It was all over. The hippie kids would go home, and the few that remained would become “Free Americans.”
The only problem was that while the original be-in had attracted twenty-five thousand, only a few hundred had showed up for the funeral. And with every bus that disgorged its expectant passengers, the party was only getting bigger.
Fat Maxey wasn’t my only friend in the Haight. I was getting closer to a Romanian immigant named Mike, who I was teaching English. He had an even-keel personality not liable to be upset by much of anything. Maybe this made me realize I really didn’t know all that much about Mike. Granted, the disparity in language was one of the reasons why. But I met as often with him for coffee at the I/Thou as I did Maxey, and occasionally the three of us would hit it off, though Maxey was considerably more withdrawn and cautious with Mike.
I found out why one day when Mike came over to visit. He didn’t come over often, though I had made it plain he was welcome anytime.
This time after I buzzed him in, he stood at the top of the stairs, his hands deep in his pockets, and he didn’t come farther into the room.
He smiled slightly and said, “Gimme all your money.”
I could feel the sweat suddenly pop in my armpits. Everything I didn’t know about him came into sharp focus. A refugee from Romania who had heard about the Haight and came out of curiosity, not because he had any particular political leanings or was fond of drugs.
I stared at him and he moved the hand in his right pocket suggestively.
“Gimme all your money,” he repeated.
There was a pot of boiling water on the nearby stove, and if I could reach it I could catch him in the face with the scalding water.
I hesitated one more second, decided I wasn’t Sean Connery after all, took my wallet out of my pocket, and tossed it to him. He couldn’t use the credit cards, and there wasn’t much cash in it.
He held it for a moment, a quizzical expression on his face, then dropped it on the nearby table.
“You think a friend would do this to you?” he asked.
“It was a lousy joke,” I said, though I wasn’t sure it was a joke at all.
He shrugged and raised an eyebrow. “Have coffee?” he said. “I have questions about words.”
I was quiet all the way over to the I/Thou. When we sat at a table and I had caught my breath I repeated, “That was a lousy joke.”
He stood up and emptied out his pockets: a wadded-up handkerchief, some small change, and two keys on a chain.
“A joke,” he said. “I sorry.” He sounded the ultimate of sincere.
All I could think of then was, what if I had reached the pot of boiling water? Would I have blinded him? Burned his face? Even if I’d had a lot of money in the wallet, it wouldn’t have been worth the consequences. I really didn’t think that Mike had had a gun or that he would have shot me. Did I?
I told the story to Maxey a few days later and he laughed.
“So you would have reported it to the police and made their day. For the first time in weeks they would have had an actual criminal to chase.”
I didn’t see Mike for a few days, and when I did, I heard about him through Maxey, who gave me a note.
“He said he was in a hurry and I should give this to you.”
I read it, then shoved it across the table to Maxey. “He’s going to be a houseman in Walnut Creek, wherever that is.”
Maxey looked disgusted. “Houseboy is more like it. He’ll clean the house, fix the meals, and ball the owner in the evening. He lucked out.”
“He’s not the type,” I said. “So where the hell is Walnut Creek?”
“East Bay—a really wealthy suburb.”
My image of Mike was fading fast.
“He wouldn’t sell himself.”
Maxey held up a finger for the waiter to bring him another doughnut. “Can be bought. All depends on the money.”
A few days later I bought a gallon of Red Mountain and had a group of kids over for spaghetti. The usual “You’re great, man, love ya,” and after they had left, I tumbled into bed.
At my usual breakfast with Maxey the next morning he told me that the Real Estate Board had redlined the Haight—any more sales or rentals weren’t recommended. In addition, according to Maxey, the murder rate for the Haight had hit one per square block, by far the highest in the city.
Disney’s Paradise Island had finally sunk into the sea.
When I got home, I was surprised when I went to open the door. It was unlocked, and I swore at myself for being so foolish as not to throw the latch.
Inside, the apartment was a mess. My small FM radio—my one nod to the good life—was missing. So was the Jefferson Airplane poster on the wall. So was the small dish of pot I’d kept for visitors.
Shit. Whoever it was, I’d served spaghetti to him the night before. “Love ya, man…” I called for Cat and found him hiding underneath the bed, scared out of his wits. He’d pissed on the floor.
I went to the park and flaked out on the hill, watching a red-haired preacher baptize a naked kid in the filthy pond. A girl sitting next to me turned to her friend and pointed. “Did you see that? He wasn’t even circumcised.”
Home that night to my now empty apartment, then a quick meal for Cat, who curled up in the bed with me.
The next morning, I made my trip to the I/Thou for doughnuts with Maxey and a little sympathy. I didn’t expect much—Maxey had warned me about a wave of robberies the week before.
I was crossing Haight Street when somebody beeped at me from their car and hollered, “Hey, Frank!”
I walked over, puzzled, then recognized Nat Lehrman—I’d once met him at a party in Hefner’s mansion.
“You want a job?”
I couldn’t believe the coincidence.
“Doing what?”
“Writing the ‘Playboy Advisor.’”
It was a column in the front of the magazine that gave sexual advice and some general living suggestions to the Playboy readers.
“You’re puting me on. What brings you to town?”
“Conference. Then they told me to find you.”
I couldn’t think of a less likely candidate for the job. I didn’t know at the time that it was Masters and Johnson, two doctors, who gave out the sexual advice, and I would be the guy who would tell the reader what kind of wine to serve with the fish.
“How much?”
“Fifteen grand a year.”
I stared at him for a moment. He was serious. Jesus …
“When do they want me?”
“As soon as you can get there.”
“I’m not good at walking,” I said. “I’m busted.”
He fished an envelope out of his pocket and gave it to me.
“This is an advance on your first assignmnent.”
The catch.
“Which is?”
“Interview Robert Heinlein and get his reaction to the moon landing. A photographer will meet you this afternoon—give you a couple of hours to pack.” He glanced around the street. “Where do you want him to meet you?”
I pointed at the I/Thou.
“Right there—two o’clock.” Then: “You took a lot for granted.”
He stared at me for a moment. “Look at yourself, Frank.” He started the car, and turned to watch out for traffic. “See you in Chicago—Bob Shea’s found an apartment for you.”
In the I/Thou I found a chair opposite Maxey and opened the envelope. A credit card for me, name and everything.
“Heinlein’s my favorite author,” I said to Maxey.
He looked uneasy.
“What the hell’s wrong? Who were you talking to?”
“God,” I said.
I got some money from the bank, went to the apartment, and gave some to the landlord to ship my typewriter and my spaghetti pot to me c/o Playboy.
Then I went to the john and flushed my love beads down the toilet. I found the suit I’d worn when I’d first come to the Haight. It
still fit.
I looked in the mirror. The image looking back at me was too old and out of place to be a hippie.
I’d get plane tickets when I came back to ’Frisco, grab a cab, and go straight to the airport.
I lifted Cat to say good-bye and he licked my nose. When I put him down, he went to the corner and sat facing the door, ready to tutor the next tenant.
I ended up at the I/Thou to wait for the photographer. I didn’t say good-bye to Maxey—he’d already left.
In my mind, so had I. I’d drop him a note.
The Haight had started with great optimism and ideals, where a tab of acid really had been meant as a sacrament. I remembered Love’s Thanksgiving party and the night the Straight Theater opened a rear window and projected a movie on the side of the building next door. And the occasional street party where people really were friendly and shared a joint or a bag of fries, and Father Harris, who had busted his butt doing his best for the street kids and was seldom thanked for it.
And then it had deteriorated into a slum where rich kids dressed up and played at being poor and begged strangers for a nickel or a dime when they had hundreds of dollars at home.
I might return to San Francisco someday.
But I’d never go back to Haight-Ashbury.
Bonny Doon was a little suburb south of San Francisco; the Heinleins lived out in the boonies in a nice-looking, comfortable house with a wire fence around it. I found out later they built it to keep the hippies away so Bob could work. Stranger in a Strange Land was the favorite novel of the hippies, and I think many of them wanted to adopt him as their guru.
I stayed at the house for three days asking questions, the photographer taking an occasional picture of Heinlein. He never complained. He had been at NASA when the first men landed on the moon and he reportedly had burst into tears. If any man had a right to, it was Robert Heinlein—the man who actually “sold the moon.” I knew what it had meant to most people, but I wanted to know more about what it had meant to him.
The days I spent with Heinlein and his wife, Ginny, were among the happiest days of my life. Dinner was always formal, and the Heinleins dressed for it. I was still a latter-day hippie, my suit uncomfortable and scratchy. I was ill at ease at first—the Heinleins were more than friendly but frighteningly formal, and I felt like a country bumpkin with wisps of straw coming out of my ears.
There was a bottle of fine wine at every meal, and it took an effort to remember that I was there on business—not as a fan, which in actuality I was. Ginny filled me in on the ground rules when we were alone. Bob never talked about his own novels—not in a specific sense, though I thought I might be able to tease out the thoughts behind them. But that was one of the provisos of the contract he had signed with Playboy. The magazine had paid Bob two grand for the interview, one of the very few interviews they’d ever paid for.
I had a quick tour of the house, the library, and the office where he worked. His typewriter was an old Remington standard with a homemade box built around it to deaden the sound.
After supper, relaxed in his study, I turned on my small tape recorder and asked him how he felt at launchtime.
He described the incredible noise and the feeling of pride when the rocket took off for the moon.
“Somebody in the crowd shouted, ‘They’re on their way to the moon!’ It was then I realized that for the first time in history I was seeing a spaceship—and it really was a spaceship—lift off on a journey to another celestial body. There was absolute dead silence at liftoff, then a spontaneous cheer that could be heard for miles. At separation, the same thing—silence, then the thunder of cheering. That first day of actual space travel to another heavenly body marked the most important thing the human race has ever done.”
The actual lunar landing made him tear up again. “‘That’s one small step for man, and one giant leap for mankind.’”
I was pretty sure the words had been engraved in his heart as well as in his head.
Heinlein suddenly got bitter.
“I’d waited fifty years for this. Half a century of being treated like a madman for believing what has been perfectly evident since the days of Newton.”
“What about the cost?” I said. “The space program has cost billions.”
He looked disappointed—I hadn’t understood the real worth of NASA.
“When they’ve finished the accounting we’ll discover we got space travel for free—and with a profit thrown in. How many lives have been saved when weather satellites can forecast the path of hurricanes? Freeze-dried coffee, sensors to measure blood pressure, new fuel cells, filament-wound plastics as strong as steel and ten times lighter.… NASA has listed more than three thousand spin-offs.”
He knew the subject well—he had spent a lifetime writing about the possibilities. I asked him why he had started writing science fiction books for kids. “Because I wanted them to become interested in real science.… The books paid well, but that’s not the real reason.”
Heinlein’s books for kids had been immensely popular, and not just among children. In a survey of NASA scientists, it turned out the vast majority of them had read Heinlein, either as kids or young adults.
“Do you think we’ll ever go to Mars?” I already knew his answer.
“Of course. It’s easier to go to Mars from the moon than it is from the Earth. The gravity of the moon is so much lighter than that of Earth, liftoff would take far less fuel.”
“The supplies,” I objected. “Food, water…”
He shrugged. “We have nuclear submarines that can stay underwater for longer than six months at a time. Waste products will simply be recycled.”
For the next two days, Heinlein’s imagination soared. We would visit every planet in the solar system. Someday we would go to the stars.
In his imagination, Heinlein visualized the human race conquering the universe. I did not remind him that light travels 186,000 miles per second—eight minutes for the light from the sun to reach Earth. Other planetary systems would be centuries away. If we ever developed anything that could go as fast as light, it would still take years.
Heinlein didn’t talk about one of his most famous stories—”Universe”—in which spaceships are doing just that kind of travel with crews who lived out their lives on board, breeding the crews that would replace them when they died. Don Wilcox in the old Amazing had used the same theme in his story “The Voyage That Lasted Six Hundred Years.” And decades later, I would as well in “The Dark Beyond the Stars.”
I asked Heinlein about his best-known book—the first of a number to hit the bestseller lists. The hero was a human boy who was born on Mars and comes to Earth and in effect starts a new religion. (It introduced the word “grokking”—to grok somebody was to understand completely what they were saying. The hippies picked up on that right away: “I grok you.”)
Another of Heinlein’s books (later turned into a successful movie) got him booed at a science fiction convention. In Starship Troopers, a book with a militaristic background where spaceships of troopers—the marines of the future—go to a planet to battle insect-like creatures that posed a threat to man.
In the eyes of the audience, Heinlein had become a fascist because of the military aspects. (If anything, Heinlein was a libertarian.) Heinlein had been a military man for a time, four years in the navy to be discharged as a lieutenant for medical reasons. He had stayed in touch with old friends in the navy and had lost neither the bearing nor the outlook of a naval officer.
The highest calling for a human being, Heinlein said, was to give up his life for his fellow man. It sounded cold when he said it, but in real life, in Iraq and Afghanistan and earlier wars, it happened many times. I had trouble accepting that, but I couldn’t argue with the reality. Men would get medals for saving the lives of their companions—or rather their near and dear would.
The catch, which came as a shock to many science fiction fans, was that Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Lan
d had been written at the same time. After writing so many pages of the one, Heinlein would switch over to the other. Different characters, of course, but Heinlein maintained that the philosophy was the same in each. In one a man gave up his life to save his fellow men. In the other a man was about to.
Starting with Stranger, Heinlein abandoned ordinary science fiction to write more philosophical books. Most of them were also bestsellers, though he left the bulk of his science fiction readers behind.
By the third day my head was spinning, and when I transcribed my tapes later, I came up with close to 150 pages.
I left as much in awe of him as I had been at the start. He had made me painfully aware that human beings were insignificant creatures on a minor planet circling a small star in a galaxy that was only one of billions in the universe.
I hoped to hell I didn’t come down with what was called “island fever”—where I had once visited Maui, for example, and suddenly realized I was on this tiny bit of land in the middle of the gigantic Pacific Ocean and all I wanted to do was go home, where my existence might mean something.
Would future astronauts ever feel like that someday? I wondered. The desire to leave this tiny ball of dust and explore the vastness just beyond?
Heinlein didn’t wonder; he knew.
My three days were up, we had a going-away dinner with several bottles of the best, and the next day the photographer and I were dropped off at the I/Thou, where we had started. I hailed a cab and went directly to the airport.
I had been a stranger in a strange land … but it had taken me two years to realize it.
XIX
I SQUIRMED IN my first-class seat, took a pass on the meal, and closed my eyes to try to sleep. Bob Shea would meet me at the airport and drive me to my apartment on the lakefront, not that far down from Northwestern. I understood the apartment was furnished, complete with both bedding and kitchen supplies.
I’d miss Cat. I should have thought of some way I could take him along, but I had a hunch he was more attached to the apartment than to me.
Good luck, Cat.… I hope your new master loves you as much as I did even if I didn’t always show it.
Not So Good a Gay Man Page 15
