"Who's Mack?" That was the question of every hour by his second weekend in San Francisco.

Harry was really glad for his experiences at Woodstock, or he knew that the city would have been a huge shock for him. A huger shock. There were sights and sounds that were entirely new to him, like he was a farm boy new to the big city, even though he'd grown up going to a much bigger city.

It was different from New York. New York was huge and chaotic and frenetic. The sights and sounds were things he'd experienced since he was a boy. And they differed to San Francisco, but mostly in New York he was a just another young person, not a de facto member of the counterculture.

Which he definitely seemed to be in San Francisco. He wasn't sure if it was his arrival at Haight Ashbury, his clothes, or his hair, but there was a definite us versus them feeling in the city. One group had open arms and a spliff to share, the other gave him a once over coupled with a sneer and saw no use for him.

Harry had always been a teacher favorite, and had never been around police except when they were peacekeeping and he was a member of the crowd, usually a small member of that crowd. Pandered to and played with.

Except the officer who had come to tell him and his father about his mother's accident. Harry knew his blue eyes with the kindly crinkles. He also remembered the harsh coffee smell of his breath and its sour words. He'd been so kind to Harry and Edward but there was no chance he'd be remembered fondly, not with the news he bore.

So, all the cops after that had an advantage. They weren't telling him his mother was dead and they immediately liked Harry, as adults had all of his life.

The cops outside the flophouse he found himself in the first night hassled the hippies, Harry included. He'd thought the proverb about not trusting anybody over 30 was ridiculous until that first time he got pushed up against the wall and roughly frisked just for walking down a sidewalk. The cop had called him dirty, which he currently was, no denying it, from his long pilgrimage across country, and had made sure the stucco of the building bit into his face. It was unnecessary roughness and mean spirited for the sake of it. Harry'd be unlikely to seek out or even trust the uniform again after that, no matter the age of the officer. Strangely though, the officer and his actions had nothing on the people walking their small dogs in Golden Gate Park, where he found himself now.  If he wasn't waiting to find out who Mack was, apparently a legend in the district, he'd have left after the first well dressed, perfectly coiffed woman grabbed her purse tightly while she walked like her thighs were glued shut. He'd done nothing to any of these women, their purses were the last thing on his mind until they brought them to his attention. It was strange to him that their suspicion made him feel like he'd done something wrong. At least it was the cops job to confirm people were unarmed, which may have not been why they frisked him, but, these well heeled ladies had no reason to judge him, or those collecting around him.

Though he supposed a mass group of any kind drew eyes, especially a group of, well largely female hippies, dressed in light dresses and crochets. He didn't get it though. How could you fear a girl with flowers in her hair? What did she threaten but your view of your past, or your way of life?

He was glad other people like him were coming, he felt like this was were he fit in now, not that he'd ever really. But, power in numbers. It calmed him down. He'd wanted to split, but after 9 days, this was his first lead on Jillian and he was gonna follow it. So far all of Cherie's descriptors bore out. She was the first person who had recognized Jillian as more than a pretty girl in a photo.

That first night he and his passenger had wandered into a diner, the first one they'd seen. It was crawling with other late teens and early twenty somethings, in various states of dress and sobriety. Harry was hungry, his stomach fallow and gurgling, but his mind growled over the opportunity.

Harry had choked down a patty melt with a coke and pulled his picture out of his shirt pocket.

"Ah man!" The first guy he showed it to sounded promising. "That's one fine piece! You said she's your old lady? You guys looking for a love-in?"

Harry was so confused by the diatribe it took him a second to realize the guy had taken his picture and was showing it to the table, one guy let out a long whistle that woke Harry back up.

He got talking. He wasn't here for a love-in. "No man, I'm looking for her, she ran away from home and sent me a postcard from here. Have you seen her? Any of you?"

"Nah, seen a lot of runaways, none that looked like her!" He shook his head and took another long look at the photo before handing it back. Harry wiped the picture of the guys prints andstopped for a second and stared too. He barely recognized himself. That Harry wouldn't be searching San Francisco, but that Harry was as close to Jillian as he'd ever been. He wanted to be him again.

He nodded, "Yeah," came out like air from a balloon. "Thanks."

He asked the other tables. Nobody had any memory of her, least not one they copped to, and the first table had made him feel more worried for her. He thought hippie boys were supposed to be feminist. That had been Jillian's conviction. That they'd know how to treat girls equally.

Maybe you could put on the clothes of the new man, but keep the mentality of the past. Harry needed to go, there were other people to ask, who might not skeev him out. Maybe he'd ask mostly girls? He hoped she stuck to girls after that encounter. But would he scare the girls?

Harry checked in with Allen, hugged him goodbye, wished him well and left. He hoped that this place had all the safety his companion was looking for. He hoped he'd somehow find out one day. He turned back as he held open the door and felt a little encouraged, Allen was sitting with a different group of young men, boys, and he was smiling, and eating fries off someone's plate.

Hippie hospitality?  Maybe when you had little, it was easier to share it. The breeze hit his face and Harry could smell the sea and a darker odor he'd smelled on some of the men inside. The air was a caress, and Harry followed it to what he hoped was Jillian.

There were people cruising the street, and Harry talked to as many as he could. He'd approach with a blank face; he was afraid a smile was too open, and was trying to keep the desperation off his face as well. He was received mostly openly, though the picture usually clammed people up, but the longhairs were hospitable in their way. He got offered weed and hash but it was the place to sit he took.

There were couches, on the street, people smoking and chatting. He sat down on the sofa and passed around the picture, nobody knew her, or admitted they did. Harry accepted the small rectangle back after it made its circumnavigation, and looked down, brushed a finger over it. Could you love a picture? If it was all you had left. He spaced out a little. Harry looked up then, there were eyes on him, no doubt, the weirdo misty eyed over a photo. Maybe he could blame the smoke?

Chrissy, the one who'd offered him a seat, smiled sadly at him. He didn't ask her who she was looking for, but he recognized a fellow seeker.

Later, it was Chrissy who woke him up. There were still voices in the street, but it was much later. He didn't even recall laying down, let alone closing his eyes. He'd just felt safe, certainly safer than the naps in his truck cab in parking lots for big rigs or under bridges in the flats of the country.

"Hey man, you have a place to sleep?" Harry thought about his room, all the way across the bay and shrugged. He did, but it was so far away.

"Cmon, you can crash on my couch, the guy who usually sleeps there is at a gig." She seemed like a caretaker, and he needed care.

He was too tired to dig deeper into that. The gig, or the guy.

He slept in his clothes, and when he woke up, it was to the smell of coffee.  There was a mug, with a chipped rim, but his metaphorical name on it. She also offered him a smile and shared her sandwich, offered him the diagonal piece on her plate.

He spent another day on the street with Chrissy helping him this time.

"Don't put up posters man, usually they have the opposite effect. People hide out or whatever, lots of kids here don't want to be found. But I can help you ask around. I know everybody, they trust me. See if anybody knows your Jillian."

That was when he was leaving, getting in his truck and heading back to Berkeley, finally, after a lost weekend searching. "What do I owe you?"

She'd fed him twice and given him a place to sleep and beat her feet up and down Haight Street looking with him.

"Nothing!" Harry furrowed his brow. He was about to protest when she lay a hand on his arm and he saw the tears cloud her eyes. " Maybe I'll ask you to return the favor sometime?" He kicked over his engine and Chrissy watched him drive away, he knew because she waved back when he hoisted his splayed fingers.

Harry wondered who she was looking for, but figured she'd share that with him when she was ready. He and others may already trust her, but maybe she didn't trust them.

He settled in and ate three full meals with Professor McCreedy before his feet itched and his heartache flared.

The squat man looked much less like a professor to him than his father. He wore sandals and had a massive beard. He reminded Harry more of dwarf than a professor. But he was funny and smart.

But not smart enough to notice that Harry's mind was over the bay. Or that hearing about the professor's memories of Harry's "looker of a mother" made Harry jealous. He couldn't remember what she looked like. What if he didn't remember Jillian's face, or her moans, or the sound of her laugh soon?

Harry didn't want to be rude, it was so amazing to have a house to stay in so close to campus, and essentially rent free, but he had other places to be, memory loss to prevent.

Harry assumed there would be some kind of work expected of him for his room and board. He was waiting for it, but Professor McCreedy never brought it up. It surprised Harry that he was hoping it would be physical labor when he got to it. When he helped his dad out, it was almost always bookish things.

Harry missed the horses, and the pitchfork, the mindless repetition. He was sick of thinking and fear. Hearing about his mother, it made him want to go out and get in his truck and keep looking. If he'd been restless for three months, now his body was as jittery as his mind.

The first few days, Donald, as the professor insisted Harry call him, let him rest. Harry had looked haggard when he arrived, he knew it.He didn't need a mirror after seeing his host's face, but when he made it to the bathroom, he couldn't miss it.He looked hollowed out and much older than 18. His hair was lank, there were plum colored smudges beneath his eyes, and his clothes looked grimy. He could see an oil stain from his patty melt days ago.

He used the toilet, and then popped out to grab clothing, so he could shower. He'd taken his case and motioned with his head. He was too tired to talk and received a limp salute in return. Harry gratefully took that as a yes.The shower washed off the three days of failure, the one week of anxiety as he hurtled across the country at 60 miles per hour, and the threat of dehydration as he swallowed the spray.

When he came out, he felt better, but resolute. He had all week to look. And another after that. And he'd made a friend who would help him, and introduce him around, so people trusted him. Harry would find her.

That was something he noticed, there was immediate inclusion but also distrust of newcomers. The dope on offer was both hospitality and a test.

He'd passed.

Then he passed out, from lingering effects. He woke up 14 hours later feeling better physically than he could really remember feeling since prom night. But he also felt like he was behind, like the hours he felt searching his dreamscape for answers had robbed him actual discovery.

He figured that was because he'd woken up chasing Jillian in his dreams. Everytime he got close, she'd turn into a bird and fly away. Once a hummingbird he couldn't quite catch though it hovered before him, then a dove, cooing at him, and then a mockingbird. It was the mockingbird that got him. It had been her favorite book in high school. He'd liked it too. It was one of the few non sci fi movies they went to the drive in for.

The mockingbird, he waited for it to turn to him, and it repeated Jillian to him when he tried to capture it. It had her eyes. The birds voice was hers, calling her own name. When he asked where she was, it said, "here." And flew away from him, across the bay, north.

He'd startled awake, ready to fly himself. He pulled on some clothes and left with a simple wave over his shoulder. He couldn't eat, his stomach roiled, and he put no trust in his voice.

He didn't mean to be weird. But she'd said here and then flown away. It was an invitation.

He just didn't have the address for the party.

It took him another couple weeks to find it.

He'd been smoking with a new group of friends, well Chrissy's friends. It was relaxed, the grass and sitar music doing its job. "Hey man, you have that picture on you?" Chrissy suddenly asked.

He almost laughed. He always had that picture on him. He didn't sleep with it under his pillow or anything. And Harry didn't kiss it goodnight, well maybe just once, but he had it. He'd stopped showing it around suspiciously, because even though he was looking more and more like a young person who frequented the Haight, he was occasionally sniffed out as new by the actual young people of the district. Showing the picture right away made it worse, then they knew, and grew more suspicious of him. Like he was a narc, which he had come to know was a very bad thing.

He quirked a brow at Chrissy, she was good people, and she laughed. She knew he had it.

The picture was holding up pretty well, he'd taken to holding the edges and people followed suit, most of the wrinkles came from the first day, at the diner.

It had gotten better since then.

He handed the picture to the guy on his left. "Hey man, you ever seen this girl?"

He whistled. "Nah man, she your old lady?"

Harry had stopped even trying to answer that one, so he shrugged. And the picture went from person to person. Once again, nobody seemed to recognize Jillian.

He knew she'd been here, he couldn't fathom her being anywhere and not being memorable to the people around her. Harry was fairly sure nobody else had eyes when he was near her.
He took the joint coming to him and sucked in a harsh breath to fill his lungs with smoke in the way Ronnie had taught them. He held the joint between his thumb and hand, keeping it tucked into his palm. Ronnie'd learned that from an old lady in Kathmandu  and came back to teach them instead of brag, essentially doing both. It made the joint less conspicuous until cops learned the trick.

It was a let down now.

The smoke didn't burn like it used to. He'd stopped coughing until his eyes watered a while ago. He'd nearly puked at Woodstock the first time, he'd coughed so hard.

Now he bong ripped with the best of them, when somebody was as posh enough to have a glass pipe.

He was sharing a bowl with a girl when the picture made it back to him. He'd been having a good day. Somebody had shown him how to use a magnifying glass to light the bowl, a solar she'd called it,. The science geek in him, left behind at graduation but soon to be resurrected, loved it. Cherie, the girl, who was patiently waiting for him to take his second hit with her hand extended for the lighter took the photo because his hands were full.

"Oh wow, man! I know your old lady!"

By force of habit Harry countered, "She's not my old lady." Before the words set in. "Wait! What?"

"I know this girl! We shared a flop for a week about a month ago. She was quiet, kinda dreamy, best tits I've ever seen in real life."

Harry shook off the first question that came into his head then. "Was she ok?" He asked instead. He almost dropped the e bong when he reached for Cherie's hands. "Was she alone? Waiting for somebody?"

"Nah man, I don't know about that." She shrugged. "She was working at the diner on the corner down the street. Seemed to eat there a lot. She partied but never got sloppy." She tilted her head. "She kinda kept to herself, but we'd dance most nights, she liked to dance and sing." She took a hit then, held in the smoke, started talking while releasing. "Come to think of it, I think that's how she got mixed up with that church. Some girl we were dancing with one night."

"What? A church?" He could remember when Jillian stopped going to vacation bible school because she'd overheard the teacher talking about the smell of her mother's breath. He'd quit then too.

"Yeah! Well, a kinda church. Bunch of hippie girls dancing around and handing out flowers on street corners, but that's on account of Mack." She chuckled while she leisurely took her second hit and he wanted to shake her shoulders.

Wait. "Who's Mack?" Harry had that feeling he'd had when he dreamed Jillian was in love.

"Oh man, he's the dreamy preacher! Not like movie star looks, but he'd got like a Jagger charisma, and he's hot! His eyes are so intense." She focused on her memory until he jostled her shoulder. "Like kinda clean cut for me, but I even went to the service after that girl Rhiannon told me about him. I had to see what all the fuss was about."

"They still hang around with the flowers? In the park?" It was a lead! His first real one.

She let out her smoke in rings. He didn't know that trick. "Yeah, dude! You look like you just found a fix! They still do, I haven't seen her in a while though, like a couple weeks. Not even at the service the first time. But I think he keeps 'em outta the city when they first join."

"Where though, where did you see her?" He ignored the kidnapping comment.

"Down at Golden Gate Park. For fellowship!" She said like it was obvious.

He didn't know what that meant. But he got to his real question. "When do they do that?"

"Every Sunday, sometimes Friday nights too, but they call that one worship." She screwed up her eyes. "Just sing then, groovy songs, change some of the words from the Beatles to talk about Jesus, I think."

She kept talking, but he wasn't listening. He was planning.

Friday night, he found himself anxiously waiting at Golden Gate Park. Young people, mostly pretty girls were coalescing.

None of the guys seemed like Mack, not even the tall man in the hat near the flower painted platform up front. He had a guitar strapped to him, and a few chicks hanging near him, he was letting one stroke his strings.

But Harry didn't think he was Mack.

Who's Mack?, Where's Jillian?

Those were his thoughts for another hour, plus the last two days. The group had grown slowly and then all at once. Now, the hat guy was going around playing and the circle of dancers was widening.

Suddenly, the guitar and it's holder hopped onto the back of the 4 x 4 platform. He struck a cord and the whole group got into formation and looked up.

Harry found his body doing it to, and the scent he'd come to know as patchouli got stronger. He realized the front row had incense burners.

Harry wasn't sure where the strong jawed man came from, he seemed to have just appeared. The apparition was being lifted onto the platform by ten barefoot girls in long white dresses wearing flower crowns before he realized someone new had arrived.

The girls were chanting, he thought he caught the word love, but mostly it was just sing songy gibberish.

The slight man had his eyes closed, until his feet hit the wood.

When they opened, Harry knew, this was Mack.