Last night, Tyler had given him some money because Katz claimed he could lay his hands on some LSD. Since the state had made LSD illegal last fall it had been getting harder to come by, but Katz said he could get some Owsley tabs, the best around. Tyler had never tried acid and the idea scared him, but Katz promised him it would be fine.

Katz was always sponging off people -- dope, money, food --and Tyler was always there to oblige. It was a small price to pay for Katz's friendship. Katz was nineteen and he was the lead guitarist for the Katzenjammer Kids. He was going to be the next Jerry Garcia.

Tyler sighed and scanned the street again. Katz was not going to show. Tyler stuck his hands in his jacket and sauntered off toward the Oracle office.

Tyler had drifted into the Oracle office several months ago by accident, and after hanging around the periphery he fell into the job of running errands. The Oracle was the official newspaper of the Haight and it made Tyler feel as if he were part of something big and important. It was a place to go after school because he couldn't stand going home to the big gloomy house on Divisadero.

Often he stayed instead at Katz's place, an old Victorian on Pine Street that Katz shared with fifteen other people. It had faded leather wallpaper, window seats and stained-gla.s.s windows. It was filled with music, dirty dishes, and strangers making love on mattresses on the floor.

Tyler pushed open the door of the Oracle office, and went over to Chas, the corpulent balding man who was in charge of printing and distribution.

"Hey, man, what's up?" Tyler said.

"Oh, Tyler. How's it going?" Chas returned to his task of counting bundles of Oracles.

"New issue?" Tyler asked.

Chas grunted. Tyler reached over to pick up one of the papers.

"Hey, man, you're s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up the count," Chas said.

Tyler threw it down. He sighed and looked around for someone to talk to, someone to hang out with.

"Hey, Tyler!"

Tyler spun around. It was one of the editors, Nat Musial. "C'mere, I want to talk to you."

Other than a quick h.e.l.lo, Musial never bothered to talk to him. This must be about the poems I gave him, Tyler thought, with rising excitement.

Musial retrieved some papers from his desk. "These are pretty good," Musial began. "A little bleak, but good. But we've got more poetry than we can handle right now." He held them out. "I wanted to make sure you got them back."

Tyler took them.

"No hard feelings?" Musial asked with a smile.

"No, man, of course not." Tyler turned to leave then stopped. "Look, Nat," he began, "I really want to do something around here. I want to be a real part of the Oracle. If I can't write, there must be something I can do."

Musial pursed his lips. "Well, there is one thing."

"What? Anything! You name it!"

Musial let out a small sigh. "The rent. It's overdue again. If you could cover it again until this issue gets --"

"Sure! You got it!" Tyler said with a big smile. "I'll bring it in tomorrow."

"Thanks, man. We really appreciate it." Musial shifted from one foot to another. "Oh, by the way, if you haven't got anything to do right now Chas could use an extra pair of hands on the street today."

Tyler nodded and started to leave.

"Hey," Musial called out. "You wanna catch Joplin at the Fillmore tonight? I can probably sneak you in."

Tyler knew Musial was only tossing him a bone to make up for the rent money but it was going to be a great concert. Tyler grinned. "Yeah, thanks."

"Great. Meet me outside at nine. Thanks again, Tyler. Don't know what we'd do without you."

Tyler checked in with Chas, who gave him an armload of Oracles. Out on the street, Tyler halfheartedly hawked the papers to the tourists, thinking about the poems stuffed in the back pocket of his jeans. They were garbage. He knew that. Musial was just bulls.h.i.tting him, trying to make him feel better so he would cough up some more money. Musial was one of the few people who knew his family was rich, and this was the third time Musial had hit on him.

But what did it matter? The money was nothing to him. There was plenty of it, what with the monthly thousand-dollar trust fund allowance. And better that it go to something worthwhile like the Oracle. He was glad he could help out his friends.

He thought suddenly of Kellen. She had started monitoring his allowance and was getting bossy about what he did, calling to make sure he wasn't skipping school, telling him to stay away from the Haight. He didn't understand it. For years, all during the times his father was sick, no one had cared what he did. It had been a succession of nannies and governesses. And now Kellen was trying to play mother.

He walked along the street, clutching the Oracles. He was thinking now of his mother, and as usual he could see nothing in his mind but a faceless woman. No one had ever spoken of her, certainly not his father. There were no pictures, no memories, nothing. She was like a ghost -- dead, but still weirdly alive.

Wh.o.r.e. He had heard the word before he even understood what it meant. Two years ago, he had finally gotten up the courage to ask his father about her. His father, by then very ill with cancer, had said he would tell him about her someday.

Someday...then it was too late. The only thing left to do was to find her himself, but he had no idea how to begin. He didn't even know her name.

Finally, he found out about Sally Stanford. But when he went to the stone mansion on Pine Street he found it had been converted into apartments. He stood on the sidewalk, staring up at the windows. Even now, once in a while, he still walked by it.

His mother. Did she have blue eyes like his? Was she fat or thin? Where did she go? Why did she abandon him? He was filled with hate and an aching need to love her.

Tyler squinted up toward the sun. No point in dwelling on it, he thought, no point at all. He was alone, but he could take care of himself all right. He didn't need Kellen. He didn't need anyone.

Tyler looked up and down the street, searching for a familiar face. The parade trudged by, couples locked arm in arm, young men toting guitars and duffel bags, barefoot children, barking dogs. No one looked in Tyler's direction.

Screw Kellen. Screw everyone.

He had a plan. In five years, when he was eighteen, he'd take off and really be free. He'd take some money and split. Get away and see the world. Maybe go off to India with Katz.

Tyler reached into his pocket and pulled out the poems. He looked at them for a moment then crumbled them into a wad and threw it into the gutter.

He could hear someone playing a tambourine. Up past Stanyan Street, on the edge of Golden Gate Park, he could see a crowd gathering. Something was going on. Something always happened in the Haight if you waited long enough.

He retrieved the joint from his pocket and lit it. After a few minutes, Tyler was feeling fine again.

"Hey, here it is!" he called out to a pa.s.sing car, holding a copy of the Oracle aloft. He enjoyed the look the old lady in the Buick gave him. "Get your genuine hippie souvenir!"

Yes, he was feeling fine. And tonight, he'd be feeling even better. He'd meet Katz and his friends at the Fillmore. He'd open himself to the wholeness of being.

He tossed the Oracles into a trash bin and went off in the direction of the music.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE.

The editors were gathered in a conference room for the final news meeting of the day. Stephen took his place at the table. Kellen wasn't there, and he hid his disappointment by pretending to read the news budget.

"Okay, let's get started," said Ray, the managing editor. "International?"

A thin man in gla.s.ses cleared his throat. "Na.s.ser's still threatening Israel. The War Crimes tribunal in Stockholm has found the U.S. guilty of systematic bombing of Vietnam civilians. And Russia's showing off a new atom smasher. Got good art on that." He tossed a wire photo on the table, but no one bothered to pick it up.

"National and state?" Ray said, without looking up.

"We have that peace march in New York, seventy thousand people showed up," another man said. "Pretty good story from our own guy, with wire art. And a good feature from the Oakland bureau about this new Black Panther party that's forming."

Ray looked at the photos and handed them to the news editor. "Hate to put New York on the front, but this might be it," he said. "Unless local can save us."

He looked up. "Who's supposed to be here from city desk? Where's Kellen?"

Blank faces and shrugs.

"Let's skip to sports," Ray said with a frown.

"We got the Giants at the Stick tonight, with a side bar on how the wind's been causing more problems than usual. Also, a good featch on Mickey Mantle. He's still looking for homer number five hundred. Oh yeah...Muhammad Ali was indicted today in Houston for draft evasion."

"What are you guys doing with that?" Ray said. "Give it to the A section."

Kellen came in, muttered an apology, and slid into her seat. "We'll come back to local later," Ray said, glancing at her. "Let's go on to women's."

The young a.s.sistant from the women's page looked up. "We have a profile of that woman Elvis married last week, Priscilla Beaulieu, with some nice photos." She handed them around the table to a few lewd remarks. "And we have the Haight feature. But Kellen thinks it's worth front page."

All eyes turned to Kellen, and a few people looked determinedly bored. Many on the staff were getting tired of the Martian Chronicles, as the ongoing coverage of the Haight scene had come to be called. The paper had been covering the story sporadically since 1965, but finally Kellen convinced Ray it was necessary to create a small task force of reporters and editors to cover the phenomenon.

Ray gave Kellen her cue. "Okay, what's new from the war zone? Gimme the news first, then the feature."

Kellen glanced at her legal pad. "Muni is thinking about rerouting the buses near the Haight because of the traffic congestion. That old bar, the Golden Cask, just reopened as a pizza place called Lee, Sam and d.i.c.k, but the city's upset about the sign because all you can see are the initials LSD."

"s.h.i.t. That used to be a good bar," the sports editor said.

"We have a bust of a methedrine lab in Pacific Heights," Kellen went on. "Cops are worried about a new psychedelic called STP that's supposed to keep you stoned for three days. Half of the psychiatric beds at General are already filled with toxic drug reaction cases."

"Is that all?" Ray asked in a beleaguered voice.

"No, we're getting about three hundred new arrivals every day, and the Juvenile Authority is thinking of turning the gym at Poly-Tech High into an emergency shelter for runaways. And it was just announced that San Francisco now has the highest rate of venereal disease in the country." Kellen paused. "One last thing. The board of supervisors is meeting today to approve the mayor's resolution to officially declare hippies unwelcome in San Francisco."

"A little late, aren't they?" someone muttered.

"The worst is yet to come," Kellen said. "This week, we've got writers in town from the news magazines, Playboy, National Review, and the London Observer. That movie The Love-Ins is coming out soon, and d.i.c.k Clark's due in to start filming The Love Children." She paused for a breath. "And now the hippies have proclaimed this the Summer of Love. We may have about seventy-five thousand people living in the Haight by fall."

Everyone fell quiet.

"Anything light?" Ray asked.

Kellen held out a photo. "Somebody painted this fire hydrant up on n.o.b Hill in psychedelic colors."

"Send the photographer back to get it in color."

"Can't," Kellen said. "Fire Department already repainted it white."

"The Maginot Line holds," someone said.

Ray sighed. "Okay, use it. And put it on the wire. We must feed the beast its daily meal of happy-hippie news. Speaking of which, what's this feature you guys were talking about?"

"It's the 'I Was a Hippie' series," Kellen said. "The reporter lived there undercover for a month, but he came back the other day and said he didn't want to write an expose. He's turned into a sympathizer. But we're working on him."

"Well, I guess we'll have to ride out this wretched drama," Ray said and turned to Stephen. "Any suggestions, boss?"

Stephen gave some opinions on story play, and the meeting was adjourned. Kellen and Stephen walked out together.

"'I Was A Hippie'?" Stephen said, smiling. "Are the readers ready for that?"

"Clark wanted to do it. I told him he was too old."

They went back to Stephen's office. "Mind if I hide out here for a minute?" she asked, dropping into a chair.

"You seem to like being city editor," Stephen said.

"I do," Kellen said, looking out at the city room. "It's going to be hard to go back upstairs." She paused. "I couldn't have done it without you. You taught me a lot."

Stephen thought briefly about asking her to go to dinner. "Well, it was easy," he said instead. "We have the same ideas about the Times. We work well together."

She let the comment go. "Being publisher is another game."

"You've made some good moves already. You stopped Ian from selling the Seattle paper. And you've kept him off my back about the suburban operation. I appreciate that."

Kellen held Stephen's eyes for a moment then rose. "I've got to get back to work. I have to go over the budget for the Seattle paper."

"Want some help?" Stephen asked on impulse.

She smiled. "Come on upstairs at six. I'll order in some Chinese."

By eight, Kellen and Stephen had finished the budget work. Kellen leaned back in her chair and stretched. "Thank G.o.d, that's done," she said. "The cuts weren't as bad as I thought they'd be."

"You really should go up there yourself to give the staff a vote of confidence," Stephen said. "Your father was very good about visiting the other newspapers in the chain. Ian's never bothered. And it might help you pinpoint the problems there."

She ma.s.saged her neck. "That's a good idea. I'll go as soon as someone invents a forty-eight-hour day."

The phone rang. Kellen knew it was probably Garrett. He was still in London and usually called her between eight and nine. With a glance at Stephen, she answered the phone. She was surprised to hear Ian's voice.

"I've been trying to find you," he said. "Our little brother has gone and gotten himself in trouble."

"Tyler? What's wrong?"

"Who knows? Somebody called here about fifteen minutes ago and said Tyler was freaking out. That was the term he used, freaking out. Said somebody better come and get him."