John Pelham Black

A Los Alamos family! We were like every other happy Los Alamos family – unhappy in our own way. My mother, the brilliant, beaming center of it all! My father was brilliant too, ambitious but overshadowed by the Justice, fascinated by atomic science but ignorant of it, a gifted clumsy seeker, searching to make his mark. The eldest child, talented and unmoored at eight, already off the rails, was hurtling toward the cognitive abyss. The second, full of bullying fueled by grievance, later subdued to crushing gentle restraint, is now dead. My sister, beleaguered by brothers, is now a sparkling poet and tells her own story with crystal clarity. My youngest brother has turned away from me, not sure to what or when or if he will engage again. Then there is me, big saucer eyes, culturally void, I watched it all billow up in sensual mushroom clouds about me. So, now I see, “to survive, we must tell stories.” – and make pictures.