May 16, 2019:
Forty-two-sixty-one. Peach skirt, wavy auburn hair, gap-toothed moment between baby teeth and real ones on the way. Friendly smile but shy for the camera. I've posed her emphasizing her house number, although now that means nothing to me.
The younger blonde brother with his army-regulation buzz cut aims his Thompson-with-scope earnestly at the face of the older blonde sister with Pippi Longstocking pigtails. Her face is pained: the dynamic is a thoughtless victimization he's too young to understand. I see this now as symbolic of the relationships the girls endured in their household: they were afraid not just of their father but of all of the boys.
Documentation of the neighborhood. Pam's gray house, our yellow apartment, the street that climbs the hill. Yale Street, at the corner of University Avenue, San Diego, 1965 ish.