by Sarah Relyea
Climbing to the upper floor, he could hear the movers assembling the bed frame in the master bedroom. He paused by a wooden pillar and then headed down the hall, passing another bedroom and a sunporch before reaching the rear of the house. There he found the room he’d chosen, facing south and overlooking the yard. Sun was streaming through the windows; he could see sky and neighboring yards. Feeling a rush of energy, he flung open a window and leaned gazing over the yards and fences.
Then he heard someone and spun around—but it was only Alice. She hovered by the door as though comparing rooms.
“You chose already,” he said, with a shrug, cool and aloof. Why was she there, just when he was enjoying a moment alone?
“I know. I’m just looking around.”
He glared. “You heard Dad. Go open some windows.”
He’d been sharing space with her for weeks, hardly complaining; she was the complainer, whenever the game was on. He just wanted a few weeks of normal summer. He would go by the schoolyard tomorrow. Then, on Wednesday, he would be playing for the Lumberjacks. He’d show them how good he was.
He could hear his mom in the hallway, trying to appease Alice. “Well, are you glad we’re finally in the house?”
“Sure.”
“There’s so much more space.” Then, in a lower tone, “Your room’s just as large.”
“It is?”
“So your father says.” And they moved on.
Curt glanced around the room, assessing the space. The bed could go by the window. He woke up early, like his dad; as day was breaking, he would enjoy surveying the world and hearing the Top 40, the sports roundup from the evening before, the morning news.
He emerged from the room, wondering where the others were. Then, going down, he found them in the living room, admiring the wood paneling and the ceiling beams.
“Here we are—at long last,” his mom was saying, with a weary sigh, as though she’d moved everything herself.
His dad was carrying some bookshelves.
“Let the men do the heavy work, Tom.”
She should know he was enjoying himself—he was more manly than the shaggy movers, in any case.
“Come, how about something cool? The men are having some beer.”
“When we’re through.”
“There’s only a few more things.” She was glancing around at the furnishings, seemingly already arranging the room in her mind. “What was the man saying about Telegraph? We’re very close by the campus.”
“Someone had a Mardi Gras.”
“Mardi Gras? Tom, are you sure?”
“There were some problems involving the cops.”
“During the summer, when everyone’s away?” She blinked, as though someone had broken the rules. “In Washington, we had mobs and the army and the whole place burning. What’s happening here?”
“They gassed some flower people.”
Her eyebrows rose in high drama. “Oh, yes! And the French—wasn’t the moving man denouncing de Gaulle?” She shook her head. “But why gas them? They’re so peaceful.”
Curt was searching for somewhere to plug in the radio. “Who’s peaceful?” he teased.
“Why, the flower people!”
“Oh, them.” He paused. “Can I hear the score now?”
“Of course.”
Sound burbled from an old Westinghouse speaker as he leaned in to hear.
“What are they saying?”
“Shhh!”
There was a hush, then the announcer’s bland and maddening tone. “The Senators are down one in a doubleheader in Chicago. Howard came off a July slump with a home run in the opening inning.”
“Lousy underdogs,” Curt mumbled, switching off the radio.
The family paused in the cool, dim, wood-paneled room, hearing the movers come along the hall, laughing together. One of the movers—not the shaggy Stooges guy in overalls but a beefy longhair in a Stanford football jersey—handed his dad a paper to sign. Then the man folded the paper and, calling “Have a wonderful day!” over one shoulder, followed the others through the door.
There was a pause, then a chugging sound, and the van roared away. The Raysons gazed on somber redwood beams. They were home.
chapter two
Marian
PERSUADING YOUNG CHILDREN had been easy, but no longer. More cajoling would be necessary. They’d been willing companions in Washington, playing in the house and yard, or heading off together for the playground. Now they were rarely found in the same room. Some real nudging would be demanded of her, if she would have an hour of freedom. And so she’d carefully prodded her daughter, reminding Alice of how welcoming her brother and the boys had always been, and suggesting how they would probably agree to have her along, if she’d only go. Her daughter’s response had been less than eager—a glance through long bangs, a nod; but they’d finally gone off together, just as Marian was wondering why she was dreaming up plans now, during the summer, when they were around the house. Of course her plans were hardly real plans—in a new place, among new people, how could they be? Replacing her Washington group would be hard. She’d found companionship there among men and women who read everything, saw foreign films, enjoyed intellectual exchange. Things here were more open, colorful, and free. She could already see the challenge of blending in among the very young, who had the run of things in a college community. Even so, there would be a peer group for her. In the campus neighborhoods, everything was nearby. She and Tom could enjoy a cafe or a foreign film, folk singers, book readings. Of course Tom would be busy; but she imagined a shopping bag full of books and records, something new for the family. Though Tom would ignore such things, as always, her daughter would share them, and maybe her son, if only he could be persuaded. There was hope: he’d been a sparkling young boy.
When she was sure they’d gone, Marian donned her white linen blouse, a new floral miniskirt—her only real purchase so far—and sandals. In the bedroom mirror, she brushed on some eyebrow liner and combed through her hair: she had good eyes and hair and had once been compared to Lauren Bacall. Then she grabbed her purse and headed for Telegraph Avenue. The place was a blur of alluring shops and nonconforming young people, and though she’d passed by in the car, she was dying for a closer peep.
As Marian passed along Claremont Avenue and then Derby Street, she could see the neighborhood changing as she neared the campus and the upscale homes and gardens gradually gave way, supplanted by faded wood-shingle houses. These would be the homes of young professors, she supposed, glancing along a row of unfussy places with large porches and tangled yards. Groups of gaudy young people passed by, clowning or murmuring among themselves. They were unhampered by any hangover from the ’50s conformism she’d known, and flowing along so freely in male-female openness that one could hardly say if they were couples or mere groupings. She wondered if her daughter would someday feel the allure. Perhaps—when she’d dropped her tomboy ways. As for herself, having chosen already and found a successful Ivy League man, Marian could safely contemplate the downy candor of these boys and wonder how long the appeal would linger—for surely the appeal would fade, once the girls could no longer ignore the warning signs, the damning absence of a hunger for real accomplishment. She’d longed for a moody, expressive boy, though of course she’d chosen Tom, who had the other things—goals, focus, will-power—as they passed through the humdrum years together, moving up. That was why these random hours by herself were so pleasing, so lush; deeply happy, she could have forgone communal involvements, but Tom had grown aloof—he’d strayed and come back, leaving her angry, and her feelings yearned for more. Tom’s fling had been only a stumble, a flare-up of waning youth, but it had made her own imagination rebel. These personal hours gave her a chance for daydreaming; they formed a psychological frame for the everyday world—the world she and Tom would always share.
On the corner of Telegraph Avenue, as the red light changed to green, Marian was overwhelmed by a surging crowd. So near the
campus, she could feel the expressive energy, the flaunting of developing personality. Surrounded by the unwashed young and rudely aware of body odors, she was already mingling among them when she remembered how far she’d come from these downy adolescent beards. Turning in the eddy, pausing, leaning on a shop window as the throng flowed by, she found her pulse racing. Then, as she was calming herself, she became aware of pulsing designs, the shopkeeper’s concept for luring customers. Sinuous shapes wove a mad geometry, as though posing an imponderable classroom problem or summoning up Freudian fears. Geometry had always dismayed her; though she’d managed her usual A’s, she had a lingering memory of being summoned to the board by the teacher—a man she’d been dying to please—and languishing under his probing gaze, as proofs fled her mind.
Now in the noonday jumble of colorful rebels—extras from some Hollywood film, or several films, for such rags had never belonged in any one story—she imagined being summoned before the untamed young, who were no longer co-eds or even Beats but in some new phase, confirming her as middle-aged, beyond the confusions of youth: reclining figure with man and child, like a Henry Moore sculpture. She would never abandon herself to the fray, as some of these young women had clearly done, whereas they would regard her as square for never having smoked grass. Would they offer her some? Marian hoped they would. One should always choose how far one would go.
She approached a cafe. Through the glass a bearded man could be seen; he wore John Lennon glasses and a corduroy blazer, and he was reading. The place had the casual glamour of a Boulevard Saint-Michel cafe, or Les Deux Magots. The bearded man was immersed in a heavy volume—a philosopher, perhaps, reading Being and Nothingness. During Tom’s fling, she’d found herself in a cafe with a Washington neighbor; he’d pressed her hand and she’d made no response, as though her hand lay unsensing—as though her hand were a thing. And what now, if the professor should press her hand? Would she do the same as before? She could only imagine. The professor was fingering a strand of beard. He adjusted the eyeglasses, glanced up—was he aware of her? Impossible to say, as he lowered his eyes—they were blue-gray—slowly drummed the table, and, turning the page, resumed reading.
Marian moved off, pondering. If she had a novel, she could linger for hours in a cafe, alone and unbothered by anyone. She would blend in; people would come and go; there would be loose unravelings of conversation, personal dramas. There were bookshops nearby, a good reason for coming here on a summer’s day. She could buy a novel and spend an hour in the cafe. The children were playing safely on the playground, and here was her chance for some grown-up fun. Pausing over a shop’s love beads and slogan buttons, she imagined an expanding world. Among the slogans were Peace and Che, a plea to Free Huey, a saw-toothed marijuana leaf. For a moment she conjured up Huey Long, the Louisiana demagogue, before remembering the confusing case of Huey Newton, the Black Panther accused of killing a police officer. If only Barbara were here.
She paused by a used-book shop, just the homey place she’d been looking for. As she was browsing the window, a plump man with graceful hands and heavy jowls appeared in the doorway, wearing jeans and a tweed jacket, leather sandals, and a beret. He paused, opening a large pocket watch; beyond him Marian glimpsed a room overflowing in books. As she delayed, her eyes scanning The Teachings of Don Juan, he closed the cover and moved on, cussing to himself.
Passing through the doorway, she found herself in a gloomy room smelling of tobacco smoke. The bookseller had abandoned the counter and cash register, leaving a cigar in the ashtray. A large clock hung over the counter. The clock had a swirling psychedelic face, and the large red hands—yes, they were hands, forefingers pointing—read just before noon. She could spend hours here! She glanced through the gloom and saw a lamp, an armchair, and a cafe table deep in one corner. Passing some bins of secondhand records—something for the family—she made her way toward the armchair and the glowing lamp. On a nearby shelf was a jumble of used paperbacks. There were dog-eared copies of Leaves of Grass and Little Big Man, Kerouac’s On the Road and Marshall McLuhan, To Kill a Mockingbird and Margaret Mead. Norman Mailer rubbed shoulders with Eichmann in Jerusalem. Everyone in Washington had read the Eichmann book, but what of some of these others? There were Kesey and Ferlinghetti, authors she’d never read. How good would they be? As good as Kerouac, even? And she could only read him when she’d had some wine. There were books about psychedelic drugs and more Teachings of Don Juan.
On being and nothingness, what would Don Juan have to say?
Just before the tempting corner was a row of doors, suggesting dressing rooms or perhaps the casket scene from The Merchant of Venice. Though they were closed, one bore a sign saying “Open Me” in flowing colors. She glanced around, feeling vaguely foolish for succumbing to such a game, and grasped the knob. The door sprang open. As she fumbled for a light, something made her cry aloud—her blouse, aglow with uncanny light, as though under a foreign sun. Glancing up, she saw a handsome, longhaired man—a rock singer, no?—confronting her from a poster, the face in a lavender glow, the eyes boring deep. Softly closing the door, she was among the books once more.
Now the lamp and armchair caught her eye. The armchair was draped in green and purple cloth; and floating on the green and purple was a hardcover volume and a label commanding, “Steal Me!” The command was odd enough, but how about the lure? She stealthily removed the paper and found a faded copy of Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception. She’d read Huxley’s Brave New World in her college days; one of the boys from her modern-novel class had urged her to, before leaving for law school. Opening the book to the flyleaf, she read “Augustus Owsley Stanley III—January 19, 1963.” A gryphon crouched in a corner of the page, wings curled around its haunches. Mysticism, she would have supposed, or maybe psychology. Browsing some random pages, she found a psychedelic experiment, a closely rendered day—an opening up, a change in consciousness. Tom would make fun, she thought, smiling ruefully. She fingered the binding, imagining slipping the volume into her purse. Tom be damned—he ignored her books, anyway. Yes, she would have the thing!
The books lay in long rows, under the labels “Anthropology,” “Psychology,” and “Modernity.” Pausing along the anthropological shore, she remembered Joseph Conrad’s image of a man-of-war firing its cannons into the immense African continent. Then, rounding a corner, she nearly stumbled over a wooden ladder, where a young woman in jeans and sandals was reaching for Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa.
There was the sound of a canary, as the bookseller emerged from one of the doors, blowing some birdsong as if he’d always known how.
Marian searched through a bin of secondhand records and chose four. They would be for the family. The bookseller was now deep in conversation with a man bearing a bag of newspapers. Overhead, the clock’s forefingers had seemingly paused on noon, under the full sun of forever. Glancing through heavy-framed glasses, the man rang up her purchases. Marian handed over a five, and he made change, gabbing amusingly. Then he tossed a free underground newspaper in her bag and nodded goodbye. As she passed through the door, she heard him paying homage to the Grateful Dead and someone named Owsley.
Young people thronged the block. During her sojourn in the bookshop, they’d become increasingly strange, now suggesting a crowd called up for the filming of a madhouse scene: the bearded boys, the slovenly girls, all in garments from some marché des puces—or rather fragments, for nothing added up. She wondered how many of these young people were in college, regardless of the clothing. Things would change come September, she hoped, when the dropouts would go away, across the bay to Haight-Ashbury.
She found her way to the cafe. The professor was there, reading; she took a nearby table and ordered coffee and a lemon cake.
She opened the underground paper and saw an alarming figure: a bloody-fanged rattlesnake. “BERKELEY COMMUNE: DON’T TREAD ON ME” read the headline. They’d found a memorable image; but what was the message?
The cake appea
red, followed by coffee. She folded the Berkeley Barb and had a lemony morsel. A scruffy boy wandered through the room, panhandling. He was her daughter’s age. Someone offered an apple; he grabbed the apple and ran, laughing, through the door. She followed the unfolding scene. The professor was glancing her way; feeling unsure of the norms and unable to gauge the man’s response, she opened her book and began mulling.
She’d waded through the move seemingly alone, for Tom would demand results but then leave the planning to her. She’d chosen the house, even the neighborhood, though of course he’d agreed. They knew several people who’d been in Berkeley and recommended South Campus, though some preferred the hill neighborhoods—a stunning fantasy world well beyond Tom’s government pay grade. In any case, Tom was grudging of extravagance and there was no sense in pushing him when the backup was so thoroughly pleasing, an upgrade for them. In South Campus they were near the shops and people. As for the schools, a new plan for desegregating the elementary schools would begin in September, following a plan already in place for the older grades. Though the house was near Curt’s junior high, Forest Avenue was far enough from Alice’s elementary school, in a nearby black neighborhood, that she would be going by bus. The plan should pose no problems in a suburban college town, and Marian and Tom had regarded Berkeley’s progressive schools as another reason for moving there. She had no major concerns; after all, the school and neighborhood in Washington had been successfully integrated by a determined group of young families: black and white parents with professional jobs who’d sought out change, making common cause across the color line and encouraging the children to get along, as they shared classrooms and weekend games. After that carefully cultivated harmony, her children would be ahead of the others in knowing what to do, how to behave.
In the meantime, she was looking for groups where she could begin making new friends. A Washington neighbor had dug up some information on Bay Area peace groups; another had recommended the Lawyers Guild, in case Tom wanted to get involved in defending protesters; and someone’s son had passed on the names of San Francisco bands—a sound more advanced, less folky than Dylan or the Beatles. Even before the move was confirmed, Marian had come home one day with her new albums and begun playing them. They had been helpful in persuading her daughter.