his sadness, his solitude, his emotional pain, and knew it was dark and ran very deep. I also believed that he would never speak or share that secret pain with anyone, personally or professionally, and that was the saddest reality of all for me. When I left him a year and a half after my arrival, I was less certain about the man than when I had first arrived.
As the end of my enlistment was approaching, I was assigned to the Mobile Construction Battalion of Seabees stationed out of Port Hueneme in Ventura, California. I had become my mother's son rather than my father's. Maybe it was the thirsty Irish genes that had played themselves out during her long binges while I was growing up, or maybe I simply learned to drink by example. But drink I did, and lots of it. 'Johnnie Walker' became my new best friend.
Through alcohol, I had come to understand my mother better. It was as if I had met the enemy and she was me. So I joined her. With money in my pockets, I stood the two of us our daily ration of booze: 'I'll have a fifth of Johnnie Walker, Black Label, Mom, and here, get yourself a bottle of whatever.'
This was a new twist to the family relationship. With her son drinking, Mother actually became more relaxed and downright temperate for a short period. Now it was I, not Mother, who was out of control and excessive. Older brother Michael didn't drink, just shook his head at me, and kept on reading his beloved books. Michael Hodel would one day become one of the stalwart radio announcers on L.A.'s KPFK-FM, with his own sci-fi program,
During my thirty-day leave, Mother, in good spirits one afternoon, turned to me and said, 'Steven, let's go to a real Hollywood party tonight. I haven't been to one in years. It will be like the old days. I have a friend who called and invited us. It's at her home in the hills. She's an actress and knows a lot of the Hollywood people from the studios. It should be fun.'
I was in a good mood myself that afternoon, and up for some fun, so I needed no convincing. What I found at that home that night was far more than I bargained for. In fact, it would change my life.
*Hortensia Laguda Hodel Starke in the early 1960s obtained a divorce from Father through papal dispensation, remarried, and in the 1980s would be elected to the Philippine Congress, representing the people of Negros Occidental (in the southern Philippines), where she owned and operated a 450-acre sugar plantation.
10
Kiyo
I have very few memories of what went on at the party in the Hollywood Hills that afternoon, because whoever I met and whatever I saw was erased by the presence of Amilda Kiyoko Tachibana Mclntyre, known to her friends as Kiyo. Kiyo was a beautiful Eurasian. With her round face, onyx eyes, and straight jet-black hair that flowed like a waterfall to just below her tight buttocks, she was irresistible magic to a sailor newly home on leave.
Kiyo had been a singer and a dancer and had performed in several feature films. She also taught piano and, in the years before the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, was an astrologer to many entertainers and other show- business personalities. She was thirty, sophisticated, smart, eloquent, and she knew from the moment I walked through her front door and our eyes met that I was a goner. We engaged in small talk as she deftly fended off the attentions of other guests. Then, as the afternoon wore on and guests began to leave, we found ourselves touching one another and finding excuses to cross one another's paths in parts of her house where no one else would disturb us. Maybe there were others looking at us, but it seemed as if Kiyo and I had been transported to a world of our own. My mother left the party, but I remained behind, transfixed by Kiyo's beauty and apparent interest in me and determined to find out more about her. She was the most enchanting person I had ever met.
I stayed with her that night, and through the weekend. I couldn't get enough of her. For the first time in my life I was in love. Sunday morning she served hot tea, fresh fruit, and homemade pastries, and her eyes shone as she spoke. 'I did your chart last night,' she said as she poured the tea. 'You are a Scorpio and Taurus is your rising sign.' I smiled back at her. 'No,' I answered. '
She laughed. 'Yes, well, there's that, too. But seriously, Steven, you have an amazing chart. You will make lots of money in real estate and you will —' She paused as I touched her arm. 'Kiyo, I don't know anything about that stuff,' I said. 'And, to be honest, I don't care about it. All I care about is you and me. I've never known anyone like you, and I love the way I feel when I'm with you.' Her voice turned serious. 'You must not tell anyone about us, not your mother, not your brothers, no one. Understand?'
I shook my head. 'Why?' I asked, without really wanting to know the truth. 'Are you married or something?'
'No,' she said. 'It's just that you must promise me you will not say anything to anyone about us. Promise me that. Give me your word of honor.' I gave her my word.
While I agonized over the slow passing of the final months before my military discharge, I also discovered that Kiyo was a very assertive person. She had an in-your-face attitude that had begun to set off my warning bells. But I ignored them, because I told myself that I was in love. Unbeknownst to me, Kiyo had driven up to the Navy base, demanded to see my C.O., told him we were getting married, and asked him if it would be possible for me to get an early discharge in July. She said she wanted me to start college in late August. 'You said
'Oh,' she answered. 'It's just my Leo way. I have six planets in Leo, so sometimes I get a bit pushy, but it's not really me.'
But it really was. The following weekend, at her insistence, we drove to the nearest state where we could marry without parental consent because I was still a minor: I wouldn't be twenty-one for another four months. I hadn't told my mother about Kiyo, nor had I made any contact with my brothers. I had simply dropped out of sight to be with Kiyo. I ignored my instincts, which kept shouting, 'Careful! Wait!' I also ignored my emotions when I found myself eyeing lasciviously the person who was performing our one-witness marriage ceremony — Miss Idaho of 1954. She had gone on from winning her state's beauty pageant to become a justice of the peace in Twin Falls, Idaho. On our drive back we stopped overnight at
Yosemite National Park and stood out near the edge of the high ridge, embracing each other, looking exactly like newlyweds should.
An old man watching us, who looked as if he'd been prospecting in the surrounding mountains since the Gold Rush of 1849, said to me, 'You be careful, son. In another two years, she'll be pushing you off the edge of that cliff.' Kiyo and I turned around as he walked silently away. I looked at her and teased, 'Nice guy. He must be a pushy
