Her feet are cold on the pavement and she’s hunched in a cold-like way towards me.

‘What is your name?’ I ask, maybe I’m going to make a pass at her. That’s what I should be doing right now. Actually, I’m about thirty seconds late in doing it.

‘Willow Woman,’ she says. ‘I’m trying to get out to the Haight-Ashbury. I just got into town from Spokane.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ I say. ‘It’s very bad out there.’

‘I have friends in the Haight-Ashbury,’ she says.

‘It’s a bad place,’ I say.

She shrugs her shoulders and looks helplessly down at her feet. Then she looks up and her eyes have a friendly wounded expression in them.

‘This is all I have,’ she says.

(Meaning what she is wearing.)

‘And what’s in my pocket,’ she says.

(Her eyes glance furtively towards the left rear pocket of her Levi’s.)

‘My friends will help me out when I get there,’ she says.

(Glancing in the direction of the Haight-Ashbury three miles away.)

Suddenly she has become awkward. She doesn’t know exactly what to do. She has taken two steps backward. They are in the direction of going up the street.

‘I…’ shesays.

‘I…’ looking down at her cold feet again.

She takes another half-step backward.

‘I.’

‘I don’t want to whine,’ she says.

She’s really disgusted with whashesaysshe sayst’s happening now. She’s ready to leave. It didn’t work out the way she wanted.

‘Let me help you,’ I say.

I reach into my pocket.

She steps towards me, instantly relieved as if a miracle has happened.

I give her a dollar, having totally lost somewhere the thread of making a pass at her, which I had planned on doing.

She can’t believe it’s a dollar and throws her arms around me and kisses me on the cheek. Her body is warm, friendly and giving.

We could make a nice scene together. I could say the words that would cause it to be, but I don’t say anything because I’ve lost the thread of making a pass at her and don’t know where it’s gone, and she departs beautifully towards all the people that she will ever meet, at best I will turn out to be a phantom memory, and all the lives that she will live.

We’ve finished living this one together.

She’s gone.

A Short History of Religion in California

There’s only one way to get into it: We saw the deer in the meadow. The deer turned in a slow circle and then broke the circle and went towards some trees.

There were three deer in the meadow and we were three people. I, a friend and my daughter 31/2 years old. ‘See the deer,’ I said, pointing the way to the deer.