Other Feral Children Led the Way

Other Feral Children Led the Way

By Julie Iverson

Sometime during the night before the Thanksgiving the year 2020, my oldest sister died. Thanksgiving Eve, done gone. This passing memorialized the honor of her presence, in contemplation, for my Turkey Days, forever. She loves that. Her name is Linda. A fentanyl coated opioid had stopped her heart. Surprisingly, this death came as such a relief to me. Relieved she had not been a bloody mess or murdered. For addict Linda the only difference on that night, as opposed to any other was simply due to the deadly fentanyl coating.

Everyone should explore their personal family memoir; cathartic as it is. Time is a funny master as wounds, some seem fresh, others healed, and many are ugly scars. For my own survival, histrionic has usually been my coping technique. In time, having come to understand stuff, realizing that moving forward doesn’t create amnesia, we kind of get over it, yes, as we move on. Wounds soften and moods shift, alcohol numbs. As a truth-teller, psychology study has been useful for me. Parallel to my own stages of healing came memories of both parents, our narcissistic mother of course, and everyone else’s role they’re in. We are a family of two parents and four children. Linda held us when we were little, not our mother.

For reasons hardly understood, Linda and I spoke on the phone infrequently. My charming oldest sister exuded humor mixed with confusion over her problems. How does one describe my oldest sister? She was attractive but not a beauty, she was addicted without becoming a junkie, she was a prostitute yet not a hooker. Drug product was readily available for my sister, and she started young. Her own friends fed me booze and cigarettes when I was young, too. Some said she’s borderline personality disorder.

“I never know when it is okay to call you on the phone”

“Well, I have a job during the day and am tired in the evenings”

“Why are you still working”?

Thankfully, there had been haven, a safe house, safe sofa-sleeper for my sister. This lifeline gift came from someone who knew her and cared for her deeply. She had dwindled resources down to the most meager monthly allotment. Their house was twenty miles from where she had been off grid for three decades. Near the end, we were told, she begged to return to the wild side. Linda needed live music in the air as created at The Range at her California desert. Later, Linda was working it to get back there. She had phoned everyone but had already called in favors many times over so, nothing left. Lacking any windfall as the windfalls had been spent and no one to stake her, she died on the sofa, twenty miles away from the music.

Slab City, where the wild things went, became her place beginning around 1988. Linda lived at a make-shift viable community called The Slabs, about one hour north of Mexico in California.

“When the sun goes down that’s when the music starts”

At the earliest sign of sunset, on weekends, the live music at The Range never disappoints, then and now. There is talent galore provided by regular residents at these permanent campgrounds complete with travelers bringing sounds of soul, pop and jazz. The demographic mix of tired, sweaty fast friends provides long deep lore for the musicians and songwriters who conjure original tunes. There is a lot of undiscovered talent and performances filled with wonder including authentic compositions, classic folk and rock. This place sees no copyright infringement as performers come and go. My sister Linda, for many years, managed a tambourine and some would let her rattle the beat near the stage.

She wore a ring welded from Mom and Dad’s wedding rings. Mom’s original solitaire had gone down a drain and was replaced with a glittery bundle of small diamonds, Dad’s was a plain gold band. Though well-soldered and solid, our other sister describes this ring as worn thin, thin gold dwindled from magical night life. Linda wore this conjoined ring to near death playing tambourine. How it was not stolen we will never know.

A metaphorical veil had been lifted off me with the thought of Linda’s spirit passed on. She is truly free now, free of pain, free of financial woe. Her life ended with a nice face and new teeth. No one may harm her now. It dawned on me about two years later:

“I won’t be able to phone my oldest sister anymore.”

Grief is a teacher now seen by me. Ever the realist and January baby, Janus, looking forward as well as looking back, I had to keep on seeking explanations, for myself.

The memorial was nice as it came later in midsummer 2021 right after my cancer diagnosis. The daughter of Linda is a lovely daughter who had been raised elsewhere, adopted out. That deal had been arranged in the ‘60’s through Catholic services. We are Methodist, well, fallen Methodist for me. Linda faked being Roman Catholic to don the head-doily back in the day. The infant girl’s father was a boy gone off to Vietnam, drafted. Also, he was the drummer in a garage combo band and attended the parochial school at the end of our street. The baby daughter grew up well, and eventually did locate her birth parents. My sister was located first. Linda and this lovely daughter remained close for fifteen some years. Mother and daughter had always longed for one another. We all got to know this loving daughter; we call her “D.”

Applying a gentle brake toward taciturn now allows me to switch direction, thinking back to the neighborhood. Our brother-the-fire-starter went away for two years. Our mother stopped smoking, that is, after we left the streets of our youth where my memory still visits. Nature vs. nurture.

Where we lived was childhood Shangri-La. There still stands the summer stock barn of humorist Dick Cavett theater fame. Another street was of a doctor who threw acid into his lover’s face, the circle drive was residence of a former state governor and another, the trampoline where they said all were welcome, huzzah. Neighboring kids were our friends, especially the family of eight. That large family was so full of love. Their Dad had loved too much as his alcohol fueled a black eye for their mother more than once. All-in-all, we were the Peter Pan gang without Peter. It was wonderful. Those friends explained to me when Linda was pregnant, both times.

We moved away and this happened:

Thirteen years old was ancient for a new ballerina but I signed up anyway. The weekly lessons were a dollar, my father paid. Dancing was a privilege, and I did not look the type with my thick stature and short hair. Quickly advancing from the flats to the toe shoes proved my dedication to the art, baby fat intact.

Black leather toe shoes were special order as I had graduated myself out of the pink satin model. The satins practically disintegrated due to my girth, there must be an exertion and stress minus thin fabric calculation to understand the shredding as they did. Lamb’s wool protected my little pink toes inside at the tips.

When I danced with perfect stance and perfect hands, my mind escaped velocity. The teacher witnessed this as well and stuck with me through my awkwardness. Growing a couple inches taller and honing some muscles previously unknown helped my posture and confidence, giving me a secret hope.

My beautiful black leathers were not an insult and not an inconvenience, as was I, according to my mother, accident prone. My shoes made me not an affront, they made a beauty of me as I danced, silently. Upon overhearing, accidentally, when my father said that I was pretty rang a bell that sounded true and I held my head high, like a ballerina.

Many years later, our niece “D” told the story of her conception as told by her birth mother, my sister, because it had happened at our neighborhood park. “D” strongly believes she had been wanted and planned. Our beautiful park is not far from the museum house of William Jennings Bryan of Scope Trial anti-Darwin notability. They flooded the tennis courts during winter for ice skating. The big kids burned evergreen trees in a big cannister. We, as feral children running with other feral children had all felt safe in our little world. Rest in peace, Linda, Mom & Dad, I won’t be seeing you anytime soon, I am almost in remission.//