Wildflower

by Drew Barrymore

  FLYING HIGH

  We had heard about a skydiving place not far from where we lived. Cameron Diaz and I were in a crazy mode where all we wanted to do was adventurous stuff. High off the rush of Charlie’s Angels and training in kung fu for four months straight and then performing stunts for the next six, we had become total adrenaline junkies. We had just come back from a trip to the Tahitian Islands, where we scuba dived with sharks! It was amazing. Six-foot-plus grays and nurses swimming all around in a giant fishbowl of what would normally seem terrifying but was actually a peaceful descent to silence and awe sixty feet under water. I liked that you had to use signals and stop talking for a while and yet everyone could fully communicate.

  At one point, when our guide took out a huge plastic bag of something that looked like mangled guts, my eyes bugged out, but then he took out a twelve-inch blade and sliced it open. The blood went everywhere and so came the sharks. I quickly motioned to him with a hand sweeping back and forth across my neck as if to say, “Enough! We’re good, please don’t chum the water anymore.” It was crazy to be in a place where in the blink of an eye things could have gone very bad.

  And yet we survived and loved every minute of it. So when we found out that there was a skydiving school about an hour away from Los Angeles, we immediately signed ourselves up and drove out to Perris, California, a total desert landscape.

  When we arrived at the school we were met by a bunch of dudes. Hot doggers and bird chasers. I knew from first glance they were all up on my girlfriend’s tip. And as long as no one was inappropriate, I just rolled with it. I am forever protective and chivalrous of my friend. She calls me her little man because in the first Charlie’s, we dressed in disguise as men to break into Redstar tech facilities. I looked oddly like a very short James Spader, and she like a normal-height pencil-pushing CPA. And although I come up to her elbow, the name “little man” stuck.

  Poo Poo (our mutual nickname for each other) and I have known each other since I was fourteen and she was sixteen. We met in West Hollywood back in the late ’80s. There were two beautiful girls, both models, Cameron and Cory. Everyone ogled them, but most important they were both extremely nice and the opposite of cold. But they were cool.

  We hung around in similar circles for many years. I liked any girl’s girl and Cameron was definitely that. But it was when I called her, because I was producing Charlie’s Angels, and dared her to come play that we became so close. She was shooting Being John Malkovich, and I arranged a phone call for us so that I could pitch her the movie because a script hadn’t even been written. I talked about tone and what I wanted it to be, but I really stressed the sisterhood and the capability of these women to her. I said, “Girls want to do what boys do without losing the idea that they want love at the end of the day! They also love each other as women and they are stronger together. They want to kick ass and have fun.” I knew she would get the spirit of women who supported each other and liked to laugh. That’s who she has always been, and I knew we would have a blast! And we did. Well after the films ended, we continued our journey as friends and thrill seekers.

  So here we were, two girls who wanted to jump out of a plane, and we were watching our instructional videos, which were terrifying, but worse, they make you sign your life away. Literally. You have to sign an “if I don’t make it” contract. They tell you it’s standard protocol. They also tell you that it’s likely you will get cotton mouth on the plane ride up and to bring some water. What the hell was I doing? Just as I started to question if we had gone too far this time, they gave us our suits to change into. I noticed that hers was bright red and mine was canary yellow. We took our balled-up material and went into the changing rooms. The guys were kind of making jokes and yukking it up as we changed. I was starting to get the sense that these yahoos were holding themselves back from falling all over themselves for her. It was obvious that they were all salivating, and who wouldn’t.

  I was used to this. And as protective as I was, I got it completely. I loved her too! But in this cacophony of douchebaggery, I was more worried about the question “Are these the guys we want to possibly die with?”

  I zipped up my suit, and we both emerged from our curtained makeshift dressing rooms at the same time. My eyes bulged. They had put me in a bright yellow rayon jumpsuit with a giant toucan across the entire front of it. I looked like an Oompa Loompa. Being on autopilot and contemplating my mortality while getting dressed, I was so distracted that I hadn’t noticed that some jackass had chosen a full-on fucking clown suit for me. Not only did I feel worried, I also looked like a total idiot.

  Then my eyes looked over, and they had given Cameron a skintight, painted-on red spandex onesie that literally let you make out every inch of her body. I wanted to punch these assholes. And there we were, Suzy Chapstick and Toucan Sam. They told us how good we looked, and I rolled my eyes and uttered “Fuck you” under my breath. They told us it was time to go, and the Froot Loops outfit went right out of my mind as the sound of the propellers kicking up outside the building took my full attention now.

  We walked to the plane. We all had our packs and chutes on now, including an altimeter on my chest. I looked like a human dashboard, and we entered the open plane. It took off, and now I looked down at my altimeter and it said a thousand feet, and I looked out the window. It seemed really high. I turned to the instructor designated to me and yelled over the whirling air in the plane, “How many feet up do we go before we jump?” He looked at me with a shit-eating grin and said, “Ten thousand feet.” Oh my GOD. OK. It looked good enough to me at two thousand feet, which we were now at, as we had gone up another thousand since I had last checked my chest meter one minute earlier. Wow. My tongue started to expand. I couldn’t breathe, but most noteworthy was the infamous cotton mouth they spoke of. My tongue was a combination of sandpaper and felt. Water would not even begin to help the arid nature of my mouth as it would be like spitting on a forest fire.

  At around eight thousand feet I just sat with my mouth open. It was a hollow sand trap and no longer resembled my mouth. My instructor turned to me and asked another in a series of stupid trivial questions. “So, what was E.T. like?” I simply couldn’t answer. Words were not an option at this point, as my tongue had become a fat cashmere taquito. And before I knew it, everyone was starting to stand up and prepare for jumping out. I finally looked at Poo Poo. Having just scuba dived with her, I felt like we could communicate with our eyes. After a deep breath and a stare-down, I think we both telepathically said, “These guys are tools. But we came all this way, and it would be a shame to turn back now. They can get us where we need to go. And we need to go out of this plane and rock this goddamn dive!” Yes!

  I felt better. Cowabunga. Let’s do this. Just then, one of the guys said, “Who wants to go first?” Feeling my newfound bravado, I raised my hand. Again, I couldn’t speak, so I figured my arm would tell everyone I was ready to go! We braced ourselves at the opening of the plane. We were to rock back and forth, tethered to our guides, just like we practiced down at the base training facility. We crouched down. My arms were wrapped across my chest like a mummy. They counted out loud. One. My tongue was at a new level of useless. Two. Oh my God, I’m really doing this. Three. OK, fuck it, let’s dance.

  And with that thought I threw myself out of the plane. Down, down, down we went. And it went on forever. The air was so forceful I couldn’t breathe. I wondered how long this would go on because if I didn’t die from the jump, I would definitely die from wind inhalation or lack of oxygen. In my periphery I saw Poo Poo going straight down headfirst, which actually makes you go faster, so even though she jumped out second, she was now passing me like a human bullet. I continued to hold my breath and prayed to get to the deployed chute part. Open open open!!!!!! Please, God, open!

  And with that, after a one-minute-long free fall, my chute jerked me up in the air and canopied all around me. As it cascaded out and I started to
glide through the air, aaaaaahhhhhh. This was the vision I had. This was the silence I craved. And I gently floated through the air like a soaring bird. I was overwhelmed by the peace I felt. I had made it. I was flying. And just like that, the guy I was tethered to started up on the dumb questions again. “So, you gonna make another movie soon?” Oh, Christ. Shut up!

  I politely asked how long the gliding down would take and he said, “Oh, about ten minutes.” “Great,” I said, but what I meant was “Great, I have to listen to your shit for ten more minutes when all I want is to enjoy the landscape!” Unlike him, I knew I would not be doing this again anytime soon.

  After what felt like an eternity, I landed smoothly, I’m happy to say. My instructor took my face and gave me a big grandmother kiss. Yuck. Thanks a lot. First you put me in this clown suit and now you try to grope me? Get me out of here. We got out of there as fast as possible, happy to have our lives and bodies intact. And we drove to the closest place we could find to get something to drink. There was a fast-food joint on the side of the road and we ran inside. Two sodas and two burritos later, we recounted our experiences in words—A, because we could now talk without being listened to, and B, because my mouth was functioning again.

  Just as we got going and were quietly screaming about what we were each going through, Poo Poo bit into glass in her burrito. Well, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. You survive jumping out of a plane, but you almost die eating after. We just started laughing the hardest laugh you could imagine. We took off and drove back to Hollywood with the wind in our faces from the open windows of the car—although I think it’s safe to say that I will never again experience wind in my face like that of a free fall at ten thousand feet.

  Now we are older and she is still one of my closest friends. I was her bridesmaid, and she is my daughter Frankie’s godmother. We still go on adventures all the time, but they are much more mellow. But that’s the thing I love about my friend. She is always game. And I will always be her little man.

  John Drew Barrymore

  JOSHUA TREE

  My dad. I don’t really know where to begin other than to say he simply wasn’t a “dad.” He was this mythical creature. Part unicorn, part violent storm. And although he separated from my mom when she was pregnant, I somehow knew to forgive him. It’s as if I could grasp as a kid that this horse was so wild, he couldn’t be pinned down, and even if he could I am not sure you would want him around. This was the kind of man you saw in small doses. They were memorable. Sometimes dark, sometimes humorous, sometimes quotable. Example: When I was with him as a teenager he told me he needed food, and I asked him, “Oh yeah, are you hungry?” He looked at me wide-eyed and indignant. “Hungry? I was hungry since the day I was born!”

  It made sense, I guess. Another time he was staying with me for a brief alternate-universe visit, and I needed security at my house for a short period. He came walking up my driveway and said, “Daughter, why do you need security? You’ve got me! I’ve got my nightstick and my third eye!” . . . Right.

  No one would have ever guessed my father would have ended up being the man he was at that time. He was my grandfather John Barrymore’s only son, and had been a promising actor when he was young. He had been gorgeous and dynamic, but he threw his career away in a total self-sabotage. Today he looked like a frail, homeless old hippie. More someone you would be trying to keep out than allow in. The truth is I never lived with my father. I never even had a dinner with both of my parents. I never knew the whole story of how my parents met and got together. They most likely met at the Comedy Store or the Troubadour. They had a tumultuous few years together and then separated before I was born.

  My mother and father were both incapable of being parents, and I don’t fault them for it. My therapist would disagree, but the truth is they gave me a great blueprint through their behavior of what not to do with my own kids. For starters, I will have so many thousands of dinners with my kids. They will sleep together and go to school and have a bedtime, and life will be so stable and consistent that they will complain until they grow up and realize that this is the better way! A stable, loving family is something that should absolutely, fundamentally never ever be taken for granted! I am lucky that I got dealt some cards that showed me what it’s like to not have family, and I am much luckier to now have the chance to create my own deck! I will fight like William “Braveheart” what’s-his-name to keep them protected and intact! I am a warrior. I am a soldier. I am a not-to-be-messed-with lion! I am a mother!

  When I think about my dad, I think most about when he got cancer and I actually got to take care of him for a while. I was in my late twenties at the time. He got kicked out of the first hospice house I had put him in for disorderly conduct (weed and erratic behavior, which usually don’t go together, but what can I say). I wasn’t even surprised in the slightest, but I needed to find him somewhere to live because he needed medical attention 24-7 at this stage in his multiple myeloma, so hanging at my house was not an option. I finally found a place that would take him, and it actually had an ocean view, and we got him a long, thin pillow to block the scent of his weed from drafting underneath the door, and these people were saints at handling his unreasonable demands. No one could wear perfume around him: “Murderers, man!!” If someone had used detergent—“Oh man, you’re killing me!”—he would order everyone to wash in nothing but Dr. Bronner’s soap from head to toe (“You can even brush your teeth with it!” he said), and then he would douse himself in real lemon juice and olive oil. He was like a human salad. There were lemons everywhere. I’m talking hundreds. But those were his bottom lines. My father acted like Cleopatra on the throne of his temporary bed. Everything in his life was temporary. For as long as I knew him, or barely knew him, he was always coming from somewhere and going somewhere else. My father never had an apartment. No address to send a letter. No phone to call him if the mood struck. He didn’t wear shoes! Even this crazy man’s feet had to be free! He would roam Topanga Canyon in the ’70s and ’80s and just show up at my mom’s duplex with David Carradine (of Kung Fu) and talk some crazy nonsense, usually wreak havoc on the joint, and then take off again. He and my mom would yell a battle of words and duel about who was wittier or who had made the last genius comeback. They fought like pathetic poets, but really my mom had just made a terrible choice in my dad and he wanted to be worshipped from afar without the dare of an expectation! I would just sit in the other side of the room and count the minutes until he would disappear again.

  Then he would show up again at a random Christmas dinner at a friend’s house, where my mom had taken me so that we might be somewhere more traditional and full of life as opposed to the Charlie Brown Christmas tree and single-momness of our home. We would be having dinner, and then I would hear sounds of chaos and commotion coming from the other room. He would then storm in and start ranting, and eventually would have to be escorted out by the hosts. He would do the same thing at a random Chinese restaurant—I don’t even know how he found us. He would come crashing in like the Kool-Aid guy, and then a bunch of people would rally and literally take him outside. Yep. I was never really showing off to anyone, pointing, “That’s my dad!!” I more just watched in awe.

  Many years later, I hadn’t seen him for about seven or eight years, and I stood next to him and he was around fiftysomething and the drugs and the road had taken his swagger away some and he just didn’t seem like a threat in the slightest. So I went from damaged kid to “I could kick his ass” status, and the playing field just leveled and we could become friends. One time I told him I was mad at my mom, and he said, “Oh baby, you gotta kick the bag,” as if to say I should let go of any resentment. “Um, OK.” He was just this guy who literally didn’t want to carry anything. Literally or metaphorically. And once again I left thinking, I’ll see you when I see you. No pain. No attachments. No drama.

  I would occasionally get some kind of carrier-pigeon-t
ype communication from him, as this was all way before cell phones, and we would meet up in Joshua Tree. I would stay in some weird place he had for the weekend, bring my dogs, and we would go in some golf cart (again, where in the world did he get this golf cart?) and tool around in Joshua Tree National Monument. Just the two of us and Flossy and Templeton, my cool-customer, go-anywhere dogs, and I would just love these times. They were easy. Strange. Temporary. And usually gave me plenty of one-liners to laugh all the way home about.

  He would talk about the flickering Buddha, quote Walt Whitman, but I really loved when he would share an anecdote about our family, the Barrymores.

  He made it seem so real. All the Barrymores had passed away before I was born, so there was no dynasty-like upbringing. But I could see why people thought I might have grown up that way. My grandfather was the great actor John Barrymore. They called him and my great-aunt Ethel and my great-uncle Lionel the royal family! I never knew any of them, and I wanted to more than words can ever describe. I would think about my grandfather all the time. Lots of my friends knew their grandparents so well, and I wished I could have that same luxury. I was particularly fascinated with my grandfather John. When my dad would talk about his own father, I would listen as if I was being let into this fairy-tale world, where dangers lurk but fantastical magical things can occur. He would talk about the legend of when my grandfather’s body was stolen from the morgue by his friends, including W. C. Fields, Errol Flynn, a crazy poet named Sadakichi Hartmann, a painter named John Decker, and a writer named Gene Fowler (who wrote a famous book about my grandfather called Good Night, Sweet Prince).

  So the legend goes, they stole his body, and in an attempt to give him one last party, they propped John up at a poker table with sunglasses on and a cocktail in hand and invited people over and had one last hell of a soiree. Well, you have got to hand it to them for not letting death be spoiled by such depressing sadness. They took a whole other approach. It’s not one I recommend, per se, but this was the line of great loonies from which I come. They were talented, damaged, and I can’t help but idealize them because it’s all I have. And just like my grandfather’s friends, I don’t want to be sad about loss.