t want that now.”

He knew it was time to retreat, so he kept quiet.

She finally broke a long pause by asking, “You didn’t have your hair that short in the Haight, did you?”