“Why don’t you bring your phonograph out here so we can listen together?”
Rising up on shaky knees, I grabbed hold of my coat for support, but it tumbled off the hanger. Mustering all the strength in my body, I rose to face my dad.
“I’ll go get your mother. I’d like her to hear it too.” Whenever I got in trouble, Dad’s voice remained calm and steady, such a contrast to my quivering lips.
While listening to his footsteps on the stairs, I knew I had to act fast. Like a convict with moments to devise a breakout plan fromprison, I grabbed three dresses, four blouses, and two pairs of shoes, shoving everything inside my suitcase. I yanked open my drawers, frantically adding shorts, my new floral bra with matching panties, more underwear, jeans, and a pair of pantyhose for work the next day. I grabbed the wad of cash I kept hidden in my drawer and jammed it inside my purse. I started to make a run for it but heard whimpering in the hall.
“Ronald. Please. She’s twenty years old.”
My heart plummeted. Poor Mama. She wanted to protect me. But she was no longer herself. Ever since Ron had left for Vietnam, she’d become increasingly mournful, and her husband had become increasingly mean.
The two of them walked inside my bedroom. “Going somewhere?” Dad asked.
Instead of answering, I ran to Mama, who folded me inside her arms. I’d always found comfort in the security of Mama’s embrace. Now, it tempered my fear and gave me courage for what was sure to be a long night.
Wrapped up together like newborn puppies, Mama and I watched as Dad took the record player out of my closet and plugged it back in. Jimi’s seductive voice picked up right where it left off, in the middle of “Foxy Lady.” I hung my head while Jimi’s lascivious lyrics floated from my turntable.
When the song ended, Dad snatched off the record and picked up the album cover from the floor. He sat down on the edge of my bed, studying it with a stoic expression. “Have you forgotten the rules in this house?” he asked, with a surprising calm. He crossed his legs and turned the record over to view the other side.
I offered him only a blank stare; not a single word left my lips.
“I’m going to say this one more time. I hope you’ll heed my warning. As much as you love that powder-yellow Mustang in the driveway, I’d hate to see her go to someone else. I willneverallow this trash in our home again.” He held up the Jimi record. “Do you understand me?”
This time I stared into space, nodding in slow motion. Here I was, twenty years old, yet he still talked to me like a child—the way he always had—like I had no say in the matter.
Moments later, I experienced what I considered a sin far more egregious than any of the sins for which Dad insisted I’d go to hell.
With murder in his eyes, he glowered at me. “What makes you think you can bring this garbage into our home? You are as trashy as this record.” With that he lifted his knee and split my Jimi Hendrix record in two.
The jagged edges in each of his hands mirrored my heart, and his tongue had assassinated my spirit.
A long guttural moan dislodged from Mama’s throat.
While his words, as sharp as a bayonet, sank down into my soul, I felt dissociated from my consciousness, like the world around me wasn’t real. My eyes glazed over. It seemed like I had left my body.
The creaking of the mattress snapped me out of it. Dad padded over to my closet to retrieve the rest of the records and placed them on the dresser. One by one he lifted his knee and split each in half. He lingered when he held the Beatles, the White Album, studying the cover like he admired it, then cracked it open. Running a finger down the track listing, he said, “You are aware of what happened last weekend in California, are you not?”
His frosty voice sent a fresh chill down my spine. I had no idea what he meant.
“That vulgar hippie freak Charles Manson, along with his savage thugs, stabbed Sharon Tate and her unborn child sixteen times. All high on LSD!”
Mama released another guttural moan.
“Her father is a lieutenant colonel with the army and happens to be a friend of mine.”
Of course, I knew about the tragedy—everyone was talking about it—but what did it have to do with the Beatles? “That’s horrible, Dad. I’m sorry it happened.”
“The words ‘Helter Skelter’—a song fromthisvery album—were written in her blood.” He thrust the record toward me. “Shame on you for wanting anything to do with this band ofhippie heathens.”
A poster included with the White Album poked out of the cover. He removed the poster and also the enclosed headshots of all four Beatles. One by one, he held up each photo for me to see, then tore it down the middle. The ripping of each picture sounded like the sharpening of a blade.
“You are adisgraceto our family, Suzannah. A heathen yourself. How do you expect to attract a man with godly character? Or any man, for that matter? Aren’t you afraid of God’s wrath?”
With a hand pressed into her stomach, Mama crumpled over and wept.
“Dad! You told me yourself my musical talent is a gift from God. Just like Mama’s gift and Ron’s gift.”
“Your mother has devoted her musical gift to the Lord. As should you.”
