Dark Side of the 60's Moon by Mike Marino (beginner reading books for adults txt) 📕

meeting up so I will assume you’re not NARC’s or Sen. Joe McCarthy’s offspring,” he jested with a smile that would not only light up Broadway at night, but his affable attitude transported you at once on a magic carpet ride of trust. A trust I envied, but could never feel. To me, around every corner there were FBI agents with seeing eye dogs armed with the teeth of Saber Toothed tigers ready to rip me from limb to limb.

“Mickey you want to write for us. Terrific. David says you are a journalist.”

“Well, I suppose, in a sense. I do freelance work for my old employer in New York, The Village Paper, and I also write for the San Francisco Oracle and the Berkeley Barb. So whatever I can do to help.”

Will  was beaming again. “I have a perfect project, if you want it. There is an underground military newspaper called, The Ally. Goes to servicemen and women on bases around the globe, at great risk I might add. But, it would be great to see the anti-war movement, the Resistance covered on a regular basis. Give the guys some hope, and perhaps change a few gung ho minds.You know, dilute that John Wayne - Merle Haggard shit. Let them know what’s happening on campuses today, in the streets, the class struggle,everything to to in effect get the real news to them instead of what Stars and Stripes is shoving up their ass.

I was sold. “Done!”

“Good. Excellent. Now as for a ticket to Canada. That is the tricky one. We have an underground in place in cooperation with the Quakers. Safe houses, documents to slip you across the border, and can even assist with getting a job up there. There are whole communities set up. We can get you, Joey, and I believe her name is Olivia up there safely.”

“So what’s our next step?”

Will laughed that Will laugh. “We’ll have you contacted in the Haight by one of our best people, regarding the Canada thing. As for you Mickey, I’ve already contacted the Ally paper publisher and he’s ready for you to start writing. Write what you normally do for the others. They, we, want to show the troops we support their efforts at resistance, and the more the merrier. STOP THE KILLING!”

At that point we heard a large crash as the plate glass window in the office was shattered followed by an explosion the shook the building, sending office debris in all directions. I was hit by a flying stapler in the head causing blood to flow.  Pieces of desks and chairs were on the move by the force of the impact while the contents of one of the file cabinets caught fire.

Screams punctuated the air amidst the smoke and confusion. Other staffers were injured as well. Joey immediately, although wounded on his left arm, began pulling people from the debris, yelling for first aid kits, and rendering what care he could.

The damage was caused by a homemade pipe bomb, which I found out was only one of many across the country at Resistance offices from the East Coast to the West.

Will was unconscious so we immediately had one of the volunteers call for an ambulance or two. We also knew the cops would respond, hell they probably were responsible for the bomb. If not them, then the FBI or some lone right wing wing nut.

Either way, Joey and I had to get out fast. One military deserter and a draft dodger with the heat looking for us. I put the Ally paper editor’s name and number in my pocket and we booked out the backdoor, around and down the alley to the camper to get back across the bridge to the Haight, but first we would head down to Palo Alto to inform David and the others at the commune on what happened.

Myrika and Olivia were at a kite festival in Golden Gate Park and wouldn’t expect us back for hours yet.

America was at war with itself. It was my first taste of how brutal it was going to get. As for Joey, he may be home from Vietnam, but he was certainly back in the shit! Chapter 19 - Death of Hip

 

 

 

 

October 1967 Death of Hip

Joey and I were still licking and patching our wounds after the Berkeley bombing.  We were sitting in the apartment back in the Haight cleaning out the pieces of glass that acted as storefront shrapnel imbedding themselves in our skin allowing rivers of blood to flow.

By the time Myrika and Olivia returned from treasure hunting at the Salvation Army Store with paper sacks filled with faded shirts and skirts, we were cleaned up, but looked as though we were dogs left out in a storm. Ragged, tired and pissed.

“What happened???” Myrika screamed and dropped her bags as she caught first sight of the bruised and battered degenerates sitting on the floor by the window, two not laughing Buddha’s who had seemingly lost their enlightenment...or rather...had attained it through the harsh realities of the times. Buddha never got bombed!! Stoned maybe, but not Buddha Bombed!

We explained the day’s events to the girls. Olivia started to let loose a flood of warm wet tears that ran like tiny rivulets down her face. Joey jumped up to hold her in the comfort of his arms as Myrika ran to me holding me against her chest. I could feel her heart racing fast, as her sweet German girl scent filled my being with happiness….and made me want her on the spot. I wanted to fuck her right then and there naked on a raft sailing into the sunset on the Pacific Ocean with a course set for Aku Aku so I could worship her as a mystical stone goddess on a green hilltop overlooking the turquoise waters of calm.

“Look gang, we have a real problem now,” I managed to utter, once my raft had returned to port. “That bombing is gonna bring the FBI into the investigation. There are already FBI shoes on the ground in the Haight looking to infiltrate anti war groups and organizations, which means, Joey as a deserter, and me dodging Uncle Sam’s call to action could get caught up in a large net. Also….also..I hate to say this, but if they stop Myrika...well...her visa is long expired...they’ll deport you, Baby.  As for Olivia, she hasn’t broken any laws, but….BUT...she’s pregnant and underage….I could get nailed for getting her pregnant!!”

Silence followed. The room was still. Silent. We had all reached the end and needed to find the rabbit hole and follow some invisible mad hatter to some invisible world of sanctuary.

Joey’s was the calm voice amidst the hurricane of fear that enveloped us all.

“We should be meeting our Resistance contact in a few days about getting us all to Canada. Will mentioned a commune somewhere in the southwest as the jumping off point. I say we hang tight, keep low until then  and get the hell out of here. Christ we’ll all end up on a milk carton!! Have you seen these horrible people, if so, please shoot on sight!!”

He was right. Besides, the I was beginning to hate the Haight...it had morphed overnight.
The Flower Garden was filling with weeds choking it and sucking it dry. Pimps looking for free love prostitutes, GI’s and straights looking for free love or a fight, whichever came first. Rapes were now common along with assaults of all forms. Even the Diggers newspaper said on the front page…”Rape is as common as bullshit on Haight Street. Some affected are as young as 14”
Venereal disease and vaginitis were epidemic and keeping the Free Clinic busier than the rubber room denizens of a mental institution. The murder rate and incidents of physical assault soared. Robbery and burglaries became commonplace. The weirdest event from a standpoint of irony was the robbery of the Diggers Trip Without a Ticket FREE store!! Robbing a free store?

Heroin and downers were replacing LSD and Mescaline. Violent crimes were up and in an article in the Berkeley Barb,  when police arrested a local Haight Street heroin dealer, they found a suede bag in his car. The bag contained the severed arm of a drug dealer who had been murdered.

The frosting on the Haight cake of demise, was the arrival of Charles Manson who gathered the local Hashbury  dregs  of young men and women who would make up the weirdest Brady Bunch family to ever wield a butcher knife.

Soon on the Hippie Om Horizon, the Haight would shut down. It’s heartbeat missing a few beats as it’s arteries hardened ready to draw it’s last breath. That would all culminate in an event called  “The Death of Hippie,” with a somber carnival of masked participants carrying a coffin with the words "Hippie, Son of Media" on the side. According an article in the Digger Papers, “The event will be  staged in such a way that any media outlet that simply described the happening would unknowingly transmit the Diggers' message that Hippies were a media invention. This was called "creating the condition you describe.”

We lit up a joint and began to talk out our plans. Canada was within reach. We were going for the goal from the 40 yard line with the full federal government team running offense. If our playbook didn’t play out...Myrika could be booted back to Berlin while Olivia would be ripped from our group ending up in some Catholic home for wayward girls with butch nuns mad about 14 year old girls.

As for Joey he’d be leaving for Leavenworth, and I’d be in a cellblock with deranged serial killers waiting for me drop the bar of soap in the shower!

As the marijuana we had lit was filling the room with it’s fragrance, someone knocked on the door. Cautiously I got up to answer it. “Who’s there? Friend or Foe? Fiend?”

A gentle female voice answered from the other side. “My name is Carol...Will Rogers sent me from Berkeley.”
I quickly opened the door...Alice had arrived to show us the way to Wonderland...Canada and freedom!!!

Chapter 20 - The Blonde Bombshell of Revolution

 

 

 

 

As I opened the door, I swear an unholy light blinded me. Carol, our Resistance contact was radiant. Not the usual butch Soviet look of a rugged female soldier defending Stalingrad against Nazi hordes. She was beautiful and tall, as tall as Jack’s Beanstalk. She  was also