Mom and Dad loved movies. My earliest memory was the soothing flicker of a television screen, the interplay of light and dark bathing me in warmth as I lay on the carpet. Over time the shadows took shape. People, streets, a puppy running towards the screen then sprinting off again—all the things I had seen outside now contained in one magical window just for me. Slowly the images joined and became stories: an alien stranded in a giant forest, a talking yellow robot and his little robot friend on wheels, a witch with an apple in her hand. I saw visions I would never see outside, and could never hope to, images so fantastic they transfixed me for hours. And always in the background the comforting sound of my Mom and Dad’s voices, the clink of dishes as Mom cleared away the breakfast table, the romantic chattering of Dad’s old-fashioned typewriter.
I remembered growing up in Topanga Canyon, a place for ‘alternative lifestyle’ seekers who thought the hippy haven of Laurel Canyon had been destroyed by coke and rich music execs. Mom wore beads and sarongs and dyed her hair with henna. Dad was once a teacher but now worked at a factory, but only to support his ‘art’. He wrote poems and articles about astrology for magazines. He smoked rolled cigarettes and the house was covered in ash. You couldn’t open a book without having tobacco spill out from between the pages. Dad had terrible problems at the factory where he worked. Everyone thought he was crazy because he said the Manson Family had ruined everything for the hippies, even though the murders happened decades ago.
I remembered watching movies together. Every night after Dad had finished an article (or the article had finished him, Mom would joke), we sat down on the couch to watch a VHS tape from our vast collection. Sometimes whole weekends were gobbled up by movie marathons and summer vacations flew by without giving me so much as a tan. Aunt Lynette didn’t like it. One day I was sitting on the floor, Dad on the sofa behind me, and I could hear her arguing with my mother.
‘Aren’t you worried she’ll be socially inept?’ I overheard her say as they drank tea in the kitchen, although she wasn’t making much of an effort not to be heard. I was watching Revenge of the Nerds for what must have been the tenth time. I didn’t fully understand the jokes but I knew that the nerds looked funny and made me laugh. Lynette looked tight and uncomfortable in her office suit and high heels, surrounded by coffee mugs made of clay and glowing incense sticks.
‘Nonsense,’ Mom said. ‘You should let children do what interests them. One day she’ll be the first great female film director.’
‘Or illiterate,’ Lynette continued. ‘Martha, it’s not healthy for her to watch so much television. And the stuff you let her watch.’
‘Like what?’
Lynette pointed at the TV. ‘Like that! Have you even seen that movie yourself? It’s full of sex. There’s drug use in it, and naked women.’
‘So? Hilda can decide what she wants to watch for herself. Sex never hurt anyone—it’s the most natural thing in the world.’
‘But at her age? She’s only eight years old!’
‘I’d rather have her watching sex than something that was horribly violent. I mean, what’s wrong with this country? It’s okay to show people getting their limbs blown off, but sex is a problem?’
It seemed like a good argument at the time, but looking back I’m not so sure it was the greatest excuse for me to watch movies like Porky’s and Bachelor Party, movies we watched mainly because Dad wanted to. Still, that wasn’t all I watched—I also loved Disney films and musicals like West Side Story. It just seemed an unfortunate coincidence that campus comedies were the kinds of movies Dad would put on when Aunt Lynette was around for her weekly visit (or inspection, as he liked to call it).
‘The film ratings are there for a reason,’ Lynette went on.
‘Aunt Lynette,’ I said, joining the conversation, ‘what does “socially inept” mean?’
‘It means brilliant and unique,’ Dad chimed in, and I didn’t understand why he sounded angry.
‘Jim,’ Lynette started to say, but Dad cut her off.
‘I think you’ve said enough for one afternoon. Lay off Hilda. She’s fine.’
‘How do you know that Jim? Did you read it in the stars?’
‘Yeah, I did, and I’ve got a prediction for you too.’
‘Sweetheart!’ Mom snapped. ‘We do not have negative energy in this house.’
‘Only on Saturday afternoons,’ Dad said, glaring at Lynette who barely flinched.
My only friend at primary school was Janey, a red-headed loner who was all gangly limbs and awkwardness. The kids teased Janey because she had knots in her hair and smelt like cat food. They teased me because I hung around her. But I didn’t care. We were outsiders, dangerous outlaws like Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek in Badlands, misunderstood like Beatty and Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde. Apart from Janey there was no one but Mom and Dad and the movies, and the occasional game of Scrabble. Dad loved Scrabble almost as much as he loved the movies. I don’t think Mom and I were much competition, but he enjoyed it nonetheless, probably exactly for that reason. We weren’t good enough to make him feel like a failure.
‘See, a Masters in English is good for something,’ he would say with bitterness after a triple-word score. ‘It’s not like they appreciate it down at the factory.’
‘Why do you work at the factory if you don’t like it?’ I asked.
‘Because he can’t work as a teacher anymore,’ Mom replied, not looking up from her letters.
‘Why?’
‘Because he was fired.’
‘Why were you fired Dad?’
‘Because Hilda, I tried to teach something that was about real life. Something you couldn’t find in a syllabus.’
‘Jim, smoking dope with a group of ten year olds behind the basketball courts was not the best decision of your career.’
Dad threw up his hands. ‘Goddamn it Martha, it was their dope!’
Janey and I would play in the canyons that ran alongside our neighbourhood. We would climb the trees and tear our pants and talk about what we wanted to be when we grew up.
‘I want to be a movie star,’ Janey would say, twirling a ratty string of hair between her fingers. ‘Like Drew Barrymore. What about you Hilda? Do you want to be a movie star?’
‘I want to work in an office,’ I told her, thinking of my Aunt Lynette with her nice clothes that didn’t smell like incense. ‘Where everything is shiny and new and I have to wear a suit to work. I want to be a business lady and make lots of money.’
‘Lame!’
Once when I met Janey in the canyon she was so upset she was shaking. She told me she had just found out that one day we were all going to die. She told me our bodies would be put in the ground, and we would rot, and worms and maggots would eat our flesh until all that was left was our skeletons. I still remember how my brain tried to digest the information, letting it swirl around before settling with heaviness in my heart. I was terrified. My bowels loosened. I ran home crying. I was angry at Janey, angry that she wanted to make me feel bad by telling me such awful things.
But now I know that Janey wanted someone else to share her revelation, to feel her terror. She was looking for someone to commiserate with. I burst through the back door of our run-down cottage and fell into Mom’s arms. With heaving sobs I told her all that Janey had told me, and asked her if Janey was lying, asked with growing panic what it all meant. Mom sat me at the kitchen table and brought me over a hot cocoa. She poured herself a green tea and sat down, folding her hands in front of her.
‘What Janey told you was true,’ she said, ‘but there is no reason to be afraid.’
‘But I don’t want to die!’
‘It’s a very natural part of life, Hilda. Everything dies, so new things can be born. It’s very beautiful.’
‘It’s not beautiful!’ I screamed. ‘It’s scary!’
Mom laughed. She reached out and took my hand. ‘It’s not scary honey,’ she said, rubbing my fingers against her cheek. ‘Some people think it is, and spend their whole lives worrying about it. Many people are too scared to even talk about it. But you should never be scared Hilda.’
‘I don’t want you to die Mommy!’ I snivelled.
‘Well, your Father and I believe that when we die, our spirits go to another place. Our bodies may die, but our spirits live forever. And when that happens, we will all be together. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?’
‘I guess.’
‘I’m not going anywhere for a long, long time Hilda. But when I do, won’t it be comforting for you to know that someone is waiting for you on the other side? That your Mom and Dad are there waiting for you?’
‘But how will I know you are there?’
Mom took my face in both her hands. ‘When I die, I will give you a sign,’ she promised. ‘Even though I will be dead I will still be with you. I will always be with you Hilda. Everything you do, everywhere you go, you will feel me with you. I promise.’
My mother lied. Sitting in my bedroom in my aunt’s house, listening for Mom’s voice in the night, I felt absolutely nothing.