Read Online A Freewheelin' Time by Suze Rotolo - Free Book Online Page A

things out.
    Compared with my mother, Val was in great shape, and my cousin and I had fun together. Their apartment—with only one bedroom, where my cousin and I slept—was on a low floor in a large, ornate apartment building. The living room had a big, freestanding floor-to-ceiling bookcase that served as a wall to create a bedroom for Val. The place was fine, but it was overrun with cockroaches. When you turned on a light, the kitchen seemed to liquefy as the roaches scurried away en masse. They didn’t mind the cold, either, living comfortably in the refrigerator.
    My friend Pete Karman had a car and would often come pick me up in the evening. He was like an older brother at a time when I was very much in need of that kind of relationship. We would drive up and down the West Side Highway for hours on end talking about everything and anything and listening to the car radio, which picked up stations as far away as West Virginia late at night. Weekends we would head for the Village and sometimes meet up with my sister and go to parties or music clubs. As a newspaper reporter, he read a lot, remembered everything, and liked to talk. He was a big part of my schooling back then. I have always been grateful to him.

Sideswipes
    My mother was doing better. We had a few normal telephone conversations, and although I don’t remember any details, I am sure we saw each other at Christmas. She had been working on a plan to move to Italy and since I was still a minor she would take me with her. It seemed like an interesting idea. I wasn’t planning on having a career as a clerk at the Book-of-the-Month Club, and all the people I used to hang around with were away at college. I applied for a passport and gave notice that I would be leaving my job around mid-March 1961. My mother had friends in Rome who would help us begin a new life. I hadn’t lived with her in a while, but I wasn’t overly worried because living in Rome would be a completely new situation. She seemed to be her old self again, and even though that wasn’t necessarily reassuring, at least as her old self she was familiar.
    She was still living in the Queens apartment and I said I would come and stay to sort through my things and pack away what I wanted to keep, which would be stored at the home of a relative on Long Island who had offered space in her basement. But when I got home, to my shock my mother had already gone through everything and had gotten rid of things I wasn’t ready to part with. You just could not trust her, really. After she died one of her oldest friends said of her: Mary was a great friend to be with because she was entertaining and fun, but she wouldn’t be there for you. You would be there for her. She was my good friend, but not a best friend.
    My mother did not spare the rod, especially with my sister, who challenged her. I watched and learned that survival meant silence. I learned where to and how to hide myself for protection. Once when I objected to something or other, she said, No, don’t you start. Not you, too.
    I had nightmares about her in her red bathrobe, black hair flying about her face as she hurled her rage at us.
    No one is ever just one thing, though. My mother had a magnetic personality, intelligence, beauty, and convictions. She was a great storyteller and had many friends who adored her. I always understood and forgave her. From early on, within the turmoil of our family, I had the temperament most similar to that of my quiet, thoughtful father. My mother and sister were more volatile and often entangled with each other. After his death I was heir to his role as peacemaker, although I was hardly up to the task. Still, it was better than succumbing to chaos. As the years went by, however, I began to feel more and more like the English Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain before the outbreak of World War II.
             
    A s we got closer to the date in April when we were to leave on a passenger ship bound for