T. Parker - California Girl

Andy had lingered for a few minutes at a couple of the meetings. Listened to the JBS party lines: “Get the U.S. out of the UN,” “Support Your Local Police,” “Goldwater in ’64,” “No on Fluoridation,” “Better Dead Than Red.” They showed films documenting Communist takeovers and atrocities, some of them gory and disturbing. Something about black-and-white film, Andy had thought, the way it captured body bloat and bullet-riddled corpses and blood. And films on the growing use of drugs-how to spot a heroin addict, what marijuana cigarettes looked like, how to tell if your teenager was under the influence of drugs.

The Birch Society members were local men and women-small business owners, a savings and loan officer, a pharmacist, some defense engineers, a teacher, a dentist, a pilot. They were serious about the Communist conspiracy and seemed happy to have a newspaperman around. Roger and Marie Stoltz were there both times. They owned a small chemical company, RoMar Industries. Solvents and industrial cleaners.

Max Becker had given a speech one night. Andy had never seen him speak before. It surprised him how passionate and eloquent his father was. His topic was the way the Communist conspiracy worked inside a free country. How they used drugs and music and subversive textbooks and ignorant politicians to brainwash the youth. The youth were the most valuable members of a free republic, Max said, and the most vulnerable.

“Mom buys that JBS stuff, too,” said Andy. Though she’d remarked to him once that Roger Stoltz and the JBS were taking over Max Becker’s life.

“She’s very well informed,” said Stoltz. “Well, say hello to them for me.”

ANDY THANKED Old Man Overholt for six years of employment and gave his two-week notice. The publisher talked for a while about writing and papers and marriage and self-control but Andy hardly heard a word of it. He sat in Overholt’s office, nodding occasionally.

Then he went back to his desk and wrote the Vonn brothers arrest story.

It came fast and he put in a lot. It wasn’t really straight reporting. Not really an editorial or think piece, either. Just a story about a family and it was true. He got Karl’s cold black stare, and Alma ’s saying she’d die when she couldn’t count her dead loved ones on two hands anymore, and Janelle’s guitar and Lenny’s shining flame orange and red chopped Harley Panhead. And the notion that these poor people had come halfway across the country to find a better life and had instead found ugliness, misery, ruined innocence, and death. That we owed them respect for trying. That they had borne a specific burden so that we would not have to bear it. This last idea was something Andy had talked about with David. Wasn’t sure how to write it but felt it very strongly in his heart. Andy changed all the names and places and some smaller things so nobody would know who it was about. Wrote it the best he could.

He knew Overholt would kill the story. But he dropped his two carbon copies into the publisher’s in-box anyhow. Put the original in his briefcase.

Three years ago today that Alma Vonn had killed herself, Andy thought.

This one is for you.

MEREDITH BURST into the Tustin Times office a little after noon, her makeup running and her eyes swimming with tears. She fell into Andy’s arms and hugged him harder than she’d ever hugged him in her life.

He couldn’t get her to stop crying. He guided her outside and they stood by a sycamore tree, leaves mostly gone, branches forking into a pale blue sky. A dry wind chattered the big dead leaves across the sidewalk. He tried to hold her close but she pushed him away.

“I’m not going to see you again,” she said. “It’s over, Andy. I can’t live like this anymore.”

Her face was a mask of defeat and hopelessness.

“I understand.”

“Why aren’t you crying?”

“I’m trying to be strong, Meredith. I still love you. I want you to know I’ll always love you.”

She sobbed and hugged herself and looked up at him with the most abject sadness that Andy had ever seen.

“You don’t know, do you?” she asked.

“I know that I love you. I do, but I think it would be better if-”

“They shot John Kennedy.”

MAX BECKER brought his three available sons home that evening. David came with Barbara. Nick came alone. So did Andy, walking into the hushed kitchen and wondering why they had been called here. Max had been abrupt on the phone.

Andy noted the paleness of Monika. Her eyes were red and she couldn’t look at him.

They came together in a loose circle in the old kitchen, the TV droning on from the den, speculation about the president and one Lee Harvey Oswald and a murdered officer Tippett.

Max asked them to hold hands. His voice trembled.

“Sons and daughter,” he said. “This is the darkest day of our lives. Your brother Clay has been killed in Vietnam. I’m uncertain of the specifics. David, say a prayer.”

1968

THE WIND BLEW HARD that day, the first strong Santa Ana wind of the season. October second, hot and dry. The kind of wind that got you a static shock every time you touched something that would conduct. Touch a metal doorknob, you got a little blue zap. Kiss your sweetheart, same thing, a sharp little arc cracked from lip to lip.

Nick got the possible 187 at 4:48 that afternoon and was rolling by 5:09. The delay was thanks to his partner, Al “Lucky” Lobdell, who was talking to his wife on the phone about their son. Kevin was seventeen, having troubles. Lucky’s voice had been soft and grave.

Nick drove. Lucky sat across from him in the Fairlane. Chewing gum, staring out at the wind-bent trees as if seeing them for the first time.

“Two murders in two days,” said Lobdell. “The Laguna thing had to be queers.”

“Laguna PD’s playing it pretty tight,” said Nick. The Sheriff’s Department had gotten the statewide bulletin from Laguna Beach PD that morning. Fatal stabbing at the Boom Boom Bungalow, a beachfront motel that catered to men. No suspect, no witnesses. Dead victim was Adrian Stalling, age twenty, of Bakersfield.

“A stiff at the Boom Boom,” said Lobdell. “Ours is at the old packinghouse near Tustin?”

“That’s right, Al.”

“Should have torn it down years ago. City Council tried to, but it’s just outside the city limits.”

“Yeah. It’s been empty awhile.”

“Bums and rats. Kids doing the wrong things. That was Shirley on the phone. Kevin got suspended from school today for cussing a teacher. Like he does his mom. Three days of suspension.”

“Sorry to hear that, Lucky.”

“Not as sorry as me.”

“What were you doing when you were seventeen?”

Lobdell looked at Nick, then back through the window. Lucky was a big man, barrel chest and small feet. He seemed preoccupied at times, like his back was up against a wall that Nick couldn’t see.

“I graduated early with job credits,” said Lobdell. “Joined the army.”

Nick steered off Fourth Street to Newport, then drove the service road along the railroad tracks. Still a few groves around the packinghouse. Gravel popped under the chassis and the orange leaves shifted in the wind. Silver and green and silver again. Sun bright and low in the west.

Nick thought of himself and his brothers tossing the SunBlesst packinghouse crate labels in the air on a day like this. That dark-haired beauty and her big orange raining out of the sky for days. Remembered the rumble. The crack of Lenny Vonn’s nose. The terrific pain when they clubbed his head with the tree branch. And Andy flying out of the trees to spear Lenny Vonn. Clay. All because of Clay. Be five years next month since he died. November 22. And the war getting worse and worse.