Page 6 of And Still Her Voice
Others sat in circles within circles chanting, snapping small finger cymbals, peacefully celebrating life. I strolled by a girl withlong red-brown hair like mine, except straight. She said, “Hello pretty one. Peace and love to you.”
I tingled inside. “Thank you,” I said, mesmerized by her smiling face, her wondrous wide eyes the color of the water at the city pool. Glancing down through her gauzy blouse, besides her brown nipples, I could almost see the love in her heart. She’d been weaving a wreath of flowers. She reached out to crown me and a transformation took place inside me, like the time I got confirmed taking the name of Joan of Arc, my patron saint. But at once I became weak and self-conscious in my Sunday armor—all of us in our finest clothing as if we were some sort of missionary family entering the park to save lives or something.
I didn’t know whether to “cleave” like it said in the Bible or to break away from my family and run for the hills. Mom snatched my arm, pulling me into her.
“Find your father.”
Are you sure? Couldn’t we just leave him here, or better yet, just leave me.
Mom swiveled her head searching for Dad before handing me the baby. “Let’s get back to the car,” she said, grasping Patty and Michael with her free hands.
As Maggie and I trailed behind her, a longhaired, fringe-vested boy around my age appeared facing me as he back-stepped along. He stood tall and skinny with stringy light hair, and small squinty mysterious eyes, but still sort of cute. He turned to stride in step with me and something inside me stirred. I handed Josie off like a bride’s bouquet to Maggie. I’d always imagined I’d end up marrying (yes, I was already thinking of marriage and the sooner the better so I could move out. I hadn’t yet thought of running away) someone more clean-cut, dark-haired with a pretty boy face and big eyes like Tony Curtis or Elvis Presley. And then a young couple ran across us and disappeared up the hill into the sycamore trees where I pictured their passionate kisses like whatI’d seen in the movieFromHere to Eternitywhere they rolled around on the ocean shore. I imagined rolling around in the hills on a soft carpet of grass and leaves with this young wild-haired boy that walked beside me. We’d share kisses. I was ready for love. I wanted to be loved.
“Anna, hurry up,” Mom shouted, probably wishing she’d learned to drive so that she could get us home quickly to wash out our eyes.
Dad finally made it back to the car and we swerved off to the sound of the Beatles’ “She Loves You” on the radio, Mom yelling at him the whole way home even after he’d put his hand over her mouth, squeezing it so hard her Coty lipstick smeared across her cheek. I panicked. I wanted to jump out of the car and run back to climb up on one of those carousel horses and gallop off somewhere, anywhere.
Mom wiped her face with her embroidered church hanky and turned to stare out the window. “We’re never going back,” she said. “It’s a wonder God hasn’t sent us all to hell by now.” She turned a cheek to my father, crossing her arms over her chest. “That place was a modern day Sodoma y Gomorra—un infierno.”
Dad grumbled, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” before switching stations.
With a love like my parents had, I wasn’t very glad.
CHAPTER 5
Not a Love-In
I grew up in a lonely space, and yet not alone inside the walls of my crowded tiny headspace, within a big cold house that definitely didn’t feel like a home and for sure not a love-in. How I hated having to return later that Easter afternoon. But as we pulled onto our sycamore-lined street, the blooming buds cheered me up a bit as we came up the drive to our mini-mansion, Grandma’sGraceland. Supposedly, Dad’s rich father, Dr. Wesley LeMar, built the replica of a French castle for Grandma back in the twenties, filling it with all sorts of antiques and a real nine-foot Steinway grand piano so that Grandma could hold concerts in the chamber room while butlers served Champagne and caviar to their guests; where my grandfather could entertain celebrities, politicians, and even his brothers from the Masonic Temple. That was a long time ago, before he was killed by greedy partners who stole his part of the company and took him for all his worth—according to my father—leaving Grandma a broke widow with a newborn. And then worse, his best friend, George, married Grandma Phoebe and took over. I’d seen the saved newspaper articles about his suspicious death. Nothing was ever proven, but I continued researching all of this down at the library.
Nowadays, the house needed a lot of work. Some of the screens were torn and the shutters on the windows hung on bya nail and the roof leaked upstairs in the hallway between our bedrooms. Just like a big family, a big house needs a lot of attention and money, but lately our family lived from paycheck to paycheck. Sure, we were left the house, but no money to maintain it. Some Friday nights we’d wait for Dad to bring home his pay from the Lockheed factory so we could eat something heartier than meatless chile rellenos, or peanut butter sugar sandwiches, or the buttered tortillas like we had on Good Friday before things really went to pieces, when Mom told Dad she’d taken a job cleaning houses, a job she let me help with because I could drive. A job that was supposed to be a secret from Dad until she let it slip. And there’d been hell to pay for that with Dad’s violence trickling down through Mom to me somehow. I’d miss that job and all the clean smells of Pine-Sol and lemon Pledge that came with it. I’d miss getting a glimpse at how other people lived. I’d miss reading their issues ofLifemagazine,Ladies Home Journal, andPsychology Todaywhile Mom and I were on lunch break.
But honestly, even though it was dilapidated, our home, bordered by river stones the size of dinosaur eggs, stood more beautiful and unique than some of the newer ones we cleaned, even the ones with pools. Cookie-cutters is what Mom called them, “nada especial” like all of a sudden ordinary was a shameful thing. I thought her goal for us all was to assimilate and be like everyone else. But our home, built in 1923, was supposedly a replica of a chateau in Normandy, together with a little creek (who needed a pool?) that ran along the property and all the way down to Verdugo Park. I was lucky enough to have my own bedroom to escape go to. So, after the adventure earlier that day at Griffith Park, my brother and sisters went to their rooms to set out their uniforms for school the next day. I didn’t have to and I guess some might say that’s the cool thing about being homeschooled, getting to stay home, but honestly, I was prettylonely except for Grandma’s voice in my head, which ironically was the reason I was stuck at home in the first place.
So, as my sisters laid their things out for school the next day, I read another chapter ofA Wrinkle in Timeto Michael. He liked to imagine he was Meg’s little brother on an adventure to save their scientist father. “But we’re gonna save ourselves, right?” Michael said. Poor Mikey, neither he nor my sisters knew the exact reason for the strangeness in our family, including me.
“Right.” I kissed him goodnight and went down to the den to find something else to read before bed.
Back in Grandma’s time, the den used to be the library that housed shelves full of books—everything fromRebecca of Sunnybrook Farmto my grandfather’s books on optometry,The Clansman,and even a big black book titledMein Kampf.Mom kept a copy of the Catholic Bible, which Grandma said was the wrong version. Still, I read it from Genesis to the Book of Revelation, including the seven extra books that I couldn’t find in the Protestant version like the book of Wisdom and the Maccabees. The den library was where I got most of my education, except for what Grandma tried to shove down my throat. It’s where my curiosity about the outside world grew and what I couldn’t find in there, I would find a couple of blocks away down at the Glendale Public Library.
I reached up and pulled out theDream of the Red Chamberand I also snatched the Sunday paper off the big mahogany desk where Dad hid his key to the safe in the garage full of his booze and a pistol. I climbed upstairs to my room and plopped onto my bed.
The front page of the newspaper read: “LBJ Plans Twice a Year Strategy Conference on Vietnam Struggle.” Why are we even in Vietnam? Could the war be any worse than here at home where the dictator constantly battles with the queen of the kingdom?I flipped onto my back and turned the page. “In Griffith Park today, hippie tribes expected to gather today for a Love-in.” Wow! My body tingled. I’d been there. I’d been a part of something meaningful, part of history. These human be-ins were taking place all across the country.
I popped open a can of beer stolen earlier from Dad’s stash in the garage and took a swig. I’d been sneaking sips since I was about fourteen. Sometimes there was something a little stronger like Thunderbird wine, but I could barely choke that down. He had a hard time keeping track of his hooch he’d bring into the house, and if he happened to notice anything missing at all, he’d blame Mom for pouring his stuff down the drain, which she did a lot of times. Last Friday she told me to do it. I liked how it took the edge off, mellowed me out. Grandma, of course, freaked out every time. But the good thing about being pleasantly buzzed—besides water and the Communion wafer, which is about all I’d had all day—was that I didn’t care as much. I found her laughable. She had a hard time understanding that she couldn’t do anything to stop me.
I slugged another mouthful and then lay in bed where the scented smoke-ring memories of the day’s experience at Griffith Park swirled through my head. There’d been so many people my age, whites, Blacks, Asians, Mexicans—all so happy-looking like those beautiful glass-eyed creatures going around on the carousel. Everyone seemed to get along. Nothing like at home where Dad used to scare us with the threat of some Japanese or Russian or even Martian invasion. Or he’d march around like some Nazi soldier, making Michael salute, “Heil Hitler!” and then laughing and saying it was a joke. (I remember Mom once telling me that Dad’s stepfather used to take him to Nazi rallies up at Hindenburg Park.) Griffith Park was sort of like a universal love-in. I needed to go back. I hoped they’d be there every Sunday and if so, I’d find a way to get there. So inspired by the day’s experience, I jotteddown the start of either a poem or a song. Soon, a tune popped into my head.
Stop this merrygo round, it’s spinning too fast
No time tofeel sorry about the past
I want to skip nakedthrough the park
Tired of living alone in the dark
Think of tomorrow beginning at dawn
Come back to realityand today is . . .
