Ah, Paul. Street kids saw the ‘60s from a different point of view. While Hippies were taking drugs to light up their lives, unleash their inhibitions, expand their minds and travel the universe, we were taking drugs to dull the pain and endure the deaths of so, so many friends we lowered in the ground. The lowering of all those coffins did me in and I swore no one would ever walk on me. My ashes will rain down from above.
No one knew what was wrong, and if they did they wouldn’t say, and so they left it all to us – street kids taking care of street kids. Long, dark, terrifying nights in smokey rooms, black lights and Santana and a friend sitting right beside us, who is still in Vietnam. No, I do not want to remember the nights spent standing watch, so a man could sleep (while we listened to his screams, his whimpers and his weeping). I do not want to lie again, and say, you can tell me, its alright and then listening while he talked. Images in his mind slipped into mine (even now, they flash right through me). He said talking helped and I wanted to believe him – and so I did.
Along came the Flower Children, armed with college deferments and pockets full of Daddy’s money buying a free summer of sex, drugs and rock and roll. They got into Vietnam, but Vietnam never got into them. Today, these are the same people asking what privilege? I got here on my own. No one helped me. Listen, you stupid fucks you stayed home – remember, you stayed home!
The Flower Children went waltzing back to Daddy’s mansions and school, telling stories of their “war” years and becoming the new establishment.
And when we came marching home, there was one John Kerry for every ten thousand of us. For us, home was the neighborhood we left - the wrong sides of the tracks and the asshole cops who patrol the mean streets of America. America stole our youth, infected us with its hate, shoved their guns in our hands, dropped us into jungles, poured cancer in our veins and broke our hearts, then told us to grow up and get a job.
The 60s and 70s are different now that they are our ages. Vietnam never ended, it just crept inside us and kept on fighting. Vietnam veterans still battling Agent Orange, PTSD, and what the fuck is that shit on your back? (doctors do not know, and if they do, they do not say). Men forced to choose between sex and living (cancer is so mean). A man so afraid of a little blood in the toilet, he drives to town, pulls out his cell phone and shows me the picture (do you think I should see a doctor he asks?). Street kids still taking care of street kids.
And there come the wrinkled old Flower Children – they were white then and they are even whiter now – spouting their opinions about “other” people, how we don’t want to work, how they’re the makers and we’re the takers, crucifying millennials and talking like “big” men, bragging about their guns and taking back “their” country. These Flower Children who once armed themselves with college deferments, acne, bone spurs and Daddy’s money were too frail to fight in Vietnam, and now they’re standing here talking to seasoned veterans as though they are equals. At least, we should have been spared all this.
Friday, I get a text. A picture! Oh, oh, oh. Another grandchild has been born. Grampa doesn’t need to say it, he’s said it all so many times before (G-d, I hope whatever they put in my blood in Vietnam is not in baby’s blood too). Off in the distance, I hear white people yelling, stop blaming me for things other people did in the past.
