Sunny: The Hippie Chick

By Dawn Natelle

Reviewed and Edited by Eric

Chapter 9 - They put in a nickel and I sing a little song

On Monday I got out of classes early and was sitting reading the papers when Sunny finally came in, also a bit early. “This is horrible,” I said when she sprawled out on the sofa next to me to catch her breath before heading to the kitchen. “These stories in the papers don’t even resemble what happened at the park yesterday. They only quote the mayor and the police chief and make it sound like the police were trying to create order among the event. Listen to this

“Thirty-four officers were injured in the incident, most when tear gas was hurled from the mob into the ranks of the officers. Over 400 rioters were arrested and have been charged with disorderly conduct, drug offenses, resisting arrest, and failing to obey police instructions.”

I was steamed. “They don’t mention that the tear gas was initially thrown by the police, and only a few canisters were thrown back. And ‘resisting arrest?’ The girl pictured being beaten by four officers on the front of the Chronicle doesn’t seem to be resisting, unless you consider getting in the way of police batons to be resisting.”

“Yeah,” Sunny replied. “It sucks for me too. A lot of people who used to donate change into my case just walk by now. Some of them even say ‘dirty hippie’ or the like. I only made nearly $5 all day long and a dollar of that was from you. The hippies will listen, but they never put in any money. In fact, there are so many hippies panhandling along the Haight that no one has any spare change when they get to me. I can hardly make a living this way.”

I had noticed there were more young kids in hippie garments on the street. It wasn’t even Easter Break in most of the country, but kids all across the nation were starting to run away and come to California. Those who dreamed about acting seemed to go to LA but many more who were into music were coming to San Francisco. I blamed songs like California Dreamin’ by the Mamas and Papas. All I knew is that the streets were starting to get busier, and nobody knew what would happen when summer hit and everyone was off school for two months or more, three or four for college kids.

Sunny hauled herself up and went into the kitchen and I joined her, not wanting to upset myself any more than I was by reading the one-sided newspaper stories. Together we got a pasta ready for when Ben came in from his late class. With me making meatballs (I shaped the burger paste that Sunny prepared) we had a nice meal ready when our third roommate appeared.

Ben got a glance at the papers while we finished everything up. He was not as rabid a reader as I was, but he was interested in the coverage of what everyone at school was calling the riot.

He got to listen to me carp about the unfair coverage through the meal. I really thought of myself as a student, not a hippie, but I could see where I was starting to fit into the latter lifestyle. I had fairly short hair in September when I moved down from Eureka, but now it was getting fairly shaggy, as I heard numerous times when I was back home at Christmas. Now it was over my ears, and several inches long in the back. My once short bangs now hung into my eyes, but when I told Sunny I needed a trim she complained, and instead made me a bandana thing that I wrapped around my head at school, keeping the hair out of my eyes. And I had changed my clothing as well, mainly thanks to Sunny. I still liked army surplus pants, with all their pockets, but she had tie-dyed those, as well as most of my plain t-shirts. I guess I looked more hippie than student most of the time.

The next day Sunny was home before me, ranting about the continued lack of contributions for her music. I opened the paper and was surprised to see the Herb Caen had a column in the Chronicle, and it was headed “Police Riot.” I read it aloud for Ben and Sunny to hear.

Yesterday I was dismayed at the complete lack of objectivity in this newspaper’s coverage of the peace demonstration at Golden Gate Park on Sunday. Clearly none of the reporters who wrote the stories were at the event, and they merely regurgitated the pap spread by the mayor and the police chief. I was at the demonstration. I saw what really happened.

It was reported that 34 officers were injured in the melee, and I learned that of those suffering grievous injuries at the hands of the young people, all were back at work the next day, if they were scheduled. There was no account of the numbers of protesters who were injured. To my eye most of the 400 arrested were bloody when piled into the paddy wagons. I understand five are still in the hospital; one girl (the one being beaten by police in the cover photo) is still in a coma.

The police chief did not report it, but the police action was poorly planned. One officer, who participated but did not wish his name to be used, said he and other officers were called to work at noon and put into the heavy riot gear. They arrived at the park at 1 p.m., long before the event started. There were 400 of them, crowded into 32 police vans. The black vans were windowless, except at the front, with poor air flow into the back where most officers were crammed in. They were left there for nearly two hours.

Finally, the geniuses at headquarters realized that the men were getting dehydrated and increasingly annoyed at being left there. The vans moved into position where they could be seen by the crowd, who didn’t take well to their presence. Even then the officers spent another half hour in their airtight saunas before being let out.

When the police were released, they were all dehydrated and very, very angry. They lined up in a long blue row, with small shields and long batons that most had never trained with. They stood ground for 10 minutes or so, while the young people screamed at them. One young girl popped a daisy stem into one of the few rifles being used, and this seemed to be the point where the police started moving forward, although there didn’t seem to be any reason to push the young people back towards the stages. Soon after that, officers to the rear started to lob tear gas canisters into the crowd.

A little tip for next time: look at the wind direction before tossing gas. The gentle wind was towards the police, and guess what? The gas started drifting back towards the them. A few canisters might have been tossed back, but most of the gas came from the ones thrown by police.

Within minutes it was a riot. A police riot. The angry officers started into the crowd, breaking their formation line and swinging at the students indiscriminately. And it was not only hippies being attacked. I was struck three times and bloodied on my left ear. And I was wearing a city-issued press pass. That kept me out of the paddy wagons, but not out of the violence.

I checked and found out of the 400 arrests made only 24 were charged with a crime. And talking to an assistant district attorney last night I learned that those were merely face-saving charges, and only two or three are expected to stick. Mainly those were people arrested with a large amount of marijuana on their person.

Smoking marijuana was the only illegal activity I saw at the rally. Mostly it was kids protesting the Vietnam War and the draft. I heard that some young men had burned draft cards, but I didn’t see that. I doubt any of the officers did either.

“Well thank goodness someone is telling the truth,” I said after ending the column. “Maybe this will make people more willing to chip into your pot, Sunny.”

“I dunno. Just over $4 today,” she said. “Part of that is that I left before you came by. The story said there is a girl still in a coma. Can we go to the hospital tomorrow? Maybe I can sing some songs to help her get well.”

“My first class tomorrow is at 11,” I said. “So I can stay with you ‘til 10:30. You could stay longer if you want.”

“Let’s do that. Singing on the street is no fun anymore.”

The next morning we were at the hospital at 9, the start of visiting hours. We were directed to the ward where all the five from the demonstration were being held. As we walked, Sunny noticed a sign with an arrow that said: ‘Pediatric Oncology’.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Oh, that would be for children with cancer,” I said, glad that my knowledge of medicine enabled me to translate.

“Children get cancer?” Sunny looked stricken as we walked past the sign towards the ward.

The nurses on the ward agreed that we could visit, and Sunny could play and sing. The unconscious girl was bedridden of course, but the others were able to get out and join in a little sing-along, with Sunny playing songs she had first heard at the rally on the weekend, taking advantage of her eidetic musical memory.

After about an hour a rotund little man in a three-piece suit appeared and instantly started yelling.

“Out, out. Get those damn hippies out of this ward. This is a hospital, not a damned peace rally. Get them out!”

The nurse who had given us permission to be there came over and apologized and asked us to leave. The injured protesters were also upset at the interruption to their concert, and they walked out with us, to the consternation of the man in the suit, who insisted that they had to be released properly.

As we headed to the exit Sunny stopped at the pillar pointing to Pediatric Oncology. “You go on to school, Mitch,” she told me. “I want to see if they will let me read or play for the children.” She headed that way, while I headed towards the exit, where we were met by some security people. I managed to slip through quickly and was on my way to class without knowing if the patients got out or were forced back to their wards by security.

After my last class I got home to find Sunny making more bread. She was in a strange mood, both happy and sad at the same times.

“Oh Mitch,” she wailed. “Those poor children. So tiny, and in so much pain. I read stories to them for about an hour and then we sang songs. Most of the time I was out in the open ward, and the kids just gathered around me, but then I went into the rooms and sang or read to the ones who couldn’t leave their beds. One little girl named Sarah was nearly bald from the treatments and she was amazed at my hair and couldn’t keep her hands out of it. It was so sad, but at the same time so rewarding. I’m going back. I have to.”

“Next week?” I asked.

“No, tomorrow. The head nurse for that department said my visit was having a good effect on the kids. For the three hours I was there they were able to think of something other than the pain they are constantly in. Oh Mitch, little kids like that should not have to go through that.”

“Anyway, our friend from earlier, the guy in the suit, came in and started to rant again. But the head nurse just came up to him. She’s a half foot taller, and outweighs him too, in spite of his pot belly. She just leaned over him and told him to shut up and get out of her ward, since he was disturbing her patients. He blustered a bit, and then retreated. She came over to me and told me not to worry. That is when she told me my visit was helping and begged me to come tomorrow. That led to the kids begging me too, and there was no way I could say no to those poor, thin faces.”

“So, no more street performances?” I asked.

“No. This was so much more rewarding. I can’t make money on the street anyway. At least I will gain karma by singing to the kids.”

“You know half of those kids will die, don’t you?” I warned. “How will that affect you?”

“Oh no, Mitch,” she nearly cried. “Don’t say that. I don’t know what it will do to me when I don’t see those cute little faces again. I guess I can be glad that I was able to bring some joy into their lives near the end. Oh God, please don’t let them die. And stop making them suffer so.”

The next day Sunny went back, and spent four hours in the ward, and again the next day. The kids kept trying to keep her longer, but the nurses said the children needed to take naps or go to treatments. Apparently, Sarah, the bald little girl became a favorite and Sunny even got to meet her parents. When Sunny explained her prior life singing on the streets, Sarah’s dad, an executive in one of the insurance companies in the City, handed her a wad of cash, saying it was to make up for what she missed singing on the street. Later Sunny found out it was $200, and that made her visits to the hospital her new job.

It was almost a full week later that Sunny first discovered an empty bed in one of the rooms. A nurse tearfully told her that the little boy who she had sung to and read to had passed that night. Sunny wanted to cry, but she didn’t. Her other kids were out in the ward, eagerly waiting to see her. She steeled herself for them and went out and performed. But she cried all that evening in my arms.

Later that month I took Sunny to Dr. Killensworth, the doctor who was going to do her plastic surgery. She visited her kids in the hospital in the morning, and then in the afternoon I skipped a lecture to accompany her to the doctor’s office. He examined her breasts, pronouncing them well on the way to developing under the hormones, but warned that they needed another half year before he would attempt the implants. Apparently, he had already done five implant surgeries over the past month and was starting to gain attention from dancers and actresses in LA and the City who were hoping to add to their natural endowments.

“Now I have been reading about vaginoplasty,” the doctor said. “That is the removal of your vestigial penis and creating a vagina down there. It is something I would like to attempt. I don’t think there will be a huge demand for that service, but I like to consider myself a leader in plastic surgery and it is something I should know. Is that something you would be considering?”

Sunny brightened to near the point of glowing. “Yes please. More than anything.”

The doctor then examined Sunny below the waist.

“Hmm,” the doctor mused as he looked at her. She had no testicles at all, and a penis that was now just over two inches long. “This might be challenging. Normally the penis and scrotum sac are used to create the vagina. Taking the outie and making an innie, so to speak. But you don’t have that much tissue down there. Would you be hoping to have sexual intercourse?”

“Yes I would,” she said.

“Well, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of tissue there to work with,” the doctor said. “A small pseudo vagina could be constructed, but nothing large enough to accommodate a man’s penis.”

“It doesn’t have to be a huge man,” Sunny said. “Maybe big enough for Mitch.”

So that is how I found myself being forced to strip my pants and be fondled by the doctor. I did not react well to his touching, but he asked Sunny to make me erect, which she was able to do in seconds.

“You are only slightly smaller than normal,” the doctor told me, even as I was erupting into a paper towel Sunny held. “That is a good thing, since it means Sunny will not need to accommodate a big man. But she still needs more tissue than will be available. There are ways to create more skin. I will need to look into them.”

I pulled my pants up and slowly let the red ebb away from my face. The appointment ended and we were not scheduled back for another two months.

With that we took the bus home, and then crawled into bed. Seeing the doctor fondle Sunny had made me eager to duplicate the action with my own hands. Her nipples were now fully female, and there was detectable breast tissue behind them. She still wore the glued-on implants during the day, but at night we made love without them, and Sunny was now able to have an orgasm just through my massaging her small breasts. I also noticed how the hormones had begun to change the rest of her body. Sunny always had a tiny waist, but now her hips were widening, and there was more padding on her rear. She delighted when I made soft love slaps to make the new tissues there jiggle. Her body was looking more and more female all the time. She just had to wear a tight pair of panties to hide the last vestige of maleness.