Scags at 18

by Deborah Emin

  I asked her why she didn’t want to leave and do what she was doing some place else.

  She looked at me as if she asked herself that question all the time. You know, how a person laughs at the question before answering it?

  “I left and came back. I wasn’t meant to be anywhere else but here. I couldn’t think straight when I was away from home. I couldn’t sing the songs that make me happy when I was away. Some people are never meant to leave where they are from.”

  She looked sadly at me and then said she had to get home to let her dog out.

  I told her that I was leaving soon for Washington, DC. That I was going on a march against the war and would miss a couple of days with Jason because of that. She just whispered to give her the dates before I left.

  I got out of her car and watched as she drove down the long driveway hill and as her red backlights disappeared into the darkness. I walked back to the dorm feeling that I had said something wrong. I’d hurt her but I don’t know how. I thought I could be wrong and if she is hurt, I know she will tell me straight out. That’s another thing I like about Lauren—how direct she can be.

  By the time I returned to the dorm room, the tiredness had completely disappeared. I don’t know how it could have evaporated like that, but I am not complaining.

  My equilibrium has returned. It was a wise decision not to mention to Charles what had happened with Philip. Now Eileen and Philip have decided not to go with us to DC. Charles dislikes the two of them so this won’t be upsetting to him. I’m relieved.

  Oh God, I haven’t felt this good before going to bed in too long a time.

  Date: Thursday, 11/13/69

  We’ve stopped at a rest stop on our way to DC. We left early this morning and I’ve been sleeping almost the entire ride. Tony and Charles got the van ready to go while I slept at Charles’ and made sandwiches for all of us. I’m sitting at a picnic table along the highway, gobbling down a sandwich, washing it down with some kind of Kool Aid they put in jugs for us and writing in my diary.

  Riding in the back of the van is bone-rattling. I have no idea where we are. I’m happy to be on the road. It is a brand new experience for me to go off like this with friends. It doesn’t matter to me at this moment where we are going or why. I really like being on the road.

  Tony and Charles are meeting some people in Arlington, Virginia tonight. They have a training meeting there. So, we’ll be stopping at a church for the night before driving into DC tomorrow.

  Tony, who can be one of the most annoying people in the world, has this other side. He’s one of the volunteer medics.

  There’s a new guy in the van I’ve never met before. Someone said he’s a veteran. His name is Healey and he is quiet like me and watches more than he talks. I like him. He’s very skinny, has his hair cut down to his scalp but has a long beard. He sits with no expression on his face but when he smiles, he is pretty, the way guys who are sweet look pretty too.

  I’m glad that Kit decided not to come. I don’t think we would have had room for all her necessary baggage. Eileen and Philip didn’t come either and there are no words for how grateful I am.

  There are three other guys in the van and one more woman, all of them are regulars at Charles’ parties. Plus we have our bags and coats. It is a cold November.

  Lunch break has ended. I wanted to get the story of this trip started and now I have.

  Date: Friday, 11/14/69

  I don’t have the time or the quiet I need to write down what happened last night at the church. Getting a head start now is all I can do. I’ll leave telling the full story until I return to the College. There will be so much more to write then as well.

  I met this amazing priest, Father Jon, at the church last night. We sat up most of the night talking while I waited for Charles to return from his training. He and Tony had that meeting for the medics to attend. At first, I was pissed. I wanted to go with them and not be left at the church with people I don’t really know. I probably behaved like a spoiled kid. Of course, by the time he returned, I’d had one of the most incredible experiences of my life. Isn’t life like that?

  We’re in Georgetown now. People opened their homes to those of us from out of town. Tony found these people at the meeting last night and we will stay with them for the weekend.

  I feel desperate to capture my talk with Father Jon because I know that so much more is about to happen and I don’t want to lose what transpired between us.

  Father Jon is the first priest I have ever met. In one brief moment though he was able to let me see what it is like to have your life built around your relationship to God. I’ve never thought about this before and it struck me so forcefully. Why? I don’t know.

  I’ve never been a religious person, ever. We never talked about religion at home in a serious way.

  Oh shit, I have to go. We’re leaving the apartment to go into DC.

  Date: Monday, 11/17/69

  I wish I could be back in Father Jon’s church right now. Each time I think back on that night I spent talking to him, I realize what an influence he has had on me already.

  I have changed many of my plans based on that one night.

  The problem now is time. I have so much work to do to recover the time I spent in DC and not here taking care of my schoolwork. The work doesn’t complete itself.

  Where should I begin this story?

  Being in Father Jon’s church was almost like being in a library for me. However, it was also like I had begun to lay a foundation for something new to enter my life. It seems that his appearance in my life right now wasn’t an accident. Something happened between us. Those things influenced what happened to me in DC. I know that something has deeply changed in me even if I don’t have the words yet to say it.

  In summary, I could say, it was all one hell of a trip.

  Father Jon and I began our talk on this warmed rock in the church’s garden. I was staring at the vast array of stars in the sky, not trying to count them but to acknowledge that there were more than I ever could count.

  I wasn’t really that rational. My reaction to the stars was as if they had grabbed my breath out of my chest and sucked it into the cold night air. It scared the shit out of me. For the first time, the word “universe” gave me the chills.

  Father Jon appeared. He laid down next to me. We quietly watched the sky while all the questions and fears about life popped into my head. Father Jon could have been just resting after a long day but to me, he seemed to have been sent to answer those questions.

  The first words he said to me were, “It’s too cold to be outside, let’s go in and have some hot chocolate.”

  Father Jon is this short, wiry older man with a scraggly beard and a double chin that sits right on top of his clerical collar. His left hand is deformed. He told me how it happened—he was a child on his grandparents’ farm and it got caught in a shredder of some kind. It was a gruesome accident and they didn’t think he’d live because he lost so much blood before they could get him to the doctor.

  When Father Jon placed that deformed left hand on my shoulder, to guide me into the church, it didn’t feel like a normal touch. He sent fire through me. That’s the only way I can describe it. That bolt of warmth coming from his hand into my chilled body woke me up.

  We entered the church and found everyone asleep in the pews. Father Jon and I walked to the front of the church and sat down in these regal chairs. We were the king and queen watching over our slumbering subjects.

  I asked him if he’d ever been to a demonstration. I expected him to tell me stories meant to reassure my anxieties.

  Instead, with his deformed hand he turned my face so I had to look him in the eyes. He asked me, “What is it you really want to know?”

  My breath came right out of me again. I couldn’t talk.

  My eyes must have told him a great deal bec
ause he said, “Don’t worry.”

  I have no idea why he chose those words but they did the trick. Worry, like some kind of unwanted guest, walked out the door.

  With the loss of worry as my constant companion, I relaxed and enjoyed spending time with him.

  He laughed at me. That didn’t upset me. I wasn’t worrying about anything. I laughed too.

  “You must be hungry,” he said.

  “I am. And you promised me hot chocolate.”

  “Yes, I did. Follow me.”

  We got up from our thrones and walked back through the church and then down a short flight of stairs to a small kitchen.

  A table was set for breakfast but we dug into it early. The room had an old-fashioned stove and a box refrigerator. A large kettle waited on the stove for Father Jon. He made us the hot cocoa. It was delicious and warm. We cut up the coffee cake and ate it. I felt full.

  I asked him one question that then occupied the rest of the night. I asked him if the church allowed him to speak out against the war.

  He took his time answering me. He slowly ate the cake and drank the cocoa. Me too but with my eyes on him.

  “You are greedy, now, aren’t you?” He finally asked me.

  I burst out laughing and he did too. I knew exactly what he meant. Greedy to know things. Greedy to have the answers to all my questions. The smile on his face told me he understood me too well. I didn’t care. I had stopped worrying.

  He began to answer my question by talking about authority and why it moved people to behave in certain ways. He looked at me again and asked me how many times did I ask myself if it was okay to do what I was doing?

  I couldn’t quite figure out which thing I was supposed to not do that he meant. My mind ran right to the birth control, the sex, the sometimes drugs, there were other things too but he interrupted my thoughts.

  “I don’t mean you shouldn’t do the things you ask about. I only mean that if you don’t question why you do what you do especially when it is something those in charge tell you to do, well . . .”

  He didn’t finish that sentence.

  “I get it,” I said. “It doesn’t matter to you what you are supposed to think or do about the war according to your church but what it is you think is right, right?”

  “No,” he said. He saw my confusion immediately.

  I knew he wasn’t giving me a quiz. There weren’t any correct answers. The fact that I couldn’t connect to what he said made me feel crazy.

  “It isn’t about what I think, but what I believe. Faith is a very different experience from logic. Out of faith, one begins to do, to act from what follows from that. Usually, not always, that isn’t the most acceptable or practical course of action. Christ dying on the cross wasn’t a very practical way out of his dilemma with the Jews or the Romans. It was done out of love of God and what God needed his only son to do.”

  At this point, Father Jon knew that I couldn’t follow him.

  I wish answers were as plentiful as my questions. I know it’s going to take a few days to enter what happened in DC into this diary. I want more than that. I want a record of that time. I want more than that. I want to know why the two most important challenges to my thinking occurred there and what I am supposed to do about it.

  I have so much work to catch up with. I promise, every day I will write down more of my story from DC.

  I don’t know if this is a direct result of the talk with Father Jon, but I need to record this so I can think this through as well. In my Philosophy class today, Prof. Loomis asked us how we learn to question things. In particular, he wanted us to think about how Louis, one of the students, doesn’t let a day go by when he doesn’t question whether the translations we have been given are correct. He asked us why we sat idly while Louis asked this question all the time. His eyes went around the table and looked at each of us. I watched as everyone sank down into their seat.

  When his eyes met mine, I was frightened by what I saw in his eyes. He didn’t like us very much.

  His eyes said, how could you idiots sit here almost the entire term letting this bozo ask this same stupid question that eats up such precious time? He wanted us to shut Louis up. We sat like cattle, waiting for the question to be answered and then to move on to what the class was supposed to be about.

  I turned to Louis and did what Prof. Loomis had pushed me to do. I said: “Louis, please stop asking this dumb question. I’m sorry that I needed Prof. Loomis to show me how dumb I am for letting you do this day after day. Now, I’ve been given permission to tell you to shut up. So please, keep that stupid question to yourself from now on.”

  I became an accomplice. Prof. Loomis got me to do his dirty work. I wanted to end the entire day that way—telling everyone to keep their stupid ideas to themselves unless it helped us all to understand what we were studying.

  I know to Mama and Pops my “new” life is a typical rebellious outbreak like acne that will disappear soon leaving no signs that it was ever there. They see each period in my life as a phase I’m supposed to go through. At the end of each phase, they think I’ll return to being the old Scags—only I won’t and can’t.

  Since they have never taken a psychology class, they don’t know you go through these phases in order to end at a new place, a more matured place.

  I could show them an example of this idea of phases. I would ask them, what would have happened if Dorothy hadn’t accepted that there’s no place like home but decided to stay in Oz? After all Oz was in color and she had had all these new friends. What if she chose to stay in Oz rather than returning to that very drab Kansas and even drabber Auntie Em?

  My parents would look at me and say, “But Scags, then there wouldn’t be a ‘Wizard of Oz,’ that makes no sense.”

  To them, safety exists in the status quo.

  When I asked Father Jon if Jesus was against the war, he asked me which war? I looked at him with such puzzlement that he had to laugh and apologize.

  He asked me what I knew about Jesus. I told him the truth. I said I knew nothing about him as I wasn’t raised a Christian but grew up with Jewish relatives.

  “Do you know why Jesus was crucified?”

  I didn’t know the answer to that either.

  “Are you interested in finding out why?” He looked at me as if there was no right answer.

  His question bumped against me like something trying to push me off my course. It was a push towards something I don’t know anything about. My first unspoken response was no. I didn’t really want to know why he had been crucified. I didn’t see how that had anything to do with me or my life.

  If possible, I wanted at that moment to jump out of my skin and run around me so I could read what is written all over me. Then I could see how I’ve been marked by all the stuff I carry with me like a book bag crammed with notebooks of all my ideas and plans. My skin may be the pages on which I’ve scribbled every thought I’ve ever had. Maybe that was how Father Jon could read me so well.

  I finally told him that I knew nothing about Jesus. I’d never been in a church before or spoken to a priest or even to a rabbi. We didn’t have any religion in my house.

  “Does Jesus’ crucifixion have anything to do with war?” I asked Father Jon.

  He put his arms around me and said, “Yes, it does but not exactly as we talk about war today. It has to do with the wars that go on inside our souls. When we can stop those wars, we will stop all wars.”

  He let go of me and looked into my eyes, “I know you want something more specific from me but hey, that’s the whole truth right there.”

  I walked away from him then. Charles returned a few minutes later and bent down to kiss me as I put my head on the pew. I fell asleep so fast I don’t remember falling asleep.

  I’ll come back to this tomorrow.

  Date: Tuesday, 11/18/69

 
I’m not able to talk to anyone about the time in DC. I haven’t seen Charles either since we returned. I’m sure he knows why. He doesn’t seem to mind either. I haven’t had the nerve to tell him that I’m not going home with him for Thanksgiving.

  Trust is again an issue between us. What happened in DC that was worse than him reading my diary was this—I saw him and Tony shooting up while we were away. I can’t begin to describe how disgusted and frightened it made me.

  Why does he do drugs?

  I know that everyone here does them. They are everywhere. People come to class stoned. Alex kicked two guys off the team for being on drugs. I heard while we were in DC some guy raced around the campus naked and yelling that the FBI had infiltrated the campus and they were going to kill him.

  I had thought that being in love with me would help him and would be a great thing for me. Now it seems that I am falling in and out of love so quickly that it’s more like a tennis match than a love affair.

  Maybe I can’t rid myself of Skokie enough to ever be in love with Charles fully. I wonder if I would have reacted differently if I had come here from Montreal or Brooklyn. I know Alex thinks Charles is too messed up for me to waste my time with.

  I’m no saint. I too succumbed to the allure of drugs. Though in my case, I am certain this will never happen again. I took some acid while we were away. The day of the march, everyone, me included, dropped some acid. I didn’t get really trippy like the others did. I did it so I could be a part of the group, to feel involved with them. I don’t ever want to do it again, but at least I know what it is like.

  Maybe taking the acid was my way to try to leave Skokie forever. It kept me awake for a day and a half. The acid affected me more visually than any other way—what I saw appeared more intense, more vibrant, had more texture.

  As soon as we arrived in DC, I walked away from the group and into the crowds. When I looked around, I couldn’t find anyone I knew. I panicked and the panic intensified. I jumped when Healey appeared, tapping me on the shoulder to let me know he was close by. He became my shadow.