Sunny: The Hippie Chick

By Dawn Natelle

Reviewed and Edited by Eric

Chapter 3 – With a Little Help from My Friends

After dropping Sunny’s new guitar at the apartment we headed off to the concert after she made sure that Ben’s dinner was warming in the oven. We saw him coming in as we were going down the stairs, and she threatened him with his life if he ate any more of the desserts than two cookies and one piece of one of the pies.

We got off the bus at the Avalon and went to the Chinese buffet, where Sunny delighted in choosing small portions of so many of the tasty offerings. I, on the other hand, piled my plate high. I didn’t need to watch my weight. Or did I? Would I lose Sunny if I grew fat like so many doctors do? I decided not to go for seconds, like I normally do.

Our fortune cookies topped off the meal. Sunny’s said “New endeavors strike a chord of success,” which she said referred to her guitar. Mine was “Success comes from hard work.” Sunny was perplexed at the meaning to that until I told her that I had a major paper to write on the weekend worth 25% of my Pharma grade. She decided that the fortune referred to that.

The music at the Ballroom was tremendous as well. Sunny did her thing, wandering through the crowd and smiling at people, which inevitably resulted in them wanting to chat with her. She met a girl named Grace Slick who plays for a band called The Great Society but was hoping to get signed on by the Airplane. She brought Grace back to where I was sitting, and I recognized her as the lead singer from last week’s Airplane concert.

“You were singing with the Airplane last week. You were tremendous. I loved your song about Alice in Wonderland.”

“Yeah, I’ll be singing that with my own band this weekend. We are on the undercard tomorrow. I was just filling in with the Airplane. Their regular singer was ill, and I filled in with them. We really gelled well, and a couple of the members wanted me to take over permanently. But I would never take another girl’s gig. Plus, I am in my husband’s band.”

When we watched Big Brother and the Holding Company, I noted that the great girl singer we saw last week was missing. Grace explained. “Janis, with an s, was just testing out with the band last week. She is back in Texas now, or will be soon, to do something things with her school. I suspect she will be back soon.”

Grace noticed that as the band was playing, Sunny was singing the songs to herself. “You know all those songs? I thought you only heard them the once last week?”

“Yeah,” Sunny said with her smile, “I have kinda like a photographic memory, but for songs. I hear a tune once and it just sticks in my brain.” With that she sang White Rabbit from memory. Grace’s jaw dropped.

“I only wrote that song after an acid trip last week,” she said. “It is incredible to hear someone else sing it. Especially so well.”

We hung with Grace for most of the concert, including her husband and his brother, both members of their band. Sunny was with us off and on. She often brought more people to the table.

On the bus home Sunny was buzzed. “There was something in the Kool-Aid,” she admitted. “Now everything is freaky. The light show at the concert was amazing. It felt like I was inside all the colors.”

I had to steer her to the apartment, as she wanted to stop and stare at everything, like the neon signs on the stores and even her reflection in a puddle. I was bushed and headed straight for bed. Ben was sleeping on the sofa, so Sunny picked up her new guitar and brought it into the room. She then opened the case and started to play. I fell asleep listening to her playing: she was really good.

I woke up in the middle of the night, 4 a.m. by the clock, and Sunny was still playing. I told her to come to bed, but instead she just ignored me, and I fell back asleep.

It was me that prepared breakfast that morning, and Sunny ate the bacon and eggs, marveling at how flavorful everything tasted on her lingering acid trip. Then she went to bed and slept for nearly 10 hours. She came out at supper time, no longer high, and asked what I had been doing.

“I wrote the draft of my major paper for Pharma,” I told her. “Do you think you will be up to typing it tomorrow? It will be 20 pages. If you can’t do it, I will need to take Monday off to type it at my speed.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I’ll be fine, unless I can get some more of that wonderful Kool-Aid. Do you know it turned me into a real woman last night? I could actually feel myself touching my vagina. A real vagina.”

I didn’t want to burst her bubble by suggesting what she had really been touching, and I suggested we order in for supper. We got a pizza, two actually, and Ben arrived home just before it came in. He wasn’t as sweaty as he got on Sundays at the Wharf, so we all dug in immediately. Sunny was impressed by the new food again.

“They are different,” she noted. I had ordered different toppings on the two pies.

“Yeah, one is Hawaiian, with pineapple. The other is bacon, mushroom and pepperoni. Which do you prefer?”

“I like them both,” she said. “What was the one we had last week before the concert?”

“That was pepperoni and red peppers,” I said.

Sunny and Ben devoured most of the pizza while I just ate my four slices. There were two slices left and Ben claimed them for his breakfast. There was a sausage vendor at the grocery market he worked at on Saturdays, and he had one for an early lunch, spending 25 cents out of his meager salary. After our meal, while Sunny cleaned the dishes I talked about buying a television. I had nearly $100 saved up, and that would buy a good used black and white set. I really wanted to watch the Gemini 6 and 7 space launches coming up in a month. We all agreed that a set would work, although we would need something to put it on, since the apartment still lacked furniture.

“I had a good week, I’ll buy something at the swap meet,” Sunny proposed. “We need a hutch or something along that wall. The TV can sit on top.”

The next morning I was awakened again by Sunny down on my groin. She had lately become comfortable enough that she no longer wore her bra and fake boobs to bed, so when she finished I bent down and started to nibble her tiny boy nipples. She flinched at first.

“Those are boy parts,” she complained.

“They are Sunny parts,” I replied. “And I love every bit of you.”

“Okaaaay,” she moaned. “It does feel really good.” And that is how I gave Sunny her first orgasm.

After breakfast we got the typewriter out and Sunny started typing. She has the ability to type a paragraph behind me: her photographic memory, I guess. Anyway, it worked well, since I often decided to change what I had in the draft I had written on Saturday. By lunch we had finished all 20 pages, and the references: a nice stack of paper ready to hand in.

“Subject One,” Sunny said after we finished, “that’s me, right?”

“Yes, it is,” I admitted. “I hope you don’t mind. When you started talking about self-medicating, I changed my plan and researched Premarin and its effect and dosages. I think it is the best thing I’ve ever written.”

“So Premarin isn’t safe then?”

“It looks like it can cause problems, especially if self-medicated. The paper I referenced from Norway said that it could be safer when taken alongside Progesterone.”

“Okay, I won’t take Premarin then,” she said. “But I really want something. Can you keep researching for me?”

“Sure honey. I love you as you are, but I know how important looking more feminine is to you. Maybe my prof will have some ideas. He’s been a doctor for 20-plus years, so he should know of something.”

The afternoon was spent shopping at the swap meet. Sunny bought a cedar chest instead of a hutch for the TV to sit on. The Television repair shop was closed on Sunday, but there were several sets in the window that we looked at and dreamed buying. Plus, the store was halfway from the swap meet to the apartment, so we were able to rest our arms from lugging the cedar chest.

Monday turned out sunny, and Sunny went to her spot, this time taking her guitar instead of the tambourine. It paid off, and she netted nearly $25. We were able to go to the TV shop and were able to compare the pictures on five different sets. We chose one for just under $100, but with the four percent sales tax it was nearly $105, taking all the cash we had.

I carried the machine back to the apartment. It had a 15-inch screen and was billed as a portable, although by the time I set it on the cedar chest my arms were like jelly. It took about an hour to get the set hooked up, and to adjust the rabbit ear antenna to get four channels that came in clearly, and a couple others that were pretty snowy. Channel 7 was ABC, Channel 5 was CBS and channel 4 was NBC. There was something else on Channel 2 that came in clearly. When Ben came in from his late class, he found the two of us engrossed at watching some dumb game show.

At first, I thought we could order food in again, but none of us had money, other than the $10 Ben had earned Sunday. So, while Ben was showering Sunny raced to the kitchen and started making a healthy dinner from the meager supplies she had.

The food was not ready until 15 minutes after Ben finished showering, but he plopped down next to me on the couch and stared at the little flickering screen. There was a TV at his parents’ house, so he was used to it (like me) but it had been months since we had watched.

Sunny made me set the table, forcing me away from the addictive box. We ate, with the tube blaring away, and Sunny announced that in the future there would be no TV at the dinner table. I sort of agreed. Normally we would talk about our days during dinner, but with the box blaring, the conversation was limited or eliminated entirely.

I had turned my paper in on Monday, and through the rest of the week other courses were reviewing for exams or handing in papers. The following week was the last one of the term. On Monday we would get our Pharma papers back, and then there were exams in some of the other courses. Then the nearly month-long Christmas break. I planned to take Sunny up to Eureka with me for three days. We would spend four days in a motel: I didn’t want to stay in the house, even though Mom nearly insisted. I knew she wouldn’t let Sunny and me share a room, and Sunny’s secrets might be exposed if she was in with one of my sisters. The motel was a good idea we agreed, and it would only cost $8 a night. Even with the money spent on the TV I would have enough from my fund, with some left over to buy Sunny a little gift.

The following weekend we went to another concert. It was Sunny’s treat since she had made good money playing her guitar and singing on the street, and I was broke until my fund check would come in. This time we went to a different ballroom called the Fillmore on Friday, and back to the Avalon on Saturday. On Saturday we met Gracie again, and she introduced us to a guy named Peter Albin, the band leader of Big Brother and the Holding Company.

“Gracie tells me you know some of our songs,” Peter said.

“I know all of your songs,” Sunny said. “At least the ones you played the other week when Janis was here.”

“Awesome. Any chance that you would sing for us in our set later tonight?”

“Aww, I didn’t bring my guitar,” Sunny said.

“You could just do vocals. Maybe shake a tambourine a bit,” Peter said.

“Sure. I sing on the street over on Haight,” she said. “Most people like it.”

So, 25 minutes later I was watching Sunny on the stage. She was much prettier than Janis, but her voice was nearly as powerful. On some of the songs she added a softer, mellower tone to the tune, as opposed to Joplin’s hard-rocking style. The audience seemed to love it: the cheers were outstanding. When she managed to make her way back to the table she was buzzed, both from her performance as well as some Kool-Aid she picked up on the way back to the table.

Peter came over a while later and sat down next to her, on the other side from me. “The band had a little chat most of us would like you to become a regular. You’ll get $120 a week for our show here, and more if we play somewhere else as well. And if we get a record deal, we’ll be in the big money.”

Sunny was lost in the light show for the next act, clearly stoned, but her photographic memory stored all the words, and eventually she answered, just before Peter was about to leave for being ignored. “But what about Janis?” she asked. “I thought you had offered her the gig.”

“Well, we kinda did,” Peter said. “But she will get over it. She’s good and won’t take long to get another gig.”

Again there was another long gap before Sunny spoke again: “No. I won’t steal some other singer’s gig. Besides, when the weather gets better in a couple months, I will be able to net $150 a week on the street.”

“Okay,” Peter said. “Here’s your cut for singing tonight.” He dropped a pile of twenties on the table. Sunny ignored the money and stared at the light show for the longest time.

“Thanks for letting me play with you. It was a blast,” she finally said. Peter finally wandered away, and Sunny got up and moved closer to the stage. I picked up the twenties: there were six of them, and I pocketed them to give to her later.

On the way home, Sunny was clearly tripping. She said she had a second cup of Kool-Aid. I wanted to admonish her about over-dosing but realized that there would be no sense doing so when she was stoned. Instead I just steered her to the apartment and into our bedroom. We probably woke Ben on the way past: Sunny was singing some of the Big Brother tunes.

So I went to bed to a guitar and vocals concert again. I wasn’t as tired as last week, so I didn’t fall asleep as fast. She is really good, I thought. Too good to be singing for quarters and dimes on the street corner. Maybe she should take the gig with Big Brother. They seemed to be a band on the way up.

On Sunday we made love again. Sunny had three orgasms to my one, but that could be due to her still being tripping. I touched her little penis for the first time. She flinched, but when I referred to it as my ‘Sunny Handle” she giggled. It was only about three inches long, and a bit thicker than a finger. She had no testicles, so I could grasp it right to the base. And there was no hair. She didn’t shave it: there had never been hair down there, she later told me. I thought it was cute. She wouldn’t let me put my mouth on it, and all during our love play it never swelled at all. It was just a little floppy appendage that shouldn’t be there.

We spent the day watching TV. In the early morning there were religious shows on all the channels, to our dismay. The only one we watched was a stop animation show called Davy and Goliath which was religious, but a cartoon. After lunch, there were political shows on, which interested us less than the religion. Finally, the football game came on. Ben and I were stuck to the set while Sunny got up and cleaned the apartment, and later started playing her guitar in the bedroom.

On Monday I went to class, where a TA handed out our marked papers. There were more than a few groans from the other students, but for me it was just confusion. My paper seemed to have no mark, only an ominous ‘See Me,’ scrawled in the upper right corner where I had expected to see a mark.

I went to the prof’s office, telling the elderly woman at the desk I needed to see the prof.

“Do you have an appointment?” she asked in a somewhat snooty tone.

“I have this,” I said holding up the front of my paper.

“Please be seated and I will find out if Professor McBrien will see you,” she said, picking up the phone. The conversation was a short one. “He’ll see you now. Room 15C.” She pointed the direction, seeming to be upset that I was being seen quickly without an appointment.

In spite of being pointed in the proper direction, it took a minute to find 15C in the warren of tiny offices. I knocked, and was told to come in.

“Ah, Mr. Carter, I’m glad you came by so quickly. I’m only on campus on Monday’s for my two classes,” he said.

“You wanted to see me?” I held up the paper with the notation on it. The prof took the paper and laid it out on his desk.

“A most extraordinary paper,” he said, and I was left to wonder if that was really, really good or really, really bad.

“Is there a problem with it?” I asked timidly.

“No, not at all. I just have trouble believing it was written by a first-year student. A reference to a paper from Norway. I have trouble getting more than a reference from our textbook with most students. You wouldn’t happen to have that paper handy, would you?”

“I have it right here,” I said reaching into the Humboldt Times carrier bag I had used in my newspaper carrier career in Eureka. I found the bag handy for carrying books and other things and had the paper in it. “It is due back at the library on Friday, but I was going to take it back today. They had to order it in from UCLA.”

“May I see it?” I handed the 20-page photocopied paper over, and Prof. McBrien read through the abstract. “Most extraordinary,” he said when he finally looked up. “I need to take this paper. I will contact the library and either extend your deadline, or have it transferred to me. You see, I only work for the university one day a week, teaching first- and third-year courses. The other days I work in a clinic with five other doctors. I happen to have over two dozen women I have prescribed Premarin to, and a few have seen these symptoms. I wonder if the Norwegian treatment of adding Progesterone will help them?”

“Women?” I asked.

“Yes, Premarin is helpful in treating menopausal women. But that is the third-year course, so of course you wouldn’t be aware of it. Your paper dealt with a transsexual patient, didn’t it?”

“Yes, it did,” I admitted.

“And this person is a friend of yours?”

“Yes sir.”

“So what dosages of Premarin and Progesterone are you planning to prescribe for her?”

I looked shocked. “I would never prescribe anything, or even suggest it. I don’t know what dosages would be appropriate, and I’m not licensed yet.”

“Right answer. So what would you suggest to your friend?”

“I have told her about the dangers of self-medicating, which is apparently common among transsexuals. I hope to find a good doctor who can help her legitimately.”

“Another good answer. I wonder if he … or is it she? … would be interested in seeing me? I don’t have any experience with transsexuals, but it seems like a good area to develop some knowledge in.”

“She, definitely a she,” I said. “I think she would be delighted at the chance to get hormones.”

“Well, I’m not saying I will write her a script immediately. I will need to work her bloods and otherwise examine her.” He picked up the phone and dialed a number. “Phyl, do you have any spots free for me this week? Tomorrow at 2:00?” He looked at me and I nodded. Sunny would move heaven and earth to come to an appointment. The professor hung up the phone and looked at me, and then at my paper sitting on his desk.

“You will want to take this with you,” he said, stroking lines through ‘See me’ and instead writing ‘Excellent. A plus, 100%’ in its place. “I think that is the first 100% I’ve given a first year in over 22 years of teaching here. But then yours was the first paper that taught me something. Usually it goes the other way around.”

I dropped the paper in my bag, and nearly danced out of the office. That mark would give me an A plus on the course. I still have exams to write in three other subjects: English, Spanish and Psychology, and to pick up my paper from Sociology, but I expected A or better in all of them. And luckily nothing was on the schedule for tomorrow, so I could bring Sunny to Prof. McBrien’s clinic downtown. Luckily, he had written the time on a printed appointment card. I’ll have to look it up on the map of the city I bought when I moved down here.

I got off the bus before noon, and Sunny already had a big crowd around her. Mario told me I would have to wait another hour before the Examiner came in, so I had him put a Chronicle away for me, and then headed down to the deli, waving and blowing a kiss to Sunny as I passed her.

I came back with three sandwiches wrapped ‘to-go.’ Mario got one, and when Sunny paused after a song I invited her to have one. I pulled three Fanta orange sodas out of my newspaper bag. Mario seemed embarrassed, but Sunny grabbed my keychain and popped the top of the soda and took a long drink, finishing half the bottle before I even got mine and Mario’s open. We then all sat at the back of the newspaper stall and ate our sandwiches, although the little Italian man had to pop up every minute or two to serve a customer.

“That hit the spot,” Sunny said as she finally put the soda down to open the sandwich, again with a giant deli pickle, which she licked suggestively with a leer at me before putting it down to raise the big sandwich. “I get so dry while I’m singing. I have my water, but it gets warm. That was sooo cold.”

“How’s business?” I asked. .”

“Pretty good. I think Mario has nearly $10 for me so far.”

“I give $5 for the lunch,” Mario offered, but I refused, telling him it was a gift. “Then newspapers are free for you all week,” he insisted.

After about 15 minutes Sunny got back up and got out her guitar again. Her singing was a wonderful background as I sat behind Mario’s and read first the Chronicle and then the Examiner after it came in. I wondered what Sunny’s reaction would be when I told her about the appointment tomorrow. I didn’t want to say anything while she was working, since I felt that might put her off with excitement.