Summer of '69 Read online

  The late-afternoon sky is blue, and the summer air warm. We are two longhairs in a shiny green British sports car. It feels more like a movie than real life. Whenever another driver stares too long, I flash them the peace sign. Some flash one back. Some frown. A few give me the finger.

  The Planting Fields are part of an old estate near Piping Rock, the golf club where Arno’s parents believe he toils away the summer days as a caddy. Tinsley gets a blanket and her camera from the Spitfire’s trunk. (I’m relieved that the English riding saddle remains behind — I can just imagine her wanting to play horsey in public.) We venture past a stone mansion with spouting fountains and out among the gardens and lawns.

  Visitors are mostly divided into freaks and older gentlewomen. The freaks stick to the sod, a few playing guitars or throwing Frisbees. The ladies in their summer dresses stroll along the paths, admiring the horticulture.

  Tinsley settles in the middle of the broad green lawn. Having not been prepared for this adventure, all I have with me is half a J. We smoke in plain sight. If any undercover caretakers come along, we can put the joint out long before they reach us. Eating the remaining evidence is always an option.

  We lie on our sides, facing each other. It may be late afternoon, but at this time of year the sun is pretty high. (As are we, especially for only half a J. I must remember to commend Arno on the quality of his weed.) Tinsley’s hippie skirt settles on her curves. More buttons on her white blouse are open than closed. The green in her hazel irises comes out in the sunlight. When she sweeps her long mane off her neck, the sunlight catches the nearly microscopic blond hairs of her nape. Now that we’re getting high, I’m wondering if the nervous sexual tension I’m feeling is all in my head. Is it some remnant of my pre– Semi-Miraculous Transformation self?

  I flash back to the first time a girl at a party put the moves on me. We were standing in the kitchen, drinking rum and Cokes and joking around. Every once in a while when she laughed, she’d reach up and give my shoulder a playful shove. I just assumed it was what she always did. Only later did Arno irately inform me that she’d been hitting on me. It’s still sometimes hard to tell the difference between someone who’s interested and someone who’s just the friendly, touchy-feely type.

  For now, suppose I don’t concern myself with why Tinsley wanted me to come here? Just because she has, or I imagine she has, an alluring, sexy vibe, does that mean I have to view it as a challenge? Instead, I find myself appreciating the ambiance of leisurely female companionship — this being something I did not have a lot of with Robin, who was always busy at school and after with the yearbook, sports, and other extracurricular activities. (No senioritis for her last spring.) Not that my heart has strayed one iota from my lady of the northern woods. My devotion to her remains as firmly resolute as Washington crossing the Delaware. But for now, lying here with a pretty girl — with nowhere pressing to go and nothing important to do — is very mellow.

  Long moments drift past like the clouds above. Thanks to the J, Tinsley and Lucas the Resolute settle into a fine buzzzzzzz. Someone nearby with a guitar picks out “Suzzzzzzzanne.” In the grass, teenzzzzzy six-legged leafhoppers flit about. Some are all green, some green and orange with a black stripe through their eyezzzzz. Lucas is a blue, red, and orange two-legged hair hopper snuggling in the delicate fuzzzzzz on Tinsley’s neck.

  “That day at the junior high?” Tinsley says. “You were so funny.”

  “Was I?” Wuzzzz I? Wuzzzz Buzzzzz Bunny a wabbit?

  “For a second I thought you were going to jump up and run away,” Tinsley says.

  Buzz Bunny’s first impulse is to protest that that wuzzzz not the case, but why spoil this fine buzzzzz by arguing?

  “So what wuuzzz that about?” Buzz asks.

  “What do you think it was about?” Tinsley asks with a sparkle in her eye. Could merely be the reflection of the sun, but one suspects it is more than that. Though Lucas wishes it weren’t. Her insistence on conversation threatens his lovely but fragile high.

  A few more tokes and he would have been molten.

  “It was your idea,” he says. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “It made you uncomfortable, didn’t it?”

  “Yeah, a little.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Barry was right there?”

  “So? He and I aren’t exclusive. For your information, monogamy is just another stupid male paradigm foisted on women to keep us subservient. Why can’t women be as free with our proclivities as men?”

  “Fine with me.” It dawns on him that the path of least resistance is agreement. And yet Sir Lucas the Faithful is not free, nor dost he yearn to be.

  “And it is liberating,” Tinsley goes on. “Do you know that from the age of twelve, not only was I expected to always have a boyfriend, but I was a failure if I couldn’t ‘keep’ him? Forget about casual dating. That makes me a slut and a tramp. Just a ‘thing’ men can use and discard. But if a guy sleeps around, he’s a stud and a playboy. Who made up these stupid rules? Men.”

  The male in their midst is painfully aware that a statement involving deductive reasoning has been put forth. (Or maybe it’s inductive reasoning? Is there such a thing as conductive reasoning? Has anyone asked ducks how they feel about this? When asked, do they duck the question?) “So now you go around putting guys’ hands on your breast?”

  “If that’s what I feel like doing, why not? Do you have a problem with it?”

  From the mystic misty swirl inside the crystal ball comes a glimpse of the discourse ahead. Lucas has been summoned to a repartee partee. But to gain admission, it will behoove him to organize complex thoughts and multisyllabic words into compound sentences. This is not what he wishes to be doing on this lovely late afternoon, but he feels obligated to give it a try: “Suppose I’d taken your hand and put it down my pants? You’d think I was a pervert. But when you place my hand on your breast, that’s just sexual liberation?”

  Princess Tinsley’s smile widens. While she conjures what to say next, Sir Lucas perceives a sort of liberation of his own. A sense of being able to blurt out whatever he chooses without concern for the ramifications. In contrast, when he is in the presence of fair Lady Robin, even while tripping, Sir Lucas of the Round Table(t) often feels that care must be taken concerning the proclamations that escape his lips. With Robin, there are limits to how mad or preposterous he can act and still feel “safe” to her ladyship, lest he cause her to doubt that he is indeed a suitable consort (see drive home from Cambridge). But with the mischievous pixie Princess Tinsley, what is there to lose? Why not let it all hang out?

  But before anything is allowed to hang anywhere, a blue Frisbee lands within arm’s reach. Fifty feet away, a guy with red hair waves. Tinsley hops up and whips a flawless backhand straight at him. She turns and looks down at me with a triumphant grin.

  “Show-off,” I say as Sir Lucas trudges off into the mystic misty swirl. The intrusion of the blue disk has broken the spell. The lark is over. Arno’s grass was excellent; there just wasn’t enough of it.

  “Why? Because I’ve got a good arm . . . for a girl?”

  Little does she know that Robin can fling a forehand that’ll go half a furlong easy. Tinsley waves to the red-haired guy, who slings the Frisbee back her way. Okay, I get it. She wants to show me that she can have sex with whomever she likes and play Frisbee with whomever she wants. She does what she pleases with whomever pleases her. But is there something forced about it? Doth the lady protest too much?

  While Tinsley exercises her freedom, I roll onto my back, wishing for no exercise more challenging than watching the hazy edges of the clouds seep into the blue above. But no dice. Invasive thoughts pierce the faded cannabis curtain. It’s been eleven days and still no letter from Robin. I know that, like me, she is a practitioner of monogamy. At least serial monogamy. But what about the other aspects of women’s liberation? Does she also feel restrained and suppressed by the patriarchal society we appear to
live in? We’ve never talked about it. And speaking of patriarchs, what is the paterfamilias if not a shining example of a first-class womanizer? How can Mom stand it? Why, in this enlightened day and age, does she tolerate it?

  A loud roar cuts these agitated thoughts short. High above, two fighter jets rocket across my field of vision. And thus I am reminded that we are not far from the Grumman Corporation, which makes many millions of dollars selling airborne killing machines to the government so it can incinerate, maim, and murder barefoot peasants. Such jet-propelled agents of destruction are a reminder that while Tinsley and I enjoy this beautiful, peaceful, sun-washed afternoon, eight thousand miles away, Chris stalks an enemy through shoulder-high elephant grass that tears through uniforms and skin and causes oozing infections. We hear soft guitar music; he listens for hints of a VC ambush. I smoke grass for fun; he smokes it to dull the constant gnawing terror. I take life for granted; he has only one wish — to get through the next hour alive.

  And what have I done to avoid a similar fate? I looked up Thoreau, Albert Camus, Bertrand Russell, and Thomas Aquinas in our World Book Encyclopedia at home, but that wasn’t much help. Then I went to the library and found some books by, or about, those deep thinkers. (I probably should have tried the Encyclopaedia Britannica while at the library, but I’ve always found it hard to read.)

  Anyway, those library books are currently gathering dust in my room. I keep intending to read them, but it seems that all I do when I’m at my desk is write to Robin.

  Having finished Frisbeeing, Tinsley again joins me on the blanket, breathing deeply, a fine patina of sweat shiny on her forehead. She gently rakes her fingers through her long yellow hair, and as she does, her blouse opens just enough to reveal the soft inner curve of a breast. In a moment of weakness, I imagine leaning close and kissing her delicate throat, then letting my lips graze the soft skin farther down.

  “What are you thinking?” She makes her eyes go wide and asks in a way that implies that she thinks she knows exactly what I’m thinking. I feel my face flush, and quickly knee-jerk an alibi.

  “Uh . . . about whether the encyclopedia your parents buy you is a predictor of your future intellect. Grow up with the Encyclopaedia Britannica and you’ll be president. Get stuck with the World Book and you’ll be mopping bathrooms.”

  She gives me a sideways glance. “Liar.”

  She’s right. And why should I feel embarrassed about looking? She knows how she’s dressed and what she’s revealing. “Okay. I was thinking about kissing your neck and breasts.”

  Tinsley nods as matter-of-factly as if I’d just pointed out that it’s Tuesday. “The other day my mother accused me of being a temptress. She’s worried that I might be ‘prone to promiscuity.’ I swear, Lucas, those are the exact words the old mare used.”

  Once again, nervous arousal riffles through me. A little while ago, I was happy lying here, comfortable, at peace gazing at this pretty, sexy waif. (Okay, and enjoying the benign stirring in my loins that she evokes.) Now I feel the need once again to remind myself that my heart shall never stray from the cold Canadian woods, where Lady Robin daily fends off horny lumberjacks and hungry polar bears.

  “Lucas?” Tinsley nudges me back to the Lower Forty-Eight.

  “Sorry?”

  “What about you?”

  “Uh, definitely prone to promiscuity.”

  “Stop it. Seriously. Tell me about your family.”

  Oh, no, not that. Dear pixie princess, must we explore territory that I don’t like to venture into when I’m straight, much less while mildly high and luxuriating on a lovely early evening with a lass such as yourself?

  Thankfully, Tinsley must sense my discomfort. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” She claps her hands like a kindergarten teacher and asks brightly, “What shall we talk about instead?”

  Thank God! Quick, Lucas, come up with something. “Barry said he met you at an art show. I’m not sure I ever thought of photography as art.”

  Tinsley makes her eyes bug out. “Seriously? You’ve never heard of Ansel Adams? Diane Arbus? Man Ray? Stieglitz?”

  When I admit that I haven’t, she launches — much to my relief — into a lecture about the history of photography as art, then admits that for her, that aspect is only a hobby. What she really wants to study is photojournalism. She’s just graduated from Ethel Walker, a private boarding school in Connecticut, and was set to attend someplace called the California Institute of the Arts in the fall, but then her mother came across an article about last year’s Valentine’s Day dance, which most of the students and faculty attended naked. That was the end of that. Now Tinsley’s trying to find a more discreet photography program, but it’s too late to apply for this coming fall (tell me about it), so she’s thinking about taking classes at the School of Visual Arts as a part-time student. (That won’t work for me. Part-time students don’t qualify for the 2-S deferment.)

  But I do so enjoy hearing her go on about her life (if Charles thinks I live a life of privilege, what would he think of Tinsley?) instead of inspecting mine. In a way, she’s not all that different from Robin. They’re both passionate about causes (Robin: antiwar, Tinsley: women’s lib). Both interested in careers (Robin: the environment, Tinsley: photojournalism).

  Mom was a journalist before she gave it up to become a mother. I bet there was a cause (or causes?) that she was once passionate about. (The way she advocates for Alan and tends her garden are like causes. You can see she’s got that drive and focus.) Where did I hear that men are attracted to women who are like their mothers? Yikes! Oh, man, there’ll be no getting back to that fine afternoon buzz now.

  Long shadows have begun to creep across the Planting Fields’ emerald lawns. We’ve picked up the blanket and started back to the parking lot when Tinsley says, “Tell me about your girlfriend.”

  “Really smart and together. Textbook example of opposites attracting.”

  Robin grew up with the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Why didn’t I? Was it simply a matter of which encyclopedia salesman rang the doorbell first?

  “How long have you been with her?”

  “Nine months.”

  “Are you exclusive?”

  “Yes. . . . Is that really so bad?”

  “No, if that’s your thing.”

  We’ve reached the lot, where the golden sunset reflects off the windshields of the parked cars. People are leaving. Both the afternoon light and the very last of that excellent high are ebbing away. The blanket goes back into the Spitfire’s trunk with the saddle. I settle into the passenger seat. Beside me in the driver’s seat, Tinsley doesn’t put the key into the ignition. Instead she leans back against the headrest and gazes upward. Above us, the few clouds are edged with pink. Tinsley reaches over, takes my hand, and places it in her lap. Interesting. My jeans start to feel tight in a certain area. Temptation percolates. But so do discomfort and inner conflict. Her eyes drifting toward mine, she says, “You know what they say: Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

  Hmmmm. They do say that, don’t they? It’s one of the mantras the counterculture has embraced. Given the location of my hand and her anti-monogamous leanings, I can only assume that she’s inviting (daring?) me to join her in its practice.

  Is this why she showed up at the factory today?

  The siren calls, and yet something keeps me tethered to the mast. Robin would never have to know, so what could possibly be holding me back? Don’t I fit the definition of alienated youth? Rejecter of the prudish and rigid moreys that my parents’ generation holds sacred — the paterfamilias excepted?

  Or is that it? Is my rejection of all things paterfamilial so complete that I can’t allow myself to venture where he would surely not hesitate to go? Even if Robin never knows, getting it on with Tinsley would be an act of betrayal. I would know. The guilt would be my burden to shoulder.

  An unexpected sense of failure envelops me. Is it possible that I’m a phony, a pretender to
those of my countercultural kind, as bogus as those plastic heads in the church basement the other night?

  On July 8, 1969, Lucas Baker, self-styled rebel, socialist, and druggie, was horrified to discover that despite all his long-haired antiestablishment airs, he was, deep down, pitifully middle-class.

  I remove my hand from her lap. “Tinsley, I think you’re incredibly attractive, and sexy and interesting, and I know this probably won’t make any sense to you, but even if this is the first day of the rest of my life, it’s a life in which I want to be faithful.”

  On the way back to the factory, we listen to more Crosby, Stills & Nash. Whenever our eyes meet, Tinsley smiles in a way that doesn’t seem forced. In fact, she appears totally cool with my decision. I find myself mystified and fascinated by her. She may be a postcard hippie, but she’s still not like anyone I’ve encountered before.

  By the time we return to the parking lot and Odysseus, it’s getting dark.

  “Thanks for introducing me to the Planting Fields.”

  “You’re welcome!” Tinsley replies cheerfully, and even plants a kiss on my cheek.

  I climb out of the Spitfire, but before I step away, there’s one last question on my mind: “The Encyclopaedia Britannica or the World Book?”

  The question hangs in the warm evening air for a moment. Admittedly it’s come from far out in left field.

  Tinsley scowls. “Sorry?”

  “Which one do you have?”

  “Neither,” she says.

  “You have some other encyclopedia?”

  “No, we don’t have one.”

  Amazing.

  Finally! On my desk is a letter from Robin in a white envelope with a blue stamp of a lady wearing a tiara. Like a desperate addict who’s finally found his fix, I rip it open. Inside are folded sheets of lined paper torn from a spiral notebook.