Funeral for Hip

A bored cop blew his whistle and waved the bus full of naked women through the intersection. All morning the gaudily painted GMC had cruised Haight Street with a load of department store dummies. Now with most of the shock value dissipated only a few sharp eyed news hounds and kids even noticed the living women - And men, interspersed among the dummies.

The mob was beginning to overflow the sidewalks at the, once again, signless intersection with Ashbury, while squads of bikers on hogs weaved through and around stalled motorists. In the noise and chaos if the cops trying to keep order at the barricades failed to notice the erect penis protruding from between bus doors, they had a reasonably good excuse.

A red-faced plainclothes with a Parris Island haircut and a walkie talkie in one hand nudged the barricade on the uphill side of Ashbury and held the horn down. But the foot cops he expected to move the gate were all busy trying to clear a lane for a trapped Caddy bulging with little old ladies.

When the plainclothes stuck his head out the open window to better yell at the uniforms directing traffic a tall blond girl leaned down and kissed him on the mouth, while five or six boys shifted the barricade. Smiling now, the plainclothes pulled onto Ashbury and was immediately trapped just like the old ladies in the Caddy.

Two beat cops in fresh brush cuts and mirrored shades watched the kids gathering on the corner with practiced distain, until they noticed a straight clawing his way to the top of the corner mailbox. They pushed closer and found two hippies with cameras circling the straight as they snapped pictures. The older cop jerked his head and the hippies moved along, but the man on the mailbox gave every indication he expected to hold the high ground.

The younger cop banged the side of the box with his baton but another straight, this one loaded down with two heavy camera bags, held up press credentials and pointed to the man on the mailbox. The cops nodded, looked at each other, then turned their attention up the hill to avoid noticing any breach of federal law. Word had come from the very top - City Hall wanted no screw ups today. The gentlemen of the press, especially national press, were to get V.I.P. treatment during the funeral.

The photographer took a camera from his assistant and carefully straightened on the mail box dome. He waited, holding his longest zoom at port arms, while a dozen cops shifted barriers, closing off Haight Street.

The funeral was not yet in sight, but drums were echoing off Ashbury Street tenements, bringing residents, straight and hip alike, pouring out to their porches or down to join the crowds on the sidewalk. The atmosphere was festive, and noisy as they awaited the first Haight-Ashbury parade in two or three weeks.

A human river flowed and swirled past the photographer’s vantage point. Hippies, bohemians, long hairs, flower children, diggers, panhandlers, pranksters, bums, beatniks, peaceniks, freebies, street kids, drop outs, runaways, druggies, heads, stoners, dopers, freakers, losers, the great unwashed were pouring down the hill. They sang, chanted, laughed, waved to him and gave him the finger but the photographer ignored them all. His target, the funeral procession, led by a high stepping freak in a red shako and tinfoil bowler, was rounding the corner, a block up the hill.

Immediately behind the drum major were a dozen marching snares rapping out an unadorned hundred beat per minute slow march. The bulk of the rhythm section was a dense mass of kids slapping an assortment of congas, dumbeks, triangles, bass drums, trash can lids, cooking pots, coffee can rattles, hubcaps and anything else that would make noise. Many of the youngest banged out exuberant syncopations, but most stuck to the somber funeral roll, the pace indelibly engraved on the nation’s memory four years earlier.

The wind section followed, led by a highland piper wearing a tartan kilt over an orange jumpsuit. The bone jarring skirl of untuned drones blended with the flutes, whistles, kazoos, a shawm, recorders, two slide trombones and a bombard, into an unearthly mourning keen.

The drum major had almost reached Haight when the coffin, four yards of plywood, bourn by fourteen pallbearers, lurched around the corner. Peace signs, mandalas, slogans, and a bold yin-yang adorned the top, while trinkets, jewelry, wind chimes, and beads rattled against the sides. Occasionally a brad would come loose and a God's eye or plastic prism would drop to the ground.

Larry noticed these fallen baubles but only as he stepped on them. The last pallbearer, he saw little beyond Two Feather's back and heard only the chain of fifty temple bells jingling on the indian’s torso. In the tight press he didn't even notice Maureen until she took his arm.

"Where have you been, Quasimodo?" she shouted. "Bill and I were looking for you all night."

Larry shrugged his free shoulder. "I left a note. You got a cigarette?"

“You shouldn’t be smoking either.” But she rummaged through her purse and found a pack of Marlboros. “I could take your place for a while.”

“I’m fine,” he said, knowing he was not fine, not at all fine. His legs were going rubbery and the coffin had chaffed his shoulder raw. Nothing short of collapse however, could pry him from the procession now. None of the other pallbearers had dropped out during the long hilly march, and in three blocks it would be over. Finished, at last.

Maureen had spotted the photographer on the mail box. “I think everyone I know is here, except Nikon Harry. He never misses an event like this.”

“He’s around. I saw him a couple times.”

As the coffin drew abreast of the mailbox Maureen held her middle finger up, unaware she had been in close up range for a half block. Larry knew, but had no objection to pictures today. Good press, or at least lots of press, was essential. “I never saw Francois with a camera before,” Maureen said.

Larry checked the man on the mailbox again. “That isn’t Francois.”

“I know that. He’s across the street. Next to that tall woman.”

“I don’t see him.”

“You sure I can’t help you with that?”

The final two blocks to Panhandle Park were pure hell. If the fire in his shoulder was less noticeable, it was only because the shooting pains in his legs had grown so agonizing. He was winded and sweating, but stayed with the coffin until it was semi-ceremoniously dropped on the pyre.

Maureen slipped an arm around his waist and accepted part of his weight. “Come home now. You shouldn’t even be out of bed.”

Sunlight, filtered through swaying eucalyptus leaves, dappled the free food glade under a cloudless electric blue sky. A slight breeze cooled the warm indian summer sun. Larry said. "It'll be over soon."

The drums, pipes and other instruments fell silent as Hassell climbed atop the coffin. He stood for a moment surveying the crowd with the tinfoil bowler over his heart. "Brothers and sisters," he cried. "We are gathered here on this most solemn occasion to pay our last respects and bid farewell to our dear departed friend, the late Brother Hip."

“Hip is Dead - Long Live Hip!” The cry came from a dozen shills scattered through the crowd. Larry didn't know the right responses but joined the general screaming and arm waving that followed.

"Yes brethern and sistern," Hassell continued. "Brother Hip has fallen - killed by his own generosity, destroyed by his own love." His gestures were broad, played to news cameras on the fringe of the crowd. "He died for Us! He died for you, and you, and me, and for Johnson and Reagan, and Ho Chi Min, and All of us. Brother Hip died that we might live - Hip!"

"Remember the Hippie!" the cheering section shouted.

"Yes!” Hassell shouted. “Remember Hip. Remember Brother Hip and remember the Hashberry. Remember his teachings on Earth. Remember his Love, his Sharing, his Peace, his Karma."

"Remember! Remember!"

"Hip is dead. Long live Hip!" Hassell waved the bowler.

"Long live Hip! Long live Hip!" Drums thundered, pipes squealed, and the trombones bayed long descending wolf howls. Hassell strutted, his bowler flashing in the sun as toilet paper streamers sailed across the coffin.

When the demonstration had played just long enough Hassell stopped on the yin-yang in the center and thrust out his arms, palms down. The shills fell silent immediately, leaving other revelers to straggle off one by one. Nikon Harry moved in, got his ‘keeper’ and was gone again. Hassell waited, saying nothing until the cries were reduced to a few die-hards in the back. This was the critical moment, the words that had to make the evening news.

“Brothers and Sisters, the Haight-Ashbury... Is dead too.” He paused to let the drama build. “The Haight lies in this coffin with Brother Hip. The summer of love is over. It's time to close our Free Stores, our Switchboards, our Free Food, our crash pads our psychedelic shops and our Medical Clinics.”

"The Haight is dead. Long live the Haight!" Fran Sancisco’s voice was slightly ahead of the other shills.

"Yes dear friends, the Haight is dead... Stoned dead. And yes brothers and sisters it will live again! The Haight will live on the highways, and the byways, in the forests, on the plains, at the sea coast, high on the mountains, and even higher in the valleys. The Haight will live in every city of America as WE take up brother Hip's burden and carry it to Detroit City, Salt Lake City, Kansas City, New York City, Traverse City, Bullhead City, Virginia City, Phenix City, Atlantic City, Atomic City, Arroyo City, Andersonville, Andersonburgh, Asheboro, Asheville, Abbeville, Auriesville, Aberdeen, Antioch, Arlington, and Aroostock. For We are ALL Hip, and we will not rest until every square corner of America is... HIP!"

"A Hip society for a Hip America!"

Larry could see reporters scribbling notes as the crowd exploded into another demonstration. Thumper and Boyle moved to opposite ends of the coffin and lifted off the lids, leaving only the yin-yang center section beneath Hassell.

"For Hip," Hassell shouted. The demonstration stopped abruptly. "For Hip and for the coming Hip age, I renounce drugs!" He waved a plastic bag that bulged with bright green leaves and coloured pills. A few cops came alert but only watched as the Digger poured the dope into the coffin. "I give all my mind altering substances to Hip for his long journey across the river of sticks and seeds. Join me brothers and sisters. Give your dope to Hip!"

"We renounce our drugs," the cheerleaders shouted. They were moving through the crowd, converging on the coffin. Plastic bags, prescription bottles, and loose tabs rained into the empty box.

"For Hip, I renounce my finery," Hassell held out his bowler. "I renounce my hip chapeau, my hip badges, and all that is trippy." The bowler sailed into the coffin, followed one by one by the buttons from his vest. Make Love Not War, Fuck Hate, Vote for Me.

"We renounce our finery!" The cheerleaders cried, but they held back as Dormouse approached the pyre alone, and placed a carefully folded cloth at the head of the coffin - The Dollmaker's coat of many colours.

Dormouse backed away as others came forward. The shills were first, but the street kids, caught up in the theater, enthusiastically joined the cast of a play they had only discovered minutes earlier. Headbands, shawls, beads, and more dope went into the coffin. Larry put his Mexican sash at the foot and returned to Maureen, who bit her thumbnail and smiled, then squeezed his hand and slowly went to the coffin. She took a small package from her purse, and gently laid it on Larry’s sash. Tears ran down her cheeks as she returned.

"We can go now," he said, taking her hand.

She brushed the tears away with her free hand. “I’m okay.”

Hassell edged his way to the ground and the lids were closed even as fresh offerings, pills, decorations and beads rattled into the pyre. When George and Avenger ceremoniously draped the coffin with an American flag, Two Feathers weighted it down with his chain of temple bells as Cochise solemnly added a taillight from Hogeye Bill’s chopper.

"Hip is dead!" Hassell cried, his voice beginning to crack.

"Long live Hip!" the crowd responded.

"The Haight is dead!"

"Long live the Haight!"

"Let the pyre be lit!"

The Sorcerer held a Zippo to his bamboo flute until bright red magnesium flames spewed from its mouth. He circled the coffin, touching each of the kerosene soaked rags dotting the pyre. As the fire spread, Captain High slowly paced, playing The Flowers Of The Forest. On the final note Dormouse signaled to the waiting drummers who slammed out poly-rhythms as the wind players toodled and hooted more or less at random. Once again, straights driving on Oak and Fell streets slowed to rubberneck and wonder what those damn hippies were up to – Now!