Pillow Prayers, Love ruined, love reborn after the Summer of Love

By Margaret C. Murray

Hedonistically delightful, full of breathtaking exuberance, Pillow Prayers is set in San Francisco after the Summer of Love. At its center is sexy Beth, owner of a zen pillow stitchery, for whom life appears to be a hop, skip and a prayer on a psychedelic bus. Who could know she sews her pillows while maneuvering toward tragedy? Not Ruth, an academic turned street artist. Nor skeptical Lonnie, grad student, seduced by the possibilities of this flower-child world.

Orbiting around the women are Willie, Beth’s “old man”, Black Panther Avon, the father of Ruth’s children, and the glittering zen master, Jones Roshi.
Free love, free speech, abundant drugs. Hang out in San Francisco and Berkeley in the shadows of runaway youngsters, hipsters, old beatniks, newborn feminists, anti-war resisters and seductive gurus. Fall into the abyss of pleasure. Love ruined, love reborn.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Margaret C. Murray
• Release date: May 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9780979357398

Margaret C. Murray

Margaret Murray was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and graduated from Carnegie-Mellon University and Hunter College. She attended the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center on an American Federation of the Arts fellowship and the Squaw Valley Screenwriters Conference on a National Endowment for the Arts grant. A writer and teacher, she has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for over thirty years, and is the mother of three children and grandmother too.

Book preview

Prologue: The Three of Them

There was a photo that Ruth carried around for a long time. It was her only picture of the three of them. Ruth asked Willie to take the picture one late afternoon when they were all together at Maya Stitchery. She meant to make a painting of it someday.

In the photo, Ruth is standing tall beside Beth and Lonnie in front of the thick oak warehouse door. Five feet ten inches in her stocking feet, 165 pounds, she towers over the other two. With her reddish mop of hair, she looks like the stereotype of a strung-out hippie, vintage 1971, just an aged flower child. She had, in fact, been a doctoral candidate at UC Berkeley.

In the background through the open door vague, moving clouds and light hint at the San Francisco docks as seen from Potrero Hill where Maya Stitchery is located.

The two younger women pose behind the large wood tables, heavy and varnished to a rich shine, where Beth cuts her cloth. Long and thin, Lonnie is standing on one slender leg, her face veiled by shoulder-length dark hair, a peacock in pink bell-bottoms and flowered serape. The temptation to mock dangles about Lonnie, self-consciously seductive, radiating a tinge of contempt. Looking at the photo, Ruth feels Lonnie’s sense of obstinacy, hears the angry child saying, No! No! No! at the same time her arms reach out, pleading, promising. As for Beth in her nondescript slacks and dotted Swiss blouse, she is just a shadow in the light.

Ruth remembers walking the length of the room that day when Willie snapped the picture, luxuriating in the open space; she danced in and out of the smear of sunlight around Beth and Lonnie. Watch the skirt swing, Oh Gypsy Ruth with her dyed, hennaed hair!

1 Save the Earths

Stars

Prayers to save me from my imperfections. They are thrashing about like Samurai warriors stabbing me. I am the accuser as well as the accused. As when my daddy took me out to the porch one night when I was ten. It was midsummer, hot, and the sky was full of stars. See that star, he says, pointing high up. Yes, Daddy, I answer, though I don't see. That star is 50 million light years away, Bethie. His voice tells me the stars are like prayers. He tells me what a light year is. I'm listening but I don’t understand. Daddy talks on and on, never knowing I tricked him. I don't want to disappoint.

It was the last day of 1999 and the Y2K computer catastrophe loomed tomorrow, January 1, 2000. Lonnie, listening to the dire portents on the car radio, was driving Willie's black RAV, the latest sports utility vehicle. All the computers throughout the world were predicted to shut down in mass confusion. Television, radio, and the burgeoning Internet warned of more dangerous, bizarre occurrences than just lost digits in binary code; no, this was the radical, ominous portent of the dark twenty-first century to come.

Even so, driving the RAV made these frightening predictions seem harmless and even negotiating San Francisco traffic in the rain felt enjoyable to Lonnie. She turned onto Geary, passed the Japan Center, and headed toward UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion to meet Willie. They were going to Fisherman's Wharf for shrimp and chowder, their anniversary ritual each New Year's Eve since they married—twenty-five years ago today.

Willie’s office, Drug and Alcohol Abuse Counseling, was hidden at the end of the administration wing on the 4th floor, the plastic Christmas wreath he’d had for years on the door.

Hello, Beautiful. You’re late, said Willie, looking up from his desk as she opened the door.

Bad traffic, Lonnie said, breathless from climbing three flights of steps, the ancient elevator being just too slow. Rising up out of his swivel chair, he pulled his blue dress shirt down over his protruding stomach, tightening his belt above his khaki pants as he walked toward her.

How about a hug? His eyes, even more piercing with contact lenses, twinkled. He kissed her, skimming her lips with his beard, salt and pepper, and neatly trimmed.

Let’s go, Lonnie prodded him. It’s New Years Eve.

No, it’s our anniversary! he laughed.

Willie drove while she gazed out the window. The wipers, clicking back and forth, cleared the drizzle which returned a second later. In her comfortable leather car seat, Lonnie settled in gently like the falling rain. She loved San Francisco weather like this. She remembered how her mother had loved days like this too. It was over twenty years since her mother died. Every time she thought of her, Lonnie ached to have her mother back. She had so many things to tell her now she couldn’t say before.

Two neo-punk Generation X couples with green spiked hair wearing black leather jackets scurried across Geary at Japantown, their hooded faces hidden from the wind. How oblivious they were, to her, to everyone. Lonnie recognized that look, that attitude—edgy they called it; could they be her students? She sighed. Willie reached over and patted her hand. Her eyes flitted to the blinking neon advertisements for electronic networks and computer equipment on the billboards on either side of Van Ness.

Outside, shoppers hurried by busily topping off their Y2K emergency stores with the last, outrageously overpriced bottles of water from small corner markets, stockpiling batteries and canned goods, standing in ATM lines to get out as much cash as they could in case the banks failed. Lonnie's bank branch had posted a CLOSED sign over its ATM machine all last week.

Gold Country

The sun shines down and every day is the same here in Sutter Creek. Every day is golden, constant, rich, hard, shining. The wind blows, the sun streams down, birds sing and crickets hum, and streams trickle. Tomatoes ripen in little less than a month. This is gold country. John Marshall discovered gold in 1848, enslaving the Indians and plundering their land. Everything turns to gold here Daddy says. I still cover my eyes to keep from being blinded by all the gold.

Since they were so close to Civic Center, Lonnie suggested Willie stop at the Main Library to get some AV materials she might be able to use in her upcoming cognitive therapy graduate seminar. But she should have known the library would be closed. Driving up Polk Street, Lonnie spied an open fabric shop and asked Willie to drop her off. She’d only be a minute. He could drive around the block.

No thanks, I’ll find a parking spot and meet you there.

If I buy the material, maybe we will finally reupholster the couch, Lonnie said.

We?

Okay, you, she laughed.

Yep, handyman, that's me.

She laughed again.

Instead of the upholstery fabric, she ended up buying black wool and red satin, neither of which she had a use for. As they went out of the fabric store, Lonnie saw a hole-in-the-wall nursery next door and insisted they stop. As she was admiring the fresh cut roses, babies’ breath, violets and curling orchids on their wired stalks, a young man she recognized as one of her graduate students from State hailed her.

Doctor McKenney!

Doctor McKenney! Willie repeated, grinning.

She fake-punched him. He liked to tease her about being a Doctor of Psychology. Also, it riled him a little that she kept her maiden name after they married.

Her student, a short, prematurely balding, activist turned psychology major, came up to them in the doorway of the tiny crowded flower shop. Lonnie realized she had forgotten his name.

I often just remember faces, she apologized.

Farlan Ondeneda—he had to spell his last name out for Willie who explained he was fascinated by etymology— was wrapped in a black padded Chinese jacket, and wore swashbuckling boots with clanking silver buckles he’d acquired traveling in Dharamsala.

While she admired the cut flowers, Farlan got into a long conversation with Willie about the Dalai Lama, whom he had met. Lonnie chose white and yellow roses with babies' breath. Farlan was telling Willie about a silver gong he'd been given by the Dalai Lama himself. Lonnie interrupted to remind Willie they should leave if they were going to get to Fisherman’s Wharf this afternoon.

I haven't been to the Wharf in years! said Farlan.

Come with us! Willie urged, slapping him on the back. Lonnie gave her husband a sour look. On our anniversary, too, she thought, shaking her head.

The Day After

The day after I graduated from Stockton High School I expected the whole world to embrace ME. I was ripe for adventure. Why I could have had an orgasm right there on the commencement stage! Instead I went to my job at the Amador Ice Cream Shop counter.

Farlan crawled into the back seat. Willie drove west to the Bay. They left the RAV parked near Ghirardelli Square. Past the waterfront eateries, the faux turn-of-the-century, wood-planked storefronts selling San Francisco mugs, key chains, 49er and Giants hats, and T-shirts of Alcatraz, Willie led the way to their favorite trattoria next to Maritime National Historical Park. Swept along with the rushing crowd, Lonnie grabbed a free table on the sidewalk while Willie motioned the waiter over. Farlan, checking his wallet, apologized for not having cash on him.

It's on us, said Willie. A New Year's present to bring in the twenty-first century. Plus it’s our anniversary.

Our wedding anniversary! Lonnie said.

Twenty-five great years! Willie added, eyes twinkling at hers.

The wind was stronger than usual. Lonnie zipped up her gray lambs-wool jacket, a Christmas gift from Willie, and wound her knit scarf tighter around her neck. She could see the high masts of two shipping vessels docked at the San Francisco Maritime National Park wharf, listing in the choppy waves. Years ago she’d taken her eighth graders from Visitation Valley Elementary down there to the see the Balclutha, a square-rigger with three masts.

Lonnie shivered at their outdoor table. When the waiter brought the full water glasses, she ordered her usual, clam chowder in a bowl of sourdough bread.

Make it three bowls of chowder, Willie pronounced.

Farlan mentioned he was on his way to a party in Berkeley tonight sponsored by Save the Earth; they must know that environmental non-profit. He was an organizer.

You have to come, Dr. McKenney, you and your husband. We’re having a big auction. We’re buying redwood seedlings with the proceeds, and plows and fertilizer to reseed the land.

How nice, said Lonnie absently, looking up through the light mist at the dark clouds over the even darker water. Though I'd be just as happy to have a quiet evening by the fire tonight. She squeezed Willie's thigh under the tiny oval table.

The waiter set down three sourdough bread bowls full of steaming New England clam chowder.

We’ll have some of those bay shrimp cocktails with lemon and horseradish cocktail sauce too, Willie said. He also ordered a pitcher of Anchor Steam beer. And water all around, he added, nodding at Lonnie.

It’s really a big party. I thought all you flower children loved a party. What do you think, Doctor McKenney? Weren’t you a flower child? Farlan asked.

Lonnie stared out at the heavy line of fog seeping over the Bay.

No, not really, or not for long, she said.

The maritime museum’s antique ships were nearly hidden in the fog now. Beth was the flower child, Lonnie thought. She hadn’t thought of Beth in a long, long time. Or Ruth either, for that matter.

Gulls flew over the masts; she spotted pelicans too.

Farlan assured them his party was the perfect place to be this New Year’s Eve, a chance to leap into the next millennium.

I’m offering you an honest-to-God opportunity to save our beleaguered earth. He was interrupted by the waiter bringing the water, pitcher of beer, and the iced glasses. He began to pour out the beer.

None for me, said Lonnie, picking up the full water glass.

Congratulations! Cheers on your anniversary! Ding dong! Farlan clinked his beer glass against Willie’s.

Tonight will be special, really. You’ll see, he went on. We’re having a fantastic auction. Crystals, Tibetan bells, paintings, even a real masterpiece by a renowned Berkeley artist whose name I forget. I’ve even donated my silver gong as a raffle prize. He grinned at Willie.

The fog had blown over and now she could see the sailing ships leaning into the wind. Lonnie smiled at Willie, taking his hand.

Let’s go visit those boats someday, okay?

Okay. He patted her knee.

I gotta get to BART, Farlan said guzzling down his beer. He stood, knocking over a wrought iron cafe chair at the next table.

Willie, hailing the waiter for the check, stopped to slap Farlan on the back. We’ll drive you to BART.

They rushed away from the cafe together. Lonnie stood at the street corner, bleary-eyed from the lights of the moving cars.

So you’ll think about coming tonight? Farlan persisted.

Lonnie looked at Willie.

Why not? Willie said. We don’t have to stay long.

We’ll think about it, she told Farlan.

Here’s the address. I really hope you can make it. You will be surprised, Farlan pulled a flyer out of his backpack and shoved it at Lonnie. Who knows, Dr. McKenney. You might win the Dalai Lama’s gong!

Maybe. But right now I just want to go home.

Lonnie was feeling tired. She admitted to herself that her students did grate on her after awhile. She and Farlan followed Willie across the street past the Buena Vista Cafe and up the hill. Their RAV was wedged between a BMW and a brand new Acura, all with parking tickets on their windshields. Farlan snickered.

Damn! cried Willie, stuffing the printed citation into his coat pocket.

It’s just a ticket, Lonnie said, amused, waiting for him to unlock her door.

Rat

Oh rat! Live valiantly! Lifting my wet hair from my neck, I watch a rat skittering over the floor of my Daddy's tool shed. I am the rat surprised. Who would pity a rat? Oh rat! Live valiantly!

Willie leaned over the bedcovers, coaxing Lonnie off the vanity stool. Her purple flowered robe slipped from her shoulders as he pulled her close. Her braid came undone, sliding out of the barrette.

You feel good, he murmured close to her ear. Real good, he said, stroking her thighs. He was warm. His mouth was on hers, his tongue grazing hers. His feathery mustache and soft lips tickled sweetly. She settled into his swift light touches from a deep knowing place she could count on. She felt him getting hard.

Am I too heavy? he asked.

She shook her head and stroked his back and buttocks, feeling as if she were sliding through water. Willie slipped inside her.

Lonnie closed her eyes, swimming. She was still in love with her husband and that made her happy. It was a different love than at the beginning, deeper, warmer, and quieter. She clung to Willie’s back, pushing up with her feet and legs, again and again. She thrust her hips with his, losing herself. She heard herself cry and him too, a long slow male moan, sensed the slush of cum. And then quiet contentment. Peace.

That was strange what Farlan said about me being a flower child, she said after awhile. I thought of Beth.

Willie propped himself on one elbow over her. You know, he said, The only two women I ever loved were you and Beth.

Oh, said Lonnie faintly, swallowing.

But that was before I met you, he said, reaching out to stroke her thigh. Time to get ready for our big night, Save the Earth.

He slipped a leg out of the covers, leaving Lonnie wide-eyed on the bed, suddenly uneasy.

Before

1 Surfacing

Veronica Marie McKenney, aka Lonnie, twenty-two years old with an invalid mother and a part-time teaching job at a dysfunctional middle school, had used up her entire savings to enroll for this Winter Semester, 1971, at San Francisco State. That was all there was to her meager, boring life. Except for swimming, if you could count that.

Straggling in late, Lonnie struggled to catch her breath. She slid into the closest empty desk. She quickly pulled out her Psych book and notepad from her heavy backpack, which she shoved into a bookrack beneath the wooden seat. Her eyes scanned the other students on this, the first day of class. Most of the women were older, wearing dark slacks and suit jackets. A few closer to her age wore high-waisted hippie dresses or flared miniskirts and tight sweaters. A few of the younger men sported stylish dark bell-bottoms and colorful shirts.

Parking had been impossible to find anywhere near the fogged-in campus of San Francisco State. She’d spent precious time driving her orange ’69 Datsun down Sloat Blvd, all the way to the San Francisco Zoo near the Great Highway and Ocean Beach, just to find an empty parking space. She might as well have walked; her mother’s house was in the Outer Sunset only a mile from SF State.

Her mother was doing poorly today and had been for the past few weeks. Lonnie notified the doctor who called in a prescription to St. Luke’s Hospital pharmacy.

Her mother took too many pills. Lonnie couldn’t keep track of all the drugs she took, but at least she had quit smoking. That cheered Lonnie up. Also the fact that she’d brought her swimming bag along and planned to check out the swim center after class. Then she remembered the prescription she had to pick up. Would there be enough time?

The professor, his back to the class, didn’t seem to notice her late arrival. He continued writing his name on the blackboard in sloppy, backhand cursive. Lonnie rifled through her purse for a pen. Now that she had been accepted into the San Francisco State Graduate Psychology Program, she was committed to how many semesters of hard work and study?

Right then and there Lonnie promised herself she was going to check out the college pool no matter how late the class ran; the thought made her smile. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a young guy across the aisle smile back.

Lonnie turned the other way. The guy—hard to tell his exact age—was not really cute, though taking another surreptitious look, she found him interesting. He was compact, strong looking, with wide shoulders under his khaki jacket, a mass of dark hair, clean-shaven, wearing heavy black-rimmed glasses. His head seemed disproportionately large, like the head of a lion, but there was something gentle about him. The thought of having this man smile at her conjured up pleasant feelings she savored. When she looked over again, he had his face buried in the big new textbook their instructor had assigned and was now discussing at the front of the class. It was too late now to smile back.

The next Thursday Lonnie made it to the class on time and, despite misgivings nurtured sporadically throughout the week, looked around for the man. He wasn’t there. He probably dropped out, she assumed. But then, the following week, he was sitting in the same chair, smiling at her when she came through the door. She smiled back. At break she stepped through the desks and over a few aisles to introduce herself.

I’m Lonnie McKenney. I noticed you the first week.

I’m Willie Stephens, and I noticed you too, he said. You have a nice smile.

Lonnie dipped her head, allowing her long straight brown hair to fall over her face. You weren’t here last Thursday.

Yeah, something came up, Willie said, grinning.

His voice was low and comforting, his eyes even more so. He likes me, she thought. They talked a little about themselves. She told him she grew up in South San Francisco but had lived in the City since she was ten. She was a teacher, part-time, at an elementary school. The rest of her time she spent taking care of her mother, who’d had a stroke last year. Willie, originally from Stockton, most recently lived in Sutter Creek. He was pursuing his studies at San Francisco State part-time. He had a night job as a call-in counselor for the Mt. Zion Hospital suicide prevention hotline and big plans to become a psychologist, though he hadn’t yet decided whether to go for a Master of Arts or a Master of Science. Had she? It was all so fascinating, they agreed.

Walking side by side now, approaching the end of the hall on their way out the door, Willie let Lonnie know he had a girlfriend, Elizabeth, who liked to be called Beth. Lonnie felt a twinge of disappointment, but let it go as Willie went on about his girlfriend’s stitchery. It all seemed so interesting and lovely, this pillow-making venture. Beth recently purchased the business from friends. Maya Stitchery was on Potrero Hill. He had helped Beth move there from Sutter Creek, where all her stuff was stored at her parents’. That’s why he couldn’t make it to class last week. Lonnie nodded, tossing her hair off her face.

Did you by any chance take notes on the lecture last week? he asked.

Yes, I did, Lonnie said. Pages of them.

Would you share them with me?

Of course! she answered, eager to be of help.

How about now? Here? he asked pointing to the library ahead. Lonnie agreed.

As they walked up the steps, Willie went on about what an expert seamstress his girlfriend was and how the stitchery made all the pillows for the Zen Buddhist monastery, a beautiful, serene place. Had Lonnie ever been there? No, she said, but she had passed that building driving to the Presidio and, yes, she had even tried meditation sitting (called zazen she learned, reading Alan Watt’s, The Way of Zen). Willie confessed he didn’t know much about zazen, but Beth sure did.

Soon they were study partners, meeting after class at the SF State library to go over the day’s lecture and brainstorm the next assignment. On those days Lonnie took extra time getting dressed, surveying herself critically in her full-length closet door mirror. She spent the better part of the weekend reading the assigned chapters and taking careful notes from which she wrote a first draft paper for Willie to look at. Her paper draft pleased her and so did the outfit she settled on: black tights and jeans, a black turtleneck under a soft leather vest. She laced up the high moccasins that covered her calves and added a turquoise choker around her neck. She brushed her long hair, counting exactly a hundred strokes, braiding it and twisting it rakishly over her head. She secured the braid with an Indian scarf, surveying herself critically from side to side.

Each week they sat at the same long well-oiled oak table across from a row of oak filing cabinets that held alphabetized index cards, Willie taking the single chair at the end, Lonnie sitting to his right on the long side of the table. It was working out well she thought; afterwards she was able to hurry over to the swim center and do her laps. Sometimes their study sessions went on and on, not always focused on schoolwork. They could talk to each other about anything: abstract art, serious drugs, the Vietnam War disaster, the wrong-thinking Weather Underground. He even wrote poetry. Lonnie was charmed by their conversations. She was especially enthralled by Willie’s adventures hitchhiking through Baja and Mexico a few years back.

Oh, I’ve wanted to see Baja!

You should go, he said, encouragingly. I can tell you all the best beaches.

She found herself giving up her precious swim time, staying till the five-minute warning announcing the library would close. Still Lonnie felt mildly disgusted, even ashamed, of her seemingly unreasonable desire (unreasonable because unfulfilled) for a partner, a man. Sometimes she taunted herself that any man would do, but that was of course not true. Lonnie was looking for