My Mother's Son (Part 3)
My father, seemingly a devout Catholic, took up with another woman (a divorced Mormon with two children) when I was twelve, and left our family in February, 1966, leading to my father and my mother getting a divorce. I had never been close to my father, so his departure, in itself, did not perturb me. After he was divorced from my mother, he soon married the other woman and moved into her house, living not far from us, pretending to be the "father" of her children, while showing no concern for the well-being of his own children, regularly failing to keep up with his obligation of paying child support in a timely manner. He proved himself to be patently condemnable as a man and a father: callous, selfish, deceitful, and thoughtless.
My mother, not a citizen of the United States and with none of her English family nearby, had a huge burden of care dumped on her as a result of my father leaving, a burden that she had to shoulder on her own. To hold our family of four together, to keep a roof over our heads, to feed and clothe her three children, she had to find work outside the home, having to accept low wages and difficult hours, including split shifts. She had to pay a mortgage and other monthly bills, while also striving to keep up our spirits, all of which she accomplished courageously, with grace, honesty, and steadfastness.
On Easter Sunday, 1966, less than two months after my father had walked out, I went with my sister and my brother for my first (and also my last) visitation with him. He picked us up in the afternoon and drove us to a park. The whole setup seemed false and uncomfortable, and it shook my nerves badly, making me feel totally conflicted (being torn between having to reconcile myself to my father's behavior, which appeared to be indefensible, on the one hand, and my raw bitterness at his total lack of regard for my mother, on the other hand) and causing me to become ill with an upset stomach. When I got home that evening, I vomited and went to bed early. My mother, seeing the distraught state that I was in after being with my father, kept me out of school the next day. I did not go on any further visitations with my father, and my feelings toward him hardened, forming into a solid, permanent knot of unmitigated animosity. I knew him to be a liar and a cheat, and that is how I viewed him thereafter.
A few of the friends and neighbors who had known my mother and father as a married couple stood by her after he left, but mostly we were on our own. It seemed that it was not convenient for people to acknowledge what had happened. When I saw how easy it was for us to fall by the wayside after my father was gone, left behind to fend for ourselves as the American train of suburban pretense sped away, onward down the track, I learned a serious lesson that has guided me ever since. I learned that appearances in American life should never be trusted, because at any given moment, the rug can be pulled out from under you, causing you to fall, and you will find yourself without anyone to help you to your feet. When things change for the worse with someone in America, most people choose to turn away, affecting not to see anything, and go about their own business. It pains me to think of how hard it must have been for my mother to cope with all the challenges that were thrown at her, but she drew on her inner strength, and she got through it.
At first, I did not want anyone to know that my father was no longer living with us. In 1966, divorce was not as widespread, and not as accepted, as it is today. I did not know of any other households in our neighborhood (especially Catholic households) without a father, and I was abashed by the adverse change in fortune that had befallen my family. When one of my friends from school was visiting me at that time, he noticed that something was different in my household and asked me, directly, "Where is your father?" I did not know how to explain what had happened, so I merely said, "Oh, he's not here right now." My father, being entirely self-serving in his motives, had never given any thought to the injurious effect that his faithless misbehavior would have on the lives of his own children. He appeared to feel that he had a perfect right to do as he pleased, seeing no reason why he should not pull up stakes and turn his back on us. He cared only about himself.
• • •
In the months after my father departed, money was tight in our household. My mother had gone out and found work, but she was not earning much, and most of what she earned was used for buying necessities and paying bills. Once, when we were in a store, I asked her if I could get an LP by The Beatles, but she had to tell me that she could not afford it. I could see how bad she felt about not having enough money to buy the record that I wanted, which made the moment as difficult for me as it was for her, and left me wishing that I had never asked.
My father was supposed to be paying child support, but his check usually arrived at the last moment. Instead of sending the check through the mail, he drove his Chevrolet Bel Air over to our street late at night (sometimes right before midnight, when he would have fallen into arrears), pulled up to the curb at the end of our driveway, and then, without even getting out of his car, he rolled down the window and reached out his hand, slipping the check into our mailbox. It was painful to see my mother, who desperately needed the money to keep us afloat, being put through such a stressful ordeal, time after time. I vowed that I would never forget or forgive my father's willful negligence toward us, and I never did.
Once my mother was divorced from my father, she briefly thought of cutting her losses, giving up on America and taking us back to England, a course of action that I would have welcomed, and a choice which, I still believe, would probably have been for the best, but she decided against it, not wanting to return home to her family in Warrington with the "shame" of a broken marriage hanging over her head. She still regarded herself as a Catholic, at a time when divorce among Catholics was rare, and she also remembered how her mother, who had been a bit cool toward my father, had warned her that she was taking a chance in marrying him. I was disappointed that we were going to remain in the United States, and for many years her decision to stay was a matter of discord between us, but she had chosen to be a single parent in America. She had been knocked sideways by the negative outcome of her marriage and was loath to repeat the harrowing error she had made with my father, so she played it safe, keeping to herself, staying out of harm's way. She was done with married life, and she was done with men.
• • •
One day during summer of 1966, my mother, who loved The Beatles and took a great deal of English pride in them, called a talk show on a radio station in San Francisco to defend John Lennon amid the wrathful tumult that ensued after he made offhand comments about what he regarded as the failings of Christianity. His words had sparked provocative headlines such as "John Lennon Says The Beatles Are More Popular Than Jesus," leading to The Beatles being furiously denounced in America, and their records being burned at public bonfires in the South. My mother gave her opinion on air, telling the host that John Lennon's views had been misunderstood and taken out of context. His words, she said, were being twisted by Americans. I was pleasurably amazed that my mother, who was not inclined toward outspokenness, and who usually went out of her way to sidestep American controversies, would take such a forthright action.
December, 1966, brought the first Christmas since my father had walked out, a Christmas that, for our family, was somewhat bleak. My mother was employed at an answering service, and had to work on the night of Christmas Eve, which was disappointing for all of us. I remember sitting with my younger siblings, the three of us huddled in front of our black-and-white television, watching a broadcast of A Christmas Carol (a British film from 1951, starring Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge), being painfully aware of my mother's absence and feeling that, because of our general situation, our Christmas was neither merry or jolly.
When my mother came home later that evening, instead of going straight to bed and getting a good night's rest, she turned herself to the task of wrapping Christmas gifts for her three children, an activity that kept her awake long past midnight. In the morning, all our gifts were there, waiting for us under the Christmas tree. My mother was determined that, in spite of her children having an errant father, they would not be denied the pleasures of childhood. Thinking of it now and knowing the lengths to which my mother went to make us happy, I feel guilty as much as I feel grateful.
After toiling for low pay at an answering service, my mother was able to raise herself into the field of telecommunications, being employed for several decades as a telephone operator, first at Pacific Bell, and later at AT&T. The demands of her schedule were still tough, with no allowance made for holidays such as Christmas, but because of the higher pay that she received, she could afford a better quality of life for herself and her children. She was proud of her work in telecommunications, deriving self-esteem from her highly skilled duties, and was in her element when dealing with overseas calls, speaking with people from all over the world. (I used to enjoy hearing her stories of chatting with people, including a celebrity or two, on calls from countries in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.) She was also proud to be an active member of her union, the Communications Workers of America (CWA), taking part in several strikes and making a dependable showing (sometimes at 6 AM) on picket lines. Her years as an employee of Pacific Bell and AT&T gave a purpose to her life that had been lacking when she was merely a housewife.
• • •
My mother, a British citizen living in the United States, was quietly dismissive toward the Fourth of July. She had to put up with it, as she had to put up with many American customs, but I knew that she regarded all the overbearing hoo-ha as a tasteless outpouring of childish foolery, and the annual noise of the fireworks made her feel ill at ease. For my own part, I disdained the ham-handed festivities of Independence Day (which, in their arrogant showiness, smacked of Hitlerian pomp), viewing them as a foul representation of what I most abhorred in the American character: militarism, fascism, and jingoism. I saw America as a nation that was dangerously full of itself, a nation that, for its own good and for the good of the world, needed to be cut down to size.
On April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave one of his most stirring speeches, at Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, in which he proclaimed, in bold, sweeping language, that he had "been to the mountaintop" and was "not fearing any man." That evening, while watching The CBS Evening News, I saw part of the speech, and was greatly moved by the powerful eloquence of Dr. King's oratory, feeling a strong connection to the unshrinking embrace of moral necessity that he expressed and exemplified. The next day, in the late afternoon, my mother came home from work. She walked through the door and said to me, in a pained voice, "Martin Luther King has been killed," having heard the news on the radio in her car. I felt as if I had been kicked in the gut. We both were stunned and saddened at the murder of a man who, to us, was a shining figure of humanity, someone who, in his words and deeds, upheld the highest values of mankind. For the rest of my life, I would look to Dr. King's valiant example for inspiration whenever I sought, in my own small way, to advocate policies for a better world.
On June 2, 1968, my mother met Robert F. Kennedy at Buchanan Field, an airport in Concord, shaking his hand and looking into his eyes, at an appearance during his bid to gain the Democratic nomination and run for the Presidency, several days before he was assassinated in Los Angeles. The night that RFK was shot, I had stayed up late, watching the returns of the state primary on television. I finally went to bed at midnight, after he had been declared the winner. He was shot moments after I turned off the television. The next morning, my clock radio came on, and, as I shook off my slumber, I heard the dreadful news. I got up and went into the kitchen, where my mother was preparing breakfast. I could see that she did not know what had happened, so it fell on me to tell her. My mother, who, less than seventy-two hours before, had been standing only inches away from Robert F. Kennedy, was now unbelieving. The mood at school that day, among most students and teachers, was extremely dejected. It was hard to grasp: first, John F. Kennedy being assassinated in 1963, and now, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. Three men, all of whom had striven to promote reason and fairness, all murdered within a period of five years.