There is a myth of closure. People are not okay after [a murder] is over. A pretty good argument can be made that murder involving someone you know, someone you love, is something you never get over.
– Josh Mankiewicz
I ambled out from a gate at the San Francisco airport, the last one off the plane. A stewardess placed a hand between my shoulder, nudging me along the ramp. It was 1969 and the airlines still gave out swag. I exited the plane, a flight bag slung over my shoulder, a TWA pin, a cheap replica of pilot’s wings, and a name tag attached to my collar. I was wearing my favorite summer dress, despite that it was the depths of winter when I’d boarded at Toronto International. I was seven years old and hadn’t laid eyes on my mother for over three years. My first impression was that she looked slightly masculine; between her stick figure, mousy brown Beatle cut and jeans, she could have passed for a teen age boy. Her eyes narrowed behind a pair of cat-eyed, Malcolm X glasses and she gasped. I had no jacket, no tights, no scarf. I’d outgrown the dress a good year earlier.
“I have to pee.” My first words.
She latched onto my tiny hand, sped past the crowds and ducked us into a restroom. We crammed into one stall, then she shimmied up my dress. I was wearing no underwear.
“Tsk.”
For five years my grandfather back in Ontario did his best to raise me, but when my grandmother was struck with terminal a year earlier, he’d thrown up his hands. My mother always stressed it was a short-term situation when I brought it up, as if I was on loan to a pawn shop. But my grandfather refused to honor their deal. Between my mother’s badgering for him to return me and my grandmother’s death, he finally caved.
From that point forward my mother vowed to parent me not just right, but with a vengeance. She was given another chance at it, and was determined not to blow it this go around.
Once I landed in the states, I discovered television. We’d had a set back in Guelph, but it was off limits to me. It was more a piece of furniture than the escape hatch it became once I arrived in California. By twelve, I’d rubbed a patch of carpet in our apartment bald. Full days would pass with me sprawled on the floor, fists planted beneath my chin, eyes glued hypnotically to the screen.
One night switching channels I landed on “The Midnight Special,” the premier of Captain and Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together.” The Captain sported his trademark sea-faring cap; Toni Tennille trilled about “turning him on” once the others were gone. (Love actually did end up keeping Captain and Tennille together for nearly forever). Recently a friend of mine said “everything dies, including love.” I wanted to counter by relaying this musical love story, but instead told her this explained why we were friends. We thought alike.
Whenever I flashed back to that bald spot on the living from carpet I remembered my first exposure to war. I sat cross-legged on the sofa, watching rapt as American soldiers, baby-faced and filthy, dashed through the Vietnamese jungle. I inched closer to the television set. Leaves sprouted from their helmets, every inch of their uniforms and gear was colored a drab olive green. It didn’t stop me worrying that no amount of camouflage would keep them safe. A wall of flame erupted in the background. I was really into army men at the time, tossing flaming matchbooks onto whole platoons piled in the fireplace in our apartment. That was my idea of entertainment. Only later did I find out those planes on the nightly news were dropping Agent Orange. From my twelve-year-old vantage point the Americans were being attacked. I’d envisioned our troops melting and turning black like my tiny plastic soldiers. As soon as Cronkite declared “And that’s the way it is,” I’d lung for the channel button. I could only stomach the horror in drips and dribbles.
Then as now, I was transfixed by love and violence. My palate expanded over time. But as a teen I had no use for other genres. I’d swoon to songs of love or heartbreak. When I grew tired of that, I was consumed by news from Vietnam, about the barbarity of people. I’d get my fill of my obsessions each day by toggling between “American Bandstand” and “Soul Train” and the ABC Nightly News and the CBS Evening News.
Fast forward six years and Patty Vance, my first and closest friend from junior high, would herself become a news item.
It was by accident I found out at all. Her story never aired on television. I read only headlines in newspapers. If my mother hadn’t told me about her murder, decades might have passed before I found out.
After this tragic news, I boycotted Walter Cronkite. For the first time love songs on the radio prompted me to ball my eyes out. I didn’t abandon all pop music, but my preoccupation with the war ended as abruptly as it had begun. Besides most of the soldiers had returned home five years earlier. I’d had enough bad news to last me a lifetime.
Since hearing about Patty, I made it my mission to cast her only in the most flattering light, to cherry pick her good qualities. Of course, that meant what I chose to recall was only true-ish. Initially, I came to terms with that. That all changed when I decided to tell our story, the real story.
