By 0900 hours, without a word to her parents, she was dressed, with makeup on, and pulling out of the gated yard in the baby-blue Volkswagen Bug that had been her sixteenth birthday present.
On the ferry, she rolled down her window, let the air wash across her face. She heard the roar of heavy equipment and the clang of jackhammers being used to construct the bridge from San Diego to Coronado—an improvement her father had fought tirelessly for. She felt hopeful for the first time in days. Directed. She was—in the words of her favorite poem, “Desiderata”—advancing confidently in the direction of her dreams.
On the mainland, she cranked up the radio, heard Wolfman Jack’s famous howl, and sang along with the music. Cream. Country Joe and the Fish. The Beatles. The music of Vietnam.
In Compton, she slowed down. It had been years since the Watts riots, but the remnant of that time of trouble was still visible in boarded-up windows, broken porches, and graffiti.
Spray-painted Black fists emblazoned the walls of empty storefronts and closed-up restaurants. The poverty of the neighborhood was obvious.
She passed a junkyard, where heaps of metal and broken-down cars huddled behind chain-link fencing. A growling dog followed her moving car from one end of the fence to the other, straining at the end of big-linked chain.
Abandoned cars sat on untended lots, their tires missing, hubcaps gone, windshields cracked. Many of the houses were dilapidated, in need of paint. She saw groups of Black men ambling down the street, dressed in black, wearing black berets.
Stanley and Mo’s Auto Repair was housed in a 1940s-era gas station with a large garage beside it. OUT OF BUSINESS had been spray-painted in red across the garage doors. Crushed beer cans littered the yard. A trash can erupted with garbage.
A trio of young Black men walked past the garage. One of them saw Frankie and stopped to stare for a moment, then walked quickly to catch up with his friends.
She pulled into the empty parking area and stepped out of the car.
Somewhere close by, a dog started barking. A car backfired, sounded like gunfire.
Calm down, Frankie. Breathe. It was just a car. Not a mortar attack.
She walked up to the shop’s office, which looked abandoned. There was chicken wire and plywood over every window and someone had painted PANTHER POWER beneath one of them. The words were smeared, as if someone had tried to wash them away and given up.
She knocked on the door.
“Go ’way,” someone yelled from inside.
Frankie opened the front door and was assailed by the odor of stale beer and cigarette smoke. “Hello?”
She pushed the door open all the way and stepped over the threshold.
It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom inside.
A single lamp sat on a metal filing cabinet, which was covered with stacks of paper. Old calendars covered one wall, the pinup kind from another era. Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth.
A grizzled man sat hunched in a wheeled office chair, staring at a rabbit-eared TV on another filing cabinet. As the World Turns was on.
“We’re closed,” he said harshly, without even looking at her. “Been closed since the riots, but I ain’t damn leaving. They won’t run me out.”
“Mr. Walsh?”
“Who wants to know?” the man said, taking the cigarette from his mouth. He turned slowly, saw her, and frowned. “Girlie, you are in the wrong part of town.”
Frankie moved forward slowly. She saw the resemblance of Rye to his father—it was as if Rye’s handsome face had been layered in fleshy gray modeling clay and left out in the sun to dry. The older man had cheeks that sagged into jowls, and a bulbous nose. Thick brown eyebrows contrasted sharply with his colorless face and graying blond hair. He had a mustache that was badly in need of tending. Gnarled hands curled around his drink glass. He wore a gray mechanic’s jumpsuit that read STAN on the pocket.
Frankie saw the reality of Rye’s childhood before her. No wonder he’d felt uncomfortable in the McGrath home, at Finley’s going-away party. No wonder he’d joined the military and dreamed of flying faster than the speed of sound.
It made her even more determined to show him her love with a welcome-home party. “I wanted to talk about throwing Rye a coming-home party. I’m—”
“I know who you are, missy. And there ain’t gonna be a damned party for my son. You should know that.”
“Are you one of those people who are ashamed of the men and women in Vietnam?”
He snorted. “Women in Vietnam. You on drugs?”
“Mr. Walsh, I want you to know—”