But there was no point. I could never outrun my father. He’d been a marathon runner. Even at fifty-eight, he would still catch me.
With no other choice, I narrowed my eyes at Dad, defiantly pushed past the churchman—there was no way I would lethimdo it—and stepped up to the mound. I turned my bag over and emptied myparaphernalia. With every record, every button, every doll, every Beatlescard, and every one of Paul’s pictures that fell to the pavement, I felt that lump in my throat growing.
I forced back tears when my favorite record,Rubber Soul, slipped out of its cover and hit the ground. I never stacked my records together without a sleeve the way Livy did. I kept mine pristine and was extra careful not to scratch them. AsRubber Soullanded with the A-side up, I narrowed my eyes on track one, “I’ve Just Seen a Face.” I’d spent a hundred hours playing it over and over while picking it out on guitar. And there it was, scratched to kingdom come, never to be listened to again.
The little boys pushed past me. They jumped up and down on top ofRubber Soul, laughing and giggling as if they were stomping on bugs. While each of my records shattered into a hundred pieces, so did my heart, my dreams, and my faith. With tears stinging my eyes, I turned away. I couldn’t stand to look at it a second longer.
“‘Go home to England! You aren’t welcome here!’” the churchman read aloud. “Bet you got that idea from the mayor.”
Dad gave him a slow nod.
When the hysteria had broken, Mayor Ingram issued a proclamation saying the Beatles weren’t welcome in Memphis. He urged them to cancel their concert. But they didn’t.
After John apologized, the mayor lifted the ban. The paper said the real reason he lifted it was because of all the money the city would have lost had he kept the Beatles away.
But that’s not what had sealed my fate. Lots of pastors around the country—including Pastor Ralph—had stood at their pulpits the Sunday before the concert informing their congregations that anyone who attended would have their church membership revoked. Pastor Ralph encouraged the ones who had already bought tickets to attend a rally at Ellis Auditorium’s North Hall instead of going to the concert. He said it would give the youth of the Mid-South an opportunity to show that Jesus was more popular than the Beatles. Unfortunately forme, Dad felt protesting at the venue was a much better way to show “our family’s disapproval.”
“Boys,” the churchman called in a harsh tone. “Come here.”
Out of nowhere, four men in robes and pointy hats walked toward us. Though I didn’t want to be close to him, I hid behind Dad and peeked around his shoulder like a child.
Earlier in the week, Channel 5 had broadcast an interview with a Klansman in front of the Coliseum. He claimed they were a terrorist organization promising to use terror in any way they wanted to stop the show.
You’d have thought that would have swayed my father from coming here in the first place. But no. As he’d pointed out,War colonels aren’t afraid of anyone.
When the Klansmen got to our group, they never uttered a word. They simply laid a hundred or more records on the pile. I noticed the two little boys staring at them as if they were Halloween creatures. One of the Klansmen reached down, picked up my John Lennon doll, and lit it on fire. With a hateful laugh, he threw it back on the heap, causing the pile to ignite.
As quickly as they had arrived, they left. I watched them walk toward the waiting girls at the street. As if on cue, a loud chorus of screams at the entrance startled everyone.
Everyone but me. I knew what was happening. The girls weren’t screaming in fear of the Klansmen; they were screaming at the long gray bus turning into the entrance. It moved slowly while fans jostled and jockeyed, moving toward the bus as if it were a giant magnet.
I could see the lads in the distance. Four brunette heads hanging out the windows, waving at the screaming girls as they ran alongside, flapping paper in the air.
The bus halted, and a Beatle hand appeared through the window. A screaming girl reached up with her paper. Another did the same. Like water in my palms, my one and only chance to meet Paul was slipping from my fingers.
I was grateful the Beatles had not come closer. Paul didn’t need to see me like this.
Once the bus disappeared behind the Coliseum, the concertgoers headed straight toward me. The majority were girls my age, seventeen. They wore cute hairdos and adorable dresses, each one cuter than the next, a stark contrast to my Bermuda shorts and Peter Pan collar shirt, an outfit Dad had insisted I wear.
As each girl hurried past, tickets in hand, I heard their squealing and laughing ... right before ... silence ... followed by ... stares. There I stood in front of a burning fire, twenty yards from the front door—on display to the whole world—while eight thousand people approached from all directions. The Coliseum had only one way in. Right past me. And the burn pile.
Each person gawked at me like I was a freak and the burning was my freak show. There was no prayer of anonymity.
A startled cry escaped my throat when I eyed Laurie and Leslie from my class. I spun around, hoping they hadn’t seen me. Every cell in my body screamed,Run!I even heard Ron’s voice urging me to do it:Run, SuSu, run!
Run where, Ron, run where?
A man with a press badge clipped to the pocket of his short-sleeved shirt walked over to snap our picture. As he lifted his box camera to his eye, I whipped my head around to avoid the shot and happened to see Livy hustling through the crowd. Making up my mind to leave Dad behind and suffer the consequences later, I stepped toward her. After one more step I froze.
Where was Kim? After John’s proclamation, Dad had given my Beatles ticket to Livy’s family so her little sister could go, too, but Kim was nowhere to be found. Neither was Mrs. Foster. Yet a blond-haired girl wearing a miniskirt with mod designs of hot pink, lime green, and lemon yellow scurried behind Livy.Marianne!It was that lying black widow spider, Marianne Gentry. She hadmyBeatles ticket. And had gotten her wish.
She’d finally managed to come between two lifelong best friends. She must have convinced Livy that I was the one who had betrayed her, when in fact it was her all along.
Our gazes met. But I didn’t look away. With the most hateful glower humanly possible, I stared that backstabber down as if poison arrows were shooting from my eyeballs straight to her heart.
Livy didn’t react when Marianne smirked at me or come to my rescue when she saw the protest sign. She simply hurried past, pretending she hadn’t seen me. Of course she’d seen me. Everyone had seen me.
With that, a dam of shame broke loose, flooding every vein in my body. It was 97 degrees outside; I was used to the heat. Yet my skin perspired in a way it hadn’t before, clammy to the touch. I couldn’t catch my breath. Each time I tried to breathe, nausea set in. My hands and feet tingled. I trembled uncontrollably. A surge of overwhelming panic paralyzed my body.
