She hugs me back with such a warm embrace. “My pleasure.”
“Yeah, thanks, Joanna,” says Barry. “Let’s eat! Come with us!”
NORMAN
So we all end up eating together in Chinatown, at Sam Wo on Washington Street, a place Flo rightfully declares the King of Noodles.
“It’s also the skinniest building in the world,” says Eddie. We are crammed together, seven of us, in a space by the kitchen. A sign says NO BOOZE, NO B.S., NO JIVE, NO COFFEE, MILK, SOFT DRINKS, FORTUNE COOKIES.
“This is how you know a Chinese restaurant is good,” says Flo. “The locals eat here.” He orders rice noodle rolls for all of us. I’ve only been to a Chinese restaurant once, I tell Flo. Flo orders chow mein, fried rice, and wonton soup for everyone. He and Colonel Chapman talk military shop, while Eddie sits and quietly listens.
“Families, eating together,” says Molly as she looks around at the diners. She’s so happy her face shines. “Generations of families. I’ll bet they come here all the time.”
“I’ve lived without family for over a year,” says Barry. He stabs a noodle roll. “It’s not so bad.”
Molly looks stricken. “You don’t mean it.”
“It was pretty bad for us,” I say.
“I don’t care if I never go back home,” says Barry. I can feel Molly steel herself across the table.
After a leaden pause, Jo Ellen asks Barry, “Did your attorney tell you about your draft notice?”
“Who’s being drafted?” asked Colonel Chapman.
“I am, evidently,” says Barry. “Yeah, she told me.”
“Your physical date is July second,” I say.
“I don’t plan to report,” says Barry.
Molly has taken a sip of her soup. She chokes on it.
“It was Mom’s idea to bring you home,” she says, coughing. “She said we would figure out what to do as a family.”
“No way am I going home to let Dad scream at me again!”
Colonel Chapman leans his elbows on the table. “I personally know young men — or knew them — who would be happy to have their parents scream at them again, if they could be here, on this planet, alive.”
“He disowned me!” Barry’s charming veneer cracks for a moment, but only I can see it. It’s in the way he blinks and swallows. I know him well. He takes a breath and is back in the game. “The war is stupid.”
The chow mein is delivered and no one seems ready to eat it. The hush at the table makes everyone uncomfortable.
Colonel Chapman laces his fingers together over his plate. He clears his throat. “What do you plan to do about your induction notice?”
“Nothing,” says Barry.
“You’ll be arrested!” says Molly.
“No, I won’t. I won’t be here.”
“Where are you going?” Molly asks.
“I don’t know,” says Barry. “I have a hankering to see the world. Just not Southeast Asia!”
“I see,” says Colonel Chapman.
Finally, Eddie speaks up. “Does it mean anything to you that your mother wants you to come home?”
I see Barry’s wavering again, and again I watch his recovery. “Nope.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Molly puts down her soup spoon and stares at her bowl.
“You told the judge you’d go home,” I say.
Barry shrugs.
No one speaks for a moment, and then Molly says, “I thought you should run, too, at first. Then I thought you should join the navy, or the air force, anything to keep you out of the army. But Flo is so proud of being in the army, so I don’t know, because we made a friend who is so messed up after being in the army, and I don’t know what you should do. It should be your decision — that’s what I thought in the end. Or maybe you could just shoot yourself in the foot.”
The entire table recoils at this thought.
Molly continues. “Whatever you do, you should at least talk to Mom. She hasn’t heard from you in over a year. Her heart is broken.”
I am so proud of you. I want to say that to my cousin, but boys don’t talk like that, and Molly’s voice is shaking so much I’m sure she’d cry if I said one word.
Flo saves the day when he says, “I’m proud of my outfit, I miss my buddies who died, and I’m grateful to be alive, but I wish we’d never had to go to Vietnam. So many are dead. And not just Americans.”
“And for what?” says Barry.
“When your country calls, you go,” Colonel Chapman answers. “I don’t always agree with command. But I signed up to do a job. I’m morally and ethically bound to do it.”
“I didn’t sign up,” says Barry. “It’s not my war. My country is wrong. I refuse to go.”
“Then don’t go to war,” says Eddie. “Go home and see your mother.”
Colonel Chapman looks at Jo Ellen before he speaks to Barry. “Let me tell you what I do now, in the air force. I fly supplies over to Vietnam and bodies back. Hundreds and hundreds of bodies, in body bags, labeled, heading home to their grieving families —”
Jo Ellen interrupts. “My dad and I don’t see eye to eye about the war. I agree with you, Barry. The war needs to stop. Millions of people in this country agree with you. There are kids out there in this country dying for a cause, in Vietnam, yes, but also across the Bay in People’s Park at the University of California, all across the South for their civil rights, and protesting everywhere, standing up for what they feel is right. Not just young people — all people. But we especially need the young people. This is the way we change things. So here is where I land in this argument: It’s not enough to sit there and say ‘not fair!’ What are you doing about it?”
Barry opens his mouth to speak, then thinks better of it. Instead, he drinks some water, then smiles at me and says, “Well, Norm … how are we going to get out of this one?”
I feel the gaze of every person at the table. An ache starts in my chest.
“Well, Barry,” I answer my cousin, “we aren’t. Not anymore.”
PIECE OF MY HEART
Written by Jerry Ragovoy and Bert Berns
Performed by Janis Joplin/Big Brother and the Holding Company
Recorded at Columbia Studios, Los Angeles, California, and New York, New York, 1968
Drummer: Dave Getz
Multitudes was at the Zen Center along with Flam, so they all walked to Grant Street after dinner, where taxicabs took them in different directions. Jo Ellen and her father hailed one.
“Good luck,” said Colonel Chapman.
Jo Ellen smiled at them. “Maybe I’ll see you in Charleston one day.”
Flo gave Jo Ellen his tie as Eddie hailed the next cab. “See you at the Zen Center,” Eddie told Molly and Norman. “We’ve got rooms for the night.”
“I’ll take care of the puppy,” said Flo.
Norman thought to tell him he couldn’t have Flam, but he didn’t have the heart.
That left Barry standing in the gathering dusk with his sister and his cousin.
“Where do you live?” asked Molly. Her heart hurt. She had hoped for too much.
“Nowhere now,” said Barry. “I was subletting an apartment in the Castro from the guy … some guy,” he finished.
“Parnell?”
“That’s the one.”
They were awkward with one another. Norman shoved his hands in his pockets. No one knew what to do next. “I’ve got a girl I can stay with,” said Barry. “She’s not happy with me right now, but I can stay there.”
“You sure?” Molly asked. I’m sad; it’s a feeling, she told herself. But there was something more.
“Yeah,” said Barry. “Isabella — she’s my old lady, or was. She’ll take me back. I left her once already, when I went to Atlanta. That’s why I was there when the Allman Brothers Band came through in May. But I came back and she took me back. You should have heard that band, Norman.”
“I did.”
Barry looked authen
tically surprised. “You did?”
“Yeah. Thanks for that.”
Barry brightened. “Far out, Norman! See? You need me!”
Norman pulled at his earlobe. “I thought I did,” he answered. Then he posed a question. “Why did you write me?”
Barry licked his lips as if he needed to think about this. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave,” he finally said. “But the longer I stayed away, the easier it was.”
Norman nodded. “It wasn’t about me. Or any of us.”
Barry pursed his lips. “I was figuring it out.”
Molly swallowed to keep tears at bay and again tried to reach for something she was feeling but not quite able to touch. “Couldn’t you ride home with us and figure it out?” she asked her brother.
Barry smiled that indulgent smile that Molly remembered. “Let me sleep on it. How’s that?”
Hope washed over Molly like a salty ocean wave. “That would be so good, Barry!”
“Don’t worry about me, Polka Dot.”
“We have to go,” said Norman. “Molly and I have plans.”
“We do?”
“Yes. We do.”
Panic rose in Molly’s throat. She looked Barry square in the face. “Will I see you again?”
“Of course you will!” said Barry. “Norman, do you have any money?”
“I spent it all on you already,” said Norman, sounding angrier than he wanted to. “And I need enough to get us home.”
“How’s the bus running?”
“Runs great.”
“We painted it,” said Molly.
“Yeah? I’d like to see it.”
“Not a good idea, if you’re not coming back with us,” said Norman. “Look, we’ve got to go.”
“Norman …” Molly began.
“How about,” said Barry, looking pointedly at Norman, “after I sleep on it, I meet you tomorrow morning at the Zen Center? I know where it is.” He turned his gaze to his sister. “Would you like that, Mols?”
Molly looked at Norman. He couldn’t stand that look, the pleading in her eyes, the knowledge behind them that she couldn’t have what she wanted. It was enough to break his heart.
“Fine,” said Norman. He stepped off the curb and waved at a taxi like he’d seen Eddie do. “We leave at eight.”
“See you tomorrow, Polka Dot,” Barry said. He did not embrace her. Molly nodded, mute. From relief, from pain, from confusion, from something she couldn’t name. So many feelings. The cab pulled to the curb.
Norman opened the car door for Molly and she climbed in without a word. Barry put a hand on Norman’s arm and said, “I’m sorry. I know you came a long way.” Norman stared at Barry’s hand on his arm and then looked him in the eye. “You have no idea,” he said. Then he climbed in the cab after Molly and shut the door.
Molly glanced at Norman. “Where are we going?”
“Fillmore West,” Norman told the driver. “Corner of Market and South Van Ness.”
“What’s happening?” Molly asked.
Norman rummaged in his pocket. “I bought these today,” he said, “at a pawn shop. The poster was in the window.”
Molly snatched the tickets from his hand. “Iron Butterfly! You love them!”
Norman almost laughed. Someone excited for him. It was a good feeling.
“Barry would love this,” said Molly. “Turn around!” she told the driver impulsively. “Norman, you should take Barry!”
“Never mind,” Norman told the driver. “To the Fillmore, please.”
“Norman, really,” said Molly. “You two should do this together. I can go back to the Zen Center. I’m tired —”
“No.” Norman gritted his teeth. “I don’t want to do anything with Barry right now. Maybe never.”
The driver weaved in and out of traffic. Molly swayed with the taxi’s movement and said, “Why? Because he doesn’t want to go back home? You may never see him again!”
He wanted to explain it to her, but how? “I want to take you,” said Norman. “I’ll see you a lot, and for a long time to come. We’ll have this to talk about for years and years.”
“We’ve already got a lot to talk about. A lot. For years and years.”
“I want this, too. One day I might have to go to war. If I’m drafted, I will go. And I don’t want to sit over there thinking about how I could have taken you to see Iron Butterfly in San Francisco but instead I took Barry, who didn’t care two hoots about me, who didn’t stick by me, who didn’t stick by my family, who can’t even bother to call his mother and tell her he’s sorry he can’t come home.”
“He’s mixed up,” said Molly in a tiny, unsure voice.
“He’s selfish,” said Norman, sure of himself. “I appreciate you, Molly. Come to the concert with me.”
* * *
There were other acts on the bill, but the wait was worth it. When the Butterfly came on stage, the dance floor swarmed with kids who tried to get as close as Molly had gotten to the Association at the Troubadour.
Bill Graham stepped to the microphone. “Doug Ingle, Ron Bushy, Lee Dorman, Erik Braunn — Iron Butterfly!”
Doug Ingle called out, “We love you, San Francisco!”
“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida!” screamed the audience.
Doug laughed. “We save that for last!”
“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida!” they screamed.
“This one?” said Doug. He played the opening organ lick. The crowd cheered and called out for “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.”
The band complied with a forty-minute version of the song.
Doug started them off on his Vox organ, Erik played the signature guitar riff, Lee kept the bass line steady, and yet Norman only had eyes for Ron, the drummer. His drum kit was clear acrylic. You could see every move he made and how the light show above them played off the acrylic every time Ron’s sticks hit the drum heads. He played with a matched grip, like Ringo Starr did. Norman played with a traditional grip on his sticks. Like Roger Hawkins did.
Norman’s spirits ballooned like a man whose heart had just been started again.
Music heals — that’s what Estelle had told Molly at Stax, and she could see it happening right before her eyes.
She had little interest in “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” as a song. You couldn’t sing to it. There was no harmony. It was a seventeen-minute commitment, one whole album side. She could listen to five Weekly Top Forty songs in seventeen minutes, maybe six.
But there was something mesmerizing about live music and the energy in the room that surrounded it. She tried to pay attention, tried to share the song with Norman.
Ron Bushy, with his swinging mop of dark brown hair, goatee, and ridiculous faces, looked like he was being tortured and Molly said so. “He’s not like the Association’s drummer at all!” Cute Ted Bluechel, who looked like he was having the world’s most scintillating conversation with you every minute he was oh-by-the-way drumming.
“That’s acting!” shouted Norm. “Ron is playing.”
“Ted played!”
“The Association plays pop.”
“They do not!”
“So what if they do?” shouted Norman. “It’s good pop.”
“The organ player looks like Prince Valiant. How can he see? Get a haircut!” She made herself laugh, even though part of her cringed at the remembrance. “He plays that organ like we’re in church.”
“We are in church,” said Norman.
Kids danced under the psychedelic light show. They moved like brilliant flashes of light in fragmented moments, which was all they had, frozen in time. Norman grabbed Molly’s hand and weaved through the pulsating energy until he found a wedge of space at a corner of the low stage nearest the drums.
The kid standing next to Norman shouted, “I can dig it!” and promptly slid to the floor. His friends helped him up and out as Norman moved Molly into his spot.
“Here it comes!” he shouted. First the guitar faded, then the organ, then the bass, leaving only Ron and his drum
s. There was just the bass drum and a steadily tapping hi-hat, until the toms joined in and the hi-hat faded. Every kid in the room turned into a drummer.
Some had brought their drumsticks. Some used their index fingers or open palms. They were drumming on every surface, just as Norman had for an entire year. Ron’s tortured face broke into an agonized smile. “Yeah!” said Doug at all the volunteer drummers.
Norman laughed with a little kid’s delight. He began the drum solo using his hands on the stage, as if the stage was his giant conga drum.
Then, “Here!” Ron Bushy kept his bass drum pumping as he tossed his drumsticks to Norman, one by one, who caught them with his heart in his throat. Doug handed Ron another pair of sticks so smoothly, Ron didn’t miss a beat.
“Norman!” Molly made room and so did the kids around them. Norman began drumming the solo he knew so well, using the edge of the stage as his kit. “Yeah!” shouted Ron. The rest of the drummers in the room faded as Norman and Ron took center stage, playing back and forth with each other, call and response.
Norman didn’t have to think about what he was doing — he let the rhythm take him. He shook his head from side to side and made faces like Ron’s. Molly stood near him and was filled with admiration. He’s doing it.
Doug’s organ crept into Ron and Norman’s solo, then the bass, then the guitar. Norman kept playing. He played out the day, he played out his anger and his hurt, and he played out the realization that they would be going home empty-handed.
The song ended with drums crashing to the finish in a cacophony of sound. Ron jumped up from his drum kit, sweat running down his face, and ran to Norman at the edge of the stage. “Great!” he shouted. Norman handed him the drumsticks. Ron grabbed them with a huge smile — no longer tortured — and said, “What’s your name, man?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Norman.”
“Good name,” said Ron. “Very groovy.” He dashed back to his kit.
Molly laughed and laughed.
Norman, breathless, smiled at her.
“Let’s go home,” he said.
BEGINNINGS
Written by Robert Lamm
Performed by Chicago Transit Authority
Recorded at Columbia Recording Studios, New York, New York, 1969
Anthem Page 27
