Chapter 8

The entire tribe was in the mini-bus Friday morning, coming back from the Public Health Clinic on Venice Boulevard. Zeke drove.

We had all been there three hours, from eight-thirty till eleven-thirty. We were all sleepy, but the appointment had been for then, so we had had to go. Owl, me, Sparrow, Robin, Blackbird and Zeke had tested positive for gonorrhea. Only Rill had been clean. Nobody had syphilis. We all had needles jabbed in our bare rumps and big doses of penicillin injected. Even Rill, just to be on the safe side. We all had to go back for shots, at least twice more. We girls had to have five shots, one a week.

The penicillin made me jittery. I sat beside Owl on the narrow second seat from the front. Blackbird was grumbling bragging to Robin behind us. "You see the way them white nurses look at us?"

"Not especially."

"They lookin' at me, then they check out Sparrow and they wonder if we all making it together, then they look at me again and I wink at 'em and smile real slow, and then they know!" He laughed triumphantly. "Hey, Owl, you see that little redhead look at me with those wide green eyes? I bet I could have her if I get her alone."

Sparrow had taken Tommy along. The house had been locked up when we left. She said, "You better stop gettin' into all this outside stuff jus' because it's willin'. Jus' 'cause it's white!"

"Who you tellin' what to do? White chicks want some black cock ... I'll give it to 'em."

Owl said, "And that makes you a big man."

Robin said, "Some of the girls aren't girls. like that awful old thing you dragged up to your room last week. She was a wreck. She must have been forty years old!"

Sparrow said, "She strung out on speed. I could see it. You give her some, too, to get sex. Jus' 'cause it's white."

Blackbird was furious. "What you all jumpin' on me for? I'm free! Ain't no rules stoppin' me from fuckin' anybody I want!"

Zeke said, "That's true, but you're not very choosy and when you get a disease we get it too. You're hurting the tribe."

"So what? Clinic's free."

Robin said, "It isn't that, it's ... irresponsible ... and immature. And it's a lot of bother and it's humiliating to have to go to that clinic every month!"

Blackbird turned sullen. "That's just tough shit!"

Zeke turned into our driveway and nothing more was said, but there was a bad feeling among us about Blackbird and he knew it.

He carried Robin into the house and into her room, and they had an exchange of yelling in there. He came slamming out and left the house.

After lunch Zeke left in the mini-bus on his usual rounds of the head shops where Robin's jewelry was sold. He collected money and placed new things.

I went to Sparrow's room down the hall and looked in. She was sitting on her bed in her panties and garter belt, drawing on her white nurse's stockings. She was bent over and her big brown breasts hung down and jostled up her upper thighs. Her nipples were as big as concord grapes, purplish, and wrinkled.

Her baby, Tommy, naked, brown, crooning to himself, sat on the floor by her feet. He watched her solemnly.

I said, "Knock knock."

She looked up and smiled. "Hi, Lark."

I entered her room. It was simple: her bed, a bureau, the baby's crib, and the wall of Cobb cartoons. But there were clothes scattered, a litter of Free Presses, baby powder, a stinky bag of diapers, Kleenexes, a cut-out picture of some cute kittens....

"Sparrow, I'm going to have to get an outside job pretty soon, at least for a few hours a day, and I was wondering if there's anything open at the place where you work, the Pico-"

"Pico Resting Place. You wanna try bein' a nurse's aide?"

"I suppose. Or work in the kitchen, maybe. I'd like that. Maybe I could help a few hours when they make the meals."

"That's an idea. You want me to ask before you go up and apply?"

"Would you? It would save a lot of time and carfare."

"Sure." She fastened her stockings and reached for her big bra.

I said, "Are you going to work now? It's early yet."

"Yeah, but I traded with Mary Lou so I could get Sunday off. I ain' gonna miss the Love-in out'n the valley. Thass a tribe scene and I'm in the tribe!"

I nodded. "You know I've never been to a real Love-in before. I've read about them in the Press, and I tried to get my old boy friend to go to one once, but he didn't want to." David so afraid of being contaminated.

"They're fine. 'Course this one in the valley ... I don't know ... thass enemy territory. They all up-tight about hippies out there. But all the tribes're goin', so we bound to blow some minds clear to the moon!" She laughed. "Ol' Orange County gonna turn purple we all show up in the bus in our tribe clothes."

I laughed too. "Where is it?"

"I think Zeke say Canoga Park. Some place there." She had fastened her bra on backwards and now pulled the big white cups around to her front. She tugged it up and adjusted her breasts.

Tommy must have sensed she was going away. He began to whimper. Sparrow smiled and picked him up. "Hey, little black bug. Don't you cry now. You got Lark and Rill and the men to keep you." She kissed him. "I'll be back. Momma'll be back." She hugged him tight. He stopped crying. He clutched with tiny fingers at her bra. Sparrow said, "He wants to suck my tittie again." She said it proudly. "Got no more milk but he-likes it anyhow. I like givin' it to 'im, too." She handed him to me. "Let him suck on yours for a while. Rill does. I got to go!" She kissed him on his little brown nose, picked up her purse and went out.

I was left with fifteen pounds of baby in my arms who was beginning to whimper again. I looked down at him. I had been startled by Sparrow's suggestion. There had been a first instant rejection of the idea, but then it intrigued me. Why not? If she didn't care.

I was wearing a pair of light blue pedal pushers and a white shirt-blouse hanging loose. Owl had painted some weird, intertwining patterns on it with red, blue, green and brown crayons, then I had ironed it in. The colored wax had been melted into the tight weave. But I couldn't wash the blouse in hot water.

I shifted Tommy to my left arm and unbuttoned. I pushed the shirt away from my right breast. I didn't wear a bra. I hadn't worn a bra once while I had been with the tribe. The only reason Sparrow wore one to work was because it was required. And she hated it.

Tommy was wailing, beginning to be really unhappy. Tears washed down his cheeks. I turned him and held him so his mouth was next to my nipple. His breath was warm on my skin. He felt the softness and warmth of my flesh and patted it with his tiny hands.

My nipples were peaked out. I really wanted him to do it. I guided my right nipple into his little open mouth. He made a funny little sound and started to suck automatically. I made a sound myself, a breathy "Ohh ... " It turned me on. Emotionally, not especially sexually, though that was part of it, too.

The little devil surprised me with the sucking power of his mouth. It sent itchy shivers through me. I cuddled him and wished I had milk for him. I wished I had a baby ... I wondered when I would ... would it be Owl's? Would it be simply the tribe's baby, with no idea who might be the father? Might it even be black?

I didn't dig the idea of having a brown baby ... Blackbird's child. I didn't like him.

And the tribe ... how long would it hold together? I had done some thinking about it and I had no intention of stopping taking birth control pills. Not till I knew a lot more about myself. Everything was so impermanent. Society, the world, the tribe, even my own personality sometimes seemed hung together with paste and wire clothes hangers.

I didn't know enough about Owl, either. From things he had said, and comments from others, I guessed he had been tripping on acid more and more. Where could that lead? Would it help his art and help him find solid rock in himself, in his mind? I hoped so, but I couldn't depend on it. I didn't even know if he was thinking of a long-term relationship with me.

I backed up and sat on Sparrow's bed and enjoyed Tommy's suckling on my breast. I felt all warm and maternal and sort of complete. He felt good in my arms, warm and content and pacified with my nipple.

I heard steps in the hall and Owl peered in. He smiled. "One way to keep him quiet."

"I'd better go into the kitchen and make him a bottle, though. I can't hold him forever."

Owl came in and sat on the left side of me. "You'd make a good mother. You hold him with love." He pulled my shirt away from my left breast. He lowered his head and sucked the nipple. His left hand slid up my leg.

I just sat there and enjoyed it. I started to get wet and hot between my thighs. It was a weird sensation. I arched my back. I could see Owl's penis getting big and long in his cut-off pants, stretching down his leg till it almost showed at mid-thigh where his jeans ended.

He lifted his mouth. "Who does it better?" His right lens had been smudged by my breast. He took off his glasses and used the sheet from the bed to polish them.

"You're both very good. If Tommy doesn't lose his touch he'll make some girls very happy."

"Including you and Rill and Sparrow." Owl tossed his blonde hair back. "Hey ... you still scared of acid?"

I started to deny I had been afraid at all, then stopped, because I had been afraid, and why lie? I said, "Not so much. I'd like to try it sometime, if it'll help me find out about myself."

"It will. It opens you up to yourself. There's some things in your mind that'll maybe freak you out, but some things that are beautiful. Everybody's a monster and a saint."

"I know."

"Willing to trip with me tonight? I just scored for two cubes."

"All right." I felt fluttery inside but I wanted to do it. I owed it to myself to try LSD once. I was pretty sure I wouldn't lose my mind or anything like that.

Owl kissed me. "Fine." He played with my breast. Tommy was still sucking away at the other. Owl said, "Make him a bottle and come upstairs and we'll shut the door for a while."

I was breathless. I glanced down at his pants. His penis had surged and hardened until a good inch of the glans was sticking out of the ragged leg. I went weak in the pit of my womb. "All right. I'll be up in five minutes."