Hetty on The Summer of Love & Falling in Love with Angus MacLise plus An American Tragedy

Ron Thorud had the idea for the Summer of Love, and that brought the television folk who looked at the festoons of dusty electrical wire and blenched - they went ahead and nearly blew us up! They wanted a round table discussion but this was not our way so out we went into the little garden and played hide and seek with them. I stuck my head out of a Bush and begged anyone coming to bring a sleeping bag as it could get very cold when the fog rolled in. Actually for myself I was not too keen on the idea - we were not ready for any kind of influx - and it was huge. Young and enthusiastic we were and strong also but we frightened the powers that be - because the youngsters who arrived in droves wanting free everything, were from grand families as well as the Iowa farm boy. This bought the police batons down on us every day. We all wore whistles.
If we saw anyone being beaten up - we blew - and soon everyone joined in and we rain to help. Mouse and Kelly were turning out wonderful posters - even the bail bondsmanhad one! Travis and I used to visit him nightly to bail out those arrested - mostly for vagrancy which was $25 each. No wonder the Oracle went bust in the end. Well obviously something had to be done and so the good natured bands played on a flat bed truck to the drumming of an ancient dyram.
Speedway meadow became a dance floor and this worked for awhile because the cops could not enter the park and the rangers were averse to arrests. The Grateful Dead played a concert in Haight street and the audience stretched the entire length.

So although there were tense moments there were funny ones also - like one young mans answer to a cop who had found some weed in his pocket - "Oh that! I carry it as a status symbol." That boy will go far I thought, wonder if he did. Emmet Kelly and his cohouts took the throw away from outside the various supermarkets and fed several hundred people daily in the Panhandle for free. Plus we had the Haight Street Clinic and Brian the Deads Lawyer. These were helpful indeed - but not enough. Too many came - I hope they all learned and had fun and togetherness as we did.
Around that time a tall man came into the art room with a little blue book of poems. I redirected him to Allen and Steve as I had no say as to content. This was my first meeting with Angus Maclise.

Then, a good friend from the old Russian Embassy told me of an affair she was having and how she longed to meet him somewhere, where her husband Ian would not see. Oh dear. However, I dearly wanted a drawing from her for the Oracle so I bribed her! Said she could meet him in the art room if she drew for me.

She did, very nicely thank you, and he arrived - fall bespectacled - she told me he was the best man in the world. I took her word for it and went on drawing or whatever. You see - Marco could not be lived with - nor alas could Pigpen, with him - alcohol - with Marco, stronger stuff they called Dujee. I needed neither, so I decided to be alone, free, and to devote all my energies to the Oracle. So - during all that time, about a year - whilst everyone was seriously into Free love - I remained celebate. One thing had changed however - I no longer slept in the park for I found a wonderful place to live. The stone stables of one of the San Francisco mansions destroyed in the earthquake. This was very sturdy and in the middle of all the back gardens. Reached ny a tiny passage opposite the library in Page Street. Glorious! and Jason had his own room again and bred hampsters who nested under the big iron stove in the kitchen. His room had one wall, a union jack - we wondered who had painted it but he wanted it to remain and so it did.
Mikki and Angus came round in the evening when many people came to talk and laugh. I found that he was interested in the myths of the world as was I - so there were many interesting conversations. Also, the first time I witnessed Angus' habit of picking people up and swinging them around! This was right on Haight St as we started off on a picnic - I decided not to go and so - just to say tootaloo he picked me up and round I went and came down abit breathless, but basically unmoved. Christmas was coming and Jason wanted to go to the Kesey Ranch. So I was without children for the first time in years. A gale swept may branches down so I gathered them up and made a 'tree' in the corner. Under which I put Jasons presents and sat painting tiny miniatures for my close friends - it was Christmas Even when the front door banged open and there stould Angus. "Gimme Shelter", he shouted. Heavens! well come on in. He was on the run from three women - lord help us!! One was Mikki, two a girl who had followed from New York City and some unclear third. Well as Jason is away you could sleep in his room - but when he returns i'm sorry but you will have to find someplace else (funny-.) He begged me to accompany him to collect his things, which I did, and felt really uncomfortable because they all leapt to the wrong conclusion. I fervently reassured Mikki that I was just giving him temporary room space. I sat and tried to remember that it was christmas eve whilst shouts and sounds of objects flung about. Angus emerged and we left, but after us ran the girl from NYC - as we clambered onto the bus she moaned "No more Angus." I would get to know that one.
We went to a party that night and they all turned up but I did not care - work it out minus me.

Christmas day spent with Oracle and friends at Azul's (Bob Simmons) studio - very jolly. So Angus stayed and Jason did not return and it was after New Years Eve and walking with Angus down Haight Street, he suddenly rushed through the tourist traffic and whirled a girl around - it was Mikki. I walked on feeling so relieved and happy that I was still just and only just friends with Angus. Oh dear - what happened? - it was so sudden. I took him a cup of tea in bed as I do for guests and burst into tears. Poor man - he looked up amazed - "whatever is the matter" - 'Oh I have just done the stupidest thing' I wailed. "What's that then?" - 'I've been and gone and falled in love with you' - really goodbye Lennie - he just pulled back the sheet and I hopped in. I stayed there for 10 years, metaphorically speaking, until he died. Between then and now however much happened.
Such as, we had a trip with friends to a lovely place caled Inverness and Angus bought me a single Iris, how could he have known it was my favourite flower, a Picesian, very romantic. So it was just a few days later, on St Valentines day, he went down on one knee in the panhandle and said that he wanted me to be his wife and the mother of his children. How enchanting and I accepted gladly - cancerian picean combination. Oh joy. We went out to the park where we found a Dingle (both of us George Borrow readers) and sat entwined when a silhouette of a man in a trench coat was seen on the edge of the little dingle ( which is a cosy private hollow in a wood.) Spell broken we walked hand in hand through the park and suddenly were drenched by a tree - yes the tree was raining, it was the only one.

Came the spring solstice and we went to celebrate in the speedway meadow as usual - 'oh how pretty' I exclaimed when I saw a silk tent someone had erected - so charming and tinkling with the sound of the many Japanese wind charms. Helloh - it was Diane di Prima, a poetess friend of Angus who had put it up and it is your wedding day. HELP!! No worries though - it was all hippy - nothing even vaguely legal. Someone threw a white lace kaftan over my summer smock and Angus was similarly attired. Iggy - a nice jewish friend who had completed 32 days of Zaxen meditation formalised our vows and promises, Tim Leary turned up to bless us and the dear old Grateful Dead witnessed our union. Someone produced two jade rings as we were on the ring of fire and LO! it really was a wedding after all. The only true one I had, we kept those promises.

It was said that I had to be married by my tribe, and I was. Just in time because the end of the jolly old Summer or Love was nigh. We all knew it - we were undermined by the powers that be - so easy - open and trusting we were - all one we were, until the junkies and the drunks started drifting up - the young who had come for acid were given speed by people pretending to be friendly hippy dealers - but obviously they weren't - we put fliers out again and again begging people to avoid street dealers and giving other safe options. but it was too late. Allen Cohen and Bob Simmons (now known as Azul) tried to coerse Angus into coming to Miami with the rest of us - but he needed New York and all his contacts there did not like my having a job - funny really because when we finally hit New York I held down three jobs and lived a rent free loft as part payment for one of them and although Angus did two more gigs with the Velvate undeground - his earnings were sporadic. BUT. I loved him through and through - knew I could not continue without him so, I agreed, like Ruth, to go where you go and your people shall be my peopleThis meant obtaining transport. This I left to Angus because I was busy tidying up the art room and leaving a sketchy web of an Oracle for anyone to finish - Kelly had more or less taken over anyway.
Well Angus made two choices. They were bad - they affected my life until this very day.

AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY.

The car.

The driver.

Where we met the two owners of the car I do not know.
The driver answered a note on the Oracla notice board.

The car came first - two young fellows rented it in N.Y.C to come to the Summer of Love and one married - but little wifey wanted to fly and the other boy did not want to be lef t- so - Angus arranged to take it as it could not be 'turned in' in S.F - all this was beyond me - I know nothing of cars but I loved to ride and be driven - so - a driver had to be found because I quickly realised, after one hair raising trip in S.F with Angus - he could not drive! O.K put a notice on our board in the office, and sure up came Louden Wainwright the third. Just young Louden then and he had a license and was over 18, so, I tried him out and he seemed just the ticket for a journey.

On the last morning, spent with out Lynn - the Oracla secretary, a friend turned up with a goodbye gift - a huge bag of fine weed. "Oh yes" pounced Louden - 'Oh no' said I. Well having crossed America twice in a car I knew it was paramount to be clean. There was a heated argument - his was that he was to be driving and did I want him to take speed" 'Of course not -AGH?!" what did we have here? I should have called the whole thing off - but I didn't - I was tired and needed a space on the white lives of the highway (to quote Joni Mitchell.)

To stop this wingeing I acquiesced - take one joint and if we get stopped - you are responsible - throw or swallow - get it. O.K. and we were off. All serene until nearing the texas panhandle when I demanded that we disembank - turn out pockets and everything and if you have something left - hand it over NOW - he handed me some and I made 3 joints - out on my own in that real desert, and as I sat there a five mile high Hopi Katchina stalked toward me - the one with a head like a doughnut. DANGER.

So I went back to the car and demanded that he was totally clean. He said yes. We went on until a knocking sound came from underneath - Angus, who had the car papers and was being responsible made Louden pull into a roadside garage where a man looked and said 'big end' and that he did not have the tools to deal with it - "next big time" he advised us. This rose up to our left MORDOR - oh no not there - please try a little further - no notice taken of me again and into Olklahoma city we rolled.

We took the car to a big garage and they agreed to look at this big end or whatever. Off we went on a stroll around - to tell the truth I only remember it vaguely - rather bleak if anything. We went to a cinema - don't ask what we saw for I don't recall it at all. Back at the garage and Angus and Louden did whatever was necesarry as I covertly watched the man in the glass booth. He was eyeballing us alright - and as we rolled away I saw him pick up the phone. Not wanting to un-nerve Louden I said as casually as I could that I would like to be back on the road. Something that must have spooked him too because he did not turn on the lights. From the backseat I suddenly realised this and told him to 'turn on the lights god damn it Louden' for it was past lighting up time - too late.

Undulating, oscillating wails screeched toward us.

'STOP LOUDEN' I shouted and we were pulled over - oh shit - a moving violation. I prayed that my search had been thorough "up against the car mother-fucker' - Angus and Louden stretched out against that metal monster. I had been put in the cop car - he was alone - unusual - another turned up like a cruising shark - they took care f les boys and he returned to me. 'Are yoo on aacidd' he drawled. "NO," I replied, "but you had better get me somewhere fast before I deficate in your car," because sudden shock had released my bowels - bit camped up y'know in the car etc. I never wanted to go so bad in my life - why not just let go - but no my upper class morals cut it - it would be very rude of me - so I held on and got there where a poor lady cop had to take apart what I had laid before her - she used a long steel knitting needle - a weapon really. A large hall with various desks opened up like a bad smell and questions fired at us - as I politely answered them I was told to speak english - whereupon Angus shouted "she's the only one who does." How sweet - but immediate suss - passport? hand it ovver. Well on tha tocunt I had a fine green card right up to date. We were put into 'holding pens' - seperated of course and on our honeymoon no less. I enjoyed the company of an elderly Native American lady who was seriously drunk - exceptionally good company.
This happy interlude was soon to change however, to quote the good old Grateful Dead.
"set up like a bowlin pin - knocked down like it gits where it's bin." Several men in light suits questioned me. They were F.B.I sp they said and with relish told of a big bust of 'theym hyppiys' just a while back - 'sent theym down for five' (how to find an onomatapiattic way to sound as they spoke) - 'you must be real nurvous.' Now why was that. Hey - they showed me a beautiful medicine pouch given to me by Chief Rolling Thunder - was that mine - too right it was. HA - it was locked into the glove compartment. I was arrested for possesion of 'dang drugs.' That little shit had borrowed it without asking and must have kept some back after all - what a dirty trick. Vast bail was set on all three - same count each. I saw my beloved for a sunlit moment before being led to a cement block and there I was humiliated some more before being shown my bed. A lower metal bunk, one of a double, nine of them. Eighteen women in the same space - no windows and two lavatories which one had to use in full view. A steel box in the corner turned out to be a loud noisy shower where one could scream in private. There were no toys and all to read was - amazingly - a gun manual. Had I wanted to I could have learned everything I needed about various firearms - I was totally uninterested however and requested a bible - in the bible belt of America one must have one - and it is a good read.

The women in there were tough on each other - they would fight and grind faces into the concrete floor. I had enough of this one night and just shouted "STOP." I tried logic in the lull that miraculously followed - "we are all in here because we all got caught" I postulated "so we should do something positive with this knowledge - a psycho drama perhaps" - 'Yes - you can dance - are you a hippy? Y'r English so your opinion don't count.' So I danced and danced - good excercise anyway, to the endless stream of country and western punctuated by a song about Quin the Esquimo which was the high spot where I rocked and rolled and made my hair wild - they went on fighting.

They were in for robbery with violence and had nothing to lose. After a while a young hippy chick came in, she was local and she told me heaps - we spent all that night whispering. We were the talk of the underground - what there was of it - I learned they were going to throw the book at us - out of towners - one seed constitutes a felony here (this was true I learned later), hard to believe, and I didn't; but I did prick up my ears when she said "the two of you, are you together?." 'TWO? WHERE WAS LOUDEN?' - "oh yes there had been three, but one got sprung the first night, his daddy came and paid him out." The 'hip spirit' me thought 'oh one out - all out.' The Hippy Tribal Law was if busted in a group, first out did nothing but get the rest free by hook or by crook. So what was taking so long - I'll tell you. As I learned later, Angus gave Louden his mothers number in Conneticut but he never called her - or did anything except sit quaking in his grandmothers Hampton palace. Leaving us to rot.

She told me that the District Attourney needed a drug felony to get re-elected. Oh dear - a death knell belt no doubt. I said goodbye to my little sister friend as she was bailed out knowing that I was doing dead time.
I was allowed cigareetes - lined notepad - one lead pencil - and chocolate - this seemed to come from the court appointed lawyer we had been given. A shallow cardboard lid held these treasures and usually kept under the bed in a lower bunk like me - cigs tucked away under the hand pillow. My main tormentor, a Native Greek came creeping one night - l leant over her and gave them to her - 'as your need is greater than mine' I explained. She was dumbstruck "if I want something I will come to you and ask!." I wondered at her utter amazement - had no-one ever been kind toward her - no wonder she was now such a wrong-un. Fact is - I have never liked chocolate.

One litle old lady came in - also too drunk to know what she was - took three days before she remembered that she had been a lay preacher and knew the Bible well - as 'they' would not let her have her spectacles - I read to her - the juicy bits was what she wanted - chapter and verse - a mid western Dot Cotton.
Also, I noticed that one girl - another Greek, called Suzy, would quietly do yoga in a darkish corner. I decided to do the same - we became almost friendly and when asked what she had done she calmly replied that she had driven away an armed truck full of money - how could you expect to get away with something like that? 'I done it before.' Well - there you are! Of course being in for 'daang drugs' especially weed, one was not even on the lowest rung of the prisoners ladder, so the bullying was fairly intense - actually it was a minor hell realm.

One night as I sat at the zinc topped table where we ate - I really dispared - three and a half weeks already - was I in here for ever. The lights do not get turned off at night - added torture - but even so, an orange ball of light appeared up and slightly to my left, sitting inside was a golden orange figure weilding a sword

- my very first reaction was to attribute this to stress - hallucinations can occur when one is subjected to the amount I was suffering.
Then the sword - Michael? was one of the angels who brandish a sword - oh well that can't be bad - like a flash - I knew - not only that I would soon be free - but also that I would have a baby and just as suddenly, I wanted one.
This was unusual because for ten years I had steadfastly refused each and every man who had asked to have one with them. They were not right, in one way or another, or I could not manage two. I was firm about this. So this overwhelming yearning surprised me. Now - having seen a picture of Manjusri. I know it is oneand the same. Al so the Hyalwa Karmapa gave Ossian the name of Manjusri 'roaring lion' - hmm - should Ossian have been conceived them I wonder for he was a little early. I did get released quite soon however, because Angus had smuggled a note to his mother and he was out. I got a prison telegraph telling me so. I have felt alone since but never - never have I felt that ferocious loneliness. There I was - totally alone and friendless - in the middle of a strange country and could I trust anyone really?

It turned out that I could. Angus, out on Thursday - had my bail reduced and freedom granted by Monday. He did this my not footing it to N.Y.C and all those fabulous new yorkers forked out for a benefit - for someone they had never met. Hang your head in shame Louden Wainwright the third.

The nice lady screw who let me iron the uniforms in the neighbouring cell which was empty. I could be done my myself, a real blessing. She said, as she gave me my navy jumper - jeans, and blue love beads - same outfit as arrest fashion, you don't belong in here - never a true word spoken dear lady. As I said goodbye - all the girls kissed me and said how they would miss me!!