Long Hair

7

 

After she declared her repulsion that afternoon of the steamed windows in the parked car, they still hung out together most afternoons but witty banter was replaced by a sullen silence, punctuated by his sighs. His brooding was no longer on how to win her love but how to escape his own. He wanted to dig it out like a bullet.

Conversation inevitably degenerated into her defense of her taste (embarrassed at first, then haughty) versus his vitriolic attacks on an inane but implacable nuisance. A train was being derailed by a pebble. He still loved her but now he also hated her. It would take at least a year for his hair to grow as long as she wanted it, and anyway, out of spite, he told her that he was going to keep it short.

Then one sunny Friday afternoon they went to a free promotional rock concert in Golden Gate Park . The grass was boggy in places from a spring rain, and it sucked at his shoes and her boots as they crossed the meadow toward the stage where a crowd of about a hundred milled around in the pre-concert lull.

“Want to sit here?” she asked him of a dry spot on the outskirts of the crowd.

“I don’t care.”

“Wait. How about over there?” She pointed to a slope on the opposite side of the crowd.

“Yeah. That’s fine.”

They sat on the slope, at about head level with the crowd. He sat in the pose of his despair: legs pulled up to his chest, arms folded around knees, brow pinched, staring into himself. She stretched out beside him, leaning on an elbow, watching the crowd. Neither spoke. He wanted to get up, go home, and never speak to her again. But he couldn’t stop hoping.

Musicians tuned guitars. Roadies scurried over and around the flatbed truck that served as the stage. He looked at the crowd and was somewhat pulled out of himself by some familiar faces. It was testament to the smalltown character of the San Francisco hip scene that he never went downtown or to a public event without seeing someone he knew. Even in a crowd this small, there were a few he could visit with, if he had been capable of conversation. Instead he heaved a deep sigh.

She was flattered. No one had ever reacted to her with this much intensity. She studied him, curious. She felt no sympathy for him though. He deserved it for his ridicule of her. It penetrated his daze that she was staring at him. Slowly, he turned toward her, then stopped, stunned by the expression on her face: a gloating sneer. She was enjoying his suffering.

Then, with the silent thunderclap of a mini-satori, the love vanished. Just clicked off. He was free. Now he stared right back at her, savoring her sudden ordinariness.

Guitars, bass, and drums detonated together as the first number began. She didn’t notice his transformation until he smiled. It was a joyous upwelling of relief and it stunned her. Her sneer crumpled. He stood up and stretched and looked down onto her upturned face.

“I’m going to circulate and talk to some friends,” he said, then went down the slope and disappeared among the bodies.

An hour later, as they recrossed the meadow toward her car, he walked at his own brisk pace, silent and smiling, and she trotted beside him, grinning weakly, suspicious that she was the brunt of a joke. He wanted to get home as soon as possible and never speak to her again and not even bother to explain. He thought she deserved it; still he couldn’t do it. It would be like abandoning an accident victim.

He would tell her what had happened, then go home and never speak to her again.