Josephine's Journey
In 1960, Texan Josephine McKelvey marries folk singer Jonathan. She moves to San Francisco with him and begins her new adventures and misadventures, encountering Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg...
Summer 1960
Chapter 1
Brother Wilson taught that Negroes descended from Ham, and God cursed them. Hearing that mendacity marked the last time I attended Vacation Bible School in Brother Wilson's church. No matter which church they attended, the kids in my town attended all the Vacation Bible Schools in the summer.
Most of the town people were not as bigoted as Rev. Wilson and his wife, but the pastor's influence soured my outlook on my hometown.
The last place I wanted to be was in Brother Wilson's den of judges, but my best friend prepared to be married, and I was her maid of honor and support. I expected to hear the music playing and see Lucinda and her father ready to proceed to the altar. Instead, Lu stood at the front, behind the preacher who announced, "Young Sister Marshall will speak to you. She will confess her sins before the Lord and before this family of brothers and sisters."
Ricky Kassel and his best man looked as shocked as I felt, so I inferred that they had nothing to do with the punishment conspiracy. Lu looked radiant in her white dress, the dress her mother had sewn for her and had insisted that she wear. I feared she would cry, but she stood courageously.
"I have nothing to confess to you," Lu stated with a strong but calm voice, "I already have confessed to God, and He forgave me." She waited a few seconds amid the murmurings and whisperings from the crowd. "I have nothing to confess because all of you know I'm pregnant. It's all over town. Some of you had to get married also, so I expect you to stop pointing fingers at me. I forgive you for your gossip if you forgive me for the same sins you yourselves had committed in the past. When I return, let the ceremony begin." Lu left through the side door of the sanctuary, and I joined her in the dressing room.
"I'm not going through with it," she told me, "Help me out of this dress. I'm going to Waxahachie with you. Drop me off at the bus station."
"Are you going to Fort Worth?"
"Yes. To the Edna Gladney home. I'm taking your advice instead of Mama's. Marriage to Ricky isn't for me. This church is not for me." The whole time we spoke, we hurried repacking. At one point, Lu's angry mama knocked on the door and started some nonsensical rant.
"Go back to the congregation, Mama. I'll be there shortly."
I was never so proud of Lu until this moment. She always had insight, but now she displayed true wisdom.
"Take the dress, take the whole trousseau." She handed me the suitcase. The two of us wore the same size. We raced outside to my car and left the parking lot, leaving the preacher's wife staring at the front door.
"Don't you need anything in the suitcase?"
"No," Edna Gladney provides everything I need. I'll be wearing maternity clothes soon," Lu said as we drove past the flashing lights of our hometown.
"I hate to treat Ricky this way," she added.
"Why? He treated you like a used Kleenex."
"He was scared when he first found out."
I left it there. Ricky Kassel was the last person I wanted to discuss. After driving in silence I reminded Lu that I loved her.
"I know. You're truly my best friend."
"I hate to leave you like this."
"Nonsense. You love Jonathan. You should be with him. I'm strong."
"Maybe Jon will let you join us in San Francisco."
"No. I need Edna Gladney. I hear the counselors there are understanding and nonjudgmental. I am so sick of being judged," she sighed.
We drove in silence again until I heard Lu laugh. "How ironic...I'm with child and you're the one getting married!"
"Yes. You're making the right decision by avoiding the marriage tent. I just hope I'm making the right decision by entering the marriage tent."
"My gut feeling tells me you are as correct as Lincoln just as the same gut told me that uniting with Ricky would be dealing with a spoiled brat for 60 years!"
"And just a few minutes ago you felt sorry for him!"
Lu laughed again. Pulling into the Waxahachie bus station, I noticed tears in her eyes.
"Come to San Francisco when you are able," I insisted. My best friend promised she would write immediately and visit after the baby was born.
The waitresses at the Owl Cafe bustled around the evening crowd. The jute box played Fats Domino singing, "Ain't that a Shame?" Finally, I found a table toward the back. I started crying. A waitress asked me what was wrong, and I tried to assure her everything was okay. For the first time in my life, I wouldn't have Lu around. I felt happy to become Jon's wife, but sad to be apart from Lu.
I ordered half of a chicken sandwich and a cup of coffee. The pie display looked heavenly, but I refrained remembering my mother's voice: Men ignore women who get too fat.
Busboys cleared several tables, and songs changed on the jukebox. I reflected on Jon while I drank the coffee. I had met him only six months before at a Dallas coffeehouse. Instead of the usual political songs, Jon played and sang melodies from the Middle Ages. Sitting spellbound by his gray eyes and haunting voice, I attempted to decipher the lyrics. Not Spanish, not French except for a few French words.
"Languedoc," Jon explained after he sat down at my table, "a mixture of Middle Portuguese, Middle French, and Middle Italian. The troubadours, the poet-musicians, traveled from castle to castle. Rather than translate the lays, they mixed the lays into several languages."
Growing fascinated with the 24-year-old, my 17-year-old mind struggled to say something intelligent. Jon seemed equally enthralled with me.
"You're a Cancer. You love old romances and history and you collect things."
"How do you know?"
"I'm a water sign too, Scorpio. But I don't sting or back stab people. Bad Karma."
"Do you really believe in astrology?"
"Not necessarily. Totally illogical, science wise. But there's something spooky about it. I can guess signs by a person's traits."
Jon and I exchanged addresses, and I received letters and cards from Denver, Phoenix, Los Angeles and other cities.
"Is Jon a boy?" Mother asked. I knew she meant Is Jon a romantic interest?
"He's a pen pal."
"Where did you meet him?"
"At a TAR meeting," I fibbed. TAR stood for Teenage Republicans. "He was one of the leaders."
"How old is he?"
"Twenty-one," I lied.
"And he wants to write to a 17-year-old?"
"We have a great deal in common."
"At least he's Republican. But why does he write from so many cities?" Mother could be very probing.
"His dad travels with his business. Jon travels with him. He'll return to college in the fall. San Francisco State." All of this information was misinformation.
I kept Jon's letters locked inside of my hope chest. The key was on my key chain. I didn't think Mother would read the correspondence, but I wanted to be sure. On the afternoon before the elopement, I thought about taking the letters with me, but the packed suitcase was already too full.
As incredible as it sounds, I didn't think my parents would miss me. In the weeks following graduation, they seemed oblivious to me. Father's drinking had escalated, and Mother engaged in a political letter writing frenzy. She relaxed by inviting her bridge playing friends.
Your boyfriend's at the front," a waitress smiled. "He already paid the bill."
I opened my purse to pay the tip.
"He paid me a generous tip too."
How I wanted to jump into the handsome troubadour's arms, but I left the restaurant arm in arm demurely. Seeing a mailbox I mailed a letter to my parents telling them I was safe and instructing them to find my car in the Owl Cafe parking lot. Jon retrieved my suitcase and Lucinda's from my car, and placed it in his.
"Let's park and neck," Jon said.
"Sure, I want to kiss you, but I forgot to bring Certs. I have coffee breath." I also realized that my eye makeup was likely smeared from crying.
"Come on, kiss me."
After a few moments, Jon said, "I have a surprise for you. He pulled out a carved wooden box. Inside sat a beautiful, filigree gold ring. "Let's see if this fits," he said.
It fit perfectly. "This ring has been in my family for at least one century. They were all goldsmiths before the war. My mom hid this in the hem of her Auschwitz uniform. Her parents and sisters were all murdered. My paternal grandparents and my dad were killed as well. They were Polish Jews."
"How did you escape?"
"A resistance group took me to Switzerland. I stayed first in a convent, then I stayed in an orphanage until Mom located me."
Tears filled my eyes. The thought of Jonathan growing up without a father or grandparents and learning of them killed in horrible ways... The Diary of Anne Frank came to my mind.
"How is your mother now?"
"Fine. She's doing what she wants to do – married to a rich man in Florida. Gives her a new diamond every year. I don't like him but he keeps her happy. She sees a doctor who helps her with her bones. After all those years of undernourishment, she has to take extra supplements.
I'm going to marry a Jew, I thought. I had always been awe-struck by the Hebrew people I had read about. How I loved Old Testament stories. I thought of Jews as Jesus's cousins. I had never understood how so many people in my hometown felt hostile toward them, people they had never met.
Of course Jonathan wasn't Jewish in the traditional sense. He'd been through Bar Mitzvah and knew some Hebrew, but he usually told people he was a Buddhist and a Theosophist.
A Buddhist-Jew, I thought. Odd, but after growing up in a small Texas town, I was drawn to the unconventional.