CLARA BOW
I’m so lonely. All the time the flapper is laughin’ and dancin’, there’s a feelin’ of tragedy underneath.
BRINKLEY
(nodding)
I’m lonely too. I don’t know how to talk to people. What to say. But I’d rather talk to you than anybody else in the whole world. I could dance with you, but I’m no good.
CLARA BOW
I was born durin’ a heat wave. Brooklyn was fryin’. My ma hoped it’d kill us both, but we’re not that lucky. She tried to kill ya, didn’t she?
BRINKLEY
Who?
CLARA BOW
You know who.
Brinkley shakes his head, slow and glassy-eyed.
BRINKLEY
I have no idea what you are referring to.
CLARA BOW
Yer ma.
BRINKLEY
My mother is beautiful.
CLARA BOW
She triedta kill ya.
He shakes his head vigorously.
BRINKLEY
Never. Never. Never. Don’t tell me that, Clara. Don’t tell me that, Clara. Don’t tell me that, Clara.
CLARA BOW
When you were a little kid.
Brinkley drops and curls into the fetal position, plugs his ears and screams.
CLARA BOW
Brinkley! Brinkley! Brinkley! Listenta me! Listenta me! Listenta me!
The screaming ceases, but the screamer remains curled like a snail shell on the floor.
CLARA BOW
Sit up. Look at me, little boy.
He remains on the floor.
CLARA BOW
Ya wanna see me cry?
Brinkley jumps to his feet.
BRINKLEY
(wipes his face)
Please don’t cry, please don’t cry!
CLARA BOW
Will ya stop screaming?
He nods.
CLARA BOW
How old were you?
Brinkley hangs his head, shakes it from side to side, covers his face.
CLARA BOW
Brinkley.
(gently)
Tell me. Tell me or I’ll cry.
He drops his hands and looks at her. His whole body vibrates.
BRINKLEY
S-s-seven.
CLARA BOW
How?
BRINKLEY
She p-put-tt a-a p-pil-p-pilloww o-over m-my f-fa-ace.
CLARA BOW
Why did she stop?
BRINKLEY
B-be-cause sh-sh-e-e lo-loves m-mee.
CLARA BOW
I love you, Brinkley.
BRINKLEY
I-I lo-love y-you, C-Clara.
CLARA BOW
We’re not gonna cry no more, you and me. I’m gonna help ya write yer book. We’ll write a nice romance. You gonna dedicate it ta me?
BRINKLEY
(nodding)
I-It’s all f-for y-you, C-Clara.
10
My mirror—the movie oracle—had finished its show. (Can an oracle reveal the past, or only the future? In a place with no time, I guess the past and the future are one.) Brinkley’s mother had once tried to kill him. And I was still trying to wrap my mind around the sight of a talking, living, breathing Clara Bow. I wondered again if his mother had been crazy before her daughter disappeared, or whether her insanity—and drinking habits—had been induced by trauma. I couldn’t figure out whether being a veteran of the psych ward made me more of an authority on other people’s craziness, or less. It takes one to know one, right?
I dropped to my knees and crawled to the wall, pressed my face against it, as though if I pressed hard enough I might pass through. If the mirror had let me into Brinkley’s past, it had also let me into Brinkley’s mind: I was in his bedroom with him, I saw what he saw. Clara spoke. So then she was real, if she was real to Brinkley. Since I saw what he saw, she was now real to me. (Wow, who’d have thought I’d get to see the “It Girl” of the ’20s up close and personal? Davie would be going mental with jealousy if he knew—of course, he wouldn’t be jealous of the fact that I’m stuck watching movies about a tragic germphobe, so I suppose I’m not really one up on him. Damn.) It’d always irked me how doctors outright dismissed the reality of people they couldn’t see. What a limited and selfish perspective. Not to mention condescending. Reality is by its very nature subjective, to varying degrees. I think people like Brinkley and me simply have a more theatrical depth of field. A more kaleidoscopic viewfinder. And, unlike his mother, we never hurt anyone. But then again, I would tell myself all that stuff, my own personal highly abridged self-defence oration, privately titled “De Profundis of Craziness,” but it never changed the fact that seeing things other people can’t makes life very complicated. And lonely.
A cleaver of guilt hacked into my side, for having been so blunt about Brinkley’s mother. But clearly she was abusive. Who tries to smother their kid with a pillow? And clearly he still loved her.
Pulling myself back to Homo erectus with the aid of the wall, I braved the mirror again. (Was this the modern incarnation of the Greek oracle? Delphi: The Celluloid Version. But if so, why wasn’t it coughing up some prophecies? An oracle of the past is not all that helpful.) The atlas of bruises and scrapes on my body was gone. If anything, my skin appeared smoother, more even-toned, than I remembered. And it smelled of lavender. (Was I taking on the properties of the carpeting?) Running my hands over my arms and legs, I conducted an inspection, noted the near-absence of hair. The hairs that remained were soft, fine and blonde. Eyeball to armpit: same thing. I lifted up my dress—I was nine again. I still had hair on my head, although it was starting to thin and looked like I’d gone at it with a streaking kit—the mousy was spliced with shades of blonde. My eyebrows were fair, two slender brushstrokes, and my eyes still shone a clear gaze absent of impressions. It is a strange thing when you carry memory in your mind, and feel it in your bones, but you can’t see it in your eyes.
Brinkley’s letter in hand, I detoured to the bedroom door on my way to my writing desk and tried to open it. (’Twould be a terrible tragedy if I rotted in that room for Eternity, too distracted to notice that the door had become unlocked.) But alas, no such luck. I yanked until I was sure the knob was going to fly off, in fact was surprised that it didn’t—everything in that place seemed to be Velvet-proofed—and then collapsed panting against smoothness.
At the desk I spread Brinkley’s letter out in front of me, scrutinized the masculine blocky-ness of his handwriting. I liked the way he wrote my name. There was something bold and innocent about it, a certain possessive swagger coupled with self-conscious supplication. Seeing a man’s handwriting was almost like seeing him naked. (Or maybe I’d just developed literary-themed perversions. The Shadowman had once told me that I was a naturally perverted person, but I don’t really know what he was basing that on.) Brinkley entered the spotlight in my mind. I saw the half-smile, apologetic and wry, the generous nose and shy chin. I saw him with the green eyes I first knew, the ones that enclosed his life, not the alien blue. I heard his voice in my head as I read his letter.
Dear Velvet,
What can I write? (Besides some uncouth epistolary firebombs —FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU. I wore my mother’s clothes because they made me feel close to the good parts of her. That’s not sick. So there. All right. Now. Pause. Rewind. Dub over. Please forgive me. Please do not leave me.) I am the only one here to protect my mother. I was always the only one who could protect her, or try to. She does not love me anymore because . . . I cannot say. Perhaps she never did—there is certainly evidence to suggest that she loved my sister far more. But I don’t like to dwell on that. I think she wanted me to become my sister, and I failed. I tried hard, though. It is impossible to live up to unreasonable expectations, but we do our best, correct? Your mirror
will probably betray me, will probably let you see what a bad son I turned out to be, although I pray that it does not. If there is no God, does a prayer still make a sound? (I suppose that is a sad question. So why am I laughing so hard? I believe I may have what is known as a warped sense of humour. I also believe that this is something we share.)
I am truly, humbly sorry if my words caused you pain. Please do not leave me. Eternity is far too long to spend alone.
Perhaps you are correct, Velvet. Perhaps there is something liberating about craziness. Whatever craziness really is. However, my treasured relationship with Clara Bow certainly does not qualify me as crazy. I think it qualifies me as lucky. Not everyone has the pleasure of an intimate relationship with a movie star from the 1920s. Her visits with me were written into her contract. Perhaps other people might call me crazy, but they are merely limited in their perspective, so I do not take it personally.
Yes, my hair is turning colours. My eyebrows are so fair as to be almost invisible, and the hair on my head is a mixture of light and dark. Blond terror. Also, it is getting thinner. Here, as in life, the body betrays. But in reverse! Not only are my eyes and hair transforming, but my face seems younger, less definite. Lines disappearing. Perhaps that is part and parcel of the Hellish experience: you are returned to your original state, but forever kept from home—wherever that might be. But that would be assuming that infancy is our original state—a foolhardy thing to assume, no doubt.
Are you surprised that I wrote romance, not science fiction? (It is true; we may both be from Andromeda. Or who knows where. We are certainly not in a position to argue with any arcane possibilities.) You are surprised that I wrote romance at all, I know. As concerns science fiction, those books never sell without having a war or two, and I never liked weapons of any sort. My mother did. She liked violence. She was excited by it. Her paintings were always violent, with lots of red and black, lots of angry brushstrokes.
What happens to writing projects that are left unfinished? Do they die with you, or does someone else, in a sort of creative karmic passing of the torch, complete them? In ancient times, people believed words held magical power, that they were living beings, so it stands to reason that they would flap their wings and fly out in search of a mind to enshrine them. I hope whoever finishes my book takes good care of my characters.
I am not very adept at romance. But I always believed that if you watched enough movies, you would receive a celluloid approximation of life knowledge that could stand in for wisdom garnered firsthand. I have seen all the great romances. No leading lady has Clara Bow’s fragile, urchin charm.
Yours very truly,
Brinkley
P.S. Yes, I am a Pisces.
P.P.S. Who do you like better: Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire?
Dear Brinkley,
I was about to write that you are overly sensitive, but instead I’ll write what I really mean: you’re a wimp. So Fuck You, too. (But keep the letters coming.) If you’re going to announce to me that you had a thing for fine fabrics, and then I have to watch you in my mirror wearing those fine fabrics, I have a right to call it like I see it. So don’t get your britches in a twist . . . or should I say panties? I’m not saying that your cross-dressing, wardrobe experimenting bothers me. Au contraire. But I’m not going to lie and tell you that wearing your mother’s old clothes was a perfectly healthy thing to be doing. Besides, you already knew that you weren’t embodying some aesthetic apex. So keep your cussing to yourself.
Frankly, you’re a wimp about your mother, as well. (Good grief, I’ve seen this so many times before, though not to this severe a degree.) Your mother doesn’t deserve your love or your protection. I know what she did to you when you were seven. You are safer here in Hell with me than you ever were with that woman. Maybe you’re right—maybe she doesn’t love you anymore. (Why wouldn’t she? I can’t believe you took care of her when she was sick!) So what?!!! Since I’m in the mood for blistering honesty, I may as well say: you’re wise to assume she probably never did love you. You shouldn’t love her, either. Who dresses their little boy up like a girl? How could she have expected you to fill your sister’s sandals? Those weren’t just impossible expectations, they were cruel. Oh, Brinkley. Why shoot your love at the wrong target, only to have it bounce back and hit you in the face?
I hadn’t thought about whether someone back in life will finish my novella. Probably I should feel happy, thrilled and honoured that my creative intelligence might live on in the world, so of course I don’t. I mean, I do want it to live on, but only with my name on the cover. The fact that I’m willing to express such selfish thoughts in Hell points to inherent stupidity in my personality. I’ve heard people say that suicide is a selfish act, but I think those people are short-sighted and judgmental. Anyway, I’ve been thinking, since I was bullied into killing myself by the Shadowman, wasn’t my death actually a murder? Wouldn’t God see that, if there is a God? Or will any attempt to evade responsibility be held against me? If there was a chance of getting out of here, I’m sure I’ve blown it. Pessimism is a nice cloak for other, greater personality flaws. It lets you pretend that you don’t care to fix what’s wrong. I’m so full of shit.
If I had lived, would I have finished my book? I ponder this over and over. Of course, the list of eternal ponderings grows ever longer: would I have married, would I have gotten up the nerve to go skinny-dipping despite gravity’s hostile takeover, would I have visited Paris and retraced Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant’s footsteps? I’m guessing the answer is no to the first question, and maybe to the other two. Would the Shadowman have one day left me alone for good? Would I have missed the sick bastard if he had? We’re attached to the familiar, even if we don’t like it. And he was nice to me sometimes. I appreciated his fashion sense. The thing about the Shadowman is, he’s kind of a genius in his own right. He gave me lots of creative ideas of all sorts. An unfinished book is an open wound. This room is full of festers. Can a genius know they are a genius, or does such self-knowledge disqualify them? I wonder if I could’ve been a genius. Schopenhauer said that women are incapable of genius. Of course, he was an idiot—the easy, flippant, dismissive, and necessary response. But his assertion bothered me, kept me awake, pestered me while I served curries. He said that women may be talented, but genius will always elude them because they are distracted by biological creativity. The truth is that women have access to more forms of genius than men, and so men are desperate to discount us and stake their claim. That doesn’t answer the question of whether I could’ve been a genius, though in all likelihood the answer is no.
I would write my book here, if I had enough paper. But given the choice between writing my book and writing to you, I choose you. Funny, on so many nights I sat at my desk, stumped and wordless, plotless, trimming split ends with nail scissors and imagining what the book’s cover would look like, wondering how many people would buy it. Now that I’m here, words hitch themselves together to form sentences in my mind and I long to finish it, even though no other soul will ever know what it says.
Sincerely, Velvet
P.S. I used to think that nothing compared to Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain. But then he severely traumatized me. Or the Shadowman did, wearing a Gene Kelly disguise. So maybe I’m more of an Astaire girl, after all.
Dear Velvet,
I have been trying to think of a more creative way to express my anger, since I already used “Fuck You” more than once, and it is such an overused expression. But the word “Fuck” combined with the word “You” expresses my sentiments so perfectly. Perhaps I am a wimp. So? You are hardly in a position to criticize. I love my mother and I love Clara Bow, and I want them to love me too. (I am sure Clara wonders where I have gone. This thought haunts me.) You will never understand. Yes, my mother did a bad thing to me when I was seven, but she stopped. She did not know what she was doing. And I believe it’s possible to save someone by killing them. Killing can be an
act of kindness. So perhaps in her heart, when she put the pillow over my face, she was being kind. And I’ll tell you a secret: sometimes, I wished that she had gone through with it. Only during the times when Clara Bow was not around, and I had no one else. A lonely path is a tiring path. I think my mother was lonely, with only bad memories for company. I had a duty to her: duty is the practical execution of love. Clara had a particular idea of what that duty entailed, but I do not believe now that she was correct. Given my circumstances, I know that she was not.
I think it is fair to wonder whether you were indeed murdered by the Shadowman. He compelled you, after all, so would he not be convicted in court, at least as an accessory? Not that I can lay claim to extensive knowledge of legalities, but in your case there were most definitely mitigating circumstances.
Whether I am a wimp or not is immaterial: do not ever criticize my love for anyone. Your Eternity in that bedroom will be lonely without my letters.
Since you like “blistering” honesty: I know what really happened to your dad. I am sorry, Velvet. Do you think some legacies are inescapable? Perhaps the Shadowman stalked your father, also. What a murderous demon.
Your novella will see the light, if it is meant to. Though I always thought these things would cease to be of any concern after one had died. The Divine Dissatisfaction of the artist keeps us marching forward, even if we cannot march far. My mother’s painting life was constantly consumed by frustration. Dissatisfaction was certainly her lot. I saw her destroy many of her paintings with an X-acto knife. And other things too, like wallpaper. She liked to destroy as much as she liked to create. Perhaps destruction and creativity felt the same to her. You are correct, she should not have dressed me up like a girl, and I never much cared for it when she did. Grief is a poison. It was not until I was older that I came to enjoy women’s clothing. The softness of it, like a security blanket.
I remember standing on my bed in the middle of the night when I was a kid, looking out the window at the street below and the stars above. Already I loved Clara Bow (through her movies, only—she did not come to visit me until I was older), already I loved Marlowe and would recite his lines to myself whenever I was alone. On those nights, looking out at the world from my bedroom, I felt myself expand, so full of possibility. How quickly the world absorbs us, and we forget where we are going. Or perhaps we never really knew.
The Delphi Room Page 12