Page 5 of And Still Her Voice
“But this is the wrong way,” Mom said.
“There’s some good shit happening over at Griffith Park,” Dad said, our bodies jerking up a bit as he shifted gears. She turned to face him, her left eye bulging now like a purple Easter egg, as if to say,We just got out of church, watch your language.
By now I was very familiar with the park because sometimes on Sundays after Mass, if he even made it to church with us at all and depending on how bad his hangover was, we’d head over to ride the carousel or the miniature trains. But, once we got there, if Dad ended up napping in the shade, we knew not to wake themonster to ask for anything like money for popcorn or cotton candy, much less a trip on the merry-go-round.
“Yay, the horsies,” Josie squealed. She loved riding the carousel, the same as I did at her age when everything seemed magical about the shimmery, bejeweled horses. Unable to see the happenings around me, the faster we went around, if not for the belt strapping me down, I’d fly away. Like they could take off to some castle in the sky filled with ice cream and lollipops and loads of new, sparkly toys. Mom rode with us once until she screamed for the operator to stop; like she’d screamed for Dad to stop.
“Hay no! Not today. Estás loco?”Mom said. “I read in the papers that it’s gotten kind of crazy with all those hippies.”
“Shi–oot, Teresa. They’re love-ins. Tell me, how can that be bad?”
Love-ins?That didn’t sound like a familiar term in Dad’s vocabulary. The only thing he seemed to love lately was his Pabst Blue Ribbons and his smokes. So there had to be something else drawing him, but Mom tried hard today on el Domingo de Pascua to put into practice what Father Reynoso had preached according to 1 Timothy 2:12: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” Besides, she already had one black eye.
***
We pulled into Griffith and parked as a parade of motorcycles roared up carrying young wild-haired men in black leather vests with girls hanging on behind, their long hair whipping in the wind. Except for the paint splattered across their breasts, some of the girls were topless.
Mom, peering through her sunglasses, sucked in a breath, quickly reaching around to cover Michael’s innocent eyes.
“Hijos, stay in the car!” She pushed the button to lock her door.
But as he exited, Dad yelled at us to get out.
What were we to do? Dad strode already twenty steps ahead of us by the time everyone spilled out of the car, Michael and Josie with their Easter baskets in tow. We knew who the boss was today. Dad seemed buoyant, like Jesus walking on water, the way he drifted across the park. Mom followed, scooping three-year-old baby Josie onto her hip, her kitten heels spiking the grass. I trembled, yet felt exhilarated to be out of the comfort zone of my house, which wasn’t so comfortable. I didn’t know what freaked me out more, Dad’s sudden mood change or all the Hell’s Angels on choppers or the chill looking hippies in psychedelic paint.
We followed Dad toward the merry-go-round and soon we were in the midst of a bunch of longhaired, and big Afro-haired “hippies,” young people of all races, full of happy faces. I noticed a couple kissing hard like right out of a movie scene. It was the first time I’d seen kissing in public, or just the first time. Immediately, I knew what had been missing in my life.
“Sin verguenza.” Mom gave me a sideways look, yanking my arm.
“Escandalosos.”
Was it sinful because they were out in public or was it because the girl was white and the boy was Black? I’d just watched the news about how an interracial couple from Virginia had been arrested, but then a higher court ruled that the law was unconstitutional.
“Selfish people,” Mom grumbled. “They’re obviously not thinking about how their children will suffer.”
Even I could see the irony. Did she think a white/Mexican relationship was better than a Black/white one? Still, I didn’t seemy parents as a mixed couple and I couldn’t see how it might be a reason for my suffering. Had I gone to a regular school, maybe I might have noticed a difference. Mom always said how bad it was for her as a Mexican in the white world. Even in Glendale where I couldn’t imagine things were as backward as places like Virginia, I did notice the looks the other fancy housewives gave my mother when we were out, whether it was at the park or church. I’d stick out my tongue at them.
I remembered the time down at the pharmacy when a yellow-haired lady smiled at my siblings and me and then asked if Mom was our nanny. Holding her newly coifed head high, she responded, in flawless English. “No, they are mine.” The pale woman backed away but still stood close enough for me to notice the difference in their skin color, even with Mom’s ivory face powder. Incidents like that were why Mom mostly took the bus to do her grocery shopping at the Mexican market on the edge of town. It’s why she made sure to be back in the house by sundown. Dad loved to tease her about being so dark.
“No soy negra!” she’d yell at him.
Like being Black was a bad thing. Mom also talked about some of her own family who were super dark and how she never would have married anyone darker than she.
The love birds finally stopped kissing and skipped away, hand in hand. The organ music from the carousel lured Michael up the hill and Mom gave chase, dragging Josie behind like a rag doll.
Surrounded by bodies glistening in the sun, I sniffed incense mixed with BO and then I whiffed the stuff that lingered in the garage after Dad had been in there working on his motorcycle awhile. With Mom out of the picture, Dad crouched down, cupping his hand to take a puff of a cigarette some guy had offered him. I may have been sheltered, but I knew it was marijuana.Dad pulled out his wallet and I panicked hoping Mom wouldn’t witness this transaction, too, or there’d be hell to pay, and we were already in debt up to our ears.
My pulse quickened, fluttering in my throat until, in an accent not my own, the voice I wished I’d never been born with; the voice echoing the sound of scratching, splashing, and stomping in the hallway of my cochlea, now yelled, “Charley!” —a grey-purple light pulsing all around me.
Dad shot up, glaring at me. “What the hell, Phoebe! Mind your own goddamn business.”
“My family is my business, Charley,” Grandma Phoebe said, and I squeezed my throat, running my hand up to cover my mouth. She’d been silent all morning especially while I sat in church. “How can you bring the children here amongst these heathens?”
Dad lunged for me. “Shut the fuck up, Phoebe.”
I backed away, clamping my mouth shut, because even though Grandma Phoebe was more scared of my father than I was, she needed control and wasn’t afraid of getting in the last word, especially when she could use my body as a shield.
I ran up the hill to catch up to the others and then after the little ones took a few spins around the carousel, we walked back through the park. Balloons and bubbles floated in the air and girls wore flowers in their hair. A kaleidoscope of color—a sign Grandma also dug the music—pulsated to the beat of the intoxicating music as people in psychedelic body paint danced, swaying and bouncing to the beat of bongos and tambourines. Young painted people pirouetted around us handing out jellybeans that Mom quickly confiscated. Someone handed me a daisy and Baby Josie a balloon. Michael gave chase again when someone blew bubbles.
