“Can’t you feel his Spirit urging you? Right here?” He tapped his chest, over his heart. All I could feel was rage. Shifting my eyeballs toward my father, I caught a glimpse of the short black hairs poking from his nostrils.Revolting.
“Pastor Ralph will be quite pleased with you.”
I didn’t utter a word.
Dad slipped the keys from the ignition, stepped out of his Cadillac, and then opened the back door. I heard him removing the protest signs he had made earlier that morning. One for him. One for me.
I fantasized about staging a protest of my own, staying in the seat, making him drag me out. Hardly an option. My earthly father was a strict, hardcore military man who rarely considered anyone’s opinion but his own. He commanded authority over me, Mama, and especially Ron, who was en route at that very moment from basic training to a blistering jungle.
Resigned, I took a deep breath and reached for the door handle, then stepped outside into my own jungle. The rush of hot stagnant air felt like I had opened the door to an attic.
Dad was waiting for me with a sign in each hand. One readThou shalt have no other gods before me. The other:Go back to England! You aren’t welcome here!Angst rose in my throat when he handed me that one.
“May I hold the other sign? Please, Dad.” No doubt, he could hear the panic in my voice.
With one eye squinted in the sun, he calmly remarked, “It will be more effective if you carry it.”
“Why have you gotten so—”
“So what?”
“Mean.” I yanked the sign out of his hand. Shame covered my body like a coat of heavy plaster. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to run. I wanted to never see my earthly father again.
What should have been the start of the best weekend of my life had drastically changed course because of something stupid someone had said. Words so powerful they had upended a nation, affecting not only me but millions of other teenagers.
This was all John’s fault.
As I walked five feet behind Dad toward the small crowd gathered at the front doors, the back of my throat burned with bile. With each step closer, the whole thing became real, and I became desperate.
“Dad!” I called from behind. “Please.Don’t make me do this. I’m begging you.” I gripped my stomach. “I’m about to throw up.”
He turned around slowly, glaring at me with his sign in the air. “Suzannah!We’ve discussed this. The first commandment clearly states that you shall have no other gods before him. Look at that bag you’re holding. Idols. All idols. The Bible tells us to flee from idolatry.” He stepped toward me, waving his hand over my Beatles collection. “Beatlemania, sheesh. I should have never allowed this trash in my home to begin with. I knew better.”
“Look at all the girls in the street, Dad. They love the Beatles too.” A lump had formed in my throat, which made speaking difficult.
Dad murdered me with his eyes. “I don’t care about them,” he said through gritted teeth. “I only care about you. Enough of this talk.”
His frown morphed into a counterfeit smile as a man from our church broke away from the small crowd. “Colonel Withers!” the man exclaimed, with sweat trickling down the sides of his cheeks. Disgusting rings stained his armpits. Two children lagged behind him—his own, I supposed—who couldn’t have been older than ten. Two boys swinging their own protest signs without a clue of what they were doing or why. They thought this was fun.
“You know my daughter, Suzannah,” Dad said, stretching an arm across my shoulders. It made me flinch.
The man dipped his chin with a smile. “Of course I do.”
Forcing myself to grin back, I noticed a pile of records scattered on the ground. No other mementos, just LPs and forty-fives. A pimple-faced dork around my age stood close by, kicking at the pile. He probably hated the Beatles—felt Pastor Ralph was right—and was happy to be there. I made up my mind to not acknowledge him.
“You can go ahead and empty your paraphernalia,” the church man said, ogling my bag. “We’ll be burning it all once the concertgoers arrive.”
Dad nudged me. But shots fired in the pit of my stomach, causing me to revolt. In a last-second act of defiance, I stood still, muttering, “I can’t.”
Dad pressed his hand into my back. “Of course you can, Suzannah. Empty your bag.”
“Ican’t, Dad!” I said, surprised at my sharp tone.
With stifled anger, my father smiled at the churchman. I’d pay for my outburst later. No telling how many times he’d make me writeSuzannah was a bad, disrespectful girlin perfect penmanship. Or how many weekends I’d have to stay home, grounded to my bedroom with no TV or music or novels to keep me company, just the Bible to convict me of my sins.
The churchman reached out his hand. “Here, I’ll do it for you.”
The bag was my ventilator, keeping me alive. How was I supposed to let it go? I considered throwing the protest sign down onto the pile, making a run for it, and hiding in the bushes until the concert was over. I’d call Livy from a pay phone to pick me up. She had offered to share her room with me if I ever got up the courage to run away.
