"I am not their son! I am His son! As you are his daughter." Mack looked around the crowd, his gaze a pointed finger, and Harry felt as though their eye contact was long, that it filled the pause in the impassioned speech the man with the piercing blue eyes made standing just above those listening. It wasn't, really. Still, Harry could feel the collectively held breath.
They all felt like the preacher was looking at them.

"Those people, my earthly parents, they did not understand me, my generation, as your parents did not understand you. They did not not want me to be free. They had plans for me, of course.  Big plans, long plans, empty plans.  Plans full of flesh, and money, and traditions. But my real father, my brother, my spirit, he wanted me to be free. Of all those bonds, my brothers and sisters, we, the children of summer, offer you long days lived in the light and truth of the sun." He stopped then, and gestured to the sky, the grass, the trees, and the white clad ladies behind him. "We offer you love, unconditional for all and free."  He looked right at Harry, a basilik haze descended, riveted, before he realized Mack's gaze was actually focused on the small girl in front of him. "I offer you me, free and without judgment, if you would only offer me you!" He extended his hand and Harry saw the girl swoon and respond to the curl of fingers like a snake to the flute. Her hand looked tiny, and pale as it was covered by tan skin.

She stepped onto the podium, and Mack kissed her on the cheek, the eyes, and finally the lips. Her knees gave out and she was guided to the ladies behind the electrified eyes that held the crowd. It seemed to be the end of the service, like a wedding. Mack had picked a bride.

It was then that Harry was able to let his eyes go over the girls, the other girls, who had held Mack aloft, not been risen up. He'd nearly forgotten them in the last hour though they had been his immediate aim. It had been his plan to scope them out, all of the children of summer, see if Jillian was among them and ask about her, maybe, if the moment seemed right; show her picture.  Instead he had become one with the crowd and taken part in the service. The girls seemed most approachable before he'd been transfixed. Just a group of ladies laughing and moving about, setting up, with a few oddities. The same outfit for one, lack of shoes for two. Intricate flower crowns fit for the Tolkien he'd loved his dad to read to him.

So, the white ladies had seemed not normal, but approachable. Before their leader floated over them. Now, he was nervous to approach anybody, but he'd bet the girls were still a better bet.

Besides, Harry could see activity all around him. He needed to move now, before everything changed again. The couple on the stage seemed to be caught somewhere between praying and kissing, the guitar man was strumming a familiar Beatles tune, and the girls were passing something through their numbers to the newbies. It was a plate, a dinner one with a chipped blue rim. Filling with some speed from the out turned pockets of the flower children around him. When it passed, Harry took a scan of it's contents; crumpled dollar bills, three joints, and some paper squares.

Tabs of Acid; Harry had avoided that so far.

It was a magpie collection plate. It seemed people gave whatever they had, but everything they had. There were white triangle turned out of blue all around him.

There was a ruckus and Harry looked up from his observations to see Mack being lifted from the platform onto the ground and surrounded by the people who he had just enchanted. He'd spread his arms like a plane, the people had come beneath him, and he was swallowed by them. The handful of guys were taller than him, the girls on their tippy toes sometimes the same size. Mack went from person to person. The scene played out a bit like the Ed Sullivan show, except the screams were gasps and Mack did the touching, the recipients the fainting. The ladies at the back, the sun bearers, he guessed, were cleaning up the baby's breath they had thrown and counting the dollar bills, one tall blonde's head bent over the count. Each seemed busy at a task. Harry was also observing them, another sort of magpie collection. There were girls of all types. He saw one sneakily put a tab on her tongue after a furtive cast of eyes to her companions. They didn't catch it, but he did. She looked up and found him watching and yelped. Then checked to be sure no one heard her response.

She put her finger to her lips and Harry smiled. She was a very interesting looking girl, her hair was shockingly white. From behind, without her companions and in a slightly different outfit, a smart bob cut, she could be mistaken for a Nob Hill Maven, the white hair gray, but her face was decidedly childlike. Harry found himself smiling at her.  She smiled back and he decided to approach.

Maybe she knew Jillian, maybe she would answer if he asked her. He'd already silently agreed to keep her secret. Quid pro quo?

Three steps forward and the girls, who, he realized, were still singing about love stopped.  he was certain one stopped first and the others followed suit, but it happened so simultaneously it was like a conductor clapped his finger tips together. And then he was the eye of a hippie girl hurricane. But it felt more like a love puddle. Two flower bedecked girls hugged him and one, not his white haired friend, kissed his cheek.

"We're so glad you answered the call, lover!" one trilled.

"So glad! We need more brothers in love!" The voices were like a chorus, like their welcome was a song and they all had a verse. The chorus crescendoed  with the next voice. It was throaty, but pleasant, a rasp rather than a croak.

It issued from an altogether pleasant place as well.

"We need more guys, that's for sure!" She said with authority.

Harry hadn't seen her before she spoke, she must have been behind somebody, though her height made her hard to miss. Not to mention, she was a knock out with a smile that warmed, but eyes like a flame's center.

Harry wondered why she hadn't done the preaching, until he noticed the large group of young ladies around Mack and the guitarist. Also, the girls in white had spread out, each one already in conversation with the men who had been in attendance. He hadn't seen a signal, they'd been near him a moment ago, but there must have been one. They'd moved like wildfire. Nearly everyone who'd been at the service had stayed. As well as a few who had wandered in. Mack drew in the girls, but the girls drew in the boys.

Like him.

"So, guy, are you what we need?" The tall blonde
leveled him a look and a wry grin.

'Yes' was on the tip of his tongue, but he held it back. He would be what he needed. Except, he was after something himself. The old Harry would have jumped to please, to answer. Instead, he shrugged. His time in California had taught him a bit about cautious openness. He didn't want to appear too eager, even if there was a warm burn in his stomach that told him his girl was nearby, adjacent.

But he'd be turned away if he started asking about her specifically. He just knew it. They had all responded to his approach like a school of fish to feeding time. He was both the catch and the fisherman. The bait here was the girls. None more so than the beauty. More step, his hunch turned surety that Jilly was involved with this hippie church was what hooked through his cheek. He did think it off that she wasn't out among the girls smiling up at some attendee. She'd be a great lure, like his conversation partner.

She, whatever her name was, didn't offer when he let the air stay open and inclined his head. Harry shrugged, "I don't know." Then popped the dimples the girl at Woodstock went on about, "what are you looking for?"

She handed him the podium, a solid wooden box decorated with flowers on the outside and words in trailing phrases on the inside like incantations. The words bits of scripture. "A strong man!" She laughed and walked ahead with him following. He wasn't sure where they were headed, but the wooden box was being filled slowly with things, but his companion. It was heavy to start, but as their first meandering path continued to a destination unknown, it felt leaden.

Finally, they reached a truck, just as a bead of sweat fell from his brow onto the flower garlands on top. He could feel his shirt was damp around the collar, and he could smell himself.

"Here!" The tall blonde motioned and he saw her muscles flex, she must have made this heavy box trek herself a time or two. She took it with the ease of heavy work and hoisted it with a small grunt into the back of the truck. He felt better that it was at least a little heavy. "So, I wasn't kidding." He could hear some broadness in her vowels, like she was from a place with lots of lakes, "We need strong men, people really." She placed a familiar hand on his bicep. "You look strong," she squeezed like his arm was an egg about to be cracked. He felt it in his toes.

His voice came out a little like sunrise, slow and warm. "When do you need them?"

"Anytime really." Her hand was still on his arm. "Right now?" Her lashes briefly touched her cheek, then the blue of her eyes deepened. Whoa.

Right now?  That sounded just right. His classes started Monday. It was Saturday morning. He had all day, maybe tomorrow too. He could swing it. He'd hitch back to the city and take a ferry if he had to. He tried to remember the schedule on Sundays. Shorter, because of the lord thing, but long enough to understand the fact people went into the city on the weekend. Harry was sure he could swing it, he wanted too. He wanted to see these eyes after a slow blink again.

He didn't want to look to eager, to green, though. "I dunno. My classes start Monday. I have to get back for that."

"That's easy, Memphis can give you a ride back whenever you need, no worries there. Plus, There's a bonfire tonight. It's a great time. And you really get to see what our fellowship is all about." She did that thing again, more obviously, what he could only call batting her lashes at him, like Bette Davis.

"What are you all about?" Where did he find words?

"Love." She said, then ducked her chin. She had dimples.  Her grin had been feline up to now, it was lovely when it turned girlish.

Love? That was a big topic. What kind of love? He was just about to ask when he heard the chant again over his shoulder. The other girls were coming. And Memphis, he assumed that was the other guy, was carrying the dais.  Mack was in the back, surrounded by 5 girls. Harry knew they were also newbies, they weren't in flower crowns, though one wore a convenient white dress. She wouldn't even need a new outfit for the next week's services.

He wondered if she planned it?

Susie had said this happened weekly. Maybe she was trying to get noticed. She was small and plain. Mack was all but ignoring her, but she had a hand on his shoulder like he was towing her to shore.

The girls under either arm were beautiful, and opposite, a tall dark-haired, fair eyed girl with sun kissed skin and the tiny girl from the kiss. Harry could easily imagine her in a tutu. She had sun yellow hair and huge brown eyes.

The other ladies were somewhere in between these two axis in hue and attractiveness.

He'd not realized how close the guitar guy was until the dais bumped his shoulder.

"Who's this?" Memphis said, putting the cot like apparatus in the bed of the rusty truck.

She threw an arm around his shoulders, and Harry nearly jumped. She did it easily. She must have been close to six foot. He still marveled at how he missed her. "This is a new lover, Memphis. He's coming back with us for the weekend, so we can get to know each other." The emphasis on know was noticeable even in her dry delivery.

"You check that with Mack?" Memphis casually pulled out a home rolled cigarette. Harry wasn't sure what the stuffing was. He smelled tobacco a minute later though.

"We are supposed to invite people to join us right? That's the point of the long drive into the city."

"It's a long drive?" Harry found himself asking.

"Not really, but the road to the ranch is dirt. Takes a while. It's not many miles, but it can take an hour to get there. It rained yesterday, so, today it took longer." She was softer with him than Memphis, more song in her voice than bite.

It had rained? Harry didn't really think about rain here. Maybe fog. But it seemed to be sunny all the time, compared to home. He liked it was always summer, at least in California.

"You should ask, Mack."

Her jaw tightened slightly, "Yeah, let me go see if I can get his attention at all." She looked over her shoulder. "He looks.....busy." Her eyes rolled.

Harry couldn't imagine she'd have trouble getting attention.

Memphis stepped in front of him, and handed him a cigarette. Harry didn't smoke. Not tobacco.

"You cool, man." A test.

"Yeah man." Harry kept the cigarette, and didn't fully inhale the smoke, just held it in his mouth and blew out. It tasted a little better than it smelled. A very little. Memphis looked over his shoulder at the tall blonde headed their way. Harry caught a glimpse of her hard face before it went blank, but she nodded.

The beginning of the journey, the part where he wound up in the truck bed, was a blur. Harry's heart beat triple time on the first third of the drive, over the Golden Gate Bridge. Wow, he marveled, this was high. He wondered if he was scared of heights, or another dead end.

Memphis drove, though Mack still seemed to be at the helm. The tall brown haired girl from the park was wedged between them in the front under Mack's arm.  The little blonde wound up beside him, pouting. On his other side was the white haired girl. She'd leaned against him without a word, and began singing along with another girl across from them. The same nonsensical phrases set to tune. He still hadn't made them out. They petered out after a bit without when nobody joined them.

She, the tall blonde, Sara, he thought Memphis called her, she seemed to be running the show, with verve and quiet here in the back of the truck. The rest of the girls were strangely silent and seemingly detached until she started the tune. Everybody joined now. The white hair beside him most happily. He assumed from the tab, she watched the clouds while she sang. Oh! It was the Beatles. An eerie rendition of All You Need is Love, he had nearly picked up at the park. He was sure he would have missed it. He'd just about been sure, though he'd have missed it, had Jillian not been obsessed with that record. He knew it backwards and forwards, and them singing it their way made him feel sure again he was on the right path to Jillian. Though, their way was strange.

It wasn't just that the trumpets were absent, it was the mood, the emphasis. The cadence was the difference he decided. It was almost a chant, melodious and high, trance-like. His lips moved of their own accord, though his voice didn't join. The girl next to him though, the new blonde from the park had picked it up quickly and was swaying along.

The voices stayed strong, didn't falter over bumps in the road. Only the white haired girl went in and out. He glanced over to see why; she'd been humming before the singing even started. She was rolling joints. She must have felt his eyes, because she looked up and handed him the slim white cylinder and a lighter.

"You get first toke!" She chorused and hugged his arm while he lit up. He took the two puffs he'd learned in Bethel, and passed.

He remembered the joint making its rounds, sort of, but they seemed to happen faster than expected. The jolts from the dirt road smoothed, though the height looked more impressive. Harry realized the truck had slowed.

The truck cleared a curve on the giant dirt mound, the hill, they were on the side of and his view cleared.

Harry wasn't sure what he had been expecting. They kept calling it a ranch, and the only context he had for that was westerns. He supposed that explained his disappointment.

It was not a big open plain with a barn and cattle roaming. It reminded him more of a campsite, or summer camp. There were certainly more trees than he had been amongst in California.  There were buildings, one was a long single story structure somewhere between a motel and a stable. He liked that all the windows were open and that people were hanging out of them.

They were chatting with the people in tents, which was what most of the structures were. People sat on blankets outside. Nearly everyone sitting was dressed in white. Those that were going and coming seemed to be in drab outfits of khaki and brown. Even so, the marks of work covered them. The people in white seemed to be lazing, the others working. Harry wondered how that was picked. How did one get graduated to leisure, to wearing white.

The girls around him tumbled out of the back of the truck like water over a fall. Harry, though he had been dead center, was the last one to have his boots follow them to the ground. He created dust in a way their barefeet didn't. The women converged on the people lounging and wove into the group to where only the standouts were apparent. His white haired friend, the new blonde, and Sara, the only woman with a name.

He also saw the knockout brunette. She was still tucked under Mack's arm, going into the adobe house in the center.  He wasn't the only one watching them he noticed. It was confirmed a moment later.

An arm pressed to his, and the blonde tresses that blew in front of his eyes stopped his heart for but a moment. They weren't right, they were curly, wild. Electric, but because of who they were attached to not his attachment to her. Those curls were Sara.

She was also watching Mack and his, friend, going into the room. The door slammed and a giggle sounded. Sara sighed.

"Cmon, Harry, I'll show you where you can stay." 

He followed without protest and found himself in a canteen. She handed him a bowl of bean soup, with some grass looking folliage on top and the green goop he'd encountered at a cafe in San Francisco. Everybody there ate it like maniacs, but Harry was still getting used to it. He liked the taste, but the texture had yet to grow on him.

He was missing his Da's pies by now.

Harry realized just how far from home he was when they entered the low slung cabin building. It was the closest to the adobe building and he realized, as he came in, that there was no door, just a frame. That was the only opening in the structure, as it lacked windows.

The beds were bunks, and Harry had a flash to the Camp Kikiwaka, he had spent 3 miserable weeks  there. His dad had taken a look at his face at parent's weekend and taken Harry home.

The planks of wood were home hewn, still rough, but an effort had been made to sand them out and make them smooth so no splinters would disturb sleep or need to be pulled in the mornings. The bedding was a hodge-podge of colors and fabrics sewn together into a quilt, each one shabbily unique, like someone had taken their old castoffs before they'd suited up in white and made their bed to lie in. Except this room was empty at the moment.

"Am I the only one here?" He didn't really want to be alone, it seemed the opposite of this place.

"No, the blonde girl, damn what was her name," Sara muttered. "Linda, she'll be in here with you tonight. Well, maybe? There is a bonfire." she shrugged like that explained something.

Sara was wry and compelling, but when she said bonfire, her eyes lit up and she looked engaged in a way Harry hadn't observed in the entire day, her insouciance slipping.

"What's a bonfire?" Harry could see flames after a football game in October. It was popular at his school, and he'd been to a couple. Sara's face said it was more exciting than those, but all Harry's imagination could conjure was heat and a pleasant smoky smell from afar, the compounds unspent mixing with O2 and CO2, floating on the air.

She seemed like the type of girl who could be the queen of the high school bonfires, but was unimpressed by it, or snarkily detached, at her own party away from the pedestrian fun. The prom queen but cooler.

This bonfire must be something else.

"It's like, a party!" She raised her shoulders high and smiled gayly. "But better. It's after service and we all commune together and celebrate love, man. It's what the Children of Summer are all about."
She stepped forward then and took his hand. He was so shocked, he almost pulled it back. It had been awhile since someone touched him intentionally, not casually. He let her hand linger. He was catching her excitement through the contact, or making his own. He liked being touched on purpose. He loved her hair, and that she was as tall as him. He could look her right in the eye.

He had just started thinking about how easy it would be to kiss her when she released him. "I'll have to ask Mack if you can come. When he's...." she bit her lip. "Done.  But usually, the catch are guests of honor."

"Catch?" He didn't feel like he had a hook in his mouth, though he'd imagined the girls fish earlier, now that she had taken her hand away.

"Oh, sorry." She rolled her eyes to the heavens. "You guys aren't supposed to know we call you that until you get baptized. But I have a good," she smiled,"feeling about you."  Her hand came to his bicep and she squeezed while looking him straight in the eye.

He totally smoothed over the baptism. Forgot it for a second and his purpose in being there. Her eyes were really pretty, and the well of blue was inviting enough to jump head first into. "Um," he fumbled and the 4 months of courage and confidence he'd found deserted him. He was back to the virgin boy around a pretty girl who made his dick do stupid things. He shrunk out of her hand and slumped his shoulders.

"You alright?" She chuckled and her smile had degrees.

That was such a thing his Da would say, he felt his memories play across his lips, it just may have looked like a smile. Sara was smiling. It made his widen. "Yeah, yeah, I'm alright," he realized her hand on his arm had dropped, but their fingers had laced together. He untangled them, took a step or two back, he wasn't sure when they started sharing air, but kept the warmth on his face. "I'm," he was surprised, he felt a way he wasn't sure he had in a while "Happy?"

Sara laughed, "You sure? You look a little, well, you look high. The grass got you paranoid man?"

"Yeah, thank you, for talking to me, for bringing me, for..." wow, he felt tears well. He supposed he'd really only had one or two human connections since he'd left home. He felt really emotional, like he'd arrived. But he wasn't sure what his destinations was, but the engine had cut and he was here.

What was he looking for again?

Sara?

No, no, Sara was beautiful, but he'd taken this free ride for Jillian. They were alone, could he ask?

As open as he felt, as finished, warm, he still heard a voice say no. Instead, "Does everybody get to go to the bonfire?" He didn't think so, she said something about asking Mack. And she'd had to ask Mack to bring him. She was straightening the ragamuffin bedding on the bottom bunk, he supposed that one was his. It was a quilt, but not one. The fleece of a jacket and the stray button off a jacket on its surface.

"Hmm?" She turned to him and he was a little enchanted again. "Oh, yeah, usually, if they're in good standing, or make confession or whatever." She said it like it made sense. But it didn't to him. "Most people will be there. Maybe not Teegan, Mack's done with her—"

"Who's Teegan?" He blurted and sat heavily on the low bunk.e could feel blankets stuffed into each other to make a mattress.

"Oh, you sat with her on the drive. White hair. She's in the doghouse, she never catches anything. 'Cept you I guess. I'll tell Mack that, he'll be in a good mood soon. And Pam and Jill, they are on an expedition. If they have tight lines, they'll come back with some other dudes, maybe their old ladies." She was talking to herself, or like he understood. His understanding had stopped at Jilly.  "That's how we grow the family. Anyway, you can relax. I'll bring you round for dinner. Service is for family, but I'll come get you for the fun after."

"Um, ok." He wasn't sure what to do with himself, the 2 pm sun was still high, and he wasn't tired. "Are there any books?" He didn't really wanna be alone with his thoughts, they got scary or scared lately, and he liked how he felt with her, the welcome.

"Well, not really, some bibles and Mack's midrash, but those are in his library, you have to get them from him." She looked at Harry and her eyes twinkled. "Can you keep a secret?" She stopped short. "What's your name man?"

Could he? He had been all day, his search. And his name, "my name is Harry, and yeah, I can keep a secret."

She raised her eyebrows and dug through the patchwork bag hanging alongside her body. "Keep it hidden?" It's a book he'd seen a lot in the Haight. In windows and hands. It had wings all over the front.

"Yeah!" He was already opening the pages.

"See you at the bonfire." He hadn't realized she was almost gone, she was a whisper when she called back. "Oh, and, Harry, you won't need your clothes."

What?