“Tiny bit ironic, seeing as she busted her wrist slapping you as a kid. But I know how you felt. I felt it.” I can rage against Mom but she’s my mom. She’s of us. “What was the third one?”
“There was this kid came around My-O-My, a high school kid. But he grew up hard in a way we can’t even imagine. So he gets 86’d. I’m alone on the porch trying to get him off the property. But the kid just keeps talking to me, so remember, we were taking the martial arts crap from Manuel? I square my legs, settle into a stance meant to say dude, I know what I’m doing. I will fuck you up. Only he looks at me with steel in his cold eyes. If I want to fight him, I will have to kill him. Scared the hell out of me.”
“He was a raccoon.”
“A, huh?”
“Never mind, what happened?”
“This kid made me want to piss my pants. I felt like a total pussy.”
“Being afraid of cats that would kill us is what kept us alive.”
“Yeah, here’s the kicker. Remember Greg Gomez?”
Yes I did. Greg was the White boy raised in E.P.A. The burn victim. As strange as he looked, none of us ever treated him different. He would have died for any of us. No question.
“He’s the toughest motherfucker we knew, ever. So I tell Greg, I point to the kid who is now across the street. Say ‘Greg you got to keep that guy away from me.’ Greg walks over, talks to the guy. Nods and walks back and looks at me confused. He says, ‘Larkin, he’s just a kid.’ To me he’s a stone killer, to Greg he’s a freakin kid.”
“The kid sensed he could push you, Greg scared him, hell Greg scared everyone. Doesn’t make you a pussy.”
“Yeah actually it does.” We go back and forth and get no closer to resolution.
I’m riding home on my motorcycle. Thinking about our conversation. And I get it. I can’t have him be a pussy. He is the man I looked up to. He is the model I built my manhood on. If he is a pussy, then I am an über pussy by extension.
1976, the year of the American Bicentennial. Year of red white and blue. It is Saturday night. We have no idea it is the last night of the My-O-My. Some literary phrases are bullshit, some aren’t. ‘The violence was palpable in the air’, that one is true. You can feel it like the smell of ozone before a storm or the hot dead calm before an earthquake. Yeah, this was earthquake weather. The tension was rumbling just under the skin.
“When you were punched in the face by that biker, did it hurt?” Lark and me are getting dressed for work.
“What made you think of that?”
“I don’t know.”
“That was a long time ago. And he kicked me in the face. I was high.”
“I’m, I’m afraid of getting punched in the face.”
“Shit, it ain’t nothing. Doesn’t hurt that bad. Just kinda surprising. No big fucking deal.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
I was two hours away from finding out just what it felt like. On the front porch Lark and Steve and me, all goofing, all relaxed. Three lads who we 86’d for life came up on us. We get them to move on. But they are pissed. Hell who wouldn’t be. At sixteen you are incapable of seeing that maybe it’s your behavior that brought on trouble.
John Luke and Brenda, a hot chunky girl, are walking out. I nod at him. He hits the sidewalk, then walks back to me.
“What’s up, sides you and Brenda?”
“We goin’ home.”
“You have fun tonight?”
“No. I’m just saying I’m going home. You should too.”
“Something I should know?” He doesn’t answer. He shakes his head. He starts to speak. He walks away. He and Brenda get in his Impala. As he rounds the corner he takes a last look at the club.
Brad, the DJ, slides a segue into Body Heat. I’m behind him in the booth, looking out at the undulating sea of kids. The mirror ball scatters silver spots over the room. The back door opens and the three 86’d lads storm in with three or four others. They slip into the crowd. I’m moving.
Eye on the dance floor.
Hoping one of the bouncers will see me.
The guys I’m after are in the middle of the floor.
I see Lark. He is heading onto the dance floor from the front. I go in from the side. We get to the center of the room together. A crowd of young men turn on us.
They are yelling.
Honkey motherfucker. Cracker. Fuck you. White bitches.
In my peripheral vision something is sailing in. The fist hits my cheek. My head bobs, but it doesn’t hurt. Much. Lark was right, the fear was worse than the pain. So I tell him, “Lark, you’re right, it didn’t-”
The second blow comes from the other side. I am hit by a fist, no arm, no body. Fists are flying at us. My knees start to buckle.
If I go down, they will stomp me. It will end ugly. Sad.
The beast betrays me and stays away.
I press my back against my brother’s. We hold each other up and swing and block as best we can. Glad for our Viking peasant stock. We keep striking out. If we go down it will not be easily. No, not this night.
The bright white emergency lights go on. Brad floods the room. The Ohio Players scratch off and White Punks OnDope spills from the speakers. The Tubes are our guaranteed room clearer. Steve and Greg wade in, tossing boys aside as they come. From the street, sirens are coming on fast. Kids are running out.
Windows will be broken. Bottles smashed. Landlord will pull our lease at the city's request. We will fight them, but weakly. The heart is out of it. Summer is ending. It is time we get on with whatever it was we were doing before the My-O-My.
I’m 50. I wonder how Mickey Rooney would have felt to see his show go so sideways.
It was a time we had. We got drunk to the O’Jays and fell in love to Brothers Johnson. We built something real. We fought for it for a while. We stood back to back, shoulder to shoulder in the last fist fight either of us would be in.
I will turn 18 with a bullet in November. 18. Fuck around at 18 and you go to big boy jail. It is time to put the guns up and take a long needed rest.
I’m tired of violence.
I’m tired of fear.
I’m tired of drama.
I’m ready to see what life looks like on the other side of all this madness we shaped into a life. Had I known that my brother and I would never live together again, I might have hung round a little longer. I might have gone to Texas with him. But we had a plan. I would return to Los Angeles and study acting at the America Academy. He would go to Houston and make money. We would join back up and make movies together. Fuck.
“Do you know how to make the Goddess laugh?”
“Show her a one legged stork?”
“No, Shaunton, you tell her your plans.”
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Finally a new chapter.
Date: July 16, 9:47:18 PM PDT
To: [email protected] , [email protected]
Nice...
I don't care what anyone says, it was an effing blast to be young when all adults were predisposed, sex was safe and we were bullet proof. I know damage was done, but, man we had fun...I was going to say no one died, but that would be a lie. Not everybody was bullet proof and I know some that made it still carry pain from the scars. I just look back on it and have to laugh....I'm not saying that I have any desire to go back, Hell no,...just enjoying the memories your writing bring back.
BIG LOVE,
Lark
BOOK 2
In which Pooh bear learns to dance on thin ice in roller skates. Silly old bear.
For my wife and our two sons, they drove me with love and madness to become a man I can live with.
“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. “Pooh?” he whispered.
“Yes, Piglet?”
“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh's hand. “I just wanted to be sure of you.”
- A.A. Milne, Willie-the-Pooh
DRIFT SOUTH
I am 19 and le
aving Palo Alto for the last time. I can’t say I am leaving home, although that sounds more wistful. I haven’t lived in a house with my mother since I was sixteen. In years zero to sixteen we lived in eleven houses. That’s a move every 1.4 years. It got so I stopped unpacking. Lark reminded me last night that I had left out two houses. They had lived in a trailer behind our grandparent's home in L.A. and an artist colony in Mexico. I don’t think I was born yet, so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt on those two. From sixteen to nineteen I lived in a rooming house in L.A., an apartment with Lark and a converted barn for a summer with Tad. My childhood prepared me to be very good at moving. It is staying I have to learn how to do.
I am 19 and I know I will be an actor. You will, as they say, remember my name. This fairy tale will leave the dark beginning and Cinderfella will have his day. I know that it will turn out perfect as clearly as I know it will all go to shit. Change is never for the better. It can only get better. I see the world through jaded eyes covered by rose colored glasses.
I am 19 and holding fast to the dream.
I am 5. It is 1964. My Aunt Karen takes us kids to see Mary Poppins at Grauman's Chinese theater. Real movie stars pressed their feet and hands into the cement here. John Wayne, what small feet. Clark Gable has big hands and when I point it out my teenaged aunt blushes. This is my earliest memory. My Aunt Karen, Lark, Lilly, me. Lights down. Curtain up. The place goes silent. Something magic is going to happen. This place is a true sanctuary. It gets no better than Mary Poppins. She floats in on the wind and brings order to a chaotic home. For 139 minutes I live in a wonderful Technicolor world. A world of tucking in, and being listened to. Absentminded parents who are brought into line by the stern nanny. A place that feels real, solid.
I am 5 and I discover movies.
I am 50 and I laugh, I always thought it was Mean Streets - Martin Scorsese’s gritty world view that led me into film. Hell, I’ve told it that way. Nope, sorry. It was Marry Poppins and I just figured it out. There goes my street cred. Fuck it, I think I’ll go fly a kite.
I am 10. It is 1969. Dialing for Dollars is having a contest. The winner will receive a paid trip to Hollywood. Win and you go on a real movie set. Win and you meet John Wayne. Win and he sees me and realizes I’m perfect for the role of his son. Win and I become a star. And everything works out. It was all worth it.
An eleven year old Billy Mummy co-starred in Dear Bridget, with Bridget Bardot. If he can make it I know I can too. I want this. I need this. I must win. Must must must! I can feel it, this is that defining moment. The one I tell Johnny Carson about after I win an Academy Award.
I have an Indian buffalo headdress on. Yeah, real buffalo. Pops doesn't live with us anymore. The headdress is a consolation prize. Thanks for playing Be A Family! Pick up your gift on the way out. Pops found it in a flea market. The headdress smells animal, musky. I clasp the bear claw at the end of a leather strap. I sit on a Mexican blanket in front of our black and white TV. I chant low. No words. I make the sounds of the old gods. My gods. I am home because I told my mother I was sick. An easy ruse. Now the host with the groovy hair and mustache is spinning a barrel full of cards. My chants grow in rhythm and volume. He digs his hand in. I will him to capture mine. I rock back and forth and chant, almost yelling now. I am alone in the woods. I am alone.
“Betty Sampson! Now let's just see if she picks up.” His finger turns the dial on the phone. I hold my breath. Please... please. Don’t pick up. I need this.
“Hello Ms. Sampson do you know who this is?” I can’t hear their words after that. The rushing sound in my head drowns everything out.
Hope is pain waiting to happen. Fuck the old gods, fuck the new God, fuck ‘em all.
I am 10 and alone in the woods.
I am 19 driving down the 101 and holding fast to the dream.
I am 50 and I trace a line through the past. I look at all the connections my wanting to be an actor made for me.
The fall after the train wreck of a divorce, we are living in student housing. The family myth goes, I took my hard saved allowance and in an effort to be with my older siblings I bought them ice cream cones at Foster’s Freeze. They ate and ditched me. I went that day andauditioned for a children’s theater production of Puss and Boots. I made lemonade out of mean siblings. I discover the love of acting. I think the myth is bullshit. I think Irode my stingray to the audition to get out of my life. In Puss and Boots I played the ogre. I may have been dreadful, or brilliant, but for an hour and a half I wasn’t me.
At Ravenswood Ms. Slaughter notices me in acting class and pushes me to be better, to read Kopit, Pinter, Beckett,Shakespeare. She is young and hot in a Pam Grier - Foxy Brown kinda way. Theater is the one class I don’t go to stoned. I am one of a few White kids in the department.
We do a ghetto version of Brecht’s Three Penny Opera. It is surprisingly relevant. We take it to the local grammar school. A kid tosses a Coke bottle at the stage. After that, me and another large actor spend the play in the aisles, looking menacingly at third graders. I take my new love of theater with me when I transfer to Paly. I meet my life long friends Tad and Jochum in theater class. I am never once cast as lead or co-lead in any play. This doesn’t dissuade me one bit.
I am 16. I study acting at the Lee Strasberg Studio. I learn the Method. I live in a flophouse. I drink cheap wine coolers. My neighbors are old drunks and dope fiends. I fit right in. I get a ticket for jaywalking, I need to have an adult show up at court with me. Grandma Stallings drives out fromPalos Verdes, a forty minute trip. She convinces the judge I’m ok living on my own and takes me to dinner in Chinatown.
Three months later Grandpa Stallings falls off a ladder and breaks his ankle. I move into their house to help out. I drive into Hollywood each day, at night after we eat dinner they play solitaire and we talk about anything and everything. During the months I live there we cement a friendship that will last our lifetimes. In them I see a life I want. I see who they are as a couple. Messy. Tense. Loving. Real. I want it for myself. I discover a model for a partnership that works.
But I came to study acting I scream.
I came to be a star I whisper.
I move back to Palo Alto to regroup. Rethink… but not real hard. I study acting at Foothill College. I do street theater. I touch one moment doing a scene fromEquus that is the real deal. Calvin is Black and gay. When we do scene work it is raw and real. Maybe it’s sexual tension, maybe we just click, but when we do Equus the teacher, the class and both of us are left breathless. This is one of maybe two or three times that I show an aptitude for acting that comes even close to my expectations.
I am 19. It is September 1978. I am keeping the dream alive. Riding my Yamaha 360 south it never once occurs to me it won’t all go just as I plan. I’m sleeping at the Pasadena YMCA until I get situated. $16 a night. It smells like mold. It’s a creepy place, full of creepy men. Moms said it was a good place to stay. Moms is an eternal optimist. I go to the American Academy of Dramatic Art. I study at the library. In the listening room I put Dolly Parton on to drown out the distractions. I read Shakespeare while she sings Jolene. I wait until late to return to my room.
“When you were a boy, did you ever sleep in the same bed as your brother?” He’s fifty plus and standing in the doorway of my room. The hall light halos his thin hair.
“Yeah, we shared a bed until I was seven or eight. Why?”
“At night did you ever roll over?”
“What? I don’t know.”
“Did he ever, you know, touch you, by accident?” He's starting to perspire.
“What the fuck?” I keep my voice down, it is late and I don’t want to get tossed out.
“It probably felt good, didn’t it? It’sOK, I know it did.”
“You really need to leave.” I’m on my feet now.
“It’s only natural.”
“Leave please.” Finally with a last look he does. I lock the door. I push the dresser against it. I don’t sleep. I
hate how he makes me feel. I want to shower, but not here.
Saturday. I find a cheap flat, a studio cottage, one room plain and simple. At the Salvation Army I buy one pot for boiling water. One bowl. Pencils for chopsticks. At night I lay in my tiny place and smile. I’m not at the YMCA. Life is good.
Within two weeks life gets complicated. Jochum comes to L.A. I had said he could stay with me. His yellow beast is filled to the brim with clothing and a surfboard strapped to the roof. I don’t thinkhe even surfs. But he knows how to roll California style.
Jochum is from Denmark. Jochum is tall and blonde and they tell me he’s a hunk. He is funny as shit. He and I laugh our asses off, still. We met in high school; he had a thing for my little sister. Once we were playing a vicious game of football, prison rules, Longest Yard crap. Tad clotheslines Brad who goes down hard spitting and coughing. Brad knees Pitman and drops him. It is bloody mayhem. In a huddle Jochum looks at me, sincere as hell. “Josh?”
“Yeah?”
“Why are we hurting each other?”
“I have no idea.” In that moment our friendship is sealed. His mother follows him toPasadena. Never asking, she moves in. I wind up on the closet floor in a sleeping bag, no shit. I wake up feeling out of sorts, can’t place myself, look up, jackets hang over my head. I smell toast and eggs and sausage. I stumble out of the closet. Jochum’s mom is cooking breakfast on my hot plate. Shhhhh. She raises her finger to her lips and hushes me. Her beloved son is still sleeping. I reach for a piece of toast only to have my hand slapped. Fuck it, I go to school. Within a month I will move out. Then Jochum will move out. His mom will live in the cottage for a year. Jochum and I will get an apartment with an actual bedroom. Living large.
All the Wild Children Page 15