She was thirteen and beautiful. I was thirteen and wise beyond my years. My sisters, one older and one younger than me, called me forward, precocious, the dumbass kid and other random unflattering names.
It was the summer of 1967. Saturday late morning and I was standing on the grass verge in front of our house watching the new neighbours moving in. She saw me and crossed the road right into my space.
"Hi I'm Sylvia." she said. "But you can call me Babes. What’s your name?"
She stood right in front of me, with her thumbs hooked in the side pockets of her bell-bottom jeans. This already told me she was something else, as all the other girls I knew would immediately have folded their arms over their bee sting boobs the moment they came face to face with a guy. Babes was confident enough to allow her little rose buds to face me with only a white tee shirt with “PEACE” emblazoned on it separating us.
"Jimmy." I replied folding my arms, then immediately unfolding them because I didn't have any boobs to worry about.
Babes shook her head. "No I don’t like Jimmy." She looked me up and down.
"Why not?" I asked, figuring I had to say something.
She raised her hands to the stars and stripes bandana she wore, fussing with it in a feminine way. She had the biggest bluest eyes I'd ever seen.
"I just don't. What’s your surname?"
"Jones."
"Coohil. I'm gonna call you Jones then. Okay?"
I shrugged. "Okay."
"So Jones," Babes said hooking her thumbs in the back pockets of her jeans this time, "you wanna come around to my house and listen to records? I've got Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, and also Scott McKenzie."
"Sure," I said, "but I gotta go have lunch first."
About two o'clock I rang the doorbell and an adult carbon copy of Babes opened the door. She wore the same bandana, the same bell-bottoms and she had the same eyes, oh and the rose buds weren't rose buds but flowers in full bloom.
"Hi you must be Jones." She smiled. "Come on in." She held the door open for me. "I'm Babes' mom but you can call me Lisa."
It was the first time in my life that an adult had told me to call them by their first name. If I hadn't met and fallen for Babes first, then Lisa would have been the one for me, honest.
"Excuse the mess." she said, closing the door. "Babes is in the kitchen. Through there."
She was sitting on the kitchen table, her legs swinging back and forth while she chomped on a hamburger. Her face lit up when she saw me and her smile, oh her smile. Jeez what a charmer and those eyes.
"Hi." Babes said brushing a crumb of roll off her cheek.
"Hi yourself." I said.
We went to her bedroom, which was a first for me. I mean going into a girl's bedroom and being alone with her there and with the door closed. It was all so cool and when her mom, I mean Lisa, brought us Cokes, she even knocked before she opened the door.
We spent the whole afternoon in her room talking, laughing, playing records, eating, drinking and for about half an hour Lisa joined us and we were like three buddies, only one was a mom.
Babes told me everything about them. That Lisa was a hippie and that her dad lived in another like galaxy cos he was that far away. By the time I left because I had to go home for supper, Babes and I were so close and I'd never before in my life ever met anyone like her.
So we spent the summer vacation joined at the hip. Wherever Babes went Jones went and wherever Jones went Babes went. Except once every week when she and Lisa disappeared for the whole day. When they got back home Babes was always very tired and she had these black rings under her bluest eyes and she slept a lot the rest of the day and night.
At these times Lisa always looked sad and I couldn't figure out why. Once I asked her about it and she just gave me a hug and when I looked at her she was wiping tears off her cheeks.
Babes just gave me the look when I asked her about it. The look was something she did with her eyes and when you looked into those deep blue pools, you just forgot what you'd wanted to know in the first place.
So when there were only a couple of weeks of vacation left, Babes said we had to start going steady. She was like that, always taking charge and making decisions for both of us. I didn't mind because she was the coolest chick in the street and she wanted to go steady with me. What can I say?
I remember the time so clearly. It was a Saturday night and Lisa asked me if I'd spend the evening with Babes because she had a date with some or other random guy in the neighbourhood. Babes and I were alone in her house for the very first time ever.
Babes had a Philips reel-to-reel tape recorder and she'd taped all her favourite songs on it. She said she could turn it on and play four hours of cool songs without ever getting up to change a record. We sat on the couch in her lounge holding hands while we listened to the songs.
"Come on you people, shine on your brother, everybody get together try to love one another right now."
Babes looked into my eyes and her small warm hand squeezed mine so that I knew what I had to do next. I put my arms around her and drew her against me, at the same time our lips met, awkwardly at first, then passionately as we figured out where our noses had to be and what we were supposed to do with out tongues.
Jeez who am I trying to fool?
Babes taught me how to kiss and when I asked her how she knew when to open her mouth and how not to knock her teeth against mine she said: "Girls of thirteen just know these things Jones … okay?"
I was so happy and I think Babes was happy too.
We were lying down on the couch and the Floor Elevators, Country Joe and the Fish, Cream, Donovan, Mamas and the Papas, The Byrds, and Jefferson Airplane were playing, neither of us heard them. Our lips were touching and she was fast asleep and me, well I was just holding her and looking at her and loving her so much.
I'd always wondered why she never took off the bandana and I'd never seen her hair ever. Didn't know if it was black, blonde or red but my money was on blonde or even red because her face was always that pale and seemed to grow paler with every passing day.
Without thinking I put my hand up to the stars and stripes and was about to push it up so I could take a look, when Babes opened her eyes and gave me the "look". I immediately dropped my hand. I swear she smiled at me in her sleep.
When Lisa came home she woke us and her cheeks were wet again and I wasn't sure if it was us or something else that had happened to make her cry.
I think it was the last weekend of the summer vacation, a Saturday again. Babes and I had made plans to go to the movies in the morning. Nine thirty I knocked on her door. No answer. Ten thirty, eleven thirty. Nothing. At twelve I gave up.
Nothing the whole afternoon, so I sat at our living room window waiting for a light to be switched on in Babes' place. It was eight o'clock when I saw the light and Lisa answered my knock.
"Oh Jesus Jones baby” she sobbed when she saw me at the front door. "She's dead … Babes is dead sweetheart."
Apparently she'd been sick for a long time with cancer Lisa said and it just got worse and worse. Terminal they called it, like terminal equals "you're gonna die soon Babes". It was something called leukaemia and well, I didn’t really understand but Lisa said while she was being given blood or platelets or something that morning, her heart just stopped beating.
Lisa hugged me and cried and I cursed God for letting Babes die and she phoned my mother who fetched me and even my sisters didn't say anything, which was a very rare thing in their lives.
The day of the funeral Lisa asked me if I'd like to look at Babes in her coffin and I said, "**** yes" and … no I didn't. In my mind yes but to Lisa I said: "Yes please" without thinking.
Mom said are you sure and I said, "**** yes" again only in my mind and she hugged me tightly.
It was a white coffin and Babes was so beautiful, like the first day I saw her only much, much paler. Her bald head was covered in a wreath of beautiful flowers so that you couldn't see she had no hair from the ****ing radiation. The stars and stripes bandana was resting on her on her chest.
I cried.
After the funeral Lisa gave me a seven single that I stuck in the front of my pants. I didn't know what else to do with it cos it was too big for my pockets. She said Babes had told her to give it to me if I was still around the day she died.
That night in my room I looked at the record again. Babes had taken the label off both sides so that I had no idea what the song was or the singer. I put it on my record player and lay down on my bed.
I never cried so much before in my life even when my gran died.
Oh Babes I love you so much.
"If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.”
