Old photos are the worst kind of memory recall: they won’t let you lie. There it is in black and white or, more likely, in shades of grey. Inevitably, one must the face the reality that the photo presents.

This photo is of a woman who was a friend. Her name is Carol. She had been dating a friend of mine, John. She and I rented a flat on a street that no longer exists. It was one of those huge old places that you can’t find anymore, and it was dirt cheap. We felt so lucky to find it.

She had just been through a trauma and I had metaphorically held her hand through it all. She had found that she was pregnant by John. John never wanted to have children (something about his father trying to drown him in a toilet when he was child). Knowing that he wasn’t ready to have a child, and not wanting to force him into marriage; she made the impossibly hard decision to have an abortion. I went with her when she got it, stayed with her, and comforted her. I have always remembered a moment coming back from her procedure. We drove by a town named Chula Vista. Carol said, “What an odd name for a town. It means ‘cute view.”

We had our wonderful flat to hide in. Eventually, she got a job translating foreign films for subtitles. Then, her boyfriend, John, decided to move in with us. She made him sleep on the sun porch. In the end, Carol couldn’t take the situation and left for Europe. John stayed.

He somehow decided that since I was the female that I should keep the house. He wouldn’t lift a finger. I finally decided to see how long it would take him to wash his dishes. His pile grew higher and higher. Mould formed. It got to the point where I could smell the dish pile from the front door. It was then that I packed my bag and left. John wasn’t so unhappy that I had left: he was upset that I had left his dishes unwashed.

John joined the Peace Corps to avoid the draft: they kicked him out. Carol eventually came back from Europe. He became a cameraman, then a director. She became a film editor. They married. I don’t know if they ever had any children, but I rather doubt that they did.

Chula Vista doesn’t mean ‘cute view,’ by the way. Chula means insolent. So, it’s an insolent view. Somehow that works better. The picture was taken just before Carol ran away to Europe.

Please give what you can to Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders).

And, of course

*Turn on your radio, baby

Now that I am gone
I hope the wind that’s blowin’
Helps me carry on
Turn on your radio, baby
Listen to my song
Turn on your night light baby
Baby I’m gone
I don’t know how it happened
Now that I am gone
I hope I never hear it baby
Just in case I’m wrong
Turn on your record player
Listen to my song
Turn on your night light baby
Baby I’m gone
I don’t know where life’s goin’
But soon it will be gone
I hope the wind that’s blowin’
Helps me carry on
Turn on your radio baby
Baby, listen to my song
And turn on your night light baby
Baby I’m gone.