Germaine Greer, Andrea Dworkin, Catharine McKinnon—I’d actually read a fair bit of it. Well, read might not be the right word. It’s difficult to read with your eyes rolled so far back in your head. But I’d scanned enough to arm myself against her in debates over second-wave feminist theory. She also kept copies of Simone de Beauvoir, the Marquis de Sade … She hated de Beauvoir for defending the Marquis. And she would never have read any de Sade if Andrea Dworkin hadn’t written so many diatribes against him.
The first time I ever saw my mother give a formal lecture at the university, I was fourteen. For two weeks she had had a Marquis de Sade quote tacked to the bulletin board above her writing desk. “Women without principles,” it said, “are never more dangerous than at the age when they have ceased to blush.”
I adored it. I thought it was a riot: a big fuck-you to whoever might stand in my way. I thought that perhaps my mother had finally lucked into a sense of humour, using a quotation of the sadist who begot all sadists as a maxim of feminine fortitude.
She worked on that lecture frenetically, pacing around her office, uttering that quote as though it were a mantra, a salute to fearlessness.
Going to the lecture hall for her debut out of duty as opposed to inclination, I invited Len, who was a big fan of my mother’s. He loved her beauty, her grace and her honey-voice. Had she known, she would have sat him down for a three-hour screed on the diminishment of women.
Len and I sat second row centre, marooned among the feminists. Big shoulder pads were then in vogue and the room was filled with what looked like a football team of radicalized Joan Crawfords.
Len whispered as Mum walked to the podium—“Lookit her, lookit her, she’s like a kick-ass Jackie O.”
“‘Women without principles are never more dangerous,’” she opened, tasting that last word as she spoke it, “‘than at the age when they have ceased to blush …’ So wrote the king of pornographers, his heinous, the Marquis de Sade.” A chuckle rippled among the Crawfords. “Two hundred years later, a widespread belief still prevails that those of us who make our opinions known, those of us who do not bat our eyes and blush in the face of patriarchal demands are unruly, unacceptable and unprincipled women. With the heart of a rapist, this man is just one of many, who in various media, made and still make a vocation of depicting the eroticized deaths …” I stopped listening after that. I’d heard the play-at-home version of this lecture and others like it dozens of times.
My mother gave me a copy of Pornography: Men Possessing Women, the chapter on de Sade bookmarked, of course, and a copy of de Sade stories, which I didn’t need to bother with after reading Andrea Penetration-Is-Rape Dworkin wallow in de Sade’s fantasies, retelling his stories in page after page of what seemed to me like her own pornographic obsession.
Now, in extras holding, it struck me as ridiculous that de Sade had ever gotten famous in the first place. He couched each dark deed in an insistent piousness … And then dear reader, this dastardly beast did the unspeakable … That sort of thing. Why that quote about blushing had stuck in my mother’s craw seemed especially baffling since it was one of de Sade’s hyper-sanctimonious female characters who spoke it. At best, it read like laughable melodrama.
After seven hours on set I checked my messages. Just one from Frank. “Hey, baby. I’m at work, where are you?” The sound of squealing children sailed through the background. “Can you come out with me for a drink tomorrow night and meet Brian?—hold on, these little buggers are killin’ me—Hey, you guys, everybody be careful. No bleeding!—sorry, I got a flock of five-year-olds to wrangle. Um, yeah, you wanna meet Brian? Maybe Saturday night? Call me.”
After eight hours, Wardrobe came to holding with three different styles of beige underwear that I could wear with my shower curtain: a G-string, cycling short–style underpants, a strapless bra and a body stocking. The body stocking had straps. I would need my shoulders bare. I chose the cycling shorts and the bra. She gave me a thick terry robe, socks and fleece-lined booties to keep warm in.
At hour nine I was counting what time-and-half translated into in dollars as I was brought down to the makeup trailer to have my face, arms and calves sponged with the ashen greasepaint I’d had on earlier.
In the tenth hour they led me to a stark high-ceilinged room that was tiled in black marble. Farm Girl was with me all the way, reassuring me some more. It would be just me, Farm Girl, Hair and Makeup, Wardrobe and the photographer. Maybe the producer. The rest of the crew was off filming actors elsewhere in the studio.
The new shower curtains waited in a box when we arrived. The photographer stood beside a long folding table in the centre of the cool room, shifting from foot to foot, checking the digital images as they came up on his laptop computer. The corners of his mouth jumped as though we were about to do something indecent. A ladder nearly three times his height had been set up a few feet from where he stood.
Hair asked me to tilt my head upside down so she could wet my mop with her spray bottle.
The producer ambled in. Forty-something with a boyish face and ball cap on, he looked like he was on his way to coach Little League. The photographer straightened and suggested to me and the splinter crew where I should be situated.
The women stiffened and suddenly surrounded me with towels, forming a tiny cave that would prevent the men from getting a glimpse of anything above my ankles. Wardrobe eased off my terry robe and Hair shook out a folded peach-coloured shower curtain, slipping it around my torso and bringing it up over one shoulder. Confident I was covered, they parted to present me.
“Nice toga,” the producer laughed. “Is this gonna sell like a shower curtain? Looks like a bedsheet.”
Hair, Makeup and Wardrobe all shrugged.
I lay down on the tile and Hair began spraying down the shower curtain and my arms.
“Hold off on the water,” the producer requested, stuffing his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “Sposed to look like she’s been dead all night. She would’ve dried off by now.”
The photographer climbed his ladder for a bird’s-eye shot. “How are they sposed to have gotten this high to shoot her anyway?” he chortled to the room. Nobody responded. He squinted through his viewfinder.
The cool tile bit into my flesh. I closed my eyes and the photographer snapped off a few frames.
“Do we have any shower-curtain hooks?” the producer asked. “Might sell better if we had some hooks.”
No answer. The photographer climbed down. My eyes slit open to see him move the ladder over three feet. He climbed back up, quietly whirred off a few more frames. “Maybe one or two with your eyes open. Sort of a blank dead stare?” I opened my eyes.
“What about the bruises on her neck?” Farm Girl said. “They had bruises on her neck before.”
Suddenly fingers were at my throat. “Everybody’s got to put their two cents’ in,” Makeup grumbled and I opened my eyes to her patting drabs of purple and fuchsia on my neck again.
Hair and Wardrobe tossed thick towels down the length of me. “You must be cold,” Wardrobe said.
“It’s good with the towels,” I murmured.
“What about,” the producer began. His voice seemed like big dog barks compared to the soothing voices of the women. “—she’s so covered. Couldn’t we pull the curtain up a bit to show her legs?”
All female eyes turned on him. Wardrobe folded her arms. Makeup released an irritated breath, squinted at her handiwork and stood up. “Her legs aren’t done,” she said.
The producer blinked a moment. “Can’t you make them up now?”
She huffed a sigh, lips pursing as she knelt beside me.
Their sighs were like hers. My mother’s.
The curtain was raised to my knees. “Just to there,” she said. “That’s it.” Sponges dabbed over my calves. I closed my eyes. Maybe this time you should figure it out yourself.
The camera whirred into motion. The photographer asked me to open my eyes again.
&nbs
p; By the time I signed out it was nine at night and the rain had not subsided. I sidestepped a brimming pothole and stopped, turned back to the trailers. Gold light came from the windows. I could make out flashes of Hair and Makeup as they crossed from one end of a trailer to the other. They had massaged shaving cream over my face and arms—any portion of my skin covered with death—and wiped it clean away with hot towels. My eyes stung now.
Five
FLIPPING ON THE BATHROOM LIGHT, I TURNED ON THE HOT water in the tub before I even got my coat off. In the living room the phone was blinking. Another message from Frank. I listened to him wonder over my whereabouts as I stared at my mother’s trunk sitting in the middle of the rug. The other line beeped.
“Shit, there you are! Where’ve you been?”
“Working. Photo session. I had to be a corpse.”
“Photo sessions pay awesome. Did you get a Polaroid?”
“It was digital. The photographer’s going to e-mail me one.”
“Cool. Why didn’t you call me back?”
“I just got home.”
“You wanna meet Brian with me tomorrow night?”
“No.”
“What’s with you? You’re like, no …” He mimicked my flatline. “I just got home.”
“I’m cold. I have some stuff to do.”
“I’m here late but—”
“Shit, my tub’s overflowing, I gotta go. Talk to you tomorrow.” I put the phone down.
I poured some wine and, stepping around the trunk, drifted back into the bathroom. I dreaded shedding my layers. I lit a candle and turned the light out. Dropping my clothes on the toilet seat, I stepped into the tub and winced against the heat, then submerged all but my eyes and nose.
In the flickering candlelight I saw my mother’s face crowned in that white-blonde hair. Her long slim body. Even in black and white, her eyes glowed like a husky’s. Figure it out yourself.
An hour later, in sweatpants, a flannel pyjama top and a bathrobe, I crawled into bed.
Sometime later in the dark, I shot up, gasped for breath and stared round the room. It was four in the morning. I was sweating under damp slabs of clothing and quilt. I had dreamt I was curled up in the trunk and there were boxes heaped on top. Getting out of the box was easy if you knew the code. I couldn’t figure it out and I was suffocating. I have always hated the obvious symbolism of my dreams.
I wiggled out of my layers and closed my eyes. The lid closed over my head again and I bolted upright with a screech.
Light seeped into the room now. It was just after six. I pulled my housecoat on and trudged down the hall, shoving my palms against my eyelids as if it might help ease the panic in my chest. My shin cracked against a solid edge and I cussed and yowled. “Fuck you!” I barked at the trunk and kicked it, predictably smashing my big toe. I was against the wall now, and everything hurt. I bent at the waist, hands on my thighs, and took a few breaths. A skid mark of blood was ripped across my shin bone. Thick red started down, sliding muddily, as if my blood had turned to sludge. I limped to the bathroom for a bandage. My bed called to me as I passed but I was scared of its gremlins and headed for the coffee maker instead.
With a tablespoon of sugar and Irish Cream for comfort, I sat down on the edge of the coffee table and looked at the trunk some more. I reached the foot that didn’t hurt toward it. Pushing at the lid, I shoved it open.
I pulled the mink coat to me and sniffed it. It smelled like basement. Laying it out on the rug, I smoothed it flat, set the sleeves akimbo. I shook out the gold dress and tucked it inside the mink as if I were dressing a paper doll. It assumed an hourglass shape. I closed one side of the coat, leaving half the dress exposed, and set the coat sleeve against the dress as though a hand were on the hip. I placed the black-and-gold pumps just beneath the hem. Sipping my coffee I walked around the ensemble and tried to imagine my mother’s figure filling the fabric. I couldn’t though, I just couldn’t see it.
I took out the envelope of pictures and kneeled, scattering them in front of me: my mother, Annie and Sinatra. I opened the photo album again, hoping to see her in the dress. Wasn’t in there. Nothing but someone else’s memories and no guided tour. Glancing up at my desk I stared at the computer.
I Googled “Celia Dare.” Twenty-two results. I hadn’t expected anything to come up. My heart shuddered. Maybe there was more than one Celia Dare. I clicked on the first site: Glenda LaRaine’s Home for Wayward Freak and Girl-Show Fans. The home page read: It seems that every gorgeous gal of days gone by has an Internet shrine: Marilyn Monroe, and Bettie Page, and all of the other dream girls. But where does one go to fuel an obsession with the boys, girls and boy-girls of carnival burlesque? Right here, my lovelies, right here. The average person tends to look askance at strippers anyway, but the canvas big top has often met with sneers of derision. Don’t they realize that the likes of Peggy Lee got her start as a carnival barker?
Let me introduce myself. I’m Glenda LaRaine. Born Richard Donaldson, I became Glenda at the ripe age of sixteen, the year I first ran off with the carnival. There is nothing like a family of carnies to give a girl an instant education. A photograph of Glenda followed with the caption “1955 at the Gilda Liberty Show.” He/she wore a garter belt and stockings and his/her substantial breasts were covered in pasties only. The boobs looked authentic and there didn’t appear to be a basket of goodies in her G-string.
She introduced the men and women with whom she’d worked. In the Chaser McGill Show: Big Box Brenda, Tina TaTas, Sasha the Smoker (later known as Sasha Kane in Montreal where she made a mint importing Cuban cigars), Kasha, the African Devilgirl (who became intrepid civil rights reporter Lola Slash). In Sherman’s She-Show and World-Famous Freaks and Geeks: Freda, the Furry Figure (later Hairy Hannah, the Bearded Babe), SheRa, the Wildgirl of Borneo (who went on to sing and dance in Vegas and New York as the extraordinary Celia Dare) …
I stopped, dumbfounded. SheRa? I clicked into the photo gallery, hunting for pictures. Kasha and TaTas and Glenda herself dominated. There was one black and white of the tent with a banner declaring SheRa, the Wildgirl of Borneo. A potbellied MC wearing a top hat and tails stood out front smoking a cigar. I flipped my cursor across the page, trying to find something more. Back on the home page was a notation soliciting donations of any memorabilia or photographs. I clicked on Contact Glenda. A box popped up with her address in the sender line.
It felt as though a dog were chasing its tail in the pit of my stomach. I pressed the knuckles of one hand against my chest and glugged back some more coffee.
“Dear Glenda,” I typed. “My name is Vivian Callwood. My mother recently passed away and a family friend informed me that she once performed in New York under the name Celia Dare. I wondered if you might have any information you could share with me.” I signed off with, “I do have a couple pictures of her as Celia. Thanking you in advance, Vivian.”
Scanning down the search results again I clicked on Don’s Diggable Girls of the 50s and 60s. Welcome to the Don’s Bachelor Pad. Let me introduce to you the most diggable hotties ever put on earth for your viewing pleasure. From the swinging celeb babes of all your wet dreams to the vixens you never heard of, I’ll tell you how they stacked up, with whom they shacked up … etc., etc. “Piss off,” I muttered and clicked my way to his Complete List of Diggables. After “Craig, Yvonne: TV Star from Batman” but before “Dio, Amanda: Cuban stripper and Gangster’s Moll” came “Dare, Celia: Stripper, Impressionist and Gangster’s Moll.”
On my mother’s page was a picture of her in a tight black jacket, fishnets and stiletto heels. She bent forward slightly at the waist, her palms balanced on a walking cane. Her hair was platinum, tossed and sexy, and the expression on her face said she’d just gotten out of bed.
Date of Birth: July 7, 1943
Place of Birth: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Measurements: 36–24–36
Special Talent: Dare started out in the early 60s as the property of New York mo
bster and Gambino Family associate Teddy “the Ghost” Gossitino, who got her working as a showgirl in Vegas before he was thrown in the slammer on charges of murder, racketeering and tax evasion. (As with gangsters before him, tax evasion was the only charge to stick.) Dare quickly saw the writing on the wall—the real dough was dropping her duds for the dudes of America. One of the few strippers who possessed talent beyond the obvious, Dare, like a female Rich Little, donned wigs and costumes and sang in the voice of everyone from Nancy Sinatra to Tiny Tim. For those with a little jungle fever she could even do a mean Billie Holiday.
Lovers: The list of men who bedded Dare reads like a veritable who’s who of the underworld: Sam Giancana, Johnny Rosselli, Ben (Bugsy) Segal, Teodoro (Teddy the Ghost) Gossitino. Like hottie Judy Campbell of the same era, John Kennedy slept there as did Frank Sinatra. Other lucky bastards included Bob Hope, Bobby Darin, Gene Kelly and the best of them all … drum roll please … the luscious Marilyn Monroe. Think about these two together if you got some time to kill in a jail cell.
I blinked at the screen. My mother was born in Toronto and her birth date was June 21, 1945. Bugsy Segal was dead by the time she was five. I went to get more coffee.
The next Web site was of the same ilk, but this one put her date of birth in May 1944. Born in Pennsylvania, measurements 36–22–36. This site said she was a singer and dancer who had been labelled a stripper but in truth bared little more than contemporary performers like Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera. She slept with both John and Robert Kennedy, Sam Giancana and all of the Rat Pack but Joey Bishop. Marilyn Monroe was not mentioned but the rumour of a “girl-girl” romance with “the leggy Cyd Charisse” was. Charisse’s name linked to a cover of Photoplay magazine featuring her with Fred Astaire. The caption read:
Fred and Cyd:
“She’s Beautiful Dynamite!”
“He’s the most perfect Gentleman I’ve ever met.”
I remembered Mum had turned on Singin’ in the Rain when I was a kid, home one afternoon with the flu. She pointed out Cyd Charisse in one of the dream sequences. She said she’d seen Charisse first when her parents took her on a trip to New York right around her fourteenth birthday. She had been taking ballet for years, so, as a special treat, they brought her to Radio City Music Hall to see the film premiere of Silk Stockings starring Charisse and Fred Astaire. In those days, before a film, the Rockettes would start off the night with a high-kicking stomp across the stage. Seeing their long legs flying, their costumes flashing, Mum said she was beside herself and told her parents: “I have to be a Rockette or I’ll die.”
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