Shirley, I Jest!: A Storied Life Read Free

mother finally appeared in my bedroom was euphoric. I could smell the wonderful aroma of fancy restaurant food mixed with her perfume as she bent over to straighten my covers and kiss me goodnight. I would pretend to be asleep, the night out with my father a frightening secret I would keep. These nights continued with my mother being none the wiser. We would sometimes take off and travel as far as Lubbock, so he could drink with his cousins and crazy Aunt Rennie. She would sit me down in the kitchen and preach hellfire and damnation with an ever-present drunken slur. When her sermon was finished, I would be rewarded for my attention with a piece of peanut butter pie. On our ride home every night from wherever our drunken adventures had taken us, if I spoke it would be in soft, quiet tones trying to keep his rage at bay so we could make it back to the house in one piece. Because of these nights of distraction I did not do well in school. I was always sleepy and couldn’t concentrate.
    On Sundays, my father would waylay his drinking until the afternoon. In the morning he would, without fail, drop me off at church to attend Sunday school. I learned all of my Bible stories. I loved the powerful images and escaped into them. Jesus and Moses and the great people of the Bible. I believed in Jesus and all the miracles, and for that hour in Sunday school, I was safe. I attended many churches—Church of Christ, Baptist Church, Presbyterian Church, United Church of Christ, and Calvary Church. I attended them all! At one point my father even allowed my grandmother to start taking me to the Roman Catholic Church in Dallas where we heard the Mass in Latin. If it was Sunday, I was in church. I even won a Bible for perfect attendance at a tent revival. This was my first stage appearance so I remember it well.
    When the preacher called me up to accept my Bible, I was terrified.
    “Cynthia, would you like to say a few words to the congregation?” He held the microphone to my mouth.
    Trembling, I could only manage one word. “No!” I was presented my Bible and traveled back down the aisle, people reaching out to pat me on the head.
    I was ten when my mother and father announced we were moving back to California. My grandmother would be going with us. Her brother, Joe, had moved with his family to California two years previously and opened a shoe repair store. By then Mama Helen had passed away. The only ones attending her funeral were my grandmother, my mother, my father, my sister, and me.
    We drove cross-country caravan style. Naturally, I rode with my father in the truck while my mother, sister, and grandmother followed us in a ’56 Chevy. The trip turned out to be an unexpected pleasure because my father stayed sober the entire way. At first we lived in an apartment in Santa Monica. It was damp and cold compared to the heat we had “battled” in Texas, as my mother would say. In a month my parents found a small house back in The Valley to buy. My mother immediately got a job working at a restaurant at the Van Nuys airport. My father was hired at an electronic manufacturing company, and my grandmother retired to the back bedroom in the new little house, where she returned to watching her soap operas and wrestling matches. We lived in a traditional American neighborhood with friendly people and orderly sidewalks lined with plum trees. I loved it except that my mother continued to opt for a nighttime shift at the restaurant, which allowed my father free rein to resume his all-night drinking. This was my normal.
    We had a fenced-in backyard and a large garage. Here I began putting on shows, writing and directing sketches, enlisting my sister to costar with me. We packed them in! Neighbor kids came in droves, sometimes bringing their dogs. Everyone sat on old chairs and trunks that I had fashioned into makeshift stadium seating. We became a big hit in the neighborhood! Around this same time, my mother and father found a new church for me