Anthem Read online

  MOLLY

  The first time I heard “Windy,” I wanted to change my name. I love the Association. They are my favorite band. I love the way they harmonize and all the feeling they put into their songs.

  Barry looks like their leader, Terry Kirkman, with the same blond hair, long sideburns, and crooked mouth with the gap between his two front teeth. And that smile! Just like Barry’s.

  I’m a charter member of the Association Fan Club, so I get a newsletter that’s all about the band. Larry Ramos is from Hawaii and plays the guitar, like Barry. He’s very cute. Ted is the drummer and he’s maybe the cutest. Terry plays the recorder and the trumpet and the tambourine. And he wore a Nehru jacket, or something mod like that (it was lavender) on the Smothers Brothers’ show with an orange silk tie — an ascot, that’s what Mom called it. Something Barry would never wear, but still, it was a very smart look.

  I can even sing the harmony parts to “Windy,” I’ve listened to that record so many times. Number one on the Weekly Top Forty four weeks in a row! And Windy is me. Tripping down the streets of the city, smiling at everybody she sees, reaching out to capture a moment — that’s me.

  Or it was. I’m not reaching out for this moment.

  I want to ask Mom what planet we’re from, if she thinks I can get away with leaving home to find Barry, that Dad would allow it, or that Barry would even come with me, if I could find him.

  It will never happen.

  But Mom thinks it will. She hangs up the phone in the kitchen, returns to the ironing board, and says, “Your Aunt Pam and I have it figured out. You’re ‘staying’” — she makes finger-quotation marks for staying — “with your Aunts Eleanor and Madeleine in Atlanta.”

  “They are my great-great-aunts,” I remind her. “They are older than dirt and they can’t hear. I don’t think they even move.”

  “Exactly,” says my mother. “Aunt Pam is calling them right now. Your dad and Uncle Lewis practically grew up with them every summer. They will be delighted to hear you are coming!”

  “Does Uncle Lewis know the plan?”

  “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. And what he doesn’t know serves him right. What goes around comes around, after the way he has treated Pam and Norman.”

  “Dad will find out.”

  “Leave that to me. By the time you get back with Barry, I’ll have a plan in place. It’s only twenty-one days. Or less! You know how to travel. And camp. Plus, you’ll have Norman.”

  “Great.” As if Norman is the answer to anything.

  Mom turns the television back on. The steam from the iron hisses as she attacks one of Dad’s pants legs with it. On Another World, Steve says to Rachel, “I happen to love Alice very much,” and Rachel replies, “That is not true! You do not love Alice! You love me!”

  “Look what I missed,” murmurs Mom, like nothing is out of the ordinary and she hasn’t gone bananas.

  “Mom!” I stand between my mother and the television set.

  She puts the iron down slowly and looks at me, her jaw set. “I would do it myself if I could.” Her voice is steely and flat. “And I know you can.”

  I stare back at my mother for a long, lonely moment.

  And that’s when I realize, when it comes to Barry, what’s true for me is also true for her:

  The heart cannot be held.

  BAD MOON RISING

  Written by John Fogerty

  Performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival

  Recorded at Wally Heider/Hyde Street, San Francisco, California, 1969

  Drummer: Doug Clifford

  NORMAN

  Molly throws her tote bag into the booth and flounces onto the seat after it. Her ponytail swishes wildly left, then right, as she faces off with me at Shakey’s Pizza on Highway 17. She’s wearing a yellow-and-orange paisley skirt, a solid orange top, and a whole lot of rage. She does that. She can wear rage because she’s an emotion machine. I raise my eyebrows but keep playing the drum solo to “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” on the tabletop with two wrapped straws.

  “Stop that!” She snatches a straw from me, unwraps it, and plunges it into the Coke I’ve bought her. She doesn’t even say thank you.

  “I could have used knives.” I try to snarl, but I don’t have it in me. Probably because my name is Norman.

  Instead, I say, “Keep your voice down, will ya? I’m trying to get a gig here!” I came from work. I’ve been trying to get the manager’s attention for an hour.

  “I have a bone to pick with you, mister,” she hisses. “A whole skeleton!”

  Then she takes a long suck on her straw, as if to prepare herself.

  “Dish,” I say. She can’t scare me. She’s just a cousin, not a real girl. Real girls scare me plenty.

  “You know where Barry is, and you didn’t tell me!” she explodes. “You let me worry myself sick over him!”

  My shoulders slump. Busted.

  “I was following orders. You know how Barry is about orders.”

  “I could wring your scrawny neck, Norman. Where is he?”

  “He’s safe.”

  “No, he’s not. Have a look.”

  She thrusts a piece of paper at me, like it’s a missile. Order to Report for Armed Forces Physical Examination.

  “Oh, no.” That’s all I can say. I know what this is. My friend Max’s brother got one a few months ago, and he’s already gone. Off to Vietnam. “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, yes,” Molly snaps. “Where is my brother, Norman?”

  I scratch behind my ear, open my straw, stick it into my Coca-Cola, and take a long drag. Molly crosses her arms and says, “I hope you ordered pizza, because we’re going to be here a while. We’ve got a trip to plan.”

  I choke. “What trip?”

  “We’ve got to get Barry, Norman. We’ve got twenty-one days. He won’t know about this. He’ll be arrested when he doesn’t report. They’ll be looking for him as a draft dodger.”

  “Do you think you’re going to get him to come back here and be inducted into the army in three weeks?”

  “No, Mr. Smarty-Pants. I have other plans.”

  I open my mouth to ask what plans? just as the pizza arrives along with the manager, Mr. Harter. He is tall and skinny and wears a red-and-white-striped shirt, a tiny black bow tie, and a straw hat — the Shakey’s uniform. He puts the pizza on the table and says, “Norman, we’ll try out your band this Friday night, how’s that? About eight o’clock? The families with young’uns will be gone by then.”

  I can’t believe my dumb luck! I’ve been coming in here for weeks, trying to convince Mr. Harter to let me play on a weekend. Shakey’s is the only good hangout that’s not at the beach.

  “No hard stuff, son,” he says.

  “Yessir!” I manage. “Thank you, sir!”

  “It’s just a tryout,” he goes on to explain. “Sherman McCauley and I were in a band together, too, back in the dark ages — and he says you’re worth the risk.”

  “I understand completely,” I assure him. “We’ll be here and we’ll be ready to go — thanks again!”

  As Mr. Harter evaporates, Molly almost stabs me in the eye with a slice of cheese pizza.

  “You don’t have time for a band gig! We have twenty-one days, wise guy. And you don’t have a band.”

  “I’ll get a band.” I sound desperate, I know, so I change the subject. “And you are out of your tree, Molly, if you think we’re going to drive all the way across the country to find your brother — who’s my cousin and my best friend, by the way, so it’s not like I don’t care about him, too. Waving a draft notice in front of his face isn’t going to make any difference to him.”

  “You said ‘across the country.’ Where?”

  She’s got me. I sigh a big one. “San Francisco.”

  Molly doesn’t even blink. “We leave tomorrow,” she says. “We can use the school bus.” She pulls a black-and-white composition book from her tote bag, a mechanical pencil, a Hi-Lighter, and a 1969 Rand McNally Road At
las.

  Then she gives me the Stare of Death and says, “Now help me figure it out.”

  COME TOGETHER

  Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

  Performed by the Beatles

  Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London, England, 1969

  Drummer: Ringo Starr

  They hashed it out at Shakey’s.

  “It’s not a draft notice,” Molly said. “It’s the order to appear for a physical.”

  “That’s just a formality before the induction notice comes,” Norman replied. “Barry’s a champion swimmer. He rode a Harley-Davidson to California last year. No way he will fail the physical.”

  “All the more reason to go get him,” Molly sniffed.

  “Why?”

  “Because! If he goes to Canada, I’ll never see him again!”

  “Why would he go to Canada?”

  “Because I’m going to tell him to run! That’s why. I saw it on the news — a whole lot of boys being drafted are heading to Canada so they won’t have to go to Vietnam.”

  Silence.

  “Really?”

  “Really. I’ve thought about it. It’s the only way to keep him safe and out of jail.”

  “Really?”

  “Stop that.”

  “I thought you were going to bring him home.”

  “I’m not gonna do that,” said Molly. “He doesn’t want to go in the army and that’s all my dad will care about. Mom just can’t see it.”

  “Your mom will kill you.”

  “No, she won’t.”

  “And what if he doesn’t run? What if he decides to enlist, out there in California?”

  Molly’s eyes filled with tears. “I’ll go without you if you won’t go. By rights, that bus is mine. It was Barry’s first, so I can take it back on his behalf.”

  “You can’t drive,” Norman said in his flattest voice. “You’re thirteen.”

  “Fourteen!”

  “Barely! You can’t drive!”

  “I’ll find someone who will!”

  Norman stood up. Sat down. Stood up again and walked outside. He stood in the Shakey’s parking lot and yelled to the heavens. “Gaaaaaaaa!”

  Mr. Harter stopped by their table and looked out at Norman, then at Molly.

  “He does that,” she said. “It opens the lungs. Helps his singing.”

  Mr. Harter left the check and moved on without a word.

  Molly gathered her things and scooted out to her cousin.

  “We’re gonna need money,” she continued, as if nothing had interrupted their conversation. “For the pizza, and for the road. I’ve got some. And Mom will help me. Remember, it’s her idea for me to go.”

  Norman sighed to the same heavens and rubbed his face with his flat palms. “That means my mom knows about this plan, too.”

  “They were talking on the phone when I left.”

  “Great.” Positive Pam would be waiting for him when he stepped across the threshold at home. She’d be smiling. She’d be packing his things. She’d be making them sandwiches.

  And she’d be relieved. She had witnessed Norman’s devastation after Barry had left. The funk had been bad, he knew. The pressure to hold on to Barry’s secrets had been immense, especially after Pam had intercepted a letter in the mailbox, no return address. Norman couldn’t write him back if he wanted to.

  He kept the letters in a metal box from his Boy Scout days. He kept the box under the driver’s seat of the school bus. The anxiety the letters caused him was tremendous, not to mention the idea that he might never see Barry again. Mostly, he just didn’t talk about it.

  Norman paid for the pizza, and the cousins walked home past Sullivan’s Shoe Shop, where Norman’s Uncle Bruce resoled half the shoes in Charleston. Norman’s grandparents had worked in the front of the store selling shoes for years while Bruce cobbled in the back and Pam brought Norman over to give Bruce — and herself — a break. Bruce would take Norman to the drugstore across the street for lime sherbet while Pam answered the phone for her parents. Do you have Buster Browns in Girls size 12? Do you have Mary Janes? The Florsheims you sold me are too tight!

  Now Mommy-Ann and Pop were gone, and Bruce had other help in the shop, but it wasn’t the same. Lime sherbet wasn’t the same, either.

  It was after five, and the shop was closed up tight. Molly and Norman turned into the neighborhood behind the row of shops on Highway 17. Norman was only two and a half years older than Molly, but he towered a foot above her. His size 14 Florsheim wing tip shoes clacked smartly on the sidewalk, next to Molly’s Keds. He would drop Molly off at her door and walk the three extra blocks to his.

  It was June and it was hot in South Carolina. The water temperature in the Atlantic Ocean was already close to its summer perfection. Charleston kids were crowding the beaches and making themselves a nuisance for the summer visitors to Folly Beach, Sullivan’s Island, and Isle of Palms.

  Norman longed to be with them. The Shakey’s gig would be a way for him to tell the beach bands that, yes, he had real band experience.

  Once he got a band.

  “I need a day,” he finally told Molly. “I need to talk to Mr. Harter about the gig, and to Mr. McCauley about marching band. I need to look up some stuff. I don’t even know how long it takes to drive to San Francisco from here.”

  “It’s all in the atlas,” said Molly.

  Norman shoved his hands into the pockets of his khaki slacks. Maybe Mr. Harter would reschedule. Maybe Mr. McCauley would understand. He could work on the drum notation on the road. Biff Burger would not hold his job, but he didn’t care about that. He hated that place, and he could get another job when he got back.

  “I want to salvage some of my summer,” he finally said.

  “You will,” said Molly. “I promise.”

  I’M A BELIEVER

  Written by Neil Diamond

  Performed by the Monkees

  Recorded at unattributed studio, New York, New York, 1966

  Drummer: Mickey Dolenz (concert)/Buddy Saltzman (studio)

  MOLLY

  It turns out there is plenty to arrange if you’re going to take a cross-country trip to rescue your brother.

  Norman opens the wide back door of the bus and yanks out three rows of seats — six seats — at the back of the school bus and puts down plywood to create a smooth surface to house his drum kit. Aunt Pam finds us some foam rubber to put under our sleeping bags.

  “Why do I have to sleep next to the cymbals!” I yell at Norman, who’s now at the front of the bus pumping pedals and turning the ignition on and off, his toolbox open and spilling tools near the stepwell.

  “They’ll be in cases!” he yells back. “Don’t be a baby!”

  “I’m not a baby!” I swing myself around the shiny metal pole beside the stepwell so I can avoid Norman’s tools.

  “Don’t play on the stanchion,” he says. “It’s a grab bar, not a jungle gym.”

  I land deftly in the stepwell. “I’m going home to pack,” I sniff. “And to call my friend Diane, to tell her I can’t go to her pool party this weekend. See? I’m making sacrifices, too, Norman.”

  In my suitcase I’ve got seven pairs of underwear, seven pairs of shorts, seven tops, seven pairs of socks, a jacket, a sweatshirt, one pair of slacks, and a pair of pajamas. I’m wearing my Keds and the eighth pair of everything else. I’ve got my comb, brush, rubber bands for my ponytail, Jergens lotion, toothbrush, toothpaste. And my transistor radio so I can keep up with the Weekly Top Forty.

  “You’ll find a laundromat along the way,” says Mom as I’m clicking shut my suitcase. “In any small town, just ask. Here’s my coffee can of change. Call me every day from a pay phone so I know you’re tucked in for the night.”

  “But that money’s for your bowling league.”

  “It’s for when I host bridge,” Mom corrects me. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll do pot luck. I want to know you’re all right, and you need clean underwear. What if you’re in
an accident?”

  “We won’t be.”

  She pats on her helmet of hair, touches her single string of pearls, sighs as if she’s almost second-guessing herself, then plunges ahead. “Norman is a good driver. Not as good as Barry, but good. You keep him awake on the road. Stop at KOA campgrounds — Aunt Pam has a brochure with locations. They won’t care that you’re in a school bus. And they have washers and dryers. Aunt Pam will give you the tent we used on the Appalachian Trail last summer. Take a rope to hang your clothes on to dry. Take towels. Washcloths.” She starts folding some of both from the ever-present pile on the couch.

  Dad comes in from the garage and heads for the coffeepot. He grumbles about me leaving and says, “That Norman doesn’t have the sense God gave a gnat.”

  “Let them go,” my mother says, her voice more pleading than commanding. “Atlanta’s a big city. It’s only a few hours away and The Aunts can use the company.”

  “Madeleine and Eleanor have got to be pushing eighty,” insists my father. “They can’t do like they used to do when Lewis and I spent summers there, you know.”

  “Mitch.” My mother sets her jaw. My father yanks the milk out of the fridge and slams the refrigerator door. I walk out the kitchen door and into the garage, where I don’t have to hear their argument. I’m anxious enough already. I walk the three blocks to Norman’s house.

  Aunt Pam is orchestrating our departure like we’re the Marines getting ready to take Hamburger Hill. She has stuffed an ice chest with tuna fish sandwiches and boiled eggs. She’s got topless cardboard boxes filled with folded blankets and cans of food and batteries and flashlights and matches and a sewing kit.

  “You never know when the seat of your pants will split!” she says. “You’re going to see this beautiful country! And meet such wonderful people! It’s very exciting!”

  “That’s what you said about the Appalachian Trail,” Norman says. “And it was not exciting.”

  “We should have had a bus! Want me to come?”

  “No!” Norman and I say it together. Aunt Pam laughs and heads back inside.