Page 89 of And Still Her Voice
***
Invigorated for days after the march, I’d come to realize that just like Vietnam wasn’t the Chicano’s war, just like Stonewall wasn’t a clash River had wanted to enter, this was not a battle I wanted to choose. My war still raged inside the walls of my head where the voice constantly nagged. ‘Anna, why are you still here? You were born to do so much more. You have your music. You need to take control of your life.’ Which was totally ironic, because how could I control my life when she’d taken over and colonized my brain? I wished I had the fight in me, but I was just a pale-faced coward who’d climbed the hill, but wasn’t prepared to die on it by pulling others up. At least not yet.
***
Grandma had either pissed me off or emboldened me because a couple of days before the concert, I approached John. “This is my home town. These are my people. I’ve written something I’d like to sing.” He surprised me by agreeing so quickly. He must have been on drugs.
From the stage of the Olympic Auditorium, I looked out to a river of brown faces, my family in the first few rows, and then the lights dimmed. A grand piano had been pushed out to center stage. I would be singing my own song.
Mi corazon,an ivory-veined granite rock
tossed into the Rio Grandemoons ago.
I want to float up, pierce the muddiedwaters
with a machete and fight for what’s right;
formis hermanas, but I’m only half, not real.
Can I be one with you if I’mgüera,
If I’m still fighting my own guerra at home.
where the embers lie waiting to ignite the flames,
tearsready, listening forLa Llorona, pleading,
leave me asleep atthe bottom of the Rio Grande
where you drowned memoons ago.
I looked out to a field of flickering lights, like brilliant stars across a desert sky. The crowd, on their feet now, whistled and applauded for about five minutes. I’d climbed the hill, now what?
“Thank you all!” Without asking for John’s approval, I shouted. “We’d like to dedicate the proceeds from tonight’s concert to Las Adelitas de Aztlan.”
CHAPTER 31
India
Icould not live in any of the worlds offered tome—the world of my parents, the world of war,the world of politics. ~Anaïs Nin
But how could I recreate a world of my own as Nin had written? I could keep running, except I’d still be stuck not just with myself but with Grandma who’d represented all that was wrong with my home, the establishment, and the world. I wanted to be part of the rebellion, the protests, the activists, and the freedom riders, but how could I relate truly when the gurus of the times were telling us to look within for happiness. So, you know, not super helpful. Young kids were running away, but I’d swim the ocean in search of answers, in search of peace.
I returned with the band to New York. Angry about the donation, John took it out of my payment. He made it pretty clear that I’d never be given the same opportunity as that magical night at the Olympic. “Those were your homies,” he said. “Of course, they’d cheer someone homegrown.”
I’d never be anything more than a keyboard player, a back-up singer, a songwriter, and a coffee maker. Not with John in control. The band had been named for him, after all, Lazarus Rising, after he’d OD’d one night in San Francisco and then recovered miraculously. Oh, he hadn’t minded taking credit for my lyrics, most of which had become hits on the recent album,BumpyRoadand which would be certified gold within the next couple of decades.
I left the band.
***
I spent my time at the at the West End center practicing yoga and meditation. The music and chanting would take me away, but my mind had not settled. How could it be when I had two of them occupying the small space of my skull? Grandma floated around heaven in this environment, but how long could I remain? I’d moved in with some of the members from the center, surviving on what little I’d earned playing with the band (the men had taken most of it), trusting that money would continue to come from somewhere, and then one day a letter arrived from home. Inside, I found a copy of my birth certificate that I’d asked Mom to send me. Folded inside the letter was also a check for five hundred dollars. I called home to thank Mom for the copy of my birth certificate and the check.
“Mom, that’s a lot of money. You must have cleaned lots of houses.”
“Well it was a house. Ours. We had to clean out the Glendale place after it was sold.”
“What?”
