I remember starting my senior year. It was the only year I ever looked forward to because it was the last year of what I considered prison. I had one class I had to take as I remember and that was GOVERNMENT. People spoke of this class like they did LATIN. Run, scary, very, very hard. Other than that I was taking, Home and Family Living, Performing Arts, Humanities, and Guitar. Sounds like a list of Magazines. There must of have been some other classes but I was busy keeping all my rituals and counting and repetition straight. Life was hard.
Paul had joined the army rather than wait for the draft. This might lessen the chances of going to Viet Nam. He had an older brother named Who? already in the Army. I think I had met Who? by now when he was home on leave but I honestly do not remember. Paul went off to boot camp and I worried constantly, (my mother, myself), that even this would kill him. He found college too structured now he was in the Army. I imagined soon he would be in the brig for telling the Army how it could run more efficiently.
Somewhere in here that little girl who wanted to perform was whispering in my ear. "you could star in the musical at school this year. Dad would be proud of you for the first time ever in your life. People might stop calling you by the wrong name". (You do know that Lillybell is not my real name, right? I had the number 1 and 2 most boring names of the 50s for my first and middle names). Great plan. Please let it be West Side Story or Bye Bye Birdie because I already knew both roles of Anita and Kim from repeated viewing and album memorization.
Strange, I could not walk into a room full of people and interject myself in a conversation or introduce myself or have to say anything without flop sweating and wanting to vomit. Being on stage to dance, sing or speak didn't bother me at all. I craved it. When I still had dance recitals mother would give me sage advice like, "if you fall down just get up, don't vomit on stage if you get nervous, you are nervous aren't you?, don't be nervous although there are hundreds of people out there watching every move you make. You might vomit. You could break your leg when you fall". PLEASE!!! I wanted to kick those little girls off that stage and be the solo star. Vomit? Fall down? No, I was gifted.
What I didn't know yet was that the musical for my senior year was My Fair Lady. I also didn't know there was a new girl in school. She had transferred here with her family when her dad was hired to direct the Fort Worth City Opera. She was a beautiful girl, waif like and innocent. When she was born she came out in full costume and performed The Mikado at the end of the delivery table. She was in a word Eliza. I was cast as one of the dance hall trollops because I could do the splits. Dad was not proud.
Zelda and I had become great friends. She was brilliant and had saved my butt from math. She could think on levels I could not follow. She taught me many things. I taught her that everyone understood that she was from California and if she did not stop talking about how superior it was to Texas someone might kill her. Her house was crazier than mine and not in a good way. Zelda's dad was The Lesser Santini. My house was like an amusement park compared to hers. That's her book but we bonded over being somewhat different. She would play a huge role in my life that continues to this day.
Finally, it was CHRISTMAS and the day after the WEDDING. My parent's best friends daughter and I had grown up together and this was her wedding. It was a big deal for all of us. Especially me as being a bridesmaid was like a supporting role. I loved it. We got through Christmas and dad seemed so weak and frail. He had not slept in many nights. He was gray and looked dead. He couldn't make sense he was so exhausted. Christmas was a very, very sad, quiet day.
The next morning I awoke with great excitement. Paul might have been home or maybe we had talked on the phone but his presence one way or the other made my morning. Plus it was the WEDDING. Then I sensed something very eerie in the house. An ambulance was coming to take my dad away. Mother had talked to his psychiatrist and he told her dad had to be "institutionalized".
I was in the wedding. I have seen the pictures but I don't remember any of the day. Ringo was in the wedding too. I asked him to take me to see my dad as soon as I knew where he was and if he was still alive.
We went to the hospital where dad had been admitted. It was like a prison with chain length fence locking doors. People screamed in there. People moaned like The Beast was killing them but I knew The Beast was killing me so I could only imagine their horror.
Dad was in a room by himself hooked up to IVs. He looked at me but I am not sure he saw me. I couldn't hold his hand, I couldn't hug him, I couldn't say I love you. We didn't do that at our house. Touching family seemed perverse to me. It was wrong and just not done. My dad was in hell and all I could do was stand there paralyzed.
I did not see my dad for three or four months. He had somewhere between 9 and 12 sessions of electro convulsive therapy in the mental ward. Shock treatments was what they were called. This sounded horribly barbaric and medieval to me. I expected him to come home slack jawed and drooling.
I was wrong.
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