#year: 1977

[haveyoureadthispoll]

Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. With this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison transfigures the coming-of-age story as audaciously as Saul Bellow or Gabriel García Márquez. As she follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family’s origins, Morrison introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized black world.

[irishhills]

brothers and sisters

Mom and Dad take them to Ruby’s for lunch. It feels weird and different, and Amy doesn’t even have the vocabulary to express it, let alone make sense of it. She just knows that Mom and Dad seem upset. Mad, no. Sad, maybe. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times she asks Mom and Dad what’s going on. They never answer. They never look her directly in the eye. They just ask Chris how he likes his grilled cheese sandwich.

“Don’t like mayo,” he says.

“There’s no mayo on the sandwich, honey,” Mom says. “Ruby knows you don’t like it that way.”

“I know. I like it has no mayo.”

“I like my grilled cheese, Mommy,” Amy says. “If it had mayo, that would be OK.”

Mom smiles at Amy like she’s older than she really is. Amy won’t know that until she actually is older, but there’s a reason this part of the day will stick with her when others seem to fade into a blurry distance.

“I know, Amy,” Mom says. “You’re such a good little girl.”

They are sitting at their favorite booth in Ruby’s Café – the one secluded in the back of the restaurant, which Ruby had specifically built for Mom, her best friend. No matter how busy the place is when they come in, Ruby always makes sure the Egans get their booth. The only difference is whether or not Dad is present. On a day like today, when he is, they have to wait a little minute.

It doesn’t stop Ruby from favoring the Egans, of course. Like now, as she rounds the corner with two hot fudge ice cream cakes and one caramel sundae, all for free.

“A hot fudge ice cream cake for Amy,” Ruby says and puts a massive plate of chocolate, vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and cherries in front of a four-year-old girl.

Amy claps her hands and yelps.

“Ruby!” she says. “Ruby! Ruby! Thank you!”

“Oh, it’s no problem, honey,” Ruby says. “You know I love you.”

She puts another hot fudge ice cream cake down in front of Chris.

“And one for Chris,” she says.

Chris looks up at Ruby and smiles with all the teeth he has. Amy turns and looks at him, wondering if he’ll be bucktoothed when he grows up, too.

“Thanks!”

He wastes no time in digging in. Amy feels that weird pain in her heart again – the one she couldn’t name even if she tried.

“And a caramel sundae for Luke,” Ruby says and plops the tall glass cup in front of him.

Luke looks up at Ruby with big, disappointed blue eyes.

“That’s not fair!” he says. “How come Chris and Amy get the hot fudge sundaes?”

“Ruby likes us more,” Chris says, his mouth stuffed to the brim with hot chocolate cake.

“That’s not true,” Ruby says. “It’s just … oh, Luke, sweetie, your brother and sister are gonna need more dessert after this.”

Mom shoots Ruby a look, which makes her flee to the kitchen. Her happy place.

Amy no longer remembers where her own happy place should be.

“Luke, baby, eat your ice cream,” Mom says. “Kids … Daddy and I have something very important to tell you.”

Amy leans forward. For a second, she forgets that they’re here to talk about why Chris has brown eyes. She’s swept up in the moment of secrecy. She hears “If You Leave Me Now” on the radio in the back, and she hums along. It feels good for about two seconds.

“Amy, you wanted to talk about why Chris’s eyes don’t look like yours, or mine, or even Daddy’s,” Mom says. “And you are so smart for that.”

“I am?” Amy asks.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Mom sighs. She grabs onto Dad’s hands, and they look like they’re going to cry, just like they did when they had to tell the kids that their great grandmother had died. Is Chris dead? He can’t be. He’s sitting right here, slurping up whipped cream, simply to annoy everyone at the table. Amy bites down on the inside of her cheek.

“Well, sweetie,” Dad says, ��do you remember last year, when your mom was going to have Jane?”

Amy nods.

“Just like she had me,” she says. “That’s what you said.”

“Right.”

“I had Jane, just like I had you,” Mom adds. “Just like I had Luke.”

Chris drops his spoon in the dish he has almost licked completely clean.

“What about me?” he asks.

Mom sighs. She grabs Dad’s hand again, and Amy wishes she understood why she knew this was all going to be such bad news.

“Kids … Chris … I didn’t have you,” she says, almost crying again. “Not like I had your brother and your sisters.”

Chris wrinkles his nose.

“What’s that mean?” he asks.

“It means … remember when Jane was growing in Mommy’s tummy?”

“Sure.”

“Luke and Amy grew there, too.”

Chris looks like he’s going to pass out. Amy finds herself wishing he would. She takes a slow bite of her ice cream cake and watches as he burns.

She wishes she knew why it felt so good.

“I didn’t?” Chris asks.

Mom turns her head to the side to avoid more crying. Dad just shakes his head, all business, like he’s best at.

“No, honey, you didn’t,” Dad says. “Somebody else had you. A different lady.”

“A different lady?” Chris asks. “How?”

Dad sighs. He explains the rest, and he’s very methodical about it. He tells the kids that when Mommy was pregnant with Amy, another woman was pregnant with Chris. In both cases, the daddy was Daddy. Chris is related to Daddy. They have the same blood, but Chris and Amy aren’t really twins. Just the same age, sort of. 

“If we’re not twins,” Amy says, “then what are we?”

“You’re brother and sister,” Dad says. “Twins are born on the same day, around the same time. You weren’t. Amy, you’re six months older than Chris. You were born in the fall, and he was born in the spring. You’re kind of the bigger sister.”

“I like that.”

“I bet,” Mom says. “But we hope you’ll think of each other as twins. You’ll be in the same grade in school. You’ll probably have a lot of the same friends.”

“That’s right,” Dad says. “You’ll probably even be friends with each other.”

They go on. Chris’s hot fudge ice cream cake gets smaller, but Amy’s stays the same size. For a whole year, Daddy didn’t even know about Chris, until the lady who grew him died, like their great grandma, only a lot younger. Something happened, and Daddy ended up taking Chris home with him. With all of them.

“I can’t believe I didn’t know,” Luke breathes.

Amy wishes he’d shut up.

“We didn’t tell you,” Dad says. “We wanted to wait until we thought you were old enough to remember what we said. We knew it would be some time this year, around the time Amy and Chris turned four.”

“We just didn’t know it would be this afternoon,” Mom says.

Amy wishes they’d never told them at all.

“So,” Chris says, voice shaking, “Mommy?”

“I am your mommy,” Mom says. “No matter what happens. I am your mommy. I adopted you as soon as I could. Adopt. It means I made you my own. I made you my son.”

“The other lady had brown eyes,” Amy says. “Right?”

Dad nods.

“That’s right.”

They launch into this whole story about how no one loves Chris any less because a different lady had him. Even if he’d joined the family when he was ten, twenty, thirty years old, they still would have swept him up and loved him like he was there from the very start. Chris seems to believe it. He has a big smile on his face, though it might just be the hot fudge.

Amy wishes Mom and Dad would shut up, too. They don’t love Chris any less, don’t love him any less, don’t love him any less. But it’s not about that. It’s about how they must love him more.

Amy can’t explain it yet – or ever. She just knows it’s true.

[motownfiction]

oddity

From the moment she learned to speak, Lucy’s mother has held her close and called her my little oddity.

It seems nice for a little while. Mom never says anything mean to Lucy. She loves everything about her. When Lucy picked up a guitar and started strumming non-existent, non-rhyming songs about women in cafés in Europe, Mom kissed her cheeks and called her perfect little Joni Mitchell baby, my little oddity. When Lucy got really into wearing mismatched socks because she thought it added subtle character, Mom said she was proud of her, so proud of her, my little oddity. It was a term of endearment, like when Sadie’s mom called her sweetheart, or when Will’s mom called him baby. Mom’s just smarter than all the other parents, including Dad, most of the time. Oddity is a stronger word. A smarter word. A better one.

Until Lucy is too proud of it on the way to art class in fourth grade.

And Nick Crosby tells her it’s an insult. An accurate one, to be sure, because Lucy is the only kid in the whole fourth grade who knows the difference between all the different painters that Miss Kovacks asks them about every Tuesday morning, in art class.

She carries his words in her chest like a bomb for almost two more hours. Thankfully, recess rolls around, and she can detonate. Right in front of Sadie, the only person who knows how to listen. They’re sitting motionless on the swingset when Lucy finally gets the courage.

“Am I weird?” Lucy asks.

Sadie shrugs.

“I guess so,” she says. “Why? Is that bad?”

“I think. But you have to be honest with me. Am I weird?”

“Yeah.”

Sadie doesn’t even hesitate. Lucy wonders what it would be like to punch a hole right through the air.

“Great,” she mutters. “How do you know I’m weird?”

Sadie shrugs.

“You know how everybody else likes Greg?” she says, beginning to pump her legs and swing back and forth, back and forth. “Including me?”

“Yeah.”

“You like Peter.”

Lucy screws up her face.

“That’s not weird,” she says. “He’s kind of like Will.”

Sadie turns her head and gives her a look that only a ten-year-old girl with gossip behind her eyes can give.

“Sure,” she says. “You’re weird.”

Lucy sighs.

“I knew it.”

“But that’s not bad. If you weren’t weird, I don’t think I’d like you very much.”

Lucy smiles, even though she doesn’t mean to.

“OK,” she says. “I guess I’ll live with it, then.”

They swing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

(part of @nosebleedclub november challenge -- day 18!)

[angiebowiearchive]

Evening Standard (1977)

[bunnyboylyricbot]

and so, these simple, loaned rooms, i know, are temporary and not our home.

[vintageplayboy]

VICTORIA LYNN JOHNSON for Penthouse Magazine, 1976/1977.

[asthevermincrawls]

[gatespage]

Newspaper Clippings - The Akron Beacon Journal

Gates McFadden

1965, 1966, 1967, 1971

[alexjcrowley]

This Bond with this Q. Do you see the vision.

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

New York, magazine, NYM Corp., Dec. 27, 1976 / Jan. 3, 1977

[irishhills]

tuesday and so slow

Amy figures out what’s different about Chris’s eyes when they are between three and four years old. She remembers thinking there was something off when they were a little younger, but it clicks a little after her fourth birthday, six months before Chris. One night, as Mom tucks her into bed, Amy decides to let her know.

“Mommy, I know what’s different between me and Chris,” she says.

“Oh, yeah?” Mom asks. “Did you figure out he’s a boy?”

“I know he’s a boy. It’s his eyes! He got brown!”

Mom looks at Amy like she wasn’t supposed to figure that out. Amy tucks her blanket up to her chin and thinks about what to say.

“My eyes are blue,” Amy says. “And your eyes are …”

“Green,” Mom says.

“And Daddy’s eyes are …”

“Blue.”

“Blue. Why does Chris have brown eyes?”

Mom looks like she’s going to throw up, right then and there. Amy tucks her blanket up to her nose now.

“He just does,” Mom says.

“But we’re twins, aren’t we?” Amy asks. “If we’re twins, how come we don’t look the same?”

“Honey, Chris is a boy.”

“Luke is a boy. We kinda look the same.”

Mom takes a deep, shaky breath and kisses Amy on top of her head. Amy doesn’t know what it is, but she knows this story isn’t over.

“We’ll talk about this more later,” Mom says. “Maybe even tomorrow.”

“Why not now?”

“Because I have to talk to Daddy.”

Amy nods. She kisses Mom’s chin and falls asleep, dreaming of unicorns and rabbits, the stuff four-year-old Amy is made of. When she wakes up the next morning, she has “Brown-Eyed Girl” stuck in her head. She sings it to Chris as they eat their bananas and toast for breakfast.

“Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-di-da,” she sings. “You’re my … brown-eyed girl!”

She giggles, and Chris doesn’t even seem to know she’s singing to him (or about him). She looks around the room to see if anyone else knows what she’s doing.

“Amazing,” Dad says to Mom from across the kitchen table. “From the very same man who brought you ‘Moondance,’ it’s the worst refrain in all the world.”

“Everyone has to start somewhere,” Mom says. “How long did it take you to sell a car?”

Dad rolls his eyes and sticks his spoon in his cereal bowl like it means something. Even Amy knows that.

“Don’t push it, Ave.”

“Mommy,” Amy says. “Mommy, did you talk to Daddy?”

“Did you talk to me about what?” Dad asks.

“About Chris,” Amy says.

“Me?” Chris asks.

“Yeah. You got brown eyes.”

“I know that.”

“Yeah,” Luke interjects from grabbing orange juice from the refrigerator, “but none of the rest of us do.”

Jane, who’s not even one, gurgles on Mom’s lap like she wonders, too.

“Mommy,” Amy tries again, “why does Chris got brown eyes?”

Mom and Dad look at each other with too much on their minds. Dad throws up his hands like he’s giving in, kind of like when he gets tired of trying to string the Christmas lights around the tree.

“We knew we had to tell them some time,” Dad says.

“Tell us what?” Amy asks.

“Yeah, what’s the matter with my eyes?” Chris asks.

Mom leans over and kisses Chris on the top of his head. Amy watches, and her heart is in a strange pain she doesn’t recognize. Mom kisses all the kids all the time. It’s what good moms do, as far as Amy can see. Usually, it doesn’t bother her. But something tells her this one is different. Like Chris maybe needs this kiss more than the other kids. More than Amy.

“Sweetheart, nothing is the matter with your eyes,” Mom says. “They’re beautiful.”

“Blech!”

“Oh, honey. Boys can be beautiful, too.”

“Blech!”

Amy wishes Chris knew how easy he had it. He just has to sit there while Mom calls him beautiful. If only. Yesterday, that was her job. Yesterday, she was beautiful.

Mom says they’ll all go to lunch later today, and they’ll talk. Normally, it would make Amy happy to leave the house. Not today.

Nothing good is going to come out of that lunch.

[motownfiction]

on the sea

When she’s first learning how to swim in the deep end of the pool, Lucy spends a lot of time floating on her back.

She’s always liked floating. Will says he thinks it’s amazing the way she can just float in the middle of the water. Like she’s lighter than air. Lucy always laughs at him when he says stuff like that.

“It’s not amazing,” she says. “You just like me.”

Will turns bright pink and runs out of the pool. He nearly trips as he and Sam go to buy overpriced Popsicles from the concession stand. He’s ten years old, and if there’s one thing he likes more than Lucy, it’s a Popsicle in the middle of summer. For now, Lucy’s pretty glad she can’t compete. She’s pretty glad she can focus on floating.

She lies on her back and closes her eyes, careful not to look anywhere near the blazing sun. As she floats, she pictures herself on the sea … just riding on top of it, not letting it carry her away, but letting it wash over her. She is ten years old and already filled to the brim with expectations and worry. But when she’s floating, she doesn’t have to think about how she’s going to do in math next year or how many books she has to read before the school year begins so she can continue to be ahead in English. When she’s floating, she can pretend like she’s just a regular kid, not a kid who’s already in training to be a professor, just like her parents.

In the water, she can think about herself. Not her grades, not her goals, but herself. And for now, Lucy’s self sounds a whole lot like unbridled crying and “Lonely People.”

Funny, that.

But for now, she’s not the kind of kid who pays attention to messages and parallels. She’s just some floating speck of nothing on the sea.

She has to be.

[angiebowiearchive]

Western Daily Press (1977)

[konpyuuuta]

proteus IV my detested . i love him dearly and i want to bite him repeatedly. design by @hyacinth43 ! peak as always ^_^

[peachviz]

hot take: Han Solo is embarrassing