Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir

By the spring of 1974, Natasha was starting to distance herself, feeling as though she were on “the periphery of [her] mother’s new life” (75). When she returned to Atlanta in August 1973, after spending the summer at her grandmother’s house, Gwen announced that she and Joel were married, and that Natasha was going to have a new little brother. Gwen and Joel had also moved to a new apartment, in which Natasha would have a bigger room. The family’s new apartment was in the same neighborhood, which allowed Natasha to remain at Venetian Hills Elementary.

Meanwhile, Natasha knew little about Joel, who explained away any of his idiosyncrasies by mentioning Vietnam. Natasha noticed that he was missing his second and third toes. Natasha thinks that he may have been born with malformed feet and was too ashamed to admit that, using the Vietnam War as an explanation. She also noticed “his slightly bulging eye,” trembling hands, and quivering lips (77). At night, she saw him sitting in the near dark, drinking, and singing into a microphone connected to the stereo. He sang along with a record as though to convince himself that there was an artist somewhere within him. There were signs of this, too, in his attempts to draw.

The first neighborhood family whom they met, the Dunns, included five boys who were close in age. They could also sing and dance like the Jackson Five and often joned each other, as they called it. This was “playing the dozens,” or what they called janking in Mississippi (a game where people insult one another until someone gives up). When they weren’t teasing each other with “yo’ mama” jokes that sometimes went too far, they listened to records or jumped on pogo sticks.

One evening, Natasha went home and found a large pot boiling and live lobsters in the sink. Gwen was singing along to Al Green’s “I’m Still in Love with You.” She was celebrating the completion of her Master’s in social work. Joel, she added, had recently enrolled in technical school. In a photograph they took that evening, Gwen and Joel looked like they were members in a soul music band with their matching bell bottoms and Afros. Natasha recalls this as one night in those years with Joel when Gwen appeared truly happy. After dinner, they went to the Dunns’s apartment for a party. They danced the Bump, the Four Corners, and the Loose Booty. When the Jackson Five’s “Dancing Machine” came on, Gwen took center stage. Natasha recalls that her mother was especially beautiful when she danced. The crowd spit in two, forming a Soul Train, and “she made her way down the middle” (81). Natasha remembered this moment, many years later, when she saw how the mourners in front of the church where her mother’s funeral was held split to make room for the pallbearers.