Blonde

by Joyce Carol Oates

  But Norma Jeane was allowed to take her mother outside. Gladys Mortensen was well enough to have “ground privileges.” Slowly and painstakingly they walked, Gladys’s swollen feet shuffling in the worn felt slippers in a way Norma Jeane couldn’t help think was exaggerated to the point of cruel comedy. Who was this sour, sickly old woman playing the role of Norma Jeane’s mother, Gladys? Were you meant to laugh at her or cry? Hadn’t Gladys Mortensen always been so quick on her feet, restless, impatient with “slowpokes”? Norma Jeane wanted to slip her arm through her mother’s thin, flaccid arm but didn’t dare. She feared her mother would flinch from her. Gladys had never liked being touched. The sour-yeasty odor was more pronounced as Gladys moved.

  Her body turning rancid by slow degrees. I will always bathe, scrub myself clean. Clean! This will never happen to me.

  At last they were outside in bright, windy air. Norma Jeane cried, “Mother! It’s so nice here.”

  Her voice strangely lifted, childlike.

  Even as she had to fight an impulse to break free of her burdensome mother and run, run!

  Norma Jeane was glancing uneasily about at the weather-worn benches, the burnt-out dun-colored grass. A powerful sensation came over her: hadn’t she been here before? But when? She’d never visited Gladys in the hospital, yet somehow she knew this place. She wondered if Gladys had sent her her thoughts, in dreams perhaps. Always Gladys had had such powers when Norma Jeane was a little girl. Norma Jeane was certain she recognized the open space behind the west wing of the old red-brick hospital. That paved area marked DELIVERIES. Those stunted palm trees, the scrubby eucalyptus. The dry rustling sound of palm leaves in the wind. The spirits of the dead. Wanting to return. In Norma Jeane’s memory the hospital grounds were much larger and hillier, located not in a congested urban area but far out in the California countryside. Yet the sky was identical to the sky in her memory, bright patches of cloud blown inland from the ocean.

  Norma Jeane was about to ask Gladys in which direction she wanted to walk but already, without a word, Gladys detached herself from Norma Jeane and shuffled to the nearest bench. There she sat immediately, like a collapsing umbrella. Folding her arms over her narrow chest and hunching her shoulders as if she were cold, or spiteful. Her eyes heavy-lidded as a turtle’s. Her dry shredded-wheat hair stirring stiffly in the wind. Quickly and tenderly Norma Jeane drew the dove-gray shawl over her mother’s shoulders. “Are you warmer now, Mother? Oh, this shawl is so pretty on you!” Norma Jeane couldn’t seem to control her voice. She sat beside Gladys, smiling. She was tasting panic for she found herself in a movie scene yet had been given no words to speak; she must improvise. She dared not tell Gladys that the shawl was a gift to her from a man she didn’t trust, a man she both adored and feared, a man who’d been her savior. He’d photographed her in “artful poses” with this shawl draped provocatively across her naked shoulders; she’d worn a strapless red dress made of a synthetic-stretch material, without a bra beneath, her nipples, rubbed with ice (“an old trick, but a good one” as Öse said), prominent as small grapes. The photo feature was for a new glossy magazine called Sir! owned by Howard Hughes.

  Otto Öse claimed he’d bought the shawl for Norma Jeane, the first and only present from him to her, but Norma Jeane seemed to know that the photographer had found the shawl somewhere, in the backseat of an unlocked car, for instance. Or he’d taken it from another girl of his. It was Öse’s belief as a “radical Marxist” that the artist had a right to make appropriations as he wished.

  What would Otto Öse say if ever he saw Gladys!

  He would photograph us together. That will never happen.

  Norma Jeane asked Gladys how she was feeling, and Gladys murmured something unintelligible. Norma Jeane asked would Gladys like to come visit Norma Jeane sometime—“The doctor here says you can visit me anytime. You’re ‘nearly recovered,’ he says. You could stay with me overnight, or just for an afternoon.” Norma Jeane had only a small furnished room, a single bed. Where would she sleep if Gladys slept in the bed? Or could they both sleep in the bed? She was excited and apprehensive, only now recalling that her agent, I. E. Shinn, had cautioned her not to tell anyone she had a “mental case” mother—“The aura of it will attach to you.”

  But Gladys didn’t seem eager to accept her daughter’s invitation. She grunted a vague reply. Norma Jeane had the idea, though, that Gladys was pleased to be invited, even if she wasn’t ready to say yes. Norma Jeane squeezed her mother’s thin, dry, unresisting hand. “Oh, Mother, it’s been so l-long. I’m sorry.” How could she tell Gladys she hadn’t dared come see her so long as she was married to Bucky Glazer? She’d been so frightened of the Glazers. She’d dreaded Bess Glazer’s judgment. Fumbling, Norma Jeane removed a Kleenex from her handbag and dabbed at her eyes. Even on days when she wasn’t modeling she was obliged to wear dark brown mascara, for a Preene girl-for-hire must always look her best in public; she was in terror of mascara running down her face like ink. Her hair was now a fair honey-brown, wavy and no longer curly; Norma Jeane’s tight girlish curls and ringlets were “out”; at the Agency they told her she looked like “some Okie’s daughter” dolled up to take her picture in Woolworth’s. Of course, they were right. Otto Öse had told her the same thing. Her scanty eyebrows, her way of holding her head, her bargain clothes, even the way she breathed—they were all wrong and had to be corrected. (What’d you do to yourself? Bucky Glazer had demanded, the single time they’d met since his discharge. What the hell are you trying to be, a glamour girl? He’d been hurt and angry. He’d been shamed in his family’s eyes. No Glazers ever got divorced. No Glazer wives ever ran off.)

  Norma Jeane was saying, “I sent you my wedding pictures, Mother. I guess—I should tell you—I’m not married any longer.” She held out her left hand, which trembled slightly and was barren now of all rings. “My h-husband—we were so young—he decided, he—he didn’t want—” If this were a movie scene, the young newly divorced wife would burst into tears and her mother would comfort her, but Norma Jeane knew that could not happen, so she didn’t allow herself to cry. She understood that tears would upset, or annoy, Gladys. “You c-can’t love a man who doesn’t love you, isn’t that right, Mother? Because if you love somebody truly it’s like your two souls are together, and God is in you both; but if he doesn’t love you—” Norma Jeane fell silent, not certain what she meant to say. Oh, she’d loved Bucky Glazer, more than life itself! Yet somehow that love had drained away. She was hoping Gladys wouldn’t ask any questions about Bucky and the divorce; and Gladys did not.

  They sat in the splotched sunlight, cloud shadows passing over them like swift predator birds. There were few other patients outside on even this fair, fresh day. Norma Jeane wondered how her mother, who was so clearly superior to the other patients on the ward, was regarded. She wished Gladys had brought the poetry book with her, but Gladys must have left it in the visitors’ lounge. They might have read poems together! What happy memories Norma Jeane had of the times Gladys read poetry to her. And their long dreamy Sunday drives into Beverly Hills and the Hollywood hills, Bel Air, Los Feliz. The homes of the stars. Gladys had known these men and women, many of them. She’d been a guest in some of those great houses, escorted by Norma Jeane’s handsome actor father.

  And now it’s my turn. It is!

  Mother, give me your blessing.

  If her father was still living and in Hollywood, and if Gladys was discharged from the hospital, as seemed likely, and if she came to live with Norma Jeane—and if Norma Jeane’s career “took off” as Mr. Shinn believed it would—Norma Jeane’s mind spun with excitement as often it did in the middle of the night when she woke with her nightie soaked through and even the sheets damp.

  Rummaging in her handbag, which was crammed with things (a small emergency makeup kit, sanitary pads, deodorant, safety pins, and vitamin pills and loose pennies and a dime-store notebook for jotting down thoughts), Norma Jeane brought out an envelope containing recent m
agazine features and photos of herself. These were exclusively “nice” poses, nothing cheap or vulgar. She’d prepared the photos to be presented one by one like gifts before her mother’s startled eyes, which would fill gradually with pride and emotion. But Gladys only grunted “Huh!”—staring at the photos with an unreadable expression. Her thin bloodless lips grew thinner still. Afterward Norma Jeane would think Maybe her first thought was this was herself? As a girl. “Oh M-mother, it’s been so exciting this past year, so w-wonderful, like one of Grandma Della’s fairy tales, sometimes I almost can’t believe it—I’m a model. I’m under contract at The Studio—where you used to work. I can make a living just being photographed. It’s the easiest work in the world!” But why was she saying such things? The truth was, her life was hard work, anxious work, work to keep her awake at night worrying, work like none other she’d ever done, more of a strain on her nerves and more exhausting than her work at Radio Plane; it was like walking a high tightrope without a net below while the eye of the other—photographer, client, Agency, Studio—scrutinized her continuously. The eye of the other with its cruel power to laugh at her, jeer at her, reject her, fire her, send her back like a kicked dog into the oblivion from which she’d only just emerged.

  “You can keep all these, if you want to. They’re c-copies.”

  Gladys made a vague grunting sound. Continuing to stare at the photos Norma Jeane was showing her.

  Strange how in each of the photos Norma Jeane looked different. Girlish, glamorous. Girl-next-door, sophisticated. Ethereal, sexy. Younger than her age, older than her age. (But what was Norma Jeane’s age? She had to pinch herself to remember she was only twenty.) She wore her hair down, and she wore her hair up. She was sassy, flirty, pensive, yearning, tomboyish, dignified, fun-loving. She was cute. She was pretty. She was beautiful. Light fell revealingly upon her features or subtly shadowed them as in a painting. In the photo of which she was most proud, taken not by Otto Öse but by a Studio photographer, Norma Jeane was one of eight young women contract players signed on by The Studio in 1946, posed in three rows, standing, sitting on a sofa, and seated on the floor; Norma Jeane was gazing dreamily off-camera, lips parted yet not smiling as the others, her rivals, were smiling at the camera and all but begging Look at me! Look at me! Only me! Norma Jeane’s agent Mr. Shinn disliked this publicity photo because Norma Jeane wasn’t glamorously costumed like the others. She wore a white silk blouse with a deep V-neck and a bow, the kind of blouse worn by a refined young girl of good family, not a pinup sexpot; true, Norma Jeane was seated Indian-style on the carpeted floor as the photographer had positioned her, knees spread wide and silk-stockinged legs exposed; yet Norma Jeane’s dark skirt and loosely clasped hands obscured her lower body. Surely there was nothing here to offend Gladys’s fastidious eye? As Gladys frowned at the photo, turning it toward the light as if it were a puzzle, Norma Jeane said with an apologetic laugh, “I guess there isn’t any ‘Norma Jeane,’ is there? Once I get to be an actress, if they let me—I’ll have people to be. I hope I can work all the time. That way I’ll never be alone.” She paused, waiting for Gladys to speak. To say something flattering, or encouraging. “M-mother?”

  Gladys frowned more severely and turned toward Norma Jeane. The sour-yeasty odor made Norma Jeane’s nostrils pinch. Without meeting Norma Jeane’s anxious gaze, Gladys muttered what sounded like “Yes.”

  Norma Jeane said impulsively, “My f-father was under contract to The Studio? You said? Around 1925? I’ve been sneaking around there trying to find his picture in the old files, but—”

  Now Gladys did react. Her expression changed swiftly. She seemed to be seeing Norma Jeane for the first time, with her lashless, furious eyes. Norma Jeane was so frightened she dropped half the photos and stooped to pick them up, blood rushing into her face.

  Gladys’s voice sounded like a rusted door hinge. “Where is my daughter! They said my daughter was coming. I don’t know you. Who are you?”

  Norma Jeane hid her stricken face. She had no idea.

  Still, stubbornly, she would return to Norwalk to visit Gladys. Again and again.

  One day to bring Mother home with me. I would!

  That bright windy day in October 1946.

  In the parking lot of the California State Psychiatric Hospital at Norwalk, in the funky little black Buick roadster, Otto Öse slouched, waiting for the girl he’d talked up around town as his sweet little Okie cash cow. Add up this one’s bust and hip measurements and you’d get her approximate IQ. And she adored him. And Jesus she was sweet, if goofy—sometimes trying to talk to him about “Marx-ism” (she’d been reading the Daily Worker he’d given her) and “the meaning of life” (she’d been trying to read Schopenhauer and other “great philosophers”)—but the taste of her was like brown sugar on the tongue. (Had Otto Öse really tasted this girl? Among his friends this was debatable.) Waiting for her an hour as she visited her nutcase mother at Norwalk. Most depressing place in the world, a California state psychiatric hospital. Brrr! You didn’t want to think—anyway, Otto Öse didn’t want to think—craziness runs in the blood. In the genes. Poor sweet little Norma Jeane Baker. “Better for her she never has kids. She knows it too.”

  Otto Öse smoked his parchment Spanish cigarettes and fussed with his camera. Wouldn’t allow anyone else to touch his camera. Like touching Otto Öse’s genitals. No, you don’t! And there came Norma Jeane at last, hurrying toward him. A blind look in her face and stumbling in high-heeled shoes on the pavement. “Hey, baby.” Quickly Öse tossed away his cigarette and began shooting her. Climbed out of the Buick and went into a crouch. Click, click. Click-click-click. This was the joy of his life. This was why he was born. Fuck old-fart Schopenhauer, maybe life is blind will and purposeless suffering, but at such times who cares? Shooting a girl’s ruined face and her breasts jiggling and her ass, and she’s young-looking as a kid stuffed into a woman’s body, innocent like something you’d want to smudge with your thumb just to dirty up. Poor kid’s been crying, eyes puffy and sooty-dark mascara streaking her cheeks like a clown face. The front of her pink cotton-knit sweater was darkened with tears like raindrops and her oyster-white linen slacks, bought only that week in a consignment shop on Vine, where the studio executives’ wives and girlfriends dumped their last year’s wardrobes, were hopelessly wrinkled at the crotch. “The face of the Daughter,” Öse intoned, in a priest’s sacerdotal voice. “Not sexy.” Coming out of his crouch, he sniffed at Norma Jeane. “You smell too.”

  FREAK

  The way they quickly assured her It’s all right Norma Jeane, hey, Norma Jeane it’s all right she understood that it wasn’t. She came back to this place where a girl was crying, laughing-sobbing—it was herself, being walked to a chair, one of the folding chairs arranged in a semicircle; she was hyperventilating, shaking as in a fit or convulsion.

  It wasn’t acting, what she did. It was deeper than acting. It was crude, it was too raw. We were taught technique primarily. To simulate an emotion, not to be the bearer of the emotion. Not to be the lightning rod through which emotion breaks loose into the world. She scared us, and that’s hard to forgive.

  They would say of her that she was “intense.” The only one never to miss a class. Acting, dancing, singing. And always early. Sometimes before the room was unlocked. She was the only one to show up “perfectly groomed” day after day. Not looking like an actress or a model (we’d seen her Swank and Sir! covers; we were impressed) but more like a good-girl secretary. Hair set and brushed and shining. White nylon blouse with a bow at the collar, long sleeves and tight cuffs. Neat and crisp and ironed every morning. And a gray flannel skirt, narrow, tight-fitting, she must’ve steam-ironed every morning standing in her slip. You could just see her, frowning over the iron! Sometimes she wore a sweater, and the sweater would be two sizes too small because that was all she owned. Sometimes a pair of slacks. But mostly the good-girl clothes. And stockings with perfectly straight seams, and high heels. She was so shy you’d have
thought she was mute. Sudden movements and loud laughter startled her. She’d pretend to be reading a book before class started. Once it was Mourning Becomes Electra by Eugene O’Neill. Another time it was Chekhov’s The Three Sisters. Shakespeare, Schopenhauer. It was easy to laugh at her. The way she’d sit at the edge of the semicircle and open her notebook and begin taking notes like a schoolgirl. And the rest of us in jeans, slacks, shirts, sweaters, and sneakers. In warm weather in sandals or barefoot. Yawning and our hair hardly combed and the guys unshaven because we were all good-looking kids, most of us from California high schools, where we’d been the stars of every school play and envied and praised and adulated from kindergarten. Some of us had family connections to The Studio. We had all the confidence, and little Norma-Jeane-from-nowhere had none. We speculated she was an actual Okie because she wasn’t from anywhere around here. She’d trained herself to speak like the rest of us but her old accent kept breaking through. She had a stammer too. Not all the time but sometimes. At the beginning of an acting exercise she’d stammer a little, then push past it, and you could see her shyness melting away and that look in her eyes like another self was breaking through. But it was drummed into us It isn’t acting when you have no technique, when it’s just you. Naked.

  So we had all the confidence. And Norma Jeane, who was one of the youngest in our class, had none. Only just her luminous pale skin and dark-blue eyes and that eagerness in her body like an electric current that couldn’t be shut off and must’ve left her exhausted.

  After one of her acting scenes, one of us asked her what she’d been thinking of—because God damn she’d devastated us watching it, and you couldn’t have made yourself laugh at Norma Jeane any more than you could laugh at those Margaret Bourke-White photographs of Buchenwald—and she said in this little-girl breathy voice Oh, I wasn’t, I wasn’t th-thinking. Maybe I was remembering?