CREDITS: Yellabird Media presents Higher Grounds, a scripted audio drama written and produced by Kimberly Conway. Higher Grounds contains mature themes and topics that may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
KAT: It's 1970, and the girls are scattered. Different states, different lives, trying to hold on to each other through letters but finding it more difficult to stay connected than they ever anticipated. Elle is filming in California. Roz is in California too, putting the finishing touches on her debut album. Sylvia is living in Louisiana with her mother, biding her time until she can come back home to Tennessee.
And Joni is still home, but without her friends by our side, it doesn't quite feel like home anymore. This is Higher Grounds, episode four, $19.83.
SYLVIA: Sylvia. Mama was one of them people who wouldn't admit when she was sick. She'd just keep on going. I had no idea how sick she truly was. And I shoulda because they were all sorts of sides.
I just wasn't paying attention. She'd been home a lot more, wasn't working much. She mostly stayed in her bedroom with the door closed and I was caught up in my teenage world. I was working hard at school and writing Charles and the girls every day. Count the days until we could all be together again.
And I just I missed it. Until one afternoon, I got home from school and there was a notice on the front door. An eviction notice. It said we had thirty days to catch up on rent, or we were out. I brought it inside.
I knocked on mama's bedroom door so I could give it to her. She didn't answer. I knew she was home because her car was parked out on the street in front of the house. I figured she was probably sleeping and I didn't wanna wake her, but you know how you get that feeling when you know something's not right? I opened the door and she was laying on the floor beside her bed unconscious.
CHARLES: Charles, Sylvia wrote and told me her mother was dying. She'd found her passed out on her bedroom floor. When she got her to the hospital, she found out her mother had a lot of things going on she hadn't told her about. Diabetes, had something going on with her liver, and she had cancer. I think the cancer was news to both of them.
Sylvia took it real hard. It tore me up knowing how bad she was hurting and being that far away. How do you comfort someone half a world away?
SYLVIA: The doctor said she had six months, maybe a year. And I I was sick over it. When I got her home, I helped her into bed, and I laid down beside her. I laid my head on her shoulder and I just remember the pain. I'd never hurt like that over anything.
It was just this sadness so deep it physically hurt. Was losing my mother. She was slipping away right in front of me and there wasn't a thing I could do to stop it. All I could do was try to hold off while I had her make sure she was comfortable. Laying there, I thought about how I looked down on her, how I'd been so cold to her since we got into Louisiana.
There was so much I regretted. I don't know how long I laid there with my thoughts spinning, but after a while, I got up and poured my heart out into a letter to Charles. I spent half the night writing to him and the girls. The next morning, I went into the kitchen to make mama something to eat with her medicine. There was hardly any food in the house.
I think I made her a scrambled egg and a piece of dry toast. And that's when it really hit me. Mama can't go back to work. We're about to be kicked out of the house. We have no food, nothing to fall back on.
How are we gonna make it? I brought Mama her breakfast and I told her, I'm gonna get a part time job. She said absolutely not. She said she didn't want my grades to suffer. I made straight A's all the way through school and she was really proud of that.
Whenever she'd introduce me to someone she'd say this is my baby Sylvia, she's on the honor roll. She always told me, if you want a better life for yourself, an education is what's going to get you there. She was so adamant about that. The idea of me getting a job and taking time away from studies was really hard for her. She said, I'll get back to work in a few days when I get my strength up.
But we both knew she wouldn't be able to work again. I had to get a job. We didn't have any other choice. I said, alright, mama. Get some rest.
Then I slipped out the door and walked down to the little grocery store in the corner because I remember seeing a help wanted sign in the window. I got a job as a cashier on the spot.
JONI: Joni, I hated to hear about Sylvia's mother. I knew what it was like to live without your mother. I told her to call me collect if she ever felt like she needed to talk.
SYLVIA: I enjoyed working, ringing up customers and stocking shelves. It made me feel like I was accomplishing something, like there was a purpose to my time in Louisiana. And I enjoyed taking care of mama too. I made sure she had all her medicine on time, kept up the house, cooked meals for her. I'd sit with her in bed in the evenings and tell her about my day.
Sometimes, if she wasn't too tired, we'd watch television together for a while. I'll always be grateful I had that time with her. And even then, I understood that if I had stayed in Tennessee, I would have never gotten to know her. So that time, it was hard, but it was special. You know, there was good in it, and I was really trying to focus on the good.
I'd been picking up extra shifts at work. I'd even missed a few days of school to work the day shift. My grades were slipping and I was barely getting any sleep. I hadn't spent a dime on anything that was an absolute necessity. And by the end of the month when the rent came due, I was still $19.83 short.
I'll never forget that number. I went into mama's room to let her know we still weren't gonna make the rent. I told her I'd call Claire and see if she'd wire us a little money. Mama sat straight up in a bed and said don't you call that woman and ask her for a thing. I said, why not?
You got money from her to help us get settled here. All we needed was $20. That was nothing to the Richardsons. I started to get up and call her anyway, but mama grabbed my arm and stopped me. She had this pitiful look on her face like she knew she was about to break my heart.
She said, Sylvia, baby, I've got something to tell you. She told me, Claire had given her that money to get me away from Tennessee, away from Charles. She didn't want her baby throwing his life away on a girl like me. So she gave mama enough money to set us up in Louisiana. She said she didn't want us coming back.
She said if I came up pregnant, we would handle it ourselves. She didn't wanna hear about it, and she didn't want Charles to know either. I felt like all the wind had been knocked out of me. Never in a million years did I see that coming. I had grown up in Claire's house.
She was like a second mother to me. She was stern and a little reserved, but I loved her. And I would have sworn she loved me too. Mama took my hand and said, baby, you need to put Charles out of your mind. Loving that boy ain't gonna be nothing but a heartache.
And I felt something change inside of me at that moment. I hate to say that now. I hate to admit that I let Claire affect me like that. But there was a bitterness that took root inside me that afternoon. And I grew up in a big way too because that's when I realized there was nobody in this world I could really count on but me.
I had to make sure mama and I were taken care of because if I didn't, who else would? No one was coming to save us. So the next morning, I went to work and took $20 out of the cash register. When I got off, I went and paid the rent. And we had a roof over our heads for another month.
I felt bad about it, of course, but I did what I had to do. I told myself when I had some extra money, I'd pay it back. That's how I justified it. You learn to justify things like that when you're desperate. Sometimes, doing the right thing can feel like a luxury you're not afforded.
JONI: It may sound trivial having all your friends move away as a teenager. I know some people think that's life. People move away, just make new friends. And I did. I did make new friends, but it wasn't the same.
The girls and I had more than a decade of history together. We were closer than sisters. I felt lost. And I think that's really what drew Russ and I together because in a lot of ways, he was going through the same thing. Russ and my youngest brother, Carl, were best friends.
Russ's father owned an auto repair shop, and Russ and Carl were always hanging out there. They would rebuild old junk cars and sell them for a profit. It was a hobby they had all through high school. The whole thing between Russ and I started because I had bought a car, and my brother was going to rebuild it for me. It was a '62 Impala Super Sport convertible, white with red interior.
It needed a lot of work. Actually, it was so damaged that Carl tried to talk me out of buying it. He said it would take too long to fix, but I had my heart set on it. I could just see myself driving around in that car. Eventually, I wore him down, and he agreed to it.
But then he got drafted, and he left for Vietnam before he could finish it. Russ volunteered to finish it while he was away. I was so excited about that car. I'd just sit down at the garage and watch while Russ worked. I tried to help out where Mostly, I'd just hand him tools and sing along to the radio.
CHARLES: The letters from Sylvia had slowed down. In the beginning, she was writing me every day, but it had gotten to the point where she was only writing maybe once a week, if that. I knew something was going on, but she wouldn't tell me what it was.
SYLVIA: I didn't know how to handle things with Charles after I found out what Claire had done. I wrote him so many letters telling him all about it, but I'd always tear them up. I couldn't send them.
CHARLES: She started saying things that scared me, saying she didn't think mama would want us together. She started mentioning the names of girls from church who she thought liked me. I thought, where is this coming from?
SYLVIA: I kept hearing mama's words in the back of my mind. Loving that boy ain't gonna be nothing but a heartache. I think I was trying to protect both of us.
CHARLES: I'd had a rough couple of days. I lost two good buddies of mine in a mortar attack. I did everything I could to save them, but I couldn't. I needed to talk to Sylvia. I needed to hear her voice.
So the first chance I got, I called her from the Mars Station.
SYLVIA: I was just leaving for work when the phone rang. The operator said she had a collect call from Charles in Vietnam. How could I say no? It was so good to hear his voice.
CHARLES: Your letters don't sound like you lately. Tell me what's going on. You got me worried sick out here.
SYLVIA: There's nothing going on. I've just been busy with mama and school and work. You got a job? Just part time at the grocery store down the street from my house. I'm just trying to help mama with the bills.
It's no big deal.
CHARLES: I asked her if she needed money. I told her I'd ask mama and daddy to send her some, but she cut me off before I could finish the sentence.
SYLVIA: No. No. No. No. Please.
Please don't ask them for anything. I've got it all covered. Promise me you won't ask them to send me money.
CHARLES: I asked her about the plans we had for when I got home. I wanted to make sure I hadn't lost her because I kept having this feeling in the pit of my stomach that she was slipping away.
SYLVIA: I didn't know what to say. I kept holding the line trying to find the words. I had made up my mind to let him go, but talking to him, hearing his voice brought back all the feelings I've been working to put aside. I couldn't let him go. I couldn't let Claire come between us.
And I said, I'll be here waiting on you when you get back. And then the operator cut us off.
JONI: I got off the school bus one Friday afternoon and my car was sitting in the driveway. Russ was behind the wheel with this big goofy smile on his face. He was practically giddy. He had the engine running and it sounded great. I mean, really great.
And the bodywork was flawless. It looked like it had just rolled off the showroom floor. He said, Get in. Let's take her for a spin. I said, Not a chance, buddy.
I'm driving. He laughed and slid over to the passenger side. I got behind the wheel and that's when it hit me. I had no idea what I was doing. I'd never actually driven a car before.
And this was a manual transmission, so fairly complicated for someone who has no idea what they're doing. I felt silly telling him I didn't know how to drive my own car, but he was cool about it. He said, no sweat. I'll teach you. We switched places, and he drove out to the country.
I think we ended up on the Natchez Trace Parkway. He said he wanted to put the car through its paces, really test everything out before he turned it over to me. So we get out there on the open road. He gives it the gas, and we're off like a rocket. The sun is shining.
We've got the top down. The radio blasting. The wind is blowing through our hair. It was it was good. It was a good time, and I needed that.
He pulled over after a little while, and I got behind the wheel. He walked me through what to do. It was a little rocky at first, but I got the hang of it. Russ said he was impressed by how quickly I caught on.
SYLVIA: That day at work the owner kept hanging around the front of the store. He was stacking cans of pinto beans by the entrance because they were on special that week. I thought it was strange because normally, that was the sort of thing he would have me doing. I kept waiting for him to go back to the stockroom because the rent was due again, and I I still needed $10 I've been working at the grocery store for three months, and I think I'd taken around $65 out of the register in total, plus a little bit of food when we really needed it. I don't remember the exact dollar amount it all came to, but I knew back then.
I knew it down to the penny because it was really eating at me. I kept it all written down in a tablet on my nightstand, and I promised myself I'd pay it all back over summer break when I was able to work more hours. Anyway, by the end of my shift that day, I had managed to get the money I needed for rent. I also grabbed a few cans of those beans for dinner. I clocked out, and I was just about to walk out that door when the owner stopped me.
He yanked my purse off my shoulder, started calling me a thief and a few other names I don't care to repeat. He found the pinto beans immediately, pulled the cans out of my purse right there in front of everyone. Everybody in the building was staring at me. People were coming out from the aisles to see what all the yelling was about. And he opened up my wallet.
All my rent money was in there and he took it, all of it. He said, taking my money back. I know you've been stealing from the register. He threw my purse at me and told me to get out of his store. I said, please, you can't take that money.
That's my rent. I told him my mother was sick and I was trying to keep a roof over our heads. He wasn't trying to hear it. He told me if I didn't get out of his sight by the time he counted the three, he was calling the police. I just walked out the door.
I didn't know what else to do. I wasn't gonna have him call the police on me making the situation worse. I held myself together until I got to the parking lot, and then I burst into tears. A man followed me out of the store. He was calling after me, but I I kept walking.
I was already humiliated, and I didn't want anyone seeing me cry. He caught up to me, caught me by the arm and he said, you're Marie Laurent's daughter, ain't you? I've never seen this man in my life. I had no idea who he was. Eddie Barnes, that was his name.
He told me that he and my mother were good friends. He said he could tell I was her daughter because I looked just like her. I remember he had on this paisley button down shirt tucked into polyester bell bottoms. He had a big afro on a goatee, big gold chain around his neck. He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and it was fat with cash.
I had never seen that much money at one time. He asked me if I needed some money and he started thumbing through some of them bills. I didn't say anything. I just stood there looking at it. He started to pull a few hundreds out, then he changed his mind.
He said, let me take you to the store. We'll get you what you need and anything you want. He took off walking toward his car, this white GTO parked on the side of the road. He didn't even look back. He was so confident I'd follow after the way he flashed all that cash at me.
But I just stood there, it was like I couldn't get my feet to move. Everything inside of me was saying don't even mess with this man. When he got to his car, he looked at me and he said, you coming? The idea that this man would take me to buy whatever we needed at the store was so enticing. There was so much that mama and I needed, So much we've been doing without.
I thought if we could just get a few of those things, I could breathe a little easier until I found another job. And he was my mother's friend, so I figured I could trust him. I got into his car, and he took me to the grocery store across town. We must have had five or six bags full of groceries when we left that store. I felt like I'd won the lottery.
Mama and I had never had that much food in the house. I got t bone steaks and even a gallon of ice cream. I couldn't wait to get home and show mama everything I got. On the way home, Eddie turned onto the wrong street. I told him he was going the wrong way, but he said he needed to stop at his place first.
When we pulled up to his house, he asked me to come inside. Said there was something else he wanted to give me. I was hesitant, but at that point, we'd spent over an hour together and he'd been so nice. He seemed harmless. I thought he was a good guy.
I thought he was trying to help me. I was young and still naive in so many ways. We went inside and I don't even think he got the front door closed before he had his hands on me. I told him to stop and he said, just bought you all those things at that store. You didn't think all that was free, did you?
I pushed him away. I told him, I said, you can keep it then. Just take me home. He said, baby, it don't work like that. You heard the tune.
Now you gotta pay the piper. He was so pushy and so intimidating. I had just turned 17. He must have been 35, 40, maybe a little older. He took me back to his bedroom through this beaded curtain thing that hung over the door.
I remember there was this big velvet painting of a tiger on the wall beside the bed. The whole place reeked of incense and reefer. We laid down on his bed and I'll spare you the play by play, but he got what he wanted. I'll leave it at that.
JONI: Russ and I had been out driving the car for an hour or so. We stopped at the gas station. I went inside and grabbed a couple bottles of Coke, and Russ stayed outside and talked to the attendant. Afterwards, we drove back to my place. I felt mostly like I lived alone by that point.
My dad was always gone working. My oldest brothers were married and living out of town. The two youngest were in Vietnam. I knew no one would be home, and I wanted to thank Russ for all the work he had done on the car. I said, Why don't you come in and I'll grill us some hamburgers?
He liked that idea. So we went inside and he fired up the grill while I got the burgers ready. I put a new record on and turned it all the way up. I cracked open one of my dad's beers and took a drink then gave it to Russ to finish. And we were just having a good time, real laid back.
That's how it always was with Russ, comfortable and easy. He was a simple guy. He never had a whole lot to say, but he was just easy to be around. At one point, he went out to check the burgers and I was in the kitchen getting the condiments out of the refrigerator. Russ came back in carrying the burgers on a plate, and he was grinning at the way I was bopping around to the music.
I remember he called me a cutie. And then he just stops walking. A smile slips from his face and he turns white as a ghost. He's staring past me, looking out the kitchen window. I turn around to see what he's looking at and two military officers in their dress uniforms are walking towards the door.
I was instantly sick. I knew what it meant when soldiers came knocking on your door. We both did. The doorbell rang and Russ and I locked eyes. We were just standing there, frozen, afraid to move.
Like if we were still enough, the officers would just go away and the news they'd come to deliver wouldn't be true. I said, you answer it. I can't do it. Russ took my hand and we went to the door together.
SYLVIA: Eddie Barnes was a pimp. He told me that when we got back in the car. He told me he could show me how to make a lot of money if I come work for him. I said I wasn't interested. I told him I just wanted to go home while I still had one to go to.
He asked me how much I needed for rent and I told him. He shook his head and laughed like it was nothing. He said, a girl like you, you can make that by the end of the night. And that got my attention. I knew the grocery store owner was gonna be spreading it to all the businesses in town that I was a thief.
That was one of the threats he made while he was berating me in front of all them customers. And Lord knew the customers would be spreading it even if he didn't. Nobody was gonna hire me after all that. And even if I did manage to get another job right away, it would take me at least a month to make enough money to pay that rent. By that time, we'd already be evicted.
And here Eddie was, telling me I could have it all taken care of by the end of the day. He said he'd teach me everything I needed to know, and he'd make sure I stayed safe. He made it sound so simple, so easy. But that wasn't how he got me. Not really.
What got me was when he said, your mama's been working all these years to take care of you. Now she needs you to take care of her. You're not gonna let her go without, are you? I wanted mama to be okay, you know. She was in so much pain a lot of the time.
Anything I could do to alleviate some of that, to give her a good life for however long she had left, She deserved that. Her whole life had been a struggle, and I felt like a big part of that was because of me. She was 15 when she had me, and she raised me on her own. I can't even imagine the sacrifices she had to make. So what was I gonna do?
Let her get tossed out on the streets when she was too sick to get out of bed most days? Let her die in some women's shelter. No. She deserved better than that. I started working that same evening.
Eddie drove me out to one of those ornate mansions in the Garden District, told me to wait in a car, and he went inside and arranged the deal. It came out maybe ten, fifteen minutes later, and he told me what to do. Everything happening so fast that day. I didn't have time to really think about what was going on. I was just reacting.
I sometimes wonder if maybe I'd had a night to sleep on it, if maybe I would have taken some time to think, Maybe my whole life would have turned out differently. But I was was panicked and I made some bad choices. You can get lost thinking about what might have been if you'd done things differently and ultimately none of it matters. You can't change what's done.
JONI: We lost Carl. His helicopter got shot down over Saigon. I don't remember much of what the officer said. Everything was a blur after he told us Carl had been killed. When the officers left, I called around to a few recording studios where my dad typically worked.
I tracked him down in Memphis and told him the news. I called my brothers. Russ sat by me the whole time rubbing my back while I rehashed the details again and again. It was late by the time I finished making all the calls. Russ said he needed to get back to his place and I didn't want to be alone.
I said, no, stay, stay with me. And he did. Russ put his feet up on the coffee table and leaned back on the sofa. I got him another beer and put a new record on, cuddled up beside him. He put his arm around me and we sat like that for the longest time, passing the beer bottle back and forth, not saying a word, just lost in thought, listening to records.
We were heartbroken. We'd lost a brother. Both of us had.
SYLVIA: At the end of the night, Eddie drove me home. We stopped in front of my house, and he pulled out a wad of cash, all the money I'd made that night. It was more than enough to cover the rent. He peeled off $220 bills and handed them to me. And I said, wait, wait, what's this?
Give me my money. He said, that is your money. I told him I wanted all of it. And he he just laughed. He said, you're so green.
I'm running a business here, and that takes money. You work for me. I take a cut of what you make, and you get a cut. That's how this works. And I said, you you told me I would be able to make rent tonight.
I'm gonna get evicted. He said, I'll handle your landlord. You'll be caught up in a few days. Trust me. You're not gonna have to worry about rent anymore.
Then he said, take your bags in, and I'll pick you up around noon tomorrow. Later, I was in the kitchen unloading the groceries, mama came out of the bedroom. She was wearing the old blue bathroom she always had on. I will never forget the way her eyes lit up when she saw all those bags of groceries on the counter. She said, what's all this?
I started showing her everything I got. But somewhere around the third bag, she didn't look so happy anymore. She got she got real serious. And she says, Sylvia, where did you get the money for all this? I didn't want to answer, but she kept insisting.
So I told her I got a different job. She said, what job did you get making this kind of money in one day? I just looked at her and I saw it. The moment she realized what I'd done, I saw the horror on her face. She just knew.
She started picking things up off the counter and shoving them back into the bag saying, no, no, no, no, you have to take all this back right now. Take it back. I said, mama, it's already done. And she just broke, collapsed against the counter and started sobbing. I helped her back to bed.
Remember walking out of her bedroom, close on the door. And I could still hear her crying. She kept saying, not my baby, not my baby. I leaned back against the door and sank to the floor. And I wanted to cry too, but I couldn't.
I couldn't. It was like there was nothing inside me. I felt completely numb. But months, it had been one thing after another, one trauma after another. And I think I just shut down to protect myself, you know?
And sitting there at mama's store, I knew if I let myself fall apart in that moment, if I sat there and allowed myself to be swept up in my emotions, we weren't gonna make it. I couldn't think about it, couldn't deal with it. I just had to keep going. I had to be strong for myself and for mama. So I got up off the floor and I went into the kitchen and I finished putting the groceries away.
By that time, the steaks were warm, my ice cream was melted. I threw more than half of the food away. And then I took a long hot shower and went to bed. The next day, Eddie picked me up and I went back to work.
CHARLES: If you wanna let go of that gun in your hand, if you wanna know the hollers of the wasteland, Make yourself low. Buy you a lantern so you can wrestle with the angels while you're still bleeding. Carry the water. Listen to the melodies. Make yourself a lover of the mysteries.
CREDITS: Higher Grounds is a Yellabird Media production written and produced by Kimberly Conway. Is speaker Sound The design and mixing by Yellowbird the Media. Mixing and mastering by Rick Such. The theme song, Everything Changes, by Laura Jane Jones, is available now on Apple Music and Spotify. Higher Grounds is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is purely coincidental. This podcast is intended for entertainment purposes only.