The Caught

by Jon Jacks

  Don’t they get it? She’s dead. The world’s most famous movie star is dead.

  She ain’t going out on any dream dates anymore.

   

   

  *

   

   

  Mrs Murray's green Dodge is still there, in the double garage.

  She’ll be loving all this, old hatchet-face Eunice (Eunasty!). The centre of attention, like she always wanted to be.

  Where the hell was she when Marilyn was committing suicide?

  Ain’t that why she lives in Marilyn’s house? To look after her, take care of her?

  That’s the bull Mom was given when Dr Greenson said she was being replaced.

  They needed someone who’d stay with Marilyn at all times, he’d said, calmly, politely. Like he was telling her to keep taking the pills.

  Someone who’d receive visitors, that sorta thing, he’d said; not just keeping the house clean.

  Someone who’d ferry Marilyn around in her old Dodge when she needed to get out. When she needed to visit Dr Greenson, for instance.

  Mom can’t even drive, let alone afford a car. So she weren’t ever in with a chance, was she, know what I’m saying?

  Heck, who’d’ve thought all these other things were suddenly so important?

  You ask me, only guy thinks they’re really important is good old Dr Greenson.

  Truth is, Mom wouldn’t do what Dr Greenson really wanted. He wanted someone to spy on Marilyn. Someone who was gonna report back to him each day.

  Marilyn, she didn’t see it as spying at first. Keeping track of her behaviour and moods, she’d called it.

  I’d told her, it don’t seem right to me.

  Dr Greenson was a good man, she’d said. A psychiatrist who was helping her.

  He saw her everyday, at his house just down in Santa Monica. Made her feel part of his family, she said. Letting her spend weekends, eat meals with them, even cook in the kitchen.

  Marilyn liked that, the sense of being part of a family.

  She called Dr Greenson ‘Ralph’.

  She was sorry she couldn’t keep Mom on anymore. But she was sure Mom would manage all right with the other cleaning jobs she had.

  So what the heck happened to old Eunice’s daily reports? How come she ain’t putting out the warnings that Marilyn’s ready to top herself?

  Okay, so I gotta admit I was pretty close and I ain’t ever seen it coming either.

  But then it ain’t ever been my job, has it, to be on the lookout for it?

  Then again, I ain’t seeing it myself, I ain’t seeing this as being suicide, like they’re making out.

  Sure, okay, I know all that crock the papers were spreading around – how she’d had a hard time a while back. How she was feeling way bad about herself and angry at the way she’d been treated. (Hey, how’d you feel if you’d been kicked around like that?)

  But she knew herself that she needed help. Heck, that was why she’d moved down here in the first place, to be near Dr Greenson.

  And recently, you know what? She was happier than I’d ever seen her!

  She was doing up the house, realistic Mexican style.

  Spent ages studying books and all that stuff! Went down Mexico way, she did, bringing back all this hand-made pottery and tiles. All these materials. Three big pictures!

  Here’s another thing.

  She wasn’t at home last weekend.

  And I know why.

  She’d been off to Lake Tahoe. Spending a weekend there with Joe – Joe DiMaggio.

  Okay, so they’d been married once before.

  Way I heard it, they’d planned to remarry.

  That’s why she couldn’t see me last night. Because Joe had telephoned.

  Telling her he was breaking off his engagement to some other broad.

   

   

  *

   

   

  Thing is, apart from that call there was nothing unusual about that whole day, way I see it.

  It was just like most other Saturdays.

  I turned up asking if I could do I few odd jobs around the garden – you know, helping make it look more Mexican.

  Eunice wanted to send me away. (You can tell; the way her face suddenly develops more creases than an elephant’s crack.)

  But she knows Norm would be okay about me giving a hand, so she makes an attempt at a pleasant grimace. She points me through to the garden at the rear.

  Norman Jeffries is the caretaker. Oh, and also Eunice’s son-in-law. I know what you’re thinking – the good doctor and his friends really know how to keep it in the family, don’t they?

  Truth is, though, I like Norm.

  The guy’s even got hair like a welcome mat, what with those short, thick bristles, cut perfectly flat across the top of his head.

  What you’d call a homey face too; like a solidly built house. All large projections and sharp angles. The mouth a regular picket fence of teeth.

  Marilyn waved when she saw me, smiled.

  She seemed fine to me.

  But Eunice, well, way she has it Marilyn’s best avoided; she’s in a crabby mood, she hasn’t slept at all well.

  Okay, so I admit that when I hear Marilyn talking to Pat – that’s Pat Newcomb, her press agent – she sure does sound a bit crabby. You gotta see these arguments to fully appreciate ’em.

  See, Pat’s like the sensible, older sister, all neatly bobbed, dark blond hair. Marilyn, she’s got the glistening, awry halo, natch. So she’s like the younger sister, fuming because she ain’t gonna have anyone telling her how to live her life.

  So perhaps Marilyn had a right to be crabby with her, know what I’m saying?

  Fact is, she don’t raise any fuss at all when I step in her kitchen for a drink. Just gives me that beaming smile of hers; ‘Thirsty work out there Jack?’

  Pat just got the worst of her, I guess.

  Could be Pat’s slept well and Marilyn, as per usual, ain’t. So could be there’s just a hint of jealousy there.

  Could be a few dolls had been taken.

  Whoops, I’d better explain. We’re not talking illegal substances here, understand?

  These are prescribed drugs; the sort all movie stars end up taking to zap them into life when they’re about to start filming. Others to send them straight back to la-la land once their busy little day’s over.

  See, Dr Greenson was trying to break Marilyn's Nembutal habit. And the best way of doing that, he reckons, is to switch her to chloral hydrate.

  Get what I’m talking about here?

  Trouble being, Nembutal’s Marilyn’s sleep-aid of choice. And so another doctor, Dr Engelberg, obliged her with a prescription only yesterday.

  Hell, that’s what doctors are for, ain’t it?

   

   

  *

   

   

  Old Dr Greenson himself turned up after lunch.

  Eunice telling me she’d called him, on account of Marilyn asking if there’s any oxygen around.

  Now our Dr Greenson, he’s obviously trying for the Albert Einstein look, right?

  Going for the bushy moustache draped across his mouth. But his hair; well it ain’t having anything to do with it. It’s rushing back from his forehead like the tide going out.

  Only way he’d get me sitting down with him, laying out all my troubles and worries, like Marilyn does, well only way he’d get me doing that would be if he paid me for the privilege, rather than the other way round.

  Still, Marilyn’s with him most of the afternoon. I could see them in the sunroom, through the large windows overlooking the back garden. Seated by a tapestry she’d hung on the wall in there.

  Aztec, she called it.

  A naked Mexican Indian chick. Surrounded by bright, multicoloured bands.

  It’s all part of that Mexican look I mentioned earlier, see?

  That’s what I’m doing out h
ere, planting shrubs she’s had specially imported.

  There’s also a lot of new furniture in there, some of which arrived just a few days ago.

  It’s all one hell of a lot simpler than the stuff you’d expect a movie star to be surrounding herself with too. Just polished wood, most of it. Matting for the seats, or thin, sand-coloured cushions.

  Plushest thing is a red Mexican sofa she’s placed in the living room.

  Everything else in there is just the simple stuff once again. Leather top cocktail table. Folding benches, made from a single piece of wood.

  She’s kept the Rodin statue (‘You pronounce it Ro – dan Jack’), a man and woman getting it on. It got you thinking that pose, know what I mean?

  There’s also a Golden Globe statuette in there, cracked and showing its lead filling. Marilyn finds that funny, the lead beneath the gold.

  See, Marilyn’s not like your usual stuck up movie star. They’re all up in their mansions, up in Beverly Hills. Marilyn’s down here, in Brentwood.

  Take the kitchen, right? Table ain’t no bigger than the one back in our apartment, tucked away in a small nook. Wall-mounted seats, crushed up either side of it. Blue tiles surrounding the window.

  Course, it’s all a lot cleaner than our apartment could ever be. Though not as clean as it could be if Mom still worked here. (Don’t seem to make much sense that, does it? But, what with cleaning the big, sprawling houses of her betters’ all day, Mom’s too whacked when she gets home to be bothered about picking up yet another brush pan.)

  So what makes this a movie star’s kitchen? Nothing, unless you happen to walk in and find, say, a white fox boa, carelessly thrown over the table like it don’t matter to her.

  Strange thing is, Marilyn really cooks in here. Can you believe that?

  Okay, so don’t believe me; but the proof’s right here. Marilyn’s copy of The Joy of Cooking. I’ve seen her making notes in it as she cooks her favourites.

  Beef bourguignon. Borscht. Stews. Homemade pasta. Guacamole.

  She’s even written out a recipe for rum cake in there.

  Fact is, I reckon that if Dr Greenson hadn’t been there Saturday, who knows, she could’ve spent it right there in that there kitchen.

  I’ve seen her do it. Happily cooking away, letting me try a taste of her recipes now and again.

  Either that or she’d’ve been outside in the garden with me. Helping pull out the weeds. Wearing her straw, candykiss-shaped gardening hat.

  So, does all this sound to you like a woman who’s about to commit suicide?

  No, it don’t to me neither.

   

   

  *

  Chapter 4

   

  Sure, Marilyn got into an argument that day, that Saturday.

  I heard her through the open windows.

  Now she’s been talking to Joe again, she’s finally got around to telling Dr Greenson she don’t need him no more.

  She don’t need Eunice either, she said; in fact she’s firing her.

  It don’t go down well with the good doctor, obviously.

  Dr Greenson, he’s saying she needs to cool off.

  Mid-afternoon, he finally gives her a break, time-off to go for a drive with Eunice.

  Can’t’ve been too great an atmosphere in that old Dodge, eh?

   

   

  *

   

   

  If Norm’s a well-built house, Eunice is a beat-up car.

  Her face permanently set in the mean scowl of a Thunderbird grill. Her spectacles curving up at the edges like an old Packard’s rocket fins.

  Hair hanging like wispy exhaust fumes.

  When she’s going out somewhere special, she’ll pull all that wispy hair back into a tight bun, like she’s trying to pull all the creases out of her face.

  She’ll top it all off with a pillbox hat, kidding herself she looks as glamorous as Jackie Kennedy.

  Yeah, and my name’s President Kennedy.

  Marilyn goes out only after dressing down.

  Baggy this, baggy that. Old this, even older that. Scarf, if it’s not too hot. No makeup. The darkest sunglasses.

  She has two of everything, see? For the two Marilyns.

  The dowdy one who wants to go into a store without being noticed or recognised.

  And the one she transforms into when she has to; Marilyn Monroe, Movie Star.

  Even the makeup case is different. Black, with her initials, M.M. Colours only she could get away with; bright greens and dazzling blues for the eyes.

  None of that comes out when she’s being ferried around in Eunice’s Dodge.

  Way I hear it later, she’s been down to Lawford’s beach house. There at four, back here before five.

  Almost as soon as she’s back, Lawford’s on the phone; would she like to come over for supper with friends?

  She says no, smiling at me as I make my way to the kitchen for another drink.

  Now she’s back, it’s back with the good doctor for a while.

  Now, though, he breaks off for a while himself. Calls Dr Engleberg, fails to convince him to come out, give her an injection that will help her sleep.

  There are a few more sharp words between Marilyn and Pat, the good doctor deciding it’s best if Pat leaves. She’s away in a huff just before six.

  An hour later, even the good doctor calls it a day, striding past me as I trim the forecourt grass. His eyes focused on nothing but the gate, like I ain’t really there.

  Okay, so now he’s gone, I decide it’s okay for me to knock on the door. Making out I just want a bit of money for my troubles. Really just wanting to talk to Marilyn awhile.

  I finish the trimming first, making the angles of the small forecourt lawn look nice and regular. Sweep up the cut grass off the surrounding tiles.

  ‘Jack, Jack,’ she says excitedly as she opens the door to me. ‘It’s Joe! He’s just called. He’s broken off his engagement with that horrible woman. Isn’t that wonderful? I just need to call Ralph, tell him the good news. Can you call later, let me know how much I owe you?’

  I don’t want to spoil this for her. I nod, I smile.

  I’m hurt inside, but I don’t show it. Marilyn can do that – hurt you without knowing it.

  Joe’s good for her, I know that.

  She’s had Joe round here before, of course. Had photographs taken of her and him, for a magazine I think. Lounging around. Smiling. Playing her white piano.

  She’s had that white piano a long time, you know?

  She really cared for it, that piano.

   

   

  *

   

   

  I’m on my way home when the sedan tries to run me over.

  It ain’t like I’m jay walking or anything. Or not watching where I’m going.

  I’m just minding my own business when, behind me, I hear this sedan suddenly accelerate.

  That’s what saves me, probably; the fact that the dumb ass accelerates to ensure he finishes me off good.

  If he’d just sneaked up on me, I wouldn’t’ve known he was there till it was too late.

  I turn around.

  I see the sedan swerve.

  Curve sharply off the road.

  Bounce on its springs as it mounts the kerb.

  Grill like a snarling mouth.

  Sh–!

   

   

  *

   

   

  I throw myself to one side, rolling across someone’s neatly tended lawn.

  The neatly tended lawn’s churned up into muddied clods of earth, the sedan swerving and swaying like a fish struggling on a line.

  Tyres spinning, whirling, as they try to get a grip on the recently watered grass.

  I scramble back to my feet and run, my feet slipping and sliding like I’m in hell’s version of a funhouse.

  Running across other well-ten
ded lawns.

  The sedan following, careering from side to side, turning every lawn to brown mush.

  I leap, hop, skip and jump. Throwing myself off to one side. Landing amongst a patch of roses sheltered behind a willow tree.

  At last, the sedan decides it has to veer off.

  It sweeps beneath the willow’s curtain of hanging fronds, its roof clattering like machinegun fire.

  It skids, sharply swings back towards the road, its rear fishtailing.

  It leaps off the kerb, the springs sending it bucking and rolling like a broken soapbox cart.

  It roars off up the road.

  It was a black sedan. Pretty new, too, going by the way it sparkled.

  I didn’t see who was driving.

  But I can guess.

  I pick myself up from amongst the rose bushes, grimacing. Thorns catch on my skin, coat and jeans, like the plants have suddenly come alive.

  ‘Hey! What you done to my lawn?’

  A jerk’s at the door to the house. His glasses opaque in the sunlight, so he looks like a mole come up for air.

  His foggy eyes look out over a Bikini Atoll-like devastation. Only a moment ago it was his neat little lawn.

  Yeah, like I’ve done that.

  ‘No charge mister,’ I say, giving him a cheery salute.

  I stride off, knowing he ain’t the type who’s gonna complain that I’m leaving.

   

   

  *

  Chapter 5

   

  If there’s one thing Marilyn done bad by me and Mom, it’s giving us her old TV.

  Once back from work (sure, Sundays too; any day she can get, she works), Mom sits there in front of it like she’s not allowed to miss a minute of it.

  Like she wishes she could take it intravenously. Eyes as glazed as the jerk with the torn-up garden.

  Sometimes, she only seems to blink when the smoke from her cigarette swims past her eyes.

  The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis or Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The Price Is Right or The Outlaws.

  Mom has no preference.

  Dr. Kildare has her drooling and weeping, Candid Camera chortling like she’s the happiest person in the world.

  Leave It to Beaver gets her all misty eyed; I swear she thinks she’s really part of their quaint, happy little family.

  She glances at me sometimes like she’s thinking it’s all my fault she ain’t.

  Like if only I’d be a little more like cute little Theodore Cleaver, we’d somehow have a house just like theirs.

  Whatever it is she’s thinking, it’s usually not long after Beaver’s finished charming us all that I get a whining, ‘You know, you’ve been a disappointment to me Jack.’

  All her emotions are tied up, all controlled, by that little box she’s positioned on the middle of the table in the middle of the room.