Cease to Blush

by Billie Livingston

  “I’ve always felt this way. In fact, I’m going to a demonstration this afternoon in Central Park.” She pokes at the newspaper between them. “Martin Luther King is going to be there.”

  Annie looks at the paper: America is engaged as a liberator not a conqueror; soldiers are there to win the hearts and minds; a general explains the Vietnamese don’t value life the way westerners do; America will liberate them not only from communism but from their own barbarism.

  “And maybe I will go to that party,” Celia barks. “Go rip into Ol’ Bobby Sox for not speaking out more.”

  “Won’t that just piss Johnny off all to hell?” Annie grabs the phone. “You know Truman will berate you for hanging out in the park with a bunch of longhairs in bad footwear but them’s the breaks.”

  “Tell him you’re going with me.”

  “Fat chance.”

  “If you don’t go with me,” she says, brushing toast crumbs off her housecoat, “I’m going to tell him that not only did you sleep with that bartender he likes but that he gave you—”

  “Shut up!” Annie tamps her cigarette out.

  In Central Park, Celia and Annie make their way past small patches of pro-war sign carriers—Anarchy Cannot Be Permitted in the USA; Fight Communism and Red Termites; End Hanoi Sanctuary—and join the mob of antiwar demonstrators. Thousands are already there with more coming every minute. Onstage Phil Ochs strums “I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore”; the crowd sings along.

  Annie stands in her fox fur, arms crossed, hair under a turban-wrap, face covered with the biggest cat’s-eye sunglasses she could find. Celia’s in flats and a pea coat; she didn’t want to look too bourgeois. There are a few long-haired, beaded sorts around but a lot of square-eyed academics too and women who look like teachers and secretaries, regular sorts.

  Stop the Bombing; End U.S. Aggression; Draft Our Boys to School Not War.

  “Who’s NOW?” Celia asks.

  “Us unfortunately.”

  Celia points out the sign: en—oh—double-u for Peace Now.

  “Oh. I don’t know. I think they’re some women’s group.”

  “What’s their bag?”

  “Bunch of dykes. The day men stop picking up the cheque and buying me jewelry is the day I firebomb their headquarters. Broads’ll get us all drafted if they don’t shut their yaps.”

  At the mike, a young man tells the crowd it’s important to sing, to speak, to scream protest at the destruction of life. A few yelps and yips answer. “Girls and boys for peace, may I introduce to you the surreal and psychedelic Allen Ginsberg.”

  Celia’s head turns. “He was at that party, remember?”

  Balding, bearded Ginsberg comes centre stage in a white kaftan, a red sash across his shoulder and chest. The sound system begins to crap out as he plinks finger cymbals and suddenly the crowd utters a collective om.

  “Oh Jesus, here we go.” Annie pulls her coat tighter.

  Ginsberg chuckles. “Little changes in this world if we don’t insist on it. Insist, people. As my esteemed colleague mentioned, sing, scream, Howl!” The crowd wolf-calls.

  “America,” he continues, “I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing. America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956. I can’t stand my own mind. America, when will we end the human war? Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb …” Feedback from the mike.

  An eruption of cheers. Several yell out, “‘I don’t feel good don’t bother me.’” Everyone seems to know the words.

  “There must be fifty thousand people here,” Annie grumbles, “and I don’t see a single man I’d sleep with.”

  “Crabs,” Celia reminds her flatly.

  Annie moves to put hands over her ears but cups Celia’s mouth instead. “Say that again and I’ll smother you in your sleep. Jesus. I hate this shit.”

  “America—” Ginsberg’s voice pierces then drones “—I used to be a communist when I was a kid … I’m not sorry. I smoke marijuana every chance I get. I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet…”

  “What do you think that means?” Celia wonders.

  “He’s a stoned communist queer.”

  Young women with peace symbols painted on their cheeks snake through the crowd handing out pamphlets. Celia cranes her neck, peers up at the trees where a few people have roosted, some with cameras. “They said on the news that Johnson has FBI watching all the protest stuff,” Celia says. “Do you think there’s FBI guys here?”

  Annie shrugs and turns her soured puss back to the stage. To Celia’s left is a scraggly guy in a stars-and-stripes shirt under a black leather jacket. He wears an Uncle Sam top hat and holds up a sign: Make Me Not War. To her left, two young guys have a banner: Dow Shalt Not Kill. As the one nearest turns, his eyes brighten. “Hey, you’re not Celia Dare, are you?”

  She smiles. “Have you seen my show?”

  “Far out, man! Hey!” He shoves his partner in sign carriage. “Hey man, it’s Celia Dare!”

  The other guy stares. “Holy shit, it is. My brother’s gonna bug. Maybe you could sign our sign!” They lower the banner and pat their pockets for a pen. “Crazy, man. We’re from L.A.! We tried to get into your show.”

  Celia signs with a flourish.

  The first one keeps gawking, his lips mashing one another before they open. “Too bad it’s so cold. You wouldn’t have to wear that coat.”

  The crowd explodes in cheers and shrieks. She hops up and down. “What’s happening?”

  “Right on!” the anti-Dow guys holler. “Want a boost?”

  Soon she is up on their shoulders. Two men onstage set a fire. “What are they doing?”

  “Burning draft cards.”

  She half expects sirens, police to appear out of nowhere. But the cards go up like any other bit of paper and ashes scatter in the breeze.

  “Toke?”

  She looks down to the joint held up. “Why not? We’re all going to hell anyway.”

  That evening, Annie and Celia sip wine in Bobby’s apartment. This time Ethel is there, her two youngest children upstairs with a nanny, the rest of the brood at Hickory Hill.

  Capote and Annie twitter over the afternoon’s march to the United Nations Building. Annie giggles. “… and guess who slipped off down a side street. My footwear wouldn’t allow for anything that would constitute a march …”

  Meanwhile Celia has got to talking with Jacqueline Kennedy by the fire. Intimidated at first, she’s now at ease as Jackie leans forward with interest. In person her voice is fuller, richer; not the wispy childlike one she uses on television. Celia tells her about the men in the trees.

  “Wouldn’t surprise me.” Jackie taps a nail lightly against her glass. “Damn warmongering lunkheads.”

  Celia gazes over Jackie’s linen trousers and blouse, the elegant tilt of her chin. She repositions her hand, lengthens her fingers, tries to match the expensive grin.

  Bobby comes to perch on the arm of Jackie’s chair, thick hair flopping at his forehead, front teeth rabbitting as he grins. “Hello, ladies. Did Celia tell you she used to dance ballet. Jackie wanted to be a ballerina once.”

  Jackie waves a dismissive hand, the colour in her cheeks rising.

  “A ballerina. Jeez, kiddo, don’t sell yourself short.” This from a newly arrived Ethel. “You could’ve been a soccer player with those feet.”

  “Who me?” Crossing her legs, Jackie’s size 10 foot bounces lightly as her face throws a perfect smile to her sister-in-law. “No, I’m not terribly sporting. I believe I’ll refresh my drink.”

  Bobby stands as she rises and strolls smoothly through the other guests.

  “Hello, I’m Ethel,” she says, extending her hand. Then to Bobby, she adds, “You’re not planning to run away with this cute little—what is it you do again, dear?” She looks back to Celia.

  Bobby sighs, muttering, “The senator’s wife, ladies and gentlemen …”

  “Excuse me? I don’t know what the girl does.”
<
br />   “I’m an entertainer,” Celia interjects.

  “You know, with that bleached hair, you remind me of the late great Marilyn Monroe. Did you know her? Bobby knew her. Didn’tcha, Bob?” He exhales through his nose. “Aww …” Ethel polishes off the last of her drink. “Bobby feels bad.”

  Bobby glances past his wife’s head and gives an imploring nod across the room.

  Looking a bit resigned, a woman strolls over and links her arm through Ethel’s. “A Kennedy girl with an empty glass, that won’t do.” She trades Ethel’s empty for a full one. “Here, have a G & T. And when will you ever show me those photographs …?” She looks back at Bobby and mouths, “Soda,” as they go.

  “Excuse, ah … My sister can always, ah—Oh, I didn’t introduce you. That was Eunice. Where are my manners?” He pushes hair off his forehead. “I’m sorry.”

  “If you’d really like to do penance, maybe we should talk about the demonstration.”

  With a mournful groan he looks ceilingward. “A room full of combat and she wants to talk war. Miss Dare, I promise to take you for the most mouth-watering lunch at which you may shove questions down my throat until I asphyxiate if you’ll just give me a break tonight.”

  A week later, she takes him up on his offer.

  “More and more people are showing up at these demonstrations—they’re burning our flag in Europe. Seems nobody likes us.”

  “Welcome to my world,” he smiles. “I’m asked frequently at press conferences about how I feel regarding this, ah, draft-card burning.” Seeing the turn of her mouth, he stammers and picks up his wineglass. “I don’t agree with it personally but I understand it as an action taken by a person who feels very strongly.”

  “The Kennedys are seen as a family who stand up for civil rights and the poor but—”

  “I do. I have. I’ve worked very hard at programs in this city—look what we’ve been doing in Bed-Stuy. We’ve been—”

  He stops as her hand moves an inch closer. He clears his throat. “I know I wasn’t too forthcoming about my position in the past, but lately I’ve made it quite clear. Furthermore I’ve made it clear to Johnson. The man hates me. You people think the office of the chief executive is some kind of Kennedy dynasty. Well, it is not. I’ll destroy you and your dumb-ass dove friends. I went to Paris in January and met with the foreign minister and Johnson was ready to kill me.”

  “Was that where you had dinner with Candace Bergen?”

  The waiter sets plates down, asks if either of them would like fresh ground-pepper. Bobby stammers in the negative then drums his fingers as Celia smiles a yes, allowing more and more pepper for the pleasure of watching her dinner companion’s agitation drag on. Waiter gone, she eyes her filet mignon, hoping it will still be edible.

  “What an odd thing to bring up in the midst of a conversation ostensibly about peace.”

  She shrugs. “It was in the papers.”

  Bobby blinks rapidly. “Miss Bergen is an acquaintance of mine and she was there working. We had dinner one evening.”

  “This filet is fabulous. You were right: melt-in-your-mouth.” She makes happy eating noises. Bobby saws at his meat and flexes his jaw.

  The next afternoon, Celia picks up the phone to, “A protest. How do you think I felt to hear that someone I care about is a traitor to her own country?”

  “Oh for god’s sake, don’t be so dramatic.”

  “Think you would be where you are, have what you have if the communists ran the shop?”

  “How do you know I was there?”

  “I know you been running around with that runt-bastard who put Teddy behind bars. This would kill him if he knew.”

  Annie comes back into the apartment with the mail and tosses a package on Celia who mouths, Johnny. She looks at the package in her lap. “Bobby wasn’t even—”

  “Don’t contradict me,” he bites through. “They just threw Hoffa in the can a few weeks ago. A union leader, a guy who worked for the common man. That prick has been persecuting from the beginning, ’specially anyone whose name ends in a vowel: the McCarthy committee, the McClell—”

  “McCarthy was chasing commies. I thought you—”

  “Don’t play with this. Capice?”

  Her eyes shift back to Annie who nibbles her thumb now as if it were popcorn and Celia the late late show.

  “I don’t want you spending time with this guy.”

  Her voice small, she starts to explain. “I only saw him because—”

  “No more. That’s the end.”

  “You can’t tell me who I can—”

  “I can’t? Don’t be stupid.”

  Jamming the phone between her ear and shoulder, she rips open the package. A slow breath from Johnny before his voice comes through again, softer. “Still there?”

  Sliding her hand in, she pulls out a book: The Enemy Within by Robert F. Kennedy.

  “This isn’t a nice man. People think he had something to do with Monroe’s death.”

  “She killed herself. She almost did it two weeks before at the Cal-Neva.”

  “If anything ever happened to you …”

  She flips the book to see a photograph of Bobby with Ethel and their seven children. There are nine or ten of them now. She traces a finger over the hollows under his earnest eyes.

  “I know it seems as if I don’t care for you lately, but my god, I do. I’ve been so busy.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay? S’at it?”

  She opens to the title page. “I’ll talk to you another time. Just leave me be for now.” She puts the phone down.

  “Fuck a duck,” Annie says. “I could hear him from over here.”

  Celia reads the inscription aloud. “For Celia, ‘No Legacy is so rich as honesty.’ Affectionately, Bobby.” She looks up at Annie. “Did you tell him I was out with Bobby?”

  “What am I, nuts? This is one messenger who don’t wanna get shot.”

  “So he can screw any knot in a tree but I’m ’sposed to sit around with my legs crossed?”

  “Course not.” She waves toward Celia’s copy of The Enemy Within. “Honesty ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. The secret to being a girl: Just smile and nod. Either that or pull a National Velvet and start wearing pants.”

  “Terrific.” The phone rings. “If it’s for me, I’m not home.”

  Annie picks up. “Hello … no, she’s not … hi, Bob …” She flashes wide eyes at Celia. “Okay … I’ll let her know.”

  “He’s married,” Celia says and drifts down the hall to her room.

  The next afternoon Celia comes out of the shower in her robe, wet hair slicked back. “You gave me an idea for a new show.”

  Annie looks up from her romance novel. “What’d I say?”

  Dropping her bathrobe, Celia stands in the middle of the kitchen in a pair of oversized trousers and a men’s undershirt.

  “You goin’ off to join the Friars Club or what?”

  She runs a hand over her hair and sings, “‘Danke schoen, darlin’, danke schoen …’”

  “Wayne Newton?” Annie grins despite herself.

  “Him and …” Celia sings, “’I love …’ Hang on,” changes keys, “’ I love I love I love my calendar girl…”

  “You’re going to do boy-drag? Granted, the balls haven’t dropped on Newton or Sedaka, but Jesus wept. Have you told your agent about this?”

  “Not yet. I can’t think of a third.”

  “You could go a little more butch and do Deitrich.” She cackles to herself.

  “She does wear pants.” Celia drops her voice an octave. “‘Falling in love again …’”

  “Probably got a bigger dick than the other two … ’Course, hers goes in a drawer when she’s done.”

  Marty Sugar arranges for her to break in the act up at Isy’s in Vancouver, sharing the bill with Sammy Davis Jr., then work her way due south as headliner. Bags under his eyes, thinner than ever, Sammy has just come home from London where he was shooting a
comedy with Lawford.

  In his dressing room, Celia opens a delicate gift box. She lifts a slim gold lighter out just as he pokes a cigarette between his lips. “‘The Flames of Celia Dare,’” she reads aloud. “Oh Sammy, this is too much.”

  “Not for you, baby. Dig the blue diamonds? Just like them crazy glimmers of yours.”

  “Charlie Lavish. Heard you bought yourself a new Rolls. You’re going to put yourself in the poorhouse.”

  He grins as she lights his cigarette. “I work harder than anyone I ever met. I deserve nice things. I deserve to see the pleasure on my friends’ faces when I can get them nice things.”

  “What does May think of all your toys?”

  “You didn’t hear? Splitsville.”

  Celia winces.

  “I was Charlie Crestfallen for the first while but it was for the best. I’m a swinger, that’s who I is, baby. And May, well, she weren’t.”

  “So you’ve been raising hell with Pete in London ever since.”

  “Yeah, well, Pat gave Pete the hook too. So we’re a coupla bachelors. Speaking of which: Looky what I brought us.” He reaches inside his jacket and takes out a flat gold case, flips it open to reveal a mirror and a glass vial. He dumps a small heap of white powder onto the mirror. “Stuff’s more pure than any driven snow you could know.” He takes a gold blade from the lid and cuts it into lines then offers her the first. “Have a toot.”

  She looks past the straight white ridges on the mirror to his anxious elbows hopping, the vague grey tinge to his brown skin.

  “Okay, I’ll go first.” The mirror is back under his nose before she can speak. He sniffs and shakes his head with a delighted gasp. “And after the show we’ll go to a disco and frug the night away. There’s some tasty little go-go dancers down at this joint on Pender.” Passing the case back, he eyes Celia’s wig of man-hair, the sharp black suit. “You could make out like a bandit wearing that getup.”

  She pauses too long again. He takes the coke back and snorts a second line. “Woo!” he shouts at the ceiling. “They should just call this shit more cuz that’s all I want.”

  She flicks her lighter a couple times, thinking.

  After Vancouver comes San Francisco. The disenchanted from all over North America have flocked to the Haight-Ashbury intersection, as if that tiny pocket of the world would save their souls. The neighbourhood hangs and flops now: long lank hair next to matted beards and Afros, beads, bongo drums, baby-filled papooses, peace signs on foreheads and bare bellies and, everywhere, heavy lids drooping over bloodshot eyes.