Angry Conversations with God (8 page)

I bought the script to
A Hard Day’s Night
and memorized
the lines. I bought up all the used albums at the local record store. I listened to John’s raspy voice in “You’ve Got to Hide
Your Love Away” and “Run for Your Life” and dreamed about kissing him. He was my hero. Mighty Mouse with a guitar. I fell
in love.

Meanwhile, my sister had fallen in love with Jesus. She liked the Beatles too, but to her, loving John Lennon was cheating
on Jesus.

“John Lennon wrote, ‘Imagine there’s no heaven’!” she scolded me.

“Well, he also wrote ‘I Am the Walrus.’ I’m not going to become an atheist just by listening to the Beatles!”

For Christmas I asked for
The White Album.
Nancy got me
The Way,
a Bible with pictures of hippies inside. “You know, Susie,” she lectured, “when all your drama friends have dropped out of
school or OD’d on drugs or gotten pregnant, you might want to read it.”

“Well, right now I want something that reads on a stereo.” I hated when she got all holier-than-thou. “Just because I don’t
want to go to a Christian college like you or go to your midweek Bible study doesn’t mean I don’t love Jesus. I do. But I
also love John.”

“What does John Lennon have that Jesus doesn’t?” she asked.

“A sense of humor!”

I finally relented and went with Nancy to an Easter sunrise service at her Christian college across town. They played Christian
rock. The pastor was cool. I remembered why I loved Jesus. He was a rebel, like John. He cared about peace, like John. But
Jesus did more than John: He took on death to save me. Of course I loved Jesus. But I thought of that Jesus picture where
he’s tending sheep in the Alps. Why couldn’t I be like the black sheep in the picture, trailing along behind? Why did I have
to be like the pretty white sheep, like Nancy?

During my senior year, Mrs. Van Holt enrolled me in classes at a respected theater nearby. Their director enrolled me in a
regional Shakespeare competition, and I won the award for “Best Supporting Actress.” My school nominated me for a district
award. Production Drama did two plays that year: one by Lillian Hellman and an
SNL
-style show of original material. I wasn’t vibrating to someone else’s note. I was playing my own music.

Dad refused to attend either event. “Lillian Hellman was a Communist,” he spat. He didn’t give a reason for boycotting the
other show. I guessed his reason: he hated me. I knew because he hated my brother Jim too. Jim graduated from music school
with a degree in oboe and conducting. He conducted the university orchestra in front of the entire faculty and student body.
When he finally put down his baton, the packed auditorium erupted in a standing ovation. There was my father, third row center,
refusing to stand, seething with contempt.

Dad should have learned his lesson with Rob. Dad crowbarred him into med school, and Rob hated it. He stopped speaking to
Dad. It devastated my father—he adored Rob. But Dad’s love was the jealous, parasitic kind that demanded, “Do what I do; think
what I think; love what I love. Get your own life and I’ll destroy you.”

My childhood nightmare about the cesspool became visible in my waking life. Dad came home every night, turned on the TV, and
cursed under his breath until way past midnight. The drone of the TV and curses oozed down the hall and through my bedroom
door like sewage. I couldn’t sleep. I hated the noise. I hated my father.

I didn’t consciously ascribe that same malice to God, but my idea of God the Father grew more murky and distant. And now I
really had something to feel guilty about: loving John more than Jesus. The Nice Jesus hung on the wall of my mind, morose
and pleading. Was he pleading to God not to destroy me? Or was he pleading to me to come back?

I spent as much time away from home as possible. Sometimes I went to Julianne’s; sometimes we snuck over to Doug’s house.
Doug’s mom let us stay up as late as we wanted. Some of the guys drank and smoked. I just hung out, listened to the Beatles,
and then went home. Late.

My parents knew. I knew they knew. For months they ignored it like they ignored everything else. Then one night they decided
to notice. I was sneaking in the back door after midnight and there they were: Mom with a wad of used Kleenex, Dad with his
contemptuous scowl.

“Where have you been?!” Mother cried.

“I was at Doug’s watching
Roots.
You can call his mom right now!” It was true. Doug’s mom was there; she was just too drunk to pick up the phone.

“We never should have let you skip half-day kindergarten,” Dad rasped. “You’re immature; you’re irresponsible; you will never
amount to anything.”

“Really? Mrs. Van Holt says I can do whatever I put my mind to.”

“Your drama teacher is a hippie pothead.”

“A
what
?!” I scoffed. “How would you know? You never come to my plays.”

“Susie,” Mom intervened, “why don’t you invite your friends to come here?”

“Isn’t it obvious?!” I stomped off to my room. For the first time in my life my parents enacted some discipline. They grounded
me for an entire month. Three days later they dropped it. They didn’t say, “You’re no longer grounded.” They just went back
to ignoring me.

I hated my father for saying I wouldn’t amount to anything. But I also feared it was true. I had no idea what I was going
to do after graduation. Doug’s and Julianne’s parents took them to visit college counselors. But their parents lived in houses
on the golf course; their parents went to our plays. I was graduating at the top of my class and the only thing Dad had to
say was, “No child of mine is going to Berkeley.” Once again, I was on my own. I started to feel something I would come to
know very well: a paralyzing dread that left me unable to speak or move, like I was headed over Niagara Falls and I could
do nothing to stop it.

I had felt that dread before, only with guys. Once at a school dance a boy grabbed and kissed me. I was too afraid to stop
him or say anything. After that I avoided guys altogether. Well, except Doug. Doug was funny and Baptist and gay. Gay guys
and geeks didn’t scare me. I could blow them off and we’d still be friends. But guys with cojones? No way. They were too much
like men. They wanted to suck your soul out of you. Yes, John Lennon had cojones, but I only hung out with him in my dreams.

Then a new kid showed up in Production Drama: braces, frizzy hair, know-it-all—a total geek. If he’d given me any inkling
of bad-boy energy I would have steered clear of him. But he was a geek so he was safe. He was also the funniest, smartest
guy I’d ever met. And he loved the Beatles. David Mankewicz and I became best friends.

David was the first guy who could keep up with me. In fact, I had to work to keep up with
him.
David had a video camera, and he made movies. Julianne, Doug, and I went over to his house to write sketches. Well, we watched
as David did most of the work. He was a genius. Thank God he was just a geek.

Then something horrible happened. David grew four inches, got a haircut, got his braces off, and joined the water polo team.
He turned into a hot jock and started flirting with me. It grossed me out. I’d never been close to a hot guy. What if he kissed
me and then forced me to have sex? What if he didn’t have to force me—what if I wanted to? No! That would not happen. Ever.
But what if I couldn’t say no? What if the word wouldn’t come out of my mouth?

“Why not?” Julia shrugged. “David is adorable. He’s young. He’ll be in awe of you.” She’d lost her virginity to a rich kid
from Newport. She said it wasn’t a big deal.

But it was a big deal to me. So I played it safe. I stopped going over to David’s house to write. I didn’t return his calls.
I sat away from him in Production Drama. At first he seemed crushed, but he got over it. He and Doug kept writing sketches
without me. Then I was crushed. I missed him. And John Lennon wasn’t cutting it.

And so I fell in love with David Mankewicz—as much as any insecure sixteen-year-old could fall in love. How could God blame
me? David was perfect: he was funny like me, he wanted to make movies like me, and he was a Jew like Jesus.

I thought about Pastor Norman and his cardboard demonstration. I was terrified of sex. I was terrified of getting shredded.
But I also longed to be loved. I never denied Jesus; I never forgot him. How could I, with that Nice Jesus image cemented
into my psyche? I loved the Nice Jesus, but he was so somber and silent. David had a voice to say “I love you” and a body
to prove it. I fell hard.

Rudy: You went where the love was. I don’t blame you.

Susan: But does God blame me?

Rudy: Why don’t you ask him?

Susan: I can already imagine him shaking his head in profound disappointment.

God: I haven’t even said a word and already you’ve got me shaking my head at you? I don’t have a head. Remember? “God doesn’t
have a body.”

Susan: Psalm 18 says that your nostrils flared when you got angry. If David can imagine your nostrils flaring, I can imagine
you shaking your head.

God: Notice you don’t say Jesus shook his head. And he actually has one.

Rudy: Let’s move on. Susan imagines you feel profoundly disappointed.

God: She got that from her dad, and she transferred it onto me.

Susan: And where did I get my dad? From you.

God: Your sister had the same father, and she managed to love me and stay pure.

Susan: Totally unfair.

Rudy: Susan and her sister are different personalities with different needs. You didn’t make Susan to be quiet and complacent;
you made her to be active and inquisitive, and you taught her to fight. You said as much in a previous session.

God:
Jesus
said that. But I’ll let it slip by since we’re the Trinity.

Susan: All Nancy needed was a hippie Bible study. I needed a smart, healthy Christian role model with cojones. You sent Pastor
Norm, the Christmas elf.

God: Now
you’re
being unfair, Susan—and cruel. Norm was a kind, gentle man. You knew what he said about sex was true. He just wasn’t
GQ
enough for you. You want a hip pastor? How about that skeevy youth pastor who pimped his own daughter into a pop star and
put her in her underwear on the cover of
Rolling Stone
?

Susan: I see your point. I’m sorry.

God: I forgive you. Actually, I already forgave you. I forgave you before you did it. I forgave you before the foundation
of the world.

Rudy: Okay, you forgave her. We got it. (To Susan) Everything you imagine God saying is colored with sarcasm or stinginess
or grandiosity. He can’t even forgive you without sounding like a jerk.

Susan: I know. I just go there.…(To God) I got it from Dad and I gave it to you. Sorry.

God: And I forgive—you know what I mean.

Rudy: Good. That’s progress. (To Susan) What about Jesus?

This would be harder. I hadn’t cheated on the Father with another deity. But I had fantasized about John Lennon and then had
sex with a boy. I wasn’t exactly Bride of Christ material.

How could I respond? Just, “Sorry“? That sounded so flat. And if I added all the reasons why I was sorry, it would sound like
a list of excuses. Yes, I was longing for love; yes, I needed a healthy role model. But my sister had managed somehow.