Anthem

by Deborah Wiles

  I-FEEL-LIKE-I’M-FIXIN’-TO-DIE RAG

  Written by Joe McDonald

  Performed by Country Joe and the Fish

  Recorded at Vanguard Studios, New York, New York, 1967

  Drummer: Gary “Chicken” Hirsh

  The next morning, Molly showed up at Flo and Eddie’s wearing the skirt Lucy had given her.

  “Girl!” said Flo. “Let me see!”

  Molly twirled and Flo insisted on making them all breakfast. Eggs, sausage, toast, and the coffee they had learned to drink on the road. Eddie squeezed oranges. “From our little grove out back,” he said.

  Norman thought of Victor. Orange groves. I see orange when I dream. Clouds of orange fire. Then black. “You don’t have to make us breakfast,” he said.

  “I’m a very good cook,” said Flo, spatula in hand, apron looped over his head and across his shirtless chest.

  “Thank you, doll,” said Eddie.

  Flo gave Flam some eggs. “You should leave this puppy with me,” he said. “He loves me!”

  “He loves me, too,” said Norman.

  Molly wasn’t sure Flam loved anybody, really. He was a largely expressionless dog who—in her opinion — lacked any discernable personality. No wonder he’d been abandoned in New Mexico.

  Flam wagged his tail and ate enthusiastically, and Molly felt bad for thinking such mean thoughts about him. He loved food. That’s what Flam loved. She could live with that.

  After breakfast, they all walked over to Multitudes for a tour. Flo surveyed the bus with a critical eye. “I think you could use some housekeeping in this traveling caravan. What have you got for curtains?”

  “Flo is a Renaissance man,” said Eddie.

  Within minutes, Flo was back at the bus carrying wooden dowels, hooks, a drill, and an armful of green fabric. He had exchanged his apron for a tool belt. He was still shirtless. He climbed on board Multitudes and began to eyeball the windows.

  “What are you doing?” Molly stood with the broom at the open back door of the bus and watched Flo shake out his fabric. He pulled a measuring tape out of his tool belt. “Honey, you just need a little curtain for the blasting heat, for privacy, and for hominess. You can pull this fabric over the curtain rod at night and put it away in the morning if you want.”

  “Is that a parachute?”

  “Forgot my scissors,” said Flo. He jumped out the back door of Multitudes onto the sandy ground and looked back at Molly. “Yes. You don’t think I wasn’t in Vietnam, too? Sergeant First Class Florian Finelli, at your service, Sky Soldier with the One Hundred Seventy-Third Airborne Brigade, Operation Junction City 1967, the only combat airborne mission of the war so far, and proud of it.”

  “You are?”

  “Of course I am. I lost a lot of buddies over there. You don’t think I’m going to say their courage wasn’t worth it, do you?”

  “What?” Norman asked as he and Flam joined them. Flo repeated himself. “Our objective was to destroy the Viet Cong’s headquarters on the border of Cambodia in Vietnam. We used canopies to drop heavy equipment — jeeps, trucks, howitzers, supplies. And men. Eight hundred forty-five of us flew under the silks that day, in two twenty-six-second drop zones — that’s all the time we had.

  “Let me tell you, you stand in the doorway of a C-130 aircraft fifteen hundred feet in the air and leap into the turbulence of the propeller wash at one hundred and thirty knots — your heart flies right out of your body. You have to jump out the door so you can catch it.”

  The pride in Flo’s voice touched Molly in a patriotic way. “That’s amazing,” she said. Norman agreed.

  “I always wanted to be a paratrooper,” said Flo. “Broke my leg when I was twelve, jumping off our barn roof with an umbrella so I could fly.”

  Eddie appeared with a bucket of paint. “Flo’s a hero,” he said. “Got the bronze star.”

  Flo waved off Eddie’s praise. “I liked the uniforms. You shoulda seen me. Sharp.” Flo winked and Molly laughed.

  Then she remembered: “I need to make a phone call,” she said. “We forgot last night.”

  “Go ahead, doll,” said Flo. “I’ll fix you up in here.”

  “I’ll start loading,” said Norman.

  “I’ll be right back to help,” Molly told him.

  * * *

  “Thank goodness!” said Janice once Molly got through. “Where are you?”

  “Two hundred miles from San Francisco,” said Molly. “Almost there.”

  “I have an address for you,” said Janice. Her voice shook. Molly heard Aunt Pam in the background, saying, “Let me talk to her!”

  Molly’s breakfast bunched in her stomach. “What? Norman! Wait, Mom, I need a pencil and paper. What happened?”

  “Barry sent another letter. Aunt Pam has it. It has a return address embossed on it. Here she is.”

  “Let me find some paper!”

  After some frantic jostling on both ends of the phone, Aunt Pam spoke. “Molly, is Norman there?” She did not sound positive.

  “Yes, ma’am. But he’s outside loading the bus.”

  “Then I’ll tell you,” said Aunt Pam. “Got a pencil?”

  “I’m ready.”

  Aunt Pam read off the return address. Molly stared at it.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “What is this?”

  “It’s just what it looks like, Molly,” said Aunt Pam. “Barry is in jail.”

  Norman banged through the screen door. “What?”

  Molly held out the phone. She opened her mouth, but no words came out.

  “Mom?”

  “I’m sorry for opening the letter, Norman. You know I value your privacy, but when we saw where it was from … the mailman just delivered it, minutes ago …”

  A letter. “It’s okay, Mom. Please, just read it.”

  Pam cleared her throat.

  Norm —

  They won’t let me make a long-distance phone call. I only get one piece of paper, one stamp, and one envelope. I hope you pick this up before your mom sees it. I got arrested, bro, on a trumped-up charge. It’s brutal out here. Do you still have the money you were saving for that new drum set? If you can get me some bail money, send it to the address on the envelope. I wrote the inmate number on it. I gotta get outta this place, man!

  Barry

  Norman forced himself to have no reaction. “What’s the postmark date, Mom?”

  “Three days ago,” Pam said. “It came airmail. Just now.”

  “We’re on the way,” said Norman. “We’re a few hours out, but we don’t have a lot of money left.”

  “We called the jail,” said Pam. “The bail is one hundred fifty dollars. We don’t have it right now, but we’re working on it. Janice is going to have to tell Mitch. Maybe he can fly out there.”

  Norman rubbed two fingers up and down his forehead. What a disaster. “We can be there this afternoon,” he said to his mother. “Nobody needs to come until we know more, okay? I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

  “Thanks, sweetie,” said Pam. “We’ll hold tight and wait to hear from you. Call soon. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. We’re both fine.”

  He hung up the phone and looked at Molly.

  “We’re not fine,” Molly said.

  “I know.”

  Molly stalked back to the bus just as Eddie was finishing painting his name by a symbol near the door. She hadn’t known what it was until Eddie explained it yesterday while admiring Multitudes. “It looks like a fancy number thirty,” she’d told him. “It’s an Om,” he’d replied. “It’s a sacred spiritual incantation. You say it like this: Aum.” Molly had heard it in the Aspen Meadow.

  “It creates a feeling of oneness, of connectedness, of peacefulness,” Eddie had said.

  Molly shook her head. There would be no peace today.

  Flo finished tacking a curtain rod above the windows of Multitudes.

  “We’ve got to go,” Molly said. She told them both about Barry’s l
etter.

  “Whoa,” said Eddie.

  “What are the charges?” asked Flo.

  “I don’t know,” said Molly.

  “What’s the bail?”

  “One hundred fifty dollars.”

  Flo whistled. “It must be murder.” Molly looked stricken. “I’m kidding, doll,” said Flo. “Kidding.”

  Molly watched Norman stride toward them from the office. Eddie and Flo exchanged a long look as Norman said, “We’ve got to go.”

  “Do you want us to go with you?” asked Eddie.

  “Yes,” said Norman. Emphatically.

  “Really?” said Molly.

  “Strength in numbers,” said Eddie.

  “We need an adult,” said Norman. “We’re not even eighteen and we’re dealing with the police now.”

  Flo looked at Molly. “You need all the help you can get right now, Miss Molly. War is hell, honey.”

  DARK STAR

  Written by Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia

  Performed by the Grateful Dead

  Recorded Live at Fillmore West, San Francisco, California, 1969

  Drummer: Mickey Hart

  Eddie wore a shirt under his overalls. Flo put on a shirt and shoes. Norman drove, Molly sat in the navigator’s seat, Flam rode in the famous front passenger seat, and four hours later they were all at the San Francisco city jail.

  “It’s high noon,” said Flo, looking at his watch. “In more ways than one.”

  “Button your shirt,” said Eddie.

  Barry’s jailers would not let them see him. “Come back at visiting hours! Can’t you read?”

  “We need a lawyer,” said Eddie.

  “We’ve got one,” said Molly. “Where’s a phone booth?”

  She used the phone book to look up the name Drew had given them: Jo Ellen Chapman. The phone was answered on the first ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Oh! Hello. Jo Ellen Chapman?”

  “Yes. Who’s calling?” The voice was not unfriendly.

  “My name is Molly. I’m a friend of your brother’s. Drew.”

  Jo Ellen was concerned. “Is everything all right?”

  “With Drew, yes. With us, no.”

  Molly described their dilemma while Jo Ellen listened.

  “I just happened to stop home to pick up some files,” she said. “Can you come to my office? I’m in the Castro. Do you have a pencil for the address?”

  They were sitting in the waiting room when Jo Ellen returned. She ushered them into a small office, barely big enough for the five of them. Stacks of file folders lined the desk and more stacks on the floor threatened to topple over.

  “I’m new here,” she said. “This is my first job out of law school. I’m not sure I can help you. We do civil rights litigation, mostly violations of the First, Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments.”

  “They’ve all been violated,” said Flo.

  “Excuse me, who are you?”

  “We’re the veterans. Moral support,” said Flo.

  “We’re the adults,” said Eddie.

  Jo Ellen raised an eyebrow and continued, speaking directly to Molly. “I called the jail. Your brother is being held on charges of trespassing, unlawful assembly, failure to disperse, disturbing the peace, and resisting arrest. He evidently was part of a demonstration in the Haight.”

  “An antiwar demonstration?”

  “No, just a demonstration. I think more of a disturbance. Another man attached to this case says he might press charges, says he was assaulted.”

  Assaulted. The word hit Molly so hard she leaned against the desk. It catapulted her back to her living room a year ago and the argument, her dad coming for Barry, Barry stumbling backward, Barry walking out. Gentle Barry.

  “That can’t be right,” Molly said.

  Norman bit his bottom lip.

  Jo Ellen curled a sheet of yellow paper behind its pad and picked up a pen. “Let me get some details from you. My boss, Cassandra Harris, is in court right now, but she’ll be back and then I’ll know more about what we can do. Do you have bail?”

  “No,” said Norman. “But I can get it.”

  “You’ll need it if the judge decides not to dismiss the case.”

  “I’ll get it,” Norman repeated.

  Cassandra came in as Jo Ellen was gathering information. “We’ve got a full plate right now, with our People’s Park defendants,” she said after Jo Ellen filled her in. “We really can’t wedge in one more case.”

  Molly suddenly had a tight ball full of tears in her throat. She gargled her feelings. “You have to! We’ve come so far! We’re from Charleston, South Carolina! We drove all the way across the country to get him! And there is no way he did … what they say he did.”

  Jo Ellen looked at Cassandra. Cassandra looked at the posters on Jo Ellen’s wall.

  ONE MAN, ONE VOTE

  The Women of Vietnam Are Our Sisters!

  War is not healthy for children and other living things

  LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED

  Cassandra sighed, removed her suit jacket, and hung it on a hanger behind Jo Ellen’s door. Her skin was deep brown. She wore her hair natural, in waves of pin curls, and she had a watch on one wrist, a silver bracelet on the other. “We can probably get this dismissed if the other man doesn’t press assault charges,” she said. “Jo Ellen, you’ll talk to him. Find out what happened, see if it is assault, and see what he wants to do.”

  “Got it,” said Jo Ellen as she made a note. “Right away.”

  “How much is bail?” Cassandra asked. Jo Ellen told her and Cassandra whistled. “Have you got it?” she asked Norman.

  “I’ll get it,” he answered. He needed to think. Aunt Janice wouldn’t have that kind of money. Neither would Pam.

  Cassandra continued. “I know the prosecutor. He hates these … disturbances … and so does the judge. The judge hikes up bail until the defendants want to go home so badly they’ll promise to leave town as a condition of dropped charges. But there’s always a fine to pay. Let me make a call. What do you want as your outcome?”

  “We want him to come home to South Carolina with us,” said Molly, tears at the edges of her eyes. “He’s been ordered to report for a physical exam.”

  “You mean he’s been drafted,” said Cassandra.

  “Pretty much,” said Eddie. He stroked his beard in thought. His golden hair stuck out around his porkpie hat and his shirt was faded under his overalls.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m —”

  “We’re not twenty-one,” said Norman. “Neither is Barry. I thought we needed an adult.”

  “Good thinking,” said Cassandra. She pointed at Flo with his clean-shaven freckled face. “You stand in as a brother if we need you in court.”

  Flo straightened up. “Well, I am the eldest,” he said. “Twenty-four next week.”

  “Happy birthday to you,” said Cassandra, with more than a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

  “Thank you very much,” said Flo sarcastically back.

  “Get the bail money,” said Cassandra. “If we can’t get into court today, you’ll at least be able to get him out of jail. You’ll need money for the fine and court costs, and money to pay us as well — whatever you’ve got. We need to keep the lights on.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Norman.

  Cassandra pointed a finger with a polished nail at Flo. “Jo Ellen, get him a tie.”

  “Right away,” said Jo Ellen. “I’ll walk them out.”

  “Thanks a lot,” said Norman as they were ushered out of the cramped office.

  “Where can we reach you?” asked Jo Ellen.

  “We’ll be at the Zen Center,” said Eddie.

  Molly blinked. “We will?”

  “Page and Laguna Streets.”

  “I know it,” said Cassandra. She gave Eddie an appraising look. “Good.”

  Jo Ellen walked them to the door. “So you’re from Charleston.”

  “That�
��s right,” said Norman.

  “My dad’s a pilot and is stationed at the air force base in Charleston. My family is moving there this summer.”

  “Really!” said Molly. “Drew will be in Charleston?”

  “That’s right,” said Jo Ellen with a smile. “He’s a trip, isn’t he?”

  “He really is.”

  “My sister, Franny, calls him Saint Drew.” Jo Ellen looked at Norman and said, “She’s graduating high school next year. Maybe you’ll be in the same school, Norman.”

  Norman colored at the mention of another girl for him to think about.

  Flo had been unusually quiet since being picked to represent the family in court. Now he spoke up as they trooped down the stairs and spilled onto the street, where Flam waited for them. “Could we get something to eat before we go visit the monks?”

  “Why are we visiting the monks?” asked Molly.

  “Eddie spent a lot of time with them when he got back from Nam,” said Flo.

  “I wanted quiet,” said Eddie. “Nine months on an aircraft carrier with constant noise — you’d want quiet, too.”

  “It’s nice there,” said Flo. “They know us. They’ll come get us when the phone call comes in.”

  EVIL WAYS

  Written by Clarence “Sonny” Henry

  Performed by Santana

  Recorded at Pacific Recording Studios,

  San Mateo, California, 1969

  Drummer: Mike Shrieve

  NORMAN

  I drop them off at the Zen Center, and they take Flam with them.

  “Come on, puppy!” calls Flo.

  “You can’t keep him,” I tell him.

  “What’s a zen center?” asks Molly.

  “We’ll show you,” says Eddie. “The sun may be hidden by clouds, but it is always there.”

  Molly gives me her help me! look.

  “I’ll call home,” I tell her. “I’ll take care of the money.” Then I turn the corner and drive up Haight Street. Within a few blocks, Multitudes is getting stares from the hippies that are everywhere, hanging on street corners, sitting on the sidewalks with their backs against buildings and smoking, wearing love beads and sandals and headbands and blousy tops and bell-bottoms like Flo’s. The place is thick with the smell of them.