The Reset Life of Cassandra Collins

by Shawn Inmon

  Cassandra thought back just a few months to when she had seen Curlee play at The Wild Onion. She had thought that crowd was modest, but it dwarfed the three people sitting in one corner having a conversation.

  “Think more people will show up?” Cassandra asked. “What will they think if they get here and we’re playing to an empty house?”

  “They’ll think they’re seeing the band they came to see. A band they’re hoping will fill up some time on a second stage and not get paid.”

  Cassandra nodded, but had a difficult time settling her stomach down. She didn’t touch her drink. Instinct told her that was a bad idea.

  As show time approached, more people drifted in. No one was there specifically to see New Generation, of course, because there had been no advance notice that they were playing, and no one had ever heard of them. Every club in The Haight managed to grab at least a few patrons every night, though.

  The manager found them at the back of the room and told them it was time.

  Curlee craned his neck and looked at the tables but didn’t see Thom Swenson anywhere. He shrugged and put his arms around Cassandra and Billie. “If KFRC doesn’t show up tonight, so what? This will be cool. People will hear our voices. Cass, they’ll get to hear your beautiful songs. Let’s go.”

  Unlike when Curlee appeared at The Wild Onion, the manager didn’t go up on stage to introduce them. He just nodded at them from behind the bar. They walked to the stage, the personification of a beatnik folk band, dressed in black and looking solemn. They stood behind the microphones and Curlee and Billie strummed a few warm up chords.

  Curlee stepped forward and said, “We are New Generation.”

  Billie and Curlee played the arrangement they had rehearsed for We Shall Not be Moved.

  When it was time for Cassandra to sing, she stepped to the microphone and opened her mouth.

  Nothing came out.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Curlee stepped back and moved to Cassandra’s right side, so she was in the middle of the three of them. He and Billie played around to the beginning of the song again. When it was time for the vocals, Billie and Curlee leaned into the center microphone and began to sing.

  Well I'm on my way to heaven

  We shall not be moved

  On my way to heaven

  We shall not be moved

  Just like a tree that's standing by the water side

  We shall not be moved

  Halfway through the first verse, Cassandra found her voice and they finished the song together. Before the last note died out completely, they launched into the next song and the next. The man who ran The Candy Jar had told them that the previous band had talked so much about various causes that people had gotten up and walked out. They wouldn’t make the same mistake.

  They ran though their set at a breakneck pace. When it came time to sing Cassandra’s Song for Peace, she nearly choked up again. When that song ended, they paused, and there was a smattering of applause from the crowd.

  They rushed through the rest of their set, finishing what was intended to be an hour’s worth of music in only fifty minutes.

  When it came time for their last song, Curlee finally spoke. “Thank you for being with us for the debut performance of New Generation. We’re going to end tonight by playing a song written by our own Cassandra Collins. It’s called Not for Marching.”

  They’d been playing protest songs of one form or another all night, but most all of them had already been familiar to the audience. When they launched into the new arrangement of Cassandra’s song, it caught everyone’s ear, and they paid attention.

  When they sang the last verse—

  Music, as the water

  From a cup of human kindness,

  Is a cup of love for all

  If you’re thirsty take a drink

  They held the crowd’s rapt attention. Curlee turned his head to the left so he could make eye contact with both women as they sang. It felt like there was something special in the air.

  When the last note faded away, the half-full crowd gave them an actual round of applause.

  New Generation stepped back from the microphones and took a deep bow.

  No one rushed the stage, or screamed “Encore!” but they were pleased with their first outing as a band.

  “It may not have accomplished what we wanted, since the guys from the radio station never showed up, but I still think it was great,” Curlee said. “Better than Robby Jimson and the Ravens ever sounded.”

  “Sorry, guys, for choking up there,” Cassandra said. “I honestly thought I was going to pass out. Never felt anything like it.”

  “It was your first time onstage. Don’t worry about it,” Billie said, placing her acoustic carefully into its case. “Once we got rolling, you were great. You were the star of the show.”

  Just as they turned to step off the stage, they saw Thom Swenson hustling down the aisle toward them.

  “Too late,” Curlee said with a half-grin. “You missed us.”

  “Nah, we were here, we were just lurking in the back. My boss isn’t crazy about these places.”

  Curlee latched his guitar case and stood up.

  “Listen,” Thom said. “He loved you guys. He really liked that last song, that marching song I heard you play in the park the other day. I think that’s a hit.”

  The three members of New Generation glanced at each other, then at Swenson.

  “So what does that mean?” Curlee asked. “What’s next?”

  “I need you to come to the station this week and go over a performer’s contract. Everybody signs them. I’ll have an information packet for you that will tell you how to get out to the festival.”

  “Everybody signs them, huh?” Curlee said, picking up on the key piece of information. “You guys draw them up, so I can guess who it protects. But you know what? We’re three busted-broke flower children with nothing to lose. What time do you want us to be there?”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow at two o’clock, if that works for you.”

  “We’ll be there.”

  “Oh, well, you can all come if you want, but I really only need you to sign. Totally up to you.” With a wave, Thom Swanson hustled away.

  The three of them stood still onstage, waiting for him to get far enough away. As soon as the door onto the sidewalk closed behind him, they hugged each other and jumped up and down.

  They walked home with an easy gait. It felt like the future stretched out brightly before them. Cassandra remembered a song she had heard on the radio in the 1980s—The Future’s so Bright, I’ve Gotta Wear Shades.

  They sat in the living room and smoked up again, then Cassandra and Curlee retired to their bedroom. She thought after the exhilarating success of the night that they might make love, but he was exhausted and fell asleep quickly.

  Cassandra curled up against him. As tired as she was, she didn’t feel sleepy at all, so she just enjoyed being slightly buzzed.

  An image arose unbidden in her mind. Her, laying like this next to Jimmy in another life, dreaming of what could have been.

  Nothing has turned out the way I thought it would. And that’s just fine.

  Chapter Forty

  The KFRC Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival was scheduled for the first weekend in June, but the days leading up to it were besieged by rain and winds. Early in the week, the festival organizers decided to push it off until the following weekend.

  That may have complicated the lives of the major acts that were going to appear, but to New Generation, it just meant that they had another week to practice.

  A week later, it wasn’t exactly sunny and warm, but the rain had stopped, and the show could go on. The festival was held at the top of Mount Tamalpais, which made for great views and a trippy atmosphere, but the challenge was how to get equipment, performers, and concert-goers to the area.

  There was one single road leading up, and no parking once you got there, so massive parking lot
s were arranged at the bottom and buses were hired to drive everyone to the top of Mount Tam.

  The Magic Mountain Music Festival was the first of its kind. Monterrey Pop got more press, but it happened later in the summer. Woodstock is the festival that lives in pop culture memory forever, but it happened two years later. Magic Mountain was first.

  Like the first anything, there were some growing pains. The organizers did a great job of getting the infrastructure itself up to the Sidney B. Cushing Memorial Amphitheater, where the main stage would be. The primary and secondary stages, the booths and restroom facilities were ready before the day of the show.

  Transporting people up on the day itself was a little more problematic. Each bus could hold fifty people at the most. The amphitheater itself held four thousand people. On the day of the show, more than thirty-six thousand free spirited souls arrived to more or less officially kick off the Summer of Love.

  Thirty-six thousand people moving up the mountain one bus at a time meant that the lines at the parking lots grew long and there were waits of four hours or more to get to the top. Weed was plentiful, magic mushrooms were available, and peyote was not unheard of. There has never been a more mellow crowd left cooling their heels.

  A number of the second-stage performers, including New Generation, were caught in the lines. Instead of worrying and fussing, a number of those people unpacked their acoustic guitars and held an impromptu jam session for the waiting crowds.

  New Generation wasn’t scheduled to go on until four o’clock in the afternoon. The festival had no lighting available, so it was scheduled to end at six o’clock each night.

  They had parked Curlee’s Ford a little after 7:00 a.m., expecting to be some of the first up the mountain. By the time they arrived, there were already massive lines waiting. They thought they would be more helpful by playing for the crowds gathered in the lot than worrying about getting up the mountain.

  By two o’clock, though, they were becoming concerned about making it up there in time for their set. They had just finished a rousing sing-along of Puff, the Magic Dragon with the people in line, when Curlee said, “Hey, we’re supposed to play in just a couple of hours. Anyone know of a way up, other than the buses?”

  A burly man with a long beard, a denim vest and a red bandana stepped out of the crowd.

  “We can get you up there.”

  “Great,” Curlee said. “How?”

  “You won’t be able to bring your cases, but if you don’t mind just slinging your guitars over your back, we can get you there.” His voice was deep and rough, but his expression was calm and easy-going.

  Curlee glanced at Cassandra and Billie, eyebrows raised.

  “Sure,” Billie said, “what’s the worst that could happen?” She shook her head. “Wait. Don’t answer that.”

  “We would appreciate a ride up there very much.”

  The large man turned his back to Curlee and whistled. “Hey, brothers. Got three that need a ride.”

  When he turned around, Curlee, Cassandra, and Billie could all see that it said “Hells Angels” on the top of the vest, “California” on the bottom, and a flying death’s head emblem in the middle.

  Cassandra leaned toward Billie and whispered in her ear, “I think I might have just peed myself a little.”

  Even unflappable Billie had wide eyes and didn’t have a sarcastic comeback.

  Two minutes later, they had dropped their cases off in Curlee’s trunk and were riding behind three Hells Angels, bumping up the mountain.

  I thought this life had taken every weird turn it could, but Cassandra Collins of the best neighborhood in Middle Falls could never have imagined holding tight to a Hells Angel, flying up a mountain.

  The road up was just barely wide enough for two buses to pass each other going up and down. The Angels seemed to take that as a personal challenge and passed bus after bus as they rumbled slowly up the hill. On several occasions, a bus going up, a bus going down, and a trio of Hells Angels with New Generation aboard all met at the same turn in the road.

  Cassandra would later swear there wasn’t more than a foot of clearance between the Harley’s handlebars and the buses on either side of them.

  After the scariest ride of any of their lives, they reached the unloading zone at the top. All three of them clambered gratefully off onto shaking legs.

  Cassandra turned to the giant of a man who had originally offered the ride. “Thank you, for a ride I will never forget.”

  “You’re not the first woman to say that to me,” he said, with a wink.

  Cassandra turned to Billie. “I suppose I asked for that one.”

  They walked in the direction everyone else was heading. “Maybe I should have worn more practical shoes,” Billie said, regretting her choice of knee-high boots. “Who knew?”

  The first thing to greet them was a giant inflatable Buddha smiling down. There were dozens of booths set up, selling everything from organic food to various head shop paraphernalia, to candles, psychedelic artwork, and tie-dyed t-shirts. The primary competing smells were patchouli, marijuana, and mud, left over from the previous rains.

  Most everyone there was wandering around dressed in their hippie finest—vests with no shirts for the guys, long, flowing dresses or wide-flaring bell bottoms for the women, and beads and feathers adorning most every attendee.

  The day had turned warm and Cassandra lifted her face toward the sun.

  Curlee noticed and said, “This is the kind of day where people say, ‘Let’s move to the Bay area.’ Then they get here and realize there are like ten of these days every year.”

  When they were still a long ways away from the main stage, they could hear music floating through the air. Cassandra stopped and cocked an ear. “Listen,” she said, then sang along with a few lines of Up, Up, and Away. “It’s The Fifth Dimension. How cool! Let’s go see if we can catch a little of their set.

  There was no apparent security and certainly no police presence.

  “I’ve seen high school dances that were more heavily chaperoned,” Curlee observed.

  By the time they made it to the main stage, The Fifth Dimension had segued into Stoned Soul Picnic. They were on a large stage, decorated with tall banners emblazoned with the twelve astrological signs. The band that would usher in The Age of Aquarius in a few more years was already grooving.

  Cassandra stood transfixed, swaying to the vocals of Billy Davis Jr. and Marilyn McCoo and the rhythm of the band. People in front of her started pointing toward the sky. She looked up just in time to see a man parachuting right toward them. At the last minute, he veered off and landed in a semi-secluded part of the festival.

  “Thought I was trippin’ for a second there,” Curlee said. “Then I remembered I haven’t taken anything all day.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  The three of them finally tore themselves away from The Fifth Dimension and followed the small, hand-lettered signs to the second, smaller stage. Where thousands were packed into the area around the main stage, there were maybe a hundred people casually reclining around the second.

  Curlee surveyed the area and said, “Looks like this is where everyone comes to eat, get stoned, or maybe have sex, away from the big crowds. Perfect for New Generation!”

  There was no backstage area, so they looked for someone who might be in charge. They finally found him when they spotted a guy in purple pants and a tie-dyed t-shirt, carrying a clipboard.

  “Look,” Cassandra said. “A clipboard. Only somebody who knows what’s going on would be carrying that around. Come on.”

  They approached the man, who had yellow-tinted round glasses and frizzy hair.

  “Hi,” Curlee said. “We’re New Generation. We’re supposed to play at four o’clock.”

  The man ran a finger down his clipboard, then looked up miserably. “The schedule is shot to hell. People don’t show up when they’re supposed to, or at all. People show up, then get so stoned they wander off. I don’t know
what the hell is happening anymore.”

  Curlee laid a sympathetic hand on the man’s shoulder, then pointed to where it said, “New Generation” on his sheet. “Well, that’s us, and we’re here. We’re not even a little bit stoned, and we’re ready whenever you want us.”

  The man glanced at the stage where three teenagers were bashing away at their instruments. “I’ll tell you what. The Baked Grapes are on now, then I’ve got one more band lined up, and you’re on.”

  He walked away, holding his clipboard like a badge.

  “The Baked Grapes,” Billie mused. “A name and a band destined for greatness, no doubt.”

  Or not. I don’t ever remember hearing of them in my first life. But then, I’d never heard of Quicksilver Messenger Service or Captain Beefheart, either, and I sure know them now. Don’t know if me living this second life is changing things, or if I’m just becoming aware of new parts of the world I missed the first time around. Probably both.

  The Baked Grapes finished, then a stage announcer came out and said, “Come on, let’s hear it for The Grapes.”

  The guitarist for the band started to object, but thought about it for a second and said, “Close enough.”

  The announcer looked at a piece of paper in his hand as a five-piece band scrambled around behind him, plugging into amps and quickly tuning up. There wasn’t time for sound checks or other niceties on the second stage.

  The announcer looked over his shoulder at the guitarist, who nodded.

  “Live from the great Pacific Northwest, welcome up and comers Jimmy Velvet and the Black Velvets.”

  The guitarist, who Cassandra guessed might be Jimmy Velvet, opened with a heavy riff from Vanilla Fudge’s cover version of You Keep Me Hangin’ On. The band segued from one cover version to another, moving directly into Blue Cheer’s garage band version of Summertime Blues. They pointedly avoided playing any songs by bands that were playing that weekend on the main stage.