The Weakness of Gravity

By Maureen Tadlock

It is the tail end of the sixties in Los Angeles, in that seemingly split second of time when all hell broke loose and the conformity of the Leave it to Beaver fifties would forever be shed. Thats when Maureen Tadlock hit the streets, her mother divorced for the fourth time, with no rules or constraints, twelve years old saying she was fifteen, cruising the boulevards, dropping acid, in an endless carnival of parties and characters that were both innocent and outrageous. But as the Fates would have it the law would soon intervene and reset her course on an odyssey of greater meaning and further adventure while continuing to ride the wave of a cultural revolution. In her search for home, family and love in a world that from the beginning felt alien, Maureen Tadlock explores the borderlands of inner experience, creative expression and the transcendent, mythical meaning of her life as a young woman.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456726812

Maureen Tadlock

Maureen Tadlock lives in Southern Vermont, and divides her time between Vermont and her other home of Maui, Hawaii. Along with writing and painting she operates an independent consulting business Imagination and Transformation which is dedicated to assisting those experiencing major life transitions or in gaining clarity of their life’s path through creative expression. Her graduate work in Consciousness Studies focused primarily on the Transformative power of the Imagination. You can learn more by going to her web site, www.imaginationandtransformation.com

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The Weakness of Gravity

Maureen Tadlock

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AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

This is a memoir; my memories as perceived and articulated through the lens of my individual experience. Though they are, in truth, what I experienced they may vary in what others experienced who are depicted in the story. Therefore, in consideration of that fact, and in the interest in protecting their privacy, I have changed some names and locations.

© 2011 Maureen Tadlock. All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 03/04/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4567-2680-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-2681-2 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-2682-9 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011900152

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

DEDICATION

THE WEAKNESS OF GRAVITY

THE OTHER

MOM

THE WHOLE WORLD’S A STAGE

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’

AWAKENING

WEAR YOUR LOVE LIKE HEAVEN

THERE’S A SIGNPOST UP AHEAD…

GOODBYE JOE

ARE YOU EXPERIENCED?

ITCHYCOO PARK

Good Mornin’ Little School Girl

RAMBLE ON

LOVE CALLS YOU BY YOUR NAME

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE

NATURE’S WAY

CELLULOID HEROES

KEEP MOVIN

OURSELVES ALONE

MYTHIC DAYS

VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Francis X. Charet and James Sparrell for breathing me through the writing of this book, Suzanne Kingsbury for her editing expertise and unwavering enthusiasm, Eddie Charbonneau and my children Kai and Julia for their steadfast encouragement, and Margaret Ratheau who has helped me to understand that ‘home is within.’

DEDICATION

I have a feeling that I’m able to help this thing that guides my life. I’m not doing it, but I can help it in some way

- Dr. Thadeus Reichstein

For my brother Gary: My first hero

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THE WEAKNESS OF GRAVITY

Clusters of tiny butterflies flutter up from the shrubs as I brush by, running back and forth. The yellow blossomed shrubs fill the empty lot across the street, taller than me and prickly, but it’s worth an occasional scratch to watch the butterflies jump into the sky. I can make them do that, jump into the sky, the big grey blue sky that quickly turns orange, the color of the butterflies. The same butterflies I catch in the morning on the flowering bushes in the front yard of our apartment building and carefully insert into little holes in the mail slots so later, while hiding in those bushes, I can watch the neighbors get a magical surprise when they go to get their mail and the butterflies fly out.

Maureen, a voice calls out. And I stop abruptly. Maureen, where are you? I walk slowly through the prickly shrubs, ever so slowly, to peer through at the edge. It’s Grandma across the street. I’m camouflaged so she doesn’t see me. She looks up and down the street, calling my name. Ever so slowly I emerge, becoming visible. She still doesn’t see me, and I hold my hand to my mouth and laugh. There you are. She’s startled. What are doing over there? She smiles, so I know she’s not mad. Come across now, look both ways. What in the hell are doing in that empty lot? She holds out her hand, It’s nice out, let’s take a little walk. I hear my aunt’s laughter coming from our upstairs apartment window. A sound I know well. It makes me feel good.

As we walk up the sidewalk, we both look at the sky, a big orange ocean with streaks of pink and red. Grandma says something again about how nice it is out. I think about how grown ups always seem to talk about how nice it is out, like when my mom says Why don’t you go outside, it’s nice out, why are you hanging around the house? I can’t figure it out. It’s always nice out. But I don’t ask Grandma about that, instead I tell her this is my favorite time of day. What time of day is it? she asks. I look up at her, sensing this is one of her quizzes. This time of day, you know. No I don’t know. What time of day is it? I think for a moment as we walk, looking around at the trees and the yards and the houses, the golden film that covers everything. You know, when it’s like toast out. Grandma laughs, she stops and laughs, her hand lets mine go, and she holds her stomach as she looks at me. Like toast out? I smile, even though I am not sure what’s so funny.

I never stuttered with Grandma. But I never noticed that I never stuttered with her. Of course I didn’t really talk that much when I was with her. There were usually other people around, and they had a lot to say to each other and didn’t seem to notice I didn’t talk. Every once in a while I’d hear my name and see them looking at me, and they’d ask me a question. Most of the time I wasn’t sure what they wanted me to say, but I noticed they were all smiling so I smiled, and if my aunt was there, she’d laugh and they’d all laugh and eventually turn away to talk to each other. My face always felt hot afterwards, but at least I didn’t have to talk. Sometimes, though, my mom or my stepfather would make me say something, usually when it was just them, and not a lot of other people around. They’d ask me a question over and over again, and my mom would get mad if I didn’t say anything, so I’d try. But all I could get out was a few words or maybe a half sentence at most and then I’d keep repeating it over and over. Sometimes my stepfather, Stan, would say Spit it out would ya? He didn’t seem mad, exactly, he’d just shake his head and walk away. If I stayed out of their way they didn’t ask me questions, so I tried to do that.

The only other person I never stuttered with was my brother. Being with my brother wasn’t like being with another person. He was always there. He had always been there, standing at my shoulder, sitting next to me on the couch or in the car, always there. We shared a bedroom where we played pretend with our stuffed animals, always ending up throwing them across the room at each other’s beds. Gary was two years older than me. He was dark, and I was light. Sometimes people in our family called him my half-brother, but I didn’t know what that meant. He talked to them, in fact he talked a lot sometimes, which was good because then they didn’t notice me. One time he asked me why I couldn’t talk to other people like I talked to him. I don’t think I had an answer, but then I don’t think he was really looking for one.

When we first moved to the apartment on Hellman Avenue I was excited, one of the first times I remember being excited. It may have been the beginning of having consistent memories; before that I remember very little. There was a vague memory of a place before Hellman Avenue. I remember sitting on the couch, watching Chucko the Birthday Clown on TV with Gary, and there was something about the kitchen that seemed scary, something about the cupboards, and my mom being afraid. Maybe that’s why this new place was so exciting, it looked new and bright. I was five years old. When we arrived, they told me where our room was, and I ran into it and right over to the window that looked out the back of the house. I saw the back stairs, the parking area and garage, and directly beyond that, the San Bernadino Freeway. The freeway was my backyard, a sea of fast moving vehicles, the sound of which was eternal. I registered this, even though I was only five, the sound will never stop, even when I’m sleeping. The constant zing, zing, zing of the cars will always be there.

The head of my bed rested under this window. And I did hear the zinging of cars all night. They didn’t keep me awake because I slept very little anyway. I would lie awake night after night, watching the darkness blanket the room, my eyes darting to the possible monsters and demons taking shape. I listened intently to the subtle sounds of the apartment and watched the darkness until the slightest change began to occur, the slightest trace of light transforming everything bit by bit with an opaque grey. The sound of people sleeping, their deep breaths and some far off snoring bothered me much more than the zinging of the cars on the freeway, for that had become somehow soothing, the only awake life besides me.

In the very early morning, when it became light enough, and I felt it was safe to escape the prison of stillness, I would get up, get dressed silently and sneak out. The front of the apartment was very different from the back. Down the front stairs was a small lawn, the sidewalk, a patch of grass that ran parallel to the sidewalk where small lemon trees grew. Across the street was the park. Granada Park was not just a place with grass and trees and rose bushes. It wasn’t just that there was a playground and pool and gym with a game room, and a baseball field. Granada Park was my gift of a universe. It was a place where I would discover and create worlds within worlds, imaginary places of safe solitude; tree branches from which to perch and watch over my kingdom, hills to fly down and ponds to reflect upon. It was my home, a home away from others. And at the end of the day I would reluctantly trek slowly back from my world to theirs.

THE OTHER

Was it a voice or just a presence- a presence that I never questioned and in fact took for granted would always be there? It always was there from before I was conscious of anything at all. I remember becoming conscious of it the first time. I was six or seven years old, standing in the garage, working on some kind of project I’d concocted that involved my brother’s microscope. I was having a conversation with it, the it that was always with me, but that was other than me, the larger enveloping being that accompanied me and made everything okay, the one I trusted to show me the doors out and which gave me the courage to go through them, and that kept me breathing when it seemed important not to.

Either people were aliens or I was. I couldn’t figure it out, but there was some big difference, something that made it hard, if not impossible, to enter their world. I did a lot of observing and wondering about it, in fact I made it a hobby to observe, often behind a blind of green leaves in some bush or tree. In the safety of my cave I could watch how they interacted. I watched intently the parents with their kids, the kids playing with each other, the couples kissing on blankets, I even watched people watching each other. Through it I would talk to the other, the one that was always with me, narrating the scenes, reporting my findings.

Occasionally I was startled by contact with someone, often it was another kid who happened by and caught me off guard. Speaking was not an option, so I’d sit, usually perched aloft a tree or a structure of some kind, staring down on them in silence. To my relief, they’d drift away after a while. On occasion though, there’d be kid or a group of kids who would take an uncomfortable interest in me and persist in trying to make contact, and I’d muster up my courage in order to utter the two words that would most likely send them on their way, Go away! I still remember their puzzled faces looking back at me, the furrowed brows and whispers as they disappeared up the sidewalk. I knew, on some level, even then, that I would eventually have to enter their world. And the art of camouflage I was perfecting would serve me well.

And the other? What of it? It would stay with me and continue to guide me, first to imaginary worlds that would provide refuge from the dark and unpredictable reality, then through the gauntlet of that reality armed with a thing called personality, and on through the rest of the journey, a tenuous tightrope act, balancing connection and freedom. In the beginning it was just there, a part of me. Later people talked and taught me about someone called God. I didn’t readily connect the two, but at some point it occurred to me this enduring presence of other was possibly what they call God.

MOM

If I’m very quiet she won’t know that I’m here, in my bedroom, in the middle of day, in my bedroom, on her day off. If I’m very quiet, she won’t kick me out of the house because she says it’s a beautiful day. She wants the house quiet. After she has spent the morning cleaning, not happy, cleaning, with a kerchief on her head, running the vacuum cleaner, she wants the house clean and quiet. She wants to lie on the couch, very still, and listen to the music with the lady singing. Opera, she calls it, with the lady singing really loud. I can’t tell whether the lady is singing loud or if it’s turned up loud, maybe both. Sometimes I tip toe out quietly so I can look around the corner into the living room and see her lying still and very straight on the couch, listening to the loud singing. She has her eyes closed. I wonder if she’s dreaming, even though I don’t think she is asleep. The singing sounds sad. I wonder if she is sad.

I don’t look straight at her very much, not even to watch her like I watch other people. I’m afraid to look at her. Maybe it’s because one time, when we were in her bedroom getting ready to go somewhere, she took off her top, and I was looking at her, and she said, Turn around! I might have stopped looking at her, then, looking straight at her. I look at her with the side of my eyes. That’s what I do with most people. I have to know where everyone is all the time, but I don’t want to look right at them.

One time I really did look at her, and it was like a dream. Before she married Stan, before moving to this apartment, it seems like a long time ago, there was another man. He was tall and thin and had blonde, curly hair. A fuzzy light came through windows and see-through curtains. The curtains blew in softly and there were ruffles on the little sofa where my mom and the man sat. My brother and I sat on the carpeted floor, on the top of two steps. Isn’t she beautiful, the man said, as he gazed at my mom, Isn’t your mother beautiful? We all looked at her as the curtains blew softly through the fuzzy light, and she looked down at her lap. She had a half smile. I didn’t really know what beautiful meant, but I glanced at my brother, and he was smiling and nodded his head yes, so I did too. My mom didn’t say anything; she just looked down at her lap. I remember later when I saw Snow White, she looked like my mom, and the wicked witch said she was beautiful and that’s why she hated Snow White. I wondered if there was a witch who hated my mom because she was beautiful.

Mom didn’t look at me or my brother very much. Maybe that’s another reason I didn’t look at her. She didn’t really talk to us, either. Stan talked to us, and sometimes she’d tell him what to say to us, usually when she was mad. Sometimes she’d tell him to spank us. He always spanked us when she told him to, even though I could tell he didn’t want to. He always said he was sorry afterward. Stan was kind of like the man on the little sofa, he looked at mom that same way. Mom laughed with Stan, especially when we first moved to the apartment. They used to make funny faces at each other and laugh. She also laughed sometimes when Auntie and Grandma and my cousins came over. But everyone else, especially Auntie, was so much louder that it was hard to hear mom. I used to listen for her voice because I didn’t hear it very much. Whenever I had to ask her a question, like permission to do something, it took me a long time to get up the courage. Usually when I did she said no. Then one day my brother told me not to ask her permission, just to tell her I was going to do it. It worked, instead of saying no she’d say, Alright go ahead.

I used to look through Mom’s underwear drawer when she was out somewhere. Her underwear was silky and soft. I liked to look at her box of treasures, which was different from her jewelry box. It had some jewelry in it, but it had other things too, like a silver dollar and a blue ribbon and a ticket that said OPERA on it. There was also the necklace that I gave her when I saved up all the pennies and nickels I found and finally had a dollar and went to the little shop with Stan and bought it for her. It was a long clear gem that looked like a big diamond, and it hung on a silver chain. I thought it was a diamond even though my brother said it was just glass. My mom smiled a half smile when I gave it to her. She looked at it and ran the chain through her fingers. She looked at it with a half smile, but she didn’t look at me.

THE WHOLE WORLD’S A STAGE

Lying very still with the covers pulled up just below my nose, my eyes dart side to side around the darkened room. I can feel the witches under my bed reaching up, their long fingers touching the ends of my hair hanging over the edge of the bed. It’s extremely important that I not move an inch. My stillness and silence will keep them from being able to climb onto the bed. The blanket is my shield and my eyes protect me, my eyes and The Other. When the long night is broken by the first hints of day, I can begin to breathe. It won’t be long before I can quietly make my exit.

Having tip toed out of my room and through the living room, I gently close the door. Down the front stairs and into the early morning remnants of the night, the birds are singing, the grass is wet, and I can see the trails of slime left by snails crisscrossing the lawn. No cars, no people, either in their yards or at the park. It’s the perfect time to inhabit places I can’t be in later because the people will be there. It is the time to make the big cement steps at the entrance of the park my stage, to put on my production of a Hollywood musical. I stand at the top of the steps and the orchestra starts, Hollywood, that’s where I want to be, Hollywood… and I begin my graceful descent, arms gently outstretched, my movements timed perfectly in sync with the other dancers, all of us in our feathered, sequined gowns. I do a solo number of course, this being the finale of the show. I can usually get the entire show in before too many cars begin to round the corner, interrupting the performance. Sometimes I ignore them for a time, because the show must go on.

When people begin to make an appearance it’s my cue to wrap it up and retreat back into the green camouflage of my personal jungle, where I can resume my observing. There is a particular tree, another great gift to me, a tall evergreen that looks impenetrable, but is a stairway with different levels to take safe shelter in and create my real home. The highest level extends my view of the park. From there I can easily see my house and watch the comings and goings of my family. Sometimes I watch my brother. He always seems to have something to do and often he has his baseball glove and is with other kids. I can’t figure out how he does that, plays with other kids, he makes it look so easy.

Sometimes I see my mom leave in our car. My step father told me that our car was called a Corvair; it’s white. He has a car that belongs to the place he works, it has two steering wheels and two sets of peddles because he works at a driving school, as a Driving School Instructor. Sometimes when we go to the store, he lets me steer the car from the other steering wheel, if I swerve, he pulls the car back from his side. I never get to work the peddles because I can’t reach them.

When I know nobody is in the apartment sometimes I take the chance and sneak back in. This is a time I can be in the living room during the day and with no one around it’s an opportunity to put on another show. The living room has clean wooden floors that make a good stage, and I don’t have to imagine the music because we have the hi-fi and my mother’s records. There isn’t that much to choose from but my favorite is a Barbara Streisand album called People. I get the song Second Hand Rose down pat. I know just where to drop the needle on the record and have time to quickly get into place. I’m wearing second hand hats, second hand clothes, that’s why they call me second hand rose… I sing out from my stomach and my chest, just the way I see Barbara Streisand do on a television special. Even Jake the plumber, he’s the man I adore, had the nerve to tell me he’s been married before… My audience -which are the pillows on the couch- is thrilled as I belt out, Everyone knows that I’m just Second Hand Rose, from Second Avenue…from Second Avenue.

When the music ends I stand, feeling lifted up from the applause, my body tingling and the faintest hint of tears in my eyes from giving it my all. Slowly I come back to earth, wondering if I have time for one more run through before Mom gets home knowing that if she catches me touching her records I’ll be dead meat.

I never did get caught; I seemed to know when to stop and was extra careful in putting everything back just the way I found it. It was my secret; that I could sing and dance. Nobody would’ve believed it because I couldn’t even talk to them. Later when I had to go to school and they all made fun of me and called me weird, I had my secret; that I could sing and dance.

__________________

At a certain point a change occurred in the terror of the dark, lonely nights. It came in the form of an odd companion. When my parents got a new portable television, they put the old one in our room. The night world would never be the same. All I had to do was wait until they were safely asleep, and I could very quietly turn on the TV, keeping the volume low, so low I could almost not hear it, and magically the demons were put to rest. Bathed by the screen’s blue light, I was secure and ready for the evening’s journey through late night B-rated movies, with only the annoyance of the frequent car commercials. Even those were somehow comforting, Ralph Williams, Ralph Williams Ford, or they guy with the cowboy hat and the German Sheppard named Storm. The movies were predictable fare, science fiction and horror movies, some of the best on Chiller Theater. The beginning of that show always started out with this clock ticking; tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, and weird images floating by. Then a voice came on and said, It’s time for…Chiller Theater, and someone screamed a blood-curdling scream and you saw a severed head roll down the front steps of a house, to the lawn. I found it amusing, not scary; being alone at night in my room was much scarier.

I liked the late night movies. I was particularly drawn to the jungle movies where the white men go on safari through the Amazon or African jungles. They always had a bunch of natives with them, carrying their things and there were many life-threatening dangers; someone always fell into the Paraná-infested pond and got eaten. That was usually the high point. My favorite of these types of films were the Tarzan series. They had better plots. I loved Tarzan and Jane, how they made their home in a tree and spent their days swinging through forest trees, playing with Cheetah, their pet chimpanzee, swimming and riding on elephants. And even though Tarzan had to come to the rescue often to save Jane from a lion or an alligator or something, killing them with his bare hands, it didn’t make her afraid. They just went on with their life in paradise. The only thing that ever really got in the way was the occasional visits by the white men who often asked Jane to have Tarzan do things for them. Tarzan would do the favors because Jane asked him to, but they always regretted it.

Only once did my mom ever catch me watching TV late at night. She came in and angrily shut it off, and I lay feeling dread that they’d remove it the next day. But they never did, and I just made sure to always keep the sound down very low. If I heard somebody stir, I jumped up and shut it off quick, then turned it back on when it was safe. A wooden cabinet with plastic knobs that held a glass picture tube of black and white wonder, this was my friend, my companion, my savior. Never again would the night hold me in its grip of terror, at least not regularly. I would learn to turn to it at other times and other places to help block out the sights and sounds of strange and frightening images in the world around me. The world inside the TV was safe, and if I couldn’t escape to the outside, it was my only refuge. I could stare into the magic box, and it would take me away.

___________________

The one place I could sleep was at Grandma’s house. Grandma lived across town in what was called a duplex; she lived on one side and Mrs. Cochran lived on the other. They shared a small front yard, where they had wooden lawn chairs with a little table between them. The house was tucked away down a little side street. An alley ran along beside it. A gate led out to the alley. Corrugated sheet metal lined the gaps between the houses and buildings. Grandma’s house was small, and it smelled like cooking and cigarettes. She had a portable television set on a stand like we did, and it seemed like there was always a baseball game on, either on the TV or on the radio. My uncle Jimmy was there a lot even though he didn’t live there, he always ate dinner there. Uncle Jimmy was really quiet, and he never talked to me, but it was okay because Grandma talked a lot.

We went to Grandma’s house quite a bit, my brother and I. On Saturdays we spent the day there, and I often spent the night, but Gary didn’t so I’m not sure where he went. Grandma’s bed was high off the floor. It had a big stuffed tiger and a big colorful stuffed snake on it. I loved Grandma’s bed. It was my favorite inside place. She would let me eat dinner in front of the TV in the living room with a little fold out table, even though I didn’t usually eat. When I went to bed, I’d climb up onto the big, soft bed with the white bedspread and the tiger and the snake, and she’d tuck me in. I could hear her just outside the door watching TV, every once and a while she’d laugh, and I eventually drifted off to sleep. I’d wake up briefly when she got into the bed, but then I could return to an even deeper sleep.

Besides sleeping the best thing about going to Grandma’s was that we got to go to the movie theater. The Rialto Movie Theater was around the corner on Colorado Boulevard and for sixty-five cents you could see a double feature. There was a stretch of time when Gary and I went most Saturdays. The theater was a grand place; the fancy façade and the marquee out front with the ticket booth, the marble tile leading through big glass doors to the lobby. In some ways the lobby was my favorite place: a sea of plush red carpet and thick red velvet ropes held by brass stands that led the way to the candy concession, its glass cases filled with every imaginable treat. I could see my reflection in the huge mirror behind the candy cases which made it real for a moment. I’m really am here, it’s not a dream. The smell of popcorn wafted up the red carpeted stairs on either side of the lobby. They led up to the balcony, which, though I took the opportunity to explore on occasion, I rarely chose to sit in. My favorite place was in the very center of the main part of the theater. It was an absolute must that I sit there, it became part of the ritual. Entering the theater was a hushed and meaningful experience. Making my way down the aisle to the imperative seat, and then settling into what would become my theater persona. Here I was not only the observer, but also the observed. I eavesdropped on the conversations of others and imagined that they wondered about me. Even at the young age of seven or eight years old I endowed myself with an air of mystery and aloofness.

When the theater slowly darkened all of that faded away and for approximately ninety minutes- plus cartoon and coming attractions- I would be carried away. I rarely knew ahead of time what the movie would be; it could be a comedy, a western, a musical. It really didn’t matter. I was enraptured until the intermission when I would inhabit my incognito persona and visit the lobby again. It was also important to make an appearance in the ladies’ room at least once, if for nothing else than to take in the ornate decor of white marble and satin-cushioned chairs. I envied the people who worked at the theater because they got to wear uniforms. Not so much the woman who stood in the ladies’ room putting out clean towels and wiping the sink counter, her uniform was more like a maid or a waitress, but the uniforms they wore at the candy concession, or better yet the ushers. Most of the ushers were men but every once and a while there’d be a woman and she’d wear the red and black uniform just like the men, with pants and a fitted jacket with three little tiny ropes near the lapel that looked like the ropes in the lobby. They carried flash lights so they could show people to their seats and sometimes you’d see them flash the lights on kids who were fooling around and making noise.

When the movie ended I always waited for most of the people to leave before getting up. I walked solemnly up the aisle and into the lobby where my brother waited for me. As we exited into the late afternoon light I purposely walked slowly up the sidewalk, savoring the residue of the movie that enveloped my being. Eventually the real world of the bustling boulevard took hold and the enchantment of the theater fell away like so much stardust. My brother, up ahead, would yell Hurry up! But I dawdled along for a little while longer, looking in the storefront windows, in no hurry return.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’

Every once in a while a Tumble Weed would roll down the street, a reminder that though we were in a suburb of Los Angeles and the freeway ran behind our house, the desert was near. The sun beat down on the dusty street and insects buzzing in the vacant lot across the street grew louder as the day wore on. I sat on the curb in front of our house, missing the one friend I’d made. Lupe’ was older than me and didn’t go away when I told her to the first time we met. Or maybe she did but she came back and asked if I wanted to see what a baseball was made of. Someone had cut it open so you could see what was inside. It had a bunch of rubber bands tightly packed around a small hard ball in the middle. It was really neat-looking but I couldn’t figure out why she was showing it to me. Later on I thought maybe she didn’t have any friends either. Lupe’ didn’t seem to mind that I didn’t talk very much. As I stood there looking down at my shadow, I missed her. Then suddenly another shadow appeared behind me. Startled I turned quickly and there was Lupe’. I was so happy to see her, and she looked happy to see me, I didn’t remember ever being so happy to see anyone before.

After making friends with Lupe’, other kids came around from the neighborhood and sometimes I would join in their games. We played a lot of running around games like tag. They also liked to take turns swinging each other. One person would take your feet and another would take your hands and swing you back and forth. I did this once but I didn’t like it. I remember the kids said, Look how stiff she is. And I was. I mostly stayed on the outside and just joined in for a few minutes at a time, that way I could stay pretty unnoticed. Lupe’ also seemed to like to stay on the outside of the group.

One day Lupe’ told me she was moving. She was around for another week or two, but I avoided her. I wanted to get used to her being gone before she left. I avoided the other kids too. The summer was coming to a close and school was on the horizon. It was time to return to my shell, to prepare to fortify myself from the onslaught of cruelty that would continue where it left off the last spring; the jeers and the ridicule, making fun of my height, my hair, the moles on my arms, my white skin, calling me Casper the Friendly Ghost. Not to mention the abject terror of being called on in the classroom to answer a question, to stand there being asked over and over again to give the answer, knowing I would not say a word.

In the midst of this dismal prospect another gift, this time from Grandma. She brought me a pair of roller skates. They were shoe skates, white, that laced halfway up my calf. They fit just right, and I learned pretty quickly how to maneuver down the sidewalk and the walkways of the park. The sidewalks in our neighborhood were clean and flat, and I could really fly. Sometimes I’d carry my brother’s transistor radio and skate down the street back and forth listening to top 40 hits on the Casey Kasem show. "Hello lamp post, what you knowin’, I