A Ticket to the Circus

by Norris Church Mailer

  Now Norman Mailer was in Russellville! I called Francis and asked if I could stop by the party, just for a few minutes to get my book signed, and he said no, that he didn’t want to bother Norman with that fan crap. Fig never minced words. One always knew exactly what he thought.

  “Oh, come on, Francis,” I said. “Don’t be like that. I’ll leave it in the car and won’t bring it in if it doesn’t seem right. I just want to meet him.”

  I had heard over and over from Francis what a genius Norman was and I figured I’d never have another opportunity to meet a famous writer. I had aspirations to write myself. Maybe he could give me some tips or something. So, reluctantly, Francis said I could come. Since they had all been in the war, I knew Norman was as old as my father (in fact, he was one year older), just as Francis was, not to mention that Norman had been married a bunch of times and had a lot of kids. The last thing on my mind was romance, I swear. I was just going to stay for a minute to see if he minded signing the book, and maybe have a teensy little conversation with him. I didn’t even bother to change. I was wearing bell-bottom hip-hugger jeans and a soft cotton voile shirt tied at the waist, showing a bit of my belly button. I was also wearing huge platform shoes called Bare Traps that made me about six feet one. (I’m five feet ten in stocking feet.)

  I was a little nervous when I walked in, realizing that everyone else was dressed up, and I wished I had gone home and changed. And then I saw Norman. He was sitting in front of the window, his curly, silver-shot hair lit by the sun as though he had a halo. (Saint Norman!) Amazingly, he was also wearing jeans, the most patched jeans I had ever seen in my life. There were patches on top of the patches. In fact, they were nothing but patches. His clear blue eyes lit up when he saw me. He had broad shoulders, a rather large head (presumably to hold all those brains) with ears that stuck out like Clark Gable’s, and he was chesty, but not fat, like a sturdy small horse. (I once drew him as a centaur, which delighted him.) He didn’t look old at all. Nor the least bit fatherly.

  Me in the outfit I wore the day I met Norman.

  He stood straightaway, came over to me, and to his surprise had to look up into my face. He always said he was five eight, but I personally think he was a hair under that, and I towered over him in my platform shoes. I introduced myself, we shook hands, and then he turned on his heel and walked out of the room. I was a little taken aback, but I figured he must have had a thing about tall women, so I just sighed and decided not to go out to the car and get my book.

  I knew everyone there—all the English faculty, the men dressed in coats and ties, the women in little dresses or suits with tidy bows on their blouses and sensible low heels. Someone handed me a glass of white wine, and I started talking to Van. Then Francis came over and said, “Stay after the party and go out to Van and Ginnie’s for dinner with us.”

  “Ginnie’s making pizza,” Van said. “Why don’t you come?”

  “Thanks, guys, but I think that’s a bad idea,” I said. “I don’t think Mr. Mailer liked me much.”

  “Liked you?” Francis said in his gravelly voice, full of displeasure. “Hell, he’s the one who wants you to go, not me!”

  I didn’t know why he was being so grumpy to me. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he was jealous over Norman, that Francis was angry that Norman liked me and didn’t want to share him or something. Anyhow, I didn’t care. The fact that Norman wanted me to go out with them was a nice surprise.

  The women teachers were all atwitter because Norman had brought along another pair of jeans just like the ones he was wearing, or even worse, which needed another patch, and they were all taking turns sewing on them, so pleased with themselves to be able to say “I sewed Norman Mailer’s pants!”

  But there was no sign of the great man. I guessed he was still in the kitchen, for whatever reason. I couldn’t believe he was that shy. I went and sat on a low couch by myself, and finally Norman appeared. We looked at each other and I smiled. I patted the seat beside me, and he came and sat down while the other women gave me the evil eye, looking at me as though I was the hussy I was.

  I don’t remember the conversation we had on that couch—something trivial, I’m sure—but I do remember the intensity of his blue eyes, and his charisma—not unlike Bill Clinton’s. He concentrated on me, that’s for sure, and he radiated energy like a little steam heater. He couldn’t sit still. Then, too soon, Francis came and got him so he could talk to the others, fearing I had trapped him long enough.

  After a while, people started to go, but I stayed put. Another teacher had just polished off her fourth glass of wine and was determined to wait me out. We chitchatted until everyone else had gone, and then, in an awkward silence, knowing she had to go, she grabbed me by the arm and started pulling me toward the door.

  “Come on!” she said. “They need us to leave so they can go to dinner!”

  “I’m going with them,” I said.

  “Oh, no, you’re not!” she countered, pulling harder.

  Thank goodness I was bigger, because she was determined to haul me out of there.

  Ecey, bless her, stepped in and explained that I had been invited, so all the poor thing could do was sadly turn and leave on her own, weaving a little as she walked down the driveway. Norman and I piled into the backseat of the car with Francis and Ecey and headed to Van and Ginnie’s house in the woods.

  As we drove, we were chatting, getting to know each other, and Norman asked me when my birthday was.

  “January thirty-first,” I said, “1949,” which made me twenty-six. He got all excited and started pounding on Fig’s arm.

  “Fig! Fig! When’s my birthday?”

  “Well, Norman, don’t you know?” Fig drawled in a voice that indicated he thought Norman might have had one drink too many.

  “It’s January thirty-first! We have the same birthday!” He was beside himself. It turned out that we’d also been born within one minute of each other, he at 7:04 and me at 7:05 A.M. I later checked it with his mother. A mother always remembers exactly when her child was born. He was also fifty-two, precisely twice my age, the only time that phenomenon would occur in our lifetimes. It seemed like some big portent had just been swooped in and dropped onto us by twittering birds.

  Van and Ginnie’s house was built over a brook, and as soon as we got there, Norman and I went out onto the porch to take a look. The woods, with the brook gurgling underneath our feet, were magical. It was so beautiful and peaceful. The air was sweet and fresh with the smell of pines, and dragonflies flitted under the little stone waterfalls in the brook like fairies.

  We were at first shy with each other, and I still had those monster shoes on, but it didn’t seem to matter to Norman. He rather liked it that I was tall, and years later he would make me put on high heels if I tried to go out in flats.

  “Put on your big shoes. I’m not going to have people towering over you!” he would say.

  The rest of the lucky dinner guests were milling around in the kitchen, which had a beautiful stone fireplace, watching us through the window, waiting for him to come in and talk to them. But Norman was in no hurry, and neither was I. I had wanted an intellectual man who would talk to me, and I finally got one. Norman could go on for hours on almost any subject, and this time it was one of my favorites—me. He rhapsodized about my eyes, my hair, my skin, my nose. Finally it got to be a touch too much, even for me. I had to cut him off.

  “Well, you really know how to deliver a good line, Mr. Mailer,” I said with an exaggerated Southern accent. “But that’s all right. I’ve always bought a good line, well presented.”

  He roared with laughter, hugged me, and told me how marvelous I was. I had the passing thought that with that one remark, I had, perhaps, made a not necessarily small impression on him.

  I did have to bring up the marriage thing, though. I wasn’t going to get tangled up with a married man. (Little did I know just what a tangle I would find myself in.) He presented himself as separated
from his wife, which was technically true, and it was only later in the evening that I learned he was separated from his fourth wife, Beverly, but not quite separated from his present companion, Carol, and they had a daughter, Maggie, who had just turned four, six months older than Matthew. Since I thought I would never see him again anyhow, separated from a legal wife was good enough for a flirt, especially such an enjoyable one.

  Finally, someone tentatively came to the door and asked us if we wanted any pizza. There were only a couple of leathery cold pieces left by that time, so we went in and ate them, and he talked to the rest of the patient group. It got to be nine-thirty, and I told Van I had to leave to go pick up Matthew, who was at his father’s house, by ten. My plan was for Van to drive me to Francis and Ecey’s. I would get my car, pick up Matthew, and go home. I’m sure by this time everyone wished me gone. I’d monopolized the guest of honor much too long for their taste, especially Francis’s. But Norman had other ideas. His plan was for him to drive me to Larry’s, pick up Matthew, and come back to the party.

  He drove, and I sat across the bench seat next to the door, not too close to him. We pulled into Larry’s yard, and I went to the door to get Matthew, who was sound asleep. I carried him to the car, and Norman got out and took him, holding him while I drove, since he didn’t know his way around those country roads in the dark. Watching him hold my sleeping boy touched me.

  We went back to Van and Ginnie’s, and I put Matthew to bed in the guest room. I don’t remember how it came up, but someone there knew how to do tai chi, so we all did it. I was my usual clumsy self, which Norman thought was endearing. That night, it seemed I could do no wrong.

  Finally we left, Matt still completely snozzed out, and Norman asked Fig and Ecey if he could drop them off, borrow their car, and follow me home. I think at this point they were both beginning to worry a bit, about whom I’m not quite sure, but they had to say yes.

  I’d never before had a man over while Matthew was in the house. I put Matt to bed and then we went into the living room, where I offered Norman a glass of Boone’s Farm’s finest apple wine (I think it was a bottle, but it might have been a box), which I’m sure appalled him, but I didn’t know that then. We talked for another hour or more, about my desire to write, my marriage, and my divorce, and then he began to tell me about his life, his five wives and seven children. (He referred to Carol, his present companion, as his wife. They had been living together for five years, and had a child, after all.)

  He told me how he hadn’t lied to me when he’d said he was separated, but he was in a place where he was being pulled in a lot of different directions. He then told me about another woman—I’ll call her Annette—with whom he had been having a serious affair for several years and who was pressuring him to leave Carol for her. He didn’t want to live with Annette, and in fact really wanted to break it off with her, but he didn’t want to hurt her, so he had suggested that they not see each other for six months while he had time to think things through. He felt he was already half separated from Carol, living two weeks in New York in an apartment in Brooklyn, which he used as a writing studio, seeing Annette and various other “other” women, and then spending two weeks with Carol and Maggie in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He’d been continuously married or living with five women in succession, each waiting in the wings to take over from her predecessor, since he was twenty years old—something else we had in common, our marriages at twenty.

  It was all rather overwhelming, but I appreciated his honesty. I told him that the last thing on my mind was getting married again, after being with the same man since I was sixteen years old, and so we understood each other. At least I thought we did. That this was just a pleasant evening, an interlude in his lecture tour, was the unspoken meaning of it all. He said I was the nicest woman he had ever met, which I thought was just more of the line, but he might have meant it, at least a little; he said it a lot over the years, sometimes behind my back.

  Then he leaned over and kissed me, at first just a casual, exploratory kiss; but the kiss ignited, and I knew I was going to make love with him. He was leaving the next day, I would never see him again, and I at least wanted to be able to say I’d done that, even if I hadn’t been able to ask him to sign my book (which was still in the car). But I didn’t want to go to the bedroom; too close to Matthew. I didn’t want Matt to wake up and be scared by voices or strange sounds. So we did it on the living room floor. (Why did I always seem to wind up on the floor?)

  It was a bit of a comedy, actually. I was jumpy and nervous trying not to make noise, listening for Matthew to wake up, and it was awkward and uncomfortable. I wouldn’t fully undress or allow him to, as Matthew might walk in, and I was getting rug burns on my back. Finally, it wasn’t that great. How could it have been? But then there are few great ones on the first try. Most guys never get near to great under any circumstance. Afterward, I was sorry we had done it, and I think he was, too. It was a slight downer to a magical evening for both of us, but he held me sweetly, and I felt close to him. As he was getting ready to leave, I thought once more about asking him if he would sign my Marilyn book, but after what had just happened, I couldn’t. It would have been tacky. I’m glad I waited. It wasn’t until the next February, when I was living with him in New York, that he finally signed it. The inscription read:

  To Barbara

  Because I knew when I wrote this book that someone I had not yet met would read it and be with me. Hey, Baby, do you know how I love Barbara Davis and Norris Church?

  Norman, Feb ’76

  Fourteen

  I couldn’t wait to tell Jean Jewell, my earth mother friend who lived down the street, that I’d made love (what a strange expression for an intimate act with someone you hardly know!) with Norman Mailer. She was thrilled and wanted details, which I gladly supplied, and what particularly interested her was the fact that Norman and I had the same birthday, down to almost the same minute. She had a friend who did astrological charts, and immediately after she hung up with me she called the friend to get our charts done.

  Among other things, the friend told her that Norman was going to die in 1978. This, as you remember, was 1975. That’s why I have been leery of astrologers and seers and psychics ever since. I don’t want to hear bad news. I was, of course, aghast at the prediction and didn’t know whether I believed it or not. I read my horoscopes in the newspapers every day but had never taken them seriously. We tend to remember only the ones that come true. Still, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. I decided to forget it, but that was not to be so easy. Especially when 1978 rolled around. But that was three years away.

  Norman had given me an address to write to, a post office box, which made me feel kind of sleazy. I was sure I wasn’t the only woman writing to that box number. I worried over whether I should write to him at all, given his entanglements, but I didn’t feel like I was breaking up a marriage. I didn’t even know which marriage was there to be broken up, but whichever one (or two) it was, he made it clear it was broken before I came on the scene and wouldn’t last whether I was in the picture or not. The bigger problem was that I didn’t want to be just one of the harem, like with Bill Clinton, although it was way too soon to be thinking of being part of a harem or part of anything with Norman.

  So between not wanting to tell him I had told Jean about our encounter (who then told some astrologist, who predicted he would be dead in three years) and trying not to assume a relationship where none existed, although still wanting to have some kind of one, I frankly didn’t know what to say to him. “Thanks for a lovely evening”? “Glad to have met you”? “My rug burns have healed”? But he was easily the most interesting man I had ever met, and in spite of his age and his convoluted personal life, I did want to get to know him better, no matter where it led, if anywhere.

  I finally decided to send him a little poem I had written, one that I thought said nicely that he was great but I understood ours was a romance that was not to be. I’d actual
ly written the poem for John Cool, who used to write me poetry, but what the heck. It was the seventies, and I was much influenced by Rod McKuen. And why waste a perfectly good poem? It’s so bad that I blush with embarrassment to recount it here, but it’s a part of our history, so please be kind.

  ODE TO A FIRST ENCOUNTER

  You were there and

  I was there

  in a pocket

  of sunshine

  in a vacuum of space.

  You poured your soul

  into me

  and I took it

  knowing full well

  I could not contain it.

  And it was gone,

  leaving me alone.

  But I dared not follow,

  lest I lose my own soul

  and be lost forever

  in a pocket of sorrow

  in a vacuum of space.

  What was I thinking? Obviously, I wasn’t.

  But he wrote back to me:

  STOCKBRIDGE, MA

  MAY 12, 1975

  Dear Barbara,

  Your poem was waiting when I got back, and I would have written to you then, but there wasn’t a moment to think and some work to get out, and I thought I’d wait until things were quieter and there was time to write a decent letter.

  But no, it’s the other way and things are in a rush and if I keep waiting, another couple of weeks will go by. So this is just to tell you a few things.

  (1) You were an oasis on a long trip

  (2) Your poem was sad, and it was true—I knew what you were saying to me, and when we see each other again, maybe we can leave you with a somewhat different poem. I have to go to Denver for the Memorial Day weekend, May 24–26, and if you’d like I think I could stop off in Little Rock on the way back. Could you take off a day to meet me there or could you possibly stay overnight? I haven’t said a word to Fig or Ecey that I might be in the area because we’d only have a day, and I don’t want to share it. Depending on whether I do a lecture in the west or not, I’d be coming by somewhere between Tuesday May 27 and Thursday May 29.