Chapter Thirteen

Late one night, as I was settling on my bed to study for a philosophy exam, Aunt Sylvia called. After small talk about the finals I’d be taking soon, she said, “We need to talk.”

“We always talk,” I said. “We’re talking now.”

“You sound like you’ve been in California too long,” she said. “This is your Aunt Sylvia, remember? We talk straight to each other. I have something important to tell you.”

“What is it? Is the baby okay?” I asked.

“He’s great. So is Charlene.” As soon as Lonnie was born, Aunt Sylvia had broken her vow never to return to Biloxi.

“Grandpa and Grandma?” My breath fluttered like the sparrows that lived under the eaves on the farmhouse.

“No, honey, they’re fine.” She took a breath. “Remember Loretta Holliday?”

“How could I forget? Is she still in Whitfield?” She had been sent to the state mental hospital not long after the field trip to Parchman. “Black Annie” had turned up in the trunk of her car, goods stolen from the State of Mississippi, which was pretty serious business. But the judge ruled the mental asylum, not jail. Everyone in Biloxi was relieved they’d confiscated her pistol.

“She’s been out for a while now.”

There was a pause, not at all like Aunt Sylvia’s usual conversations, when the words came flying so fast you had to reach out and grab them. “What is it?” I asked.

“She called yesterday. Her husband was killed in a bar fight, shot in the face. The police say it was an act of self-defense, not murder.”

“Probably was. I’m not going to grieve that one.” I remembered those green and yellow bruises on Kathy and Loretta. “Sounds like the way he was destined to go out.” Bad karma, Andy would say.

“Joe Holliday had a lot of bad karma,” said Aunt Sylvia, and for a second I thought I’d said it out loud. “Listen, honey, this is important. Loretta wants to talk to you. She says she’s coming to Berkeley.”

“Loretta Holliday’s coming all the way out here to see me? What on earth for?” My Southern accent came back, thick, that’s how shocked I was.

“She has relatives in San Jose, says she’s been saving money for years to visit them and she’d like to visit you too.”

“She’s crazy, Aunt Sylvia. She spread awful rumors. Tell her not to come. Please.” My stomach ached, and the palms of my hands were sweating. Those knife-high heels and red lipstick—it was unimaginable to think of Loretta Holliday teetering down Telegraph Avenue or accidentally wandering into a protest on campus.

“I hope she won’t. But be warned, honey. She wanted your address in Berkeley.”

“You didn’t tell her!” I pushed the notebooks off my lap, my heart thumping.

“You know I wouldn’t do that.”

“But she’s crazy enough to come anyway!” I felt like I’d swallowed a stone.

The next morning, I was up early, drinking coffee while I skimmed the reading for my class on “Philosophies of Eastern Religions,” one of the most popular courses on campus. It was the Taoist book, Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching. “Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail,” I read. It was comforting advice before a test, and I decided not to worry about Loretta Holliday.

There was an hour before class, so I walked up to the hills east of campus to look at the San Francisco Bay stretched out below, and the Pacific Ocean sparkling beyond the tumble of white shapes of San Francisco architecture. There was something wonderful in those solitary climbs I took. Up there, it was as if I could watch the entire world, including myself.

From my spot in the hills, the campus slowly came alive. The smell of the redwoods and eucalyptus were like nothing in Mississippi. In a little curve in the road, the trees parted so I could watch the campus and bay below. Between patches in the morning fog, I could see the demonstrations begin, people milling about, waving their signs, a speaker with a bullhorn pacing the ledge of a retaining wall.

The morning fog was burning off, and the sun warmed the campus while a Pacific breeze stirred the eucalyptus leaves. If I couldn’t have Mississippi gardenias or magnolias, the smell of eucalyptus on the wind made up for it. I breathed it in, thinking about Taoism and the seven paths to heaven.

I wondered what Lao Tzu would have said about the anti-war demonstrations and the dreamy people who performed Tai Chi in the parks while a war raged. Everyone was singing either “Let It Be” or “Revolution.” There was a chill in the air that was foreign to my Mississippi blood.

Outside the Bear’s Lair, a crowd chanted a mantra as familiar as Andy’s by now. “Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh! NLF is going to win!” Pacing the top of the retaining wall was one of the strangest-looking men I’d seen, even in Sproul Plaza. His hair stood out like a giant halo, and the sun shimmered on streaks of silver glitter scattered through it. On his face were streaks of color, like Indian war paint.

Then his voice came over the megaphone and I knew. It was Cat Heller, the DJ who had saved me on my first day in Berkeley, but he wasn’t smiling now. Even in the cool breeze, he was naked from the waist up, and a black armband circled the thickness of his right bicep. He paced back and forth, raising his fist, yelling about the draft.

All I could think of was Mississippi, the demonstrations, the shouting, the police; it was Mississippi everywhere.