When my mother saw Crime After Crime in the theater, including the scene of me saying that Deborah Peagler was a metaphoric extension of my own mother, her comment was: “I never knew it affected you that much.”
“Of course it did,” I said.
“But it was only for a few years.”
I didn’t know how to respond. This book was my response. Writing it reopened old, imperfectly healed wounds but helped to heal them properly. As part of my interviews with my mother about the Leopoldo years, she e-mailed me her translations of the Spanish love songs he used to play for her. And she added this note:
Listening to these again, I recall how it felt to dance to them. How sweet it felt. But what should be a memory of love is now a memory of having been used in a con game. That’s a pain that remains with me while the bruises have long since healed. That and the regret for the lost energy, the lost dreams, the lost years, when I could have found real love or accomplished something worthwhile with all my efforts.
And the horrible loss of the last years of your childhood. I’m so sorry.
I cried when I read the end of her message. After twenty-five years, it was the apology I’d been waiting for. It was short, but it was the beginning.
If I do nothing further in my life, may it always be said about me that I never owed that kind of apology to my three daughters. The cycle of violence ended with me.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Joshua gets all the credit for fitting the battle, but he had thousands of friends help him tear down the walls of Jericho. I am profoundly grateful to the many people who helped me build this book on the foundations of my past.
The idea for the book was conceived and nurtured by my wife, Leah. I’d been writing fiction for years, circulating my stories past her before diligently filing them away in a drawer. “They’re good,” she would say, “but you need to write about your childhood first. The truth is so much more interesting than the stuff in the drawer. Seriously, who else lived in an ice cream truck?” This book was Leah’s project for me and, once I found the courage to tell the dark parts of the story, she encouraged me, supported me, and edited me every step of the way.
The courage to write this book was given to me by Deborah Peagler in a maximum security prison for women. While working on Deborah’s case, Elizabeth Fernandez of the San Francisco Chronicle wanted to write an article about my personal motivation for championing the rights of battered women. I’d never talked publicly about the Leopoldo years, and the thought of resurrecting those disturbing memories and advertising them in the newspaper seemed too much to bear. But Deborah turned me around. “Joshua, you told me telling my story would inspire people to help stop the cycles of violence. If it’s true for me, it’s gotta be true for you.” She was right, of course, and I agreed to do the story.
The irrepressible Josie Lehrer enlisted me for her innovative theatrical production, the Men’s Story Project, designed to challenge society’s conceptions of masculinity. Telling my story in my own words onstage was an emotionally raw experience, but the positive response I received was overwhelming. In the following months, I continued to write and perform short pieces about my childhood at spoken word events produced by my wife, and the vision for this book began to take shape in my mind.
When my dear friend Yoav Potash premiered Crime After Crime, his inspiring documentary film about the odyssey to free Deborah Peagler, at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, he immortalized Deborah’s beautiful legacy, chalked up dozens of awards, and introduced my story to the world. The dynamic Sue Turley of ro*co films paired Crime After Crime with the Oprah Winfrey Network and introduced me to Beth Gebhard of Lightshop Media. Beth became the fairy godmother for this book; everyone should be blessed to have such a lovely and effervescent patron. Elise Bernhardt, Aviva Weintraub, Marion Dienstag, Andy Ingall, and the other magnificent people at the Foundation for Jewish Culture brought me to Lincoln Center, and Jane Friedman graciously hosted me. They introduced me to the incomparable Karen Gantz. Karen believed in me before she even met me and stood by me every step of the way as my extraordinary agent. The visionary Elisabeth Dyssegaard, editor in chief at Hyperion Books, believed in this book as much as I did, if not more. Elisabeth promised me that writing my story would be a rewarding experience, and she knew what she was talking about.
The Talmud says that when two intellects debate they sharpen each other like iron against iron. After a year of close collaboration and much debate with my tireless editor Matt Inman, I know my intellect is sharper, and I hope the same goes for Matt. The manuscript I first presented to Matt displayed a casual disregard for chronological order that perhaps only Kurt Vonnegut would have appreciated and equaled at least two books in length. With abounding patience, diligence, and expertise, Matt helped me shape my many childhood stories into the coherent narrative that now fills the pages of this book.
When I began putting my stories down on paper, I realized I was blessed (or cursed) with a trove of remarkably detailed memories from my very early years. Some of this can be credited to my better-than-average memory, but much of it is attributable to the fundamentally unforgettable nature of my childhood—a series of dramatic adventures stuffed into that high-resolution part of the brain where fight-or-flight moments are recorded. But even with all the detailed memories, much of the context was missing, particularly early on. Only my mother could fill in the gaps, and she readily agreed to consult with me on the book. Week after week I treated her to Sunday lunch and interviewed her about every detail of my childhood. The other Berkeley mothers in the lunchtime crowd looked on jealously. How come their grown sons weren’t showing the same interest in them? I’m sure their jealousy would have turned to pity if they had known the purpose of our conversations was to splash my mother’s every parenting decision across the pages of a book. Yet my brave mother came to lunch every week because she agreed that my story needed to be told. It takes considerable courage to bare your most intimate secrets for all the public to see. And it takes even greater courage to trust your son to do it for you. For over a year, my mother walked with me back through the strange saga of my childhood, and cast light onto the dark patches of my memory. She generously shared with me from her dream journals and diaries, and gave me photographs and artwork that helped to illuminate my past. This book would not have been possible without her invaluable assistance. Thanks also go to Uncle Tony for remembering a thousand little stories, and Crazy John and Erica for walking back with me through difficult terrain.
Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the first novels in the English language while simultaneously excelling in his day job at the Port of London. He was, no doubt, aided in the success of this double endeavor by his wonderful friends and colleagues at the Port. My Port people include: David Alexander the Great, Mary Richardson, Laurice Henry-Ross, Althea Roberts-Griffin, Christine Tam, and Pamela Kershaw. My intrepid readers were Noah Barish, Debbie Weinstein, Yoav Potash, Mary Richardson, Michael Wood, and Frank and Sasha Chordas. Officer James Alexander gave me peace of mind. My havruta and personal physician Mark Fenig lavishly hosted me on my trips back east, and he and Jessica Silver-Greenberg made me feel at home in New York. A number of brilliant people consulted with me on various aspects of the book, including its title and arrangement. These included Andrea Barton-Elson, Sarah Crow, Fabio Baum, Michael Kaye, Steve Chabon, and Joe Fendel. The Estimable Members of the Jewish Men’s Rap Group provided invaluable nourishment for my soul throughout, and no doubt would have provided profound substantive contributions had various motions been seconded rather than sequestered in subcommittee for unlimited debate. The Members include Raphael Goldman, Devon Strolovitch (who provided extra linguistics advice and radio exposure), R’ Joseph Schwartz, Jeffrey Israel, and Daniel Kennemer.
My greatest gratitude goes to my three delightful daughters, who sacrificed many many hours of Abba time so that he could revisit his own childhood. And to the Most High, I say Yishtabach Shemo!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
/> Joshua Safran is an attorney, writer, speaker, and occasional rabbi, and was featured in the award-winning documentary Crime After Crime, which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and had its television debut as part of The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN)’s Documentary Film Club. He is a nationally recognized champion for women’s rights and a zealous advocate for survivors of domestic violence and the wrongfully imprisoned. For his work, he has received national media coverage and numerous awards. He lives in Oakland, California.
www.jsafran.com
@JoshuaSafran
facebook.com/TheJoshuaSafran
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
PROLOGUE: Saigon Moses
ONE: Parental Truths
TWO: The Day Before the Apocalypse
THREE: Life as a Verb
FOUR: Back to the Land
FIVE: Two Eyes Are Better Than Three
SIX: The Extraterrestrials
SEVEN: Little Man Won’t Get High
EIGHT: Wanderings in the Wilderness
NINE: Decepticon
TEN: On Bended Knee
ELEVEN: The Groom
TWELVE: The Descent of Man
THIRTEEN: The Fall of Carthage
FOURTEEN: If a Tree Falls…
FIFTEEN: Rainfall
SIXTEEN: A Kind of Normal
SEVENTEEN: Men Don’t Cry
EIGHTEEN: Bankruptcy
NINETEEN: The Revolution
EPILOGUE: The Promised Land
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
COPYRIGHT
Note to Reader: Some of the names and identifying characteristics of persons written about in this book have been changed due to privacy concerns. Some of the dialogue in this book may have been re-created, as my recollections are not always exact or complete, and may not reflect exact language exchanged at the time. My intent is to allow the reader to understand the circumstances and experience the moments in which those discussions took place. I have done my best to accurately portray my memory of the conversations.
Copyright © 2013 Joshua Safran
All photographs courtesy of the author.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 1500 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.
The Library of Congress has catalogued the original print edition of this book as follows:
Safran, Joshua.
Free spirit : growing up on the road and off the grid / Joshua Safran.—First edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-4013-2460-5
1. Safran, Joshua—Childhood and youth. 2. Safran, Joshua—Family. 3. Safran, Joshua—Travel—United States. 4. Coming of age—United States—Case studies. 5. Mothers and sons—United States—Case studies. 6. Children of abused wives—United States—Biography. 7. Family violence—United States—Case studies. 8. Counterculture—United States—Case studies. 9. San Francisco (Calif.)—Biography. I. Title.
CT275.S255A3 2013
979.4’61054092—dc23
[B]
2013008467
eBook Edition ISBN: 978-1-4013-0495-9
Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
Cover photograph by Plainpicture/Bildhuset
Author photograph by Guru Khalsa
First eBook Edition
Original hardcover edition printed in the United States of America.
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