Woodstock Day Four
Woodstock
Day Four
The five of us stepped around mountains of trash, strolling behind thousands of others toward the exit. Good Woodstock Samaritans were attempting to pick up the trash, but our group didn’t have time. By the looks of it, the cleanup would take a month.
With the taste of despair lodged inside my throat, I felt tears pricking my eyes. But I refused to cry. I’d cried enough.
My long face must have been hard to hide. Leon tried to inject some humor. “Wait on me, will ya?” he said, tugging on the sash of my halter top. “I’m going back to look for my sleeping bag.”
It made me laugh. But only a little. Because I was unraveling.
The uncertainty of our future had gnawed a hole in my soul.
How could I say goodbye to the best thing that had ever happened to me?
Only seventy-two hours prior, I’d had no idea of Leon’s existence.
Now he was pretty much the reason I had air in my lungs.
With the second hand ticking, we stepped back over the flattened fence onto Hurd Road, exactly the way we had come in on Friday. Arm in arm, Livy and Ron led the way. Livy and Ron. It was a lot to swallow.
Thirty minutes down the road, Livy stopped in her tracks. Her shoulders slumped forward. “My feet hurt, y’all,” she said, in a whiny voice. “I’m so tired of walking.”
I was barefoot, too, but no one heard me complaining.
“You always were a baby,” Ron told her.
“That’s not true. Woodstock has worn my ass out,” she said. “It’ll take me weeks to recover.”
Ron pinched her worn-out ass, then poked out his bottom lip. “Poor baby. Want a piggyback ride?”
I wanted to vomit.
She leaped onto his back. The two of them proceeded on like that for a quarter of a mile until Ron finally gave up and put her down.
“I have a great idea!” she said as soon as her feet hit the pavement. “Let’s hitch a ride back to our cars.”
I shot her a discreet hairy eyeball. She still didn’t get it. Why would I want to leave Leon a second sooner than I had to?
“Actually,” she said, with a smile, “on second thought, I can make it.”
The closer we got to town, the more Leon’s words echoed over and over.
I don’t know what the future looks like, but I don’t want to be another face in your crowd.
I didn’t know what my own future looked like, much less ours.
Instead of discussing what that future might look like, our conversation turned coy, like it had on Friday.
What were we to say? I’ll write you every week.
I promise to call you every Sunday. I couldn’t help wondering how long it would take for those vows to tarnish, like a forgotten piece of silver.
Long-distance telephone calls cost a lot of money.
Money neither of us had. I was twenty years old.
Leon was twenty-one. Neither of us owned a car, and our colleges were a thousand miles apart.
Paper was cheap, though. So were stamps. At six cents a letter, we could afford to mail one every week. How long could that last? How soon would it be before Leon tired of the “long-distance thing” he’d talked about?
We’d been walking in silence for five minutes when he gripped my hand, like he never wanted to let it go. I had the sense he was having some of the same thoughts I’d been having and couldn’t help wondering if the uncertainty was bothering him half as much as it was me.
Unlike Friday, the forty-five-minute return trip to White Lake seemed to pass in ten. As we strolled into town, many of the locals sat along the road in front of their houses with buckets full of juice and water, urging people to help themselves.
I glanced around at the cars that were still left and thought about how this tiny little town had been invaded by a half a million hippies whom the townsfolk had so desperately tried to keep out.
Yet in the end, they had pitched in to help.
They’d made thousands of sandwiches and sent canned items, fruit, and hard-boiled eggs out of their own pantries.
Despite their inconvenience, they had been incredibly generous.
And here they were in front of their homes, still nourishing the hippie freaks.
A testament to the beautiful human spirit and the weekend itself.
My time at Woodstock had shifted my thinking about many things.
No longer did I feel ashamed by the gaps in my rock-music education.
I just knew I could never live without music again.
It wasn’t God’s will for me to give up singing and dancing.
He had given me the gifts in the first place.
And I sure wasn’t going to hell for them.
Having been steeped from the cradle in Dad’s dogma and his impossible expectations, I had accepted his truth as my own.
It definitely wasn’t God’s will for me to be put down and humiliated by my own father.
I wasn’t the worthless, trashy person he’d made me think of myself as.
I was a kind, loving person who tried to find the best in people.
Albeit, I had my issues, but I sure wasn’t the only person who had made mistakes.
Everyone had. Life could be harsh, but there was still plenty of joy to be found, especially while spending life with those we love.
The weekend had helped me to grasp that real beauty is not about how we look on the outside.
It is found in who we are as human beings, the way we treat one another, the way we love one another, and our willingness to consider someone else’s feelings before our own.
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
When I was a little girl, Mama had helped me to memorize all the fruits available to me as a child of God.
I couldn’t throw him away just because of Dad’s wounding.
The five of us grabbed juice and took a moment to quench our thirst. Livy plopped down on the grass and stretched out her legs, moaning loudly.
Ron looked at her with puppy dog eyes. I’d never seen those eyes. And frankly, I wasn’t sure how much more of them I could witness.
“What do you say we make a game plan?” Ron said to the group, while tossing his empty juice bottle into a nearby trash can.
“Please call me a taxi,” Livy whined.
Johnny whipped around to the lady handing out juice. “Any taxis around here, ma’am?”
“Closest taxi is New York City,” she said.
Johnny tapped Livy on the head. “Can’t say I didn’t try.”
“Thanks, man,” she said, then looked at me with apologetic eyes.
Ours was a complicated relationship. We were vastly different people, but Livy had risked her life for my brother. She had reunited me with him, and for that I would be forever grateful. No wonder she had wanted me with her at the information booth.
I had fallen in love, thanks to Livy. How could I stay mad at her forever? I leaned over and whispered in her ear. “We’ve had our rough patches, but we’re cool now, right?”
“So cool,” she whispered back. “I’m happy you met Leon. Make sure you get on the pill, okay?”
I just shook my head.
Ron looked at Leon and Johnny. “Do you guys have time to grab a bite?”
“I wish we could,” said Leon. “My mom needs her car. I was supposed to have it back last night.”
“My folks are waiting on me too,” said Johnny. “We’re having a big family dinner before I leave in the morning.”
Noon
With only a mile left in our journey, it felt like a boa constrictor had wrapped itself around my chest. And by the time we got to Highway 55, where Leon and Johnny would turn off toward their car, I thought I might be having one of those anxious episodes.
Like the one I’d had in front of the Mid-South Coliseum three years earlier.
I felt lightheaded. I could hardly breathe.
Leon and I hadn’t even exchanged phone numbers.
I dug inside my purse for paper, finding Ron’s letters and my checkbook. Once I’d found a fountain pen, I pulled on Leon’s arm and handed him one of the envelopes. “I need your address, please.”
He took the pen from my grasp. Instead of writing on the envelope, he tattooed his name on the inside of my forearm, in large all-capital letters.
Underneath he added his parents’ address, phone number, and the name of his dorm at Penn State.
“I don’t know the number at my new dorm, but Mom will,” he said, then let loose one of his man-giggles.
I would so miss that man-giggle. Handing me back the pen, he held out his own arm. “Give me yours.”
“I don’t know where I’m going,” I said with a slight tremor in my voice. I could feel tears threatening to fall.
“Just give me something. I’ll find you.”
Biting down on the inside of my cheek, I printed my name, home address, and phone number on the inside of his arm. I added the name of my dorm—the one I was supposed to live in should I end up going back to Union.
He plucked the pen from my grasp and encircled my name with a heart.
Eyeing that heart made the tears I’d been determined to block fall anyway.
“Hey,” he said, clasping my cheek. “This isn’t goodbye. It’s see ya soon.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know.” Leon tapped his heart, not his head. “Can you trust me?”
I gave him a slow, but confident, nod.
He slipped the chain holding his silver-and-turquoise cross over his head, then slid it over my neck, pulling my hair out from underneath.
“You don’t have to—”
“You can give it back next time we see each other,” he said with a wink. Slipping his arms underneath mine, he lifted me off the ground, guiding my legs around his hips. I buried my nose inside his neck. To memorize his smell. And breathe him one last time.
We held on to each other until Johnny placed his hands on our shoulders. “I don’t mean to be a killjoy, man, but we gotta split.”
Feeling Leon’s arms give way, I slid slowly down his body until I felt grass underneath my bare feet. As I pulled away, he reached out to tickle my stomach. “You look sweet in that halter top.”
“I’ll keep it forever.”
Ron stepped between us. “Great to meet you,” he said, shaking Leon’s hand first, then Johnny’s.
“Likewise,” Leon told him. “Good luck in Canada, man.”
“Thanks. I’m gonna need it,” said Ron.
“See you there, man,” said Johnny.
“You’ve got the address of my crash pad, right?” Ron asked him.
“Right on,” Johnny answered. “Thanks for your help.”
The hug Livy gave Johnny lasted much longer than the one she gave Leon. “You and Ron will be fast friends in Montreal,” she told him. “I’m always here to help.” She turned to Leon with a knitted brow. “Are you sure you’re not a Leo?”
“Positive. Aquarius,” he said.
As if on cue, Johnny sang, “‘The Age of Aquarius.’”
“You are a helluva terrible singer,” Leon told him.
“And you’re any better?” said Johnny.
Livy pinched Leon’s cheek. “FYI. Aquarius is an air sign. Intellectual, thoughtful, charismatic.”
“That’s me,” said Leon, shifting his eyes my way. “Let me know where you land, Suzie Q. Promise?” He pushed his hair back from his forehead, then rubbed the back of his neck.
I didn’t answer.
“Promise?” he asked again.
“Promise,” I forced myself to say. Feeling utterly powerless, I longed to yell, Don’t leave. Don’t take another step. Please run away with me.
But there was no point. His life had to go on. My life had to go on.
He took two steps backward, then stopped.
I held up my hand, fluttering my fingers.
With eyes pinned on mine, he took ten more steps backward until Johnny turned him around forward. As the cousins strolled off down Highway 55 toward their car, my eyes never moved from the back of Leon’s dishwater-blond waves, hoping against hope I’d be lucky enough to spot them again.
Someday.
They made it twenty yards down the road before Leon glanced over his shoulder. Once he knew I was still watching, he held his arms high in the air. Instead of peace signs, he used his fingers to form a heart.
By the time the cousins reached the crest of the hill, Leon’s arms were still raised, his heart still in the air. But with each step he took down the other side, his heart grew smaller and smaller and smaller, until it slowly disappeared.
Livy looked at my tearstained face. “I thought you were smarter than that.”
I whipped around with an annoyed stare. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Are you really gonna let him walk away?”
“I didn’t know there was an option.”
“There’s always an option, man,” she said.
My mind spun as Livy’s words seared into my heart.
“I know love when I see it.” She glanced at Ron with that Livy smile.
“He has to get back to school,” I said. “So he’s not drafted. And Johnny has to get to Canada.”
“So do I,” said Ron. “Might as well get there together. You need more time to figure out what you wanna do next. Let Leon help you.”
I peered at my brother with his long hair, his gnarly war wound, and his crystal-blue eyes. I did not want to live far away from him ever again. “How far is Montreal from here?” I asked.
“Five and a half hours. Not a bad bus ride unless the freeways lock up.”
“It’s even closer to Cambridge,” said Livy, in her post-Woodstock ultrascratchy voice.
Ron’s eyes shifted to the top of the hill. “We can catch them if we run.”
With bullets firing inside my chest, daring me to take a chance, I took two steps forward, then stopped. Three days of music, peace, and love had changed me into a different person. Part of me wondered if the high I felt was more about self-discovery than Leon.
“Don’t overthink it,” said Livy. “The Northeast is full of possibilities. Penn State. Coffee shops. Broadway. Carnegie Hall.” She gave me a gentle push. “What do you have to lose? If it doesn’t work out, so what? You’ll find someone else just as good.”
Would I? Was three days even long enough to know? About Leon? About love?
I had to find out.
Without giving it more thought, I picked up my pace and jogged. Livy caught up and grabbed my hand. Ron took the other. “Leon! Wait!” I yelled.
Shrieking and laughing, the three of us raced up the hill.
Barefoot and braless, footloose and unfettered, I felt my soul breaking free. With the wind in my hair and the sun on my face, I lifted my chin and blew a kiss to the sky.