that love is the answer and become a pacifist. The second requires more self-discipline. It turned out that the discipline required to chill out can be helped along with mind-numbing drugs.
“And our moms had laid the groundwork for artificial stimulants. You can object to drugs while consuming a rent payment’s worth of alcohol or valium. But that hypocritical donkey shit is gonna fall on deaf ears.”
She paused to check in with Gray. “Want me to keep going?”
He nodded. “Tell me everything. Don’t leave anything out.”
She chuckled. “You have a month to sit there and do nothing but listen?”
Gray glanced at her big battery wall clock. “I got two hours before Kelsey leaves for work.”
“Two hours, huh? That’s two hours more than I would have thought you’d be interested in. So be it.
“Back to backlash. Our fathers made the military idea of ‘clean cut’ a dogma. So, boys grew their hair long. Shinin’, gleamin’, steamin’ flaxen waxen.” She stopped to grin at her reference to lyrics from the musical Hair. Middle-class parents were obsessed with the goal of having daughters project a demure ‘ladylike’ image. So, girls went braless if they felt like it, stopped wearing makeup, let their hair do whatever it wanted, and sometimes,” she gasped for effect, “they didn’t sit with their ankles crossed.
“Add another faction of mad. The older generations were furious that we didn’t do as we were told. We called them the ‘establishment’. They called us ‘non-conformists’.” She chuckled. “Like that’s a bad thing. And we of the so-called ‘counter culture’ developed the motto, don’t trust anyone over the age of thirty.
“Yeah.” She turned toward Gray feeling the old fires burst to life as she described an anger so palpable that its embers burned on into old age. “We were protesting. The war. Political corruption. The psychological manipulation of consumers. And the heavy-handed way we’d been raised.
“Is this what you wanted to know?”
Gray was captivated by the passion that had built visibly as Cass talked through her highly abbreviated version of the Bay Area sixties. It didn’t take much imagination to guess what she was like at his age. Not so much the old lady across the street who baked cookies and taught guitar chords.
He sighed. “Ah. Yeah.”
In an uncharacteristically introspective moment, he wondered about Cass’s family before realizing he didn’t really know that much about her. They had a relationship that went one direction. She’d been a fount of giving all his life. He’d been a selfish kid who never thought twice about taking what was offered, but never thought once about the source.
Her mention of family caused him to wonder, for the first time, why did she live alone? Did she have siblings? Parents? Were they alive? Had the damage of disagreement created a rift that became lifelong? Permanent?
While those thoughts were tumbling around in his head, he must have looked unsure.
Cass grinned. “Did I dump the truck? Was that more than you wanted to know?”
With a little furrow between his brows, Gray said. “It sounds kinda awful.”
“Well, in a lot of ways it was. Even those of us who didn’t have the greatest relationship with our families found it painful to be locked in an unwinnable battle with them.”
After a couple of beats, Gray said, “Teach your children well.”
Gray’s mind raced through an encyclopedia of lyrics he’d memorized, but hadn’t really understood. Why do we never get an answer, when we’re knocking at the door, with a thousand million questions, about hate and death and war?
“I see the wheels turning. What are you thinking?” she asked.
“Running through songs I know. Almost every one talks about what you’re saying. I guess I hear it different now.”
“Because you added the layou’re of understanding.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “You know, I’ve never really asked about you. Stuff like, you know, family. Why you aren’t…?”
“Married?” She smiled into the bottle at her lips.
“Sorry. That was rude and…”
“No. No. I didn’t take it that way. I made different choices than most. That’s all. I have a sister a couple of years younger. Olivia. Lives in Kansas City, Missouri. We’re not close. So far as she’s concerned this,” she waved her hand at the rock memorabilia, “never happened. She actually listens to Tony Bennett and Jack Jones. If you said something to her about the war, she’d assume you meant World War II.” She glanced at Gray, who gave every appearance of actually being interested. “Weird, huh?”
“Somebody else like me who’s out of place in time, I guess.”