Page 27 of And Still Her Voice
As if stumbling through the middle of a funhouse, I bumped into young wayward pedestrians. Some serenaded, playing their guitars, while others huddled around dumpsters blazing withgarbage on the side of the street. Some offered their food, their drink, their marijuana, their needles, and their bodies (bread for head) for comfort, warmth, or dollars, but I needed to keep going. I needed to keep my wits about me.
Finally, I made it to out of the amusement park back into Panhandle Park where Grandma and I argued about me going home. At last, except for the chorus of snoring, all was quiet. An orgy of bodies strewn all over the grass like a soggy braided carpet of youth smelled briny and sour. I found an abandoned tattered blanket and swooped it up, finding a place to crash under a sycamore tree next to some bushes. My knapsack made for a lumpy pillow, my guitar, a lonely companion.
I dreamed about the mysterious singing girl with ruby lips. Then I was that girl, running in high heels across the snow, a growling polar bear chasing me. I tripped, skidding along some ice, the membrane between dreaming and waking ruptured to a morning, cold as the inside of a frosted over freezer.
The sun burned through, blinding me even more than the lingering migraine. I didn’t know how much time had passed when I heard Grandma whispering. “Darling, it’s time to return. Please, before you find yourself in more trouble.”
I yanked the cold, clammy cover over my face as if I could smother her voice. More trouble? Are you kidding me, like I could go home after what had happened to my father? At least I hadn’t killed him.
“It is truly a shame what happened to Mr. Moss,” Grandma said. “But some people just deserve to die.”
“Are you for real, old woman? What happened was totally wrong. Even if you say it was in self-defense.” I stood up and gathered my belongings.
“Ah, the agony of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul,” Grandma said.
“You’re thebad conscienceand why don’tyougo tohell,” I yelled, and it felt like a jackhammer to the inside of my skull.
“I didn’t raise you to be like this, Anna.”
I stopped, curled my hands into fists over my aching stomach. “But that’s just it—you didn’t raise me. You have no business in my life!” I lowered my head, closing my eyes. “Why can’t you just leave me alone? Go away. Just die already.” Full of rage, I finally stopped screaming when I looked around and saw sleepy-eyed people staring at me and then I heard a gentle voice.
“Are you lost, my friend?” I opened my eyes to see a pair of sandaled feet planted in front of me.
I looked up, but through my shattered-glass vision, it was hard to make out the haloed vision of a woman. Probably in her twenties, she wore silver bracelets and a crown of flowers in her fuzzy butter-crème colored hair. She wore a long gauzy dress and held up what looked like empty coffee cans.
“I don’t think so,” I responded. “I just need to rest.”
“Who do you want dead?”
“What?”
“You said, ‘Just die already.’”
“Oh,” I answered, sliding my guitar across my chest. “Lyrics. I’m working on some lyrics for a new song.” I picked up my guitar to strum a few notes. “You have no business in my life! Why don’tyou just leave me alone. Go away—”
The woman looked at me skeptically, but then started clanking the cans together like cymbals, bracelets jingling. “Catchy lyrics.Die already.Leaveme alone.So anti-establishment.”
The clanging hurt my head.
“My name is Mary. Are you hungry?”
I nodded and she handed me a chunk of bread that I inhaled as she pulled out a canteen to pour me a cup of water. “There’smore if you want to follow me,” she said. “And then we can treat that cut on your forehead.”
I reached up to touch my brow, remembering how Dilbert had slammed my face into the piano. Maybe that explained the headache. Mary seemed safe enough and Grandma wasn’t saying anything to stop me as I followed behind.
I tried to ignore my aching head but then it felt as if I might throw up. Along the way on either side of the street hundreds of young people already milled around in a sort of dreamy haze. The cloying aroma of marijuana and incense, pee, asphalt, and patchouli hung in the fog hovering over hippies, strolling back and forth without any destination. My brain was on sensory overload, sharp pains pricking me in the pit of my stomach, and my headache threatened to explode with a vengeance as we climbed Clayton Street. I threw up and slumped onto the sidewalk before blacking out.
***
A man in a white coat and wire-framed glasses handed me a green bottle of 7Up as I awoke. Mary sat on the curb next to an orange bucket. Water had been splashed onto the mess I’d made. I felt better and thanked the man as I stood.
“Take it easy, young lady,” he said.
“I’ll take care of her,” Mary said.
***
The sun hovered just above the buildings lined up like jagged teeth as I followed Mary to a dilapidated three-story place that seemed to have barely withstood all the earthquakes I’d readabout. Except for the modern mind-blowing paint job, it looked like it came straight out ofThe Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.A three-storied Victorian that, I imagined, had been splashed with every color of leftover or donated paint. There were a couple of kids sitting on the steps leading to the entrance smoking joints. “Hi Mother Mary.” The skinny girl with long limbs who was not much younger than Mary acknowledged her as we climbed up and over a few potted spiky, leafy plants on the stoop.
