1:00 a.m.
With a light mist hanging in the air, a singer named Melanie strolled onto the stage. Not a soul with her, just this beautiful sable-headed young woman alone with her guitar, wearing the coolest pair of boots I’d ever seen. Melanie couldn’t have been much older than me. I wondered if she was afraid. Looking at her all alone up there, facing hundreds of thousands of people, I put myself in her boots. I’d have been terrified.
After her set ended, John Morris made a shocking announcement. “It’s a free concert from now on. That doesn’t mean that anything goes. What that means is we’re gonna put the music up here for free. What it means is the people who are backing this thing—have put up the money for it—are going to take a bit of a bath, abigbath. That’s no hype; that’s truth. They’re gonna get hurt. But what it means is that these people who put on this thing here have it in their heads—and it’s worth being grateful for—that your welfare, and their welfare, and the music, is a hell of a lot more important than a dollar.”
Roars and applause sounded for the longest time; most people stood up. Over the cheering, Leon shouted, “Did you already pay for a ticket?”
“No,” I said. “Did you?”
He shook his head.
“Now, let’s face the situation,” John Morris continued. “We’ve had thousands and thousands of people come here today. Many, many more than we knew or even dreamt would be possible. We are going to need everyone to help each other to work this out because we are taxing thesystems that we’ve set up. We are going to be bringing the food in. But the one major thing you have to remember tonight, when you go back up into the woods to go to sleep or if you stay here, is that the man next to you is your brother. And you damn well better treat each other that way, because if you don’t, then we blow the whole thing.”
Loud whistles and whoops radiated from the audience. “There is a bit of acid sickness going around. Let’s not pass anything to anybody else tonight. Let’s just hang together. Anything that could be dangerous, let’s just forget about it. Let’s just make the festival, not the other stuff. There ain’t nothing that can make you high as this.”
Once the applause died down, John introduced us to the next singer. “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Arlo Guthrie.”
“Yes! Far out, man,” Arlo said, looking out into the audience. “I don’t know how many of you can dig how many people there are, man. There’s supposed to be a million and a half people here tonight—can you dig that? The New York State Thruway is closed, man. Lot of freaks.”
I whipped around to Livy. “See! I told you. Nick’s stuck on the thruway. That’s what happened.”
She gave me an exhausted sigh. “Dear God, I hope so.”
Regret set in. “I shouldn’t have called himuntrustworthy, Livy. I’m sorry.” I pulled her into a side hug. “He’ll be here soon. He won’t give up.”
“Before today, I’d have told you he’d never give up.” She leaned back on her hands, turning her attention to Arlo, who rambled on about a lot of nothing, like he was having a one-sided conversation with the audience.
Out of nowhere a wave of fatigue washed over my body. I had tomakemyself listen. Maybe it was the pot, but I had to force my eyes to stay open. I turned to Leon, hoping a conversation with him would spring me back to life. “What do you wanna do when you graduate?” I asked, clenching my jaw to suppress a yawn. I didn’t want him to know I could fall asleep at any moment.
“I don’t know yet,” he said, as peppy as he had been all day. “But I’m not in a hurry to find out. The sooner I graduate, the sooner I may have to head to Canada.”
That woke me up. “You’d really go?”
“I love my country, but I will not fight this war. People are dying on both sides. For what? So the South Vietnamese won’t fall to communism? Why is that our problem?” He pressed his lips together as he shook his head in disgust. “It’s all about money and power in Washington. Always has been, always will be.”
Ron had said the same thing the day he left. “This is Johnson’s war,” he’d said. “He craves power.” His overstuffed green duffel bag hung from his shoulder, weighing him down physically, mentally, spiritually. He could hardly hug me.
“Please don’t hate me,” I whispered in his ear. “I can’t take it if you do.”
“I don’t. I’m just scared.” He laid his head on my shoulder.
“I’m scared too.”How can he ever be a soldier?I thought.He’s just a boy.
“Pray for me,” he’d said. “Promise?”
“Every day.”
Leon chanted, “Hell no, I won’t go.”
I gave him a weak smile. “My poor brother. He’s so scared over there.”
Leon put his cross to his lips. “If something happens to my kid brother, my mom will lose her mind.”
“Same with mine. I think about that a lot.”
“Mom said she’d drive me to Canada herself. So did Dad.”
I was tempted to tell him how cool it was that his parents were against the war, tell him about my dad’s opinions and how he had insisted that his own eighteen-year-old son enlist for three tours. But that was a part of my life I preferred to keep private. The last thing I wanted was Leon knowing I came from a nutso family. “Sounds like you have really cool parents,” I said.
