Purple Daze Read online

  the Merry Pranksters—a band of communal friends

  who trek cross-country in a psychedelic school bus

  called Further.

  February 21: Police raid Stanley’s makeshift laboratory.

  Not only does the errant apothecary beat the charges,

  but he successfully sues for the recovery of his equipment.

  Experts estimate the total production from his lab

  at one-half kilogram or two million “hits.”

  Cheryl

  Mom, do you have the late shift again?

  Punching numbers into the cash register,

  making change, bagging shampoo, toothpaste.

  “Anything else, ma’am?”

  rent

  groceries

  new tires

  Will you be home soon?

  My bag needs filling too.

  Ziggy

  Ms. Hawes gave every kid

  in class a notebook. She

  calls them free journals.

  Our homework for the semester

  is to fill the pages with free writing.

  I love the word free.

  Free-and-easy.

  Free spirit.

  Free love.

  Only there’re rules in all this freedom.

  Pens. No pencils. No erasers.

  No ink eradicator.

  Once we put pen to paper we must

  write nonstop for twenty minutes,

  ink is like blood, smearing our

  most private feelings across all

  those clean white pages.

  Freedom, I write, is not free if

  strings are attached, even if it is

  a homework assignment ...

  Cheryl

  I love writing without thinking about commas or periods or spelling or being neat or worrying about anyone else reading how much I hate the creep next door and that I don’t care if he was drunk because that isn’t an excuse for sticking his tongue down my throat and besides I know he would have done more if he’d had the chance which is really sickening because I just about barf every time someone knocks on our door and I can’t get rid of his disgusting booze taste no matter how long I brush my teeth and I hope his tongue got sliced up on my braces and writing like this makes me feel a little bit better because it’s like throwing up when there’s something bad inside so tomorrow I’m going to write more and the next day too until this sick feeling in my stomach goes away and then I’ll write a thank-you note to Ms. Hawes because she gave us journals for free-writing and promised not to read them....

  Mickey

  Dad substituted Jujubes for Jim Beam.

  5½ days stone sober. Wiping out

  his old record by 2 hours, 14 minutes.

  That was when Mom split the first time.

  This time it’s Walter Cronkite’s fault.

  He fills a water glass, neat, no ice. I’ve seen

  him like this before, no kidding, when he’s

  all fired up over the 6 o’clock news.

  “Some things never change,” he says,

  as looters cart off sofas and Frigidaires.

  A Magnavox is lifted from a burning building.

  Magna-Color. Astro-Sonic Stereo.

  From our 10-inch Zenith it looks like it’s

  snowing in L.A. Dad slaps at the rabbit ears,

  knocking over the TV tray.

  “Maybe we should go down there?” he says.

  “Pick up a few things. You still got your

  driver’s license?”

  He says this while watching

  bottles, rocks, and bricks flying

  upside down on our floor.

  I grab my keys,

  wishing I could

  drive out of his life

  forever.

  Don

  2:40 a.m.

  Mickey has one hand on the suicide knob,

  a can of Colt 45 in the other. Two wheels

  hop the curb, taking out a fence.

  Plunk. Plunk. Plunk.

  Mick guns it down the 405 Freeway,

  “You think Niggers bleed like us?”

  “Black as tar!” I say.

  Cheryl slugs me. “Shut up!”

  I rub my arm, What the hell?

  I was only kidding.

  Lights slash the sky, like a world premiere

  movie. Smoke’s thicker too. Every ramp

  downtown is barricaded.

  I figure Cheryl wants me to tell Mick to ditch

  the whole damn thing but he’s going about a

  hundred miles an hour and besides who knows

  when we’ll have another burn-baby-burn riot.

  He doesn’t slow down till we pass the 106th Street

  exit where the National Guard stands on a ramp

  with rifles, bayonets on their muzzles.

  “Bitchin’ uniforms,” Mick says.

  Then he punches it to the fast lane

  and pulls over to take a wiz.

  Bloody Sunday

  Despite the Civil Rights Act of 1964, only 156

  of the 15,156 blacks in Dallas County, Alabama

  were registered to vote.

  Revered Martin Luther King and 600 civil rights

  demonstrators organized a nonviolent march from

  Selma to Montgomery to protest discrimination and

  intimidation preventing Selma’s black population

  from registering.

  The peaceful protesters kneeled, prayed, crossed

  the Pettus Bridge over the muddy Alabama River,

  where they were attacked by state and local police:

  tear gas

  slap of billy clubs

  snap of bones

  Last month, twenty-seven year old Jimmie Lee Jackson,

  farm worker and church deacon,

  was shot in the stomach by a state trooper

  while trying to protect his mother

  and elderly grandfather when they were attacked.

  Instead of being taken directly to the hospital,

  where his wounds could have been treated,

  Jackson was arrested, charged

  with assault and battery.

  Eight days later, Jimmie Lee died at

  Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma.

  —Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965

  “How Long, Not Long”

  “Last Sunday, more than eight thousand of us started on a mighty walk from Selma, Alabama. We have walked through desolate valleys and across the trying hills. We have walked on meandering highways and rested our bodies on rocky byways. ...”

  “... From Montgomery to Birmingham, from Birmingham to Selma, from Selma back to Montgomery, a trail wound in a circle long and often bloody, yet it has become a highway up from darkness. ...”

  “... Our whole campaign in Alabama has been centered around the right to vote. In focusing the attention of the nation and the world today on the flagrant denial of the right to vote, we are exposing the very origin, the root cause, of racial segregation in the Southland. ...”

  “... The bombing of our homes will not dissuade us. We are on the move now. The beating and killing of our clergymen and young people will not divert us. We are on the move now.... Like an idea whose time has come, not even the marching of mighty armies can halt us. We are moving to the land of freedom. ...”

  “... Let us march on ballot boxes, march on ballot boxes until race-baiters disappear from the political arena ... Let us march on ballot boxes until brotherhood becomes more than a meaningless word in an opening prayer, but the order of the day on every legislative agenda...”

  “... I know you are asking today, “How long will it take?” Somebody’s asking, “How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?” I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because ‘truth crushed to earth will rise again.�
��”

  “How long? Not long, because ‘no lie can live forever.’”

  —Public speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., March 25, 1965 at the steps of the State Capitol, Montgomery, Alabama

  Ziggy

  I used to think about setting up

  Daddy with Ms. Hawes, then

  Bubba and I visited him last weekend,

  first time in months.

  1:30 a.m.

  Cops gave him a lift from the hospital.

  Frankenstein, a million stitches holding

  his brains in.

  Head-on with a power pole.

  His girlfriend was pissed, locked herself

  in the bedroom. Daddy passed out on the

  couch, still loaded. Blood seeping through

  gauze bandages.

  Me and Bubba stayed up all night

  watching his chest rise and fall,

  wondering if he’d make it till breakfast.

  Cheryl

  Mom listened,

  held me,

  wiped my nose,

  kissed my tears.

  “It’s not your fault.

  It’s not your fault.

  It’s not your fault.”

  Her voice warm

  as my wound.

  Nancy

  The TV is full of stuff about rights.

  Civil Rights. Employees’ Rights.

  Black Rights. Women’s Rights.

  Let’s say I don’t know the Girls’ VP

  went through my locker during Social Studies

  while we watched news clips of Vietnam,

  sickened by body bags.

  Does that make it right?

  From President Johnson

  “Some 400 young men, born into an America that is bursting with opportunity and promise, have ended their lives, on Viet-Nam’s steaming soil....

  “We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny. And only in such a world will our own freedom be finally secure....

  “Over this war—and all Asia—is another reality: the deepening shadow of Communist China. The rulers in Hanoi are urged on by Peking. This is a regime which has destroyed freedom in Tibet, which has attacked India, and has been condemned by the United Nations for aggression in Korea....

  “These countries of Southeast Asia are homes for millions of impoverished people. Each day these people rise at dawn and struggle through until the night to wrestle existence from the soil. They are often wracked by disease, plagued by hunger, and death comes at the early age of 40. ...

  “We must stay in Southeast Asia—as we did in Europe—in the words of the Bible: ‘Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further. ...’”

  —Speech at Johns Hopkins University, April 7, 1965

  Cheryl

  2 a.m.

  Blankets tucked around pillows.

  Sen-Sens in my pocket.

  Frosted lipstick, nude.

  I open the window,

  unlatch the screen,

  crawl over the sill,

  my heart a free-for-all.

  The Blue Bomb is parked at the

  top of the street. Brake released,

  it rolls down.

  Giggles spill out:

  Ziggy and Mickey

  Nancy and Phil

  Me and Don

  Mick pops the clutch.

  Away we go.

  Nancy

  3:15 a.m.

  Stopped at a red light.

  Mickey yells, “Chinese fire drill!”

  Mick, Don, and Phil tear around the

  Bomb, climbing in on the passenger’s side.

  Now Ziggy’s behind the wheel, trying

  to steer with her boobs.

  We fishtail through an intersection

  of neon liquor stores, wrought iron

  windows.

  “Isn’t Skid Row near here?” Ziggy says

  while Phil nibbles my neck.

  Mickey crushes his beer can,

  “Fuckin’ A!”

  Ziggy

  3:25 a.m.

  Some scuzz shouts from a strip joint,

  “Shake it—Don’t break it!”

  Cheryl clings to Don, scared, sorry she

  came along. I cut lose with a shimmy,

  forgetting Mickey has unhooked my bra.

  Mick sneaks a peek in the door

  under a flashing sign:

  TOPLESS DANCERS

  GLOW-IN-THE-DARK-TITS

  Beer spills from a paper bag, while

  Mick shoots the shit with a bouncer,

  trying to convince him he’s 21.

  I bet those dancers make more than

  the 50-cents an hour I get babysitting

  psycho kid.

  “Shake it, baby!”

  Nancy

  4:10 a.m.

  Phil fumbles for my zipper.

  I grab his hand, no.

  My knees pressed together, no.

  It’s not like I worry about burning

  in hell, like some goody-two-shoes.

  It’s not like I want to save myself for

  my husband; I already know who he is,

  Phil.

  I imagine the not-you-too look on my

  mom’s face if another rabbit dies. When

  hers died she got expelled from high school

  and a shotgun wedding that keeps misfiring.

  Cheryl

  4:40 a.m.

  I climb in, smelling like cigarettes

  and beer. Hickey on my neck,

  no doubt.

  My knee bumps the dinner bell

  tied to the shade. The hall light

  flicks on.

  Busted!

  SDS

  The first antiwar demonstration to receive

  front-page exposure from the New York Times,

  planned by an unknown organization,

  Students for a Democratic Society.

  Twenty-five thousand—beards, blue jeans,

  ivy tweeds, the occasional clerical collar

  marched on Washington, DC, singing.

  Thousands bore antiwar signs:

  Get Out! End The War! Peace!

  —March on Washington, DC on April 17, 1965

  Ziggy

  In elementary school we memorized

  “America the Beautiful” for Open House.

  I sat in the top row of seats in the music room,

  proud I knew all eight stanzas. After rehearsal,

  our teacher called me outside, scolded me for

  showing my underpants.

  “From now on you will sit on the bottom tier

  and cross your ankles like a proper young lady.”

  A helicopter hovered overhead. I thought,

  Channel 7 is here to report I wore my

  days-of-the-week underwear out of order.

  Cheryl

  Mom doesn’t have many rules:

  no boys in the house,

  no cutting school,

  no sneaking out at night.

  I feel

  bad,

  sad,

  but not because I got caught.

  I want

  to brush

  Mom’s hair

  in front of the TV

  and laugh

  at Lucy

  and Ethel.

  Mickey

  I’m just like you,

  dear old dad.