Page 9 of And Still Her Voice
He laughed. “How old are you, anyway?”
Grandma spoke. “Old enough to know better.”
But I wasn’t old enough, and I didn’t know better. Worried, I sat straight, and suddenly, my skin didn’t seem to fit. “Eighteen,” I lied, as if that would have made a difference to him. I hugged my guitar closer, a not-so-subtle indication that I wouldn’t be taking the stage today. He reached out and plucked the guitar from my hands. I had no choice but to let it go. A peg caught the hem of my skirt as I handed it over, exposing the knife poking out of top of my knee-sock.
A wicked sneer spread across his face. “Smart girl,” he said, pointing to my weapon.
I pulled down my skirt, sensing he somehow had the ability to smell fear.
“You know how to use that thing?”
“The knife?”
He nodded, giving the others an exasperated look.
I still wasn’t quite sure how I’d managed to stab my father, but truly it didn’t take a genius to know how to use it. “I didn’t know it came with instructions.”
A smile that didn’t match his steely cold eyes spread above his stubbly chin. “You’re funny,” he said, whipping a pocketknife out of its buckskin sheath.
Charged, I kept my wits about me. “Classic Buck knife manufactured after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. (I knew my knives, part of Dad’s homeschooling lessons—knives and guns.) It’s actually been around since—”
“For the love of God,” Charlie said. “What are you?”
I couldn’t stop my mouth or the rush I got conversing with this stranger. “And, what are you, a cop?” I’d been treading deep waters, but now I’d sunk pretty deep.
He spit out a bitter laugh. “No, kid,” he said. “The only thing fascist pigs are good for is protecting society against niggers and Mexicans.”
Those words skewered my bleeding heart. “My mother is Mexican,” I said, defensively, reaching for my knife.
“You don’t say. You can pass for white.” He laughed, as if that made it all better.
No longer just trembling, my mixed blood heated up and I sensed an urgency to get the hell out of there before it was too late. It was the sort of talk I’d heard in my messed-up home—Dad always badmouthing the police, society and yelling at Walter Cronkite on the television news. He despised anyone who was different than he was. Marrying my mom, according to her, a Mexican, only softened him a little while giving him a false sense of superiority. It made me sad to hear the way my father talked about others and it sickened me to think he was referring to that half of me that was my Mom, never mind the part of me that was also my Grandma. I couldn’t believe I’d merely traveled a couple of miles only to run into someone like Dad. Were all men the same? Mom said they were. Compared to my father, though, this Charlie seemed saintly. I knelt and leaned toward the cab of the van. “Say, Caroline. Can you pull over and let me out? Anywhere’s fine.”
“Sort of hard to do on the freeway,” she yelled, cigarette dangling from her lips.
She smiled into the rearview mirror and I sat back to find Charlie strumming my guitar. “Here’s a little ditty I’ve been working on,” he said.
Pretty girl, pretty pretty girl
Cease to exist
Just, come an’ say you love me
Give up, your world . . .
My blood froze.
“He’s meeting some music people in LA,” Barbie said, passing me a joint. “Remember the name Manson. He’s going to be bigger than the Beatles.”
Anna, don’t!Grandma screamed inside my head. I hated her telling me what to do, but the last thing I needed right now was to lose control of my senses. I turned down the weed, besides the van reeked enough for me to get high, anyway.
. . . Submission is a gift
Go on giveit to your brother . . .
Bigger than the Beatles, huh? Charlie finished his song, everyone clapped, Barbie swooning over him as if he was Elvis. He handed back my guitar. “So, what did you think, Guitar Girl?”
Me?I think I want to get out of there. I covered my mouth, feeling Grandma coming on like a sneeze, but nothing I could do would stop her. “Colonel Scott would be quite proud.”
