June 7th, 1967

Another Be-In on the Panhandle today. Quicksilver Messenger Service. Afterwards, I walk Haight Street, thousands of people now, everything happening so fast as the news hits the rest of the country.

Lots of people filming & snapping pictures. Evangelist on the corner telling everyone about the coming of Christ, the fall of the power structure next spring. Kid handing out clothes to girl embarrassed by his generosity.

"I thought you wanted to sell them to me," she says.

"Money's absurd,” he says & laughs.

I meet Denise outside Drogstore Café. She's short, dark, round face, wide mouth. Ask her to go in for coffee; she gets on bus instead. Just about to leave when she comes running off & tells me she'll stay if I have a phone.

Hitching back to my place, girl picks us up in jeep. Hippie feminine but she shifts like a truck driver.

At my place we drink wine & pull down the wall bed. She puts in her diaphragm. I'm ecstatic.

"I hope this isn't going to be a transient thing," she says.

I assure her it won’t be.

Afterwards, she tells me how depressed she is, wants to go back to Detroit. She called her parents, but they don't want her back because of a big fight last year.

Tells me she wants to go home & stay in her room—her womb tomb, she calls it. Did it once before—slept for two weeks.

She tried to commit suicide last year. Guy, flat & job fell through the same day—she took rat poison, called cousin, cousin called doctor, induced vomiting.

"You don't like yourself very much," I tell her.

"Not very much at all,” she says & turns away.

"Why not?"

"Oh, it's too long to go into,” she says & shakes her head.

Her laugh is strange, sort of forced & mad, yet genuinely pleased.

» June 8th, 1967 : Feasting At Nathan's