My best friend, Julianne, was an impossibly beautiful Catholic who loved to bake cookies, listen to music, and talk about God. She also introduced me to Monty Python. Once I saw “The Cheese Shop” sketch I was hooked. Their mix of highbrow intellectualism and the absurd caught me just as I was discovering the world: culture, history, philosophy, and words! I loved the way some words made me think or feel. In the same way the Psalms evoked worship and awe, other words surprised me and made me laugh. I wanted to write like that! Julianne and I sat in biology writing down names of insects, trying to match the brilliance of “Venezuelan Beaver Cheese.” The best we came up with was “Outer Mongolian inverted spinal tsetse fly.” It didn’t matter; Python had ignited our imaginations and we ran with it.
My parents may not have been paying attention, but my teachers were. My freshman history teacher seemed to think I could become valedictorian. My drama teacher, Mrs. Van Holt, laughed at whatever I did onstage. She told me I could succeed at anything I wanted. Well, I wanted to be in the advanced Production Drama Group. Monty Python was huge; Saturday Night Live had just premiered. Production Drama kids were rock stars, and Mrs. Van Holt was the coolest teacher in school. My friend Doug and I auditioned with the “French Taunter” sketch from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Mrs. Van Holt didn’t know what hit her. Neither did I—I was just in the moment. Mrs. Van Holt said being in the moment was like playing music. You hear the notes and you just know when to play. And with Python, getting to say lines like, “You empty headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction!“—that was better than music; that was rock ’n’ roll.
My brother Jim was studying classical music in college. He told me that if you put two violins next to each other and plucked a string on one, the same string on the other violin would vibrate. Music was a sound wave. The string responded to its own wave, its note. Maybe that’s what happened when I watched Monty Python or Saturday Night Live, or when I first saw Annie Hall. I vibrated. I wanted to write comedy and make movies and make people laugh. That was my note, and I wanted to play it.
“Why do you want to do comedy?” My father scowled. Dad didn’t sit me down to discuss my future or agonize over college choices like he did with my brother Rob. He just lobbed the snipe at me from the couch after I’d come home from a rehearsal.
“I like comedy,” I replied.
Dad sighed contemptuously. “Susan. You can’t get a job in comedy. You can get a job in engineering. You got an A in physics.”
“I got an A in everything. And I don’t like physics; I love comedy.”
“Well, I love Laurel and Hardy, but you don’t see me throwing a piano out a window for a living.”
My mother was more concerned about my spiritual life than about classes. It wasn’t enough that I went to church every Sunday. Why didn’t I want to go to Luther League? She sniffled.
Lots of reasons. One: it was called Luther League. Two: Kirsten Shanahan was the president. And three: Luther League conflicted with drama rehearsal.
“I don’t like that skit I heard you and Julianne rehearsing,” Mom said.
“It’s Monty Python. They’re on PBS.”
“One of the characters’ names is Hugo Vas Deferens!” Mom snipped.
“So? He’s Dutch.”
My parents never grounded me from Drama, but they never approved it either. We never sat down and had a clear conversation about my future or anything about my life. But their sniping and guilttripping left me feeling like who I was and what I loved weren’t okay with them. I was pulling straight A’s, and I didn’t drink or smoke! Friends liked me and teachers believed in me, and most of them were non-Christians. I developed a nagging suspicion that, like my parents, God wasn’t okay with me either.
My mother must have put me on the women’s prayer chain (“Help! My daughter has fallen in with the comedy crowd!“) because Miss Toft, my old fourth-grade teacher, approached me out of the blue. “Susie! Your mom says you like to write skits! Would you like to write some Bible skits for the children?” Like what? I thought. David seduces Bathsheba? The rape of Tamar? John the Baptist gets beheaded? How about Joshua climbing the hill of foreskins? Who was she kidding? There were no funny stories in the Bible, and no one at church had a sense of humor. At least, not in any kind of intellectually challenging, creative way. And church bulletin bloopers didn’t count.
Nancy seemed to be doing it right. She and I still went to church with Mom on Sundays. (Rob and Jim were at college. Dad was at home with his TV.) But Nancy also went to a midweek Bible study at the local hippie church. She memorized Scripture. She sewed a denim cover for her Bible and embroidered a cross onto it. But I had never been like Nancy. When she was reading the Little House books three times over, I was outside playing. Now she was in marching band and I was in Production Drama. She was a geek; I was cool. I wasn’t a total prodigal. I had Julianne. She introduced me to Monty Python; I introduced her to classical music. Whenever she spent the night, we camped out in the back room, sitting in the dark and listening to my brother’s copy of Dvorák’s New World Symphony.
“This part makes me think of a plane, flying over the Appalachians,” I mused.
“I see the Grand Canyon in that motif,” she replied.
“Motif?” I teased her. “I do believe the Grand Canyon motif isn’t introduced until the scherzo!” We congratulated ourselves on being both smart and groovy. But all our lofty thoughts and groovulosity inevitably led us to the feet of the God who created the Appalachians and the Grand Canyon and music. And behold, it was very good. We were both in awe of God. And the more we talked about God, the more I was sure that Christianity offered a logical explanation for why the world was the way it was: why there was beauty and tragedy, why we could believe Jesus provided a way to heal the world. It made sense. The problem was: You’re not ruled by sense or logic in high school. You’re ruled by hormones and the overwhelming longing for one hot guy to look at you and say, “Behold, it is very good.”
Julianne and I differed in our conclusions about God and in another respect: she didn’t think sex was a big deal. Her mom was young, and her mom said sex was beautiful. The only restriction her mom gave her was, “Don’t get pregnant. You’re Catholic; you can’t get an abortion.” The only thing my mom said to me about sex was…nothing. Mom was too scared to talk about it.
There are plenty of jokes about coming of age: that horrific realization that your parents must have had sex at least once or you wouldn’t be here. No one wants that image in her head. I didn’t have a single image of my parents being affectionate. Dad spent his evenings on the couch; Mom spent hers in the Bible. They never held hands; they rarely went on dates. Dad’s idea of an anniversary gift for Mom was a box of candy, which he ate himself. Years later I found my mother’s college photo album. I was shocked to discover she had been a knockout. When I asked her why she married Dad, she said, “He made me laugh.” He sure didn’t make her feel like a catch.
And I didn’t feel like men were a catch—not if they were like my dad. Sure, I was attracted to boys. But men were different. If they were like Dad, they’d belittle me, turn me into a servant, and ignore me. I wasn’t about to get close.
Here’s where God had the perfect chance to intervene! Pastor Ingebretsen was retiring. Now God could bring in a hot, young pastor who could model Christian machismo and give me a picture of how sexy a godly married life could be!
Instead, God sent Norman Nordvik.
Pastor Norman looked like a Christmas elf: tiny, thin, with double-knit slacks and white golf shoes. Pastor Norm was so polite he began every prayer in the antiquated subjunctive: “O Lord, we would that you would be present with us.…” “Lord, we would that you would answer our prayer.” He couldn’t even ask a direct question of God. How was he going to speak directly about sex?
One night Pastor Norm gave a special talk to the Luther League, and Mom forced Nancy and me to go. He stood at the front of the sanctuary with an easel.
I prayed he wasn’t going to use felt forms to demonstrate…plumbing.
Instead he produced two large pieces of cardboard that had been glued together. “Sexual intercourse is made for the covenant of marriage. It is a binding act that unites two into one flesh. But if you engage in sexual intercourse outside of marriage—”
Pastor Norman yanked the two pieces apart. They shredded into chunks, one side clinging to the other, destroying the cardboard completely. “This is what happens if you have sex outside of marriage.”
Well, okay then. Not doing that.
He began reciting from his notes. “Sexual intercourse…” His Fargo accent turned the words into a sourball: “SECK-shull INN-turr-course. While it is indeed a pleasurable activity, it is more importantly a foretaste—a harbinger—of the rapture we shall one day experience when we are united with our Lord as the Bride of Christ.”
Okay then. Not doing that either.
“Are we going to have sex with Jesus?” Stevie Sutherland deadpanned.
“Yes, we are,” Pastor Norman replied.
Now even Nancy looked scared.
“We will have union with God,” Pastor Norm clarified. “SECK-shull INN-turr-course is the one human experience that best describes the rapture we shall one day enjoy with Jesus, the Lover of our souls.”
“Do you and your wife pray before you do it?” Stevie pressed.
“Why, yes!” Pastor Norman responded, and gave us a foretaste of his pre-connubial prayer. “Oh, Lord, we would that you would be present with us in our intimate union. And we would that you would unite us, flesh to flesh.…”
I knew there was something true in what Pastor Norm was saying: something akin to the longing I felt watching kites in a March sky or seeing the look on my mother’s face after Communion. But likening that to SECK-shull INN-turr-course for a room full of teenagers was not a masterful use of language.
TV and movies made sex look groovy and exciting. My parents made it dull and depressing. The Christmas elf just made it creepy. I wanted nothing to do with it.
There was only one problem: John Lennon.
The Beatles had been part of my childhood. All those nights I sat waiting for the green Sears sign to come on, my brothers were playing “A Hard Day’s Night.” Later Jim bought the Sgt. Pepper’s album, and it became the background music to my childhood. By the spring of 1977, Beatles music came front and center.
Beatlemania hit Broadway, and revival cinemas played Beatles movies and concert footage. There was even a Beatles magazine and a Beatlefest convention. A group from Production Drama went to see A Hard Day’s Night at the Balboa revival theater. Julianne had her driver’s license; she gave me a ride.
When John played “I Should Have Known Better,” I was mesmerized. I found out later that was the B side of “A Hard Day’s Night.” I’d probably heard it waiting for the green Sears sign and filed it into my subconscious. Now it blasted back into my conscious imagination and knocked me over.
The Beatles were cute, cuddly, and dangerous enough to be exciting—especially John. He was funny; he loved to crack jokes. He was a rebel; he talked back to his road manager. (Well, he did in the A Hard Day’s Night movie.) Who cared that the Beatles had broken up long ago and John was married to that weirdo, Yoko? Maybe he’d meet me and divorce her. Every girl needs an unattainable rock star to swoon over. It’s her way of indulging her budding sexuality without having to experiment on a real boy. I chose John Lennon.
I bought the script to A Hard Day’s Night and memorized the lines. I bought up all the used albums at the local record store. I listened to John’s raspy voice in “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” and “Run for Your Life” and dreamed about kissing him. He was my hero. Mighty Mouse with a guitar. I fell in love.
Meanwhile, my sister had fallen in love with Jesus. She liked the Beatles too, but to her, loving John Lennon was cheating on Jesus.
“John Lennon wrote, ‘Imagine there’s no heaven’!” she scolded me.
“Well, he also wrote ‘I Am the Walrus.’ I’m not going to become an atheist just by listening to the Beatles!”
For Christmas I asked for The White Album. Nancy got me The Way, a Bible with pictures of hippies inside. “You know, Susie,” she lectured, “when all your drama friends have dropped out of school or OD’d on drugs or gotten pregnant, you might want to read it.”
“Well, right now I want something that reads on a stereo.” I hated when she got all holier-than-thou. “Just because I don’t want to go to a Christian college like you or go to your midweek Bible study doesn’t mean I don’t love Jesus. I do. But I also love John.”
“What does John Lennon have that Jesus doesn’t?” she asked.
“A sense of humor!”
I finally relented and went with Nancy to an Easter sunrise service at her Christian college across town. They played Christian rock. The pastor was cool. I remembered why I loved Jesus. He was a rebel, like John. He cared about peace, like John. But Jesus did more than John: He took on death to save me. Of course I loved Jesus. But I thought of that Jesus picture where he’s tending sheep in the Alps. Why couldn’t I be like the black sheep in the picture, trailing along behind? Why did I have to be like the pretty white sheep, like Nancy?
During my senior year, Mrs. Van Holt enrolled me in classes at a respected theater nearby. Their director enrolled me in a regional Shakespeare competition, and I won the award for “Best Supporting Actress.” My school nominated me for a district award. Production Drama did two plays that year: one by Lillian Hellman and an SNL-style show of original material. I wasn’t vibrating to someone else’s note. I was playing my own music.
Dad refused to attend either event. “Lillian Hellman was a Communist,” he spat. He didn’t give a reason for boycotting the other show. I guessed his reason: he hated me. I knew because he hated my brother Jim too. Jim graduated from music school with a degree in oboe and conducting. He conducted the university orchestra in front of the entire faculty and student body. When he finally put down his baton, the packed auditorium erupted in a standing ovation. There was my father, third row center, refusing to stand, seething with contempt.
Dad should have learned his lesson with Rob. Dad crowbarred him into med school, and Rob hated it. He stopped speaking to Dad. It devastated my father—he adored Rob. But Dad’s love was the jealous, parasitic kind that demanded, “Do what I do; think what I think; love what I love. Get your own life and I’ll destroy you.”
My childhood nightmare about the cesspool became visible in my waking life. Dad came home every night, turned on the TV, and cursed under his breath until way past midnight. The drone of the TV and curses oozed down the hall and through my bedroom door like sewage. I couldn’t sleep. I hated the noise. I hated my father.
I didn’t consciously ascribe that same malice to God, but my idea of God the Father grew more murky and distant. And now I really had something to feel guilty about: loving John more than Jesus. The Nice Jesus hung on the wall of my mind, morose and pleading. Was he pleading to God not to destroy me? Or was he pleading to me to come back?
I spent as much time away from home as possible. Sometimes I went to Julianne’s; sometimes we snuck over to Doug’s house. Doug’s mom let us stay up as late as we wanted. Some of the guys drank and smoked. I just hung out, listened to the Beatles, and then went home. Late.
My parents knew. I knew they knew. For months they ignored it like they ignored everything else. Then one night they decided to notice. I was sneaking in the back door after midnight and there they were: Mom with a wad of used Kleenex, Dad with his contemptuous scowl.
“Where have you been?!” Mother cried.
“I was at Doug’s watching Roots. You can call his mom right now!” It was true. Doug’s mom was there; she was just too drunk to pick up the phone.
“We never should have let you skip half-day kindergarten,” Dad rasped. “You’re immature; you’re irresponsible; you will never amount to anything.”
/> “Really? Mrs. Van Holt says I can do whatever I put my mind to.”
“Your drama teacher is a hippie pothead.”
“A what?!” I scoffed. “How would you know? You never come to my plays.”
“Susie,” Mom intervened, “why don’t you invite your friends to come here?”
“Isn’t it obvious?!” I stomped off to my room. For the first time in my life my parents enacted some discipline. They grounded me for an entire month. Three days later they dropped it. They didn’t say, “You’re no longer grounded.” They just went back to ignoring me.
I hated my father for saying I wouldn’t amount to anything. But I also feared it was true. I had no idea what I was going to do after graduation. Doug’s and Julianne’s parents took them to visit college counselors. But their parents lived in houses on the golf course; their parents went to our plays. I was graduating at the top of my class and the only thing Dad had to say was, “No child of mine is going to Berkeley.” Once again, I was on my own. I started to feel something I would come to know very well: a paralyzing dread that left me unable to speak or move, like I was headed over Niagara Falls and I could do nothing to stop it.
I had felt that dread before, only with guys. Once at a school dance a boy grabbed and kissed me. I was too afraid to stop him or say anything. After that I avoided guys altogether. Well, except Doug. Doug was funny and Baptist and gay. Gay guys and geeks didn’t scare me. I could blow them off and we’d still be friends. But guys with cojones? No way. They were too much like men. They wanted to suck your soul out of you. Yes, John Lennon had cojones, but I only hung out with him in my dreams.
Then a new kid showed up in Production Drama: braces, frizzy hair, know-it-all—a total geek. If he’d given me any inkling of bad-boy energy I would have steered clear of him. But he was a geek so he was safe. He was also the funniest, smartest guy I’d ever met. And he loved the Beatles. David Mankewicz and I became best friends.
Angry Conversations with God Page 5