by Wally Lamb
“Ah, yes. They were happy to undermine the career of a woman who dared to play by the same rules as the men in the business and, worst of all, succeed.”
“I suppose the exception was Hitler’s fair-haired filmmaker, Miss Riefenstahl,” Bergman’s ghost muses. “He was her patron, she was his muse. Of course, she was making propaganda, not art.”
“Yes, but it was artful propaganda. I’ll give Leni that much. She pioneered the tracking shot in Olympia and did impressive work with her slow-motion shots as well. As a director, she was quite technically adroit.”
“Indeed. Nevertheless, you cannot overlook the fact that she was complicit in the atrocities being orchestrated inside the camps, despite her insistence that she was ignorant of those horrors. I saw her just last week at the MGM reunion, and she was still proclaiming her innocence. It’s really quite tiresome.”
“And not at all convincing,” Lois adds. “Leni’s directorial skills far exceeded her skills as an actress playing the role of the wide-eyed naïf.”
Wow! I could listen to their banter for hours, but Lois taps her cane against the floor. “Well, down to business,” she says. “Perhaps, Felix, you are wondering why I have asked Ingrid to reprise her role as Sister Benedict for your edification. My thinking is that, since you were taught by nuns as a child and since Ingrid played one in The Bells of St. Mary’s, it would be appropriate to have her give you the following presentation.”
I look from one ghost to the other. “What kind of presentation?”
“Well, today you will revisit your life in the year 1965. And so, I thought it might be fruitful to offer you some context: what was happening in the news at the time, and in the popular culture—that sort of thing. After which, we shall examine some specifics in the life of twelve-year-old Felix Funicello. Shall we begin?”
“I guess.” Something tells me I don’t really have a choice.
“Splendid. Please proceed then, Sister Benedict.”
“With pleasure.” Bergman’s ghost steps behind a podium that has somehow materialized. Downstairs, the curtain rises, the screen descends, and images begin flickering. The houselights dim and the screen fills with newsreel shots: frenzy on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, a joint session of Congress, elderly people at some sort of clinic.
“It’s autumn—the first of November, to be exact,” Bergman says. “When economists look back on this year, they will regard it as one of the country’s best in terms of inflation-free growth and economic equity. Politically speaking, this is an era when Congress gets things accomplished through bipartisan cooperation. Medicare and Medicaid were signed into law earlier this year. And congressional cooperation has forced the tobacco industry to begin printing warnings on cigarette packs about the hazards of smoking. But in terms of world politics, there is trouble.”
The film cuts abruptly to a rice paddy being strafed with machine gun fire, American soldiers tramping along a jungle path, a village of thatched huts in flames.
“The U.S.’s effort to contain Communism in Vietnam is reaching the boiling point, and the protest movement is gaining momentum in response to President Johnson’s order that an additional fifty thousand American troops are to be sent into what will later be seen as a political quagmire. Some veterans of this divisive war will return unscathed. Others will suffer psychological and physical disabilities, from having witnessed or participated in traumatic events to having ingested Agent Orange. The unluckiest will end up as homeless drug addicts, MIAs, or names carved into that black wall of sorrow down there in Washington,” she says. As if on cue, the film shows somber visitors at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I have to catch my breath when the camera zooms in for a close-up of one of those names on the wall: Stanley T. Wierzbicki. My mind flashes back to our former neighbor, running after my sisters and me as we walk down Herbert Hoover Avenue, begging to be included.
The film shifts to black-and-white footage of the civil rights struggle. “Betty Shabazz’s heart was broken in February when her husband, Malcolm X, was shot dead at a speaking event in Harlem. The assassination was followed by rioting and looting. But there have been victories as well as setbacks this year. The Selma-to-Montgomery marches convince LBJ to ask Congress to pass a sweeping voting rights bill. ‘We shall overcome,’ the president says, and with that first-person plural pronoun, he aligns himself with the cause of justice. The Voting Rights Act becomes law in August.”
From behind me, I hear the tapping of a cane. Ever the directress, Lois is still in charge. Sister Benedict looks past me, nods, and clears her throat. “This presentation will now conclude with a silent montage depicting popular culture,” she says. On the screen, in rapid succession, the great Sandy Koufax winds up for a pitch, the Celtics’ Bill Russell sinks one from downtown, Gale Sayers scores a touchdown for the Bears, and Cassius Clay KOs Sonny Liston. I catch glimpses of popular TV shows (The Munsters, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) and long-forgotten commercials (Mr. Whipple squeezing the Charmin, Josephine the Plumber hawking Comet). The Beatles fly by, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan. The screen flashes scenes from that year’s biggest films: Dr. Zhivago, Thunderball, The Sound of Music.
“Hey, even my parents went to see that last one,” I tell Bergman’s ghost. “Ma kept hounding Pop to take her until he finally surrendered. When they got home, he said the next time she wanted to see a bunch of screech-owl nuns singing, he’d take her to High Mass at St. Aloysius.”
Sister Benedict puts her hands on her hips, feigning insult at this swipe against nuns. Then she laughs and looks back at her director. “Is that a wrap?”
“Yes, thanks ever so much, my dear,” Lois tells her. “You’re free to return now.”
Bergman’s ghost waves goodbye and begins to fade. “Great to meet you!” I call to her diminishing figure. She smiles. Curtsies. And then she’s gone.
Lois approaches. “So there’s your macro-tutorial of 1965, Felix. Now tell me who you were then.”
“Who I was? I don’t know. There’s not that much to tell.”
She frowns. “That’s not an answer. It’s an evasion.”
Sheesh, here she goes with the therapist talk again. “Well, let me think. I was twelve. Still tying double knots in my shoelaces, if I recall.” I smile; she doesn’t. “And, let’s see. As you know, I was in parochial school. Our class was getting ready to make our confirmation that year so that, according to the nuns, we could become ‘soldiers in Christ’s army.’ Which was a pretty truculent way of putting it, now that I think about it. I mean, they were also telling us that Jesus was the Prince of Peace.”
“What else can you tell me about that time in your life, Felix?”
I shrug. “Are you looking for something specific?” She shrugs back. “Well, I collected baseball cards. I had a signed card from Ron Swoboda. He played left field for the Mets. . . . And, uh, I watched a lot of TV back then.”
She looks unimpressed. “What about books? Were you a reader?”
“Not especially. Oh. There was this one book I liked so much that I read it twice: Dune by Frank Herbert. I tried picking it for a book report, but Sister Godberta frowned at the cover and nixed that idea. Looked too subversive, I guess. So, instead, I recycled my last year’s book report on The Yearling. Got away with it, too, although I had to copy it over because my fifth-grade teacher, Madame Frechette, had scrawled ‘Magnifique, Monsieur!’ across the top. Madame was French-Canadian. Didn’t last too long at Aloysius Gonzaga. I got the feeling that the nuns found her not quite acceptable. It was probably that beret she wore, and the patterned stockings. And the fact that she doused herself with perfume.”
“What about socially? Were you outgoing? Shy? Any sweethearts back then, Felix?”
“Girlfriends? No way. I was already pretty self-conscious about being the shortest kid in my class. Then, one by one, the sixth-grade girls started transforming themselves into sequoias with breasts. And it wasn’t as if my parents or the good sisters of
St. Aloysius Gonzaga were lining up to teach me about human sexual development. So that left me with my buddy Lonny Flood as my main source of information. Lonny had stayed back twice and, at thirteen, was ahead of the curve, developmentally. His voice was cracking all over the place and his upper lip looked like it needed dusting. One afternoon while we were riding our bikes, he confided that he’d had a wet dream that felt ‘weird but bitchin’.’ I was confused about why that was; to me it sounded like a variation on bed-wetting, which only felt hot, uncomfortable, and itchy. I didn’t get my growth spurt until ninth grade, which was when I got my first wet dream and started getting interested in girls.”
She observes that she was asking me about romance and I went right to sex.
“So noted. But as long as we’re on that subject, can I ask you something? Do you ghosts have sex lives? I mean, since you’re dead, I assume you can’t procreate. But what about recreational . . .”
Instead of answering me, she points at the screen and says, “Felix, look. Is that you?” Now which of us is guilty of evasion? But it’s me, all right. A tracking shot follows me walking down Otis Street, wearing my St. Aloysius uniform and lugging a stack of books. “Heading home after school,” I tell Lois. On the screen, I turn onto the street where we lived. “That was our house up on the left—the gray one with the green shutters. But be forewarned: 33 Herbert Hoover Avenue was a war zone back then.”
“Oh? What was this war about?”
“Not what. Who. My sister Frances.”
“With whom was she at war?”
“The rest of us. My parents, my other sister, me. But mostly she was at war with herself. And her body was the battlefield.”
NINE
The camera follows me into the house. There’s our old sofa and the cabinet-model TV we used to have—the one that exploded and scorched the wall behind it. Speaking of that wall, my sisters’ and my framed high school graduation photos are missing, which makes sense; it’s 1965 so none of us has graduated yet. There’s Winky curled up on the couch, probably dreaming up new ways to torture my father. God, this is as weird as the last time: seeing our home the way it was back then. For some reason, it makes me feel . . . claustrophobic.
Ma’s in the kitchen—young again, and healthy. No strokes yet, no dementia. Her hair hasn’t even gone gray. Why did I think back then that she was old?
“How was school today, Felix?”
“Good.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Really? That must have been pretty boring. Would Sister agree with that summary of your day?”
I shrug. Simone enters the room. “Ma, can I talk to you about something?” she says. “It’s kind of important.”
I go over to the stove to see what’s cooking on the front burner. When I lift the pot lid, the camera goes in for a close-up of Ma’s meatballs simmering in sauce. After my parents died, the job of emptying out the house and getting it ready to sell fell to me. I brought most of the kitchen stuff over to Goodwill, but for sentimental reasons, I kept Ma’s saucepot—the one shown here. I make a decent ragú, but it doesn’t come close to Marie Funicello’s.
I turn to my ghostly companion. “Too bad this movie doesn’t have Smell-O-Vision,” I tell her. “The aroma would put your salivary glands into overdrive.”
“If I had them anymore,” Lois sighs. No salivary glands? That must mean no sex glands either. Mystery solved.
On the screen, I head over to the breadbox. “Hey, Ma, can I make myself a sandwich?”
“No. Those meatballs are for supper. And don’t interrupt.”
I put my hands together like I’m praying to her. “Please, Ma. I’m starving.”
She shakes her head. No means no. “You can rip off the heel of that loaf of Italian bread and dunk it in the sauce, but no meatballs.”
“Can I have one of those ice cream sandwiches in the freezer then?”
“They’re for dessert. Have an apple.”
“I don’t want an apple.”
“Then you must not be very hungry after all.”
“Felix, do you mind?” Simone says. “We’re trying to have a conversation.”
I grab an apple, polish it against my pant leg, take a bite, and shift into eavesdropping mode. This was mostly how I gathered information when I was a kid. It wasn’t like anyone was going to confide in me. So I listened, as unobtrusively as possible.
Simone tells Ma that her assistant manager at the grocery store where she’s a checkout girl has been bumping up against her accidentally-on-purpose and staring at her chest when he speaks to her. “Some of the things he says make me feel uncomfortable and . . . I don’t know. Dirty or something.”
I stop eating my apple. This is starting to sound interesting, and the crunching might remind them that I’m still here. Ma tells Simone to give her a “for instance.”
“Yesterday he started talking about how great I must look in a bikini. And how I’m so voluptuous that I could pose for Playboy.”
“Maybe you should tell your father,” Ma suggests.
“And then what? He goes over there and causes a stink so that I get fired? Ma, please don’t tell Poppy.” Simone turns her attention to me. “And don’t you say anything either, Mr. Big Ears.”
“About what?” I ask. “I’m not even listening.”
Lois chuckles. “That was pretty convincing just now,” she ribs. “Maybe you should have considered a career in front of the camera.”
“Well, honey, men are men,” my mother tells Simone. “Shapely girls like you just have to put up with stuff like that in the working world. Or else quit. Those are your choices.”
“But I don’t want to quit, Ma. I like my job other than that. And I like making my own money.”
“Then just try to ignore it. Or laugh it off. If you let him see that it gets your goat when he says things like that, he’ll do it more. And if you complain to his superior, he might turn against you and make your life miserable.”
Jerking forward in my seat, I address the screen. “Ignore it, Ma? Shut her mouth and put up with it? That’s terrible advice.”
“Perhaps,” Lois’s ghost says. “But that’s what women have always had to do. And in fairness, you can’t apply today’s standards to what was or wasn’t acceptable fifty years ago. It was even worse during my era. By the time the Nineteenth Amendment was passed and I was allowed to cast my first vote for president, I had already written and directed more than seventy-five motion picture plays. I was forty-one years old.”
“Point taken. By the way, who did you vote for? Harding?”
“I most certainly did not! Those matinee idol looks of his didn’t fool me. Judging a person’s character by what his face told me—that was a skill I developed casting my films. I could tell just by looking at him that Warren G. Harding was a philanderer and a scoundrel. I voted for James M. Cox and his running mate, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Now, I should like you to return to the business at hand. Please direct your attention to your film and tell me what you see.”
“Okay, well, I’m going into the living room.” On the screen, I put down the half-eaten apple and pull our bulky dictionary off the bookshelf. “Looks like I’m starting my homework.”
“Voluptuous, voluptuous . . .” my juvenile self mumbles.
I have to laugh. “Or not.”
We watch as I flip through the tissue-paper pages at the back of the book. An extreme close-up of my finger going down columns of V-words shows that I’ve incorrectly assumed that “voluptuous” begins with either vul or vel. When I finally find it, I read the definition out loud. “‘Ripe; fleshy; devoted to the luxury of sensual pleasures.’” Then I flip back to the S’s in search of the word “sensual.”
I tell Lois’s ghost that the vocab words I picked up while eavesdropping were far more interesting than the ones Sister Godberta gave us. But the directress is distracted by something else on the screen. Or rather, someone.
“Go
od heavens,” she says. “Who’s that?”
And there she is, at her worst. I have to take a breath before answering her. All these years later, it’s still painful to see her this way.
“My sister Frances.”
“Is it cancer?” I shake my head. “Then what’s wrong with her?”
“That was what we wanted to know. Our whole family was baffled about why she was doing this to herself. Frances would only say that she was tired of being the family hippo and was finally doing something about it.”
“Aha,” she says. “Then it’s anorexia nervosa.”
“Right, but how—?”
“It didn’t yet have a name when I was a living, but the condition certainly existed. Many starlets were afflicted, and some of the young male actors as well.”
“I looked it up a while back. It was already in the books by 1965—specifically, the DSM-I, but—”
“The what?”
“The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, first edition. It’s the go-to guide for shrinks. So it had been identified by the experts, but it wasn’t on the radar in mainstream America yet. Karen Carpenter’s death was what made anorexia a household word, but that was almost two decades later.”
“Ah yes, I remember when Miss Carpenter crossed over. A sweet girl, but she was so shy and withdrawn initially. She’s better now. She’s a vocalist in a trio that plays for us from time to time.”
“She played the drums, too, I’m pretty sure.”
“Oh yes, she plays them still. As does her friend, Mr. Moon.”
“Keith Moon? Drummer for The Who?”
Lois says she’s not sure—that so many rock ’n’ rollers crossed over because of their various excesses that she can’t keep them all straight. “But tell me, Felix, how did you and your parents and Simone respond to Frances’s illness?”