change the world. A part
of her had died when Martin
Luther King was killed,
but Bobby’s campaign
brought it back to life. And it
distracted both of
us, for a time, from
the relentless slaughter in
the Vietnam War.
Wednesday night, Mom and
I watched the California
primary. Bobby
Kennedy won, and
throughout his speech Mom stood and
yelled “Right on!” at the
TV every time
Kennedy made a point she
liked. After the speech,
reporters discussed
the election results and
Kennedy’s chances
in November. Then
the TV picture lurched and
rolled, and the people
behind the newsmen
started running and shouting.
Mom froze and stared as
pandemonium
erupted on the TV.
She faded back in-
to her chair, one hand
against her cheek, while she stared
in terrible white
anticipation.
The camera focused on
the swirl of people,
and the reporter
disappeared from sight. Moments
later, a panicked
voice crackled through the
airwaves: “Kennedy’s been shot!
My God, he’s been shot!”
June 1968
Week Twenty-Four: 324
“It’s complicated.”
That’s what my mom always said
when I asked her when
I’d meet the baby’s
father. “Complicated” was
an understatement.
I knew it was the
Age of Aquarius and
free love, but my own
mother, a married
woman, carried the child of
another man. That
was complicated
for everyone involved. Mom’s
not stupid, so I
couldn’t figure out
how she got pregnant in the
first place. After all
the grief she suffered
from her first pregnancy, she
had to know better,
and given that I
had no siblings, it was clear
that she understood
how birth control worked.
Could she have fallen in love
with some strange peacenik?
Maybe it was just
a desperate one-night stand
that she fell into
out of loneliness.
Maybe she didn’t even
know his name. Maybe
he was just drifting
through, and he didn’t tell her
where he went next. I
wanted to be mad
at her, to punish her for
putting that last straw
on Dad’s back, to make
her pay for lighting the fuse
that would blow up our
fractured family,
but I knew Dad was as much
to blame as she was,
and somehow I felt
that part of the fault was mine,
too. I couldn’t be
mad at Mom or Dad
for the complications that
entangled us all.
★ ★ ★
Even with the flak
flying around, Angela
wanted to meet my
parents. She’s not like
me that way—conflict is one
thing I avoid, but
she sails in, fearless.
palm tree in her front
yard while I described
my dysfunctional parents.
It didn’t faze her.
“Your mom sounds great. I
think I’d get along really
well with her.” Then I
told her about my
dad and his old-school views on
politics, civil
rights, and the war. She
laughed. “It will be like Guess Who’s
Coming to Dinner,
except that I’ll be
in Sidney Poitier’s role—
the outsider who’s
a dad’s nightmare.” I
couldn’t help smiling, and she
knew she’d won. “Okay,”
I said, “I’ll see what
I can do.” Angela hugged
me, hard, and whispered,
“This’ll be a good
thing, Ashe. You’ll see.” The warmth of
her embrace lingered
all the way to my
front door, but when I opened
it, the sadness at
home swept it right out
of me. I wished life was much
less complicated.
June 1968
Week Twenty-Five: 299
Bobby Kennedy’s
murder filled Mom with a new
sense of urgency,
and she turned even
more passionate about the
war, civil rights, and
keeping Nixon out
of the White House. Her work kept
her away from home
a lot, so sometimes
I’d go to Dad’s apartment
for dinner. I tried
to talk about the
baby once, but Dad only
stared at me before
leaving the table
without saying a word. I
tried to imagine
a dinner with Mom,
Angela, and him. It was
impossible. I
told Angela that
life isn’t like the movies,
and that even if
people need to change,
most don’t want to, no matter
what you do or say.
June 1968
Week Twenty-Six: 187
Why don’t they publish
all the names of the soldiers
killed every week? How
different it would
be to read a long list of
names in the paper
on Thursdays. It would
bring the war home in a way
numbers can’t. Maybe
then people would see
what it’s costing us to be
tangled up in a
foreign jungle war
that will get worse before it’s
all over. Last week,
one hundred eighty-
seven U.S. soldiers died
in Vietnam, and
nobody—except
family and close friends—knew
or cared. How easy
it is to forget
the blood, injuries, and death
happening daily.
They deserve to be
remembered by name. Think of
what it would be like
to see all the names
of the dead at once. Thousands
of sons, brothers, and
husbands who died for
a country they loved in a
distant, senseless war.
July 1968
Week Twenty-Seven: 198
Dad got me a job
digging sprinkler line trenches
for the new hotel
going up over
on Rural Road. My boss was
spent way too much time
in the sun. The first morning,
he laughed when I showed
up without gloves. He
handed me a shovel and
pointed to a guy
already picking
a flat patch of hard brown dirt
in the corner. “Get
busy. I want to
see nothing but backsides and
elbows until lunch.
You got it?” I took
the shovel and walked over
to my coworker.
A dark splotch of sweat
already stained the back of
his gray Marines tee
shirt, and when he saw
me, he swung his pick into
the ground, pulled off his
glove, and shook my hand.
Reuben Ortega was four
years older than me,
and he’d just gotten
back from Vietnam. He lent
me an old pair of
leather work gloves and
shared his ice water while we
broke our backs on the
hard-packed clay in the
broiling July sun. And when
we sat in the shade
of the new building
to eat lunch, he told me things
that he had seen and
done in ’Nam, things that
never make the newspapers.
I was surprised how
calm he was about
the war—and how his stories
haunted me. “It’s a
bad scene over there,”
he said. “Real bad.” He lit a
cigarette, took a
long drag, and while smoke
drifted upward like a lost
soul, he shook his head.
July 1968
Week Twenty-Eight: 183
The summer and Dad
were brutal to Mom. The sun
melted energy
out of her, and she
spent afternoons, the worst part
of every July
day, in the quiet
coolness of her bedroom. Most
days she was far too
wiped out to attend
anti-war demonstrations
or political
meetings. At night she’d
shuffle around the house with
a hand on her huge
belly, as if one
false step might break her open.
Digging ditches all
day wiped me out, too,
but Mom’s was a different
kind of weariness.
The baby inside
her made Mom suffer. And so
did Dad by dropping
tons of cold legal
stuff on her as punishment
for being pregnant.
July 1968
Week Twenty-Nine: 157
The summer tortured
Angela’s family as much
as it tortured mine.
Still no word from her
brother, and the Army did
nothing to help. She’d
take turns with her mom
and dad calling bureaucrats
and writing letters,
but in the end, the
military stonewall won.
The Army knew where
Kelly was stationed,
but they couldn’t—or wouldn’t—
confirm his status.
When I went to the
Turners’ house on Friday night,
the place felt like its
spirit had been ripped
from it. Her parents welcomed
me like always, but
their warm smiles couldn’t
camouflage the worry etched
onto their faces,
and even though we
sat at the kitchen table
eating cookies and
chatting, the mood felt
forced, fake, hollow. Angela
grabbed my hand. “Let’s walk.”
★ ★ ★
Smoky strands of clouds
stretched across the orange-red
western sky, and the
dry heat from the baked
sidewalk warmed the soles of our
shoes as we walked to
Meyer Park. Waves of
sorrow radiated from
Angela, and when
our hands brushed, she clutched
mine and pulled us to a stop.
Her eyes glistened with
tears, and she started
talking, fast, about Kelly,
the war, the riots
and demonstrations,
the murders of Kennedy
and King. “Sometimes I
feel like our world is
drowning in madness and death.”
Her eyes pleaded for
comforting, wise words,
but I didn’t know what to
say. We stood there in
silence while the last
rays of color faded from
the horizon. Then
she squeezed my hand and
we walked to the park, where we
sat on swings, sharing
the weight of worry
that burdened us. We didn’t
know what might still be
coming up the hill
in 1968, but
we swore whatever
happened, we’d face it
together. Sitting there in
the dark, our pinkie
fingers linked, I thanked
God that Angela’s life had
intersected mine.
July 1968
Week Thirty: 193
It looked like the war
would never slow down. Reuben
laughed when I asked him
about it. “Ain’t no
way, man. The white-collar dudes
sitting in D.C.
aren’t the ones bleeding.
They have it their way, this war
will last forever,
and if we run out
of Vietcong to blow up,
they’ll find some other
war to keep business
hopping.” I didn’t want to
believe him, because
I was depending
on my college deferment
to keep me safely
out of the draft through
1973. There
was no way we’d still
be in Vietnam
that long, so I’d graduate
from college and step
into a peaceful
working world. But if we were
still at war, I’d be
instant draft bait, and
that would change everything. I
didn’t want to think
about it, but all
afternoon, images of
jungle warfare and
death haunted me. If
Reuben was right, in five years
I might be digging
foxholes and dodging
bullets on the front lines of
a jungle war, and
even in the heat
of the Arizona sun,
a chill shivered me.
August 1968
Week Thirty-One: 171
“It’s the not knowing
that’s the worst. Is he rotting
in a Vietcong
prison, or is he
dead?” Angela’s voice trembled.