Beyond the Song

by Carol Selick

  My parents’ denial about my smoking paled in comparison to their level of denial about my virginity. They were completely clueless about my sexual escapades and I wanted to keep it that way. But when my mother asked me what was wrong, I told her about my heavy period.

  “Why are you so concerned, Carol? Are you having sex? Do you think it might be a miscarriage?”

  I was too scared to lie. “Yes, I admitted. I’m sleeping with Joshua.”

  Before I could say anything more, she went down to the basement to tell my father. It didn’t matter that I could be bleeding to death! All that mattered was that their little girl wasn’t a virgin. I didn’t want to know my father’s reaction. I couldn’t spend another night in that house of shame. I ran upstairs to call Joshua before he left for Long Island.

  “Carol, is that you? Are you all right? I can hardly hear you.”

  I was crying so hard I could barely get the words out. “I can’t stay here. I just told my parents I’m not a virgin. I’m bleeding so bad I think I’m having a miscarriage. Can you pick me up on your way to Long Island? I’m scared, I’m really scared.”

  “Calm down, baby. Just give me the directions and I’ll be there.”

  I pulled it together enough to give Joshua the directions, and closed the door to my room, and started packing. I lay down on the single bed where I’d spent so many nights dreaming of Prince Charming. I could never be the woman my parents wanted me to be. If they didn’t accept me, then I would have to figure it out on my own. The truth had flowed out of me and I had crossed the Red Sea. There was no turning back. I was free.

  As it turned out, I didn’t have a miscarriage. The five days I spent with Joshua at his friends’ house on “the Island,” as the JAP-y girls from GWU referred to it, were relatively uneventful. But one night, Joshua’s hustler personality took over and he came up with a crazy idea.

  “Let’s get married, Carol,” he casually said, as we were walking on the beach. For one sweet minute, I felt my heart stop. Could this really be happening? Had my horrible nightmare turned into my dream come true? Before I had time to answer, he said, “We can get married, take all the money and gifts from the wedding, and split them. I told you, my family’s rich! We could really make out!”

  I didn’t know what to say. My emotions were shifting like the sand below my feet, and it took all my energy just to keep my balance.

  “What do you think?” Joshua asked as he put his arm around me. I nodded in agreement, never thinking he would go through with it. But that night he called his mother to tell her the good news. I listened in on the bedroom phone,

  “Hi, Mom. I have some news. I’m getting married.”

  His mother sounded tentative. “Who is this girl, and how long have you known her?”

  “Her name is Carol. Carol Marks. She’s a student in one of my classes. I’ve known her for about six weeks.”

  “Oh Joshua, you’re so mixed up!” she cried and abruptly hung up. He never brought the subject up again. His future had bigger and more dangerous hustles on the horizon.

  On our ride back to Washington, I wondered when I would talk to my parents again. I knew I wasn’t ready. I needed time to heal and make sense of what had happened. I told myself it could’ve been worse. What if I’d been pregnant and lost a baby? Another catastrophe averted!

  Maybe I did have a guardian angel protecting me. When Big John got busted in November, no one discovered that Melanie and I were keeping thousands of dollars’ worth of drugs for him in our refrigerator. Then in December, I had narrowly escaped being raped. I had fallen in love with Michael on the very day of the break-in. I shuddered to think what would have happened if I hadn’t gone to Michael’s that night. Another close call! If only my roommates could have been so lucky! I sent a silent prayer of thanks to Chia Sora, the grandmother I was named after but never knew. My father’s mother who was murdered in the Holocaust. Maybe she was the one watching over me.

  Back in DC, I kissed Joshua goodbye and thanked him for rescuing me. Melanie, Bonnie, and Marsha felt more like family to me than my real family did. I could hardly wait to see them as I opened the door to the townhouse. “I’m back!” I called out. I’d never been a touchy-feely kind of girl, but there at the door, as they all came to greet me, I said “I need a group hug.” It felt good to be home!

  Two weeks went by before I found the courage to call my parents. Only my mother would talk to me. My father was still mad. She told me that they wanted to visit me the following weekend. So it was on Saturday that I found myself sitting in the “hot seat”—in this case, a park bench by the Lincoln Memorial. My mother sat between me and my father. No one said anything, which was very out of character for my father since he was never at a loss for words.

  My mother, always the peacemaker, prodded him to say something. When he finally did, I could barely hold back my tears.

  “I will never condone what you did, Carol, but for the sake of keeping the family together, I’d like to put this behind us. I’m still your father and I will always love you and be there for you. Can we agree to go forward?”

  I swallowed my pride, took off my scarlet letter, and shakily said “Okay.”

  10

  REVOLUTION

  How much will you give for an all-and-out war?

  Two million people, mainly the poor.

  Rich politicians, that’s who it’s for.

  The lambs get slaughtered while the lions roar.

  After our meeting on the park bench, my father wrote:

  All is well that ends well. You are approaching the truth from your path, while I have looked it over from my life’s angles. I recall a Chinese poem by Lu Chi: ‘Running and standing still at once is the whole truth.’

  School was okay and I was actually going to classes. The band got a few more gigs including playing at The Cellar, which was one of the biggest clubs in Washington. One night, while I was singing “Summertime,” I felt such a strong connection to the audience that the high was better than grass or even sex. The crowd’s vibes were merging with mine and I was singing from a place I’d never been before. It felt like one big vocal orgasm.

  I was flying, but I didn’t dare tell Joshua. He wasn’t a musician and couldn’t understand. I was more worried about his feelings than mine, and I didn’t want to say anything to threaten his fragile male ego.

  Things between us had cooled down. We were still seeing each other, but he was taking a lot of business trips to Philadelphia. He told me he was working on a deal to sell jewelry from Mexico and not to worry, but I knew there was something wrong. We were having sex less and less. He started making up excuses; too tired, too stoned, too stressed. His lack of desire made me feel unattractive and it was messing with my self-esteem. To feel better about myself, I borrowed a bicycle from one of the guys who lived next door and started riding around the neighborhood without a bra on. The sight of my boobs bouncing over potholes and cobblestone streets did bring me some much-needed male attention.

  One night I got up the nerve to ask Joshua if I could go with him on his next trip to Philadelphia. “Wait till the semester’s over. We’ll work it out baby,” he told me.

  I tried putting my suspicions out of my mind, but as I studied for my exams the thought of Joshua with another woman kept popping into my head. I had trouble focusing and the text looked blurry, just like the lines between what Joshua was telling me and the truth. I wanted to believe that he truly cared and that he was going to Philly just for business, but I was starting to have my doubts.

  When Joshua came back, he gave me a beautiful silver and turquoise bracelet. The turquoise center stone was huge and there were two smaller stones on either side. “I want you to have this, Carol. It’s a sample of the jewelry I’ll be selling.”

  As I lay next to him that night I felt hurt by his lack of sexual interest. It was as if someone turned off the
juice. I felt the smooth stone of my bracelet against my wrist and rationalized that he wouldn’t have given it to me if he didn’t love me, but a tiny voice inside my head said this was a guilt thing. Was I being fooled again?

  “There’s a rally tomorrow. SDS’s gonna take over one of the classroom buildings. Do you wanna go?” Melanie asked me the next morning after Joshua left.

  “Cool, maybe I’ll get my mind off Joshua. Something’s wrong, but I don’t know what.”

  “I thought he was really into you.”

  “Yeah, so did I, until he started going to Philly on the weekends. Something about a business deal and Mexican jewelry.” As I reached for a coffee cup, the sleeve of my bathrobe slid up my arm. “Look, Joshua gave me this last night,” I said waving my wrist at Melanie.

  “Far out! That stone is the biggest turquoise rock I’ve ever seen! Things are probably okay. Don’t worry. Look at the big picture and go to the rally with me.”

  I knew there were people in the world with much bigger problems than mine. In my sophomore year, I’d volunteered to be part of a literacy program. It was a real eye-opener for me. On the ride to the projects, where the third-grade girl I tutored lived, I saw nothing but slums for miles and miles. One continuous ghetto - the real capitol of our nation.

  Then there was the war. Viet Nam was heating up and demonstrators all over the country were getting arrested. Guys my age were getting drafted, burning draft cards, or fleeing to Canada. Joshua had gotten out of the draft by taking uppers, staying awake for seventy-two hours, and ranting incoherently when he faced the draft board. They deemed him too unstable to kill people. He was one of the lucky ones. They were getting hip to the fact that lots of draftees were faking it.

  One musician I knew got granted a conscientious objector status, but that was rare. He was a cute horn player who sat in with the band occasionally. His name was James, but everyone called him Jesus. It was easy to see why. He had an aura of peace around him. With his long, light brown hair, beard, and blue eyes, he looked just like the pictures of Jesus I’d seen in books. He always wore white Indian cotton shirts and sandals, even in the middle of winter.

  I could never imagine Jesus holding a gun. One night when we were jamming in the basement, a big spider started crawling towards me. I screamed, but Jesus just calmly picked it up and took it outside. Later that night we started writing a protest song together:

  The loser’s the winner, people deceived

  Wrapped in propaganda, lies are believed

  It’s all a distraction to cover their greed

  And make us think that they know what we need.

  We never got to finish our song. Jesus disappeared. I heard he moved to California to play in Guru Maharaji’s band.

  By the time Melanie and I got to the SDS rally the next day, a large group of students were already congregated on the steps in front of Maury Hall. Right on the front door was a sign that read, “Liberate the restrooms!”

  “You can use any bathroom you want!” a guy in an army jacket shouted. “We’re taking over. Sexual equality includes gender-free bathrooms!”

  Melanie and I hung around for a while at the edge of the stairs. The crowd was growing and spreading to the street. I recognized the guy screaming in the megaphone. His face was turning the same color as his red hair.

  “He’s a hunk,” Melanie shouted in my ear.

  “I know, that’s Peter Miles. He was in my European Lit class last semester. I thought he was a snob, but I guess I was wrong.”

  “Abolish ROTC! Draft beer, not students! Peace Now!” the crowd started to chant. Someone from SDS handed me a pamphlet with a picture of Uncle Sam pointing his finger on the cover. It said in big letters “FIGHT IMPERIALISM.” Melanie and I pushed through the crowd to hear Peter.

  “GWU is involved in the war machine. It is isolating itself from the rest of DC!” Peter was yelling. “Racial minorities continue to be exploited in the richest country in the world. Racism is not simply a question of individual consciousness but of institutions! Washington is seventy-five percent Black, and there are almost no Black students at GWU. Read the pamphlet! Our college president belongs to a country club that excludes minorities.”

  “We’re taking over the classrooms!” Peter’s voice boomed through the megaphone. Melanie was so into it that she was ready to follow the protestors into the building. I turned to see a line of DC police standing across the street with helmets on their heads and clubs in their piggy hands, just waiting to use them. I remembered the blood spilled on the sidewalk in front of the White House. Red, black and blue were the real colors of the freedom fighters. Violence didn’t bring peace. I thought about my peaceful, conscientious objector songwriting partner. What would Jesus do if he was here? I knew the answer. It was time to split.

  “Let’s get out of here, Mel. Things are gonna heat up. I’ve had enough!” I grabbed her hand and we weaved our way through the surging crowd.

  I stayed away from campus the next day. The rioting had gotten out of control. Demonstrators took over some classroom buildings and then the cops tear gassed the entire block. The GWU campus was a war zone.

  It made the front page of the Washington Post, along with the College President announcing that he was canceling all final exams for Spring Semester! I couldn’t believe my luck! Whatever grade you had up to that point, you got. Now I had two semesters in a row without taking finals—fall semester because of the rape and now this! I was doing well in all of my classes, but thinking about quitting school. What would I do with a sociology degree? I tried changing my major to music education, but I would have to take too many classes and stay an extra semester. All I wanted to do was write music and sing.

  I was still in denial about Joshua when he called. He had just got back from another Philly weekend. Hoping against hope that he’d missed me, I picked up the phone.

  “Carol, you know you’re very special to me, but there’s a reason we haven’t been getting it on. There’s someone else I have to be with.”

  “Let me guess, does she live in Philly?” I could feel my knees getting weak.

  “It just happened. She was my business partner’s roommate. I wasn’t looking for anyone. I’ll always care about you, but the chemistry was too strong to fight.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My knight in shining armor, my rescuer, my pretend husband, was cheating on me. How could this be happening again?

  That was it! I was never coming back to Washington. I was quitting school and moving as far away as I could get from this awful city. I had to go back to California. A student revolution was going on in the country and I was going through my own personal revolution. No one could change my mind. I’d had enough. I’d find a way to break it to my parents, once I stopped crying.

  When they picked me up the next day, there was no hiding my tears. I cried nonstop for an entire week. Everyone blamed Joshua except me. I blamed myself. First Michael and now Joshua? Why couldn’t I keep a man? Wasn’t I attractive or sexy enough?

  My parents felt bad to see how inconsolable I was over losing Joshua. But when I announced on the ride home that I wanted to quit school and move to California you’d have thought I’d dropped the atomic bomb. This was the final blow that blasted all their dreams for me to smithereens. I swore I’d go back to school in a year, but my father wasn’t buying it. “You’ll never go back to school, Carol. This is the biggest mistake of your life.”

  Looking back now, I suppose they were torn between rescuing me from my misery and wanting me “to do the right thing.” Should they let the baby cry herself to sleep for hours or pick her up? Ultimately, it was just too late to change the family dynamics. They paid for a plane ticket to California and stopped the crying.

  11

  BEZERKLEY

  When I want a man, you know that is a chore.

  I can’t use my money,
I can’t go to the store.

  I just sit and pray to the stars up above,

  ’Cause like the Beatles told me,

  Money can’t buy me love.

  I had a plan when I got to California, but meeting Randy Loveman wasn’t part of it. Yes, that was his real name! Like a sign from the universe that I’d made the right move, this tall, good-looking angel of a man asked me if I needed a ride as I walked out of the San Francisco Airport and breathed in the California air. He was about six feet tall, with dark curly hair, mischievous deep brown eyes, and a slightly sunburned face. I guessed he was a few years older than me.

  “I’m going to Berkeley.”

  “I can take you as far as San Francisco.”

  “Far out!” Something about his smile and upbeat energy made me trust him.

  “What are you doing in Berkeley?” he asked.

  I blurted out my whole life story – every miserable thing that had happened that year: the breakups, quitting school, wanting to make it in the music business, and most importantly my California dreams.

  “I’m never going back to the East Coast!” I said.

  “I get it. California’s where it’s at. Sounds like you need a change!” Randy said sweetly as we neared San Francisco.

  I could feel the chemistry between us. He must have felt it too because a few minutes later, he offered to drive me all the way to Berkeley.

  We pulled up in front of a boxy, modern apartment building a half a block from Telegraph Avenue. Mark Greenberg, a guy in Marsha’s philosophy class, was subletting an apartment there for the summer and he said I could crash for a while until I got my own place. He was going back to GWU in September to finish his senior year and apply to law school.

  Randy insisted on coming upstairs to check out the place and meet Mark. The apartment was a one-bedroom with a galley kitchen and a big living room with beige wall-to-wall carpeting. Mark seemed warm, laid-back, and easy to talk to, but definitely not my type - too big-boned and all-American looking. In other words, the perfect roommate. I sensed he wasn’t attracted to me, either.