Disco Lullaby
Saara Dutton
Word Count 871
For anyone who was a child in the strange, sleazy, messed-up decade of the 1970s, the unmistakable flavor of sugar cereal in milk is guaranteed to bring one back to our generation’s Saturday morning pajama-clad days, sitting on the shag carpet in front of the TV. Eating cereal and giggling at Laff Olympics and Scooby Doo, Saturday morning was ours alone. We made the cereal, we set the rules. Parents were usually in the next room, sleeping off hangovers on their waterbeds and “just trying to get their shit together.” The emphasis was on trying. It didn’t seem to us that any adults actually succeeded in getting their shit together back then. That wasn’t the point. Everyone was on a journey, but no one arrived anywhere.
Honolulu in the late 1970s was a place where we kids lived on the periphery, playing our games quietly as adults reveled in theirs. If Saturday morning was ours, Friday night was theirs. Parents had cocktail parties out on their patios, with fully stocked wet bars, olives, and colorful swizzle sticks. They told dirty jokes, bitched about politics and balding men flirted with anyone’s wife but their own. Adults didn’t try to include us, with our Stretch Armstrong dolls and Weeble Wobbles and scabby knees. But when told it was bedtime, Moms knew to leave bedroom doors open a crack. We all loved the sound of adult laughter, the flicking of Bics, the clinking of ice in a vodka tonic.
Kids had a peek at the adult world, but no access to it. Parents didn’t hide adulthood, and the mixed bag of vices, confusion, and yearnings that went with it. Mom kept the Mr. and Mrs. T’s Bloody Mary Mix next to the milk, and her pack of Virginia Slims on the kitchen counter near the cookie jar. Dad kept copies of Playboy in the bathroom, visible, but just out of reach. Under the sink, you might find a box of Today Sponges. If you asked about these things you were just told, “That’s for adults.” Somehow that answer was good enough for us. That just meant it was something relegated to adulthood; like lipstick, having a “nervous breakdown”, and watching The Late Night Movie.
In this messy era filled with EST, Primal Screams, and California cults, the adults I knew were all looking for something to make them whole. Finding yourself was a full-time occupation. Alice didn’t live here anymore, and the demons in horror movies were often children. Maybe adults were truly afraid of us, tiny ticking clocks reminding those Flower Children that they weren’t quite as youthful as they thought they were. Boo!
Left to our own devices, we kids took our comforts where we could find them—whether it was the soothing voice of Mr. Rogers on TV or the loyal but brutal tribes we created on the playground. We couldn’t rely on parents too much. It wasn’t unusual to find a note on the Harvest Gold fridge that said, “Be good. Mommy has gone out to find you a new daddy.”
By 1978 the divorce rate had skyrocketed, and my parents only added to the statistics. Not sure how, but after the divorce, my dad kept the house, his Pan Am girlfriend, and our dachshund. Mom got 100 bucks a month. Her low-rent lawyer told her, “Don’t worry about it, honey. You’re so pretty you’ll be re-married in a year anyway.” So we moved into a cheap, rundown apartment next to a gay bar on Kuhio in Waikiki. This bar had an outdoor dance space. Every night mom would open the windows to get some fresh air and we’d hear the thumping disco beat of Donna Summer and Diana Ross, mixed in with laughter and cheers when a favorite song was played.
After a while, mom started to worry that the gay bar was interrupting my sleep. It was certainly affecting hers. It was so raucous, so wild! Since I was sleeping on the floor because we had no furniture, she at least wanted to give me some peace. She saved up and bought a big fan. That night she came into the bedroom, plugged in the fan, and shut the window. The fan made a loud whirring noise that drowned out the bar. There! Mom felt good, protecting me from the crazy decadence drifting in from next door. Now she could rest, knowing she’d soundproofed my childhood. She tucked me in, kissed my head…and I started to cry.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I hate it,” I whined.
“What? What do you hate?”
“No lullaby,” I sniffled.
“You want me to sing you a lullaby?”
Mom was tired. It had been a long day. She did not have time for this shit.
So with tears filling my eyes, I wailed, “No! The Disco Lullaby!”Mom nodded and understood immediately. She got up off the floor, unplugged the fan, and opened the window to let in the joyous noise of the gay bar.
For the rest of our days in that crummy apartment, Mom slept next to the fan in the living room, while I fell asleep with the Hawaiian breeze on my face and the comforting sounds of the Disco Lullaby.
Saara is a freelance journalist. She has been published in The New York Times, The Observer, Salon, and Writer's Digest, among others.