Emma Who Saved My Life Read Online Free

Milwaukee, for christ’s sakes.”
    Speaking of family, how was her brother?
    â€œDon’t ask,” she said. “he’s still doing his Love Generation routine in San Francisco. It’s just like Washington Square, over a block or two. We’ll walk through it on the way to see Emma. I mean, hey, that stuff’s nice, beads and sitar music and people selling earrings made out of tinfoil, but come on, you can’t keep living that way. Aren’t you glad we had our older brothers and sisters to do all that dumb shit so we didn’t have to?”
    The waitress slung the check on the table: “Have a nice day.”
    â€œWell I wasn’t planning on it,” said Lisa, “but if you insist.”
    It was great then, that afternoon—I hadn’t one ounce of an idea of the sheer grind of living in New York, day to day. Walking around Washington Square, with Lisa narrating, seeing the colony of activists, artists, jewelry-makers, guitarists, people selling beads and African batiked cloths, pottery, their knitting, the pamphleteers, people waving petitions, Jews for Jesus, brochures about federally funded abortions and harassment of homosexuals by police; someone pinned a flower on me asking for a donation to the Temple of Universal Love, whatever that was; there were the better-dressed hippies sidling up and offering one-word drug pitches (“Snow? Hash? Weed? Pills? Horse?”), the teenage juggler with a hat full of coins in front of him because he was very good, the buskers harmonizing only half as good as Peter, Paul and Mary on the song they were attempting, the ill-nourished runaway who was beyond persuasion, circles under his eyes, pallid, on something, “Can you give me some money, man, huh, can you?” Lisa put a quarter into his hands, thinking perhaps of her brother in San Francisco (who got messed up really bad on drugs), and he pocketed the money without acknowledgment and stumbled through the crowd, intent on the next handout. Washington Square in 1974, the last hurrah of the dying ’60s. Even more mysterious than how the Love Generation came about in the U S of A, God’s Country, was how completely it was to disappear without a trace by the mid-’70s. Yeah, I know, a lot of the “idealism” was self-serving and self-indulgent, but you look around now at every smart, talented person rushing to get in the door of the nearest investment bank and you can’t help but think back on August evenings as late as 1974 when there was something beyond the color and the music, a spirit (I know, yucky word, but what else do you call it?) that the United States might have done well to hang on to a little longer. This seems a long time ago.
    â€œPlaytime’s over,” said Lisa, pulling at my sleeve, “we’ll come back and mess around later. Let’s get something to eat.”
    I followed Lisa as we approached the eastern edge of the Village, where things began to look even seedier, the shops untrendy; the posters and signs turned more ethnic (Ukrainian and Italian, with misspelled English translations underneath), the people a little more worn-looking either from having to work grueling daily jobs, or from being unemployed.
    â€œWe’re headed toward Baldo’s Pizza, if I can remember where it is. That’s where Emma works.”
    In a pizza place?
    â€œYeah,” said Lisa, “because poetry-writing doesn’t bring in too much. Gotta support your habit.”
    Was Emma any good?
    Lisa slowed the pace a bit. “Yeah I think so. Then I don’t know anything about poetry. Or theater for that matter—so you’re safe too from critical opinion.”
    Did Emma know about art?
    â€œGood god, Emma knows about everything. More than me about art, more than you about theater. She’s scary. Sometimes I have second thoughts about asking her to move in as our third—I’m going to feel so